I often think of the fall of Rome - all those nameless Roman citizens who lived and labored for the empire - and then were abandoned to the barbarians in the end...
The source, speaking anonymously because talks are ongoing, also said officials will likely release the capital requirements of the 19 firms at their holding company level, not just the needs of their banking units.
Some of the banks being tested, such as Bank of America, have large non-bank subsidiaries that were included in the assessments, the source said.
For the most part, the depositary institutions are fine. It's the investment banking units and SIVs are holding the really toxic stuff...
Can some accounting nerd re-create the stress test with more "realistic" assumption? Oh, for some grin, put mad max scenario under "more adverse" condition.
Asun (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 3:14 pm reply Ignore user
Can some accounting nerd re-create the stress test with more "realistic" assumption?
The incompetence of Obama's economic team is breathtaking. This public flip-flopping is doing wonders to undermine confidence. Why don't they just sit down and decide what the f*** they are going to do, and then do it. Talk about a lack of leadership on Geithner's part.. Obama should toss him out on his ear, and then throw Summers on top of him.
All this running around in circles is just fanning the flames. Yes, we have some bitter pills to swallow, but they will be swallowed regardless, in the time frame that should be important to folks like Obama, Dodd and Frank. Those three should be turning up the heat under Geithner's butt BIG TIME. Wouldn't hurt for them to breathe down Bernanke's neck either.
Where are the courageous journalists of the past? I guess they are owned by the finance community as well. Take over the legislative branch, take over the executive branch, work on those judiciary appointments and co-opt the media. That almost sounds like treason.
Things Got Ya Down? Well Then, Consider These . . .
In a hospital's Intensive Care Unit, patients always died in the same bed,
on Sunday morning, at about 11:00 am, regardless of their medical condition.
This puzzled the doctors and some even thought it had something to do with
the super natural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths
occurred around 11:00 AM Sunday, so a worldwide team of experts was
assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents. The next Sunday
morning, a few minutes before 11:00 AM all of the doctors and nurses
nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible
phenomenon was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books,
and other holy objects to ward off the evil spirits. Just when the clock
struck 11:00, Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward
and unplugged the life support system so he could use the vacuum cleaner.
Still Having a Bad Day????
The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill
in Alaska was $80,000.00. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively
saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and
applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate
them both.
Still think you are having a Bad Day????
A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically,
almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist
towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly
current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two
places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his iPod.
Are Ya OK Now? - No?
Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a
slaughterhouse in Bonn , Germany . Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke
loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two helpless
protesters were trampled to death.
What?!? STILL having a Bad Day????
Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet did not pay enough postage on a letter bomb.
It came back with 'Return to Sender' stamped on it. Forgetting it was the
bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. God is Good!
ShadowInventory (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 6:11 pm
I often think of the fall of Rome - all those nameless Roman citizens who lived and labored for the empire - and then were abandoned to the barbarians in the end...
It's a little more ambiguous than that. I mean look around, you would be an idiot to die for this. Why be the last guy to die for a mistake? Ditto Rome. Debased currency? Oppressive taxation? Insane leadership? Constant coups and robbery of the state Treasury for private ends? They had it all, and they practiced tax farming and industrialized slavery to boot. They didn't really abandon so much as collapse.
I am still trying to figure out why Swine Flu is being MSM'd into a global crisis.
We have flu season every year. This is no more deadly, it just doesn't have a vaccine. It also doesn't have hardly anything cold weather to help it spread.
If I were a cynical man, you know the type to make tin foil hats, I might be inclined to think that this whole flu business is being pumped as a distraction for the plebs.
Book1...the reason they are making a big deal is because the big deal itself IS the vaccine. If you ignore a human to human contagious threat, it CAN become a problem. If you worry like crazy over it, but dont do anything stupid...like restricting travel, etc, then you can prevent the thing from getting out of control. If youve got a vacccine, you can be a little less enthusiastic in your response.
While the banks were ordered not to release the results of the stress assessments prematurely, Goldman yesterday may have provided a hint with its decision to sell bonds and shares, issuing $2 billion in five-year notes without a government guarantee and making a $750 million stock offering. A spokesman for Goldman declined to comment.
$2.75 billion. Good for Goldman. They have got to be rolling in cash, ready to pick off the weak at the back of the herd. It's not what you know, it's who you have in Treasury.
Correct. GS is a winner! If I didnt despite them so much, Id have bought in at the $53 march price. But I cant even stomach making money on this steaming turd of a firm.
Short version: this is a fat tail risk for a significant mortality event.
Influenza pandemic
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly, with the 1918 Spanish flu the most serious pandemic in recent history. Pandemics can cause high levels of mortality, with the Spanish influenza estimated as being responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people. There have been about three influenza pandemics in each century for the last 300 years. The most recent ones were the Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu in 1968.[1]
Influenza pandemics occur when a new strain of the influenza virus is transmitted to humans from another animal species. Species that are thought to be important in the emergence of new human strains are pigs, chickens and ducks. These novel strains are unaffected by any immunity people may have to older strains of human influenza and can therefore spread extremely rapidly and infect very large numbers of people. Influenza A viruses can occasionally be transmitted from wild birds to other species causing outbreaks in domestic poultry and may give rise to human influenza pandemics.[2][3]
book1 (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 6:29 pm
If I were a cynical man, you know the type to make tin foil hats, I might be inclined to think that this whole flu business is being pumped as a distraction for the plebs.
I would believe it except that it's going to cause the opposite of what they want, which is for the global nice nice to succeed.
Keep in mind, the Cult of Security is an informal institution not a political weapon. Its devotees are not really aware pf the fact that they're banker tools. The hysteria it spreads to expand its influence is thus not really a weapon it wields so much as an aura it projects wherein everything is a crisis because a crisis equates to expanded budget and expanded power and a reason for the Cult of Security to exist.
This is just their insane overreaction such as would be deployed to justify some new surveillance cameras or police powers, and is the established practice of the Cult of Security zerg and the pall they attempt to project over society. It just happens to be aimed at a genuine menace. You will see chickenshit overreaction of the Katrina type, and then on top of it, wacky stories of what happens when social control breaks down that are just total fabrications of the collective anxieties.
They just happen to work in tandem with the plutocracy on the rank and file level. On the upper levels, there are completely co-opted.
Sherriff Joe is making sure that everyone goes crazy and treats mexicans like pathogens and that militia with m-16s and N-95 masks are there to take your temperature at random checkpoints to make sure that no economic activity whatsoever takes place. The global nice nice is trying to make a new credit bubble. The same evil conspiracy is not doing both things.
In fact, neither has formal policy structures, they're two separate zergs of people who are trained toward organized behavior operating toward their shared interests. That's here in America, other people are seizing the advantage abroad. Egypt found a reason to slaughter all the damn hogs, for example. Nice display of umm, piety or something, guys.
This is a nice sentiment, but my understanding is that the government won't let anyone repay the TARP loans, even if they want to. The government forced some banks to take TARP money (when they were reluctant to take it in the first place), and now won't let them pay it back.
I was told today that WHO will go to Level 6 in the next few days. The person who told me is reliable. They also told me the numbers are not close to being accurate.
There is just one problem, CR- there are banks out there that would gladly give up the TARP to be free of this Administrations increasingly authoritative directives, but the Administration isn't going to let any of them off the hook of TARP- they have these guys just where they want them (witness the banks supine position with regards to the Chrysler bankruptcy).
I wonder (always do), is the real purpose of the stress test for government to have the upper hand over banksters? Up to this point, Bankesters kept winning the chicken game without any intention to compromise with hand that feeds them (Gov.) I always said their arrogance will have consequences (Look @ Kenny go). When the game of chicken is repetitive, the rules change. If you ask the government for a bail out, you ether reach a compromise or... ELSE.
Nationalization, here we go! (step 1 = stress test)
p.s. Zerohedge: "In what is becoming a daily anti-Wall Street litany from the administration, there was more blasting of banks, this time courtesy of Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse who called banks "greedy, stubborn and unreasonable." His Obamaesque remarks came on the heels of the defeat of the cramdown amendment in the senate after a 51-45 vote, which curiously had 12 Democrats voting against the proposal."
Romer said she predicts the U.S. economy will turn around in the second half of this year. Some experts say they expect positive gross domestic product growth at that time.
"Most people are predicting some time in the second half of the year, and, and I expect that's when we'll start to see positive GDP growth again," she said. "And a little after that we'll start to see employment going up rather than going down."
Cristina Romer, this week in front of Congress: Christina Romer, the chairwoman of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, predicted another economic contraction in the second quarter of the year and delivered a downbeat assessment about unemployment. But she said the pace of the economic decline will moderate sharply over the next several months.
"Whether the recovery begins later this year, as most private forecasters predict, or takes a bit longer is hard to know," she told Congress's Joint Economic Committee.
"neither has formal policy structures, they're two separate zergs of people who are trained toward organized behavior operating toward their shared interests"
Yup, it's a miasma, it's difficult to discern who did what and why, if anyone did anything at all. Seems a bit convenient, though. Could have been an attack by Arabs or Chinese, could have been a faction inside our own military, could have been pure chance or an accident, which, of course, would be the whole point of this sort of attack. Nobody can tell what's true about what.
Reminds me a lot of "V for Vendetta", though.
What's more bothersome is that I've seen corporate cultures which generate this kind of misty diffusion of accountability and breakdown of cause-n-effect, just an on-going reaction to each previous reaction. It can be convenient. Sometimes it's a result of a culture of yes-men and cover-my-ass, not purposeful but just as troublesome.
On topic: It'll be interesting to see if the Obama Administration decide to use the results of the stress test to "do a Chrysler" on the failing banks, or at least threaten to do so. (Part of me wonders if the Obama Admin is building up a separate "get tough" meme of doing things outside of Financial so they can say If we did that to Chrysler, what makes you think you as, (GM, AIG, Citi, etc), have a chance? Or, simply to force Summers and Geithner to act similarly or at least have to justify not playing schoolmaster with the financial firms.. )
Off topic: Hoopajoops, I saw your post in the last thread on the DC appellate attorney that committed suicide. Reading his bio he seemed to be a pretty intense guy, Yale physics, summa cum laude, DC Cir. clerkship, and yet you said that he was not a partner at the firm? For many folks of that type that I've known, that fact alone would be cause for depression (let alone the layoff notice). Those are just a couple of the many reasons why there are high rates of depression and addiction in the law profession. Be interesting to know though if there was a specific reason though (it seems strangely similar the Freddy Mac CFO committed suicide recently, makes one wonder...)
Transparency is important. It seems the basic principle should be: Banks that require public support should disclose the details of the stress tests to the public.
BTW, so that my frustration with the linked article is not misinterpreted, I completely agree with CR's point quoted above.
"The incompetence of Obama's economic team is breathtaking. This public flip-flopping is doing wonders to undermine confidence. Why don't they just sit down and decide what the f*** they are going to do, and then do it. "
They may well be very competent, just given the wrong task: protect the current banking structure at all costs.
It's the wrong task -- and most likely an impossible one.
A piracy operation begins, as with any other start-up business, with venture capital.
J. Peter Pham at James Madison University says piracy financiers are usually ethnic Somali businessmen who live outside the country and who typically call a relative in Somalia and suggest they launch a piracy business. The investor will offer $250,000 or more in seed money, while the relative goes shopping.
"You'll need some speedboats; you'll need some weapons; you also need some intelligence because you can't troll the Indian Ocean, a million square miles, looking for merchant vessels," says Pham, adding that the pirates also need food for the voyage — "a caterer."
Yes, a caterer.
"Think of it as everything you would need to go into the cruise ship business," Pham says. "Everything that you would need to run a cruise ship line, short of the entertainment, you need to run a piracy operation."
The chick (I assume) on GodlikeProductions seemed pretty sure of a 6. She was familiar enough with the WHO guidelines to make the call from a 3 to 5. I'm assuming she's basing her prediction on various postings and emails she's getting, many from Mexicans.
It's hard to judge the order of bullshit there. I saw one email which claimed 800 deaths as of Monday but the wording and description felt wrong. I'm not personally worried about the flu, the mortality rate is still pretty damn good odds, far better than Vegas or cancer, and the next ten years looks pretty sucky anyway.
Just thinking about the US and what it could do is huge.
It doesn't look like The Stand to me. it looks like a bunch of people who have never been in plague-time before experiencing the insane rumors magnified by the power of the internet echo chamber. However, the Cult of Security can still fail the state by turning off the economy while jumping at shadows.
RE: flu and MSM. At this point, it seems impossible to separate fact from rumor. Is the mortality rate higher than the normal strains of flu? Is Mexico reporting the right number of cases and deaths? Time will tell.
Did everyone notice how the May 4th release date is now the "week of May 4th?" Timmay has yet to turn in his homework on time. We'll get a partial assignment and forget all about the real parts.
If a bank does not want to disclose details of the stress test - no problem, they are a private enterprise. But shouldn't they immediately return any TARP money and stop using any special Fed/FDIC/Treasury liquidity programs?
ABSOLUTE FREAKING LOOTLY YES !!!!!
This will be the start of put up or STFU to assclown Banking Oligarchs and splash cold water on their bullshit Quiet Coup
But of course, yes-men never believe they're yes-men.
They're "team players".
The culture of the U.S. is steeped in lies and self-delusion.
It's been interesting to watch it change over the past 15-20 years.
Very ego-driven.
Everyone is special yet increasingly, non-comformity is allowed only within memetic templates with socially allowable variations. The illusion of diversity within a shell of increasing conformity which focuses attention on the visible, not the true intent or action.
Sad.
Re: Byzantine_Ruins, i don't see how the thing ever fixes itself now.
Too many people dependent on a paycheck, too much debt, too little willingness to look at The True.
I have a feeling it will turn out to be much ado about nothing. What matters is if a large segment of the populace decides to stay home.
Oh that's a given. The only question is if the pandemic flu is really all that bad. The part where society takes a crap in its collective drawers is a given. Humans don't take well to epidemic.
I don't know. Think trucks on the road in the US. They are tracked the same way. UPS. Metro DC. For a number of reasons. I doubt they can be turned off.
What pisses me off is that our friends at GS will likely pass the "stress test" with flying colors, but only because it called its local AIG CDS salesrep in the nick of time to hedge all its stinky MBS stuff. Gov't bailout, but at arms length.
(Hmmmm, wonder who's hedging all its rotting commercial securities, now that AIG is out of the picture? Now that that potato is warming up, they must be preparing a pass-off...)
Long time lurker, and first time poster. I come to this site to bask in the comments about the markets and economy daily. I can't offer much insight there but I can offer some thoughts about the flu pandemic scare. I am by no means an expert on the medical side but I have been connected to government circles all my life and I can tell you that if you tune out the mainstream media and focus on what the government is doing, it is very scary. For example if anyone caught the rear-admiral from the CDC Senate briefing yesterday, she point blank after intense questioning from John McCain said closing the border is not an option, this can't be contained, and the resources needed to close the border would be needed elsewhere. What resources? My speculation is manpower in the form of national guard and active military units. Closing the border would be a nightmare, and the manpower needed to do that might be needed in containment actions in cities from coast to coast. This thing is spreading, CDC has still not completely gene sequenced the virus, and can't say with any certainty what it will do. The president has invoked crisis powers which have still not been outlined, but understand this, your local school boards aren't calling the shots to close down the schools. Could this all be an over-reaction? Absolutely. But what the government is doing scares me more than the flu itself and I take that very seriously. Just my two cents.
Designates the Department of Health Services as the lead agency to respond to the public health emergency; and Directs the Department of Health Services to take all necessary and appropriate measures to prevent and respond to incidences of Swine Influenza A in the state; and Directs the Department of Health Services to access and distribute the state and federal antiviral stockpiles in response to the public health emergency as the State Health Officer determines is advisable; and Directs the Department of Health Services, as part of the antiviral response, to take any measure it deems necessary and appropriate to make an antiviral available to persons within the State, regardless of insurance or other health coverage, as needed to respond to the public health emergency; and Suspends the provisions of any administrative rule, if the Department of Health Services determines that compliance with that rule would prevent, hinder, or delay necessary actions to respond to the emergency and increase the health threat; and Authorizes the Adjutant General to utilize Wisconsin National Guard Direct personnel and resources as necessary and appropriate to assist in the State’s response to the public health emergency; and Direct all state agencies of the State of Wisconsin to assist as appropriate in this ongoing response.
Lets see. Freaked citizens stay home. Business gets whacked. Sales and taxes down farther. Meanwhile your local gov. spends like a drunken sailor and hopes DC cuts them a check.
"It's a little more ambiguous than that. I mean look around, you would be an idiot to die for this."
As someone who took the oath and served, I take offense at that sentiment. I mean, that is just foul. How selfish can you be? Yeah the USA can suck, but it still beats pretty much everywhere else.
What resources? My speculation is manpower in the form of national guard and active military units. Closing the border would be a nightmare, and the manpower needed to do that might be needed in containment actions in cities from coast to coast.
@Nova: "I was told today that WHO will go to Level 6 in the next few days. The person who told me is reliable. They also told me the numbers are not close to being accurate."
I'm pretty sure the WHO numbers represent an accurate count of an official laboratory test. I'm certain that number is a lower bound on the number of cases. I think it's also clear (see my commentary earlier today) that the actual number of cases could be much much larger and [edit: "much of"] officialdom would not know. Which is why there's so much scope for public panic.
Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.
WHO went to Phase 5 as soon as it became clear that the virus was spreading in the U.S. as well as Mexico.
Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5. Designation of this phase will indicate that a global pandemic is under way.
The operating terms now are "community level outbreaks" in "a different WHO region". One scenario that would trigger Level 6 is if the virus starts propagating in, say, Spain. As of today there was a confirmed case in Spain where there was human-to-human transmission from someone who went to Mexico, to someone who didn't. That's not yet a "community-level outbreak". But if there were cases that were 2-3 jumps past the original infections coming from Mexico, WHO would have to go to Phase 6 (or change their rules and bow to commercial/political pressure).
I am giving serious thought to going short the stock market in the event of a Phase 6 declaration, but that's just me, and I'm not putting more than 5-10% of my capital into the idea no matter what.
On the plus side...
Critical definition (mine, not WHO's) - a "Pandemic" just means the disease is expected to have "widespread human infection". If the infections are "mild" then it may not be a big deal. There could be a pandemic of athlete's foot and it would not be a disaster for humanity. However, pandemic influenzas aren't usually so kind, and the three 20th-century pandemics killed 1 million, 2 million, and 50-100,000,000 people worldwide. The numbers should be scaled up by factors of 2-4 to reflect current world population. (The U.S. share might be ~5% of the total, so it would not be the end of the world as we know it here.)
More WHO language (emphasis added):
During the post-peak period, pandemic disease levels in most countries with adequate surveillance will have dropped below peak observed levels. The post-peak period signifies that pandemic activity appears to be decreasing; however, it is uncertain if additional waves will occur and countries will need to be prepared for a second wave.
Previous pandemics have been characterized by waves of activity spread over months. Once the level of disease activity drops, a critical communications task will be to balance this information with the possibility of another wave. Pandemic waves can be separated by months and an immediate “at-ease” signal may be premature.
In the post-pandemic period, influenza disease activity will have returned to levels normally seen for seasonal influenza. It is expected that the pandemic virus will behave as a seasonal influenza A virus. At this stage, it is important to maintain surveillance and update pandemic preparedness and response plans accordingly. An intensive phase of recovery and evaluation may be required.
Lets see. Freaked citizens. . .. Business gets whacked. Sales and taxes down farther. Meanwhile your local gov. spends like a drunken sailor and hopes DC cuts them a check.
This was the basic reason why Mark Sanford tried to refuse the stimulus funds. Sometimes, it may be necessary to let things play out before getting into hysterics, but then again, nobody wants to be Bush during Katrina.
With all due respect, why has no Influenza pandemic since 1918-1919 caused death on that scale?
What was so special about the 1918-1919 one? Could it be that it was humanized by 2 years of stressed men living in close quarters and official denials and coverups, that allowed it to adapt to humans to an extent that was not otherwise possible?
John McCain said closing the border is not an option
Well Gee, whole school districts are closed but that's different. Look, it isn't racist or nationalist or anything except prudent but it still won't happen.
"(The U.S. share might be ~5% of the total, so it would not be the end of the world as we know it here.)"
It would not be the end of the world. However, the social/economic effects might be serious to severe depending on the virulence of the outbreak.. We'd need to be adequately prepared, and administrative coherence and social solidarity would have to hold.
The end of the world as we know it is a high-orbit, long period comet coming out of the direction of the sun, headed for impact. For example.
"I was told today that WHO will go to Level 6 in the next few days. The person who told me is reliable. They also told me the numbers are not close to being accurate."
....WHO said no reason to upgrade to phase 6......more than that Mexico's Swine flu cases leveling off ....it's one fine example of mass hysteria......
As someone who took the oath and served, I take offense at that sentiment.
As did I, though I let it pass. Sometimes Byzantine Ruins just comes on like an agent of the Chinese government.
For example, he usually speaks of America in the third person. It's not his country.
His comment (from which you quoted) reads in full:
"ShadowInventory (profile) wrote . . .
I often think of the fall of Rome - all those nameless Roman citizens who lived and labored for the empire - and then were abandoned to the barbarians in the end...
[to which he replied]:
"It's a little more ambiguous than that. I mean look around, you would be an idiot to die for this. Why be the last guy to die for a mistake? Ditto Rome. Debased currency? Oppressive taxation? Insane leadership? Constant coups and robbery of the state Treasury for private ends? They had it all, and they practiced tax farming and industrialized slavery to boot. They didn't really abandon so much as collapse."
No closing the border is different. I don't think most people realize how big the US/Mexican border is and securing that border is more than just shutting down the entry points. Are you really ready to read about US National Guard units opening fire on refugee families crossing over. There are some studies done back in the 90s outlining what would happen if the US ever tried to close the border with Mexico, they aren't pretty.
@Lucifer: The 1918-1919 pandemic was special primarily because it was a novel genetic strain, to which humanity had no immunity. Much as today's virus is a novel strain to which humanity not only has no vaccine, but also no established immunity.
The 1957 and 1968 pandemics were the same basic strain as 1918-1919. The main reason they did less damage is because a significant fraction of the population had already developed immunity by surviving the 1918-1919 virus. This would have impaired both the spread of the virus and its severity. Obviously improved medical care helps as well, but it's not going to be available to everyone all the time, especially if the virus happens to mutate, cannot be stopped by Tamiflu, and gets deadly enough to panic the available medical care providers.
Lucifer writes: "Could it be that it was humanized by 2 years of stressed men living in close quarters and official denials and coverups?"
Sure, ignore the documented historical data and impose your own fantasy of what might have happened in 1918, if it makes you feel more secure today.
As for "stressed men" and "official denials and coverups", I think we have that today with the global economic depression, don't we?
"Could this all be an over-reaction? Absolutely. But what the government is doing scares me more than the flu itself and I take that very seriously. Just my two cents."
I think it is very astute to take note of the what the government is doing. We won't know if there is an over-reaction for a while. Let's hope that it is. A friend of mine also worries that an outbreak of low virulence might put the country off its guard for the next epidemic.
GH - not that I KNOW something, I just suspect too much risk. If you give this a weekend to play out, it goes to 6, anything can happen. A long while back when I was in the market, I made the mistake of the weekend hold enough times to learn the hard way. It's easier to sleep now. If I play the casino at all, it's get in, get out. Or after a while, it's just like AC - you smell like smoke. Only different reason : In the GS casino, you come out toast. GS always win.
Blackhalo (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 7:48 pm
As someone who took the oath and served, I take offense at that sentiment. I mean, that is just foul.
Yeah whatever man. Run by robbers, defended by little boys who get told it's appropriate behavior to obey orders without question and take part in mechanized warfare. Sorry I insult your programming to feel like it's a natural act to obey an order to frontally assault a fixed support weapon position.
Maybe you failed to notice the part where your country turned into a kleptocratic police state.
I'd die for the Republic in an instant. Volunteer to serve this flag? In these days? Not with a sword, that's for damn sure! How can you serve this country and call yourself a patriot? You're either a crook yourself or a useful idiot for a crook. Get a grip dude, your country's soul is at stake.
Agree closing borders is not only pointless, but a waste of resources that may be needed elsewhere. Lots of possible elsewheres right now!
I've never seen the news showing so many important events in so many different areas of human events at the same time. Interesting times indeed.
Off to real life...
Final quote regarding Mexico and "leveling off" -- the Mexican officialdom has been suppressing testing (as I reported here multiple times already, per Newsweek, per multiple sources).
The WHO also disagrees with Mexican officialdom (this is from article cited by Jay.D. just above):
The World Health Organization’s top flu official, responding to similarly hopeful remarks from other Mexican officials, sounded a more cautious note about whether the virus had peaked.
“For things to go up and down in a country is expected. If it didn’t do that would be very unusual,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda said in Geneva. “Hopefully we’ll see more of the data of what’s going on there. But I expect even in Mexico you will see a mixed picture.”
"I'd die for the Republic in an instant. Volunteer to serve this flag? In these days? How can you serve this country and call yourself a patriot? You're either a crook yourself or a useful idiot for a crook. Get a grip dude, your country's soul is at stake."
Fine, don't let me interrupt your trip down to the VA to spit on some disabled vets.
Rob Dawg (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 4:24 pm
Did everyone notice how the May 4th release date is now the "week of May 4th?" Timmay has yet to turn in his homework on time. We'll get a partial assignment and forget all about the real parts.
Good point, Rob Dawg.
Do you know if they've committed to a year or is that the next card Timmay pulls out of his sleeve?
@pavel.chichikov "If it comes in at a few degrees off the sun, we wouldn't see it until quite late."
I think you underestimate the number of instruments that are pointed directly at the sun to monitor sunspots, solar flares, and the like. It would be seen.
How do you know that? Do we have high quality DNA sequences of the first mild but significant outbreaks in 1917, the ones that occurred in trenches in late1917-1918 (which were suppressed), and the ones that killed people over the world in 1918-1919..
Unless you have definitive proof, don't bullshit! The reality is that we do not have such data. What you are doing is called speculation. Passing speculation as fact is fraud, but then again what else can I expect from an ivy leaguer.. It is always some kind of fraud.. financial, medical, theoretical.. .
"The 1918-1919 pandemic was special primarily because it was a novel genetic strain, to which humanity had no immunity. Much as today's virus is a novel strain to which humanity not only has no vaccine, but also no established immunity."
I think you might want to read a little history.. not the "official" ones written by some ivy league scammer.. Try newspaper archives of that era.
"Sure, ignore the documented historical data and impose your own fantasy of what might have happened in 1918, if it makes you feel more secure today.
As for "stressed men" and "official denials and coverups", I think we have that today with the global economic depression, don't we?"
"I think you underestimate the number of instruments that are pointed directly at the sun to monitor sunspots, solar flares, and the like. It would be seen."
A small object lost in the solar glare? I think we'd be safer with satellites in solar orbit within line of sight communication.
Advance apologies for the rant, but today President Obama did an immense disservice to the nation. By scapegoating the "speculator" hedge and pension funds who refused to put their fiduciary duty to their investors behind the interests of the UAW and the "gang of four" (JPM, GS, MS, Citi), he has shown himself to be a charlatan.
A man of obvious intelligence, President Obama had to know that his depiction of the situation was a bald faced lie. Of course the gang of four were willing to take a huge haircut, as they knew that the TARP would cover them. Your average small time pension investor has no such advantage.
Those pension funds who refused to go along with Der Commissar represent teachers, truck drivers and other average Joe's retirement funds. The fact that they will at least get their day in court at the expense of the criminal syndicate gang of four is a small victory for truth, justice and the American way.
Blackhalo: Fine, don't let me interrupt your trip down to the VA to spit on some disabled vets.
Perfect 10 on the straw man. Unfortunately, he real me is over here.
Now take a deep breath and get real, the cartoon image you hold of me was deliberately programmed into you as a defense mechanism for your worldview. You're hacked. Wake up, stupid. You're a born and bred American dope.
Could we take the "America is great" vs. "America is crap" argument elsewhere? It doesn't really add to the conversation and I think you are all good posters otherwise.
Blackhalo (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 8:48 pm
So, Biden is catching heat for recommending to his family and others to stay out of crowded, confined spaces? Travel industry steamed?
Until I hear from the WHO and CFDC giving the "all clear" it sounds reasonable to me.
People slammed Biden not for being unreasonable but for being off-message (heresy).
"If it comes in at a few degrees off the sun, we wouldn't see it until quite late."
Which would require it's orbit to pass within Mercury's orbit where it would be most likely vaporized. Also, we have an awful lot of sensors pointed in just that direction. No to mention that at some point in time, that orbit would be parallel to the earth, making it likely to be spotted and tracked.
If it is a completely foreign object the Solar system, the likelihood of it falling into the earths gravity well vs, the Sun's is quite tiny.
Also, regardless of direction, there is not much would be able to do about it.
I would reccomend Lucifer's Hammer, by Niven and Pournell for and entertaining read of the subject.
km4 - Its really not all that new to Pakistan. We're used to insurgencies, separatist movements and sectarian violence. Now what was a little perturbing was the gov't taking it lying down while Swat was overrun, especially Buner, but they're bombing it now. I spoke to my parents, they said no chance in hell that any major city other than Peshawar falls to the Taliban. People forget that religious parties have never won more than 12% of the popular vote on a national level.
The fact that they will at least get their day in court at the expense of the criminal syndicate gang of four is a small victory for truth, justice and the American way.
The PR battle has already begun. They're now officially the "The Committee of Chrysler Non-Tarp Lenders " and here is their statement:
If a bank does not want to disclose details of the stress test - no problem, they are a private enterprise. But shouldn't they immediately return any TARP money and stop using any special Fed/FDIC/Treasury liquidity programs?
Is the USA presently a kleptocratic police state? Read the Military commissions act and Patriot acts 1 and 2,then the new FISA act before making any assertions as to the current "Rights" of American Citizens...Kleptocracy? have you been reading CR or Naked Capitalism for the last year or so? Byz is saying much the same thing that JJ has been,without the derogatory references to BFNY or dopes.A friend of mine is going back to A'stan this fall,he feels that it is his duty and I can't argue the point.However I can state that our political establishment and the Joint Chiefs have failed to"Defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic".The Military Oath does not mention any State or Territory,it does mention the CONSTITUTION.Are you happy with the State of OUR Republic?
Every once in awhile when I read some of these stories about hiding data, transparency, etc I think of the popular science illustration of Schroedinger's cat.
It's like the banks exist currently in a state of being both alive and dead. But... as soon as we peek into the data, POOF! they become one or the other.
I'm on Byzantine's side. Read the American Constitution and then tell me that is what still governs this country. You troops are part of America's permanent standing army. You are mercenaries paid by the government. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms and form a militia. "Shock and Awe" by a professional army in Iraq is a far reach from defending the life and liberty of an American.
It should have been closed 10 years ago. That would make figuring out how to do it now irrelevant. This is as good an excuse as we'll ever get - National Security.
It's like the banks exist currently in a state of being both alive and dead. But... as soon as we peek into the data, POOF! they become one or the other.
Exactly. Unfortunately, fractional reserve banking is a confidence game. Once the confidence is gone, then there's no chance of survival...
We live four blocks from Walter Reed, and tomorrow we're going to walk down the street and watch the 101st Airborne parachute onto the WRAMC campus to celebrate its 100th birthday. We've spent much time at WRAMC, as volunteer visitors, as attendees at Mass, and once one of us as a patient. We are thrilled and will be watching from the sidewalk.
Release No. 09-20
April 30, 2009
Low-flying aircraft overhead in support Walter Reed centennial celebration
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Members of the 101st Airborne parachute team, who last
jumped here in September 2007, will be flying over campus at about 3 p.m.
today in a C-23 Sherpa aircraft. The team is rehearsing for its formal jump
scheduled for Friday morning at around 10 a.m. during Walter Reed Army
Medical Center's centennial ceremony.
The aircraft, with U.S. Army on its side, will attempt several low passes
2,000 feet or below for wind streamer drops and timing patterns. From the
ground, the aircraft looks like a box with wings. The parachute canopies
will be black, gold and white in color with the unit crest of the 101st
Airborne. During the ceremony jump Friday, May 1, canopy pilots will be
using red smoke trailing the canopies.
Upon conclusion of the practice jump on Thursday and the final jump on
Friday, all members of the parachute team will depart Walter Reed by ground
transportation. Walter Reed leadership and 101st Airborne Soldiers apologize
for any inconvenience and impact on quality of life. The Federal Aviation
The "big lie" was that these holdouts were looking for some kind of special treatment. All they wanted was the same deal that the gang of four got ... which was basically to be made whole via a backdoor TARP bailout. Zerohedge was all over this, here is the link:
This whole thing reeks of criminality. Can't we at least have the pleasure of seeing Blankenfein perp-walked into an unmarked cruiser, as the media pack descends on his Hamptons villa like a pack of mad dogs?
So the question is does the pork industry pay the costs of their doing business or are we socializing the losses again?
Most likely the 'modern pork industry' didn't cause this thing it was more likely a product of old and ancient ways - pigs, fowl & people all living in close and 'natural' settings. In rural villages they occupy the same space.
Damned confinement lots are almost like quarantine lock downs - very difficult for swine virus to mix with avian or human strains. Hell they don't even let you enter the buildings until you have walked through bleach so you don't bring contamination in with you. They have better processes than all but the strictest hospitals.
They produce TONS of social cost they don't pay for - mostly ground & surface water pollution from disposal of MASSIVE amounts of manure... but swine flu probably came about the old fashioned way and not from the pork 'industry'.
"The results, originally scheduled for publication on May 4, now may not be revealed until toward the end of next week, said the people, who declined to be identified. A new release date may be announced as soon as tomorrow, they said."
They just keep stringing everyone along so that no one will think for themselves.
It should have been closed 10 years ago. That would make figuring out how to do it now irrelevant. This is as good an excuse as we'll ever get - National Security.
Good luck with that. Borders have never been closed not even the Berlin Wall could accomplish that - we'd have to be even more draconian though I know some might find that kind of a society 'refreshingly safe'. People move and their bugs go with them - as God or nature [your choice of paradigm] intended.
sportsfan (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 8:16 pm
Byzantine Ruins, you are NO American patriot.
Isn't the rhetoric that I'm unpatriotic for disagreeing with your politics a little tired at this point?
You are not even an American.
Thankfully this is a matter the Founding Fathers did not leave within your judgement to determine. Wisely so, given your attempts to excommunicate me from the universal Republic of free Citizens for the sin of thinking you are a childishly naive apologist for criminal authority figures.
Your hatred of the United States oozes from every other comment you make.
I love this country. It's a shame the people running it are writing checks the taxpayer can never pay and keeping the populace ignorant and divided so they don't notice that trillions are being stolen. Kleptocracy is never patriotic and kleptocracy is what is happening in your country, right now, while you tell me how evil I am for criticizing it and the decaying institutions that enable the ponzi economy
Gosh, you are so brilliant and heroic and patriotic and an American Dad(tm)! I wish I could be as short-sighted and mule-headed as you and learn to love the robber state like a good consumer. But shit ain't like that, so either ignore me or come to accept the fact that someone who is very articulate and patriotic and in fact probably considerably to the right of you thinks your country is an unsustainable ponzi shell game built on fraud and exploitation.
I think Tom and Byz make good points. Frankly, I agree with Byz.
Would I give my life to defend the republic and everything the constitution stands for? Yes I would.
Would I serve in the current military, defending the interests of god knows who, for whatever their political/economic motives? No, I most certainly would not.
Having watched the events of the past year, the erosion of rights, the propaganda, lies, and disregard for our constitution - being a patriot may soon entail a different set of actions than it has in the recent past. And I don't think this takes anything away from the dedication and sacrifice of those that do serve in the military today. In my opinion, too many leaders have forgotten that they serve the Republic and the interests of the people, rather than vice versa.
I'm with Gav and Byz on this as well. My Father was a lifer in the Army and he loved this Country, I've been around the military my whole life so I hold no animosity to those that serve. The point is, the military no longer serves to protect this country but to instead further the interests of the global elite. My Father was also a lifelong Republican that grew to despise GWB before he passed away. He said "The bastard is trying to destroy my Army"..Dad loved the Army....but he also saw what was happening.
I live in San Diego. When I hear "closing the border", I think it mostly closes off any chance of me getting any access to antiviral meds (Tamiflu, Relenza), as I fully expect that when the sh*t hits the fan, all supplies in El Norte will disappear into the warehouses of the government for "essential" personnel. (As ex-military, I have some sympathy for this principle in a crisis [if I didn't expect that somehow bankers would also be deemed "essential"].) The true free market across the line might be my only chance to protect those I love.
"Isn't the rhetoric that I'm unpatriotic for disagreeing with your politics a little tired at this point?"
Hey, you can bash the USA and her actions all you want and I'd defend your right to say it to the death, and probably agree with you to boot, in most instances.
But when you make snide remarks about those who defend our country, I will disagree, slander and mock you. But I will still defend your right to say it.
"The point is, the military no longer serves to protect this country but to instead further the interests of the global elite."
That is nothing new as the US military has often been mis-used to further the interests of corporate USA. But it is not appropriate in my view, to malign those whose sworn duty to act on those orders, rather than those who give them.
But it is not appropriate in my view, to malign those whose sworn duty to act on those orders.
Did you notice those people who went on and on about how much duty you had were trying to get you to engage in combat on their behalf?
Obedience is not a useful trait in a Citizen. That's one of the reasons why they didn't want standing armies.
So the guys went into Iraq, flawlessly executed a mistake, no questions asked. How glorious was that? How wise? What did it accomplish? What did that silence cost? Who did it serve?
Don't answer me, just genuinely answer them for yourself!
To the extent that we are establishing a presence in a region that controls a vital resource to our current way of life? Yeah, I could entertain that argument as valid.
To the Bush-Rumsfield implementation, no. That was a fuck-up extraordinaire. But I do not blame those serving for the tools who put Bush in charge.
blackhalo writes: That is nothing new as the US military has often been mis-used to further the interests of corporate USA.
Looks, as a former Army officer, I say, you get a choice: either the military makes its own choices, or you separate political control from the military. As a former Army officer, I prefer the latter. But as a result, don't come bitching to me when we get handed a bucket of shit to sort through; there's a nice city on the Potomac you may wish to make your first stop.
If you'd prefer, I could substitute my personal opinions instead of following my orders, and you might like what I'd do, but you'd really not like what many of my compatriots would do, so you're better off with this system.
So I'd suggest: cut this lofty "defending our country" crap, we're just handling buckets of shit, and we know it. Well, somehow if we do it right, our country works out, but it's pretty damn indirect.
Very useful in a solder though. It can save lives.
"So the guys went into Iraq, flawlessly executed a mistake, no questions asked."
Yeah, it may have been a mistake, done for all the wrong reasons. But some time in the future, maybe soon, we will ask those same folks to execute flawlessly for a just cause. That is the nature of the sacrifice. It is not up to them to make the call. It is up to the voters and the potential jack-ass they put in charge.
I think we all are in the same boat. It might be a good time to focus on similarities rather than differences.
well, that's my five cents. No offense intended.
p.s. In the long run, we will be all right. Yes, our government has been screwing us up for a while. However the truth is, across the lake they are screwed and obedient to much higher degree.
sportsfan, you're ranting, and not making any sense. Please take a deep breath. I'm an American, and I do not feel mocked or hated by anything B.R. wrote.
They should, and it's our duty to demand it.
I'm pretty stressed myself.
agreed
That will probably be the catalyst for the market's next down move...
1 Above average...
2 Above average...
3 Above average...
4 Above average...
5 Above average...
6 Above average...
s 7-19 misc. [see notes]
I often think of the fall of Rome - all those nameless Roman citizens who lived and labored for the empire - and then were abandoned to the barbarians in the end...
I can't stand the stress!!!
Are they going to grade on the mortage pig (AKA "Inverted showgirl") curve?
The source, speaking anonymously because talks are ongoing, also said officials will likely release the capital requirements of the 19 firms at their holding company level, not just the needs of their banking units.
Some of the banks being tested, such as Bank of America, have large non-bank subsidiaries that were included in the assessments, the source said.
For the most part, the depositary institutions are fine. It's the investment banking units and SIVs are holding the really toxic stuff...
Can some accounting nerd re-create the stress test with more "realistic" assumption? Oh, for some grin, put mad max scenario under "more adverse" condition.
"I often think of the fall of Rome"
I often think of barbecued beef ribs, they're not easy to find and they'll be even harder after pork ribs disappear.
Dang it.
Conspiracy thread linking stress tests to CDC Level 6...
Bank Stress Test Results Due Mon. Expect Level 6
Asun (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 3:14 pm reply Ignore user
Can some accounting nerd re-create the stress test with more "realistic" assumption?
Reggie Middleton.
Mmmmmmmmmmm barbecue.....
there is no risk of contraction from EATING pork.
However, there IS a risk that the supply will disappear since the piggies gotta go byebye.
To me this only means they found a way to obfuscate the results so much that everyone passes.
The incompetence of Obama's economic team is breathtaking. This public flip-flopping is doing wonders to undermine confidence. Why don't they just sit down and decide what the f*** they are going to do, and then do it. Talk about a lack of leadership on Geithner's part.. Obama should toss him out on his ear, and then throw Summers on top of him.
All this running around in circles is just fanning the flames. Yes, we have some bitter pills to swallow, but they will be swallowed regardless, in the time frame that should be important to folks like Obama, Dodd and Frank. Those three should be turning up the heat under Geithner's butt BIG TIME. Wouldn't hurt for them to breathe down Bernanke's neck either.
Where are the courageous journalists of the past? I guess they are owned by the finance community as well. Take over the legislative branch, take over the executive branch, work on those judiciary appointments and co-opt the media. That almost sounds like treason.
Where are the courageous journalists of the past? anoddamoose
I wonder if the shell companies and SIVs etc have created enough walls that people cant get to the real info.
If not I'll take your idea. They have been bought!
Some one sends me in email....
Things Got Ya Down? Well Then, Consider These . . .
In a hospital's Intensive Care Unit, patients always died in the same bed,
on Sunday morning, at about 11:00 am, regardless of their medical condition.
This puzzled the doctors and some even thought it had something to do with
the super natural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths
occurred around 11:00 AM Sunday, so a worldwide team of experts was
assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents. The next Sunday
morning, a few minutes before 11:00 AM all of the doctors and nurses
nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible
phenomenon was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books,
and other holy objects to ward off the evil spirits. Just when the clock
struck 11:00, Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward
and unplugged the life support system so he could use the vacuum cleaner.
Still Having a Bad Day????
The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill
in Alaska was $80,000.00. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively
saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and
applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate
them both.
Still think you are having a Bad Day????
A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically,
almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist
towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly
current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two
places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his iPod.
Are Ya OK Now? - No?
Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a
slaughterhouse in Bonn , Germany . Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke
loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two helpless
protesters were trampled to death.
What?!? STILL having a Bad Day????
Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet did not pay enough postage on a letter bomb.
It came back with 'Return to Sender' stamped on it. Forgetting it was the
bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. God is Good!
There now, Feeling Better?
ShadowInventory (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 6:11 pm
I often think of the fall of Rome - all those nameless Roman citizens who lived and labored for the empire - and then were abandoned to the barbarians in the end...
It's a little more ambiguous than that. I mean look around, you would be an idiot to die for this. Why be the last guy to die for a mistake? Ditto Rome. Debased currency? Oppressive taxation? Insane leadership? Constant coups and robbery of the state Treasury for private ends? They had it all, and they practiced tax farming and industrialized slavery to boot. They didn't really abandon so much as collapse.
I am still trying to figure out why Swine Flu is being MSM'd into a global crisis.
We have flu season every year. This is no more deadly, it just doesn't have a vaccine. It also doesn't have hardly anything cold weather to help it spread.
If I were a cynical man, you know the type to make tin foil hats, I might be inclined to think that this whole flu business is being pumped as a distraction for the plebs.
ShadowInventory (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 6:26 pm
Some one sends me in email....
Obvious UL, check snopes and make sure it's recorded.
Now you're talking, CR.
This is reaching Paulson like levels of inconsistency. Just make up your mind, then do something.
Book1...the reason they are making a big deal is because the big deal itself IS the vaccine. If you ignore a human to human contagious threat, it CAN become a problem. If you worry like crazy over it, but dont do anything stupid...like restricting travel, etc, then you can prevent the thing from getting out of control. If youve got a vacccine, you can be a little less enthusiastic in your response.
Sorry CR ... you are a courageous journalist. Keep telling it like it is.
From Bberg:
While the banks were ordered not to release the results of the stress assessments prematurely, Goldman yesterday may have provided a hint with its decision to sell bonds and shares, issuing $2 billion in five-year notes without a government guarantee and making a $750 million stock offering. A spokesman for Goldman declined to comment.
"Why don't they just sit down and decide what the f*** they are going to do"
I suspect that there's nothing TO do.
A big chunk of money has to go up in smoke.
Much easier to blame it on a plague.
I wish i could find that quote from Biden about "crisis in the first ninety days".
GS will be fine once the next round of CDS trigger in their favor.
GS wins every time.
$2.75 billion. Good for Goldman. They have got to be rolling in cash, ready to pick off the weak at the back of the herd. It's not what you know, it's who you have in Treasury.
Correct. GS is a winner! If I didnt despite them so much, Id have bought in at the $53 march price. But I cant even stomach making money on this steaming turd of a firm.
Short version: this is a fat tail risk for a significant mortality event.
Influenza pandemic
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly, with the 1918 Spanish flu the most serious pandemic in recent history. Pandemics can cause high levels of mortality, with the Spanish influenza estimated as being responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people. There have been about three influenza pandemics in each century for the last 300 years. The most recent ones were the Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu in 1968.[1]
Influenza pandemics occur when a new strain of the influenza virus is transmitted to humans from another animal species. Species that are thought to be important in the emergence of new human strains are pigs, chickens and ducks. These novel strains are unaffected by any immunity people may have to older strains of human influenza and can therefore spread extremely rapidly and infect very large numbers of people. Influenza A viruses can occasionally be transmitted from wild birds to other species causing outbreaks in domestic poultry and may give rise to human influenza pandemics.[2][3]
Influenza pandemic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Where are the courageous journalists of the past?
Standing in the unemployment line...
"Why don't they just sit down and decide what the f*** they are going to do, and then do it. Talk about a lack of leadership on Geithner's part.."
Your frustration is misplaced. The article is published by CNBC with no byline, quotes no one, and relies on a source familiar with the talks.
The administration may well be sitting down and deciding what the f*** they are going to do WITHOUT telling CNBC.
How did Geithner even get into the story line?
Why don't you admit that what you really don't like is a free press that publishes bullshit arlicles like the one linked?
book1 (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 6:29 pm
If I were a cynical man, you know the type to make tin foil hats, I might be inclined to think that this whole flu business is being pumped as a distraction for the plebs.
I would believe it except that it's going to cause the opposite of what they want, which is for the global nice nice to succeed.
Keep in mind, the Cult of Security is an informal institution not a political weapon. Its devotees are not really aware pf the fact that they're banker tools. The hysteria it spreads to expand its influence is thus not really a weapon it wields so much as an aura it projects wherein everything is a crisis because a crisis equates to expanded budget and expanded power and a reason for the Cult of Security to exist.
This is just their insane overreaction such as would be deployed to justify some new surveillance cameras or police powers, and is the established practice of the Cult of Security zerg and the pall they attempt to project over society. It just happens to be aimed at a genuine menace. You will see chickenshit overreaction of the Katrina type, and then on top of it, wacky stories of what happens when social control breaks down that are just total fabrications of the collective anxieties.
They just happen to work in tandem with the plutocracy on the rank and file level. On the upper levels, there are completely co-opted.
Sherriff Joe is making sure that everyone goes crazy and treats mexicans like pathogens and that militia with m-16s and N-95 masks are there to take your temperature at random checkpoints to make sure that no economic activity whatsoever takes place. The global nice nice is trying to make a new credit bubble. The same evil conspiracy is not doing both things.
In fact, neither has formal policy structures, they're two separate zergs of people who are trained toward organized behavior operating toward their shared interests. That's here in America, other people are seizing the advantage abroad. Egypt found a reason to slaughter all the damn hogs, for example. Nice display of umm, piety or something, guys.
shouldn't they immediately return any TARP money
This is a nice sentiment, but my understanding is that the government won't let anyone repay the TARP loans, even if they want to. The government forced some banks to take TARP money (when they were reluctant to take it in the first place), and now won't let them pay it back.
Pomp & Surkanstance: US Treasury as Loan Shark
I was told today that WHO will go to Level 6 in the next few days. The person who told me is reliable. They also told me the numbers are not close to being accurate.
There is just one problem, CR- there are banks out there that would gladly give up the TARP to be free of this Administrations increasingly authoritative directives, but the Administration isn't going to let any of them off the hook of TARP- they have these guys just where they want them (witness the banks supine position with regards to the Chrysler bankruptcy).
I wonder (always do), is the real purpose of the stress test for government to have the upper hand over banksters? Up to this point, Bankesters kept winning the chicken game without any intention to compromise with hand that feeds them (Gov.) I always said their arrogance will have consequences (Look @ Kenny go). When the game of chicken is repetitive, the rules change. If you ask the government for a bail out, you ether reach a compromise or... ELSE.
Nationalization, here we go! (step 1 = stress test)
p.s. Zerohedge: "In what is becoming a daily anti-Wall Street litany from the administration, there was more blasting of banks, this time courtesy of Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse who called banks "greedy, stubborn and unreasonable." His Obamaesque remarks came on the heels of the defeat of the cramdown amendment in the senate after a 51-45 vote, which curiously had 12 Democrats voting against the proposal."
ROFL
So the question is does the pork industry pay the costs of their doing business or are we socializing the losses again?
So will there be a second half recovery or not?
Christina Romer, last month on "Meet the Press":
Romer said she predicts the U.S. economy will turn around in the second half of this year. Some experts say they expect positive gross domestic product growth at that time.
"Most people are predicting some time in the second half of the year, and, and I expect that's when we'll start to see positive GDP growth again," she said. "And a little after that we'll start to see employment going up rather than going down."
Cristina Romer, this week in front of Congress:
Christina Romer, the chairwoman of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, predicted another economic contraction in the second quarter of the year and delivered a downbeat assessment about unemployment. But she said the pace of the economic decline will moderate sharply over the next several months.
"Whether the recovery begins later this year, as most private forecasters predict, or takes a bit longer is hard to know," she told Congress's Joint Economic Committee.
Banks were "forced" to take TARP money by their own circumstances.
"neither has formal policy structures, they're two separate zergs of people who are trained toward organized behavior operating toward their shared interests"
Yup, it's a miasma, it's difficult to discern who did what and why, if anyone did anything at all. Seems a bit convenient, though. Could have been an attack by Arabs or Chinese, could have been a faction inside our own military, could have been pure chance or an accident, which, of course, would be the whole point of this sort of attack. Nobody can tell what's true about what.
Reminds me a lot of "V for Vendetta", though.
What's more bothersome is that I've seen corporate cultures which generate this kind of misty diffusion of accountability and breakdown of cause-n-effect, just an on-going reaction to each previous reaction. It can be convenient. Sometimes it's a result of a culture of yes-men and cover-my-ass, not purposeful but just as troublesome.
Oh, well.
[For the most part, the depositary institutions are fine]
Sure! They are marking whole loans at 98cents. I don't know where HELOCs are marked. When these loans go poof, losses are pretty benign, RIGHT ?
I am boggled by the idea of WHO going to 6. The damage to the worlds economy, even to my limited mind, is going to be huge.
Just thinking about the US and what it could do is huge.
A consumer based economy that is going to have all their consumers stay home. Not good.
Yes, the deaths. I don't even want to think about that.
On topic: It'll be interesting to see if the Obama Administration decide to use the results of the stress test to "do a Chrysler" on the failing banks, or at least threaten to do so. (Part of me wonders if the Obama Admin is building up a separate "get tough" meme of doing things outside of Financial so they can say If we did that to Chrysler, what makes you think you as, (GM, AIG, Citi, etc), have a chance? Or, simply to force Summers and Geithner to act similarly or at least have to justify not playing schoolmaster with the financial firms.. )
Off topic: Hoopajoops, I saw your post in the last thread on the DC appellate attorney that committed suicide. Reading his bio he seemed to be a pretty intense guy, Yale physics, summa cum laude, DC Cir. clerkship, and yet you said that he was not a partner at the firm? For many folks of that type that I've known, that fact alone would be cause for depression (let alone the layoff notice). Those are just a couple of the many reasons why there are high rates of depression and addiction in the law profession. Be interesting to know though if there was a specific reason though (it seems strangely similar the Freddy Mac CFO committed suicide recently, makes one wonder...)
Transparency is important. It seems the basic principle should be: Banks that require public support should disclose the details of the stress tests to the public.
BTW, so that my frustration with the linked article is not misinterpreted, I completely agree with CR's point quoted above.
I'm curious to see what percentage of the CDS clear through the new clearinghouse, if any. Also curious about the AIG exposure
"The incompetence of Obama's economic team is breathtaking. This public flip-flopping is doing wonders to undermine confidence. Why don't they just sit down and decide what the f*** they are going to do, and then do it. "
They may well be very competent, just given the wrong task: protect the current banking structure at all costs.
It's the wrong task -- and most likely an impossible one.
OT: Somali Pirate Business Plan
A piracy operation begins, as with any other start-up business, with venture capital.
J. Peter Pham at James Madison University says piracy financiers are usually ethnic Somali businessmen who live outside the country and who typically call a relative in Somalia and suggest they launch a piracy business. The investor will offer $250,000 or more in seed money, while the relative goes shopping.
"You'll need some speedboats; you'll need some weapons; you also need some intelligence because you can't troll the Indian Ocean, a million square miles, looking for merchant vessels," says Pham, adding that the pirates also need food for the voyage — "a caterer."
Yes, a caterer.
"Think of it as everything you would need to go into the cruise ship business," Pham says. "Everything that you would need to run a cruise ship line, short of the entertainment, you need to run a piracy operation."
To clarify, I was referring to the Chrysler CDS settlement
"I am boggled by the idea of WHO going to 6."
The chick (I assume) on GodlikeProductions seemed pretty sure of a 6. She was familiar enough with the WHO guidelines to make the call from a 3 to 5. I'm assuming she's basing her prediction on various postings and emails she's getting, many from Mexicans.
It's hard to judge the order of bullshit there. I saw one email which claimed 800 deaths as of Monday but the wording and description felt wrong. I'm not personally worried about the flu, the mortality rate is still pretty damn good odds, far better than Vegas or cancer, and the next ten years looks pretty sucky anyway.
nova (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 7:04 pm
Just thinking about the US and what it could do is huge.
It doesn't look like The Stand to me. it looks like a bunch of people who have never been in plague-time before experiencing the insane rumors magnified by the power of the internet echo chamber. However, the Cult of Security can still fail the state by turning off the economy while jumping at shadows.
DcRogers,
If they have the Internet they know port departure, ship name, course, and speed.
For example: Maritime Traffic
BH,
Mine is a much better source than that.
RE: flu and MSM. At this point, it seems impossible to separate fact from rumor. Is the mortality rate higher than the normal strains of flu? Is Mexico reporting the right number of cases and deaths? Time will tell.
I have a feeling it will turn out to be much ado about nothing. What matters is if a large segment of the populace decides to stay home.
Did everyone notice how the May 4th release date is now the "week of May 4th?" Timmay has yet to turn in his homework on time. We'll get a partial assignment and forget all about the real parts.
re: flu
symptoms: cough, fever, runny nose, sore throat
see a Dr. if your temperature gets too high or you have trouble breathing.
What could be simpler?
ABSOLUTE FREAKING LOOTLY YES !!!!!
This will be the start of put up or STFU to assclown Banking Oligarchs and splash cold water on their bullshit Quiet Coup
But of course, yes-men never believe they're yes-men.
They're "team players".
The culture of the U.S. is steeped in lies and self-delusion.
It's been interesting to watch it change over the past 15-20 years.
Very ego-driven.
Everyone is special yet increasingly, non-comformity is allowed only within memetic templates with socially allowable variations. The illusion of diversity within a shell of increasing conformity which focuses attention on the visible, not the true intent or action.
Sad.
Re: Byzantine_Ruins, i don't see how the thing ever fixes itself now.
Too many people dependent on a paycheck, too much debt, too little willingness to look at The True.
That's how it goes.
nova (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 7:22 pm
I have a feeling it will turn out to be much ado about nothing. What matters is if a large segment of the populace decides to stay home.
Oh that's a given. The only question is if the pandemic flu is really all that bad. The part where society takes a crap in its collective drawers is a given. Humans don't take well to epidemic.
nova, do Class B transponders have on/off switches? That'll be the hot gift for the shipping Captain in your life this year...
Are they going to grade on the mortage pig (AKA "Inverted showgirl") curve?
I believe the formal term for that is Tango Uniform
DCRogers,
I don't know. Think trucks on the road in the US. They are tracked the same way. UPS. Metro DC. For a number of reasons. I doubt they can be turned off.
What pisses me off is that our friends at GS will likely pass the "stress test" with flying colors, but only because it called its local AIG CDS salesrep in the nick of time to hedge all its stinky MBS stuff. Gov't bailout, but at arms length.
(Hmmmm, wonder who's hedging all its rotting commercial securities, now that AIG is out of the picture? Now that that potato is warming up, they must be preparing a pass-off...)
Enjoy Gerald Celente: This is part 1, follow the rest.
YouTube - Gerald Celente False Flag Recovery pt 1/4
Dont be holding long into the weekend. I repeat....dont be...
US, Wisconsin: Governor declares public health emergency.
WisPolitics.com
GD9 -- know something? Come on, spill it!
Your local gov declares an emergency. Gets Fed money. Buys all kinds of cool stuff.
OT: Somali Pirate Business Plan
If U.S. Gov't collapses, there may be opportunities along the coast. A good plan to keep for reference.
Long time lurker, and first time poster. I come to this site to bask in the comments about the markets and economy daily. I can't offer much insight there but I can offer some thoughts about the flu pandemic scare. I am by no means an expert on the medical side but I have been connected to government circles all my life and I can tell you that if you tune out the mainstream media and focus on what the government is doing, it is very scary. For example if anyone caught the rear-admiral from the CDC Senate briefing yesterday, she point blank after intense questioning from John McCain said closing the border is not an option, this can't be contained, and the resources needed to close the border would be needed elsewhere. What resources? My speculation is manpower in the form of national guard and active military units. Closing the border would be a nightmare, and the manpower needed to do that might be needed in containment actions in cities from coast to coast. This thing is spreading, CDC has still not completely gene sequenced the virus, and can't say with any certainty what it will do. The president has invoked crisis powers which have still not been outlined, but understand this, your local school boards aren't calling the shots to close down the schools. Could this all be an over-reaction? Absolutely. But what the government is doing scares me more than the flu itself and I take that very seriously. Just my two cents.
The Governor’s declaration:
Designates the Department of Health Services as the lead agency to respond to the public health emergency; and Directs the Department of Health Services to take all necessary and appropriate measures to prevent and respond to incidences of Swine Influenza A in the state; and Directs the Department of Health Services to access and distribute the state and federal antiviral stockpiles in response to the public health emergency as the State Health Officer determines is advisable; and Directs the Department of Health Services, as part of the antiviral response, to take any measure it deems necessary and appropriate to make an antiviral available to persons within the State, regardless of insurance or other health coverage, as needed to respond to the public health emergency; and Suspends the provisions of any administrative rule, if the Department of Health Services determines that compliance with that rule would prevent, hinder, or delay necessary actions to respond to the emergency and increase the health threat; and Authorizes the Adjutant General to utilize Wisconsin National Guard Direct personnel and resources as necessary and appropriate to assist in the State’s response to the public health emergency; and Direct all state agencies of the State of Wisconsin to assist as appropriate in this ongoing response.
Lets see. Freaked citizens stay home. Business gets whacked. Sales and taxes down farther. Meanwhile your local gov. spends like a drunken sailor and hopes DC cuts them a check.
"It's a little more ambiguous than that. I mean look around, you would be an idiot to die for this."
As someone who took the oath and served, I take offense at that sentiment. I mean, that is just foul. How selfish can you be? Yeah the USA can suck, but it still beats pretty much everywhere else.
What resources? My speculation is manpower in the form of national guard and active military units. Closing the border would be a nightmare, and the manpower needed to do that might be needed in containment actions in cities from coast to coast.
Pakistan in 2 weeks...
@Nova: "I was told today that WHO will go to Level 6 in the next few days. The person who told me is reliable. They also told me the numbers are not close to being accurate."
I'm pretty sure the WHO numbers represent an accurate count of an official laboratory test. I'm certain that number is a lower bound on the number of cases. I think it's also clear (see my commentary earlier today) that the actual number of cases could be much much larger and [edit: "much of"] officialdom would not know. Which is why there's so much scope for public panic.
As for Level 6, the definitions and current status are available online: WHO | Current WHO phase of pandemic alert
Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.
WHO went to Phase 5 as soon as it became clear that the virus was spreading in the U.S. as well as Mexico.
Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5. Designation of this phase will indicate that a global pandemic is under way.
The operating terms now are "community level outbreaks" in "a different WHO region". One scenario that would trigger Level 6 is if the virus starts propagating in, say, Spain. As of today there was a confirmed case in Spain where there was human-to-human transmission from someone who went to Mexico, to someone who didn't. That's not yet a "community-level outbreak". But if there were cases that were 2-3 jumps past the original infections coming from Mexico, WHO would have to go to Phase 6 (or change their rules and bow to commercial/political pressure).
I am giving serious thought to going short the stock market in the event of a Phase 6 declaration, but that's just me, and I'm not putting more than 5-10% of my capital into the idea no matter what.
On the plus side...
Critical definition (mine, not WHO's) - a "Pandemic" just means the disease is expected to have "widespread human infection". If the infections are "mild" then it may not be a big deal. There could be a pandemic of athlete's foot and it would not be a disaster for humanity. However, pandemic influenzas aren't usually so kind, and the three 20th-century pandemics killed 1 million, 2 million, and 50-100,000,000 people worldwide. The numbers should be scaled up by factors of 2-4 to reflect current world population. (The U.S. share might be ~5% of the total, so it would not be the end of the world as we know it here.)
More WHO language (emphasis added):
During the post-peak period, pandemic disease levels in most countries with adequate surveillance will have dropped below peak observed levels. The post-peak period signifies that pandemic activity appears to be decreasing; however, it is uncertain if additional waves will occur and countries will need to be prepared for a second wave.
Previous pandemics have been characterized by waves of activity spread over months. Once the level of disease activity drops, a critical communications task will be to balance this information with the possibility of another wave. Pandemic waves can be separated by months and an immediate “at-ease” signal may be premature.
In the post-pandemic period, influenza disease activity will have returned to levels normally seen for seasonal influenza. It is expected that the pandemic virus will behave as a seasonal influenza A virus. At this stage, it is important to maintain surveillance and update pandemic preparedness and response plans accordingly. An intensive phase of recovery and evaluation may be required.
Sorry, I will shut up.
Vonbek777 (profile) @ 4:47 pm
Incisive observation - post more frequently !
Lets see. Freaked citizens. . .. Business gets whacked. Sales and taxes down farther. Meanwhile your local gov. spends like a drunken sailor and hopes DC cuts them a check.
This was the basic reason why Mark Sanford tried to refuse the stimulus funds. Sometimes, it may be necessary to let things play out before getting into hysterics, but then again, nobody wants to be Bush during Katrina.
What a double-edged sword.
"We have flu season every year. This is no more deadly, it just doesn't have a vaccine. "
I don't think you understand what's happening.
Don't get me started on Pakistan. It is bad. Notice how quiet India has been on this?
Wisdom Speaker,
With all due respect, why has no Influenza pandemic since 1918-1919 caused death on that scale?
What was so special about the 1918-1919 one? Could it be that it was humanized by 2 years of stressed men living in close quarters and official denials and coverups, that allowed it to adapt to humans to an extent that was not otherwise possible?
John McCain said closing the border is not an option
Well Gee, whole school districts are closed but that's different. Look, it isn't racist or nationalist or anything except prudent but it still won't happen.
They know that a Taliban with nukes will target the 'Christian infidels', who have always ironically supported Islam in the subcontinent..
"Don't get me started on Pakistan. It is bad. Notice how quiet India has been on this?"
@Vonbek777: Many thanks!
Things Got Ya Down? Well Then, Consider These . . .
In a hospital's Intensive Care Unit, .....
Per snopes, none of these are true. They are funny, though
snopes.com: Fake News Stories
Net Net: between the Baluch, Punjabi region, Taliban etc this has makings of an exploding powder keg with spillover into Afghanistan
"(The U.S. share might be ~5% of the total, so it would not be the end of the world as we know it here.)"
It would not be the end of the world. However, the social/economic effects might be serious to severe depending on the virulence of the outbreak.. We'd need to be adequately prepared, and administrative coherence and social solidarity would have to hold.
The end of the world as we know it is a high-orbit, long period comet coming out of the direction of the sun, headed for impact. For example.
"I was told today that WHO will go to Level 6 in the next few days. The person who told me is reliable. They also told me the numbers are not close to being accurate."
....WHO said no reason to upgrade to phase 6......more than that Mexico's Swine flu cases leveling off ....it's one fine example of mass hysteria......
Pregnant women more at risk from swine flu - Swine flu- msnbc.com
As someone who took the oath and served, I take offense at that sentiment.
As did I, though I let it pass. Sometimes Byzantine Ruins just comes on like an agent of the Chinese government.
For example, he usually speaks of America in the third person. It's not his country.
His comment (from which you quoted) reads in full:
"ShadowInventory (profile) wrote . . .
I often think of the fall of Rome - all those nameless Roman citizens who lived and labored for the empire - and then were abandoned to the barbarians in the end...
[to which he replied]:
"It's a little more ambiguous than that. I mean look around, you would be an idiot to die for this. Why be the last guy to die for a mistake? Ditto Rome. Debased currency? Oppressive taxation? Insane leadership? Constant coups and robbery of the state Treasury for private ends? They had it all, and they practiced tax farming and industrialized slavery to boot. They didn't really abandon so much as collapse."
No closing the border is different. I don't think most people realize how big the US/Mexican border is and securing that border is more than just shutting down the entry points. Are you really ready to read about US National Guard units opening fire on refugee families crossing over. There are some studies done back in the 90s outlining what would happen if the US ever tried to close the border with Mexico, they aren't pretty.
@Lucifer: The 1918-1919 pandemic was special primarily because it was a novel genetic strain, to which humanity had no immunity. Much as today's virus is a novel strain to which humanity not only has no vaccine, but also no established immunity.
The 1957 and 1968 pandemics were the same basic strain as 1918-1919. The main reason they did less damage is because a significant fraction of the population had already developed immunity by surviving the 1918-1919 virus. This would have impaired both the spread of the virus and its severity. Obviously improved medical care helps as well, but it's not going to be available to everyone all the time, especially if the virus happens to mutate, cannot be stopped by Tamiflu, and gets deadly enough to panic the available medical care providers.
Lucifer writes: "Could it be that it was humanized by 2 years of stressed men living in close quarters and official denials and coverups?"
Sure, ignore the documented historical data and impose your own fantasy of what might have happened in 1918, if it makes you feel more secure today.
As for "stressed men" and "official denials and coverups", I think we have that today with the global economic depression, don't we?
"Could this all be an over-reaction? Absolutely. But what the government is doing scares me more than the flu itself and I take that very seriously. Just my two cents."
I think it is very astute to take note of the what the government is doing. We won't know if there is an over-reaction for a while. Let's hope that it is. A friend of mine also worries that an outbreak of low virulence might put the country off its guard for the next epidemic.
GH - not that I KNOW something, I just suspect too much risk. If you give this a weekend to play out, it goes to 6, anything can happen. A long while back when I was in the market, I made the mistake of the weekend hold enough times to learn the hard way. It's easier to sleep now. If I play the casino at all, it's get in, get out. Or after a while, it's just like AC - you smell like smoke. Only different reason : In the GS casino, you come out toast. GS always win.
Blackhalo (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 7:48 pm
As someone who took the oath and served, I take offense at that sentiment. I mean, that is just foul.
Yeah whatever man. Run by robbers, defended by little boys who get told it's appropriate behavior to obey orders without question and take part in mechanized warfare. Sorry I insult your programming to feel like it's a natural act to obey an order to frontally assault a fixed support weapon position.
Maybe you failed to notice the part where your country turned into a kleptocratic police state.
I'd die for the Republic in an instant. Volunteer to serve this flag? In these days? Not with a sword, that's for damn sure! How can you serve this country and call yourself a patriot? You're either a crook yourself or a useful idiot for a crook. Get a grip dude, your country's soul is at stake.
"coming out of the direction of the sun"
Why would that matter? Other than being the least probable orbit possible.
"It's one fine example of mass hysteria......"
I haven't noticed any mass hysteria.
Byzantine Ruins, so, are you an agent of a foreign power?
Are you bent on destruction of the United States?
What is your motivation for posting your disgust of Americans so often here?
Agree closing borders is not only pointless, but a waste of resources that may be needed elsewhere. Lots of possible elsewheres right now!
I've never seen the news showing so many important events in so many different areas of human events at the same time. Interesting times indeed.
Off to real life...
Final quote regarding Mexico and "leveling off" -- the Mexican officialdom has been suppressing testing (as I reported here multiple times already, per Newsweek, per multiple sources).
The WHO also disagrees with Mexican officialdom (this is from article cited by Jay.D. just above):
The World Health Organization’s top flu official, responding to similarly hopeful remarks from other Mexican officials, sounded a more cautious note about whether the virus had peaked.
“For things to go up and down in a country is expected. If it didn’t do that would be very unusual,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda said in Geneva. “Hopefully we’ll see more of the data of what’s going on there. But I expect even in Mexico you will see a mixed picture.”
"Why would that matter? Other than being the least probable orbit possible."
If it comes in at a few degrees off the sun, we wouldn't see it until quite late.
"I'd die for the Republic in an instant. Volunteer to serve this flag? In these days? How can you serve this country and call yourself a patriot? You're either a crook yourself or a useful idiot for a crook. Get a grip dude, your country's soul is at stake."
Fine, don't let me interrupt your trip down to the VA to spit on some disabled vets.
Rob Dawg (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 4:24 pm
Did everyone notice how the May 4th release date is now the "week of May 4th?" Timmay has yet to turn in his homework on time. We'll get a partial assignment and forget all about the real parts.
Good point, Rob Dawg.
Do you know if they've committed to a year or is that the next card Timmay pulls out of his sleeve?
sportsfan (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 8:10 pm
Byzantine Ruins, so, are you an agent of a foreign power?
I'm an American patriot.
Are you bent on destruction of the United States?
It's going to fall dead at my feet presently.
What is your motivation for posting your disgust of Americans so often here?
To encourage reform of the institutions of my moribund and morally bankrupt nation.
@pavel.chichikov "If it comes in at a few degrees off the sun, we wouldn't see it until quite late."
I think you underestimate the number of instruments that are pointed directly at the sun to monitor sunspots, solar flares, and the like. It would be seen.
Check out spaceweather.com ...
Per Bloomberg, stress test results "may or may not" be released next week. They always delay the good news, right?
Byzantine Ruins, you are NO American patriot.
You are not even an American.
Your hatred of the United States oozes from every other comment you make.
How do you know that? Do we have high quality DNA sequences of the first mild but significant outbreaks in 1917, the ones that occurred in trenches in late1917-1918 (which were suppressed), and the ones that killed people over the world in 1918-1919..
Unless you have definitive proof, don't bullshit! The reality is that we do not have such data. What you are doing is called speculation. Passing speculation as fact is fraud, but then again what else can I expect from an ivy leaguer.. It is always some kind of fraud.. financial, medical, theoretical.. .
"The 1918-1919 pandemic was special primarily because it was a novel genetic strain, to which humanity had no immunity. Much as today's virus is a novel strain to which humanity not only has no vaccine, but also no established immunity."
I think you might want to read a little history.. not the "official" ones written by some ivy league scammer.. Try newspaper archives of that era.
"Sure, ignore the documented historical data and impose your own fantasy of what might have happened in 1918, if it makes you feel more secure today.
As for "stressed men" and "official denials and coverups", I think we have that today with the global economic depression, don't we?"
"I think you underestimate the number of instruments that are pointed directly at the sun to monitor sunspots, solar flares, and the like. It would be seen."
A small object lost in the solar glare? I think we'd be safer with satellites in solar orbit within line of sight communication.
Advance apologies for the rant, but today President Obama did an immense disservice to the nation. By scapegoating the "speculator" hedge and pension funds who refused to put their fiduciary duty to their investors behind the interests of the UAW and the "gang of four" (JPM, GS, MS, Citi), he has shown himself to be a charlatan.
A man of obvious intelligence, President Obama had to know that his depiction of the situation was a bald faced lie. Of course the gang of four were willing to take a huge haircut, as they knew that the TARP would cover them. Your average small time pension investor has no such advantage.
Those pension funds who refused to go along with Der Commissar represent teachers, truck drivers and other average Joe's retirement funds. The fact that they will at least get their day in court at the expense of the criminal syndicate gang of four is a small victory for truth, justice and the American way.
Blackhalo:
Fine, don't let me interrupt your trip down to the VA to spit on some disabled vets.
Perfect 10 on the straw man. Unfortunately, he real me is over here.
Now take a deep breath and get real, the cartoon image you hold of me was deliberately programmed into you as a defense mechanism for your worldview. You're hacked. Wake up, stupid. You're a born and bred American dope.
Sportsfan go home and get your shinebox
Guys,
Could we take the "America is great" vs. "America is crap" argument elsewhere? It doesn't really add to the conversation and I think you are all good posters otherwise.
Thanks.
Blackhalo (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 8:48 pm
So, Biden is catching heat for recommending to his family and others to stay out of crowded, confined spaces? Travel industry steamed?
Until I hear from the WHO and CFDC giving the "all clear" it sounds reasonable to me.
People slammed Biden not for being unreasonable but for being off-message (heresy).
"If it comes in at a few degrees off the sun, we wouldn't see it until quite late."
Which would require it's orbit to pass within Mercury's orbit where it would be most likely vaporized. Also, we have an awful lot of sensors pointed in just that direction. No to mention that at some point in time, that orbit would be parallel to the earth, making it likely to be spotted and tracked.
If it is a completely foreign object the Solar system, the likelihood of it falling into the earths gravity well vs, the Sun's is quite tiny.
Also, regardless of direction, there is not much would be able to do about it.
I would reccomend Lucifer's Hammer, by Niven and Pournell for and entertaining read of the subject.
Byzantine Ruins, an alter ego of Jas Jain?
OMG.
km4 - Its really not all that new to Pakistan. We're used to insurgencies, separatist movements and sectarian violence. Now what was a little perturbing was the gov't taking it lying down while Swat was overrun, especially Buner, but they're bombing it now. I spoke to my parents, they said no chance in hell that any major city other than Peshawar falls to the Taliban. People forget that religious parties have never won more than 12% of the popular vote on a national level.
The fact that they will at least get their day in court at the expense of the criminal syndicate gang of four is a small victory for truth, justice and the American way.
The PR battle has already begun. They're now officially the "The Committee of Chrysler Non-Tarp Lenders " and here is their statement:
Statement From Non-Tarp Lenders of Chrysler - Deal Journal - WSJ
Rob Dawg (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 10:10 pm
1 Above average...
2 Above average...
3 Above average...
4 Above average...
5 Above average...
6 Above average...
s 7-19 misc. [see notes]
Is there a footnote that defines average as Pets.com?
"Perfect 10 on the straw man."
For someone who is mocking those who risk thier lives in the service of our nation, I do not think that was much of a straw man. Hyperbole maybe.
Sportsfan aren't you an obama supporter? And do you distract yourself from reality by being a "fan" of sports franchises?
If a bank does not want to disclose details of the stress test - no problem, they are a private enterprise. But shouldn't they immediately return any TARP money and stop using any special Fed/FDIC/Treasury liquidity programs?
YES!!!
Is the USA presently a kleptocratic police state? Read the Military commissions act and Patriot acts 1 and 2,then the new FISA act before making any assertions as to the current "Rights" of American Citizens...Kleptocracy? have you been reading CR or Naked Capitalism for the last year or so? Byz is saying much the same thing that JJ has been,without the derogatory references to BFNY or dopes.A friend of mine is going back to A'stan this fall,he feels that it is his duty and I can't argue the point.However I can state that our political establishment and the Joint Chiefs have failed to"Defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic".The Military Oath does not mention any State or Territory,it does mention the CONSTITUTION.Are you happy with the State of OUR Republic?
Every once in awhile when I read some of these stories about hiding data, transparency, etc I think of the popular science illustration of Schroedinger's cat.
It's like the banks exist currently in a state of being both alive and dead. But... as soon as we peek into the data, POOF! they become one or the other.
I'm on Byzantine's side. Read the American Constitution and then tell me that is what still governs this country. You troops are part of America's permanent standing army. You are mercenaries paid by the government. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms and form a militia. "Shock and Awe" by a professional army in Iraq is a far reach from defending the life and liberty of an American.
[closing the border is not an option]
It should have been closed 10 years ago. That would make figuring out how to do it now irrelevant. This is as good an excuse as we'll ever get - National Security.
Blackhalo, he's not just mocking a small group of soldiers or veterans.
He is mocking all Americans for having any faith in America or doing anything to benefit America.
He obviously is not an American and you can see his bias against Americans in his hundreds of posts on this board.
His reference to Cult of Security earlier on this thread was his wish for a police state that would shut it all down.
He wants America to fall and not just economically. He wants the entire country destroyed. That way he wins.
RD,
Lassie is having a mid life crisis and keeps eating Timmay's home work! He is crying out for attention. Excuse #149b.
It's like the banks exist currently in a state of being both alive and dead. But... as soon as we peek into the data, POOF! they become one or the other.
Exactly. Unfortunately, fractional reserve banking is a confidence game. Once the confidence is gone, then there's no chance of survival...
.
We live four blocks from Walter Reed, and tomorrow we're going to walk down the street and watch the 101st Airborne parachute onto the WRAMC campus to celebrate its 100th birthday. We've spent much time at WRAMC, as volunteer visitors, as attendees at Mass, and once one of us as a patient. We are thrilled and will be watching from the sidewalk.
Release No. 09-20
April 30, 2009
Low-flying aircraft overhead in support Walter Reed centennial celebration
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Members of the 101st Airborne parachute team, who last
jumped here in September 2007, will be flying over campus at about 3 p.m.
today in a C-23 Sherpa aircraft. The team is rehearsing for its formal jump
scheduled for Friday morning at around 10 a.m. during Walter Reed Army
Medical Center's centennial ceremony.
The aircraft, with U.S. Army on its side, will attempt several low passes
2,000 feet or below for wind streamer drops and timing patterns. From the
ground, the aircraft looks like a box with wings. The parachute canopies
will be black, gold and white in color with the unit crest of the 101st
Airborne. During the ceremony jump Friday, May 1, canopy pilots will be
using red smoke trailing the canopies.
Upon conclusion of the practice jump on Thursday and the final jump on
Friday, all members of the parachute team will depart Walter Reed by ground
transportation. Walter Reed leadership and 101st Airborne Soldiers apologize
for any inconvenience and impact on quality of life. The Federal Aviation
Administration is aware of this flight activity.
The "big lie" was that these holdouts were looking for some kind of special treatment. All they wanted was the same deal that the gang of four got ... which was basically to be made whole via a backdoor TARP bailout. Zerohedge was all over this, here is the link:
Zero Hedge: Chrysler To File Any Minute, Hedge Funds Blamed
This whole thing reeks of criminality. Can't we at least have the pleasure of seeing Blankenfein perp-walked into an unmarked cruiser, as the media pack descends on his Hamptons villa like a pack of mad dogs?
Is irritability a flu symptom?
Tom Stone, who are you asking? Patriot Act; FISA? Do you think your friend is a moron?
RATM: Invasion of Iraq; Second Amendment? How about getting the hell out of Iraq?
George W. Fucking Bush isn't the President any more. Didn't you guys notice that?
Or is it just that you don't care about anything or anyone other than yourselves?
"Is irritability a flu symptom?"
Could be, but I've had serious bouts of flu, and after a while you're too weak even to be irritable.
So the question is does the pork industry pay the costs of their doing business or are we socializing the losses again?
Most likely the 'modern pork industry' didn't cause this thing it was more likely a product of old and ancient ways - pigs, fowl & people all living in close and 'natural' settings. In rural villages they occupy the same space.
Damned confinement lots are almost like quarantine lock downs - very difficult for swine virus to mix with avian or human strains. Hell they don't even let you enter the buildings until you have walked through bleach so you don't bring contamination in with you. They have better processes than all but the strictest hospitals.
They produce TONS of social cost they don't pay for - mostly ground & surface water pollution from disposal of MASSIVE amounts of manure... but swine flu probably came about the old fashioned way and not from the pork 'industry'.
"Or is it just that you don't care about anything or anyone other than yourselves? "
It's partly that. Somebody's gotta look out for #1 and I'm not going to put my money on the government doing it.
...
U.S. Bank Test Results Delayed as Conclusions Debated
U.S. Bank Test Results Delayed as Conclusions Debated (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
"The results, originally scheduled for publication on May 4, now may not be revealed until toward the end of next week, said the people, who declined to be identified. A new release date may be announced as soon as tomorrow, they said."
They just keep stringing everyone along so that no one will think for themselves.
[closing the border is not an option]
It should have been closed 10 years ago. That would make figuring out how to do it now irrelevant. This is as good an excuse as we'll ever get - National Security.
Good luck with that. Borders have never been closed not even the Berlin Wall could accomplish that - we'd have to be even more draconian though I know some might find that kind of a society 'refreshingly safe'. People move and their bugs go with them - as God or nature [your choice of paradigm] intended.
They just keep stringing everyone along so that no one will think for themselves.
The Mortgage Pig (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 7:40 pm
* reply
* Ignore user
Report: Stress Test Results Delayed
Can't beat this sequence:)
sportsfan (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 8:16 pm
Byzantine Ruins, you are NO American patriot.
Isn't the rhetoric that I'm unpatriotic for disagreeing with your politics a little tired at this point?
You are not even an American.
Thankfully this is a matter the Founding Fathers did not leave within your judgement to determine. Wisely so, given your attempts to excommunicate me from the universal Republic of free Citizens for the sin of thinking you are a childishly naive apologist for criminal authority figures.
Your hatred of the United States oozes from every other comment you make.
I love this country. It's a shame the people running it are writing checks the taxpayer can never pay and keeping the populace ignorant and divided so they don't notice that trillions are being stolen. Kleptocracy is never patriotic and kleptocracy is what is happening in your country, right now, while you tell me how evil I am for criticizing it and the decaying institutions that enable the ponzi economy
Gosh, you are so brilliant and heroic and patriotic and an American Dad(tm)! I wish I could be as short-sighted and mule-headed as you and learn to love the robber state like a good consumer. But shit ain't like that, so either ignore me or come to accept the fact that someone who is very articulate and patriotic and in fact probably considerably to the right of you thinks your country is an unsustainable ponzi shell game built on fraud and exploitation.
I think Tom and Byz make good points. Frankly, I agree with Byz.
Would I give my life to defend the republic and everything the constitution stands for? Yes I would.
Would I serve in the current military, defending the interests of god knows who, for whatever their political/economic motives? No, I most certainly would not.
Having watched the events of the past year, the erosion of rights, the propaganda, lies, and disregard for our constitution - being a patriot may soon entail a different set of actions than it has in the recent past. And I don't think this takes anything away from the dedication and sacrifice of those that do serve in the military today. In my opinion, too many leaders have forgotten that they serve the Republic and the interests of the people, rather than vice versa.
test
hey gang, I've been asleep since August.
Did anything happen?
BlackHalo - Thank you for your service. Sincerely.
I'm with Gav and Byz on this as well. My Father was a lifer in the Army and he loved this Country, I've been around the military my whole life so I hold no animosity to those that serve. The point is, the military no longer serves to protect this country but to instead further the interests of the global elite. My Father was also a lifelong Republican that grew to despise GWB before he passed away. He said "The bastard is trying to destroy my Army"..Dad loved the Army....but he also saw what was happening.
OT: "closing the border"
I live in San Diego. When I hear "closing the border", I think it mostly closes off any chance of me getting any access to antiviral meds (Tamiflu, Relenza), as I fully expect that when the sh*t hits the fan, all supplies in El Norte will disappear into the warehouses of the government for "essential" personnel. (As ex-military, I have some sympathy for this principle in a crisis [if I didn't expect that somehow bankers would also be deemed "essential"].) The true free market across the line might be my only chance to protect those I love.
Hope they let me back in!
GH, "the events of this past year"? Were you asleep for the past eight? This is certainly no new phenomenon.
CS, nothing of any importance. The Depression is still on schedule, resume your normal programming...
"Isn't the rhetoric that I'm unpatriotic for disagreeing with your politics a little tired at this point?"
Hey, you can bash the USA and her actions all you want and I'd defend your right to say it to the death, and probably agree with you to boot, in most instances.
But when you make snide remarks about those who defend our country, I will disagree, slander and mock you. But I will still defend your right to say it.
"The point is, the military no longer serves to protect this country but to instead further the interests of the global elite."
That is nothing new as the US military has often been mis-used to further the interests of corporate USA. But it is not appropriate in my view, to malign those whose sworn duty to act on those orders, rather than those who give them.
Blackhalo (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 8:59 pm
But when you make snide remarks about those who defend our country.
Is that what we're doing in Iraq? Easy to forget. When they start actually "defending" the "country" give me a call.
The United Fruit Company is not America.
The rhetoric is not the reality. You are not defending the country when you fight in colonial wars.
But it is not appropriate in my view, to malign those whose sworn duty to act on those orders.
Did you notice those people who went on and on about how much duty you had were trying to get you to engage in combat on their behalf?
Obedience is not a useful trait in a Citizen. That's one of the reasons why they didn't want standing armies.
So the guys went into Iraq, flawlessly executed a mistake, no questions asked. How glorious was that? How wise? What did it accomplish? What did that silence cost? Who did it serve?
Don't answer me, just genuinely answer them for yourself!
"Is that what we're doing in Iraq?"
To the extent that we are establishing a presence in a region that controls a vital resource to our current way of life? Yeah, I could entertain that argument as valid.
To the Bush-Rumsfield implementation, no. That was a fuck-up extraordinaire. But I do not blame those serving for the tools who put Bush in charge.
blackhalo writes: That is nothing new as the US military has often been mis-used to further the interests of corporate USA.
Looks, as a former Army officer, I say, you get a choice: either the military makes its own choices, or you separate political control from the military. As a former Army officer, I prefer the latter. But as a result, don't come bitching to me when we get handed a bucket of shit to sort through; there's a nice city on the Potomac you may wish to make your first stop.
If you'd prefer, I could substitute my personal opinions instead of following my orders, and you might like what I'd do, but you'd really not like what many of my compatriots would do, so you're better off with this system.
So I'd suggest: cut this lofty "defending our country" crap, we're just handling buckets of shit, and we know it. Well, somehow if we do it right, our country works out, but it's pretty damn indirect.
"Obedience is not a useful trait in a Citizen."
Very useful in a solder though. It can save lives.
"So the guys went into Iraq, flawlessly executed a mistake, no questions asked."
Yeah, it may have been a mistake, done for all the wrong reasons. But some time in the future, maybe soon, we will ask those same folks to execute flawlessly for a just cause. That is the nature of the sacrifice. It is not up to them to make the call. It is up to the voters and the potential jack-ass they put in charge.
I think we all are in the same boat. It might be a good time to focus on similarities rather than differences.
well, that's my five cents. No offense intended.
p.s. In the long run, we will be all right. Yes, our government has been screwing us up for a while. However the truth is, across the lake they are screwed and obedient to much higher degree.
Blackhalo, he's not just mocking a...
sportsfan, you're ranting, and not making any sense. Please take a deep breath. I'm an American, and I do not feel mocked or hated by anything B.R. wrote.