Juggling Dynamite

David Stockman offers many lucid comments in this discussion.

Former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman on President Trump’s trade policy, Federal Reserve policy and Gary Cohn resigning as the White House National Economic Council Director.  Here is  a direct video link.

Also see his article here: Hallelujah! The Goldman Sachs regency at the White House is finally over:

The fact is, we do have a trade crisis, but Gary Cohn and the Wall Street pseudo-free traders don’t care and never have. That’s because they fiercely support a perverted, self-serving monetary regime that systematically and massively inflates financial assets, even as it strip mines and deflates the main street economy.

As we have been pointing out in this series, there is a perverse symbiosis between the Fed and the Dirty Float central banks of the 10 major countries (China, Vietnam, Mexico, Japan, etc), which account for 90% of the nation’s $810 billion trade deficit (2017). Together they have ripped the guts out of the US industrial economy—effectively sending jobs and production abroad and cash flow and liquidated capital to Wall Street.

For its part, the Fed has monkey-hammered US competitiveness. That’s the result of its insensible 2.00% inflation policy, which has fatally inflated nominal dollar wages in a world market drowning in cheap labor priced in artificially under-valued currencies.

At the same time, its massive interest rate repression and price-keeping operations in the stock market have turned the C-suites of corporate America into financial engineering joints. So doing, they have slashed real net business investment by nearly 3o% since the turn of the century, by 20% from the 2007 pre-crisis peak and, actually, to a level in 2016 that barely exceeded real net investment two decades earlier in 1997.

While I agree it’s progress that Cohn is out as the economic point man to the president, tons more bankers and their lobbyists are still dominating governments and regulators worldwide. This fumigation will take much more than just one figurehead’s exit.

Lots of hyperbole and gnashing of teeth this morning about the resignation of ex-Goldman Sachs President, Gary Cohn as Trump’s Chief Economic Advisor.  See:  Dow drops more than 300 points at the open on Gary Cohn’s resignation. 

The manically inflated stock market has seized this occasion for another well deserved nervous breakdown.  But popular commentary aside, this is not about the emergence of anti-free trade policies out of the White House.  Make no mistake.  This is about the financial sector losing its inside man at the President’s elbow.  And that is a necessary development in the status quo disruption needed to get the finance sector back in service to the real economy, rather than the other way around.  This is one small step in the right direction.

Same old playbook:  Up front fees and commissions for lenders and realtors come at a heavy cost for everything else.  Note to Canada and other ‘hot property’ markets, the same destructive behaviors and policies have been driving our realty prices up and financial strength down. We know how this ends, thanks to numerous historical precedents, its always just a matter of when.  See  A focus on responsible lending will uncover huge problems for the banks their customers, the economy and ultimately taxpayers.  Will we let the banks off with their crimes and profits this time too?

The banks’ Achilles heel — irresponsible lending — is shaping up as a major threat to the banks and financial system, depending on the outcome of the banking royal commission and a low-profile battle currently being waged in courts.

“Irresponsible lending is endemic in Australia,” Digital Finance Analytics director Martin North said.

“More than 900,000 households are already in mortgage stress.
Here is a direct video link.