A picture is worth a thousand Krugman essays, which is why we present a chart comparing the US Monetary Base (and by subtracting Reserve Balances with Fed Reserve Banks, Currency in Circulation), and the Fed's holdings of MBS and Agency paper (worthless GSE/FHA garbage). In summary: Currency in Circulation: $920 billion; MBS/Agency Holdings: $997 billion. The dollar in your pocket is now entirely backed only by worthless, rapidly devaluing and subsidized housing.
Source: H.3 and H.4.1
Strangely familiar, a familiar strangle:
Addison felt that Germany was 'marching with giant strides towards something very unpleasant' — yet people were still arguing about the responsibility of the industrialists for the nation's woes, or about the form which self-help should take. He had met Germans who appeared genuinely to believe that because conditions had been getting worse for four years they could go on getting worse for ever.
But obviously something goes on only until the moment when it cannot, and that comes suddenly. Nobody thought the war was near an end in March 1918. Nobody in France anticipated the French Revolution because the shop of Reveillon Freres was sacked by the Paris mob.
You should see the long queues of people standing for hours on end in front of the Berlin provision shops. The housewife cannot clean her home or look after her children if she has to stand from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a piece of sausage which in the end she does not get. The patience of the people is marvellous, but a German crowd when angry is ugly.
He had personally been to take a look at the situation first-hand in Bavaria where food was short in the towns but plentiful in the country. However, he was unable to buy an egg from a farm with paper marks, having been told by a peasant 'Wir wollen keine Judenfetzen von Berlin' ('We don't want any Jew-confetti from Berlin' — the popular description for Reichsbanknotes). Bavaria was pining for the good old Thaler, given up in 1870 — the coin from which the dollar itself derived its name.
When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse
http://mises.org/web/4016#pg182
Glad to hear that the Kuhn Loeb's Jacob Schiff, Max Warburg, and the Rothschild clan were not involved in that monetary debacle of Germany's '20's.
Gladder still that they had no involvement in the banking and credit system in the USA.
Afterall WHO would ever allow architects with proven catastrophic structural failures to continue to build even more fragile systems in other lands? That would be folly without measure...except perhaps in dollars.
Everytime you guys talk about Weimar and gold, this coin comes to my mind:
http://www.deutsche-sammlermuenzen.de/bmf/informationen/muenzgalerie/100...
It's just too funny that there is an official german gold coin commemorating (the historic city of) Weimar. Well, I guess I have a weird kind of humor ;-)
Btw: please don't search how to buy this baby on the page I linked to. It's not possible. The page is on an official governmental website and they had the coin in stock only back in 2006.
It is just a commemorative gold plated tungsten coin as seen on tv...
Like those commemorative Obama plates southerners use for skeet shooting...
That is a classic Galois... just like permutation groups...
"we are fucked" a tag you that underscores the unique perspective of ZH.
+10 LOL.
great eye finding another easter egg lizzy!! that was a good one......
"We Are Fucked" is too run-of-the-mill.
It should read "We Are Soooooo Fucked"
"proper fucked" if you will.
LOL
How about we compromise with "We are so properly fucked"?
Royally Shagged..with a gold finger!
Nope: we are sooooooooooo fucking fucked!!
how about just
"fuck."
Nope:
We are so beyond fucked - we won't even be able to catch a bus back to fucked!!
lol +10
yup, that's the one....
I worked one summer with this guy Steve. He started every sentence with "Fuck..." or "Fuckin'..."
He used so many fucks that we started having contests imitating him.
"Fuckin'... Fuck... We are so fucking fucked on this fucking job... Fuck."
"Fuckin'... Where the fuck are you fuckin' guys going for funckiin' lunch?"
I kid you not.
This is one of the most useful and flexible words in english language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26UA578yQ5g
Only here where the world actually makes sense.
Sad, innit?
I like the Mogambo Guru version - says it all and even 8-year-olds can focus on the message instead of the delivery:
"We're so freaking doooOOooomed!"
MF warns second bailout would "threaten democracy"
Second bailout coming, the whole lot is still insolvent, just numbers created out of thin air added to their books over the past year.
And XAU/USD just cracked $1170.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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