Monkeyfister

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legendary film star Paul Newman, whose brilliant blue eyes, good looks and talent made him one of Hollywood's top actors over six decades, has died, a spokesman said on Saturday. He was 83 and had been battling cancer.

Newman appeared in some 60 movies, including "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "The Hustler," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and "The Sting." He earned nine Oscar nominations for acting and won the best actor honor for 1986's "The Color of Money."

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Debates, John McCain

Labels: David Letterman, John McCain

Labels: Bailout, Fuck You Republicans, Wall Street

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic congressional leaders told party members on Thursday that a White House meeting to try to reach a deal on a financial market bailout package went badly, two Democrats said.

Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, told reporters after a party caucus meeting that it looked like Republican presidential candidate John "McCain and the Republican caucus are blocking this bill."

McCain announced on Wednesday he was suspending he presidential campaign to return to Washington to work on the deal. He participated in a meeting at the White House with Democratic rival Barack Obama and key administration and congressional players in the negotiations.

Sherman said Democratic lawmakers were told that dealbreakers for the White House include mortgage bankruptcy reform and limits on the pay of the executives of companies that would sell assets to the U.S. Treasury under the bailout proposals.

"Bankruptcy reform is a dealbreaker for the White House" and so are corporate executive pay limits, Sherman said. "On more than one occasion, the statement was made that if we put that in the bill, the president will not sign it," he said.

Rep. Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat, said McCain's visit to the White House threw the negotiations over the bailout package into disarray.

"What's he done? This did not help matters ... it just makes it much more complicated," Boyd said. "McCain has come in and tried to play the hero."

Labels: Bailout, Dumbass, Filthy Fucking Rich, Fucking Republicans, John McCain, Wall Street, Wall Street Scam

Labels: GOP Braintrust, Sarah Palin

Labels: Wall Street

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc. may be seized by regulators later today and parts sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in what will rank among the biggest banking failures in U.S. history.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plans to take control of Seattle-based WaMu, the biggest U.S. savings and loan, according to the CNBC television network, and New York-based JPMorgan will buy deposits and branches, the Wall Street Journal said, without citing any sources. The FDIC insurance fund is not expected to contribute any money, the Journal said.

WaMu's fate played out as Congress tried to reach an accord that will ease the global credit crunch, which has already driven Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp out of business, and Bear Stearns Cos. and Merrill Lynch & Co. into hastily arranged rescues. As many as five banks had considered bids for WaMu without making an offer, balking in part because the lender faced as much as $19 billion in mortgage loan losses.

Resolving WaMu's situation ``is a positive,'' said Patrick Becker Jr., who oversees $2 billion as chief investment officer at Becker Capital Management in Portland, Oregon. ``That's been a big cloud over the market and financial shares.'' His firm does not own JPMorgan or WaMu shares.

WaMu and JPMorgan officials didn't return calls seeking comment.

Five banks that were considering bids, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., have failed to make an offer in the week since WaMu put itself up for sale. WaMu also approached Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group LP, two people briefed on the matter said.

Deal Pressure

WaMu came under increasing pressure to strike a deal as its stock sagged and ratings companies pummeled its debt. Standard & Poor's yesterday cut WaMu's rating for the second time in nine days, dropping it to CCC from BB-. WaMu's regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which guarantees customer deposits, have declined to comment.

WaMu fell 57 cents, or 25 percent, to $1.69 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock skidded about 88 percent this year, the biggest decline in the 24- company KBW Bank Index. WaMu is the only junk-rated company in the index.

A record 392 million WaMu shares changed hands today, more than twice the daily average this month and seven times the average over the past year, Bloomberg data show.

Labels: Bank Failures, US Economy

BEIJING, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Chinese regulators have told domestic banks to stop interbank lending to U.S. financial institutions to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

The Hong Kong newspaper cited unidentified industry sources as saying the instruction from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) applied to interbank lending of all currencies to U.S. banks but not to banks from other countries.

"The decree appears to be Beijing's first attempt to erect defences against the deepening U.S. financial meltdown after the mainland's major lenders reported billions of U.S. dollars in exposure to the credit crisis," the SCMP said.

A spokesman for the CBRC had no immediate comment. (Reporting by Alan Wheatley and Langi Chiang; editing by Ken Wills)

Labels: China, Collapse, US Economy

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, David Letterman, John McCain, Sarah Palin

COURIC: Sarah Palin kept up her busy schedule today, meeting with several world leaders who are here in New York for the UN session. But she took time out for an exclusive interview, in which we discussed the state of the economy at length. We began, though, by addressing reports that the lobbying firm of Senator McCain's campaign manager received payments from Freddie Mac until last month. I asked for her reaction to that.

PALIN: My understanding is that Rick Davis recused himself from the dealings of the firm. I don't know how long ago, a year or two ago that he's not benefiting from that. And you know, I was--I would hope that's not the case.

COURIC: But he still has a stake in the company so isn't that a conflict of interest.

PALIN: Again, my understanding is that he recused himself from the dealings with Freddie and Fannie, any lobbyin' efforts on his part there and whatnot. And I would hope that's the case because, as John McCain has been sayin', and as I've been on a more local level been on a much more local level been also rallying against is the undue influence of lobbyists in public policy decisions being made.

[!!!]

COURIC: Then we focused on the $700 billion government bailout of bad debt and I asked her if she supports it.

PALIN: I'm ill about the position that America is in and that we have to look at a $700 billion bailout. At the same time we know that inaction is not an option and as Senator McCain has said unless this nearly trillion dollar bailout is what it may end up to be, unless there are amendments in Paulson's proposal, really I don't believe that Americans are going to support this and we will not support this. The interesting thing in the last couple of days that I have seen is that Americans are waiting to see what John McCain will do on this proposal. They're not waiting to see what Barack Obama is going to do. Is he going to do this and see what way the political wind's blowin'. They're waitin' to see if John McCain will be able to see these amendments implemented in Paulson's proposal.

COURIC: Why do you say that? Why are they waiting for John McCain and not Barack Obama?

PALIN: He's got the track record of the leadership qualities and the pragmatism that's needed at a crisis time like this.

COURIC: But polls have shown that Senator Obama has actually gotten a boost as a result of this latest crisis with more people feeling that he can handle the situation better than John McCain?

PALIN: I'm not lookin' at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talkin' about solutions and wishin' for and hopin' for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?

---

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about--the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you.

Labels: GOP Braintrust, Sarah Palin

Labels: Bush Economic Policies, Collapse, George Fucking Bush, US Economy, Wall Street Failure, WTF

President George W. Bush plans to speak to the American public tonight about the bailout. (Suze Orman wasn’t available?) If you’re like me and you can’t bear to watch this trainwreck but will probably watch it anyway, I’ve created a Bailout Bingo card:

Labels: Bailout, George Fucking Bush

Labels: Chickenshit, John McCain

In a world exclusive The NATIONAL ENQUIRER names GOP VP Candidate Sarah Palin's secret lover!

No less than three members of the man’s family including one by sworn affidavit have claimed that Sarah Palin engaged in an extramarital affair with hus­band Todd’s former business partner, Brad Hanson.

These sources have named Hanson as Palin’s secret love, and say their affair nearly wrecked both their marriages.

Hanson owned a snowmobile dealership with Palin’s husband Todd, who immediately dissolved the partnership after he heard stories about the affair, which occurred around 1996, according to the sources. At the time, Palin was mayor of Wasilla.

Palin has vehemently de­nied cheating on her hus­band, and Hanson insisted to The NATIONAL ENQUIRER that he was never romantically in­volved with the 44-year-old Republican vice presiden­tial candidate.

However, Hanson family insider, Jim Burdett, has gone on the record and passed a rigorous polygraph test, revealing de­tails of the affair to The NATIONAL ENQUIRER in a world exclusive interview.

Burdett is a former brother-in-law of Hanson’s estranged wife Carolyn's brother, Craig Batton, and still speaks with many family members.

“I’ve known about Brad having had an affair for a long time, but it wasn’t until just recently that I learned his affair was with Sarah Palin,” Burdett told The NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

“Sarah was elected mayor of Wasilla, Brad became a city council member in the nearby town of Palmer, and they started an affair.

“Todd found out about the affair and was so mad he broke up their partnership at the snowmobile dealership,” Burdett claimed.

Labels: John McCain, Sarah Palin, Scandal

Labels: Bailout, Red State Update, Rednecks

Labels: Bailout, George Fucking Bush, Wall Street Failure

Labels: US Budget

World Cafe, September 22, 2008 - British pop icon Paul Weller has described his new double-disc album, 22 Dreams, as "a year in my life." It tracks Weller's course through the changing seasons, even including the sounds of a rainstorm through the open door at his Black Barn Studio. Maintaining remarkable cohesion amidst a kaleidoscope of influences from rock and soul to classical, Weller can always be counted on for refreshingly ambitious and edgy music. In a session with host David Dye, the former Jam frontman performs material from 22 Dreams.

Decades after the dissolution of The Jam and Style Council, Weller remains one of the most influential Britpop acts of the past 30 years. He got his start as the frontman for the late-'70s new-wave punk band The Jam, which came from modest beginnings to become a force atop the British charts. The Jam helped establish Weller as one of the most visible and imitated rock artists of all time, but he further experimented with his sound upon the creation of The Style Council, which melded pop, jazz, soul and more. Since the end of The Style Council in 1989, Weller has cranked out a wide variety of albums on his own.

Labels: My Life As It Is

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Eighteen months ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told an audience at the Shanghai Futures Exchange that China risked trillions of dollars in lost economic potential unless it freed up its capital markets.

``An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention,'' Paulson said.

That advice rings hollow in China as Paulson plans a $700 billion rescue for U.S. financial institutions and the Securities and Exchange Commission bans short sales of insurers, banks and securities firms. Regulators in the fastest-growing major economy say they may ditch plans to introduce derivatives, and some company bosses are rethinking U.S. business models.

``The U.S. financial system was regarded as a model, and we tried our best to copy whatever we could,'' said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China's central bank. ``Suddenly we find our teacher is not that excellent, so the next time when we're designing our financial system we will use our own mind more.''

The recent moves by Paulson, the former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., contradict what the U.S. told Asian governments over the past decade. Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia were urged to let unviable banks fail during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

`Turning Left'

``It's the end of an era,'' said Shanghai-based Andy Xie, a independent analyst who was formerly Morgan Stanley's chief Asia economist. ``In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, socialism was discredited and the whole world turned right. Now financial capital has been discredited and the whole world, including the U.S., is turning left.''

---

``It's ironic Paulson has become the manager of many large financial institutions,'' said Wang Jun, a finance specialist at the World Bank in Beijing. ``He will have to ask the Chinese leaders about their experience of managing state-owned assets.''

Labels: China, Global Economy, Ol' Hank-- America's Friendly Garbageman, Wall Street

WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafortfor the presidential campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

A Freddie Mac spokeswoman said the company would not comment.

Labels: John McCain, Lobbyists

Sept. 24, 2008 | "You can be whoever you want to be," says an inviting Phil Tuchman. "You can be a beggar or a millionaire. A mom or a husband. Whatever. You decide!"

I volunteer in political campaigns now and then. After a series of outings for Obama and a first mission as a phone banker for John McCain, I returned to McCain's headquarters in Arlington, Va. The offer was too alluring to delay -- they wanted to put me into action as a ghostwriter. Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what's written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.

Today he is training six ghostwriters. What on earth is the appeal of McCain for the former Soviet bloc? Last time I was here, an exuberant Polish guy was phone banking next to me. Today, a Russian in yellow suspenders is shimmering at the same table, looking just like an actor who is famous in the Netherlands for star turns as a genius who suppresses his dark side with painstaking self-control.

The assignment is simple: We are going to write letters to the editor and we are allowed to make up whatever we want -- as long as it adds to the campaign. After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain. "Your letters," says Phil Tuchman, "will be sent to our campaign offices in battle states. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Virginia. New Hampshire. There we'll place them in local newspapers."

Place them? I may be wrong, but I thought that in the USA only a newspaper's editors decided that.

"We will show your letters to our supporters in those states," explains Phil. "If they say: 'Yeah, he/she is right!' then we ask them to sign your letter. And then we send that letter to the local newspaper. That's how we send dozens of letters at once."

No newspaper can refuse a stream of articulate expressions of support, is the thought behind it. "This way, we will always get into some letters column."

Labels: Fucking Republicans, John McCain, The Party That Wrecked America

Labels: Bailout

September 23, 2008 · With financial markets in flux and a massive government rescue package in the works, financial reporter and New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson looks into what's involved in the nearly $700 billion deal.

One central concern: The way troubled banks' assets get valued when the federal government buys them. "Depending on how [the bailout program] is operated, and how the assets are valued before taxpayers are forced to buy them, it could bloat our final bill for this mess while benefiting the very institutions that got us into it," Morgenson wrote in a recent column.

Morgenson talks to Terry Gross about strategies the government might employ to value the assets taxpayers are buying from endangered institutions — and how regulators might earn back some of the trust they've lost in recent weeks.

Labels: Bailout, Fresh Air, Terry Gross, Wall Street Failure

Labels: Henry Kissinger, Sarah Palin

WASHINGTON -- Federal investigators have opened preliminary probes into the financial troubles of four high-profile companies that are at the center of the current financial turmoil that the Bush administration says requires an unprecedented proposed taxpayer-funded bailout to clean up.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's preliminary inquiries are focusing on whether fraud helped cause some of the troubles at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc., according to senior law-enforcement officials.

Lehman and AIG declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie and has both companies in conservatorship, also declined to comment.

The probes come as the huge potential tab for taxpayers in the crisis raises the stakes for the Justice Department. The FBI says it now has 26 companies under investigation, in addition to pursuing more than 1,400 mortgage-fraud cases nationwide.

Pressure is building for the FBI and regulators to hold top executives accountable for the crisis that has crippled the nation's finance sector. In meetings on Capitol Hill, some lawmakers raised concerns with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that by taking large stakes in some financial firms, the government may be limiting its ability to exact penalties for wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.

The FBI says that the corporate probes are part of an effort to pursue allegations of higher-level fraud more sweeping than the retail-level infractions that have been at the center of most cases brought so far.

Labels: FBI, Wall Street, Wall Street Scandal

Labels: A Democrat With A Spine, Bailout, Wall Street Scam

It's officially September 23rd and my new film, "Slacker Uprising," is now premiering live at SlackerUprising.com! It is available for free as a gift from me to all of you. And you have my permission to share it or show it in any way you see fit.

Stream it, download it, burn it now. It's the first time a major feature-length film is being released for free on the internet. You can be part of this historic moment by logging on now!

Enjoy!!

Michael Moore

Labels: Progressive Media, Progressive Movement, Progressiveness, Progressives

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the Environmental Protection Agency lied to Congress about his rejection of a request from California meant to curb global warming emissions, Sen. Barbara Boxer said on Tuesday.

Boxer, a California Democrat who has called for EPA chief Stephen Johnson to resign, made the statement at a hearing on regulation of greenhouse gases under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

"You've shown that what Mr. Johnson told us is not the truth," Boxer told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, after lengthy questioning of the EPA's Robert Meyers, who helped prepare Johnson for a meeting at the White House over the California decision. Johnson denied California's request for federal permission -- known as a waiver -- to impose tough new limits on climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light trucks.

That decision last December effectively blocked as many as 18 other states from doing the same. Johnson previously told the Senate Environment Committee, which Boxer chairs, that his decision in that matter was based on the advice of EPA's experts.

Meyers told the committee on Tuesday he could recall no EPA recommendation to reject the waiver, that all the advice he was aware of recommended granting the waiver or at least granting it for a period of two years.

EPA DISPUTES BOXER'S ACCUSATION

An EPA spokesman disputed Boxer's accusation. "It's clear that a portion of the (EPA) staff believed one way, but the administrator at the end of the day made his decision based on the facts and the law," said the EPA's Jonathan Shradar.

"If Senator Boxer wants to actually legislate and change the law, I imagine that's what the people of California elected her to do." Boxer supported a U.S. carbon-capping bill aimed at curbing climate change, but it failed to pass the Senate. The bill was meant to cut total U.S. global warming emissions by 66 percent by 2050. Opponents said it would cost U.S. jobs and raise fuel prices.

The EPA was compelled by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling to investigate whether global warming posed a danger to human health. In July, the agency released a document showing potential health threats included more heatwaves, floods, droughts, insect outbreaks and wildfires. The idea that greenhouse emissions endanger human health is an essential part of the Clean Air Act. If a substance poses this kind of threat it can be designated and regulated as a pollutant. But the EPA has so far not issued rules. Instead, Johnson asked for public comments on a massive report on the effects of climate change and the impact of the Clean Air Act on greenhouse emissions. The long timeline for public comment and rulemaking on this issue make any action during the Bush administration unlikely.

The Bush administration opposes economy-wide moves to regulate climate-warming emissions, and is alone among major developed countries in rejecting the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol. Leading presidential candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, have said they would act to stem climate change.

Labels: Bush Administration, Bush Cronyism, Environmental Protection Agency, Fucking Republicans

Labels: Epic Fail, Fail, Failed Government, Failed Industry, Wall Street Failure

Labels: American Fascists, Fucking Republicans, George Fucking Bush, Looting The Treasury, Smash And Grab, Wall Street Failure, Wall Street Scam

Labels: Fucking Republicans, Heart, John McCain

Labels: Eat The Rich, Filthy Fucking Rich, Pitchforks And Torches, Wall Street

We gave you a simple, three-page legislative outline and I thought it would have been presumptuous for us on that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of Congress, that’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight: I believe we need oversight. We need oversight.

Labels: Bailout, Henry Paulson, Ol' Hank-- America's Friendly Garbageman, US Treasury

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world may be about to find out if short sellers really are the scoundrels they are accused of being for exacerbating the current financial crisis.

In the past few days, regulators in the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany have imposed unprecedented temporary bans on the short selling of financial shares as they seek to head off what is threatening to be the worst financial turmoil since the Great Depression.

They blamed short sellers for the rapid decline in major banks, such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), last week. For financial markets already reeling from the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the declines triggered questions about whether more big banks would falter and worsen a credit markets freeze that threatens the broader economy.

At first, the short sales crackdown, combined with an unprecedented $700 billion proposed U.S. government bailout of toxic mortgage assets owned by the banks and others, helped to drive stocks higher.

But after rising more than a combined 700 points on Thursday and Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average sank 372.75 points, or 3.3 percent, on Monday. Banking stocks, supposedly protected from short selling, took a particular hammering, with Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) down almost 9 percent and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) losing more than 13 percent.

Although far from conclusive, the drop illustrates there can be very bearish days without short selling being allowed across a big part of the market.

The ban "will result in the exactly the opposite in what they want to achieve," said Doug Kass, founder and president of hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management, who is also a short seller. "It will scare the longs into selling, exacerbating stock price declines."

Labels: Short Selling, Wall Street

Labels: Commodities, Dollar Collapse, Oil Prices, Short Selling, US Dollar

With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government's help!

Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD "MMMbop", it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.

Labels: Bailout, Federal Reserve System, Ol' Hank-- America's Friendly Garbageman, Shitpile

Labels: Collapse, Wall Street Casino

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Wall Street that shaped the financial world for two decades ended last night, when Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley concluded there is no future in remaining investment banks now that investors have determined the model is broken.

The Federal Reserve's approval of their bid to become banks ends the ascendancy of the securities firms, 75 years after Congress separated them from deposit-taking lenders, and caps weeks of chaos that sent Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into bankruptcy and led to the rushed sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp.

``The decision marks the end of Wall Street as we have known it,'' said William Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. ``It's too bad.''

Goldman, whose alumni include Henry Paulson, the Treasury Secretary presiding over a $700 billion bank bailout, and Morgan Stanley, a product of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that cleaved investment and commercial banks, insisted they didn't need to change course, even as their shares plunged and their borrowing costs soared last week.

By then, it was too late. As financial markets gyrated --the Dow Jones Industrial Average whipsawed 1,000 points in the week's last two days -- and clients defected, executives at the two firms concluded they had no choice. The Federal Reserve Board met at 9 p.m. yesterday and considered applications delivered that day, said Michelle Smith, a spokeswoman for the central bank. The decision was unanimous, she said.

Labels: Casino Becomes Bank, Wall Street

Labels: Collapse, US Budget, US Congress

Labels: Earth, Equinox, Nature

Labels: Bailout, Collapse, Henry Paulson

Labels: Bailout, Collapse, Henry Paulson, US Treasury

Labels: Bailout, Fuck You Republicans, The Blogohood, Wall Street Failure

Labels: John McCain

DODD: I think there’s going to be a strong interest to deal with the Main Street aspects of this.

BOEHNER: But we’ve already dealt with that, when we passed the housing bill last summer. I didn’t vote for it because of the $300 billion bailout for scam artists, and speculators, and others around the housing industry. But there are a lot of tools in there to help the Federal Housing Administration deal with the foreclosures problems that’s out there. We need to rise above partisan politics…and deal with this as adults.

"My dear Tavore," Laseen said, "I admit to some embarrassment on your behalf. You appear to hold to the childish notion that some truths are intransigent and undeniable. Alas, the adult world is never so simple. All truths are malleable. Subject, by necessity, to revision. Have you not observed, Tavore, that in the minds of the people in this empire, truth is without relevance? It has lost it's power. It no longer effects change and indeed, the very will of the people-- born of fear and ignorance, granted-- the very will, as I said, can in turn revise those truths, can transform, if you like, the lies of convenience into faith, and that faith in turn is not open to challenge."-- Empress Laseen of the Malazan Empire; from The Bonehunters, Book 6 of Steven Erikson's, The Malazan Book of the Fallen

Labels: Bailout, Collapse, Filthy Fucking Rich, Fucking Republicans

Paulsen and congressional Republicans, or the few that will actually vote for this (most will be unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies), have said that there can’t be any “add ons,” or addition provisions. Fuck that. I don’t really want to trigger a world wide depression (that’s not hyperbole, that’s a distinct possibility), but I’m not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those mother fuckers.

Nancy said she wanted to include the second “stimulus” package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don’t want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.

Henry Waxman has suggested corporate government reforms, including CEO compensation, as the price for this. Some members have publicly suggested allowing modification of mortgages in bankruptcy, and the House Judiciary Committee staff is also very interested in that. That’s a real possibility.

We may strip out all the gives to industry in the predatory mortgage lending bill that the House passed last November, which hasn’t budged in the Senate, and include that in the bill. There are other ideas on the table but they are going to be tough to work out before next week.

I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.

I’m open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them.

Labels: A Democrat With A Spine, Collapse, Congress

Well, for 5 and a half years, John McCain
didn't get the chance to drive a car!

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Out Of Touch Republicans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Sunday that foreign banks will be able to unload bad financial assets under a $700 billion U.S. proposal aimed at restoring order during a devastating financial crisis.

"Yes, and they should. Because ... if a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," Paulson said on ABC television's "This Week with George Stephanopolous."

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

Labels: Collapse, Henry Paulson, US Treasury, Wall Street Failure

Labels: Bush Economic Policies, New Deal, The Bush Depression, The Great Depression