Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

I mean, in between complaining about Obama ads and talking about how wonderful it is that Sarah Palin gets to meet Bono.

palin/bono '12

Gingrich's post yesterday afternoon pointedly reminded the lemmings that, had this happened under a Democratic administration, House whips would already be marshaling protests.

Said post.

o how the gop would howl

Of all people, Mr. Newt Gingrich disagreeing with "the administration's," plan:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGE5MmE0YmRiODA3YTRiNzFlN2FmNDU5N2I0ZDc3YTE=

But because this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused.

It’s time to end the silence and clear up the confusion.

---

Is our $700 billion going to be spent in "secret" too? In practical terms, will a bill be written in public so people can analyze it? Or will it be written in a closed room by the very people who have been collecting money from the institutions they are now going to use our money to bail out?

Haha big x-post w/ Alfred

and Ned

i got all bummed this morning that the good new restaurants and cafes around my girlfriends apt in bed-stuy are gonna go out of business pretty soon

Yu can get a new girlfriend.

Michelle Malkin: Paulson is untrustworthy, is friends with commies and probably eats babies

Former Goldman Sachs Head Proposes Blank Cheque for Goldman Sachs

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/03zofZI6JS9Di/610x.jpg

What exploded last week was an economic credo that has been rolling along since the early 1970s: neoliberalism.

By all rights, this last crisis has brought us to the crossroads where neoliberalism should be buried with a stake through its heart.
We’ve had thirty years worth of deregulation – the loosening of government supervision. This has been the neoliberal mantra preached by both major parties, the whole of the establishment press and almost every university economics department in the country. It is central to the current disasters. And if you want to identify symbolic figures in the legislated career of deregulation, there are no more resplendent culprits than the man at McCain’s elbow, Phil Gramm, and the man standing at Obama’s elbow at his press conference, Robert Rubin....

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09202008.html

>>i got all bummed this morning that the good new restaurants and cafes around my girlfriends apt in bed-stuy are gonna go out of business pretty soon

― Mohammed Butt (max), Monday, September 22, 2008 7:30 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark<<

Oh yes, time to pity those suffering new yorkers:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122187131490959185.html?mod=yahoo_free

As Times Turn Tough,
New York's Wealthy Economize

A nose job in a hospital with a private nurse in attendance had been something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher's children. But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it.

The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old's proboscis.

"The other noses were more prominent," the stay-at-home mother from a tony New York City suburb in Westchester County told her 16-year-old daughter. She could get hers done when things settled down.

The financial crisis on Wall Street has New York's well-to-do reeling. The people who fuel the area's economy with their spending on art, fashion, cars, restaurants, plastic surgery and other luxe goods and services are starting to cut back once-lavish budgets.

---

On Thursday, a New York mother of two young children asked Carol Solomon, the owner of New York Nanny Center Inc., whether she could find a good nanny willing to work for less than the $1,200 a week sought by a candidate she had found elsewhere.

"Based on everything that's been going on with the market," the mother told Ms. Solomon, "I'm concerned about committing to that kind of salary." Ms. Solomon suggested another nanny seeking a more modest salary of $750 a week.

As with Ms. Asher's daughter, cosmetic surgeons are feeling the pinch in their nips and tucks.

Disappointing Birthday
For her 50th birthday, Annette Pucci, a New York retail manager, planned to treat herself to a facelift by cashing in $15,000 in stocks. But after consulting with her husband, a manger with Consolidated Edison Inc., she realized their stock portfolio had taken such a hit that it was out of the question.

"It was a very big disappointment," Ms. Pucci said. Her consolation: a $1,200 Botox treatment she had this week instead.

wtf dude im talking about the poor local small business owners

i just needed an in to share that, chill

wares yr gf live max

stuyvesant ave near fulton

but shes MY girlfriend dude go get your own

yah LIKE im having a girlfriend whos cafes are all out of business

all can agree: now is the time for dating FANCY bitches

ur loss dude ~~

pix?

A nose job as a rite of passage, hm.

Roffles:

"It's going to be very hard psychologically for these people," Frank said. "I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done."

oh how my heart bleeds

Yves Smith has a great lengthy post on why this bailout plan should be DOA, and what a reasonable plan would look like:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/why-you-should-hate-treasury-bailout.html

those poor children, it's probably worth a whole lot of money to NOT be told you're ugly by your parents growing up

i read something on some blog somewhere to the effect that ugly old fat financial types are giving up their "high end" girlfriends

Been calling my congressman and (lol) senators this morning to ask them to oppose this bullshit. Interestingly, the new guy in MS-1 had the most intelligent phone answerer, who wanted to get into the specifics of my opposition. "Is is just the lack of oversight, or are you opposed to the whole thing in general?"

"I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done."

Diddy?

did you go for option 2 there, RH?

Dr. M -- yes, definitely.

Cunning Realist = none too thrilled.

something needs to be done to keep the credit markets from completely imploding

RR: bad idea - http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/09/bailout-of-all-bailouts-is-bad-idea.html

but i don't know if i fully buy his alternative. how does it work so neatly, that "creditors would be paid off" ?

A better idea would be for the Fed and Treasury to organize a giant workout of Wall Street -- essentially, a reorganization under bankruptcy, for whatever firms wanted to join in. Equity would be eliminated, along with most preferred stock, creditors would be paid off to the extent possible. And then the participants would start over with clean balance sheets that reflected new, agreed-upon rules for full disclosure, along with minimum capitalization. Everyone would know where they stood. Bad debts would be eliminated. Taxpayers wouldn't get left holding the bag. And there would be no "moral hazard" incentive for future financial wizards to take giant risks with other taxpayers' money.

i propose all debt in the entire world be forgiven and we start over

Live 8.2

And this really is the most objectionable part of the whole goddamned thing, as every blog mentions:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Okay, so that's, what, unimpeachable monarchial powers in the hands of an official who will remain unanswerable to any court of law. Who will decide which financial institutions will live or die. On the basis of the taxable wealth of the electorate...wait which century are we in again? Oh yes, the 21st, as the secretary will have unbounded immunity from examination as secretively as every other Bush II governmental official.

Why is it necessary to word it like that when the Treasury will be changing hands so soon - or will it ...oh my. Now that you're on the cover of Newsweek and called "king"

Exactly, the Treasury proposal would basically give Paulson $700B to play God with. He would be granted sweeping powers to use vast amounts of taxpayer money to decide who lives and who dies in the financial world, and protected from any oversight or second-guessing of his decisions. This is clearly untenable.

Why is that even necessary? I really don't understand the logic behind it. (xpost)

dont forget that said king was v recently in the employ of the industry in question!

dude should be fired for even proposing such a thing

And there would be no "moral hazard" incentive for future financial wizards to take giant risks with other taxpayers' money.

water rolling downhill, etc. See also: Congressional wizards taking giant risks with other taxpayers' money. But hey, at least they're elected officials, right?

>Exactly, the Treasury proposal would basically give Paulson $700B to play God with.

Well no - from Smith's blog that you yourself posted: And mind you, $700 billion is not the maximum that the Treasury may spend, it's the ceiling on the outstandings at any one time. It's a balance sheet number, not an expenditure limit.

Also, by making GS (where Paulson once was, right?) & MS holding banks - this is more than just repealing Glass-Steagal then...is this indefinitely killing the i-bank for good?

Counterproposal - I'd like to see conservative/Repukes argue against its logic re: the Treasury

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/ts_nm/financial_bailout_congress_dc

Senate Democrats propose conditions for bailout
31 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Monday issued a counterproposal to the Treasury Department's financial bailout plan that would give the government shares in firms unloading assets and limit executive compensation.

According to a legislative proposal obtained by Reuters, the majority Democrats also want to set up an oversight board that would include the chairmen of the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and Securities and Exchange Commission to limit the Treasury's otherwise largely unfettered powers.

In addition, the Democratic plan would ensure that decisions taken by the Treasury secretary as part of the proposed $700 billion bailout would be reviewable under certain circumstances. The Treasury had asked that decisions not be reviewable by any administrative body or court.

The more I think about this plan, the less I like it. Even if oversight is added, the idea of buying up the troubled assets seems like it's basically got the problem backwards. Under this plan, the banks that invested the most in the worst kinds of mortgage-related assets would be helped the most. If the object is to make credit available, why not try to make it available through the banks that bought the least of the troubled assets? There were some banks that wisely dealt with the problem early on, and escaped the worst effects of the crisis. Why not pass measures to help them to extend more credit, if the object is to free up credit, rather than throwing taxpayer dollars at the worst offenders, without exacting anything from them in return?

I think the first thing that we need is full disclosure. Which banks are holding the most of these troubled assets? Which ones are most in danger? We don't need a behind-closed-doors solution to these problems.

the whole focus on the repeal of glass-steagal as a cause of this mess is pretty o_O when you consider the only institutions not hurting right now are the diversified mega-banks

> this is more than just repealing Glass-Steagal then

To clarify: I know that happened 9 years ago; I guess I'm still grasping what the current incarnations of GS & MG are, now. Morgan Stanley is bought 20% by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/ts_nm/financial_bailout_dc;_ylt=AiuUbsUA9DmqfmPi17Mkpv1g.3QA

Meanwhile, the fate of Wamu is still inconclusive