Just more bad paper coming to the taxpayers. I like this new format, it works for me.
jo6pac
I forgot Thanks Ken and CR
jo6pac
good morning to all of you
That's kind of funny, like a limited partnership saying that they had a net profit since they had to make a cash call and successfully raised capital. I guess you can view insurance as a line of business, but to me it's a not for profit partnership that shares profits and losses among members. Can small banks opt-out?
So if they make losses they'll just phone up the banks and ask them to make up the difference. I thought the world was going the other way round with banks making losses and calling up the Government(taxpayer)....This looks like we're making it up as we go along.......no that can't be right
Hmmm, it appears Japan is now accepting squirrels at the discount window as well...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aHB_vhXyuxKY&refer=j...
From Zero Hedge's morning links:
Geithner Wrong, Crap Assets Correctly Priced, Say Harvard And Princeton Profs
Is it just me or is anyone else nostalgic for the days when we could just lop 1% off the Fed interest rate and the problem was resolved. WTF is happening, did the economy not get the memo.
A week ago I wrote to my both Senators and to my Congressman and asked them to look into the legality of using the FDIC as the backstop for PPIP. They all politely thanked me for sharing my concerns with them.
The Congress' silence is as deafening now as it was the previous 8 years.
[as mentioned in last thread]
Don't blame Geithner anymore. Got a problem with the bailouts? Tell your troubles to tough-guy Lambright:
"He's unbelievably tough, and sometimes needs to be reminded that the job is to save the financial system," says former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who hired Mr. Lambright at the Treasury.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123906145595395075.html
(BTW, I'll leave it alone after this post. Just thought the WSJ's ham-handed effort to deflect criticism away from Geithner and make it look like somebody -- anybody -- gives a rip about the taxpayer was too precious not to spam, I mean share...)
Who are the FDIC accountants who see no losses in the worst econ since the G D and still spiraling down? Are they on drugs, or do they count taxpayer money as an asset?
This is quite simply not the function that the FDIC is intended for. Just as bailing out AIG is not the function that the Fed is intended for.
----
"no one is pricing in low, mid teens unemployment in any of their assumptions." - Meredith Whitney
Everything is under control, ladies and gentlemen. The government says it won't lose money, I believe them. When have they ever been wrong?
i am tired of word"taxpayer". USA govt DOESNT run on taxes.It has been spending more than it collects from last 30 yrs.there huge dissconnect between tax earnings and money spent.dont cry for taxpayer.Very few will be called taxpayers after 10 yrs.Nobody is going to pay what USA govt is spending now.
How can one lose something to which they are able to bring into existance with impunity ?
Sheila has it wired, see? She bought some credit default swaps from AIG to cover the...oh ummm wait a sec...nevermind /krans
If the FDIC is liquidating loans at 50% off, how will people who pay 85 cents/$ for PPIP loans not produce losses for the FDIC? Things that make you go "this is complete bullshit!".
Taxpayers? In *my* bailout?
Yay!
Cheers,
prat
Doing nothing is an acceptable alternative for the rich--99% of Americans need this "sucker" to stay afloat. I might be the only one here to like this approach, but maybe that's because I can't come up with a better one.
Down goes Frazier!
Elmo's in the house, my friends, party time in Elmo's World!
I was playing Monopoly with my kids last night, and my 10 year old asked me if those Monopoly biils were like the real US Dollars we use at the store. I replied to him "almost, maybe in a few month they both will be worth the same". My wife killed me with her look because I had no need to use adult sarcasm with a 10 year old.
I wish I could be wrong.
Sunny and crispy beautiful here! Great day to all!
Anyone except me that immediately thinks Gladys Knight and the Pips everytime they see PPIP?
No, Jim, some of us are younger than 90.
Although I'll probably now think of a Sherlock Holmes story every time I see it now.
Just out of curiosity, can anyone cite the statute that authorizes FDIC to insure anything other than bank deposits?
- Nemo
If those bank fees work like the FDIC fees normally do, they assess them to everybody.
And if I was a bank who hadn't made a bunch of terrible loans, and had played the safe conservative role historically associated with banks and suffered by not reaping windfall profits during the boom, I'd be pretty bitter about paying into that fund to essentially bail out my competitors who'd played hard and fast with the rules.
It would make you wonder what the point is in playing by the rules next time, wouldn't it?
This whole entire TARP business is SO incredibly insane that I find myself wondering if it is a just a dog and pony show to get people to spend vs. save.
NO ONE is so stupid as to believe that a) TARP actually has a chance at working as promised OR b) that they can actually get away with attempting to issue debt to pay off debt and that by simply refusing to recognize losses they will simply disappear.
If I am wrong then I am seriously behind on my New Dark Age preparations.
limda,
I am open to suggestions. What other word expresses how my family and I are yoked to all of the adverse outcomes that are likely to flow from the US government wasting trillions of dollars? Serfs? We are not serfs yet, though that might be the right word soon.
Let's see how the banks feel now that "privatize the gains and socialize the losses" only applies within their own little universe.
(No, I don't for a minute think that's really how it's going to go down, but it was a nice thought for less than a minute....)
They've spent many months coming up with this plan.
If you find yourself with months to make a plan, you aren't in an emergency. You may be in a hole, in a bind, in serious existential trouble even, but not an emergency. You've got cancer, not bleedout.
The "emergency" determination from the Treasury Secretary will be very interesting. I can only assume that it will be made public.
What's up with the S&P500 today?
No quotes on Yahoo or Bloomberg.....is it just me?
Don't confuse this system with a democracy.
I'd be pretty bitter about paying into that fund to essentially bail out my competitors who'd played hard and fast with the rules.
Do banks have the option of opting out of FDIC coverage?
And if I was a bank who hadn't made a bunch of terrible loans, and had played the safe conservative role historically associated with banks and suffered by not reaping windfall profits during the boom, I'd be pretty bitter about paying into that fund to essentially bail out my competitors who'd played hard and fast with the rules.
I was thinking the same thing.
It seems like the end result is going to be a bank tax that, in the end, will be passed on to everyone since banks don't really produce anything.
If it loses money from insuring those investments, [FDIC] will assess the financial industry a fee to pay the agency back.
Translation: "We'll raise taxes."
And yet another Constitutional provision devolves from our elected representatives to the bureaucracy.
--Like it or not, there will be an Exurban Nation--
I've been responding to "debt slave" lately.... But I usually come running with a smile if my master beckons me with the 1984 "Prole"
don't worry it is only a cold sore,promise.
Tom Stone
"We project no losses," Sheila Bair, the chairwoman, told me in an interview. Zero? Really? "Our accountants have signed off on no net losses," she said.
Until this morning, I had not fully formed an opinion of Shelia Bair. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I hold out hope that some regulators may actually have a clue and/or care about ordinary citizens. I look for partial performance. But in Sheila's case, I retract my doubt and suspend my hope.
She is just another front for the Banksters.
When the FDIC assesses the banks with higher fees due to losses and the banks pay those higher fees and therefore suffer greater losses, will the FDIC assess the banks for those higher losses?
Did Herbert Hoover clown his way through the Great Depression or was he more serious than these guys?
The F.D.I.C. is insuring the program, called the Public-Private Investment Program, by using a special provision in its charter that allows it to take extraordinary steps when an "emergency determination by secretary of the Treasury" is made to mitigate "systemic risk.
Wow, mid-century technocracy sure did steer us into the golden age of rule by an enlightened, educated, professional bureaucracy.
And if the losses really pile up, the FDIC will be bailed out, and it will be the taxpayers on the hook.
Behold, the new, tarponomic appropriations process! Spend the money first, then go to Congress and tell them the economy will collapse if you don't get what you want.
"to opt out of FDIC"?
Pretty much only in the same way that they have the "option" to get out of business. Yes, they can get out of FDIC if they get out of business.
PPIP is DOA in it's current form. Yesterday Turbo Timmy extended deadline for apps and enlarged the entities allowed to participate. PPIP was one of the main drivers of this fools rally. PPIP dies, BOOM! Bottom drops
Watching these inteventions is so Pit and the Pendulum, or perhaps The Cask of Amontillado.
--bh
"A week ago I wrote to my both Senators and to my Congressman and asked them to look into the legality of using the FDIC as the backstop for PPIP. They all politely thanked me for sharing my concerns with them.
The Congress' silence is as deafening now as it was the previous 8 years."
Nobody gives a damn about anything anymore. The rule of law seems to have gone out the window. I think that is why we are seeing so much anger on this blog, as it is truely infuriating to watch what is happening.
PPIC: When the Piranhas left school they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service. Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called 'The Operation'... They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called 'The Other Operation'. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn't pay them. One month later they hit upon 'The Other Other Operation'. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn't pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.
--Like it or not, there will be an Exurban Nation--
"Our accountants" = Arthur Anderson alumni
Anon, is right. Sometimes it sure looks like only the responsible peons are still under the rule of law.
If you are wealthy or a completely irresponsible peon who enables the wealthy's ponzi scheme you get a pass.
Moin from Germany,
add this to the mix.....
Monday, April 6, 2009
Guest Post: FDIC's Insurance Commitments 34% Higher Than Reported
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/04/guest-post-fdics-insurance-commit...
Thank god the US is still able to a AAA rating....... 
blackhat wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 7:01am.
Watching these interventions is so Pit and the Pendulum, or perhaps The Cask of Amontillado.
In The Cask, the victim deserves his punishment. In The Pit, the victim is rescued at the end. With the PPIP, the taxpayer does not deserve his fate, and he will not be saved.
I think that the definition of deposit in Title 12 Chapter 16 Section 1813 is broad enough to cover this scenario. We're basically talking about creative interpretations of existing laws here, ultimately the courts will determine whether it is actually in the FDIC's scope of activities to insure PPIP.
LOL - disgusting, Tom.
"Doing nothing is an acceptable alternative for the rich" - and for this poor old redneck too, Mel!
Let it crash down around my feet. There will be pieces we can pick up and reuse - count on it.
- - - - -
Black 
Ranch
Is this real, or a late April fool's joke? http://www.freep.com/article/20090407/BUSINESS01/904070334/GM++Segway+te...
Zero losses projected? FDICAIGFP
Moin,
at least they are finished with the term "we expect a profit for taxpayers"....
Sarcasm off........
"Let it crash down around my feet."
I am as ardently in favor of justice as the next guy. I just don't think we will allowed to have any.
If Ms. Bair and her accountants say that they can lend the 80% of the money used in PPIP transactions without the FDIC incurring any risks, then why would the PPIP be necessary? I understand Jeffrey Sachs is of a rather different opinion, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/the-geithner-summers-plan_b_... .
remember these
I worked in Bed/Stuy and the South Bronx, where disaster has a different meaning. Babies die a cruel death--innocents going down is not an alternative--neither is being smug.
ATM card and $19 in the bank wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 6:46am.
limda,
I am open to suggestions. What other word expresses how my family and I are yoked to all of the adverse outcomes that are likely to flow from the US government wasting trillions of dollars? Serfs? We are not serfs yet, though that might be the right word soon..
I am too inexperienced in economic matters,but i can say:control govt at local levels.Thats the only way.Federal govt can waste trillions,but its local govt who will face real troubles.If you live in homogenous community,its easy.Subverting impractical govt rules is not very difficult if there are voters to back you.Americans dont even have to protest or fight.Just control local govt and employ lot of lawyers.
EHP - -
If you're going to be around and look thru this thread (otherwise I'll repost it later when I see you around) can you go over this again:
Outsider,
$10 trillion is quaint. As of 2008 Q4, outstanding mortgage debt in the US was $14.4754 trillion (Federal Reserve Flow of Funds, Z.1 / L.2 / line 10, http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1r-4.pdf)
and there is $27.6752 trillion in domestic debt in the US after you remove
• mortgage, $14,475.4 bn (L.2, line 10)
• federal government, $6,361.5 (L.1, line 7)
• state and local, $2,239.6 (L.1, line
• (I subtracted rest of world, L.1 line 9 if you are trying to follow along)
For perspective, 2008 Q4 nominal GDP in the US was $14.2003 trillion (BEA, http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm) but that is falling much more and much faster than was prepared for
I could not find L.2/line 10, or at least what I did find didn't look like mortgage debt. I want to get my facts and figures straight. What actual page # are you referring to (I need that) -- I want to check and make sure we're only talking about household mortgage and not commercial. I'm sure you have that covered, but I want to see with my own peeps. Besides, I would think household mortgage debt is actually declining due to charge offs.
Thank you!
The money shot in these briefs was always "credit losses are always near zero; laons collateralized on a daily basis." some non-sense like that. Bair statement today reminded me of that. Searching for the direct link
Mel:
innocents going down is not an alternative--neither is being smug.
Well they're gonna go down, and when they do all the money they could have been spent ameliorating the plight of the needy will be found to have been looted away under the rubric of protecting the system as a whole. It's easy to build your argument because you don't have any weighting for the alternatives. It isn't gonna be like, starve the poor OR give them puppies and ponies.
"We've lost control of our food supply, our water supply, our media, our children and their education; we've allowed ourselves to become disconnected not only from each other but from ourselves."
There's something else that US Americans have lost control of as well, and it's rather vital – the US government.
You need to get that back under control before you can restore anything else that you've lost to the elite who are running the USA as their own private kingdom.
And you can bet that they will find ways to get rid of all the inconvenient people in the country who they don't need and who are just littering up their pleasure-garden.
The situation does appear hopeless, I have to agree. The US nation needs a fundamentally different kind of political system to the one that it's got in order to avoid falling prey to elitist scams like the present one that is turning the USA into a despotic police state. It needs a political system that ensures the democratic accountability of the political leaders to the people at every level of structure and in actual fact rather than just in abstract theory. But the existing form of federal government is entrenched and is irreplaceable without first being overthrown in a successful popular revolution. This could be achieved by a coalition of individual states – a new confederacy that is committed to restoring Constitutional government to the USA. But it would mean civil war and I can see no signs of the US American people having the will to fight another one of those yet. And by the time they do get around to finding the will to fight one, it will probably be too late because the totalitarian New World Order will soon be up and running at its present rate of progress. By "soon" I do not mean in decades, I mean in a couple of years at most.
And so another great empire of the human spirit subsides back down into the morass from which it arose. The "American dream", so full of hope, so full of pride, so full of empty self-flattering illusion. Oh how the mighty have fallen!
And most of them don't even know that they have fallen yet.
Shill,
To borrow a phrase, " got popcorn ?"
The Cask of Amontillado.
Blackhat +1
If you have no alternatives to help these innocents and bitch about BHO's attempts, you are smug.
BTW, has anyone else seen the Poe stamps that the post office is issuing? Pretty damn spiffy. Always been a big Poe fan, one of my favorite classic American authors, along with Lovecraft.
Economic pain has an inverse proportion to wealth.
Ohh..."we expect no losses"....
Confidence is so sexy!
(Aside: I dunno if I like this new format...can we get JS-kit back ? *runs* )
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Goldman-Sachs-bailout-bonanza/story.aspx?guid={504CB844-C558-4E40-B928-80C16DECBC05}&dist=SecMostRead
I'm surprised that Marketwatch story doesn't bring up the revolving door between GS and the Fed. Seems like that's the obvious link between them, and it's where criminal investigations should be focused.
I am too inexperienced in economic matters,but i can say:control govt at local levels.Thats the only way.Federal govt can waste trillions,but its local govt who will face real troubles.If you live in homogenous community,its easy. Subverting impractical govt rules is not very difficult if there are voters to back you.Americans dont even have to protest or fight.Just control local govt and employ lot of lawyers.
Most local governments are strictly leashed to transfer payments -- the system is no longer federal, they are disbursal centers for central state revenues. Look at your tax payments profile if you don't believe me. Also, they're all bankrupt or about to bankrupt. Between bloated public service and prison lobby entitlements, bloated public works and being the first point of service for what's left of the social safety net, you aren't going to see much policy innovation or freedom for a while.
You're right in that it's the way the game is played! But, keep in mind, this system has been gamed out entirely, and every bit of flexibility and surplus worth has been wrung out. if it ever gets past the point of discussion, you would probably do better founding social service / militia movements along the lines of an American Hamas, because emergent actors won't be leashed to the multi-tiered bankruptcy of the American state. You'll do better solving the problem then seeking legitimacy than the other way around, because otherwise you'll be co-opted or destroyed by the residual state apparatus.
Recall Rubin's use of the exchange rate stabilization fund during the Tesobono splat? Hell, remember every war that the Senate never voted for? The executive resorts to legislation when legislation is a sure thing, and when it must. Otherwise, the executive reaches for whatever tools, and whatever excuses, come to hand.
Shill @ 7:24
Bravo!
Geithner reminds me of the protagonist in Ambrose Bierce's story Jupiter Doke, Brigadier General
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.
With the exception of several high profile periods in the past, such as the 1998 period when losses at a highly
leveraged hedge fund (Long Term Capital Management) created instability in financial markets, credit losses
from derivatives contracts are generally small. The low incidence of charge-offs on derivatives exposures
results from two main factors: 1) the credit quality of the typical derivatives counterparty is higher than the
credit quality of the typical C&I borrower; and 2) most of the large credit exposures from derivatives, whether
from other dealers, large non-dealer banks or hedge funds, are collateralized on a daily basis.
I think Bair has plagerized from this Q407 OCC report. I call this the "no one ever loses" statement
FDIC, the federal government -- a distinction without a difference.
If you have no alternatives to help these innocents and bitch about BHO's attempts, you are smug.
------------
Pull the plug and let it fall where is lays....another words....shutdown and reboot. No amount of printing or what ever is going to fix this current global economic situation...that is not being smug that is the truth,.
They are only digging a deeper hole in the abyss.....bottomless and un-fixable...and the powers that be know it.
Just out of curiosity, can anyone cite the statute that authorizes FDIC to insure anything other than bank deposits?
Here it is, but note that it seems that the acquirer of the assets must itself be an FDIC insured institution.
(2)(A) In order to facilitate a merger or consolidation of another insured depository institution described in subparagraph (B) with another insured depository institution or the sale of any or all of the assets of such insured depository institution or the assumption of any or all of such insured depository institution's liabilities by another insured depository
{{2-29-08 p.1220}}institution, or the acquisition of the stock of such insured depository institution, the Corporation is authorized, in its sole discretion and upon such terms and conditions as the Board of Directors may prescribe--
(i) to purchase any such assets or assume any such liabilities;
(ii) to make loans or contributions to, or deposits in, or purchase the securities of, such other insured depository institution or the company which controls or will acquire control of such other insured depository institution;
(iii) to guarantee such other insured depository institution or the company which controls or will acquire control of such other insured depository institution against loss by reason of such other insured depository institution's merging or consolidating with or assuming the liabilities and purchasing the assets of such insured depository institution or by reason of such company acquiring control of such insured depository institution; or
(iv) to take any combination of the actions referred to in subparagraphs (i) through (iii).
MEL wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 10:29am.
If you have no alternatives to help these innocents and bitch about BHO's attempts, you are smug.
Don't we have a bankruptcy process in this country? You know, as part of that whole law and courts thing? What happened to the rules we established for handling this before it happened? The alternative to an orderly wind-down is a great big crash in the dollar/treasuries complex. Hold up the big pictures of the deserving poor all you want, this country can either dramatically constrict spending and force these institutions into bankruptcy in an attempt to get the national balance sheet to make even a remote degree of sense, or it can be cast into the abyss when the mode of exchange fails.
As I see it, those are your choices. If you want other choices, build a time machine and go advocate responsible policies instead of "Morning in America". Call me smug if you want, I don't think I'm very smug about this. I think you're gonna get a lot of people killed.
MEL wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 7:29am.
If you have no alternatives to help these innocents and bitch about BHO's attempts, you are smug.
If you percieve what BHO has done thus far as help, you are an idiot.
Actually, the best reference for the FDIC action may come from pop culture rather than literature...
The F.D.I.C. is insuring the program, called the Public-Private Investment Program, by using a special provision in its charter that allows it to take extraordinary steps when an "emergency determination by secretary of the Treasury" is made to mitigate "systemic risk."
Drumroll...it's "Animal House!"
"There is a little known codicil of the Faber charter..." DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!
MEL wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 7:29am.
If you have no alternatives to help these innocents and bitch about BHO's attempts, you are smug.
If that's your opinion then put me down for smug times two. I've seen nothing from the current administration or Congress that constitutes either overt help or even benign neglect of the so called innocents. Call them what they are; the new donor class.
--Like it or not, there will be an Exurban Nation--
Holy smokes anyone see International Speedway. Report on Monday lose on Tuesday?
Don't we have a bankruptcy process in this country? You know, as part of that whole law and courts thing?
Why, yes, we do. It's change that Wall Street and the Federal government can believe in.
NEW from government motors!
GM and Segway unveil new two-wheeled urban vehicle
NEW YORK – A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_bi_ge/general_motors_segway
NEW from government motors!
GM and Segway unveil new two-wheeled urban vehicle
Can I be the first European to say that thing is ridiculous?
No losses?!??! WTF??! I've hear it all now. Or maybe I haven't.
Anonymous,
thanks for that dialogue from Strangelove... hate to name drop but I had a few conversations with the late Terry Southern a few years back,
Kubrick wanted the movie to end with a pie fight in the war room... kid you not... Stanley took some real convincing to go with the written on the fly Slim Plickens ending
It's maybe worth pointing out that what the special provision allowing "extraordinary steps" actually does is waive the provisions that prohibit them from protecting uninsured deposits or protecting nondepository creditors. It doesn't let them do anything they please; they're still confined within their basic grant of powers.
That's my reading of the statute, anyway...I'm sure a lawyer can be found that will disagree, for a fee or a hefty A.G. office salary.
DIS
going
DOWN
Any chance we can Swift-boat the financial magicians & sorcerers off the island of Glubbdubdrib? (cleverly disguised as Manhattan)
"
MEL wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 7:29am.
If you have no alternatives to help these innocents and bitch about BHO's attempts, you are smug.
If you percieve what BHO has done thus far as help, you are an idiot."
Like most anonymous people, ad hominem attacks are your best weapon. I'm not saying anything could have succeeded in two months, what I don't see are alternatives being offered except for letting it all collapse. That will have more disastrous consequences for the very poor and that's not acceptable to me morally. I'd rather see financial pain than human pain. Guess I'm strange that way, came from reading the bible and Benjamin Graham.
Maybe congress should introduce legislation that would help FDIC differentiate between PIMP money and real savings accounts. You don't want FDIC coming back in couple of years saying that they had to make PIMP clients whole because they don't have the authority to differentiate between the good and bad guys.
Babies die a cruel death--innocents going down is not an alternative--neither is being smug.
Mel, don't you even dare tell me about babies dying until you've had one die in your arms, you idiot. Your idealistic rattrap works well in theory until you finally have the misfortune of experiencing what the results are of your pie-in-the-sky bullshit. I'm as close to physical disgust as I've been in years!
- - - - -
Black Ranch
Tim waiting for 2012 wrote on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 8:00am.
New thread
Been a new thread for a while. Nice that way IMO. Let the noise stay in the older threads.
--Like it or not, there will be an Exurban Nation--
" Babies die a cruel death--innocents going down is not an alternative--neither is being smug.
Mel, don't you even dare tell me about babies dying until you've had one die in your arms, you idiot. Your idealistic rattrap works well in theory until you finally have the misfortune of experiencing what the results are of your pie-in-the-sky bullshit. I'm as close to physical disgust as I've been in years! "
I have--twice in city hospitals--it wasn't pretty--nauseating actually--and preventing that is not pie in the sky--it's christian--small "c."
Slim Pickens was not the ending. Peter Sellers as as Dr. Strangelove gets out of the wheelchair, "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk."
I have--twice in city hospitals--it wasn't pretty--nauseating actually--and preventing that is not pie in the sky--it's christian--small "c."
All the emotional overinvestment in the world won't let you borrow your way out of debt. Keep in mind, you were told. Hoocoodanode? YOU. Don't come crying when you see the butcher's bill.
blackhat-
Yeah, I was thinking of Bernanke running around trying to stop the beating of the Tell Tail Debt. Everywhere he turns the sound is still there, no matter how he tries to plaster over it...
I just wish this would be mercifully over quickly, and for the guilty to be suffering with the rest of us, as Poe would have provided.
I know I'll lose along with everyone else, but if I got some Schadenfreude in return it wouldn't be so bad.
What was it that used to be said all the time???? .... O yeah, reality based. Gubermint has a tough, tough time with reality.
Great. More FDIC fee hikes coming for the small/regional banks--like the one I work for--that didn't don lampshades and dance on the table during the boom. Thanks, Sheila! You're doing a heckuva job.
Don't forget to comment at fdic.gov. Until Thursday. Take a chance.
If only our inventors, film industry, artists, and musucians showed the sorts of creativity that out accountants have, the U.S. would once again be the World's undisputed leader.
oops Our not out accountants, doesnt really matter to me if the accountants are straight or gay, and if gay in the closet or not
This is just more of the same nonsense that gave us the TLGP(Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program) that will wipe out the FDIC the second any of the participants go down. It's yet another way of getting around going to Congress for more funds. The taxpayer via the machinations of the Fed, FDIC, and the Treasury has, in return for an absurdly small fee, guaranteed the liabilities of the entire financial industry. We can no longer walk away and force the creditors to take ownership of the devalued underlying collateral because the combined losses from the Fed, FDIC, and Treasury would be too large. Obama and co. have gone "all in" with our future and there is no turning back.
"We project no losses," Sheila Bair, the chairwoman, told me in an interview. Zero? Really? "Our accountants have signed off on no net losses," she said.
Oh yeah... my grandma says she does not need wings to fly!!
Sheila is getting more greasy by the day. Just shampoo those greasy loans away!
Contained to zero. Cool. Really cool.
It's like a plan from a perverse Robin Hood.. steal from the prudent to give to the reckless.
"Be reminded that the job is to save the financial system" ?
Okay either:
a) Geither, Summers et. al. are intelligent and know what they are doing, but what they actually mean is that 'our job' is to save the few major banksters that got us into this situation in the first place. And they know perfectly well that they are lying to us.
or
b) They've been living in a bubble for too long. They are idiots that assume that their approach
to "saving" the so-called financial system will work, DESPITE all the reasons, models, data and so forth that everyone on this blog, many noted economists etc. and others have stated over and over ad nauseaum.
In either case I wish that the Obama administration should be "reminded" that the government is in service to the people, including all of those who are now part of the double-digit jobless.
I see no plan whatsoever from the government to deal with the projected very long term high rate unemployment rate.
And IMHO, no one in the Obama administration is what I'd call tough. Cagey, squirmy, shrewd, calculating, weasely (ht jonathan mann), desperate to be liked, yes; tough, no.
Wait for a few more months when people's unemployment insurance (those that are lucky enough to have gotten it) runs out... then a few more when those folks who did have savings, don't have savings any more.
Pretty soon Obama's gonna have to spend all his time overseas where he can just be a 'rock star.' UGH.
Mel,
I can't understand how you can think that BHO's so-called attempts will do anythink to help people. They can not, do not and will not 'help people.'
I do have alternatives, as do many economists, but BHO and the clutch of weasels aren't listening and don't care.
And I'm sad, not smug. Sad and scared, not smug.
We moved to a house and now have a veggie garden, but unlike the last Great D, most folks in the urban/suburban areas can't go stay with relatives on the farm...
If the govt doesn't do something soonish, we'll have landscapes of rotting, empty homes and apts, tent cities, more family murders and starving people. Seriously. Unless you can tell me why this won't happen -- for example, how any of BHO's current policies will do anything, anything to address this scenario and forestall what seems to be inexorably coming, I'm gonna stay sad and scared.
Health care, for one, is urgent. Having strong banks is necessary for state and local governments--I would like to see banks restricted in size and location. I don't like bailing out C and AIG, but anything else would require congressional action, and that's not going to get past a Senate filibuster. Democracy is very cumbersome in a crisis--the captain's hands are tied at the wrong time.
BHO looks good in comparison, not individually, but he's it now. The ghettos (a word lost in political correctness) are going to explode. Kids will be malnourished and sickly. Crack, AIDS, and street crime will grow exponentially. Instead of stupid tea parties, we need peaceful demonstrations to supply safety nets--sadly, with a threat of violence. The enemy is us--the educated, the protected, the informed--too many here think doing nothing will get this mess over with quickly. They don't really understand what the mess entails.
This was the moment for Sheila Bair to offer her resignation. Maybe she still has the opportunity to make a difference.
Good morning Calculated Risk!