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More likely GS was aggressively speculating on the aluminum futures market and couldn't sell all of their contracts before they came to term, so now, welp, they're in the aluminum supply industry now.

Deutsche Bank basically created the European banking crisis. The whole thing is p much Germany lending money to broke countries so they'll continue to buy German exports. Not hard to see why this is going pear shaped.

Also, a bad

Loans are assets. Deposits are liabilities. Deutsche Bank AG offset the purchase of new assets with the sale of old assets.

Also, selling off a class of assets (EU member bonds with artificially low risk fixed by the Germans) in order to buy a different/better class of assets (high-risk/high-yield BRIC bonds) isn't a horrible move, especially when you consider the very real possibility that European states will be forced to default now that austerity very clearly isn't working, never has worked, and never will work.

Whenever I hear about austerity, I am always a bit puzzled: however skeptical one may be of the promises of "Keynesian" spending, what exactly, on the other hand, is the correlation between reduced government expenditures and short-term economic growth? I don't even see how that would work.

Well, according to Chicago economists, taxpayers are kept awake at night in worry about the debt-to-GDP ratio. When the government cuts spending, they will also reduce revenue, which makes taxpayers more confident about the future. Taxpayers will then estimate their total future benefit from the revenue cut, and go out, and buy luxury goods for that exact amount.

In other words, the Chicago school is an intellectually-vacant PR piece for the Republican party and friends, existing only to be the barest possible academic legitimization for Lockean-style fiscal and monetary policies that could never possibly work and were already thoroughly discredited over 100 years ago. The few worthwhile concepts they have produced endure only as a model for demonstrating how wrong they all are.

Joncy: sometimes i wish massassi had a +1 button.

Oh, and N.B. anybody who is skeptical of public investment during a recession should have paid more attention in school when they were talking about ca 1930 to 1945.

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Not even.

Banks and rich people use government bonds as a store of wealth because they're extremely safe (modulo the stability of the country itself). So really rich people want governments to go deeper and deeper into debt, because it gives them a safe place to keep their money. Over the last 15 years the demand for US government bonds has radically outstripped supply, in spite of what many see as an unsustainable expansion of federal debt. This bond shortage is what ultimately caused the big housing bubble crash, since banks had replaced government bonds as a store of wealth with sub-prime mortgage-backed securities given fraudulently high ratings. (In case you were stuck trying to figure out why the biggest pro-business/pro-finance governments are the ones who rack up the most debt.)

The conundrum is that the sorts of people who buy bonds want a large enough supply for their purposes, but they don't want to have to pay the extra taxes necessary to recover from deficit spending. These people also don't want the government to default, because then they'd get nothing, but they want the situation to be mildly perilous for the government because that risk increases their yield. Enter the debt crisis, which is major European banks creating moral hazards for European governments on the mistaken assumption that Deutsche Bundesbank of the austere reich will bail them out like the good old days.

Germany would rather see stable Western European democracies return to fascism than support Keynesian fiscal policies anywhere in the EU, because supporting Keynesian policies would mean admitting that the reason Germany is locked into austerity mode is solely to depress the cost of German labor and exports at the expense of the German people.

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I don't know what the cure is, but I'm sure there's a Nobel prize waiting for whoever thinks of one that's politically palatable.

But, I mean, don't lose perspective about the whole debt thing. It doesn't really affect you. It affects 0.001% of the population, but not in the way they want us to think.

I like how shiny Aluminum is, but I hate people who pronounce it "aluminium".

-It's like, I get it, you're european, no need to flaunt your euro-lifestyle in our face.

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(Thanks to Jon`C for the informative posts.)



Well, Jon`C has suggested a cozy relationship between fascists and the wealthy elite in connection with the European debt crisis. Maybe there's a similar reason deep down for the seemingly bizarre relationship between racist/poor/white political activists and wealthy New York bankers (e.g., the Republican party)?

BTW, I'm starting to see more clearly now how the manner in which the news media does its reporting very often isn't really meant to address the 99% of its audience, but to the 1% who "really matter".

And as for my implicit assumption that doubting in any way the Keynesian narrative of the Great Depression, well, I blame it on conservative FUD clouding my vision in the name of objectivity.

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They don't, they push for tax cuts first and then using funded entitlements as a debt clearinghouse second. Republicans want austerity for you, because they can convince you that it's a good thing for the country while really they use your medicare and social security money to repay bondholders without having to raise taxes.

Oh, I'm not at all suggesting the return of fascism to Europe is directly encouraged by the Germans. I'm just as sure the Germans are appalled as I'm sure they would never take responsibility for it happening. Quasi-tribalism is a natural human response to austerity.


Not even 1%. And, well, they own the media. Even before Citizens United v. FEC, corporations and the rich were still free to spend an unlimited amount of money influencing the American voter (they just weren't allowed to name a candidate).

I don't pretend to understand any of the economics being discussed here, but I do find it amusing when businesses are operating far outside their normal practices.

Who would have guessed G&S is storing 3% of the worlds aluminum supply. Reminds me of last year when the state of Rhode Island came into ownership of a videogame development company.

If only Germany had something like Fox News, they might have more foot soldiers like the Republicans do.

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But they don't actually claim the US needs austerity, and they don't push for it either. Republicans are 100% in favor of generous social programs and safety nets so long as the recipient isn't black ethnic poor.

It's not at all about trimming back these programs. The OASI and DI trust funds are profit-positive, earning 4.4% (plus increases due to contributions) on $4.8 trillion in assets. The government doesn't have to "pay" anything to fund the program, because it can already fund itself. The Republican hate for Social Security comes from the fact that, like other large funds, the Social Security trusts store most of their wealth in treasury bonds. Republicans want to destroy Social Security so they can renege on nearly $5 trillion owed directly to the American public in order to honor their obligations to private funds a.k.a. rich folks (on mean that's ~$17k in actual money, a line item from your paycheck, which the Republicans want to take away from you).

I think they're very up-front about this goal.

Edit: To summarize, Republicans don't argue for austerity, they argue for a straight-up transfer payment from the working class of America to the richest 1000 people.

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Guns, religion, anti-immigrant sentiment.

I don't remember why I heard about it, but this book came to mind. I have no idea if it is any good; maybe I'll check it out from the library....

Mostly because of poor education and upbringing, but voter suppression doesn't hurt either.

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I think it's funny to contemplate that Jesus and his original cult of followers were in all likelihood much closer to the hippy movement than conservative "Christians". Jesus was a good, but very liberal Jew for his time, whereas "family-values" conservatives of America today are more akin to the conservative Jews of the time, with their emphasis on procreation and the family.

Of course, the radicalism in American Christianity has something to do with it's roots in the Protestant movement of Europe. Taken to entirely new levels, though.

Like refusing to teach evolution in schools?? Of course this will be true if the state is run by inbred conservatives. Don't forget the dramatic effects of brain-drain due to highly educated individuals refusing to cohort with these numnuts as well.

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My understanding of foreign aid is that in many cases, if not all, the military industrial complex is the largest benefactor. The recipients of military aid end up buying their hardware from U.S. companies.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to throw in some crazy religious reason to justify it, but if you're crazy to begin with, there'll always be some story to be believed.

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It's all the same in any case; the powerful will find ways to subvert any democracy of uneducated citizens.

I guess that means that we now know that a sure way to do so is to brainwash the working class. If you spend most of your time working and lack the community resources to foster a highly educated community, you may be more vulnerable to tricks and the like. It doesn't help that America is so deeply religious, and I won't begin to comment on the psychological and social effects of this on a geographically dispersed country like the U.S.A.

Too many country bumpkins tuning in to Rush Limbaugh.

Okay, I'm parodying myself now, so I'll stop since this is getting incredibly offensive.

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That's good, because his voice is totally unbearable. I don't see how anybody can listen to him speak.

It might have something to do with the fact that he, a radio talk-show host, is... deaf! Who would have thought...?

You're preaching to the choir on this, but the trouble is

I'll buy that. Maybe it's just a logistical problem, again, due to the geographic vastness of the American continent? There's too much brain drain away from rural america, and it's too hard to reach so many people in sparsely populated areas.