I need a dollar

Why worry about Aloe Blacc when you can be rubbed all over with Aloe Vera? Getting soothed is usually more appealing than reality checks but then sometimes ignorance isn't always bliss.

Meredith Whitney predicted in Dec 2010 that 50 to 100 Municipalities in the USA would become insolvent, saying "there is not a doubt in my mind you will see a spate of municipal bond defaults". So what? Well two points, firstly Judgment Day seems to have arrived, see here, here and here. Secondly that they are a microcosm of our whole financial system. So while you can sit back and think who cares, the fallout may be coming to a town near you sooner than you think.

The real reality check is that most Western countries are broke. This may not seem like an insurmountable problem when you can print your own currency but as you might of guessed that path is never without consequence. Zimbabwe being the most recent example of what can go wrong. As I say in OUCH! money printing isn't a cure, its another disease. 'Sore throat madam? Try two teaspoons of botulism and let me know how you get on'.

The other slight problem is that the official debt is massively understated. When you throw in all the unfunded liabilities its about 5 times the size. A recent claim for the USA was that its real debt stood at $75 Trillion. So what you have seen in some USA municipalities is replicated all the way up the chain. What stops everyone panicking about this? One word, belief. Belief because so far everything has worked out OK. Well all you need under these circumstances is a change in perception and then as Emperor Kenny might say "suddenly all my new clothes fell off". Welcome to planet Ponzi playmates.

You might therefore want to heed the following statement, In a depression 'the winner is the person who loses the least money' . How much are you personally going to lose. Well, you are about to find out. Of course you could just recognise the urgency and choose to do something about it. And that way you won't have to repeat the hookline on a street corner.

The truth is out there

TTIOT...well it might be but trying to track it down via the mainstream media seems to be getting harder and harder. Even Mulder and Scully would be struggling with this one although there is at least a plethora of conspiracy theories as a consolation prize.


We are forced to get more radical in our choices if we want to have a fuller picture. Radical...not as in, ‘let’s stuff my underpants full of semtex’ radical (who could ever have envisaged that getting your wedding tackle blown off could be turned into a negative?) but radical as in ‘can you please tell me what’s really going on?’ So in fact not radical at all.

Well as usual the truth ain't too pretty but what is sometimes bizarre is having to go through a strange series of hoops to find it. So, if we want to discover what's really happening it appears we have to go to RT (the 'Putin Dodgy Propaganda' tool). It’s a rum do when you have to rely on a Russian TV channel to find out what is actually going on in Wall St.


So Max Kaiser's financial war reports and Capital Account whilst being hardly unbiased do seem to occasionally churn out more truths than most of the other media outlets put together. This may not come as a great surpise to those in the know as the U.S. media has been consolidated down from 50 companies in 1983 to now only 6. The unplatable truth is that there is sometimes nearly as much media manipulation being served up in Democracies as there is in Totalitarian states. Noam Chomsky argues its more.

Its worth watching this Capital Account from April to understand what happened at MF Global. A one off you say....err no... try this for size. Makes you want to watch South Park. and then think long and hard about what comes next. OUCH! - Wake up or get wiped out people.

50 shades of deception

Two Diamond Jubilees in the space of one month? Anyone would think that the UK is getting got greedy. At least in the first one we celebrated, everyone was given an extra day off in return for the public donation, the 'Diamond Geezer' on the other hand has yet to cough up anything of note although his daughter seems to be a fan of the HMD cough and wobble technique -however it is yet to be seen exactly who's been pulling who's plonker. What we do know is that Bob didn't receive a happy ending, unless we include the leaving package which at current rates would entitle him to approximately 340,000 of them. Now that's what I call milking the system. As Bill Black once said "They loot it by destroying it but they walk away weathy"


Cue general public outrage at the LIE-BORE scandal (and it is) but what most people are missing is that this heroic level of deception should alas be expected. Why? Well hidden beneath the greed and self interest is a system that will potentially collapse if it isn't manipulated. Can you dig it?

So, its now time for the law of unforeseen consequences to come out to play and you are invited for a front row seat. Unlike in the Warriors classic the weapons of choice are alas likely to be slightly more sophisticated but as the blame game gets underway this afternoon at the Treasury Select Committee it will be interesting to see whether its just pop that is eating itself and who remains bulletproof. Popcorn in T minus 3 hours and counting