What?

Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen, referencing the Congressional Budget Office's long-term budget projections, told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress today that under current policies the federal government’s deficits “will rise to unsustainable levels.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/fed-chair-deficits-will-rise-unsustainable-levels

 

"[B]ernanke told the National Bureau of Economic Research that because unemployment remains high and inflation is below the Fed’s target, the policies are still necessary. He also said the economy is being held back by higher taxes and federal spending cuts.
“If you put all of that together, you can only conclude that highly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future is what is needed for the U.S. economy,” Bernanke said
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/11/bernanke-reaffirms-commitment-to-stimulus-policies-fed-split-on-strategy/

"The Fed needs to drive down borrowing rates because the economy isn't growing fast enough to reduce high unemployment, Bernanke said in a speech to the Economic Club of Indiana. The unemployment rate is 8.1 percent.
Low rates could also help shrink the federal budget deficit by easing the government's borrowing costs and generating tax revenue from stronger growth, Bernanke argued.
http://business.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/01/14172135-bernanke-says-low-rates-will-help-employment-fed-review-a-bad-idea

Escape Velocity

Somewhere Between a Supplicant and a Yapping Dog

"[P]rior to her trip last week, Merkel and her staff insisted that one had to look at things pragmatically. No matter how loudly Berlin protested, the Americans would have ignored it because they know that Germany is dependent on them, Merkel advisors argue. "We were somewhere between being a supplicant and a yapping dog," says one Chancellery official. Now, Merkel would seem to have chosen her preferred role: as a supplicant."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/chancellor-merkel-sacrifices-nsa-investigation-for-unity-on-ukraine-a-967596.html

US Economic Recovery: Part XIII

US Economic Recovery: Part XII

VP Biden Heads to the Ukraine to Help Strengthen Their Economy

 

 

 

Vice President Biden during a campaign stop in Ohio in 2012

(Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will meet with Ukraine's acting president, Oleksander Turchinov, and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk during a visit to Kiev on Tuesday, the White House said on Sunday.
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Biden will "discuss the international community's efforts to help stabilize and strengthen Ukraine's economy and to assist Ukraine in moving forward on constitutional reform, decentralization, anti-corruption efforts, and free and fair presidential elections on May 25th,"
Hide Your Women Ukraine

US Economic Recovery: Part XI

Amerika: Land of the Precariat

"In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a Proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.

 

 

2009-2012: Uneven recovery from the Great Recession

From 2009 to 2012, average real income per family grew modestly by

 

6.0% (Table 1). Most of the gains happened in the last year when average

incomes grew by 4.6% from 2011 to 2012.

However, the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by

31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012.

Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years

of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated

from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from

2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% incomes increased sharply by 19.6% while

bottom 99% incomes grew only by 1.0%. In sum, top 1% incomes are close to

full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.

http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf

Over time period noted above:

 

Minneapolis Fed Chief Warns Inflation is too Low

Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota warned Tuesday in a Rochester speech that said the central bank is not fulfilling its duties." Below-target inflation signals the "significant problem" in the U.S. economy, Kocherlakota said: "Resources are being wasted."
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/blog/banking/2014/04/inflation-is-too-low-minneapolis-fed-chief-argues.html

Beef prices have reached all-time highs in the U.S. and aren't expected to come down any time soon.
"We've seen strong prices before but nothing this extreme," said Dennis Smith, a commodities broker for Archer Financial Services in Chicago. "This is really new territory."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-beef-prices-20140406,0,2966247.story#ixzz2yOSdBM3V

The New Improved Ukraine

"[P]resident Barack Obama called the deal a “major step forward” that will “meet the needs of Ukrainian people over the long term.”
/
"Instead, the IMF recipe hinges on cuts to subsidies and social services and a floating exchange rate that will sink purchasing power even further. Kiev has already started to implement all of these measures. According to economists, the result will be growing poverty, reduced social benefits and an extended recession.
/
In the first “prior action” for the IMF loan, Ukraine’s state-controlled natural gas provider Naftogaz raised its subsidized gas prices for consumers by 50 percent starting May 1. (Gas and heating prices will increase by 120 percent over the next four years, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said last week.) According to Kiselyov, even more painful will be the accompanying 40 percent gas price hike for local heating companies. Starting on July 1, this will raise the average cost of heating a standard fifty-square-meter apartment from about 200 hryvnia to 280 hryvnia (from $18 to $25) per month. It’s a significant hit, considering that the average monthly wage in Ukraine is only about 3,150 hryvnia ($275), more than half of which typically goes toward food, Kiselyov said.
http://www.thenation.com/article/179212/will-imf-bailout-turn-ukraine-another-greece#
 

When Enforcement Goes to the Penthouse, Good Manners are Paramount

Comments by James Kidney. Former trial attorney for the SEC.

"[T]he SEC has become an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,”
/
“On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. 
My superiors were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases. The agency’s penalties have become at most a tollbooth on the bankster turnpike.”
/
“I have had bosses, and bosses of my bosses, whose names we all know, who made little secret that they were here to punch their ticket. They mouthed serious regard for the mission of the commission, but their actions were tentative and fearful in many instances.”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/sec-goldman-lawyer-says-agency-too-timid-on-wall-street-misdeeds.html

Obushma

[O]bama’s position is irrelevant, notes Professor Cohen. "While Washington is insisting that Russia invaded Crimea, the facts indicate that Russia was acting according the law."
/
“What’s happening inside Ukraine is scary and it can provoke a war, a horrible war."

 Stephen F. Cohen. Professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_03/US-is-responsible-for-escalation-of-crisis-in-Ukraine-Stephen-Cohen-1822/

Video Allegedly Showing Armenians in Syria Assassinated by Islamists Funded by Israel, Saudi Arabia and US Taxpayers

US Economic Recovery: Part X

https://twitter.com/Not_Jim_Cramer

Quality Issues?

"[C]harbonneau said Lowe’s quit buying Denver Global’s premier product – a $3,000 Raven hybrid gas-electric lawn tractor/generator- because of quality issues
http://www.denverncnews.com/?p=7205

 

December 26, 2008

via Google translate:
Under the new U.S. President Barack Obama in the Crimea will be implemented scenario of armed conflict.  "It is the American scenario, and under Obama the probability is much higher than under McCain,"
/
"It became clear when it was announced that what people will represent the Obama team. These are people whose professional registration - Wall Street. These people are engaged in a technology called" technologies of controlled chaos. "
/
"The first time the Ukrainians may be neglected by the United States, as Obama will be busy with internal problems the United States. But in the long term efforts of the U.S. Obama will resume his authority in Europe, and in the long term, the new U.S. administration will pay particular attention to Ukraine, which could be a counterbalance to Russia in the region, and in the future - even counterbalance the old Europe example of modern Poland. "
Obama Begins the Third World War in the Crimea

Cambodia

Cambodia's largest export industry is facing its biggest crisis, with garment workers and security forces engaged in a series of ongoing clashes. One recent protest left five people dead and scores injured.
The violence comes after weeks of political and labour unrest crippled Cambodia's garment industry.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2014/03/dying-fashion-2014317102854441156.html

 

 

The Wrong Nigga To Fuck wit

This video reportedly shows far-right members of the Ukrainian parliament beating up the CEO of one of the country's state TV channels and forcing him to resign his post.
 

Lucifer was God's Favorite Angel

Monetary Policy and Leverage