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Blood Money: Wall Street’s Twilight Feeding Frenzy
Ponzi scheme definition - "an investment swindle where early investors are paid off with money put in by later investors in order to encourage more and bigger risks"
Slathered in trillion dollar sunscreen, the CEO’s of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other major banking institutions have recently been spotted in broad daylight before Congress and at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland with their fangs retracted.
Having drained the Western Worlds financial system dry, they no longer feel the need to rest in the security of their coffins and avoid acknowledgement of their existence.
In what may be the final bacchanal, Goldman Sachs CVO (Chief Vampire in Charge) Lloyd Blankfein has decided to quench his thirst with hefty bonus before flying off into the night and leaving behind the lifeless corpse of the United States economy.
Regardless of the size of Blankfein's or JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon's bonus feasts, the unholy financial institutions they represent should be buried for all eternity. The reckless disregard for the fiscal health of humankind has deprived Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanely, Citi Bank and others of their right to dwell among the living.
Hopefully, their search for new global economy blood money will drive a demographic stake into their hearts and end their immortality.
Both China and India will not leave their jugular veins exposed and “glamming” their youth with the lure of consumer goods may be more difficult than anticipated.
While economists earn their livings by making economics seem like a “black art” the fundamentals of capitalism are fairly simple.
The value of any good or service is ultimately established by what the buyer is willing to pay.
If a financial system is flooded with cash and consumers have access to high lines of credit the price of everything increases. When this plasma is drained from the financial systems body, its life force fades and blood pressure drops in a deflationary spiral.
Since the early 1980’s baby boomers have put their hearts into pumping money into 401K plans, IRA’s and other self funded retirement plans but somewhere around 2007 their hospital bill bit them.
Having reached retirement age and witnessing three bubbles in less than ten years, this generational phenomenon has begun to withdraw their money from the stock/real estate blood bank.
Other working “donors” buried in debt and stagnant wages no longer have the excess cash to feed the market monsters. Their financial lives are in such danger that they are pulling cash out even though the penalties and taxes are high enough to increase their heart rate.
Matching employee contributions is quickly becoming an urban myth for the dearth of employers and businesses on life support.
With unemployment and under employment at twenty six year highs, new blood is not flowing into the markets to replenish the outflows. If this continues, the stock market, the worlds greatest ponzi scheme, will starve to death.
If the markets can’t find a new host to feed off, prices will have to drop as consumption and credit dries up. The emerging middle classes of the new global economies in China, India, Brazil and elsewhere have not progressed far enough to sustain themselves and will soon be on life support if G7 economies are buried prematurely.
Now, as political leaders meet worldwide to arm themselves with crucifixes and holy water, financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank et al are preparing to take one last big drink from the withering veins of once strong economies. The oversized bonuses they have awarded themselves may be their last bloodfest in the older industrialized nations.
No more whistling past the graveyard. If our governments can't unilaterally drive a regulatory stake through the financial industries heart by preventing them from flying from one country to another in order to continue their bloodletting carnage, then it’s time for us to individually squeeze our collective flesh while the bloodsuckers are still gorging themselves.
If individuals were to stop purchasing goods/services on credit and remove their savings from the financial markets, the vampires of Wall Street would relive 1929 and only have themselves left to feed on. The financial institutions would explode like a mosquito that was forced to drink too much blood.
So let’s drink to deflation, the death of "too big to fail" institutions and governmental Gabriel Van Helsing's. If prices fall far enough then maybe we all will be able to actually afford to purchase something.