Charlie Rose

Ricardo_Amaral  04/10/2011 06:10 AM Report

The Crumbling of America – History Channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBSPcIGGcIc

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Ricardo_Amaral  04/10/2011 06:02 AM Report

John Gelles, the sad reality is that the United States is collapsing just like the Soviet Union – the collapse is already underway, and it is reaching an advanced stage.

The special status of the US dollar being the main global reserve currency it has reached the end of the line – the international monetary system is in deep trouble, and everything it seems to be getting out of control.

It's no coincidence that this weekend, 400 economists and central bankers have assembled in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to explore the way in which economic thinking needs to respond to the financial crisis, at a conference organized by the George Soros funded Institute of New Economic Thinking.

They are in Bretton Woods, because it is: “Panic time”....

Tonight I did watch on the History Channel a new program about “The Crumbling of America.”

If you have the chance of watching that program then you will realize that the United States is becoming at an alarming rate a 3rd world country. If you pay attention the signs are all around us.

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JohnGelles  04/10/2011 01:42 AM Report

Our fundamental belief in the Declaration, Constitution, and Gettysburg Address, and similar documents that form the best literature of American History, do not explain the reasons for the feared decline in our purpose and position -- as China and India compete for the role of most exceptional nation on the planet Earth.

We know things are changing at a greater rate than ever before. And we are slipping. Our schools stink. Our factories are closed. Our government is ruled by the Reagan idea that government is the problem, and other ideas just as bad, such as the income tax and the unhibited quest for profit (at the cost of national survival) held by multi-national corporations and Wall Street end to end.

So we do have a problem. We must avoid becoming a police state. (But being a money-power state is not much better.)

How do we defeat the money power -- without losing the money wealth associated with it?

Communist China is trying to be both a money power and a police power -- simultaneously. They may end up no better than fascist Germany was, (before it committed genocide under the influence of men harboring hate and evil to tne nth degree.).

We must study the region around the Baltic, especially Finland and Denmark, to learn how better to use money and learning as a path to a rational hospitable future.

What we want is simple enough -- adherence to the Golden Rule by every officer in the land and by everyone else, and appreciation of science and technology in the course of demonstrating our will to live in peace with all peaceable men and nations.

Ricardo_Amaral  04/09/2011 11:55 PM Report

Ricardo: Here is what Guido Mantega next move should be to fight and defend the Brazilian economy on this “Economic” and “Currency War.”

Finance Minister Guido Mantega should announce ASAP a 40 percent devaluation of the Real, and adopt a fixed rate currency system pegged to a basket of currencies including the US dollar and the Chinese yuan – a program designed to stop the “Hot Money” from going into the Brazilian market to blow all kinds of bubbles in Brazil, and also to get under control the constant currency destabilizing effect that serve as a torpedo to destroy the foundations of the Brazilian economy.

This strategy is designed to protect Brazilian manufacturers, the tourism industry in Brazil, and to keep the “Hot Money” from blowing more speculative bubbles inside the Brazilian economy.

There's nothing wrong with this strategy, since the 2 countries with the 2 largest economies in the world are not playing a fair game in the international monetary arena, and Brazil should start playing the game according to their rules.

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Ricardo_Amaral  04/09/2011 11:54 PM Report

Today when I was reading an article published on the Financial Times (UK) “Speculators send Brazil's real soaring to new heights” - I was shaking my head and wondering why they can't grasp in Brazil that China and the United States is playing a different game than Brazil.

In this game Brazil has become the “Patsy” - as a result of QE1, QE2, and very soon QE3 and so forth where the United States is exporting inflation to Brazil, and the speculators are pushing the real up with the carry trade between the real vs. the US dollar and the yuan.

The FT article said: “Brazil's currency has surged over the past two weeks, breaking one of market's most important resistance levels, as speculators have seized on an apparent shift in government policy.”

*****

In the last 2 years the real appreciated against the US dollar by 45 percent – and now the speculators are going to take Brazil for a ride.

Today Brazil has become the “Patsy” and Brazil it's in the business of exporting jobs out of Brazil and undermining the foundations of the Brazilian economy.

This foreign exchange policy of the Brazilian government is creating a major problem for the Brazilian economy, because is increasing the cost of doing business in Brazil and products made in Brazil is becoming very expensive, and they are also putting the tourism industry out of business in Brazil. Brazil is becoming a very expensive place for people from other countries to go for vacation.

It is an “economic war” and Brazil in retaliation is shooting blanks.

China and the United States are not going to change their game until the entire house of cards collapse, but in the meantime I wonder what is necessary for the Brazilian government to wake up and start playing in the same game that the US and China are playing.

Maybe the real exchange rate has to appreciate another 50 percent and Brazil has to export another 200,000 or 300,000 thousand manufacturing jobs out of Brazil, and have a real crisis in the tourism industry in Brazil, and inflation to go back to the levels that most Brazilians would prefer to forget – the level of the old bad days.

People started to grasp that the US economy and financial system is collapsing just like the Soviet Union – and the only reason they did not have a massive meltdown is because of the status of the US dollar as the main global reserve currency.

Now even George Soros is coming out and saying that the US dollar is no longer the main global reserve currency.

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Ricardo_Amaral  04/09/2011 09:55 PM Report

Bretton Woods Conference of 2011 = (Panic time)

April 9, 2011

Panel from INET's Bretton Woods Conference: Fitoussi, James, Rogoff, Soros (Part 1 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CJ_nqKZPk

Panel from INET's Bretton Woods Conference: Fitoussi, James, Rogoff, Soros (Part 2 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgWiCIrR3k0

Panel from INET's Bretton Woods Conference: Fitoussi, James, Rogoff, Soros (Part 3 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1uOLpQKyKw

Panel from INET's Bretton Woods Conference: Fitoussi, James, Rogoff, Soros (Part 4 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tz3Jr2EwVs

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Panel from INET's Bretton Woods Conference: Skidelsky, Ussher, Eichengreen (Part 1 of 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO9fOoCeEro

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Ricardo_Amaral  04/09/2011 09:42 PM Report

George Soros said: “US dollar is no longer the main reserve currency”...

George Soros Says China's Inflation Is `Serious Concern' – April 8, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_ajJmAF2aU

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Soros Holds Bretton Woods II – April 8, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbPgMv0tDNA

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ecoglobe  04/09/2011 06:29 PM Report

This is typical Martin Wolf. At the beginning of the interview he praises economic growth. Then, by the end of the interview, he rightly addresses the core issue: increasing resource scarcities and conflict. But he doesn't see the contradiction. His answer is HOT - Hope Optimism Technology. "We need to expand supply," Martin Wolf dixit. How? How long? With which effects? Importing supplies from the moon? Conversion to a believed to be "non-material" services economy? Brave flatworlder, foreseeing the conflict but too scared to speak the unspeakable: We can't continue growing on a finite planet. The paradigm does not allow herisy. But finite resources will inevitably stop us and force humanity to contract in the impending post-peak-oil era. Since this is beyond the scope of the powers that be, we can only chant "forward economist soldiers, march on towards total environmental depletion and final resource wars. We do believe in the good lord of ingenuity and technology, who will look after us and help us to develop new resources, now and eternally."

--

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/economics/e/ftag7210.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/economics/e/wolf7d19.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/scenarios/e/wolf8611.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/scenarios/e/wars8129.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/wolf7d31.htmThis is typical Martin Wolf. At the beginning of the interview he praises economic growth. Then, by the end of the interview, he rightly addresses the core issue: increasing resource scarcities and conflict. But he doesn't see the contradiction. His answer is HOT - Hope Optimism Technology. "We need to expand supply," Martin Wolf dixit. How? How long? With which effects? Importing supplies from the moon? Conversion to a believed to be "non-material" services economy? Brave flatworlder, foreseeing the conflict but too scared to speak the unspeakable: We can't continue growing on a finite planet. The paradigm does not allow herisy. But finite resources will inevitably stop us and force humanityto contract in the impending peak petroleum era. Since this is beyond the scope of the powers that be, we chant forward economist soldiers, march on towards total environmental depletion and final resource wars. We firmly believe in the good lord of ingenuity and technology, who will look after us and help us to develop new resources, now and eternally.

--

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/economics/e/ftag7210.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/economics/e/wolf7d19.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/scenarios/e/wolf8611.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/scenarios/e/wars8129.htm

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/wolf7d31.htm

robdverity  04/09/2011 04:26 PM Report

Your naive gullibility is disarming. We are not a democracy. We are a plutocracy. The financial wise-guys have taken care of that: capsizing the ec., gaping the haves to 1%, and generally crapping in the nest of anything remotely equitable.

NeilMacCallister  04/08/2011 11:07 PM Report

It bothers me that the "view of the world" that the British Mr. Wolf shares with us is:

"We really don't know the U.S." .."Will it be radically transformed?" .."What is the real U.S.?" .."Where is it going?"

America has a well-written declarative statement of purpose in our "Declaration of Independence", ..and a clear-and-forthright statement of how we will compose ourselves in order to get there in our "Constitution of the United States of America".

What part of these declarations is not understood?

Why do so many people believe we are not committed to those goals? ..Why do they not understand that those documents explain who we are?

Are we of this day, somehow not keeping up our end of the deal????

SharkswithfrikingLazers  04/08/2011 06:12 PM Report

Great questions Charlie! However, where is the transcript? I need to search it by key words to make my point. Ever since you "went on assignment" transcripts have disappeared.

What I remember was how Martin Wolf describes the economic positives, followed by your questions that pulled out his negative answers, indicating a 9.0 economic earthquake with tsunami on the horizon . . . that might just dissipate.

HA!

My head is spinning.

tabs  04/08/2011 05:09 PM Report

The Wolf interview can best be desccribed as the Cliffs Notes on the state of the world economy. Very generic and superficial explaination of conditions covering a wide variety of subjects. Unfortunatley Mr Wolf did not take a bite down on and get to the heart of the matter in any of the areas that he covered. While one can not fault him for this approach as that was the role he was set to play, one could wish for a little more meat on the bone as Mr Wolf has a good intellectual grasp of how economies work. This is not to say that one agrees with his conclusions or is in his camp but that the informational content can be usefull and that is what the Charlie Rose show is all about.

charlizecourriers  04/08/2011 03:55 PM Report

When someone with the ethnicity to continue barging ahead, right through Rose's interruptions, is on show, I get a headache. Who is the culprit? I would remind listeners that Captain Edward John Smith had a similar confidence in waterproof compartments. And I found it amusing that these two Hanists could, at one moment, talk about governments(western) having a first obligation to their citizns, and a moment later, blithely expostuate on the wonders of a dictatorial government's betrayal of its citizens. Our audacious amateur of a president is only a short interlude away from having to sell something unsellable to our fellow citizens-the pain of big tax increases. I don't think he can delay this 'obligation' beyond the 2012 election. In that sense he as an insoluble problem.

JohnGelles  04/08/2011 03:05 PM Report

REM writes sentiments and theory, below, which is cingruent with much of my thinking -- we will see if he can grasp this -- He wrote:

[1] "Keynesians attempt to run an economy without savings because they believe possessiveness creates both inflation and recessions.

[2] "So they replace savings with IOUs, just as undeveloped countries like Scotland and early America tried. There's no proof it has ever worked in the long run or that it can, because savings is not merely hoarding, but proof of the real investment made to increase productivity.

[3] "Get rid of savings, you also get rid of capital, and that's just what they have done for the past half-century. All we've got to show for it is currency depreciation and price inflation. This silliness is why they are forced to adopt such nonsense as destruction is good.

[4] Well, they have produced plenty of destruction. However, keeping their own heads above water is no doubt why they also think rising stock, commodity and real estate prices are good."

========== end REM ==========

Gelles writes:

Regarding 1 -- I say, Keynesians attempt to run an economy with taxes that prohibit significant savings by the middle class and those trying to climb up it.

This leaves most of us in debt up to our ears. They do this because they refuse to place the very high value on small business and workers skills they both deserve.

At one time, when FDR was President and the Wager Act was law, Keynesians supported labor's agenda to raise workers wages to a decent level.

Keynesians still support what is left of the unions, but by resorting to middle class taxation they effectively have destroyed respect for government and the Democratic Party.

Regarding 2 -- I say,

They do not replace private savings with private IOU's. They do make them impossible for most of us on account of taxes and unemployment the Keynesians failed to minimize. Minimizing unemployment demands a full-employment budget and investment by public or private sources of CAPITAL. If private CAPITAL is scarce or scared, public CAPITAL made up of greenbacks (as necessary) can and will seed all the new industrial opportunities created by legitimate unmet need and technological means to satisfy them.

Regarding 3 -- I say, REM sees only the possibilty of using a money supply that he fails to define in terms of future output of the necessities of life and the necessities of national defense. If he would defne CAPITAL (including a supply of money) in terms of real assets that can SUPPLY real goods and services PLUS motivational sovereign money that is not based on pryamids of debt (some of which will be unpayable), he would make more sense.

Regarding 4 -- I say, REM accuses Keynesians of doing what anti-Keynesians stubbornly do. The Keynesians are anti-money-crank light. The anti-Keynesians are against deficit spending -- which is what Keynseisans support because money-crankism has not yet won over a major economy except in war-time.

Well we are at war. And its time to use greenbacks as we always do to win. Let us win a peace, too, with war-finance and its tools of adequate liquidity, anti-inflationary savings, and inflation prevention laws kept as fair and reasonable as possible.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11603

http://www.ustaxreform.us/crs-comments.htm

[4] Well, they have produced plenty of destruction. However, keeping their own heads above water is no doubt why they also think rising stock, commodity and real estate prices are good."

REMant  04/08/2011 01:07 PM Report

I don't agree with either his economic or political assessment. I think the "demand" is mostly printed money, and the political divide insuperable. The Democrats will never give in, anymore than the Keynesians, and neither the Republicans, nor the classical economists are strong enough yet to push a sensible plan through. This may well take a shove from the rest of the world, which I'm sure will act in their interest no matter what their leaders may want. The president and the chairman of the Fed are such utter ideologues - so far am I from thinking them level-headed - worse than the last admin, which at least eventually admitted it had done something wrong. The current leadership, on the other hand, is quite consciously doing the same thing and in a bigger way like FDR following Hoover.

Where Wolf and the current crop of economists go wrong, and have for the past 2+ years, is, of course, to keep arguing that the economy can collapse because of spending cuts, but in the long run it must have the cuts. But there just can't be any such recovery in what is basically a collapsed pyramid scheme unless debt is somehow wiped out and that has to be by austerity, because we have neither savings to draw on, nor even a solid business plan, if anyone did have the wherewithal to help us foot the bills. There is, indeed, a "liquidity trap," but it is one of their own making, and it will take a lot more than pump priming to free.

Keynesians attempt to run an economy without savings because they believe possessiveness creates both inflation and recessions. So they replace savings with IOUs, just as undeveloped countries like Scotland and early America tried. There's no proof it has ever worked in the long run or that it can, because savings is not merely hoarding, but proof of the real investment made to increase productivity. Get rid of savings, you also get rid of capital, and that's just what they have done for the past half-century. All we've got to show for it is currency depreciation and price inflation. This silliness is why they are forced to adopt such nonsense as destruction is good. Well, they have produced plenty of destruction. However, keeping their own heads above water is no doubt why they also think rising stock, commodity and real estate prices are good.

I think Wolf has Europe backwards, too. The problem in Europe is the same as in the US and no worse there than here. Both are run by Keynesian central bankers over which the govts have no control. But Europe also has to realize that such "liberalism" is the inevitable accompaniment to central govt and will only serve, as it does here, to further aggrandize the Keynesians.

Wall St traders, IMHO, are not only young and selfish, but apparently very poorly educated in economics and I'm thinking that is by design, not any appreciation for the liberal arts. One wouldn't want anything to interfere with their training.

The US did do a lot of exporting in the 19th c tho overwhelmingly in agricultural commodities until after WWI, and a lot more importing of mfr'd goods than ppl realize. A big problem in the Depression was the wartime boost in exports only made more difficult the sector's eventual adjustment. While the US lost export markets after the war, it also lost imports helping drive industrialization in the '20s, which I think has been underestimated.

blank  04/08/2011 12:07 PM Report

SHORT VERSION

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http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/go-philly/ (Better Food in Philadelphia)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/us/politics/08emit.html (House Votes to Bar E.P.A. From Regulating Industrial Emissions)

http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/249?ref=politics (House Vote 249 - Prevents E.P.A. From Regulating Greenhouse Gases)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12999000 (Drinking over the limit 'raises cancer risk')

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy7MWjfVPE (Bring the noise- Public Enemy (original version))

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as you can see republicans have yet again proven to be utterly retarded and outright pathetic it's like they have down syndrome or something

JohnGelles  04/08/2011 08:01 AM Report

Martin Wolf, Financial Times and British Keynesian authority, is not of the Keynesian sect that would substitute "inflation-protected cash savings" for "debt-based fiat money".

Wolf is wedded to "luxury market venture capitalism" (the kind known and accepted around the modern world); and he is woefully neglectful of "necessities economics" (the only kind based on full-employment budgeting and computer managed pricing of the necessities of life.)

We have the computers and "smart-feedback systems of production" to support the fiat money revolution that will match our industrial potential to make sense of "capitalism beyond the casino".

Wolf, to his credit, wants China to turn away from exports enough to raise its domestic consumption high enough for the rest of the world to employ human labor -- and for China, itself, to prevent high unemployment when importers abroad have no fully employed customers. This is one of those times and China has paid the price of working with our multi-nationals to outsource all almost our high wage manufacturing jobs.

Wolf did not mention that India was trying to do the same with our high wage clerical and IT maintenance work.

All and all, I've always liked Wolf. He knows the importance of aggregate demand. He knows Keynes was a master of money while gold was a part of the overall system. Now that we know that production and really necessary resources can make such production affordable without debt or gold, it is time to rescue the poor and stop gambling at the casino-capitalism table. Ordinary life has risk enough of earthquake, accident, flood and fire, to keep us on our toes. Putting a roulette table between workers and their dinner is almost as bad as putting a revolver with a single bullet to your head.

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http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11603

http://www.ustaxreform.us/crs-contents.htm