Is TARP a charity or a "pay as you choose" loan or fiction..

my standard answer for today: "it depends on who you work for."

I never hang out around here....

Is TARP a charity?

No, it is a tithe

The cult of the bankster?

//No, it is a tithe//

Again I am struck by the generosity and patience of our host.

C

Terminal Avarice Reward Program?

Could we send him to Room 101?

// Rice said ... "I have not seen it in our order patterns yet. At the macro level, there may be statistics suggesting the economy is starting to turn. I am not seeing it yet. ... We are preparing for 12 or 18 months of tough sledding.”//

terrorist actions reward patience

The cult of the bankster?

The cult of "greed is good" and "guilt is a rope that wears thin"
Speaking of which:
Pessimistic executives cash out of shares
Executives in charge of the largest US companies sent a signal of their concerns by selling far more shares than they bought this month, according to data based on Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Share sales by so-called company insiders are outstripping purchases so far this month by more than 22 times. TrimTabs, the investment research company, said insiders of S&P 500 listed companies have unloaded $2.6bn in shares in June, compared with $120m in purchases.
“The smartest players in the US stock market – the top insiders who run public companies – are not betting their own money on an economic recovery,” said Charles Biderman, chief executive of TrimTabs.

Pixiedust.. We are running short on Pixiedust!

// From the BLS: Record Unemployment Rates in Eight States //

Tri-party Avarice Replaces Peers

edit +4

DOH!!

Imma fuckin idiot bleated.

did anyone else notice that Toyota and Sony are trading ask only today?

Not an uncommon thing in Japan however these are supposedly blue-chip companies with millions of shares...not the "carnival in a market" OTC.

Ciao
MS

LUcifer - here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

let's hope we won't need another government branch - the office of czar(s). Is there anyone counting those?

@bankfailure,

What does the bloomberg repo article mean? Why does the Fed need to change repo transactions?
They already put in a 300bps penalty for non-delivery. I don't understand what they are doing.

Hey, CR, I'm here every day and I still miss all kinds of stuff.

Has something to do with information overload or one of those other techie things.

Fed Said to Be in Discussions on Changing Repo Transactions

...“The events of the fall highlighted that there are certain gaps in the tri-party repo process that need to be addressed and certain levels of risk management that need to be enhanced,” said Thomas Wipf, chairman of the Treasury Market Practices Group and the head of institutional securities group financing at Morgan Stanley, in a telephone interview from New York. “We wouldn’t be surprised to see recommendations come out of the regulatory community, especially from the Federal Reserve. Based on the work already in progress there might potentially be a plan for going forward that could be laid out in the fall.”...

Let's see... laid out by the fall; correlated by the winter, drafted by the spring, implemented by 2013

Do these guys email each other by boat?

Czar = slavic for 'Caesar"

Roman Republic to Roman Empire

//the office of czar//

foreshadowing what we may see here:

Zero Hedge: Market Neutral Quant Deleveraging Comes Full Circle

No bid in big blue chip's in Japan....

Not a good sign my friends...not at all.

Ciao
MS

Why does this feel like October all over again? Nikkei down over 3%.

Generalissimo has 6 syllables to Czar's 1.

sportsfan - oh noes! You said techie. We'll have codersRus telling you about a workaround in no time.

Quick, back to economics or trading or something, umm, Nikki very tired, having tea and wasabi soy puffs, because you don't blow 3.16% of an exchange in a morning just by showing up.

C

coinz, dont ever ask me a question that I should answer honestly.

unless you want to know what the definition of iz, ix.

how do you get the czar title? Is it some kind of life time friendship achievement award ? Or is it, let's find someone to blame exercise?


Lucifer (profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 9:35 pm

Czar = slavic for 'Caesar"

Roman Republic to Roman Empire

//the office of czar//

The setup... and the (sales) pitch. They are just poking fun at the proles again.

MS

Trying to keep out the sellers? Trading intermediaries in trouble?

CR do you really want those people who would get stopped at a redirect back on this board?....I kid I kid.

Czar. It's a nostalgia thing harkening to the halcyon days prior to the Commies.

Things worked out so well for the last Czar, Nicholas II.

Here are a few posts and links that might interest you:

Also:

When the financial industry robs people with overpriced stocks and CDOs that's evil right-wing free-market capitalism.

When the government robs people with newly printed worthless trash garbage dollars it's enlightened left-wing Scandinavian socialist progressivism.

See, the problem isn't mindless power monopolies or domestic imperialism... it isn't megalomania, small-mindedness or insecurity.

The problem is that the wrong team is getting away with being self-serving and immoral in a historically significant way... and any amount of self-serving and immoral behavior on the part of the "opposition" is justified to stop that from happening.

Sounds like both to me.....The Fed drained a shit-pile of $$ from the system last week...well it is a shit-pile if you are insolvent or having "liquidity issues".... Wink

Whatever it is it stinks of yet another engineered stampede into "safe" debt.

*uckers

Ciao
MS

how do you get the czar title?
By being Terrible

who was our first czar in this country? who gave that name first?

Half of UK is not stupid!


Half of UK 'have no pension pot'
BBC NEWS | Business | Half of UK 'have no pension pot'

By Thomas Edgington
BBC News

Only one in three young people are putting funds into a pension

Half of UK adults aged between 20 and 60 are not putting aside any funds into a pension, a survey commissioned by the BBC suggests.
The survey of 1,358 people by Gfk NOP indicated the situation was worst among under-30s, with only about one in three or 36% putting anything into a scheme.

Quick, back to economics or trading or something, umm, Nikki very tired, having tea and wasabi soy puffs.

Got a sake machine. Like it warm and toasty. Bet they do too today.

Scrooge McDuck, for some browsers, the failed redirect was telling people "The blog does not exist". Not the best warning ...

I'm amazed at how long it took to fix.

I doubt any commenters on hoocoodanode was unable to find their way here ... but there are other readers too.

best to all.

Grozny = Formidable, Awe inspiring

//By being Terrible//

What is the difference between a drug czar and a drug lord? I guess it all depends on the seniority status.

wasn't the drug czar the first one...Bennet..

So glad they decided against a "war czar" remember that?

Ciao
MS

BONDzEYE!!!!

-your ability to hit a moving target may vary.

"who was our first czar in this country? who gave that name first?"

Who was Tsar when the Russians took Alaska and part of the northwest? Will we ever have our own Tsar (Caesar)?

So glad they decided against a "war czar" remember that?

These days it would be a 'defense czar.' It's all in the spin.

MacArthur came close..

//Will we ever have our own Tsar (Caesar)?//

Grozny = Formidable, Awe inspiring

Formidable and fierce, not awe inspiring, but that's a nit

The difference in translation is actually quite telling.
Stalin understood it well, better than Machiavelli - the ruler needs to be feared in order to be truly loved

Drug Czar works for the government and a drug lord is self employed.

When the first tzar turns out to be insufficient to the task, they'll name another one. He (She) will be the second or coloquially, the B-tzar.

The bizarre? I thought we already had that.

I knew a bureaucrat who had his own little tzarstvo. Imperiya. We all have one, even if it's only a desk and the corner of a room.

the ruler needs to be feared in order to be truly loved

As in Caligula?

"Drug Czar works for the government and a drug lord is self employed."

I got it, while neither pays taxes one of them can get away with it without serious punishment.

p.s. So we almost British now, the royal court is in session d... it.

here's the snippet from about Toyota and Sony:

TOKYO (NQN)--Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Sony Corp. (6758) shares opened ask-only Tuesday morning, held lower by a sharp overnight fall in New York stocks.

Of course it all fault of 外国人.

Ciao
MS

"Stalin understood it well, better than Machiavelli - the ruler needs to be feared in order to be truly loved"

What is the Latin tag: "Let them hate us so long as they fear us"?

based on the move in the Brazillion Real dollars, I would expect an inversion on the short end fizzerst.

-not always lucid, but real is bettern digital.

Good show, pavel. I'm impressed.

Caligula's motto for effective foreign policy - ODERINT DUM METUANT

TOKYO (NQN)--Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Sony Corp. (6758) shares opened ask-only Tuesday morning, held lower by a sharp overnight fall in New York stocks.

wtf? why not even a low-ball bid?

"Good show, pavel. I'm impressed.

Caligula's motto for effective foreign policy - ODERINT DUM METUANT"

Yes! Thanks, sportsfan.

"ODERINT DUM METUANT"

is modern translation: "bomb first and ask questions latter?" or is it "confuse and run" (unofficial MER slogan )?

i was close: "Let them hate so long as they fear."

The chinese have not yet sold africans as slaves, in contrast to..


Windhoek — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Monday, Jun. 22, 2009 09:37PM EDT
This page is available to GlobePlus subscribers

There might be a global recession, but you wouldn't know it from a visit to Namibia's booming capital.

This former German colonial city in southwestern Africa, with its tidy streets and Bavarian architecture, is alive with construction activity. Cranes are towering over the city centre, many flying the distinctive red banner of China.

But Globe and Mail interviews in Namibia reveal a dark underside to the building boom: illegal labour practices by state-owned Chinese companies that dodge safety rules and pay their construction workers far below the minimum wage.

Germany looking unwell, VDAX (now V1X:IND) up over 9% today yerp time. Yerp futures pushing elmo 3%, financials grim grim grim:

PRICE % CHANGE VOLUME

UNICREDIT SPA 1.73 -5.46 277353770
LLOYDS BANKING 67.85 -3.07 188186213
VODAFONE GROUP 118.5 -1.21 177861393
ROYAL BK SCOTLAN 35.955 -3.35 153897167
BANCO SANTANDER 8 -4.76 142601275

Did someone say October?

C

Krugman's Intellectual Waterloo is a nice post !
Krugman's Intellectual Waterloo - Lilburne - Mises Institute
What is devastating about his dichotomous positions is that they expose the intellectual bankruptcy of his economic principles.
And after he was summoned to the Obama WH he has got worse!

Wow... everybody here's so excited.

If I didn't know better I'd be convinced we'd started another down-leg in the stock market or something.

As opposed to? They are all intellectually bankrupt!


What is devastating about his dichotomous positions is that they expose the intellectual bankruptcy of his economic principle

I really am very much the layman here, but one does feel a sense of foreboding lately. We are beginning to see diversification of assets as the only rational way to go.

BTW, terrible accident on the Metro here in DC. Not too far from where we live, but far enough so that we weren't aware of the crash but did hear the sirens afterward.

Is there a rhetorical snark tag for this commenting system?

one does feel a sense of foreboding lately

Morituri te salutamus.

"Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times.

It’s not.

California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States and to Silicon Valley, the nation’s largest high-tech center.

California is America’s most populous state with 38 million people. Its GDP of $1.8 trillion is the largest in the U.S. Its economy is bigger than those of Russia, Brazil, Canada, or India.

And it’s collapsing."

California Collapsing | Money and Markets: Free Investment Email Newsletter

unclear if it is just some game playing or truly no-bids...
Gotta believe there are some bids..... but not at a price that is very advantageous to show on the tape.

I bet we see something like this in the next few months if not by the end of the year....

Ciao
MS

Krugman's Intellectual Waterloo is a nice post !

I just saw the post on his blog where he argued that the recent rise in interest rates was due to a positive economic outlook, not deficit fears.

This is even worse than his "futures speculators can't drive up commodity prices" post from a while back.

I wonder if he's finally starting to realize that he may have single-handedly brought down the Obama administration with his "free lunch economics" program.

It makes me sad because I wanted the "smart guys" to win for a change.

But the "smart guys" can't win by being retarded.

There is definitely a new tension in the air. Despite that, I have an honest green shoot. My wife received a layoff notice in March, effective July 1. Today, she was offered a new job that is also a promotion and slightly more money.

Tomorrow, we go back to our reckless spending habits. This depression stuff if easy. Wheeee!

I found my leathers! I packed them away 20 years ago when I trashed my bike and learned my riding days were over...and the pants still fit.You people better behave or I will go all Broward on you and post a pic....I am ready for MAD MAX now! unless you mean Maxine Waters,no one is ready for her.

If the font is black on a white background, that'll do it.

C

"Is there a rhetorical snark tag for this commenting system? "

Frankly, I think people here are exhausted. A lot of us have lost a lot of blood only to now watch our thesis materialize. If many are like me, most of us wonder if it's a head fake. Humor helps.

Published: Monday, June 22, 2009
Andy Sullivan, Reuters

Six people were killed and at least 70 were injured when a Washington, D.C., subway train derailed and smashed into another train on the outskirts of the city during the afternoon rush hour on Monday, officials said.

Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, giving the number of those killed, called the crash the deadliest in the history of the city's "Metro" train subway system.

Congrats, CC!

I've heard of other, similar stories lately.

@ Comrade Coinz (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 8:08 pm
Nice green shoot vignette !

Nice green shoot vignette !

Only if she doesn't work for the government and the new job isn't with the government.

Stephen King: Good luck, not good providence, was at the core of happier times: It is now difficult to talk with a straight face of the so-called era of stability
Stephen King: Good luck, not good providence, was at the core of happier times -
Stephen King, Business Comment - The Independent

Monday, 22 June 2009

We stand at a momentous point in macroeconomic policy thinking. A couple of years ago, it was possible to argue that monetary arrangements were good enough to avoid, or at least temper, nasty economic developments. We understood enough, apparently, to avoid the mistakes of the 1970s. We were living through the Great Moderation, the Great Stability or, as Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, once put it, the NICE (non-inflationary continuous expansion) decade.

Two years later, after the onset of the biggest financial meltdown in living memory and the deepest, most synchronised, global downswing since the 1930s, it is no longer obvious that the Great Moderation amounted to much. Policymakers may have avoided a repeat of the 1970s, with its noxious mixture of high inflation and stagnant growth, but it is now difficult to talk with a straight face of Moderation, Stability or NICE-ness.

What is devastating about his dichotomous positions is that they expose the intellectual bankruptcy of his economic principles.
And after he was summoned to the Obama WH he has got worse!

Krugman's positions are intellectually sound.

Therein lies the horror.

Contemporary economics is not intellectually<i/> bankrupt; it is morally bankrupt.

Sometimes the smartest thing to do is rob your neighbor.

That's why humans would have never formed the kind of civilizations we have now if they always did the "smartest thing".

"If many are like me, most of us wonder if it's a head fake."

The short trade will pile on in droves if we have another day like today.....or perhaps if we even just tread water until the auctions are finished. It becomes the crowded trade the longer they let it sit and "only" tick off a few % points or so. That's been the S.O.P. of these *uckers

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if we re-lit the rocket after thursday for the Q2 print on tues. however it's now not about coddling the retail folks any longer it's about survival.

Hell I've no idea but I'm just as tired as all of you seeing what passes for positive news these days.

Ciao
MS

Game theory... Prisoner's Dilemma.

//Sometimes the smartest thing to do is rob your neighbor.//

Zen koan: What is an exit strategy when holding rates steady is the exit strategy?

nytol

C

California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States...

Maybe if they include Tijuana... or include In-n-Out as mfg.

Cali is a big state & important but as far as regions go there are equally significant regions... Great Lakes, SE, NE - etc.

@sportsfan,

Sorry, she worked for the government and new job is with the government. Education in Cali! Still, the new district has had zero layoffs this year, contrasted with the old district that has laid off over 400 so far. Who knows what happens a year from now, but tonight, we celebrate with a bottle of Orin Swift "The Prisoner".

nytol.


ac (profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 10:15 pm

Contemporary economics is not intellectually bankrupt; it is morally bankrupt.

Not bankrupt, just morally neutral and populated with experts who are devoid of ethical principles or even conventional morality. Game theory is a technology far more deadly than nuclear power.

'"Contemporary economics is not intellectually bankrupt; it is morally bankrupt.

Sometimes the smartest thing to do is rob your neighbor."

[Tragedy of the Commons]

That's why humans would have never formed the kind of civilizations we have now if they always did the "smartest thing". '

Thank you, ac. Words are inadequate to express my agreement. This is the mirror in which we see our own faces.


pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 10:20 pm

This is the mirror in which we see our own faces.

Or fasces.

C. Coinz, congrats on her move. Enjoy the night.

It just can't be counted as a green shoot (not that I count them).

pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 10:20 pm

This is the mirror in which we see our own faces.

"Or fasces. "

Back to the Caesars? I wonder.

for a change of pace instead czar lets use tsar.

Pavel, you give humans a lot of credit.

Lucifer will get a kick out of this:

Why ads paint dads (and husbands) as buffoons

"For years, Prof. Thomas has studied the depiction of parental roles in Mother's Day and Father's Day cards.

Her research, gleaned from studying hundreds of greeting cards, shows that fathers are typically characterized as flatulent, lazy shirkers who are subordinate to their wives and flounder with household tasks. Mothers, on the other hand, are portrayed as always there, always busy and always right."

National Post Story

Hubris.. my favorite sin.

//Mothers, on the other hand, are portrayed as always there, always busy and always right//

"Pavel, you give humans a lot of credit."

Not as much as you may think, RockyR. But if it were not for self-sacrifice we would have torn ourselves to pieces long ago.

CRUCIFIXION BEING SLOW…

An old woman helped from a wheelchair to a pew -
“Let them shoot me like a horse when I’m as weak as you”
But Jesus looking down from the anguish of the wood
Nodded in His agony and said He understood:

For I would not have hung here, if there had been a way
To compass a deliverance and get around this day,
But all that I could see was the working of the will
To hang Me on this bloody cross, and I am hanging still

Everyone who sees Me must suffer much the same,
Whether in their own sweet time, or whether in My name,
Everything that flourishes knows that it must be:
The children of My charity must come along with Me

But when My heart descended to pump the mortal blood,
Then from the wounded side of Me came sorrow in a flood,
Crucifixion being slow, could not these men instead
Swiftly with an edge of steel cut off My sacred head?

Pavel
June 21, 2009

This is the mirror in which we see our own faces.

I'm with you on the mirror. It's not the fasces. We all have to do this every once in a while

Michael Jackson "Man in the Mirror"

Every time I got around to it, it made me a better person.

No snark. Just life.

That's why humans would have never formed the kind of civilizations we have now if they always did the "smartest thing". '

Thank you, ac. Words are inadequate to express my agreement. This is the mirror in which we see our own faces.

It took me several years of hard experience to understand that if you get the 10 smartest guys in the world together in one room they're going to fight, disagree and accomplish absolutely nothing in the smartest most awe-inspiring way you've ever seen.

Bingo!

//It took me several years of hard experience to understand that if you get the 10 smartest guys in the world together in one room they're going to fight, disagree and accomplish absolutely nothing in the smartest most awe-inspiring way you've ever seen.//


pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 10:28 pm

"Pavel, you give humans a lot of credit."

Not as much as you may think, RockyR. But if it were not for self-sacrifice we would have torn ourselves to pieces long ago.

When they told me that altruistic behavior was always self-interested behavior, I decided business school wasn't a good path for me.

Crash and Burn time for this pup.

Good night Folks.

Markit showing CMBX tankage and SRS still not reflecting the degree of bond crash. SRS could make a run here...

Markit CMBX?

lucifer-
sounds like alot of programmer and marketing/sales meetings.

Kinda spooky how the bearded Gunman is a dead ringer for Krugman...Smile

The Sanford mystery may be solved.

He's hiking the Appalachian Trail. Uh huh.

Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found

We talked a little while ago about Summers betting the Obama economic policy on increased confidence
Oops, it is difficult to manipulate people's minds unless you have full control over the information

From Washington Post
Barely half of Americans are now confident that President Obama's $787 billion stimulus measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism about the state of the nation that followed the 2008 election has abated, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Overall, 52 percent now say the stimulus package has succeeded or will succeed in restoring the economy, compared with 59 percent two months ago. The falloff in confidence has been sharpest in the hard-hit Midwest, where fewer than half now see the government spending as succeeding. In April, six in 10 Midwesterners said the federal program had worked or would do so.
...
Obama's approval rating is slightly lower than it was in April, and his disapproval figure has risen by five percentage points. In general, public approval of his handling of major issues is lower than his overall rating. Still, majorities of Americans said they approved of Obama's handling of the economy, health care and global warming.
Two weak points on the domestic front remain: Obama still gets tepid marks on his handling of problems facing the big U.S. automakers, and as many people disapprove as approve of his handling of the federal budget deficit. On the deficit, intensity runs against the president, with 35 percent "strongly" disapproving, compared with 22 percent who say they are solidly behind his efforts.
More broadly, worries about the deficit remain widespread, with almost nine in 10 Americans saying they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about its size.
One factor that continues to work for Obama, however, is that most Americans still see him as a new type of Democrat, one "who will be careful with the public's money," rather than an old-style, "tax-and-spend Democrat." By this point in 1993, Clinton had lost the new-style label, which he had maintained over the first months of his presidency.

I hope "that most Americans" do not get disappointed by how their money is handled, bank bailouts notwithstanding

Good night, all

As a feminist, I find that problematic, because while it appears to be empowering women - saying women are superior, women are supermoms, they can do everything, men can't really do this stuff -- what's the outcome going to be? That women carry on doing it all.
Damn, she broke the code.

Obama's support has always been thin,Mccain lost the election rather than Obama winning it.And Obama lost my support PDQ due to my ability to read above a 3rd grade level.

If McCain lost it rather than Obama winning it, then Republicans have a lot of work to do. I never saw such ridiculous confidence without fundamentals until 3 months ago.

Looks like futures turned green?

I never saw such ridiculous confidence without fundamentals until 3 months ago.

Are you referring to McCain or Obama?

I never saw such ridiculous confidence without fundamentals until 3 months ago.

Are you referring to McCain or Obama?

Yes.


sdtfs (profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 10:55 pm

As a feminist, I find that problematic, because while it appears to be empowering women - saying women are superior, women are supermoms, they can do everything, men can't really do this stuff -- what's the outcome going to be? That women carry on doing it all.
Damn, she broke the code.

Used here,"empowering" is a code word for privileging. Few women supporting feminist ideology seems to in fact want equality, but superiority and special treatment, and "good" marketing appeals to that complex. Just another un-reality.

Someone sprinkled pixie dust on the futures?

No clue why they would go green.

Just another un-reality.

E X E C U T E
H I M !

Obama's approval rating is slightly lower than it was in April, and his disapproval figure has risen by five percentage points. - WaPo

Feh. Obama's negatives have tripled  since the inauguration.


broward (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 6/22/2009 - 11:13 pm

Just another un-reality.

E X E C U T E H I M !

Just an inconvenient marketing truth. There is nothing I would like better than equality. I have actually read Friedan and De Beauvoir, among others, and largely agree with them.

July 4th is right around the corner; i'm sure the gov won't allow any loss of confidence prior to that. Afterwards, however, that is whole different story as more data comes out that reveals not much has changed.

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