Sunday, September 14, 2008

Time To Pass The Baton At BendBubble2

First I have to re-post a great cartoon from over on Dunc's blog:


That about sums it up, right there. Lib's in a festering ball of rage over Palin. BAM! McPain just barely taps the knee to get the reflex-action going.

I throw out a little McPain love, and the Lib-Musketeers of BB2 (Brucey, Dunc, and a variety of hbm's) come out guns blazing.

Duncan McGeary said...

Yeah, but I'm not thinking it's funny.

There are some pretty sick minds here.

I'm with HBM.

"...the troll stink in here is overpowering. Hasta manana, maybe."

Oy. Played like a fiddle. By Buster, no less.

hbm said...

Gotta go -- the troll stink in here is overpowering. Hasta manana, maybe.

And brucey-kins has posted a vast litany of Bush-hatin' goodness:

bruce said...

It's hard to run on your record of the last eight years, six of which you controlled Congress and the Executive. And the last two years you stopped anything you didn't agree with by making the Senate unable to stop filibusters.

When your signature foreign achievement is a multi-trillion dollar quagmire in Iraq, and your signature national achievement is Medicare Part D, with it's prohibition on bargaining over drug prices with the drug companies and a donut hole big enough to sink a blue-hairs Buick halfway through the year, all you can do is run on lies and innuendo, hoping people believe that you will run things differently the next time.


Even when you have the exact same guys behind the scenes. And as long as a significant percentage of Americans watch Faux News, they actually have a chance.

The Homer Simpson channel, run by Reagan/Bush Sr comunications advisor Roger Ailes, will fight for the Repubs right to the bitter end.

Oy.

What's funny/sad is I have so many bionic-liberal friends (this is Bend, CA after all), who don't even identify with the Democratic Party anymore, because they are moving left at such a rapid speed, that even the Dem's sound like corporate suckups, spewing Nazi bile.

Repugs? Well, they insist they don't even know what the Repug Party is about anymore. White Noise. Some sort of Phantom. Menace.

Diane: Ahhh... this is probably going to be seem a little strange. We hear better on this channel. Don't ask me why. Well... ah... I guess I will call her. Carol Anne. Ah... i t's mommy, sweetheart. Ah, we want to talk to you. Please answer me baby. Please answer me. Please talk to me, bunny.

Marty: Look at the dog.

Diane: Are you with us now? Can you... can you say hello to daddy?

Carol Anne: Hello, daddy.

Steve: Hello, sweetpea.

Diane: It's mommy, sweetheart.

Carol Anne: Hello, mommy.

Diane: Hello, baby. Can you see me? Can you see mommy?

Carol Anne: Mommy? Where are you? Where are you?

Diane: We're home, baby. We're home. Can you find me? Can you find a way to us, baby?

Carol Anne: Mommy, where are you? I can't find you. I can't. I'm afraid of the Light, mommy. I'm afraid of the Light.

This is a standard conversation with my liberal friends. Like talking to a possessed appliance, or something. No one understands it. Even I don't at times.

This is the Achilles Heal of The Lib's, and they don't get it.

The Neo-CON-VICTS are UNAPOLOGETICALLY engaged in RePugnant behavior that would make a fucking billygoat puke, AS USUAL. But they are still engaging MIDDLE AMERIKKKA, that vast bulge of sister-fucking hillbillies, called The Bible Belt.

But the Lib's have gone off on some idealistic race to The Left, to see who can distance themselves from G-Dub's the fastest, and in the most sweeping, radical way they can.

Quoth The Ravin':

Willie Horton Revisited

Written by H. Bruce Miller

Saturday, 13 September 2008

The Fall Slime Season is in full swing. If you doubt it, check out the two new TV ads just put out by Gordon Smith. In a tactic reminiscent of George H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton ad in the 1988 presidential campaign, the Republican senator’s ads try to portray Smith’s opponent, Jeff Merkley, as coddling child rapists.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

NOOOOOOOOO! AHHHHHHHH!

Willy Week: Smith's Food Plant Hires Illegal Workers
Written by H. Bruce Miller

Thursday, 11 September 2008

Although details are sketchy, Willamette Week is reporting that Gordon Smith’s frozen food plant near Pendleton has been employing illegal immigrants for years.

I repeat:

hbm said...

Gotta go -- the troll stink in here is overpowering. Hasta manana, maybe.

Now, see the problem with this DUMBFUCK STRATEGY is that Lib's are leaving the ELECTION WIDE OPEN TO McPAIN.

The Lib's think this is about BEING RIGHT. The RePUG's know better. It's about WINNING.

The Dem's are moving left, LEFT OF EVERYTHING & EVERYBODY, in an attempt to distance themselves from Gee-Dub, possibly the worst President of the United States, if you don't count Hitler, Satan or Jeebus.

GeeDub's may actually be the reason The Pug's are re-elected.

Imagine a beach, walled off at both ends. And the beachgoers are dispersed absolutely evenly across the beach. This beach has only 2 snack vendors. The vendors are identical in every way, price, products, everything. Pure commodities. There is only one determining factor about which vendor to choose: The distance away from the vendor.

Traditional American Politics resembles this situation quite closely, and it should be no surprise that what is ultimately achieved is a sort of Unstable Equilibrium, where the vendors move towards center, jockeying for position by millimeters in the center of the beach, despite the fact that there is a vast underserved population on the periphery of the beach.

American voters resemble this situation, except they fall more along a bell curve, with right & left wing freaks on the edge, and the Big Fat-Ass Sister Fucking Tubby Middle. For better or worse, this group actually puts people in office.

And the vendors gravitate towards this center EVERY FOUR YEARS. Like clockwork.

But this year, we're going to have CHANGE! Oh yes. Change. So, Oh-Uni decides to make a stand, and move away from The Middle, and goes LEFT... just a little.

And just because he's a little closer to some people wayyyyyyyyyyyy out on the left edge of the beach, and because the other guy has been linked to salmonella, he gains a pretty good flock of new customers in a short time. Some from too far left to frequent either vendor in a long time, they just went without.

Now the other guy sees this, and does nothing. His business was not so great to begin with, and it's still OK, but he feels worse cuz it seems like the other guy just got a bonanza for doing nothing.

So then the other guy goes left a little more. And he gets some more.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

And so it goes with the LEFTY vendor quite a ways from Center & doing pretty well for himself.

But then the guy in the middle decides to move left, because there are some people who are between him & LEFTY that he can EASILY pick up. LEFTY has gone quite a ways left and left a BIG FUCKING GAP IN THE MIDDLE.

So RIGHTY moves LEFT. And he picks up customers. Quite a few, in fact. He was going to MIRROR LEFTY's move, and go RIGHT at first, but then he thought about it: Why cater to those wayyyyyyyy out to the right? Fuck them. Move left. In fact, move left with impunity. Follow LEFTY!

This is a clusterfuck for the Dem's: They HAVE TO appear to be the George Bush Anti-Christ's. Again, Worst AmeriKKKan President since Idi Amin.

But this GAP is what McPAIN & EVERY FUCKING RePug with half a fucking brain is moving into. There isn't a RePug TV spot that doesn't disavow ass-fucking Geo-Dub's EVERY FUCKING DAY for the past 8 years, despite the fact that Lib's & RePug's alike have sucked at the Bush Mega-Cock. Yeah, you fuckers voted into Law the Iraq War just as much as any Newt Gingrich Nazi dumbshit.

Look at the TV: Gordon Smith is running ads 24/7 about how he is GeeDub Hater. Why? Why is he "abandoning" the folks on the beach wayyyyyyyy off to the right?

Because he can. The Lib's, many, like my friend, so far left, they are dry humping the leftist wall, and can't hear ANYTHING over the humpage. These people are not even going to VOTE DEM! They are going to either vote Cynthia McKinney, who is right there with them, humping the wall. Or, they'll fall back to Old Reliable and vote Nader for the 45th election in a row.

And there appear to be many of these Left Wall-Huggers, which is why the Oh-Uni-Bomber started moving left to begin with. They would HOP OFF THE WALL & VOTE DEM if we JUST MOVED FAR ENOUGH LEFT, GAT DAMMIT!

And so like Howard Dean, they start marching that way. Now, the Oh-Bomber has kept a fucking fork in his pocket to stab himself in the leg every time he gains some traction, unlike Dean who got 6-7 Wall Huggers to jump off, and promptly self-destructed.

The Oh-Uni-Bomber has, to date, done it with a deft skill that puts many of his predecessors to shame. He's slick. He's well mannered. He's racially correct, which for a black dude, means he hasn't killed 3 wives, beat 5 kids to death, and contracted the AID's.

So he is smooth. But the fucker is still moving left. A little persistent voice is still telling him: Distance yourself from Gee-Dub & you shalt be welcomed into The Heavenly Gates.

And so he does. Closely followed by the other guy(s). A whole country moving LEFT, it seems.

But, it's really an illusion. The Vast Middle doesn't give a shit about "faggots, queers, niggers, or dykes", and they never will. They will vote the party FARTHEST away from that shit that they can.

And that party is STILL The Re-Capstone-Butt-Pugs. The bell curve isn't moving, but the parties are moving left, because the right has been poisoned by The Powers That Be.

And Oh-Uni-Bomber is almost to The Left Wall, with McPain, Gordo, and a host of other Re-Pluggers running, not walking, as fast as they can behind him, all trying to distance themselves from The BushCo Nightmare.

That WHOLE RIGHT FLANK is going to start walking to the polls (ie beach vendors) this November, and the first thing they'll find is McPAIN. Even a lot of Centerist Dem's will find McPAIN before they get to Oh-Uni-Bomber.

Think about it Libby's. You're handing it to us on a platter.

OK. I've been writing this crazy mixed-up blog for almost 2 years now. There has been some crazy shit happen since BEM handed the reigns off to.... some dude he didn't even know.

Remember, a fresh-faced CACB Shorter, selling at $32, and then covering at $24 or so, with an almost visible sigh of relief, and a bit of braggadocio.
Cracker Ass Cracker Broke, 2 yr chart

Little did he know this thing would implode down to the $6's.

Even recently, there was the Bear Stearns fiasco. Can't show you a chart because it is largely taxpayer owned, and the gub-ment hates charts.

Or Fannie. Or Freddie. Fannie went from $68/sh to 68 cents over the past 12 months. 99% LOSS on the largest holder of mortgages ON EARTH. DOWN 99%.
Fannie Mae, 1 yr.

Here's a BusWeek piece outlining The Nightmare Scenario:

The Nightmare

So we're golden, right? Well, maybe not. In the vicious-circle scenario, Treasury's intervention ends up being a replay of Japan's ill-fated effort to prop up crippled banks in the 1990s. Increasing the availability of credit delays—but does not prevent—the full price decline needed to clear out the daunting overhang of nearly 4.7 million unsold existing homes as of July.

As the lender of last resort, the government throws good money after bad, first on housing and then on airlines, automakers, and other supplicants. All this against an undeniable backdrop of rising federal deficits: The Congressional Budget Office predicted this month that the federal budget deficit would remain above $400 billion annually from 2008 through 2010, up from about $160 billion in 2007.

In the nightmare scenario, the descent into quasi-socialism balloons the national debt and wrecks foreign investors' faith in the economy. That's the vision sketched out by ultra-bears like Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, a brokerage in Darien, Conn. Schiff is passionate on the topic: "The dollar is going to go through the floor, interest rates are going to spike up, and we're going to have a complete financial meltdown. It's going to be the worst-case scenario."

A different school of pessimists says the housing market actually does need a big adrenaline shot from the government. But they say it's unlikely to get one from either a McCain or an Obama Administration because the risk to taxpayers from a much bigger commitment to housing would be deemed too great. The only real beneficiaries of the takeover are the holders of Fannie and Freddie securities, who are bailed out of their bad investment choices, says Robert I. Kessler, CEO of Kessler Cos., a Denver investment firm. Says Kessler: "It's a great thing for the big banks. I don't see any benefit whatsoever to consumers."

Specifically, the Fan-Fred takeover does nothing to help homeowners who can't refinance a home loan because their property is assessed for less than they owe. It also may not be enough to draw in buyers, who are focused more on the risk of declining home values than on the upside of a slightly lower mortgage rate. "I've sat in open houses, and you just can't get people to make an offer," says Edward Cudahy Spalding, a real estate broker in Fort Lauderdale. "You've got to reinflate values in the housing market. I don't know how you do that."

Without more relief for homeowners and consumers, the housing-led recession is likely to deepen. In this vicious-circle scenario, the housing slump depresses consumer spending, leading to job cuts and thus forcing even more foreclosures and bigger spending reductions—in other words, the mirror image of the virtuous circle. Vulnerable sectors include finance; nonresidential construction, which tends to follow homebuilding downward with a lag; and retail, which has so far lost only a modest number of jobs nationally relative to the size of the sector.

Away from Wall Street, the mood is glum. Douglas S. Bartlett, owner of Bartlett Manufacturing, a maker of printed-circuit boards in Cary, Ill., says competition from China has forced him to cut employment nearly two-thirds since 2000, to 87. He hasn't felt any reprieve from the dollar's recent depreciation against China's currency. Says Bartlett: "Fortunately for us, there's been enough of our competitors going out of business that we're able to pick up their work." In Sacramento, restaurateur Ali Mackani was forced to shut down his fashionable Restaurant 55 Degrees shortly after Labor Day because of slower-than-expected commercial and residential development in the area, which he had been counting on to produce customers.

Today's business failures ripple across the economy, triggering more failures. And when the financial system is crippled by losses, the hoped-for V-shaped recovery can flatten out into a wide-bottomed U, says Dan North, chief economist of Euler Hermes ACI, a North American unit of Germany's Allianz Group (AZ) that insures accounts receivable. North says that because of business failures, the number of insurance claims processed by his company was up 80% in the first six months of 2008 compared with a year earlier.

I actually see this country becoming an also-ran on the Worlds Economic stage. This thing will cripple us.

The title of this piece is, "The Economy: Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios". This alone should make you wonder: Why are these people STILL wondering about a BEST CASE SCENARIO? Has it even happened ONCE?

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac fucking collapsed last week. Lehman will not survive the day. These fuckers are standing on the deck of the Titanic, at a 45 degree angle, and are debating Best Case & Worst Case Scenarios. Yeah. I'm sure this fucking ship will right itself by magic, and we'll end up safe & sound in NYC Harbor if we just think positive.

The Shire went belly up, Thank God. Soon to be followed by Tuscan Buttplugs of AmeriKKKA, and a raft of other imbecilic ideas. Pollock built what is the Quintessential STD-fest in Forum Meadows, which is probably World-renowned for the Biggest Fucking Weeds ever. Here is a picture I took last week:

House in Forum Meadows, obscured by Worlds Largest Weed

Let's not forget Randy Flesh-Eating-Virus Sebastian.
Hi, I'm Randy Sebastian, and my asshole whistles when the wind blows, cuz I've done been fucked by The Bend Oregon Housing Market (The BOHM)! Plus I got the motherfucking Flesh Eating AIDS!

Can't forget Becky Breeze, the Matriarch of Bend Realty Agents. This woman made her first million through 25 years of hard work, persistence, and persevering through the toughest market in the USA. Then she proceeded to lose it all in 18 months due to RE greed-fueled Kool-Aid overdose, administered by her pimp, Umpqua Bank.

We've watch Desert Skeeze crash through the $100/sf barrier. We saw COBA & Costa ethics vanish like a ghosts fart. We'll soon see many more fall, including our proud City itself, which will soon go broke. We can only hope every fucking City Councilor in Bend is ass-fucked by Gayniggers from Outer Space. In jail.
Where Randy Sebastian? I'm gonna tear that White Shit Up!

And not to mention the THOUSANDS of KICK ASS COMMENTS. All culminating in a hell of a onslaught, the likes of which I certainly have not seen anywhere before.
Holy Shit! We hit The K-Burger...

So we've had Good Times. But there have also been some Bad Times. The Audia - McDonald, et al suicides come to mind. Despite what others think about me -- that I'm a blood-thirsty dingo that would love nothing more than to rush into a neo-natal unit & tear the throats of 20 dying babies -- I am actually bothered when Bad Things Happen To People.

And killing yourself is an indication that people are getting a little too Involved in this thing. Yes, it's an RE bubble, and there'll be some Winners & Losers... but KILLING YOURSELF? I mean, come on. Don't fucking kill yourself over this thing. That's just fucking crazy.

Shit there was even THE OUTTING of IHateToBasteYourButterball! AHHH! I've been OUTTED! OH NOOOOO!

OK, joking aside, it's still sort of weird, cuz someone was hoping some BODILY HARM would just happen to befall yours truly. THAT is how serious these local loons are about their RE. They are willing to KILL or DIE for their cause.

I mean, DUNC (yes DUNC) -- a guy I forwarded as MAYOR -- started spewing like a Playa Hate Uh to ME!

Duncan McGeary said...

Yeah, but I'm not thinking it's funny.

There are some pretty sick minds here.

I'm with HBM.

"...the troll stink in here is overpowering. Hasta manana, maybe."

WHAT! He's talking MEXICAN! Oh no! What the hell's he saying? OH SHIT!

And I am starting to read general economic pieces that exceed mine in their dire prognostications:

Bailouts Will Push US into Depression

"We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe," Hennecke said on "Worldwide Exchange."

Admittedly, this is a fucking dumbass frog, and the sort of Depression France should go through is one caused by a volley of fucking THERMONUCLEAR WARHEADS that we rain down on their ass. Fuckers. I WILL NOT forget Libya.

Anyway, it's been a pretty weird couple of years. The RE Bust when from a DENIERS sort of phenomenon to Story One on the National News every night, as well as the Number 1 political hot potato. For the love of Christ, The Bulletin & KTVZ are actually running negative piece once in awhile. That's a fucking miracle.

Cascade Business News is not. And I do not expect them to. Ever.
Pamla The Incredible Hulce Andrews: Super Retard to The Rescue!

But I think I've said my piece. It's time for someone else to have a go. Besides, as I've said before, I sort of "positioned" myself Delta Negative on this Housing Bust. So I started out this thing with not a lot of work & a whole lot'a bloggin'. But the tables have turned, and I am working more hours than I ever have in my life. And sometimes I hit the keyboard at the Wii hours of a Sunday morning to bust out a post, cuz I'm working like a dog, even on weekends.

But fear not, I'm going to leave BB2 up, alive & kicking. My plan is to do a few more "Open Post" weeks, where I just have a token post entry to break up the comments into more manageable sizes. Thousand fucking comments is a lot to sort through. But pretty soon BB2 will go the way of the doo-doo. Yes Timmy, I said DOO-DOO.

My hope is that someone starts BB3, or the like. It's still a hell of a popular topic. Fuck.... 1,000 comments in a week in a little po-dunk town like Bend, on a topic as narrow as the RE bubble? That shit is begging for an outlet. And the failure of Big Bend Media, despite their acknowledging it, is still grossly inadequate.

I took over this thing from BEM, wayyyyy back in late 2006, back when BEM wrote these word on Dec 17, 2006:

A transitional period

Soon enough this blog will be shut off. Not because I'm less interested in Bend's economy, but because the level of attention I was paying to it was unsustainable.

I guess the same goes for me. I don't want to start neglecting this crazy thing. I've had a hell of a time with it. Shit... I had no idea I could write so much. Or maybe Buster is right; I wrote the same fucking thing 200 different ways. I don't know.

I guess I had a great time responding to BEM & others at his blog. He would start a thread & there would be a hell of an exchange. Well, back in the Dark Ages of blogging in Bend circa 2006, BEM's blog would get 45 comments & we thought we were Kings of the World. It was awesome!

But I think I've taken a lot of what was in my head, we have thrashed the hell outta the topic, and then we moved on. But I think someone else needs to "start the threads" for awhile. At least I hope someone will.

And I guess I should put forth what are principles that worked for me: I started this blog with the idea that there would be ZERO INTERVENTION in the comments. I never deleted a single comment, EVER. I'm really not sure how I'm seeing some of those "Deleted by author" placeholders in the comments. I didn't think that was possible. Maybe you guys see something I don't. I don't even know how to delete my own comments.

Hmmmm, point is, there is another Skywalker... nope wait, there is another blog on roughly the same topic, but for some whacked reason, it's moderators feel the need to collect IP's, and ban people, and, well, basically MEDDLE. I hate that. And as we saw with THE BECKY BREEZE FIASCO, it never works. If you're going to start something, open 'er up. It's going to hurt, cuz folks are going to stick a White Hot Poker up your babies ass. OK, that's just part of the deal.

But if you don't open things up, you'll end up with dogshit. Not to point fingers, I'm just saying. Even encourage "flowery:" comments: I have personally used the terms "smelly fucking cunt", "who's got the trench cunt", and "your cunt smells like a hobo died taking a shit in an open-pit sewer" at least 100X on this blog so as to let the guard down of commenting women, children, and Buster, a well-known Super Cunt.

Think about it: What has been the cornerstone for this blog's "success"? My riveting posts? My Lord, no. No, it's because Buster, brucey, Tim, hbm, et al can actually carry on an open, honest debate without FILTERS. Without bullshit. That Buster calls all of us stinking cunt losers is just a bonus.

Just think. It's going to be real tempting to moderate comments FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. You're thinking it right now, Brucey. Lib reflex. Would you have liked it if I DID THAT? OK? Don't moderate. People will just go to BendBB.

Anyway, I also suppose I don't want to end up like one of those fuckers that hangs on too long and keeps going long past their prime. Like Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, or Rush Limbaugh. I can tell it's time for someone else to take over....

What a long strange trip it's been. And I have had a hell of a time. But it's time to hand the reigns to someone else.

Truckin got my chips cashed in. keep truckin, like the do-dah man
Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin on.

Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on main street.
Chicago, new york, detroit and its all on the same street.
Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.

Dallas, got a soft machine; houston, too close to new orleans;
New yorks got the ways and means; but just wont let you be, oh no.

Most of the cast that you meet on the streets speak of true love,
Most of the time theyre sittin and cryin at home.
One of these days they know they better get goin
Out of the door and down on the streets all alone.

Truckin, like the do-dah man. once told me youve got to play your hand
Sometimes your cards aint worth a dime, if you dont layem down,

Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.

What in the world ever became of sweet jane?
She lost her sparkle, you know she isnt the same
Livin on reds, vitamin c, and cocaine,
All a friend can say is aint it a shame?

Truckin, up to buffalo. been thinkin, you got to mellow slow
Takes time, you pick a place to go, and just keep truckin on.

Sittin and starin out of the hotel window.
Got a tip theyre gonna kick the door in again
Id like to get some sleep before I travel,
But if you got a warrant, I guess youre gonna come in.

Busted, down on bourbon street, set up, like a bowlin pin.
Knocked down, it gets to wearin thin. they just wont let you be, oh no.

Youre sick of hangin around and youd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin and you want to settle down.
I guess they cant revoke your soul for tryin,
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.

Truckin, Im a goin home. whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin on.
Hey now get back truckin home.

Rock on, my brothers.

Feel FREE to use the comments to organize, link & otherwise coordinate BendBubble3, or some such, to your hearts content!

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Anonymous said...

It's official, $100B of US funds to rescue LEHMAN, AIPAC said jump, and DUMBYA/PAULSON said how high.

*

The Wall Street Journal


Sept. 16, 2008

The Federal Reserve is considering an $85 billion rescue for embattled American International Group that could leave the government in control of the firm, according to people familiar with the matter, though the structure of a deal remains unclear.

The plan under consideration late Tuesday involved the Federal Reserve providing AIG with a secured bridge loan in return for warrants, the people said. AIG would commit to sell a basket of assets within a certain timeframe and offer incentives to buyers to complete the sales quickly.

Anonymous said...

BP the following is in BIDEN's own word's. DO you know who BIDEN is pussy??

***

Obama sponsored a bill that became law ?

Before he bowed out of the race, Sen. Joe Biden dismissed the legislative accomplishments of three Democratic primary rivals with whom he served. About Barack Obama, he said, “Barack Obama hasn’t passed any."

By that wording, Biden is wrong.

Obama, who was sworn into office in January 2005, spent much of his time in the Senate taking a high-profile position as spokesman for Democrats’ efforts to overhaul congressional ethics standards, including his own bid to make Senate colleagues pay the full charter rate, rather than first-class airfare, for rides in corporate jets. The effort drew the ire of such senior senators as Ted Stevens of Alaska, whose state is so big that corporate planes are often the only way to get around. Senate leaders included that jet travel requirement in a lobbying practices and disclosures bill signed into law in September 2007.

But as a member of the minority party, Obama also worked across the aisle with Republicans to push several measures that became law in 2006.

Working with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama won enactment of a law creating a single, searchable database of all federal contracts, grants and loans.

He also partnered with senior Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, the former chairman of the Foreign Relations panel, to sponsor legislation to strengthen international efforts to destroy conventional weapons, though it did not advance out of committee.

Separately, Obama was lead sponsor of a bill to provide relief and promote democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was signed into law in December 2006.

He introduced legislation in 2005 to require federal preparations for an avian flu pandemic, but it didn't advance.

And he weighed in on another “good government” initiative during congressional debate on tougher lobbying disclosure standards, by backing the creation of an independent “Office of Public Integrity” that would investigate congressional ethics cases and receive and monitor financial disclosure reports required from members of Congress, officers and employees of Congress and lobbyists. The bid failed in 2006 due to opposition from members of the Senate Ethics Committee, who said it would politicize the panel. Another attempt to include it in the Democrats' ethics bill failed in early 2007.

Obama’s tendency to focus on nonidelogical issues is pragmatic, because they tend not to have powerful enemies or, if they do, are shielded by solid support in both parties. But some of his initiatives have languished, either because he was a junior member of the Democratic caucus or because they encountered institutional resistance. One would have rewarded troubled school districts with extra federal help in exchange for deep changes.

Though advocacy groups generally gave him positive marks for taking action, Obama’s absence from heated political battles makes it difficult to assess his effectiveness as a legislator. Still, he has passed one bill signed into law, making Biden's statement False.

Anonymous said...

Before he bowed out of the race, Sen. Joe Biden dismissed the legislative accomplishments of three Democratic primary rivals with whom he served. About Barack Obama, he said, “Barack Obama hasn’t passed any.

By that wording, Biden is wrong.

*

BIDEN WAS WRONG ONE is bigger than ZERO!!!!

Anonymous said...

SO MUCH IS AT STAKE THE BULL CAN'T TELL US!!!!!!!!
Last week he was fighting for HOLLERN, now its Bends spotted owls. Who would have guessed??

‘So much is at stake’
Bend attorney’s job – and passion – is fighting for the environment

By Jim Witty / The Bulletin
Published: September 16. 2008 4:00AM PST
advertisement:
If you go

What: Evening for the Environment
Where: Boys & Girls Club of Bend, 55 N.W. Wall St., Bend
When: 5:30 p.m. Sept. 27
Cost: Reservations are $45 in advance at www.envirocenter.org or 541-385-6908
Contact: 541-385-6908
Comment on this article:

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When I met Paul Dewey last week at a downtown coffeehouse, he was sitting alone at a corner table, poring over paperwork.

It had been several years since our paths had crossed, but I had no doubt this was the guy I’d come to interview. His head was down and he seemed lost in his work, checking the latest Deschutes County land use applications.

Dewey, 58, is an environmental attorney, a conservationist, a watchdog. This — focusing on the minutiae and shuffling those papers — more than anything else, is what he does.

Dewey will be honored by the Central Oregon Environmental Center as the 2008 Earth Star during the organization’s annual Evening for the Environment, at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Boys & Girls Club of Bend, 55 N.W. Wall St., Bend (see “If you go” on Page E6).

According to Shauna Quistorff of the environmental center, Dewey “has turned a personal passion for environmental protection into a career protecting Oregon’s natural resources and the public interest from the environmental impacts of large-scale development.”

During the past 25 years, Dewey has laid the legal groundwork for protecting the Metolius Basin and Skyline Forest from large developments, helped keep Whychus (formerly Squaw) Creek unpiped and flowing free, monitored and prevented clear-cut logging in the Central Oregon Cascades and lent an environmental perspective to numerous urban planning decisions.

It all began, and continues to begin, with an unerring attention to detail.

“Stuff is happening constantly,” says Dewey from that corner table in the courtyard at Bellatazza. “Sometimes it feels a little lonely. So many people are attracted to this area because of its beauty, but many don’t make the connection why it’s as nice as it is.”

It’s nice, according to Dewey, because of land use regulations and public land rules. But, he argues, eternal vigilance is the price.

Dewey and his nonprofit, Central Oregon LandWatch, the only land use watchdog organization in the state east of the Cascades, are currently opposing “intensive” westward expansion of the city of Bend in general, and specifically, expansion of the urban growth boundary toward the national forest boundary.

One current proposal, which would require a change in the city’s proposed UGB expansion, could bring single-family houses to a 900-acre swath of land between Shevlin Park, south to Skyliners Road and west to the Deschutes National Forest, says Dewey. He has long contended that this type of development would “literally destroy the livability of west Bend.”

Born in Kansas, Dewey attended the University of Kansas and then went on to England on scholarship to study English literature. He received his law degree from the University of Virginia. In 1977, Dewey moved west to clerk for the Oregon Attorney General’s Office and liked what he saw. He crossed east over the Cascades in 1983 to take care of a horse ranch south of Sisters.

“Part of the reason is I didn’t like law,” he says. “I still don’t like law. It’s too rigid. It divides reality into segments that have no relationship to reality.”

But, he acknowledges, “It’s a good tool to protect the environment.”

Early on, Dewey put that tool to work in Central Oregon, after he learned of a proposal to pipe Whychus Creek for a hydroelectric project, he remembers. That project never happened, and the creek is now designated as a Wild and Scenic River.

He also successfully helped fight a clear-cut logging operation near Sisters and began painstakingly monitoring every timber sale that came down the pike. Dewey recruited like-minded people and received support from the Sisters City Council, the Chamber of Commerce and equestrian clubs in the area.

“It was the right moment,” Dewey recalls. “People were becoming aware that there were amenities to the forest besides just lumber, particularly along roads, trails, creeks and rivers.”

Dave Sheldon, a Central Oregon Environmental Center board member, praised Dewey for his passion for a cause.

“In many instances, his opponents have been well-organized and funded, his work has been thankless, and his remuneration has been nearly nonexistent,” said Sheldon. “Still, Paul will be the first to stand up and the last to sit back for a cause that serves the greater good of our environment.”

Bend developer Mike Tennant called Dewey “very much a man of reason. If you show the other side, he’ll listen and work with you.”

Tennant, who helped develop NorthWest Crossing, worked intensely with Dewey when that residential community was being planned.

“I think Bend is fortunate having someone like Paul Dewey looking out for how it’s growing,” Tennant said.

Dewey is litigation director for Central Oregon LandWatch. Through the years, he says he’s been labeled an “obstructionist,” a “terrorist” and worse.

“Some people take it personally,” says Dewey, who acknowledges that at times, the constant conflict is “outside” his comfort zone.

“(But) once development goes in, it’s gone,” he says. “So much is at stake here.”

Dewey acknowledges he’s a liberal, but with a rural, conservative background.

“As for the environment, I see myself as a conservative,” he says. “In the rest of the world, conservatives are trying to maintain the landscape. I call myself a conservationist.”

However he is labeled, Dewey plans to keep challenging destination resort developments, which he argues create “sprawl” and encourage rural rather than suburban development.

“It’s turning the land use system on its head,” he says.

Dewey says he would welcome the day when the structure, if not the ultimate goal, of his work changes.

“Instead of having to fight all these proposals, it would be nice to engage in policy development,” he says. “It would be nice, instead of dealing with piecemeal developments, to deal comprehensively with cumulative effects. I would like to get more into planning than litigation.”

Dewey has more on his plate than fighting the good fight. He and his wife, Jill, recently adopted a child from China. Ava is 2.

Anonymous said...

This is Bend's PAID opposition to HOLLERN by HOLLERN.

Only a mother could love Bend.

Anonymous said...

We're about to become the proud owner of the largest insurance company in the world.

Quimby said...

>> We're about to become the proud owner of the largest insurance company in the world.

Who gives a shit? There's (insert sporting event) on TV tonight!!!! Nothing to see here....move along.

Anonymous said...

If Bilbo would just remove those Nazi pictues at BB3 someone may actually post there.

Quimby said...

Buster, she's right. You do have a flair for the "dramatic". More flies with Honey....

How about happy posts of bunnies and butterflies (ala July 2006)?

Anonymous said...

Hank Greenberg shot a TON of SPERM up DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL ASSES today.

I hope BP is happy.

***

The Wall Street Journal

Sept. 16, 2008

The board of AIG approved the $85 billion government-led rescue plan, according to people familiar with the matter.

Anonymous said...

Marge,

I luv ya, BUTT, a big Black-Butte BUTT,

The problem is this is what the country is going to look like, NAZI HOLOCAUST. It's essential the CUNTS get a good look.

I humbly suspect you being a cop wife and all don't want to think this way, but its essential for all the cop wives to remember when Mc$ain or OR-BOMB-EO send your hubby's out like in these pic's to kill or burn alive Branch-Davidian Children and such ( A holocaust ), that the wives be the first in line to say NO.

The pic's are hard, but the future is going to look like this if folks don't get off their fucking ASS.

Anonymous said...

Buster, she's right. You do have a flair for the "dramatic". More flies with Honey....

*

Who the FUCK ever said HOMER was trying to catch flys or maggots with HONEY?

Where in the fuck does the BendBubble say its a pretty journey?

Are we NOT here to RUB shit in the face of the status quo?

The ONLY CUNT here that is trying to catch maggots or flys is BP, and he's only after maggots that are going to vote for OR-BOMB-EO. If folks want 'NICE' they can go to his site, or BENDBB, ...

Hell even 'MARGE' says there is TOO MUCH NICE.

I have SEEN MY BEND FUCKING DESTROYED BY YOU FUCKING NAZI APOLOGISTS OF BEND? DUNC? YOU READIN?

WANT NICE? GO to Dunc's comic-shop and read some right-wing comic's.

Sometimes folks come by and piss on our rock, somebody said last week a lot of people took some big shit dump's ( or left them ). Some folks scribble some silly stuff.

Look at HBM's poster of BUSH FASCISM that's linked here this week. It's all the same, and its NOT PRETTY, but its all true.

Gore Vidal in the posted interview makes it quite clear that HITLER came to power doing the same SHIT that BUSH is now doing, and that OR-BOMB-EO OR MC$AIN will CONTINUE DOING.

WANT to see the FUTURE BEND? IT's in BB3.

WANT to see old BEND? Then google "bend realty" and enjoy pic's of what is used to look like.

Anonymous said...

Hank Greenberg shot a TON of SPERM up DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL ASSES today.

I hope BP is happy.

*

I love it ALL WEEK LONG PAULSON said "WE DONT DO BAILOUTS", then at the 12th hour after 5pm Wall-Street time PAULSON did the biggest fucking bailout to date INTEGRATED.

Like an poster said earlier, congratulations you now own a MOBSTER ran INSURANCE RACKET, with a BUILT-IN MONOPOLY. W-BUFFET must be pissed to SHIT!!

Anonymous said...

Buster, she's right. You do have a flair for the "dramatic". More flies with Honey....

*

Your talking 'maggots on corpses' here, not flys on shit.

The last bastion of Truth in Bend. Can't there be one fucking rock in town???

Anonymous said...

Do not kid yourselves, the US is an oligarchy and the US gov't will bailout AIG.

The argument from the oligarchs is "that AIG is just too big to fail." The literally argue that AIG can't be allowed to fail bc the finances of the entire world are at stake. Of course, this overlooks the moral principle that in a capitalist system, businesses should be allowed to fail. However, be that as it may, it is suggested there is not enough private capital to rescue AIG and thus, the US gov't, already bankrupt, must step in and commit the taxpayers to another $100+ billion to rescue AIG and save the world.

Are we to really believe the lie that there is not enough private capital to bailout AIG? They argue that private capital cannot raise the necessary $75 billion to $100 billion necessary. Does anyone really believe this? I mean, just two days ago, Bank of America ponied up, single handedly, $50 billion to buy Merril Lynch. So, if BoA can single handeldy pony up $50 billion, are we to belive that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and the rest of the entire world cannot somehow come up with $100 billion? Maybe they could, but just don't feel secure enough? Well, if the entire world's finances are truly at stake as the American taxpayer is told, you would think the rest of the world, including the Chinese and Arabs who have so much invested in the US already, would have to take the risk? But why take the risk when the US gov't will take it and pass it onto the US taxpayer?

The US taxpayer ought to vomit at the lies it is being fed. The US Congress should be dissolved. The US president should be impeached by the US citizenry. The taxpayer has every moral and legal right to literally hunt down and jail all these pigmen bankers.

Anonymous said...

"The Party That Wrecked America"
by Not BP


It turns out the real hurricane blew through Wall Street last week, not Galveston. This morning, Manhattan is strewn chest-deep with the debris of banking and at this hour (seven a.m.) nobody knows how far, deep, and wide the damage will spread. The fear, of course, is that we are witnessing a classic "house-of-cards" or "dominos-in-a-row," situation, and that the death of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch will cascade into a generalized collapse of the entire consensus of value that supports mediums of exchange.
At least one thing ought to be clear: this has happened due to the negligence and misfeasance of the regulating authorities, namely the Republican Party, and that now all the hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin can be swept away revealing that group to be what they actually are: the party that wrecked America. I hope one or two Barack Obama campaign officials are reading this blog. You must commence the re-branding of the opposition right now. The Republicans must be clearly identified as, the party that wrecked America.
Many things happening this week will be interesting to see and hear, but just now an outstanding question is how on earth can the Bank of America buy Merrill Lynch for $50 billion after assuming the liabilities of the tarbaby known as Countrywide? But that little detail may be lost in the din as other banks and bank-like organizations start crashing like sequoia trees in a national forest.
I wish I knew whether this extravaganza of ruin might settle the question as to whether America goes into hyperinflation or implacable deflation, but the net effect is that money is leaving the system in big gobs. And if not money per se, then the idea of money as represented in certificates, contracts, counter-party positions, and gentlemen's agreements. This is the day that America finds itself a much poorer nation. The capital we thought was there, is gone.
A lot of it was actually translated over the years into Hamptons villas, Gulfstream jets, and other playthings that will now go up on Ebay or some equivalent as we turn into Yard Sale Nation in a general liquidation of remaining assets. Of course, the trouble in a situation like this, where absolutely everybody is trying to pawn off assets, is that there are very few buyers on the scene, so the prices of all these things go down down down. Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.
This was essentially the state of things in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the only escape from that turned out to be the mobilization for war. And in the aftermath of that terrible war, we were the only industrial nation that hadn't been bombed to rubble. What's more, we had a very handsome supply of industrial world's primary resource, oil, at our disposal. So we spent the next thirty years making oodles of things and selling them to people in other lands (lending them the money to buy), until these nations were back on their own feet and solvent. And after 1975, the industrial club picked up a bunch of new members and they all began to clean our clock.
So, as our industrial base waned, and our factories got old and brittle, and our labor force was steeply under-bid by cheaper labor forces, we embarked on a quest for "the new economy." This was represented in successive turns as the information economy, the consumer economy, the high-tech economy, et cetera. They were all ruses, aimed at concealing the truth -- which was that we had become a society no longer producing things of value, no longer generating real wealth. The final act of this farce has been the so-called "financial industry."
That "industry" turned out to be most earnestly devoted to the production of complex swindles. They were so finely engineered that it took twenty years for the swindles to stand revealed, and they were cleverly hitched to the primary thing that the American public vested its identity in: house-and-home. Thus, much of the public finds itself in very real danger of becoming homeless and broke.
We generally recognize that some wicked-massive transfer of wealth occurred in the process of the mortgage fiasco, but it remains to be seen whether any residue of this wealth can actually be retained, as represented by currencies, contracts, and supposed securities. The wholesale settling of debt now underway may leave an awful lot of this stuff with no value.
We should be frightened by the political implications of this Great Implosion of presumed wealth. Some group of somebodies will have to clean up this mess. Moving toward a major election, it is hard to imagine the American people giving the clean-up task to the very group that created the mess -- no matter how many cute little faces Sarah Palin can make on TV. Both parties have so far managed to ignore the gathering crisis of banking and money, but they can't ignore the sequoia trees crashing down around their ankles and shaking the earth they stand on.
At issue now will be the question of legitimacy in all its human social dimensions. Is our money legitimate? Is the authority of our elected officials legitimate? Are our values and ideas legitimate? These are the things that will determine what kind of future we find ourselves in.
So, to begin this process, and to clarify the situation, I urge readers of this blog to identify the Republican Party by its new brand-name: the party that wrecked America. At least, then, we can reinstate one cardinal value into the juddering structure of what we claim to believe: that actions have consequences, that you can't just swindle and loot a society and walk away with the swag.
Spread the word, change the tone of this campaign, and keep posted. This will be a momentous week.

Anonymous said...

BP,

What you wanted is happening, you just had to be patient. Some of Mc$ain's biggest supporters are now pissed about his lying. The one thing that could have been said of Mc$ain his honesty, ... well who is a bigger liar OR-BOMB-EO or McLiar?? We'll see, ..

***

The Ugly New McCain

By Richard Cohen
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.


The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.

"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."

Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.

"Actually, they are not lies," he said.

Actually, they are.

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

At a forum last week at Columbia University, McCain said, "But right now we have to restore trust and confidence in government." This was always the promise of John McCain, the single best reason to vote for him. America has been cheated on too many times -- the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and Iraq. So many lies. Who believes that in Afghanistan last month, only five civilians were killed by the American military in an airstrike, instead of the approximately 90 claimed by the Afghan government? Not me. I first gave up on the military during Vietnam and then again when it covered up the death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL player who was killed in 2004 by friendly fire.

McCain was going to fix all that. He was going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.

But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.

Anonymous said...

DEAR HOMER CUNT,

There seems to be a snit about BB3 and 'bad' photo's, what about benddenial.blogpsot.com marge, those photo's are a little too happy no? Sort of the kind of thing a realtor would backdrop at the Olympics??

We still don't know if Homer will close this site down or not, I hope he doesn't also, homer could open up this site to others, the way we have to a dozen over at BB3, there is no reason that others can't be allowed to post here at BB2, if someone could teach HOMER how to use a mouse, and find the 'permission' tab, and 'invite'. All homer has to do is post a stupid fucking google email like homerbend@gmail.com, and then we all send him email, and he invites us to post, that way this site doesn't go away, and homer doesn't have to work his ass off every sunday or more.

Anonymous said...

bendbutter@gmail.com

yourlegspreadlikebutter@gmail.com

they're all avail homer, just pick one, and tell us how to email you, and then you can add us to post,

note don't give anyone 'administrator' keep that for yourself, so you can delete the shit, and not let other delete others posts.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I like the idea of Homer spawning additional Homers right here at BB2. The more homos the better, I like to say.

That way I won't have to change my "favorites" link to BB3 or some such, which is kinda techie for somebody like me.

Anonymous said...

BB3...reminds me of Beans, Bullets and Booze. Maybe I can find an appropriate photo.

>>Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.<<


The big money isn't going to toss it to the wind. Even Buffet is smarter than that. If greed takes hold again we are in double dutch.
Big money is the true representation of greed. But it is carefully honed if one is to keep it. All can be crushed in the wake of that we have seen the past few years. I really can't grasp the stupidity of the many Bendies that thought it would always go up. They have obviously not played stocks or poker...it always ends badly if you stay too long. Fold em was 2 years ago in Bend. Cash is King for now.
We have to ride this train wreck til the tracks are gone from under us.

Blah..Blah...Blah

We get it...no Prez is going to fix this in any short amount of time.

If we singularly and collectively don't scream about these atrocities then we are doomed to our silence.

Let's just get rid of 2 ugly pics.

Anonymous said...

Bilbo..you have mail

Anonymous said...

Marge said...
BB3...reminds me of Beans, Bullets and Booze. Maybe I can find an appropriate photo.


and then she says:
Let's just get rid of 2 ugly pics.

Man, somebody slap that woman....

She is more pussy than even the BruceyPussy!!

She comes into this man-den, and starts telling us which pictures to hang up on the wall?

WTF?? What kind of wimpy, pussy woman thing to say is that??

Next thing she'll be all whiney about the green background color on the bb2 blog. Pink is, oh so... soothing and calm-like.

Oh, and can we please change the font to something a bit more, you know, flowery? You know, the font that has little tiny hearts for the dots above the letter "i"...

Let's just get rid of 2 ugly pics.

Yeah, maybe Gov Palin will give us a couple of her pics. You know, of her gutting the inards of a moose she just shot.

Marge, just stop being such a wussy woman pussy. Two major, pansy-ass pussys (Bruce and HBM) are way too many wussy pussys for this blog.

Bewert said...

It's kind of fucking amazing, after a couple days in the wilderness, I come home and find the capitalist, every lame motherfucker must fend for himself, Repubs have turned Socialist.

Not for the masses benefit, of course. For their brethren. At an untold cost to the masses.

Buster, before you respond: fuck you. And the dumb ass you rode in on.

Bewert said...

Re: The US taxpayer ought to vomit at the lies it is being fed. The US Congress should be dissolved. The US president should be impeached by the US citizenry. The taxpayer has every moral and legal right to literally hunt down and jail all these pigmen bankers.

With pitchforks and fire.

Man, the world is getting fucking crazy right now.

Bewert said...

Re: Are we to really believe the lie that there is not enough private capital to bailout AIG? They argue that private capital cannot raise the necessary $75 billion to $100 billion necessary. Does anyone really believe this? I mean, just two days ago, Bank of America ponied up, single handedly, $50 billion to buy Merril Lynch. So, if BoA can single handeldy pony up $50 billion, are we to belive that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and the rest of the entire world cannot somehow come up with $100 billion? Maybe they could, but just don't feel secure enough? Well, if the entire world's finances are truly at stake as the American taxpayer is told, you would think the rest of the world, including the Chinese and Arabs who have so much invested in the US already, would have to take the risk? But why take the risk when the US gov't will take it and pass it onto the US taxpayer?

I don't know who the Anonymouse that is writing this is, but it is truth.

US Taxpayers, bend over and prepare for forcible entry without any lube.

Just like Bend taxpayers.

Some kind of synchronicity, eh?

Anonymous said...

DEM's vote overwhelming at the 11th hour to allow ALL oceans in the world to be destroyed, and for a BUSH-BONUS toss in $100B for AIG-AIPAC.

* I LOVE MY BP *

WNCT
House Adopts Plan to Ease Offshore Drilling Ban
New York Times - 44 minutes ago
By CARL HULSE WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday night approved a measure that would ease a longstanding ban on offshore oil drilling and try to spur greater use of alternative fuels as Democrats and Republicans engaged in a bitter pre-election clash ...
House OKs bill allowing more offshore oil drilling CNN
House votes to lift ban on offshore drilling San Francisco Chronicle
San Jose Mercury News - Reuters - The Associated Press - International Herald Tribune
all 1,844 news articles »


Wall Street Journal
Fed in AIG rescue - $85B loan
CNNMoney.com - 1 hour ago
Government response reaches dramatic new level: US will take 80% stake in nation's largest insurer to prevent global financial chaos.
Video: Investors Worry Over AIG's Future AssociatedPress
AIG Gets Up to $85 Billion Fed Loan; Cedes Control (Update1) Bloomberg
Bizjournals.com - MarketWatch - Forbes - Reuters
all 1,915 news articles »

Anonymous said...

Buster, before you respond: fuck you. And the dumb ass you rode in on.

*

FUCK YOU bitch, DEM DEM's ARE NATIONAL-SOCIALISTS, aka NAZI's, DEM DEM's are your own fodder pardner.

The thing that BP doesn't realize is that BUSTER is about 100 miles to the left of NAZI-DEM pussy.

Anonymous said...

Buster, before you respond: fuck you. And the dumb ass you rode in on.


OOohhh, manly BruceyPussy is back from the wilds, and he sounds very manly. Almost angry! Ahhh, an angry pussy, a very scary thing, it is to behold.

Tell us more, Mr. Pussy, of the wilds that you were in.

Anonymous said...

Let's just get rid of 2 ugly pics.

Man, somebody slap that woman....


*

HOORAY Dat HOMEE is back as anonymou-ass, keep the pussy's honest.

Bewert said...

Re: Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.

Except for the top 1%, those beneficent recipients of the best BushCo tax cuts.

The rich get richer, the rest survive.

Anonymous said...

Marge said...
BB3...reminds me of Beans, Bullets and Booze. Maybe I can find an appropriate photo.

and then she says:
Let's just get rid of 2 ugly pics.)Pleez)

Man, somebody slap that woman....(you wish)

She is more pussy than even the BruceyPussy!!(At least I have one)

She comes into this man-den, and starts telling us which pictures to hang up on the wall?(Keep the nudie..get rid of the Nazi's)

WTF?? What kind of wimpy, pussy woman thing to say is that??(?)

Next thing she'll be all whiney about the green background color on the bb2 blog. Pink is, oh so... soothing and calm-like.(I hate pink)

Oh, and can we please change the font to something a bit more, you know, flowery? You know, the font that has little tiny hearts for the dots above the letter "i"...(Flowers are for the garden)

Let's just get rid of 2 ugly pics.(Pleez)

Yeah, maybe Gov Palin will give us a couple of her pics. You know, of her gutting the inards of a moose she just shot.(Yuk)

Marge, just stop being such a wussy woman pussy. Two major, pansy-ass pussys (Bruce and HBM) are way too many wussy pussys for this blog.(WTF?) [Handle it man-man]

Anonymous said...

Two major, pansy-ass pussys (Bruce and HBM) are way too many wussy pussys for this blog.


*

Now, THAT is some funny shit!!!

And looky, you done got da pussy all mad.

He gonna spout some mean shit, dat pussy will.

'Cause our pussy ain't no wussy pussy!

Nope, our pussy be a mean, mother fucker pussy.

Watch out! Here he comes!

Bewert said...

Just stirring the pot...

The AIG thing is fucking disturbing. What, are the US taxpayers going to own Wall St., and run it like the Denver MMS. Doing lines of the toaster oven while getting blowjobs from subordinates?

Read a book on the Nazi attempt to turn Lodz, Poland into the perfect city. Jews in a ghetto, fenced off from the real people. Working for their lives. News controlled and patriotic BS blown far and wide.

Disgusting.

Don't know how close the US or Israel, especially, are getting to that. But it's too close.

Bewert said...

Re:
Watch out! Here he comes!

Amazing how a couple alone days with the girl you love makes you a real pussy...

Anonymous said...

Martha Stewart has entered the room! We are watching....

Bewert said...

Another book I've been reading: The Watchman. Scary but excellent, with a lot of parallels to now. I think I should go buy Dunc's inventory and distribute it to the 4th and 5th graders around here.

Anonymous said...

Who knew that tim moved to Beantown and changed his name to Jeff??

*

Enough of the Palin feeding frenzy
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / September 17, 2008

IN POLITICS, cheap shots and invective are occupational hazards. But when have we seen anything to match the frenzy of rage and contempt set off by the nomination of Sarah Palin?

Virtually from the moment John McCain selected her, Palin has been under assault. There has been legitimate criticism, of course. But there has also been a gusher of slander, much of it - like the slur that she isn't the real mother of her infant son, Trig - despicable.

For someone who has been in the national spotlight for only three weeks, Palin has been the victim of an astonishing array of falsehoods. Voters have been told that she slashed funding in Alaska for special-needs children. That she tried to ban books from Wasilla's public library. That she was a member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party. That she links Saddam Hussein to the attacks of 9/11. That she backed Pat Buchanan for president. That she doesn't want students taught about contraception. That she called the war in Iraq "a task from God." All untrue.

Hillary Clinton's supporters complain that coverage of her campaign was tainted by sexism, such as the Washington Post story that focused on her cleavage, or Mike Barnicle's description of her on MSNBC as "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court."

Obama too has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous comment - the Fox News segment that captioned a picture of his wife "Obama's Baby Mama," for example, and the infamous New Yorker cover showing the Obamas as terrorists in the Oval Office.

But the left's onslaught against Palin has been of a different order of magnitude.

"Ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread," columnist Cintra Wilson wrote in Salon. "She's such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it's easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism."

On the website of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commentator Heather Mallick was even cruder. Palin appeals to "the white trash vote" with her "toned-down version of the porn actress look," she wrote. "Husband Todd looks like a roughneck. . . What normal father would want Levi 'I'm a [bleeping] redneck' Johnson prodding his daughter?"

From radio talk-show host Randi Rhodes came the smutty suggestion that the governor of Alaska has an unhealthy interest in teenage boys: "She's friends with all the teenage boys," Rhodes told her audience last week. "You have to say no when your kids say, 'Can we sleep over at the Palins?' No! NO!"

The smears and sneers have been without end. One liberal congressman likened Obama to Jesus - and Palin to Pontius Pilate. A Democratic state chairman declared scornfully that Palin's "primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion." A University of Chicago professor seethed: "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."

The national media, meanwhile, have only further eroded what remained of their reputation for objectivity.

For months they refused to mention the infidelity of John Edwards, yet they leaped with relish onto Bristol Palin's pregnancy. Ravenous for any negative morsel on the GOP running mate, they deployed legions of reporters to Alaska, who have produced such journalism as the 3,220-word exposé in Sunday's New York Times that upon winning office, Palin - gasp! - fired opponents and hired people she trusted.

Yet the more she has been attacked, the more her support has solidified. In the latest Fox News poll, Palin's favorable/unfavorable ratio is a strong 54-27. She is named by 33 percent of respondents as the candidate who "best understands the problems of everyday life in America," more than those naming Obama (32 percent), McCain (17), or Joe Biden (10). Among independent voters, Palin's lead over Obama on this measure widens to 13 points. In a recent Rasmussen poll, 51 percent of voters said the press was trying to hurt Palin through its coverage, versus just 5 percent who thought it was trying to help - a 10-1 disparity.

Millions of Americans, not all of them conservative, instinctively identify with Palin. That is why the left's scorching assault, so ugly and unhinged, is backfiring. The longer it goes on, the more it undermines the Democratic ticket - and the more support it builds for McCain, and his refreshingly normal running mate.

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com

*

Rant onward, Christian BruceyPussy Soldier!

Comeback, Mr HBM Pussy, and bless the choir with your knowledge of all things blue and true.

Oh where is the Dunc-man-Pussy, with his treasured pearls of wisdomness, ripped from the pages of yesterday's comic books?

Oh, Pussy-Tri-lateral prose writers, come back to us now!!!

We need to hear how bad the McPalin EEEEVIL is.

Come back, I beseech you, come back with your words, oh you wayward moths. Come back to the light, moths.

Bewert said...

How come as soon as I get here everyone goes home?

Dammit.

BB3 or BB# we should scream.

I still can't believe we bailed out AIG. That's a trillion-dollar company.

And they fucking Repubs complain about Medicare?

Later...

Bewert said...

Sorry, Jacoby is a troglodyte Zionist.

Pro-Israeli settler to the extreme.

Palin is a convenient vessel for their message.

Luckily, most of the US doesn't believe that particular message any more.

Anonymous said...

More moth bait...


*

Obama's Panic

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Seldom has there been a larger contrast between the style of a candidate and the strategy of his campaign.

Barack Obama is cool, firm and permanently unruffled. It is precisely this quality of steadiness that has made him seem a credible prospective president with the thinnest of résumés.

But Obama's campaign is rootless, reactive and panicky. At every stage since securing the nomination, it has seemed fearful of missteps and unsure of its own organizing principle. So it has invariably adopted the Democratic conventional wisdom of the moment.

Obama's first major decision was his running mate. He could have reinforced a message of change and moderation with a Democratic governor who wins in a Republican state, or reached for history by selecting Hillary Clinton. But his choice came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, and the conventional wisdom demanded an old hand who knew his way around Tbilisi. When the Georgia crisis faded, Obama was left with a partisan, undisciplined, congressional liberal at his side. This has served to undermine Obama's message of change -- and has allowed Sarah Palin to pilfer a portion of that appeal.

Obama's second decision concerned the tone and content of his convention. Here the Democratic conventional wisdom was nearly unanimous. Obama should shelve his highfalutin rhetoric and talk like a real Democrat. Go after McCain. Talk about "bread and butter" issues -- code words for class-warfare attacks on consumers of blinis and caviar.

Obama took this advice to the letter -- at the cost of his political identity. In his Denver speech, it seemed that every American home was on the auction block, every car stalled for lack of gasoline, every credit card bill past due, every worker treated like a Russian serf. And John McCain? He was out of touch, with flawed "judgment." His life devoted to serving oil companies and big corporations. And, by the way, he didn't have the courage to follow Osama bin Laden "to the cave where he lives." In obedience to the best Democratic advice, Obama managed to be conventional, bitter and graceless.



Now Obama has made his third major campaign decision -- to finally get really tough on McCain. In response to attacks and dropping polls, the Democratic wisdom is once again nearly uniform: Democrats lose because they are not vicious enough. And once again, the Obama campaign has taken this advice without hesitation. "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks, and we will take the fight to him," says Obama's campaign manager.

Obama feels provoked -- and he has been. There is no evidence that Obama supported explicit sex education for kindergarteners, as a McCain ad implied. Having already accused McCain of being a cowardly corporate tool who is disconnected from reality, escalation is not an easy task for Obama. But he has managed. In one recent commercial, McCain is clearly mocked for his age -- compared to a disco ball and a 10-pound cellphone. Another ad uses the word "dishonorable" next to a photo of McCain -- an attack from a candidate who has little practical familiarity with the cost of honor.

Who is hurt most by this race to the bottom? McCain, by the evidence of his own convention, wants to be a viewed as a fighter -- which a fight does little to undermine. Obama was introduced to America as a different and better kind of politician -- an image now in tatters.

Even worse for Obama, all these shifts to catch the prevailing winds confirm the most serious concerns about his political character. As a senator, he has almost never opposed the ideological consensus of his party. (The ethics reform he often cites as his profile in courage eventually passed the Senate 96 to 2.) And now as a presidential candidate, Obama has run his campaign with all the constancy of a skittish sailboat on an erratic ocean.

Here is a different strategy. Obama could attempt to "beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism." He could try to build a coalition that "stretches through red states and blue states." He could reject "the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up."

The candidate who said those words the night he won the Iowa caucuses did pretty well. But whatever the outcome of this presidential election, that candidate is no longer in the race.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

*

"Come back, I beseech you, come back with your words, oh you wayward moths. Come back to the light, moths."

Anonymous said...

Mo from NYT is still with the program, like a good moth that she is...

What about the Pussy moths?

Here, I'll leave the light on for you!


*


‘Barbies for War!’


By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 16, 2008
WASHINGTON

Carly Fiorina, the woman John McCain sent out to defend Sarah Palin and rip anyone who calls her a tabula rasa on foreign policy and the economy, admitted Tuesday that Palin was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.

That’s pretty damning coming from Fiorina, who also was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.

Carly helpfully added that McCain (not to mention Obama and Biden) couldn’t run a major corporation. He couldn’t get his immigration bill passed either, but now he’s promising to eliminate centuries of greed on Wall Street.

The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state. You can’t contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus. To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls,” a poy-son could develop a cold war.

The latest news from Alaska is that the governor keeps a tanning bed in the Juneau mansion. As The Los Angeles Times pointed out, when Palin declared May 2007 Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska, the press release explained that skin cancer was caused by “the sun and from tanning beds.”

I sautéed myself in Sarahville last week.

I wandered through the Wal-Mart, which seemed almost as large as Wasilla, a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake.

Wal-Mart has all the doodads that Sarah must need in her career as a sportsman — Remingtons and “torture tested” riflescopes, game bags for caribou, machines that imitate rabbits and young deer and coyotes to draw your quarry in so you can shoot it, and machines to squish cows into beef jerky.

I talked to a Wal-Mart mom, Betty Necas, 39, wearing sweatpants and tattoos on her wrists.

She said she’s never voted, and was a teenage mom “like Bristol.” She likes Sarah because she’s “down home” but said Obama “gives me the creeps. Nothing to do with the fact that he’s black. He just seems snotty, and he looks weaselly.”

Ten Obama supporters in Wasilla braved taunts and drizzle to stand on a corner between McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. They complained that Sarah runs government like a vengeful fiefdom and held up signs. A guy with a bullhorn yelled out of a passing red car: “Go back to the city, you liberal Communists!”

At gatherings in The Last Frontier, pastors pray for reporters, drilling evokes cheers and Todd Palin is hailed as a guy who likes to burn fossil fuels.

I had many “Sarahs,” as her favorite skinny white mocha is now called, at the Mocha Moose. “I’ve seen her at 4 a.m. with no makeup,” said manager Karena Forster, “and she’s just as beautiful.”

I stopped by Sarah’s old Pentecostal church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, and perused some books: “The Bait of Satan,” “Deliverance from PMS,” and “Kissed the Girls and Made them Cry: Why Women Lose When They Give In.” (Author Lisa Bevere advises: “Run to the arms of your prince and enter your dream.”)

In Anchorage Saturday, I went by a conference conducted by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and supported by Sarah’s current church, the Wasilla Bible Church, about how to help gays and lesbians “journey out” of same-sex attraction.

(As The Times reported recently, in 1995, Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues she had seen “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelf of the library and did not approve. The Wasilla Assembly of God tried to ban “Pastor, I Am Gay” by Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in nearby Palmer.)

Anne Heche’s mother, Nancy, talked about her distress when her daughter told her she was involved with Ellen. Jeff Johnston told me he had “a struggle” with homosexuality “for a season,” but is now “happily married with three boys.” (Books for sale there included “Mommy, Why Are They Holding Hands?” and “You Don’t Have to Be Gay.”)

I covered a boisterous women against Palin rally in Anchorage, where women toted placards such as “Fess up about troopergate,” “Keep your vows off my body,” “Barbies for war!” “Sarah, please don’t put me on your enemies list,” and “McCain and Palin = McPain.”

A local conservative radio personality, Eddie Burke, who had lambasted the organizers as “a bunch of socialist, baby-killing maggots,” was on hand with a sign reading “Alaska is not Frisco.”

“We are one Supreme Court justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade,” he excitedly told me.

R. D. Levno, a retired school principal, flew in from Fairbanks. “She’s a child, inexperienced and simplistic,” she said of Sarah. “It’s taking us back to junior high school. She’s one of the popular girls, but one of the mean girls. She is seductive, but she is invented.”

*

Come on out and play, PussyMoths!!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

All homer has to do is post a stupid fucking google email like homerbend@gmail.com, and then we all send him email, and he invites us to post, that way this site doesn't go away, and homer doesn't have to work his ass off every sunday or more.

Shit! I asked repeatedly to no avail!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

VIX in the low 30's... Just a small jump to 40 & I might actually throw taxable $ at this thing.

Anonymous said...

Well BP, it just took time, here is Ron Paul's report on Palin, and it ain't pretty.

Summary, "She is a low-fat neo-conservative"

***

Sarah Palin In The Land Of McCain's Oz

It is now time to rate the vice presidential candidates on the Paul-O-Meter. We start with John McCain’s VP pick Sarah Palin. The perfect strategic pick for McCain, Palin has little history. She’s been Governor of Alaska for less than two years, but now that McCain’s handlers are pulling Palin’s puppet strings it is difficult to see a difference between the two.

Here we examine Palin on 20 issues to see how she stacks up to Ron Paul. Hopefully this will help some see the lips through the lipstick.

If you’d like to see more ratings or rate Palin or any other candidate or lawmaker head on over to Paul-O-Meter.com and explore the possibilities.

If you want to delve into the question of whether Palin truly is similar to Ron Paul read onward.

1. Liberty-based Voting Record - Palin is a bit wishy washy on her liberty voting record. She supported the infamous “Bridge To Nowhere” first and then changed her position when it became the popular thing to do. She does to a certain extent try to follow the Constitution, for instance she refused to sign a bill from the Alaskan state legislature stating that the Real ID will not be funded in Alaska. She let the signing period expire which ended up making the law pass. So she didn’t exactly stand up for liberty in that case. Score: 3
2. The Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy - Palin hasn’t mentioned this issue thus far. She seems to be taking the same position as McCain so it is hard to tell where she stands on the issue. In any case, she is certainly not like Ron Paul who calls for abolishing the Fed and legalizing competing currencies. Score: 0
3. Foreign Policy and Iraq - Palin has stated several times her support of going into Iraq before even being chosen as VP. She now has adopted John McCain’s foreign policy of intervention, the polar opposite of Ron Paul. Score: 0
4. Taxes - She supported lowering taxes in Alaska, but did raise the sales tax. As VP she’s taken John McCain’s promise to lower taxes on businesses to promote job growth. This is tinkering from a Ron Paul perspective. She does not support repealing the 16th amendment nor a consumption tax. Score: 1
5. Government Spending - She was a champion of curbing spending in Alaska and is continuing the same lines as VP. She hasn’t mentioned reducing the national debt, but has echoed John McCain on earmark reform. Score: 2
6. Privacy and Civil Liberties - Palin is not quite a friend to Privacy and Civil Liberties. She created “FBI Day” in Alaska to “support fighting global crime”. No word from her on FISA or the Patriot Act. Similar to Ron Paul, she has stated that she doesn’t support hate crime. Because she allowed Alaska to vote to not fund the Real ID she deserves at least a point or two. Score: 2
7. Immigration - It’s very difficult to find Palin’s stance on immigration. According to Laura Ingraham though who talked with Palin, she disagrees with McCain on “comprehensive immigration reform” which supports amnesty. If true, she is more like Ron Paul on illegal immigration than John McCain. Score: 3
8. Gun Control and Second Amendment - She is a large advocate of the Second amendment and supporting the repeal of the DC gun ban. Score: 5
9. Internet Regulation - Palin hasn’t stated anything publicly about internet regulation specifically. There is conjecture that she may support Net Neutrality based on other legislative actions, but that is unreliable. She has promised to not expand “gambling” in Alaska saying it is harmful to society so it is certainly probably she would be for UIGEA which virtually bans online gambling. Given the lack of information we must guess at the score. Score: 2
10. Adherence To The Constitution - She has voted against her own personal views in Alaska because the bill was unconstitutional. At least with respect to Alaska and her view on gun rights she seems to be a Constitutionalist. Her statements on privacy and civil liberties, though, call into question her stance on the Fourth Amendment. Score: 3
11. Religion vs. Public Policy - Palin publicly declared that U.S. involvement in the Iraq war was the “will of God”. She also has injected religion into her speeches and statements quite regularly. This is quite opposite to Ron Paul. Score: 0
12. Environment - She has spoken out against John McCain’s “cap and trade” proposal. She has voted against endangered species legislation in Alaska. She seems to be closer to Ron Paul on this issue than John McCain. Score: 4
13. Energy Policy - She is a strong advocate for drilling in ANWR and off the U.S. coastlines. She seems to be right in line with Ron Paul here. Score: 5
14. U.S. Sovereignty - Palin doesn’t seem to have ever mentioned the NAU nor the threat to U.S. Sovereignty. Score: 0
15. War On Drugs - Palin is a drug warrior like McCain. She doesn’t support legalizing medical marijuana. Score: 0
16. Education - She doesn’t support abolishing the Department of Education, but she does support school choice and home schooling. Score: 3
17. Welfare Programs - Palin supports Social Security reform, but is quite short on specifics. It seems she refuses to give a straight answer on this topic. Score: 0
18. Abortion - She is a mirror of Ron Paul on the abortion issue. Score: 5
19. Health Care - She seems to echo Ron Paul on health care. She supports competition and putting decisions back in the hands of doctors, not bureaucrats. Score: 5
20. Ability To Spread The Liberty Message - Palin doesn’t have a liberty message on most topics, revealing that her being a “libertarian” is a complete misnomer. Therefore she doesn’t deserve much of a score here. Score: 1

Sarah Palin’s final Paul-O-Meter Score: 44 out of 99 points.

Those that call Palin “libertarian leaning” are simply mischaracterizing her positions. She’s no libertarian, leaning or otherwise. She is a low fat neo-conservative. She always supported the Iraq War. She is a drug warrior. Obama’s much criticized statement that John McCain in choosing Palin was trying to put “lipstick on a pig” therefore has another meaning. McCain is trying to put “libertarianism” on a “neo-conservative”.

Hopefully, the mindless masses will see what’s behind McCain’s curtain before the end of the movie

Anonymous said...

All homer has to do is post a stupid fucking google email like homerbend@gmail.com, and then we all send him email, and he invites us to post, that way this site doesn't go away, and homer doesn't have to work his ass off every sunday or more.

Shit! I asked repeatedly to no avail!

*

Ok, homer so what is your email address so people can email you, and be added to the post list??

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The FDIC and your money: Here’s what you need to know

September 17, 2008 4:00 am

Having lived through the Great Depression, Ed Park is more than a little unnerved about this year’s financial turmoil. He remembers the bank closures then and said he and his friends are...

A little piece to keep you in WaMu until she goes under.

Wells Fargo downtown will be hiring soon....

Anonymous said...

I come home and find the capitalist, every lame motherfucker must fend for himself, Repubs have turned National Socialist.

*

BP, National Socialism is Nazism, Bend is Nazi, and the DEM&PUG are both right-wing Nazi partys.

Anonymous said...

Folks remember also that Marge has

'angrybendbitch.blogspot.com',

but she's not fond of dem pics either,

her current site, 'benddenial.blogspot.com', sort of remind's me of sally heathertons site, very soft & cool, and professional, marge is definitely getting help, it looks like a real realtors site, with all the nice pics of Bends weather.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Yeah! US Taxpayers now are going into the insurance biz!

Government steps in again, bails out AIG with $85B

By JEANNINE AVERSA, IEVA M. AUGSTUMS and STEPHEN BERNARD – 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Another day, but not just another bailout. This one's a stunning government takeover.

In the most far-reaching intervention into the private sector ever for the Federal Reserve, the government stepped in Tuesday to rescue American International Group Inc. with an $85 billion injection of taxpayer money. Under the deal, the government will get a 79.9 percent stake in one of the world's largest insurers and the right to remove senior management.


Awesome investment! We paid $85 BILLION for 79.9% of a company with a current market value of $5.6 billion. Since 80% of $5.6 bills is only $4.5 billion, the US taxpayer only overpaid by 1,900%! Awesome! Thank you Paulson! Good call!

Anonymous said...

BP, What did you expect on the AIG bailout, I mean with PAULSON all week saying "NO MORE BAILOUTS", and then sneeking it through last night after 5pm east coast, and now not a fucking word.

Like I said yesterday AM, I simply couldn't believe that the DEM congress would let AIPAC's source of REVENUE go down.

BP I'll you right here how this went down.

AIPAC: "DUMBYA ya want offshore right?"

BUSH: "yeseee siiir"

AIPAC: "Then bailout AIG @ $100B, and we'll tell 1000% of the DEM congressman to OK the off-shore drilling"

BUSH: "Done, AIG has got a line of credit, I made it a Trillion just to keep the numbers small"

That's how it transpired folks, AIPAC gave BUSH-TEAM what they always wanted, and AIPAC gets to control one of the biggest companys in the world.

Anonymous said...

Ok, homer so what is your email address so people can email you, and be added to the post list??

Anonymous said...

The $45.2 billion in the fund is a drop of more than 14 percent from its first-quarter amount of $52.8 billion. The drop means the fund is now below the reserve rate of 1.15 percent of estimated insured deposits mandated by federal law. Accordingly, the FDIC is required to develop a plan to bring the ratio above 1.15 percent in the next five years. An Aug. 26 FDIC news release said it would likely do so by increasing premiums, especially for high-risk banks.


*

14% drop in a quarter, so the money will be entirely gone in two years. Whoopee.

The thing to remember on FDIC is that yes, your money is SAFE, but they're NOT obligated to return it to you for 99 years.

Given that the entire POOL of money is $40B, and that's 1/2 of what AIG got last night on the first round, its indicative of the priority of the US government.

Why didn't PAULSON just give a TRILLION dollars to FDIC, to cover any and ALL bank-runs?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

It also could "lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth and materially weaker economic performance," the Fed said in a statement.

Yeah... that second thing, "reduced household wealth" is what they are concerned with. Billionaires going broke. That is who all this flailing is aimed at.

Not a single low-income turd will be saved from being thrown out of their home. Billionaires will be shored up, and saved from a situation of their own doing.

Anonymous said...

ON AIG, here's a good view of what is REALLY GOING ON!! I really believe that DUMBYA gave them the $100B, for the OIL-DRILLING, but the terms of the $100B are definitely on CHENEY's side. It must feel great to have GREENBERG by the balls, note like I had sad yesterday, GREENBERG held majority stock, and he just lost et-al!!!!

*

AIG Falls on Speculation Takeover Will Wipe Out Shareholders

By Hugh Son and Erik Holm

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc. fell 30 percent on speculation the government's takeover will ultimately wipe out shareholders.

AIG dropped $1.14 to $2.61 at 9:39 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The U.S. plan to save the New York- based company, the nation's largest insurer by assets, may give the government an 80 percent stake in return for an $85 billion loan, and dividends may be halted to common and preferred stockholders. They're already reeling from a 94 percent drop in the common shares this year.

The ``punitive'' interest rate on the two-year loan ``makes it extremely clear that this is not a subsidy extended to keep the company afloat but rather a stranglehold that makes AIG unviable while ensuring that its obligations will be met,'' said Marco Annunziata, an analyst at UniCredit SpA, in a note to clients. ``This is to all extents and purposes a controlled bankruptcy.''

AIG unraveled as the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression led to more than $18 billion of losses in the past year. A meltdown could have cost the financial industry $180 billion, according to RBC Capital Markets, because AIG provided insurance on more than $441 billion of fixed-income investments held by the world's biggest institutions, including $57.8 billion in securities tied to subprime mortgages.

The U.S. reversed its opposition to a bailout of AIG, after private efforts collapsed and the Federal Reserve concluded that ``a disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility,'' according to a Fed statement late yesterday.

`Systemic Risk'

``It's an enormous relief,'' said David Havens, credit analyst for UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut. ``Nobody really knows what it would have meant if they would have been allowed to fail, but there was an enormous amount of systemic risk. The problem was, nobody really knew how bad it could have been.''

The agreement will give the company, which sells insurance in more than 130 countries, time to sell assets ``on an orderly basis,'' AIG said in a statement. Chief Executive Officer Robert Willumstad, 63, will be replaced by former Allstate Corp. CEO Edward Liddy, 62, according to a person familiar with the plans, who declined to be identified because the change hadn't been formally announced.

AIG's $2.5 billion of 5.85 percent notes due in 2018 jumped 8.25 cents to 53 cents on the dollar as of 9:29 a.m. in New York, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The debt yields 15.6 percent, or about 12 percentage points more than similar-maturity Treasuries, Trace data show.

Credit Downgrades

The survival of the 89-year-old insurer fell into doubt when Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service cut its credit ratings on Sept. 15. The reductions threatened to force AIG to post more than $13 billion in collateral when the company was already short on cash. AIG couldn't raise money by selling shares after the stock plunged to less than $4 a share from $70.11 in October of last year.

``There could be a greater need for capital'' beyond the $85 billion, New York Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo told CNBC today, adding that the loan will give AIG time to sell units.

The loan will ``be sufficient to handle AIG's collateral needs'' and allow the insurer to refinance debt as it comes due, said Wachovia Corp. analyst John Hall in a note today.

The Fed's loan doesn't require asset sales or the company's liquidation, though these are the most likely ways AIG will repay the Fed, central bank staff officials told reporters on condition of anonymity. Blackstone Group LP advised AIG on the transaction.

Markets Unprepared

The Fed doesn't have an expectation of whether AIG will be smaller, nonexistent or similar to its current form at the end of the loan's term, the staffers said.

The Fed or Treasury will end up holding the AIG stake, the staffers said. The Fed bailed out AIG while refusing aid to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which collapsed earlier this week, because financial markets were more prepared for a Lehman failure, a Fed staff official said.

The Fed stepped in after JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which were brought in to help assess AIG, failed to come up with a solution, according to a person familiar with the talks. Liddy is currently on the board of Goldman, the company Henry Paulson ran as CEO before becoming the U.S. Treasury secretary in 2006.

Hank Greenberg

Willumstad, the former Citigroup Inc. president who left the bank in 2005 to seek a CEO position, was named to AIG's top post in June. His predecessor, Martin Sullivan, was chief for three years until being ousted after two record quarterly net losses. Maurice ``Hank'' Greenberg reigned at AIG for almost four decades until he was forced to retire in 2005 amid regulatory probes.

Greenberg, who remains one of the company's biggest stakeholders, said the company needed a bridge loan instead of a plan that put the company under government control. An investor group led by Greenberg said in a federal filing hours before the rescue was announced it might want to buy the company or some units or make loans to AIG.

``Why would you want to wipe out shareholders when you just need a bridge loan?'' Greenberg, 83, said in an interview before the announcement. ``It doesn't make any sense.'' Greenberg declined to comment after the Fed announcement, spokesman Glen Rochkind said.

Anonymous said...

It also could "lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth and materially weaker economic performance," the Fed said in a statement.

*

It's all about the creditors getting paid first, this is a BANKRUPTCY, to make sure that those connected to BUSH get paid before JAN20, 2009.

Everybody knows by then there will be NO MORE $$$.

The biggest asset that AIG has to sell is AIRCRAFT-LEASING and that bitch can't be sold today in this market. They got 110 Boeing orders right now firm, that must be canceled.

There is a ton $$$ that AIG owes people, and of course MANY are PUG's&DEM's. Your witnessing an accelerated bankruptcy of AIG.

What happened is that AIG tried to use their insurance reserves as a golden-parachute, but that didn't fly. Now they got the US Loan payable in 2 yrs does anybody really believe they'll be around in two years to pay?

Remember AIG was BIG in buy BEND REAL ESTATE PAPER, that is now worthless.

KURATEK was at one time dealing with AIG for money. AIG IS MOB.

Anonymous said...

Greenberg, who remains one of the company's biggest stakeholders, said the company needed a bridge loan instead of a plan that put the company under government control.

``Why would you want to wipe out shareholders when you just need a bridge loan?'' Greenberg, 83, said in an interview before the announcement. ``It doesn't make any sense.''

*

Greenberg just got completely WIPED out!!!!!!!!! Probably lost $100B or more of personal net-worth in one day. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Anonymous said...

HOMER, RUSSIA stock market is losing 10% an hour. Now that makes the USA looks stable. We're fucking talking a NewWorldOrder when this economic-cleansing is finished!!!!!! The 11th hour of BUSH-TEAM is doing some cool ass shit. WEAPONS of 'financial destruction' is what old LaRouche used to call this shit!!!!

***

Russian Emergency Funding Fails to Halt Stock Rout (Update3)

By Alex Nicholson and William Mauldin

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Russia poured $44 billion into its three largest banks and halted stock trading for a second day in a bid to stem the most severe financial crisis since its devaluation and debt default a decade ago.

The Finance Ministry extended the repayment period on loans available to OAO Sberbank, VTB Group and OAO Gazprombank to three months from one week. The benchmark Micex stock index plunged as much as 10 percent, taking its three-day decline to 25 percent, and brokerage KIT Finance said it's in talks with investors to sell a stake after failing to meet some obligations.

Russia's markets are facing the biggest test since the government defaulted in 1998. The decade-long economic boom is fading, foreign investors have pulled at least $35 billion from the nation's stocks and bonds since the five-day war in Georgia last month, and the collapse this week of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc. prompted a flight from emerging markets.

``I will tell my clients today to continue to abstain from buying Russian assets'' until economic problems are solved, said Zina Psiola, who manages a $1 billion Russian equities fund at Clariden Leu AG in Zurich.

The cost of lending has soared to a record, with the MosPrime overnight rate reaching 11.1 percent today, deterring speculative bets in equities. Russian stocks have lost more than $425 billion in value since reaching an all-time high May 17.

`Effectively Closed'

``The bond market remains effectively closed and banks are reluctant to lend to one another,'' said Julian Rimmer, head of sales trading at UralSib Financial Corp. in London. ``The problems experienced by KIT Finance have heightened counterparty risk and reduced liquidity further.''

Moscow-based KIT today said it is seeking to sell a stake after failing to meet some financial obligations related to repurchase agreements.

``Every day Russia falls due to people not being able to meet margin calls,'' said Marina Akopian manager of the Hexam EMEA Absolute Return Fund in London.

The cost of protecting bonds sold by Sberbank from default jumped 60 basis points to 3.55 percentage points, according to CMA Datavision prices at 3 p.m. in London. Credit-default swaps on OAO Gazprom, the gas export monopoly, fell 38 basis points to 421. Contacts on VTB Group declined 35 basis points from an all-time high to 6.53 percentage points, according to CMA.

Necessary Measures

Credit-default swaps, contracts conceived to protect bondholders against default, pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a company fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A rise indicates deterioration in the perception of credit quality; a decline signals the opposite.

A basis point on a credit-default swap contract protecting $10 million of debt from default for five years is equivalent to$1,000 a year.

President Dmitry Medvedev met Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today to discuss developments surrounding the economy.

``The situation is being followed very closely,'' Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said in a phone interview. ``Necessary measures are being taken.''

The ruble has lost 4.8 percent against the dollar since Aug. 8, when Russia sent troops and warplanes into Georgia for a military campaign that led to the worst relations with NATO since the Cold War. Investors have pulled at least $35 billion out of the country since the war, according to BNP Paribas SA estimates.

Economic Woes

Oil production, the government's biggest source of revenue, and accelerating inflation are adding to concerns for investors. Crude output is falling for the first time since 1998 and the inflation rate advanced more than expected in August, to near a five year high of 15 percent.

Industrial output grew more slowly than economists expected in August and economic growth in the second quarter slowed to an annual 7.5 percent from 8.5 percent in the previous period.

Still, unlike 1998, Russia is ``pretty well prepared'' to weather the turmoil, the World Bank's chief representative in Russia, Klaus Rohland, said today. The economy has grown every year for a decade and its international reserves have surged in the period by almost 50 times to $574 billion, more than any other country except China and Japan.

International banks have entered the Russian market in recent years. Societe Generale, France's second-largest bank, owns OAO Rosbank, a top 10 retail bank. Commerzbank AG, Germany's second- biggest lender by assets, owns a 15 percent stake in Promsvyazbank and Unicredit SpA, Europe's fourth-biggest bank, recently purchased Moscow International Bank. Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG is the largest foreign bank by assets in Russia.

`Calm Nervousness'

The Finance Ministry yesterday's added $20 billion to the interbank lending market.

Sberbank, VTB and Gazprombank ``are market-making banks capable of insuring the liquidity of the banking system,'' the ministry said in a statement today. The government and central bank will take more measures to improve liquidity this week, the ministry said.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the measures should ``smooth over the shock changes'' in the markets. ``With foreign borrowing stopping, we must soften the impact with additional funds, then the situation will stabilize,'' he said on state television.

The ruble-denominated Micex Stock Exchange suspended trading indefinitely at 12:10 p.m. after its index erased a 7.6 percent gain and plunged as much as 10 percent within an hour. The benchmark fell 17 percent yesterday, the biggest decline of the 88 indexes tracked by Bloomberg. The dollar-denominated RTS halted trading after similar declines.

Sberbank is down 32 percent and VTB Group 47 percent this week.

``The primary objective of these measures is to inject liquidity to calm nervousness,'' Alexander Morozov, chief economist at HSBC Bank in Moscow, said by telephone. ``Hopefully other banks will be able to get this money via the interbank market and this should prevent the rise of rates,'' he said.

Anonymous said...

AIG will also effect Bend's Aviation Sector, but below is the big-one, this is AIG's most valuable asset.

***

AIG PROBLEMS AFFECT AVIATION SECTOR
Aviation's relative immunity to a host of political, economic and even social issues that have dragged down virtually every other sector couldn't last forever and the potential failure of American International Group Inc. (AIG) could be the fly in the ointment. MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal's online newsletter, says AIG may have to sell its commercial aircraft leasing arm, International Lease Finance Corp. to stay afloat and that will undoubtedly send ripples through the whole industry. In fact, Boeing has 102 firm orders through ILFC and if the company's credit rating is downgraded, that could mean higher prices for the end customers of those aircraft. More...

Anonymous said...

AIG may have to sell its commercial aircraft leasing arm, International Lease Finance Corp., to stay afloat and that will undoubtedly send ripples through the whole industry. In fact, Boeing has 102 firm orders through ILFC and if the company's credit rating is downgraded, that could mean higher prices for the end customers of those aircraft.

"If [ILFC] becomes consumed by AIG's problems, it may not be able to maintain the same purchase terms and financing terms with its banks and lenders and manufacturers," Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Forester Research, told MarketWatch. "That may force them to cancel orders, and that could have a huge impact on Boeing Co. and Airbus." Of course, trouble in the commercial sector doesn't always translate to problems in GA and even the opposite can happen, but given the sheer scope of the problems, it seems unlikely to escape.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Yeah, here is what happens when you land in Bend with an ASSLOAD OF MONEY:

Downtown Bend shop is on the market — for a buck

She purchased The Paper Place — located at 130 N.W. Oregon Ave., between the Cork restaurant and U.S. Bank — four years ago and ran what she said was a profitable business selling greeting cards, stationery and gifts. The past year has been slow, but that’s not why she’s selling, Schiefelbine said.

Instead, Schiefelbine said she wants to “simplify.” She’s downsizing — from a 20-acre property with a large home in southeast Bend — to a small custom-built, pueblo-style home on 4 acres near Bishop.

She’s selling everything but her “horse, her dogs, her bike and the clothes on her back.”


Read that: Woman arrives with TONS OF MONEY, buys huge home on buttload of acreage and a small business, going to live the AmeriKKKan Dream in Bend.

What happened?

100% BUST, selling everything, schlocking her sorry ass back to the ass-end of Cali-Banger Land, the last place this Amenity Locust felt like she wasn't dying a slow death.

Probably happening 20X a day in Bend.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And it should be noted that even $1 is too much for this thing. This woman NEVER made a single dollar of profit, and is being raped by her landlord, like 99.99999% of downtown Bend small businesses.

This business is 100% worthless. She's trying to breakeven on her useless inventory. This happens all the time, and typically these businesses end up just folding.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Central Oregon food banks in crisis mode

Part of the issue is simple economics. With soaring housing, fuel and food costs, more working families, and seniors on fixed incomes are in need of assistance.

"Most of them are saying, 'I've never had to ask for help before.' 'This is humiliating, this is embarrassing, I hate this,'" Gleason explained. "But they don't have any options."


Got Bubble?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Oh Shit! Is Morgan Stanley on The Path To Destruction?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Get your Lehman charts here, Folks! They're going fast! Pretty soon they'll be gone!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And in case you're thinking of "scooping up" these BK's ON THE CHEAP...

Lehman is at $.11/sh, DOWN 67% today! When you go BK, the losses are 100%. Not 90%, not 95%.

IT GOES TO ZERO.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Morgan has gone from $40 to $20 in 3 trading days.

They next.

Anonymous said...

Fed bails out Wall Street, Treasury to bailout Fed!

from the WSJ:

SEPTEMBER 17, 2008, 12:59 P.M. ET

Treasury to Provide Fed Funding
By JEFF BATER and MAYA JACKSON RANDALL

WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department Wednesday announced a financing program designed to provide cash for the Federal Reserve to use in the attempt to address liquidity pressures in the financial market.

The Treasury Department announced the initiation of a temporary Supplementary Financing Program at the request of the Fed. "The program will consist of a series of Treasury bills, apart from Treasury's current borrowing program, which will provide cash for use in the Federal Reserve initiatives," Treasury said.

The Fed has announced a series of lending and liquidity initiatives during the past several quarters intended to address heightened liquidity pressures in the financial market, including enhancing its liquidity facilities this week.

"To manage the balance sheet impact of these efforts, the Federal Reserve has taken a number of actions, including redeeming and selling securities from the System Open Market Account portfolio," the Treasury said.

Treasury said announcements of and participation in auctions conducted under the SFP will be governed by existing Treasury auction rules.

"Treasury will provide as much advance notification as possible regarding the timing, size and maturity of any bills auctioned for Supplementary Financing program purposes," Treasury said.

The proceeds of a new program will be held in an account at the Federal Reserve Reserve Bank of New York. The New York Fed said the government's supplemental financial program would make available fresh funding to the central bank's efforts to stabilize markets. "Funds in this account serve to drain reserves from the banking system, and will therefore offset the reserve impact of recent Federal Reserve lending and liquidity initiatives.

The Treasury said earlier that it would auction Treasury bills beyond the normal range needed to finance government borrowing, to "provide cash for use" in Fed efforts to provide liquidity to the financial sector. The Treasury said it has launched the effort at the request of the central bank.

In the wake of the Fed's extraordinary bailout of foundering investment bank American International Group Inc. and the launch of a host of programs to provide liquidity to commercial and investment banks, some have increasingly worried the Fed's balance sheet was running out of room to support those efforts. The Treasury's announcement and the New York Fed's explanation of how it will handle those funds goes some way toward alleviating those worries.

—Michael S. Derby contributed to this article.

Anonymous said...

Fed bails out Wall Street, Treasury to bailout Fed!

*

All last week Paulson (treasury) was quoted,...

"WE DONT DO BAILOUTS"

This week he's doing the mother of all bailouts.....

Watch NOT WHAT THE SAY, BUT WHAT THEY DO,

This is what I have been trying to TEACH the pussy, their WORDS aren't worth shit.

Bewert said...

That last one is scarey. The Fed can't print money fast enough--now the US taxpayer is backing up the largest black hole in the world.

I'm with Jimmie Rogers and Ron Paul on this one. Shut down the Fed before we are completely bankrupt. Go back to a government- issued currency.

Anonymous said...

HOMER,

UBS the bank of KURATEK is also down 20% today, LEHMAN has taken them down to the tune of almost a BILLION in losses, I guess they had made a BIG bet on LEHMAN bailout, and bet wrong.

WAMU, UBS,

NORTEL got totally fucked today at 45% down, must have had some piggy back riding on AIG financing.

A lot of people like (BEND) were depending on UBS, your going to see all kinds of card's topple, everywhere.

HOLD ON, marge where do you live exactly so we can hunker down??

Anonymous said...

UBS is also going to take GM down.

UBS had been the lender of last resort to a lot of places like Bend, @20% APR. Now even that money is non-available.

CASH, folks its all CASH now.

Anonymous said...

why aren't the rating agencies downgrading U.S. government debt? they're closer to junk than to AAA.

Anonymous said...

Shit homer, morgan just got a kiss, Citicorp got bitch-slapped today.

Anonymous said...

government bailout of AIG adds to fears about the stability of the financial markets. WaMu, Goldman and Morgan Stanley all tumble.

*

I'm glad goldman is finally going down, I hope PAULSON gets VERY fucked, watch him bail-out his 'national treasure'.
That's what GREENBERG called AIG.

Anonymous said...

Goldman-Sachs down -25% in one day, sweet.

This bitch at 120 still has a long way to fall, a lot of people are going to get hurt.

Just like 1932, era folks bought this shit thought it was a 'deal' trouble is its ALL going to ZERO.

Too much dependence on foreign, and DUMBYA made them all hate us.

Post 1998 USA citizen had negative savings rate, and literally quit buy US paper, we're 100% dependent today on foreigners, and their FAITH/CONFIDENCE in TEAM BUSH/OBMAMA/CAIN is ZERO, A BIG FUCKING BP ZERO.

Anonymous said...

Everthing is OK, just move along, move along, ...

Goldman's default insurance costs rose to $500,000 a year, up $80,000 at Tuesday's close, according to data from Phoenix Partners and Markit Intraday. The swaps were trading as though Goldman were rated "Ba3," a junk level that is nine steps below its actual rating of "Aa3," Moody's data showed.

Goldman's swaps began trading at junk-like levels on Monday, the day of a bankruptcy filing by investment bank Lehman Brothers. Morgan Stanley's credit default swaps have been trading in junk territory since early June.

Bewert said...

Bend city councilors are ready to listen

In politics, listening goes a long way.

Bend city councilors are going to make themselves available for just that purpose tonight from 5:30 to 7 at City Hall.

It will be the first in a series of open forums to give residents an opportunity to meet face to face with councilors and other city officials.

There’s no agenda. There’s minimal structure. Councilors will be available to talk.

Want to tell the council what you think about water rates, the urban growth boundary, the bus system, Juniper Ridge or whatever else? That’s what they’ll be there for.

Residents can already e-mail councilors, call them or show up and speak at council meetings. The idea behind the “Open Line” meetings is to give residents a better chance to interact with city decision-makers face to face. In the future, the meetings may be held at other locations.

City staff are going to be on hand listening to conversations, trying to pick topics for further discussion. After the first half-hour, City Manager Eric King may try to focus the meeting on a handful of topics that people have been discussing. The regular City Council meeting begins at 7 p.m.

There isn’t a lot of glory in being a city councilor. They are paid a token amount. They give up hours of their own time to do their best to make Bend better. It’s a nice gesture for them to give up a bit more time to give residents another opportunity to have their say.

Anonymous said...

S&P: Bank of America Downgraded, Ratings Put On Watch Negative;

*

This begs the question, where is safety in banking?

Anonymous said...

WAMU HAS DAYS IF NOT HOURS
09SEP17
(Reuters) - U.S. federal regulators recently called a number of banks asking if they would consider buying Washington Mutual Inc should it eventually falter, the New York Post said, citing sources.

Federal banking regulators, in recent days, contacted Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, HSBC and several other financial institutions to gauge their interest in a possible acquisition of WaMu, the paper said.

Anonymous said...

There isn’t a lot of glory in being a city councilor. They are paid a token amount.

*

THE PUSSY WANTS IT SO BAD HE CAN TASTE IT!!

Bewert said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aV6J69.AsH_0&refer=home

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Short-term debt costs for General Motors Corp., UBS AG and Sears Holdings Corp. soared as the oldest U.S. money-market fund saddled investors with losses, sapping confidence in assets once considered among the safest.

General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, is willing to pay the most to borrow in the commercial paper market since Dec. 31, 2007. The rate for Zurich-based UBS jumped to the highest since March 4. Sears, the biggest U.S. department-store company, is offering the most in six months to sell the debt.

PANIC

U.S. Treasury three-month bill rates dropped to the lowest since at least 1954 as investors abandoned higher-yielding assets for the safety of the shortest-term government securities.

General Motors today posted a rate of 5.25 percent for seven-day commercial paper, 1.25 percentage points more than yesterday...UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, is offering a rate of 3 percent on the seven-day paper, up 1 percentage point, Bloomberg data show.

Reserve Primary Fund became the first money-market fund in 14 years to expose investors to losses after writing off $785 million of debt issued by bankrupt Lehman. Shareholders pulled more than 60 percent of the fund's $64.8 billion in assets in the two days since Lehman folded.

The Reserve Primary Fund suspended redemptions and its net asset value fell below $1 a share, eroding confidence in money- market funds, which invest in commercial paper...
Losses on the securities firm's debt forced the fund to break the buck, meaning its net asset value fell below the $1 a share price paid by investors, New York-based Reserve Management Corp., its closely held owner, said yesterday in a statement. Redemptions were suspended for as long as seven days.


Now money market funds are going belly-up. It's madness. Pretty soon people are going to jumping out windows and splattering on the sidewalks of Wall St.

Anonymous said...

Shut down the Fed before we are completely bankrupt. Go back to a government- issued currency.

*

Barney Frank & Rangle tried to do that last month. They found a 20+ yr old miss in Rangle's tax returns and shut him up. Frank Lost.

UNTIL ALL THE MONEY IS GONE BP, they'll keep playing this charade.

OK, I can call it RIGHT NOW for all, what they'll do is NULL&VOID all the T-BILLS&T-NOTES, and sure the federal-reserve will be voided, and the money will be transferrable, given that citizens don't invest, and just foreigners, what do we care?

DUMBYA has already proved.

Thus that's what you watch is how treasury falls, cuz at the end of the they're not going KILL he federal reserve until there is nothing left to steal.

Rogers moved to Singapore he's safe, I'm sure Ron Paul has enough put over to get him through.

Us old farts have enough until we die, its the kids that are going to be fucked for generations.

If there are any kids reading this shit, get out of the USA you while you can, and tap into a real job in CHINA, or some Asian powerhouse, and make some fucking money.

Anonymous said...

PANIC

U.S. Treasury three-month bill rates dropped to the lowest since at least 1954 as investors abandoned higher-yielding assets for the safety of the shortest-term government securities.

*

This is my point. The treasury will effectively go to NULL&VOID, at that point the Federal-Reserve gets abandoned for something new.

Right now its golden-parachutes for all before Jan 2009.

Steal all you can now, cuz post Jan 2009, there's nothing going to be left worth stealing.

Anonymous said...

U.S. Treasury three-month bill rates dropped to the lowest since at least 1954 as investors abandoned higher-yielding assets for the safety of the shortest-term government securities.


*

Foreigners KNOW that in +3 months the US Treasury is going to be a ghost.

I wonder where people are putting their money today? Sandisk?

With everybody broke, who will buy gadgets??

Anonymous said...

Now money market funds are going belly-up. It's madness. Pretty soon people are going to jumping out windows and splattering on the sidewalks of Wall St.


*

Everybody has known this was coming since last spring, why the mystery? Money Markets collapsing? They're all sitting on worthless SIP's. UBS/AIG worthless CMO's, & CDO's.

$62TRILLION in credit swaps outstanding with nothing to back them.

Who didn't know this was coming?

I know we'll read tomorrow in the BULL&SORE "WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED".

Anonymous said...

How bad is all this really?

Gore Vidal foresaw this in TEAM-BUSH.

BK the USA, and pick up all the assets, and run them. Where have we seen this? in RUSSIA about 20+ years ago.

The US economy implodes, all 50 states become self sufficient, the world moves on, the US MILITARY machine implodes, millions of soldiers are left abroad to find their own way home.

The Russian people survived, they moved on, those running the government got to pick up companys for nothing, and sell them later on the NEW stock-market, to investors abroad.

There must be a TON of VULTURES circling the USA right now, and waiting.

There real problem is our big city's with all hungry and angry, and need folks that want their welfare, ...

This ain't the great depression folks, those people knew how to take care of themselves, we now got 2-3 generations of parasites that make up the majority of the USA.

Those that can, its a DAMN good time to travel in CHINA or Australia for 5-10 years.

Anonymous said...

Well somebody made 10% today!!!!

NEW YORK -- Gold futures surged more than $80 an ounce Wednesday, the biggest daily gain in dollar terms since at least 1980, as news of the U.S. government's takeover of the biggest U.S. insurance company fueled massive safe-haven buying. Gold for December delivery closed up 9% at $850.50 an ounce. It earlier jumped $83.80 to $864.30.

Anonymous said...

BK the USA, and pick up all the assets, and run them. Where have we seen this? in RUSSIA about 20+ years ago.

[ This has been planned by the neo-cons for 20+ year. Its more ideological than money. The theory is that out of the NEW USA there is NO social security, or welfare, a whole new PUG paradise. That is what this is all about. ]

The US economy implodes, all 50 states become self sufficient, the world moves on, the US MILITARY machine implodes, millions of soldiers are left abroad to find their own way home.

[ Most will never come back, a great way to get rid of people who aren't productive. ]

Bewert said...

Bloomie:

U.S. Busts Mexican Drug Ring With Appetite for Strong Euro

By Steve Scherer

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. authorities made nationwide arrests against a drug trafficking ring led by the so-called Gulf Cartel, including alleged mafia members in New York who shipped cocaine to Italy seeking euros instead of dollars...

Anonymous said...

>HOLD ON, marge where do you live exactly so we can hunker down???<

BBBB

Now it is apparant that I should change it to Beans,bullets,booze and Bunkers.

I must have been taste testing the booze part last night.

Anonymous said...

I think you'll see lot more non-dollar drug busts.

Why in the FUCK do you think we're in columbia or afghanistan? To FORCE The drug dealers to use dollars.

If & WHEN the drug-lords no longer accept us one-hundred dollar bills, you know its over. We're almost there.

Anonymous said...

WAMU is making CACB look like a bastion of security.

***

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - 3:06 PM
Washington Mutual subject of rumors
Boston Business Journal - Portland Business Journal

* Rumors swirl around Washington Mutual

The fate of Washington Mutual Inc. remained murky Wednesday as its shares dropped further in the wake of analysts’ downgrades and amid reports that federal regulators are asking other banks if they’d be willing to purchase Washington Mutual in the event it fails.

In mid-day Wednesday trading, shares in Seattle-based Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) were down more than 10 percent, or 24 cents, to $2.08.

The New York Post reported Wednesday that federal regulators had approached financial institutions including Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), and HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE: HCS) asking if they’d be interested in acquiring the Seattle thrift. But the newspaper said no merger discussions were under way between Washington Mutual and potential acquirers.

Washington Mutual spokeswoman Darcy Donahoe-Wilmot said the company would not comment on rumors. She said the bank had no update on its statement last week that it is working with officials from the federal Office of Thrift Supervision on a multiyear business plan and forecast of its earnings, asset quality and capital.

A OTS spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Carol Eckert, a spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve in San Francisco, said she had no information on regulators working with Washington Mutual and said the Fed does not comment on rumors.

On Monday, shares of Washington Mutual, which has suffered heavily from the housing market downturn and its exposure to subprime mortgages, fell nearly 27 percent, on the day that Standard & Poor’s lowered its credit rating on the bank to “junk.”

Anonymous said...

Dealing Drugs, e.g. ollie-north CIA/COCAINE-HEROIN Afghan-IRAN-CONTRA, OK

CLINTON, MENA-AK COCAINE OK, ...CIA

But when anybody trys to move DRUGS in the world, and they aren't MOVED in US-TREASURY-NOTES, you will see the wrath of KHAN.

There is NO such thing as Italian Lira anymore, only EURO ( european single currency ).

Anonymous said...

Since this Spring 2008, nobody in EUROPE will touch US cash, its been falling so fast that even the banks will not take the loss.

The US dollar in CASH form, is now worthless in most of the world.

Sure if you go to an exchange house, that specializes daily rates, but shops, and local banks haven't taken US dollars for almost six months.

Anonymous said...

WAMU & MORGAN are looking for buyers today, that means by this weekend, if somebody hasn't stepped to the plate - BK, zero stock value soon.

WHAT a fucking nightmare WAMU, all that toxic non-collectable MTG, they were writing MTG's to children with no hope of every paying payments, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??"

Anonymous said...

BP, now you'll have fun, they have gotten into SABAR's peronsal yahoo & gmail, and made public; notice too all here, they could also do that you anytime. Another reason NEVER to use these 'public' email accounts with a hosted 'free' server for confidential SHIT.

Email to homerbend@gmail.com, and talking about pussy is fine, or if you got picture of any big-zero cunt you can send to bilbobend@gmail.com.

How many weeks did TT say she had? It's been two weeks, IMHO this public dump of her personal email will finish her. This has NEVER been done to anyone on this level. This woman is FUCKED.

***


Seattle Post Intelligencer
Palin’s E-Mail Account Hacked, Published on Web Site
FOXNews - 1 hour ago
by FOXNews.com In the latest of a series of invasions into Sarah Palin’s personal life, hackers have broken into the Republican vice presidential candidate’s private e-mail account, and a widely read Web site has published screen grabs from it.
Hackers claim break-in to Palin's e-mail account The Associated Press
McCain camp seeks investigation over reported e-mail hack CNN Political Ticker
PC Magazine - InformationWeek - WebProNews - Register

Anonymous said...

Nothing really there, on second thought this could be a Mc$ain pretense to criminalize the 'open internet'.

*

WIKILEAKS STAFF (Wikileaks)
Wednesday September 16, 2008

The internet activist group 'anonymous', famed for its exposure of unethical behavior by the Scientology cult, has now gone after the Alaskan govenor and republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

At around midnight last night some members affiliated with the group gained access to governor Palin's email account "gov.palin@yahoo.com" and handed over the contents to the government sunshine site Wikileaks.org.
One of the family photos from the account
One of the family photos from the account

Governor Palin has come under media criticism in the past week for using private email accounts to avoid Alaskan freedom of information laws. The contents of the mailbox show this to be true and also hold clues of at least one other Yahoo based mail account held by Palin, "gov.sarah@yahoo.com".

The [[Sarah Palin Yahoo account 2008]zip archive]] made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails, address book and a couple of family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name tends to re-enforce the earlier criticism of Palin's email use.

The list of emails include an exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress. Another screenshot shows Palin's inbox and an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.

The e-mail, a message of support to Palin, tells her not to let negative press get to her and asks Palin to pray for McCorkell, who writes that "I need strength to 1. keep employment, 2. not have to choose."

According to Kim Zetter of Wired Magazine, McCorkell confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.

Subsequently tests by Wikileaks reveal that both Palin's "gov.palin@yahoo.com" and her unrelated "gov.sarah@yahoo.com" account have now been deleted, almost certainly by Palin herself.

According to the Guardian, who has looked at the Wikileaks data, among the emails in Palin's account were several from addresses belonging to her aides, including a draft letter to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and several bearing "DPS", the acronym for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

DPS supervises the Alaska state troopers. Could the e-mails in question be relevant to the brewing ethics storm over Palin's push to sack her former brother-in-law from the force?

The contact list included also holds accounts for other official representative's private email accounts, including those of Alaska's Kris Perry and Sharon Leighow.

Anonymous said...

Most of Europe is saying that the USA has now entered GREAT-DEPRESSION-2.

***

So what can we learn from the Crash of 1929 to avoid a 21st Century Great Depression?

By Geoffrey Wansell
Last updated at 11:24 PM on 17th September 2008

By the end of September 1929, the American stock market on New York’s Wall Street was riding the wave of a decade of intoxicating growth.

The Roaring Twenties — that era of the Jazz Age, bootleggers and gangsters like Al Capone — had seen millions of ordinary Americans caught up in the excitement of owning shares, and making money.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading shares had grown five-fold in the previous five years.
Wall Street 1929 and the City today

Dark times: Wall Street in 1929, left, and Lehmen Brothers' staff on Tuesday

As the social historian Cecil Roberts was to put it later: ‘Everyone was playing the market. Stocks soared dizzily.

'I found it hard not to be engulfed. I had invested my American earnings in good stocks.

'Should I sell for a profit? Everyone said, “Hang on — it’s a rising market.”’

On the last day of a visit to New York that September, Roberts went to have his hair cut.

As the barber swept the clean white sheet from his shoulders and bent to brush his collar, he said softly: ‘Buy Standard Gas. I’ve doubled. It’s good for another double.’

Stunned, Roberts walked upstairs and said to himself: ‘If the hysteria has reached the barber-level, something must soon happen.’ It did.

On October 3, the day after Britain’s widely respected Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, had warned that the Americans had got themselves into a ‘speculative orgy’ on Wall Street, the New York stock market started to fall.

Today, almost 80 years later, history seems to be on the verge of repeating itself — with the Dow Jones index of leading shares on Wall Street falling, followed by major stock markets around the world.

Back in 1929, as October continued, so the fall in the value of stocks and shares steepened.

On Monday, October 21, six million shares swapped hands, the largest number in the history of the exchange.

But then, on the morning of Thursday, October 24, 1929, it went into freefall. When the New York Stock Exchange opened there were no buyers, only sellers.

The Great Crash had begun. On the floor of the Exchange, there was pandemonium.

Watched by none other than Winston Churchill, who was in the United States on a speaking tour and had come to see how his American investments were faring, there was ‘bedlam’ with ‘the jobbers (trying to buy or sell stocks and shares) caught in the middle’.

As Selwyn Parker, author of a new book on the Crash puts it: ‘In vain attempts to be heard above the din, they were screaming orders to sell; when that did not work, they hurled their chits at the chalk girls.

'Others, transfixed by the plummeting share prices, simply stood where they were in an almost catatonic state.

‘What Churchill was watching,’ Parker goes on to say ‘was the collapse of the collective nerve of American shareholders.’

On the street, the crowds of onlookers grew ever bigger as rumours of the falls swept New York — with thousands upon thousands of ordinary Americans fearful that they were about to lose everything.

By midday police riot squads had to be called to disperse what The New York Times itself called ‘the hysterical crowds’, but they had little or no effect. Rumours spread everywhere — one was that 11 speculators had killed themselves that very morning, though it was not true.

One poor workman on the roof of an office building nearby found himself watched by the crowds below — all convinced that he was about to throw himself to the street below.
1929 Crash

Panic: Investors at New York's stock exchange in 1929 as share prices tumbled

He didn’t, but the legend that one banker did throw himself to his death was to become one of the abiding myths of what became known as ‘Black Thursday’.

Almost 13 million shares changed hands on the NYSE that day, the most that had ever done so, and yet the worst of the falls in value were recouped that same afternoon — in the wake of a rescue attempt by leading bankers who had held an emergency meeting at the offices of JP Morgan.

Yet the rally didn’t last. By Monday, October 28, the sellers were back, and on Tuesday October 29, the Great Crash finally came to a dreadful conclusion in what The New York Times described as ‘the most disastrous day’ in the American stock market’s history.

On that day — ‘Black Tuesday’ — losses approached £4.5 billion ( equivalent to £800 billion today), and more than 16.4million shares changed hands.

No matter what the bankers, or wealthy investors like John D. Rockefeller, tried to do to stem the tide of sellers, their efforts were pointless. They were swept aside, as huge blocks of shares were sold, and confidence drained out of the market.

Groups of men — ‘with here and there a woman’ in the words of one observer — stood beside the new ‘ticker-tape’ machines, which monitored the price of stocks and shares, watching as their fortunes vanished in front of their eyes.

One reporter noted: ‘The crowds about the ticker-tape, like friends around the bedside of a stricken friend, reflected in their faces the story the tape was telling.

There were no smiles. There were no tears either. Just the cameraderie of fellow sufferers.’ The comedian Eddie Cantor lost everything, but kept his sense of humour.

‘Well, folks,’ he told his radio audience that evening, ‘they got me in the market, just like they got everybody else.

'In fact, they’re not calling it the stock market any longer. They’re calling it the stuck market.

'Everyone’s stuck. Well, except my uncle. He got a good break. He died in September.’

Groucho Marx, star of Duck Soup and Animal Crackers, lost £400,000, while heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, one of the first multi-millionaire sportsmen, lost £1.5million.

Even the man who was later accused of triggering the stock market boom, economist Professor Irving Fisher, lost everything.
Enlarge Daily Mail on October 29, 1929

Headline event: The Daily Mail from October 25, 1929

Just four months earlier, Fisher had told the readers of an article entitled Everybody Ought To Be Rich: ‘If a man saves £7.50 a week, and invests in good common stocks, and allows the dividends and rights to accumulate, at the end of 20 years he will have at least £40,000 and an income from investments of around £200 a month. He will be rich.

‘And because income can do that, I am firm in my belief that anyone not only can be rich, but ought to be rich.’

Small wonder that the most popular song of 1929 was Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies — with its unforgettable lines: ‘Blue skies smiling at me/Nothing but blue skies, do I see.’

Millions of Americans had taken Fisher’s advice, often borrowing the money to do so. And, in another parallel with today’s financial crisis, ordinary people were encouraged to take exceptional risks — risks they did not appreciate, and which they would come to regret.

Some had their doubts, but not many. One investor later recalled: I knew something was terribly wrong because I heard bellboys, everybody, talking about the stock market.’

But, just like today, many of them were gulled by the slick salesmen of the investment houses and banks.

As Parker explains: ‘In the five-year run up to the Crash, gullible investors borrowed wildly to get into the market, and many were systematically duped by Wall Street and the stock market fraternity at large.’

After the Crash, one expert in the Department of Commerce estimated that almost half the £25 billion of stocks and shares sold in the United States during the Roaring Twenties was ‘undesirable or worthless’.

But the other half clearly reflected the growing American economy — with shares in General Electric, for example, tripling in value in the 18 months before the Crash; while a £5,000 investment in General Motors in 1920 would have produced an astonishing £750,000 by 1929.

By the end of 1928 most investors had come to expect incredible gains, and the presidential election campaign that November did nothing to quell the fever.

Indeed, the Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, who’d been commerce secretary throughout the 1920s, took to the hustings to announce: ‘We shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.’

It was to take a generation — and a World War — to see any semblance of prosperity return.

The Great Crash of 1929 plunged America, and the rest of the world, into an economic depression that was to last for the next decade.

As one commentator memorably explained afterwards: ‘Anyone who bought stocks in mid 1929 and held onto them saw most of his or her adult life pass by before getting back to even.’

So why did the Crash — which had been precipitated by government increases in interest rates to cool off the stock market boom — turn into a depression?

Simply because of the uncertainty the Crash fuelled.

No one knew what consequences of the Crash were going to be — so everyone decided to stop trading until things settled down.

Banks stopped lending money. Consumers stopped buying durable goods from shops.

The stores, in turn, stopped buying from the manufacturers.

Firms, therefore, cut back on production and laid off workers. And all of this fed on itself to make the depression still worse.

In the following ten years 13 million Americans lost their jobs, with 12,000 losing their jobs every single working day.

Some 20,000 companies went bankrupt, including 1,616 banks, and one in every 20 farmers was evicted from his land.

In 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression which continued until the beginning of the war, an astounding 23,000 Americans committed suicide in a single year.

And the pain was not restricted to the U.S.

Weimar Germany, which had built its foundations in the aftermath of World War I with the help of American loans, found itself struggling with ever mounting debts.

This, in turn, helped to usher in the brownshirts of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist party.

The impact on American self-confidence was devastating.

As the Broadway lyricist Yip Harburg, who lived through those times, explained almost 40 years later: ‘We thought American business was the Rock of Gibraltar.

'We were the prosperous nation, and nothing could stop us now. There was a feeling of continuity. If you made it, it was there for ever. Suddenly the big dream exploded’.

Another writer, who lived through those days, M. A. Hamilton, said the Great Crash of 1929 shattered the dreams of millions of Americans —

and that the average working man ‘found his daily facts reeling and swimming about him, in a nightmare of continuous disappointment’.

‘The bottom had fallen out of the market, for good,’ wrote Hamilton. ‘And that market had a horrid connection with his bread and butter, his automobile, and his instalment purchases.

'Worst of all, unemployment became a hideous fact and one that lacerated and tore at self-respect.’

Suddenly, there were lines of men and women queuing up for free soup from the soup kitchens established by the Salvation Army, or provided by the wealthy men who had not been hurt financially, like the millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst.

And everywhere Americans were struggling to eke out a living.

Once-successful businessmen were condemned to selling apples on street corners in New York, and, if they couldn’t afford apples, they offered to shine shoes.

By the summer of 1932, according to the police, there were about 7,000 of these ‘shine boys’ making a living on New York’s streets.

Just three years before they were almost non-existent and most were boys under 17.

The New York Times reported ‘an army of new salesmen, peddling everything from large rubber balls to cheap neckties’, while unemployment also brought back the ‘newsboy’ (often men in their 40s) in increasing numbers.

‘He avoids the busy corners, where news-stands are frequent,’ the paper explained. ‘And hawks his papers in the side streets with surprising success.

'His best client is the man who is too tired to walk down to the corner for a paper’.

The Great Depression was an economic apocalypse that no one could possibly wish to see happen again. But could it?

There are worrying parallels. The American economist J. K. Galbraith blamed the Great Depression that followed the Crash on credit growth, as did his British counterpart, Lionel Robbins.

And few doubt that it is the credit crunch — as well as the greed among bankers who took unacceptable risks with their clients’ money — that lies at the heart of the present falls in stock markets around the world.

Certainly, Selwyn Parker believes this. In the past decade, he writes, ‘ somehow the banks managed to slip the regulators’ leash, distributing credit around the world like so much chaff. Casinos were better regulated than the banking industry.’

The result of this credit binge, he adds, is the record levels of personal debt that we are seeing now, which leads, when things start to go wrong, ‘to general belt-tightening, fast-slowing growth and banks hoarding capital — the conditions we have right now’.

‘The financial system and people’s material wealth today,’ Parker warns darkly, are much more vulnerable than anybody thought.’

As stock markets fall around the world, we can only pray we are not on the brink of another economic apocalypse.

But history suggests that the omens are far from good.

Anonymous said...

Given that Palin's EMAIL has NO CONTENT, a good assumption is that MC-CAIN put this out as to put her back on the radar, and him and the economy OFF the radar.

Anonymous said...

Grandstanding has begun, now lets ALL blame the AIG bailout on some third non-existent party, other than ourselves. Federal Reserve is going DOWN, no fucking DOUBT, problem is they're going to take the T-NOTE out with them, and the Federal Reserve Note ( the dollar ). Conspiracy theorists have predicted for Months that a new currency would be issued in 2009, more & more that looks possible.

***

September 17, 2008 - 6:02pm
After AIG, Bunning wants to take Fed's bailout power away
By Trey Pollard
Category: US SenateTags: Jim Bunning, AIG, Mitch McConnell

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Southgate) remains outspoken about the prospect of federal bailouts for collapsing American companies, today proposing a bill that would remove the Federal Reserve’s ability to take actions like today’s $85 billion seizure of the faltering American Insurance Group.

Earlier this week, federal officials – including Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke – declined to bailout the Lehman Brothers financial firm. Bunning praised that decision, but he today couched the AIG bailout in terms akin to those he used when the Federal Housing Finance agency seized mortgage financiers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae just ten days ago by equating the move to those in other countries perceived as “socialist.”

“Once again the Fed has put the taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars to bail out an institution that put greed ahead of responsibility and used their good name to take risky bets that did not pay off,” said Bunning in a statement. “The only difference between what the Fed did and what Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela is Chavez doesn’t put taxpayer dollars at risk when he takes over companies – he just takes them.”

“To say I am outraged by this would be an understatement. The greed on Wall Street is only exceeded by the stupidity of the Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve,” added Bunning.

In response, Bunning filed a one-page bill that strikes language in the Federal Reserve Act giving it bailout power.

“I have said on more than one occasion that I don’t think the Federal Reserve can handle the powers they have and this irresponsible bailout just proves my point. As a result I have decided to do the Fed a favor and relieve them of some of their power by introducing a bill to take away their authority to make loans to non-banks, a power that prior to the bailout of Bear Stearns had not been used since the Great Depression,” said Bunning.

Amid the rocky news, Bunning's colleague from Kentucky added his opinion on how to approach the economic situation with a general call for a "bipartisan" push during remarks on the Senate floor, but urged caution on using tax dollars as a solution.



“Now more than ever is the time to rise above politics and work together. Our constituents don’t want campaign speeches and hyper-partisan accusations - they want security for their home and savings," said U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) today. “Government should be focused on bipartisan efforts to address the fundamental problems in the credit markets and must be cautious in putting taxpayer dollars at risk.”

Anonymous said...

“Now more than ever is the time to rise above politics and work together. Our constituents don’t want campaign speeches and hyper-partisan accusations - they want security for their home and savings," said U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) today. “Government should be focused on bipartisan efforts to address the fundamental problems in the credit markets and must be cautious in putting taxpayer dollars at risk.”


*

Where are the DEMOCRATS?? HOW COME THEY'RE NOT GRANDSTANDING. IN THEIR ZEAL TO WIN THE EXEC OFFICE, THEY MAY WIND UP OWNING A HALLOW BUILDING, ONCE THE FOREIGN CARPET-BAGGERS CLEAR OUT THE ASSETS.

Anonymous said...

WELL FOLKS It's STARTED, the ASIANS are selling EVERYTHING, too bad they're locked into those long-term TBILLS and TBONDS we'll have to wait a few months for that shit to be sold.

Who in the FUCK will the USA borrow from? Time to bring the troops home, or leave them there.

**

Asia Day Ahead: Goldman Drops by Record; GMAC Debt Costs Soar

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tumbled the most ever in New York trading after a government rescue of American International Group Inc. failed to ease the credit crisis. Short-term debt costs soared for GMAC LLC, UBS AG and Sears Holdings Corp.

TOP STORIES/MOST READ ON BLOOMBERG

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Plummet After AIG Takeover

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the biggest U.S. securities firms, tumbled the most ever in New York trading after a government rescue of American International Group Inc. failed to ease the credit crisis. Goldman fell as much as 26 percent on the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley plunged 44 percent, leading financial stocks to the lowest level in four years.

GMAC, UBS Short-Term Debt Costs Soar as Money Fund Breaks Buck

Short-term debt costs for GMAC LLC, UBS AG and Sears Holdings Corp. soared as the oldest U.S. money-market fund saddled investors with losses, sapping confidence in assets once considered among the safest.

Deutsche Bank Limits Credit Swaps Adding to Bank Risk

Deutsche Bank AG is taking steps to slow credit-default swap trades that expose it to the risk of failure among Wall Street firms, according to three investors told of the policy.

Germany's largest bank is requiring risk managers to approve trades where the company takes over an investor's contract with another dealer, said the people, who declined to be identified because they do business with Deutsche Bank. Signing off can take an hour, deterring investors from the trades with the Frankfurt-based institution, they said.

AIG Directors Sued by Pension Fund Seeking to Recover Losses

Directors at American International Group Inc., which received an $85 billion bailout from the U.S. government yesterday, were sued by a pension fund seeking to recover losses it blamed on company mismanagement.

Gross's Total Return Posts Biggest One-Day Drop in Three Years

Bill Gross's Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, fell 1.4 percent yesterday, the biggest one-day decline in more than three years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

MAIN ECONOMIC RELEASES TODAY Figures are based on Bloomberg surveys of economists: Bank of Japan Governor Shirakawa Gives Speech in Tokyo Today Bank of Japan to Release Its Monthly Report on Economy Today Japan's Services Index Seen Increasing 0.5% in July From June Hong Kong's Unemployment Rate Seen Rising to 3.3% in August India's Wholesale Inflation Seen at 12.07% From 12.1% a Week Ago

MAIN ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES *MAYBANK CUT TO `UNDERPERFORM' AT MERRILL LYNCH *ASUSTEK COMPUTER NEW `BUY' AT CLSA; PRICE TARGET NT$70 *ASUSTEK UPGRADED TO `BUY' FROM `NEUTRAL' AT NOMURA *CATHAY FINANCIAL CUT TO `NEUTRAL' AT CREDIT SUISSE *SHIN KONG FINANCIAL CUT TO `UNDERPERFORM' AT CREDIT SUISSE *MAYBANK CUT TO `SELL' FROM `BUY' AT CITI *MENGNIU DAIRY REMOVED FROM GOLDMAN ASIA CONVICTION BUY LIST *CHINA AGRI-INDUSTRIES REMOVED FROM GOLDMAN'S BUY LIST *UNIMICRON TECH RAISED TO `NEUTRAL' VS `SELL' AT GOLDMAN *BRAMBLES CUT TO `UNDERPERFORM' FROM `NEUTRAL' AT CREDIT SUISSE *KT FREETEL RAISED TO `OVERWEIGHT' AT MORGAN STANLEY *NISHIMATSU CONSTRUCTION RAISED TO `NEUTRAL' AT CREDIT SUISSE

ASIAN MARKETS

The Nikkei 225 futures contract due in December dipped 100 points to 11,630. The Hang Seng September contract fell 536 to 17,689. The S&P/ASX 200 Index futures due in September dropped 156 to 4,575 at 6:45 a.m. in Sydney.

U.S. Stocks Plunge as Lending Freezes Up Following AIG Takeover

U.S. stocks tumbled as bank lending seized up in the wake of the government's takeover of American International Group Inc., raising concern that more of the nation's biggest financial companies will fail.

Treasury 3-Month Bill Rates Drop to Lowest Since World War II

U.S. Treasury three-month bill rates dropped to the lowest since World War II as a loss of confidence in credit markets worldwide prompted investors to abandon higher-yielding assets for the safety of the shortest-term government securities.

Dollar Falls Versus Yen as AIG Rescue Fails to Boost Confidence

The dollar weakened against the yen as the $85 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. failed to boost confidence in credit markets.

European Stocks Fall on Growth Concern; Hochtief, Xstrata Drop

European stocks posted the steepest three-day slide since 2002 after U.S. housing starts trailed forecasts and banks' borrowing costs jumped the most since 1999, deepening concern the real-estate slump and credit-market turmoil will push the region's economy into a recession.

European Two-Year Government Notes Rebound as Stocks Decline

European government two-year notes rose, reversing declines, as investors sought the safest assets after stocks fell amid concern the financial crisis may deepen.

Money-Market Rate Jumps, TED Spread Soars on Credit Squeeze

The cost of borrowing in dollars for three months jumped the most since 1999 as banks hoarded cash amid concern more financial institutions will fail.

Oil Rises More Than $6 as Investors Seek Haven From Turmoil

Crude oil rose more than $6 a barrel as investors sought the safety of the commodity on concern that the credit crisis will deepen, leading more financial institutions to fail.

Gold Soars Most Since 1999, Silver Surges on Demand for Haven

Gold surged the most in nine years as investors sought the safety of precious metals on concern that the credit crisis will deepen, leading more financial institutions to fail. Silver soared the most since 1979.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM NEWSPAPERS

Hitachi, Matsushita to Cooperate on Plasma TVs, Nikkei Reports

Hitachi Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. plan to increase cooperation in the plasma television business, Tokyo- based Nikkei English News reported, without saying where it got the information.

Hong Kong Liberal Party Nominates Lam as Chairman, RTHK Reports

Hong Kong's Liberal Party has nominated lawmaker Jeffrey Lam to become its next chairman, Radio Television Hong Kong reported, without citing where it got the information.

Anonymous said...

Goldman fell as much as 26 percent on the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley plunged 44 percent, leading financial stocks to the lowest level in four years.

*

Even the GOOD 'SHEET' is no longer safe, who would have guessed?

Bend's "RICH" have gotten very poor, in the last 72 hours, I bet you BLEDSOE is technically insolvent today.

Hollern I hope you have all your money in real estate, at least it will not go to zero.

Anonymous said...

“Margin calls are up across the board.” - AUSTRALIA

September 18, 2008

US stocks plunged overnight, the Dow hit its lowest level in more than two years and Wall Street faced its biggest run since 1907.

The dive was led by insurer American International Group and the two remaining Wall Street giants, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

A trader at a mid-sized Wall Street firm said: “This is full-fledged panic.

“Everybody's sticking fingers in the holes in the dyke, not understanding that the problem is much bigger.”

Bill Stone, chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management, said: “People are scared to death. Who would have imagined that AIG would have gotten into this position?”

He said the fear gripping the markets reflects investors' concerns that AIG was unable to find a lifeline in the private sector and that Wall Street is now fretting about what other institutions could falter.

Over the past year, companies including Lehman and AIG have sought to reassure investors that they weren't in trouble, and now the market isn't sure who can and can't be trusted.

“No one's going to be believing anybody now because AIG said they were OK along with everybody else,” Mr Stone said.

In the 2008 Wall Street run, shareholders and credit traders are reacting to each failure by yanking their investments from the institution seen as the next most vulnerable.

For Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG, the pattern was the same: the price of protecting against defaults on debt rose sharply, the stock price plunged, and all that made it impossible for the institution to negotiate for a capital injection.

Overnight, traders turned on one descendant of the House of Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and on Goldman Sachs.

On derivatives markets, many bet on distress for the firms despite the fact that, in contrast to Lehman and AIG, both Goldman and Morgan Stanley had reported healthy profits on Tuesday.

Shares of Morgan Stanley fell 24 per cent, its lowest close in roughly 10 years.

Goldman Sachs Group fell 14 per cent. Morgan Stanley pared its losses in after-hours trading, as The New York Times reported it was mulling a merger with another institution, citing Wachovia as one candidate.

Dow component AIG slid 45 per cent after Washington stepped in to save the insurance giant that had got ensnared in the mortgage crisis through the credit-derivatives market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 449.36 points, or 4.06 per cen, to 10609.66, its lowest close in almost three years. All 30 Dow components fell.

The broad Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 57.20 points (4.71 per cent) to 1156.39, its lowest close in more than three years.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 109.05 points (4.94 per cent) to 2098.85, its biggest drop since the first session after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the lowest close in more than two years.

Measures of fear in the market spiralled higher overnight - the Chicago Board Options Exchange market volatility index, which reflects the premiums paid for protection against swings in the S&P 500, closed up 20 per cent, its highest close since 2002; interbank lending rates rose sharply, and investors of all stripes dived into US Treasury securities.

Gold had its biggest one-session gain ever - a reflection of fear in the market.

Among other financial concerns with exposure to the mortgage and housing crisis, Washington Mutual fell 13 per cent. WaMu recovered in after-hours trading on reports that it was moving toward a merger.

American depositary shares of Lloyds TSB Group fell 4.8 per cent; the UK bank has agreed to merge with Britain's largest mortgage lender, HBOS, according to the BBC.

There were a few shafts of light in a gloomy stock market.

SanDisk (Nasdaq) jumped 5.88, or 39%, to 20.92 after the maker of memory chips received an unsolicited buyout bid from peer Samsung Electronics.

As brokers on Wall Street face unprecedented pressures in the market, they are extending less credit to prime-brokerage clients, according to one hedge fund manager.

That may be forcing funds to sell - or buy - stocks and commodities.

Lorenzo Di Mattia, manager of hedge fund Sibilla Global Fund, said: “All the brokers are raising margin requirements.

“Margin calls are up across the board.”

Anonymous said...

"Who would have guessed"

Some 20,000 companies went bankrupt, including 1,616 banks, and one in every 20 farmers was evicted from his land.

In 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression which continued until the beginning of the war, an astounding 23,000 Americans committed suicide in a single year.

And the pain was not restricted to the U.S.

Weimar Germany, which had built its foundations in the aftermath of World War I with the help of American loans, found itself struggling with ever mounting debts.

This, in turn, helped to usher in the brownshirts of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist party.

The impact on American self-confidence was devastating.

Bewert said...

Thoughts from the trading floor
by PsiFighter37
Wed Sep 17, 2008 at 05:50:17 PM PDT

As some of you may or may not know, I work at one of the large banks here in New York City. The past week has been one of the most frenetic and chaotic in Wall Street's history, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about what has been going on. Even though I'm not involved in the part of the trading floor that has seen the most action this week - that would be people who trade financial stocks or CDS (credit default swaps) on those same companies, as well as virtually any interest-rate product - it's enough to give one perspective when they go to work and are living history (and this is history, even if it ain't the good kind) each day.

Simply put, it comes down to this: no one saw the abrupt collapse of Lehman Brothers coming - especially filing for bankruptcy - or, even worse, the de facto bankruptcy of AIG (and yes, that's what it is - not nationalization). What's worse?

No one knows what is going to happen next.

Lehman Brothers' story is similar to that of Bear Stearns, except that it should have played out differently. Bear Stearns collapsed before any of the lending facilities the Federal Reserve had put into place came online; its lack of liquidity was real. One thing to understand about any bank that has an investment banking component to it: they use leverage, and lots of it. If you aren't able to have access to cash, your liquidity will dry up faster than water in the desert, and you are finished. That's why Bear Stearns was gone within a week of it first reporting it had serious trouble. That's the same thing that happened to Lehman, although it was furthermore hurt by its extensive holdings in real estate mortgages, which, whether they be commercial or residential, are pretty much worth shit at the moment. Without access to funding - and with impending credit downgrades furthering the need for Lehman to put up even more collateral to take out loans - they had no choice but to call it quits. It's not surprising that Bank of America and Barclays refused to buy them outright, given the toxicity of Lehman's balance sheet. While Barclays eventually bought most of Lehman's investment bank, it did so at a fire-sale price - and without any of the 'bad' assets that Lehman still holds onto.

I suppose it's time to mention why credit agencies are playing yet another harmful role in these times. First, they were castigated for rating highly complex securitized instruments - whether they be CDOs of virtually any kind, CDO squareds, CLOs, CMBS, ABS, MBS, etc. - at much higher ratings than their underlying assets were worth in quality. Now, when they downgrade firms' credit scores, it forces them to put up much more in collateral in order to access the funding they need. It also jacks up the interest rates further, which, given widening spreads, makes it much more expensive. While they are doing their jobs correctly, the credit agencies certainly aren't making life easier for anyone.

Merrill Lynch's forced sale to Bank of America was effectively a foretold event once it became clear Lehman wasn't going to make it to this past Monday as an independent entity. They were next on the hit list, and given that their balance sheet is far worse than either Goldman Sachs' or Morgan Stanley's (now the only two independent investment banks left on the Street), John Thain did the right thing in selling out. That being said, he shouldn't be hailed for much of anything; Merrill's stock took a brutal hit during his short tenure at the helm, and Thain doesn't deserve the widespread kudos that he's been getting. Bank of America is now the biggest financial firm in the world - even larger than Citigroup - but given that they've acquired two firms steeped in problems stemming from the mortgage crisis (Countrywide, and now Merrill), Ken Lewis' task is no easy one. If he pulls it off, though, he will be remembered as the next Sandy Weill (the man who put together Citigroup in its current form).

AIG - well, no one really saw it coming. They've been losing money left and right, but it's hard to imagine the world's largest insurance firm having no cash whatsoever. In the end, though, the government loaning $85 billion was the last recourse. The idea that the private sector would give them that much money was ludicrous given how little access to credit there is. That said, don't think that AIG is going to come out of this as the financial behemoth that it became under Hank Greenberg. Given that the firm is getting charged an absurdly high interest rate of around 11-11.5% on its 'loan', it's effectively a race against the clock to sell off the individual parts of AIG to repay it. That's why it's more like a bankruptcy than a true nationalization; the government has no intention of running the largest firm in the private insurance markets. If AIG is forced to come back for more cash before it can pay off its loan, then there's going to be another episode of handwringing - and we lucky taxpayers may get to foot more of the bill. Oh, and the shareholders? They got screwed by the government taking an 80% stake in the company. The stock isn't worth the paper it's printed on; I don't know why anyone would buy it at this point.

That brings us to today: where do we go from here? Talking with various people, it's clear that no one - not even the best and brightest of us - have the faintest clue. Despite reporting relatively strong earnings, Morgan Stanley took a beating today, and it could very well end up that this weekend, it's their turn to get forced into a shotgun marriage with a bank that has deposits to backstop any losses. And if they fall - which seems quite likely, given they're already talking to other banks about a potential deal - what becomes of Goldman Sachs? They'll be the last man standing, and they are, bar none, the best of the best in the business - but will they make it out? Credit default swaps, which are effectively insurance against any defaults on a firm's debt, are trading at incredibly high spreads for both firms, which doesn't bode well.

And what of non-investment bank firms? It's pretty clear that Washington Mutual is the next one to go; they've cleared up an agreement they have with TPG, a private equity firm, that allows them to sell themselves at a fire-sale price. It brings into question the solvency of other firms, and given that the FDIC is severely undercapitalized relative to the size of banking deposits around the country, there's no telling what could happen next. We all hope things will get better, but when you watch on your Bloomberg and see the markets absolutely tank in the last hour of trading - for no particular reason at all - you have to think that the worst is yet to come. The Fed's special $30 billion auction of 76-day T-Bills is worrisome, as it means that they may be having trouble keeping up their funding of the lending facilities after the huge AIG deal.

In the end, there is not a lot of good news on the horizon. I'd be prepared for a lot more bad news...with no real end in sight, at least in the near future.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

OK, had a busy day at work!

What happened to day? Anything?

Oh... well, well. It appears the COLLAPSE OF AMERIKKKAN CAPITALISM STARTED.

Nice. I once heard from this kook that the RE Bubble Bursting would be WORSE THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.

Maybe this sort of thing is what he was talking about?

Super!

Anonymous said...

Now a word from our sponsor, whoops I mean our New Owners in Singapore.


"Singapore Buys USA for Penny's on the Dollar"

Sep 18, 2008
AIG rescue: Move to nationalisation?
WASHINGTON - THE stunning rescue of insurance titan AIG reduces the risk of a full-scale global financial meltdown but also pushes Washington toward nationalisation of the economy, analysts said.

The action aimed at averting a new global economic shock calls for the US Federal Reserve to loan up to US$85 billion (S$121.5 billion) to avert a collapse at American International Group (AIG).

The deal sealed late on Tuesday gives the US government a 79.9 per cent stake in the insurance behemoth.

The move came just nine days after the US government nationalised two other giants of the financial system, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, drowning from the collapse of the US real estate market.

AIG appeared to be in a death spiral after more than a week of panic and turmoil in financial markets that led to the failure of investment giant Lehman Brothers - the biggest bankruptcy in US history - and an emergency sale of Wall Street rival Merrill Lynch.

Some analysts said the action orchestrated by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke with the blessing of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pushes the government further toward nationalisation.

'The move represents the largest lurch toward socialism that this country has ever seen, and signals the end of the vibrancy of America's once vaunted free market economy,' said Mr Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.

'Since there is no limit to the amount of money the Fed can create, there is no limit to the number of assets they can acquire.'

Professor Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economist, said the action is part of a 'transformation of the USA into a country where there is socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall Street - where profits are privatised and losses are socialised.'

Prof Roubini, nicknamed 'Dr Doom' because of his grim economic outlook, said the AIG rescue means that 'the US government is now the largest insurance company in the world.'

Mr Robert Brusca at FAO Economics said however it was 'not a nationalisation' because the Fed does not intend to run AIG. 'The Fed will get a profit on this, which it should.'

Mr Brusca said the deal appears structured in a way similar to the one that bailed out Chrysler in the 1980s that gives the government warrants that are special shares.

He said the loan is at 'an extremely high rate' and will encourage AIG to quickly sell off assets to pay back the loan.

Mr Brusca said AIG 'pays a steep price' for the rescue.

'Any firm tottering on the edge here is not going to feel that there is a safety net it will want to fall into. Think Vie tnam-era death pits with pungi sticks at the bottom.'

Others said the action represents the lesser of two evils, and averts a calamitous shock to an already fragile global financial system.

Dr Diana Furchtgott-Roth, senior fellow at Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, said the move was prudent and that the government should be able to get out with a profit for taxpayers.

'In this case the ramifications of having AIG fail would have been so great it was necessary to do something,' she said.

'The government has taken it over for now but doesn't have to keep it. The assets can be sold.'

Mr Bill Witherell, chief global economist at Cumberland Advisors, added that 'it was not the intention (of US officials) to increase the role of government but I don't think they had any choice. If AIG failed it would have had a systemic impact across the global financial markets.'

For now, Mr Witherell said the AIG recue appears to be the last government intervention to save a company seen as too big to fail.

'It's hard to find another example of an institution that has such a central role in the financial system,' he said. -- AFP

Anonymous said...

It brings into question the solvency of other firms, and given that the FDIC is severely undercapitalized relative to the size of banking deposits around the country, there's no telling what could happen next.

*

Yep, FDIC has $47B left, they're handing out 12% per quarter, in prior months, future will be quicker 1-2 years left. Anybody want to bet the US government doesn't give FDIC cash? They'll just say, well the reserves are gone, sorry, ... The trouble is reserves were allowed to go down to 1%, and thus only 1 in 100 get their money back, we so sorry.

Anonymous said...

Simply put, it comes down to this: no one saw the abrupt collapse of Lehman Brothers coming - especially filing for bankruptcy - or, even worse, the de facto bankruptcy of AIG (and yes, that's what it is - not nationalization). What's worse?

No one knows what is going to happen next.

*

BULL-FUCKING SHIT THE BP PUSSY HAS FOUND HIMSELF A FUCKING MENTOR. ANYBODY that reads the Wall-Street Journal knows this shit has been coming since last fucking spring.

JEEBUG xmas BP, where do you find this fucking shit? "Nobody saw it coming", was this fucking stock broker working in Bend?

Not fucking 'nationalization', BP the US government now owns the largest insurance company in the fucking world.

'National Socialism', US free capitalism is finished, now if you BUY insurance the government will tell us it MUST be US-AIG.

Anonymous said...

No one knows what is going to happen next.

*

ONLY the BP & HIS CUNT MENTOR DONT KNOW WHATS going to happen next.

Who would have guessed?

Anonymous said...

It's too bad we can't recall the primary, and DUMP all the politicians on the slate for November, cuz not a one of the fucking KUNTS has the balls to address the problems.

They were all around during the BENDBUBBLE years, riding high, and now 'who would have guessed'.

Like Gore Vidal say's "United States of Amnesia", trouble is now things are going to be looking good with your head in your ass or the sand.

Anonymous said...

Daily Kos: by PsiFighter37

JEEBUS FUCKING XMAS BOYZ, I knew this 'stock broker' that BP posted SUCKED-DICK, but guess what, this guy is the HEAD-ECONOMIST for DAILY-KOS.

Marge find a dart-gun, and take BP out, for his own sake, also this 'writer' works for OBAMA, the entire essence of this is 'wall street/obmama' didn't know this was coming, ......

PLEEEEEEEEZE BP, take the DAILY-KOS PRO-OBAMA somewhere else ....

****

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by PsiFighter37. Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 12:08:46 AM PDT. I've been putting off this diary for as long ... by PsiFighter37. Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 10:00:55 PM PDT ...
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Anonymous said...

Me thinks that BP tonight has a new mission in life, to CONVINCE us here, that were here years before BP was dropped from UTAH, that NOBODY on the fucking planet saw this coming, ...

Obama is mystified.

WELL FUCK YOU BP, OBAMA had fucking years to voice opposition to the fucking THEFT, and did not a fucking thing. HE's an OREO, and your a paid DEM HO.

Like DUNC&HBM.

Anonymous said...

BP,

The problem here we try to be rational and tell the truth.

BP the DAILY-KOS is irrational emotional BULLSHIT. FEED IT TO YOURSELF.

Your Mama,

Anonymous said...

JEEBUG xmas BP, where do you find this fucking shit? "Nobody saw it coming", was this fucking stock broker working in Bend?

*

Ok, BP got me I should have guessed, from the very start it came from Daily-Kos.

I knew it was bullshit, what's the fucking point BP? DO you have a fucking point? Your a fucking complete idiot, I know you believe this shit, its 100% after the fact CYA for team-obama.

Anonymous said...

Of course he has a point.

And a mission.

He is a moth, and moths always fly right into the light. It is and always will be instinct.

It is what moths do.

It is what BP, HBM and Dunc do. It is ALL they do. They shill for Oboma.

And no, they don't get paid. They are more deranged that way.

Bewert said...

Your anger is misplaced. I just put someone's view out there. Someone much closer to the action than we are. DKos is just as much a truth driven place as this. You get a new asshole ripped if you spew BS. You don't like it, don't read it.

These people thought they were invincible less than 12 months ago. Their worldview has been drastically changed.

I read Townhall, too. I just see more reality at DKos.

Bewert said...

These people==Wall St. employees.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Everybody's sticking fingers in the holes in the dyke...

Sexy...

Anonymous said...

BULLSHIT BP, "THESE PEOPLE==DAILKOS".

YOUR A FUCKING IDIOT, YOUR A MUSHROOM, YOU LIVE ON A STEADY DIET OF SHIT,

BP DON'T FEED US YOUR SHIT, WE DON'T WANT TO EAT YOUR SHIT.

Anonymous said...

. DKos is just as much a truth driven place as this.

*

NO BP, its been assert long ago, "THIS IS A NO-KOS ZONE".

Besides the POINT, if you posted some SHIT from KOS that was true, fine.

But what you posted was OBAMA-APOLOGY that says "Who would have known"??

BULL FUCKING SHIT, YOUR KOS-KUNTS if they do work on Wall-Street, don't read the fucking journal, you sure don't you don't have a fucking clue, and never did.

Thats why YOU, HBM, and DUNC are fucking losers.

Anonymous said...

I just see more reality at DKos.

*

Yes, BP, but we don't want you to share this kind of 'reality'.

Shall we all just start posting 'animal farm' 24/7? or 'alice in wonderland'?

D-KOS at least the shit you cut&paste is 100% whining fucking bullshit.

THIS is a NO-WHINER zone, we cut WHINERS to shit.

This is why DUNC&HBM are gone, they are whiners.

You can take shit, but don't feed us shit.

Anonymous said...

The FED just announced they are pumping $180B in into foreign banks so they can cover US bank-runs.

How fucking FAST can the US IMPLODE. FDIC has $47B for bank-runs, we just handed out $180B to 'ferners'. Its getting ugly boyz.

***

The Wall Street Journal


The Federal Reserve and other central banks including the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Swiss National Bank and Bank of Japan announced coordinated action to ease the credit crunch by boosting short-term liquidity. The Fed expanded dollar swap arrangements with other central banks by $180 billion.

Anonymous said...

HERE's TRUTH ABOUT THE US ELECTION.

Ireland to all of their brethren in the States...
a point to ponder despite your political affiliation:

'We, in Ireland , can't figure out why you people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States ..

On one side, you had a pants wearing female lawyer, married to another lawyer who can't seem to keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer, who goes to the wrong church, who is married to yet another lawyer, who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run !

Now...On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate 'Mc' , married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship !!

What in God's name are ya lads thinkin over in the colonies???

Anonymous said...

DOW is saved, ONLY stocks going up will be part of the average hence-forth.

***

The Wall Street Journal


Sept. 18, 2008

Kraft Foods will replace American International Group in the Dow Jones Industrial Average effective Monday. The change comes as the federal government late Tuesday agreed to take over
the troubled insurance giant in an $85 billion bailout.

The composition of the Dow industrials was last changed in February, when Bank of America and Chevron replaced former Kraft parent Altria Group and Honeywell International.

Anonymous said...

OK, ITS here, in HONG-KONG they're now telling everyone to divest from the USA. WHO IN THE FUCK WILL FUEL OUR WARS NOW??

Given that the man-wife will lose her bike-shop, will the pussy go back to blow-jobs at D&D???


In Asia, bloom is off the U.S. rose

By Keith Bradsher

HONG KONG: Tremors from Wall Street are rattling Asian confidence, leading many investors to question the wisdom of being invested in the United States to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Asian investors were starting to show hesitation even before the financial earthquake of the last week. Now, a wariness toward the United States is setting in that is unprecedented in recent memory, reaching from central banks to industrial corporations, from hedge funds to the individuals who lined up here to withdraw money from the American International Group on Wednesday.

Asian savings have, in essence, bankrolled American spending for decades, and an Asian loss of confidence in American financial institutions and assets would have dire consequences for the U.S. government and American taxpayers.

The potential for panic is stoked by Asian news organizations, which tend to focus more on business and economics than on politics, which can be touchy here. Their coverage has been obsessive and unrelentingly negative about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch's rush to find a buyer, and the turmoil at AIG.

The nonstop deluge of bad publicity for American investments seems to be seeping into the consciousnesses of the rich and middle class across Asia.
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"I do not believe in U.S. financial institutions anymore; I don't think any U.S. bank is safe anymore," said Wang Xiao-ning, a Hong Kong homemaker. Even after the U.S. Federal Reserve Board had taken control of AIG, she waited in line with dozens of other anxious policyholders at one of the insurer's customer service centers for the chance to close her investment account.

The asset management operations of American banks have steered many Asian investors into American securities for years. But Thomas Lam, the senior treasury economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore, said many of these investors had not fully understood what they were buying. They became more curious and more concerned when, for example, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed in conservatorship.

"All these top executives, Indonesians and others, started asking, 'What do they really do?' " Lam said. "They bought because the next company did."

Some experts say that with the phenomenal economic growth in Asia, savings are piling up so quickly that those funds will inevitably start flowing again to the United States at a fast clip. (The Chinese economy grew 23 percent in dollar terms last year.)

"The interest for the moment is depressed, but the trend is, we have a lot of savings in Asia and this is a bargain time" for assets in the United States, said Paul Tang, the chief economist at the Bank of East Asia in Hong Kong.

For now, though, Asian interest in American assets is wilting, a trend that seems to have started over the summer.

Little-noticed data released by the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday showed that a sharp shift in international capital movements began in July. Private investors pulled a net $92.9 billion out of the United States, after putting $46.8 billion into American securities in June.

Many investors in Asia think that Asian economies will bounce back from the global economic downturn faster than the American economy, said Henry Lee, the managing director of the Hendale Group, a well-known Hong Kong investment advisory firm. So they are putting their money in Asian companies.

"When the dust settles, I think Asia will come out ahead of the U.S.," he said.

Central banks, mainly Asian, did continue buying American securities in July. But they did so at a slower pace than usual. They made net purchases of $18.2 billion, compared with an average monthly purchase of $22.3 billion in the first half of this year, according to the latest Treasury data.

The central banks also changed the allocation of their purchases. They bought short-term Treasury bills while slowing their purchases of longer term Treasury bonds and American corporate bonds. And they abruptly switched from being large buyers of bonds from government-sponsored enterprises, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to becoming net sellers — one of many factors that contributed to the Bush administration's decision to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship.

If cash is king during the current global financial crisis, then Asian governments and financial institutions are emperors. The Chinese central bank alone has $1.8 trillion in foreign reserves. Those reserves grew $280.6 billion in the first half of this year — a pace of $64 million an hour.

Americans have a huge stake in what China does with that money. Foreign cash coming into the United States to buy American assets holds down interest rates by making plenty of money available for the U.S. government to borrow to cover its budget deficit, and for consumers to borrow so that they can afford imported cars, DVD players and other goods.

Anonymous said...

It is now certain that US money-markets will 'break the buck'. In the coming weeks.

***

Stocks Fall as Bank Gloom Deepens


Stocks resumed their downward spiral Wednesday as even the Federal Reserve's $85 billion rescue of American International Group left investors unconvinced that the broader U.S. financial system is no longer in peril.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended near a three-year low, down 449.36 points, or 4.1%, at 10609.36, off 7.1% so far this week. All 30 of the Dow's components fell, including a 45.3% drop in AIG shares. Among the blue-chip measure's other financial names, big losers included J.P. Morgan Chase, off 12.2%, and Citigroup, down 10.9%.

Traders questioned whether the latest bailout will stem the ripple effect failing banks are having on world markets. While AIG will continue to operate, dozens of other firms remain in deep trouble because of their own soured credit bets.

"There's a clear fright to the market right now," said Anthony Conroy, head of trading at BNY ConvergEx Group, a New York stock brokerage. "It's a virus that's running through the market. If investors don't know what a firm's exposure is [to credit markets], they're just running away."

The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 4.9% at 2098.85, down 7.2% for the week. The small-stock Russell 2000 fell 4.8% to 676.38. The S&P 500 dropped 4.7% to 1156.39, down 7.6% for the week. All the broad measure's sectors fell Wednesday, led by an 9.6% slide in its financial category.
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Overnight borrowing costs have surged, keeping pressure on the shares of invesment banks that rely on short-term funds to bankroll their operations.

Morgan Stanley, which surprised investors by releasing better-than-expected quarterly results -- a day early – fell nearly 25% despite that upbeat news. Goldman Sachs Group, the other remaining large independent brokerage, failed to please investors as much with its quarterly results and shares fell 13.9%.

Signs of stress proliferated in the credit markets. A spike in Libor and a plunge in three-month Treasury bills widened the so-called TED spread, a measure of financial stress, to its widest levels since the stock-market crash in 1987 — an indication that banks have no interest in lending to each other.

"This is a function of liquidity hoarding and just being on defense," says George Goncalves, bond strategist at Morgan Stanley. "It's just a reluctance to lend."

In a worrisome sign of widening fallout, a big money-market fund, the Reserve Primary Fund, announced late Tuesday that it lost money as its net asset value fell below the hallowed $1-per-share level. Money-market funds are regarded as super-safe vehicles for ordinary investors looking for a place to harbor their cash. A money fund hasn't "broken the buck" in 14 years.

The Reserve Primary Fund's difficulties sprung from debt securities it holds issued by Lehman Brothers. The news raised the prospect more losses might be in store for other money-market funds holding paper from Lehman, which collapsed Monday, and from other problem-ridden firms. As of Friday, the Reserve Primary Fund had assets of around $62 billion, but they have fallen considerably since.

The development "is really, really bad," said Don Phillips, one of the founders of Morningstar Inc. "You talk about Lehman and Merrill having been stellar institutions, but breaking the buck is sacred territory."

Peter Demirali, portfolio manager at Cumberland Advisors in Vineland, N.J., said he was hurriedly moving his clients' money out of traditional money-market funds and into Treasury funds, essentially making a bet that the U.S. government is the only entity that is certain not to default on its commitments.

He believes other money funds will "break the buck" in the weeks ahead and, when asked whether he believed major Wall Street firms like Goldman and Morgan Stanley will survive, Mr. Demirali said: "There's no way to know right now because there are so many things out of management's control."

Such sentiment drove Treasury prices up and yields lower on Wednesday. The yield on three-month bills fell near zero, meaning that investors were willing to pocket almost no interest in return only for the certainty that they would get all their cash back in 90 days.

Buyers also rushed to gold, also traditionally perceived as an investor haven during times of financial uncertainty. Futures on the metal soared $70.10, the biggest daily move in the history of New York trading going back to 1975. Gold contracts closed 9% higher at $846.60, up 1.4% on the year.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility Index, which uses the prices of options contracts to measure investors' nervousness about an upcoming market swing, leapt 14.8%.

Among names listed on the New York Stock Exchange, nearly 9.3 billion shares changed hands, just shy of the previous session's record. Decliners outnumbered advancers nearly 14 to 1.

Adding to the sense that there is no end in sight to the market's trouble, the Commerce Department reported that housing starts fell in August by 6.2% to 895,000 units -- marking the slowest building pace since January 1991. The report added to worries about the U.S. economy that have been heightened by an upheaval in the financial sector and sent Treasurys sharply higher.

Crude-oil futures soared $6.01, or 6.6%, to $97.16 a barrel in New York following the government's release of inventory data showing that U.S. stockpiles fell last week more than analysts expected.

The dollar weakened against major rivals. The euro rose to $1.4352, compared to $1.4143 late Tuesday. Against the Japanese currency, the dollar fell to 104.74 yen, down from 105.92 yen

Anonymous said...

Days, only days before complete fucking implosion.

...

Three month T-bill prices plunged at one point yesterday nearly to 0%, which means investors are willing to accept essentially no return to get a safe harbor. Gold's leap of more than 11% is also a flight to safety.

The danger is that we will get these financial melodramas every week, if not more frequently. Each one only frightens the public more and extends the panic.


Sooner rather than later, the Fed is going to run out of money to pull off these government takeovers. Its balance sheet was designed to finance open-market operations, plus serve as the occasional lender of last resort for regulated banks. Its assets have long been mainly Treasuries or currency.

Anonymous said...

There is even an obituary already written, but the DEM's will not allow it to be published for fear that the problems may be resolve prior to the election.

...

We're told Treasury has a proposal ready to send to Congress, but that the Members have told Mr. Paulson they don't want to see it until after Election Day. Mr. Paulson fears that if he does call for action and Congress refuses, then the contagion would be even worse. Well, how much worse can it get than a failure or two a week of a major financial institution? The sooner a resolution agency is up and running, the fewer banks will fail and the lower the ultimate cost to the taxpayer.

Mr. Paulson ought to tell Congress that this authority is essential to stopping a panic, and that the need is urgent. If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi say they can't do it until December or later, then they can take responsibility for the nationalizations to come.

Anonymous said...

The 'father' of money-markets, explains their demise, e.g. why the HOUSE refused to even look at the underlying asset value.

***

Breaking Buck
Was Ironic for Trumpeter of 'Safe' Fund
By SHEFALI ANAND and DIYA GULLAPALLI

Friday, the Reserve Primary Fund had $62.6 billion in assets, making it one of the largest money-market funds. Then investors noticed this supposedly safe repository of their cash also held a scary batch of debt securities from Lehman Brothers, the teetering titan du jour.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday. At least a dozen large investors pulled out almost $40 billion of their money Monday and Tuesday, two-thirds of Primary Fund's formidable asset base. This modern-day run on the bank has left a husk of a once-proud money fund.
[Bruce Bent]

Bruce Bent

The withdrawals meant the Primary Fund had to "break the buck." That is, its net asset value sunk below the time-honored standard of $1 a share.

The Lehman debt, whose face value was $785 million, had to be written down to zero for the flagship fund of New York's Reserve Management Corp. That pushed the fund's per-share price down to $0.97, a bracing signal to investors and a jolt to money-market investors world-wide.

The cruel irony is that the founder of the money-market fund concept more than three decades ago, Bruce Bent, is Reserve Management's chief -- and Mr. Bent, 71 years old, has long trumpeted the funds as avatars of sober-minded investing.

In a message on the firm's Web site that remains even now, he notes many have "lost sight of the purpose of a money fund" in their "foolhardy quest for a few extra basis points" while the Reserve believes cash funds are "definitely not money to take risks with." On Friday, Mr. Bent, appearing on CNBC discussing the financial crisis sweeping banks, said money funds do a "disservice to the investing public" when they fail to sufficiently research their holdings.

Representatives of Reserve Management declined repeated requests for comment.

Indeed, money funds have long been viewed as safe places. Money-market accounts offered by banks, of course, are covered by federal deposit insurance. While those sponsored by independent operators, such as Reserve Management, don't have that protection, their generally conservative investment styles have defined stability. They tend to invest in paper from sterling credits, like Lehman used to be.

The fallout from the Reserve Primary Fund's break-the-buck announcement was widespread. For investors, the broadest casualty likely will be the returns from money funds -- they likely will fall.

Money-fund managers across the industry are shifting to the safest, shortest-term debt available, meaning they probably won't pay out as much. The extra demand from money funds and other cash investors helped push yields for three-month Treasury notes down to 0.05% Wednesday from 1.5% Friday as prices rose. Taxable money funds on average had a seven-day yield of just 1.9%, as of Tuesday, says iMoneyNet Inc.

For the $3.5 trillion money-market-fund industry, the result was a small but marked outflow of investment. Money-market-fund investors withdrew $27 billion Monday and Tuesday, by Crane Data LLC's reckoning. (To be sure, some of that was to pay corporate taxes.) That was in addition to the nearly $40 billion withdrawn from the Primary Fund.

No other money-market funds had broken the buck Wednesday, and trading so far has been orderly, said Andrew Donohue, head of the investment-management division at the Securities and Exchange Commission. This has led to cautious optimism that the Reserve's woes won't spread to other funds.

In an attempt to stymie panic among investors, a number of large money-market funds sent out news releases and held conference calls to say they weren't vulnerable to some of the troubled names, such as Lehman and American International Group Inc. These include funds offered by Federated Investors Inc., Vanguard Group, Deutsche Bank AG's DB Advisors, and Fidelity Investments.

Some think a lack of sufficient research could have been one issue for the debacle at the Reserve, a private firm run by Mr. Bent and his two sons.

For years Mr. Bent resisted the move to buy higher-yielding paper for his 20-odd funds. Seven years ago, Mr. Bent told The Wall Street Journal that he was appalled that money-market funds would buy commercial paper that paid slightly higher yields. He seems to have changed that stance in the past few years, and the Primary Fund invested about half of its portfolio in such commercial paper as of May 31. Some of the Lehman securities that hurt the Reserve Primary Fund were commercial paper.

Mr. Bent has often said that money funds should be so "boring" that they put investors to sleep. Last year, when several money funds were facing headaches because of their investments in structured investment vehicles and other risky asset-backed paper that went bad in the early stages of the credit crunch, Mr. Bent was vocal in his disapproval. "People have taken the concept of money funds and corrupted it" by investing in exotic investments, Mr. Bent said in an interview then.

Despite his conservative rhetoric, the Reserve Primary Fund's focus has actually shifted to riskier asset-backed commercial paper. Sure enough, the point was to help fatten its yields, which increased assets 95% in the past year through June to $125 billion. The firm says more than 30% of the Fortune 100 and several of the nation's largest brokerages work with it.

Reserve Management was trying to sell itself last year, but then took itself off the block as its assets skyrocketed, says a person close to the situation. It was working with the firm Putnam Lovell, and one possibility was approaching European banks.

In May, about $530 million of the Lehman debt in the Reserve Primary fund was commercial paper. Another $250 million was in medium-term notes. The fund also had $150 million in medium-term notes tied to AIG and $100 million in AIG-related floating-rate notes. Limping AIG was taken over by the federal government this week.

It is unclear why the Reserve didn't seek financial support from a bank or other institution to backstop the Lehman holdings.

Twenty fund firms in the past 13 months have made such efforts or put their own money into their funds to prevent the fate of the Primary Fund, according to Crane Data. Many of those moves came as the funds were roiled by SIV exposure.

Anonymous said...

Morgan Stanley has lost another 50% today.

Hello Zero.

The saddest thing here is that the DEM's could have stopped this shit, but blocked an orderly shutdown.

They won a majority a few years ago on the pretense of ending the Iraq war. They didn't fulfill that promise.

Instead they used their political clout to destroy the economy, and thus ensure the election of OR-BOMB-EO.

When this is all over the obituary of the 2nd US Depression at the very least means that ALL POLITICAL party's are finished.

There seems to be cold-war mutually assured economic suicide pact going on.

Anonymous said...

Goldman has lost another 20% today, ...

Nothing is going to be left of anything in a week at this rate.

Just like Bend, humpty-dumpty fell off the wall, and not even HOLLERN could put him back together again.

The derivative packaging at ten's of Trillions of dollars is un-winding, and is larger than the US GDP, there is no physical mechanism possible to prevent complete fucking collapse at this point.

Today its estimated that just to 'rescue' the USA would cost ASIA $1,000 BILLION bucks.

Anonymous said...

Marge advocates lots of Spam, ...

PROTOCOLS FOR ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN AMERICA
by
Al Martin

And this is how the U.S. Treasury would handle an economic collapse.
It's called the 6900 series of protocols. It would start with
declaring a force majeure, which would immediately be interpreted by
the marketplaces as a de facto repudiation of debt. Then the SEC and
the various regulatory exchanges would anticipate the market's
decline, hour by hour -- when Japan's markets opened the next day,
what would happen when the European markets, and all the inter-
linkages of the global markets. On the second day, US Special Forces
would be dropped in by parachute in the cities where the twelve
Federal Reserve district banks are located.

The origin of these protocols comes from the Department of Defense.
This is contingency planning for a variety of post-collapse scenarios.
Those scenarios would include, obviously, military collapse, World War
III, in other words, and its aftermath. What we're talking about now
is aftermath -- how the aftermath would be handled.

One does not necessarily know how the events would transpire that
would cause the collapse, whether it's military collapse or economic
collapse. In World War III, it would become obvious -- when the
mushroom cloud started to appear over cities.

Economic collapse scenarios were always premised on the basis of a US
declaration of force majeure on debt service. It's a very extensive
scenario. The scenarios are all together, i.e., military, economic,
political and social complete destabilization leading to collapse.
Then they break down individual scenarios. In the economic collapse
scenario, the starting point would be the United States Treasury
declaring a force majeure on debt service, which is de facto
repudiation, and that's how it would be interpreted by the world's
capital marketplaces. Then the scenario goes on from there. The US
Treasury would obviously declare a force majeure sometime after the
European markets had settled down. In other words, they had gone out
on the day, which means 11:38 a.m. EDT, our time. They'd wait until
the European markets closed, and the US markets had been open for a
couple of hours. That's when they'd determine how to begin the process
of unwinding or controlling the collapse to the best extent possible,
mainly because they know that the greatest hedge pressure would be
people seeking to use other markets to hedge their long exposure in
the United States and that the US would be the biggest seller in all
the rest of the world's markets. Therefore you would want to declare
the force majeure when the rest of the world's markets closed. The
declaration of force majeure would be precipitated by the declaration
that the United States is no longer able to service its debt. That's
pretty simple. Who makes that decision? The Treasury Department. The
President does not make that decision. The Secretary of the Treasury
does. He has that authority.
You might ask -- wouldn't he have his arm twisted not to do that?

The answer is that if there isn't any money left to service the debt,
it doesn't make any difference what the current regime might want to
do.

The day of reckoning is now coming. What has happened in the interim,
from 2001 to present, is dynamic, global economic deterioration. The
economic deterioration visited upon the United States by Bushonomics
is not a localized event. It is, in fact, global. We have a planet now
that is sinking into a sea of red ink.

The United States is consuming 80% of the planet's savings rate to
finance its debt. The central banks of Germany, Japan and Saudi Arabia
are no longer the powerhouses they used to be. Their reserves have now
been substantially depleted. They can, therefore, no longer hide the
fact that they own a certain number, likely in the trillions of
dollars, of U.S. Treasury debt that isn't being serviced, because they
can't hide it through bookkeeping tricks anymore because their
reserves are so depleted.

Therefore somebody has covertly been putting demands on the Bush-
Cheney regime for payment. Why do you think 2900 metric tons of gold
is depleted from U.S. inventory since March of `01?

Why do you think that $2 billion in currency seized from Iraq last May
is now unaccounted for?

Someone is putting demands on the Bush-Cheney regime. Someone is
saying to the Bushonian Cabal that -- You've got to start servicing
this debt because we, foreign central banks, are in nations - European
and Asian - whose reserves are now nearly exhausted.

Who could be putting that kind of pressure on them?

It has to be coming from whoever is organizing this thing at the very
top, which I would tend to think has got to be most likely a cabal of
people that would involve Henry Kissinger, James Baker, George
Schultz, possibly William Simon. It would be somebody at the very top
that is familiar with how to do this. It would have to be someone
familiar with finances.

So would this be one faction of a cabal blackmailing or forcing
another faction? No, it's not really blackmailing. It's being done out
of desperation. The German, Japanese and Saudi central banks are
saying to the Bushonian cabal, You've got to start servicing this debt
because we don't have the reserves to cover you anymore. We can no
longer make it appear that the debt is being serviced because our own
reserves are so substantively depleted. Therefore you must begin to
cover this debt. If you don't, then, at some point, we will have to
publicly admit in order to save our own necks -- that we were the end
buyers of a lot of stealth debt, a lot of debt that your Treasury
issued illegally and has never serviced. That would then expose the
whole cabal.

The Kissinger-Baker faction are at the top of how this was done on the
economic side of the equation. They were not the original insiders so
much, but the managers of the conspiracy from the U.S. Treasury, to
wit, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve role-play the part.

Take Henry Kissinger. It may not have occurred to anyone why in the
last 3 years Henry Kissinger has been back in Washington more than he
has in the last 30 years. And why are all these quiet meetings in
Washington with alleged senior Bush-Cheney regime officials, as
foreign news services endlessly put it. It's because Kissinger is the
point man. He's the one that is telling them the disposition of other
foreign central banks.

Kissinger would probably also be involved in transfer or hypothecation
of any assets from the cabal. In other words, they're being stolen
from the American people by the Bush-Cheney regime and the Bushonian
Cabal, and they are being used to hypothecate, transfer, service, or
otherwise carry this debt held by certain foreign central banks.

The process of unraveling has already begun because of ever-spiraling
Bushonian budget deficits. The Bush-Cheney regime, even in its overt
policies (now they're overt political, economic, social and military
policies) is generating $600-billion-plus deficit per year, which is
consuming 80% of the planet's net savings rate.

It doesn't have the slack. In other words, it can't refinance stealth
debt by issuing more stealth debt anymore. Nor can they bleed money
out of the system like they could in the 1980s by hiding it when the
overt policies of the Bush-Cheney regime are already producing a
budget deficit of 6% of Gross Domestic Product. There is no other
mechanism that they could use anymore to hide expansion of debt that
could be used to service said stealth debt, and they are, frankly,
running out of assets that they can steal from the American people.

So the proverbial day of reckoning is coming. The Bush-Cheney regime
(and I give them credit for this) are telling the American people
what's coming, knowing the American people are too stupid to
understand. They are telling the American people about the re-
institution of the Gold Confiscation Act and the sudden scrapping of
the Treasury's emergency post-collapse gold note scheme to maintain
domestic liquidity.

David Walker, US Comptroller General and chief of the GAO has said
that should the Bush-Cheney regime be re-ensconced into power and,
hence, the scourge of Bushonomics persist, that the United States
could no longer service its debt beyond 2009. They're not hiding it
from anybody anymore. They are telling you what's happening. Now, what
does that mean? The key is in what Walker is saying when he says the
debt can no longer be serviced. I've been asked this on the radio
shows. People have noticed what Walker said because he's out in the
news more often than he used to be. It's unusual for the Comptroller
General of the United States, which is a rather arcane position, to be
out in the news so much.

It simply means that when he says the United States will no longer be
able to sustain Bushonian budget deficits, he means that by 2009, if
Bush-Cheney have a second term in office, the United States will be
consuming 100% of the planet's savings rate to finance Bushonian
budget deficits.

Therefore, if the planet can no longer generate any more liquidity to
lend to the United States, one of three things have to happen: A)
There has to be a sudden and dramatic reduction in federal spending.
There are only two places that can come from. There would have to be
an immediate $100-billion cut in defense spending, which would end any
hopes the Republicans had of getting into office for years to come
because it would destroy any confidence the NFWCs (Naïve Flag Waving
Crowd) had in them. Or you would have to scrap the multi-trillion-
dollar Bushonian tax cuts for the Republican rich, something that's
equally unpalatable.

The other option, B, as Paul O'Neill mentioned, is a dramatic increase
in the rate of federal income taxation from the current nominal rate
of 28% to 65%, which is what the Treasury Department estimated would
be required post-2009 to provide the U.S. Treasury with sufficient
revenues to continue to service debt.

The third option, or C, becomes the declaration of a force majeure on
credit service of U.S. Treasury debt by the United States Treasury,
which is tantamount and would be accurately construed as de facto debt
repudiation by the United States of America.

There are other signs to look for. They're not going to happen now,
but if Bush-Cheney is re-elected, you'll begin to see more signs that
the end is coming. I know a lot of people may disagree, but you wait
and see. If Bush-Cheney has a second term, see if they do not
institute some currency expatriation control. See if that doesn't come
in the way Nixon tried it in May-June of 1971.

In the second term, there will be some sort of currency expatriation
control in the United States, but there will also be loopholes that
will allow the large money to escape. The restrictions will apply to
the 10- and 20-thousand-dollar people. It ain't going to apply to the
10- and 20-million-dollar people. It would be self-defeating to do
that.

When that day comes, in other words, when the U.S. Treasury declares a
force majeure on debt, it wouldn't be broad-cast on mainstream media.
There's no sense because the American people don't even understand
what it means. But the announcement would actually be put on the
Federal Reserve wire system, which would, of course, immediately be
picked up by all media outlets anyway.

The U.S. Treasury would declare a force majeure on debt after the
Asian and European markets closed, probably at 12:30 p.m. EDT. The
reason why that hour was always selected is because Asian and European
markets close. It's also the lunch hour for the markets. It's when
you're going to have the fewest people on the floor of the exchanges.
That would be the ideal time to make such an announcement.

A few seconds after that announcement was made, all United States
markets, both equities debt and commodities i.e., stock, bonds,
commodities, that have trading collars or permissible daily limits
would all be limit-offered with pools. Limit-offered means that there
are more sellers at the limit i.e., limit down, than there are buyers.

So-called 'pools' would immediately begin to form, probably a thousand
contracts every few minutes. 'Limit-offered with pools' - this is
trader language. Pools to sell 2,000 lots, 3,000 lots. That means, the
number of sellers over and above the available buyers at the limit-
offered price. That would begin to build.

By 1:00, the news would begin to sink in because it would take awhile
before panic selling would arise from the public. This news is being
released at lunch hour.

A lot of the American people initially would not even understand the
temerity of the news. You would see professional selling first, and as
that professional selling intensified over the afternoon, the SEC, the
CFTC, NASDAQ, and various market regulatory authorities would begin to
institute certain emergency market protocols. This would be the
installation of the so-called 'declaration of fast market conditions,'
for instance; the declaration of 'no more stop orders,' the
declaration of 'fill at any price,' etc. in a desperate bid to
maintain liquidity.

That first day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and related indices
on a percentage basis would lose about 20% of their value by the close
of business that day. The real impact would come overnight when the
American people found out what this was all about and when it was
explained to them.

At 7:30 a.m. EDT, the Tokyo markets would open, and no price would be
affixed for probably three or four hours into the session due to the
avalanche of selling. Once prices were established, the government of
Japan would close all of its financial markets. Europe would not even
open. All European governments would close all capital exchanges the
next day.

The United States would, in order to accommodate global electronic
trading, attempt to open the market on the second day, which they
would do, regardless of price, just to maintain some liquidity. At the
end of Day Two, the Dow Jones and related indices, would have lost two
thirds of their value, and prices would be set accordingly.

On Day Three, the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC and other related
agencies would recommend to the United States Treasury and the Federal
Reserve that all markets be closed. That would be on the morning of
Day Three. Eleven a.m., the Federal Reserve would then order all
domestic banks closed. All of the twelve Federal Reserve district
banks would (30 minutes later) have special U.S. forces parachuted in
and around them to secure whatever gold bullion reserves they had
left.

Day Three, 9:00 p.m., the President of the United States would declare
a state of martial law. All financial transactions would come to an
end. The Treasury would act to formally de-monetize the U.S. dollar
and declare it worthless.

This would be totally unprecedented. In the past, collapses have been
temporary and have been brought back up. But what we're talking about
now is the end.

These protocols that I'm referring to aren't even all that secret.
They were publicly available all through the Clinton era. These are
Treasury protocols that were instituted mostly in the late 1970s when
the Treasury and Federal Reserve began to feel that it was important
to have an emergency-collapse protocol in place.

What precipitated the timing of this was the inflationary spiral of
the late 1970s. The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve were both
concerned that this inflationary spiral, which was occurring not only
domestically but globally, might lead to a global, uncontrollable
hyper-inflation that the Federal Reserve or major central banks could
not stop by traditional means, i.e., by raising interest rates and
contracting money supply.

There was also the recognition, of course, that global central reserve
bank bullion inventories had been so depleted over the previous 30
years that any re-institution of a species currency, even on a
temporary basis, and even within a regional or individual nation-state
basis, was no longer possible.

This is an analogy. In a military scenario, it's like the President of
the United States pushing the final red button -- the commit button.
The Treasury Secretary of the United States has a similar mechanism.
It's called the yellow button, the commit button. The Secretary of
Defense has the same system. This is what happens. Computer program
starts to institute these protocols. Imagine the complexity of trying
the manage all this. I think it's going to happen all simultaneously.
There are hundreds of different agencies involved, both domestically
and internationally. In order to maintain liquidity for as long as
possible, it has to be extremely well-coordinated, and there must be
existing collapse protocols that can be used.

The reason I was familiar with them was because I used to see the U.S.
Treasury 6900 Series Collapse Protocol, 6903, 6904 there'll be A, B,
and so on which keyed in to the Department of Defense to be
incorporated within the Department of Defense's own World War III
scenario and various types of military/ political/ social instability/
war/ pestilence, chaos, etc. scenarios.

All federal agencies had individual collapse protocols that ultimately
got coordinated through the Department of Defense. Obviously, the
Department of Defense would be the ultimate coordinator because it
would need to have special forces available, on a stand-by basis,
ready, that could quickly parachute into areas all over the country,
into the cities particularly, to secure federal properties and assets.

And that's literally how it would begin. By the end of the third day,
it would be all over -- a state of martial law. We're not talking
about war, now; this is just economic collapse.

There's no military implication here, no political, no social
implication or policy directive thereunto. This is strictly economic
collapse. By the end of Day Three, effectively, all banks in the world
will be shut down, all paper currencies will become valueless. Martial
law would be declared. There would be no continuing transactions, at
least for a period of time, of commodities. All providers of fuels and
foods would be shut down automatically.

They have this in great detail too. U.S. Department of Defense Special
117th Assault Unit would parachute in to seize control of the cattle
yards in Oklahoma City. This is how well it's planned. In other words,
economic collapse would automatically involve expansive military
action and control.

By the end of the third day, when you no longer have a domestic medium
of exchange, you have to have secured food and fuel stocks. You've got
to have troops that have secured distribution points where there is
food and fuel stocks, warehouses, tanks, etc. Otherwise people are
just going to go get them, and the people have to know that if they
try to go break into that store and steal that loaf of bread, they're
going to be shot.

Protocols for environmental disasters are called 'scaling-circle
scenarios.' 'Scaling circles' is a Department of Defense euphemism.
It's also used in FEMA, OEM and other emergency management services.
In environmental catastrophes, which are going to become national or
global, it's got to start someplace. It's going to start in one very
small, specific area. Therefore what happens is that the immediate
force containment is the greatest in the first circle, to try to
contain the spread of the disaster and keep it within that circle.

The environmental problem, to whatever extent it's possible, before it
spreads, will be neutralized or mitigated, in order to keep that
catastrophe within that circle, or, if it is likely that it is to
escape that circle, to attack whatever it is in such a fashion as to
mitigate its strength and its ability to contaminate or otherwise
affect other areas.

In the case of earthquakes, for instance, affecting the west coast,
beginning at Mt. Rainier and moving southward -- that's a different
type of scenario. That does not include as much Department of Defense
involvement. It includes separate protocols, wherein mostly FEMA and
OEM act as the senior coordinating agencies between municipal, county
and state disaster and containment, which is called Disaster and
Containment Units. Federal troops would only be brought in for the
purposes of maintaining control.

In a military or economic collapse situation, National Guard units
would provide any spare help they could in combating whatever the
problem is. Federal troops would be used in order to have the specific
authority simply to shoot anyone. There are plans for all sorts of
scenarios. The economic-disaster scenario is the one I always found
the most intriguing because it is the one that is least understood by
the American people.

Military control would be necessary when lines begin to form at the
banks, people trying to access their money. But that wasn't even
anticipated as a big problem. Lines would form at the banks, but it
was not even envisioned until sometime on Day Three because the
American people wouldn't get it. It would be announced that the stock
markets are down 2000 or 3000 points, and since we've always been
taught they'll come back, the people would still be buying stocks.

You could count on everybody remaining in ignorance all the way down
because the American people have never been taught Economics 101. The
American people wouldn't realize the full extent of it until the
markets were closed on the third day, or until the time when they went
down to cash a check and the bank was closed with soldiers out in
front. Then they would go down and see the gas station's closed. They
see the local supermarket has been shuttered, and there's federal
troops in front of it. Then they might begin to catch on. And remember
-- it's not just federal troops. In emergency-collapse protocols, even
before the declaration of a formal state of emergency or a state of
martial law, the local military authorities within any given county or
jurisdiction have the ability to essentially militarize anyone, that
is, any civilian. This would be more than just deputizing civilians.
It's federal. In other words, they would have the ability to
militarize and give military authority to a civilian force. This would
include not only police and the sheriffs and state police, but all
local law enforcement that exists below the state level would be
immediately militarized. They wouldn't take just anybody like they did
in Iraq. It would be like the military when they call for volunteers.
Then they'd have everybody and their brother-in-law volunteering,
waving around the American flag and so on.

You've got a lot of pickup-driving guys in this country with the gun
racks in the back and the Confederate flag flying. So you start waving
the American flag in front of their face and say, Hey, you're going to
get your chance you always wanted -- to fit your potbelly inside an
army uniform and carry a gun and shoot people. How appealing would
that be?

And besides, if you do this, then you're going to get to eat.

In other words, this is how it would unfold over three days, but, in
fact, very few Americans would know what to do about it or how to take
any precautions. They wouldn't have a clue because they don't
understand enough about economics to know what is happening. So that's
what it is -- Economic Armageddon. If the Bush-Cheney regime is re-
installed into power, that is effectively what Comptroller General
David Walker is saying.

In conclusion, since there is very little the people of the United
States can do to protect themselves. We're not going to make any
suggestions of how to protect yourselves because there's very little
you can do.

We could tell you to go out and buy gold coins and bury them in the
coffee can in the back yard and go to your nearest survivalist store,
but, frankly, that's useless. In the last analysis, it's a lot of
hype. There is very little the average US citizen could do.

The only thing that can prevent this, as the Comptroller alluded to
when he was asked by Barbara Walters, How do we prevent reaching the
problem by 2009? He said simply, "A change of regimes."

So how do you prevent it? Don't vote for Bush and Cheney -- and hope
that Bush does not use his emergency powers to cancel or postpone the
election by edict, powers which you, the flag-waving citizens, have
given him.

All flag-waving citizens, be warned. If you want to vote for Bush-
Cheney again, make sure you got plenty of Spam on hand.

Here's an interesting and humorous aside. A couple of days ago, Hormel
Foods, which makes Spam, announced that in the last six months there
have been record sales of Spam in the United States the survivalists'
food of choice. After all, they pride themselves on the fact, as the
spokesman for Hormel said, "It is the only food product you can buy
with an expiration that's 50 years."

When everything goes to hell, when all that man has created has turned
to dust again, the final legacy is going to be Spam. It will be the
last surviving item -- when the anthropologists of 20 thousand years
from now are digging sites and they see these enormous mountains of
unopened cans of Spam They'll have monuments to the past out of Spam.

So if Bush-Cheney has a second term in office, there will be some sort
of currency restriction, like Nixon did in 1971. On April 13, 2004,
Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary John Boine talked about potential
currency restrictions. He used the word that's going to fuel the
flames of the survivalist and gloom-and-doom collapse people.

It's very, very telling that the U.S. Treasury may institute a
restriction on the amount of U.S. dollars that can be converted into
gold.

Furthermore, he intimated (and I suspected that this was coming,
although this wouldn't actually become law until Bush-Cheney was in
office for second term one way or another) that the Bush-Cheney regime
determines that the Gold Confiscation Act gives to Treasury the power
for so-called forced disclosure of gold holdings.

I'm not quite sure of the language of the Gold Confiscation Act from
1933. It just says, "compelled", as in citizens are lawfully compelled
to redeem gold for script. I don't think there was any such provision,
which he was inferring that there is. That was FDR's "Raw Deal" of
1934, when people were coerced into giving up their gold. But nowhere
in this act does it specifically authorize the Treasury to mandate
citizens to report their gold holdings. So if this gets any press at
all, particularly within the circles of gold bugs and so on, watch
out.

Furthermore, on Washington Journal they were talking about how FEMA
has recommended to the Office of Homeland Security to have increased
restrictions regarding citizen hoarding of long-term food and fuel
supplies. That's pretty sinister too.

What they're talking about is the purchase of long-term so-called
stores of survival food. FEMA was talking about some sort of
restriction preventing people from accumulating food stores; putting
it simply, that's what it means. The second point was to increase
restrictions that already exist.

FEMA was recommending even tighter restrictions on citizens building
their own private property underground storage tanks for the purposes
of long-term storage of fuel. The real intent of this is is threefold:
a) to restrict citizens' ability to hoard food; b) restrict citizens'
ability to hoard long-term storage of fuel; c) the forced
identification of citizens to reveal food and fuel stocks they may be
hoarding.

And that, in my opinion, is the real essence. The Bush-Cheney regime
was scared of having the FEMA angle put into the equation because they
knew what it means and how people would interpret it.

They have tried to use environmental legislation to restrict people's
ability to build fuel storage facilities on their own property -- to
get around what the true intent of that was.

But the bigger picture is that if you start to limit citizens' ability
to hoard fuel and food and shake them up by potential forced
identification of gold holdings or forced redemption.

In other words, what you don't want is citizens who have the ability
to store a lot of food and fuel and to own gold because they would be
able to resist state control in the future.

You've got to have every citizen on a rationing card to control the
civilian population. You can't have citizens out there hoarding food
and fuel because then people can say to government,"I ain't taking a
rationing card, baby, with my national ID card. I don't have to. You
can't control me through food and fuel and ever-worthless paper
currency."

I used to make fun of these people. But now, things have come full
circle on this debate. The Bush-Cheney regime is making it
increasingly clear through their small changes in policy. Not a lot of
people monitor these decisions, but I do. And the pattern is becoming
increasingly clear.

In fact, I would believe that those of the survivalist mentality (the
food, fuel, the gold coins in the coffee can in the back yard) people
who think that way will be ultimately vindicated - if George Bush has
a second term in office.

People should quit making fun of them because they would be vindicated
- even though they were all burned out, twenty-dollared to death,
buying books and tapes, and discredited by mainstream media. It may
sound like a hollow victory, but it won't be a hollow victory for them
- them that's got the Spam...

Anonymous said...

June 19, 2008 Scottish Banks issued the following reported, and predicted complete world banking collapse with ninty days. That means we have just a few more hours. What's good about this report is it tells you what to do.

***

RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert

International Business Editor
Last Updated: 12:19am BST 19/06/2008

The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.

"A very nasty period is soon to be upon us - be prepared," said Bob Janjuah, the bank's credit strategist.

A report by the bank's research team warns that the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities is likely to fall by more than 300 points to around 1050 by September as "all the chickens come home to roost" from the excesses of the global boom, with contagion spreading across Europe and emerging markets.

RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert
RBS warning: Be prepared for a 'nasty' period

Such a slide on world bourses would amount to one of the worst bear markets over the last century.

# RBS alert: Quotes from the report
# Fund managers react to RBS alert
# Support for the euro is in doubt

RBS said the iTraxx index of high-grade corporate bonds could soar to 130/150 while the "Crossover" index of lower grade corporate bonds could reach 650/700 in a renewed bout of panic on the debt markets.

"I do not think I can be much blunter. If you have to be in credit, focus on quality, short durations, non-cyclical defensive names.
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"Cash is the key safe haven. This is about not losing your money, and not losing your job," said Mr Janjuah, who became a City star after his grim warnings last year about the credit crisis proved all too accurate.

RBS expects Wall Street to rally a little further into early July before short-lived momentum from America's fiscal boost begins to fizzle out, and the delayed effects of the oil spike inflict their damage.

"Globalisation was always going to risk putting G7 bankers into a dangerous corner at some point. We have got to that point," he said.

US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank both face a Hobson's choice as workers start to lose their jobs in earnest and lenders cut off credit.

The authorities cannot respond with easy money because oil and food costs continue to push headline inflation to levels that are unsettling the markets. "The ugly spoiler is that we may need to see much lower global growth in order to get lower inflation," he said.
# Morgan Stanley warns of catastrophe
# More comment and analysis from the Telegraph

"The Fed is in panic mode. The massive credibility chasms down which the Fed and maybe even the ECB will plummet when they fail to hike rates in the face of higher inflation will combine to give us a big sell-off in risky assets," he said.

Kit Jukes, RBS's head of debt markets, said Europe would not be immune. "Economic weakness is spreading and the latest data on consumer demand and confidence are dire. The ECB is hell-bent on raising rates.

"The political fall-out could be substantial as finance ministers from the weaker economies rail at the ECB. Wider spreads between the German Bunds and peripheral markets seem assured," he said.

Ultimately, the bank expects the oil price spike to subside as the more powerful force of debt deflation takes hold next year.

Anonymous said...

Morgan Stanley predicted their OWN DEMISE 3 months ago, Thank God for Golden Parachutes. I wonder where all these sunbirds are going to flock to? During this depression?

**

Morgan Stanley warns of 'catastrophic event' as ECB fights Federal Reserve

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Last Updated: 1:29am BST 17/06/2008


The clash between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve over monetary strategy is causing serious strains in the global financial system and could lead to a replay of Europe's exchange rate crisis in the 1990s, a team of bankers has warned.

"We see striking similarities between the transatlantic tensions that built up in the early 1990s and those that are accumulating again today. The outcome of the 1992 deadlock was a major currency crisis and a recession in Europe," said a report by Morgan Stanley's European experts.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet has signalled that interest rates in Europe will rise
Jean-Claude Trichet is taking a hard line on rates

Just as then, Washington has slashed rates to bail out the banks and prevent an economic hard-landing, while Frankfurt has stuck to its hawkish line - ignoring angry protests from politicians and squeals of pain from Europe's export industry.

Indeed, the ECB has let the de facto interest rate - Euribor - rise by over 100 basis points since the credit crisis began.

Just as then, the dollar has plummeted far enough to cause worldwide alarm. In August 1992 it fell to 1.35 against the Deutsche Mark: this time it has fallen even further to the equivalent of 1.25. It is potentially worse for Europe this time because the yen and yuan have also fallen to near record lows. So has sterling.
# More Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
# ECB in no mood to rescue us from debt
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Morgan Stanley doubts that Europe's monetary union will break up under pressure, but it warns that corked pressures will have to find release one way or another.

This will most likely occur through property slumps and banking purges in the vulnerable countries of the Club Med region and the euro-satellite states of Eastern Europe.

"The tensions will not disappear into thin air. They will find fault lines on the periphery of Europe. Painful macro adjustments are likely to take place. Pegs to the euro could be questioned," said the report, written by Eric Chaney, Carlos Caceres, and Pasquale Diana.

The point of maximum stress could occur in coming months if the ECB carries out the threat this month by Jean-Claude Trichet to raise rates. It will be worse yet - for Europe - if the Fed backs away from expected tightening. "This could trigger another 'catastrophic' event," warned Morgan Stanley.

The markets have priced in two US rates rises later this year following a series of "hawkish" comments by Fed chief Ben Bernanke and other US officials, but this may have been a misjudgment.

An article in the Washington Post by veteran columnist Robert Novak suggested that Mr Bernanke is concerned that runaway oil costs will cause a slump in growth, viewing inflation as the lesser threat. He is irked by the ECB's talk of further monetary tightening at such a dangerous juncture.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is reported to be irked by the ECB's approach
Ben Bernanke is reported to be irked by the ECB's approach

The contrasting approaches in Washington and Frankfurt make some sense. America's flexible structure allows it to adjust quickly to shocks. Europe's more rigid system leaves it with "sticky" prices that take longer to fall back as growth slows.

Morgan Stanley says the current account deficits of Spain (10.5pc of GDP), Portugal (10.5pc), and Greece (14pc) would never have been able to reach such extreme levels before the launch of the euro.

EMU has shielded them from punishment by the markets, but this has allowed them to store up serious trouble. By contrast, Germany now has a huge surplus of 7.7pc of GDP.

The imbalances appear to be getting worse. The latest food and oil spike has pushed eurozone inflation to a record 3.7pc, with big variations by country. Spanish inflation is rising at 4.7pc even though the country is now in the grip of a full-blown property crash. It is still falling further behind Germany. The squeeze required to claw back lost competitiveness will be "politically unpalatable".

Morgan Stanley said the biggest risk lies in the arc of countries from the Baltics to the Black Sea where credit growth has been roaring at 40pc to 50pc a year. Current account deficits have reached 23pc of GDP in Latvia, and 22pc in Bulgaria. In Hungary and Romania, over 55pc of household debt is in euros or Swiss francs.

Swedish, Austrian, Greek and Italian banks have provided much of the funding for the credit booms. A crunch is looming in 2009 when a wave of maturities fall due. "Could the funding dry up? We think it could," said the bank.

Anonymous said...

Germany sends $300M to LEHMAN POST BK? GERMANS ASK "WHAT THE FUCK"??

Trouble is folks this shit is all on auto-pilot, the computers run everything, and nobody has a fucking clue what anything is worth, or even if your creditor or depositor is alive or dead. It's going to take years to just figure out where all the wealth went, or what has value and what doesn't.

Thus everyone will drain the pool, and wait it out.

***

'Certain Mistakes Just Can't Be Allowed to Happen'

Hundreds of millions of euros from a German government-owned bank went down the drain with Lehman Brothers on Monday after a strange deal that has left many people scratching their heads. Why would a German bank transfer €300 million to an American Wall Street firm after it filed for bankruptcy?

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück says he's as baffled as anyone.
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German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück says he's as baffled as anyone.
The German Finance Ministry declared itself shocked -- shocked! -- on Wednesday at the news that a state lending bank, KfW, had transferred €300 million ($426 million) to Lehman Brothers in New York on Monday, just after the investment bank collapsed.

"What we have had to read today is astonishing and exasperating," Finance Ministry spokesman Torsten Albig told reporters. "We expect a swift explanation of such a technical failure, which is inexplicable to us."

The trouble is, KfW is overseen by the Finance Ministry, among other elements of the German government, and the country's finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, holds ultimate responsibility for the bank's health. Ratings agency S&P said KfW's sudden exposure to such a loss would not hurt the bank's credit; but KfW was already burdened by the collapse of another German bank, IKB, in the wake of the subprime crisis last winter. KfW was IKB's largest shareholder, and it oversaw a deal -- on behalf of the public -- to sell the bank to American investors at the firesale price of €100 million. The bargain basement sale, however, came only after taxpayers were required to pay billions to bail IKB out.

The money transfer between KfW and Lehman was called an erroneous swap -- a swap being a derivative agreement between two parties to exchange one stream of cash flow for another. German papers on Thursday morning are no less shocked by the deal than the Finance Ministry, and they want an explanation for what seems like terrific mismanagement of publicly insured money.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Who is responsible when something goes wrong in a state-run bank? A range of politicians sit at the head of KfW's supervisory board -- from Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (a Social Democrat) and Michael Glos (a Christian Democrat) to the head of the Left Party, Oskar Lafontaine. Of course these bank managers can't personally follow every securities transaction. But it must have been clear to these political leaders that something had gone wrong with the bank's risk-management capability -- at the very latest in February, when IKB, the medium-sized bank which the KfB controlled with a majority of shares, collapsed."

"The IKB debacle cost the KfW -- and, in the end, German taxpayers -- billions. Handlers around Steinbrück and Glos should have done everything in their power to prevent another collapse. Instead, Steinbrück has used every opportunity to wag his finger (at private banks) and talk down the damage this financial crisis will cause the German economy. Anyone who calls for better risk management in private banking has to first make sure that his own house is in order."

The business daily Handelsblatt writes:

"There are certain mistakes that just can't be allowed to happen at a bank. Transferring €300 million to Lehman Brothers -- an institution that had already shown itself to be a candidate for bankruptcy the night before -- is one of those mistakes. The state-owned lending bank KfW will now have to provide a detailed account of how it could have made such a misstep. What's more important, though, is that it needs to take a really close look at its in-house risk-management department and make the changes needed to make sure something like this can never happen again."

"KfW has undergone immense growth over the past few years. It has grown more entwined in the capital market and thereby diversified its own refinancing. But now is the time for Germany's ninth-largest bank (in total assets) to ask itself whether the growth of its internal structures has kept sufficient pace with the bank's other growth and whether it still has all of its other functions under complete control."

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The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"When the supervisory board of Germany's state-owned lender bank KfW meets on Thursday, there's likely to be an animated debate. The overseers on the hopelessly bloated 37-member board won't manage to dodge the question of how the bank ran billions and billions of taxpayer euros into the ground. So far, the government bailout of IKB Bank, partially owned by KfW and deeply exposed in the subprime crisis, has cost €11 billion, with €9 billion of that coming from the federal budget, from KfW and from the taxpayers. Freed of those liabilities, with €2 billion in fresh capital and a debtor warrant to the tune of over €1 billion, IKB is now being sold for just over €100 million. That isn't what good business deals look like. To top things off, the bank on Monday transferred €300 million to Lehman Brothers as it declared bankruptcy. It just doesn't get any more dilettantish than that. The board shouldn't let this pass with a nod -- instead they should be asking what right a KfW bank run like this has to exist."

The leftist daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"Anyone who watched TV, listened to the radio or read the newspaper over the weekend saw or heard images showing Lehman Brothers employees rushing to clean out their offices. But the two KfW employees must have slept through all that on their well-earned weekend. Now they'll likely lose their jobs. Business-friendly opposition politicians like the Free Democratic Party aren't the only ones criticizing the bank and asking how state bank employees could deal so incompetently with money that is backed with almost limitless taxpayer guarantees?"

"The Lehman collapse could cost the German banking system a total of €6 billion. It's not even certain whether the Association of German Banks' Deposit Guarantee Fund will be sufficient to cover the sum. The banks may have to pump more money in to cover the losses, which could affect the overall economy. The same banks that for far too long earned easy money through mortgages for American junk real estate have now become overly cautious, and are demanding massive liability premiums. The economy is cooling off markedly -- and jobs will soon be lost. It's high time that politicians, not just in Germany, put regulation of the financial markets at the top of their agendas."

Anonymous said...

Our government is NOT our friend, even with ‘representatives’ of the people, since they have been bought and sold like cattle.

Brace yourselves, people. About 7 million died because of the last Great Depression. That was without a war, without martial law, without China being a well-armed enemy threatening war.

Anonymous said...

Dead Cat Bounce

Is America's honeymoon with Sarah Palin over? Polls suggest that might be so.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/palin.appeal/index.html

Anonymous said...

For 2+ years I have told all of you it would be 2018 or later, and only that with a great war to RECOVER the BEND RE.

What the DEM's&PUG's are doing today, is prolonging the PAIN for at least 5-10 years.

Well in the past 10+ years, everyone got 'rich', now everyone is going to get poor.

When will Bend recover now? Most like 2018 or later, thats when next survivors of the next war will be returning , and creating a new baby-boom.

What's Behind the Financial Market Crisis?

Daily Article by Antony Mueller | Posted on 9/18/2008

The financial crisis is not over. Neither tax rebates nor low interest rates nor higher or lower exchange rates can do the job of reviving an economy that is burdened by debt loads that are too high. On the contrary: the policy measures that the US authorities have been applying will prolong the agony. Be prepared for the challenges of extended financial turmoil and economic stagnation.

Early this year, the US central bank decided to manage the debt crisis in the light-hearted belief that a few aggressive rate cuts would "unfreeze" the banking system. Yet as of the end of the third quarter of 2008, the arteries of the financial system are still cluttered, and the financial system has moved even closer to total collapse.

Those banks and brokerages that haven't yet failed have been kept alive by emergency monetary transfusions from the US central bank. The Fed has cast away all restraints of economic rationality and is acting in a purely political way. The Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System is pursuing the goal of getting the financial system through the mess — at least until the end of the year, no matter how high the costs will be thereafter.

The American central bank has adopted the financial equivalent of the military strategy of scorched earth. The economic philosophy of the current chairman of the US Federal Reserve System can be summarized in the slogan, "No depression under my rule!" He resembles a military leader who stubbornly declares, "No defeat under my rule!" the more the chance of victory is slipping away, and defeat can be denied no longer.

The current economic disaster is the result of the combination of negligence, hubris, and wrong economic theory. For decades, an economic and monetary policy has been practiced based on the illusion of, "It doesn't matter." At first it was, "Deficits don't matter." From that, the policy of "it doesn't matter" got extended to money creation, the credit expansion, the stock-market bubble, and the housing boom. Now, we're being told that buying financial junk by the central bank to beef up banks and brokerages also doesn't matter.

As a byproduct of this mindless economic and monetary policy, financial market operators, too, have lost their heads. Trusting the official cheerleaders, investors hold on in the trenches until they will have lost their last shirt. Economic weakness is spreading around the globe. There is no new spurt of economic growth in sight. Yet many investors stay put because they have been conditioned to believe that government will bail them out.

The current financial crisis is not of a cyclical nature. The financial turmoil is the symptom of the structural imbalances in the real economy. Over decades, expansive monetary policy has gone hand in hand with implicit and explicit bailout guarantees, and this has distorted the process of capital allocation. Under such perverted conditions, those investors will win most who cast away the restraints of prudence. It is a game that can go on for a long time — up to the point when the irrationality has become systemic.

The behavior of the investment community reflects the incentive structure that has been put in place by the authorities. Investors have learnt to dance to the tunes of the pied pipers at high places. After all, the individual market player could see from those who were ahead of him in the abandonment of prudence how money is being made. In the wake of this, financial companies have become overextended and are now in need of deleveraging. Yet the core problem lies in the imbalances of the real economy.

In the Austrian theory of the business cycle, the distinction is made between the "primary" and "secondary" depression. The secondary depression is what catches the eye: the turmoil in the financial markets. Yet the underlying cause is the distortion of the economy's capital structure: the primary depression.

The simple fact is that the US economy is burdened with a highly lopsided capital structure as the consequence of a wide discrepancy between consumption and production, which, in turn, is the result of monetary policy. Persistent trade imbalances are the symptoms of this discrepancy. This means for the US economy that lower interest rates and government incentives aimed at boosting consumption work as pure poison. Instead of more consumption, more savings, less consumption and fewer imports are needed.

The current financial crisis reflects that many debtors have reached their debt limit and that creditors are lowering that limit. From now on, business and consumers, governments and investors must work under the restraints of lowered debt ceilings.

Economic policy as it is currently practiced is in a fix: lower interest rates may temporarily help to alleviate the financial crisis, but they exacerbate the fundamentals that are the cause of the financial crisis. Equally, a lower dollar would make imports costlier for the United States, while a strong dollar comes with lower import prices. But while a low dollar would help to expand exports, a strong dollar impedes export growth. Therefore, the United States will have high trade deficits as long as the economy does not fall deeper into recession.

Without an adaptation that would increase savings, decrease consumption, and reduce imports, the US economy can only go on in the old fashion with ever more debt accumulation. But the limit of debt expansion has been reached. The financial crisis has reduced the willingness of domestic and foreign creditors to extend loans.

Foreign creditors are getting ready to reduce their holding of US debt in a more drastic way. The governmental takeover of the mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailed out the monetary authorities of China, Japan, Russia, and other foreign countries that hold agency debt. As a result of the socialization of the so-called government-sponsored enterprises, the Treasury opened a window of opportunity for these countries to unload their US assets at subsidized prices, all at the cost of the US taxpayer.

A profound restructuring of global capital has become unavoidable. Such a process is quite different from a recession in the traditional sense. In contrast to a sharp and typically short-lived recession, when, after the rupture, business as usual can go on, the restructuring of a distorted capital structure will require time to play out. Rebalancing the distorted capital structure of an economy requires enduring nitty-gritty entrepreneurial piecemeal work. This can only be done under the guidance of the discovery process of competition, as it is inherent in the workings of the price system of the unhampered market.

Anticyclical fiscal and monetary policies are of no help when it comes to the daily toil in business to work towards reestablishing a balanced capital structure. The so-called income multiplier won't work, and lower interest rates won't stimulate spending. On the contrary: these policy measures only make the task of the entrepreneur harder.

$50 $45
"Ignorant of the lessons of the Austrian School, the authorities will most likely continue with their disastrous policies."

The difficulties ahead arise from the problem that business as usual cannot go on under conditions of a credit crunch, which has its roots in the distortions of the economy's capital structure. Thus, even if the financial market turmoil were to settle, there won't be the simple resumption of the old ways of doing business. The belief that, after the financial crisis is over, the real economy can reemerge unscathed, is probably the greatest error that many investors share with the policymakers.

As a result of the bailouts and the socialization of the mortgage agencies, the financial system is now fully infected with moral hazard. The disastrous effects of these government interventions will show up soon. The major task of bringing the capital structure in order is still ahead and more pain is in the waiting.

As long as governments and central banks continue to focus on the monetary symptoms of the "secondary depression" and continue to ignore the structural aspects of the "primary depression," they act like quacks. Ignorant of the lessons of the Austrian School, the authorities will most likely continue with their disastrous policies.

Anonymous said...

Dead Cat Bounce


*

I don't think there is anyone who accepts the fact that any fucking candidate at this point can do any fucking thing, other than look good, and talk shit.

Good people don't run, Biden had run over-ever, ditto for McCain, Palin & Obama are manufactured newbies that passed the 'stewart test'.

America always, has and always will get the politicians they deserve.

Hell look at our BP, he'll most likely be a future Mayor, and he's a complete fucking idiot, yet in the pool of politicians he's a fucking genius.

Remember that every fucking person holding office, is really a BP.

Anonymous said...

"America's Love for Palin Over"

Yes, folks the US attention rate for a pretty new face is about 2-3 weeks, and what did you fucking expect?


Today Hagel, leading PUG SENATE came out and said PALIN sucks dick.

So fucking what, they ALL have destroyed the government. From this point on they could make Mickey Mouse prez, it just will not matter.

DUMBYA & CHENEY had their own agenda, and some fucking 'BP type' will be our next PREZ, and have his agenda, in the meantime ROME will BURN.

Anonymous said...

OK Folks, here's a guy telling the TRUTH, and telling how to survive, for 2+ years I have been telling you its all about survival. This guys calling it GOOD. Also he notes bottom in RE not until 2012, and that means 2014 for Bend.


The worst is yet to come
'No market for old men,' TCW investment strategist warns in gloomy forecast

By Jonathan Burton, MarketWatch
Last update: 9:34 p.m. EDT Sept. 17, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- An influential investment strategist has a dire forecast for U.S. stocks, credit markets and the continued independence of some of the nation's top financial institutions.
Jeffrey Gundlach, chief investment officer at Los Angeles-based mutual-fund company TCW Group Inc., told clients on a conference call late Wednesday that the crisis in credit and housing may not abate for several years and is actually getting worse.

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In the deteriorating climate he sees unfolding, Gundlach said, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (SPX:
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"This is no market for old men," said Gundlach, who also manages TCW's flagship Total Return Bond Fund (TGLMX:
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Gundlach based his assessment on a belief that housing prices still face several more years of decline, a protracted slump, he said, not seen since the Great Depression. Moreover, Gundlach said it's possible that home prices could be sluggish until 2022.
"If it's like the Depression experience -- and it sure is shaping up that way -- it could take several years. Maybe we won't see a bottom in home prices until 2014," he said.
Write-offs could top $1 trillion
As a forecaster, Gundlach didn't just climb aboard the gloom-and-doom wagon. He was early to spot the cracks that subprime loans were making in the financial system, and among the first to warn that an era of easy money would come to a bad end.
"The subprime market is a total unmitigated disaster and it's going to get worse," Gundlach told money managers and financial advisers at an investment conference in June 2007. See full story.
And Gundlach has put his shareholders' money where his mouth is, shunning derivatives and counterparty risk in his bond fund portfolio.
That defensive posture should offer protection in the continuing credit storm that Gundlach foresees. In this bleak scenario, an unprecedented -- and growing -- number of home foreclosures, along with mortgage loans that are under water as soon as they're originated and a glaring lack of buyers for even modestly risky assets keeps the financial system under enormous stress.
Expect loan default rates to rise, Gundlach said, not just in the subprime market, but among the top-drawer prime borrowers as well. The prime default rate could approach 10% from a current 2% before the carnage is over, he said.
"The current environment is maybe a little worse that what was experienced in the Depression in terms of the housing market," Gundlach said.
More troubles ahead
Accordingly, financial institutions may suffer write-offs that could surpass $1 trillion before conditions improve, he said. As of late August, credit losses and writedowns at the world's 100-largest banks and brokerages topped $506 billion, he noted.
Among the casualties, Gundlach said, is Citigroup. The company's balance sheet problems could be on a scale similar to that of insurer American International Group, which the U.S. bailed out this week.
"I would give a very meaningful probability to the biggest, next AIG-size debacle being Citigroup," the strategist said.
"I would definitely not be a buyer of Citigroup stock," Gundlach said.
"If I were going to buy financial market stocks," he added, "I would be a buyer of Wells Fargo (WFC:
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Other financial giants also won't escape the crisis unscathed, Gundlach said. "I don't see how Wachovia can make it as a stand alone," he said. He expressed the same sentiment about Morgan Stanley.
Indeed, late Wednesday the New York Times reported that Morgan Stanley was exploring a merger with Wachovia or another bank. See full story.
Europe's financial giants are in similar or even worse shape than their U.S. counterparts, Gundlach said, with "substantial exposures to assets which U.S. banks are now getting taken to the woodshed over. I would rate all European banks as not a buy."
The breakdown will take a further toll on U.S. stocks, Gundlach added. The S&P 500 will tumble below 800, he said, about 35% below its 1156 close on Wednesday.
Said Gundlach: "None of us have ever seen this, and it's no market for old men, but risk aversion is the order of the day."

Anonymous said...

I don't think there is anyone who accepts the fact that any fucking candidate at this point can do any fucking thing, other than look good, and talk shit.

At least they can look good. You just talk shit.

Anonymous said...

Here's very good article by 'Cindy Sheehan' who helped Pelosi win!!! This bitch is so fucking angry its pathetic, this post is from the 'village voice' ( real left ), note they same the same about OR-BOMB-EO as ME, that he's a fucking PUSSY. Imagine That?

Print & Read the following VERY CAREFULLY. It's an excellent Read.

***

The Dems Are Going the Way of the Whig Party
William Hughes

“The Dems...are weaklings who blow where the wind takes them while frittering away our...lifeblood.” - Cindy Sheehan

It’s painful for me to watch the Dems, the political party of my youth, self-destruct. I’m sure this is how members of the Whig Party must have felt as they witnessed their organization fade from the national scene. The Whigs were the heirs of the Federalist Party, originally led by George Washington. A split over the issue of Slavery, however, just before the Civil War, marked the death knell of that once influential entity. The Dems, on the other hand, are going down because they no longer stand for anything. They are morphing into a Duopoly--the DemRepublicrats. The Peace Mom, Cindy Sheehan, correctly wrote that the Dems are only good for “careful fence sitting and pandering.” (1)

The 2006 mid-term election was the tipping point for the demise of the Dems. Their decline followed from that election--and it was a challenge--ironically, that they had won. The Dems solemnly promised the voters that if they carried the day, in 2006, they would end the Iraq War. The activists in the Peace Movement, such as Ms. Sheehan, a Gold Star Mother for Peace, took them at their word. They worked their guts out to get a majority of the Dems elected in congressional races across the country.

What was the result of all of that sweat? The Dems gave the activists the back of their hand. In fact, some of their allies, like at the HuffPost web site, a bastion of the Hollywood Elite, added insult to injury. They wrongly claimed that the Dems won, in 2006, mostly because of the efforts of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), and his ilk. (2) In the past, this same HuffPost web site has gone out of its way to marginalize the efforts of the Peace Movement.

To make matters worse, in 2007, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), proclaimed: “Impeachment is off the table!” What a dumb thing to say. By not seeking the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the Dems were giving away the seminal issue for forging a Democratic victory in 2008: The serial wrongdoings of the Bush-Cheney Gang over the last eight years! (3) Instead, the Dems are now running as the “Party of Change.” But, where are their “new” ideas?

At the Democratic Convention did you hear a word of serious criticism about the Bush-Cheney Gang’s domestic spying operation, or its torture polices, or its massive out sourcing of jobs, via its trade agreements? The Bush-Cheney Gang also gave us secret prisons, the draconian USA Patriot Act and gutted the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus. Yet, the Dems were silent on all of the above.

To show that the Dems have no real intention of bringing the troops safely home from Iraq, they anointed the hawkish Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a confessed Zionist, as Barack Obama’s VP running mate. Now, the flaky Biden is saying Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), would have been a better VP choice for the ticket than himself. Things are so bad with the Dems, you can’t make this crap up! Then, when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP candidate, the Dems, and their Propaganda Machine, badly overreacted. Their vicious attacks on Palin have turned Middle America off. (4)

Just look at this latest poll. In North Carolina, the McCain-Palin ticket is ahead by by a staggering “20 points!” This is the same state that the disgraced ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) calls home.

During the 2000 presidential election debates, I vividly recall Al Gore’s on-camera TV persona. He came off as a smart ass college professor talking down to his students. George W. Bush, a disgrace to humanity, nevertheless, was much better prepped by his handlers. He looked into the camera and talked directly to the voters as if he were standing in their living rooms. Bush came off as sincere and authentic; Gore as wooden and pompous. Gore also made a huge mistake in choosing that raving Likudnut, Joe Lieberman, then a Dem from Connecticut, as his VP running mate.

In the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), too, should have easily run Dubya out of the ball park. He didn’t. Kerry put on a don’t-rock-the-boat-presidential campaign. A Vietnam War Vet, he campaigned as a Pro-Iraq War Lite. He inspired no one! As a result, he blew an election that could have been his for the taking.

Enter Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). He came roaring into the state of Maryland in the early primary season. He beat the dickens out of Hillary, and the local Political Machine headed by that hot dog of a governor, Martin O’Malley, and windbag U.S. Senator, Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). I thought: Sen. Obama has the right stuff! He appeared a master at converting his audience to his candidacy. (5) Then, unfortunately, he began letting “others” define him. (6)

When that royal-pain-in-the ass, Richard Cohen, a ranter for the “Washington Post,” criticized Sen. Obama’s then pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator quickly caved into the pressure. He tossed his pastor overboard and abandoned a church which had been his spiritual home for over 20 years! For the folks who reflected deeply at this affair: Sen. Obama came off, in his knee jerk response, as weak and disloyal. These are character flaws which are alien to Sen. John McCain’s projected persona. He comes off, whether you like him or not, as reliable and strong. Can anyone imagine JFK, in 1960, leaving his RC church, in Boston, because of what some half-baked pundit said about his priest?

Sen. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” crack didn’t help him either. It reinforced an image of himself that isn’t very presidential. The line, however, that really offended tens of millions of potential voters for the Dems, especially with rural America, was the one from Sen. Obama, which came while he was campaigning out in California. He remarked about the residents of the “small towns in Pennsylvania,” which have been seriously damaged by out sourcing. He disparaged them as “bitter” gun owners, clinging to “religion or antipathy to people” who are unlike themselves. This is the language of an elitist that you expect to hear from somebody who is a card carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations or the Trilateral Commission: the New World Order boy-ohs. Even though Sen. Obama didn’t mean his comment exactly the way that it came out, it has put him on the defensive with many voters.

I spent some time in Pennsylvania this summer, mostly in the rural areas, up around Centre County. It is primarily farm country. There are also plenty of those “small towns” in the region that Sen. Obama was referring to in his remarks. The resentment there from gun owners against Sen. Obama runs very deep. If you ask them about it, they will let you know quickly, and in no uncertain terms, that Sen. Obama isn’t their candidate. Period! You will also see plenty of lawn signs in central Pennsylvania, and beyond, that read: “I’m a ‘bitter’ gun owner, and I vote.” The NRA is now funding a $40 million Fall blitz targeting Sen. Obama for defeat. (7) He can only blame himself for this sorry mess.

There are others things which are hurting Sen. Obama’s chances. For example, the idea that Barbara Streisand had a fundraiser for him, on Sept. 16, 2008, in glitzy Beverly Hills, CA, where one ticket cost $28,500, had to turn off a lot of working class folks. Americans are losing their jobs and their homes to foreclosures, by the millions. The economy, thanks to Alan Greenspan’s gross incompetence at “The Fed,” is in a virtual meltdown. (8) Many see the Streisand-Hollywood-related-megabucks stunt, as way over the top. They also see Sen. Obama as being out of touch for permitting it. His endorsement, too, of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, may be the final straw for many who saw him as their knight in shining armor. (9)

Getting back to Ms. Sheehan. She put it concisely in her “Open Letter to the Democratic Congress,” when she explained why she was leaving the Democratic Party. She wrote, on May 28, 2007, “You have completely failed those who put you in power to ‘change’ the direction our country is heading. We did not elect you to help sink our ship of state but to guide it to a safe harbor.” (1)

Finally, in 2000, Gore lost an election that he should have won. Then, Kerry, in 2004, followed suit. And, now, Sen. Obama, incredibly, in 2008, is on that same losing path. When he goes down, the Dems, like the Whigs before them, will fall hard with him. Look for the result to be Third Parties rising Phoenix-like! (10)

Anonymous said...

Imagine that Biden a Zionist?? Who would have guessed?

Anonymous said...

Cuomo to demand short-selling halt within days, imagine that closing the barn after all the cattle have left, those 'DAMN' short sellers!

Protect the Guilty, Punish the innocent, on in the USA.

***

The Wall Street Journal

Sept. 18, 2008

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has started a "wide-ranging investigation into short selling in the financial market" related to companies under pressure over the past week, such as Lehman, AIG, Morgan Stanley and Goldman. In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Cuomo said that in the past few days his office has received complaints about false rumors spread by short sellers. "Short selling is not illegal, but when combined with the spread of wrong information, that is illegal," he said.

Anonymous said...

You just talk shit.

*

Name it, pussy.

The fact is I talk about what is really going on.

The pol's talk about what people want to hear, the diff is I'm not running for orifice, nor do I care what the fuck do any of you think.

At the end of the day, most pol's want people to love them, which is why pussy's tend to commit suicide, when they find out they're dumb&hated.

If you don't like what I write, then go to daily-kos, or town-hall, ... and get a dose of 'reality'.

Anonymous said...

off topic but quite amusing...

Great video over at ebaumsworld.com showing outtakes from a mattress retailer's commercial...turns out, the guy's in Prineville and calls it "PrineTucky"...classic

Anonymous said...

Mr. Cuomo said that in the past few days his office has received complaints about false rumors spread by short sellers.

*

Paulson: "Cuomo, we got a problems, depositors are angry that we ain't got no cash for these bank runs"

Cuomo: "Damn depositors, we need a bank holiday, and use our police powers to stop these rumors".

The trouble is these days the 'rumors' are just the tip of the fucking iceberg.

Anonymous said...

Here you go phony nazi-lib's in BEND. Here's a report on the BUSH-CRASH supported by OR-BOMB-EO, that is written by the REAL-LEFT.

Not the phony ( dunc/hbm/bp ) left.

From now on I'm going pure HL-MENCKEN, calling the Dem's foxes, and the PUG's wolves. Just like he used to, the diff between the two is that foxes only eat carrion when your not looking, but wolves eat carrion with eye contact. Other than that there is NO difference - mencken.

***

9/18/08 'Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal'
Stephen Lendman

Danny Schechter is a media activist, critic, independent filmmaker, TV producer as well as an author of 10 books and lecturer on media issues. Some call him "The News Dissector," and that's the name of his popular blog on media issues. He's also co-founder of Media Channel.org. It covers the "political, cultural and social impacts of the media," and provides information unavailable in the mainstream.

Schechter's books include Media Wars; Embedded - weapons of Mass Deception; The Death of Media; The More You Watch The Less You Know; and his newest and subject of this review, Plunder. Subtitled: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, Schechter examines the fallout from the current economic and financial crisis. What the mainstream media (MSM) suppresses:

-- decades of wealth transfers to the rich;

-- the economy in recession;

-- the result of multiple imploding bubbles: housing, mortgage finance, and an alphabet soup of SDOs, SIVs, SPVs, and a whole menu of levered-up, high-risk securitized assets amounting to financial alchemy; largely outright fraud;

-- the risk things may worsen;

-- from drowning in debt and speculative excess;

-- bankrupt by some measures;

-- huge amounts of corruption;

-- government hiding how bad it is; complicit in it as well;

-- over one million homeowners foreclosed since summer 2007;

-- another million are 90 days past due on payments; foreclosures about to go out on them;

-- three million more potentially in coming months with up to five million total at risk over the next few years in the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression and too little government help provided too late;

-- rising unemployment;

-- failing banks;

-- rising inflation; and

-- consumers maxed out on credit and strapped by indebtedness the way Schechter portrayed them in his 2006 film titled "In Debt We Trust."

Schechter's book is timely, important, and frightening. He does a masterful job deconstructing a complicated subject. One covered up in the mainstream. Its dark side papered over suppressed.

Schechter explains it fully and clearly for lay readers to understand. It's essential they do it because it touches everyone. No one knows how bad it may get, but the current crisis has legs. The worst of it may be ahead, and before it ends millions may feel it painfully. "Plunder" provides ammunition. A blueprint of what's unfolding. Explaining that government help won't be forthcoming, so we're responsible for making the best of a very bad situation.

It begins with understanding the scandalous dilemma unfolding. The complicity of government and Wall Street behind it. The dominant media promoting it. What author Kevin Phillips calls the "rise of big finance" and "global crisis of American capitalism;" "Frankenstein finance;" and a problem so potentially grave that "there may no longer be a plausible way out."

Schechter calls it "financialization" to describe "the kind of control (a Credit and Loan Complex) exert(s) over society every bit as insidious as the Military-Industrial Complex." Made up of Wall Street; big banks; an array of finance, credit card and related companies preying on middle-America and the poor and transferring enormous wealth to the rich. A regulatory environment allowing it. Creating an open field for fraud. Taking full advantage because so-called "watchdogs" are part of the problem. The administration and Federal Reserve as well. The entire power structure allied against working people. A shameful and potentially disastrous situation as a result.

Schechter envisions a different future and dedicates his book to one "free of debt and a world where markets serve the public interest." Light years from what "Credit Card Nation" author Robert Manning writes in the Preface:

-- industrial employment ravaged by neoliberal "free trade" and corporate outsourcing;

-- malls replacing factories as the economy's engine;

-- declining wages in the face of soaring expenses;

-- most families dependent on credit to survive;

-- the calamitous effects of banking deregulation;

-- a corrupted "symbiotic financial-industrial complex" called "financialization;"

-- a new Gilded Age exalting greed;

-- turning consumers into debt slaves; and

-- making the country "perilously dependent" on foreign capital sources for economic security.

Schechter continues in his prologue:

-- sinking markets from a "full-blown credit/debt crisis;"

-- "waves of layoffs," bankruptcies and foreclosures;

-- distorted media coverage on causes and solutions;

-- fear that the worst is ahead;

-- the infectious effect of the spreading "subprime crisis;"

-- trillions of dollars being lost;

-- millions of homeowners at risk; millions of working people also;

-- a Ponzi scheme writ large; the bigger they are, the harder they implode; what PIMCO's Managing Director and economist Paul McCulley calls a "Minsky Moment" that derives from economist Hyman Minsky's analysis; the unwinding of excess exuberance; deflating euphoria; proving market bubbles always burst, and their downward momentum is far more severe and faster than their upside; and

-- a "calculated crime" putting America and the global economy at risk; Schechter says "This is an angry book (because) so many of us are in denial or unaware of the importance of economic forces in shaping our future;" he also rails at his colleagues who've done "such a poor job reporting on the run-up to this disaster."

Schechter chronicles what happened. The threat of depression. Alerting people to the possibility. Highlighting concern about the victims. Challenging the media and chastising their ignoring and distorting the story. Telling us that "democracy must have an economic underpinning and a commitment to fairness." Offering ways to achieve it. Explain how debt restructured the economy and created "a burden that many will never crawl out of." Exposing "shameless profiteers" and calling for an investigation of their crimes and prosecution. Asking for debt relief for Americans. "Urging citizens to get involved and (demand) politicians respond." Getting upset and aroused enough to act.

"It's the Economy Stupid," according to Schechter in his introduction, and, of course, it always is but especially when times are hard. What Senator Chris Dodd calls "a 50-state Katrina," but these waters are rising and uncertainty remains on whether something far more calamitous is coming.

Corruption is pervasive. The public uneasy but largely uninformed. The worst of what's going on is hidden. A vast shady network of "interconnected institutions working through highly legalized and poorly understood systems." Moving unimaginable sums around the world in seconds. Seducing people into the most outrageous schemes involving unrepayable debt. Then having to borrow more to service amounts already unaffordable. Heading for what money manager Jeremy Grantham calls a "slow motion trainwreck"- the inevitability that bubbles always burst. His advice in the current environment. What he calls the "first truly global bubble:" hunker down and "take as little risk as possible" because "I for one am officially scared."

The Origins of the Scandal

When it began, "subprime lending" wasn't a term in common usage, let alone understood outside financial circles. One of its late 1990s originators was Obama campaign finance chairperson Penny Pritzker when she served on the Board of the failed family-owned Hinsdale, IL Superior Bank. It cost the FDIC $700 million and depositors another $65 million, while Pritzker made millions on predatory lending now called "subprime" mortgage schemes. One definition is as follows: "the practice of making loans to borrowers who do not qualify for the best market interest rates because of their deficient credit history." Another in the recent environment was to force-feed them to the largest number of homebuying prospects possible.

There's lots of them, and predatory lenders took full advantage until things erupted into scandal, and the economy headed south. Only then did regulators take notice and decide to investigate - into how "banks, credit rating firms, and lenders value and disclose complex mortgage-backed securities." Three areas specifically, according to Reuters: "the securitization process, the origination process and the retail area." Also insider trading, a common illegal practice that's rarely caught or even looked for. However, the scope of the investigation would be narrow, and its aim was "deterrence." Of what, asked Schechter, now that the horse is out of the barn, and investors and mortgage holders are left holding the bag?

When it's too late to matter, they agree, along with critics, that "inadequate disclosure (or lack of transparency) was at the root of the problem." According to a Senate report, it began in 1997 when house prices began appreciating and registered a 124% gain by 2006. Housing was driving the economy with seven million subprime mortgage loans. Business boomed. Underwriting standards deteriorated, while banks and other lenders invented new ways to make money - "fast" and easy.

In the 1980s, state usury rate ceilings were lifted, creating a whole new market for people who previously couldn't qualify. At higher interest rates, fees, and other add-ons they did. Most borrowers got so-called "2/28" and "3/27" hybrid adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs). They originated with low fixed "teaser" rates, good for a two-year period. Afterwards, they're reset semi-annually based on an interest-rate benchmark, or the current going rate. For many holders, payments soared 30% and became unaffordable, and by 2004, 90% of subprime loans were these type ARMs. It was well-known in the industry that "these borrowers (are) most likely to default or become delinquent (and) face foreclosure." The idea was to cash in and let holders take the pain.

Here's how the scheme worked. "So-called 'intermediaries,' unregulated and often unscrupulous mortgage brokers, hustled their way into the housing market" and took over. Using a range of tactics, including "deceptive advertising to block-to-block solicitations to get people to buy and sell, always promising more than they (could) deliver."

So-called "birddogs" were used to get prospects, and all kinds of practices were employed - "abusive, illegal and predatory." They pushed, "enticed...seduced (even) threatened." According to the Joint Economic Report, "For 2006, Inside Mortgage Finance estimates that 63.3% of all subprime originations came through brokers....19.4% through retail channels (and) 17.4% through correspondent lenders....broker share increas(ed steadily) from 2003 through 2006." These companies aren't regulated and pretty much operate freely. By 2005, the percent of securitized subprime mortgages reached "a peak value of more than 81%...."

Housing sales were on a roll, and so was Wall Street, quick to see a lucrative new income stream and ready to cash in. "Now they could make fees originating loans and even more money selling the paper into (the) secondary market, where mortgages could be securitized and sold again for even more money as investments."

The Finmanac financial blog explained its origination:

-- when Solomon Brothers launched Mortgage-Based Securities (MBS) in the 1980s - "bonds with bundles of mortgages, bought from bank lenders, as collateral;"

-- they used a "special purpose vehicle known as Collateralized Mortgage Obligation (CMO);"

-- monthly installments were used to pay interest; and

-- others were quick to cash in on the scheme.

The secondary market became a marriage between "the most reputable financial organizations and the sleaziest grass-roots operators. As is often the case, sleaze moved upwards" because the potential profits were huge but so are the risks.

"Since anyone can originate a loan and sell it to the Investment Banks (to package and sell as MBS), it tempts originators (to write) risky loans (without) worry(ing) about payback(s):"

-- slicing MBS into tranches by risk profile handles the problem;

-- so does having different maturity dates;

-- they're rated by S & P, Fitch and other agencies for legitimacy;

-- hedge and some pension funds bought the most risky paper;

-- risks were discounted because the potential returns were huge as long as economic conditions stayed sound and/or markets continued to rise; and

-- it always helps to have friendly Fed chairmen like Alan Greenspan fueling bubbles.

At the height of the 2000 one he said: "Lofty equity prices have reduced the cost of capital. The result has been a veritable explosion of (high-tech) spending (and) I see nothing to suggest that these opportunities will peter out anytime soon." A week later the Nasdaq peaked. Dropped 78% to its bottom. The S & P 500 49%, and retail investors lost out while Greenspan was busy engineering another bubble now unwinding at the cost of trillions of dollars, millions of people hurt, and the "Maestro" assuming none of the blame.

Economist Anna Schwartz said otherwise and called the Federal Reserve the main cause of today's trouble. She told The Sunday Telegraph: "There never would have been a sub-prime mortgage crisis if the Fed had been alert. This is something Alan Greenspan must answer for." The US Treasury also as one of its senior officials warned subprime lenders about it but was ignored. Even worse, despite state efforts to ban predatory practices, the Bush administration blocked attempts to curtail them and bears major responsibility.

Schechter refers to "an unholy trinity of private players, Wall street firms, and non-regulating regulators" who saw a way to profit hugely. Do it with shady practices, and thus partner in a "criminal conspiracy" to rip off millions of working Americans. "It was the largest robbery in history - not a bank heist but a heist by banks."

The Real Capital of America (and the World)

Wall Street, of course - a city with "a history of causing disasters from its earliest days." Succeeding ones keep getting bigger, but unaffected most often are the powerful banks and investment houses. "Masters of the universe," according to author Tom Wolfe. Well insulated in their luxury board rooms with power, incomes and privileges afforded royalty. Treated like them also in a culture that "rewards clever and devious strategies" within or outside the law. No one is guilty unless caught. Rarely ever does it happen, and when it does the penalties are inconsequential compared to enormous ill-gotten gains. Incentive enough for players to invent new schemes, and they do.

This time, however, they may have been too smart by half. They overreached and are themselves hurt by the fallout. Some won't survive. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers already. Others barely hanging on. Merrill Lynch forced to sell out cheap to Bank of America. The Fed bailing out AIG, and it's anyone's guess who or what's next or if the worst is yet to come. When trouble first surfaced, "only a handful of writers and analysts" understood what was going on - chickens coming home to roost, "a crime in progress, a white collar crime wave" involving trillions of dollars, from working people to the rich. The Wall Street crowd. Mortgage brokers, banks and investment houses, rating agencies and appraisers who overvalued homes for higher fees. Well-designed schemes to let the devil take the hindmost, and they are but so are the perpetrators. Schechter is right calling this "a big story - one of the biggest" and from which "consumers and citizens" have to learn
how to cope. It won't be easy.

The Unspoken Context

Crime writ large, and in early 2008 the FBI announced 14 unnamed mortgage companies were being investigated. Ones engaged in predatory lending. That may have deliberately steered customers to more expensive loans and concealed hidden payments and fees. In some cases unfairly jacked up for even higher profits. Targeting the most vulnerable. A 2008 Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch study confirmed these practices. It called mortgage brokers "the wild, wild west of Capitalism."

Shadowy operators using aggressive, unethical marketing in ghetto and low-income neighborhoods. Making phone solicitations. Door-to-door canvassing. Posing as debt consolidation experts with home improvement schemes and foreclosure "rescue" services. Merchants of sleaze cornering victims and entrapping them in unrepayable debt. Criminal fraud involving respectable bankers as well. Willing to engage in dirty practices because the profits were so tempting and the market so huge. Too big to pass up so it wasn't.

From 2004 to 2006, Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) mushroomed from $157 billion to $559 billion, and 10 investment banks underwrote 70% of $486 billion in 2006 securitizations. Players made millions and top executives far more. A gravy train, and collectively in 2006, at the cycle's peak, the big banks earned $130 billion. It looked like more ahead, and their schemes were perfectly legal in an unregulated environment permitting them. They still are short of future regulatory reform that may or may not come but never will be close to what's needed. Not when both parties embrace a pro-corporate agenda and won't allow it.

The Charleston Observer published a flow chart on how predatory lending typically works:

-- low income, minority and the elderly are targets;

-- loan originators contact and high-pressure them to sign up;

-- brokers arrange loans between targets and lenders;

-- appraisers inflate property values for higher fees and new business;

-- lenders may "bundle" new loans to sell off to other institutions; and

-- Wall Street sits atop this enormous pyramid; in the "catbird seat;" orchestrating the process; and redistributing millions of loan bundles into pools to back up investments worldwide.

Borrowers have no idea how they're being used and set up to be scammed by future mortgage resets. Unaffordable so that millions will lose everything in foreclosure. "Where are the prosecutors," asks Schechter? A Congressional probe. Indictments to go after the guilty. Faint hope along with any chance for redress for victims. No chance either for most people to understand an "opaque and unregulated global financial system" with obscure terminology, according to economist Nouriel Roubini. A highly levered "financial monster that eventually leads to uncertainty, panic, market seizure, liquidity crunch, systemic risk and economic hard landing."

In spring 2006, over a year before things began unravelling, Schechter wrote about inadequate and deceptive media coverage in an article titled "Investigating the Nation's Exploding Credit Squeeze." He examined losers and winners and suggested concrete approaches for responsible reporting:

-- doing it regularly and truthfully about a serious growing problem;

-- identifying the key corporate institutions involved;

-- spotlighting how special interests and lobbyists influence Congress for favorable policies and deregulation;

-- credit card companies also and how their ad dollars affect media coverage of their practices;

-- predatory lending methods in poor neighborhoods; crimes committed against vulnerable working people;

-- what people can do to fight back; and

-- getting people involved at state and local levels; enlisting attorney generals to file class action lawsuits; and pressuring key legislators.

Strong material but the response was "tepid" as well as to a follow-up email campaign with tens of thousands of requests for more media coverage of a vital national issue - well before the crisis hit and a public spotlight might have cooled it. Big Media prefer a sanitized world of market "ups and downs" and one-sided Wall Street and Washington views - unrelated to the real world, what affects most people, and it got Schechter to ask: "where's the outrage?"

Chronicling the Implosion, 2007

In his blogs, newsletters, and articles, Schechter "tracked the evolution of the crisis by week" - a story still evolving about "an economy that is....still unraveling," It began in July 2007 when Dusseldorf-based IKB surprised markets with a profit warning. It set off sharp falls in other German bank shares, and ended up with IKB needing $11.8 billion in bailout aid to survive. Cracks also began showing up in the multi-trillion dollar US securitization markets. They created a crisis for two Bear Stearns (BS) hedge funds. Like IKB, they were heavily into subprime mortgages, highly levered, and it forced BS to sell out to JP Morgan Chase for pennies on the dollar.

Things then began spreading, and it was soon apparent the trouble was systemic, growing, and could touch down wherever outsized risks were taken. According to Business Week, what began as subprime now affected other kinds of debt as well and far more seriously than originally thought. Involving "real money" and danger, "the kind that terrifies bankers and the elite."

The Dow Average topped out in early October and headed down while government jawboning and Fed interest rate cuts and huge liquidity injections didn't help. They still haven't as markets remain volatile, and no one for sure knows what's coming. So jitters remain high and with good reason. The economy is far from healthy. Contagion is spreading offshore. Unemployment is rising. So are foreclosures. Inflation also, and hundreds of billions of bailout dollars haven't helped.

None of this should have happened, and warning signs should have been heeded early on. Schechter chronicled it daily as events unfolded and explained that things were pretty bad and getting worse. Bankers were debating how to handle record losses. Desperation and even panic began surfacing. And America's debt crunch became a personal crisis for millions.

His book reviewed events as they unfolded:

-- jawboning after Wall Street and bankers began reacting and "blaming everybody but themselves;"

-- pundits then "calling for higher standards of transparency;"

-- bailouts involving real money in the hundreds of billions; first the Fed, then major central banks around the world;

-- the result: very little; continued panic; more lending companies imploded; 247 up to April 2008;

-- then interest rate cuts and still no relief; mortgage rates rose as banks are reluctant to lend and want higher returns when they do; after the government's Fannie and Freddie takeover, 30-year fixed-rates fell from 6.26% to 5.88%, but with the economy weak and consumers strapped it's not clear how much this will help, at least in the short term;

-- multi-billions in writedowns continue, likely more coming ahead, and "bear in mind," Schechter observes: "the banks created these problems by lowering their standards and working in collusion with the alchemists at the rating agencies that turned their junk into gold." And government regulators looked the other way and let it happen.

Throughout the crisis, real analysis and understanding was missing - like the 50 million "Missing Americans" Bill Moyers profiled on PBS. The ones Michael Harrington called "The Other America" in which he documented the country's poverty and influenced policy debate in Washington as a result. Today's victims are largely above the poverty line but just barely with two wage-earners and one or both having multiple (low-paying) jobs. They became predatory lending targets, but practically nothing is being done to help them. Billions for the perpetrators. Lip service only for the vulnerable.

What Happens Now?

Crucial to understand is that the current economic crisis "is an outgrowth of the very corporatist policies that will haunt this country for decades." Plus our costly wars. "Obscenely high levels of corruption," and many other characteristics of a nation off its moorings and in trouble. This one in "the quicksand of debt and delusion." Proving unfettered capitalism doesn't work. At a time Business Week magazine suggested "an irresistible force (is) meet(ing) an immovable object." The force is the economy and object an unrepayable wall of debt.

Despite billions of Fed-injected liquidity, the crisis persists and may be worsening. No one knows for sure or how or when it will end. Trillions have been lost. More still to come. Serious talk about a depression. The middle class is shrinking. People are entrapped by debt. Worldwide respect for the country plummeted, and 81% of the public believes things are headed in the wrong direction. Banks are failing. Real estate hit the wall, and in February the Economist magazine wrote that "The world had a weekend to save it from collapsing."

Contagion is spreading everywhere affecting Wall Street, large and smaller banks, investment firms, insurance companies, hedge funds, non-bank lenders, and the greater economy dependent on them. Experts believe fixing things could take years and would require a vast overhaul of a clearly failed system. Establishing workable regulation. Reinstating Glass-Steagall to separate commercial from investment banks. Curbing speculation, and ending the whole range of predatory lending practices. Under a two-party duopoly, chances for that are practically nil.

Debt As A Global Issue

For better or worse, a global economic system interlocks nations and markets. When the US catches cold, pneumonia threatens the world, and it shows in what the Vigilant Investor website reported: that in one week months back the Fed, ECB, and Japanese and Australian central banks injected $458 billion into the markets "to allow the big players to avoid selling off otherwise healthy assets to cover for heavy losses related to the unfolding housing debacle in the US, led over the cliff by subprimes." And in America, the combination of credit card and other debt remains a ticking time bomb some see as another eventual bubble to burst.

They're worried about what author Kevin Phillips calls "a house of cards" built on "reckless finance." And longtime Wall Street economist Henry Kaufman blames years of irresponsible federal banking for "allowing the expansion of credit in huge magnitudes" and calling today's crisis a "global calamity." Former Fed director of monetary affairs and its policy-making panel secretary, Vincent Reinhart, compares today to "the great contraction" of the 1930s and "the great inflation of the 1970s."

Little of this gets media attention or is addressed in political discourse. Never mind huge structural problems, an economy in crisis, millions in duress, and barely a sign of remedial help coming for the vulnerable. As conditions worsen "when will the American people realize how badly they have been had and turn on the plunderers," asks Schechter? The politicians and regulators also who allowed it.

How did it happen:

-- "warnings were ignored;" for example from Bruce Marks, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) CEO; in 2000, he testified before Congress and warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac engaging in predatory subprime lending; all for naught;

-- "the (Alan Greenspan) Fed encourag(ing) the securitization of mortgages calling it 'financial innovation;' " and

-- "Wall Street firms ignor(ing) worries (from) their own risk managers (and engaging in) shadowy underground banking....They made a fortune - until they didn't."

Hundreds of small players have been indicted but only a few symbolic "truly fat cats" and none of the fattest. The way it always is.

Last Words

Capitalism is characterized by economic ups and downs, speculative frenzies, and panics. But, as Schechter observes, "Few have posed such a serious threat to the entire financial system, (yet most media) coverage has been relegated to not widely read business sections (and) the fortunes of CEOs and business enterprises, not citizens, consumers and most of all homeowners" who've lost or may lose their homes and livelihoods.

Even worse, "many newspapers and TV outlets were complicit." They got huge amounts of ad revenue (often deceptive) from "shady mortgage lenders and credit card companies that encouraged readers and viewers to accept more debt. Some major newspapers are connected with local real estate syndicates and get kickbacks from sales tied to their extensive advertising of homes for sale." Worse still is that coverage (once it began) "may have missed the truly criminal aspects of this crisis" even though there's plenty of evidence around and the FBI is currently investigating 14 mortgage companies.

Overall reporting largely supports business and hesitates being critical. It builds confidence instead, stays upbeat, generates more heat than light, and engages in what Schechter calls "Investotainment" as their specialty. Well layered with deception and boosterism as well.

They ignored victims dating back to the 1990s and even warnings from people like David Walker, the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Government Accounting Office (GEO) head. For years, he was a voice in the wilderness about our growing debt burden that could lead to a sudden collapse and threaten national security. The National Association of Business Economists as well saying: "The combined threat of subprime loan defaults and excessive indebtedness has supplanted terrorism and the Middle East as the biggest short-term threat to the US economy."

And John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1961 classic, "The Great Crash 1929," now prophetic: "The fact was that American enterprise in the twenties had opened its hospitable arms to an exceptional number of promoters, grafters, swindlers, impostors, and frauds. This, in the long history of such activities, was a kind of flood tide of corporate larceny."

Writer Mike Whitney updates it in one of his commentaries saying: "The financial system has been handed over to scam-artists and fraudsters who've created a multi-trillion dollar inverted pyramid of shaky, hyper-inflated, subprime slop that they've sold around the world, with the tacit support of the ratings agencies and the US political establishment."

The story has legs. Banks are in serious trouble. By mid-summer, seven had failed, others since, and many dozens more are at risk. Worldwide as well as contagion spreads everywhere. Huge write-downs have been taken. Unknown amounts more may follow. The Fed has injected over $900 billion to stabilize things with little idea if it will. Then add in lost homes, lender foreclosure costs, falling property prices, equity losses, multiple deflating bubbles, and hundreds of billions for wars and debt service, and the picture is grim, frightening, and according to some experts in the early innings.

Consider a recent "truly stunning but not widely reported" Bank of America study on current "Credit Crisis" losses - $7.7 trillion dollars in equity value globally since the October market peak. Affecting nations everywhere, B of A called it "one of the most vicious (crises) in financial history." Investor George Soros calls it a "systemic crisis," the result of "easy credit, financial innovation and contagion." And economist Ludwig von Misses once said: "There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought on by credit expansion. The question is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

Schechter concludes by adding: "Bubbles are rarely foreseen (or want to be seen), as investors scramble into opportunities delivering high returns....self-interest and money-making are the real drivers in the world of finance." They also drive politics, and now at a time of crisis, it's "hard to believe that as the house of cards comes tumbling down, there seems to be a trifecta of failure. The government is unwilling to act decisively. The Congress prevaricates. And the media (engages in) boosterism" and keeps the public uninformed "at the very time when exposure might have stopped these practices before they became too deep and/or expensive to 'fix.' "

Little wonder 81% of the public believes the country is headed in the wrong direction. George Bush's approval rating fluctuates from the low to high 20s. And the July Rasmussen Reports gave Congress its lowest ever rating at 9% with only 2% of respondents calling its performance excellent. Imagine future poll numbers if the economy crashes, millions more become unemployed, lose their homes, and hundreds of billions keep being spent on fruitless wars by whomever becomes president and whichever party controls Washington. Imagine also how people affected will respond or should.

Anonymous said...

The essence of the continuum is that there is a smart right, and smart left.

Then in between there is a DUMB-LEFT(DEM) [fox], and DUMB-RIGHT(PUG) [wolf].

At the far end of the continuum there is an intelligent right, and intelligent left.

HBM,DUNC,&PUSSY are all part of the DUMB-LEFT.

I prefer to read the SMART-RIGHT ( WSJ ), and know what the fuck is going on, and read the SMART-LEFT, and see who is getting fucked.

It is essential to ignore the 'DUMB-NOISE' ( daily-kos ).

The common thread of all the 'DUMB' is they are losers; hence dunc, hbm, and BP are losers cuz, they buy into the forest-gump philosophy of life.

Anonymous said...

Little wonder 81% of the public believes the country is headed in the wrong direction. George Bush's approval rating fluctuates from the low to high 20s. And the July Rasmussen Reports gave Congress its lowest ever rating at 9% with only 2% of respondents calling its performance excellent.

*

Pretty cool eh? DUMBYA MORE POPULAR than congress?? Who would have guessed??

Like SHEEHAN says, this congress ( now FOX ) is composed of pathetic cowards.

Anonymous said...

So there are smart-foxes, and smart-wolves, ...

Then there are dumb-foxes, and dumb-wolves; those that banter for palin are dumb-solves, and those that foam at the mouth for OREO are dumb-foxes.

In the meantime the SMART-... Clean everyones lunch.

Anonymous said...

BANK-RUN on MUTUALS HAS BEGUN - CLOSURE ...

Now the funds are closing, PUTNAM had a run, and shutdown. Expect to see most funds you love to disappear in the coming days.

***

Putnam Fund closes after investors pull cash

By MARK JEWELL

Putnam Investments on Thursday suddenly closed a $15 billion money-market fund and announced plans to return investors' money after institutional clients pulled out cash despite the fund's lack of exposure to troubled financial firms such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The move, believed to be unprecedented in the $3.5 trillion money-market fund industry, came a day after asset managers sought to reassure investors in the wake of a massive pullout from large retail fund Reserve Primary Fund. The run on that fund caused its assets to plunge in value by nearly two-thirds and fall below $1 for each dollar invested.

While Boston-based Putnam said its Prime Money Market Fund continued to hold $1 in assets per dollar share as of Tuesday, it "experienced significant redemption pressure" on Wednesday.

The firm's trustees voted to close the fund and distribute all assets to investors as quickly as possible -- an action Putnam said was "not related to the portfolio's credit quality, but was instead a reaction to marketwide liquidity issues."

When a fund suffers a sudden rush of orders to pull out money, fund managers must sell assets -- typically at a loss when it must be done quickly, and especially amid this week's market turmoil.

Putnam said, "Serious constraints on liquidity in money market instruments created the risk that in order to process redemptions, the fund would realize losses in selling its portfolio securities. In the face of these challenges, the trustees determined to close the fund to ensure equitable treatment of all fund shareholders."

Putnam also asserted that the fund, like its other money market funds, had no exposure to securities of Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual or AIG at the parent-company level.

The four-year-old fund, limited to institutional investors making initial investments of at least $10 million, held $15.4 billion in assets as of Aug. 31, according to Putnam's Web site. The fund's list of top holdings included several financial firms, led by Unicredito Italiano, and such banks as Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of America.

Putnam's move to suddenly close the fund because of an investor pullout appeared to be unprecedented in the nearly 38-year history of the money-market fund industry, said Don Phillips, a managing director at fund researcher Morningstar Inc., and Connie Bugbee, managing editor of iMoneyNet, publisher of a weekly newsletter called Money Fund Report.

"It's a very shareholder-friendly move to make," Phillips said. "If you see you a redemption run in a fund, you end up with this bizarre situation where if people get out early enough, then the fund can sell the most liquid assets off first, and the investors end up whole, with a dollar per share invested.

"But later on, when others pull out, the fund has to sell under duress, and unload the less-liquid securities at low prices. And that causes people to suffer losses."

Institutional investors, Phillips added, "tend to move in herds, and they move big sums of money."

Despite the Putnam fund's lack of exposure to the hardest-hit financial firms, Phillips said "a lot of institutional clients don't want to have any money-market funds with corporate exposure, and opt for funds exposed to safer government debt.

"The scary thing is, we don't know whether we might see these things play out at other funds, and what kind of pressure that will put on the money-market fund industry," Phillips said.

Putnam, founded in 1937, managed $163 billion in assets as of Aug. 31, with $96 billion for mutual fund investors and $67 billion for institutional clients. In August 2007, insurance broker Marsh & McLennan Cos. sold Putnam to Canadian mutual fund company Great-West Lifeco Inc. for $3.9 billion in cash. Great-West Lifeco is controlled by Canada-based Power Financial Corp.

Also Thursday, State Street Corp. tried to reassure investors that its money market funds are stable. The company said its Global Advisors' funds never fell below a net asset value of $1 and are not exposed to the troubled firms of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch & Co., Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Morgan Stanley.

Bewert said...

RE: BP-PUSSY, what part of GORE-VIDAL is NOT TRUE?

Nothing. It's all spot on. The interesting part was going after local/state elections to try to overthrow the corruption on top.

Bewert said...

Re:
I prefer to read the SMART-RIGHT ( WSJ ),

Yep, owned by the same guy who owns Fox News. They'll tell you what's going on. For sure.

DKos isn't "owned" by any one person, rather the 150,000 plus people who have signed up to write and comment. And somewhere north of a million lurkers. From around the world. From young to old. From disabled vets to single moms to highly recognizable names like Olbermann, Kennedy and Kerry.

At this moment at the top of the rec list is "Urge Congress to Vote Contempt for Karl Rove: Live Blog" by one Don Siegelman.

Mr. Siegelman has a personal interest in Rovian politics--they put him in prison in Alabama in a widely criticized trial. 60 Minutes did a piece on it last year. Mr. Siegelman is the only person in the history of Alabama to be elected to serve in all four of the top statewide elected offices: Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Governor.

DKos is simply a huge fucking information dump. Not all is good--and so much gets written the not-so-good disappears fast. The Rec List and front page are usually top notch. Kos has only one rule: no conspiracy theories, although plenty has made it on about 9/11. Posts can be removed by multiple votes from others, and can be saved by a few votes.

Another little nugget from a current Rec List Dkos diary, about Republican Chuck Hagel recent comments about Palin:

McCain and other Republicans have defended Palin's qualifications, citing Alaska's proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

Hagel took issue with that argument. "I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."


Exactly.

Bewert said...

From the woman who wrote "Citizen McCain":

How John McCain lost me

I have been a longtime admirer of John McCain. During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries I publicly defended McCain against the pro-Bush Republicans’ whisper campaign that he was too unstable to be president (aware though I was that he had a temper). Two years later I published a positive book about him, “Citizen McCain.”

I admired John McCain as a man of principle and honor. He had become emblematic of someone who spoke his mind, voted his conscience, and demonstrated courage in bucking his own party and fighting for what he believed in.
He gained a well-deserved reputation as a maverick. He was seen as taking principled positions on such issues as tax equity (opposing the newly elected Bush’s tax cut), fighting political corruption, and, later, taking on the Bush administration on torture. He came off as a man of decency. He took political risks.

Having emerged, ironically, from his bitter 2000 primary fight against Bush as an immensely popular figure, he set out to be a new force in American politics. He decided to form and lead a centrist movement, believing that that was where the country was and needed leadership. He went against the grain of his party on the environment, patients’ bill of rights, and, of course, campaign finance reform.

While McCain’s movement to the center was widely popular (if not on the right) – and he even flirted with becoming a Democrat – there’s now strong reason to question whether it was anything but a temporary, expedient tactic. (In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” he wrote, revealingly, “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.”)

When he decided to run for president in 2008, he felt he couldn’t win without the support of the right, so he adapted.

In retrospect, other once-hailed McCain efforts – his cultivation of the press (“my base”) and even his fight for campaign finance reform (launched in the wake of his embarrassment over the Keating Five scandal) now seem to have been simply maneuvers. The “Straight Talk Express” – a brilliant p.r. stroke in 2000 – has now been shut down.

When the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, widely opposed by Republicans, began to seem a liability during the 2008 primaries, his reforming zeal gave way to political exigencies, and he ceased mentioning his one-time triumph. Though in 2003 he had introduced a bill to fix some other problems with the campaign finance system, in later years his name was no longer on the bill.

When Bush, issued a “signing statement” in 2006 on McCain’s hard-fought legislation placing prohibitions on torture, saying he would interpret the measure as he chose, McCain barely uttered a peep.
And then, in 2006, in one of his most disheartening acts, McCain supported a “compromise” with the administration on trials of Guantanamo detainees, yielding too much of what the administration wanted, and accepted provisions he had originally opposed on principle. Among other things, the bill sharply limited the rights of detainees in military trials, stripped habeas corpus rights from a broad swath of people “suspected” of cooperating with terrorists, and loosened restrictions on the administration’s use of torture. (The Supreme Court later ruled portions of this measure unconstitutional.)

McCain’s caving in to this “compromise” did it for me.
This was further evidence that the former free-spirited, supposedly principled, maverick was morphing into just another panderer – to Bush and the Republican Party’s conservative base.

Other aspects of McCain, including his temperament, began to trouble me. He seemed disturbingly bellicose. He gave the Iraq war unflagging support no matter the facts. He still talks about “winning” the war, though George W. Bush gave that up some time ago. As the war became increasingly unpopular, he employed the useful technique of blaming its execution rather than recognizing the misconceptions that had led him to be one of the most enthusiastic champions of the war in the first place.

Similarly, in making a big issue of having backed the surge (and simplifying the reasons for its apparent success), he preempts debate on the very idea of the war. He has talked (and sung) loosely about attacking Iran. More recently, he oversimplified this summer’s events in Georgia and made intemperate remarks about Russia, about which he’s been more belligerent than the administration for some time. (He has his own set of neocons.)

There’s an argument that all this compromise wasn’t necessary: some very smart political analysts believed from the outset that McCain could win the nomination by sticking with his old self. And they still believe that McCain won the nomination not because he gave himself over to the base but as a result of a process of elimination of inferior candidates who divided up the conservative vote, as these observers had predicted. (These people insisted on anonymity because McCain is known in Republican circles to have a long memory and a vindictive streak.)

By then I had already concluded that that there was a disturbingly erratic side of McCain’s nature. There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges.

McCain’s making a big issue of “earmarks” and citing entertaining examples of ridiculous-sounding ones, circumvents discussion of the larger issues of the allocation of funds in the federal budget: according to the Office of Management and Budget, earmarks represent less than one percent of federal spending.

Now he’s back to declaring himself a maverick, but it’s not clear what that means. If he gains the presidency, is he going to rebel against the base he’s now depending on to get him elected? (Hence his selection of running mate Sarah Palin.) Campaigns matter. If he means “shaking up the system” (which is not the same thing), opposing earmarks doesn’t cut it.

McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man.
In fact, it’s not clear who he is.


Elizabeth Drew is author of “Citizen McCain” (Simon & Schuster, 2002; paperback with new introduction, 2008.)


This is McCain's base. Going, going, gone.

I'm starting to think the media is getting sick of the Repub lies, and is starting to send them through the filter so the public sees them.

Which is going to kill the McCain campaign. American's simply don't like liars.

Bewert said...

Re:
If you don't like what I write, then go to daily-kos, or town-hall, ... and get a dose of 'reality'.

Or do what I do--it's called the DOWN ARROW. Lot's of good stuff here, even from Buster, but when it goes way off the tracks, just use the DOWN ARROW.

Bewert said...

Good, if long article on the origination of the derivative products that resulted in the current meltdown.

The biggest problem, to me, was the credit rating bureaus giving AAA ratings to collateralized obligations of all sorts that, if the individual components were broken out, they wouldn't be rated much higher than junk. On top of the huge expansion in the money supply and accounting procedures that let institutions keep this shit off of their balance sheets, it leads directly to where we are now.

The money market funds starting to fail is even more troubling. That really is the AAA shit. When it goes down...

Bewert said...

Re:
When it began, "subprime lending" wasn't a term in common usage, let alone understood outside financial circles. One of its late 1990s originators was Obama campaign finance chairperson Penny Pritzker when she served on the Board of the failed family-owned Hinsdale, IL Superior Bank.

Yes, that is troubling. Pritzker has always been an issue to me. Seemed like she was Chicago royalty jumping onto coattails.

Bewert said...

Re: Given that the man-wife will lose her bike-shop, will the pussy go back to blow-jobs at D&D???

No, he lives on a steady stream of licensing revenue, plus the various other jobs we enjoy.

Buster, you can truly be an asshole.

Here, let me try: Now that there are no jobs left in Bend, who is Buster going to rent his shitshacks to? Illegals working for $6 under the table?

Probably. He doesn't fucking care. As long as he fights off the diabetes and still has feet to stand on. To bad his dick gave out years ago.

So fuck off.

Bewert said...

Re:BULLSHIT BP, "THESE PEOPLE==DAILKOS".

YOUR A FUCKING IDIOT, YOUR A MUSHROOM, YOU LIVE ON A STEADY DIET OF SHIT,

BP DON'T FEED US YOUR SHIT, WE DON'T WANT TO EAT YOUR SHIT.

Tut, tut. You're getting angry again.

This is a non-censored blog. Live with it. I'll post whatever the hell I like, just like your Wright/Litton/Bionetics crap.

Like I said, over 150,000 people have Kos accounts. Something like 200 diaries a day go up. Some are pretty good. End of story.

Go back to Fox News and the newly neutered WSJ. They'll tell you everything you want to hear.

BTW, did you hear that Palin is being pulled off her world tour? Right before a big California fund raising swing? Shocker: Palin Cancels Big California Swing

Hmmm...

Bewert said...

On the DOWN ARROW--feel free to use on me at will. Just sayin'...

What you choose to read defines your knowledge and thus your beliefs. If all you want is Fox, life's pretty easy. As long as you can pay the bills.

Bewert said...

The AIPAC march goes on:

STATEMENT FROM THE ORGANIZERS OF THE RALLY TO STOP IRAN NOW

From The National Coalition to Stop Iran Now

(New York, Sept. 18, 2008) --- The purpose of “THE RALLY TO STOP IRAN NOW” on Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, is to protest the presence of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, and to oppose his nuclear weapons program. We take most seriously his threat to wipe the United States and Israel “off the map” and believe the world leaders gathered at the United Nations must act with resolve to prevent a nuclear armed Iran that would be a threat to this country, Israel and the world.

For this reason, tens of thousands of people of every faith and ethnicity are expected to hear messages from prominent religious and civic leaders, including Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and Israeli Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik. In order to keep the focus on Iranian threats and to ensure that this critical message not be obscured, the organizers of the rally have decided not to have any American political personalities appear.


Can someone point me to a place where Ahmad-whatever threatened to wipe the US off the map? In his own words.

Anonymous said...

Transparency as everyone knows is the problem. If companys could hide their books from the public, then stocks would never go down.

I don't make this shit up, and you know if the WSJ publishes, in hours it will be mainstream news.

***

The Wall Street Journal

Sept. 18, 2008

The U.S. government is considering creating a mechanism to take bad assets off the balance sheets of financial companies, according to a person familiar with the matter. Treasury officials have studied such a structure for weeks but have been reluctant to ask Congress for such authority unless they were certain it could get approved. The intensified market turmoil may have changed the political calculus. Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke have scheduled a meeting at 7 p.m. on Capitol Hill to brief top lawmakers on recent developments.

Bewert said...

Re: Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke have scheduled a meeting at 7 p.m. on Capitol Hill to brief top lawmakers on recent developments.

We go down even further. You pay taxes? Bend over.

WTF.

Bewert said...

Stupid shit. Went to townhall.com, top story is "New Polls: McCain and Obama Even in Many Midwest States".

Click through. Get "The page cannot be found"

A 404 error.

That's the best they can do? Headlines without substance?

Anonymous said...

Ahmadinejad

I'm a dungy jock!

BBBB

Anonymous said...

SHORT-SALES are gone, now you know why the market did a little recover today, while folks got out of their short's.

It's ok, there are still 'puts', and selling of call's lots of way's to make money off a dying empire. Also there will be foreign markets offering short-sales of US stocks.

***

The Wall Street Journal

Sept. 18, 2008

The Security and Exchange Commission intends to temporarily ban short selling, but it's not clear if the commission has approved the move.

Anonymous said...

The U.S. government is considering creating a mechanism to take bad assets off the balance sheets of financial companies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

*

Actually this is what HITLER did, nationalize all the company's, privatize their books, and make it criminal to disparage.

DEM-PUG-2009 is going to make HITLER look like a PUSSY.

Anonymous said...

Just weeks ago BUSH-TEAM bailed out F&F, now today LEH has defaulted on the very money that BUSH-TEAM loaned to F&F. Turns out F&F put their money in the LEH-BK FUND!!!!!!

We don't need to make this shit up, the BAIL-OUTS are organized theft.

PAULSON: Hey george fanny needs some money
BUSH: sure no problem, but they got to hold it in LEHMAN
PAULSON: WHY?
BUSH: You'll see just wait a few weeks.

***

Freddie's Woes Deepen as Lehman Defaults
|Published: September 18, 2008 Dow Jones

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Freddie Mac's (FRE) cup of woes runneth over as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH) defaulted on a $1.2 billion loan from the ailing mortgage finance giant, according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Freddie extended $1.2 billion of short-term unsecured loans to Lehman in late August, and Lehman didn't repay the borrowings when they came due on Sept. 15. Lehman is in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings that started Monday.

A Freddie spokesman said the loans were a part of Freddie's ordinary investing activities.

"It's obvious Freddie didn't exercise reasonable safeguards while using taxpayers' money," said Sean Egan, managing director at Egan-Jones Ratings Co., an independent credit-rating firm.

"Lending such a large amount, there should have been collateral in place," said Egan. "It's unfortunate that taxpayers will have to bear a loss of this magnitude."

A Lehman spokesman didn't return a call seeking comment.

In addition, Freddie said its potential exposure includes single-family loans Lehman services for home mortgages purchased by Freddie. These servicing-related obligations for Freddie are estimated at about $400 million, the McLean, Va., company said in the filing.

Freddie said in the filing it "does not know whether and to what extent it will sustain a loss relating to the transactions described," adding that "actual losses could materially exceed current estimates."

In an extraordinary move earlier this month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency - the regulator for Freddie, and sibling Fannie Mae (FNM) - assumed management control of the two companies under a legal process known as conservatorship.

That could last for years as the regulator seeks to return Fannie and Freddie to financial health. The U.S. Treasury has promised to provide as much capital as they need to continue in their role as the main suppliers of funding for U.S. home mortgages.

The two companies already own or guarantee about $5.3 trillion of home loans, or nearly half those outstanding. They have suffered combined losses of about $14 billion over the past four quarters as they make provisions for the worst wave of defaults in decades. These losses have eaten deeply into their meager capital holdings, and most analysts expect them to report sizable losses for at least another couple of years as the costs of foreclosures mount.

Bewert said...

And the new depression starts:

In hard times, tent cities rise across the country

Since foreclosure mess, homeless advocates report rise in encampments

RENO, Nev. - A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.

Then others appeared — people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" — an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.

Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening.

"It's clear that poverty and homelessness have increased," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the coalition. "The economy is in chaos, we're in an unofficial recession and Americans are worried, from the homeless to the middle class, about their future."

Caught by surprise
The phenomenon of encampments has caught advocacy groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.

"What you're seeing is encampments that I haven't seen since the 80s,"
said Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, an umbrella group for homeless advocacy organizations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore. and Seattle.

The relatively tony city of Santa Barbara has given over a parking lot to people who sleep in cars and vans.

The city of Fresno, Calif., is trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood.

In Portland, Ore., and Seattle, homeless advocacy groups have paired with nonprofits or faith-based groups to manage tent cities as outdoor shelters.

Other cities where tent cities have either appeared or expanded include include Chattanooga, Tenn., San Diego, and Columbus, Ohio.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently reported a 12 percent drop in homelessness nationally in two years, from about 754,000 in January 2005 to 666,000 in January 2007. But the 2007 numbers omitted people who previously had been considered homeless — such as those staying with relatives or friends or living in campgrounds or motel rooms for more than a week.

In addition, the housing and economic crisis began soon after HUD's most recent data was compiled.

"The data predates the housing crisis," said Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for HUD. "From the headlines, it might appear that the report is about yesterday. How is the housing situation affecting homelessness? That's a great question. We're still trying to get to that."

In Seattle, which is experiencing a building boom and an influx of affluent professionals in neighborhoods the working class once owned, homeless encampments have been springing up — in remote places to avoid police sweeps.

"What's happening in Seattle is what's happening everywhere else — on steroids," said Tim Harris, executive director of Real Change, an advocacy organization that publishes a weekly newspaper sold by homeless people.

Homeless people and their advocates have organized three tent cities at City Hall in recent months to call attention to the homeless and protest the sweeps — acts of militancy, said Harris, "that we really haven't seen around homeless activism since the early '90s."

In Reno, officials decided to let the tent city be because shelters were already filled.

Officials don't know how many homeless people are in Reno. "But we do know that the soup kitchens are serving hundreds more meals a day and that we have more people who are homeless than we can remember," said Jodi Royal-Goodwin, the city's redevelopment agency director.

Those in the tents have to register and are monitored weekly to see what progress they are making in finding jobs or real housing. They are provided times to take showers in the shelter, and told where to go for food and meals.

Hopes for casino jobs dashed
Sylvia Flynn, 51, came from northern California but lost a job almost immediately and then her apartment.

Since the cheapest motels here charge upward of $200 a week, Flynn ended up at the Reno women's shelter, which has only 20 beds and a two-week limit on stays.

Out of a dozen people interviewed in the tent city, six had come to Reno from California or elsewhere over the last year, hoping for casino jobs.

"I figured this would be a great place for a job," said Max Perez, a 19-year-old from Iowa. He couldn't find one and ended up taking showers at the men's shelter and sleeping in a pup tent barely big enough to cover his body.

The casinos are actually starting to lay off employees.

"Sometimes I think we need to put out an ad: 'No, we don't have any more jobs than you do,'" Royal-Goodwin said.

The city will shut down the tent city as soon as early October because the tents sit on what will be a parking lot for a complex of shelters and services for homeless people. The complex will include a men's shelter, a women's shelter, a family shelter and a resource center.

Reno officials aren't sure whether the construction will eliminate the need for the tent city. The demand, they say, keeps growing.


Right out there off Knott Road...

Bewert said...

Stupid shit. Went to townhall.com earlier, and the top story is "New Polls: McCain and Obama Even in Many Midwest States".

Click through. Get "The page cannot be found"

A 404 error.

That's the best they can do? Headlines without substance?

Went back just now, and got to click through to the latest top story:

The Rest Of The Meltdown Story

What in the world is going on here?

You’ve seen the headlines, and you heard of the failures and buyouts. Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG; all big names and all in big trouble. Then those mysterious quasi-government agencies with names like Freddie and Fannie become wards of the state and you learn that you and your fellow taxpayers are potentially on the hook for tens of billions of dollars. At the end of the week Washington Mutual is looking for a buyer, and you start to wonder about the security of your own bank and your own savings account. Let’s change that ad copy to WaMu -- boo hoo...

Fear not. I’m here to help. I know … I’m just another talk show host; but the fact is that when the stage was being set for the problems we’re seeing today I was making most of my money as a real estate lawyer ..

Right now this crisis is being sold to the American public by the left as evidence the failure of the free market and capitalism. Not so. What we’re seeing is the inevitable result of political interference in free market economics...


He is blaming this all on the government demanding giving mortgages to minorities.

Yeah. All 12 black people that live in Bend.

Anonymous said...

We had a meeting amongst the main dozen members of this blog yesterday BP, we all agreed that your now persona-non-grata, and that nobody would be reading your posts.

It's time to move on.

We'll not miss you.

Anonymous said...

$50Billion bailout this AM to money-markets for foreign redemptions, note that money-markets AREN'T insured that's why you get good returns, now for foreigners they're insured, the good news is that at $50B that's enough $$$ for 1/2 day, as yesterday the redemptions were $90B. $2.7Trillion to go, in a month all money market money will be withdrawn.

***

The Wall Street Journal

Sept. 19, 2008

The U.S. Treasury Department announced a massive program to shore up the nation's money-market mutual-fund sector, responding to concerns that the global financial crisis is starting to affect those historically safe assets.

Under the temporary program, the Treasury will insure the holdings of any eligible publicly offered money-market fund. The funds must pay a fee to participate in the program. The insurance program will be financed with up to $50 billion from the Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund.

Anonymous said...

This is bad ten day ban of short selling, this is why the market went up yesterday a short-squeeze at the 11th hour, in 11-30 days, the FUN will return.

Note during the great depression, this is how inside bankers made all their money by selling their OWN companys short on inside info, at least this means that nobody will make money for the next ten days.

***

The Wall Street Journal


Sept. 19, 2008

The Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily halted short selling of 799 financial stocks as part of a coordinated effort with the U.K.'s markets regulator aimed at strengthening investor confidence. The short-selling ban, which is effective immediately, is set to last for 10 days, but could be extended for up to 30 days.

Anonymous said...

The 'short sellers' are BEING USED to sustain the market. By forcing a short squeeze TEAM-BUSH has halted the fall for a few days.

In actuality right now 'shorting' is at an all time low.

Soon I can guarantee after the 'shorters' have been fucked, that the USA will call anyone who sells their 'worthless' stock anti-patriotic.

Anonymous said...

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is how much is needed to contain the 'bank runs' on the money market for foreigners.


The US government has and will continue to FUCK the citizenry.


Today an authorized $1 TRILLION dollar bail-out is only to finance the orderly redemption of foreign holders of US investments.

CONFIDENCE for foreigners is essential as they prop up the pig-trough for the politicians.

The USA public has been fleeced, given that the average citizen is in debt close to $1M for local,state,and federal; which exceeds their net-worth, there is literally nothing worth fucking.

Thus today the gist is to contain confidence abroad, and return the foreign investor.

Of course today is confidence, tomorrow is 20% interest rates ( aka volcker 1979 ), right now the 90day t-bill is paying effectively ZERO, in order to get foreign capital to pay our BILLS and FEED the US GOVERNMENT PIG trough, we must raise rates, of course this will be done post election.

Anonymous said...

Money Markets everywhere are imploding, but we knew this 1+ years ago, t-BIlls were replaced by SIV's which have no value. The buck has broke across the board.

Most interesting is this notion of retroactive 'insurance' for money markets, they never were insured in the past, which is why they were allowed to play fast & loose.

Today 'insurance' is only for the foreigners.
***

Putnam, Mellon Spur `Oh, My God' Money-Market Flight (Correct)

By Michael Janofsky
Enlarge Image/Details


Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Before yesterday, Shiela Bialka, a retired dance and drama teacher in Laguna Woods, California, said she hadn't thought about shifting money out of her money-market account.

Then she learned that Boston-based Putnam Investments LLC closed its $12.3 billion institutional Putnam Prime Money Market Fund and a similar fund run by Bank of New York Mellon Corp. had fallen to less than $1 a share. BNY Mellon's shares fell as much as 36 percent yesterday, then mostly recovered amid a broad market rally and gained as much as 36 percent today.

``Oh, my God,'' said Bialka, 74, whose money is with Fidelity Investments. ``Now I think I will move it. I wasn't concerned before. Now, I am.''

Advisers say larger companies, such as Boston-based Fidelity, have more resources to prop up their money-market funds. Still, fears over potential losses in the low-risk investment accounts have become the latest source of angst for investors as they adjust their portfolios and lifestyles to the tremors of Wall Street.

Investors pulled a record $89.2 billion from money-market funds on Sept. 17, according to data compiled by the Money Fund Report, a newsletter based in Westborough, Massachusetts. The withdrawals totaled a decline of 2.6 percent in money-market assets.

The redemptions were an abrupt departure from a trend that had seen assets in money-market funds increase nearly 14 percent, to $3.58 trillion, from January to the beginning of September, according to data compiled by IMoneyNet Inc., the research firm that publishes the Money Fund Report.

First in 14 Years

``Your typical day doesn't include outflows,'' said Peter Crane, president of Crane Data LLC, which tracks money-market funds.

This week, shareholders pulled more than 60 percent of the assets from Reserve Primary Fund, which on Wednesday became the first money-market fund in 14 years to expose investors to losses.

Financial advisers around the country said they are fielding more calls from clients buffeted by events including the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. Now, brokers, say, clients are worried about their funds in money-market accounts, traditional safe havens.

``People are asking if their cash is safe,'' said Cary Carbonaro, president and founder of Family Financial Research, an advisory service based in Huntington, New York and Clermont, Florida. ``I've been telling them yes, but they're still scared. It's bad out there. Really bad.''

Rattled Nerves

Investors have already started withdrawing funds from money markets in the Phoenix area, said Rich Kerr, branch manager of the Charles Schwab Corp. office in Chandler, Arizona. The experience of Reserve Primary, he said, ``has stimulated a greater degree of conversation.''

Though stocks rallied the most in six years Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 617 points from its low of the day, investors remained jittery over the recent volatility.

Marci Fenske, an air resources technician for the state of California, said she overheard a woman in a restaurant tell her friends that she redeemed all her assets and buried the money in her backyard.

Carl Mueller, 48, an actor in Los Angeles, said he has begun shopping at a 99-cent store to save money. Chris Calle, 27, a project manager for a concrete company in Dallas, said he has started buying off-label goods at the grocery store.

Ruth May, 75, a retired travel agent in Laguna Woods, said whenever she feels panicky, she calls her financial adviser.

`Walk the Cat'

``He tells me to calm down and take a walk with the cat,'' she said.

Mark Berg, president of Timothy Financial Counsel, Inc. in Wheaton, Illinois, said one of his customers, a single mother, decided to trade houses for vacations rather than spend on a traditional getaway.

``People are beginning to be a little more creative in how to moderate the way they live,'' Berg said. ``So, her vacation is essentially free.''

Carbonaro said, ``The biggest question I hear from my clients is, `Should we liquidate everything?''' She said she has been so shaken by recent events on Wall Street that she wakes up in the middle of the night to check foreign markets.

``This is way more than anyone expected,'' she said. ``It's incredibly taxing, psychologically and emotionally.''

Changing Their Lifestyles

Bialka said she has already altered her routines to accommodate the worsening economy. She said she cooks at home more, rather than go to restaurants, and worries that any future bad news might require bigger changes.

``Next thing, I'll have to stop going to the theater and wearing the latest styles,'' she said. ``I might have to start shopping at thrift shops.''

Fenske, 64, said she was sitting alone at Carol's Restaurant in West Sacramento, California, when a group of elderly women at a nearby table were discussing how much money they had been losing in the financial markets.

She said she heard one woman, whom she didn't know, complain that she ``can't take any more hits'' and told her friends, ``I turned everything I had into cash, put it in a lock box and buried it under the shed near the sewer line.''

``I was horrified that somebody else might have heard her,'' Fenske said. ``The placed was crammed. I told her to go home and move it.''

Anonymous said...

BEND's rich old farts that make this city, and bought all the condo's, and SHEVLEN-SHIT are fucked.

BEND is going down, and hard.

HIGH-END shit in BEND will shutter prior to xmas.

MT-B will see very few people sign up for season passes.

The contraction now will amplify.

Anonymous said...

"Who would have thought? Why is this happening to US, in Bend, were exceptional, this is ASS-BEND" ( asspen ).

*

First of all guys its NOT about interest rates. It's about 'solvency'.

The paper held today at almost $4 trillion in the money markets has no value as it no longer represents t-bills, it represents SIV's, which quite often represent Bend MTG's.

A few days ago $100 Billion was withdrawn from money markets, as of writing this 1/2 dozen money market funds have closed.

The US financial system drug its feet in requiring accounts to 'mark to market' the value of Bonds, Money Market Paper, and real estate Mtg's. The books look fine, but the fact is most investment houses are insolvent, the money is not real.

There's about $50Billion left in FDIC to cover bank failure, at the current rate of failure/redemption thats less than a year.

All of the above has been well known over a year. The problem today is that foreigners have lost all faith in the US government, and are redeeming their money. Since spring of 2008 most shops and small banks in Europe will no longer accept US cash.

Today the Government is authorizing $1 Trillion to support the foreign redemption of money markets. The US is completely dependent upon foreign investment, as US citizenry have had a negative savings rate since 1998.

There is nothing new here, everybody saw it coming.


All mercantile society's end this way, there are many good books written on the history western civilizations making their currency worthless.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bailout

``It sounds like there's going to be a giant dumpster for illiquid assets,'' said Mirko Mikelic, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which oversees $22 billion in assets. ``It brings up the more troubling question of whether the U.S. government is big enough to take on this whole problem, relative'' to the size of the American economy, he said.

Anonymous said...

We had a meeting amongst the main dozen members of this blog yesterday BP, we all agreed that your now persona-non-grata, and that nobody would be reading your posts.

It's time to move on.


That's funny.... a number of us were in a concurrent meeting thinking the same of Buster.

I still read bruce.

Anonymous said...

Buster is out of here anyhow, the last man-cunt standing is obviously going to be the pussy, she win's who cares?

HOMER is shutting down this blog either way.

I quit posting here spring->summer, and most of you had toxic-shock-syndrome "where is buster", I have never heard anybody say "Where is the pussy".

I don't mind the pussy shit, but the 24/7 Daily-Kos is 'insane', so I have now reach the point where any post say's 'Bruce', I just skip it.

What needs to be said about Bend can be said any where I don't care if it gets read or not. Its already been established that all here are 'loser' renters, its not like anybody here is going to do anything.

BEM is long gone, and homer is out, is over.

BP won, he destroyed this site.

Anonymous said...

Will the last one out please turn out the lights?

Thanks.



And for old times sake:
Buster, Shut the fuck up.

Anonymous said...

It's been exactly one year since BP arrived. Congratulation's BP, you won.

He came here to destroy, it probably took longer than he thought. There is lots of other blogs in Bend to destroy.

Go kill BENDBB, they need a steady diet of daily-kos.

Keep up the good work BP, Herr Obama smiles down on you.

Bewert said...

Sorry. Got an unexpected cash bonus yesterday and got the drink on. Maudlinly thinking just how fucked up this entire thing is.

And today is even weirder. Now the government is going to give all the bad paper to the taxpayers at an additional cost of hundreds of millions of dollars?

What did we do to deserve this?

Just who put these people in charge?

I want my country back.

Bewert said...

Ironic how Paulson got rid of all Goldman Sachs' competitors, though.

Anonymous said...

Renaissance Homes Plans to File Bankruptcy This Weekend

Jeff Manning from the Oregonian:



This is the second top five home builder in Portland to file bankruptcy in the past three months. What it means is that Portland and Oregon are not immune from the housing slump as a lot of Realtors and builders like to say when this all started.

Randy Sebastian insists that the company will survive (bankruptcy). The good news is that they have a tentative deal in place to secure ten million in financing which will allow them to pay their creditors and continue construction.

Anonymous said...

MT-B will see very few people sign up for season passes.

my understanding is they have sold MUCH more this year compared to last year at this time.

dont be such a cunt

Quimby said...

Quimby os mot out of here....just tired watching all the shit happen. Whew.....

Quimby said...

Holy shit....that was supposed to be:

Quimby is not out of here....

Bewert said...

Re: The US government has and will continue to FUCK the citizenry.

Buster--Truth.

The only difference is the Dems have DKos massively, actively pounding them on things not good for the average citizen. The FISA fight is just one of many. More are nigh.

Not that it is a real difference. The leadership ignores the public as much as possible.

It's utterly amazing to see the Repubs socializing the financial industry. Pure blasphemy to their core.

Or pure final theft of public assets.

Put an idiot in charge and you get this.

They're talking $700 billion, which means three times that in the end.

So where will we be in two or three years with this kind of debt? Will the Fed inflate us out of it? Or will we spiral into a depression of some sort.

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