Bloomberg is running a story right now headlined “North America Overtakes Asia-Pacific, Europe as Wealthiest”.
It goes on to explain, “North American households have overtaken those in Asia-Pacific and Europe as the wealthiest for the first time since 2005 boosted by a recovery in U.S. house prices and an equity market rally, Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) said.”
What it should be pointing out, if it was in fact the truth, is that the housing market is recovering thanks to the artificial demand engendered by the government writing cheques to its buddies at Morgan Stanley et al in the amount of $45 billion a month in Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities. If we were all allowed to write ourselves cheques to finance new home construction, and then we were able to sell those houses and keep the money instead of being sent to jail for fraud, then we would all be enjoying our own economic resurgences and no mistake – the irreconcilability of the process would gladly be overlooked by everyone.
However, we live in an era when not only is the unsustainability and criminality of such an enterprise lost on the general public, but on our so-called leadership as well.
I’ve said it before and I’ll apparently repeat myself unabashedly. The greatest casualty of the financial crisis has been the integrity of government, and by duplicitous extension, humanity.
Luckily for the U.S government, the predatory behaviour is also lost on other governments of heretofore prosperous G7 or 8 or 20 nations, depending on where you draw that line. Not that anybody could really do anything about it. We also happen to be living in the age of complacency, where once made aware of injustice and predation, we sign a petition, or perhaps attend a rally or two, and then get on with our lives.
The concern expressed by or perhaps merely implied by membership in the human race for future generations is apparently false, according to the behaviour of the world’s financial movers and shakers. Through complacency, that hypocrisy is enforced and amplified.
The Swiss Solution?: $2,800 Monthly for Life for All
A story in Reuters earlier this month revealed that a Swiss petition signed by 100,000 citizens has been submitted to the government through that country’s private citizen initiative program whereby the Swiss government must consider any submission that receives 100,000 or more signatures.
According to this proposal, each and every Swiss adult would qualify for the payout, which would cost the government of Switzerland in the neigbourhood of US$2.2 billion a month. 8 million five cent coins were dumped in the main square of the city of Bern to commemorate the historic event.
If the initiative passes, it is expected that the debate will shift to the United States on the possibility of a guaranteed minimum income to be supplied by government to offset income inequality.
