19 SEC. 17. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION.
20 The Secretary shall require that all entities seeking
21 to sell assets through a program established under this
22 Act meet appropriate standards for executive compensa
23 tion and shareholder disclosure in order to be eligible,
24 which standards shall include
1 (1) limits on compensation to exclude incentives
2 for executives to take risks that the Secretary deems
3 to be inappropriate or excessive;
4 (2) a claw-back provision for incentive com
5 pensation paid to a senior executive based on earn
6 ings, gains, or other criteria that are later proven to
7 be inaccurate; and
8 (3) such limitations on the entity paying sever
9 ance compensation to its senior executives as are de
10 termined to be appropriate in the public interest in
11 light of the assistance being given to the entity.
crispy& cole, it would be nice to know who wrote everything (that would be an interesting disclosure on every piece of legislation).
Andrew Foland, agreed. Ideally the taxpayers should be behind the secured creditors and ahead of the bondholders. But this is a step in the right direction. If WS is right - and there are no losses for taxpayers - these contingent shares don't kick in. So there is no reason for WS to oppose them (unless they don't believe their own projections).
After taking a quick glance at Dodd's plan, it sounds ok. (Wow.) But what I don't see is a clause for the Feds to profit on the bailout of individual homeowners who get their principal forgiven. I'd say like the assistance for the banks, if the Feds cut your rate or principal, they should get a cut of any future profit on the home when sold.
17 In the even that the equity of the fnancial insti
18
tution from which such troubled assets
19 were purchased is not publicly traded on a
20 national securities exchange
Non-public companies get a bailout??? DOes this include GMAC? Chrylser??
Nemo, your choice is action or no-action. If action then either it is Dodd or Paulson. At this moment anything that has Bush name on it is catastrophic.
The only problem with the Dodd plan is these contingent shares will substantially dilute the current shareholders, making them not want to hold the shares and start selling. So you might as well just nationalize the companies now and get it over with.
I would think the only way the press can run with this and not be absolutely overwhelmed by opposition to the pro-taxpayer aspects is to make sure absolutely nothing other than this 700B handout to reward rich people for bad speculative bets is considered.
Other proposals with merit will allow proponents of handing Paulson a monocle and naming him First Kommissar the ammo to use these add-ons as the reason to kill the Dodd bill... under those 'spun' pretenses.
with all due respect CR, there is now only issue to focus on...The usdollar...it is crashing as we speak and it seems like this will clearly become the new crisis...a dollar collapse is far more worrisome than anything that has gone-on so far..i would recommend most readers to focus on the dollar and its imminent collapse...foreigners own too many dollars and they are beyond fed-up with its recent debasement..they are dumping them, back here...cmmdties will explode...again, this is a far far BIGGER problem than the credit crisis ever could be...i hope im wrong but the dollar is dropping precipitously as i write this..
I'd endorse somebody like Robert Shiller or even Ron Paul doing oversight. Anybody warning of these problems in advance. But the people who sat around deliberately blind and ignorant while the tsunami on the horizon blotted out the sun... no way.
Dodd does not seem to understand the hoopajoop. The hoopajoop needs no oversight.
The hoopajoop has no limits.
The hoopajoop cannot fail.
Mortal humans can never fully comprehend the hoopajoop.
Long live the hoopajoop.
"This plan doesn't solve anything. It's going to make things worse."
You say this for every brilliant solution proposed. C'mon, Misean...support the government. This is a crisis and there is no time for questions and thinking.
okay, so the plan is to keep banking system functioning so companies have access to commercial paper and other loans so economy doesn't grind to a halt. but even though banks (most of 'em) probably stay solvent and are able to make loans...will they make enough loans and at a low enough interest rate that results in corporations borrowing enough to materially change the weak economic outlook? i venture to say no. so maybe averts a complete freeze of credit markets and stock markets down potential 20-50% in the short term...but IMO it won't really spur a new bull mkt and robust econ growth.
For those angry enough to act: contacting your member of congress is good -- contacting your state/local officials can be useful as well -(see search box in upper left to find all of your elected officials):
If you call their offices, all these officials have staff dedicated to taking complaints/solving problems -- if they get inundated with calls, they are going to do something -even if it is simply informing your officials that the public is outraged.
one of the BEST things you can do is contact your local media - TV station /radio/ and newspaper - and register complaints, and ask why they aren't knocking at elected officials' doors and covering this more. They get enough complaints, it's a story.
Get a few folks together in your neighborhood, church group, whatever - even if it's just your family, and organize a protest, or pass out flyers in front of a bank (yes it's small potatoes, but press are much more likely to cover if there's some kind of visual/audio element they can whip up for their newspaper-website pages or the TV news.) The more visual, the better (can you rent pig costumes - or at least buy those pig noses at a Halloween store?).
National media contacts: (I recommend calling - ask for the newsroom / news assignment desk/ managing editor of news to try to get through)
OK, show of hands: how many people think Paulson - ex-CEO of GS - is a complete idiot who has no idea how to negotiate? He started with the extreme position, then allowed the moronic politicians to pretend to assert their 'authority' (rofl), by adding some 'strings' and some 'oversight' (this Congress is really noteworthy for it's exemplary oversight so far ain't it? I expect big things out of any 'oversight' measures it inacts...) and he's wound up where he decided to end up all along. Dodd is following along with Wll St's playbook perfectly. It's probably all being explicitly scripted. This is such a joke - only an utter naif would believe that handing over $700B+ in taxpayer money could be made worth it via some amount of equity in these demonstrably insolvent businesses. It's just a smoke screen. Krugman is a tool. The Austrians win again...Mish, too...
It's up to foreign CB's to buy into the bailout plan and prevent the US $ collapse. This is the next phase, convincing other countries to go along. The currency market is pricing in this uncertainty.
Cramdowns by all means, as long as we all get to know where they've taken place (by zip?), what the amounts are, and a provision for letting taxpayers share in any future profits (it could happen - someday).
I wonder how hard our "real estate pros" will work to keep this info under wraps? God forbid they should be forced to transact real estate at prices people can actually afford. Think of all that lost commission money!
okay CR, way cool on professor krugman sending you email...
so when are you going to reveal yourself and sign on as an economic adviser to the presidential candidate whom seems best able to think through complex problems...
the point is that we (the taxpayer) are on the hook no matter what
it is an absolute fallacy to believe that in any plan the taxpayer is going to get a 'good deal'
we are on the hook, the question is, can we at least get a plan that hurts us a little bit less..
"You say this for every brilliant solution proposed. C'mon, Misean...support the government. This is a crisis and there is no time for questions and thinking."
So now we know - oil price cannot be allowed to go up and Goldman Sachs share price cannot be allowed to go down. ...
And gold they slap with a 47% margin increase on Thursday night. The timing was accidental, I'm certain of it... Nothing to see here... just move on. These are free markets... We never manipulate markets!
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) outlined a proposal he said would create "a genuine ownership society," by giving taxpayers a stake in the companies the government will be saving with its proposed $700 billion package.
Simply purchasing bad debt, 'cash for trash' and not receiving anything of value or giving $700 billion and not having a commensurate equity interest in Wall Street firms is unacceptable," Kucinich said in a news release Monday. "No 'cash for trash.'"
The "United States Mutual Trust Fund" to convert assets purchased by the government into shares that would be distributed to every man, woman and child in the country. Every American would receive about $2,300 worth of shares because that is the cost of the bailout package to each individual.
You know, kinda like that Alaskan oil fund that allows Palin to be such a maverick about taxes
Sorry for the cut & paste - I could not access the link on the main post.... and sorry if this is late, I posted it to the last link in error:
Among the major provisions Dodd is adding:
Authority for bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure. This was considered a poison pill in a housing bill that passed Congress earlier this summer, but it has gained much more currency now that Washington wants to bail out Wall Street.
A provision that would require the Treasury to take 65 percent of any profits it makes from the newly purchased assets and put it into the federal government's HOPE program, an affordable housing program.
An oversight board that not only includes the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the SEC, but congressionally appointed, non-governmental officials.
Limits on executive compensation. This is a major stumbling point for Paulson in his negotiations with Congress, but cracking down on Wall Street executive salaries will be a major selling point for lawmakers. Dodd and Frank have put in place what's known as a "claw back" provision aimed at revoking compensation that executives received based on fraudulent claims.
An independent inspector general to investigate the Treasury asset program, appointed by the president.
Nymex halts trading in OIL for 5 minutes ! too much velocity.. yeah right
sk: did you see? oil jumped from 108 to 115.70 immediately after the halt ceased.
i have a very bad feeling about this. I think even regular people are starting to worry about where to put their money.
Gold at $1000 and Oil at $150 again anyone?
someone keeps asking how we're going to pay for all this... I dunno... but I know that it won't be the typical benign adding it to the deficit game...
Americans will pay for this one with a resurgence of commodity prices... at least they're tangible, regardless of being in a bubble.
until the govt bans trading in oil and commodities that is.
sounds like the Dems are standing up and getting some (if not all) key concessions...
there will be time later, after Jan 2009, to pursue prosecutions and hike tax rates on wall street profiteers.
and there will be an easier road to the swedish/finnish solution (nationalization) if wall st is not playing ball
the structural situation sucks. no way around that. but, given the choices realistically possible this week, I think Dodd and Frank and Pelosi and Obama are doing the right and best thing . . . so far
I'd endorse somebody like Robert Shiller or even Ron Paul doing oversight. Anybody warning of these problems in advance. But the people who sat around deliberately blind and ignorant while the tsunami on the horizon blotted out the sun... no way.
BTW I would be willing to support Krugman in a position of oversight also, even though it is my belief that he vocally supported harmful monetary policy (e.g. negative real interest rates).
You have to start with people that are honest, even if you don't entirely agree with them.
This still gets back to the price paid when the taxpayers trade cash for trash. If it is an honest price, then who would want ownership in these sinking ships. The dilution needed to recapitalize screws the taxpayer again!
Ozzy writes: ..... This is such a joke - only an utter naif would believe that handing over $700B+ in taxpayer money could be made worth it via some amount of equity in these demonstrably insolvent businesses.
Actually, even when I give "them" the benefit of the doubt, I can't help but think of "catching falling knives".
no way out of the pain, just choices about how to take it, who to try to protect from the worst of it, and then what to do about it. maybe a little wiggle room about exactly how much pain there will be - choices a whole lot or a shitload or more than anyone can imagine. I choose a whole lot. And you?
What if, instead of bailing out the companies, they paid off everyone's primary mortgage, thus taking the "toxic loans" off the books AND giving just about every J&J6P another ATM of moolah to go spend, spend, spend? Seems like that would be a better use of 1,000,000,000 and counting...
Yearning to Learn said: "I have a very bad feeling about this. I think even regular people are starting to worry about where to put their money.
Gold at $1000 and Oil at $150 again anyone?"
no way out of the pain, just choices about how to take it, who to try to protect from the worst of it, and then what to do about it. maybe a little wiggle room about exactly how much pain there will be - choices a whole lot or a shitload or more than anyone can imagine. I choose a whole lot. And you?
To be perfectly honest I don't believe that anyone truly knows that choice a will lead to one outcome and choice b will lead to another.
My only belief is that in the end there is no way not to pay a price commensurate with the damage that has already been done to the trust that forms the basis for modern finance. There are only ways to pay a much steeper price by trying to escape accountability and further damaging that trust.
first: i didn't say that everyone is worried. I said regular people are starting to get worried.
example: I've had several people come up and ask me which bank I thought was safe. This has never happened to me before. the average joe wondering if their bank is SAFE? that is quite the sea change
second: I have a hard time believing that you are not even a little concerned. Because the entire government and all of Wall Street is also worried. You'd think there would be a reason why they are doing all these panic maneuvers, no? or do you think it was just Paulson and Bernanke's whim that started the Bailout Express?
This seems the active heart of the Dodd plan.
ACQUISITION OF SECURITIZATION POOLS
12 AND MORTGAGE LOANS.The Secretary shall, to the
13 extent practicable, acquire
14 (A) sufficient ownership or control of
15 pooled residential mortgage loans, or a
16 securitization vehicle for such loans so that the
17 Corporation has authority to modify the under18
lying residential mortgage loans, either directly
19 or through a designee; and
20 (B) whole residential mortgage loans, so
21 that the Corporation may use its authority to
22 modify the underlying residential mortgage
23 loans, either directly or through a designee.
24
pay off mortgages--> ive been suggesting that too... at this point, pay off mortgages for folks who havent been late in paying. this is neither a fix or benefit to all. however since there is so much fantasy, why not have one that at least frees up considerable money for folks to then throw away on items they dont need. that is the real goal here... more consumption.
That plan link is NOT open source -- it's some kinda MSFT source. If you insist of publishing "putz" Krugman's recommendations, I suggest you convert the material to *.pdf. It is not as linked *.pdf readable.
The hoopajoops will be convertible into options to buy more hoopajoops, and are cross-default-swapped with themselves for maximum ensured return to the taxpayer. Hoopajoops may opt-in to evaluation under GAAP, but only partially.
That plan link is NOT open source -- it's some kinda MSFT source. If you insist of publishing "putz" Krugman's recommendations, I suggest you convert the material to *.pdf. It is not as linked *.pdf readable.
Whatever the hell plan the go with it better be on sourceforge.net
"Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar weakened the most against the euro since January 2001 and fell versus the yen on concern a U.S. proposal to buy $700 billion of troubled assets from financial firms will deepen the budget deficit.
The greenback weakened for a fourth day as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to bail out banks from the credit crunch failed to restore investor confidence in U.S. assets. Stocks and bonds fell, and oil prices surged."
This is history in the making. Only the books will be written with a twist. What will the books say will be the cause? How will they turn this into a patriotic ending?
Well, at least Dodd and the Dems realize that legislation is about negotiation. Just like in any business negotiation, just because the guy across the table comes at you first with a proposal doesn't mean you have to take it. Sure, we don't have oodles of time to debate this (though we have a lot more than the Bushies will admit too), but the fact that Dodd & Co. are at least putting some parameters on this disaster of a plan is a good sign.
The sad thing is how Bush still holds so many cards in this. His team can shout urgency and since they control the bureaucracy and have been trying to hold back the meltdown for a year, they now have lots of rocks to drop on the USA to pressure Congress with. If Congress dallies, then BOOM, WaMu dies. If Congress dallies, then BOOM, Wachovia dies. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Congress needs to realize that some creative destruction is exactly what is needed here and though it will hurt everyone, taking the hurt now instead of later is good for the system even if it means a dropping stock market and continuing credit crunch. Big problems don't have easy answers. Big problems that developed over decades don't get solved overnight. And giving a blank check to those who have abused that privilege many times over (9/11, Iraq War, Medicare prescription benefits, Katrina "rebuilding," etc.) does not help anyone. Paulson isn't the devil, but he works for one. And why is Cheney so quiet? What is he doing behind the scenes? It is very hard not to speculate on all the bad motives the GOP has in using this crisis to get things they would otherwise not be able to get their grubby little hands on.
Hoopajoop are always half-vested, and can be their own recursive derivative. They are a sure moneymaker, always go up, and can be redeemed for special US Treasury notes after 2011. When they are bundled together, they become more valuable than they are individually. Bundles of hoopajoop can be combined and then split up to return more hoopajoop to the taxpayer than were initially used in the bundle. The plural of hoopajoop is hoopajoop.
My only belief is that in the end there is no way not to pay a price commensurate with the damage that has already been done to the trust that forms the basis for modern finance. There are only ways to pay a much steeper price by trying to escape accountability and further damaging that trust.
Do you really need to re-establish trust to get things running again? I mean, trust is all well and good once things are in equilibrium, but as long as the rules are set up in the right risk/reward balance, doesn't each player just act properly then? And if they aren't acting properly the risk/reward needs tweaking?
I firmly believe in capitalism, but without structure it's as bad as any other system, excepting the habit it has of blowing itself up quickly, whereas say central control, which might hobble along in patheticness for decades. It aggravates the heck out of me how some can't see that structures are needed not only on the players in a market but on the market itself. It fails to be a market and it even fails to be capitalist if the rules aren't working right or cease to exist.
No, I take it back. Trust is a bad thing. It leads to complacency, it leads to players acting for their co-benefit outside the rules of the system, i.e. collusion. Screw trust. I want these guys tattle telling on each other at the first whiff of bad dealings.
I read the whole bill and I couldn't find a definition of "TROUBLED ASSETS". Is it still mortgage-related, or has it spread to include credit cards and auto loans?
SRS up 10+% today....when do they institute the short ban on that? Too scared to touch it this morning.
And to think I almost paniced and sold it on Friday. Whew!
"Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar weakened the most against the euro since January 2001 and fell versus the yen on concern a U.S. proposal to buy $700 billion of troubled assets from financial firms will deepen the budget deficit.
The greenback weakened for a fourth day as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to bail out banks from the credit crunch failed to restore investor confidence in U.S. assets. Stocks and bonds fell, and oil prices surged."
You can't cheat at wealth creation.
There's no way.
This is the fundamental flaw in all these bailout proposals -- they undermine the ability to create wealth by rebalancing the relationship between real wealth creation and reward in precisely the wrong way.
Hmmm, who will benefit from the Dodd Plan? Let's ask his campaign contributors:
SAC Capital Partners $279,700
Royal Bank of Scotland $162,450
Citigroup Inc $157,694
United Technologies $145,200
Bear Stearns $123,150
Goldman Sachs $105,400
American International Group $99,300
St Paul Travelers Companies $98,300
The Hartford $94,350
Merrill Lynch $71,300
Ernst & Young $70,750
JPMorgan Chase & Co $67,850
Morgan Stanley $67,800
Lehman Brothers $63,400
Bank of America $63,000
General Electric $62,650
Apollo Advisors $61,900
PricewaterhouseCoopers $61,800
KPMG LLP $56,350
Credit Suisse Group $55,300
"The product of that huddle was a cockamamie scheme for the US treasury to absorb all the losses from a twenty-year binge in which Wall Street created and retailed the most complex set of swindles ever seen on this planet Earth. The background music to the tableau was the whoosh of a several trillion dollars exiting the US financial system never to be seen again.
The next day (Friday) many particulars of that scheme began to emerge -- such as the complete lack of oversight and review mechanisms for Treasury's new power to monetize private business failures and frauds -- and the stock market soared in response. Other new features of the reformed capital landscape also resolved later that day, like a new experiment aimed at eliminating the short sale as a way of guaranteeing that henceforth market bets could only be placed on the upside of the table. It will be interesting to see how that reform works out in the days ahead.
(snip)
Any way you paint this grotesque panorama, it looks like a very new chapter of history for life in the USA. Basically, we are a much poorer nation than we were even a couple of years ago, and we have a much-reduced ability to project our will around the world, or even among our own floundering sectors and regions. Most troubling to me is the question of legitimacy that now hangs over the proscenium like a guillotine blade. Factoring in the old saw that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes, I think the situation emerging is rather like the crisis of legitimacy that preceded the Civil War. Then, in the 1850s, the nation's two symbiotic political parties, Whig and Democrat, entered a zone of fatal discredit. The White House had been occupied by a sequence of empty cravats named Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, and so much pent-up mistrust roiled the centers of power that the nation entered a convulsion."
Seuss (dr?) keep your finger near the sell button at all times. You'll only need to be asleep at the switch a few minutes before one announcement eats all your gains.
I read the whole bill and I couldn't find a definition of "TROUBLED ASSETS". Is it still mortgage-related, or has it spread to include credit cards and auto loans?
That's the fun part. We get to define it ourselves (in conjunction with the lobbyists)
Trust me Geoff, my finger has been twitching since last Wednesday. Many drinks were consumed over the weekend over the fact that I didn't sell at $99 last Thursday.
Kunstler was sort of right. But the part about us NOW being poorer than we were two months ago.....uh, no. We've been this poor for quite some time, we've just been sweeping the reality under the rug. In fact, for every year that house prices went up from about 2001 to 2005, we actually became poorer. Funny, huh?
Michael Hudson:
On Sunday a BBC World Service reporter asked me to list three things that the financial sector would like to see. Taking the open-ended question on the highest philosophical plane, I said, first of all, the banks would love to free themselves of all deposit liabilities simply to keep the money for themselves. That is their objective when they see a client, after all: How much of the clients earnings and money can they shift into their own pockets. Second, they would like to see politicians elected directly by the amount of money they could raise, thereby doing away with the actual problem of elections. If politics is going to be privatized, this is the way to do it. Romes voting system was organized along these lines. Third, the financial sector prefers not to have to report any data at all or pay any taxes. It has lobbied Congress to block collection of statistics, on the premise that what is not seen will not be taxed. And at present, banks and brokerage houses are still screaming to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley bill calling for full and honest accounting. For financial ideologues this is an equivalent watershed dragon to Rowe vs. Wade, now that they have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that had separated banks from casinos.
Geoff writes:
Kunstler was sort of right. But the part about us NOW being poorer than we were two months ago.....uh, no. We've been this poor for quite some time, we've just been sweeping the reality under the rug. In fact, for every year that house prices went up from about 2001 to 2005, we actually became poorer. Funny, huh?
Geoff, I suspect he'd agree with you 100 percent. It's all semantics.
Indebted Americans sat on a wall.
Indebted Americans had a great fall.
All Paulson's horses and all Paulson's men
Couldn't put the economy together again.
be careful of treasury agreeing to equity. One way for the treasury to exploit this is to keep the short rule in effect and price the equity at the current inflated price.
Consider that when UBS went to market with its warrants the stockwas in the high 20s and the rights issue went off at 21. In other words the problem with banks raising equity even now is that if they went to market the would get no bid...until the stocks came down a big amount. Therefore it is too risky to raise equity.
The Treasury wouldn't agree to the equity piece if it didn;t think it could exploit it. Afterall, the process for rpicing assets is left to the Fed head, Treas Sec, SEC and 2 outsiders. This is ludicrous. The process should be fully transparent.
Cramdowns are a disastrous idea and the intervention will raise the price of credit period. Feels good but it is not a good solution. better regulatiojn up front would limit the number of issues to begin with. giving judges the right to cramdown mortgages is just plain stupid. But then the rule of law isn;t much en vogue anymore.
May not be the thing to do as long as YOU KNOW your secure enough to make the payment in what looks like a hyperinflation, dollar falling, bond yield rising environment. Think 1971-1980, Who ever is holding that note is taking it in the butt.
Most people out there think we're all nuts. Just thought you should know this.
I have posted stuff on other boards, non-political/economic blogs, describing the dire situation things are in, and all I get are mocking replies, and insults about how I'm overreacting.
The intended purpose of this bailout is already working, and nobody seems to be the least bit concerned.
At this point, I don't think I need to care anymore about anybody else, and just concentrate on myself and my family. Who cares what credit I get, for being right, when the SHTF, because I probably won't even get that anyways.
Other than a few knowlegable economic and/or political blogs, I think most are just going about their lives, as if there is nothing to be concerned about. Fuck 'Em!
Sometimes though, I do wish the system would collapse, because until it does, people like us, will be treated like garbage, when we are truly the only ones who see the crisis as it truly is.
What are hoopajoop? You probably have some in your investment portfolio right now, even though no individual component of your portfolio contained hoopajoop before undergoing securitization. Theoretical physicists have discovered that any financial product, once it passes a certain threshold of complexity, gives rise to hoopajoop particles. It is uncertain what the valuation of hoopajoop is at any given time (See: Heisenberg) but the very existence of this uncertainty gives rise to a certainty of the presence hoopajoop.
much better but still a give away.
1. The share price should not be based on the 14 days prior to the sale of the asset but rather the lower of 14 days prior to the sale or share price on 12noon on Thursday September 18th , 2008.
Also the amount of shares that Treasury should be getting is much more than they are asking for. The very existence of this facility improves the valuations.
Oh yeah, let's have faith in something they (fed-treas-congress) pull out of you-know-where at their self declared last minute. Where were these idiots for the last year. Even a financial numbskull like me could see big problems during Bear-Sterns weekend. That weekend the powerball annuity was bigger than the original JPM buyout. If only my $2 ticket had come through I'd have been the owner of a 'storied wall street investment firm.
An epiphany: Dodd is doctoring the bill for his good friend Obama. Obama may, and I have no inside information on this, cancel campaigning and return to Senate to manage the bill from committee to conference to floor vote and passage.
How presidential.
Had they rolled over for Hank, McCain could have done this.
This puts McCain in a tough spot. Keep campaigning and appear to place politics above country? Return to Senate and get in the way of the matter?
I hope those guys at Obama's campaign are thinking like this.
Oil Gushes $25 Higher- AP
Oil prices are spiking more than $25 a barrel as rising anxiety over the U.S. government's proposed bailout of the financial system batters the dollar and sends investors scrambling for safe-haven assets.
You know, if you're reading the comments section of a blog (any blog) to get quotes on futures contracts, that's probably a sign you shouldn't be trading the things.
Crude Oil Has Biggest Gain Ever as Dollar Drops Against Euro
Crude oil for October delivery rose $23.95, or 23 percent, to $128.50 a barrel at 2:23 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures climbed as much as $24.33 to $128.88 a barrel, the highest since Aug. 28.
Oil Slick Dick is on the floor withering in orgasm.
He may need to fill up the D7 Cat with some of his victory stash scraped off dead birds and seals from the Exxon Valdez spill, and ram it into the nearest health care clinic.
Prez Cheney is happy today.
Short squeezes are too easy to engineer. We shorts need protection. Got (physical) oil? Give me an effin break. $15 between the Oct and Nov contracts? Inhibit shorting because of the potential to destroy wealth?
Obama may, and I have no inside information on this, cancel campaigning and return to Senate to manage the bill from committee to conference to floor vote and passage.
I bet no. This week is debate week, and Obama's in study hall.
Oh yeah, let's put the people who gave us Fannie and Freddie, massive losses and congressional corruption, in charge of a trillion dollar plan.
Brilliant
I hope there's a really good filmmaker out there getting all of this down, so that we have a detailed documentary of the end of the world as we know it.
I think it could be included as the 're-introduction of moral hazard amendment'
Okay. Can I get some help on this? I too thought this was the definition of Moral Hazard, but it's the opposite, according to my dictionary.
moral hazard
noun Economics
lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences, e.g., by insurance.
can we have a survey on whether moral hazard is a good thing or a bad thing? I thought it was a good thing, er, meaning something players would seek to avoid as a bad outcome of bad behavior. Not so, says my dictionary.
I want to state what I am seeing and hearing as I discussed this BailOut Abortion to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and random passwerbys ---
Most have little or no idea of what is going on --- Most could care less and are perfectly happy to let someone else -- Washington and Wall Street in this case -- make all the decisions! The suggestion that they should call, write, fax, or email their representatives and senators is totally beyond them! They act like it is of no concern of theirs.
We have become a nation of servants eager to take orders from and do the bidding of "others" in "high places"! Everywhere it seems that people act nervous and afraid at the mere suggestion that they become involved in their own governance. A nation of pathetic, passive, idiots who enjoy being treated like a herd of dairy cows!
There's tons of 'off-topic' and taboo blogs where this melodrama & tragedy is absolutely NO surprise at all and this collapse was expected and predicted and these people who were 'off-topic' were pegged as nuts and whackos. Some of these people have been arrested and tasered and 'listed' for being activists asking for government accountability.
There's been a movement for social justice and accountability for 7 years now and these people were ridiculed and marginalized. Now Main St. is starting to wake up to the systemic corruption and dirty tricks.
Let me put judgement aside, especially since mine is meaningless. I figured you brainy folks here may know the answer to the question.
Did the Bush Administration play a role in keeping interest rates low for the few years following 2002?
I am only looking for facts. I am trying to shoot down my conjecture, before I hold on to it too long & misremember it as fact.
It is my current understanding that as an accepted 'rule', the economy's successes & failures are bi-non-homo-hetero-multi-partisan. But, CR's thoughts on the key differences with the upcoming Dodd Plan vs. Paulson's Plan somehow fall too neatly into my self-construed distrust for Senor Tex & El Gang.
"Fire! Do this Now! Transparency? Taxpayers entitlements for their 700 Ginormous? ... Fire! Now!" -- my (poor) impersonation of Sr.Tex & El Gang.
(And yes, I am asking this question to at least have personal 'proof' that this current culture flavor of governance should not continue. I imagine the Trickle-down Trust Theory could do the whole darn thing some good. Starting with the President. The Young Senator has too much at stake to squander it with intentional deception & deviousness.)
I think these price floors and bans on short selling along with this obviously evil big bank bailout plan (funded by the public) while immediately causing spiking commodity inflation will add to the panic selling and collapse of the markets.
Is the plan a 'necessary' bailout which is doomed to fail or a nuclear bazooka blast to quickly kill the faltering consumer economy? Did Paulson think of possible hyper-inflationary consequences with this scheme? Wonder who bet big on oil?
If this was thriller fiction, it might be believable.
Can you imagine all the people who are going to walk from their underwater mortgages now!
I think I just "squeezed" somthing into my shorts.....SHEW...BAD TACO BELL. Sorry to joke but the gravity of this situation is beyond words. People fought and died for freedom and we have let greedy SOB's take it from us so we could have bigger homes, new cars, and unlimited credit. Was it worth it?
Long way for dollar to fall yet to get to March08 lows. ($76 now, 71 then).
Dodd's plan is certainly a huge improvement over Bush/Paulson's plan, but still has huge hole.
Examples: Reporting to Congress: They can claim National Security to not report
Taking equity instead of debt means that after being bailed out, the firms could declare bankruptcy and wipe out the taxpayer's equity.
BushCo has found ways to avoid the law (including direct violation without consequences) by exploiting every possible technicality. Dodd still hasn't realized that the law must provide airtight rules and also provide ways for Congress to get into court without the Dept of Justice (which is completely corrupted - it should be called the Dept of Injustice).
On balance though, this is way better, not just enough to be a real control on powermad BushCo operatives.
It looks like the October Futures are getting unusually goosed (+15%). The bad news is the longer dated contracts are all going up too, just not as much (5-6%)
Congress needs to take just as much time as it needs to get this thing done RIGHT. After the Iraq mess, it needs to reestablish its credentials as the institution that will protect the public interest even if a crazy White House will not. Bush has made it clear that a bimbo can be elected President and not much can be done about it so we need a responsible Congress for protection. Even more so now that there is the possibility of two more bimbos getting control of the Executive branch. Heaven help us if they do.
Support Clinton as he appoints fellow Democrat political operatives to patronage jobs at Fannie and Freddie.
Take bribes in the form of the campaign contributions they direct your way.
Ignore your oversight responsibilities as they cook the books and rake in 10's of millions in bonuses.
Encourage Fannie and Freddie to buy highly speculative sub-prime mortgages and to direct millions of dollars to corrupt "grassroots" organizations like ACORN, who work to get other Democrats elected.
Fight every effort to reform Fannie and Freddie as the mortgage market spins out of control.
... and when the s**t hits the fan, point the finger at everyone else and claim that it's because there's too little regulation. Then launch a more aggressive socialist takeover of the banking system.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's the largest government bailout in U.S. history and two days after it was ibntroduced to the Americans paying for it, the proposal is still largely a mystery.
Among the unanswered questions: How will the government mop up the bad mortgage debt on banks' books, who will run the process and how much will it cost?
ADVERTISEMENT
Key elements of the plan remain in flux as behind closffdeeed doors Democrats demand modifications that would provide more help for ordinary Americans in return for bailing out the country's financial giants.
Commercial property prices remain virtually flat, with the Moodys/REAL CPPI measuring a 0.4% increase in July. The CPPI now measures 11.4% below the peak in October 2007.
· Transaction volume fell in July, after an increase in June, but July volume was above the low-point reached in May.
· The largest decrease in prices in this report (14%) was seen in the Florida apartment market, which also measured a decline in transaction volume.
· All four property types in the East experienced price declines, with apartments faring the worst, declining almost 5% this year over last.
Off-topic. Did the Bush Administration play a role in influencing Greenspan to maintain interest rates low in 2002 & beyond? I am concerned that the Bush Administration knowingly concealed & postponed the economic burden of the Iraq War in the form 'unprecedented' home ownership & equity.
Oil just hit $124, it hit 125 earlier... Really this was soooo predictable.
Mannn, this wallies, as they say in the UK ! I mean the ones in power - senators, MSM, sitting a circle jerk round those high priests Paulson and Bernanke, praying and genuflecting when they should have taken their daggers out and:
"Stabbed them with their steely knives"..
I mean that metaphorically !- just in case those NSA is taking note.
"Trading was halted for five minutes after the October crude contract reached the limit of $10 per barrel for daily price movement. Under trading rules, the price-change limit is increased by another $10."
In any case, the response to all of those problems finally caused Ben Bernanke to gas up the helicopters. Last Wednesday, it was announced that the Treasury plans a special series of bill auctions to help the Fed expand its balance sheet. Read: The Fed is going to print money to buy Treasurys so that the Treasury Department can lend money to all these institutions. In other words, the printing presses are setting about monetizing all of our problems.
Here comes hyperinflation. Hope you're all deep into PM's. If not, get down to the coin shop and buy whatever bullion is available.
Daniel Mann writes:
Off-topic. Did the Bush Administration play a role in influencing Greenspan to maintain interest rates low in 2002 & beyond? I am concerned that the Bush Administration knowingly concealed & postponed the economic burden of the Iraq War in the form 'unprecedented' home ownership & equity.
Nahhh! King george would never have done something to harm America.
Most people out there think we're all nuts. Just thought you should know this.
When teaching difficult topics, students learn at different rates.
You need to be patient (and have a thick skin) when teaching. Especially when there is going to be a visceral response to the message you are delivering.
Dude, my old man was being anally probed in the early 80's by the feds for not "producing enough minority loans" at his savings bank. This was long before Bush, et al. Back then there were no MB's someone actually had to walk in to a bank. The later deregulations and other enticements just made the bad - worse.
Oh, yeah, let's put Dodd in charge...
on pg 21 (Sec 11): are they talking about cramdowns ?
Comrades,
Dodd, Paulson, BB....who cares at this point. We're all doomed.
Nostrovia,
How am I suppose to work? Oh wait nevermind in socialists countries I don't need to worry about that...off to read Dodd's pla
There had better be a plan for some heads on some platers because this bull dog is hungry.
90% bathwater
10% baby
Quick, someone read it. I need to be spoon-fed.
I wonder which lobbyist wrote this...that should be the first line
I am not sure anything other than common sense, rationality and objectivity can save us.
Explain to me why I should be happy to be in line behind the bondholders?
I don't care who sponsors it or how it's written, it won't be enough to prevent the inevitable.
Vote "No" on the Omnibus Mortgage & Financial Guaranty bill.
Does the first line in the plan say where we get the money to pay for it?
sidd, I think that is a cram down.
All, The executive compensation section is pretty mild, except the claw-back might scare a few execs.
Best to all.
Explain to me why I should be happy to be in line behind the bondholders?
I think it's a consequence of forbidding bankruptcy. ie. Only way to haircut the bonds is to have a judge do it. Please correct if wrong...
SACRED BEAR...LETS CONTINUE pALIN JOKES
Reporter : Do you agree with Paulson on the housing bill ?
Palin : Yes I do, but I lost the details which were sent to my email
someone read it to me, real slow, I'm from Louisiana, a small town just outside hoopajoop
Anything in the Dodd plan about Countrywide offering sweetheart loans? Oh yeah, Dodd is the man. Let's have Charlie Rangle write the tax code too.
19 SEC. 17. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION.
20 The Secretary shall require that all entities seeking
21 to sell assets through a program established under this
22 Act meet appropriate standards for executive compensa
23 tion and shareholder disclosure in order to be eligible,
24 which standards shall include
1 (1) limits on compensation to exclude incentives
2 for executives to take risks that the Secretary deems
3 to be inappropriate or excessive;
4 (2) a claw-back provision for incentive com
5 pensation paid to a senior executive based on earn
6 ings, gains, or other criteria that are later proven to
7 be inaccurate; and
8 (3) such limitations on the entity paying sever
9 ance compensation to its senior executives as are de
10 termined to be appropriate in the public interest in
11 light of the assistance being given to the entity.
Go "clawback!"
The markets are deteriorating too fast to have any meaningful debate, I say some watered down plan will be railroaded.
Look at crude and the dollar index now.
All I get from the link are blank pages. Is this a joke, another incompatability MSFT vs AAPL, or is the Dodd plan just a blank ?
Not enough teeth in this plan...we need more protection!
crispy& cole, it would be nice to know who wrote everything (that would be an interesting disclosure on every piece of legislation).
Andrew Foland, agreed. Ideally the taxpayers should be behind the secured creditors and ahead of the bondholders. But this is a step in the right direction. If WS is right - and there are no losses for taxpayers - these contingent shares don't kick in. So there is no reason for WS to oppose them (unless they don't believe their own projections).
Best to all.
If time is of the essence, I don't see why Paulson/Bush can't sign off on this. If they balk, then maybe the emergency isn't so dire after all.
My vote is for a 'Claw-hammer' clause instead.
You know, where we line 'em up and let people hit 'em with claw hammers and other steel objects.
After taking a quick glance at Dodd's plan, it sounds ok. (Wow.) But what I don't see is a clause for the Feds to profit on the bailout of individual homeowners who get their principal forgiven. I'd say like the assistance for the banks, if the Feds cut your rate or principal, they should get a cut of any future profit on the home when sold.
17 In the even that the equity of the fnancial insti
18
tution from which such troubled assets
19 were purchased is not publicly traded on a
20 national securities exchange
Non-public companies get a bailout??? DOes this include GMAC? Chrylser??
I VOTE NO!
Guess that's one way for the US to set up a SWF. Suck on the teat and we take part of your company. Works for me.
Nemo, your choice is action or no-action. If action then either it is Dodd or Paulson. At this moment anything that has Bush name on it is catastrophic.
stupid americans... its a great trick played.
scene 1 : Paulson unveils a egregious plan
scene 2 : Paulson tells CDodd to create a plan that is slightly better
Scene 3 : all agree on Cdodds plan as if its E=mc2 discovery
The only problem with the Dodd plan is these contingent shares will substantially dilute the current shareholders, making them not want to hold the shares and start selling. So you might as well just nationalize the companies now and get it over with.
This is a very good start...
I would think the only way the press can run with this and not be absolutely overwhelmed by opposition to the pro-taxpayer aspects is to make sure absolutely nothing other than this 700B handout to reward rich people for bad speculative bets is considered.
Other proposals with merit will allow proponents of handing Paulson a monocle and naming him First Kommissar the ammo to use these add-ons as the reason to kill the Dodd bill... under those 'spun' pretenses.
If you could not access the link, here is at least a summary:
Treasury Relents on Key Points - WSJ.com
So what is the differnce between US taking shares in excahnge for Worthless securities and what the FEd has done lately???
Nymex halts trading in OIL for 5 minutes ! too much velocity.. yeah right
All this does is ease the Federal Reserves balance sheet
Sigh... still no word on how to pay for this (like hell there won't be losses).
Wall St doesn't like these plans that include any oversight or regulation. Ponies with broken legs are hard to sell.
Dollar getting an ass-kicking.
Remember:
Bailouts don't get rid of problems.
They simply move the cost from those who caused the problem to those who didn't.
We're not bailing people out from some unexpected natural disaster. We're bailing people out of punishment for their own malfeasance.
Wall Street does the crime.
You do the time.
sk writes:
Nymex halts trading in OIL for 5 minutes ! too much velocity.. yeah right
Really?? is there a %limit up thing?
Good thing we have it under control or the stock markets would be down another 260 points.
oh wait....
WS wants the Dire Straights plan - money for nothing and chicks for free
So now we know - oil price cannot be allowed to go up and Goldman Sachs share price cannot be allowed to go down.
Who says the meddling is asymmetrical?
with all due respect CR, there is now only issue to focus on...The usdollar...it is crashing as we speak and it seems like this will clearly become the new crisis...a dollar collapse is far more worrisome than anything that has gone-on so far..i would recommend most readers to focus on the dollar and its imminent collapse...foreigners own too many dollars and they are beyond fed-up with its recent debasement..they are dumping them, back here...cmmdties will explode...again, this is a far far BIGGER problem than the credit crisis ever could be...i hope im wrong but the dollar is dropping precipitously as i write this..
Really, just on NYMEX, not GLOBEX
5 minutes they say
-K
there is substantially more oversight
I'd endorse somebody like Robert Shiller or even Ron Paul doing oversight. Anybody warning of these problems in advance. But the people who sat around deliberately blind and ignorant while the tsunami on the horizon blotted out the sun... no way.
Dodd does not seem to understand the hoopajoop. The hoopajoop needs no oversight.
The hoopajoop has no limits.
The hoopajoop cannot fail.
Mortal humans can never fully comprehend the hoopajoop.
Long live the hoopajoop.
Comrades,
This plan doesn't solve anything. It's going to make things worse.
GAH!
Nostrovia,
someone read it to me, real slow, I'm from Louisiana, a small town just outside hoopajoop
ok, it's like this
view feet, reach for them, say thank you
The dollar collapse is another feather in Ron Paul's cap who was screaming about this last week.
We're toast. I think they should stop throwing gas on the fire... just stand by and watch it burn out.
oil's in a short squeeze on October expiry
So what now?
But GS hatz oversight;-}
I was watching some of the highflyers from last week crash today.
My personal fav is Ryland- touched 30 on Friday to really mess with the options/short crowd, now barely over 26 today- at least while I type.
Markets have a nasty way of getting balanced no matter what the govment wants.
Higher wages!!
More employment!
More inflation!
Someday this war's gonna end...
"This plan doesn't solve anything. It's going to make things worse."
You say this for every brilliant solution proposed. C'mon, Misean...support the government. This is a crisis and there is no time for questions and thinking.
Chris Dodd is the Democratic Senator from the banking industry (D-BI).
If taxpayers shouldn't give $700 billion away, why buy and own garbage with it instead?
Just say no.
sk writes:
Really, just on NYMEX, not GLOBEX
5 minutes they say
-K
The irony of that is it's probably short covering, so they'll ban shorting of crude too.
The only problem with the Dodd plan is these contingent shares will substantially dilute the current shareholder
I'm a nation-hating short holder, so I'm ok on this.
west virginia hick: I ain't seen my feet for years now, my front porch done got way past my hoopajoop
Someone asked me what a hoopajoop was. I told them it was the mature form of a larval hoocoodanode. Was I wrong?
The dollar collapse is another feather in Ron Paul's cap who was screaming about this last week.
I haven't paid that much attention him, but the truth is he's been screaming about this for years.
This man saw and attempted to address the problem of our time.
Why isn't he the front runner for president?
Oh that's right -
Obama and McCain are just competing to be the next Hoover, so maybe it's best that way.
huge!
treasury now agreeing to get equity in addition to toxic assets according to barney frank
U.S. CRUDE FUTURES HIT $115.93/BBL, UP $11.38
the mother of all oil rallies?
okay, so the plan is to keep banking system functioning so companies have access to commercial paper and other loans so economy doesn't grind to a halt. but even though banks (most of 'em) probably stay solvent and are able to make loans...will they make enough loans and at a low enough interest rate that results in corporations borrowing enough to materially change the weak economic outlook? i venture to say no. so maybe averts a complete freeze of credit markets and stock markets down potential 20-50% in the short term...but IMO it won't really spur a new bull mkt and robust econ growth.
if it's true, financials should fall dramatically, but the taxpayer has a prayer
Surprise... Treasury says the plan CAN involve contingent equity purchases... as if that wasn't the [secret] plan all along.
Today's the day (and Dodd's info is here too:
For those angry enough to act: contacting your member of congress is good -- contacting your state/local officials can be useful as well -(see search box in upper left to find all of your elected officials):
Congress.org - Get informed, get involved
If you call their offices, all these officials have staff dedicated to taking complaints/solving problems -- if they get inundated with calls, they are going to do something -even if it is simply informing your officials that the public is outraged.
one of the BEST things you can do is contact your local media - TV station /radio/ and newspaper - and register complaints, and ask why they aren't knocking at elected officials' doors and covering this more. They get enough complaints, it's a story.
Get a few folks together in your neighborhood, church group, whatever - even if it's just your family, and organize a protest, or pass out flyers in front of a bank (yes it's small potatoes, but press are much more likely to cover if there's some kind of visual/audio element they can whip up for their newspaper-website pages or the TV news.) The more visual, the better (can you rent pig costumes - or at least buy those pig noses at a Halloween store?).
National media contacts: (I recommend calling - ask for the newsroom / news assignment desk/ managing editor of news to try to get through)
FAIR's Media Contact List
OK, show of hands: how many people think Paulson - ex-CEO of GS - is a complete idiot who has no idea how to negotiate? He started with the extreme position, then allowed the moronic politicians to pretend to assert their 'authority' (rofl), by adding some 'strings' and some 'oversight' (this Congress is really noteworthy for it's exemplary oversight so far ain't it? I expect big things out of any 'oversight' measures it inacts...) and he's wound up where he decided to end up all along. Dodd is following along with Wll St's playbook perfectly. It's probably all being explicitly scripted. This is such a joke - only an utter naif would believe that handing over $700B+ in taxpayer money could be made worth it via some amount of equity in these demonstrably insolvent businesses. It's just a smoke screen. Krugman is a tool. The Austrians win again...Mish, too...
Comrades,
This act may be cited as "________of 2008"
Bending The Taxpayer Over and Stuffing Them With Toxic Paper Act....
Nostrovia,
If they divided 1.8 trillion and gave an equal amount to every man, woman, and child in the US, any idea how much that would be?
SOunds like a better idea than the ones they floated. What the hell, let's have a party before the whole thing blows up.
It's up to foreign CB's to buy into the bailout plan and prevent the US $ collapse. This is the next phase, convincing other countries to go along. The currency market is pricing in this uncertainty.
the good news of getting equity is tht it will dilute the companies dramatically
the bad news is that the company may then still be worthless
this act will be called The hoopajoop of 2008
What is the OIL ETF that has good liquidity that i can buy ?
(similar to GLD for gold)
Cramdowns by all means, as long as we all get to know where they've taken place (by zip?), what the amounts are, and a provision for letting taxpayers share in any future profits (it could happen - someday).
I wonder how hard our "real estate pros" will work to keep this info under wraps? God forbid they should be forced to transact real estate at prices people can actually afford. Think of all that lost commission money!
Contigent equity is not sufficient to protect taxpayer interests. Direct equity is needed.
The irony of that is it's probably short covering, so they'll ban shorting of crude too.
BB
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL !
Thanks for the laff. Yeah, its a short squeeze..
-K
I'm long DIG btw.... (wait, they'll ban that one next)
the plan works only if taxpayers (the goverment) gets a controling share of the total bank stock.
This way if the bank survive they can sell this controling share at a premuium.
I agree with anon at 141:
So you might as well just nationalize the companies now and get it over with.
exactly.
Gosh, I picked the wrong time to be out of town. Now I'm SOOO far behind. Hoopajoop? hoocoodanode indeed.
okay CR, way cool on professor krugman sending you email...
so when are you going to reveal yourself and sign on as an economic adviser to the presidential candidate whom seems best able to think through complex problems...
...tanta too, i hope.
the point is that we (the taxpayer) are on the hook no matter what
it is an absolute fallacy to believe that in any plan the taxpayer is going to get a 'good deal'
we are on the hook, the question is, can we at least get a plan that hurts us a little bit less..
Comrade CSC,
"You say this for every brilliant solution proposed. C'mon, Misean...support the government. This is a crisis and there is no time for questions and thinking."
There's been a brilliant one? How did I miss it?
Nostrovia,
Why are these events taken to vindicate Austrian economics? Why is Ron Paul gold buggery taken to be the winning formula?
To me that just sounds like cult members doubling down.
So now we know - oil price cannot be allowed to go up and Goldman Sachs share price cannot be allowed to go down. ...
And gold they slap with a 47% margin increase on Thursday night. The timing was accidental, I'm certain of it... Nothing to see here... just move on. These are free markets... We never manipulate markets!
Dennis Kucinich has an idea ...
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) outlined a proposal he said would create "a genuine ownership society," by giving taxpayers a stake in the companies the government will be saving with its proposed $700 billion package.
Simply purchasing bad debt, 'cash for trash' and not receiving anything of value or giving $700 billion and not having a commensurate equity interest in Wall Street firms is unacceptable," Kucinich said in a news release Monday. "No 'cash for trash.'"
The "United States Mutual Trust Fund" to convert assets purchased by the government into shares that would be distributed to every man, woman and child in the country. Every American would receive about $2,300 worth of shares because that is the cost of the bailout package to each individual.
You know, kinda like that Alaskan oil fund that allows Palin to be such a maverick about taxes
Sorry for the cut & paste - I could not access the link on the main post.... and sorry if this is late, I posted it to the last link in error:
Among the major provisions Dodd is adding:
Source:
The Crypt: Dodd bill more aggressive than Treasury plan - Politico.com
Nymex halts trading in OIL for 5 minutes ! too much velocity.. yeah right
sk: did you see? oil jumped from 108 to 115.70 immediately after the halt ceased.
i have a very bad feeling about this. I think even regular people are starting to worry about where to put their money.
Gold at $1000 and Oil at $150 again anyone?
someone keeps asking how we're going to pay for all this... I dunno... but I know that it won't be the typical benign adding it to the deficit game...
Americans will pay for this one with a resurgence of commodity prices... at least they're tangible, regardless of being in a bubble.
until the govt bans trading in oil and commodities that is.
Funniest Headline of the Day
"Crude Oil Surges More Than $10 as U.S. Bailout Plan May Boost Consumption"
-Bloomberg News
sounds like the Dems are standing up and getting some (if not all) key concessions...
there will be time later, after Jan 2009, to pursue prosecutions and hike tax rates on wall street profiteers.
and there will be an easier road to the swedish/finnish solution (nationalization) if wall st is not playing ball
the structural situation sucks. no way around that. but, given the choices realistically possible this week, I think Dodd and Frank and Pelosi and Obama are doing the right and best thing . . . so far
Wow, someone go give Kucinich a nice pat on the head. How cute.
I'd endorse somebody like Robert Shiller or even Ron Paul doing oversight. Anybody warning of these problems in advance. But the people who sat around deliberately blind and ignorant while the tsunami on the horizon blotted out the sun... no way.
BTW I would be willing to support Krugman in a position of oversight also, even though it is my belief that he vocally supported harmful monetary policy (e.g. negative real interest rates).
You have to start with people that are honest, even if you don't entirely agree with them.
sounds like the Dems are standing up and getting some (if not all) key concessions...
They might need to talk to the currency and commodity markets about those concessions.
DBO is considered a purer oil play than USO.
DBE is diversified energy (oil, natural gas, gasoline, heating oil)
crispy& cole writes:
WS wants the Dire Straights plan - money for nothing and chicks for free
Sorry can't have it, the Dept. of Interior is using it
If Chris Dodd is our savior, we're really doomed.
This still gets back to the price paid when the taxpayers trade cash for trash. If it is an honest price, then who would want ownership in these sinking ships. The dilution needed to recapitalize screws the taxpayer again!
Funniest Headline of the Day
"Crude Oil Surges More Than $10 as U.S. Bailout Plan May Boost Consumption"
-Bloomberg News
How about:
"Crude Oil Surges More Than $10 as U.S. Moral Hazard Subsidies Take Effect"
Ozzy writes: ..... This is such a joke - only an utter naif would believe that handing over $700B+ in taxpayer money could be made worth it via some amount of equity in these demonstrably insolvent businesses.
"The usdollar...it is crashing as we speak"
Cha-Ching.
AC
no way out of the pain, just choices about how to take it, who to try to protect from the worst of it, and then what to do about it. maybe a little wiggle room about exactly how much pain there will be - choices a whole lot or a shitload or more than anyone can imagine. I choose a whole lot. And you?
With the new plan you get choices:
Straight
Vaseline
KY
Astroglide
Now bend over, please.
Bye Bye Bucky
We should just buy all the banks like we did with Fannie and Freddie and move on.
What if, instead of bailing out the companies, they paid off everyone's primary mortgage, thus taking the "toxic loans" off the books AND giving just about every J&J6P another ATM of moolah to go spend, spend, spend? Seems like that would be a better use of 1,000,000,000 and counting...
Naah, that's too logical.
Yearning to Learn said: "I have a very bad feeling about this. I think even regular people are starting to worry about where to put their money.
Gold at $1000 and Oil at $150 again anyone?"
I'm "regular people," too, but I'm not worried.
Sebastia
Bloomberg.com:
Government Bonds
Rise from your slumber old bond vigilantes.
I think we all get new surnames!
DBO is cool , thank you
As financial workers suffer through tumultuous times on Wall Street, some are turning to an old source of solace: religion.
With Wall Street in turmoil, some turn to religion
| Reuters
Come to Jeeeesus.
Funniest Headline of the Day
"Crude Oil Surges More Than $10 as U.S. Bailout Plan May Boost Consumption"
-Bloomberg Comedy Network
OMG, they just entered the comedy business
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here 'til Thursday.
no way out of the pain, just choices about how to take it, who to try to protect from the worst of it, and then what to do about it. maybe a little wiggle room about exactly how much pain there will be - choices a whole lot or a shitload or more than anyone can imagine. I choose a whole lot. And you?
To be perfectly honest I don't believe that anyone truly knows that choice a will lead to one outcome and choice b will lead to another.
My only belief is that in the end there is no way not to pay a price commensurate with the damage that has already been done to the trust that forms the basis for modern finance. There are only ways to pay a much steeper price by trying to escape accountability and further damaging that trust.
I'm "regular people," too, but I'm not worried.
first: i didn't say that everyone is worried. I said regular people are starting to get worried.
example: I've had several people come up and ask me which bank I thought was safe. This has never happened to me before. the average joe wondering if their bank is SAFE? that is quite the sea change
second: I have a hard time believing that you are not even a little concerned. Because the entire government and all of Wall Street is also worried. You'd think there would be a reason why they are doing all these panic maneuvers, no? or do you think it was just Paulson and Bernanke's whim that started the Bailout Express?
Comrade ac,
Yep, dollars taking it on the chin. See if test July lows this week.
Nostrovia,
And the smile was on the crocodile
This seems the active heart of the Dodd plan.
ACQUISITION OF SECURITIZATION POOLS
12 AND MORTGAGE LOANS.The Secretary shall, to the
13 extent practicable, acquire
14 (A) sufficient ownership or control of
15 pooled residential mortgage loans, or a
16 securitization vehicle for such loans so that the
17 Corporation has authority to modify the under18
lying residential mortgage loans, either directly
19 or through a designee; and
20 (B) whole residential mortgage loans, so
21 that the Corporation may use its authority to
22 modify the underlying residential mortgage
23 loans, either directly or through a designee.
24
Dodd and "step in right direction" being used in conjuntion? Have our expectations really been lowered to this?
Leave Sebastian alone, he is "mark to model".
pay off mortgages--> ive been suggesting that too... at this point, pay off mortgages for folks who havent been late in paying. this is neither a fix or benefit to all. however since there is so much fantasy, why not have one that at least frees up considerable money for folks to then throw away on items they dont need. that is the real goal here... more consumption.
That plan link is NOT open source -- it's some kinda MSFT source. If you insist of publishing "putz" Krugman's recommendations, I suggest you convert the material to *.pdf. It is not as linked *.pdf readable.
The hoopajoops will be convertible into options to buy more hoopajoops, and are cross-default-swapped with themselves for maximum ensured return to the taxpayer. Hoopajoops may opt-in to evaluation under GAAP, but only partially.
I cross default swap myself at least once a day.
on a side note:
does this mean the write ups will commence?
That plan link is NOT open source -- it's some kinda MSFT source. If you insist of publishing "putz" Krugman's recommendations, I suggest you convert the material to *.pdf. It is not as linked *.pdf readable.
Whatever the hell plan the go with it better be on sourceforge.net
SEC. 15. ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORTS AND AUDITS
COMPTROLLER GENERAL AUDITS
Annual?
Why not quarerly?
And why not a slimed down Audit covering the big numbers (not the petty cash) Monthly?
And the dollar continues to get crushed.
"Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar weakened the most against the euro since January 2001 and fell versus the yen on concern a U.S. proposal to buy $700 billion of troubled assets from financial firms will deepen the budget deficit.
The greenback weakened for a fourth day as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to bail out banks from the credit crunch failed to restore investor confidence in U.S. assets. Stocks and bonds fell, and oil prices surged."
This is history in the making. Only the books will be written with a twist. What will the books say will be the cause? How will they turn this into a patriotic ending?
There should be a call to arms fellow comrades!
Lookout boys, there's a run on the dollar!
Paulson's plan: Where the cure is worse than the disease.
Well, at least Dodd and the Dems realize that legislation is about negotiation. Just like in any business negotiation, just because the guy across the table comes at you first with a proposal doesn't mean you have to take it. Sure, we don't have oodles of time to debate this (though we have a lot more than the Bushies will admit too), but the fact that Dodd & Co. are at least putting some parameters on this disaster of a plan is a good sign.
The sad thing is how Bush still holds so many cards in this. His team can shout urgency and since they control the bureaucracy and have been trying to hold back the meltdown for a year, they now have lots of rocks to drop on the USA to pressure Congress with. If Congress dallies, then BOOM, WaMu dies. If Congress dallies, then BOOM, Wachovia dies. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Congress needs to realize that some creative destruction is exactly what is needed here and though it will hurt everyone, taking the hurt now instead of later is good for the system even if it means a dropping stock market and continuing credit crunch. Big problems don't have easy answers. Big problems that developed over decades don't get solved overnight. And giving a blank check to those who have abused that privilege many times over (9/11, Iraq War, Medicare prescription benefits, Katrina "rebuilding," etc.) does not help anyone. Paulson isn't the devil, but he works for one. And why is Cheney so quiet? What is he doing behind the scenes? It is very hard not to speculate on all the bad motives the GOP has in using this crisis to get things they would otherwise not be able to get their grubby little hands on.
What Democrats Are Proposing
Page not found - - CNBC.com
SRS up 10+% today....when do they institute the short ban on that? Too scared to touch it this morning.
Hoopajoop are always half-vested, and can be their own recursive derivative. They are a sure moneymaker, always go up, and can be redeemed for special US Treasury notes after 2011. When they are bundled together, they become more valuable than they are individually. Bundles of hoopajoop can be combined and then split up to return more hoopajoop to the taxpayer than were initially used in the bundle. The plural of hoopajoop is hoopajoop.
My only belief is that in the end there is no way not to pay a price commensurate with the damage that has already been done to the trust that forms the basis for modern finance. There are only ways to pay a much steeper price by trying to escape accountability and further damaging that trust.
Do you really need to re-establish trust to get things running again? I mean, trust is all well and good once things are in equilibrium, but as long as the rules are set up in the right risk/reward balance, doesn't each player just act properly then? And if they aren't acting properly the risk/reward needs tweaking?
I firmly believe in capitalism, but without structure it's as bad as any other system, excepting the habit it has of blowing itself up quickly, whereas say central control, which might hobble along in patheticness for decades. It aggravates the heck out of me how some can't see that structures are needed not only on the players in a market but on the market itself. It fails to be a market and it even fails to be capitalist if the rules aren't working right or cease to exist.
No, I take it back. Trust is a bad thing. It leads to complacency, it leads to players acting for their co-benefit outside the rules of the system, i.e. collusion. Screw trust. I want these guys tattle telling on each other at the first whiff of bad dealings.
I am on my way to a protest at the Atlanta Fed .
I read the whole bill and I couldn't find a definition of "TROUBLED ASSETS". Is it still mortgage-related, or has it spread to include credit cards and auto loans?
SRS up 10+% today....when do they institute the short ban on that? Too scared to touch it this morning.
And to think I almost paniced and sold it on Friday. Whew!
"Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar weakened the most against the euro since January 2001 and fell versus the yen on concern a U.S. proposal to buy $700 billion of troubled assets from financial firms will deepen the budget deficit.
The greenback weakened for a fourth day as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to bail out banks from the credit crunch failed to restore investor confidence in U.S. assets. Stocks and bonds fell, and oil prices surged."
You can't cheat at wealth creation.
There's no way.
This is the fundamental flaw in all these bailout proposals -- they undermine the ability to create wealth by rebalancing the relationship between real wealth creation and reward in precisely the wrong way.
If you pay people to screw up you get poor.
Period.
Hmmm, who will benefit from the Dodd Plan? Let's ask his campaign contributors:
SAC Capital Partners $279,700
Royal Bank of Scotland $162,450
Citigroup Inc $157,694
United Technologies $145,200
Bear Stearns $123,150
Goldman Sachs $105,400
American International Group $99,300
St Paul Travelers Companies $98,300
The Hartford $94,350
Merrill Lynch $71,300
Ernst & Young $70,750
JPMorgan Chase & Co $67,850
Morgan Stanley $67,800
Lehman Brothers $63,400
Bank of America $63,000
General Electric $62,650
Apollo Advisors $61,900
PricewaterhouseCoopers $61,800
KPMG LLP $56,350
Credit Suisse Group $55,300
From Kunstler today:
"The product of that huddle was a cockamamie scheme for the US treasury to absorb all the losses from a twenty-year binge in which Wall Street created and retailed the most complex set of swindles ever seen on this planet Earth. The background music to the tableau was the whoosh of a several trillion dollars exiting the US financial system never to be seen again.
The next day (Friday) many particulars of that scheme began to emerge -- such as the complete lack of oversight and review mechanisms for Treasury's new power to monetize private business failures and frauds -- and the stock market soared in response. Other new features of the reformed capital landscape also resolved later that day, like a new experiment aimed at eliminating the short sale as a way of guaranteeing that henceforth market bets could only be placed on the upside of the table. It will be interesting to see how that reform works out in the days ahead.
(snip)
Any way you paint this grotesque panorama, it looks like a very new chapter of history for life in the USA. Basically, we are a much poorer nation than we were even a couple of years ago, and we have a much-reduced ability to project our will around the world, or even among our own floundering sectors and regions. Most troubling to me is the question of legitimacy that now hangs over the proscenium like a guillotine blade. Factoring in the old saw that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes, I think the situation emerging is rather like the crisis of legitimacy that preceded the Civil War. Then, in the 1850s, the nation's two symbiotic political parties, Whig and Democrat, entered a zone of fatal discredit. The White House had been occupied by a sequence of empty cravats named Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, and so much pent-up mistrust roiled the centers of power that the nation entered a convulsion."
The rest of it is pretty grimly amusing, too.
comrade Helmut..
its $5.14 cents per person....
the 1.8 trillion...
FYI....
Seuss (dr?) keep your finger near the sell button at all times. You'll only need to be asleep at the switch a few minutes before one announcement eats all your gains.
invisible hand writes:
I read the whole bill and I couldn't find a definition of "TROUBLED ASSETS". Is it still mortgage-related, or has it spread to include credit cards and auto loans?
That's the fun part. We get to define it ourselves (in conjunction with the lobbyists)
John writes:
I am on my way to a protest at the Atlanta Fed .
I only attend protests with hippie chicks reeking of patchouli. Something tells me there won't be a lot of those at this protest.
U.S. CRUDE FUTURES SURGE, HIT $119.50/BBL, UP $14.95
Trust me Geoff, my finger has been twitching since last Wednesday. Many drinks were consumed over the weekend over the fact that I didn't sell at $99 last Thursday.
Kunstler was sort of right. But the part about us NOW being poorer than we were two months ago.....uh, no. We've been this poor for quite some time, we've just been sweeping the reality under the rug. In fact, for every year that house prices went up from about 2001 to 2005, we actually became poorer. Funny, huh?
I bet oil whipsaws and blows up some hedge funds on the way
Sebastian writes:
"I'm "regular people," too, but I'm not worried."
Stupid or brave? Brave or stupid?
Tough call.
Get out of stocks by the begining of October! Good luck!
Michael Hudson:
On Sunday a BBC World Service reporter asked me to list three things that the financial sector would like to see. Taking the open-ended question on the highest philosophical plane, I said, first of all, the banks would love to free themselves of all deposit liabilities simply to keep the money for themselves. That is their objective when they see a client, after all: How much of the clients earnings and money can they shift into their own pockets. Second, they would like to see politicians elected directly by the amount of money they could raise, thereby doing away with the actual problem of elections. If politics is going to be privatized, this is the way to do it. Romes voting system was organized along these lines. Third, the financial sector prefers not to have to report any data at all or pay any taxes. It has lobbied Congress to block collection of statistics, on the premise that what is not seen will not be taxed. And at present, banks and brokerage houses are still screaming to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley bill calling for full and honest accounting. For financial ideologues this is an equivalent watershed dragon to Rowe vs. Wade, now that they have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that had separated banks from casinos.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Geoff writes:
Kunstler was sort of right. But the part about us NOW being poorer than we were two months ago.....uh, no. We've been this poor for quite some time, we've just been sweeping the reality under the rug. In fact, for every year that house prices went up from about 2001 to 2005, we actually became poorer. Funny, huh?
Geoff, I suspect he'd agree with you 100 percent. It's all semantics.
Do you really need to re-establish trust to get things running again?
A credit transaction is simply a transaction where something of value is exchanged for a promise.
In a very real sense credit is simply the manifestation of trust as a financial mechanism.
One thing we do know with certainty:
Credit is essential to having a modern first world economy.
RPS,isn't that the no short list? LOL
Comrade Kant B. Lievethishit, can I haz my 5 cents?
That happened to me, too. Last night the 7-11 clerk suddenly started talking about the bailout and collapse and asked me what it all meant.
This is a guy I've never spoken to.
The Nuclear Nest Egg
Indebted Americans sat on a wall.
Indebted Americans had a great fall.
All Paulson's horses and all Paulson's men
Couldn't put the economy together again.
be careful of treasury agreeing to equity. One way for the treasury to exploit this is to keep the short rule in effect and price the equity at the current inflated price.
Consider that when UBS went to market with its warrants the stockwas in the high 20s and the rights issue went off at 21. In other words the problem with banks raising equity even now is that if they went to market the would get no bid...until the stocks came down a big amount. Therefore it is too risky to raise equity.
The Treasury wouldn't agree to the equity piece if it didn;t think it could exploit it. Afterall, the process for rpicing assets is left to the Fed head, Treas Sec, SEC and 2 outsiders. This is ludicrous. The process should be fully transparent.
Cramdowns are a disastrous idea and the intervention will raise the price of credit period. Feels good but it is not a good solution. better regulatiojn up front would limit the number of issues to begin with. giving judges the right to cramdown mortgages is just plain stupid. But then the rule of law isn;t much en vogue anymore.
666 Visitors Online
U.S. CRUDE FUTURES RISE MORE THAN $24 A BARREL
666 Visitors Online
We are all hoopajoop now.
All hail the hoopajoop.
$122 Oil - but that is just the Oct futures expiring today. A short squeeze.
Nov Oil not up nearly as much, or the various Oil indices. Be careful.
"pay off mortgages-->"
May not be the thing to do as long as YOU KNOW your secure enough to make the payment in what looks like a hyperinflation, dollar falling, bond yield rising environment. Think 1971-1980, Who ever is holding that note is taking it in the butt.
CBVH III it will be attached to "economic stimulus check number 87"
HEY, where do we see real time quotes (or near real time) on CRUDE ?
I dont see it $119 anywhere ?
Pigs Breaking into the Lipstick Store
My proposal for a headline describing Wall Street/Treasury's 'negotiations' with Congress
From this table, you can get a flavor of which are the top industries gave to Chris Dodd:
Rank Industry Total
1 Securities & Investment $2,876,532
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $1,320,821
3 Real Estate $832,900
4 Insurance $811,306
5 Commercial Banks $511,144
6 Retired $389,272
7 Misc Finance $305,836
8 Accountants $290,550
9 TV/Movies/Music $266,820
10 Lobbyists $265,300
11 Business Services $239,775
12 Finance/Credit Companies $180,850
U.S. CRUDE FUTURES RISE MORE THAN $25 A BARREL TO $130/BBL
yeah I know it seems to be a short sqeeze, but nevertheless this is not normal price actio
Most people out there think we're all nuts. Just thought you should know this.
I have posted stuff on other boards, non-political/economic blogs, describing the dire situation things are in, and all I get are mocking replies, and insults about how I'm overreacting.
The intended purpose of this bailout is already working, and nobody seems to be the least bit concerned.
At this point, I don't think I need to care anymore about anybody else, and just concentrate on myself and my family. Who cares what credit I get, for being right, when the SHTF, because I probably won't even get that anyways.
Other than a few knowlegable economic and/or political blogs, I think most are just going about their lives, as if there is nothing to be concerned about. Fuck 'Em!
Sometimes though, I do wish the system would collapse, because until it does, people like us, will be treated like garbage, when we are truly the only ones who see the crisis as it truly is.
What are hoopajoop? You probably have some in your investment portfolio right now, even though no individual component of your portfolio contained hoopajoop before undergoing securitization. Theoretical physicists have discovered that any financial product, once it passes a certain threshold of complexity, gives rise to hoopajoop particles. It is uncertain what the valuation of hoopajoop is at any given time (See: Heisenberg) but the very existence of this uncertainty gives rise to a certainty of the presence hoopajoop.
Go long hoopajoop.
much better but still a give away.
1. The share price should not be based on the 14 days prior to the sale of the asset but rather the lower of 14 days prior to the sale or share price on 12noon on Thursday September 18th , 2008.
Crude is 127! Is there a limit up value?
Oh yeah, let's have faith in something they (fed-treas-congress) pull out of you-know-where at their self declared last minute. Where were these idiots for the last year. Even a financial numbskull like me could see big problems during Bear-Sterns weekend. That weekend the powerball annuity was bigger than the original JPM buyout. If only my $2 ticket had come through I'd have been the owner of a 'storied wall street investment firm.
Oil now removed from Cnn Money.com top ticker..WTF?
Simple Interest writes:
HEY, where do we see real time quotes (or near real time) on CRUDE ?
I dont see it $119 anywhere ?
Simple Interest,
If you don't have access to Bloomberg, you can use the USO as a proxy.
"The CFTC needs to ban long positions in oil futures."
Thanks jerk, I laughed so hard the milk came out of my nose and now half my keyboard doesn't work!
Nemo writes:
The CFTC needs to ban long positions in oil futures.
Next they'll just ask you to take whatever price they're offering.
I should cut out Cramer's tongue and feed it to Conjure Bag.
TBPickens says oil back to 150 soon. Is he the new GS voice for the market, now that GS cant game the system the same way?
Rep. Frank says Treasury has agreed to take equity position in asset sellers under bailout pla
Breaking News:
Fed Restricts Purchases Of Oil Futures Contracts Effective Immediately.
Was that a joke?
Breaking News:
U.S. Federal Reserve restricts purchases of Futures Gold Contracts & Basket Of 300 Gold Stocks.
I come to the dark side.
An epiphany: Dodd is doctoring the bill for his good friend Obama. Obama may, and I have no inside information on this, cancel campaigning and return to Senate to manage the bill from committee to conference to floor vote and passage.
How presidential.
Had they rolled over for Hank, McCain could have done this.
This puts McCain in a tough spot. Keep campaigning and appear to place politics above country? Return to Senate and get in the way of the matter?
I hope those guys at Obama's campaign are thinking like this.
Oil was obviously short covering. But the dollar is still continuing down!!
This is dangerous, interventions are on the horizon.
Oil Gushes $25 Higher- AP
Oil prices are spiking more than $25 a barrel as rising anxiety over the U.S. government's proposed bailout of the financial system batters the dollar and sends investors scrambling for safe-haven assets.
Now that's what I call hitting paydirt baby !
Was that a joke?
Thats Ballgame Comrades | 09.22.08 - 2:42 pm
The joke today, becomes reality tomorrow.
Frank says Bush Administration accepts "foreclosure prevention" as part of the plan.
The GOP mantra Drill baby Drill !
Breaking news:
Dollar selling banned!
What's happening?
Kneel_before_Zod writes:
I should cut out Cramer's tongue and feed it to Conjure Bag.
"Tongue?" Please review Conjure Bag's dietary preferences.
Yeah they just didn't tell you it was you they'd be drilling...
"Fed Restricts Purchases Of Oil Futures Contracts Effective Immediately."
That's ok just hope you don't need any of the real stuff because you ain't gonna be able to get it. Nixon wage and price controls.
maybe someone should add an Iraq withdrawal clause as well, as they seem to be in an acceptin' mood..
"Frank says Bush Administration accepts "foreclosure prevention" as part of the plan."
Good, I was worried the Dems were gonna roll over and not get any concessions.
You know, if you're reading the comments section of a blog (any blog) to get quotes on futures contracts, that's probably a sign you shouldn't be trading the things.
Comrades,
The CFTC needs to go to Congang and ask for the money so the treasury can short oil and Glod.
Nostrovia,
Breaking News:
SEC Eliminates Shorting of All Dow 30 Stocks.
Crude Oil Has Biggest Gain Ever as Dollar Drops Against Euro
Crude oil for October delivery rose $23.95, or 23 percent, to $128.50 a barrel at 2:23 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures climbed as much as $24.33 to $128.88 a barrel, the highest since Aug. 28.
Oil Posts Biggest Gain as Traders Caught in End-Month Squeeze - Bloomberg.com
Eric .. you smart ass.
Trading isnt the only reason you should know the quotes.
I want to quotes to have a good sleep. if you know the website provide us and spare us of your wise cracks
save them for ur drunkenhusband.
Oil Slick Dick is on the floor withering in orgasm.
He may need to fill up the D7 Cat with some of his victory stash scraped off dead birds and seals from the Exxon Valdez spill, and ram it into the nearest health care clinic.
Prez Cheney is happy today.
Short squeezes are too easy to engineer. We shorts need protection. Got (physical) oil? Give me an effin break. $15 between the Oct and Nov contracts? Inhibit shorting because of the potential to destroy wealth?
At least...
Oh, wait. There is no at least anymore.
These crooks on WS are going to bankrupt this country!
Volker:
Welcome. Actually, it's pretty interesting over here with all manner of surprises.
I just wish I didn't have to be here.
We are utterly, totally effed.
It's like the Mets bullpen is in charge of the entire world.
Developing...
Price floor placed for Dow 30 stocks...
Comrade Scared Shitless writes:
Breaking News:
SEC Eliminates Shorting of All Dow 30 Stocks.
Further update on Breaking News:
SEC Eliminates Sell orders for all Dow 30 Stocks...
Obama may, and I have no inside information on this, cancel campaigning and return to Senate to manage the bill from committee to conference to floor vote and passage.
I bet no. This week is debate week, and Obama's in study hall.
LEH buy-in on short oil positio
Dodd? The top recipient of donations from Freddie and Fannie's? The one that blocked regulation in 2005 and 2003?
Yeah, let's let the corrupt fix the corrupt system. That's the ticket!
homedad43: So what do you or others think? Will he go act presidential while doing his 'country first' duty?
Eric why don't you call your broker and see what he recommends. He probably has a nice hot stock tip for you.
merciless: Where better to study than at home?
I think they should add a mandatory three year jail sentence for every top exec from each firm that takes the money from the bail out?
I think it could be included as the 're-introduction of moral hazard amendment'
Oh yeah, let's put the people who gave us Fannie and Freddie, massive losses and congressional corruption, in charge of a trillion dollar plan.
Brilliant
just got a call from my ameritrade broker, my puts on gm and ubs were exercised on saturday, now i must cover them, like it or not
class action?
How much for the little girl? How much for the women?
What?
Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children.
He probably has a nice hot stock tip for you. Which if he's like my dad's broker, you should immediately short. er, if you can.
I hope there's a really good filmmaker out there getting all of this down, so that we have a detailed documentary of the end of the world as we know it.
He probably has a nice hot stock tip for you.
it's a hoopajoop!
(202) 224-3121
No bailout - tell them oil has gone up 25% today because the dollar is rapidly becoming worthless.
Defend the Dollary - no bailout.
Squeeze of oil short it may be.
But other months contract tells me oil is for the future up.
The force is strong with this one.
New thread up
Bloomberg TED Spread quote down.
Defend the Dollary - no bailout.
stealthwii@gmail.com
The Dollar IS FUCKED!! One way just makes more sense for the citizens of this country.
Some of you people make me feel like this is the Alamo.
Will somebody please tell me what FRICK is going on?!!!
I think it could be included as the 're-introduction of moral hazard amendment'
Okay. Can I get some help on this? I too thought this was the definition of Moral Hazard, but it's the opposite, according to my dictionary.
moral hazard
noun Economics
lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences, e.g., by insurance.
can we have a survey on whether moral hazard is a good thing or a bad thing? I thought it was a good thing, er, meaning something players would seek to avoid as a bad outcome of bad behavior. Not so, says my dictionary.
"Price floor placed for Dow 30 stocks..."
Didn't work in 1929.
I want to state what I am seeing and hearing as I discussed this BailOut Abortion to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and random passwerbys ---
Most have little or no idea of what is going on --- Most could care less and are perfectly happy to let someone else -- Washington and Wall Street in this case -- make all the decisions! The suggestion that they should call, write, fax, or email their representatives and senators is totally beyond them! They act like it is of no concern of theirs.
We have become a nation of servants eager to take orders from and do the bidding of "others" in "high places"! Everywhere it seems that people act nervous and afraid at the mere suggestion that they become involved in their own governance. A nation of pathetic, passive, idiots who enjoy being treated like a herd of dairy cows!
Hank?! Hank?!!! Ben? WTF is happening? Is it another terrorist attack?!
There's tons of 'off-topic' and taboo blogs where this melodrama & tragedy is absolutely NO surprise at all and this collapse was expected and predicted and these people who were 'off-topic' were pegged as nuts and whackos. Some of these people have been arrested and tasered and 'listed' for being activists asking for government accountability.
There's been a movement for social justice and accountability for 7 years now and these people were ridiculed and marginalized. Now Main St. is starting to wake up to the systemic corruption and dirty tricks.
DODD PLAN
Only Nixon could go to China.
Let me put judgement aside, especially since mine is meaningless. I figured you brainy folks here may know the answer to the question.
Did the Bush Administration play a role in keeping interest rates low for the few years following 2002?
I am only looking for facts. I am trying to shoot down my conjecture, before I hold on to it too long & misremember it as fact.
It is my current understanding that as an accepted 'rule', the economy's successes & failures are bi-non-homo-hetero-multi-partisan. But, CR's thoughts on the key differences with the upcoming Dodd Plan vs. Paulson's Plan somehow fall too neatly into my self-construed distrust for Senor Tex & El Gang.
"Fire! Do this Now! Transparency? Taxpayers entitlements for their 700 Ginormous? ... Fire! Now!" -- my (poor) impersonation of Sr.Tex & El Gang.
(And yes, I am asking this question to at least have personal 'proof' that this current culture flavor of governance should not continue. I imagine the Trickle-down Trust Theory could do the whole darn thing some good. Starting with the President. The Young Senator has too much at stake to squander it with intentional deception & deviousness.)
Darkness- new thread, but
"moral hazard" is bad. As in, the incentive to act "good" has been removed.
George Carlin put it this way:
Want people to drive safer? Screw airbags ... put big metal spikes sticking up right in the middle of the steering wheel ... that oughta do it!
(Pointing out that people in big trucks with airbags drive like crazy people, because there are no consequences...for them.)
I just filled up by GOLDEN HUMMER and I am feeling a disturbing inflation should I remove my SKF shorts or wait at least four hours?
I think these price floors and bans on short selling along with this obviously evil big bank bailout plan (funded by the public) while immediately causing spiking commodity inflation will add to the panic selling and collapse of the markets.
Is the plan a 'necessary' bailout which is doomed to fail or a nuclear bazooka blast to quickly kill the faltering consumer economy? Did Paulson think of possible hyper-inflationary consequences with this scheme? Wonder who bet big on oil?
If this was thriller fiction, it might be believable.
Can you imagine all the people who are going to walk from their underwater mortgages now!
Stop posting the fake headlines. It isn't funny, asshole.
I think I just "squeezed" somthing into my shorts.....SHEW...BAD TACO BELL. Sorry to joke but the gravity of this situation is beyond words. People fought and died for freedom and we have let greedy SOB's take it from us so we could have bigger homes, new cars, and unlimited credit. Was it worth it?
Long way for dollar to fall yet to get to March08 lows. ($76 now, 71 then).
Dodd's plan is certainly a huge improvement over Bush/Paulson's plan, but still has huge hole.
Examples: Reporting to Congress: They can claim National Security to not report
Taking equity instead of debt means that after being bailed out, the firms could declare bankruptcy and wipe out the taxpayer's equity.
BushCo has found ways to avoid the law (including direct violation without consequences) by exploiting every possible technicality. Dodd still hasn't realized that the law must provide airtight rules and also provide ways for Congress to get into court without the Dept of Justice (which is completely corrupted - it should be called the Dept of Injustice).
On balance though, this is way better, not just enough to be a real control on powermad BushCo operatives.
Does it strike anyone else that we would introduce additional uncertainty to the value of mortgages by subjecting them to bankruptcy modification.
Isn't the point to stabilize this market.
Oil Futurrs
It looks like the October Futures are getting unusually goosed (+15%). The bad news is the longer dated contracts are all going up too, just not as much (5-6%)
Congress needs to take just as much time as it needs to get this thing done RIGHT. After the Iraq mess, it needs to reestablish its credentials as the institution that will protect the public interest even if a crazy White House will not. Bush has made it clear that a bimbo can be elected President and not much can be done about it so we need a responsible Congress for protection. Even more so now that there is the possibility of two more bimbos getting control of the Executive branch. Heaven help us if they do.
Misean,
Are you purposely misspelling "Na zdarovia?" It's two words, meaning, "To your health."
Maybe you're purposely bastardizing it for comic effect. Anyway, after the seventeenth incidence it started to bug me
Evil shorts have driven financials down 7.77% today... WB down 20%
Let's all have a moment of hatred for the evil shorts.
dubya, Sir... no problems you may continue your pop up book....
The short ban has been effective...it's allowed a mark for options expiration.
overleveraged shorts had to cover, and now are the support for longs to sell into...which is now vapor. Back to reality.
Uh oh... no one there to cover shorts anymore...
B-bye!
The bailout is just part of the continuing mission to transfer funds from the public sector to the private sector courtesy of BushCo.
за Ваше здоровье!
should settle it...
or
Na zdrowie!
Dodd Plan?? You've got to be kidding, right?
We're living the Dodd plan right now:
... and when the s**t hits the fan, point the finger at everyone else and claim that it's because there's too little regulation. Then launch a more aggressive socialist takeover of the banking system.
Yeah, it sounds so much better.
$700 Billion Dollar Bailout Good For Economy
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's the largest government bailout in U.S. history and two days after it was ibntroduced to the Americans paying for it, the proposal is still largely a mystery.
Among the unanswered questions: How will the government mop up the bad mortgage debt on banks' books, who will run the process and how much will it cost?
ADVERTISEMENT
Key elements of the plan remain in flux as behind closffdeeed doors Democrats demand modifications that would provide more help for ordinary Americans in return for bailing out the country's financial giants.
OT
Commercial property prices remain virtually flat, with the Moodys/REAL CPPI measuring a 0.4% increase in July. The CPPI now measures 11.4% below the peak in October 2007.
· Transaction volume fell in July, after an increase in June, but July volume was above the low-point reached in May.
· The largest decrease in prices in this report (14%) was seen in the Florida apartment market, which also measured a decline in transaction volume.
· All four property types in the East experienced price declines, with apartments faring the worst, declining almost 5% this year over last.
Crude $127 bbl
Scared Shitless,
Now you know how Roubini has been feeling for YEARS
Suck it up
I'm seeing $113.88 for Nymex Crude Future on Bloomberg
Off-topic. Did the Bush Administration play a role in influencing Greenspan to maintain interest rates low in 2002 & beyond? I am concerned that the Bush Administration knowingly concealed & postponed the economic burden of the Iraq War in the form 'unprecedented' home ownership & equity.
Actually I secretly hope we're wrong and that happy days are here again...pass the kool aid
PS
Nice to see Krugman has come to Jesus.
Bloomberg is cheating us
NYMEX.com: Light Sweet Crude Oil
$120 spot
Rich - can we get a link on that commercial property price info? Thx.
Oil just hit $124, it hit 125 earlier... Really this was soooo predictable.
Mannn, this wallies, as they say in the UK ! I mean the ones in power - senators, MSM, sitting a circle jerk round those high priests Paulson and Bernanke, praying and genuflecting when they should have taken their daggers out and:
"Stabbed them with their steely knives"..
I mean that metaphorically !- just in case those NSA is taking note.
-K
"Trading was halted for five minutes after the October crude contract reached the limit of $10 per barrel for daily price movement. Under trading rules, the price-change limit is increased by another $10."
From Bill Fleckenstein at MSNBC:
In any case, the response to all of those problems finally caused Ben Bernanke to gas up the helicopters. Last Wednesday, it was announced that the Treasury plans a special series of bill auctions to help the Fed expand its balance sheet. Read: The Fed is going to print money to buy Treasurys so that the Treasury Department can lend money to all these institutions. In other words, the printing presses are setting about monetizing all of our problems.
Here comes hyperinflation. Hope you're all deep into PM's. If not, get down to the coin shop and buy whatever bullion is available.
fuc*
what is the spot price for crude now ?
Daniel Mann writes:
Off-topic. Did the Bush Administration play a role in influencing Greenspan to maintain interest rates low in 2002 & beyond? I am concerned that the Bush Administration knowingly concealed & postponed the economic burden of the Iraq War in the form 'unprecedented' home ownership & equity.
Nahhh! King george would never have done something to harm America.
holy oil - $130 according to the marketwatch bulletin.
Most people out there think we're all nuts. Just thought you should know this.
When teaching difficult topics, students learn at different rates.
You need to be patient (and have a thick skin) when teaching. Especially when there is going to be a visceral response to the message you are delivering.
I read this headline just now: "Cramer: Investing in Gold a Win-Win"
Crap, now how can I buy gold?
Now I'm seeing 119.72 on the NYMEX site
I guess oil is the new gold. easier to get into and out of. Actually useful for something other than looking at.
Ponies with broken legs are hard to sell.
bearly | 09.22.08 - 1:44 pm | #
Hmmm. How do they taste?
Look at OIL running ... I guess the strong dollar is getting crushed
We don't eat our ponies...
Soon as the Cramer gold announcement hits, everyone hits the sell button. Drops $1. wow.
We don't eat our ponies...
Comrade Kristina | 09.22.08 - 2:38 pm | #
....but...but...they're chocolate!
BTW, the phones in Congress are ringing off the hooks right now. I managed to get through to two out of the three I called.
You can easily tell that they've heard the message a thousand times this morning already.
Keep those phones busy.
invisible hand writes:
I read the whole bill and I couldn't find a definition of "TROUBLED ASSETS".
See 'hoopajoops
The CFTC needs to ban long positions in oil futures.
Daniel Mann,
Dude, my old man was being anally probed in the early 80's by the feds for not "producing enough minority loans" at his savings bank. This was long before Bush, et al. Back then there were no MB's someone actually had to walk in to a bank. The later deregulations and other enticements just made the bad - worse.
It's bipartisan.
Breaking News:
Fed Restricts Purchases Of Oil Futures Contracts Effective Immediately.