Tuesday, November 15, 2011

My son, Jeremy, gets upset with me...

I apparently read to many left-wing websites. However, You need to listen to both sides of the arguments put forth by the people who own us. I believe that right-left dichotomy in our politics is simply deprived to let us argue against each other and ignore the criminal scam that controls our world.

Any ways, one wonders just what part of the truth don't we want to hear!

Daily Kos: Over half of all U.S. tax subsidies go to four industries
While the federal corporate tax code ostensibly requires big corporations to pay a 35 percent corporate income tax rate, on average, the 280 corporations in our study paid only about half that amount. And many paid far less, including a number that paid nothing at all. [...]

Many people will be appalled to learn that a quarter of the companies in our study paid effective federal tax rates on their U.S. profits of less than 10 percent. Others may be surprised to learn that an almost equal number of our companies paid close to the full 35 percent official corporate tax rate.

The average effective tax rate for the 280 companies was 18.5 percent, but the range is surprising: 30 companies paid a negative effective tax rate over the three years, while 71 companies paid effective rates of over 70 percent. Note that this isn't because those companies made no money: members of the negative-tax club include General Electric and ... well, and a phalanx of financial, energy and telecommunications companies.

Over the 2008-10 period, our 280 companies earned almost $1.4 trillion in pretax profits in the United States. Had all of those profits been reported to the IRS and taxed at the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate, then the 280 companies would have paid $473billion in income taxes over the three years. But instead, the companies as a group paid only about half that amount. The enormous amount they did not pay was due to the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax subsidies that they enjoyed. [...]

More than half of the total tax- subsidy dollars over the three years — $114.8 billion — went to just 25 companies, each with more than $1.9 billion in tax subsidies.


Monday, November 14, 2011

You wonder who put these men in suits in charge?.....

We have all kinds of experts on T.V. or in the  government tell us what we have to do. Who put these guys in charge of the world? (hint: the people who own us! )

Common sense would tell anyone that the same people who have been fucking up the world for all these years can't ever get it  right by now no matter how many college degrees they show up for and then get hired by people who don't have a clue.

Or, as I contend, they know exactly what they're doing and it ain't to help the working stiff. Even if I'm a little paranoid or am being conspiratorial doesn't mean I'm full of it!

What's really fun is watching the "elections." What a sorry ass collection on both sides of the aisle. Mostly clueless and corrupt they are vying to be the "world leaders of tomorrow". They'll fit right in with the clowns in Europe who insist on stealing from the people who work for a living and pay their pay checks.

But not to worry, the T.V. will keep them quiet.....NOT!

Austerity Then And Now - NYTimes.com
Today, by contrast, austerity is being imposed because men in suits say that it’s necessary to satisfy the invisible gods of the financial market. It’s understandable that the public is beginning to have its doubts, and not just because those invisible gods somehow demand sacrifices only from workers, never from the wealthy. For the fact is that those men in suits have no idea what they’re doing — a fact that was apparent to some of us early on, but it now becoming common knowledge.

And so if you want to contrast the stoicism of the postwar populace with the anger and confusion of today’s voters, don’t blame consumerism; blame our leaders, who have imposed gratuitous, unfair pain on their constituents, who are finally starting to figure it out.


Sunday, November 13, 2011

Stil...there will be no cuts...

Any deal is predicated on "cuts" occuring after the next election. We've heard this before. Both parties tell their voters what the voters want to hear and then screw them in the ass.

But of course these sillies deserve it don't they?

Investors' Dread-Letter Day: 11/23 - WSJ.com
Call it Wall Street's other geopolitical driver, one played out not in Athens or Rome, but close to home in Washington.

As stock-market investors fret over sovereign-debt contagion in Europe, a Nov. 23 deadline for the U.S. Congress's so-called budget supercommittee is fast approaching. The committee is assigned to devise at least $1.2 trillion in deficit-reduction measures over 10 years, or else automatic cuts ordained by Washington's summer debt-ceiling agreement are triggered.

Friday's market action gave little hint that investors remain perturbed over Europe's debt situation, much less any happenings in Washington, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by ...


Saturday, November 12, 2011

First snow headed this way...

70% chance sounds like a sure thing, LOL. Of course, it will be here all week just to piss me off! But that's what you get living this far north in Idaho.

At least our store sales are o.k. and expect a bonus this Xmas hopefully a couple of hundred wouldn't hurt. Patti got her walker and the company approved her using it so she's not as tired and she can walk much better.

I'm on a saving kick so we can get rid of the rest of our payments and retire early and go back into business while she's healthy enough to travel. Still need to but a newer RV as I sold the 5th wheel because it was a pain in the ass to camp in around here and I don't think using a camp ground makes much sense until after you retire and I want something to use in the meantime. Probably get one of these.

Friday, November 11, 2011

This is the best the Republicans have?.......

Embarrassing. But makes it easier for Oba mama. Once the voters figure out these guys are for taking their government checks and giving the money to their rich buddies it's over.

Only Oba mama can lose the race if he goes along with screwing over Social Security and Medicare. Let alone screwing with VA benefits. Which way do you think I'm betting?

Oh yeah, the thing in Europe. There is an unknown number of  trillions looking for a safe home. Guess which country is considered "safe"? As I predicted, if and when this money comes home our economy will take off and all this budget cutting nonsense will get forgotten.

Of course, team Oba mama will take full credit and he squeaks by which ever nobody the Republicans choose.  (I remember McCain was considered toast this far out in 2007, so don't count anyone out!)

We really are only guessing until about the first week or so of March when voters actually pull some levers and choose in the primaries. I haven't met too many people that are all excited about any body so far, but this will change because many people think they count in this system.

Boy are they confused?

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain

Republican presidential candidates former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain pose before a Republican presidential debate at Oakland University in Auburn Hills, Mich., Nov. 9, 2011.

(Credit: AP)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

In the Republican race for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich's support continues to slowly grow, and he is now tied with Mitt Romney for second place, while Herman Cain just edges both of them out for the top spot. Both Cain and Romney have lost support since late October.

In a new CBS News Poll, 61 percent of Republican primary voters say the sexual harassment accusations against Cain won't make any difference in their vote, but 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to back him, and that rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month - from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. He has lost ground with conservatives and Tea Party supporters as well.

But the race could still change; seven in 10 Republican primary voters say it is still too early to say for sure which candidate they will support.

The field of Republican candidates now has three candidates within striking distance of each other at the top of the list: with 18 percent, Herman Cain is in the top spot, followed by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich with 15% each. Support for both Cain and Romney has declined since late last month, and Gingrich is the only one of the top three whose support is steadily - if slowly - on the upswing.

Gingrich: White House race is wide open
Complete coverage: Campaign 2012

Cain has lost support among women since late October. Then, he led among women, garnering 28 percent of their support. Now, his support among women is just 15 percent. He has also lost ground with conservatives, from 30 percent to 23 percent now. And there has been some movement among Tea Party supporters as well; their support for Cain has declined from 32 percent to 19 percent. Romney has lost support among men, while Gingrich's support among that group has increased eight points.

Six in 10 Republican primary voters say the charges of sexual harassment against Cain make no difference to their vote. Still, 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to support him.

nce people realise these guys are going after their checks to protect the rich it's over

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

November 11, 2011 7:02 AM

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich

Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain

Republican presidential candidates former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain pose before a Republican presidential debate at Oakland University in Auburn Hills, Mich., Nov. 9, 2011.
(Credit: AP)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

In the Republican race for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich's support continues to slowly grow, and he is now tied with Mitt Romney for second place, while Herman Cain just edges both of them out for the top spot. Both Cain and Romney have lost support since late October.

In a new CBS News Poll, 61 percent of Republican primary voters say the sexual harassment accusations against Cain won't make any difference in their vote, but 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to back him, and that rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month - from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. He has lost ground with conservatives and Tea Party supporters as well.

But the race could still change; seven in 10 Republican primary voters say it is still too early to say for sure which candidate they will support.

The field of Republican candidates now has three candidates within striking distance of each other at the top of the list: with 18 percent, Herman Cain is in the top spot, followed by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich with 15% each. Support for both Cain and Romney has declined since late last month, and Gingrich is the only one of the top three whose support is steadily - if slowly - on the upswing.

Gingrich: White House race is wide open
Complete coverage: Campaign 2012

Cain has lost support among women since late October. Then, he led among women, garnering 28 percent of their support. Now, his support among women is just 15 percent. He has also lost ground with conservatives, from 30 percent to 23 percent now. And there has been some movement among Tea Party supporters as well; their support for Cain has declined from 32 percent to 19 percent. Romney has lost support among men, while Gingrich's support among that group has increased eight points.

Six in 10 Republican primary voters say the charges of sexual harassment against Cain make no difference to their vote. Still, 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to support him.


Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Need to clean up the garden.....

A lot of work at the end of the season because Patti insists I help. Of course, the vegetable garden is my idea so I guess I'm screwed. LOL

Monday, November 07, 2011

Had to borrow Patt's computer...

Patti's fault, of course. Hey her puppy chewed my power cord in to so if I can't fix it I'm out a hundred bucks we don't have. Want to buy a puppy? Hundred bucks? No? What do you mean your to young to die? LOL

Saturday, November 05, 2011

We are in a Depression...

No breadlines? Government checks and food stamps is why. No one selling pencils?--- unemployment money. all this spending keeps me and Patti employed. So we need more government spending!

How I Learned to Stop Neoclassicizing and Love the Liquidity Trap: Peccavi Nimis et Mea Maxima Culpa Department

Safeguarding Wealth But something else happens on the path to equilibrium. The decline in interest rates and the rise in savings are accompanied by an increased desire among businesses and households to safeguard more of their wealth in cash. As a result, the speed with which cash turns over in the economy, the velocity of money, falls. And as the velocity of money falls, total spending falls, workers are fired, and their savings evaporate with their incomes. Thus the equilibrium turns negative, with high unemployment and low capacity utilization. In responding to a small financial disruption, the Federal Reserve can inject more money into the economy by buying bonds for cash, increasing the amount of cash so that even at the lower velocity of money we retain the same volume of spending. This eases the decline in interest rates, spending, employment and production into a decline in interest rates alone. Little Difference But when rates become so low that there’s little difference between cash and short-term government bonds, open-market operations cease having an effect; they simply swap one zero- yielding government asset for another, with their hunger to hold more safe, liquid assets unsatisfied. This is the liquidity trap. In this situation we need deficit spending. The government spends and borrows, creating more of the safe, cashlike assets that private investors want. As these bonds hit the market, people who otherwise would have socked their money away in cash -- diminishing monetary velocity and slowing spending -- buy bonds instead. A large, timely government deficit thus short- circuits the adjustment mechanism, avoiding the collapse in monetary velocity.

Friday, November 04, 2011

This story brings back a few memories..

Seeing is believing but few want to admit it. Those of us with these experiences don't need convincing but sceptics talk to an invisible man in the sky and laugh at us. Or that a small cache of bones prove that we are here by accident.

 

Witnesses along New York's Route 207 pull over to watch 'hovering egg' UFO - National ufo | Examiner.com

A Rock Tavern, NY, witness along Route 207 reports watching a hovering elongated egg-shaped object with an amber-yellow glow to an outer aura, according to November 3, 2011, testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database. The witness had just left a meeting and traveled down Route 207, where two people who had been in the meeting had stopped along the side of the road and were outside observing "the thing in the sky." "We all started yelling at each other over what we're looking at in disbelief," the witness stated. "We were off of Route 207, up the street from Toleman. The object was in the trees hovering and it appeared to be over the MTA refuge area. Stewart Airport gets a lot of aerial traffic, but this thing was just hovering, not on a schedule to get somewhere." The witness described the object. "It was shaped like an elongated egg next to a racquet ball next to an egg <0O0> where the ends slope down to a point with three interior compartments. It had an amber-yellow glow to the outer aura, with a brighter yellow-whitish pulsating inner glow. Each compartment appeared to have a black center to it. Three of us watched this thing for a few minutes as it was above the trees, but from our vantage point it appeared to be in the trees. It was in a north, northwest sky from us at 9:30-ish at night."

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Now if he hit upon a guy.....

Might be a story. However, since he's black (both parents) and had to work for a living he must be guilty of something, right?

And to think that reporters get paid for this shit!

Why Our Blacks Are Better Than Their Blacks - HUMAN EVENTS
Ann Coulter
Why Our Blacks Are Better Than Their Blacks
by Ann Coulter
11/02/2011
1336
Comments

By spending the last three decades leveling accusations of "racism" every 10 seconds, liberals have made it virtually impossible for Americans to recognize real racism -- for example, the racism constantly spewed at black conservatives.

In the last year alone, a short list of the things liberals have labeled "racist" include:

-- Being a Republican;

-- Joining the tea party;

-- The word "the" (Donald Trump's statement that he has a "great relationship with the blacks");

-- References to Barack Obama's playing basketball (Trump again);

-- Using Obama's middle name;

-- Scott Brown​'s pickup truck;

-- Opposing Obamacare;

-- Opposing Obama's stimulus bill;

-- Opposing Obama's jobs bill.

The surge in conservative support for Herman Cain​ confuses the Democrats' story line, which is that Republicans hate Obama because he's black.

Cain is twice as black as Obama. (Possible Obama campaign slogan: "Too Black!")

This is why the liberal website Politico ran with a story on Cain that had everything -- a powerful black man, a Republican presidential candidate, the hint of sexuality -- except facts.

All we learned was: About a decade ago, as many as two anonymous women accused Cain of making unspecified "inappropriate" remarks and one "inappropriate" gesture in the workplace. (We had more than that on John Edwards​' mistress a year into the media's refusal to report that story.)

If the details helped liberals, we'd have the details.

To have been accused of sexual harassment in the 1990s is like having been accused of molesting children at preschools in the 1980s or accused of being a witch in Massachusetts in the 1690s.

In the 1990s, one plaintiff won a $50 million jury verdict against Wal-Mart on the grounds that a "hostile environment" was created by her supervisor's yelling at both male and female employees. In another case, a plaintiff won a $250,000 award for sexual harassment based on her complaint that a male colleague had reached for a pastry saying, "Nothing I like more in the morning than sticky buns," while "wriggl(ing)" his eyebrows.

It got so crazy that a 6-year-old boy was suspended from class for a day for kissing a classmate on the cheek, and a Goya painting had to be removed from a Penn State classroom because a professor complained that it constituted sexual harassment.

With no standard other than the subjective offense taken by the accuser, absolutely anyone could be called a witch, i.e., a sexual harasser. So it's striking that the only two conservative public figures accused of being witches both happened to be conservative blacks: Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Our sales are up.....

We actually had a $12 bonus for last quarter and expect a bigger one this Xmas. Even local real estate is selling  here and there are  jobs to be found in the area.

Internationally, the banks are toast and could screw us over if, as I expect, we see a few countries default and take the banking system down. (I hope you have an account with a local credit union and beat the rush.)

If so, my Social Security check should be large enough to buy a villa in Greece or Italy, LOL.

Speaking of SS, rumor has it that the Dem's are conniving with the Repub's to "save Social Security" by stealing the money from my kids so they can chase goat herders in the Middle East.

If so, we will see a lot of new faces in Congress because Social Security funds are separate from the general funds unless these crooks rob the fund.

And then we need to vote the bastards out!

In the meantime, I'm on a get out of debt move so Patti can  retire early and visit the kids before she becomes to ill to do it. I'll stay at Walmart and find a few investments or start another business.

keep you posted.

 

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Keep your eye on the prize....

Many people on Wall Street want our Social Security taxes spent on Wall Street schemes and scams. If they can get it then they will have billions more to play with.

Do we not remember what they did with all that money from 401k's and government housing money?

Well?

They killed the fucking economy!

It's not often I side with the left but taking our money that we pay into the government for 40 years is war. Or do you think they will do better next time and we can trust them.

Social Security Bait And Switch, A Continuing Series - NYTimes.com
I’ve written about this repeatedly in the past, but here it is again: Social Security is a program that is part of the federal budget, but is by law supported by a dedicated source of revenue. This means that there are two ways to look at the program’s finances: in legal terms, or as part of the broader budget picture.

In legal terms, the program is funded not just by today’s payroll taxes, but by accumulated past surpluses — the trust fund. If there’s a year when payroll receipts fall short of benefits, but there are still trillions of dollars in the trust fund, what happens is, precisely, nothing — the program has the funds it needs to operate, without need for any Congressional action.

Alternatively, you can think about Social Security as just part of the federal budget. But in that case, it’s just part of the federal budget; it doesn’t have either surpluses or deficits, no more than the defense budget.

Both views are valid, depending on what questions you’re trying to answer.

What you can’t do is insist that the trust fund is meaningless, because SS is just part of the budget, then claim that some crisis arises when receipts fall short of payments, because SS is a standalone program. Yet that’s exactly what the WaPo claims.

This is what you call negative journalistic value added.

Monday, October 31, 2011

This is a serious scientific article.....

And people wonder why I'm skeptical of Evolutionary Theory. Just read this whole thing and you will see someone trying to make a case for life acquiring characteristics in virtually overnight circumstances and retaining them.

But no proof other than Evolution must have happened so the only evidence considered has to fit into the theory.

Now will someone explain to me why this is any different than Bible thumpers quoting genesis! 

Mountain beavers evolved thicker teeth to eat volcanoes
It all goes back to those teeth. The mountain beavers have hypsodonty, meaning their teeth are high crowned and extend way past the gum line. This, along with the extra thickness of the teeth, provides a lot of room for extra wear and tear. It's a feature that cows and horses have evolved to deal with the relatively gritty, fibrous material - grass, basically - that they usually eat. The problem is that mountain beavers don't eat anything like that.

Now Samantha Hopkins of the University of Oregon has the answer. The mountain beavers don't need those teeth now, but they did about 10 to 15 million years ago, which is when these teeth features first appear in the fossil record. During that span, the volcanoes in the Yellowstone hotspot and Columbia River Basalts had frequent minor eruptions, spewing out huge swathes of volcanic dust that blanketed the mountain beavers' habitat.

This unexpected volcanic seasoning turned a bunch of soft plants into gritty chunks of silicon. The mountain beavers had to basically eat their way out of this volcanic age, and they developed suitably thick teeth to survive. What's particularly remarkable is how isolated this effect was - while the mountain beavers in the northwestern United States and Canada had to develop these hypsodont teeth, their counterparts just a hundred miles away in the Sierra Nevada had no such need. There were still volcanoes down there, but they apparently didn't reach teeth-changing levels of intensity.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

As I've posted before....

Send everybody a big check and we will spend or save it and some banks and companies will survive and some wont.

That means campaign bribery wont mean squat so don't hold your breath but that is the cure even if right wingers think it's socialism or something.

P.s Nixon, a conservative, gave us the earned income tax and that's pretty much a big check for being poor and having babies. So, call it an earned income tax for the rest of us.

Click on the jump and read the whole article.

interfluidity » Monetary policy for the 21st century
Here’s my proposal. We should try to arrange things so that the marginal unit of CPI is purchased with “helicopter drop” money. That is, rather than trying to fine-tune wages, asset prices, or credit, central banks should be in the business of fine tuning a rate of transfers from the bank to the public. During depressions and disinflations, the Fed should be depositing funds directly in bank accounts at a fast clip. During booms, the rate of transfers should slow to a trickle. We could reach the “zero bound”, but a different zero bound than today’s zero interest rate bugaboo. At the point at which the Fed is making no transfers yet inflation still threatens, the central bank would have to coordinate with Congress to do “fiscal policy” in the form of negative transfers, a.k.a. taxes. However, this zero bound would be reached quite rarely if we allow transfers to displace credit expansion as the driver of money growth in the economy. In other words, at the same time as we expand the use of “helicopter money” in monetary policy, we should regulate and simplify banks, impose steep capital requirements, and relish complaints that this will “reduce credit availability”. The idea is to replace the macroeconomic role of bank credit with freshly issued cash.

Of course we will still need investors. But all that transfered money will become somebody’s savings, and having reduced the profitability of leveraged financial intermediaries, much of that will find its way to some form of equity investing.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Does it make sense to save money?....

If your interest payment is 1% and inflation plus taxes is 5% why pile up money and lose your principle. In the depression times we are experiencing we might better borrow, right?

So how do we set this up?

How about a free and clear credit card for emergencies and using personal loans for shopping for large purchases?

I'm not neglecting retirement accounts like my 401k which has a match of 6% so if Patti and I put in $5000 a year Walmart puts in a matching $5000. (It's amazing that so few contribute!)

Anyways, my thinking is to continue to pay off my vehicle loans and then use the free and clear vehicles as collateral for 4 percent loans.

Make sense?

Now, I have my old pickup truck free and clear and can also use it as an emergency fund so I can relax as far as that goes. Should be able to get $5000 if I need it so I'm resting easy right now, how about you?

Friday, October 28, 2011

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Well, this weekend I put the garden to bed....

Below 30 temperatures did a number on it but that's Idaho for you. have a ton of Bell peppers and tomatoes this year and can't wait  til next.

Will post a Youtube vid this week end.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I'm for Cain.....

Be fun to see Obama go after Cain for being a real American black. Or something. Of course, all Obama has to do is run on his record.

Here's a list of some his accomplishments:

Lost a filibuster proof Congress, passed a health care bill that no one knows what's in it and no one wants it, bailed out his pay masters on Wall Street, raised the price of used cars, revitalized the Republican party that was dead in 2008, threatened to cut Social Security and Medicare if the Republicans would only agree and destroy their election chances, and gave a lot of speeches that no one remembers.

There's probably more great accomplishments but nobody cares.

Now can he be beat?

It would be tough for Romney, a liberal Republican, to even do as well as McCain in 2008. At least Mac was a war hero to soften his Liberal image and Romney is a super rich guy who wears funny underwear.

Perry, a lot of money on hand, can stick around for quit awhile. He sounds like Bush only dumber so some liberal media types will keep him around.

So that leaves the Republican black guy. Lot of fun on TV, libertarian (not liberal) on abortion,  pro military spending, pays lip service to budget balancing, etc. Only thing he has to do is talk up Obama's economic non policy and remind people that Oba mama is a liar.

The rest are of the Republican field is toast because the media likes controversy and Cain v.s Obama is it and the white guys (and Bachman) are boring!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

i don't think killing Middle East dictators is working....

Every time we do oil prices sky rocket. Guess what that means for you and me.

Notice no one is talking about it now as proof is in the pudding.. Take apart the Empire and we all suffer.

Must be a lesson here somewhere, don't you think?

Monday, October 24, 2011

This will end badly......

Now the gang will need to bail out the new loans and pay off these. Pretty soon all the Euros in the world will have to be borrowed to bail out the current loans.

Can you spell PONZI!

Most Greek bailout money has gone to pay off bondholders - The Washington Post
BRUSSELS — More than half of the money lent to Greece so far by the International Monetary Fund and European nations has gone to repay bondholders, a transfer of billions of dollars from taxpayers around the world to European banks and pension funds that invested in the troubled Mediterranean nation.

As the country struggles with a collapsing economy, violent strikes and historic levels of unemployment, a new analysis of an international bailout program shows the degree to which money provided to support Greece has been used to pay off its debts to the private sector.

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 These leaders run the institutions that control interest rates and monetary policies that have been making recent headlines.

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Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Johannes Jooste, portfolio strategist at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, discusses European Central Bank monetary policy and its bond-purchase program. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "On the Move." (Source: Bloomberg)

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Johannes Jooste, portfolio strategist at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, discusses European Central Bank monetary policy and its bond-purchase program. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "On the Move." (Source: Bloomberg)

More on this Story

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Most Greek bailout money has gone to pay off bondholders
PHOTOS: Exploring the worst-case scenarios
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Under an initial bailout program approved by the IMF and the European Union in May 2010, Greece’s government has been kept afloat by international loans that total $91 billion.

About $52 billion of that has been used to repay bonds that came due between the start of the program and last month, according to a review of the program done for European leaders gathered in Brussels to address financial problems in the 17-nation euro zone.

European banks are among the heaviest investors in Greek bonds. Officials in some developing countries have argued that the IMF, run by a European-dominated board and two consecutive French managing directors, seemed more interested in protecting private investors in Europe than it did when overseeing programs that wiped out dozens of banks during the Asian financial crisis.