The silly Democrats, for their part, are every bit as clueless, as if blaming Bush for high gas prices has anything to do with the underlying factors. "Next, we will blame the moon for the recent lack of rain!"
Re. consumers: the keyword is "infantilization."
Market competition operates on a number of axes: quality, price, speed, and convenience. Very often convenience and speed are equivalent, for example ATMs are convenient and fast. (Also very often, price and quality are at odds, i.e. cheap goods that don't last.) Each firm in a given market will deliberately position itself in regard to these attributes, emphasizing one or two and attempting to excel in those areas.
Thus comes competition for convenience.
Convenience is a one-word descriptor for conditions that enable individuals to gratify their needs with progressively less and less effort (including the effort of thinking about the steps needed to go from need to gratification). Something is "more convenient" when it enables me to get what I want for less muscular and cognitive effort than I had to use previously.
Competition for convenience produces a steady decline in the amount of effort required by consumers to gratify their desires. And so, by small steps, consumers become surrounded by a "cocoon of convenience" that more and more resembles regression to an infantile stage of development, where the slightest sign of discomfort is met with maternal indulgence.
And as any mother knows, weaning is the source of many a temper tantrum.
PeakOil is You
The Consumerism Thread (merged)
by MicroHydro » Mon 18 Apr 2005, 12:42:11
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'D')on't worry the "plunge protection team" will manipulate us out for the moment....
I sold all my stock in 2000.... SO the markets are just entertainment for me....
-G
I sold all my stock in 2000.... SO the markets are just entertainment for me....
-G
Agree. The PPT was hard at work this morning in NYC.
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Re: Proof
by tokyo_to_motueka » Tue 19 Apr 2005, 01:38:14
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hoplite', 'I')s there any truth to the PPT statements? While I think its likely that the FED may dabble in market manipulation, I havent seen any proof of that.
From the Wilderness Publications
(scroll about one-third of the way down)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Plunge Protection Team and Rigged Markets (From FTW's July 2002 economic bulletin)
The Washington Post acknowledged the existence of a select group of four who could and would intervene in markets to prevent massive capital flight and a run on shares that would cause an economic collapse if there weren't enough cash to pay out during a massive sell off. In his Feb. 23, 1997 story titled "Plunge Protection Team," Post reporter Brett Fromson identified the Federal Reserve chairman, the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and the secretary of the Treasury as the team's key players. The intervention of the team in the 1998 crash of Long Term Capital Management, after it became wildly overexposed in the gold market (see below), revealed that private institutions such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch and other major banks could be involved as well.
Fromson quoted a former team member as saying, "In a crisis, a lot of deference is paid to the Fed. They are the only ones with any money." Or, I might add, the ability to print it. The Treasury has lots of money too.
Pointing to the 1987 stock market crash, the single largest crash in history, Fromson observed, "The Fed kept the markets going by flooding the banking system with reserves and stating publicly that it was ready to extend loans to important financial institutions, if needed."
On April 5, 2000 New York Post reporter John Crudele reported that the stock market had turned back from the abyss. After a 500-point drop that looked like it was leading to a meltdown, "...someone started buying large amounts of stock index futures contracts through two major brokerage firms -- Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch...Unless the brokers tell, there is no way of knowing which of their clients were making the purchases...Then the market rebounded."
Calling it the PPT, Crudele both referred to the 1997 Washington Post story and suggested that private banks were acting as team captains.
Gold activist David Guyatt, relying on information obtained from Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) Chairman Bill Murphy, pointed to the PPT in October 2000. "The hand of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) is clearly visible for the first time. The entire short gold play over the last few years is a technique that has been used to 'prop up key stocks' and 'fund futures' operations. In the simplest form it works like this. Borrow (at negligible interest rates) someone's [America's, Germany's, Britain's, Goldman Sachs'] gold and sell it in the market. This gives a handsome pool of near-interest-free dollar cash. Whenever the stock market looks shaky, or key stocks come under pressure, dive in and buy, buy, buy...
"But it is not only necessary to manipulate the stock market to succeed. It is also necessary to manipulate the gold price and keep the price of gold below the price PPT sold the leased gold for...This is a game of double jeopardy...The problem the PPT now have is that there is virtually no more official gold left to borrow."
The causes of this intervention were a pending NASDAQ crash and the imminent downgrading of IBM and Intel stocks.
And the PPT's hand has been noted recently from as far away as Australia. Progressive Review Editor Sam Smith recently quoted a story by Richard Bromby of the Australian Financial Review:
"At 2:32 Wednesday [June 26], New York time, something extraordinary happened at the corner of Wall and Broad streets. The New York Stock Exchange's Dow Jones industrial index -- struggling since the opening bell after the WorldCom fraud revelations -- threw off its problems. From an intraday low of 8,926.6, the Dow shot skywards to its high of 9,160 at 3:29 p.m...Could it be the work of the much talked about, but never seen, Plunge Protection Team? There is a belief that this team represents a powerful and secretive hand that is ready to act at any time the Dow looks ready to tank big-time...
"...London's Observer newspaper last October reported it had information the plunge team was preparing to spend 'billions of dollars' to avert a repeat of 1929 and 1987."
The problem is clear: With a strong dollar the PPT has demonstrated that it has enough cash to suppress gold prices or to save the stock market. It may not have enough cash to do both -- especially if the dollar were to suddenly lose its value. Then, all of the chickens that have been locked out will come home to roost with a vengeance.
As The International Forecaster reported on April 26, "The American consumer has run out of credit and buying power...All bets are off if the housing and credit bubbles break and that's a distinct possibility...Debtor's prison is drawing nearer. House and Senate conferences are deciding on a new set of rules for Chapter 7 bankruptcy...If the Plunge Protection Team weren't manipulating the market with all these scandals, the Dow would already be at 4,500."
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Consumers paying down credit card debt in high volume
by DriveElectric » Thu 21 Apr 2005, 12:28:29
I was reading business news and noticed this from MBNA, which is one of the largest credit card companies in the USA. Their earnings were hurt this quarter by customers paying down their debt too much, likely because of higher interest rates. I like this new trend in the economy.
http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/banking/10219019.html
MBNA said its earnings were "impacted by unexpectedly high payment volumes'' from its U.S. customers. The move by customers to pay down their credit card bills, particularly on high-interest-rate cards, reduced the dollar value of managed loans in MBNA's portfolios.
Card companies don't make as much money when customers either pay their bills on time or pay down their outstanding credit card debt.
http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/banking/10219019.html
MBNA said its earnings were "impacted by unexpectedly high payment volumes'' from its U.S. customers. The move by customers to pay down their credit card bills, particularly on high-interest-rate cards, reduced the dollar value of managed loans in MBNA's portfolios.
Card companies don't make as much money when customers either pay their bills on time or pay down their outstanding credit card debt.
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by johnmarkos » Thu 21 Apr 2005, 12:39:01
Ha! The credit card companies are losing money because people are paying down their debt too fast? And then there are those new bankruptcy laws the credit card companies pushed for so long. Bet that'll make folks pay off their debt even faster.
Too bad for the credit card companies. Boo hoo. Do you hear that? It's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing a sad song for the poor credit card companies.
Too bad for the credit card companies. Boo hoo. Do you hear that? It's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing a sad song for the poor credit card companies.
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by Tyler_JC » Thu 21 Apr 2005, 13:40:39
We laugh, but this will hurt the economy. We need Joe to spend every last dime (and then some) in order to maintain the "service economy." 70%+ of the economy is consumer spending. Anything that hurts spending will be a disaster for the US economy (and thus, the world).
"www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
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by JoeW » Thu 21 Apr 2005, 13:46:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'W')e need Joe to spend every last dime (and then some) in order to maintain the "service economy."
That's a pretty big burden for me, TJC. I don' t know if I'm prepared to spend every last dime.
Joe
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