b,121One thing I have not heard mentioned much is the idea that Congress should pretty much forget about going into recess, and begin working practically around the clock until further notice.
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b,121there's actually been a LOT of talk about slowing the process down, holding hearings, maybe recessing, etc.
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b,121the fear is that market confidence would be irreparably lost in the meantime. the conventional wisdom is that we have to act FAST to restore confidence.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Market confidence lost? Man, the market's swagger has been jacked. That argument just doesn't hold water right now, at least with me, especially when the stakes are so high -- $2,000 from every taxpayer (or a whopping 2,000 McDonald's apple pies for the non-math inclined). That's more than three times the stimulus package (about 600 apple pies per person).1b,121b,121Wall Street is gonna tank regardless. It's when not if. No need to take down the rest of the country in the process. I am almost convinced that the Bush Administration is happy with throwing the election for the Republicans and handcuffing the Dems with debt, in favor the 2012 dream ticket: Palin-Pawlently.b,121b,121 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/1203.gif" alt="" 21
b,121oh, i thought the market will always sort itself out. that's not true?
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b,121remind me to stop checking my 401k balance.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121That's the reason that it does not matter,b,121b,121if they put in another incredible amount of money.b,121b,121b,121It only slows down what comes next (and cuts off more confidence).b,121b,121b,121And it won't change the personal situation of the peopleb,121being able to control the world,b,121is it via fake money,b,121is it via fake war reasons,b,121is it via fake laws.b,121b,121b,121It simply will continue to force (most of) us b,121to sweat and blood for their pleasures!
font class="post"1b,121b,121A cup of coffee not below 1 euro, Apple pie 1,50+b,121b,121while seeking a "minijob" where you get more than 5 euros/hourb,121b,121remains a tough quest!
b,121One thing I have not heard mentioned much is the idea that Congress should pretty much forget about going into recess, and begin working practically around the clock until further notice.1
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b,121
b,121
b,121there's actually been a LOT of talk about slowing the process down, holding hearings, maybe recessing, etc.
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b,121the fear is that market confidence would be irreparably lost in the meantime. the conventional wisdom is that we have to act FAST to restore confidence.1
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b,121Market confidence lost? Man, the market's swagger has been jacked. That argument just doesn't hold water right now, at least with me, especially when the stakes are so high -- $2,000 from every taxpayer (or a whopping 2,000 McDonald's apple pies for the non-math inclined). That's more than three times the stimulus package1(about 600 apple pies per person).1
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b,121Wall Street is gonna tank regardless. It's when not if. No need to take down the rest of the country in the process. I am almost convinced that the Bush Administration is happy with throwing the election for the Republicans and handcuffing the Dems with debt, in favor the 2012 dream ticket: Palin-Pawlently.
b,121One thing I have not heard mentioned much is the idea that Congress should pretty much forget about going into recess, and begin working practically around the clock until further notice.1
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b,121
b,121
b,121there's actually been a LOT of talk about slowing the process down, holding hearings, maybe recessing, etc.
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b,121the fear is that market confidence would be irreparably lost in the meantime. the conventional wisdom is that we have to act FAST to restore confidence.1
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b,121
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b,121Market confidence lost? Man, the market's swagger has been jacked. That argument just doesn't hold water right now, at least with me, especially when the stakes are so high -- $2,000 from every taxpayer (or a whopping 2,000 McDonald's apple pies for the non-math inclined). That's more than three times the stimulus package1(about 600 apple pies per person).1
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b,121Wall Street is gonna tank regardless. It's when not if. No need to take down the rest of the country in the process. I am almost convinced that the Bush Administration is happy with throwing the election for the Republicans and handcuffing the Dems with debt, in favor the 2012 dream ticket: Palin-Pawlently.
font class="post"1b,121b,121Naw, if Palin doesn't get in now, she's had it for awhile, Pawlenty is being groomed for the big one though, maybe he picks her again as VP, but the luckiest day of his life was when McCain passed him up. Now he's in the clear for the future.b,121b,121As for the bailout, now I am skeptical as well....do we need to throw good money after bad? I dunno, I am far from an expert on Wall Street shit. But I don't trust that they have their eye on the greater good or the public here.
If you bought 700 billion dollars worth of bean dip, and started stacking those cans of bean dip, I bet you could stack to the moon, at least.b,121b,121Lets say a can of bean dip is 3 inches tall.b,121b,121Google says the moon is about 15 million inches away from earth.b,121b,12115 million divided by 3 = five million (cans of bean dip to get to the moon).b,121b,121Albertson's has frito lay bean dip for 3.29, however its 301cents off if you have a card, so we'll assume that we have a card and that our bean dip is 3 dollars even.b,121b,121There are 9 zeroes in a billion, so 700 billion is b,121700,000,000,000.1 That number, divided by 3 is how many cans of bead dip we can afford.1 That is 233,333,333,333.b,121b,121So we have 233,333,333,333 cans of bean dip.b,121b,121It takes 5,000,000 cans of bean dip to get to the moon.b,121b,121233,333,333,333 divided by 5 million is 46,666.66. b,121b,121So, with the 700 million dollar bail-out, if my calculations are correct, we could make appr 47,000 stacks of bean dip cans that reach to the moon.b,121b,121b,121Something to think about, isn't it?
b,121If you bought 700 billion dollars worth of bean dip, and started stacking those cans of bean dip, I bet you could stack to the moon, at least.
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b,121Lets say a can of bean dip is 3 inches tall.
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b,121Google says the moon is about 15 million inches away from earth.
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b,12115 million divided by 3 = five million (cans of bean dip to get to the moon).
b,121
b,121Albertson's has frito lay bean dip for 3.29, however its 301cents off if you have a card, so we'll assume that we have a card and that our bean dip is 3 dollars even.
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b,121There are 9 zeroes in a billion, so 700 billion is
b,121700,000,000,000.1 That number, divided by 3 is how many cans of bead dip we can afford.1 That is 233,333,333,333.
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b,121So we have 233,333,333,333 cans of bean dip.
b,121
b,121It takes 5,000,000 cans of bean dip to get to the moon.
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b,121233,333,333,333 divided by 5 million is 46,666.66.
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b,121So, with the 700 million dollar bail-out, if my calculations are correct, we could make appr 47,000 stacks of bean dip cans that reach to the moon.
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b,121Something to think about, isn't it?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121If you really worked for our government you would know that a can of FEMA Bean Dip cost $347.98
b,121If you bought 700 billion dollars worth of bean dip, and started stacking those cans of bean dip, I bet you could stack to the moon, at least.
b,121
b,121Lets say a can of bean dip is 3 inches tall.
b,121
b,121Google says the moon is about 15 million inches away from earth.
b,121
b,12115 million divided by 3 = five million (cans of bean dip to get to the moon).
b,121
b,121Albertson's has frito lay bean dip for 3.29, however its 301cents off if you have a card, so we'll assume that we have a card and that our bean dip is 3 dollars even.
b,121
b,121There are 9 zeroes in a billion, so 700 billion is
b,121700,000,000,000.1 That number, divided by 3 is how many cans of bead dip we can afford.1 That is 233,333,333,333.
b,121
b,121So we have 233,333,333,333 cans of bean dip.
b,121
b,121It takes 5,000,000 cans of bean dip to get to the moon.
b,121
b,121233,333,333,333 divided by 5 million is 46,666.66.
b,121
b,121So, with the 700 million dollar bail-out, if my calculations are correct, we could make appr 47,000 stacks of bean dip cans that reach to the moon.
b,121
b,121
b,121Something to think about, isn't it?
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b,121If you really worked for our government you would know that a can of FEMA Bean Dip cost $347.98
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Pardon me, sir, but the fact that I just wasted time doing that while at work is proof enough that I work for the govt.
b,121If you bought 700 billion dollars worth of bean dip, and started stacking those cans of bean dip, I bet you could stack to the moon, at least.
b,121
b,121Lets say a can of bean dip is 3 inches tall.
b,121
b,121Google says the moon is about 15 million inches away from earth.
b,121
b,12115 million divided by 3 = five million (cans of bean dip to get to the moon).
b,121
b,121Albertson's has frito lay bean dip for 3.29, however its 301cents off if you have a card, so we'll assume that we have a card and that our bean dip is 3 dollars even.
b,121
b,121There are 9 zeroes in a billion, so 700 billion is
b,121700,000,000,000.1 That number, divided by 3 is how many cans of bead dip we can afford.1 That is 233,333,333,333.
b,121
b,121So we have 233,333,333,333 cans of bean dip.
b,121
b,121It takes 5,000,000 cans of bean dip to get to the moon.
b,121
b,121233,333,333,333 divided by 5 million is 46,666.66.
b,121
b,121So, with the 700 million dollar bail-out, if my calculations are correct, we could make appr 47,000 stacks of bean dip cans that reach to the moon.
b,121
b,121
b,121Something to think about, isn't it?
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b,121If you really worked for our government you would know that a can of FEMA Bean Dip cost $347.98
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b,121Pardon me, sir, but the fact that I just wasted time doing that while at work is proof enough that I work for the govt.
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b,121...No economy can grow at steady exponential rates; only debts can multiply in this way. That is why Mr.1Paulson???s $700 billion giveaway to his Wall Street colleagues cannot work.
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b,121What it can do is provide a one-time transfer of wealth to insiders who already have been playing the debt-credit system and siphoning off its predatory financial proceeds to themselves.1The Wall Street bankers, brokers and fund managers to whom I???ve been speaking for many decades all know this. That is why they pay themselves such large annual bonuses and large salaries each year.1The idea is to take as much as you can. As the saying goes: ???You only have to make a fortune once in a lifetime.???1They have been salting away their fortunes year after year, mainly in hard assets: real estate (free of mortgages), fine furniture, boats and trophy art.
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b,121Their plan now is for icing on the cake ??? to take Mr.1Paulson???s $700 billion and run. It???s not a ???bailout of the financial system.???1It???s as giveaway ??? to insiders, to sell out all their bad bets. Companies across the board will get rid of their bad mortgages, and also their bad car loans, furniture time payments, credit-card loans, student loans ??? all the debts that any competent actuary could have told them never could have been paid in the first place.
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b,121Let???s look at the euphemisms as an exercise in Orwellian doublethink. Mr.1Paulson defended his ???troubled asset relief program???1(TARP) by claiming that ???illiquid mortgage assets ??? have lost value ??? choking off the flow of credit that is so vitally important to our economy.???1The credit that is ???so vitally important???1has taken the form of bad loans. Contra Mr.1Paulson???s pretense, the problem is not that they are ???illiquid.???1If that were the problem, it would be merely temporary.1The Federal Reserve banks are designed to provide liquidity ??? on good collateral, of course.
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b,121As Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf noted on Wednesday, Sept. 24, the problem is that the face value of mortgage loans and a raft of other bad loans far exceeds current market prices or prices that are likely to be realized this year, next year or the year after that. They are packaged into what the financial press rightly calls ???toxic.???1The bailout is not efficient, he writes, ???because it can only deal with insolvency by buying bad assets at far above their true value, thereby guaranteeing big losses for taxpayers and providing an open-ended bail-out to the most irresponsible investors.???[1] ???The simplest way to recapitalise institutions,???1He concludes, is ???by forcing them to raise equity and halt dividends. If that did not work, there could be forced conversions of debt into equity.1The attraction of debt-equity swaps is that they would create losses for creditors, which are essential for the long-run health of any financial system.???1This is the key: if debts cannot be paid, then creditors must take losses.
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b,121These bad loans are toxic because they can only be sold at a loss ??? if at all, because foreign investors no longer trust the U.S. investment bankers or money managers to be honest. That is the problem that Congress is not willing to come out and face. Many of these loans are outright fraudulent. And they are being sold by crooks. Crooks who work for banks. Crooks who use accounting fraud ??? such as the fraud that led to the firing of Maurice Greenberg at A.I.G. and his counterparts at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other companies engaging in Enron-type accounting.
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b,121Does Congress know what it is being told to do? Suppose that ???taxpayers???1are to squeeze money out of the ???toxic???1junk mortgages they buy from the investors that have bought these bad loans.1The only way to do so would be for real estate prices to be raised to even higher levels.1This means an even higher proportion of take-home pay by prospective homeowners.
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b,121Mr.1Paulson realizes this. That???s why he???s directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to inflate real estate prices all the more. At least, by the existing mortgage-holders to get paid off by existing debtors selling to the proverbial ???greater fool.???1The hope in Mr.1Paulson???s plan is that there are enough ???greater fools???1with enough money to borrow from yet more foolish new mortgage lenders. Only Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Agency are willing to make such foolish loans, and that is only because they are being directed to act in a foolish way by Mr.1Paulson.
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b,121For the government to even begin to recover some of the value of the $700 billion in junk mortgages it has bought would force new homebuyers to pay even more of their income to the banks. And if they do that, they will have less income to spend on goods and services.1The domestic market will shrink, and tax revenues will fall at the state, local and federal levels.1The debt overhead will deflate the economy, causing shrinkage all down the line.
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b,121So here???s where the cognitive dissonance comes in: It is necessary, even inevitable, for the volume of debt to come down ??? not up ??? to restore equilibrium.1The economy was well on its way to preparing the ground for this last week. As Alan Meltzer of the American Enterprise Institute (of all places!) explained on McNeill-Lehrer, Merrill Lynch was able to be sold at 221cents on the dollar; and the economy survived Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns being wiped out.
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b,121Such debt writes-offs are a precondition for writing down America???s mortgage debts to levels that are affordable. But Mr.1Paulson???s plan is to fight against this tide. He wants the Wall Street to keep on raking in money at the expense of the economy at large.1These are the big banks who lobbied Congress to appoint de-regulators, the banks whose officers paid themselves enormous bonuses and gave themselves enormous golden parachutes.1They were the leaders in the great disinformation campaign about the magic of compound interest. And now they are to get their payoff.
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