NY Times: Wave of Financial Fraud Cases
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CalculatedRisk on Sun, 10/19/2008 - 7:46am (429 comments)
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By design...
Does the Federal Government have all the responsibility for investigating/prosecuting fraud? What the hell do the states do?
career opportunity?
I bet I could find 100 cases by lunchtime.
do you think Angelo Mozilo is writing checks as fast as he can to fund small government candidates?
The states were getting shut down by Federal pre-emption when they tried to prevent the worst of the over the top lending practices IIRC...
And the Justice Dept wants to spend time on ACORN, despite no voter fraud after years of turning over every rock & firing attorneys who couldn't find any cases...right...
"...if I wanted to buy a mortgage business that made $250,000, your tax hikes would punish me Mr. Obama."
-- Joe the Mortgage Broker
A squeaky clean relative has been trying to get a job with the FBI to do this sort of investigating for nearly 2 years now. They eventually contact him for a little more info now and then, but no wonder his efforts have gone almost nowhere.
Yet another disgraceful paragraph to add to the tome of the Bush presidency failures, disasters and crimes. I have my fingers crossed that China, Japan and the EU will tell the next President, if you give Bush over to the Hague to stand trial for War Crimes we will continue to buy your paper, if you don't, we won't.
Well, it's not fraud when the price of the house goes up.
Of course the government would not care. They'll just let the bad guys go, and us average citizens will be paying for the criminals for the rest of our lives. The vinyl is broken and its repeating over and over...
The FBI and Justice Department have switched significant amounts of resources away from all white collar crime and into anti-terrorism stuff since 2001.
--
The Scandal No One IS Talking About: Why Stock Crashes Happen On Republican Watch?
Crash of 1929, Crash of 1987, and the Crash of 2008 all happened after Republicanazis were in the White House (the enforcement branch of USG) for at least 6.5 years. Coincidence or allowing financial fraud in the name of free markets, American ingenuity, and progress? Didnt GW Bush take credit for strong American economy during 2002-2007? All of it, and more!, was based on mortgage fraud!
SANS MORTGAGE EQUITY WITHDRAWAL (MEW) THE US ECONOMY HAS BEEN IN THE GREATER DEPRESSION! WHAT IS WORSE, THE GDP GROWTH DURING 1997-2008 IS LOWER THAN DURING 1930-41!!
Alan Greenspan, GW Bush and Ben Bernanke would go down in history as Troika of evildoers.
A former Republicanazi,
Jas
And so, Casey walks! Win-win..
Yet the US Park Service had the assets and resources to arrest a 65 year old woman for protesting the firing of a church choir director, outside of MLK's Ebeneezer baptist. The crime was her permit stated the protest was to start at 1:30pm. She staged her protest at 11:30am
But several former law enforcement officials said in interviews that senior administration officials, particularly at the White House and the Treasury Department, had made clear to them that they were concerned the Justice Department and the F.B.I. were taking an antibusiness attitude that could chill corporate risk taking.
That pretty much says it all right there....
Amazing, yet not amazing at all.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb .
YouTube - Nassim Nicholas Taleb Angry
Testify Tony!
Casey Serin remains free. The FBI has absolutely no excuses for this. They've received literally thousands of requests for action. They choose to not investigate and pursue. Now they reap the public disdain and lack of confidence in their usefulness.
Rulez!? We don' need no stinking rulez!
remember the original bill...he alone had oversight and it could not be review by anyone else.
The Mother of All Power Grabs - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com
This is like a mob robbing a store. Sure there is a security guard but there's nothing that one person can do when there is pure chaos and looting
Except that the mobs is dressed in $6,000 3 piece suits
You are not of the power to command I follow a set of rules, for I am a WIZARD!
This will go far in regaining confidence in the markets
Glad to see CR post on this subject.
Didn't get a response last night:
sportsfan writes:
Is the following about the economy or is it about politics? Inquiring minds and all that jazz:
FBI resources limited for economic probes: report
NEW YORK (Reuters) The FBI, after years spent focusing on national security, is struggling to find agents and resources to investigate wrongdoing tied to the country's economic crisis, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions . . . ."
Either way it's convenient for some folks.
sportsfan | 10.18.08 - 10:02 pm | #
All right, at the risk of igniting another wave of vitriol, it's all about politics. The assholes in power are protecting their kindred.
Anyone who thinks this economic dislocation just sort of happened truly is a born and bred dope. The current administration has allowed its buddies to loot the Treasury for years.
The thought of them prosecuting anyone is the sickest joke of all. Of course they'll be one or two token perp walks and a grand announcement of Mission Accomplished.
Capitalism wins again.
There was a mortgage fraud group that operated in Temecula and Murrieta, CA around 2004-2006. Over 400 documented transactions, with losses to lenders in the range of $100 Million, and there have still not been any charges filed.
Mission Accomplished
In Sacramento, we've had a few pot growing gangs use mortgage fraud to obtain houses for thier indoor grow operations. Thus, the DEA has prosecuted more mortgage fraud here than the FBI.
Priorities people!
So much crime, so little time.
Many years ago, the hub worked white collar crime under Reno. The head of the economic crimes unit is still there. A really great guy. He was proud of having 60-70 fraudsters in his sights. And really, with the resouces at his command, that is the best he could do. This stuff IS being prosecuted. But only to the extent resouces are allocated. When he asks for more staff, he is told that the rapists and murderers are more important. Probably correctly.
I also think that karma will get a lot of these guys and gals, but it certainly would be more satisfying he we could see the perp walks.
If you let all the ganja smokers out, you'd have room in the jails, but you still need more investigators, prosecutors, judges and staff to put them there. And right now, Florida has foolishly cut the judicial system. It was inadequate before, not it is ridiculously inadequate.
all the more reason im taking the 1873 depression as an almost perfect match with what we have today
u.s.grant was president(and while he didnt grab,he didnt stop his friends)
ps im not giving a tidbit.
So when does the FBI memo, "Mortgage Fraud determined to strike in US" come to light?
John Stark writes:
The FBI and Justice Department have switched significant amounts of resources away from all white collar crime and into anti-terrorism stuff since 2001.
...
and they've apprehended and successfully prosecuted who, exactly?
Jose Padilla after driving him insane?
Did real well on the anthrax case.
Don't tell me it can't be done. Spain succeeded in tracking down and prosecuting the Madrid bombers. Spain resisted politicized efforts to blame the wrong people (i.e. the attempt to blame Basque separatists).
Hell, the FBI got to Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s. Had the same thing happened under Bush there would have been a round-up of thousands of people who had nothing to do with it at all.
I have always maintained that a country that arrests people for selling drugs, prostitution while letting banksters run wild deserves everything it gets.
We fire people for browsing non-work related stuff, have zero tolerance policies in schools and give bonuses to sociopaths who have destroyed companies, shareholders and the life savings of employees and retirees.
It is funny to watch as white morons (serfs) fixated on gay marriage, abortion, 'tough on crime' stances and "socialism" are raped by shysters. It is equally funny to watch black and hispanic morons (slavery 2.
misled by their own shysters who tell them what they want to believe- endless entitlements. Asians are not better as they think they are clever- but end up antagonizing everyone.
Seriously, people get the government and a**raping shysters they, as a society, deserve.
Prosecute whom. Remember Abu Ghraib. Go after the low hanging fruit but let the brass get off scott free. Nobody big is prosecuted.
Decriminalizing drugs - at the very least pot - would free up a lot of resources for investigating white collar crime.
Of course, a lot more rich people would be arrested that way, and we can't have that.
All right, at the risk of igniting another wave of vitriol, it's all about politics.
Anyone who thinks this economic dislocation just sort of happened truly is a born and bred dope.
sportsfan
The thinking posters here know what you say is true. The vitriol of your post, however, may well be what is drawing the fire. The ones that know not the truth of your statement are not dopes. They're, if anywhere close to my experience, trusting participants in a shell game.
The game lost me, and I was one of their ardent supporters.
RE: the video posted with Taleb--He's is probably right in that this is just beginning. And the authorities know it, too. They daren't reveal this to the unwashed electorate for fear that their flights from the close scrutiny of their actions may be impeded.
THIS summer, as he fought for the survival of Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld Jr., its chief executive, made a final plea to regulators to turn his investment bank into a bank holding company, which would allow it to receive constant access to federal funding.
Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told him no, according to a former Lehman executive who requested anonymity because of continuing investigations of the firms demise. Its options exhausted, Lehman filed for bankruptcy in mid-September.
One week later, Goldman and Morgan Stanley were designated bank holding companies.
That was our idea three months ago, and they wouldnt let us do it, said a former senior Lehman executive who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. But when Goldman got in trouble, they did it right away. No one could believe it.
Hell, the FBI got to Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s. Had the same thing happened under Bush there would have been a round-up of thousands of people who had nothing to do with it at all.
joe shmoe
Let me postulate from whole cloth: Perhaps he was an operative. Perhaps he wasn't executed. Perhaps he's on an island with Flight 93 passengers.
I love it when the spritz of conspiracy is used to dowse a fire.
from prev thread
[Plantagenet writes:
"But others have mentioned that this is just the calm before the storm. Is it?"
That is what I am betting on. Next week includes settlement of last week's inferno of Treasury financing, plus a whole new inferno.]
OK, so I am trying to figure out how this plays. Treasury yields pop to avoid failures and competition for scarce capital heads into new treasury issues taking the bid out from under equities ?
Bearly: Nice read on the situation.
Hold your cash and wait. The potential bottom in equities is zero.
as long as i remember the only job casey serin ever had was in a company that hires mentally retarded people. i mean he could get away in case being charged just by claiming being mentally retarded. i mean the banks gave him all the money, he did not understood anything. theres no way he would ever get convicted so the officials did not charged him.
maybe the fbi should go to second life.
Regarding 9/11, McVeigh, 1993 WTC, and on, and on, including basically all U.S. military interventions everywhere, it might not be prudent to believe all the conspiracy theories, but I also have no trust that the government's version of the truth is any more accurate. Add that to the crisis of confidence debate.
Did anyone ever update that Case Shiller rollercoaster thingy, which is about a year out of date now?
Also, NPR's the story had a thing on this mtg quality control officer who was an MBA, with apparently no experience in mtges and ended up as asst vp after 5 years, just before being fired. The interviewer didn't know enough about mtges to hold his feet to the fire, but it is painfully obvious that even if he tried to hold the line as he said he did, he was woefully ill-trained and powerless to tell either when something was wrong, or to correct it.
Clearly his employer didn't want to see the truth.
He lost everything and is presently failing at selling gift baskets over the internet.
If you want to help the FBI, join the FBI citizens academy and help them nail all these a-holes. It's a cool outreach program that allows citizens with clean records and expertise in finance or engineering areas assist the FBI in their case work. It's almost too cool to be true...but it is true. You don't get to pack heat...for that you need to apply to the FBI, but this has got to be the second best thing.
forget the born and bred dopes lets go with born and bred idiots!
cfo--you get paid for that?
Well fighting mortgage fraud doesn't scare citizens into voting Republican while fighting "terrorists" is a sure winner of dupe votes.
But it is so much more important to have thousands of agents putting people in jail for smoking marijuana.
I mean, look at the horrific damage done to society by marijuana.
It's not like mortgage fraud ever hurt anyone. Mortgage fraud is a victimless crime!
Not to sound like a contrarian or anything, but because of several Supreme Court cases the past several years, it's pretty damn hard for the government to just assert fraud, civil or criminal. Basically, right out of the gate, the party asserting fraud has to specifically point out what the fraud was and that the party had the intent to defraud.
So for example, absent a specific prohibition, lying about your income to buy a house that you actually intended to pay for would not be considered fraud.
"OK, so I am trying to figure out how this plays. Treasury yields pop to avoid failures and competition for scarce capital heads into new treasury issues taking the bid out from under equities ?"
Here is my scenario: first equities go down, due to oversupply of bonds. During this, people foolishly flee from stocks largely into bonds, even the longer maturity ones (one last time). Then the Fed pumps an election rally.
How to play. Long DXD, then quick into TBT.
I could be dead wrong, but I really enjoy exchanging testable hypotheses with such an august group (the CR folks).
Fuld has a BA from the University of Colorado for God's sake. When Hank shook his hand, Fuld didn't even know the secret pinky tickle. And you wonder why Lehman wasn't among the anointed?
You may kiss my sacred Harvard ring.
Basel writes:
So for example, absent a specific prohibition, lying about your income to buy a house that you actually intended to pay for would not be considered fraud.
Uh, no. The intent to pay for the house is irrelevant. The intent to have the lender rely on the lie about income is what counts.
That's fraud.
Hey Lord Blankfein, from Wiki:
Founded in 1988, [the] Robin Hood [Foundation] was the brainchild of hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones. In 2006, the board of directors included such names as Jeffrey Immelt, Diane Sawyer, Harvey Weinstein, Marie-Josee Kravis, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Richard S. Fuld, Jr. of Lehman Brothers, Marian Wright Edelman, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
Kind of ironic that both Blankfein and Fuld are both members.
Hubby is with the FBI citizens academy and works extensively with the FBI in the computer crimes area. Agreed this is a great outreach program, at least in our area. In different parts of the country, not so much, according to the local agents...
There is a lot of infighting in the FBI right now over the politicizing of some of their investigations, particularly those going on in the area of voting rights ...
It's a cool outreach program that allows citizens with clean records and expertise in finance or engineering areas assist the FBI in their case work.
Can I open a case against Paulson? Maybe we could do the research right here on CR?
Sorry Ben, it was broke before I got here.
Lemme see. 177 agents not enough. Enough to investigate 177 or even 2*177 banksters, no? So, the banksters are the victims of the fraud. I see.
You may kiss my scared Harvard ring.
Lord Blankfein | 10.19.08 - 11:48 am | #
You may kiss my sacred Harvard ring.
Lord Blankfein | 10.19.08 - 12:45 pm | #
So, which is it, scared or sacred?
Perhaps both?
Plantagenet,
I am waiting to see the foreign response to all this. Specifically, how are the bond auctions going that are supposed to be funding this crap. I can't imagine foreign countries ponying up for another round after being burnt pretty badly. If we can't fund our new debt plus our current deficit, we will have huge problems. I'm pretty certain that tax receipts for this year are going to suck. So where is the money possibly going to come from to pay for $11.6 trillion national debt plus ~$50 trillion in future liabilities? The answer is nowhere. We either start defaulting on debt or we print. I think the next big plays will be in currencies and commodities versus the dollar, and as far as equities goes, how much equity do we really have? I'm guessing not much.
Is anyone surprised that putting the crooks in charge of enforcing the laws turned out to be a mistake?
So what was the robin hood thingy about?
Uh, no. The intent to pay for the house is irrelevant. The intent to have the lender rely on the lie about income is what counts.
That's fraud.
As I pointed out, there's fraud and then there's actionable fraud.
If there's an actual law that says any misrepresentation on a mortgage form is fraud, then you are correct. But at the same time, such a law would necessarily ensnare any misrepresentation regardless of mens rea. As per my original post, the Supreme Court has held in the past several years that there is a heightened standard for showing fraud, such that intent must be alleged just to make it out of summary judgment (for civil cases).
Please see:
Tellabs v. Makor Issues
BellSouth v. Twombly
s0mebody,
I figure 'war bonds' are next.
Timothy McVeigh said he had a computer chip implanted in his butt, and he had a truckload of fertilizer..
The 9/11 hi-jackers only had box-cutters, some flight training, and airline schedules.
US technological superiority! USA! USA!
To believe that everything the govt says is a lie (Timothy McVeigh's view) is really no different than to believe that everything your religio-political leader says is true (9/11 hi-jackers' view).
I know it is simpler and easier to believe that all the stars align with truth or falsehood.
I regard everything the politicized arms of the gov't say as unknown and unproven. It is an indication that there is SOMETHING there, which should be looked into, but certainly not what.
What other entities say, I also look at with skeptism.
I like to say that 90% of everything is crap. actually, that is a bit too high, but is probably good for gov't. And it makes a great corrective slogan.
Should be taught in schools. Teacher says a, b, c, d. Which thing that I said is crap? And why?
@s0mebody
"I can't imagine foreign countries ponying up for another round after being burnt pretty badly."
I haven't been able to imagine that for years, and yet they show up every time. Obviously there is something we don't know about their motivation.
Possible signs of a reversal may be emerging: (1) they are clearly dumping agencies (albeit into treasuries), (2) the latest TIC data is rather weak, (3) the OIL potentates will have less cash to recycle, and (4) the EURO-meisters are planning an end run on the Dollar.
The interesting fact remains is that, IF there is a run on the Dollar, running first is a good strategy. This is not a Nash equilibrium.
One more time. They do not know or understand what to do. It's too complex. Nobody understands.
The glue is money. Medium of exchange. It has been destroyed. After socialism comes fascism.
This is what the people wanted. Now short it.
Possible signs of a reversal may be emerging: (1) they are clearly dumping agencies (albeit into treasuries), (2) the latest TIC data is rather weak, (3) the OIL potentates will have less cash to recycle, and (4) the EURO-meisters are planning an end run on the Dollar.
Asian currencies (Korean won and indian rupee) had to be supported. Their CBs sold truck load of reserves.
They dont have any need to buy treasuries anymore
In a federal district the person who decides what is going to be proscuted is the Attorney General. Many times this is influenced by DOJ who in turn is influenced by politics and budget games.
An example is child porn. That got huge support so the DOJ got a lot of money for it. The AG's for the districts want some of that money, especially because it is heavy in IT purchases, so guess what they do.
A district AG is a political animal. They are using the position to move to bigger and better things. This means they push the publics and media agenda. Keep in mind that as political animals they have an eye on future campaign funding. RE, construction, etc. is THE pot of gold for many of these districts. The rest is easy to figure out.
In the old days a good, and politically connected, AG could look forward to a job as a federal judge. No money in it anymore.
only slightly OT:
from Cryptome
on consolidation of big business and banking, and related amendment of banking laws
"The interesting fact remains is that, IF there is a run on the Dollar, running first is a good strategy."
Why aren't they running?! My theory is that when everyone piles into the shortest yield stuff, it is the end game. They are in the short stuff because they don't want the long stuff and they don't want equities. They are all in the short stuff, so the only way to go is out. I think it's going to be a run out of dollar assets. But why aren't they running?
Casey Serin shouldn't be prosecuted. He was extremely small-time. I have an acquaintance who worked in the mortgage broker business. Virtually every company had "loan doctors" whose job was literally to figure out what lies were needed to get a loan through the underwriting system. We're not talking trivial lies - this is where things like fast food workers were put down as earning 150K per year. You think the fast food workers knew what it took to get a loan through underwriting?
Many, perhaps most, mortgage brokers were fraud mills and the intent went all the way to the top. It's ridiculous to prosecute Serin for his 12 cases over loan doctors and mortgage brokers who knowingly participated in hundreds of fraud cases, and purely for the fraud (Serin was defrauding as a means, not as the end). Never mind the company management and ownership, who knowingly participated in THOUSANDS of intentional fraud qua fraud applications.
Even if you have some intense craving to punish small-time people and let the ringleaders off, the cash-out frauds should come well before the Casey Serins, and there are probably thousands of those. Their fraud was far more blantant, destructive, and intentional than Serin's.
I find it interesting that the media harps on the Serin types and ignores the many vastly more culpable individuals.
Basel Too,
I still think you're wrong. Fraud has always required specific allegations, such as "lied about income in order to have lender rely on income to make a loan"
Tellabs appears to have been based on the specificity of the allegations of fraud and the standard to apply in drawing inferences from the facts alleged:
Securities fraud suit against Tellabs can proceed (01/22/08)
CHICAGOA federal appellate court has upheld its decision to allow a securities fraud case to proceed against Tellabs Inc. nearly seven months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the earlier ruling because of the appellate courts improper analysis of the claimants allegations.
The closely watched case, Tellabs Inc. et al. vs. Makor Issues & Rights Ltd. et al., has turned on a provision in the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act that requires claimants to allege detailed facts sufficient to establish a strong inference that the defendants acted with intent to commit fraud.
Overturning a 2004 district court decision that dismissed the case, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January 2006 that the case could proceed because a reasonable person could infer that the defendants acted with fraudulent intent. The 7th Circuit did not consider inferences that it could have made from the facts in the case that Naperville, Ill.-based Tellabs and other defendants had acted innocently in misleading investors about the companys sales prospects.
Courts in other circuits had considered inferences of culpability and innocence but balanced them in different ways when they determined whether to dismiss a case. That inconsistency prompted the Supreme Court to review the Tellabs case (BI, Jan. 15, 2007).
The Supreme Court ruled plaintiffs allegations should survive only ifafter considering all plausible fraudulent and innocent inferences that a court could draw from defendants activitya reasonable person would find the plaintiffs arguments at least as compelling as any opposing inferences that person could draw (BI, July 2, 2007).
Bell Atlantic v. Twombly also was decided based on the specificity of the allegations . . . or, in that case, the lack of specific allegations:
Held:
1. Stating a §1 claim requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest that an agreement was made. An allegation of parallel conduct and a bare assertion of conspiracy will not suffice. Pp. 617.
Nothing has changed so far as I can tell with regard to fraud cases.
District AG = US Attorney
YLSP writes:
By design...
YLSP | 10.19.08 - 11:51 am | #
First post cuts to the chase--they're not thrifty or incompetent--Bushco is EVIL. As we used to say in Bklyn, it takes one to know one--he is the fulcrum of evil.
YLSP writes:
By design...
YLSP | 10.19.08 - 11:51 am | #
First post cuts to the chase--they're not thrifty or incompetent--Bushco is EVIL. As we used to say in Bklyn, it takes one to know one--he is the fulcrum of evil.
sorry, sorry
Interesting interview with Martin Wolf.
Charlie Rose - A conversation with Martin Wolf
Why don't the banks handle this themselves using private investigation, fact checking, and civil suits?
what does this means:
ECB's Nowotny Sees Global `Tri-Polar' Currency System Evolving - Bloomberg.com
Maybe Prof krugman can explain ?
(btw, what is your handle here...
The article at 1:36 is unclear as to what the new system would be--but is clear what should no longer be.
Why don't the banks handle this themselves using private investigation, fact checking, and civil suits?
MattYoung
lol!
tsunami of cheap easy credit, meets tsunami of fraud ... hmmmm
"tsunami of cheap easy credit, meets tsunami of fraud"
Those waves were in phase, and mutually reinforcing.
In 2001 the government was loudly criticized for not having enough agents on the terror front; like a ship shifting ballast in a heavy storm, now they will deploy to fight domestic crime due to criticism for not having enough agents on "mortgage fraud".
Will all the experts tell us what the next priority will be in about four years so government can get ahead of the political winds.
I so can't wait for November 5.
Good discussion on the equity/bond trade. Looking for more of the same.
At least McCain had half a point on Wednesday night when he said, I am not President Bush. What he has offered his country this year is an older, crankier, more unsteady version of Bush. Tragically, he can no sooner escape our despised president than he can escape himself.
If CSC ever makes it back from partying with Lahde:
Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists - Telegraph
"Stone Age man took drugs"
Also, thread music, Pretenders Mystery Achievement
YouTube -
...Mystery acheivement, so unreal...
jas jain
add the depression of 1873 to the list grant was repubician.wiki it.
Let's all face reality as a collective unit, every home in America and around The Globe was overvalued in a bubble -- it wasn't just the house across the street it was you and me and this was the result of appraisals we all went along with, because it was good! The FBI is a bunch of retards and it is no wonder they don't have the man power to look at all the fraud, because the reality is, every FBI agent bought into the same shit as every member of Congress and ever neighbor in every community!
[Why aren't they running]
Where do they go ? The US has dominant military power. USD represents order. My sense is IF O gets elected the uncertainty (lack of order) drives the dollar straight into the tank.
This weekends news is pretty calm no crisis. f this keeps up there will be no crisis, so no new govt programs. This may drive equities down as govt. bailouts are about the only good news lately.
However, oil going down could really mute the bear market. Really depends where oil ends up after all deleveraging of speculators.
Kona writes: tsunami of cheap easy credit meets tsunami of fraud
I think that a tsunami of cheap easy credit created a tsunami of fraud. Otherwise, where would you direct all this cheap easy credit? The economy offers only so many viable investment options...
In an astonishing let-them-eat-cake moment, the A.I.G. big shot Sebastian Preil held court at the bar and told an undercover reporter, The recession will go on until about 2011, but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine.
The well was open for everyone, in every community and The Bush Ownership Society, suggested that every one drink the water
bearly - so O's election is the primary reason the dollar will dive? Not the credit unwind that was precipitated by some 30 years (or longer) of malfeasance by lobbyist's control of both parties?
Rather convenient way to excuse the present administration's willingness to forego oversight.
For me the best depiction of the worsening FR/TR/congressional corruption and credit recovery effort is the steepening decline of the parabolic curve pressing down over the broad indices.
The current parabolic drop allows stock volatility so high that DJI up 250 Monday to 9100 is still under the collapsing curve.
No one ever seems to anticipate and follow these accelerations even though human nature drives them.
I'm WAGing DJI 7200 the next indicator of the success of congress and the feds in unwinding their 20 year credit binge.
On the way up the reflation ladder their secret motto could have been 'nothing succeeds like excess', and the bailout numbers suggest they're following the same game plan on the way down.
Oui, oui,
Bush, like Jim Jones, offered a punch bowl of koolaid and then wanted everyone on the same chaotic page, taking a mindless and hallucinogenic ride on the tsunami pipeline, where we could all surf the waters of unlimited wealth and live in a great society where everyone could ignore the reality of debt. The Ownership Society was fraud!
Sorry, but I'd rather not get blowd up.
And besides, if I think I just got ripped off, why would I call the FBI? Shouldn't I hire counsel for a little jackpot justice?
I bought my house in late 1996. I felt rich for a while. We paid for it. It went up and it went down. It was all illusion. The value of things is always an illusion until you try to sell the things. zen meets economics.
Why can't we just close the borders, implement price controls, then give everyone $5 million. Just one last party. It might last 20 years.
And besides, if I think I just got ripped off, why would I call the FBI? Shouldn't I hire counsel for a little jackpot justice?
yeah because collecting a judgment against a fraudster is soooooo easy.
WTF, why isn't The FBI investigating the origins of The Ownership Society? I mean, they don't have to even leave washington, they can go over to The White House:
President Sworn-In to Second Term
404 Page Not Found | The White House
Inauguration 2005
In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.
Gosh, sounds good to me.
Back in the day, very high incomes faced confiscatory tax rates--there was less incentive for major league fraud.
They cheated by creating loopholes.
Not that the loophole thing stopped.
Not to say the O doesn't have it right to raise taxes on the over quarter mil crowd.
MEMO
Counterpointer Local Node 23
Black swan detected approaching republic. Confirmed on infosys ultra-infra. Homeostatic equilibrium under threat.
October ops almost complete. Blue touch paper lit. Standing well clear.
Will be in later. Request double helping of game theory served cool and gratuitous. And Uncle Billy's mince juleps.
CC
[Rather convenient way to excuse the present administration's willingness to forego oversight]
This has little to do with how the dollar will behave going forward.
Let's say that I make enough over $250k so that I'm paying an extra $4000 in taxes. Explain to me how sending that $4000 to the US Treasury is better for the economy than me spending that $4000 on goods and services?
Mel writes:
Back in the day, very high incomes faced confiscatory tax rates--there was less incentive for major league fraud.
Interesting point. I read somewhere where the explosion of CDS's and other derivatives are directly related to the tax cuts for the wealthiest. The wealthiest had enough money to plan for the future, pay for kids education, etc., and thet had so much diposable income left over, mad money, they were looking for much higher returns via much riskier investments
LA Times has an article about states facing budget shortfalls.
States could face historic fiscal crisis - Los Angeles Times
Raise taxes? Decrease services? On a previous thread Byz_Ruins brought up perhaps the most cogent and overlooked part - an entrenched bureaucracy. Nothing new here, but clearly its primary function becomes, how to perpetuate itself. It's like the Blob from old sci-fi movies, feeding feeding feeding...
A decrease in governmental spending is coming, even though the bureaucrats oppose it. My question is, will it be voluntary downsizing, or will the whole shooting match fall off a cliff and be drowned in a bath tub (to utterly mangle metaphors.)
Subprime had the Fed a little concerned; CDS has them staring into the abyss and shitting their pants. Aren't you glad we have men so familiar with the mistakes the Fed made in 1929 to 1932 with regard to Fed Policy? We wish they had at least audited the courses covering the Fed's mistakes form 1921 to 1929. Sure, they are the experts; we're just concerned that they may be preparing to fight the last war.
Jesse's Café Américain: Professor Marvel Never Guesses. He Knows!
**
Jeremy Grantham's quarterly letter, published yesterday, is a classic.
Grantham: Stocks May Fall Another 50%, But Still Time To Buy
. . . . how the dollar will behave going forward.
The dollar is on deathwatch.
Its demise will not be based on who is next elected President.
Got gold?
Got food?
Got guns?
Got ammo?
Okay, it's too early in the day for that stuff.
Anonymous writes:
Sorry, but I'd rather not get blowd up.
Your chances of being blowd up are exceedingly small. As an American texpayer, your chances of being a victim of mortgage fraud are, well, 100%.
You won't spend $4000 on goods and services, you will buy gold.
[Rather convenient way to excuse the present administration's willingness to forego oversight]
This has little to do with how the dollar will behave going forward.
bearly | 10.19.08 - 2:11 pm | #
Can you elaborate on and support your premise? I'm not an economist, please forgive me, but I'm trying to wrap my head around your statement. How does the dollar move in a vacuum? If higher regulation is the new administration's response to several years of lax regulation, and the dollar then moves lower in response to higher regulation, how does this movement NOT directly derive from the lack of prior regulation?
What other mechanism is there?
Anonymous writes:
Let's say that I make enough over $250k so that I'm paying an extra $4000 in taxes. Explain to me how sending that $4000 to the US Treasury is better for the economy than me spending that $4000 on goods and services?
Because all the goods you buy would end up being money sent out of the country and all the services you buy would be from illegals and that money would leave the country too.
The new (legal)fraud seems be writing down mortgages but not registering the write down. This way everyone can pretend a house is still worth $500,000 even though the "owner" can only afford to pay $300,000 .
How much does one have to love a house in order to give up any chance of realizing appreciation while paying taxes based on the fantasy bubble price? Or how stupid does one need to be?
CR, back in the old country we used to call people like you "useful idiots".
Years of bad policy caused by [socialistic governmental action] [corporatist dismantling of oversight] [born and bred dopism] [fill-in-the-blank] [black swans defeating the best laid plans of mice and men]
Yancey Ward writes:
"Does the Federal Government have all the responsibility for investigating/prosecuting fraud? What the hell do the states do?"
The states, they got punked. They's limp.
NEW YORK TIMES
By ROBERT M. MORGENTHAU
Published: April 30, 2007
IN a ruling this month, the United States Supreme Court upheld an ill-advised regulation issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that exempted subsidiaries of national banks from regulation by state banking authorities. This regulation makes the comptroller the exclusive regulator of these banks, even though the office is financed almost entirely by the banks it oversees.
Obama must fix the damage that has been done to our civil service. Pray that everyone with a brain there hasn't been replaced by some Pat Robertson University crony.
Your chances of being blowd up are exceedingly small. As an American texpayer, your chances of being a victim of mortgage fraud are, well, 100%.
Yeah, but at the end of the day, I'm in partially responsible for mortgage "fraud" (i.e., I don't read ANYTHING before I scribble my X on the dotted line). On the other hand, I have no control over the homicidal actions of others.
Wow, Broker, bold statement. How is he useful? Is your criticism simply an insult, or do you have a thesis behind it you'd care to elaborate?
In the case, Watters v. Wachovia Bank, the court held that the National Bank Act barred Michigans bank regulator from overseeing the activities of the mortgage-lending subsidiary of Wachovia, a national bank, even though the subsidiary itself was a state-chartered institution. The court thus rejected the arguments of the attorneys general and bank regulators in all 50 states.
Who's Watching Your Money? - NY Times
It's f*cking ACORNS fault! I love Sarah!
Bond Spread More Evidence of Bottoming US Interest Rates?
Bond Spread More Evidence of Bottoming US Interest Rates?-Minyanville
This is confusing, this guy points to some charts and suggest that we have seen a bottom in bond yield rates, but if you look at the charts, there is no historical precedent to indicate we are at a bottom, i.e, Muni-Treasury Spreads look like shit and keep falling, i.e, he suggests we near a record extreme low, and if you look at the chart, we are crashing from a low yield period of almost 25 years -- so the theory that bond yields wont continue to head south or to come back in any meaningful way is absurd!
Furthermore, the 3 charts offered, show a 25 year period of crashing yields, and then this geek suggests it's time to buy into the dip? What bullshit, because essentially, you would be paying the highest historical price for the lowest yield -- that is a retarded idea!
And that f*cking terrorist Jim Ayers! I love Sarah!
Fair Economist writes:
Casey Serin shouldn't be prosecuted. He was extremely small-time.
4 states, multimillions in losses and you think he deserves a pass? Why not tell the class which white collar crime under discussion he HASN'T committed?
OT Poor Gretchen has a new article where she even gets some things right.
They cheated by creating loopholes.
Huh? Who cheated, through which loopholes?
Think Christmas crafts made in China:
"orders from the US have shrunk over 50%"
http://www.eeo.com.cn/ens/Industry/2008/10/16/116408.html
All right, politics.
I have hear a new rumor that the market crash is because of Obama, i.e, people are pulling money out of stocks because Obama will be taxing people ... retarded, but let's go get some facts....
ING bailed out by dutch government by 10 billion. Press conference online @ Player omroep.nl
But why aren't they running?
s0mebody
At the risk of insulting a third party; they aren't running because no one has fired the starter pistol yet.
Kona,
I glanced at your link about yields.
Economic bond yield has to be composed primarily of productivity growth, and that has more to do with the number of smart people inventing stuff, only indirectly related to market movement.
That guy does seem to have his facts messed up.
I am shocked, shocked to find that fraud is going on in here!
ING Gets Dutch Injection of 10 Billion Euros to Boost Capital --
ING Gets $13.4 Billion Injection From the Netherlands (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
Kona,
Bottoming of RATES, not prices.
Social Security/payroll taxes: impose additional tax of 2-4 percent (combined employer and employee) on workers with income above $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples)
tsumani of cheap, easy money meet tsunami of fraud
Perhaps a tsunami of fraud was the easiest way to drop bails helicopter money on the general public?
Barley. Read the article about Chinese Christmas stuff, including fake trees.
gee, they can't market this to the Chinese. Ya think? Most Chinese not only aren't Christians, but can afford this worthless crap.
I have marvelled for years about a business plan which needs selling worthless Christmas crap, in order to make a yearly profit.
At least the outsourced jobs will be lost someplace else.
I KNOW NOTHING....STG SCHULZ..
There was an immense of amount of fraud. Even in St. Paul, MN, I've been monitoring the MLS, and it would be very easy to find lot's of properties where somekind of fraud, fraudelent appraisals took placs.
Anonymous writes:
Social Security/payroll taxes: impose additional tax of 2-4 percent (combined employer and employee) on workers with income above $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples)
Social security taxes now are 15.3% (yes, half is supposedly "paid" by the employer, but that is a convenient fiction. If that money were not being taken by the government, it would be paid to the workers in the form of higher wages, or to the consumers in the form of lower prices). You would propose to raise that to 17.3-19.3%? The social security wage cap is $108,000. Your post seems to imply that you would raise that to 200,000 -- a huge additional tax burden on millions of people. Speaking as somone who would be drastically affected by such an increase, I can tell you that I would not pay it. As with all taxes, beware the collections costs and the unintended consequences.
--
"Perhaps a tsunami of fraud was the easiest way to drop bails helicopter money on the general public?"
Broward Horne,
Yes, MEW = Helicopter Drops!
Helicopters got shot down beginning 2008Q3.
Jas
Let's hope Change involves more than swapping Jamie Dimon for Hank Paulson.
According to previously undisclosed internal F.B.I. data, the cutbacks have been particularly severe in staffing for investigations into white-collar crimes like mortgage fraud, with a loss of 625 agents, or 36 percent of its 2001 levels.
To some they might be white collar criminals - to others they are their 'political base'. It's all a matter of perspective.
I guess if the SEC had to do their job, Christopher Cox would have to arrest himself.
dryfly writes:
To some they might be white collar criminals - to others they are their 'political base'. It's all a matter of perspective.
Indeed. White-collar criminals are a Republican constituency, and blue-collar criminals are a Democratic constituency. What a system.
"The FBI and Justice Department have switched significant amounts of resources away from all white collar crime and into anti-terrorism stuff since 2001."
That's right. As ponzi escalates, throw in some "bait and switch" and/or some misdirection. Make a big noise over here, while something else is going on over there.
FBI Citizens Academy:
Federal Bureau of Investigation - FBI Citizens' Academy
nonymous writes:
what does this means:
Bloomberg.com refer=home
Maybe Prof krugman can explain ?
(btw, what is your handle here...
Anonymous | 10.19.08 - 1:36 pm | #
The end of dollar hegemony is the best thing to ever happen to 'working stiffs' in the US... pray for it.
[What other mechanism is there?]
My interpretation, macro view - The dollar's value is driven in the short term by supply/demand and balancing mechanisms of CBs and a lot of other factors. That all transpires within the tails of a normal curve.
But the whole damn curve shifts massively if there's a confidence crisis. Something that makes US (military dominance) policy uncertain. Obama represents uncertainty and thus potential reordering. The dollar will take a serious hit IF Obama gets elected (unlikely, IMO).
At least the outsourced jobs will be lost someplace else.
Tell that to all the former Mervyns and LNT employees.
"Speaking as somone who would be drastically affected by such an increase, I can tell you that I would not pay it."
Of course you (of all people) wouldn't pay it.
I mean, man, with all that additional overhead you've got to maintain, how could you possibly afford it?
With both a wife, and a mistress to support... dude, that's like two of everything.
Two bouquets of flowers, two nights on the town, two handguns...
Anyone know what day Lehman's CDS's come due? 400 big ones held almost exclusively in 3 banks...
Might be a short term inflection point for good or evil.
Someone writes:
"Indeed. White-collar criminals are a Republican constituency ..."
Are you saying Marc Rich was a Republican?
I so can't wait for Nov 5.
With both a wife, and a mistress to support... dude, that's like two of everything.
Mistress mostly supports herself, although I do pay 50% of her mortgage each month. Wife, on the other hand, does not work and is a total cash-drain. And then there's my daughter..
Ross writes:
Anyone know what day Lehman's CDS's come due? 400 big ones held almost exclusively in 3 banks...
Oct 21
The end of dollar hegemony is the best thing to ever happen to 'working stiffs' in the US... pray for it.
Why do you say?
Are you saying Marc Rich was a Republican?
The exception that proves the rule...
And Dems aren't absolved - I think Corey had it pretty much right here:
White-collar criminals are a Republican constituency, and blue-collar criminals are a Democratic constituency. What a system.
Corey | Homepage | 10.19.08 - 2:53 pm | #
Both have their 'black markets' - just different market 'segments'.
"And then there's my daughter.."
Say no more. I feel your pain, lol!
I'm getting a theory. The recent commodities bubble and, now, bust, was do to some extent on China's preparation for the olympics. Now that the olympics fever has passed, we must recuperate.
bearly,
IMO, dollar takes a hit with another Republican administration. Note: The rest of the world prefers OBAMA, more than less, and this preference by massive dollar holders is important--respectfully, whatever your personal political views are...
...that being said, USD is toast. Period.
Welcome to the desert of the real.
Why do you say?
Outsider | 10.19.08 - 3:26 pm | #
Dollar manipulation destroys blue collar & mid level white collar jobs alik. It also crushes small business which is the most secure harbor for working stiffs.
Large MNCs can easily jump around & arbitrage to take advantage of currency shifts adding or shedding jobs at will... most of the rest of us can't - we become the victims. Its like share cropping for massa.
Sure dollar hegemony 'bought' us huge new mini-mcmansions on the exurban edge, cheap gas & SUVs... but was that really prosperity? Is it sustainable for most of us? For some sure but not like it was implemented due to cheap credit & manipulated currency based 'prosperity'.
We'd all have been better off with more secure but less 'frothy' real jobs. Dollar hegemony as a result of merchantilist currency manipulation put a spike in that option. End it - end it now.
[...that being said, USD is toast. Period]
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. My political views concerning the 2 parties' respective candidates are that we have abysmal choices, again.
I agree the dollar in in for tough times regardless, but it's a matter of degree. I think Obama is a game changer for the dollar. Serious declines.
"So for example, absent a specific prohibition, lying about your income to buy a house that you actually intended to pay for would not be considered fraud."
You are right, that is not fraud - it is also not what we are talking about. Fraud is a developer enlisting straw buyers to take down mortgages with the assurance that the THE DEVELOPER will pay the debt service for a year (or 2) while the "guaranteed appreciation" builds up so the straw buyers can sell to a greater fool and cover the developers advances.
At least thats how it works in NW Florida. There are other variations, but basically the fraud is in the identity of the "at risk" party, not his honesty.
OT:
How odd to see this in the WSJ. It's as if it were authored here at CR. "Bernanke is Fighting the Last War":
Bernanke Is Fighting the Last War - WSJ.com
. . . It's very easy when you're a market participant to claim that you shouldn't shut down a firm that's in really bad straits because everybody else who has lent to it will be injured. And if they have to be denied repayment of their loans, well, they wished it on themselves. The [government] doesn't have to save them, just as it didn't save the stockholders and the employees of Bear Stearns. Why should they be worried about the creditors? Creditors are no more worthy of being rescued than ordinary people, who are really innocent of what's been going on.
The blue collar criminal guild deeply resents your effort to stereotype them as anything but ardent anti-regulation, free trade marketeers.
So waiting for 11/5.
"Normal distributions that emerge in finance generally do so because the factors influencing an asset's value or price are mathematically "well-behaved", and the central limit theorem provides for such a distribution. However, traumatic "real-world" events (such as an oil shock, a large corporate bankruptcy, or an abrupt change in a political situation) are usually not mathematically well-behaved."
Oil shock, large bankruptcy (LEH), and abrupt political change: looks like we have all 3. A not mathematically well-behaved DJI could easily slip 18% to 7200.
bearly writes: [Why aren't they running]Where do they go ? The US has dominant military power. USD represents order. My sense is IF O gets elected the uncertainty (lack of order) drives the dollar straight into the tank.bearly | 10.19.08 - 1:50 pm | #
I think if Israel thinks O will get elected they bomb Iran.
Will writes: This weekends news is pretty calm no crisis. F this keeps up there will be no crisis, so no new govt programs. This may drive equities down as govt. bailouts are about the only good news lately. However, oil going down could really mute the bear market. Really depends where oil ends up after all deleveraging of speculators.will | 10.19.08 1:50 pm | #
IMO I think oil will not stay down long because if Israel thinks O will get elected they bomb Iran. New war, oil cut off. I pray not.
The blue collar criminal guild deeply resents your effort to stereotype them as anything but ardent anti-regulation, free trade marketeers.
LOL - you need to hire on as their PR Sec'ty. Everyone needs good PR.
Anonymous | 10.19.08 - 3:49 pm
Wave of financial fraud cases
Just some more money we need to spend that we dont have. Its going to be a wonderful decade ahead for the USSA!
NR has a piece out yesterday that was scary as usual.
So, a little play. Note the Brazilian real is tanking...very desert-like.
next, USD once the beach-goers figure out there is no high-ground from the big-wave to flee to...
Also, I noticed a political overtone in many comments here. Just save your pay stubs and look at them against one a year from now. I dont think its going to make one damn bit of a difference who gets in office!
One state investigator I know, testifying to a State legislative committee, said something liek this--
"If a borrower defrauds a lender, the FBI gets after the borrower and puts him in jail. If a lender defrauds a borrower, he might have to give some of the money back."
All of the remaining agents have been assigned to watch every post on CR blog.
REBear writes:
All of the remaining agents have been assigned to watch every post on CR blog.
REBear | 10.19.08 - 4:01 pm | #
REBear, they might learn something!
Israel will do whatever it thinks is in its best interests. They will not some much as glance at the election results. They know forgiveness is easier than permission. They know much of the West will publicly denounce and privately sigh in relief. They also see a future with a drastically weakened US presence.
O's impending coronation will prove irrelevant as circumstances will swamp the next President who will spend his entire and only term playing defense.
lawyerliz writes:
They cheated by creating loopholes.
Not that the loophole thing stopped.
Not to say the O doesn't have it right to raise taxes on the over quarter mil crowd.
lawyerliz | 10.19.08 - 2:07 pm | #
I like the flat tax approach.
As if a rate reset weren't enough, now I've got to worry about a burst poly pipe and the oriented-strand-board giving way.
Builder fraud.
Rob Dawg, only time will tell but they surly would need help from the US. Golman might be right on that $200.00 a barrel call.
"Capitalism" and "Democracy" are mutating into something unknown to economics.
The horse with pig face, crow's wings and platypus feet come to mama.
Bearly
RE: Crisis of confidence if Obama gets elected.
I tend to think that you've got this completely backwards - it's the McCain/Palin duo that have the far greater relative international credibility deficit - especially on the current crop of financial/sytemic/economic crises.
McCain is clueless on economic issues, and his main advisor, Phil Gramm, is near the top on the international "most wanted" list.
Every gov. around the world has gone and looked at the actuarial likelihood of McCain dying/being incapacitated in the 25th Amendment sense over the next 4 years - basically, Palin is a coin toss away from president if that ticket prevails. Palin is widely regarded abroad as clueless, bereft of policy nous or experience, out of her depth and unserious. A McCain/Palin victory will lead to a massive international bond holder's vote of no-confidence, starting November 6th.
Anon
Israel already thinks that Obama is going to win - but it's obviously escaped your notice that they don't have a government at present, and are going to enter a 6-month period in which there will be a general election and the formation of a new administration.
On a general note, Israel's strategy for dealing with Iran has been around since 1991 - it's based on getting the US to do a reprise of Desert Storm; Israel itself is in no position to actually bomb Iran and never has been.
Topher writes:
I like the flat tax approach.
Certainly better than the current mess.
The current system of taxation seems to have two unfortunate aspects: modification of citizen behavior through a Byzantine maze of incentives/subsidies/disincentives; and wealth redistribution (ie., buying votes with taxpayer money). Both of these cause huge distortions, inefficiencies, and unintended consequences. I know I could be flamed mercilessly for this, but how about a system in which those who receive government services are roughly taxed accordingly to pay for them? Is it fair that 50% of the population pays 96% of the income taxes but certainly does not receive 96% of the benefits? A person's answer to that question is probably a pretty good indicator of which side of that 50% line he's on.
O's impending coronation will prove irrelevant as circumstances will swamp the next President who will spend his entire and only term playing defense.
Rob Dawg | Homepage | 10.19.08 - 4:04 pm | #
Yup. If Obama is a savior the only thing he can save is the republican party. Same applies to McCain - I'm not sure the GOP can survive another four years having to be responsible for this mess. The mess is way bigger than anyone's ideology.
It is pretty clear how the global supply/demand for USD will shift, regardless of who gets elected on Nov 4.
The upward pressure on the US trade deficit will probably grow as financial services, which represent a large chunk of its exports, have proven to be of dubious value and there will be less demand for them. The US manufacturing base has shrunk. What is left is technology and entertainment (CA to the rescue!). That also means, the US will have to import less.
Given the recent events, including the ease and speed at which the US authorities have been changing the rules in an ad hoc fashion, the flow of capital into US financial markets is bound to slow down.
So the growing US current account deficit will push the USD down.
Europe has demonstrated that despite the lack of central fiscal authority it can deal with financial crises better than the US. So the Euro is likely to gain as currency of choice for international trade and capital flows, at the expense of the USD.
I think what we are seeing now is a short-term spike in demand for the USD as trades are unwound and assets are converted into the USD as part of deleveraging.
That said, I think the US will probably benefit from this shift, as it will be subject to more scrutiny by the international capital markets and wont be able to continue getting away with borrowing its way out of any problem.
puhleeze, if Palin becomes president, the country will be run by committee, like it was when Reagan was president. No biggie.
I saw this ad reference in the link last night. They were telling people there would be a 27% tax increase .They werent telling them theat there would be no income taxadn and basic essentials would exempt. It was unbelieveable . Any the bad part for me is that I like the Dem candidate . They blew it for me .
Atlanta Metro News | ajc.com
I wrote about this over a year ago.
teat
Mom are you here?
Biggie
You could say the same for the last 8 years and the MBA/CEO "delegate to the GOAT's" presidency.
Hasn't worked out too well.
The creditor community is going to want to see US leadership that understands the policy process, understands that it is currently broken, knows how to rebuild it and knows how to manage it.
McCain/Palin? No chance. Palin was an ideological/campaigning choice to shore up McCain's problems with the Republican base, with the added hope of detaching some women voters from the Clinton Democrats; it's also an enormous tell to everyone that, in spite of the fact that we all saw this coming, the McCain campaign had no idea what was coming down the road at them a mere two weeks later - not exactly going to inspire confidence.
Everybody talks about how Palin is a heartbeat away from being president...but wouldn't she appoint a VP in a similar fashion as the Almighty O? Didn't he admit that he appointed Joe Biden because of his lack of foreign policy experience?
AND by the time Palin becomes president if something should happen to McCain, wouldn't she then have much more experience than Him?
Corey at 2:44 pm ... speaking of full SS tax rate of 15.1%
If that money were not being taken by the government, it would be paid to the workers in the form of higher wages, or to the consumers in the form of lower prices)
Now, there's a convenient fiction !!!
"Now, there's a convenient fiction !!!"
Obviously a comment from somebody who has never run business and competed for talented labor. You WILL lose your best employees if they find the same job paying 15% more.
You sure will lose them in that case. My argument is that is that no one will suddenly start paying 15% more. Why would they??
Anon
No one has a clue as to what Palin may or may not do. That's actually a problem.
Asking her who she would consider as candidates for her veep would be an interesting question - it's a shame that she's answering very few these days. Broadly speaking, that's a very bad sign.
"AND by the time Palin becomes president if something should happen to McCain, wouldn't she then have much more experience than Him?"
Odd how some people here lower case God's pronoun, but upper case a politician's.
Odd how some people here lower case God's pronoun, but upper case a politician's.
Pavel Chichikov
We can refer to the Democrat Party too.
0 Visitors Online
Pavel sent them all running to church.
1) The big guys usually never get prosecuted, becasue they know where the DC bodies are buried. (See the upthread post about a Lehman insider who is now squealing now about the Treasury's nepotism regarding Goldman & MS).
2) The FBI places a priority on athletic ability rather than brains at its Quantico training, completion of which is a requirement for hiring. So its suprising they have anyone working there at all who can deciper even the most rudimentary financial documents.
The market for floaters, which pay interest based on the market yield of 10-year fixed-rate bonds, minus a spread, had problems two years ago when banks began selling, but stabilised thanks to buying by hedge funds. It took another hit in March, when problems at several funds, including the collapse of Londons Peloton Partners and big losses at Endeavour, spilled over into fixed-income markets.
After the Lehman shock [last month] the situation started getting more serious, said Koji Shimamoto, chief fixed-income strategist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. Liquidity is miserable as there are almost no buyers.
Odd how some people here lower case God's pronoun, but upper case a politician's.
Nothing odd about it. It's part of a continuing campaign against sanity by Republithugs that has been going on for months.
They continue to hope that a major financial meltdown will not happen until January 21st so they can blame "Him" for it.
Time is running out but they keep kicking the can.
On topic: Hey, drop all this political hooey and talk about the topic.
What are you going to do when the system implodes and the trucks stop running?
What are you going to do when the foreclosures actually outstrip the UK experience?
Where are you going to go?
Some of you mental midgets seem ready to welcome the disintegration of our economy. Others are slack jawed in fear and trepidation. Really people, your momma taught you better.
s0mebody writes:
"They are all in the short stuff, so the only way to go is out. I think it's going to be a run out of dollar assets. But why aren't they running?"
I asked my travel agent to find the best destination currency to visit, but she hasn't called back.
Does McCain have a connection to the Project For A New American Century?
Nobody knows what Project For A New American Century is?
Check out this video, not sure if the neocons want you the see this, but what the hell.....
CBC News: the fifth estate - The Lies that Led to War
It will be an admittance of defeat by the United States of America if McCain somehow gets into the White House. It will be a sign that we have given up as a country, that whatever our country has been built on and whatever made it great has been exhausted. The best we can hope for is a relatively calm and peaceful dissolution like the former Soviet Union.
"Yeah I'm hoping that's all hyperbole, but the sheer incompetence/violence/know-nothingess of McCain/Palin and the Republican Party truly scares me...and come on anybody as ludicrous as Palin has to scare the bejesus out of any rational person"
I was at the gun range and bought one of these today .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-VX4M_jgSk
From what the Dems led by Barney Frank have said (and now even McCain) it must be ok to commit mortgage fraud. How the hell do you think most of these idiots bought houses in California? Yep, they lied on their credit apps. So now, instead of going to jail and being fined, they are encouraged to NOT MAKE THE PAYMENTS and get a couple hundred grand dropped off of the price of the house via a mortgage deduction. Hell, we should all be able to commit bank fraud just once and then claim selective prosicution when we go to trial. Basically, we nnow have a lawless society.
AND by the time Palin becomes president if something should happen to McCain, wouldn't she then have much more experience than Him?
Palin is Bush with lipstick: ignorant, incurious, incompetent, and petty. They're both type of person discussed in the paper "Unskilled and unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".
Palin will never be competent, in the same way that 8 years on the job hasn't made Bush anything other than a fuckup.
That is about the single most predictable headline in American History. One thing is for sure, Bush does not want to see Obama win the Election because he knows all this selective prosecution will backfire big time. It is amazing, just amazing, that everyone involved in Credit Default Swaps is not in Jail. I would like someone to explain just exactly what how or why those fraudulent contracts would ever construed as legal? Insurance without reserves is a scam on its face. Non transparency is an attempt to hide a scam, on its face.
The NATION is in great PERIL right now. Articles like this are planted in the NY Times by govt elites, to tip off the fraudsters not to cooperate with investigators.
OK, serious for a change - this is my version of the uptick rule...
There are two competing stories about the LEH CDS settlement on Tuesday. Either settlement happens and we get to see whether the kaliyuga that Jas seems to want to bring on actually happens, or we believe the short to medium run story that LEH has taken on an additional 200 toxic asshats to work out the counterparties, settle up, see the trades thru and so on. If the former then we get kaliyuga early. If the latter we get kaliyuga later, but with corrosive fear and mutually assured dissembling in the interim.
If someone serious (ugh) can shed some light on this, I'll get back to playing jester at the gates of hell.
CC
AND by the time Palin becomes president if something should happen to McCain, wouldn't she then have much more experience than Him?
The whole "experience" question is silly. Grant and Buchanan had loads of experience. Lincoln and the two Roosevelts had comparatively thin resumes. Experience is easy to figure out. You make a list. Character, judgment, courage, intelligence? We can just make educated guesses there, most of the time. Does Congressional experience make a candidate smarter and wiser, or does it just make him corrupt in the broadest sense, having developed the instinctive ability to compromise or even abandon once-cherished principles in the name of pragmatism and expediency, in the service of -- of what, exactly, at the end of the day?
Does McCain's prison camp experience make him a better candidate, or does it just make him scary? Beats me.
BTW, it's nice to see the Times picking up on a story that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer explored in-depth in April 2007:
The FBI's terrorism trade-off
And while I'm handing out attaboys to the Seattle P-I, here's another one for Eric Nalder. Read this one if you have questions about why state regulators didn't do more.
Mortgage system crumbled while regulators jousted
Bloomberg.com:
Personal Finance
Bloomberg TED spread back up above 4. Also, the chart looks like a little kid's etch-a-sketch of a spider web.
Right after 9/11, the FBI quit taking the cases we referred to them, fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and so on. They didn't take another case for 5 years.
Now that there's a need, don't take our FBI agents, they're really good at fraud stuff.
Ooh, now not. Crashy chart.
As in investgator for FDIC (2 decades) I knew this would eventually happen as early as 2001/2002 when FBI agents begin dropping interest in their bank cases. We gave up even calling them because they had other priorities. When the FBI looks the other way bankers know this and take advantage. Now it is catch up time. This is very OLD news to the regulators but they were not about to second guess the FBI's priorities after 9/11.
John Stark writes:
AND by the time Palin becomes president if something should happen to McCain, wouldn't she then have much more experience than Him?
The whole "experience" question is silly. Grant and Buchanan had loads of experience.
Let's not forget Dick Cheney and his 30 years of "experience" dating back to 1969, his draft-dodging days.
Yeah, years ago a developer client was talking trash about a competitor developer.
Yeah, he said, he has 26 years of experience; it is the same year over and over again.
Too bad the FBI is a paper tiger. I work with these guys, I know. 97% of these agents have nothing to do anyway. They could devote 50% of their agents to mortgage fraud and house them in WAMU's former Headquarters and they MIGHT prosecute a case. That of course depends on the availability of a source that would take them by the hand and lead them to the fraudulent loan app and point it out to them.
I would really like to know how many cases they developed after the S&L failures in the 1980 when they had so many qualified agents working white collar squads.
It's always the same story, the FBI screws up and Congress gives them more money. Or, like this time, they find a way to exploit a national crisis to expand their numbers and budget. How about making do with what you have, the rest of America is. I have a great idea, take all those agents that are sitting on their ass and move them over to white collar crime.
"Pavel sent them all running to church."
I can't do any such thing, but we were intrigued by Huckabee for a while, especially when he said that he had doubts about some Baptists getting to heaven either. We thought he sounded sane for a politician.
Safety in church? Depends on what kind of safety you mean. Years ago a Frenchwoman told me about how her relatives, along with a lot of other people in a Norman town, were in church during the German occupation of 1941-45. Her uncle stepped out for a moment to answer a call of nature and saw a huge German solider in full battle kit outside on the street.
"Do you want to live?" asked the solider.
He told the uncle to make himself scarce in a hurry. Shortly afterwards the Germans stormed the church and deported everyone in it to a concentration camp. Few came back.
In a sense, we're all safe, economic downturn or not. But not in the usual meaning of the word 'safe.
That story is supposed to make me trust in God? Errr---not.
I suppose they all went to heaven, so it is all, all, alright?
Ha! The IRS is hiring a lot (but still can't really keep ahead of attrition). So if you REALLY want to see an agency that was set up to fail by the congress and the preznit, come work with me! Forget about raising taxes on corporations and the rich, even if such tax increases get past congress. With the current state of affairs any tax increases on the rich or corporations will be nearly unenforceable. Partnerships and S-corporations are basically all-you-can-cheat smorgas bords already.
Bloomberg TED spread back up above 4
Now that's a surprise, considering that the whole deal looks manipulated now. How bad must it suck that even with manipulation the Ted is going back up?
"Palin is Bush with lipstick: ignorant, incurious, incompetent, and petty."
In other words, the average American. LOL
So much for dumping FNM and FRE on the Dems
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-The-Influence-Game-Housing.html
The TED spread indicator is misleading when the bond markets are closed, like on Sunday evening. Don't make too much of what Bloomberg puts up.
FFDIC writes:
As in investgator for FDIC (2 decades) I knew this would eventually happen as early as 2001/2002 when FBI agents begin dropping interest in their bank cases. We gave up even calling them because they had other priorities. When the FBI looks the other way bankers know this and take advantage. Now it is catch up time. This is very OLD news to the regulators but they were not about to second guess the FBI's priorities after 9/11.
A lot was sacrificed as the result of 9/11 as long as it followed the agenda of the administration, i.e. less regulation of business.
A few consequences of the financial crisis:
1) Law enforcement will get bigger budgets for all the obvious reasons but primarily anger over fraud and social unrest. The people going into law enforcement will have a higher education and be specialized in financial areas and IT. Both areas where highly educated people are being downsized. The benefits to the quality of investigations should be evident quickly. 1-2 years. Long term implications as well.
2) Anti intellectualism. The Harvard meme and related Ivy league scorn held by the common man will have an effect. Look for more disdain to be put upon college education. "Look at the mess these idiots got us in..."
Related to that will be the inability of most students/parents to finance higher education. The inability to go to college will also cause a backlash from those who would go to college if afforded the opportunity. Also a larger motivation for students to join the military if that proves to be the only path to college.
3) Less educated masses are always easier to control.
-11 Visitors Online
The colleges will finally come under pricing pressure and will lower, you heard me I said lower their tuition, or they won't have any students at all.
I'm not so sure that making a college education harder to get is such a bad thing. Learning takes place everywhere to those so inclined, like on this free blog. I think at times what one learns in college is to be overimpressed by minds that preceeded us to the point of freezing our own creativity. I also remember when someone saw me reading a book at college in the 60s, I would invaribly get asked what course it was for. When I said I was reading for pleasure, I got strange looks.
If one is going into a profession where there is a reliable body of information and skills that one must master, obviously that is different.
TED spread is down to 3.6% - better than 4.5% but still extremely high by historic measures (and by common sense)
US futures are slightly down, but NZ is slightly up
My visitor count has never been less than the 90s today. I think haloscan is messing with your mind.
MrM writes:
TED spread is down to 3.6% - better than 4.5% but still extremely high by historic measures (and by common sense)
And it will remain high until Hank and his boys get remaining $450,000,000,000.00
good reason for gs and ms to go for state charters,with a "change of regime"coming up they might be safer with state since fed cant touch them.just a little cya,thats all
its 106 now
Hey ass wipe (chosen name, not an opinion),
Better read the entire article. Not a republican apologist, but the article is pretty clear. The dems were already in the tank for a no vote (they love that cheap housing), and the repubs wanted the oversight, and saw the issue. The repubs were targeted, because the dems saw no issues, and wanted it tossed anyway. How is this good for dems??
The TED spread indicator is misleading when the bond markets are closed
I suspect it's a misleading indicator most of the time now. My bloomberg link still shows 3.63, though.
Update on Oleg Deripaska, the owner of Rusal and Russia's largest automaker. Rusal is very big globally with aluminum and nickel.
$4.5bn loan called due due to declining value of collateral. Needs $1.8bn, target for month's end. Without that extra $2bn the banks can lay claim to a 25% stake in Rusal
Expected that if he doesn't get it soon, that Putin will allow access to $50bn fund intended to provide credit for strategically important companies.
This might be the biggest non-financial corporation story in the world at the moment.
"That story is supposed to make me trust in God? Errr---not."
That's not the purpose of the story. But it is a story within a much bigger story.
Conjure's Bodyguard writes:
Hey ass wipe (chosen name, not an opinion),
Better read the entire article. Not a republican apologist, but the article is pretty clear.
True. But this happened when the Repubs controlled the Senate and as FNM and FRE's portfolio peaked. It was the last chance. As rational minds know, both party's hands were very dirty
Broward Horne writes:
The TED spread indicator is misleading when the bond markets are closed
I suspect it's a misleading indicator most of the time now. My bloomberg link still shows 3.63, though.
Broward Horne | Homepage | 10.19.08 - 6:46 pm | #
Expand the chart to one week, you will find it stops on 10/17. When bond markets are closed TED is not updated, at least not meaningfully. But yes it is somewhat misleading anyway for really complicated reasons.
LL:"I'm not so sure that making a college education harder to get is such a bad thing."
College was one of four choices out of HS:
1) Get a job.
2) Join the military.
3) Do nothing, slacking as a profession.
Jobs will be harder to get for younger uneducated applicants against older overqualified applicants.
College will be unaffordable for most without available credit.
Do nothing will be a favorite choice. My experience with young men, angry, no future and lots of free time is that much mischief will ensue. Mischief equals unrest.
Join the military. Been there, done that. Much respect for the GI bill. The problem is we are actively engaged in two wars. You WILL experience war if you join the military. The level of PTSD coming out in our Vets is staggering. The VA is failing at providing treatment and options. Active duty military is actually doing worse. The warrior mythos does not allow for showing weakness. Highest rates of suicide in active duty military is the result of ignoring a very real crisis.
My point? College is by far the best choice for anyone in our current economic climate and would provide valuable time for the economy to regain some strength and provide jobs.
EHP,
Related to your post.
Putin May Use Credit Squeeze to `Destroy' Oligarchs (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Gone Fishin writes:
"3) Less educated masses are always easier to control."
. . .
A brief counter argument, loosely sketched, to the effect that this assertion is not always true and, most importantly, may not be true now at this moment.
1) Schooling disciplines people, both in the behavioral and intellectual senses of the world. Let's stick with the intellectual side. Successful schooling can have the effect of making people more predictable, to an extent, by training people to reason and to be knowledgable about some broadly common bodies of information and thought. Teaching people to reason can also enable them question and contest things, no doubt. Just pointing out it also has a disciplingin effect, too.
2) Less educated people can be unpredictable, unpersuadable by reason or by evidence and facts. For examples, just look around in American society and even on these discussion threads. Check out the end of the bizrro world thread from last night. There is some serious evidence there of potentially uncontrollable disruptiveness that echoes some seriously uncontrollable stuff going on in American society.
Less educated masses are not always easier to control. When stirred, they can be very difficult to put back in the bottle.
Gone Fishin'
The interesting thing is that the $50bn financing line is through VEB (long russian word that ends in bank -- Russian development bank in english)
Rusal filed the application on Oct 14, yet the quoted approval time could delay the funding until 1st or 2nd week of November.
It looks like it may have to be "fast-tracked" and the details sorted out later.
Re: "My visitor count has never been less than the 90s today. I think haloscan is messing with your mind."
Some of you mental midgets seem ready to welcome the disintegration of our economy
I think that you should work very, very hard and spent your savings to prevent the distingration.
I'll sit here watching to see what happens. I hope you make it so!
I was going to add that this is needless to say, but the contrary is true:
the perpetrators of great crimes (like crimes against humanity) and parties responsible for colossal strategic disasters are frequently highly educated people, for the inverse of the reason I gave above. Bureaucratic institutions are needed to commit such crimes and strategic erros (governments, corporations, churches, etc) and the people who run such organizations are almost per force highly educated.
I think someone is playing with posts and censoring things today and adjusting halosca
Why do you think TED spread is misleading?
One could argue that LIBOR is not reflective of the true inter-bank borrowing cost, it may be manipulated (h/t mp and Conjure Bag), and so on. But these are different points. LIBOR is a quite real and direct driver of borrowing costs for many large companies around the world, financial and otherwise.
The trend in the TED spread seems to be a pretty clear indication of the level of stress in the credit market.
Also, the VEB funding can tie into the storyline where Putin (or Medvedev) uses the situation to finish reasserting control over the Oligarchs.
I cannot read Russian, but from the second hand accounts of the reports that are out there Medvedev might have or be in the process of asserting his power away from Putin/ex-FSB (formerly known as KGB)
So this might be an event in which Putin grabs control from the remaining independent-minded Oligarchs, and in turn is usurped by Medvedev for a post-USSR Russia 3.0
For connoisseurs of Big Brother: MyHeritage.com just sent me a note advertising their new autotag feature. They claim that their facial recognition is so good that once you identify someone in a photo, and then allow it to autotag, it will do the work for you everytime you post a new photo.
Imagine the processing power that would be required to do this on the millions of photos they have posted on their site? Now imagine also that facebook and other sites are doing the same thing without telling us. Remember, one of facebook's angel investors was In-Q-Tel, the venture capital division of CIA.
Any facebook or "Homeland Security" employees on here? Is this being done?
dont get paranoid people, the Speakwrite is working just fine.
Futures down in Japan: -310.00
The level of PTSD coming out in our Vets is staggering. The VA is failing at providing treatment and options. Active duty military is actually doing worse. The warrior mythos does not allow for showing weakness. Highest rates of suicide in active duty military is the result of ignoring a very real crisis.
The US military figured out some time ago that most soldiers don't fight. They regeared training to make sure most soldiers do fight, which has a lot to do with why the US military is so good. But, with the PTSD coming out of Iraq, it seems that there was a good reason most people didn't fight. Modern war often requires killing without any of the alleviating factors (personal grievances, self-defense) people use to justify such actions. Apparently, that's just not something most people can do without severe psychological consequences.
UB,
Are you CIA? If so where can I get a job?
MrM,
LIBOR is reflective of existing borrowing costs, and thus is a way to pad banks' bottom lines.
3 main considerations when looking at LIBOR itself (has been much discussed over past 2 weeks and beyond)
1) Treasuries are in a bubble
2) The BBA had to admit last year that LIBOR was artificially understated by individual banks lying about their borrowing costs (a reflection of their health) and this went back years
3) It is true that interbank lending is no longer active at all on many days due to temporary system-wide squeezes and because the government is always out there with the lowest bid
In normal times companies/individuals would take their business elsewhere but with credit markets constrained, the banks have pricing power
Cocoa futures are down:
YouTube - Vegan Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies
LIBOR and Treasury rates are being manipulated for CDS valuation adjustments; BEWARE!
Anon: Yes, Culinary Insitute of America.
Welcome to the world's premier culinary college in New York-The Culinary Institute of America
And we always have a spot for promising pastry chefs.
This CDS/derivative thing is all about the maturity and underlying future cash flow of defaulted collateral.... but then again, it could be connected to The Large Hadron Collider, so any help appreciated!
See: The LIFFE, like the CBOT, calculates the conversion factor for each bond by discounting the individual bonds remaining cash flows using the assumption that the spot yield curve is flat at the level of the notional coupon defined in the futures contract. Clearly, if the level of the spot yield is significantly different from the defined notional coupon, or if the slope of the yield curve differs significantly from zero, the conversion factors defined by the exchange will not equate the net delivery costs of all eligible deliverable issues.
See Kilcollin (1982) for biases that conversion factor systems of this type introduce into the delivery mathematics and Garbade and Silber (1983) for a more general discussion of penalty versus equivalence systems for quality adjustments on contracts with multiple varieties
Cocoa futures down.
Hot chocolate to keep us going through the depression will be cheaper.
The conspiracy thickens.
UB,
ROTFLMAO! Great reply!
mmmmm, quantitative easing.
my favorite flavor of free money.
Joe Shmoe,
Good points. Your view is just as accurate as mine.
I will choose a college educated person for one simple reason, critical thinking skills. College does require the ability to understand complex concepts. College will also provide a knowledge base that will build a better perception filter. The more knowledge you carry will always allow you to analyze data more effectively.
Try this experiment. Have a chat with anyone in your peer group about the reasons behind the current crisis. Make sure one person is college educated and the other is HS or a limited amount of college. Compare their answers. I would bet money the lesser educated person will give you the MSM take. I believe the college educated person having a better knowledge base and a wider number of information sources will give a better showing. Maybe.
I have my own concerns about the education model used in the US.
We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.
Daniel Webster, speech in the Senate, 1833
Hot chocolate to keep us going through the depression will be cheaper
What about the lactose intolerant people? Don't they deserve the same consideration as other Americans, foreign bankers and Chinese workers?!
UB,
I think I saw some Dark Matter in the toilet today, around one part of the radius of an edge, and I think it has something to do with The Large Hadron Collider, but It just may need cleaning?
See: Dark matter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think I spotted it too. It was around Uranus. hmm...
Uncle Billy,
I'm an electrical engineer and I can say without a doubt it is going on at a mass level. Not just in the United States but globally. A lot of it has been commercialized and even US firms have been completely successful evading the export-bans with specially structured investment deals to foreign companies that don't appear to connect back on first inspection.
China is practically an expo for these security features. Britain has the cameras in place and it is only logical that they will finish transitioning to a more automated monitoring system in the near future.
Some cool things have been done, in Hong Kong during SARS they used their cameras to measure individual's body temperature to detect a fever (need to be precise to ~0.1°) to red-flag passengers. That system itself wasn't fool proof but it helped and gives you an indication of where things are at now.
You could also use that same technology to detect people who were nervous or concealing plastic explosives on their body.
Don't worry, everything can be circumvented by people smart enough to create the systems in the first place. The game of cat and mouse just became more active
Re Russian oligarchs
The Russian media are full of speculations of who really is going to control distribution of loans from the State Stabilization Fund - Putin or Medvedev. (So far Medvedev seems to be associated with these decisions more often.) But regardless of who the ultimate decision maker is going to be, one thing is clear - there is a long line of oligarchs waiting for their opportunity to plead their cases to Kremlin, and, unlike the US bailout, any Russian state help will come with long and thick strings attached.
joe shmoe writes:
2) Less educated people can be unpredictable, unpersuadable by reason or by evidence and facts.
True, but they are reliably manipulated by playing to predictable prejudices, fears, hatred, etc.
Hmmm... come to think of it, maybe some of those boinc projects (voluntary distributed computing) like seti and protein folding are being used for stuff like this. NSA sending work units out to thousands of home pc's that think they're curing disease?
The trend in the TED spread seems to be a pretty clear indication of the level of stress in the credit market
As somebody else put it, the Feds have circumvented inter-bank borrowing by providing direct loans to just about anyone.
I find this disturbing, too -
Jesse's Café Américain: Short Term Treasury Debt Issuance Goes Parabolic
It looks to me like all that's happening is the Feds have issued larg quantities of short-term paper to fill the demand of money escaping from banks.... and now they're just stuffing that money BACK into the banks through the bailout.
What the hell, man.
Broward Horne
the original hot chocolate of meso-america was made with water and also with spices....
plus, milk prices may stay high.
no milk for anyone.
Anonymous and EvilHenry stop. You're making me nervous.
Wow, remote thermometers. Wow.
voluntary distributed computing?
That is interesting!
re; Performance of BOINC projects:
over 1,300,000 participants
over 2,800,000 computers
over 1.2 PetaFLOPS (more than supercomputer Blue Gene) [1]
over 12 Petabytes of free disk space
SETI@home: 3.4 million years of computing time (January 2008)
EvilHenryPaulson writes:
(snip)an event in which Putin grabs control .. (snip again) a post-USSR Russia 3.0
EHP i am intrigued. From the business street, i am going to put this same question to my free enterprise Siberian biz partners, middle class software developers who are communists mentally but who have tried to embrace capitalism. (bi-polar) i will report back in a few days with an answer from that street.
remote thermometers
Those can be used for remote fevers and probes of dark matter
EvilHenryPaulson
We are arguing different points:
- You are saying that LIBOR is not driven by the underlying economics and risks, it is manipulated, there is no deep inter-bank lending market at 3m maturities, etc
- I am saying that this all may well be true, but the reality is that borrowing costs of many companies are linked to LIBOR, regardless of what one might think about its levels. Most companies do not borrow at Treasury+ rates. Therefore, high levels of the TED spread are a true measure of pain inflicted on the economy by the credit markets that stopped working properly.
Any facebook or "Homeland Security" employees on here? Is this being done?
The Vegas casinos use it to identify known card counters, pickpockets, etc. I don't know the effectiveness.
One of my projects had a tie-in to license plate recognition in 1994.
It wasn't quite good enough to be practical fourteen years ago but I was surprised that it worked at all. There's quite a bit of variation to account for - time of day, shadows, dirt, different colors of plates, etc.
Why does government has a vested interest in inflation?
FSU Editorial: "Seizing Your Assets to Cover Retirement
Promises" by Daniel R. Amerman 09/19/2007
MrM,
I didn't think we were arguing at all. I acknowledged from the beginning that LIBOR is having real consequences.
I just wanted to add how the BBA had to admit it for years understated LIBOR, then started to report a more accurate number, and on top of that methodology change we have the current credit climate to exacerbate things. Sharing the tid-bits I remember because the internet is a big unsorted place
I'm looking forward to February 2009 when the TV signal changes from analog to digital. Imagine not having mindless reality dribble garbage infilitrating your daily living. The optimist within me believes that people will read and educate themselves rather than listen to the corporate media and told how to think. On the otherhand, the pessimist says NAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.
Death to the boob tube.
These guys (DCI lobbyists in DC) and Fannie/Freddie management should be criminally prosecuted.
Sickening
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
DCI Group
re discussion about difference between college educated vs. less educated, this election noise proves it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
AND by the time Palin becomes president if something should happen to McCain, wouldn't she then have much more experience than Him?
Experience without smarts doesn't count for much if you can't even hack a few staged interviews. She is even worse than W and that takes some doing.
At some point LIBOR was higher than PRIME. Imagine how much this screws up business model of many companies.
reggie wrote:
Well fighting mortgage fraud doesn't scare citizens into voting Republican while fighting "terrorists" is a sure winner of dupe votes.
More PC crap for the demoKratic religious left. Talk about Vladimir Ilych's "useful idiots".
177 FBI agents:
Let me break it down for you.
On any one day in the FBI:
10 percent away for training (gun range, seminars, in house training)
10 percent in the middle of a transfer.
3 percent on limited duty for various infractions and medical issues.
3 percent in the middle of an intergroup transfer or reassigment to another division.
4 percent either out on sick leave annual leave, gov't workmans comp, medical testing, etc.
6 percent temporarily reassigned to support an enforcemnt action by another group or division.
3 percent reassigned to support a long term Title 3 (wiretap) investigation.
3 percent at US Attorney's office in trial prep.
Also, a number of those agents are in the Intelligence Division, who happen to handle info related to fraud and show it on their time sheet as a collateral duty.
What you have left is a much smalller number of agents on any one day actually working this fraud.
The FBI at one time reqired their agents to be accountants but this is no longer true. Most of the agents assigned to financial crimes now, are either "burn outs" from street groups or incompetents who are dumped into those units.
And keep in mind,
EVERY ONE OF THOSE AGENTS REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO SEC INVESTIGATOR GARY AGUIRRE WHEN HE ATTEMTED TO SEEK AN INTERVIEW OF JOHN MACK.
Pelosi was on Charlie Rose last Friday. Rose essentially asked if Pelosi/Congress would begin investigations of Fraud and abuse in the financial/banking sector.
Pelosi's response was why spend Congress's time on the past, we need to work together on solutions. That's a big NO.
Throw the bums out!
"One of my projects had a tie-in to license plate recognition in 1994."
I got a ticket for not paying to use a toll road that's about 60 miles away from where I usually drive. I thought, "How Odd." They had snapped a photo of my car and license even though I'd never driven there. But on closer inspection it turned out to be same make and color of car, but different model.
The "license plate" was identical to my vanity plate, but only because the car was purchased at an auto dealer whose name was the same as the name on my plate, and the driver hadn't yet removed the paper insert and replaced it with an actual plate. It took me over a year and a visit to the court to get rid of it.
Big Brother aught to be institutionalized. Well, I guess it is already...
College does require the ability to understand complex concepts.
I'm in a Master's program with people who are barely literate - can't put two decent sentences together. And I work with plenty of college grads who have no critical thinking skills at all.
Today, I watched several youtube videos of George Bush taking questions at press conferences. He sounds like Chauncey Gardner. Can't express a coherent thought unless it's scripted. So much for college education.