Archives for: Ponzi Scheme

18

Welcome to Planet Ponzi

by Mitch Feierstein about 3 years 2 months ago

You know that scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? The one where the good guy, Jimmy Stewart, stands up in the Senate protesting the graft and corruption he sees all around him. He’s not as smart as the other Senators. He was only elected by accident and knows that he’s not properly qualified to […]

read more »

19

What Is a Ponzi Scheme?

by Mitch Feierstein about 3 years 2 months ago

A Ponzi Scheme applies to any investment scheme where the promoter offers crazy returns to attract investors. If you invest your money in such a scheme, you might even get it back – plus some crazy rate of interest – as long as there’s still a flood of money from new investors. But the scheme […]

read more »

0

EU’s future plunges into uncertainty after Italian elections

by Mitch Feierstein about 5 years 10 months ago

Italy’s recent election was not that much of a shocker for Italians who have endured over 16 years of zero economic growth and youth unemployment around 27% or more, without much hope in sight. In fact, Italy’s underlying economic and employment problems are the same now as they were 16 years ago—too much debt and […]

read more »

2

We must take a stand against lies, damned lies and statistical data

by Mitch Feierstein about 10 years 3 months ago

Last week, a brave police constable told a startled Parliamentary select committee that crime statistics were being artificially manipulated to keep recorded crime on its downward path. In one remarkable exchange, the committee’s chair, Bernard Jenkin, asked: “This [the police process] would finish up with trying to persuade a victim that they weren’t raped, for […]

read more »

13

UK Chancellor Builds Economic Policy On a Ponzi Property Scheme

by Mitch Feierstein about 10 years 6 months ago

At the last election, during a TV debate between the three putative chancellors (Messrs Darling, Osborne and Cable), Krishna Guru-Murthy, asked, ‘Do you agree that cuts we are going to be facing will be deeper than the cuts that Mrs. Thatcher had to put through Britain?’ Alastair Darling answered, ‘Well, … they’re going to have […]

read more »

24

Currency Wars Have Begun: Central Banks in Denial or Worse

by Mitch Feierstein about 11 years 2 weeks ago

Here’s a piece of recent news that you almost certainly missed: A large consumer products company, Johnson & Johnson, announced a one-off loss owing to a 32 percent currency devaluation in Venezuela. The reason I expect you missed that less-than-seismic piece of news is that, unless you happen to be particularly fascinated in Johnson & […]

read more »

  On the first day of Christmas, my country gave to me A debt bigger than GDP Yep, that’s right. US Public debt stands at more than 100% of GDP. The last time debt was this high, we were fighting a World War across two continents and building a peaceful prosperous world, whose basic shape […]

read more »

Those financial forecasters, like myself, who take a generally dark view of world affairs are known by a number of monikers: prophets of doom, killjoys, pessimists, Cassandras. And that last one is interesting. Cassandra, in ancient Greek myth, was the daughter of King Priam of Troy. After Helen, she was considered the most beautiful woman […]

read more »

Another day, another faux bailout. Today European finance ministers agreed to let the Spanish banks get the first €30 billion slice of their bank bailout.  Those same finance ministers are also set to approve a year’s delay in the deadline given to Spain for reaching a budget deficit of 3% of GDP. That won’t, of […]

read more »

1

This Time It’s Different: Why It’s Time to Fire Bernanke

by Mitch Feierstein about 11 years 8 months ago

Two bits of news in the last couple days. One, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has decided to extend Operation Twist, a policy whereby the Fed sells short-dated government paper in order to buy the longer-dated sort. It sounds boring but it involves $267 billion, so it’s kind of consequential all the same. […]

read more »