Monday, November 05, 2007

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

While I was pushing buttons and listening to the ever-retarded Fox business-for-the-gullible folks deny there was any problem whatsoever with our economy, that it is in fact "the best it has ever been", I thought I'd take a few screenshots for you. Straight off of the currency exchange.







Any more questions?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yup! Can't buy much abroad with the US greenback these days. It sure inflates the value of my British pensions, though, as they arrive in my US bank account.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Of course, that's a totally selfish attitude on my part, and a perfect example of short-term greed.

Anonymous said...

PS Seriously, my litle windfall is just that - little. But others are getting very twitchy. Seen this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7078612.stm

I think there is a real indication of recession if the Fed doesn't pull something out of the bag very quickly.

Not Your Mama said...

Probably not the best choice...ECB is on track to devalue the euro next. I'd opt for GBP or Brazilian Reals myself. Wouldn't call it "greedy" to protect ones own interests....its called survival. Anyone with a clue has been buying foreign currency & assets for the last several years. Saving is great but saving US dollars in a US bank account is throwing it down a sinkhole.

The twitching & bitching about recession are actually a lot of the problem. People want the fed to keep lowering rates to avoid recession and the result is inflation & devaluation of the dollar.

Painful as it is, recession IS where we need to be because at some point there will be nothing more the fed can do and it will happen anyway and will be that much worse and longer lasting thanks to our tinkering in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable consequences of our irresponsible spending.

The republican party has managed to spend 100x the amount the most spendthrift democrat in the country could have spent in his/her wildest dreams.

Vigilante said...

I have no questions. I do have a statement or two, but I'll save them.

Anonymous said...

I still do wonder how many people actually believe Fox News anymore? Then I go shopping and look around and then I know ...

Not Your Mama said...

Yup, scary isn't it? I've noticed a marked increase in how far they're willing to diverge from facts in the last month or so. Either they're desperate or their core audience is so mesmerized anything goes now, my guess is a little bit of both.

truggle45 said...

The facts are no hinderance. We are dealing with a massive apparatus of obfuscation here.

Truth is remote, but we can find respite in humor, like this weird economics shirt:

http://www.gentlepony.com/

Anonymous said...

Do you think he was talking about corporations and how they treat workers when Karl Menninger in his book, Whatever Became of Sinsaid, "If a group of people can be made to share the responsibility for what would be a sin in an individual did it, the load of guilt rapidly lifts from the shoulders of all concerned. Others may accuse, but the guilt shared by the many evaporates for the individual." I hope the whole thing crashes and we have to start over since the goal of Americans seems to be to profit from this unfair system. I read a blog and some people were talking about the oil industry and one guy said he was just glad he invested early.

Not Your Mama said...

Applies to any group of people. Frankly it's worse in the private sector because corporations, particularly publicly listed ones, have to answer to the public to some extent. It's our job to keep them in line, if we fail to do so then we are the "group of people".

If we were truly sincere about levelling the playing field we'd be lobbying for $5 a head lettuce in exchange for living wages for farmworkers. No, the truth is we have a nation of people who talk a good game about wanting "fairness" & "equality" but what we really want is a free ride on the backs of the most defenseless.

Anonymous said...

"Probably not the best choice...ECB is on track to devalue the euro next."

Really? Frankly, I'd be surprised, the Euro seems to be pretty stable from where I'm sitting. Have you got a source for this?

There are some states that plan on joining the Euro in the next couple of years, but although it might weaken a bit it's not going to be as severe an impact as the re-unification of Germany - and the Euro weathered that.

Long-term, I'd say the Euro was a safer bet than the GBP.

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it, though, if I were you - the Chinese aren't likely to stand by and watch the dollar slide into oblivion - you owe them too much.

Oh, and I think I've found another good reason for living in Scotland - we can't get Fox News here.

Not Your Mama said...

Trichet has made several statements over the last week or so indicating they may cut interest rates and favoring "support for a strong US dollar".

Add in Bush & Sarkozy meeting later this month to discuss "more favorable" exchange rates for the euro/usd. If I'm not mistaken looks like Merkel may jump on this bandwagon too. So far the UK is the only real holdout. Euro has been faltering on the exchange this week but GBP is holding slow but steady. Besides, I like the way Gordon Brown quietly thumbs his nose at Bush, even if he does eat his own boogers ;).

You are soooo blessed not to receive Fox Noise. None of above info came off of Fox...most of it gets spit out in blurbs on forex and a lot of it never makes it to print news until after the fact. "Business news" here is mostly a waste of time, by the time it's reported it's 3 days old to me.

Not Your Mama said...

So much for a China bailout:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a0QrQMBwGuHs&refer=asia

TomCat said...

Ah the fruits of Bush's favorite program: No Millionaire Left Behind.