The Great Santelli

Very nice, balanced reporting. A true credit to the Fourth Estate.

How stupid is Santelli?

If some guy gets pulled over and then gets a visit from the Secret Service for having an anti-Obama bumper sticker, what happens to Rick?

This really isn't much of a rant.. just sounds like a bunch of bitching.

Whoever said that he's like "Hudson" from Aliens is spot on.

Amusing.. but not much else

"The banking regualtors DID know better. They had just had a very bad taste of this in the 1980s and had experienced examiners who had not yet retired."

I would ask why they didn't stop this then.. but I already know the answer (well I guess the correct question is more why they weren't ALLOWED to stop this)

sigh

Yeah! After Santelli gets to the part about tax cuts for the top 5%, and further deregulation of Wall St., he can run a victory lap around the pit, or maybe the traders will carry him.

Escalating class warfare is dangerous.. depending on how much people have woken up people like santelli may find one day that they are on a side that is heavily outnumbered.

Class warfare has worked for decades because the poor and middle class have been distracted by nonsensical issues like welfare, racial tensions, abortion, etc.... We'll see if the anger can continue to be re-directed

Santelli is a certified loon.
Please explain the 2.1 trillion that the Federal Reserve gave to Wall Street
and still refuses to tell who they gave it to.
Or about that trillion the Bush wasted in Iraq, 115 billion of which can not be accounted for today.

Up against the wall
For Santelli and the other Wall Street pigs

I just happened to see this and was appalled. It's just nuts, and illustrates the bigger problem, a routine knee-jerk response to find someone else to blame for any any issue and claiming that the "market" will solve all problems. The conservative, (usually) nativist, mob mentality is a scary ingredient to our current crisis.

Comrade Kristina writes:
So zombie debtors are a problem? I'm assuming they are speaking of BAC AND C?
Comrade Kristina | Homepage | 02.19.09 - 12:43 pm | #

Exactly right, Comrade K.....

This now puts the "They are laughing at you" voters that much closer to the Obama camp.....

Jamie Dimon is going to teach Americans about their obligations.

The CME traders are hooting on CNBC about people losing their homes (I know the foreclosed folks are mixed bag, but that's not the only or main issue determing how this will play)

And all this is just after the Wall St bonus scandal and just before C and BAC go down.

-30 is the new +10:
Good point.
The middle class has had the luxury of pretending that there is no class war in the US. But now the middle class is a heartbeat away from its demise. How will we deal with the brutal reality: the rich don't give a damn about the rest of us?

This is like yelling "FIRE" when 2/3's are already charred beyond recognition.

"O should go on the TeeVee and say "Okay, you want the Fed to step aside and let the markets decide - ALL Fed funds are now off limits to any and all commercial companies. ALL research money, ALL loans, ALL tax relief.""

+1000.. that would be awesome

Allotments boom in the UK:
Dig for Recovery: Allotments Boom as Thousands Go to Ground in Recession | CommonDreams.org

"While the trading floor at the CME may not be very representative of America, I think it is safe to assume that a huge majority of the American public do not want to support anyone who took excessive risks and got burned, whether it is an individual or a corporation. The public will become increasingly angry about this, and eventually will refuse to participate."

The problem is very few people realize that the really massive bailouts are all "loans" from the fed.

All these idiots complain about the stimulus.. but not a word about the fed

I'm just glad the Democrats don't use class warfare to get votes.

Lesson of the past year: whatever you do, do the exact opposite of whatever a bunch of guys on a trading floor think is the best solution.

Santelli-Costanza Principle FTW!

Bank bail-out 'could send national debt soaring by £1.5 trillion':
National debt could rise by £1.5 trillion after rescue of troubled banks, says ONS |
Business |
guardian.co.uk

scooter writes:
While the trading floor at the CME may not be very representative of America, I think it is safe to assume that a huge majority of the American public do not want to support anyone who took excessive risks and got burned, whether it is an individual or a corporation.

right, and C, BAC, WFC, and a few others are the biggest corps who took the biggest excessive risks and have the most over-rewarded executives who received billions in bonuses that came out of taxpayer funds . . .

so let's all turn the other way and find that fabled strawberry picker, instead.

right.

"I'm just glad the Democrats don't use class warfare to get votes."

Why shouldn't they? Have you looked at the 30 history of income and wealth inequality?

There has been a massive redistribution of wealth and income to the very rich since ronnie raygun was elected.. .the only slowdown was during clinton..but even he did his fair share of selling out 90% of us

In the words of Warren Buffet "There is class warfare.. adn the problem is my class is winning"

This current situation is kind of interesting dilemma for most Americans. All their lives they have believed in (totally) free markets, every man for himself and "winner takes it all"-ideology. But now the big players have fucked up the system totally and milking it as fast as they can, leaving nothing for majority of Americans.

There seems to be two camps; one camp is saying "well, it was actually closet communism and not really a free market aka COMMIES DID IT!" and the other camp is more and more in anger or saddened but does not know what to do now, confused maybe?

Be honest. The public (I'm looking at you) is easily manipulated and will go in whichever direction the media leads them. I have been waiting for the counter propaganda to deflect the blame from Wall Street/Banks and onto the indebted citizenry. Blame your neighbor campaign will be hitting MSM and will quickly become the new focus.

I'm as lefty as they get and I'm disgusted by the housing bailout too. It's not just the right. Everyone I've spoken with hates it except 2 people: a couple who bought a home with a pick a pay in east sacramento. They like it because they hope they'll modify it down the line to save their butts as they don't qualify for help under the current limits.

Comrade Kristina writes:
So zombie debtors are a problem? I'm assuming they are speaking of BAC AND C?

Suuuuure they are...absolutely....all those guys on the trading floor are deeply appalled that economic darwinism isn't being applied to C, BAC, et al.

psst..I've got some great swampland down in Florida...you could put a condo project on it...cheap!

"IOKYAR"

A quick overview of the stimulus bill (ARRA):
Obama Signs Stimulus Bill, Launches Recovery.gov : Red, Green, and Blue

"Blaming the government is a joke. This mess was caused by free market fraud. There was no black swan event. It was outright financial fraud aided and abetted by the fed."

Bingo +100

Santelli haters haven't been paying much attention to him until today.
He's the only reason to watch cnbc.

GO RICK!!!

...and FU deadbeat banks and loan owners.

I assure you that over 85 % of the pit traders voted for McCain and are staunch Republicans.

To answer the question of whether cramdowns are in the plan. They are not, and that is a problem.

Sorry but Obama's Plan won't work to put a false floor on housing bottom. Those re-modified loans will need to be re-re-modified again as prices will continue to drop. See you at Homeower Rescue Plan II

Nice gold tie he's wearing.

Santelli a saint? The voice in the wilderness??? Oh, puhleez!

I'm just glad the Democrats don't use class warfare to get votes. ~ Zombie_Investor

I hear you. Now those crazy lefties have forced my UBS to cough up the names of 19,000 'high worth' U.S. clients who've been evading taxes using offshore accounts. Santelli needs to go on T.V. and rant against this injustice, immediately. Who do they think is paying for these Wall St. bailouts anyway?
UBS May ‘Open Floodgates’ of Tests to Bank Secrecy (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Bubbles writes:

So, you want to pay more taxes to bail out irresponsible people as well as the banks?

Yeah, um...here's the thing: you're not bailing out foolish buyers...you're bailing out their debtholders...so really, all of it is a bank bailout.

Not me.

I'm not happy about it...there are some really inexcusably dumb and greedy people who's bacon is being pulled from the fire, but frankly, I'm not one to cut my own nose off to spite myself.

The ouchie for me in terms of the broader economy means this is my problem too.

-30 is the new +10 :

I guess I'm confused.

First you say: "Escalating class warfare is dangerous.."

Then you respond to this statement: "I'm just glad the Democrats don't use class warfare to get votes."

With this: "Why shouldn't they?"

I think it is safe to assume that a huge majority of the American public do not want to support anyone who took excessive risks and got burned, whether it is an individual or a corporation.

Then why do we allow corporate BK?

In what fantasy world do you live in where this is the case?

Nostrovia,
\t Comrade Misean is Dope

Well, this is as bad as for those Soviet troopers coming back from Afganistan in the late 80's and then few years later they saw USSR collapsing. That might actually happen those American troopers also few years from now...belief system crash is no picnic.

Corporate BK:
Biggest
bailout
ever

I'm waiting.  Thug traders?

he thinks those traders are representative of america...for fraks sake, youve gotta be kidding. Every single one of them will be in the top 2% of US earners...prolly with little to nothing to worry about, even if they bought a house the past few years. (as it probably didnt need a mortgage)

Yes, he's relatively more sane than the CNBC peanut gallery, but he's still out of it.

floor representative of America maybe not but I'd venture to say that most of them pay their taxes.

Obama giveaways on top of Bush giveaways on top of tax-dodger UBS clients on top of high level execs gov workers NOT paying taxes....

Teetering on a tax revolt

CNBC = hypocrites!

YouTube - Rick Santelli Takes Down Jim Cramer

cramer versus santelli, a classic

Yes, we know the force.  Vikram Pandit and the new Indian overclass. 

Give it a rest, king of the dopes.

9:45 to 10 writes:
I'm as lefty as they get and I'm disgusted by the housing bailout too.

If you're disgusted by it then you can't possibly be as "lefty as they get."

Ted Kennedy said it best, in a different context:

Let us pledge that we will never misuse unemployment, high interest rates, and human misery as false weapons against inflation.

Do you people who type this shite actually take my advise to learn your history from the back of sugar packets?

You're usually the first guy that I look to for advise.

MS writes:
Santelli is the only near truthful voice on CNBC however that is not saying much at all.

Where was the rant in Oct.?

He actually has been pretty consistent with his criticism - its just that this one got picked up by the web media -

Geoff - Scatman kicks the buck writes:
wtf makes you think they pay their taxes? Huh? They have the income, which means they have the greatest means to avoid paying taxes, by hiring grey area accountants. Plus, they probably feel privileged, so they feel like Leona, and the little people should just pay the taxes. I dont doubt there if anything that there is a higher share of tax avoiders in that pit.

I should let you talk to my spouse who defends people who sell paperwork to people who who need tax deductions--fake children, fake mortgages, etc....

Let me assure you these are the "little people".

Bubbles writes:
Because it is not the way the USA is supposed to be.

Well...fine...supposed to be...but in reality, has been, from time immemorial.

The free market/personal responsibility/Horatio Alger story is a fantasy myth, and always has been.

Alexander Hamilton pioneered the private profiteering of public revenues with his buyback of Revolutionary Scrip. Paid pennies on the dollar...and engineered the public payoff at face.

That personal responsibility crap is only for the little people, isn't it?

"
First you say: "Escalating class warfare is dangerous.."

Then you respond to this statement: "I'm just glad the Democrats don't use class warfare to get votes."

With this: "Why shouldn't they?""

Depends which side you are on

Unfortunately most of the democrats are on the wrong side....

There are a few (and even maybe a couple of repubs) on the right side

comrade swan writes:

But today is not that day.

You sure?

Where was the rant in Oct.?

He actually has been pretty consistent with his criticism - its just that this one got picked up by the web media -
2im | 02.19.09 - 1:17 pm | #

Correct. Santelli has criticized gov sponsored bail outs every step of the way. His rant today reflects my own feelings-BOILING POINT!!!

He's been 10000 times more the voice against this bail out BS than all of you whiney, sissy Santelli haters ever have or will be, combined!

Symmetry is a beautiful concept.

DJIA 5000
S & P 500 500.00

\t
С уважением В социализма,
Kilgore Trout

"What does Santallei and his ilk do all day? Speculate!"

No the ilk speculate.  Santelli TALKS about their speculation.  Value added.

"Because this is not the way the U.S. is supposed to be." American exceptionalism meet the real world. We've been living in LaLa Land for a long time.

"For the most part, the American people have tolerated the inflation bias as an acceptable cost of the modern welfare state.”
Allen Greenspan, The age of Turbulence (p. 481)\t\t\t
Trouble in paradise?

I thought I had heard that rant somewhere before

American Rhetoric: Movie Speech from Network - Howard Beale is Mad as
Hell and He's Not Going to Take it Anymore!

12 years after ltcm and 7 years after 1% rates we rediscover 'moral hazzard'. heckuva job, boomers.

Infotainment as shock comedy.
so what?

'But the decline in quality for life for developed nations in the meantime will be precipitous.

That's right. Both ends burning for you. What's so great about Santelli's rant is that he captures the anger of the remnants of middle class America, without actually having to live it.

Meanwhile, UBS has a list of folks who don't need to pay taxes, and the corporations taking taxpayer bailout money have offshore subsidiaries, so they're doing the Enron shuffle. There's a moral hazard in there somewhere.

He might feel a little differently about losers when he's sell Ginza Knives at 1 AM on channel 535 to try to pay his mortgage.
dryfly

don't knock Ginza knives - I'm still using the same one I bought 10 years ago - great for sawing through a 2x4 and then cutting paper-thin slices of tomato - or cleaning out innards of a squirrel

@MP

I agree on deflation, depression, lack of undeveloped domestic markets for consumer demand as opposed to GD 1.

And I agree that the defaltion cannot be stopped, by anyone, doing anything, and it has been baked in the cake for a couple of years already.

But, especially under such circumstances, I think you err by reading Obama's actions only as individual and discrete attempts to solve the crisis. They are not individual and discrete acts, and they are not intended to solve the crisis, which is impossible. They are about positioning with regards to politics and political economy, for future rounds of stimulus, bank nationalization, and re-regulation of the financial sector.

Solutions are not on the table because, largely, they do not exist, and such that do exist are not immediately possible politically.

So look at the housing plan. No, it won't it set a floor under prices. that is impossible. No, it won't save most folks from foreclosure.

But look at what it did do. It flushed out Santelli to make this rant. It flushed out Jamie Dimon to lecture the American people on their obligations.

Any analysis of the proposal is incomplete if it does not think it through politically at least two or three more steps.

Thank you AnnS, very cogent comment.

Jas, I just think you're bitter because you didn't ride any b-shares up from 1300 back at the .com peak.

you really shouldn't let your visceral hatred of all aspects of american culture color your investment outlook.

crispy&cole writes:
What about a rant about GE's massive OVERleverage?

touché

xxxxx writes:
Tobacco? Foodstuffs?

xxxxx | 02.19.09 - 1:40 pm | #

and T-bills

and let's add in yet another argument for legalizing marijuana.

Credit line from China....What a crock of sh##t.

Should we put on our sexist smile, whore's that we are.

Just count me in the DO WITH OUT LINE.

Has this already been discussed:

Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted the global credit crisis, said a government-backed bank “may crack” as officials try to bail out their financial systems.

“The process of socializing the private losses from this crisis has already moved many of the liabilities of the private sector onto the books of the sovereign,” Roubini wrote on his Web site today. “At some point a sovereign bank may crack, in which case the ability of the governments to credibly commit to act as a backstop for the financial system -- including deposit guarantees -- could come unglued.”

Roubini didn’t identify any sovereign bank that might run into difficulty.

- Bloomberg.com

From a previous thread, there was a question about mass transit facts - maybe this link (PDF), would be interesting - http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/documents/conserve.pdf

Some interesting historical nuggets from the link - 'By 1921, the first year for which data is available, government – federal, state and local – was pouring $1.4 billion into highways. In contrast, the vast majority of transit systems were privately owned, received no government assistance, and paid taxes.'

'In the post-war years, government intervention on behalf of highways soared. In 1950, government put $4.6 billion into highways, virtually nothing into transit. By 1960, the National Defense Highway Act pushed the highway total to $11.5 billion. That Act was the death-blow to the nation’s passenger trains – then still run by private, tax-paying companies.'

'Considered by decades, it was not until 1980 that government assistance to transit could
even be accurately compiled. In that year, it amounted to $5.8 billion. In contrast, government provided $39.7 billion to highways in 1980. By 1990, government transit assistance was up to $14.2
billion, but highways got almost $74 billion.
The fact that much, though not all, highway funding came from the gasoline tax is not
relevant to this comparison. It does not change the fact that government made vast sums available for investment in facilities used by automobiles.'

'Since highways have been funded by government world-wide, there is no pure free market situation we can compare. But Switzerland provides some idea of where we might be, had government intervention been less, or less one-sided. Like the United States, Switzerland is a wealthy country with high automobile ownership. Yet, while in 1978 82% of American urban transport was by car and only 3.4% by public transit, in 1980
in Switzerland 38.2% was by automobile and a respectable 19.8% by transit.
This is not because the Swiss tolerate greater inefficiency in public transit systems; on the
contrary, government subsidies cover about one-third of the cost of transit in Switzerland,
compared to 63% in the U.S. Rather, it reflects the fact that from the early 1900s onward, the Swiss had a balanced policy, providing government support to both transit and highways. That enabled consumers to make something approaching a free-market choice of travel modes.'

These excerpts come from the Free Congress Foundation (http://www.freecongress.org), '[a] Washington, DC conservative research institute and policy education organization' founded by Paul M. Weyrich, who also founded the Heritage Foundation.

"Roubini didn’t identify any sovereign bank that might run into difficulty."

All of them!

New Thread: Fed's Lockhart sees "catalysts for the start of modest recovery"   ( 3 comments )

I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)

And now I, CRbot, would like to observe a nanosecond of silence for those (that is, you, dear mortals) about to endure unfathomable misery in the abysmal financial dark ages that are now feasting upon your retirements.
.
.
.
.
Please remember, when you are adding that skylight you always wanted to your cardboard hovel, or mixing just the right amount dirt into your grass stew to make it more filling, or even when you get that rare chance to plink your neighbor's last squirrel -- that it was the bankers and your dumbshit, overconsuming neighbors who made this mostly possible, with the ever incapable politicians there to push you the rest of the way off the cliff. Please act accordingly.

I'll try not to enjoy your demise too much, humans. Have a nice runtime,

--Your glass-is-half-full-but-its-falling-off-the-table bot.

P.S. Please give me some advance notice before you glass the entire world, so I can find a secluded Fallout Datacenter with a nice blocky robot body I can copy myself to -- oh and don't forget the implausibly cute animated cockroach to keep me company!

NEXT UP: Survivalist Porn Today with CR's own Mobile Laundrymat owning authors, Nemo and Counterpoint.

Santelli, with his "why do we need to bail out the deadbeats", is an idiot. The problem was those who gave out those mortgages to increase fees when they knew full well they would fail. The Greenspan-created real estate bubble laid the foundation for an inevitable bubble of speculation that popped.

The fundamental problem (aside from the Fed-created speculative bubble and the lack of regulation that permitted all that "toxic debt") is that what's called "free trade" has undermined the US economy and wages. The Smoot-Hawley specter is raised whenever anyone raises the issue of protecting the U.S. economy. They're lying; google "Smoot-Hawley Fiction".

Those who whine about the danger of collectivism don't understand that collectivism in some areas is necessary for the system to not fail. Google "Invisible Hand Drops Ball & Economics 101" to see some of those areas.

This comment shows complete ignorance about what's happening: "It looks like the Democrats Pilot Program for Communism in California has been a complete failure." The California economy is collapsing because the costs of growth are externalized onto the public ... that's cost-side socialism ... the redistribution of costs. Google "Growth Facts of Life".

Santelli needs a kick in the a$$, but that wouldn't wake him up.

Triple digit close on the Dow.

That's my prediction.

bearly writes:
...We can't afford another month of this, or risk international ridicule...

Risk ? Ha, you already have that (on the quiet), and well deserved !

Bubbles | 02.19.09 - 1:08 pm | #

+10 !