The election almost seems to be a distraction from the financial meldtown right now.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
An almost top 10,000 blog!
… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard
This blog will pay for itself.
Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.
Infrastructure week. at last.
“More of this”, i said to the dog.
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
jon
What’s obscene is that Bush is presiding over this meltdown, but his Decider persona is nowhere to be seen. The Republican leadership ideal seems to be a figurehead position, which is the best way I can come up with to explain the enduring viability of the McCain/Palin ticket.
Our currency will take a dive, our ability to invest in ourselves already has, our credit rating is heading away from an elite status, but the fundament is strong. Which is good since we landed on it and are going to be sitting on it for a long time while sorting this all out.
Michael D.
I’m not a fan of too much regulation, but it occurs to me that, going forward, no American company should ever be allowed to get “Too Big To Fail.” Going forward, if a company fails, it should do nothing but cause a minor blip on the stock market.
But what do I know….
John Cole
Not sure what Bush can do, exactly. Probably the best thing he can do is stay out of sight and let Bernanke, Paulson,and Cox handle things.
jaimito
[quote]I’m not a fan of too much regulation, but it occurs to me that, going forward, no American company should ever be allowed to get “Too Big To Fail.” Going forward, if a company fails, it should do nothing but cause a minor blip on the stock market.
But what do I know….[/quote]
Anti-trust lawsuits are reserved solely for software companies, as the staff will be comprised entirely of elitist liberal fags… well, except for the one rightwing neckbeard we keep around for IT.
The server room gets hot and it makes for wicked schadenfreude when we send his ass in there to deal with stuff.
Dennis - SGMM
Other than a bunch of over-valued real estate, what did America get from the Wall Street boom? Our infrastructure is still decaying, New Orleans isn’t rebuilt, 55% of our cars come from overseas, our electrical grid is still in the same shape it was when Enron went under, we’ve lost thousands of non-Wall Street jobs, and the only area in which we seem to be innovators is televised reality shows.
We’ve now thrown a couple of hundred billion into bailouts as well as assumed Fannie and Freddie’s half-trillion in liabilities in the interest of saving a system “too big to fail.” I’d say that it failed already.
Snail
Actually, I think the British and the Japanese are the big innovators in this field. American producers are simply repacking their old ideas.
eglenn
Interesting article on SEC “Special Exemptions” granted to five companies in 2004. Three of the five bit the dust last week…
Napoleon
But he is the decider!
He should put his codpiece on and prance around spouting bromides to make us feel better about ‘Merica.
Incertus
Considering that if he made a public appearance and promised to give the matter his full attention, we’d probably see the market lose half its value in a day, that’s for the best.
Surly Duff
There have been no significant changes to the financial regulations in the last eight years that might credibly have created this crisis (the one major alteration, Sarbanes-Oxley, moved things in the other direction).
Maybe, I’m definitely not a complete expert on legislative changes to regulatory rules, especially on the financial sector. I’m still learning more to educate myself on what happened. However, here are a few things I do know with regards to regulations.
Most federal regulation is placecd on the traditional banking system through the FDIC, but the Fed does not have similar regulatory controls over investment banks like Bear Stearns. Also, there is no (or very little) regulatory oversight on mortgage lending (especially sub-prime), derivatives, and other financial mechanisms. In addition, the SEC only adopted measures to provide oversight of securities in 2004, where no regualtory oversight existed for investment banks. This was not the result of one action, but of many that, compounded, finally caused the proverbial shit to hit the proverbial fan.
zzyzx
Well the liquidity move does seem to be working this morning. I hope it’s more than a short term gain.
Dennis - SGMM
Bush should come out and hearten the American people with a stirring speech invoking his administration’s record of success in… in… in…
b. hussein canuckistani
Maybe you guys could follow Russia’s example and sell Alaska to China. I’m thinking that would solve a whole heap of problems.
scarfiotti
Comments from Jim Cramer (a Democrat by the way) this morning:
“Confidence matters. But no one has confidence in anyone. Or anything.
I know that we on Wall Street are deeply cynical and untrusting. I also know that the president of the United States doesn’t command the moral or political authority that the office needs.
Still, I find myself asking, where is the president? Why wasn’t President Bush on television last night explaining, in plain English, that we will see our way through this financial crisis, and that the money Treasury has spent is well spent. Or that your money is safe at your bank, nothing’s changed. Or that the problems of Wall Street will be sorted out and the Treasury, the Fed and the regulators, who are well aware of the problems. Why is that so hard? Why not try to calm people?”
chopper
likely won’t be. the fed wants the market to end the week on a high note but its a small amount of cash to pump in.
The Moar You Know
In 25 minutes your worst fears will be realized.
Svensker
Should I be nervous that when I try to access my brokerage account on-line, I get “navigation to the webpage was canceled”?
One of the few times in the last few years I’ve agreed with Tweety? “Where is the President? Any NORMAL President would be out talking to the American people. Where IS he?”
Ash Can
A perfectly legitimate question, and under normal circumstances–viz., having an actual president in office–one I’d be asking as well.
But we don’t have a real president, at least in terms of executive leadership. Sure, there’s someone taking up space in the White House, a placeholder for the title. Given his track record, though, I’m glad he isn’t doing anything right now. In fact, the further away from anything and everything he can stay for the remainder of his term, the better. Lock him in a closet and feed him through the keyhole. The entire world would be better off.
montysano
Not to nitpick, but we’ve assumed liabilities of about $5T from Fannie and Freddie. Now…some of this is good stuff, has value, but the Congressional Budget Office is insisting that it be accounted for as part of the national debt.
So, in the last two weeks we’ve spent about $1T on bailouts and added $5T to the national debt. And assholes like Eric Cantor attempt to dodge any responsibility; in fact, that fucker refused to even speak the word “Republican”.
Everyone should set aside 38 minutes and listen to last night’s Fresh Air With Terry Gross. Riveting. Terrifying. We have a shadow banking system that is worth about $60T.
ThymeZone
That’s why we need to start calling it the Gramm-McCain Unregulated Market Meltdown.
A little truth in labeling is all I’m asking for.
Molloy
Lehman Bros directors took five billion dollars in BONUSES!!!
Please note that the above thread on a message board will disappear after some time. Hope you catch it in time.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Whenever this phrase comes up, be sure to say it this way:
unregulated shadow banking system
Because this system didn’t just invent itself. It was created as part of a deliberate end-run around the regulations on the old safe boring banking system, aka the one that FDR and company fixed after the last GOP sponsored depression.
That old system was safe, stable, boring and low-profit. That wasn’t good enough for the whiz kids on Wall St. and their GOP enablers like Phil Gramm. They wanted high profits, and tried to pretend that you can generate high returns without taking high risks. They were idiots.
How Republicans of all people failed to understand the concept of a risk-return spectrum I have no idea, but these aren’t your father’s Republicans apparently. More like they are the people your father’s Republicans warned you about.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
OK, for chart junkies here’s another glorious example of not-your-fathers-credit-market at work (thanks GOP):
Not a flight to quality, but a rocket ship
[title taken from comments in that thread – h/t to commentor Nemo]
chopper
jesus, what a spread.
zzyzx
You know, when I wondered how long the rally would last, I was thinking in terms of how many days, not how many hours. Sheesh.
w vincentz
The origin of the word “credit” comes from Latin. It means trust, the belief that the borrower will make repayment of monies entrusted. Now that major banks are no longer extending “credit” to each other, is there really a sane person that is unable to admit that if they don’t trust each other, the rest of us they hope will offer them, entrust them with OUR money “capital”? Fools!
There is NO trust. None. Kaput. Gone.
While we watch the collapse of conservative ideology that hitched their horses to a wagon called “free market” (but only as far as the federal govenment will remedy their failures), do we now see the fallacy of “borrow and spend” funding for two failed “wars” while giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 1%.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the kings horses and all the kings men….
you know the rest