Too Big to Fail (Again)

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the bank bailouts did not save the economy as their architects advertised. Rather, they bolstered the biggest U.S. banks from an insolvency crisis of their own creation. Those banks were, and remain, too big to fail. Their CEOs are too connected to jail.

The leaders of the major banks oversaw multi-trillion dollar enterprises that committed fraud, lost other people’s money, harassed public service members, and fired thousands of low-level employees. Worst of all, they have put the entire financial system and markets at the edge of ruin again.

Big banks know they have political and Federal Reserve support. Low or negative rates provide banks access to cheap capital if they need it, which encourages greater recklessness than if they had to “pay” more for it. They have taken this as a license to gamble large. By rescuing and supporting the big banks’ dangerous behavior, such recklessness has been not only condoned but encouraged.

The argument big banks make about their mega derivatives positions is that they are “hedged.” In other words, though the total (or “notional”) figure is large, most of the long and short positions net out against each other. The problem with that assessment is that the big banks take long and short positions against each other. They have set themselves up again in domino fashion.

We are heading for another financial crisis at some point. No one can say when for certain, but probably sooner than later. There’s a lot more money supporting the system artificially that the central banks have conjured than we had going into the last crisis. If that subsidy was to go away or be reduced, the money would come draining out of the same financial system that it’s been inflating.

-- Nomi Prins (Daily Reckoning) May 23, 2019 (edited)

The Garden

The arrow flies when you dream

The hours tick away, the cells tick away
The Watchmaker keeps to his schemes
The hours tick away....

 

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect
So hard to earn, so easily burned
In the fullness of time, a garden to nurture and protect

 

In the rise and the set of the sun
'Til the stars go spinning 'round the night
It is what it is

And forever, each moment a memory in flight

 

-- Neil Peart (Rush) 2012

Time

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, 

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town,
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine,
Staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long,
And there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run,
You missed the starting gun.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

-- Pink Floyd (1973)

Time

Time speaks with golden words
When there's nothing to be heard
Hides behind the stars
Silver in the night
Lies in the coming light

Time living with today
In a lonely way
She whispers never a surprise
She won't tell you why

Time speaks her golden tongue
And when everything is done
She lies to no one

-- Screaming Trees (1990)

Between the Wheels

To live between a rock and a hard place -- in between time,
Cruising in prime time -- soaking up the cathode rays.

To live between the wars in our time -- living in real time,

Holding the good time -- holding onto yesterdays.

You know how that rabbit feels going under your speeding wheels.

Bright images flashing by like windshields towards a fly.
Frozen in the fatal climb, but the wheels of time just pass you by.

Wheels can take you around.  Wheels can cut you down.
We can go from boom to bust; from dreams to a bowl of dust.

We can fall from rockets' red glare down to brother can you spare.
Another war, another wasteland, and another lost generation.

It slips between your hands like water -- this living in real time.

A dizzying lifetime reeling by on celluloid.

Struck between the eyes by the big time world.

Walking uneasy streets, hiding beneath the sheets.
Got to try and fill the void. 

-- Neil Peart (Rush) 1984

All Things Must Pass

Now the darkness only stays at nighttime
In the morning, it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always going to be this gray

All things must pass
All things must pass away

-- George Harrison (1970)

Heartland

See the sun rise over her skin.
Dawn changes everything...
Everything.
And the delta sun
Burns bright and violet.

Mississippi and the cotton wool heat.
66 -- a highway speaks
Of deserts dry,
Of cool green valleys,
Gold and silver veins
Of the shining cities.

In this heartland...
In this heartland soil.

See the sun rise over her skin,
She feels like water in my hand.
Freeway like a river cuts through this land
Into the side of love
Like a burning spear.

And the poison rain
Brings a flood of fear
Through the ghost ranch hills.
Death valley waters
In the towers of steel.
Belief goes on and on.

-- Bono (U2) 1988