EVERYTHING IS WRONG

The protesters are old because they're likely the only ones who give a rat's ass and know WTF is going on. The youngsters who are going to be most adversely affected by these bailout are all at the coffee shop Twittering about taking a nasty shit or at home watching American Idol.

If I was in SF, I would have gone.

Fight on my fellow American Patriots!

-at least these protesters were out there on their feet and not just sitting here blogging their discontent.

I would not protest yet--give the new guy a chance--the FOX followers cheered on the making of this mess, now are pissed that their man isn't running things. Not sure the organizers realize there was an election--and that they lost. This is not the easiest of times--patience is required, After 8 years of Bush, many of these people claimed it was unpatriotic to criticize the president. Why do they now hate America?

only a serious protest of this magnitude would cause a protester to spill a martini right in the bowl of the another protesters bong...

Kudos Hans ....you clearly 'get it' and let the majority of dumb ass Americans ( mostly young and middle aged ) see their American dreams go up in a puff of smoke !

This has probably been posted but more dirt on Larry Summers, from the NY Times...the guy is up to his armpits in graft:

"I was less shocked by the White House's disclosure of Summers's recent paydays than by a bit of reporting that appeared deep down in the Times follow-up article on that initial news. The reporter Louise Story wrote that Summers had done consulting work for another hedge fund, Taconic Capital Advisors, from 2004 to 2006, while still president of Harvard.

That the highly paid leader of arguably America's most esteemed educational institution (disclosure: I went there) would simultaneously freelance as a hedge-fund guy might stand as a symbol for the values of our time. At the start of his stormy and short-lived presidency, Summers picked a fight with Cornel West for allegedly neglecting his professorial duties by taking on such extracurricular tasks as cutting a spoken-word CD. Yet Summers saw no conflict with moonlighting in the money racket while running the entire university. The students didn't even get a CD for his efforts - and Harvard's deflated endowment, now in a daunting liquidity crisis, didn't exactly benefit either.

Summers's dual portfolio in Cambridge has already led to one potential intermingling of private business and public policy in his new White House post. He tried - and, mercifully, failed - to install the co-founder of Taconic in the job of running the TARP bailouts. But again, Summers's potential conflicts of interest seem less telling than the conflict of values that his Harvard double-résumé exemplifies."

One standard for banksters, another for everyone else.

Isn't that Frank Chu?

Goldman Sachs employees provide a service. You give them billions of your tax dollars and they promise not to stop spending. I mean just think of all the private airline pilots that would lose their job if GS was allowed to stand on their own.

Anonymous@4:20 at 7:33pm....my sympathies as well

A New Way Forward is the perfect vehicle for a generalized anti-system protest. If my understanding is correct it had its origin with the Friends Service Committee, an organization with tons of credibility. Combining anti-bailout/anti-financial lobby sentiment of this description with resistance to an identical kind of government takeover by AIPAC and associated foreign policy interests is a logical add-on. Its not only our economic life that is enslaved, its our Middle Eastern policy as well. The filth that allegedly "serves" us in government need to be brought to account in public trials through mass demonstrations of this kind. Anything less will achieve nothing. Either the system and those that run it goes or their fetid-breathe will be smelled forever. There can be no compromise when it comes to these reptiles.

"One standard for banksters, another for everyone else."

Funny, I feel the same way about Harvard and Yale graduates.

Stress Tests: Who Will Take the Fall?

To view our impartial assessment, please visit:

www.TheValueatRisk.blogspot.com

"Joe Retiree votes and so do his friends"
------------

Joe Retiree is a debtor.
So are his friends.

That is CR on the left

On the left you can see Nemo, Rich and Rob Dawg and others

Country Joe McDonald - "Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBdeCxJmcAo

Oh those were the days....Change Vietnam to Banking Oligarchs and you've got a winner !

Foreign wars? How about when they realize all the seniors are moving back home because there aren't any jobs???

Your parents took care of you for how many years? Why wouldn't you extend them the same courtesy?

Bearly,
Obviously you have never been to California. If you came to California as an American Citizen you would instantly be considered an illegal alien. How? Because Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have allowed Mexico to recapture California for the Californios. You may still call California, California, but it is really known as Northern Mexico. As a citizen of Northern Mexico, you get all the benefits of citizenship. Northern Mexicans can avoid registration fees by driving their car with a Baja California license plate. You also, don't have to pay for a driver's license or driver's training as long as you have a "consulate matricular" driver's license issued from Mexico. If you wish to drive a tractor trailer truck, you don't need driver's training like all those US Citizens. Best part about it, when you smuggle drugs across the border and the INS agents shoot at you, it's the INS agents that go to jail. You are actually protected by the US Gov't against the US Citizens. What a deal!

American Idles

Robert Iger, Disney: $51 (overpaid and happily short DIS)

Vikram Pandit, Citigroup: $38 (Imagine if Citi stock had stayed above 10 dollars!)

Athletes don't bother me because I don't go to games and vote against every stadium project that uses public money.

vote against every stadium project that uses public money.

I'm actually proud that SO CAL does not have a pro-Football team. So Cal resident might be stupid, but we are smart enough to allow another NFL Al Davis Rip Off.

I was proud to be part of the only major protest against overseas adventures six years ago in SF. Too bad I wasn't there to be part of this one. Once again, SF is far ahead of the curve, and a few years later, the rest of the nation will reluctantly catch up to the obvious.

Damn Things are tough down at the Black Star Ranch

How do you avoid taxes may I ask?

Volcker or many other notables who are willing to get their hands dirty can handle the banks. Its really not that complicated you just need to have a spine...

Be careful generalizing. There is a (very) small minority of younger folks who care. I am one of them, being in my mid-20s and watching this whole thing in astonishment. The problem is, I never cared much for economics prior to graduating college, so I am on a steep learning curve here. But it is all interesting, educational, and appalling, all at once, what is happening to our financial system.

I would say the group of young people you refer to are the other 98% who are more interested in MTV, American Idol, I-Phones, etc. Sad indeed.

TJ: I don't like to be conned -- not by the radical right or the looney left. Gingrich is conning the American people. So no, I won't attend any protest mounted by that smuck & his pal, Grover Norquist.

Also, I wouldn't compare the Boston Tea Party to this pathetic attempt to manipulate the populace.

Real protests are coming soon enough. I was involved in the Sixties and I'm smart enough to know the difference between real protesters & Grover's groupies.

Sorry, the above comment was a response to Mr. Beach's at 6:52pm.

Okay, the 2 per share value bear stearns stock holders were going to get which was backstopped by good ole greenbacks from the United States Treasury allowing them to actually receive 10 per share is also going to be paid back?

"Didn't they give us Feinstein, Boxer and Pelosi?"

Actually, Newsom is far more embarrassing than any of those three, and that is saying something.

But do you know of any other city to host a major protest six years ago?

And if this protest was simply due to the location, please share a link to the other ones at the other locations. Thanks!

"but they're loans"

do you really believe a penny of that AIG, FNM and FRE money is coming back? do you really believe that C would still be around without the fed backstop?

"Do not blame GS, blame the system"

ummm... where did half of these guys cut their teeth again (and stuff their mattresses)?

Anonymous: Didn't mean to offend. Really. We actually agree that it's time the working stiff catches a break. Solid middle-class here. But this teabag thing...well, something just doesn't smell right to me.

No one at GS has been convicted yet. Yet.

" Do you really believe a penny of that AIG, FNM and FRE money is coming back? do you really believe that C would still be around without the fed backstop?"

Highly unlikely that they would be around...as an investor and a citizen, I prefer calamity be avoided. Since they missed the easy way (ie early 2000's) we'll have to do it by the more complicated method. I get the protest excitement on this board but the stimulus at this moment is strongly on the side of the economics. However, the economist and finance majors are not likely to be widely available at these events...much less the European style.

"but how'd that turn out?"

well, as you may recall, W's national approval was over 80% at that point. it was the beginning of a long process of a national return to sanity. of course, it came too late, and obviously our new administration is just as controlled by the most villainous of the cast of characters to control the last one, but there has been some progress. From the perspective of 1961, the 1955 bus boycott also seemed to have produced little or nothing in the way of tangible improvements to anyone involved.

Anonymous: Didn't mean to offend. Really. -

Paradigm Lost, other than being taken for a scum-bag RNC shill, no offence taken.

"that by destroying the currency more calamity will come about."

if only we could get off that cross off gold - instead, it is more likely that the trillions wired directly to the caymans in the past few months in the names of FNM, FRE and AIG counterparties will still represent real value when being paid off on the installment plan by our grandkids.

Cowboy capitalism rides again. Summers conflicted with crony connections. We're starting to look more and more like Russia during the Yeltsin era.

http://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.com/2006/01/how-harvard-lost-russia...

Remeber people banksters are people too, just like us ! Just with a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot more money... mostly ours.. but still please have some compassion for them in these difficult times.

"We're starting to look more and more like Russia during the Yeltsin era."
------------
Hey!
I said that many months ago!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d'état_attempt

"...Do not blame GS, blame the system.."

If you blame the system, you blame no one. There were fiduciary responsibilities that were ignored by "people" in the system. I believe in "Name and Shame."

It's way past time for a Pecora-like commission with supoena powers. I would bet that lots of laws were broken. We just don't know which ones yet.

Anonymous: My sincere apologies. Is that better? I hope so. My only defense is that the CR threads have been invaded by the sock puppets recently. There have been other Anons posting here with dubious intent.

these protests feel like "autistic children trying to walk".No bad wishes to autistic children.

Broward: I see we DO agree on something. Quite a story about HIID and the ruin of Russia. Anyone can see the parallels.

Us geezers knew how to protest, by crackey. Just need some inspirational leadership, some good organizin' and some righteous anger directed at the Kleptocrats.

It takes a lot to get Americans riled up. If the entrenched interests continue to diss the people, they'll get out in the streets. It's already ramping up in Europe and Asia.

Dryfly: Oh, Lordy! Fartin' thru silk ...seems like a million years ago.

what is LMFAO?

I like this one best -- "KILL THE BANKS". AMEN!

"while the banksters are getting their fair trial"
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A fair trial would be so left-wingish.

Could you really stand it, Dawg?

and yet JPM puts are still so damn overpriced. maybe we'll need a month of letting the VIX settle down before a decent setup happens for the next big down move.

Norka...I'm betting I got a file somewhere in the bowels of the Agency. But I got good company.

Michael: Fuggitaboutit....he's an old hippie.

Mannwich wrote on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 7:07pm.
The protesters are old because they're likely the only ones who give a rat's ass and know WTF is going on. The youngsters who are going to be most adversely affected by these bailout are all at the coffee shop Twittering about taking a nasty shit or at home watchig American Idol.

No! You're wrong! Those are just really old looking Gen Next, X and Y'ers! The boomers are the problem, they can't possibly be out protesting!

Boomers are EVIL! Boomers never had to pay off credit card debt, they never had high house payments(2-3 times rent), they never bought and paid for a too expensive car, they are EVIL blood suckers!

/end snark. Sigh.

Will we ever raise a generation that can appreciate those who come before them? I mean before they become their grandparents or great-grandparents?

Will it ever occur to young people that what their elders may or may not have comes from a lifetime of struggle? I fought to keep my house during a very bad patch in my life (not via whining on the internet) and I struggled to get out of credit card debt at the same time, I did it and it was awful, but I did it. [edit to remove even more embarrassing personal stuff].

Sure, some boomers are irresponsible, but I don't personally know of any who've lost their homes to foreclosure, I can't say the same for my Gen X and Y acquaintances. No, those "kids" didn't lose the houses over the mortgage payment, they lost it over the levered up toys...at least, that's my personal experience.

/end rant.

Apologies to all.