Meredith Whitney Predicting Municipal Defaults After July 1st, Greece Passes Austerity Measures (Again), and Lindsey Lohan Warning on Inflation?

Meredith Whitney is back with more predictions of municipal defaults after July 1st when many state budgets are due:

"What you'll see now is as the states are submitting final budgets, you'll see the real pain at the municipal level start happening July 1. That will intensify and that's where you'll see the fallout."

"When I come up with numbers of the defaults, I can think of dozens of large ones off the top of my head..."

I can think of one right now too, the city I have the pleasure of working in known as Harrisburg, PA. With stimulus money running dry, I guess we will see what happens in a few days as more and more states continue to pass their budgets.

Well, with many states adopting austerity measures amid heightened costs of state workers, services, and falling tax revenue, the trend continues over to Greece today as the parliament there approved the hugely unpopular austerity measures that guarantee them another bailout.  I can literally hear the can being in my head right now.  Of course anyone with a brain knows that the bailout really isn't for the people but for the banks exposed to Greek debt.  So is this kind of reaction really that surprising?

(Reuters) - Greek protesters hurled projectiles at a ruling party lawmaker outside parliament on Wednesday after he backtracked and voted in favour of austerity measures.
A group of around 20 demonstrators threw bottles and a chair at PASOK deputy Alexandros Athanasiadis as he was escorted by five policemen after leaving the parliament building following a vote which approved the unpopular austerity law.

Yesterday, Charles Hugh Smith of Of Two Minds had a great post on Why Greece is Kleptocracy:

Here's the real dynamic in Greece: The Kleptocracy--broadly, the political and financial Elites of the nation--saw a stupendous opportunity to embezzle hundreds of billions of euros from greed-blinded European banks at super-low rates of interest.
Being kleptocrats, they sniffed out the basics of the bezzle right away, and have been playing it ever since: we're not paying any of these loans back, so go get the money from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the German taxpayers, or declare bankruptcy. Your choice.
The Greek kleptocrats knew all along that the German, Dutch, French and Finnish taxpayers were easy marks, just as they knew the European Union Power Elites would fall all over themselves to "save the euro" which was the centerpiece of their "one Europe" strategy of domination.

Today, Smith takes on the America in the The U.S. is a Kleptocracy, Too:

The U.S. is truly a kleptocracy because its political leadership actually has no interest in limiting the banking/financial cartel. When questioned why their "reforms" are so toothless, legislators wring their hands and bleat, "Honest, I wanted to limit the banks but they're too powerful." Spoken like a true kleptocrat.
2. Our stock markets are dominated by insiders. It is estimated that some 70% of all shares traded are exchanged in private "dark pools" operated by the TBTF banks and Wall Street, and the majority of the remaining 30% of publicly traded shares are traded by high-frequency trading machines that hold the shares for a few seconds, or however long is needed to skim the advantages offered by proximity to the exchange and speed.
If that's your idea of an "open market," then you're the ideal citizen for a kleptocracy.

Though I am against the idea of politicians "limiting" the banking and financial cartel, I am certainly not in favor of them being helped out either.  The solution isn't a reimplementation of Glass-Steagal but the abolishment of the banks' biggest welfare supplier, the Federal Reserve.

Looks like Lindsey Lohan of all people agrees in a tweet:

Have you guys seen food and gas prices lately? U.S. $ will soon be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money! http://spn.tw/t1exbE #adless than a minute ago via Sponsored Tweets Favorite Retweet ReplyLindsay Lohan
lindsaylohan

Apparently the National Inflation Association paid Lohan to put this up, which was genius on their part.

I will end with a load of what Barry Ritholtz calls "chart porn:"
First is this awesomely large chart of the 2008 financial crisis and all the key players:

Next up is gasoline taxes by states:

Here is the share of the U.S. population by age:

Looks like the baby boomers will be sucking my generation dry soon enough.  This gives me a bit of hope though:

I guess all that greed and excess of the last century really wasn't so bad after all.  Let's hope the 21st is even better, at least for my generation's sake.