The second BRIC summit is scheduled for April 16 in Brasilia, capital of Brazil. Last year's summit meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia was very much the trial run for the Age of the BRICs. At that time, the BRICs kept their cards close to their chest, for the obvious reason that the global economy was still in free-fall, and crisis management (a polite euphemism for the orderly unwind of the US Empire's mountain of debt) was the order of the day. Still, it was only a question of time before post-neoliberal economics turned into multipolar geopolitics.
Now the recovery is finally here, the BRICs are cooking up something special. Stay tuned, because this is going to be the story which defines the next decade.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Bye, Bye, Imperial Pie
Bye, Bye Imperial Pie (with apologies to the Don McLean original):
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How subprime used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those CDOs dance
And, maybe, the US would stay solvent for a while.
But October made Wall Street shiver
With every CDS delivered.
Bad news on the Street;
They couldn't take on more debt.
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about Goldman's AIG bribe,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the Empire died.
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Did you rid the books of mortgage fraud,
And do you have faith in regulators above,
If the FASB tells you so?
Do you believe in ROE,
Can bailouts save your equity,
Can you get the dollar to decline real slow?
Well, I know that you're in love with GAAP
'cause I saw your pretax earnings snap
You beat the Street on revenues
Man, I dig those accounting rules
I was a lonely accountant on hold
At a ratings agency about to fold
But I knew I was getting rolled
The day liquidity died.
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Now for ten months banks aren't lending cash
securities crash, CMBS are trash
But that's not how it used to be
When Wall Street declared the end of history
With credit borrowed from BRIC countries
And collateral that came from you and me
Ten years later, the BRICs ride high
Their trillion dollar economies thrive
But that's not how it used to be.
When their compradors sang the IMF's tune,
With ideologies borrowed from Hayekian loons
And collateral that came from you and me,
Oh, and while the ratings agencies looked away
Banksters were making subprime hay
Glass-Steagall was repealed;
CDOs were sealed.
And while neoliberals scorned the Left
The BRICs purchased the IMF
And Citicorp prayed for TARP
The day the Empire died.
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Let's invest in a dotcom prospectus
No business plan or revenue offsets
Four trillion dollars of market cap
Exploded and Enron took the rap
Speculators tried to short the ride
With Greenspan on the sidelines rescuing LTCM's hide
Now 1% funds were sweet perfume
While the oiligarchy played a colonial tune
The banks all got up to dance
Oh, but the taxpayer never had a chance!
'Cause Wall Street had rigged the field
Treasury bills paid low yield
Do you recall the leverage revealed
the day the Empire died?
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Oh, and there we were all turned to stone
A generation's 401Ks are gone
With no capital to start again
So come on: Goldman be nimble, Sachs be quick!
Goldman Sachs knew politics
'Cause your tax dollars are Wall Street's only friend
Oh, and as I watched Paulson on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No politician or party hack
Dared incur Wall Street's wrath
And as the markets continued to expire
The Feds threw fourteen trillion onto the pyre
The taxpayer paid for AIG, Maiden Lane, and all the banks
The Fed even bought one trillion of toxic CMBS – gee, thanks!
The day the Empire died
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
I met a newscaster who read the news
And asked her about those green shoots
But she was broke and looking for a job
I went down to the local store
Where I temped years before
But the man there said they were closing down.
And in the streets, unemployment rose
State budgets crashed, and deficits explode
But not one criminal trial was brought
The regulators had all been bought
And the three people with sense,
Bill Black, Liz Warren, and Nomi Prins,
Got no mainstream media or press
The day the Empire died
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How subprime used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those CDOs dance
And, maybe, the US would stay solvent for a while.
But October made Wall Street shiver
With every CDS delivered.
Bad news on the Street;
They couldn't take on more debt.
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about Goldman's AIG bribe,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the Empire died.
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Did you rid the books of mortgage fraud,
And do you have faith in regulators above,
If the FASB tells you so?
Do you believe in ROE,
Can bailouts save your equity,
Can you get the dollar to decline real slow?
Well, I know that you're in love with GAAP
'cause I saw your pretax earnings snap
You beat the Street on revenues
Man, I dig those accounting rules
I was a lonely accountant on hold
At a ratings agency about to fold
But I knew I was getting rolled
The day liquidity died.
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Now for ten months banks aren't lending cash
securities crash, CMBS are trash
But that's not how it used to be
When Wall Street declared the end of history
With credit borrowed from BRIC countries
And collateral that came from you and me
Ten years later, the BRICs ride high
Their trillion dollar economies thrive
But that's not how it used to be.
When their compradors sang the IMF's tune,
With ideologies borrowed from Hayekian loons
And collateral that came from you and me,
Oh, and while the ratings agencies looked away
Banksters were making subprime hay
Glass-Steagall was repealed;
CDOs were sealed.
And while neoliberals scorned the Left
The BRICs purchased the IMF
And Citicorp prayed for TARP
The day the Empire died.
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Let's invest in a dotcom prospectus
No business plan or revenue offsets
Four trillion dollars of market cap
Exploded and Enron took the rap
Speculators tried to short the ride
With Greenspan on the sidelines rescuing LTCM's hide
Now 1% funds were sweet perfume
While the oiligarchy played a colonial tune
The banks all got up to dance
Oh, but the taxpayer never had a chance!
'Cause Wall Street had rigged the field
Treasury bills paid low yield
Do you recall the leverage revealed
the day the Empire died?
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Oh, and there we were all turned to stone
A generation's 401Ks are gone
With no capital to start again
So come on: Goldman be nimble, Sachs be quick!
Goldman Sachs knew politics
'Cause your tax dollars are Wall Street's only friend
Oh, and as I watched Paulson on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No politician or party hack
Dared incur Wall Street's wrath
And as the markets continued to expire
The Feds threw fourteen trillion onto the pyre
The taxpayer paid for AIG, Maiden Lane, and all the banks
The Fed even bought one trillion of toxic CMBS – gee, thanks!
The day the Empire died
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
I met a newscaster who read the news
And asked her about those green shoots
But she was broke and looking for a job
I went down to the local store
Where I temped years before
But the man there said they were closing down.
And in the streets, unemployment rose
State budgets crashed, and deficits explode
But not one criminal trial was brought
The regulators had all been bought
And the three people with sense,
Bill Black, Liz Warren, and Nomi Prins,
Got no mainstream media or press
The day the Empire died
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
I started singing,
Bye, bye, Imperial pie
Drove interest rates to zero
but liquidity was dry
The Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply
Saying, “Otherwise the market will die”
“Otherwise the market will die.”
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Spring Cheer
After a hard winter, some reasons to be cheerful:
1. BRIC forex reserves just passed the $3.36 trillion mark and growth in the semi-periphery is turning up, faster than anyone expected. For thirty years, the world-economy flew on two jet engines -- the US and the EU. Now the world economy has a third jet engine, which potentially outclasses the thrust of both previous engines combined.
2. Unemployment peaked in November, the recovery is real, which means we're going to see feisty progressive politics kicking in across the US and EU. (The catastrophists are wrong: austerity doesn't make people rebel, aspirations do.) It's high time to junk our military-industrial complex, soak the rich, and spend on the rest of us.
3. The videogame culture -- a.k.a. the mediatic expression of the multipolar world -- is kicking into high gear. God of War 3, Yakuza 3, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Alan Wake and Resistance 3 are all on the way, and that's the tip of the iceberg.
4. While the existing developmental states continue to rapidly evolve (Asiazilla is boosting consumption, Bolivarzilla is spearheading Latin America's integration and Bearzilla is powering up the nanotech gloves), it looks like another wave of developmental states is nearing take-off. The leading candidates: Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Indonesia. Angola and Nigeria may also join the list, if they can channel their energy-rents into sovereign wealth funds and internal industrialization.
1. BRIC forex reserves just passed the $3.36 trillion mark and growth in the semi-periphery is turning up, faster than anyone expected. For thirty years, the world-economy flew on two jet engines -- the US and the EU. Now the world economy has a third jet engine, which potentially outclasses the thrust of both previous engines combined.
2. Unemployment peaked in November, the recovery is real, which means we're going to see feisty progressive politics kicking in across the US and EU. (The catastrophists are wrong: austerity doesn't make people rebel, aspirations do.) It's high time to junk our military-industrial complex, soak the rich, and spend on the rest of us.
3. The videogame culture -- a.k.a. the mediatic expression of the multipolar world -- is kicking into high gear. God of War 3, Yakuza 3, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Alan Wake and Resistance 3 are all on the way, and that's the tip of the iceberg.
4. While the existing developmental states continue to rapidly evolve (Asiazilla is boosting consumption, Bolivarzilla is spearheading Latin America's integration and Bearzilla is powering up the nanotech gloves), it looks like another wave of developmental states is nearing take-off. The leading candidates: Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Indonesia. Angola and Nigeria may also join the list, if they can channel their energy-rents into sovereign wealth funds and internal industrialization.
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