84 Comments

1. Willie G:

One more time: Why on earth would any sane person think that the folks whose actions got us into this mess are the same folks we should hire to try and get us out?

Remember the wunderkind that McNamara hired at DOD and what they accomplished in VietNam?

An (Ivy League) education is a wonderful thing, but a track record of accomplishment and success is better. Demonstrated common sense is better yet.

Mar 24, 2009 - 5:15 am 2. maineman:

No.

Mar 24, 2009 - 5:16 am 3. peterike:

It’s fair to ask whether the supposed outrage over AIG bonuses did not have some beneficial value to making this argument.

Of course it did. Which is why the entire thing was staged from the get-go, complete with phony “demonstrations” by the ACORN crowd (e.g. the usual suspects). The country is being played. The Pravda press is providing cover.

Mar 24, 2009 - 5:54 am 4. Our Paul:

Let me understand this post. The gentle folks who thought that torture was an acceptable means to obtain information, that invading a country under false pretenses was desirable, that jailed people without legal recourse and hide them away on an island concentration camp was acceptable, now one hesitates to make to comparison (to an Obama request) with the Reichstag fire?” (my quotations)

One more slip like that and the author of this post will be drummed out of Pajama Media. We all know that Obama is a Socialist, and that the Nazi movement was known as Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

Common gang, if you are going to show your stupidity, no hesitations, no equivocations, go all the way. Obama is the reincarnation of Hitler, and Pajama Media is the voice of reason!

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:03 am 5. Nomenklatura:

The bankers are being asked to run riot one last time, this time with full access to the government’s balance sheet as they design their high-leverage schemes.

Socialism always exhibits the same trajectory. Promising a lot of stuff you have no idea how to deliver, followed by coercion and the abuse of power against individuals when it all goes wrong. Obama, Geithner, Pelosi and Summers are still generally at the first stage, although some financial managers have noticed that with AIG we have already seen what happens at stage two.

It will take a generation to sort out this mess after all these politicians are thrown out. It’s a self-inflicted catastrophe.

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:11 am 6. wretchard:

Oh, the people who invented rendition, both before and now in its new expanded form, are suddenly empowered to accuse anybody and everybody in this forum of favoring torture. You can’t intimidate people with that kind of fake superiority much longer. The jig is almost up.

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:24 am 7. jms:

whose actions got us into this mess are the same folks we should hire
> to try and get us out?

If an experienced airline pilot screws up and puts a plane into a nose dive, would you rather have:

1) That pilot do everything he can to save the plane?
2) That pilot parachute out, and the passengers select a new pilot.

With the high-level AIGFP resignations yesterday, Congress has chosen option 2. What do you think will happen to AIG when that “handful” of executives gets new jobs at other investment companies betting against AIG’s unhedged book?

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:40 am 8. anton:

Our Paul lost his way on his trip to the DailyKos. Get your facts straight Paul, take a Prozac and a couple of deep breaths, you might even want to come out of your parent’s basement from time to time.

Just remember that the trillions Obama is spending now will be your tax burden for the rest of your life.

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:46 am 9. steeple:

it’s still amazing to me that discussions around items like seizure of companies are being had before a complete systemic review of what occurred can be done and widely digested. how about focusing on how to manage a shadow banking system first? i have no problems with a discussion of minimum capital requirements for certain financial activities; shouldn’t that core issues and ability to manage entity/systemic risk be discussed before we get into a discussion of remedies?

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:47 am 10. Insufficiently Sensitive:

“We can’t have entities like AIG going totally uncontrolled and unregulated when they have such a forceful effect on the economy,” Kanjorski added.

Them kulaks had better be settled quickly on the kolkhoz, and their power over their possessions confiscated by the wise Party cadres who will guide us into a shining future. ‘Obama knows what to do’.

If AIG and the other banks weren’t the entering wedge, this move certainly is.

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:59 am 11. anton:

@9. steeple: It does seem rather like a doctor deciding what type of surgery is needed before even hearing the symptoms or seeing the x-rays. But, as they have said, you don’t want to let a “good crisis” (has anyone else been bother by the obvious idiocy of that phrase?) go to waste.

If they took the time and the public was made aware of the causes of the problems there would be a LOT of rookie congresspersons and senators in the next few years, not to mention stockholder meetings that looked more like lynch mobs. Better to just let the concept of a free market die that to take any shred of responsibility for one’s actions!

Mar 24, 2009 - 6:59 am 12. Willie G:

#7 – jms: Where we differ is over the “experienced airline pilot” – I’m suggesting that a pilot with 10,000 hours experience is preferrable to a rookie who just got his license, no matter how well educated he is. “There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.”

The way most folks learn is by making mistakes. Sometimes folks learn by observing the mistakes of others (which is usually cheaper). The current mantra of “too big to fail” denies the lessons to be learned from the CDS boondoggle – insurance without sufficient loss reserves is no insurance at all.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:02 am 13. wretchard:

China takes aim at the dollar.

BEIJING — China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world’s standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations’ growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy. The unusual proposal, made by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan in an essay released Monday in Beijing, is part of China’s increasingly assertive approach to shaping the global response to the financial crisis.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:18 am 14. wretchard:

The conservatives are losing two crucial sprints: the race to re-create their core and what comes subsequently, the race to build coalitions with moderate liberals. Let’s take it back to front. Suppose current events were heading for a crisis the nature. In order for that crisis to be resolved without creating irreconcilable divisions, it has to be undertaken by a coalition broadly representing the center, or at least plausibly from it. Unless that center is created, any political “victory” by conservatives may be destablizing in the long run.

But a coalition can never be built unless principled but flexible leadership emerges. Coalitions don’t emerge of their own accord. So to a certain extent, the present success of extremism is the mirror image of the failure and pussilanimity of the conservative center. One can fault Obama for many things, but the disunity and tentativeness of his opposition is not one them.

Getting a core going is only half the battle. Reaching out and creating coalitions, especially on the major issues, is vital to avoid bumps along the road.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:34 am 15. ash:

I posted this in the applicable thread but it is old so, this being an open thread and all, I thought I would drag it up here as well:

I’m a little late replying but life gets in the way of blog commenting sometimes.

I took a look at that article you linked Buddy and it is a much better one than your first. It still doesn’t offer good support for abandoning mark to market though. Issac’s basic argument is that capital was destroyed and mark to market is to blame. I agree capital has been destroyed but I would suggest that it is simply mark to market that allows us to see that it has occurred. M2M simply reflects how much capital can be stated on the balance sheet. Projected earnings cannot. In Issac’s chart he points out the M2M required losses versus the banks Maximum expected lifetime losses. First off, why should we accept the banks projections? How should we determine what the ‘reality’ is? I would suggest that the free market is our best and most reliable guide to value. For a mundane example take your house – you may have installed 5 bathrooms complete with hand decorated golden toilets at a cost of many many thousands. You may also firmly believe that your house has now appreciated in value an equal (or marginally discounted) amount. I would suggest the free market will more accurately price the increase in value you would get from such a renovation. If you were lending money to such a homeowner how would you decide how much to loan based on the collateral offered? I would think the you would not accept the full value of said installed toilets, not by a long shot, rather you would look to similar homes in the neighborhood to assess a value. If the homeowner sold the house at a price he predicted, well great, he can stick it under capital.

On a more general note: I am quite surprised at how so many of you, Buddy and Blert in particular, who I would have expected to be champions of a free market are so quick to abandon ones ideological foundations for the expedient. Take Charles example of retroactively abrogating contracts made between consenting parties by executive order. Aside from the problems constitutionally of doing this what about market actors ability to act freely? Now, if you want to set up regulations requiring the participants to hold the bonds in question that is one thing but to do it retroactively is quite something else. Back to M2M – the market is giving us the valuations. Granted it is an odd market but it should reach some sort of equilibrium and price accurately in the longer run. To force it through accounting slight of hand and executive order is inviting larger more systemic problems. Why not just go whole hog here and adopt a Soviet style command economy? Why not, well we know that it is a poor inefficient system and getting rid of accurate market pricing will simply move us another step in that direction. There is a lot to be said for the dynamism of the American economy and our allowance for creative destruction – we seem to be abandoning that now for the appearance of short term gain.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:35 am 16. The Old Guy:

If this is done, it would be only a step further for the Feds to seize any firm or organization that they – in their wisdom – deem “critical” to the economy, or really any other aspect of life.

Obama has already claimed that de facto nationalizing of health care, and replacing the current energy infrastructure with fantasy renewables, is critical to the economy.

I’d say their are few other things that they could do to more effectively undermine confidence in the financial system and the future economic performance of the country.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:39 am 17. a dood:

The parallels to the Reichstag fire are pretty ominous… I hope you’re just being paranoid, Wretchard. Remember a lot of people really think Bush orchestrated 911.

But if this a real grab for power, it’s not hard to picture a shadowy figure somewhere saying “All this is going much faster than we had dared to hope…”

But who?

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:41 am 18. wretchard:

But who?

Is a question that doesn’t have to have a conspiratorial answer, though it may have. Maybe it’s all “just coming together”, although given the fact that the administration admits foreknowledge of AIG’s bonuses, it’s hard to believe that they were totally surprised an outraged. Yet be that as it may, it is prudent to approach this wholesale extension of power with caution. You would do that anyway. It is also prudent for conservatives to get their act together. If only on general principles. What are they waiting for? A crisis?

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:45 am 19. Lifeofthemind:

It is helpful to trace back the reasoning that says that since the non-bank firms participate in the economy they should be as subject to seizure as banks. Going forward it will lead to the power to seize any business or individual. After all they participate in the economy too, don’t they? The attitude that taking a government benefit, even if coerced, justifies government regulation starts with the exploitation of the Elastic and the Commerce clauses to justify Federal regulation in what would under the Constitution be considered State functions. The idea that the people are subjects who a duty to the beneficent government was advanced by the government expansion in Health Care. At first this happened in the State or local realm where, as with education, there was no constitutional issue. More recently the Federal authorities assumed a role in these fields and the concurring right to regulate effected conduct. The first efforts were naturally on an issue that was trivial. The justification for seat-belt laws was that accident victims would end up in government supported hospitals and therefor there was a public interest in forcing people to wear seat-belts in order to reduce the cost to the taxpayers. For the record if I am driving and you get in my car you will buckle up. Real purists might want to push this line of thought back to the fluoridation of water. The key issue here is that the Federal government has used this logic to insert itself into regulating and now potentially seizing any form of activity or individual anywhere.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:50 am 20. dan:

a dood makes the point that should hover over all analysis: there is the temptation to suffer ODS against the last 8 years’ BDS that should never be underestimated, and should not be indulged in.

However, the economic crisis has undoubtedly created the infrastructure-in-waiting and public expectation which, if the country’s executives and legislators intend and can manage with sufficient subtlty, could result in a revolution of government power over private wealth, including the power to abrogate contracts.

Conservative “BDS” is a temptation, but there is also a vast difference between starting a foreign war against country which the prior administration had regarded as a threat, *even* if it was just a plot to co-opt Arab oil and move money into Cheney’s friends’ coffers, and altering the fundamental market-government relationship in favor of the government.

Like it or not, that possibility is now locked and loaded. I personally wonder whether all this “outrage” about AIG bonuses and Madoff and whatnot is sincere populist spontaneity or organized to produce the impression, magnified by the media, that there is some kind of mandate among the people for the kind of “fix this problem now whatever it takes, oh Obamamessiah!” that would provide the ultimate image that could lubricate a serious takeover. Even the “czars” – led by the head czar, Joe Biden, bailout commissar – make all this look a little suspicious. I really don’t think a little fear is unjustified in these circumstances.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:52 am 21. twobyfour:

Polifish – a TOTUS Translator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj36ydRKQzI

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:53 am 22. JMH:

Reichstag fire? I’m sure the Obamunists are trying to bend every crisis to their plan, but it sure is stretching it to say the AIG bonus bruhaha justifies this new power. More like declaring Martial Law because of a couple of jaywalkers.

But these bunch also doesn’t really need any justification, they just do what they want and think they can get away with it, because they have. I suspect the lesson they learned from the 1994 elections was not “don’t overreach when you control everything” but rather “get it all done as quick as you can, before the next election.”

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:55 am 23. Habu:

3. peterike:

I have thought so many times what you put keystroke to computer …we’re being played.

Everything encountered by obama was a ‘crisis” that if not solved his way immediately the world would implode. As bad as things MAY HAVE BEEN it’s unlikely a worldwide systemic implosion would have occurred.

His “crisis’” were rhetorical spin to establish his initial Presidential impression that ,yes, “I am the brightest man ever to read a teleprompter”

This is not to say or imply no problems existed but obama’s methodology and ideology of never wasting a crisis….well he just juiced up the jam and now he laughs at us on national TV. We are the fools

obama ONE and DONE,
and let’s give him a midterm migraine while we wait for his fall in 2012.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:55 am 24. Lifeofthemind:

wretchard,
I posted this on the Loss of Lift thread a few hours ago, please forgive the repost but since you brought up the subject I offer it again.
_____

Dodd’s wife’s side jobs are a smoking gun. Game, Set and Match.

China’s call for a new reserve currency is just more kicking the can of the problem down the road. Can’t run an honest local government or steal enough from your neighbors? Then send all the power and responsibility to Washington. Uncle Sugar has no more credit to pay for your toys? Then send all the bills to the UN and IMF. The virtues of capitalism include the joining of responsibilities for choices at the point of production. Socialism constantly seeks to offload responsibility. The US borrowed massively from China to pay for hundreds of billions worth of consumer goods and subsidize some of the inflated levels of professional employment in education and financial services. China also got something for the trade. They bought domestic tranquility. The chinese regime is fundamentally illegitimate since it is not based on any ancient lineage like a monarchy, is not based on any revolutionary or divine truth like the white heat of communism was and is not based on the sovereignty of the people. All they have is the Mandate of Heaven, which is another name for inertia.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:59 am 25. dan:

The new reserve currency will be offered by Russia, China and some other countries, at the April meeting of the G20. However practical the idea would be, its offer should communicate what ought already be obvious: there may or may not be a domestic conspiracy, but there is certainly a foreign, Asiatic conspiracy directed against the USA – its formal name is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Very interesting that we should have an Obama, now, in the face of such clear aggression. They make things like the following article look pretty damn worrying:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article5962787.ece

Mar 24, 2009 - 8:07 am 26. Habu:

But who? How about socialists for a starter.

Cui bono is more apropos. An age old answer
The king wants the war to gain lands and destroy a political rival, the priesthood wants the war to destroy the enemy heretics, the nobles want the war because they wish to avenge old wrongs, and the warriors want the war because they want the war booty.

Just find the answer to cui bono……this administrations credo of never letting a good crisis go to waste suggest that while the fireman is rescuing the kitty from the tree under the rapt attention of the neighborhood, others are inside the house stealing the silverware.

Mar 24, 2009 - 8:13 am 27. Habu:

25. dan:

Allow me to introduce you to a tool that will shorten you addresses considerably.

It is tinyurl.com

You place the huge address in one window,press enter and it creates a url that is much much smaller. Give it a try . I have had 175 character url’s reduced to 25 characters.

Not trying to stick my nose in your business just thought you might not know it exists.

Mar 24, 2009 - 8:18 am 28. blert:

International Money can only be issued by a single polity that has good commercial law, a world dominant navy, and a market clearing economy.

Anything the SCO issues will be script.

That these economic midgets who are on their knees can begin currency exports…

Tis but a dream.

Mar 24, 2009 - 8:42 am 29. Robohobo:

“Can anyone be trusted with so far reaching an authority?”

That is rhetorical, right? Remember Rahm? ‘A good crisis is a terrible thing to waste’ or some such nonsense. This whole thing is Cloward-Piven from the get-go. It is all manufactured crisis. No one has answered what happened back during last September’s meltdown that sparked all of this. Who raided the US Treasury for $550B? Soros? He has done the same elsewhere before.

wretchard @14: “The conservatives are losing two crucial sprints:…”

This is no longer just conservative vs. liberal. This is one for the survival of the Republic as we know it. Should Treasury be given the powers of illegal takings, the US Constitution goes out the window and their job is, de facto, done.

Why do all the smart people not see it? Or is this a case of misdirection? Once more the rubes in flyover country are the only ones who see the dangers?

Posted by ‘just another flyover country redneck’

Mar 24, 2009 - 8:51 am 30. M. Simon:

Re: China and the “new” currency.

The currency will have to be backed by the ability to steal (tax). Taxation without representation tends to be unpopular. So where is this new currency going to come from? China? Nope. Russia? Nope. The EU – the fincrash is worse there. The UN? Surely you are joking. The IMF? It exists on suffrage. The World Bank? Where do they get their money.

A bank has to start with trust. I don’t see much around these days. Anywhere.

Mar 24, 2009 - 9:08 am 31. blert:

So the Secretary of the Treasury is to be given fiat pawer?

Timmy can’t even file taxes when pushed.

Timmy can’t even remember his own negotiations over the AIG bonuses.

He looks helpless in this Greek Tragedy/ Noh Play.

Mar 24, 2009 - 9:09 am 32. M. Simon:

Or you can do the right thing and learn a little html code:

Timesonline Article

Mar 24, 2009 - 9:18 am 33. Willie G:

To quote:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

And the list is: (some 27 are listed in the original)

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

How much longer will we dance to the music?

Mar 24, 2009 - 9:21 am 34. dan:

Fair enough, but they do have some sort of proposal they will unveil at the G20 meeting. If currency is simply a matter of trust, couldn’t a sufficiently large group of nations, backed by nuclear missile shields and containing (1) a huge quantity of the world’s energy and raw materials and (2) the single largest labor force do something to square the circle with respect to a reserve currency? I don’t know anything about monetary policy; I merely think it significant that a notion which started in the End Times corner of the blogosphere should actually be officially announced in Russian media as a certainty. Seems significant and strange to me, anyway.

Mar 24, 2009 - 9:41 am 35. buddy larsen:

They want to use the IMF, with a consortium form, backers will be the larger industrial nations, who would pledge resources to back the currency. IMF already has a form of ‘deal’ money untied to any currency –it’s an industrial credit used whenever there just isn’t enough money on the borrower side –sort of an IMF subprime. The credit money becomes real money when it represents a share of those pledges. Technically, it’s quite doable.

A vote against it, in fact, given that the Dollar is being deliberately debased, is a vote to in effect subsidize the USA military so that it can/will continue to police the trade routes and deter various chaotic subsystems.

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:17 am 36. PSL:

wretchard @ 7:45 ‘Maybe it’s all “just coming together”, although given the fact that the administration admits foreknowledge of AIG’s bonuses, it’s hard to believe that they were totally surprised an outraged.’ They didn’t think twice to put forward candidates for cabinet posts with six figure tax problems, why should the AIG bonuses have been a problem? I think it’s “just all coming together.”

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:18 am 37. blert:

Our government is already operating in a grossly unconstitutional way.

Voting for legislation unread and above all presenting it to the House at such a time as effect one-party government: the minority being denied all of its procedural rights.

Voting for a Bill of Attainder — specifically proscribed by the Constitution.

Using the Income Tax to target a narrow body of men whom but weeks prior this very same Congress specifically favored.

Delegating law writing powers to the K Street clan.

Enabling crony capitalism by appointing an incestuous crew into all critical financial positions in the executive branch.

Funding a purely partisan criminal organization for the express purpose of corrupting all elections. (ACORN)

Corrupting the national accounts such that none of the official published figures published in these times are consistent in method or content with prior norms, thus debasing the knowledge of the citizens.

Gaming the citizenry via data mining and gerrymander so as to remove any realistic possibility of voter recall.

Not defending our borders against gross instances of illegal immigration on the grounds that such a stance will permanently re-align the political balance of the nation towards one-party state.

Aiding and abetting mass muslim immigration in the face of islams’ cardinal demand that all Constitutional norms be overthrown and that all other religions be suppressed or destroyed.

Scheming behind closed doors with our immediate neighbors to dilute our States’ power to regulate commerce by initiating treaties whose ambit is to overarch State laws on the pretext of national need.

Creating and enabling a permanent politically dependent class for he express purpose of establishing and maintaining a one-party state.

Establishing an unfathomable pile of rules and regulations on the fifty states and the citizens therein for the express purpose of political graft, such rules and regulations being drafted by the K Street crew.

Promulgating a vast web of Federal intrusions into every State’s rights as expressed in the Constitution typically via some economically coercive mechanism.

Creating a national agitprop party organ expressly for the purpose of elevating and insulating a sitting President above the restraints of our Congress.

Scheming to deliberately debase our currency and thereby impoverish the common citizen with the explicit purpose of funding politically connected individuals of great wealth, socializing their losses while enabling vast private rents from the common weal. ( AIG, et. al. )

Corrupting our credit markets by establishing and expanding Community Reinvestment Act Policy (CRAP) which has proved to be the launch point for a global real estate bubble.

Establishing and expanding Special Investment Vehicles ( FNMA, et. al. ) which free ride on the national credit granting benefits consistently to the benefit of just one party.

Enacting blatantly racist favoritism policies that make some citizens more equal under the law than others.

Would that the Belmont Club expand on this Bill of Particulars.

It’s depressing…

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:27 am 38. blert:

No fiat currency has ever been established through the mechanisms that are here being discussed.

Tis but a dream.

Fiat currency is based on faith and trust.

How in hell do you square that with Russia or China?

Get real. They’ve got nothing; some raw materials and non-essential manufactured goods. All the stuff you really need is still made in the 1st World.

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:32 am 39. buddy larsen:

but blert, how does all look from the POV of a foreigner holding US Treasury long bonds? Say his coupon is 4%, he knows that just a small wobble in demand will dump new 8%ers into the mkt and knock his asset value down down by the discounted difference, or half less the less the shortened maturity factor. Under Carter, this giant bond crash happened fast once it started. Anti-USA? Only if that is how to describe business partners trying to cope with the enterprise’s CFO gone off on a bottle bender.

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:50 am 40. Captain Ramen:

@ash: I’ll take a swing at it.

What a lot of people don’t mention is the role M2M had in creating the housing bubble in the first place.

A simplistic example: Say a bank holds a CDO that represents all houses in an ‘up and coming’ neighborhood in Los Angeles. The area used to be rundown, but now the hipsters are moving in and driving up prices. Since the value of a house in in part determined by the last sale price of another house, the CDO based on these houses is also going up.

Since we have fractional reserve banking, naturally the bank is going to leverage this CDO 5x. Because the bank is using M2M accounting, they can leverage this CDO further and further. Never mind that this new hip neighborhood is still a POS – lots of gang activity, bars on the windows, etc. Never mind that these hipsters bought these houses with ARMs.

Well it’s 2006 and investors realize it’s a house of cards. They take money out of real estate, leaving housing prices flat or declining. The money goes into commodities like oil and gold, driving up prices there. Which leads to *some* hipsters, who are already up to their eyeballs in debt buying the latest gadgets from Apple, to default on those mortgages. Which leads to the banks, also up to their eyeballs in leveraging, to write down the value of the CDO due to M2M. Which leads to a downgrade of the bank’s credit rating. Which leads to margin calls on the bank. Which leads to… you get the picture.

Have you been to zillow.com yet? There’s this one house in particular in my neighborhood. Last sale was for $450k in June of 08, before that $650k in 06. It’s a piece of crap – it’s big, decent neighborhood, but it’s sliding off the mountain. Zillow had it ‘valued’ at A MILLION DOLLARS as recently as Jan 08! It is in foreclosure for under 2.

I had $20 in my pocket, and oh look! I just found a $20 that someone left on the ground! I just doubled my net worth in one day. If trends continue (and there’s no reason to believe they won’t), within the year I should have more wealth than the galactic GDP combined.

The problem with M2M is that it leads investors to rely on short term trends, which tend to be noisy.

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:55 am 41. ash:

aint’ america grand? .
.
.
.
.
all this anti-americanism at the Belmont no less! will wonders never cease?

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:58 am 42. ash:

Yes, rising asset prices will increase capital, I can’t argue with that Captain. One of the problems with Mortgage backed securities is they ‘instantly’ turned future earnings into an asset, and asset that was then levered. It exponentially created new money and it worked fine as long as asset prices kept climbing.

For example,

Bank A has 1 million deposited in it by individual depositors. It can loan out approximately 900k of that money keeping 100k in reserve. Bank A then securitizes the mortgages and sells them to investors. Bank A now has 900k minus fees to re-lend. Investors now have ‘assets’ that they can lever. Loads of fresh new money which disappears on the way down.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:06 am 43. JMH:

What a lot of people don’t mention is the role M2M had in creating the housing bubble in the first place.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Mark-to-Market is a horrible, horrible thing. It accelerates trends in either direction, turning normal fluctuations into booms and busts. That nobody in power is pushing to abolish it tell us that one of two things is true. Either:

1) Obama/Geithner/Paulson et al are complete and utter morons.

2) They are intentionally destroying the economy in order to seize wealth and power for themselves.

In either case, they don’t deserve the power they currently have, let alone any expansion of it.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:06 am 44. blert:

buddy…

China has dumped her long positions. The Fed now has them.

China now is only concerned with currency translation risk.

As long as we are not inflating in a serious way, she’s okay.

I’d expect this notion to flame out on the details.

Again, what these players want to do is to escape the vortex that is the American economy. The ruble is rubble. If the Chinese were to drop exchange controls completely her yuan would go south: capital flight would do the yuan in. Any wealthy Chinese want to get funds out of the Communist capital trap. The same capital flight is what has crashed the ruble.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:08 am 45. blert:

Lest anyone forget, Putin is already letting State owned enterprises to default. Think on that.

His reserve margin is collapsing. It’s hard to see him still in operation in a year and a half.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:12 am 46. blert:

If we are to have a one-currency world the odds are it will be the US dollar.

No wonder Ben ordered extra presses. For once he’s ahead of the game.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:14 am 47. buddy larsen:

that’s what you’re missing ash –you’re assuming the question follows the usual pattern, that is, self-interested partisans trying to degrade a system. That’s not what’s happening on m2m vs discounted future cash flow. in fact, the ‘new’ model is the ‘old’, which was in place from 1938 to 2007. M2M was among several hugely –i mean world-historical hugely –rule changes a now-becoming-acknowledged “captive regulator” SEC slipped into the boomtime. The cover is, in an upmkt M2M allows fractional banking to use the asset appreciation instantly to create new credit money, get it lent, and start enjoying the returns.

What ought to be bothering you, Ash, is that by the time SEC made that rule change, subprime defaults were already in the news –mid 2007. Almost immediately, the new rule was at work, effectively forcing banks out of the time-frame in which tier one asset lending exists, and into freeze-time snapshots taken as often as bank regulators wanted, and taken in front of de judge, to boot. hey, man, it sho do smell phunny to me, given 1001 other spoiled odors boiling out of everything ya can lose a buck on.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:22 am 48. 3-24-2009 | Drive Time Happy Hour:

[...] Richard Fernandez: It’s fair to ask whether the supposed outrage over AIG bonuses did not have some beneficial value to making this argument. Although one hesitates to make the comparison with the Reichstag fire, it suggests itself. Perhaps the proposal has merits on its own, but I can’t see them; and even if they exist in principle, what about agency problem? Can anyone be trusted with so far reaching an authority? [...]

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:27 am 49. ash:

buddy, I can see how M2M can accelerate the curve on both the up and down though the problem seems to me more one of leverage than of valuation. What better arbitrator of value do we have than a free market?

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:30 am 50. buddy larsen:

before you kreckt me ash, i know it’s FASB –SEC came in with ’securitization’ –

blert, i just heard that lately, that PRC don’t got a thing longer than 7 years anymore. They must really be spooked.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:30 am 51. buddy larsen:

both models seek to discover market-clearing pricing, Ash –there’s nothing more or lesser free in either. M2M under regulatory penalty would be the least free anyway, as it forces transactions at arbitrary *times*. What would you pay for a gallon of water (1) in your kitchen anytime vs (2) lost in Death valley with no water?

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:43 am 52. steeple:

off thread a bit, but while we’re on the topic of government intervention at the agency level in order to achieve political goals. this has the potential to take any new Appalaichan coal development off the market. may also impact infrastructure development for Marcellus Shale nat gas.

Guess they’ll have to create a few more of those new Green jobs to offset the job losses that this will facilitate. And our cost of energy just got more expensive.

“We have learned that later this afternoon the administration will announce a moratorium on the issuance of permits under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act for coal mining operations under the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers Huntington, W.Va. and Louisville, Ky. offices.”

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:44 am 53. blert:

Remember how the Chinese screwed themselves in the copper market?

They’re starting to wake up and smell the roses.

IIRC China is pulling her weighted average down to a year or two. T-bills pay squat but some of the shorter notes are just a bout right.

Even more important: China is no longer a serious buyer of Treasuries. She is not building a surplus from her exports at the prior tempo. And what money she does get is spent on forward commodity contracts, oil being favored.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:46 am 54. blert:

Steeple…

So you can see why alien interests contributed to the 2008 campaign.

H even receive money from the Gaza strip!

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:48 am 55. blert:

Man, my typing is going to h.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:49 am 56. ash:

buddy, your water example displays the absurdity of both methods – if you value the water bought in the desert (book value) but now have it in your kitchen next to the tap. Which brings me back to the problem being the leveraging. If you aren’t leveraging the point becomes moot. If you aren’t selling your house then what the neighbors went for doesn’t matter. Once you start leveraging though accurately and timely valuations seem more useful than book.

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:56 am 57. whiskey:

Wretchard –

With all due respect you are making a huge assumption error in American politics. They are neither Left nor Right, and the struggle with Obama does not fall into those neat ideological categories. Nor will victory or defeat be driven by ideology.

America’s conflicts politically are all about “class” though that does not really define the problem. From the first few settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth, America’s internal struggles have been between poor/middling Westerners seeking land, jobs, and opportunity, and those who already have it, seeking to maintain social, economic, and cultural dominance.

Obama’s victory is that of the coalition of Yuppies, the “Gentry” class as Joel Kotkin put it (look at the protestations of superior morality and crucially, STATUS) by the Liberal posters here wrt rendition, rather than a policy being effective or not. Added to the Yuppies are Blacks, Hispanics, and critically, women, who though it is UN-PC to say this, are driven by Status concerns throughout most of their lives. A radical shift to be sure from even two generations ago but the truth.

Obama will only be defeated NOT by coalition building but by DESTROYING the influence, power, and wealth of those who make up his coalition. Among that is the special privileges and PC driven stuff of status-wealth positioning of Blacks and Hispanics, particularly the playing of the Race Card. Countered with identity politics of it’s own by White middle and working classes.

Obama’s defeat comes from showing the Middle/Working classes that Obama’s coalition is pulling up the ladders of entry into the Yuppie Class and favoring non-White groups at their expense. This is both true and easily grasped. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy upon looking at her servants cars in horror, asked “What’s the point of being rich if ordinary people have nice things too?”

Everyone understands this.

Then, the Middle/Working classes (though this is not a good term either, it’s the “cool” and “hip” people, the SWPL vs. Joe the Plumber who is uncool and unhip) have to be mobilized in their own self-interest to protect what they have and create opportunities for themselves to move upwards. They have to understand that the more people become better off, the less power the Gentry and the cool and hip people have. What’s the point of being cool if everyone is hip?

The internal contradictions of the Obama Welfare State, in particular Robert Reich’s “No White Men Allowed” statements regarding the stimulus, have to be focused on everyone’s mind. Destroying the legitimacy of the Welfare State (only for non-Whites, no Whites allowed in their own country).

This is the eternal pattern of American Politics. It’s no different than Andrew Jackson vs. Bank of the United States, or Lincoln vs. Separatists who were also Aristocrats, or Truman vs. the East Coast Elite, or Nixon vs. the Ivy League, or Clinton vs. Bush’s East Coast Preppy crew.

It is not Left-Right. Building coalitions is impossible, not the least of which there is no reason for Cool Hip Yuppies, Blacks, or Hispanics, and Single Women who are the winners in the spoils system to share with White Men and married White women, and Asians, who are the losers.

America, though we deny it all the time, is the home of pure spoils politics and identity politics, and we always have been. Ever since Jamestown.

Mar 24, 2009 - 12:16 pm 58. buddy larsen:

right, Ash –your next-door neighbor house just 4close-auctioned at half what your identical place is worth in your mind –you shake your head and say ‘no way would i sell at that’ –but down at your lender your house just got marked to that price, and now your lender needs to borrow or buy cash to raise his capital ratio to the solvency limit. Is THIS the honesty, or is the honesty to use a different model that yields a nmber closer to what a FREE TO CHOOSE owner would sell for? No, the case is clear –the take away is above @ JMH/43 –internalize THAT, and quit worrying about how many angels can dance on a pinhead. You’re under attack, man. these guys just knocked 14 trillion out the economy with that ridiculous misapplication, when they could’ve changed it back LONG ago –but they didn’t have among other things that huge chunk of Citibank yet.

Mar 24, 2009 - 12:43 pm 59. buddy larsen:

a shareholder group is trying to unseat Ken Lewis @ Bank of America –the chickens are coming home –Business Law is gonna be the hot field for the next decade –

Mar 24, 2009 - 12:51 pm 60. ash:

I’m sorry, I don’t understand “@ JMH/43″

It is true, though, that all my lenders can ask me to top up if my equity levels fall too far. Heck, the bank has the right to demand repayment immediately the loans to my business. They are demand loans. The burden is upon me not to overleverage.

I tend toward the opinion that Citi et al is not being raided by some conspiratorial cabal trying to gain control but rather it was pilfered, looted, and mismanaged now everyone is scrambling in panic trying to keep the whole kit and caboodle afloat.

Mar 24, 2009 - 1:04 pm 61. ash:

ah, figured out the @43 business.

Mar 24, 2009 - 1:10 pm 62. Wadeusaf:

Geitners explanation to the WSJ sent shivers down my spine. He said he wasn’t done transforming the US economic model to conform with the european and global model that he was busy trying to emulate and anticipate. His controls were not in place, his reforms not fully developed.

Armed with the superiority of his superlatives, nothing has ever approached the level of sheer audacity and pompous vainglorious rush that is being undertaken off the cliff. All for a new world, all for a new economic reality. Welcome to the change, ready or not.

Mar 24, 2009 - 1:30 pm 63. Night Owl:

“women, who though it is UN-PC to say this, are driven by Status concerns throughout most of their lives. A radical shift to be sure from even two generations ago but the truth.”

Pardon me , but I call bullshit. Everyone is driven by self -interest and status seeking. It’s what drives the capitalist system.

What is wrong with young women today? In a nutshell: feminism killed Prince Charming and the liberals replaced him with Uncle Sam.

Yes young women are attracted to a nanny state out of self interest. If they cannot rely on a husband and marriage to take care of them when they are vulnerable and dependent during pregnancy – a biological imperative for most – then they will turn to the govt to be their husband. Not evil, just practical.

High divorce rates mean there is no more happily ever after for little girls today. Stop blaming them for reacting to this. Decades of progressive liberalism and its corrosive effect on marriage is to blame.

Mar 24, 2009 - 1:57 pm 64. twobyfour:

@37. blert

The list of crimes is long… but it is not completed yet.

Mar 24, 2009 - 2:01 pm 65. Captain Ramen:

@63,

Self interest yes, but status seeking? More to the point, what is the point of male status seeking? To impress the ladies. That also determines what form it takes. A woman seeking a marriage partner cares less about the kind of car he drives and more about steady income he can provide.

Whiskey’s larger point is that mass urbanization has thrown everything out of whack. What kind of man is more likely to pickup a barfly for a random hookup? A schmuck working at Starbucks with an IPhone and a benzo with 0 net worth? Or a guy who owns a business but drives a beat up used car and would rather reinvest in that business than buy the latest flashy gadgets?

Mar 24, 2009 - 3:12 pm 66. JMH:

Yes young women are attracted to a nanny state out of self interest. If they cannot rely on a husband and marriage to take care of them when they are vulnerable and dependent during pregnancy – a biological imperative for most – then they will turn to the govt to be their husband. Not evil, just practical.

High divorce rates mean there is no more happily ever after for little girls today. Stop blaming them for reacting to this

You act as if the women themselves have no say in those high divorce rates. Perhaps if there was no nanny state willing to pay the bills, those women might be a little more inclined to tolerate having a husband around the house leaving dirty socks on the floor. Frankly, absent government, a women who wants financial security from a man need to convince some particular man to share a life with her. That sharing will involve mutual sacrifices. But wait, asking a woman to sacrifice is misogynistic, patriarchal, and so very Deal White Guy-ish. Let’s instead allow that woman to vote to confiscate money from all the men. No need for her to sacrifice (well, just her freedoms, but we won’t tell her that until it’s too late, and if we’re lucky she’ll never figure it out).

Mar 24, 2009 - 3:19 pm 67. Bob Smith:

One of the more interesting provisions of this proposal is the right of the government to “limit payments to creditors”. Would you lend money to a firm if you thought the government could swoop in and take a superior claim on its assets? Not at some high price, you wouldn’t. This will seriously hurt the ability of many firms to borrow money.

Mar 24, 2009 - 4:14 pm 68. no mo uro:

“High divorce rates mean there is no more happily ever after for little girls today.”

Nightowl, being single (either perpetually or by divorce) is the happily ever after for most women nowadays.

Statistically speaking, in most states 70-80% of divorce is now initiated by women. Undoubtedly there are men who are cads or cheaters, or there are some cases of true irreconcilable differences, but for the most part the reasons why women are leaving husbands in record numbers are 1. that they are bored and 2. they can, due to the divorce industry and divorce law. Whiskey and JMH and Capt. Ramen are dead on with this.

What kind of a whacked-out system do we have when:

-if a guy gets bored, he can leave, but must lose half his assets and half his income until the kids are grown

AND

-if a woman gets bored, she can leave, and the guy STILL loses half his assets and half his income until the kids are grown.

Does that even remotely resemble a fair and decent and workable system? I submit that it does not. Yet once there are kids in a marriage, unless the woman is an axe murderer or the equivalent, the husband stays only at the whim of the wife, and can be tossed by the woman at any time for any reason (to include boredom – Google the term ‘limerance’) with heavy financial penalty added on, leaving the woman to couple with any man of her choice who is interesting to her while losing none of her income stream. That’s not rant, it’s just fact. Trotting out a few anecdotal instances of “the women you know” who aren’t like that doesn’t alter the middle of the curve.

The Western definition of family has always been husband, wife, children. The left’s definition is state, woman, child. To a single woman who is sexually active and without a moral/ethical framework beyond self-service, this model works best. If she gets preganant, the state allows her to deal with her pregnancy without worry about the behavior (or desires) of the man, providing abortion to terminate the pregnancy if that is the desire, or forcing ALL the men to fund (with welfare/child support) the rearing of the child if she chooses to bear it. Yes, there are bad men who take advantage of this system to pursue pleasure. But if the women opted out, they’d be left high and dry.

For a growing number of women, particularly those living in cities, who wish to remain single and pursue the status and adolescent pleasure seeking Whiskey describes, “happily ever after” will never, ever be marriage and domestic bliss. It will be endless sexcapades, income spent on self, no responsibilities of child rearing, and a political environment which will enforce their ability to continue living like that regardless of events like pregnancy. “Laddish” behavior, to borrow a term from the Brits, written onto a female template and desire set and funded by the state with money taken from productive men and women alike.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:33 pm 69. Bob Smith:

Not at some high price, you wouldn’t

Oops! I meant “Only at a high price”.

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:01 pm 70. rachel:

It’s one thing to critique and deplore certain systemic imbalances. It’s another to characterize single women & the lives they lead with such utter scorn & contempt.

As a conservative single woman I say, f*** you.

Mar 24, 2009 - 10:21 pm 71. Dave:

@Rachel: Thank you. Looking over the seemingly horrible statistics on out-of-wedlock births, single moms etc, I have concluded that those stats are not worth the paper on which they may be printed somewhere.

Most women that get knocked up accidentally and do not care to marry the guy eventually do find Mr Right.

Many other “single moms” are in fact involved
in what used to be called “common law marriages”.

The only real problem area is the welfare cases. And Newt Gingrich and Company did manage to put the brakes on that. A reform the Obamaroids are determine to undo.

In short, in the US of A, the concept of family is alive, well, and, among Genus Redneckus Americanus, flourishing.

Now about that unladylike language you used——-

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:16 pm 72. rachel:

Heh. Sorry to lash out like that (I usually try to stick to reasoned debate), but this kind of thing, which I’ve seen before around here, really irritates me. (All the more because I largely *agree* with the systemic critique.) It’s about as infuriating as, say, being characterized by Obama as a “bitter clinger.”

Mar 24, 2009 - 11:36 pm 73. Dave:

Case of mistaking format for substance.

I am reminded of a certain Captain Connell of C Company 9th Infantry. He and almost all his command were wiped out at Balingigga, Samar in 1901. (See Joseph Schott, “The Ordeal of Samar”)

The lack of preparedness among C Company was due in no small part because the good Captain was determined to make the locals cease and desist from their habit of no marriage without pregnancy.

Well, shucks. Barrenness would have been a great threat to Samaron survival and since there was but one known way to establish fertility, they took it. Without much persuasion of course.

The ONE AND ONLY way to evaluate the propriety of customs and practices is to
determine pro or contra survival. All else is ritual and sometimes even garbage. (Thank you Robert Heinlein.)

Enough for tonight. Tomorrow a workday. Will check back then. Been a pleasure, Ma’am.

Mar 25, 2009 - 12:07 am 74. no mo uro:

Rachel, I allow for (and am grateful for) the presence of women like yourself, but I do not for a minute kid myself that your attitude is the one waxing and the other waning. Nobody here characterized you, as an individual, in the manner of bitter clinginess. Note my language – “growing number of women”, not “most” or “all” women. But it is important to discuss larger trends.

And if you haven’t achieved it already, I do hope you get your ‘happily ever after’.

Dave, you gloss over this behavior by saying that women eventually get married to someone not the child’s father, or are involved in “common law” marriage, as though there were no damage from this behavior. Even beyond the coarseness this inculcates in society at large, these behaviors produce damage, damage which is frequently is broad, deep, and irreparable.

Doubt me? Exhibit A is the ‘marriage strike’. A refusal to marry, by young men who observed their mother’s behavior as I described above. They have been taught by observing their little corner of the system that what happened to their father is the way things work, and the way to avoid these inequities is to opt out. Not only have their lives been damaged, but so has society at large.

Mar 25, 2009 - 3:58 am 75. Doug:

Govt Policy and Cultural decay results in 60% out of wedlock births for blacks, 50% hispanic, and 40% white, (and rising) as best as I can recall.
The problems that result are obvious and manifold.

Mar 25, 2009 - 4:30 am 76. Doug:

– Dear A.I.G., I Quit! –

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers…
—
I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press…

Mar 25, 2009 - 4:31 am 77. Doug:

Schumer, Dodd, Frank, Coumo, Obama, et al, would be beneath contempt, if I could stifle my contempt.

Mar 25, 2009 - 4:33 am 78. Cascajun:

“The most rational explanation for Obama’s puzzling conduct — sabotaging his own program by way of his own rhetoric — is that he truly wants to be forced to nationalize the banks in pursuit of his ultimate goal of a socialist economy.” –Dick Morris

Mar 25, 2009 - 5:57 am 79. Doug:

Geithner Campaigns for Broader Control of Financial Firms

Mar 25, 2009 - 6:49 am 80. Dave:

Doug and no mo: I consider those stats about as accurate as those of Robert S. McNamara.
Gotta go to work. Will check and see if this thread open a bit later.

PS: Behavior of the male: Where seduction and abandonment is the norm, there is a severe problem. It is caused and enabled by the welfare state and nothing else. Cut out those finances and that problem abates to minimal levels. A good horsewhipping will take care of the rest.

Mar 25, 2009 - 9:35 am 81. Captain Ramen:

Isn’t that what a city is? A welfare distribution center. In light of the Interstate Highway / Information (internet) Systems there’s no other justification for keeping them around.

Until a 15kt blast takes one out that is. Hopefully whenever a real conservative candidate for president decides to run, he’ll be prescient enough to realize we need massive investments in both the internet and the IHS. That way once the inevitable, unthinkable happens we’ll be able to absorb the shock.

I am not sure who to attribute this quote to, and I am paraphrasing, but the ‘anonymous lonely existence interrupted by bouts of nihilistic sex’ we call city living will subsequently fall out of fashion.

Mar 25, 2009 - 10:34 am 82. John Work:

In reading another blog I was just reminded that Monday, March 23 was the 234th anniversary of Patrick Henry’s famous speech ending with the words “Give me Liberty or give me death”. For those of you who may not have read the whole speech or who haven’t read it in some time, here is a link – http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/henry-liberty.html. Interesting how you could go through the speech and substitute a few words here and there and have something quite appropriate (but very politically incorrect) for today’s situation.

Mar 25, 2009 - 11:51 am 83. no mo uro:

dave @ Where seduction and abandonment is the norm, there is a severe problem. It is caused and enabled by the welfare state and nothing else. Cut out those finances and that problem abates to minimal levels. A good horsewhipping will take care of the rest.

Agree that the “seduction, abandonment, monopolization of females by a limited number of alpha males” cyle is a problem.

The cause is not welfare, but genetic programming, this is a reproductive strategy which is hard wired in all primates and only counteracted in humans by religion and culture – ie, civilization.

You’re dead on, though about this behavior being enabled by the welfare state. I would take that notion a step further and say that that behavior enhances the welfare state right back, in return.

In total agreement about defunding and horsewhipping.

Mar 25, 2009 - 4:06 pm 84. Gaffe Prices:

Apparently the plan was to give employees of the business community a false sense of security by giving them good homes and a steady job. Check

then, the guillotine.

Mar 25, 2009 - 8:04 pm

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