Crazy Deals USA

22:57 |

If you're like me, you've probably looked at the US recently and wondered what has happened to your country. I'm not talking about the GOP/ Obama situation nor am I referring to capitalism vs. socialism...
I'm simply talking about basic common sense items like: stay out of debt, don't do anything if it doesn't make sense, do you homework before signing a contract, etc.
Indeed, the American government (I'm including the Federal Reserve in this category) began charting a strange course as a country when the Financial Crisis first accelerated with Bear Stearns' collapse in February '08.
Granted we'd flirted with government intervention several times before (Chrysler in the '70s, Long-Term Capital Management, etc.). But we've since taken it to a whole new level. The basic risk of capitalism (failure) has been removed from the equation for most major US businesses. However, this risk was removed at the expense of increasing the US's debt load and putting the dollar at risk.
Pushing to remove risks so you can pursue insane business practices? Crazy deals that offer little benefit to the parties? Doing things quickly without actually considering the consequences?
Sounds a lot like investment banking doesn't it?
Investment banking as an industry runs almost completely contrary to wealth creation since it thrives on fees rather that capital appreciation. Investment banking is about making DEALS (any deals) regardless of whether the deals make sense or benefit both parties (after all, the advisors to the deals, the investment bankers, get paid based on commission and free stock).
Indeed, investment banking is one of the few industries on the planet in which you can get rich by creating debt for others to pay off. Goldman Sachs, as you know, is an investment bank. And this financial crisis is riddled with former Goldman Sachs execs.
Hank Paulson is the most famous. In the private sector you've got John Thain of Merrill Lynch, Robert Steel of Wachovia, Ed Liddy of AIG. On the government side of things, you've got Hank Paulson as Treasury Secretary, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, Neel Kashkar who's in charge of running the Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TALF), and others. On a side note, Matt Taibbi, a reporter for Rolling Stone, just did an outstanding piece detailing the the full extent of Goldman's involvement in the bailouts and crisis:


Modern society places ever increasing demands upon us and therefore elevating levels of anxiety and stress. These demands can be real or perceived i.e. you believe that they are real. It has been reported that life today is, on average, 44% more difficult than it was 30 years ago.
The purpose of this article is to identify some of these areas of stress, detail what stress is and offer some practical steps you can take to reduce its debilitating effects.
You should be aware that in the long term, stress is a killer, or at best, can provide terrible debilitation. It can be insidious as the effects are cumulative affecting us both mentally and physically with the real possibility of taking people to breaking point.
For many, the stress condition is something that has been with them a long time and now accepted as the norm. This is far from healthy. Many will convince themselves that they 'thrive on stress'. Again this is a very unhealthy and potentially dangerous attitude to have and we shall be looking at the health problems created by stress a little later. For now though, you need to read this article and you will need to accept responsibility for taking action to make change happen. By ACCEPTING that you have a problem...you take OWNERSHIP of it...if you OWN it you can then take CONTROL of it.
National and local government offices and agencies, prying, scrutinizing and demanding an increasing amount of information. Our every action seems somehow subject to regulation. I could go on of course, but the point I'm trying to make is that we are becoming increasingly dependent for outside agencies to control, or at least influence, our lives and make decisions for us or force us to make decisions that we do not wish to make. I suggest that this is making us 'weak' from the point of view of decision making, no longer believing that we are in control as we invariably have to compromise. This can give rise to feelings of helplessness and uncertainty with the attendant increase in levels of stress.



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