Krugman on Citigroup Bailout: "a lousy deal"
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CalculatedRisk on Mon, 11/24/2008 - 6:16am (137 comments)
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o shit sherlock.
what up
Well, duh.
As a citi creditor, I want my bailout!!!!!!
Someday this war's gonna end...
First!!!!!! Woooo Hoooo....
Did you really think this would be a good idea?
The question in my mind is, how does Geithner feel about it?
Why should they change that now?
"Quite possibly" inadequate?
CR - The Flash ads have been killing my browser since sometime yesterday afternoon. Please fix if you can.
Thanks for doing that thing you do!
cheers
Geithner has his hands all over this lousy deal!
That was my initial take - terrible deal.
Makes me want to become a real commie - haul these guys off to the taiga and have them lay track in mid-winter as a 're-education & indoctrination' opportunity. Not quite the Waldorf A they are used to.
So did Hank confer any special tax benefits in this deal? That would be the icing on the cake.
It really is good to be king.
Where is the SEC? Pandit said they were well capitalized?
Citi should be quartered into three equal halves.
This sub-prime fairy tale that we are being fed doesn't ring true...
If all these toxic assets were sliced, diced, re-packaged and then sold to other countries by American financial firms to garner them massive profits.......then why are they in such trouble now?
dryfly,
I share your sentiment. It makes you realize that some regimes really did have individuals who didn't recognize that it wasn't in fact their money, and they are not in fact entitled by their existence to loot. Again, the sentiment is to put these individuals into a program and make them repeat, "it is not my money, it is not my money..."
Failure to reeducate will result in said track being laid in the dead of winter...
Where is the SEC? Pandit said they were well capitalized?
crispy&cole | Homepage | 11.24.08 - 9:29 am | #
God you're quaint.
Step carefully. This rally might last a while.
Comrade Peronista who just turned from a very confident to a scared bear last Tuesday.
All cash (no USD)
"Quite possibly" inadequate?
Trillions of dollars in formaldehyde will be required to keep these brainless putrescent hulks lumbering about the economy.
By the way, anybody remember a headline like, US GOVERNMENT TO INVEST TRILLIONS IN EDUCATION, RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND BASIC SCIENCE...no?
Welcome to New Squalidstan.
anon, musical chairs. they kept trading this crap around wall street until the music stopped playing. at that point no one wanted it and they were stuck with it. plus they weren't quite that smart. it looks like they kept a bunch of the sliced,diced and re-packaged crap on their books. they drank their own kool-aid....
So, should I call my Citi Group banker "a banker" or a "county clerk"? I mean, my taxes are keeping them employed....BUT...I get to vote for many county, state, and federal positions...BUT...I don't get to vote for my banker, even though I pay, indirectly and through my taxes, for his or her salary?
I know a guy who owns a bar in the USA Midwest...things are not going very well for him (perhaps he made a bad investment at the wrong time, just like Citi Group), but I like the guy (he tell me jokes my banker does not), could we bail him too? Of course, using my taxes as well, just as with CitiGroup. What is fair is fair!
Ponyless,
I fear they dumped that koolaid into the municipal water supply...almondy...
dryfly(Excellent) writes:
Makes me want to become a real commie - haul these guys off to the taiga and have them lay track in mid-winter as a 're-education & indoctrination' opportunity.
I would be resentful too -- you have to realize from what you posted about your growing role in the supply chain, that they are gonna force you to be a magnate, like it or not.
It's a stressful and uncertain life, especially given what raising money is going to be like over the next half-decade to a decade. I'd be pissed too.
Bringing more meaning to the phrase "Bush League".I think even Jas is impressed by the Chutzpah.
Well, to be fair, the government got Citi to cut back - executives can get only one massage every two days instead of everyday
I am now convinced we are in for something none of us can contemplate. We have only begun the slowdown and already signs of the entire system collapsing under the weight of just a few major problems is evident. As we keep battling backwards to try to hold at the next redoubt, an image of the Alamo begins to emerge. They are beginning to come at us from all sides, and we only have enough powder for a few more desperate shots from our last functioning cannon.
The question I have is what happens when the battle ends? When all the excess production is bled out of the system, when we are awash in TARPdollars, when joblessness is rampant across the country, when cities and states cannot meet their debt obligations, when inner city crime reaches "escape from New York" levels, only then will we see a bottom and hopefully some kind of understanding that the answers are not monetary. We must begin to live our lives outside of a financial system. Learn to sustain yourself. Know the difference between wants and needs. Realize early in life that the connections to the people in your life and the planet you live on are what matters most.
Commrade Byzatine_Ruins writes:
-- you have to realize from what you posted about your growing role in the supply chain, that they are gonna force you to be a magnate, like it or not.
All our interests are now Privileged.
When one has contracted gangrene and antibiotics don't work, amputation is the best cure. The financial boat anchors we are tied to need to be cut off from our collective wallets and set adrift to sink or swim (the former being the case).
The zombie banks need to die. I would rather see the Treasury start a new bank with 7T and begin a new financial system. Let the old system die.....
What did Krugman think would happen? Once you bailout the first companies, things have only gone downhill from there. And we've given how much money to AIG? Citigroup is the New AIG people.
How is it remotely possible to have %2500 in 'bad assets' for every family in the US collected into just one bank?
And how is it possible to walk into negotiations with all the money and all the power and walk out with a bad deal???????
We live in placid times; previously they'd have hauled those people out and shot them.
I would rather see the Treasury start a new bank with 7T and begin a new financial system. Let the old system die.....
The treasury IS the old system.
Gonna start shorting JPM they need a little love'en too. With all those nice derivatives sooner or latter they'll get it
The government is keeping all the bearings greased on a machine that is out of gas.
I think this is going to get a whole lot more ugly.
Agreed, but my point is to start a new financial system and let the maggot infested mess we have now die. No Fed or Treasury syphon, a US National bank owned by taxpayers...
wally,
It's exasperating to me how such simple solutions as shooting these people actually has some points in the plus column...that would at least be a consequence to not look forward too, however in this system if you fail, we will bail.
It's just Deja Vu all over again. the same fraud, the same theft, the same yells of "fraud and theft!" from the sideline.
Waiting for Godot.
Meaculpa,
Precisely right!
Sam Diamond,
I agree that we appear to be in for something none of us can easily contemplate, but the root of the problem actually is monetary. Our debt-backed monopoly money is the sugar base in which the financial corruption is growing like a plague. It is this system that has to be ripped out and burned to ashes before we can really think about recovery.
Clyde Prestowitz 8/26/2005 interview: The US right now is absorbing 80 per cent of global savings. Well when you hit 100 per cent, the music stops [...]
The World Today - World financial system heading for collapse, author says
By the way...
Geithner, Dartmouth
Paulson, Dartmouth
my precious
Doesn't there have to be a vote on this??
1134(Unrated) writes:
Well when you hit 100 per cent, the music stops
But while the music's still playing, you've got to get up and dance. =)
@ mal writes:
Doesn't there have to be a vote on this??
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dan(Unrated) writes:
Waiting for Godot.
Wait until you get a look at Godot.
He's Conjure's dad.
Yancey Ward,
The problem is that said "ripping out" involves an utter breakdown in society followed by successions of strongmen, local warlords, ad hoc militias, forceful redistribution of necessities from the weak to the powerful...sure, at the end of this hell-hole cleansing we may rediscover the virtues of Jeffersonian Democracy and Jacksonian skepticism of the central banks, but in the meantime, it's just so many pyramids of corpses on which an empty throne sits...
Doesn't there have to be a vote on this??
HAHAHHA....
Bruce writes:
When one has contracted gangrene and antibiotics don't work, amputation is the best cure. The financial boat anchors we are tied to need to be cut off from our collective wallets and set adrift to sink or swim (the former being the case).
When venturing off shore, one always has a life raft and it is attached to the vessel with a "painter" line. The line will keep the raft nearby, but should the mother ship sink, it will part. Else the raft will go down too.
I see the light from the end of the tunnel.
What's that rumbling??
blackhat,that is the most likely endgame.
An interesting perspective :
Jesse's Café Américain: Federal Reserve and Treasury Offer Half of US GDP to the Wall Street Banks
Our motto used to be "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
That has change to "Trillions for the banks, but a few cents for the real economy."
We need to break the cycle of giving our money to the banks so that they can lend it to us at interest if they are so inclined after dividends, bonuses, junkets, and acquisitions. What have they done to earn that interest? Take measured risks? Its more like a protection racket. Give us your money so that we can take a percentage of all your transactions, or we will wreck the economy.
The Republicans are looting the Treasury on their way out of town, and the Democratic leadership is incompetent or complicit in this end to the greatest financial fraud in recorded history. And if you are holding US dollars or Treasuries you are paying for it.
Your heard it here first: The first failure of the Obama Administration.
If I could stand listening to hate radio and TV it would be interesting to hear that mime broadcast.
John Jansen says somebody will pay for this:
I think that when participants think about this soberly they will be very disturbed and I am saddened to say that the markets will line up one of the remaining survivors for a pre holiday turkey shoot.
Exactly. Which big bank will be shorted into a panic bailout for next weekend?
We are all Nobel Laureates now.
Obviously Krugman and Thoma have figured out all they need do is sit back with a Calculated Risk RSS feed and Mortgage Pig Alert and the analyses write themselves.
The life of the US investment banker:
If you win, you win; if you lose, you win.
The life of the US taxpayer: If they win, you lose; if they lose, you lose.
VLADIMIR:
We're waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON:
(despairingly). Ah! (Pause.) You're sure it was here?
VLADIMIR:
What?
ESTRAGON:
That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR:
He said by the tree. (They look at the tree.) Do you see any others?
ESTRAGON:
What is it?
VLADIMIR:
I don't know. A willow.
ESTRAGON:
Where are the leaves?
VLADIMIR:
It must be dead.
ESTRAGON:
No more weeping.
VLADIMIR:
Or perhaps it's not the season.
ESTRAGON:
Looks to me more like a bush.
VLADIMIR:
A shrub.
ESTRAGON:
A bush.
And they're still letting Citibank get away with the 50-75 percent APR increases (announced this month for many) on existing credit cards for the accounts in good standing, which are held by the same taxpayers who just bailed their fat asses out?
Headline for money.cnn.com for citi:
Citi Dodges Bullet
Follow up headline should read:
Stray Bullet Strikes Taxpayer.
How can it possibly be a good deal when they are cutting it at midnight on Sunday while on the phone with Gasparino?
blackhat(Unrated) writes:
sure, at the end of this hell-hole cleansing we may rediscover the virtues of Jeffersonian Democracy and Jacksonian skepticism of the central banks, but in the meantime, it's just so many pyramids of corpses on which an empty throne sits...
Now if only people had considered that 20 years ago.
I'm just amazed at how fast they maneuvered this through the Congressional Committees and floor votes to the President's desk so quic... oh. Nevermind.
Can you say Banana Republic? I can.
my 2 cents.
$300 billion for a 67-point Dow bounce. Nice.
TBC, now you know the market doesn't open for 5 1/2 hours...
CR - The Flash ads have been killing my browser since sometime yesterday afternoon. Please fix if you can.
Use Firefox+Flashblock.
Thread A/V:
YouTube -
I especially like the newscaster in the cuckold's horns.
Second Firefox workaround.
Anyone ever read The Road by Cormac McCarthy?
Forget the lawyers and money, just send the guns...
-b.motor
firefox + adblock plus takes care of a large fraction of the web.
Seriously, couldn't this deal have included an APR rate freeze for American holders of Citicorp CC's, who are the ones left holding the bag?
Existing home sales fall below 5m.
President-Elect Obama speaks in 2 hours.
The home sales report is beyond dismal.
In honor of our decaying nation-state I will be changing my handle from time to time to reflect the new order.
/Please Report to your nearest soccer stadium where you will be greeted with...
Seriously, couldn't this deal have included an APR rate freeze for American holders of Citicorp CC's,
Don't be an idiot. How do you think C is going to pay that new Preferred 8% dividend?
I read The Road, though it was appallingly bad for a novel. It does a good job of depicting a hopeless, bleak, social-contract-dissolved world though. Just not much of a story beyond that.
In Soviet Amerika, government default YOU.
Cordially,
Kilgore Trout
That 8% interest rate will look like a gift when interest rates get into the double digits; same with AIG's interest rates...
Isn't that what will happen with a bond collapse?
That 8% interest rate will look like a gift when interest rates get into the double digits;
This whole friggen bailout nonsense is a gift, for that matter.
That 8% interest rate will look like a gift when interest rates get into the double digits; same with AIG's interest rates...
AIG threatened to payoff the LIBOR+800 bps with the Fed's CP facility, so it got to refinance the terms.
Nouriel on the financial entertainment channel right now.
Goldilocks eats more poisoned porridge
Citigroup gets the bailout that was first given to it under the guise of a Wachovia purchase.
The 'usual suspects' will now bid up JP Morgan swaps and short the commons with perhaps some puts and straddles for the V. JP Morgan will get a similiar deal. Of course if Citigroup and JP Morgan get the deal, Wells Fargo has to get something. I doubt Wells though will give back the illegal tax break gifted by the Treasury when their bailout comes. Can't wait to hear a Wells spokesperson say well this is just for the 'Wachovia' part of the house.. our fundamentals are strong.
And then the Bank of America retrade with the insolvent 'blundering herd'.
Back when I was a pup, I was the manager of a 'pre-internet' weekly. We were free to the public and survived on only advertising revenue. Had to hire dispatchers in order to run out and pick up checks in order for ad copy to make the deadline.
One of our dispatchers was from the Soviet Union. He was formerly the manager of a petrochemical factory and part of the nomenklatura. He only took the dispatch job because he 'needed time' to improve his English.
One evening, over a vodka hydration session, he regaled me with stories of how he and his buddies would party in undisclosed locations with Western goods - fancy TVs, drinks, food - esposuing the commie ethic while reveling in the 'vida loca'.
I can hear his voice now as he often said to me ' You see in Soviet Union we were capitalists... we were always capitalists...we were just bad capitalists'.
Starting to really appreciate that statement.
Only in Amerika!
Look at Obama's economic team: Instead of Goldman Sachs running the U.S., it's now Citibank alumnus. You voted for change and you got it.
Barkeep, Ponies for everyone?
jo6pac
The race to the bottom continues.
From where I stand it looks like commodities like this move even better! Take that stock market!
Except oil...
Interesting Times writes:
my 2 cents.
--
bang on.
this deal is an outrage for so many reasons, but more then that it is just terrifying.
we must acknowledge, now, that this backstop solution will not continue to work for every problem. eventually this house of cards will collapse and we can not be living inside of it at that time. these are not solutions, they are quickly creating a problem which will be larger then what we are dealing with right now.
ask iceland.
"The home sales report is beyond dismal."
Commissar Rob Dawg | Homepage |
Rob,
We actually had decent months in September and October.
If November doesn't pick up/title filing increase this could be a really ugly month.
BTW,by decent I mean comparable numbers to 96-97 sales.
Chris
from cnn:
Existing home sales fell more than expected in October with median prices tumbling 11% to $183,300, Dow Jones reports.
Yancy writes:
"--but the root of the problem actually is monetary."
That, and a small problem with thermodynamics.
Unfortunately, thermodynamics always has the final say.
Was our hero Geithner part of this?
Cobra,
The details are the West fell off a cliff.
I expect classic CR post complete with graphs any minute but below 5m is just fugly no matter where you are.
Geithner was knee deep in all of this. Another illusion bites the dust.
Can someone explain why these motherfuckers aren't being stripped of their assets? Why they are allowed to keep all their wealth?
I truly, truly cannot comprehend what is happening. I feel as if I've gone insane.
Can someone explain why these motherfuckers aren't being stripped of their assets? Why they are allowed to keep all their wealth?
Because they're in charge, and we are not.
One cannot block Flash without having Flash enabled to view the Flash one is trying to block. But thanks anyway, I upgraded to 10.0.12.36 and the problem is fixed.
Now back to being productive so Citi won't have to sleep.
New Post
FuckYouI'mEating(Unrated) writes:
I truly, truly cannot comprehend what is happening. I feel as if I've gone insane.
Your state continues to confiscate your wealth and obligate you for crushing future taxation, but provides no political goods in response. What you are feeling is the collapse of your sense of implicit consent.
You could call this "the withdrawal of the Mandate of Heaven" if you were so inclined.
"Can you say Banana Republic? I can."
We ain't got no bananas.
When will the $20T man post apppear?
Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit
- Bloomberg.com
"Most of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, Timothy Geithner, is said to be President- elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Treasury Secretary."
To Obama spending add the $300B for citigroup and Obama's stimulus of $600B, we are not far away from $20T.
I think the problem can be traced back to Harvard, Yale, Princton, etc. Three + administrations of these idiots.
Note before I go consolidate my power base:
the money poured into the financial institutions will not be available to employ the masses of unemployed we are about to see. book it. this is grossly non-productive expenditure where the return to the citizen will be a vastly lowered standard of living.
At this point, it would make more economic sense to annex Mexico in a manifest destiny move...
/Boots? check
/Leather & studs? check
/Shotgun? check
now to run bartertown...
Tainter argues that Rome collapsed when the peasantry simply stood back and did nothing when the barbarians invaded - or in some cases, joined the barbarians.
How else can you explain the reaction that the average American has to the stories of the Somali pirates? Amusement, even mild approval.
Oh and world...let me let you in on a little obviously not known to our Government secret.....
The US Tax Payer is broke...and from the looks of things soon to be UN-employed....
Commissar Rob Dawg | Homepage | 11.24.08 - 10:17 am | #
I kinda figured that is what it was.
Chris
Blonderengel(Excellent) writes:
We ain't got no bananas.
We have everything else for a weak state. We are transitioning to a failed state, but it'll take a Treasuries / dollar crisis to get the ball rolling.
http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_2020_Support/2003_11_06_papers/panel2_nov6.pdf
Weak States include an array of nation-states that may be inherently weak because of
geographical, physical, or fundamental economic constraints; or are situationally weak because
of internal antagonisms, greed, or despotism. Weak states typically harbor ethnic, religious,
linguistic, or other tensions that may at some near point be transformed into all out conflict
between contending antagonisms. Their ability to provide adequate amounts of political goods is
diminished or diminishing. Physical infrastructural networks are deteriorated. Schools and
hospitals show signs of neglect. GDP per capita and similar indicators have fallen or are falling,
sometimes dramatically. Levels of venal corruption are high and escalating. The rule of law is
honored in the breach. Civil society is harassed. Despots rule.
Failed States provide only very limited quantities of essential political goods. They
progressively forfeit their role as the preferred national suppliers of political goods to upstart
warlords and other nonstate actors. A failed state is a hollow polity that is no longer willing or
able to perform the fundamental tasks of a nation-state in the modern world. Its institutions are
flawed. If legislatures exist at all, they ratify the decisions of a strong executive. Democratic
debate is absent. The judiciary is derivative of the executive rather than being independent.
Citizens know that they cannot rely on the court system for redress or remedy, especially against
the state. The bureaucracy of the state has long ago lost its sense of professional responsibility,
and helps to oppress citizens.
Failed states exhibit deteriorating or destroyed infrastructures. The telephones fail, the
railways rarely run, water supplies dry up, power falters, and other normal services vanish.
Educational and medical facilities crumble literally and metaphorically. Literacy rates fall and
infant mortality rates rise. AIDS overwhelms what little there is in the way of a health
infrastructure. The poor become more and more impoverished, and battered.
Failed states offer unparalleled economic opportunity for a privileged few, and nothing
much for everyone else. Currency speculation and arbitrage benefits the ruling class. Corruption
flourishes. GDP per capita levels decline, often precipitously. Growth rates go negative.
Inflation soars. Food shortages, even hunger, may follow.
Riots are coming. Not soon, but they're coming. I can't prove it. But I can feel it.
Oh, and as for collapses: Sure, throughout history there is never really economic fairness and peace and brotherhood. There are always high-born thieves in charge, usually of repulsive motives and personal piggishness. The object is not to crush them into socialistic oblivion; it can't be done. The object of the game is to survive long enough to witness as many cycles of comeuppance as possible. Ideally, involving the worst of the pigs, before new ones arise to take their place. And ideally, you will be small and nimble enough to avoid much of the fallout.
A pointless cycle of piggishness and exploitation, yes. Very fun to witness the individual comeuppances, though. And that's the joy of living: pure schadenfreude. Savor it, my friends, savor it. And stay safe.
just cooked up a new video mash up on Citibank on YouTube...
some of you gun enthusiasts might like the last part....
YouTube - What's Wrong with America? Saving Scum like Indian Beggar Pandit & Citibank by Uncle Sugar. Revolt!
Oh and PS... don't forget to help those worse off than you, as you are able.
mal(Unrated) writes:
And ideally, you will be small and nimble enough to avoid much of the fallout.
Rudyard Kipling - A Pict Song
Mistletoe killing an oak
Rats gnawing cables in two
Moths making holes in a cloak
How they must love what they do!
Yes and we Little Folk too,
We are as busy as they
Working our works out of view
Watch, and you'll see it some day!
No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along,
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!
mal,
As a pragmatist, I agree with your assessment. However, my own narrow interests dictate that my relative security and safety thus far have been gravely threatened by state-actors, and corporate-siloviki acting with the state--therefore, if necessary, to forestall a failed state, prepare for resistance, however futile.
"By the way, anybody remember a headline like, US GOVERNMENT TO INVEST TRILLIONS IN EDUCATION, RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND BASIC SCIENCE...no?"
You mean true national wealth? Educated, healthy, confident people?
None of us are completely impassive spectators, to be sure.
Schadenfreude? I prefer compensation for punitive damages, pain and suffering, restitution to the millions in our country whose lives have been devastated as a result of the bank-centric society we've become.
Hit em where it hurts. Monetary damages payable to consumer over-debtedness. (And then eliminate over consumption, but that's another stage)
blackhat tyrannus rex(Unrated) writes:
therefore, if necessary, to forestall a failed state, prepare for resistance, however futile.
Against tyranny, resistance.
Against failed states, new establishments.
The Bush Administration just wants to get out of town. The consequences fall on the next President. We are totally screwed!!
Maybe Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman (PBUH) doesn't approve of this bailout because he's still annoyed that he didn't get the Treasury position.
I don't get the anger, resentment and indigence from you people.
It's not like the govt is spending your future tax money.
Borkafatty got it right "The US Tax Payer is broke...and from the looks of things soon to be UN-employed...."
It's not like the govt is spending any of our money, since it's very obvious from anyone who cares to look, that the shrinking future tax base of the USA can never support this ballooning debt that the bailouts are creating.
What's happening is that the USA govt is borrowing from the world capital system -- as long as there's someone out there willing to lend us money. This is the final jig before USA declares bankruptcy; a final transfer of wealth if you would.
Not unlike someone doing a final maxxing of credit cards, withdrawing all those cash-deposit checks from CC companies, and maxxing out their loans; months before declaring bankruptcy.
This is a cause to celebrate. In a twisted way, this will actually speed up the final implosion and hence recovery. I WANT govt to spend more, lets earmark 20T for this and that and more. Do a final wealth "absorption" from the rest of the world govt who're still stupid enough to lend us money.
Like I said, I see these as perfectly rational things to be doing at this point.
I don't get your people's anger.
Since it is a short work week and since I am a "glass half-full" type of person, I will spin it in a manner that should make more people happy:
...As we keep battling backwards to try to hold at the next redoubt, an image of the Alamo begins to emerge. They are beginning to come at us from all sides, and we only have enough powder for a few more desperate shots from our last functioning cannon.
Sam Dimond
The zombie banks need to die. I would rather see the Treasury start a new bank with 7T and begin a new financial system. Let the old system die.....
Bruce
Night of the Living Dead
YouTube - Night Of The Living Dead Trailer
Comrade Byzantine_Ruins writes:
dan(Unrated) writes:
Waiting for Godot.
Wait until you get a look at Godot.
He's Conjure's dad.
...
Best post I've seen in a long while.
Seems like Treasury/Fed has figured out a way to "leverage" the TARP funds at least 15:1 when applying them to banks. One wonders if congress would have approved the money had they known.
Goldilocks is gone, folks. But I'm still here, sprinkling pixie dust here & there.
The Laissez Fairey (aka Throw out yer dead)
Can't claim credit for this line, but it seems to be worth repeating here:
"The Second Amendment: America's reset button."
And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
Reich feigned outrage in his blog too - good cop / bad cop - AKA time to send $$$ to F GM and Cerberus to make things fair
Robert Reich's Blog: Citigroup Scores
From Bloomberg, and it's half our GDP when it's all added up:
Bernankes Fed is responsible for $4.4 trillion of pledges, or 60 percent of the total commitment of $7.4 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg concerning U.S. bailout steps started a year ago.
And Krugman has been in favor of bailouts in general this whole time. If he thinks this is bad, it's got to be apocalyptically bad.
looks like it costs about 100 billion a day to keep the market from capitulating.
long weekend coming up...
~e
It is also ironic that Citibank is too big to fail and requires rescue. The regulators encouraged them as the firm spread its tentacle across the financial landscape. The new Administration should make its first order of business a review of the risk still inherent in the system. JPMorgan is an aggregation of JPMorgan, Chase, Manny Hanny, Chemical Bank, Texas Commerce Bank, National Bank of Detroit Bank One and First Chicago. That makes no sense and if the new administration wishes to establish change then they should begin by splitting up these supersized entities and establishing them as new firms which are not too large to fail.
[hat tip]
"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." Thomas Paine
Congress, Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner abnegated responsibility as funeral directors. Rather than tagging the toes and bagging them, they've collectively engineered The Night of the Living Dead."
Why $306B and not $305B or $307B. Why not publish a list of the securities to calm markets? What a pile of steaming horses*t.
This bailout is the Obama Blueprint which looks exactly like The Bush Bailout Blueprint, i.e, hold no one accountable for fraud! BOO!
Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit (Update1)
- Bloomberg.com
Whether its lending or spending, its tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we dont know anything about, said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.
HC Writes:
What's happening is that the USA govt is borrowing from the world capital system -- as long as there's someone out there willing to lend us money. This is the final jig before USA declares bankruptcy; a final transfer of wealth if you would.
Not unlike someone doing a final maxxing of credit cards, withdrawing all those cash-deposit checks from CC companies, and maxxing out their loans; months before declaring bankruptcy.
This is a cause to celebrate. In a twisted way, this will actually speed up the final implosion and hence recovery. I WANT govt to spend more, lets earmark 20T for this and that and more. Do a final wealth "absorption" from the rest of the world govt who're still stupid enough to lend us money.
I too would prefer a faster, harsher recovery than a long Japan-deluxe-style hell, but I am concerned that a true collapse would be sufficiently destabilizing to the current regime that we might end up like Russia: utterly corrupt, brutal, and ruled by oligarchs and demogogues.
You could argue that this is merely a difference in degree to the current situation, and I would not debate it.
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man cant ride you unless your back is bent."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is the best bailout to date. More dividend and bonus suspensions, please.
Wednesday History Channel:
Laura Bush gives tour of WH before it is burned down...
Can Citigroup survive? - Nov. 24, 2008
Fortune
Citi's 'slow, grudging nationalization'
Monday's massive rescue package hasn't solved Citigroup's problems, says bank analyst Christopher Whalen.
Japan 1990, and that ancient movie about Godzilla faces a remake in 2008 in the US: Land of the inflated Zombies.
Kona, Touche' from the Congressman. 217 more and sanity would be achieved.
Another day another bail out. The Fed
should have replaced top mgmnt immd as they did with AIG. Why is Robert Rubin still around. He should been fired along with C Prince in 2007. Rubin took in over 100m in 7yrs as
"chairman of thje executive committee". The Feds should claw back some of that over paid salary for a guy who was at the tops rungs at the failed citi bank.