Cash

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

This marks a big shift from just a few months ago. On Tuesday, semiannual data from five central banks covering the world's busiest trading centers showed that volume in October fell from a year earlier, making 2012 the first year that trading has declined in these locations since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Daily trading in spot markets, forwards, swaps and options for North America, the U.K., Singapore and Australia was estimated at $3.26 trillion, down from $3.55 trillion in October 2011. That suggests that worldwide turnover was well below the record $4 trillion estimate that the Bank for International Settlements came up with after its triennial survey in April 2010.

wsj

In 2011, the dollar value of world merchandise trade advanced 19% to $18.2 trillion, surpassing the previous peak of $16.1 trillion from 2008.
The value of world commercial services exports increased by 11% in 2011 to $4.2 trillion

wto

Measured against profit and political security, dead children mean nothing. Common sense is easily dispatched. Truth itself is expendable in any circumstance. Only cash still has meaning to those who claim to represent us. And the cash will always be there, more with every election cycle. Unsatisfied with the profits that can be achieved within the context of actual representative government, capital has instead succeeded in buying the remnants of democracy at wholesale prices, so that profit can always be maximized and any other societal need or priority can be ignored.
David Simon

so in the seven days of genesis the banks trade on the forex market the total trade of the real economies of the world ...... at approx $850trillion forex gambling is nearly forty times the values of traded goods and services .... this is the cash pile that drives the crooked financial system around the world ... it dwarfs any thing, the guns, drugs and sex trades are nowhere near these values ... forex trading is untaxed .... it is what the Tobin tax [ridiculed by our captive politicians] is aimed at

David Simon [author of The Wire] is worth reading in full as he vents his spleen on the US Senate for failing again to make the smallest move to increase gun control

in 2003 global illegal drugs trade did not hit the trillion ...just loadsa billions ...

now the profits on forex are not the same as the volume, but even at something like 1% the amounts involved are huge [try working out 1% of $850trillion] and tax free

forex is the biggest cash nexus and casino on the planet ...cui bono?

money and power dwarf all ideologies, all current public debate and elections are already pretty much bought and paid for .... it is a major reason why nothing much changes, no one is prosecuted in the USA or UK for the crash and the crimes preceding it, why we are subject to economic nonsense from the Treasury ....

[teamsaint]

Brilliant post, Jazzer.

You should blog this stuff.

Thanks.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

nb the deflection by Osborne on to pensioners and savers, nothinhg like the welfare cuts eh ... the FTT could pay for the cuts to be cut

[rauschwerk]

An old fashioned socialist at heart, I have reluctantly concluded that capitalism is the only game in town, at least in Europe. But what we have now is a complete perversion of capitalism. The only hope (and it's a very faint one with the Tories in power) is international agreement to get rid of the tax havens which support the system you have outlined. How long will the British people stand by and watch the destruction of our economy? How many understand that in the next few years we shall witness the complete emasculation of local government, whoever is in power? Why is nobody taking to the streets? It's all very mysterious to me.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

keynes marx hobson compare and contrast

but he fails to mention the cash sums involved in currency gambling which dwarf whole economies .....

[Flosshilde]

How long will the British people stand by and watch the destruction of our economy? How many understand that in the next few years we shall witness the complete emasculation of local government, whoever is in power? Why is nobody taking to the streets? It's all very mysterious to me.

The 'British people' tend to believe UKIP & the Tories when they say that it's all the fault of the EU & benefit 'scroungers'. I suspect that, like me, they find the type of economics outlined in the first post incomprehensible, in its size, complexity and basic concept. It's easier to pick on a visible target rather than an invisible trader dealing in something that's basically invisible.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well they would say that wouldn't they? they feed the poor ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Haldane of the Bank of England concludes;

The words “bank” and “bankrupt” have common etymological roots, dating from the 13th century. In the 13th century, it was bankers bankrupting banks. In the 21st century, bankers are still bankrupting banks. But it is no longer just banks. In England and Wales alone, over half a million individuals and nearly 100,000 businesses have found themselves in insolvency since 2007. Internationally, a growing number of sovereign states face a similar fate.
This tells us that the risks from banking have been widely spread socially. But the returns to bankers have been narrowly kept privately. That risk/return imbalance has grown over the past century. Shareholder incentives lie at its heart. It is the ultimate irony that an asset calling itself equity could have contributed to such inequity. Righting that wrong needs investors, bankers and regulators to act on wonky risk-taking incentives at source.

er quite ....

[teamsaint]

An old fashioned socialist at heart, I have reluctantly concluded that capitalism is the only game in town, at least in Europe. But what we have now is a complete perversion of capitalism. The only hope (and it's a very faint one with the Tories in power) is international agreement to get rid of the tax havens which support the system you have outlined. How long will the British people stand by and watch the destruction of our economy? How many understand that in the next few years we shall witness the complete emasculation of local government, whoever is in power? Why is nobody taking to the streets? It's all very mysterious to me.

Fear.

[teamsaint]

Jazzer, you do an amazing job on this stuff.
Do you go elsewhere to post this stuff ?
FoR 3 forum may be influential and classy, but there are other , bigger places where people need to see this stuff.
We are indebted to you.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well the scandaals are coming out in the rothermere rag and Blomberg today

recall this is a $4.7 trillion a day market ... it dwarfs all else in the world of finance gangsters ....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Bankers have no reason not to fix currency rates

greed knows no bounds nor boundaries in the City .... paymasters of the nasty party and kith kin and chums to Dave and George ... it is beyond Hanoverian London, beyond satire beyond .................