“The Fed encouraged debt refinancing, but we need debt extinguishment,”

So says Peter Boockvar.  He is an “equity strategist”, quoted here.

Businesses are piling up cash, but piling up debt even more.  So are individuals.  So is the government.

Minus the cash part for the latter two.

Boockvar goes on:  “It’s bought time, but it doesn’t deal with the fundamental problem.”

Right.  How do you deal with the “fundamental problem”, which is debt?

Pay it.  Or refinance it.  Or liquidate it.  Or cancel it.

The first and third are impossible, as a practical matter.  The second has been the plan over the last four years since the “crisis” began.  It has proven possible in part, albeit only in the short term; but it’s now looking like an increasingly unworkable combination of the first and third alternatives, with the burden falling on those least able to bear it and who, let’s face it, have begun to resist and riot.

That leaves the last option:  cancel it.  Not just some of it, but all of it.  Start over.

With something like this.

 

Live Stream OWS (Update) (x2)

Found here.

Meanwhile, it appears that the police “crackdown” that quite obviously occurred almost simultaneously in many places across the country at once was indeed centrally coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security, just as it appeared.

Quite an ominous development, actually.

Update:  According to some multiple sourced twitter traffic as of about 10 PM (#n17), the NYPD has estimated the size of the crowd of protesters at about 32,000.

That’s an event, for sure.

Update 2:  BBC video from the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan.