Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
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• Arab World Embraces Israeli’s YouTube "Zenga Zenga" Spoof of Qaddafi Rant; Two Versions, With and Without Dancers
• China Cracks Down on Mid-East Style Protests With Water Canons; Police Blanket Shanghai, Beijing; Internet Search for "Egypt" and "Tunisia" Blocked
• Libyan Rebels Tighten Ring Around Tripoli; Oman Sultan Reshuffles Cabinet After Protests
• Massive Rout in Irish Elections; Collision Course with the EU; Default the Best Option for Ireland
Arab World Embraces Israeli’s YouTube "Zenga Zenga" Spoof of Qaddafi Rant; Two Versions, With and Without Dancers
Posted: 27 Feb 2011 04:27 PM PST
The New York Times reports Arab World Embraces Israeli’s YouTube Spoof of Qaddafi Rant.
A satirical YouTube clip mocking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s megalomania is fast becoming a popular token of the Libya uprising across Middle East. And in an added affront to Colonel Qaddafi, it was created by an Israeli living in Tel Aviv.
Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist, musician and Internet buff, said he saw Colonel Qaddafi’s televised speech last Tuesday in which the Libyan leader vowed to hunt down protesters “inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway,” and immediately identified it as a “classic hit.”
“He was dressed strangely, and he raised his arms” like at a trance party, Mr. Alooshe said in a telephone interview on Sunday. Then there were Colonel Qaddafi’s words with their natural beat.
Mr. Alooshe spent a few hours at the computer, using Auto-Tune pitch corrector technology to set the speech to the music of “Hey Baby,” a 2010 electro hip-hop song by American rapper Pitbull, featuring another artist, T-Pain. He titled it “Zenga-Zenga,” echoing Col. Qaddafi’s repetition of the word zanqa, Arabic for alleyway.
Mr. Alooshe said he was a little worried that if the Libyan leader survived, he could send one of his sons after him. But he said it was “also very exciting to be making waves in the Arab world as an Israeli.”
As one surfer wrote in an Arabic talkback early Sunday, “What’s the problem if he’s an Israeli? The video is still funny.” He signed off with the international cyber-laugh, “Hahaha.”
Two Versions, With and Without Dancers
original smash hit with dancers
Zenga Zenga Original Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBY-0n4esNY
revised version without dancers
Zenga Zenga Revised Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GcUutnU2gk
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Monday, February 28, 2011
A Higher Percentage of Americans Believed in King George During the Revolutionary War than Believe in Congress Today
A Higher Percentage of Americans Believed in King George During the Revolutionary War than Believe in Congress Today
Submitted by George Washington on 02/27/2011 15:57 -0500
Washington’s Blog
Influential Harvard and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig noted in a must-watch speech last week that polls show that only 11% of the American people have confidence in Congress.
He notes that more people believed in King George at the time of the Revolutionary War than believe in congress today.
He's right.
Historians have estimated that between 15 and 20% of the white population of the colonies were Loyalists
Watch:
Submitted by George Washington on 02/27/2011 15:57 -0500
Washington’s Blog
Influential Harvard and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig noted in a must-watch speech last week that polls show that only 11% of the American people have confidence in Congress.
He notes that more people believed in King George at the time of the Revolutionary War than believe in congress today.
He's right.
Historians have estimated that between 15 and 20% of the white population of the colonies were Loyalists
Watch:
Feb 25 (Reuters) - Regulators closed one bank in the U.S. on Friday, bringing to 23 the total number of bank failures in 2011
Feb 25 (Reuters) - Regulators closed one bank in the U.S. on Friday, bringing to 23 the total number of bank failures in 2011
In 2010 157 banks failed following 140 failures in 2009.
The bulk of the failures increasingly have been smaller institutions, those with less than $1 billion in assets, as large banks have recovered more quickly from the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The FDIC announced the closure on Friday of Valley Community Bank, St. Charles, Illinois, which had about $123.8 million in assets and $124.2 million in deposits as of December 31. First State Bank, Mendota, Illinois will assume the deposits and has agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
Banks that failed in 2010 had total assets of $92 billion, compared with $169.7 billion the previous year.
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has said the agency expects the number of failures to drop in 2011.
In the FDIC's most recent quarterly report, released on Feb. 23, the agency said the number of banks on the "problem list" grew to 884 from 860.
Most of these institutions will not fail but the list provides an indication of how many banks are struggling.
Earlier this week, however, Bair said the outlook for the industry as a whole is improving including for small institutions.
In its quarterly update, the FDIC reported that banks had combined earnings of $21.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, marking their fourth profitable quarter in a row.
But statistics showed lending continued to contract, down 0.2 percent or $13.6 billion for the quarter, and Bair warned it would have to pick up for the industry to take the next step in its recovery from the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Washington Mutual, which had $307 billion in assets when it was seized in September 2008, remains the largest bank to fail during the financial crisis. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Carol Bishopric)
In 2010 157 banks failed following 140 failures in 2009.
The bulk of the failures increasingly have been smaller institutions, those with less than $1 billion in assets, as large banks have recovered more quickly from the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The FDIC announced the closure on Friday of Valley Community Bank, St. Charles, Illinois, which had about $123.8 million in assets and $124.2 million in deposits as of December 31. First State Bank, Mendota, Illinois will assume the deposits and has agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
Banks that failed in 2010 had total assets of $92 billion, compared with $169.7 billion the previous year.
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has said the agency expects the number of failures to drop in 2011.
In the FDIC's most recent quarterly report, released on Feb. 23, the agency said the number of banks on the "problem list" grew to 884 from 860.
Most of these institutions will not fail but the list provides an indication of how many banks are struggling.
Earlier this week, however, Bair said the outlook for the industry as a whole is improving including for small institutions.
In its quarterly update, the FDIC reported that banks had combined earnings of $21.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, marking their fourth profitable quarter in a row.
But statistics showed lending continued to contract, down 0.2 percent or $13.6 billion for the quarter, and Bair warned it would have to pick up for the industry to take the next step in its recovery from the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Washington Mutual, which had $307 billion in assets when it was seized in September 2008, remains the largest bank to fail during the financial crisis. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Carol Bishopric)
Marc Faber: "I Think We Are All Doomed"
Marc Faber: "I Think We Are All Doomed"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/27/2011 14:31 -0500
All who enjoy hearing a meaty Marc Faber fire and brimstone sermon, that cuts through the bullshit, will be happy to know that the Gloom, Boom and Doom author conducted a 40 minute interview with the McAlvany Financial Group, which covers all the usual suspects: gold, silver, precious and industrial metals, the "crack up boom", the future of the Ponzi and capital markets in general and much more. Of course, it wouldn't be a Faber interview without the requisite soundbite: "I think we are all doomed. I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it." Of course, on a long enough timeline...
Key extract from the Faber speech:
I think we are all doomed. I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it.
For the investor, the question is: How do I navigate through this complete disaster that is going to unfold? And I think if you look at different asset classes – real estate, equities, bonds, cash, precious metals – I suppose that you have to be diversified. I think real estate in the U.S. may go down another 10% or so, or even 15%, but I am always telling people, if you can buy the piece of land or the house you like, what do you actually care if it does down another 10%? If everything I bought in my life had only gone down 10-15%, I would be very rich, because a lot of things became worthless, especially loans to friends, and bonds, and so forth.
Look at the history, for example, of Germany, for the last 100 years. They had World War I. They had the hyper-inflation in World War II. The bond-holders got wiped out three times. If you owned Siemens, and you still own Siemens today, it was not a fantastic investment, but at least you still have something. You were not wiped out. I think that in equities you will be better off because you have an ownership in a company, than by being the lenders to companies, and the lenders, especially, to governments.
Faber on the key distinction between nominal and real, which nobody on CNBC seems to grasp yet, why gold now is cheaper than it was in 1999, and on the Dow and gold reaching parity.
In a money-printing environment, it is very difficult to know what is actually cheap and what is expensive. Is the price of wheat high, or is it low? Inflation-adjusted, it is extremely low. In nominal terms, it is relatively high. I believe that, in March 2009 when the S&P was at 666, the market was actually much cheaper than is generally perceived, because of the money-printing, and I do not anticipate that we will see 666 on the S&P again, in nominal terms.
In other words, they are going to print so much money that the S&P could be at, perhaps, 2000, but in real terms, it could be down below the lows of March 6, 2009. Maybe in gold terms, we could one day reach a ratio of Dow Jones to gold of 1-to-1, as we were in 1980. In other words, the Dow could be perhaps at 10,000 or 12,000, and gold could be at the same level.
That is why I am advising people to accumulate gold. Can gold have a correction? Yes, there has been a little bit too much euphoria about gold, and we may have a correction, but I do not think we are in a bubble in the price of gold. In fact, I could make a case that gold, at this level of $1400 an ounce, is cheaper than in 1999, when I look at the unfunded liability growth of the U.S., at the credit growth of the U.S., and at the household growth, and at the money printing, and at all the wealth creation that happens in China and Russia.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/27/2011 14:31 -0500
All who enjoy hearing a meaty Marc Faber fire and brimstone sermon, that cuts through the bullshit, will be happy to know that the Gloom, Boom and Doom author conducted a 40 minute interview with the McAlvany Financial Group, which covers all the usual suspects: gold, silver, precious and industrial metals, the "crack up boom", the future of the Ponzi and capital markets in general and much more. Of course, it wouldn't be a Faber interview without the requisite soundbite: "I think we are all doomed. I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it." Of course, on a long enough timeline...
Key extract from the Faber speech:
I think we are all doomed. I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it.
For the investor, the question is: How do I navigate through this complete disaster that is going to unfold? And I think if you look at different asset classes – real estate, equities, bonds, cash, precious metals – I suppose that you have to be diversified. I think real estate in the U.S. may go down another 10% or so, or even 15%, but I am always telling people, if you can buy the piece of land or the house you like, what do you actually care if it does down another 10%? If everything I bought in my life had only gone down 10-15%, I would be very rich, because a lot of things became worthless, especially loans to friends, and bonds, and so forth.
Look at the history, for example, of Germany, for the last 100 years. They had World War I. They had the hyper-inflation in World War II. The bond-holders got wiped out three times. If you owned Siemens, and you still own Siemens today, it was not a fantastic investment, but at least you still have something. You were not wiped out. I think that in equities you will be better off because you have an ownership in a company, than by being the lenders to companies, and the lenders, especially, to governments.
Faber on the key distinction between nominal and real, which nobody on CNBC seems to grasp yet, why gold now is cheaper than it was in 1999, and on the Dow and gold reaching parity.
In a money-printing environment, it is very difficult to know what is actually cheap and what is expensive. Is the price of wheat high, or is it low? Inflation-adjusted, it is extremely low. In nominal terms, it is relatively high. I believe that, in March 2009 when the S&P was at 666, the market was actually much cheaper than is generally perceived, because of the money-printing, and I do not anticipate that we will see 666 on the S&P again, in nominal terms.
In other words, they are going to print so much money that the S&P could be at, perhaps, 2000, but in real terms, it could be down below the lows of March 6, 2009. Maybe in gold terms, we could one day reach a ratio of Dow Jones to gold of 1-to-1, as we were in 1980. In other words, the Dow could be perhaps at 10,000 or 12,000, and gold could be at the same level.
That is why I am advising people to accumulate gold. Can gold have a correction? Yes, there has been a little bit too much euphoria about gold, and we may have a correction, but I do not think we are in a bubble in the price of gold. In fact, I could make a case that gold, at this level of $1400 an ounce, is cheaper than in 1999, when I look at the unfunded liability growth of the U.S., at the credit growth of the U.S., and at the household growth, and at the money printing, and at all the wealth creation that happens in China and Russia.
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