Does anyone know why, exactly, we need to pick up the tab for $700 billion of garbage assets at this particular moment?

Because shut up, that’s why. Boobs.

Fasten your seatbelts boys, it’s going to be a bumpy night.

Eh. Bailout, ratfuck, same thing.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

The fact is that is the most solidly conservative policy I’ve ever heard of.

On the up side, this pretty much (as I predicted!) obviates any supposed urgent need for McChicken to speed back to DC. I think the congreessional GOPpers conspired with the Dems to get the announcement out there el rapido.

Perhaps this was done to keep Gramps from flying in and taking credit for solving this clusterfuck?

Liar! If you paid your bills on time, how’d we end up in this mess?

Or it was done to get their hands on seven hundred kabillion dollars.

The rest is gravy.

Boehner is denying a deal has been made, but most likely to provide some cover until McCain looks like he actually did something

I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie? I said thanks but no thanks! Real reform. He’s known as the maverick. In what respect, Charlie?

Hey, can I start agitating for California to succeed from the USA, or is that too First Dude of me?

High-tech weapons, entertainment media, software and foodstuffs are that last great American exports, and guess how much of stuff that comes from the Left Coast?

Hey, if California was a nation, it would be the world’s 5th leading economy, and we’re gettin’ a little tired of paying Jesusland’s bills.

I don’t get it. What’s malfunctioning? Seems a perfect facsimile to me. Okay, maybe it was a little *too* coherent.

Where is The Truth to tell us all in dull, white words why this makes his testicles all tingly?

Wow! speechless.
“no good reason, we just saw an opportunity to ask for $700Billion and decided we’d shoot for it. Actually, me and Ben came up with the idea while we were tripping balls at the Lehman brothers afterparty, and we probably would have forgotten about it except that my friend Phil Gramm was recording it on his digital camera and he sent it to me the next day. Then George suggested that we really do it and we were like: WHOOOAH!!!! that could actually work!”

On the up side, this pretty much (as I predicted!) obviates any supposed urgent need for McChicken to speed back to DC. I think the congreessional GOPpers conspired with the Dems to get the announcement out there el rapido.

His Republican colleagues in the Senate who disliked him before this—and there are a lot of them—must absolutely despise him now.

Good times when Republican senators have their first post-election meeting.

I’m really getting that sinking feeling we’re seeing the biggest ratfuck of all time. This is how they will kill health care and every other progressive social proposal – drowned in the bathtub on the Bush gang’s way out the door.

First-Dude, you’re being very un-first-dude here.

Whaddya mean they don’t know what they’re going to do with the money? They’re going to perform a breathtaking illusion (not a “trick!”) in which it mysteriously disappears and everyone in Congress suddenly owns a fire-red Ferrari. It’s MAGIC, I tell you!

Come on up. I could use somebody around here to hold the fort when I have to travel. Cook? Did you say cook?

Lots of room, big yard and we’re out of the way enough to be safe from marauding bands of morons, yet close enough to get to the city in an hour or so.

Agitate away, Joe, since that’s a good part of what’s led California to succeed in the first place. And after you take over Arizona to secure your water rights, can I live in your cabana?

Am I being cynical if I believe that cap on executive pay is going to be so full of loopholes as to be meaningless?

I can bake. Bread, pies, rolls, cakes, Christmas goodies. I always wanted a White Christmas.

Also, I knew you would jinx us, Brad.

Yes, the correct answer, we’re fucked. And curiously enough, barney frank and chris dodd led the way to fucking us.

Thanks dems, once again you manage to prove that even shitheaded libertarians can be right once in awhile.

Man, that does that sting.

Joe Max, I’d say if we seceded, we’d be royally screwed. SoCal is certainly ground zero for the housing bubble/mortgage crisis.

I’m with Ice-Weasel. I hate it when dems behave the way your stupid libertarian friend says they’re going to.

“We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

*FACEPALM*. This should be written on the gravestone of the GOP.

I think Canada might be a bit close to the action if(when) the US returns to hunter-gatherer mode. Jesusland/Garyville is littered with missile silos. If some of the rubes pry one open, they probably won’t be able to figure out how to fire the thing, but they could strap it to a tractor and drive it right across Bernie Sander’s shit moat.
I’m thinking Southern Hemisphere… Mikey?

Brad–

My impression–and I encourage people who actually know what they’re talking about to beat me up w/ corrections–is that the central problem is that no one really *knows* what these assets are worth. But as long as there’s no Fed-installed floor under them, all lenders look at all borrowers and say, “Sorry, we don’t know how good a credit risk you are now, so we can’t lend to you.” Not only that, but if lenders are banks, and banks have these assets on their books, they themselves don’t know how much their assets are worth, which means they don’t know how much they have to lend in the first place.

Without lending, the economy stalls and goes into a nosedive.

What the gov’t is doing, then, is saying in some general way, We will pay SOMETHING for these assets–TBD–and take them off your hands. That way lenders will feel more comfortable in lending to you again, and the machine can get back in motion.

Thus, just paying part (although they admit they don’t know why 700 b. is “the whole”) is like pumping up a part of a blimp. It won’t keep the whole thing in the air and will just make it fall a bit slower.

Yes, it’s top-down with a vengeance, but its effects will presumably be better than letting the whole economy collapse like the entirely-deflated blimp, sitting on the tarmac in inert folds. Not only can no one remotely envision what that would mean domestically, but with us all connected to a global economy via transnational corporations, the consequences of letting it all collapse approach the realm of the science fictional.

It sucks to the extent that these actual people being rescued are greedy swine, yes. I’d love to see specific CEOs, CFOs, and their staffs and intimates, be stripped of all assets and made to work in Burger King for the next ten years. (Except for my brother in law, who’s a decent guy, albeit a Goldman bond trader.) Can we make this happen? Yes we can!

The caps are lies, they will find a way to hide payments. This is the biggest scam I can imagine. And they just made up the number, and it won’t help the economy anyway. They don’t even have an explanation for it. We are being royally FUCKED.

Hah! And what exactly are you going to use to “pay bills on time,” Brad? I can see the signs now: “American currency not accepted here.” And with a conversion rate of CDN$1 to US$eleventy-kajillion, your savings won’t get you far.

They should just distribute the money across the country and tell wallstreet that if they want it they have to screw us out of it fair and square.

So, now with the economy in smoldering ruins, the credit markets all but seized up, inflation in energy, commodities and foodstuffs rising fast and the national debt about to cross the 11 TRILLION dollar rubicon, these geniuses have decided the best way to fix the whole thing is to borrow another trillion dollars and print a bunch of money and hand it to the drooling madmen who created these “investment vehicles” on the premise that home prices would continue to rise fifteen percent a year forever.

Hey. What could go wrong?

mikey

Now now, don’t shoot yourself in the head just yet.

While it’s not a given that a gazillion $ bailout is absolutely necessary, there’s plenty of reason to think it might be needed. As for the numbers, there’s certaionly room for skepticism. The biggest question, which doesn’t seem to be addressed in the draft plans I have seen, is just how will the value of the toxic paper be determined?

Looking at the examples of Argentina (massive fail, they didn’t do anything to prop up their finqancial system) and Sweden (excellent recovery after doing pretty much what the Dodd plan calls for) is instructive. As for the Paulson plan (aka the Hanky Panky plan), it’s largely dead except for the general idea.

I also look to Krugman for a sober and realistic take. Really, go read his blog over the last week or so and you might gain a new perspective on the deal.

In any case, the one thing we have to keep out front is that “no one could have foreseen it.”

Agitate away, Joe, since that’s a good part of what’s led California to succeed in the first place. And after you take over Arizona to secure your water rights, can I live in your cabana?

The master plan definitely includes mass defection. There’s still a lot of coastal land to the north of San Francisco, so we could build New New York at about the same latitude as NYC and all the Manhattan people can immigrate here. Hell, we could re-create New New England up there with much the same weather patterns.

But as to your proposal, we should annex Nevada first, then Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. And you can have your own cabana!

Hey. What could go wrong?

Precisely. I’m totally unconcerned. I’m sure the rich will come out of this just fine, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?

I think the problem is too complex to say for certain that Frank and Dodd — who actually know something about the economy — just rolled over. Politics and governance are always about compromise, and holding the teetering financial services industry hostage to demands to put everything we (meaning alla y’all DFH’s) want into the bailout plan does nobody any good.

So yes, there may be loopholes in the exec comp provision. The bailout is probably going to save the asses of undeserving scumbags who fucked up the system by speculating heavily on securities that had no intrinsic value. But the alternatives seem to be, simplistically put, either no bailout and a total collapse of the major lending institutions in the country (and beyond), which can’t possibly be good for anybody; or a bailout plan without the restrictions, limitations and safeguards that Congress has been working to put into it. Given those alternatives — and if there are other better ones, please tell me — I’m OK with not getting all the sparkle ponies and moonbeams that I would have in an ideal world.

“Couldn’t we work a try-out deal to buy, say, $100 billion over the next three months to see how things go?”

I concur. I think that something similar to what some big dog financial institutions have been trying to lure retirees into, for many years, on the teevee is in order. I think the big dog financial institutions labeled / categorized them as REVERSE MORTGAGES.

I say take some of your own medicine already, big dogs!

Joe Max, I’d say if we seceded, we’d be royally screwed. SoCal is certainly ground zero for the housing bubble/mortgage crisis.

Hmm, good point, but I thought the big bursting bubble here was the central Imperial Valley. Massive exurbs were built inland of all the major cities, and those are tanking. Los Angeles was already built out to the limit of automobile commute technology. I hear it’s the new exurbs of San Francisco and Sacramento (maybe San Diego, so there’s your SoCal element) that are the biggest crashers.

I’m an IT guy, and I have experience with Canadian payroll AND with 6-month-long winters! Free to good Canadian home.

I’m actually being serious. I’m clean, I pay bills on time and I’m a fine cook.

My ex is looking for a pool boy…

Speaking of the rubicon, mikey, whattaya think about the recent blatant violation of posse comitatus?

And they’ll call it The Banking Oversight and Healthy Investment for Corporate America Act.

Woo-hoo! Grab ’em, boys.

Why do you want to leave paradise, especially now when, it’s becoming so socialist?

Mr. Wonderful: Normally, you pay a higher interest rate if you are a risky borrower. Are you trying to tell me these assets are so bad that no legal interest rate will satisfy the lenders?

Yeah, let’s pay for those and get nothing in exchange right away.

Joe Max, quite right – it’s still California, though. And I’m starting to hear of short sales even here on the LA Westside…

Dan Someone, I disagree. We absolutely don’t know what would happen without doing anything. Why should I trust the predictions of those who were spectacularly wrong before?

But even if, indeed, the major lending insitutions were about to collapse, there wouldn’t be any harm to hold out for a better deal (eg, complete nationalization of the industry). Looks to me like the pressure would be on them to compromise.

The open secret is that “compromise” in Washington means “the worst deal for workers they can get away with without generating real resistance”. Our goal should be to raise enough of a ruckus to shift that line, not to put our trust in either wing of the reactionary party.

I’m clean, I pay bills on time and I’m a fine cook.

That may all be true Brad, but the real question is:

Can you build a Shit-Moat?

Well, I think it’s awfully sweet of those boys in DC to say they’ll lend the nice banks some money. After all, somebody has to, and it sure as fuck ain’t gonna be China no more.

In any case, the one thing we have to keep out front is that “no one could have foreseenskinned it.”

ftfy.

poop.

I know we’re all going to end up getting screwed, but for $700 billion shouldn’t we each get an orgasm so good the aftershocks can be measured on the Richter scale? I DEMAND MY FAIR SHARE OF THIS ENORMOUS PACKAGE!

@dan somone :
I’m OK with not getting all the sparkle ponies and moonbeams that I would have in an ideal world.

I’d settle for a sparkle pony poster and moonbeam shaped hair barrette at this point.

I figure the irresponsible morons who got us into this mess will mostly come out pretty much scott free, chortling in the back seats of their Bentleys on the way to their beautiful penthouses, because that’s just how the world works. But I don’t see why we should just give it to them without at least trying to salvage some moral credibility.

The solution to all of this will be complex, but a few things about it aren’t. At the very least I think we can agree that the jackals who got us into this mess shouldn’t have a goddamn thing to do with the “solution”. There are a half dozen or so things that really shouldn’t be that hard to put in there.

At least then I can gaze at my pretty pretty pony poster on the wall of the cardboard box I’ll use as temporary shelter on the way up to Canada. I can cook, love the winter, am an IT professional and will happily refresh my knowledge of French.

Brad,

Just wriggle through the Internet tubes and you´ll end up in Germany. 🙂

Couldn’t we work a try-out deal to buy, say, $100 billion over the next three months to see how things go?

According to the WSJ, the decided that that $100 bil. should be $250 bill, with a rethink in 3 months.

…and not even the common courtesy of a reach-around.

I DEMAND MY FAIR SHARE OF THIS ENORMOUS PACKAGE!

Oh, we’ll all be getting a share of an enormous package, alright…

I demand the return of good prizes to Crackerjack boxes.

ArLee,

That would have been so much better the other way around.

Then again, that’s sort of the whole point, isn’t it?

Speaking of the rubicon, mikey, whattaya think about the recent blatant violation of posse comitatus?

Well, hell, Peej, it ain’t gonna be much of a goddam insurgency if’n we don’t have soldiers to shoot at!

Who we supposed to rebel against?

For that matter, who’s gonna round us up, take us to camps and torture us?

Y’gotta get martial law before we can kick this thing off righteous.

I’m beginning to get the impression Americans are gonna have to go to Che’s Guerrilla 101 class…

mikey

You know they won’t be happy until they start a civil war over again, so that this time the right side will win.

Dibs on Jonah Goldberg, POW. I hear piranas can strip a carcass in two minutes. Or ten, in his case.

But the alternatives seem to be, simplistically put, either no bailout and a total collapse of the major lending institutions in the country (and beyond), which can’t possibly be good for anybody; or a bailout plan without the restrictions, limitations and safeguards that Congress has been working to put into it.

Hmm. Maybe.

I’m not an economist, although I do play one on television, and I did stay in a holiday inn last night.

But even I see two problems with this theory. First, what does “total collapse of the major lending institutions in the country” even mean? Why wouldn’t young, hungry, agressive companies just move into that gap to take their place. Just because these companies made horrible business decisions and ended up insolvent does NOT mean all the money is gone – POOF. It means that smarter people who aren’t so greedy they kill the host can move in and make a successful business out of making sound loans.

And the other side of that coin, explain why this is supposed to work? We buy all the worthless paper at inflated prices. The balance sheets of the companies go black, and they have more cash. Know what? They could get cash from the fed anyway. The question is, what will they do with the cash, and outside of the crappy investment vehicles they own, and that this program can buy, what else do they have? Remember there’s very likely to be many TRILLIONS of dollars in bad assets on the books at all sorts of companies. With no oversight and no reporting (Thanks Phil) nobody knows, but we DO know that it represented a much larger piece of the financial ecosystem than a mere trillion dollars.

So, no. Ain’t necessarily buying it. I’m not convinced it’s necessary, and I don’t believe it will solve any problem at all. Not to mention the “moral hazard”. What’s to discourage these same companies from following the same path? They don’t lose when they fail…

mikey

I’m beginning to get the impression Americans are gonna have to go to Che’s Guerrilla 101 class…

Unfortunately, many of them are so fucking stupid, when they try to, they’ll wind up at the zoo.

Insane in the C. Brain asks–

“Normally, you pay a higher interest rate if you are a risky borrower. Are you trying to tell me these assets are so bad that no legal interest rate will satisfy the lenders?”

You’ve got me there. I think part of the problem is the banks/lenders themselves have to throttle back on what they have to lend, regardless of the rate they can charge. And they can’t afford to take the chance on even those high rates, since how do they know the loan will be repaid? The credit rating (whose agencies should also be flayed in the public square) get worse and, worse than that, unreliable.

Esp. because these mortgage-backed securities are, in the end, based on the value of houses. The banks don’t want to be in the business of selling houses, if the borrowers default, and it’s not clear, now, what the houses are “worth” anyway. And, the more a bank sells its assets to help strengthen its balance sheet, the less its own assets (those it sells, those it holds) are worth. Putting them up for sale by definition lowers the price they can command in the market. It’s what Paul Krugman and I call “the paradox of de-leveraging.”

I didn’t know any of this a week ago. I may still not know it.

Another issue is the proliferation (sans regulation) of credit default swaps, which allowed companies to buy “insurance” against their debts, and then sell those policies to third parties. These were all well and good in the 90s, when they were mainly taken out as hedges against municipal bonds, since few entities were actually defaulting on anything. So Wall St. went nuts and began buying/selling these policies on Collateralized Debt Obligations (ie, mortgage bundles), and selling, and selling, so a given policy could be sold/bought 19 times or more after its initial creation.

That’s like me buying house insurance from Prudential, and then deciding to sell it to Shmendrik Insurance for some quick cash. Fifteen sales later, Putz Investments owns it–and then my house burns down. Can they make good on it? “Why Do You Think We Call It Putz?” Etc., times a million.

I demand the return of good prizes to Crackerjack boxes.

Now you’re just talking crazy talk.

Makes me long for the soaring, inspirational oratory of George W. Bush.

The editors has a post which plays the latest Palin interview next to Miss South Carolina… ouch.

Dan Someone, I disagree. We absolutely don’t know what would happen without doing anything. Why should I trust the predictions of those who were spectacularly wrong before?

Well, they coincide with the predictions of a lot of other people who weren’t involved with the major fuckup. Economists have been predicting dire consequences of the housing bubble bursting for some time now; one such consequence is the credit crisis arising out of all the speculation on no-value derivatives of the mortgage market. If nothing gets done, then some of the biggest financial institutions in the country — in the world — go belly-up, nobody is willing or able to lend money, no investment, economic collapse, game over. At least, that’s my understanding, limited though it may be.

I demand the return of good prizes to Crackerjack boxes.

Now you’re just talking crazy talk.

Indeed – you’ll have difficulty finding Crackerjack in boxes these days, as paperboard packaging is costly compared to plastic bags. Although, … no. Fenway Crackerjack guy would not lie to me about such a thing.

If nothing gets done, then some of the biggest financial institutions in the country — in the world — go belly-up, nobody is willing or able to lend money, no investment, economic collapse, game over. At least, that’s my understanding, limited though it may be.

Hm. Mine too.
No lending = no payroll for a large % of US businesses – operations are frequently funded out of short-term borrowing.
No payroll = torchforks.

Frankly, I’d like to put that off long enough to properly stock the larder and armory. I’m thinking a couple horses would be very useful too.

Ok, feeble humans, get this: Apparently The Clarion Fund thought that even I wasn’t afraid enough of foreign brown people! They sent to me (I don’t know how they found my pan-dimensional address), Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, listed on the postage-paid envelope as $19.95 MRP. Amazingly they are just giving them away!

This film, which I presume is about the scariness of darkies, is “Winner, Best Feature Film, 2005 Liberty Film Festival” and also “…required viewing for everyone” according to Howard Gordon (‘Executive Producer of “24”‘ [sic]). It says so right on the envelope.

Davros–

You, too? Damn. I thought I was “special.”

“…required viewing for everyone”

Will there be a test?

Couldn’t we work a try-out deal to buy, say, $100 billion over the next three months to see how things go?

Sounds nice – but the sheer scale of this fuckery is such that your solution just eliminates $100 B, with likely zero results. Then that’s $100 B less to use to get results that’re even more urgently needed.

BushCo has indeed overstated the level of urgency (as the original deal showed, it wanted yet more godlike powers for its Sacred Executive Branch) but unfortunately not by much – I think we had about 2 or 3 more weeks at best before the global economy went to DefCon 1 overnight. I still think it might do just that – this is triage, not a magic bullet.

Problem is, NOBODY knows what all this paper is worth. Much is butt-floss but some is perfectly bonafide – it took them less than a week to settle for a bailout package, but it’ll take years to work out who gets what & when.

Why wouldn’t young, hungry, agressive companies just move into that gap to take their place. Just because these companies made horrible business decisions and ended up insolvent does NOT mean all the money is gone – POOF.

In a real free-market model, operating on a local or even a national scale, you’d be dead-on, but this is a global web of humungous (& heavily mutually owned) monolithic money-barons here. “Too big to fail” my ass – but they sure are too big to replace in short order, & in a world of instant global trades, their total absence for even a short time would be godawful for the world economy.

Smaller newer companies lack the infrastructure, credit ratings or connections, let alone the expertise to conduct global transactions on this kind of scale … & I’m sad to say, the money is indeed gone: it was over-leveraged, sometimes at a scale of 30:1 or worse, & now it’s payback time – but there’s no real moolah there for anyone to pay up with. The Fed just pumping out the necessary cash to cover the lot would nuke the USD like Hiroshima (which still remains a real possibility anyway).

What they’re NOT saying is at least as important as what they HAVE said. No-one supporting this plan is admitting that the entire deal is itself another gamble; there’s no ironclad clause that says the US has to be kowtowed to by global markets, or that a quick bailout will really solve the crisis, & the shift toward the Euro isn’t likely to be slowed down much by this bailout – many global brokerages just got shafted out of too much hard coin in the last week for them to trust the Yankee Dollar again for a very very long time.

This (justme’s link @ 20:57) is bad bloody news. I sure hope it doesn’t last (& that others don’t follow suit) because without that financing, neither will America.

Living on credit is a gas – unless the bills come due, or your line of credit gets cut off. Unless America sells off ALL of its military hardware at a premium (just for starters), I don’t see how it can survive both hits at once.

My interesting times – let me show you them.

Does anyone know why, exactly, we need to pick up the tab for $700 billion of garbage assets at this particular moment? Couldn’t we work a try-out deal to buy, say, $100 billion over the next three months to see how things go?

Actually… Not that I’m particularly happy with things as they stand, the Statement of Principles as it’s stated by the WSJ (and if you want to see the Wingnuttiness in full swing, it’s there!) http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/25/text-of-lawmakers-agreement-on-principles/ seems to include an installment plan roughly along these lines– though a lot more forgiving. $250 billion to start, $100 billion installments. Statement’s not too bad as I can see it, but then again, I think I’m still seeing things in light of the Paulson Pile, and that’s not healthy lens-material.

Sorry Brad, we only take army deserters. I know y’all think that’s because we’re all pacifist and shit, but really it’s because we’re gonna want them manning our side of the border when the shit really hits the fan.

Will consider applicants with shit moat experience as the situation deteriorates….

Best theory I’ve heard as to how the $700bn figure was generated:

Current official projected FY 2009 federal budget deficit is $400bn. Apparently, the banks that usually handle Treasury sales are actually in pretty good shape, financially, and could buy that much federal paper. However, the privately discussed expectation is that the US economy is gonna tank – hard – RSN, no matter what, and thus reduce federal revenues by (ta-da) an additional $700bn. Since the Fed is apparently out of cash (unless/until they print some more), there’s no way for these banks to borrow enough to cover that much more deficit. Thus, Paulson essentially just gives away $700bn in T-bills to the banks for them to sell to whoever is still willing to pay for them. And the Treasury gets, in exchange, a bunch of toxic paper to make it look like an actual (albeit fucked up) transaction.

So, this “saving the financial system” is actually about saving the US govt financing system.

Another part of this, so I’ve heard, is that the problem is not that no one wants to extend credit anymore – it’s that no one can afford to extend cheap credit anymore, especially to the US govt. Because, thanks to the “deficits don’t matter boys”, the ever-expanding US national debt has sucked cheap credit dry (and called it “Cactus”?). So, interest rates are gonna rocket to the stratosphere (whether or not any $700bn deal is made) and blow most of the economy out of the water.

Of course, covering the FY 2009 trillion$$ deficit is merely kicking the can down the road. We’ll face the same situation again trying to cover the 2010 deficit – even if Obama raises the marginal tax rate to 70%+ on the only people left with anything to tax – the top 1%.

See? Doncha feel all better now?

How many Americans can fit in a 600 square foot house? No, really: that’s all the space we got. But considering it will only be the intelligent one coming, I see no reason not to accept as many as possible.

Immigration Forms for all!

This is unreal. Bush’s mates have fucked you every which way for eight years, but this heist is truly spectacular. Your grandchildren are going to look at this with absolute fucking amazement–you let a bunch of men steal SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION dollars in plain sight. Without even using guns. And your economy was still fuxxord.

I just saw on CNBC some guy explain what the House Republicans want to agree to this bailout package: a “growth component”, like, for example, reducing the capital gains tax. Un-fucking-believable. They want more money to go to filthy rich people – that’s their way to stand up for the “free market”. I’m starting to reserve some lamp poles, people.

A few simple reminders:

Use standard calibers. 9mm, 5.56, 7.65×39, .308. Don’t get fancy – you take your ammo from the dead.

AMFO is not some cheesy compromise – it works. But you have to understand how to make it go bang. Knowledge is power, my friends.

Infil works both ways. You’ve GOT to have intel – talk to your family members inside.

Small cells (no more than five individuals) without links to other small cells are best. You start building this big funky network, you’ll have power for a few weeks, they they’ll make somebody talk and you’ll get rolled up. Keep a full-on air gap between you and anybody else you know. You’ll talk eventually – don’t kid yourself. Don’t know anything they can use.

Think about where they’re vulnerable. It’s not what you think. It’s not what it used to be. Now? It’s comms, uplinks, nets and fear. That’s your mantra. Live it. Kill it.

Finally, don’t do scorched earth. You have to live here, and you have to have indiginous support. What is your goal? Spend most of your time and resources building a society. They will lose because they want power, you will win because you want to live in peace. Building will win over destroying. Don’t forget it, and don’t sell out…

mikey