Author Archives: Lila

Website Rankings on Google

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I’d hate to think the Powers That Be have so little to occupy their minds that they might actually waste time censoring my site.

So, let me put down to the Whims of the Web, such things as broken links, comments that vanish….and the mysterious problem I’ve had with my old free wordpress site, lilarajiva.wordpress.com, showing up at the top of google searches of my name, but not this one.

Some algorithm or other?

But today. I really am beginning to wonder. I did a search with Altavista and Yahoo and sure enough, this site appears at the very top as lilarajiva.com.

Hmmm. What is going on? And what to do about it? The old site is one I can’t access and free wordpress blogs can’t be redirected.

Propaganda Nation: Rubinomics and the Madoff Mess

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Notice how the Madoff scandal is being covered by the media. Madoff’s ethnicity is being played up. Frankly, it was not the first thing most people thought of. The first thing that came to my mind was “Ye gods! A Nasdaq chairman FAKED account statements for maybe 2 decades and no one noticed!”

However, leave it to the mainstream media to drag anti-Semitism into it and then try and deflect this imputed anti-Semitism by offering us outright fibs. The main targets of Madoff’s fraud were Jewish charities, is the suggestion. They were not. Even with the latest upward revision of the amount lost by Jewish charities, the main victims were foreign banks, like Santander and Medici, and American funds like Fairfield Group in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Also, unnoticed went the filing of a lawsuit against Robert Rubin, former chairman of Citigroup, for defrauding shareholders. The suit calls it a type of Ponzi scheme.

The media coverage of Madoff distracts from the fact that subprime debt itself was the mother-of-all-Ponzi schemes, and ripped off investors all over the world.

And the culprits, members in good standing of the Banking Mafia of Sachs & Citi et. al., are far bigger than Madoff…..

Churchill on Fighting

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“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

-Winston Churchill

Market Manipulation: Whither the Dollar…and Whence

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From a comment at Follow the Money blog on the dollar’s sharp move up this fall, during the crisis:

“One of the interesting patterns in the events of this year is US banks using margin calls and collateral liquidations to export deflation globally. They appear to coordinate the margin calls, for example, the prime brokers MS, GS and JPM all raised margin by more than double on thousands of hedge funds on 1-2 October while they were simultaneously railroading the TARP through the House. Margin was due two weeks later, coinciding with a massive sell off in quality assets worldwide, especially gold and oil.

The result is deflation overseas much worse than in the US, particularly to emerging economies where liquidity was more concentrated in the few big players and the hedge fund/private equity funds.

As they have forced sell-offs abroad, they repatriate the margin or collateral proceeds, driving up the dollar and inflating the relative performance of US assets.

Jobbing backwards, it was clear this margin deleveraging occurred in January, March and October – at the very least. As prime brokerage is largely unregulated and data is unreported, this happened outside the normal visibility of the markets.

It would be interesting to know how closely involved Geithner and Paulson are in these margin calls.

It will also be interesting to watch what happens when the deleveraging hits its limit, as the dollar will then be much more difficult to fluff….”

Comment: 

Looks like the dollar is on its way down now.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

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To anyone reading this blog, I am looking for people interested in helping cope with the vast amount of information I would like to synthesize and put together so that people can connect the dots in a way that current news formats, even on blogs, don’t allow.

Topics that I am following, some of them intermittently can be gaged from my archives and categories sections.

My whole blog has to be revamped into a website format and then I need to update the following ongoing stories:

1. Virginia Tech (a settlement was reached this year)

2. Goldman Sachs/banking cartel fraud

3. Finance and 9-11

The torture story has been so widely and heavily covered, I don’t see a need to follow up on it except in relation to these stories.

Any offers of help should be sent to lrajiva@hotmail.com

Global Games: Will the Indian Market Be Affected?

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Some argue that the Indian market will be only temporarily affected by the financial crisis because Indian banks had no exposure to the sub-prime crisis.

But it isn’t so clear-cut.

As to the banks:

In the first place, at least one affected bank, HSBC, the world’s fourth biggest bank, with a market value of more than $200 billion, is invested in the Indian market.

HSBC ended the year up by 21%, apparently because the $17 b loss it took on subprime in the US (98% loss) was made up by its gains in Asia. But HSBC has had other problems, including litigation rising from the subprime hit and another hit from its exposure to Madoff’s fund.  What’s more, Knight Vinke, the activist investor based in Monaco, claims that HSBC”s losses would be twice as high as it admits to if it followed the same accounting rules as its rivals. (Shades of G Sax).

HSBC, headed by Naina Lal Kidwai (more on her at my blog in a post on Indian women business leaders), is also focusing rather heavily on India, with plans to penetrate the insurance and investment bank business.

Looks like it doesn’t have than much else profitable about its other ventures.

HSBC isn’t the only one.

There are a number of other banks described as actively involved in or interested in the Indian market – among them, Fullerton India and Stanchart, according to this piece in Sept 2007 in The Business Standard.

In the second place, subprime exposure isn’t easily ascertained at all, since the risk is separated into different levels and rebundled in rather opaque ways.

Thirdly, we cannot know for sure that there is no corruption involved when the Indian government denies that any banks have exposure.

Fourthly, Goldman Sachs and other banks and funds have been investing quite a bit in the Indian commercial market, so there might be an exposure there, apart from what is or is not present in the residential real estate market,

Besides the banks, there are other economic factors:

Foreign Institutional investors (FII) are only one part of the picture. So the fact that they have been regulated or may have played a smaller role than a worst case scenario doesn’t dispose of the problem of contagion.

World markets affect India in other ways, as Susan Thomas points out in the Economic Times.

1. Many Indian companies are multinationals themselves and produce in and export to foreign countries.

2. Many large Indian companies, like Infosys, are heavily dependent on exports. When they are affected by world markets, they pass on the volatility to their customers. Often this influence is disguised by the existence of intermediary companies.

3. Producer prices tend toward parity across the globe, thus affecting the industries buying products and those industries’ share prices.

No surprise then that Indian industrial production has fallen for the first time since 1992, a predictable consequence of the flight of foreign investors from the stock market, dampening of industrial production, fall in exports and decline in domestic demand… among other things….

Notably, India stock exchanges was the worst performing of the emerging market exchanges in February 2007, a situation quite different from the drop in 2006.

On the plus side: fundamentals remain good and liquidity is strong

But with the worsening news on all fronts, and the latest terror (?) attack in Mumbai, the hope is a little tinged with fear.

Madoff Fraud Hits Everyone..

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“NEW YORK – The list of investors who say they were duped in one of Wall Street‘s biggest Ponzi schemes is growing, snaring some of the world’s biggest banking institutions and hedge funds, the super rich and the famous, pensioners and charities.

The alleged victims who sunk cash into veteran Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff’s investment pool include real estate magnate Mortimer Zuckerman, the foundation of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, and a charity of movie director Steven Spielberg, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Among the world’s biggest banking institutions, Britain’s HSBC Holdings PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and Man Group PLC, Spain’s Grupo Santander SA, France‘s BNP Paribas and Japan’s Nomura Holdings all reported that they had fallen victim to Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

The 70-year-old Madoff (MAY-doff), well respected in the investment community after serving as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested Thursday in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scheme to defraud investors. Some investors claim they’ve been wiped out, while others are still likely to come forward….”

More at AP.

Comment:

I have been watching the unfolding of the Madoff story keenly. A fund manager in a European country confided in me recently that he feared his own extremely conservative fund might have unwittingly been exposed to Madoff’s fund. He thought he might have taken a big hit and being a conscientious guy was agonizing over how to repay his clients.

This is why I’ve avoided saying that any country’s banks are free of exposure (even India’s). No one knows for sure where a lot of the debt passed around the globe actually is – slicing and bundling risk separates it out.

Here are some pointers:

1. Be suspicious if you have had exceptionally high rates of interest. High returns usually mean risky investments.

2. Be suspicious if the product is marketed aggressively.

3. Be suspicious if the rate of return has been exceptionally stable, even if it isn’t very high. In the kind of volatile market we’ve had in the past few years, no one can be that good on a regular basis. (That’s what tipped me off about Goldman Sachs two years ago. I figured they couldn’t be doing all that well. Well, they weren’t.)
4. Be suspicious of alternative investments you don’t understand.

5. Be suspicious of traditional “safe” investments you do understand. Take a look at their fee structure. Many “safe” investments like mutual funds have horrendous fee structures that prevent you from making anything, after taxes.

6. Be suspicious of funds touted heavily by the mainstream financial press. They are in bed (some financially, some politically) with the financial establishment, or they are ignorant, or careless, or too much in awe of Wall Street, or overworked, or brainwashed, …..or all of the above.

7. Be suspicious of funds touted heavily by the alternative financial press. Just because they are right about the big crooks on Wall Street, it doesn’t mean they aren’t crooks too….who would be doing the same if they could get away with it.

8. Be suspicious of people who tell you they made huge killings on this or that and want to let you in on it. If they made that much money on it already, chances are there’s nothing left for you….

9. Be suspicious of very quick returns. Easy come, easy go. What goes up that fast can go down twice as fast.

10. Be suspicious of very slow returns. Locking up your investments forever guarantees that any mistake you make in picking the investment will last a life time.

Bottom line? BE SUSPICIOUS.

Ken Wilber On the Dangers of Magical Thinking

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A welcome antidote to the magical thinking of many New Age gurus from writer Ken Wilber:

“The New Thought schools, of which Christian Science is the most famous, mistake the correct notion “Godhead creates all,” with the notion, “Since I am one with God, I create all.”

This position makes two mistakes, I believe, which both Emerson and Thoreau would have strongly disagreed with. One, that God is an intervening parent for the universe, instead of its impartial Reality or Suchness or Condition. And two, that your ego is one with that parent God, and therefore can intervene and order the universe around. I have found no support for that notion in the mystical traditions at all.

Advocates of the new age themselves claim that they are basing this idea on the principle of karma, which says that your present life circumstances are the results of thought and actions from a previous lifetime. According to Hinduism and Buddhism, that is partially true. But even if it were totally true, which it isn’t, the newagers have, I believe, overlooked one crucial fact: According to these traditions, your present circumstances are the results of thoughts and actions from a previous life, and your present thoughts and actions will affect, not your present life, but your next life, you next incarnation. The Buddhists say that in your present life you are simply reading a book that you wrote in the previous life, and what you are doing now will not come to fruition until your next life. In neither case does your present thought create your present reality.

Now I personally don’t happen to believe that particular view of karma. It’s a rather primitive notion subsequently refined (and largely abandoned) by the higher schools of Buddhism, where it was recognized that not everything that happens to you is the result of your own past actions. …

And so where does that notion itself come from? Here I am going to part ways with Treya and spin out my own pet theories on the people that hold these beliefs. I am not going to relate compassionately to the suffering these notions cause. I am going to try to pigeonhole them, categorize them, spin theories about them, because I think the ideas are dangerous and need to be pigeonholed, if for no other reason than to prevent further suffering. And my comments are not addressed to the large number of people who believe these ideas in a rather innocent and naive and harmless way. I have in mind more the national leaders of this movement, individuals who give seminars on creating your own reality; who give workshops that teach, for example, that cancer is caused solely by resentment, who teach that poverty is your own doing and oppression something you brought on yourself. These are perhaps well-intentioned but nonetheless dangerous people, who in my opinion, because they divert attention away from the real levels – physical, environmental, legal, moral, and socio-economic, for example – where so much work desperately needs to be done.

In my opinion, these beliefs – particularly the belief that you create your own reality – are level two beliefs. They have all the hallmarks of the infantile and magical worldview of the narcissistic personality disorder, including grandiosity, omnipotence, and narcissism. The idea that thoughts don’t influence reality but create reality is the direct result, in my opinion, of the incomplete differentiation of the ego boundary that so defines level two. Thoughts and objects aren’t clearly separated, and thus to manipulate the thought is to omnipotently and magically manipulate the object.

I believe that the hyper-individualistic culture in America, which reached its zenith in the “me decade”, fostered regression to magical and narcissistic levels. I believe (with Robert Bellah and Dick Anthony) that the breakdown of more socially cohesive structures turned individuals back on their own resources, and this also helped reactivate narcissistic tendencies. And I believe, with clinical psychologists, that lurking right beneath the surface of narcissism is rage, particularly but not solely expressed in the belief: “I don’t want to hurt you, I love you; but disagree with me and you will get an illness that will kill you. Agree with me, agree that you can create your own reality, and you will get better, you will live.” This has no basis in the world’s great mystical traditions; it has it basis in narcissistic and borderline pathology….”

Comment:

I posted this quote just after the quote I posted from Deepak Chopra, one of the most popular dispensers of New Age thought. I think it provides a corrective to some aspects of that thought. It’s not that I dislike Chopra or his brand of popular Hinduism. I don’t….at least, what I’ve read of it, which isn’t all that much. I think it has its uses. And apparently, millions of people agree with me on that. I also don’t think his comments about terrorism to CNN in November – which provoked a sharp reaction from Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal – are as off-base as she writes. They aren’t. He probably knows more about terrorism in India than she does.

But there is a tendency in a lot of New Age thought – one that gets amplified by the narcissism and consumerism of mass culture – to relate everything to the “inner” world of the self (the model of the self as “inside” and apart from its relation to the material world… and to others… is itself problematic). This tendency to dismiss logic, rationality, and the sheer materiality of life; to refuse harsh emotions, physical facts, and the intractability of things – this is problematic.

I’ve written elsewhere on the dangers of magical thinking. Here, for example, is a piece I did on Ward Churchill’s description of 9-11 as “roosting chickens.” It’s an interesting read, today, after the latest wave of terrorism in Mumbai.

In any case, here is the rest of Wilber’s critique in “Grace and Grit.”

(Note: I only know one book of Wilber’s – “Spectrum of Consciousness.” I thought its synthesis of elements from different religions tended to gloss over differences, in an effort to systematize, although it was fairly interesting and useful in other respects. It’s actually been some time since I read it, though, so perhaps I am doing it an injustice. It’s not the kind of thing I like to read any more. I prefer books that are more experiential, biological, and/or psychological.

Right now, in fact, I read a lot of peak performance literature.

 

 

Chopra on Wealth versus Money

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“Recognize the difference between wealth and money. Wealth is the progressive realization of worthy goals, the ability to love and have compassion, meaningful and caring relationships. There’s $2.9 trillion circulating in the world’s markets every day, less than 2% of which goes to provide goods and services to humanity. The rest is one big casino, making money off money or losing money off money. We have a culture where we spend what we haven’t earned to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like, and now the situation is such that we are being drawn to find the real meaning in our lives.”

– New Age guru, Deepak Chopra