Bit of a duration mismatch I should think old chap, tally ho, wot?

Emanuel to become Obama chief of staff
| Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a combative Illinois Democrat, has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to become White House chief of staff in the new administration, according to two sources on Capitol Hill.

Anyone know if that means anything?

Don't quote me on this, but I'd say we are going to be looking at a fine short trade going into EOD.

EvilHenryPaulson --

Emanuel is very smart and very abrasive. Probably not a good sign if you were hoping for early signs of bipartisanship. Probably a good sign if you were hoping for the opposite.

And the English equivalent of "you can lead a banker to money, but you can't make him lend."

Christ, doesn't matter what country you're in, these guys are scum.

And you wonder just how bad the books are? I can't decide if they actually know or if they're just scared to death.

I have finally come to understand that supporting the bailout was a necessity for Dems ... or the Republicans would have hung them out to dry. "So-and-so voted AGAINST saving your job and your home."

Anoddamoose --

So whenever the Dems vote for a bad idea, that's the Republicans' fault?

Might want to have your logic unit checked out.

Personally, I hold each politician responsible for their own votes. Guess I'm just stupid that way.

You can't force them to lend so this shouldn't be much of a surprise.....

Ciao
MS

Nemo - I voted against the incumbents who voted for the bailout, for that very reason.

REBear,

I think they're just hoping that the lenders will allow the borrowers reduced rates for a certain time so that the borrowers can hopefully try and restructure their budgets without going bankrupt. More consumer bankruptcies, more foreclosures, more bank losses, more bank failures... vicious cycle eh Jeeves?

One of those times when greed is not the right answer. Fear is actually the right answer... and fear ought to drive capitalist decisions.

Bit of a duration mismatch I should think old chap, tally ho, wot?
Nemo

Nemo you spent too much time on that one and missed your spot.

If you'd stopped at "old chap" I think you would have nailed it.

Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon.....

Remember Congress is a corporate entity - different Reps do things for different reasons. Some Dems thought the TARP was a good idea - Congressmen aren't necessarily economically savvy. Some have connections to financiers and stood to gain personally or through donations (the corruption inevitable with privately funded campaigns.) And some no doubt knew it stunk but thought they could get an advantage by painting the Repubs as endangering the economy. It's difficult to tease apart the motivations - even with inside info much of the relevant decisionmaking won't be discussed with anybody. Nobody would admit to wasting hundreds of billions to trap Repubs even if true.

Let's see rates go higher to price risk, rates stay high to price risk...

my goodness, they are actually pricing risk!

Launch missiles!

Bring back Volcker.

Shoot the puppy while Junior cries and screams. That's why they pay central bankers.

PSgirl --

Clinton called ex-Clintonian and asked him who the f else knew about this issue. He said Emanuel and Clinton said "you may as well have issued a f'ing press release".

Actually, after reading that, Emanuel just went up a few notches in my view...

Yah, I vote Volcker. In hard times he'll make junior shoot his pet deer then carve it and smoke it into jerky.

Despite supporting the bailout, which is a huge black mark, Emanuel is smart, aggressive, liberal, young.

Okay, but what are his positive qualities?

Eric,
Remember how you made fun of opex?

CNBC's big explanation is that the sell-off now is in anticipation of a sell off come Nov15 for hedge fund redemptions and that purplemonkeydishwasher

PSgirl --

Because I think the biggest problem with our government is that the public has too little view into what actually goes on.

So in general, I like leaks.

(I also like anything that makes Bill Clinton mad. But that's more of a personal thing.)

CNBC's big explanation is that the sell-off now is in anticipation of a sell off come Nov15

Well, they'd feel pretty stupid saying "it's down because there's more sellers than buyers".

And it would be un-American to say, "it's down because these are the most horrific economic numbers we've ever seen, and everyone should go to cash, if not outright short this puppy".

I can't believe Dollar Tree (DLTR) is currently priced at $3.51bn (up 50% YTD, 12% YoY)

I may have never seen or visited one, but I do know dollar stores have low margins and Wal Mart has plans to take over their turf in the near future as cities stop blocking their developments in a bad economy

Where's spammer Rob to tell us to go short?

selling a sell-off?

Wow that's a stretch even for CNBC.

Ciao
MS

oneworldcurrency yogi writes:
Oh yeah, Rahm is Jewish, so you can blame him. Or Bernanke. Or Bernie Sanders.

I'm glad someone else here finds SheenyHunt 2008 to be absurdist theatre.

I think of it a a light libretto of cotton-candy prejudice before the hardcore basso profundo DK "beaners and immigrant visa holders" tuba-and-tympanum blasts of hate.

"self-doubting, restrained, conservative, and old."

You want Greenspan back?

Huh? I think the phrase "often wrong, but never in doubt" was coined for Greenspan.

Liberal is positive for me. Didn't you see the vote? No longer taboo. Even the Governator used the word taxes.

See I think everybody defines these ideologies the way they want to.

I actually think of actually paying for the stuff you buy to be a more old fashioned kind of thing to do. Like they did back in the day.

Oh, I missed the opportunity to mention in the indicators thread that the Baltic Dry Index  is up for the 2nd day running. This isn't necessarily good, because rates are so low they are often below operating costs, so maybe ships are just getting mothballed. But, better than continuing declines.

TIP insanity now on the 10yr. 10yr TIP 2.79, 10 yr treasury 2.71.

Camrade Tinman mentioned: "... why not Cynthia McKinney?"

That would be more fun than Jocelyn Elders was!

ac @253 re trust:

Sorry, but destroy trust?

That horse is long out of the barn and the banking community has screwed itself in the eyes of a lot of people.

They're like deer in the headlights and when they finally have to lend, esp given the facilities that they've been given, they hold it close.

They are sealing their own doom IMO. If this is the kind of behavior that they exhibit, then they really are courting full nationalization with the inherent wipeout.

And most people would probably go along with that.

Hell, I'd dance.

Fair Economist,
Clarium was unwinding a whack-load of bets that the 10yr-30yr spread would narrow. Having to unwind would dump 10yrs and narrow the spread against the 10yr TIPS.

"He followed each naming by driving his steak knife into the table and shouting "dead, they're dead to us now". I like the guy"

Bluto from Animal House...

Just think of all the busted retirement dreams. The boomers are now the busters. Had to happen of course. All booms are followed by busts.

There is a reason home equity & stock values are not counted as savings in the NIPA.

Bernanke should have seen this coming. The man is a dingbat.

Let's see, little volume = DOW up.
large volume = DOW down.

Yep. Just checking reality.

Is it 5 0'clock yet?

oneworldcurrency yogi writes:
Oh yeah, Rahm is Jewish,

I'm calling you out, this is a throw down. Stop with the bigotry.

PsGirl: Re Emmanuel--nothing happened by accident in the Clinton Admin. If he leaked something, it was for a reason.

Volker:
I'm calling you out, this is a throw down. Stop with the bigotry.

I think he's on your side, Volkster.

"Can't force people to borrow as well..."

Entirely different set of circumstances. If you make it prohibitively expensive to do so by not passing on rate cuts intended for those very people then you have what has unfolded here already.

They are just late in execution....by about a year.

Ciao
MS

RE: said Emanuel leak:

ABC's Stephanopoulos Calls Dick Morris a 'Liar' About Rahm Emanuel on WLS Radio | NewsBusters.org

Charming - here's a letter from Summers sucking up to Key Lay

With all the bad news, why is the market going down? Retail reports should be good for at least +200.

Sorry, but destroy trust?

That horse is long out of the barn and the banking community has screwed itself in the eyes of a lot of people.

The ultimate destruction of trust, especially in the government has not yet occurred. The dollar is an implicit contract with the government and if we destroy that then all trust is gone.

People need to remember that being and enlightened culture, our society is no longer bound by ideology or religion or patriotism or nationalism.

We our bound together by the single-minded pursuit of money.

Destroy the money and the whole thing comes flying apart.

That's the only thing that binds us, good will, social consciousness, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny notwithstanding.

"Shot their wad at 2. They're still having trouble adjusting to leaving DST."

HAH!

I think he's on your side, Volkster.
Byzantine_Ruins

If he is then I take it back. But, it seems to my ears that there's some antisemite rhetoric going on. I suggest the bigots and anti race folk hie themselves to Sean Hannity. It's offensive.

safe_as_apartments,
That principal argument only applies if you sell the thing during the deflation. So long as things are deflating, there's not many returns better than a guaranteed coupon.

rigged for dive!

Citi is a black hole. They have $1 trillion is off balance sheet "assets".

Goldman is sink hole too. Look at how they expanded their balance sheet over the past 5 years. How likely is it all those assets (bought with leverage) are worth more today than when they bought them? It's even worse when one considers the huge bonus payouts over the past 5 years.

C & GS are bankrupt imo. The only question is if the fed can keep them afloat.

What a sham.

DOJ: Insufficient evidence to bring charges against Spitzer

I don't disagree with any of that re: C and GS.....fighting intervention at every step is what I'm talking about. They will remain operating but in what form is the question.

C goes kaput before GS though. Paulson still needs a warm seat.

Ciao
MS

I wonder if they'll pass the cut on to depositors?

I'm 1/2 thinkin' the GM & F reports will be more of a shocker than jobs report...

Evil and other local gods,
planning to cover before market closes?

trading positions? Don't have much to cover...

Core positions? No way....

Ciao
MS

@homedad43, second reference to horses in this thread (couldn't pass it up), "you can lead a banker to money, but you can't make him lend."

The creative version was by Dorothy Parker, "You can bring a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."

But, you knew that.
ChefVisar

DOW hanging on to 8700 pretty well. Sure would like to see that resistance broken.

REBear,
I am not in anything, so nothing to cover. There's no good reason for the market to go up until its past the employment report, although this may be a safe way of getting out today.

Thanks evil and MS.

Got my 902 and jumped on the SSO. Could really suck to be me in the AM...

babel fish,
I heard that testimony. I'd laugh at it if we were not in these times. I do think that would cause a real revolt...well, maybe in a few years they'll try in earnest.

Well the DOW is staging a genuine bona-fide electrified 100 pt rally up to 8800

More thread music for DK:

YouTube -

Sorry, couldn't resist....

bearly-

thinking the same thing here.....

Luck to us....because that's about all it's going to be.

Ciao
MS

The government takes over your 401(k). Not so much flushes it, they just take it, like they're going to take some pension money

Ho ho ho.

Mer-ry Christmas.

I just emailed in my own proposal. About 1/3 of the houses in the US are paid off and many of them have "untapped equity" so I'm proposing that the Federal gov't

"unlock"

that equity by borrowing against it to help fund the budget deficit. They can issue shares in the "Untapped Housing Equity" corporation created by a special act of Congress!

ew thread

ac writes:

People need to remember that being and enlightened culture, our society is no longer bound by ideology or religion or patriotism or nationalism.

We our bound together by the single-minded pursuit of money.

ac | 11.06.08 - 3:29 pm | #

Is that sarcasm?
To whose society do you refer?
In a world where billions still believe in something, rootless cosmopolitanism is doomed...
Someday there will be nowhere left to run, nowhere where you will fit in, forever a wanderer and an easy target.

oneworldcurrency yogi writes:

Is that a threat? Is what you believe in making people targets?

Don't be ridiculous. It is others who provide the threat. That is why we need some kind of nation, with its burdens to bear and shortcomings to face and correct.

I don't buy the Miller 401k thing - yet.

If it does to actually get some serious press and movement, then you're going to see a huge number of people selling out completely.

I'll sell it all, take the tax hit and take the family on a hell of a party.

Seriously, that is a gunpowder issue.

This isn't too hard to understand- the banks are insolvent. Any money that comes in is being used for balance sheet repair first. Of course, government nitwits don't care about solvency.

The Wire was the best television show ever created. Highly recommend picking up the DVDs if you haven't seen it.

Entourage is the one must watch tv show.

I usually try to work my way through all those HBO series. I really got a kick out of Deadwood, in addition to the more obvious series like the Sopranos et. al.