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Economist's View
Red States, Blue States and the Distribution of Federal Spending, by Jeffrey Frankel: April 1 is Census Day. Evidently Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann are encouraging Americans to boycott the census — to refuse to fill out the whole form. This protest follows from their small government ideology. ... They say they want a government that intervenes less in the economic sphere. Perhaps they don’t like the idea that the census numbers are used, among other things, to determine the allocation of federal spending across states, because they don’t think it is the business of the government to redistribute income. That is “socialism.” Even “Stalinism.”
... ... ...
The question is geographical redistribution: which states receive subsidies from the federal government, and which other states are taxed to provide those subsidies. One might be able to sympathize with the feeling of those living in the heartland of the country that they should not have to subsidize the northeastern states or California...
... ... ...
If I were cynical, I might suspect that the reason that Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, and some Republicans are not enthusiastic about getting the most accurate numbers possible, from the census and otherwise, is that they don’t want people to know who is getting federal handouts and who is paying. Probably they don’t want to know themselves.
Terrorist networks operate on a modular model. They’re divided into cells, so that should one cell be caught by the authorities, the other cells can continue. As Haldane describes it :
A series of decentralised cells, loosely bonded, make infiltration of the entire Al’Qaeda network extremely unlikely . . . These are all examples where modular structures have been introduced to strengthen system resilience. In all of these cases, policy intervention was required to affect this change in structure.
And so, to the inevitable conclusion:
The history of banking is that risk expands to exhaust available resources. Tail risk is bigger in banking because it is created, not endowed. For that reason, it is possible that no amount of capital or liquidity may ever be quite enough. Profit incentives may place risk one step beyond regulation. That means banking reform may need to look beyond regulation to the underlying structure of finance if we are not to risk another sparrow toppling the dominos.
Today’s financial structure is dense and complex, like a tropical rainforest. Like the rainforests, when it works well it is a source of richness. Yet it is, as events have shown, at the same time fragile. Simpler financial eco-systems offer the promise of greater robustness, at some cost in richness. In the light of a costly financial crisis, both eco-systems should be explored in seeking answers to the $100 billion question.
Financial reform; thy inspiration is, err, Al-Qaeda?
ZackAttackWho needs jobs when you have a rising stock market?
we’re not at the top of some over bought market recovery – we’re at the bottom of the next bubble. One definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome. (Einstein?)
On issues relating to fiscal responsibility, it seems that the heat generated is often inversely proportional to the light.
CreateSpace:
Reading Todd Harrison’s “E-Novel” over at Minyanville he has a very heart-rending post about finding out that Cramer is “Bi-Polar” and on medication.I think that comes through on his “Mad Money” show.
One wonders if Cramer’s Meds are really effective, though…. just saying…
Charlatan
...If a podiatrist walked into a hospital and started saying, “Brain cancer? Sure, I can treat that. I’m a brain surgery guru. Malaria? Well, I’m an expert on that too. Sickle cell anemia? Hey, I wrote the book on that, you should take my advice. Spinal fracture? Let me tell you what you need to know.” Setting aside all other issues, what would you say about that individual’s character and integrity. Would you say, “Well, gee, I mean nobody could know about all those things. He really has a tough job there. Anybody would find that near impossible.” Ummmmmm………..no. You’d say, “That guy is a big fat creep.”
subscriptionblocker:
Stewart refers to him as “Creamer”….. Thought it stuck?
Maverick1:
A classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUkbdjetlY8
Pimco talks their book more than El-Erian tries to sell his.
i on the ball patriot
“This was not just a happenstance gang rape by a bunch of lusty wall street perverts that can be explained away as; “all had a hand in it”.
ndk:
I’m shocked, shocked that the U.S. Government would prosecute its stagehands
Mickey Marzick in Akron, Ohio:
Fraudulent Usurious Corrupt Kleptocracy
March 19, 2010
...I did a fast tabulation (so, don't quote me on it), and what one finds is that of the list in favor, only 2 of 41 economists are affiliated with institutions in the South (defined using the most restrictive definition in this Wikipedia page -- so to be completely accurate, I haven't used the actual Mason-Dixon line). Of the 131 signatories to the against letter, 40 are affiliated with institutions in the South, i.e., essentially 30% of the total. A list of affiliations is below...
...Such displays draw into question the worth of the profession, not unreasonably.
3/22/2010
1 currency now -yogi:
Comrade Gibbon wrote:
Encouraged by the fed, banks engaged in all sorts of financial innovation to keep the train rolling till it blew up four years later with loan to income ratios on many of the notes in MBS being almost 10:1 and shot through with obvious fraud.
Securitization is ponzi.
The Fed is ponzi.
It's "Hurricane Ponzi" (--J. Tavakoli's coinage)
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), told the crowd. "I know that's a dirty word, but that's what you're doing." He told the bankers not to be afraid to stand up to members of Congress or "these little punk staffers," as he called them. ...
...if symptoms of viagra last longer than one year, we should see a head doctor, and not an economist
zero hedge
goldisok:
...I really liked a comment once made by an independent financial analyst David Roche.
He said that the FED is very naïve if it thinks that it can do anything gradually and achieve a gradual effect. He said that all bubbles burst violently and when FED says that it can gradually deflate a bubble it certainly deludes itself.
Roche said that attempting to control the bursting of a financial bubble is as ridiculous and futile as attempting to control our fart once it goes off.
The Onion
In a bold new measure intended to address unemployment among young professionals, lawmakers from across the political spectrum agreed on legislation Tuesday to subsidize the cryogenic freezing of recent college graduates until the job market recovers.
The bill, expected to swiftly pass in both houses, would facilitate the subzero preservation of any graduate of a two- or four-year educational institution. Sponsors of the initiative said that with the national unemployment rate at just under 10 percent, it only made sense for young job-seekers to temporarily enter a state of supercooled stasis.
"Finding employment is extremely difficult for today's college graduate," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said. "Our current economy offers few options for the millions of young men and women desperate to join the workforce."
"Were we to freeze these graduates at the height of vigor and ambition, however, there's a chance we could revive them during a more prosperous time," Hutchinson continued. "When the economy finally bounces back—10, 20, even 30 years from now—we'll have an entire generation thawed out and ready to contribute."
The Frozen For Their Future Act reportedly calls for the installation of thousands of cryogenic tanks at college commencement ceremonies around the country. Upon receiving their diplomas, newly minted graduates will immediately make their way to preservation stations where their hearts will be artificially stopped using electroshock or a potassium-salt solution. Once a graduate's blood is drained and replenished with an anti-crystallizing fluid, they will be submerged in liquid nitrogen, a process that will, in effect, put them into suspended animation until key sectors of the American economy such as real estate and information technology have rebounded.
According to Walter Reardon of the Cryonics Partnership Inc., it will be essential for the freezing procedure to be conducted as quickly as possible.
"Graduates will never be more primed to enter the workplace than at the exuberant moment they toss their caps in the air," said Reardon, who claimed that cryogenics was the only hope for an estimated two-thirds of the nation's students. "Wait even two days, and a graduate's brain will begin to show the effects of fretting about the dismal job market. Wait six months, and you might have a permanently cynical underachiever resigned to his position at a mall sunglasses kiosk."
Who is more "naked"? The purchaser, without an insurable interest, or the seller, without insurance capacity?
Pamela Anderson:
Jim "Mr. Bozo" & "The Corrupt" Cramer represents all the values and reasons why American economy is where it is today. Arrogant, Stupid, Sociopath, Imprudent, etc. and also this proves that ERIN BURNETT has a lack of common sense that is JUST ASTONISHING...
aint no fortuna:
Every day I flip through Crammer's show for about 10 seconds, hoping and praying that this will be the day I see that officious little turd being led off the set in chains by US Marshalls.
It hasn't happened yet, but I continue my lonely vigil in hopes that one day I shall be rewarded...
Hulk:
The SEC couldn't find any problems with Madoff and you
expect that they will turn up something with Cramer?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
AnonymousMonetarist
Cramer: You just create an image that there's going to be news next week that s going to frighten everybody. This is what s really going on under the market that you don t see.
Q: And that nobody else talks about except you.
CRAMER: Right, but what s important when you re in hedge-fund mode is to not do anything remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view that it s important to create a new truth, to develop a fiction.
Q: SO you re talking about the mechanics of the market-
CRAMER: Well, the mechanics are much more important than the fundamentals.
Q: Well, okay, but in terms of the fundamentals-
CRAMER: Who cares about the fundamentals? Look at what people can do. The great thing about the market is that it has nothing to do with the actual stocks. Now look, maybe two weeks from now buyers will come to their senses and realize everything they heard was a lie but then again Fannie Mae lied about their earnings for six billion dollars, so you know-
Q: Right, and Bristol-Myers lied.
CRAMER: It s just fiction and fiction and fiction. I think it s important that people recognize that the way the market really works is to have that nexus: hit the brokerage houses with a series of orders that can push it down, then leak it to the press, and then get it on CNBC-that s also very important. Then you have sort of a vicious cycle down. It s a pretty good game, and it can pay for a percent or two
Roy Bush:
Awesome! I hope that phony chump goes to jail...better yet, gets put in the stocks and pelted with tomatoes.
I saw the tail end of his 5 year anniversary show last night. What was totally incredible was that Tim Geithner came on the television and congratulated Cramer on his success. This is a public official congratulating an open speculator and ex-Goldman hedge-fund manager who has a show that is produced by the former Jerry Springer producer! Chutzpah!
Reflexivity:
It would be interesting to know the demographics of his audience...IQ, net worth, career, schooling, income, etc., etc.
Unbelievable that people watch him.
Chris Dodd introduces financial reform legislation, and Jon pretends he has the same rights as a corporation.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c In Dodd We Trust www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full EpisodesPolitical Humor Health Care Reform (10:39)
March 17, 2010 | naked capitalism
plschwartz :
I lost the quote so I will have to paraphrase Mencken:
- One say Americans will elect a president as stupid as they are.
- Another place he say: One day Americans will elect the President they deserve.
Bush 43 filled his prophecy.
Jesse's Café Américain
naked capitalism
MyLessThanPrimeBeef:
If the reward for listening to loud music is hearing loss, and people continue to listen to loud music, the only conclusion is that people desire hearing loss…unless there is a reward-motivation disconnect here.
Im moe green:
Interesting economist trivia with respect to Akerloffs co-author Romer. He is a leading growth theorist and his wife is Christina Romer. His father was governor Romer of Colorado. And they say there is no elite class in the U.S. Heck its mind boggling that Larry Summers dad is Robert Summers brother of Paul Samuelson (the name was changed for some reason) and his (Larrys) mom is Anita Summers a distinguished real estate economist at Penn. Oh and Anita’s brother is Kenneth Arrow. Larry has two nobel prize winning uncles (well one just died) a father who is an eminent economist and a mother who is a first rate real estate economist. Hmmm, guess family dinners not too informative…..
The latest example? Apple is newly more highly valued in public markets than is Wal-mart. ...
To put Apple’s $205-billion market cap in non-Wal-mart context, it is:
- 4x the global smartphone market
- 5x the global music market
- 100x the global smartphone app market
- Enough to buy HP, Dell and Hitachi, with mad money left over for Xerox or Seagate
In short, this is a surreal number.
March 14, 2010 | naked capitalism
For some comic relief go to http://www.WallSTOnion.blogspot.com
Tim Geithner announces the new and improved monetary policy for U.S. that was hammered out over the weekend with Lawerence Summers and received a two-thumbs up from the Obama administration. The new policy comes as a result of the new tough reforms coming out of DC against Wall Street due to the crisis in 2008. Tim Geithner, speaks excitedly about the new policy and states “unlike the past, this new reform package, and new monetary has plenty of transparency and oversight.”
In fact the new policy is so simple that oversight may not be needed at all, as pointed out by Congress member Maxine Walters. It is better known on the hill as “The 3 rule system.”
- Rule # 1. If the investment is worthless (toxic) the Treasury shall buy it and pay full price. If a price is not known, then we shall make up a price.
- Rule # 2. If the investment has any value at all, or has the potential to show value in the future than the Federal Reserve shall buy it.
- Rule #3. If you not sure, call Goldman Sachs and let them decide. Give them a little time so they can make their investments, as needed, before the herds stampede in looking for a deal.
Geithner admits the plan may seem to simple, but argues “that sometimes complex problems require simple solutions, and oversight.” “This plan being so simple, allows for that oversight that was lacking before.”
When asked what happens when the FED balance sheet gets so big, would it pose a risk of being “To Big To Fail?” Geithner sniped back,
“Don’t you worry about the FED, they will take care of themselves.” “Long after America is bankrupted, just an example of course, the FED will still be here standing. Get it? They are a separate entity! ”
Geithner closed out the interview saying “we should be more concerned about the actions of our own government, than snooping around the FEDS business.”
When asked, by Congress Maxine Walters, “which government, do you work for?: Geithner lit up like an alien, seemed confused, and then left the room. He was unable to answer the question.
Mar 10, 2010 | Asia Times
What if the commercials seem to feature people who maybe look a lot like you? You know, young, but not too young, professionals of various assorted ethnicities making breakfast for spouses and/or children, taking children to work, then putting in a full day's work before returning home for dinner or to watch the kids playing soccer against a sepia sunset in a golden sky. A calm, comforting voice-over implants into your cerebral cortex the theme the spinmeisters want to keep bouncing around in your head - "the future - you've got to prepare for it now".
And even before the regular programming returns, you know what it is. It's the US financial services industry come looking for some more of your money.
The answer to the question of why the US financial industry advertises as heavily as it does - by one estimate, about $10 billion last year - is intimately connected to the question of why any business or industry advertises. In a 1995 book, Fables of Abundance, by sociologist Jackson Lears, the concept of advertising is brought out of ancient history to the present:
What do advertisements mean? Many things. They urge people to buy goods, but they also signify a certain vision of the good life; they validate a way of being in the world. They focus private fantasy; they sanction or subvert existing structures of economic and political power. Their significance depends on their cultural setting. ... Longings for release from privation resonated with ancient religious hopes, the enduring myth of an earthly paradise melded material abundance with the spiritual abundance of salvation celebrating eternal ease in a nurturant land of plenty. ... The eroticism of consumption was a complex and elusive process. In part it arose from a self-defeating pattern of human desire - a pattern that may have been virtually universal and timeless but that resonated especially with the emergent market cultures of the modern West. As early as 1587, Montaigne caught the pattern when he wrote of what he called his "sole-error". "It is that I attach too little value to things I possess, just because I possess them and overvalue anything that is strangely absent, and not mine." This was the dynamic of deprivation at the heart of expanding consumption: purchase brought momentary satisfaction followed by dissatisfaction and renewed longing. ... It would not be until the 20th century that corporate advertisers would routinely combine unfulfilled longings with acts of consumption seeking to dispel the magic of recently purchased goods through doctrines of stylistic progress and policies of planned obsolesce.Many observers have noted what might be called Montaigne's contradiction - not wanting what one does have in favor of what one does not; it's the reason fast-food hamburgers are made to look so meaty and juicy. But in the advertisements for financial services, it's not the orange juice from the family breakfast nor children's soccer shoes that are being pitched - it's something entirely different."FADE IN" as the ad copy script opens. It's morning in America again, and a very busy one at that. The kids are running wildly around the breakfast table, middle-aged mom's in her business suit loading her briefcase, middle-aged dad, in business slacks and tie, is making breakfast for the whole brood. Later, he will pack up the kids for school in the SUV, drive to one of the cubicles in the office park, work a full day.
But something's missing. Maybe, during his long workday, dad takes a break at the water cooler, looks up around him. Does he really want to be doing this, every morning, 50 weeks a year, for the next 30, maybe 50 years? If not, he had better get some retirement counseling from his local investment company professional; pretty darned quick.
"What a lucky break!" dad thinks; he just saw an ad for a local brokerage during the golf match over the weekend. The spot showed a friendly faced broker, about the same age and wearing an equally understated wedding ring as himself, operating out of an office in a traditional, brick storefront in the older part of town - not in a bland, soulless suburban office park like where he works; where he knows the merchants who are hawking all manner of the foulest mendacities operate all around him. This broker, dad knows, can be trusted, and trust sure is a dammed sight more important than a cheap brokerage fee on a stock trade.
Or maybe the pitch will head off towards other, more critical psychological receptors. Frequently the ads show financial responsibility and planning for the future as tasks - like coaching Little League baseball or organizing neighborhood crime watches - that actually make the American man a man. One advertisement drops all pretense with this pitch; it shows men carrying through the day a roughly 1.5 meter long woodcarving of the current value of their retirement portfolio, say, "$650,247" or "$2,785,144." Obviously, those with the biggest numbers are walking around with the biggest smiles and the widest strides.
Or, as Rose (Kate Winslet) inquired in Titanic, "Do you know of Dr Freud, Mr Ismay? His ideas of the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you."
March 10, 2010 | immobilienblasen
Oh boy..... After the ( even by his standarts.... ) famous "Housing & Bank Stock Shortage" call from January 2008 ( NO KIDDING > see "Ten Trillion $ Worth Of Good Calls" ) was a little bit "premature" he is predicting a bank stock shortage version 2.0.... Would at least be honest if he mentioned the "ultimate moral hazard trade" & the "Enron-esque characteristics" when it comes to accounting as the two main reasons behind the motives to own banks.... ;-)
Just for the record here are the two main ETF´s tracking the financial sector.....
March 12, 2010 | The Mess That Greenspan Made
A funny look at Ginnie Mae’s online tool that can be used to make that all-important rent versus buy decision, recently spotted over at Patrick.net.
The numbers are pretty funny too – $750 to rent and a purchase price of $950,000??
zero hedge
High levels of debt, followed by extended low interest rates… Are these morons serious? This is an inviolable principle, if these economic imbeciles actually treated seriously their “field of study”. Aren’t these central planners supposed to be “adults” who dress themselves, tie their own shoes in the morning, and make themselves cold cereal before they go off to work to destroy people’s lives? What the hell are they thinking?
This is like surgeons in the 1840’s strutting around, “Hey, we’re surgeons, and our brains are HUGE, and hand washing is stupid, because we’ve never heard of these things called ‘germs’!” Surgeons continued to kill over a quarter of their patients for decades, including women delivering babies in hospitals, until the 1880’s when Pasteur extended Koch’s germ theory of disease. The murderers had no idea they were killing literally every one they touched, and were even so bold as to ridicule, show hostility, and discredit anyone who suggested hand washing was a good idea. Poor Holmes. Poor Semmelweis.
Our central planners in our central banks are religious nuts. They show none of the attributes of professionals in a disciplined field of study, and all the attributes of brain-dead zombies performing ritualistic incantations (like the banks they pretend to manage and regulate). Our treasury departments are equally insane. They refuse to wash their hands as they un-invitedly break into each of our homes to devalue our currency, and ensure sovereign defaults worldwide. They have muddy feet too.
“We’re economists, and our brains are HUGE, and we can have free lunches FOREVER because we’ve never heard of this thing called ‘debt’!” There’s no possible way to engineer a setup for more complete destruction. Murderers. Morons.
Being charitable: Economists have a different world view from “normal” people.
Being non-charitable: Economists are literal economic and common-sense morons.
By artificially forcing interest rates too low for an extended period, economists are literally fanning the flames of stupidity. When deleveraging begins, the rates will rise sharply, causing a feedback loop that explodes the conflagration of debt unwind to the point where it will annihilate everything in its path. Can this be avoided? Not anymore, with Captain Jackass at the helm ensuring that little old ladies can no longer live on their fixed income CDs. We’ve already had our record levels of leverage and our extended period of low interest rates.
It’s a good thing economists don’t have any professional standards, or they would be guilty of professional incompetence. It’s a good thing they remain unaccountable to society, because their actions are criminal negligence.
When a fire science professional screws up, someone usually dies, and the professional goes to jail. When an economist screws up, people lose everything they have spent a lifetime accumulating, people starve, nations fall, we go to war, and millions die. Economists will then pretend to tweak their theories and go on book tours.
How hard is this to understand? With high fuels loading, you will get a fire. We hope and pray the acreage burns when we have high humidity and low winds, to ensure it doesn’t burn too hot and too fast. That helps ensure the destruction is not *so* complete that nothing remains. It’s silly talk to say you won’t get a fire, because that immediately disqualifies you from any sensible participation in the discussion with actual adults.
With record high debt levels, you will deleverage. We hope and pray the deleveraging occurs when you have a relatively healthy economy (ha!) and relatively high interest rates (ha!), to ensure leverage remains only for productive activities (ha!) and deleveraging starts with non-productive activities (ha!).
We are in a period of record high debt levels, followed by an extended period of record low interest rates. Oh, CR*P! At this point, because of the debt levels and leverage, raising interest rates is impossible (nearly all sovereigns would default instantly with even a one or two percentage point increase in interest rates). CR*P! CR*P! CR*P! Even today, we are held together only through accounting fraud collusion among private institutions, central banks, and sovereigns. (Yes, we’re talking about go-to-jail fraud.) CR*P! CR*P! CR*P! CR*P! CR*P! CR*P! Still, we can be assured that defaults will inevitably happen, and interest rates will inevitably rise. These private institutions, central banks, and sovereigns are all toast. Pathetically, they all earned it.
The ship has sailed, and we are betrayed by the economists. Central banks and sovereigns the world over utterly failed in their job, not that they were ever qualified to do the job they pretended to perform. We will get a spark. Some happy camper will be irresponsible with his adult beverage around the too-big campfire. When the spark happens, a million acres burning across Yellowstone will look like a cute evening of nostalgic fun.
No, at this point, there is no way out. Thanks a lot, you friggin’ central planning feeble-minded morons! Unlike you, normal people can actually do the math. Even now, you economists won’t recognize your utter failure in your “field of study”? You pretend to use big words, but it’s easy to recognize them as merely confused baby-mumblings. Clearly nobody should have let you wear “big boy” pants. In the true mark of immaturity, you won’t even admit to the increasing stench from the pile of brown stuff in your underwear. Who the hell do you think will actually have to clean up that mess?
Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be economists.
Shameful :
How can you say Greenspan had a belief in free markets? Simply because he said he did? If Hannibal Lector claimed to respect human life and that he would never harm a soul would you have him over to dinner? A man is judged by his deeds not words! And Greenspan's deeds show he would have fit in well in the Soviet Politburo.
From Planet Money: Podcast: We Bought A Toxic Asset!And the story is here: We Bought A Toxic Asset; You Can Watch It Die. An excerpt:
Finally, we find a beautiful, totally toxic asset at what [Wit Solberg, a former Wall Street trader] thinks is a good price: $36,000. Back in the bubble, somebody paid $2.7 million for this thing. We buy a piece from Solberg for $1,000. It's going to be our encyclopedia of the financial crisis.Listen to the podcast - it is pretty funny!What Our Toxic Asset Looks Like
Our toxic asset has 2,000 mortgages, many of them in hard-hit states like California, Arizona and Florida. A lot of the people in our bond are really struggling. Almost half are behind on their mortgage payments, and 15 percent of the homes are already in foreclosure.
At some point those homes will be taken over and sold for a loss. Every time that happens, the bond shrinks. Eventually, our part of the bond will disappear entirely.
Until then, we get a little money every month from people paying off their mortgages. We just got a check for $141. If it goes to Thanksgiving, we could double our money.
By the way, we bought the asset with our own money. Any proceeds will go to charity. If we lose money, we take the loss.
Elvis:
Oh give me a home,
Where the bandos roam,
And the cable is hooked up,
All day.Where seldom is heard,
The foreclosure word,
And utilities are running
All day.
3/13/2010 | CalculatedRisk
From Tom Abate at the San Francisco Chronicle: Financial leaders dissect meltdown
"What is quite shocking," [John Lipsky, a senior official of the International Monetary Fund] said, is how inadequate the world's regulatory supervisors were in curbing the lax lending standards at the heart of the housing and credit bubbles.Shocked? Hmmm ...
Posted by CalculatedRisk on 3/13/2010 11:15:00 AM
MLM:
pavel.chichikov wrote:
No one will be able to predict the course of events of the next decade.
Not true. With enough alcohol intake, LoserBeachBum can do it. But no one will understand his predictions.
Rob Dawg:
First the Lost Decade and then the Cost Decade.
pavel.chichikov:
"The rich will get richer; the poor will get poorer.
Let's meet back here in 2020 to see how I did. "
I can't even predict I'll be there to meet you.
Lobbyist Ben Dover:
If you move consumption and production forward a decade, does it take two decades to come back to even?
shill:
Spartan King Leonidas: Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... For tonight, we dine in hell!
March 6, 2010 | The Huffington Post
Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell, Fred Armisen, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Dana Carvey and Darrell Hammond, the Saturday Night Live actors who have played every American president since Gerald Ford -- save Ronald Reagan -- have teamed up on a web video meant to push Congress across the financial regulatory reform finish line and pass a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency.In order not to miss the '80s, Jim Carrey was called in to play Reagan in the "Funny Or Die" video. Another former-SNLer, Maya Rudolph, stopped by to play Michelle Obama.
In the video, the fake presidents approach Obama in a dream as he contemplates the multimillion dollar lobbying campaign banks are waging against the CFPA.
"I've come back from the dead to tell Mr. Reach-Across-The-Aisle here to grow a pair," Reagan says.
Obama seems unpersuaded by the ex-presidents, whose financial deregulation, beginning with Reagan and extending through Clinton and the Bushes, led to the current crisis.
"What you're saying is, I should take on this mess that you all created? Take on the banks and their trillions of dollars?" Obama says. "How's this helpful?"
"It's a bitch. It's a bitch," says Reagan. "But as George Washington once said to John Adams: 'Tag. You're it.'"
"Nothin' wrong with one term, Barack," Ford tells him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D8lj3dg5-opurplefetus3:
Video kicks ass! I love the lyrics in this song as they provide a reminder of unfulfilled campaign promises:
"Fix the B-U-D-G-E-T"
"Stop all the spending...Get the banks lending"
"Get the troops home" (from Iraq)Too bad we haven't seen any of this materialize :(
It's month 14 !!!
Speedfight2highend:
damm thats my shit
blame it on the news, tax payer blues.. blame it on the loans, now ya home´s gone
blame it on the e-e-e-e economy..
blame it in Bush, blame it on Cheney,
I`m not pointin blame.. well, ok maybe!
******
Investcal
“the market was billed as a weekly auction, but in fact was an OTC market with a once a week trading window”
In the 19th cenury snake oil salesmen were tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. This practise sould be reinstated.
At first, Minneapolis janitor Rosalina Gomez said she didn't realize she was cleaning up after the CEO of the bank that bought her foreclosed home in a September sheriff's sale.
"At the beginning I didn't know he was the guy," said Gomez through an interpreter in an interview with HuffPost. "I didn't know the relationship between my house and him. I saw him one time but never talked to him."
The guy is Richard Davis, CEO of Minneapolis-based US Bank, the nation's sixth-largest bank and recipient of $6.6 billion in TARP bailout funds. On Feb. 28, Davis was set to receive an "Executive of the Year" award from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal at a banquet -- 11 days before Gomez and her family had to comply with an eviction order.
The Service Employees International Union, of which Gomez is a member, could not resist the opportunity to draw attention to the soon-to-be-evicted woman cleaning up after one of the bankers taking her home away (US Bank is the trustee; Chase is the mortgage servicer). The SEIU began agitating for Gomez, an effort which dovetailed with a union campaign on behalf of area janitors fighting for a better contract.
"After they found out I was involved in the union activity, they assigned two security guards to follow me when I was cleaning," she said, adding that the guards helped her clean.
Gomez earns $26,000 a year ($12.97 an hour) working for a janitorial services company cleaning up after Davis. He earns more than $2 million a year.
RussThe mention of the health of such a person reminds me of the part in “The Madness of King George” where Pitt, discussing the king’s mental health, says “We congratulate ourselves on how advanced our system is, but where it comes to the monarch’s health we might as well be ruled by the Turkish sultan.”
While the White House has denied that President Obama used the teleprompter set up in a sixth grade classroom to address students, Jon Stewart is pretty sure it's a bad visual no matter what the excuse. Even if the TPOTUS wasn't in use, did he really need the podium and presidential seal, too?The Daily Show had a few other ideas or Obama to avoid.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Obama Speaks to a Sixth-Grade Classroom www.thedailyshow.com
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yagij
Change I Can Believe In!
CalculatedRisk
green shoots if you are a bankruptcy attorney!
Barley:
You can't eat a granite countertop
with no food it is a hech of a lot easier to keep clean, tho
rizdraver:
America's Baghdad Bob.
halfasheep:
Ben, Barack, George, Alan....all puppets.
PennyRoyaleTea:
In the beginning Bernanke looks tired. I think he's tired of lying. Either all the BS is getting to him & his consciousness, or he's on a mild sedative.
smb12321:
Bernanke must be a plant; it's the only way to to explain this buffoon
The "GREAT economist speaks:
2005 - no housing bubble
2007- car industry "OK"
2008 - Few small banks may fail (3 wks before Lehman)
2008 - Unemployment will not hit 10% (currently 17%)
2008 - The Fed will not monetize the debt.
2008 - Freddie/Fannie adequately capitalized
2008 - Sub-prime problem containedimmayhem:
lying, thieving, manipulative, conniving, psychopathic, gangster criminal bastard.
farmboycarl:
Okay I admit it, he's not the leader of the evil empire, he's just completely incompetent. At least I no longer worry about losing all my retirement resources, or the ability to send my kids to college. I no longer want to live, and Bernanke, Obama, and the rest of them prove that an Ivy League education is totally worthless.
Oh and by the way, Fuck You Time Magazine. If this is your Man of the Year, you're as bought and paid for as the politicians who allow the Fed to continue to exist.
aceyorba:
The only people that can keep a job with such crapy performance are government workers, union workers and weatherman
coltranechilla:
im sure thats why hes been federal chairman for the past 5 years, dumbass.
toppermost1:
Is he an idiot or is he wilfully obtuse? Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have done alright by Uncle Ben. I think he knows exactly what he's doing - leech main street dry and give it all to his wall street buddies. Just like Bush's administration were full of people that were invested in oil, defence and construction - and hence profited from the Iraq war, Obama's administration is full of wall street people - who have profited from the cheap fed money and the bailouts.
February 28 2010 | FT.com
"Three cheers for the Efficient Market Hypothesis on which the system is supposed to be based "
Jesse's Café Américain
Don Kohn has always struck me as more of a 'company man,' coming from the Alan Blinder school of Public Service:"The last duty of a central banker is to tell the truth to the public."It will be interesting to see what kind of a truthteller Mr. Obama will nominate to take his place. Christina Romer's name has been mentioned.
If it is Timmy, I may not be able to hold down solid food for a few days.
zero hedge
"The Federal Reserve and the country owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Don Kohn for his invaluable contributions over 40 years of public service
Anonymous
"The Federal Reserve and the country owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Don Kohn" - TREMENDOUS DEBT is very true. Smart kid that Donny .. quitting while the going's good.
Cognitive Dissonance
Is it rats leaving the ship or rats playing musical chairs? Remember that there is a circle jerk that is followed in the corridors of power. A rotation from politics to academia to think tank to corporate to (sometimes) legislative, in any and all combinations imaginable.
Around and around they go. Where they stop, nobody knows.
Astute Investor:
"I am confident that history will judge the Federal Reserve, under the leadership of Chairman Bernanke, to have met these challenges with great speed, imagination and effectiveness."
What a bunch of self-serving horse sh**! Always nice when your "performance review" is just a de facto self-assessment.
Anonymous
"he will certainly be missed" - of course he will be now that BB has to take all the blame.
Curmudgeon
Legally, there’s essentially nothing stopping Obama from declaring intransigent FIRE CEOs to be enemy combatants and executing them by Predator strike.
naked capitalism
The evidence that US capital markets firms are firmly in the hands of hopeless sociopaths continues to mount.
Commodity Bull Market
Speaking of contrarian investment indicators, they don't get much better than this.Fidelity.com posted a listing in a prominent public relations newsletter today:
Summary: Buying stocks again?
Name: Chris Taylor (Fidelity.com)
Category: Business and Finance
Email: [email protected]
Media Outlet: Fidelity.com
Deadline: 07:00 PM EST - 20 January
Query: Looking for investors who are shifting some of their cash holdings back into stocks and bonds, now that the financial crisis has ebbed.That last line says it all. Get ready for the next shoe to drop, baby!
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