The Greek Parliament has finalized the end of their country as a sovereign nation and the entire place is now to be sold off lock, stock and barrel and the money will go to the bankers. The public assets will be sold for pennies on the dollar and will end up in the hands of transnational corporations. Wall Street heard the dinner bell ringing (we’re having Greek tonight!) and the market closed up sharply.
Currency traders have reacted to the good news by driving up the Euro and the USD down and its headed toward record lows. Republicans blame Obama for the weak USD (everybody knows weak it bad, right?), no matter that we would be better off economically with a weak dollar. (it’s similar to having tariffs on imports)
A weak USD means imports from Europe and the middle east are more expensive but US exports are much more competitive, too bad we don’t have anything to sell. Increasingly exports from the US to Europe are really just products from South American countries that don’t have free trade with the EU and they just make a quick stopover in a southern US port to have the paperwork stamped.
The Federal Reserve has officially stopped buying US Treasury bonds on the open market and the price of bonds is falling and driving up interest rates. Not that interest is very high, two year bonds sold at Tuesday’s Treasury auction will yield a whopping 0.395% (paying nearly zero interest does keep the cost of borrowing low for the government) Even with the QE2 over, the Fed will continue to spend a billion dollars a day to replace bonds that mature. So the Fed will get money from the Treasury and spend on the bond market.
The interest we pay is expected to skyrocket after a default on the debt by Republicans in Congress and we will be in a similar position to Greece. That is if we continue to run the country with Wall Street bankers in charge, if we wake up to the fact that this is our country and not theirs it could all be fixed overnight. The bankers can all go live in Greece, for the rest of their short lives.
Initial unemployment claims were down slightly last week and home sales were up sharply in May. In many markets home prices were up significantly but mostly in condos where sellers can control inventory. Home prices are still at the same level they were at ten years ago which represents trillions in lost wealth for the middle class. The rich have gained trillions over the same period. Funny how the economy can crash but the people who own the business sector don’t lose any money but make trillions instead. Maybe the “crash” of the economy isn’t the right word. Maybe the “looting” of the economy would be more descriptive.
The tea baggers know they’ve lost money on their houses and 401(k) and the pension is gone but they don’t seem to notice where it went. Where do they think the rich got their money? Tea baggers are sure people who don’t have any money took it from them, like poor people and teachers. They are sure the rich are just like them, except for all that money. www.prairie2.com