61 responses so far ↓

• gonzomarx

  Jun 30, 2009 at 6:15 pm

  

  Mortgage defaults in America, Can pay, won’t pay
  http://tinyurl.com/mqvxcj

  a warning from history of the perils of debasing the currency
  A Short History of International Currencies
  http://tinyurl.com/ly6hfz

  an even shorter version here http://tinyurl.com/maa36r
• Lloyd

  Jun 30, 2009 at 6:23 pm

  

  Stacy: Until you find Max’s “thing of beauty,” here’s Ken Lewis’ –

  http://www.sling.com/video/show/123421/58/Merill-Will-Be-A-Thing-Of-Beauty-Ov
• Gerry

  Jun 30, 2009 at 6:56 pm

  

  The thing about Cali going to the wall is scary because it is the largest state economy, the industrial base, these days, what’s left of it.

  When Arnie says No-can-Do-Ski this is some DEEEEEEEEP Shit..
• Youri Carma

  Jun 30, 2009 at 9:58 pm

  

  Zimbabwe turns to China for $950m credit line http://tinyurl.com/nrw8vl
• jterror

  Jun 30, 2009 at 9:58 pm

  

  to alex jones fans who missed todays episode, this is goddamned hilarious:

  http://twitter.com/heidimontag (heidi montag attempts to inform miley cyrus about the child-bullying act)

  http://www.infowars.com/mtv-star-heidi-montag-over-my-dead-body-would-i-take-a-microchip/
• Youri Carma

  Jun 30, 2009 at 10:02 pm

  

  Swedish PM says financial sector still in crisis http://tinyurl.com/kmehv6
• Youri Carma

  Jun 30, 2009 at 10:05 pm

  

  Japan Tankan Confidence Rises Less Than Expected, Signals Slower Recovery http://tinyurl.com/mmyc7e
• Youri Carma

  Jun 30, 2009 at 10:13 pm

  

  Bernankes ‘Green Shoots’ Take Over the Lexicon, If Not Economy (Update1) http://tinyurl.com/mrm223

  By Matthew Benjamin

  June 30 (Bloomberg) — The current recession has created at least one growth industry: use of the phrase “green shoots.”

  Since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke first uttered the words almost four months ago to describe signs of a thaw in frozen credit markets, instances of the botanical metaphor in the press have climbed sevenfold. A Google search for “green shoots” returns 4.86 million hits.

  “These may be the two most overused and annoying words of my investment career,” said John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Advisors LLC in Arlington, Texas. “Every possible sign of a recovery is anointed with the phrase.”

  Declining interest rates on mortgages and business loans led Bernanke to say on the March 15 CBS News program “60 Minutes” that he detected “green shoots” in some financial markets where the Fed had acted to restart lending. The locution appeared 3,123 times in news articles last month, up from 436 in February, according to research by Japanese brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc.

  Both bears and bulls have pressed the phrase into service.

  Jim O’Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said April 27 that the green shoots of global economic recovery are “turning into daffodils,” when he upgraded his forecast for 2010 world growth to 3.2 percent from 2.8 percent.

  ‘It’s Moss’

  “Housing is still a drag on the economy,” David Coard, head of fixed-income trading in New York at Williams Capital Group, a brokerage for institutional investors, said May 26. “It may be green shoots, but they are growing slowly. It’s moss.”

  Billionaire investor Warren Buffett joked June 24 that he had yet to see any green shoots, adding that his eyesight may be to blame.

  “We’re not seeing them,” Buffett said on CNBC. “I had a cataract operation in my left eye about a month ago and I thought, maybe now I’ll be able to see some green shoots.”

  Bernanke’s tendrils of economic hope have been compared with trees and mold. They have been said to be on the verge of blossoming, as well as in danger of withering, browning and succumbing to frost.

  Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist referred to as Dr. Doom for predicting the current crisis, enlisted the phrase to temper budding optimism about the economy.

  ‘Yellow Weeds’

  “People talk a lot about these green shoots,” Roubini said June 22 in Paris. Yet looking at the economic data, he said, “I see more yellow weeds than green shoots.” Instead, he predicted the recession in the advanced economies would last another six to nine months.

  The phrase has also spilled over into non-economic realms.

  In a June 28 column on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Washington Post writer Jim Hoagland said, “Green shoots of peace are glimpsed in some quarters.” A June 21 entry on the Daily Kos blog about Iranian demonstrations carried the title “The Green Shoots of New Peace.”

  While Bernanke may be identified with the phrase, he isn’t the first to use it. During the early 1990s recession, Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont declared that “the green shoots of economic spring are appearing once again.” That comment came back to haunt Lamont when growth failed to appear for months.

  Not ‘Reliable’

  “This has actually been around for quite a while,” Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor at the School of Information at the University of California in Berkeley and author of “The Years of Talking Dangerously,” said. “It pops just after every trough, but isn’t a particularly reliable indicator.”

  Accurate or not, Bernanke’s resurrection of the expression may have done some good this time around. Consumer and business confidence measures improved as it proliferated in the media, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

  As “catch-phrases go, I can’t recall another business- related one that has had such a grip on the public,” said Bernie McSherry, a senior vice president at Cuttone & Co., one of the largest floor brokerages at the New York Stock Exchange. “Since green shoots don’t remain mere shoots forever, it’s time to retire the phrase and replace it with something indicative of where the economy is today.”

  The term is “overused, not to mention overrated,” said David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates in Toronto. “It is more a comment on the human condition and the innate need for optimism” than an accurate description of the economy and markets, he said.

  A substitute phrase may also be needed if the U.S. economy slows down again later this year, said Rosenberg, the former chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch & Co.

  “We will not very likely see ‘brown manure’ as the catchy horticultural replacement to green shoots,” he said.

  To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Benjamin in Washington at mbenjamin2@bloomberg.net.
• Phil

  Jul 1, 2009 at 12:14 am

  

  Asia Times : OBAMA, CHANGE AND CHINA

  The song stays the same
  By Henry C K Liu
  Mar 6, 2009
  Part 1
  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC06Cb02.html

  Follow article for Parts 2-4
• Phil

  Jul 1, 2009 at 12:50 am

  

  ICN Informed Citizen News 06/28/09

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXFjYgSU71g

  ICN Informed Citizen News broadcast Sunday June 28th, 2009. The news you should have heard this week, but didn’t.

  This week’s stories…

  Story #1 – Baxter charged for releasing live avian bird flu by Vienna State Prosecutors Office

  Story #2 – Sotomeyor Resigns from Belizian Club

  Story #3 – Bush planned false flag to lure U.N into Iraq in 2003

  Story #4 – CDC Vaccine Advisor Pockets $29 Million Promoting Vaccines

  Story #5 – Vegas newspaper asked to give up commenters on tax case

  Story #6 – Insider Stock Sales Set Record Pace

  Story #7 – David Rockefeller Proud To Work Against the U.S.

  Links to articles provided on the above link.
  FWIW
• Ruth

  Jul 1, 2009 at 12:16 pm

  

  I’ve been seeing a lot of “green shoots” lately, in connection with the US economy.

  There are several pieces of land near my home and my workplace which had building materials deposited on them in anticipation of construction work.

  That was 2 years ago, and I noticed recently that lots of sizeable green shoots have now grown up on top of this building material.