dont you see Dean Wormer as Ben talking to Paulson who is one of those frat boys,
Wormer: We are going to plan B, we are putting Delta on Probation
frat boy: But Sir Delta is already on probabtion...
Wormer: Goooood, then plan C, we will put them on double secret probation....
CR: It didn't take much "scrutiny" to understand there was substantial overbuilding in CRE, especially for retail space and for hotels. And yet banks kept making loans in 2006, 2007 and even in 2008 ...
And, lo, here are the people with the bags of money to throw at the problem. Wasn't such a bad lending decision afterwall, was it? =)
Have to bring my favorite Bridge to Far quote out again:
Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: I've just been on to Monty. He's very proud and pleased.
Major General Urquhart: Pleased?
Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: Of course. He thinks Market Garden was 90% successful.
Major General Urquhart: But what do you think?
Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far.
Bring out all the plans you want to, but I still see the panzers in the intel photos.
"It didn't take much "scrutiny" to understand there was substantial overbuilding in CRE, especially for retail space and for hotels. And yet banks kept making loans in 2006, 2007 and even in 2008 ..."
Besides the problems we are going to have with the debt and money overhang from nationalizing/monetizing all this private debt, we are going to have a HUGE "moral hazard" overhang, as future lenders will look back on this period and realize that all they have to do to avoid failure is grow big enough and spend enough lobbying.
Yields on Treasuries are being artificially suppressed by the central bank; otherwise bonds would yield more than 10 percent, according to Lee Quaintance and Paul Brodsky of QB Asset Management in New York.
“There are powerful structural forces blocking any fundamental reconciliation of value,” Quaintance and Brodsky wrote. “These forces include bond markets comprised mostly of domestic and foreign investors with incentives that place them at odds with rational credit pricing, as well as central banks with unlimited spending capacity threatening, and being encouraged by all, to intervene when necessary to provide a ceiling on yields.”
pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 2:20 pm
"There's always an excuse, a variable left out of the formula, an exigent event, changing circumstance, on an on"
As ever in the intellectual life of human beings. We're limited. The history of the world - all worlds - begins with inexplicable zero entropy. It's been downhill ever since.
Strangely the people who fail to acknowledge this simple truth ended up becoming the duped architects of the present nightmare that blindly followed the orders of an elite who knew better and didn't care. The delusion of control is even worse than hubris (Lucifer's favorite sin).
These forces include bond markets comprised mostly of domestic and foreign investors with incentives that place them at odds with rational credit pricing, as well as central banks with unlimited spending capacity threatening, and being encouraged by all, to intervene when necessary to provide a ceiling on yields
isnt this a no shi* sherlok statement, does any one invest without incentives, and what exactly are rational credit pricing scenerios anyway...
Another issue identified by the Plan C team is homeowner delinquencies, which continue to rise as large numbers of people lose their jobs and miss monthly payments
just getting around to identifying it....... seem like a brilliant team...wanna bet EW's not on there...
Pavel, Resistance
Personally, I think the whole 'created in god's image' went to our heads. I mean if we 'look like god' that's good enough for this 'appearance is everything' world we live in. Of course if the youth of today only knew that the image thing referred to the lump of wrinkled mud god sat on the board before he popped it into the furnace...sorry old joke.
The Joneses are officially not spending...plus schools out... Though not from my 12 and 10 years old allowance that's for sure...
Gap, Abercrombie June Sales Trail Analysts’ Estimates
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Gap Inc. and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. reported June sales declines that were steeper than analysts estimated as a rise in U.S. unemployment and a drop in consumer confidence kept shoppers away from the malls.
Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 10 percent at Gap, operator of the Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, compared with the 8.7 percent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Retail Metrics Inc. Comparable-store sales at Abercrombie & Fitch plunged 32 percent, a bigger decline than the 28 percent projection. American Eagle Outfitters Inc. fell 11 percent, compared with a 7.8 percent average estimate.
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said any “substantial erosion” of the central bank’s independence in setting interest rates may fuel investor fears of inflation and provoke higher long-term borrowing costs.
“The insulation from short-term political pressures -- within a framework of legislated objectives and accountability and transparency -- that the Congress has established for the Federal Reserve has come to be widely emulated around the world,” Kohn said in testimony at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing today on Fed independence.
The Fed’s ability to act without political interference is at stake as Congress debates how to overhaul financial regulation following the worst credit crisis since the Great Depression. Some lawmakers advocate congressional audits of the central bank, while others are considering subjecting regional Fed presidents, who vote on interest rates, to Senate approval.
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries fell as the government’s 30-year bond auction drew less demand than the previous sale and traders speculated that the rally yesterday that pushed 10-year note yields down the most since March was too large to sustain.
The bid-to-cover ratio on the $11 billion in bonds, which gauges demand by comparing total bids with the amount of securities offered, was 2.36, compared to 2.68 at the June offering. The sale concludes a record four auctions this week totaling $73 billion. The 30-year bond yield yesterday touched the lowest in seven weeks after investors submitted the most bids on record at an auction of 10-year notes.
“The auction was weaker than expected,” said Thomas L. di Galoma, head of U.S. rates trading at Guggenheim Capital Markets LLC, a New-York based brokerage for institutional investors. “There’s a general demand for Treasuries as it relates to a safe haven bid from the economy not showing any forms of life.”
"The delusion of control is even worse than hubris (Lucifer's favorite sin)."
ResistanceIsFeudal, when social cohesion and moral first principles decay, all that's left is force, control. The financial crisis is a social crisis.
Oddly, it makes me remember a remark by a Soviet commentator just before the fall of the SU. He said: We will destroy you - we will take away your enemy.
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
Some segments of the military are probably the most together members of society these days. But they are non-productive. Many are highly critical in a moral sense of the civilian society they exist to defend.
I don't think there will be a putsch any time soon, but there is a disconnect there, and a contrast.
Is this part of Plan C? Since Plan B is, oh, not working.
As the White House begins to ponder whether to reappoint or replace Ben Bernanke when his term expires in January, the Federal Reserve chairman's standing on Wall Street is on the rise while attacks on him from Congress mount.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to play a key role in advising President Barack Obama on whether to reappoint Mr. Bernanke. Mr. Geithner has worked closely both with Mr. Bernanke and with the leading alternative for the powerful post -- Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, who is currently the president's top economic adviser.
pavel,
Do you think Heinlein's Starship Troopers (referring to the novel not the god-awful movie of the same name) is the future then? A new republic where military service is required for citizenship? You don't have to serve, but if you don't, you can't vote.....
"vexing problems such as the distressed commercial real estate markets, the high rate of delinquencies among homeowners, and the struggles of community and regional banks"
Waiting for the Barbarians
By Constantine Cavafy (1864-1933), translated by Edmund Keeley
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 2:34 pm
Pavel, Resistance
Personally, I think the whole 'created in god's image' went to our heads. I mean if we 'look like god' that's good enough for this 'appearance is everything' world we live in. Of course if the youth of today only knew that the image thing referred to the lump of wrinkled mud god sat on the board before he popped it into the furnace...sorry old joke.
Actually the "Image of God" or Tzelem Elohim (sorry if I butchered the spelling, I am not fluent in the Hebrew language) is also the idea that, at least as pertains to Kabbalistic mysticism, the 'face' of G-d (which is invisible) is knowable only by its reflection or image, and it is IN or within this image that we were created (or perhaps, if you like a holographic interpretation, inserted). Acknowledging that the deity is in-itself unknowable, the proper mystical attitude is toward the knowable image as the reflection of the unknowable reality.
"pavel,
Do you think Heinlein's Starship Troopers (referring to the novel not the god-awful movie of the same name) is the future then? A new republic where military service is required for citizenship? You don't have to serve, but if you don't, you can't vote....."
pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:41 pm
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
They caused you to pull yourself together. A nation cheered blindly as a despotic and inept leader spent its remaining fortune haring off around the globe in search of the phantom menace, just like Osama Bin Laden said it would.
Then the party was over and the empire was bankrupt.
The "war" against radical Islam (or whatever) is quite over. America self-destructed on the start line, as anticipated by her enemies.
Yep and I thought it A, B, C, etc. Silly me. I was just in Clovis, Calif. on business and they have built 6 hotels wittin 5 miles of one another and are finishing one more. 2 are going up at Herndon Ave and 99 but it looks one has come to a halt. It hasn't stopped yet and the fed is looking to give them Money, it's as good as it gets.
I used to know a keeper at the National Zoo who had a very frightening encounter with a polar bear. She was, for a moment, in there alone with the bear. I asked her: Were you scared, Morna?
She said: It's a good thing our uniforms are brown.
OT: List of "businesses" to be represented at the 42nd Annual Atlanta Diversity & Professional Career Fair this year--In past years, it was a huge job fair, with many Fortune 500 employers represented.
Avon
Datapath, Inc.
DeVry University
Finanical Destination, Inc.
GA Dept. of Labor
Healthmarkets
ITT Technical Institute
Resumaxx.com
Trinity Broadcasting Network
Coast Guard
Marines
Navy
Secret Service
University of Phoenix
Waffle House Event Information | Georgia Department of Labor
Resistance,
I was being flip. Growing up in the south, southern Baptist, you get kind of jaded. People have a feeling of superiority because they believe they were created in god's image. I always loved how god is omnipotent and yet, god must look like us. But that is just simple good old fashioned church...Now if we want to get into the Kabbalah, give me a few weeks, I just started my journey down that road. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but the black rock synchronicity going round is profound. I am seeing black rocks everywhere. My personal view is platonic. I am very much interested in these new ideas about humans being 2 dimensional images projected onto a three dimensional holodeck...The fact that the classical greeks were talking about this way back when blows my mind.
I vote for plan C4, which is used to demolish all unoccupied houses and CRE. Boom!
No more real estate problems. Everyone pick a shovel and get back to work.
I'm sorry, I grew up on the book, love it, read it every year. The movie was a mockery of the book. Heinlein is a great author to pick on, but he got some things right in that one.
pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 2:41 pm
ResistanceIsFeudal, when social cohesion and moral first principles decay, all that's left is force, control. The financial crisis is a social crisis.
Oddly, it makes me remember a remark by a Soviet commentator just before the fall of the SU. He said: We will destroy you - we will take away your enemy.
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
I agree completely. And often the function of an enemy or competitor is just to keep us honest. In theory, that's why the free market needs the federal government and vice versa. Until they become one and the same "unfree" market monopoly.
It's why it's worth listening to the Demopublicans and the Republocrats both - they point out each others sins trying to cover their own. Unfortunately they are not doing even much of that any more, just bacchanaling with wild abandon since they see the end coming so quickly at this point.
Bubblisimo Gerkinov (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 4:01 pm
I don't necessarily disagree with your sentiments, but I think you give the religious nutters too much credit.
Bin Laden was quite explicit. I seem to recall, he said something to the effect of, "if there is one place in the world that America is not, we will send someone there to plant a flag and make you come and chase us there."
People who are very religious have a technology of behavior available to them that the irreligious cannot access. I see them as people(+), not people(-). They can't run states worth a damn but, that's clearly not limited to fanatics.
I would not underestimate Bin Laden, the average zergling among his followers might just be a zergling, but the guy himself was quite sharp. It's not like he was the sole responsible party, America was a fuel-injected suicide machine for quite a few years prior to 9/11, but he knew exactly where and how to stick his leg out to trigger a self-destructively disproportionate response.
To the degree that he was responsiblef or Greenspan exploring the zero-bound subsequently in an attempt to rob Bin Laden of his victory, they sheykh's fingerprints are all over the current crisis, as Greenspan's interest rate policies made this crisis not just inevitable, but mandatory.
... Another issue identified by the Plan C team is homeowner delinquencies, which continue to rise as large numbers of people lose their jobs and miss monthly payments.
So Plan C is to deal with the losses that the banks won't be able to hide anymore. I have friends who just reached the conclusion it's time to short sell. They're underwater by $150k and it is cheaper - a lot cheaper - to rent. Especially since one of their jobs went away. As more and more homeowners make that calculation, banks will have to actually mark the losses.
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:00 pm
Resistance,
I was being flip. Growing up in the south, southern Baptist, you get kind of jaded. People have a feeling of superiority because they believe they were created in god's image. I always loved how god is omnipotent and yet, god must look like us. But that is just simple good old fashioned church...Now if we want to get into the Kabbalah, give me a few weeks, I just started my journey down that road. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but the black rock synchronicity going round is profound. I am seeing black rocks everywhere. My personal view is platonic. I am very much interested in these new ideas about humans being 2 dimensional images projected onto a three dimensional holodeck...The fact that the classical greeks were talking about this way back when blows my mind.
I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran and augmented this with a quite liberal education and copious outside reading so I can very much relate to the prevailing attitude I was lampooning with an alternate interpretation. As Gods, we leave a lot to be desired.
Philosophically speaking, Christianity originated with the Neoplatonists so it is not surprising you found value in going back nearer to the roots... Michaelangelo had a thing or two to say about the subject as did Da Vinci of course, or rather their art certainly speaks to a higher vision than anything present society can offer us today. Creativity has been usurped by pecuniary motive, as has almost everything else that can produce cultural artifacts. No wonder we are presented with such an empty self-parody.
I will take the contrarian view and say I am mildly encouraged that we have an administration willing to think about changing tactics and developing a backup plan. If the team in charge of the backup plan does not include Summers, Geithner and Bernanke, all the better.
I fact, I will go way out on a limb and dare to hope that the meta-plan since January has been to get people in place and figure out how this stuff works while simultaneously developing the real details of the plan. I don't see any other way to accomplish anything.
Bin Laden was quite explicit. I seem to recall, he said something to the effect of, "if there is one place in the world that America is not, we will send someone there to plant a flag and make you come and chase us there."
We didn't learn anything from Ho Chi Minh [a thousand small cuts drains the tiger of it's blood].
Re: the waffle house, if the only employer left is a completely unsanitary, smoke-filled shack I'd be ashamed to find myself sober or in the light of day, I am way understocked on ammo.
Plan C sounds like it's a 'working group'... a think tank. Personally, I'm reassured knowing someone outside the blogosphere is at least trying to think ahead.
"we are going to have a HUGE "moral hazard" overhang, as future lenders will look back on this period and realize that all they have to do to avoid failure is grow big enough and spend enough lobbying."
And THAT, my friends, is why the United States is toast. Burnt, crispy, smelly toast.
As a commercial artist, I have to note history is real scarce on artists who could live on fresh air and sunshine.
Feel free to make your donations to non-pecuniary creativity via paypal to byzantineruins@gmail.com. Sums too large for paypal, just contact me via email and I will provide as many ingenious ways for you to give me money as required for you to give me the money.
Until the inflow of cash is such that I can kick back with a bucket of chicken and a bucket of brew and create for the hell of it, I'm going to be looking for projects that involve invoicing someone.
IIRC, those renaissance artists you mention did likewise and both had extensive commercial workshops.
"Pavel--That's scary--recruiting Mall Rats to join the Secret Service."
O H Chick, I gather from the illustrations in the ad they're hiring specifically for the uniformed division, basically security guards. I used to see those guys all the time where I worked.
Plan C sounds like it's a 'working group'... a think tank. Personally, I'm reassured knowing someone outside the blogosphere is at least trying to think ahead.
SOunds good if I didn't believe they were only planning and thinking about kicking BB to the curb and what they get afterwards.
Has the Coast Guard changed over the last 15 years? I know it sounds crazy, but I got appointments to all the military schools, except the Coast Guard academy. They were down right picky.
Myself. I would go with the Coast Guard and hope for a nice west coast posting.
Or maybe be sent to direct traffic in and out of the Straits of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, Horn of Africa & Red Sea. They are ideally trained for such coastal water missions in support of the bigger blue water Navy should somebody decide that needed to be done. Just sayin'...
Trade at international ports is on track to drop more than 10% this year.
"There has never been a decline like this before. We have never seen numbers like these," said Neil Dekker, editor of the Drewry report. "The container industry is looking at a $20-billion black hole of losses. We can expect a lot of casualties."
nova,
Sorry, you are right, it just still gets me. I was accepted all over the place, and I didn't get into the Coast Guard academy, one place I thought I would have no problem getting into. They had this nice International Relations program at the time, sounded great. Retrospect, finding out that your colorblind when you are 18, it was probably for the best not getting accepted.
And you'd probably end up breaking ice in the Bering sea.
Better that then the Persian Gulf.
My oldest son looked at joining the Coast Guard - they told him straight up that he could be deployed 'in support of the Navy' anywhere the Navy operates... basically insuring port security [protecting supply chain & such] anywhere the host nation can't insure it themselves. He passed up on it.
Plan C sounds like it's a 'working group'... a think tank.
"We are currently hard at work putting together the structure for a group who will work hard on ways to end this crisis."
Or, if you prefer: "We are currently putting a lot of thought into ways to bring together a team who will put a lot of thought into ways to end this crisis."
All jokes aside, I'd be thrilled if their 'plan' was squirrelling a bunch of eggheads away for a few months, and having everyone in a position of power sit on their thumbs in the meantime.
If they'd gone with that approach initially, we'd almost certainly be no worse off than we are today, without having incinerated $2 trillion of taxpayer money along the way.
Byzantine_Ruins (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:21 pm
Creativity has been usurped by pecuniary motive.
As a commercial artist, I have to note history is real scarce on artists who could live on fresh air and sunshine.
LOL. Yes I am quite aware of this. Salvador Dali also comes to mind as a shameless self-promoting artist who died rich yet I can't help but enjoy his art. Even some of the acknowledged musical masters... I love Bach's Brandenburg concertos, which were commissioned work and are considered a high point in all of Baroque music, and Haydn wrote the Messiah for cash. Patronage by the aristocracy was a common method of support in earlier times like subsidization is now. It produced crap and derivative works, and it produced great things. Creativity can't be pinned down to circumstance, beliefs, education, or upbringing, fortunately for the human race.
Speaking as an Army brat, recruiters are considered a necessary evil. I actually had a staff sergeant try to recruit me in high school because I blew one of the standardize test they give out of the water. Now, my dad at the time was a full bird colonel. As an army brat I am pretty familiar with things, and this guy lied his ass off trying to get me to enlist. Told me if I enlisted, I could go OCS in two years and bypass the college degree requirement and be a better officer for it...special place in hell for recruiters I think.
My nephew joined the Marines. They assured my sister he would be safe on a carrier the entire time. Can you believe they lied?
LOL - shocking!
The CG recruiter my son talked also volunteered this tidbit... my son is a bit of an amateur geek plus tested very high in math [something like a 32 ACT but wasn't college material at age 18 - tried but didn't last]... they told him they would LOVE to train him in communications & computers in the CG but that there was a 'small chance' he might be inserted with a marine corp unit instead of stateside because they are chronically short 'good techies'. Another reason he decided to pass up the 'opportunity'.
Re: the waffle house, if the only employer left is a completely unsanitary, smoke-filled shack I'd be ashamed to find myself sober or in the light of day, I am way understocked on ammo.
If the only employer left isn't a completely unsanitary, smoke-filled shack I'd be ashamed to find myself sober or in the light of day, I am way understocked on ammo.
"And you'd probably end up breaking ice in the Bering sea."
I met a grizzled guy some years ago in Virginia who had been with the Coast Guard on patrol in the Bering Sea during the height of the Cold War (when we did more than break ice up there). He was on deck, forward, during a storm when a large wave hit the ship and the force of the wave threw him against the bitt. It broke his back. He was hauled below and was left to cope in sick bay for a few days with his injury (and presumably some morphine) until the seas calmed enough for him to be taken off the ship and into port and a hospital.
For coasties, it's not all picking up dumb sailors and their babes. For some reason, it's always sail boaters, not power boaters. Hmmm . . .
In your story headlined, Treasury Works on 'Plan C ...' you report that Treasury has assembled 'a team'. Why don't you name who is on that team? Do you yourselves know or are you simply reporting that you have been told a team was formed?
Can you please list for me the members of Treasury's team working on Plan C?
"The Obama administration announced last week that it would loosen the eligibility requirements for a program aimed at helping borrowers with no equity to refinance into cheaper mortgages.
Acknowledging that falling housing prices have made it increasingly difficult for borrowers to qualify, officials said the program would now be open to those whose mortgage debt is up to 125 percent of their home value. The program, launched in February, was initially open only to those borrowers who owed no more than 105 percent of their home value. "
The Post "reports" - Another government effort to buy mortgages, including commercial loans, off the books of banks has been shelved because of a lack of interest from industry. A companion plan to buy toxic bank assets, some of which back commercial loans, is being downsized for similar reasons.
God forbid that the Post reporter actually do some research and tell us common folk the reasons why banks were not be interested in selling their toxic assets. Now that might be a worthwhile story!
C = "Confiscate"?
Sounds more like Plan F
"This one goes to 11"
Plan X is conming! Hope is for Dopes!
Or maybe "Conjure Bag"?
Plan C -- named to allude to a last line of defense -- face a particular challenge in addressing the breakdown of commercial real estate lending.
I've never heard of that expression. To me, and I'm guessing most J6P, Plan C sounds like what's left after the first two plans have f-ed up.
Did Plan B fail already?
I say we just jump to Plan 9.
Could someone remind me: What were Plan A and Plan B, exactly?
Why don't we just admit that all these plans are aimed at preserving the faux wealth created by wall st. over the past two decades.
Classic administrative overreach.
I won't be satisfied until the original "Master Plan GS" is allowed to fail.
What were Plan A and Plan B, exactly
Plan A - Spend a lot
Plan B - Spend even more
dont you see Dean Wormer as Ben talking to Paulson who is one of those frat boys,
Wormer: We are going to plan B, we are putting Delta on Probation
frat boy: But Sir Delta is already on probabtion...
Wormer: Goooood, then plan C, we will put them on double secret probation....
CR:
It didn't take much "scrutiny" to understand there was substantial overbuilding in CRE, especially for retail space and for hotels. And yet banks kept making loans in 2006, 2007 and even in 2008 ...
And, lo, here are the people with the bags of money to throw at the problem. Wasn't such a bad lending decision afterwall, was it? =)
Let me save them the trouble and get right to the solution: nationalize or monetize the debt through some obscurely-named program.
A- Hope
B- Pray
// edit... actually i think Bush would have been the Pray and O is definitely the Hope.... I got them backwards....
This reminds me of Rocky movies, as it continued the "effect" became smaller and smaller.
Oh, I get it. Plan C is a Five-Year Plan.
Plan A = Bailout
Plan B = Lie to the public then bailout
Plan C = Figure out how to keep the lie going, play stupid to the causes, then bailout
Plan D = Plan squirrel recipes
Have to bring my favorite Bridge to Far quote out again:
Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: I've just been on to Monty. He's very proud and pleased.
Major General Urquhart: Pleased?
Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: Of course. He thinks Market Garden was 90% successful.
Major General Urquhart: But what do you think?
Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far.
Bring out all the plans you want to, but I still see the panzers in the intel photos.
"It didn't take much "scrutiny" to understand there was substantial overbuilding in CRE, especially for retail space and for hotels. And yet banks kept making loans in 2006, 2007 and even in 2008 ..."
Besides the problems we are going to have with the debt and money overhang from nationalizing/monetizing all this private debt, we are going to have a HUGE "moral hazard" overhang, as future lenders will look back on this period and realize that all they have to do to avoid failure is grow big enough and spend enough lobbying.
Sorry, got pigged...
I've never been a fan of seasonal adjustments, and today shows exactly why.
Seasonally adjusted, this week we came in at -565,000 vs. -617,000 last week
Not seasonally adjusted, this week was -577,506 vs. -559,894
This week's adjustment was +12,506, making the number look better
Last week's adjustment was -57,106
In one week, the seasonal adjustment swing was nearly 70,000 claims. Wow!!!
This reminds me of Rocky movies, as it continued the "effect" became smaller and smaller.
Movie memes - visual depiction of the marginal utility of shared context
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=movie_madness_threedux
"And yet banks kept making loans in 2006, 2007 and even in 2008 ..."
Buy the back end to prop up the front end.
Does the article mention who exactly is on "The C Team" ?
Remember, in "last plan of defense", last means most recent, and not necessarily final.
Yields on Treasuries are being artificially suppressed by the central bank; otherwise bonds would yield more than 10 percent, according to Lee Quaintance and Paul Brodsky of QB Asset Management in New York.
“There are powerful structural forces blocking any fundamental reconciliation of value,” Quaintance and Brodsky wrote. “These forces include bond markets comprised mostly of domestic and foreign investors with incentives that place them at odds with rational credit pricing, as well as central banks with unlimited spending capacity threatening, and being encouraged by all, to intervene when necessary to provide a ceiling on yields.”
Treasuries Decline as Demand Drops at $11 Billion Bond Auction - Bloomberg.com
Sister-in-law phoned today, said there were no fireworks for the 4th this year in Yonkers - no money for 'em.
pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 2:20 pm
"There's always an excuse, a variable left out of the formula, an exigent event, changing circumstance, on an on"
As ever in the intellectual life of human beings. We're limited. The history of the world - all worlds - begins with inexplicable zero entropy. It's been downhill ever since.
Strangely the people who fail to acknowledge this simple truth ended up becoming the duped architects of the present nightmare that blindly followed the orders of an elite who knew better and didn't care. The delusion of control is even worse than hubris (Lucifer's favorite sin).
nothing will happen until Plan G, when GS, err, Geithner, finally gets it right!
These forces include bond markets comprised mostly of domestic and foreign investors with incentives that place them at odds with rational credit pricing, as well as central banks with unlimited spending capacity threatening, and being encouraged by all, to intervene when necessary to provide a ceiling on yields
isnt this a no shi* sherlok statement, does any one invest without incentives, and what exactly are rational credit pricing scenerios anyway...
Another issue identified by the Plan C team is homeowner delinquencies, which continue to rise as large numbers of people lose their jobs and miss monthly payments
just getting around to identifying it....... seem like a brilliant team...wanna bet EW's not on there...
Pavel, Resistance
Personally, I think the whole 'created in god's image' went to our heads. I mean if we 'look like god' that's good enough for this 'appearance is everything' world we live in. Of course if the youth of today only knew that the image thing referred to the lump of wrinkled mud god sat on the board before he popped it into the furnace...sorry old joke.
Just put Goldman Sachs in charge, then we won't have anything to worry about.
"C" as in currency crisis.
It's what happens after you take 5+ years of fraudulent loans off the books of fraudulent institutions and in return give them cash(or PIK).
This is good. We are one step closer to hitting bottom.
rational credit pricing
Those words look strange when put together.
The Joneses are officially not spending...plus schools out... Though not from my 12 and 10 years old allowance that's for sure...
Gap, Abercrombie June Sales Trail Analysts’ Estimates
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Gap Inc. and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. reported June sales declines that were steeper than analysts estimated as a rise in U.S. unemployment and a drop in consumer confidence kept shoppers away from the malls.
Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 10 percent at Gap, operator of the Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, compared with the 8.7 percent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Retail Metrics Inc. Comparable-store sales at Abercrombie & Fitch plunged 32 percent, a bigger decline than the 28 percent projection. American Eagle Outfitters Inc. fell 11 percent, compared with a 7.8 percent average estimate.
broward - I like your site...
Kohn says it but will anyone heed it...
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said any “substantial erosion” of the central bank’s independence in setting interest rates may fuel investor fears of inflation and provoke higher long-term borrowing costs.
“The insulation from short-term political pressures -- within a framework of legislated objectives and accountability and transparency -- that the Congress has established for the Federal Reserve has come to be widely emulated around the world,” Kohn said in testimony at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing today on Fed independence.
The Fed’s ability to act without political interference is at stake as Congress debates how to overhaul financial regulation following the worst credit crisis since the Great Depression. Some lawmakers advocate congressional audits of the central bank, while others are considering subjecting regional Fed presidents, who vote on interest rates, to Senate approval.
July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries fell as the government’s 30-year bond auction drew less demand than the previous sale and traders speculated that the rally yesterday that pushed 10-year note yields down the most since March was too large to sustain.
The bid-to-cover ratio on the $11 billion in bonds, which gauges demand by comparing total bids with the amount of securities offered, was 2.36, compared to 2.68 at the June offering. The sale concludes a record four auctions this week totaling $73 billion. The 30-year bond yield yesterday touched the lowest in seven weeks after investors submitted the most bids on record at an auction of 10-year notes.
“The auction was weaker than expected,” said Thomas L. di Galoma, head of U.S. rates trading at Guggenheim Capital Markets LLC, a New-York based brokerage for institutional investors. “There’s a general demand for Treasuries as it relates to a safe haven bid from the economy not showing any forms of life.”
"The delusion of control is even worse than hubris (Lucifer's favorite sin)."
ResistanceIsFeudal, when social cohesion and moral first principles decay, all that's left is force, control. The financial crisis is a social crisis.
Oddly, it makes me remember a remark by a Soviet commentator just before the fall of the SU. He said: We will destroy you - we will take away your enemy.
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
Some segments of the military are probably the most together members of society these days. But they are non-productive. Many are highly critical in a moral sense of the civilian society they exist to defend.
I don't think there will be a putsch any time soon, but there is a disconnect there, and a contrast.
Is this part of Plan C? Since Plan B is, oh, not working.
As the White House begins to ponder whether to reappoint or replace Ben Bernanke when his term expires in January, the Federal Reserve chairman's standing on Wall Street is on the rise while attacks on him from Congress mount.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to play a key role in advising President Barack Obama on whether to reappoint Mr. Bernanke. Mr. Geithner has worked closely both with Mr. Bernanke and with the leading alternative for the powerful post -- Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, who is currently the president's top economic adviser.
...and here i thought those rumors of a bank holiday in september were crazy talk
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
The Red Scare was at least believable ... not real, just believable.
The Islamowhatsit scare has long worn thin.
pavel,
Do you think Heinlein's Starship Troopers (referring to the novel not the god-awful movie of the same name) is the future then? A new republic where military service is required for citizenship? You don't have to serve, but if you don't, you can't vote.....
yay more PPT nonsense. market should be much lower.
Interesting Finance & Economic articles
"vexing problems such as the distressed commercial real estate markets, the high rate of delinquencies among homeowners, and the struggles of community and regional banks"
This is great news. The money centers are fine!
Re: Outside threats as tonics:
Waiting for the Barbarians
By Constantine Cavafy (1864-1933), translated by Edmund Keeley
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Plan C is 'find the brown pants'...
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 2:34 pm
Pavel, Resistance
Personally, I think the whole 'created in god's image' went to our heads. I mean if we 'look like god' that's good enough for this 'appearance is everything' world we live in. Of course if the youth of today only knew that the image thing referred to the lump of wrinkled mud god sat on the board before he popped it into the furnace...sorry old joke.
Actually the "Image of God" or Tzelem Elohim (sorry if I butchered the spelling, I am not fluent in the Hebrew language) is also the idea that, at least as pertains to Kabbalistic mysticism, the 'face' of G-d (which is invisible) is knowable only by its reflection or image, and it is IN or within this image that we were created (or perhaps, if you like a holographic interpretation, inserted). Acknowledging that the deity is in-itself unknowable, the proper mystical attitude is toward the knowable image as the reflection of the unknowable reality.
"pavel,
Do you think Heinlein's Starship Troopers (referring to the novel not the god-awful movie of the same name) is the future then? A new republic where military service is required for citizenship? You don't have to serve, but if you don't, you can't vote....."
God knows, Vonbek777.
pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:41 pm
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
They caused you to pull yourself together. A nation cheered blindly as a despotic and inept leader spent its remaining fortune haring off around the globe in search of the phantom menace, just like Osama Bin Laden said it would.
Then the party was over and the empire was bankrupt.
The "war" against radical Islam (or whatever) is quite over. America self-destructed on the start line, as anticipated by her enemies.
Plan A: As we see it, YES.
Plan B: Signs point to NO.
Plan C: Try again later.
..........this is starting to get melodramatic.
IIRC, CR pooh poohed CRE being as bad as 2001, yet it clearly is heading in that direction.
¿donde esta mea cupla?
If the nation wants to be able to gave a vigorous recovery CRE has to go down hard to 1991 levels.
Yep and I thought it A, B, C, etc. Silly me. I was just in Clovis, Calif. on business and they have built 6 hotels wittin 5 miles of one another and are finishing one more. 2 are going up at Herndon Ave and 99 but it looks one has come to a halt. It hasn't stopped yet and the fed is looking to give them Money, it's as good as it gets.
"Plan C is 'find the brown pants'..."
I used to know a keeper at the National Zoo who had a very frightening encounter with a polar bear. She was, for a moment, in there alone with the bear. I asked her: Were you scared, Morna?
She said: It's a good thing our uniforms are brown.
PLAN C is to replace BB with a crack team led by Mr. Summers. This new teams first tasks will be:
Powerpoint Presentation
Press Conference
Web Site
New Agency
Acronym Plan
Presidential Speech
Dow Rally
"Plan C" as a "last line of defense"?
No, try "Plan Z."
Or "Plan 9 from Outer Space."
PATHETIC
Wow - commodity selloff into the close. Must be using all available funds to pump the S&P.
Plan C=Cut & Run with the Cash
OT: List of "businesses" to be represented at the 42nd Annual Atlanta Diversity & Professional Career Fair this year--In past years, it was a huge job fair, with many Fortune 500 employers represented.
Avon
Datapath, Inc.
DeVry University
Finanical Destination, Inc.
GA Dept. of Labor
Healthmarkets
ITT Technical Institute
Resumaxx.com
Trinity Broadcasting Network
Coast Guard
Marines
Navy
Secret Service
University of Phoenix
Waffle House
Event Information | Georgia Department of Labor
Watching Starship Troopers pre 9-11 boring. After 3-03, the most prescient movie ever made.
Only bad Rocky movies are 2 and 4; the antithesis of star trek.
Waffle House is good.
Resistance,
I was being flip. Growing up in the south, southern Baptist, you get kind of jaded. People have a feeling of superiority because they believe they were created in god's image. I always loved how god is omnipotent and yet, god must look like us. But that is just simple good old fashioned church...Now if we want to get into the Kabbalah, give me a few weeks, I just started my journey down that road. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but the black rock synchronicity going round is profound. I am seeing black rocks everywhere. My personal view is platonic. I am very much interested in these new ideas about humans being 2 dimensional images projected onto a three dimensional holodeck...The fact that the classical greeks were talking about this way back when blows my mind.
The "war" against radical Islam (or whatever) is quite over. America self-destructed on the start line, as anticipated by her enemies.
I don't necessarily disagree with your sentiments, but I think you give the religious nutters too much credit.
I vote for plan C4, which is used to demolish all unoccupied houses and CRE. Boom!
No more real estate problems. Everyone pick a shovel and get back to work.
plan Citigroup is underway sir...
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.
...---... ...---... -.-. --.- -.. -.. . -- --. -.-- -- --. -.--
I'm sorry, I grew up on the book, love it, read it every year. The movie was a mockery of the book. Heinlein is a great author to pick on, but he got some things right in that one.
@Faraday beat me to the punch..
Plan C is prop up Citigroup to make them solvent again.
Yeah Nova,
Waffle House looks like the only real company that will be there to hire people.
Scattered, smothered, covered anyone ? (For non-southerners that's a type of hash brown order famous at Waffle House.)
propaganda
Plan C = Worship Me!
'Plan C'
I still cannot believe they didn't realize the name would get out and the ridicule that would ensue.
pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 2:41 pm
ResistanceIsFeudal, when social cohesion and moral first principles decay, all that's left is force, control. The financial crisis is a social crisis.
Oddly, it makes me remember a remark by a Soviet commentator just before the fall of the SU. He said: We will destroy you - we will take away your enemy.
It could be that not even the Islamists have enough on the ball to cause us to pull ourselves together.
I agree completely. And often the function of an enemy or competitor is just to keep us honest. In theory, that's why the free market needs the federal government and vice versa. Until they become one and the same "unfree" market monopoly.
"Secret Service"
Saw an ad today at the mall.
It's why it's worth listening to the Demopublicans and the Republocrats both - they point out each others sins trying to cover their own. Unfortunately they are not doing even much of that any more, just bacchanaling with wild abandon since they see the end coming so quickly at this point.
Bubblisimo Gerkinov (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 4:01 pm
I don't necessarily disagree with your sentiments, but I think you give the religious nutters too much credit.
Bin Laden was quite explicit. I seem to recall, he said something to the effect of, "if there is one place in the world that America is not, we will send someone there to plant a flag and make you come and chase us there."
People who are very religious have a technology of behavior available to them that the irreligious cannot access. I see them as people(+), not people(-). They can't run states worth a damn but, that's clearly not limited to fanatics.
I would not underestimate Bin Laden, the average zergling among his followers might just be a zergling, but the guy himself was quite sharp. It's not like he was the sole responsible party, America was a fuel-injected suicide machine for quite a few years prior to 9/11, but he knew exactly where and how to stick his leg out to trigger a self-destructively disproportionate response.
To the degree that he was responsiblef or Greenspan exploring the zero-bound subsequently in an attempt to rob Bin Laden of his victory, they sheykh's fingerprints are all over the current crisis, as Greenspan's interest rate policies made this crisis not just inevitable, but mandatory.
... Another issue identified by the Plan C team is homeowner delinquencies, which continue to rise as large numbers of people lose their jobs and miss monthly payments.
So Plan C is to deal with the losses that the banks won't be able to hide anymore. I have friends who just reached the conclusion it's time to short sell. They're underwater by $150k and it is cheaper - a lot cheaper - to rent. Especially since one of their jobs went away. As more and more homeowners make that calculation, banks will have to actually mark the losses.
Pavel--That's scary--recruiting Mall Rats to join the Secret Service.
In theory, that's why the free market needs the federal government and vice versa. Until they become one and the same "unfree" market monopoly.
Until???
That process started in earnest with Manhattan and has been well underway going on a little over sixty years now.
Max Kesier: Does the treasury secretary work for the people or does he work for the banking system on Wall Street?
Craig Roberts (Former Assistant Treasury Secretary): He works for Goldman Sachs.
Guess we have to keep rolling them out till we get to "Plan GS"
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:00 pm
Resistance,
I was being flip. Growing up in the south, southern Baptist, you get kind of jaded. People have a feeling of superiority because they believe they were created in god's image. I always loved how god is omnipotent and yet, god must look like us. But that is just simple good old fashioned church...Now if we want to get into the Kabbalah, give me a few weeks, I just started my journey down that road. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but the black rock synchronicity going round is profound. I am seeing black rocks everywhere. My personal view is platonic. I am very much interested in these new ideas about humans being 2 dimensional images projected onto a three dimensional holodeck...The fact that the classical greeks were talking about this way back when blows my mind.
I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran and augmented this with a quite liberal education and copious outside reading so I can very much relate to the prevailing attitude I was lampooning with an alternate interpretation. As Gods, we leave a lot to be desired.
Philosophically speaking, Christianity originated with the Neoplatonists so it is not surprising you found value in going back nearer to the roots... Michaelangelo had a thing or two to say about the subject as did Da Vinci of course, or rather their art certainly speaks to a higher vision than anything present society can offer us today. Creativity has been usurped by pecuniary motive, as has almost everything else that can produce cultural artifacts. No wonder we are presented with such an empty self-parody.
It’s nothing more than a PUPPET SHOW that has become embarrassingly transparent.
I will take the contrarian view and say I am mildly encouraged that we have an administration willing to think about changing tactics and developing a backup plan. If the team in charge of the backup plan does not include Summers, Geithner and Bernanke, all the better.
I fact, I will go way out on a limb and dare to hope that the meta-plan since January has been to get people in place and figure out how this stuff works while simultaneously developing the real details of the plan. I don't see any other way to accomplish anything.
Are they not another Department in Washington except the Treasuary working on a plan, oh I forgot, those that have the GOLD make the rules.
Bin Laden was quite explicit. I seem to recall, he said something to the effect of, "if there is one place in the world that America is not, we will send someone there to plant a flag and make you come and chase us there."
We didn't learn anything from Ho Chi Minh [a thousand small cuts drains the tiger of it's blood].
Thats what I thought. Waffle House for minimum wage or the military for a tan.
Re: the waffle house, if the only employer left is a completely unsanitary, smoke-filled shack I'd be ashamed to find myself sober or in the light of day, I am way understocked on ammo.
Plan C sounds like it's a 'working group'... a think tank. Personally, I'm reassured knowing someone outside the blogosphere is at least trying to think ahead.
"we are going to have a HUGE "moral hazard" overhang, as future lenders will look back on this period and realize that all they have to do to avoid failure is grow big enough and spend enough lobbying."
And THAT, my friends, is why the United States is toast. Burnt, crispy, smelly toast.
Myself. I would go with the Coast Guard and hope for a nice west coast posting.
Wake me up when they roll out Attack Plan R.
Interesting. Reality starts to crack the mirror...
Creativity has been usurped by pecuniary motive.
As a commercial artist, I have to note history is real scarce on artists who could live on fresh air and sunshine.
Feel free to make your donations to non-pecuniary creativity via paypal to byzantineruins@gmail.com. Sums too large for paypal, just contact me via email and I will provide as many ingenious ways for you to give me money as required for you to give me the money.
Until the inflow of cash is such that I can kick back with a bucket of chicken and a bucket of brew and create for the hell of it, I'm going to be looking for projects that involve invoicing someone.
IIRC, those renaissance artists you mention did likewise and both had extensive commercial workshops.
"Pavel--That's scary--recruiting Mall Rats to join the Secret Service."
O H Chick, I gather from the illustrations in the ad they're hiring specifically for the uniformed division, basically security guards. I used to see those guys all the time where I worked.
Plan C sounds like it's a 'working group'... a think tank. Personally, I'm reassured knowing someone outside the blogosphere is at least trying to think ahead.
SOunds good if I didn't believe they were only planning and thinking about kicking BB to the curb and what they get afterwards.
@ Byz Ruins
Maybe ... but I equate giving Bin Laden et al. credit for the current crises with giving Reagan credit for bringing down the CCCP.
There are innumerous factors at play.
It's all in the way you connect the dots.
Has the Coast Guard changed over the last 15 years? I know it sounds crazy, but I got appointments to all the military schools, except the Coast Guard academy. They were down right picky.
Myself. I would go with the Coast Guard and hope for a nice west coast posting.
Or maybe be sent to direct traffic in and out of the Straits of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, Horn of Africa & Red Sea. They are ideally trained for such coastal water missions in support of the bigger blue water Navy should somebody decide that needed to be done. Just sayin'...
I don;t know. If I was 18, no job and no prospects. Well, saving sail bunnies at Lake Mead or somewhere would be okay for 4 years.
The crisis is containered.
Trade at international ports is on track to drop more than 10% this year.
"There has never been a decline like this before. We have never seen numbers like these," said Neil Dekker, editor of the Drewry report. "The container industry is looking at a $20-billion black hole of losses. We can expect a lot of casualties."
Vonbek777, you think like an officer. They are not hiring officers at job fairs.
Myself. I would go with the Coast Guard and hope for a nice west coast posting.
And you'd probably end up breaking ice in the Bering sea.
nova,
Sorry, you are right, it just still gets me. I was accepted all over the place, and I didn't get into the Coast Guard academy, one place I thought I would have no problem getting into. They had this nice International Relations program at the time, sounded great. Retrospect, finding out that your colorblind when you are 18, it was probably for the best not getting accepted.
And you'd probably end up breaking ice in the Bering sea.
Better that then the Persian Gulf.
My oldest son looked at joining the Coast Guard - they told him straight up that he could be deployed 'in support of the Navy' anywhere the Navy operates... basically insuring port security [protecting supply chain & such] anywhere the host nation can't insure it themselves. He passed up on it.
Plan C sounds like it's a 'working group'... a think tank.
"We are currently hard at work putting together the structure for a group who will work hard on ways to end this crisis."
Or, if you prefer: "We are currently putting a lot of thought into ways to bring together a team who will put a lot of thought into ways to end this crisis."
All jokes aside, I'd be thrilled if their 'plan' was squirrelling a bunch of eggheads away for a few months, and having everyone in a position of power sit on their thumbs in the meantime.
If they'd gone with that approach initially, we'd almost certainly be no worse off than we are today, without having incinerated $2 trillion of taxpayer money along the way.
But I guess that's why I'm not in politics.
My nephew joined the Marines. They assured my sister he would be safe on a carrier the entire time. Can you believe they lied?
Byzantine_Ruins (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:21 pm
Creativity has been usurped by pecuniary motive.
As a commercial artist, I have to note history is real scarce on artists who could live on fresh air and sunshine.
LOL. Yes I am quite aware of this. Salvador Dali also comes to mind as a shameless self-promoting artist who died rich yet I can't help but enjoy his art. Even some of the acknowledged musical masters... I love Bach's Brandenburg concertos, which were commissioned work and are considered a high point in all of Baroque music, and Haydn wrote the Messiah for cash. Patronage by the aristocracy was a common method of support in earlier times like subsidization is now. It produced crap and derivative works, and it produced great things. Creativity can't be pinned down to circumstance, beliefs, education, or upbringing, fortunately for the human race.
nova (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 1:33 pm
My nephew joined the Marines. They assured my sister he would be safe on a carrier the entire time. Can you believe they lied?
They should have rejected him on the basis of mental illness in the family. Either that or offered him OCS. [ducks]
"They assured my sister he would be safe on a carrier the entire time. "
They probably meant he would be safe the entire time he was on a carrier.
You want to avoid creating starving artists at all costs.. they end up becoming dictators of European powers if left unchecked.
.
Speaking as an Army brat, recruiters are considered a necessary evil. I actually had a staff sergeant try to recruit me in high school because I blew one of the standardize test they give out of the water. Now, my dad at the time was a full bird colonel. As an army brat I am pretty familiar with things, and this guy lied his ass off trying to get me to enlist. Told me if I enlisted, I could go OCS in two years and bypass the college degree requirement and be a better officer for it...special place in hell for recruiters I think.
My nephew joined the Marines. They assured my sister he would be safe on a carrier the entire time. Can you believe they lied?
LOL - shocking!
The CG recruiter my son talked also volunteered this tidbit... my son is a bit of an amateur geek plus tested very high in math [something like a 32 ACT but wasn't college material at age 18 - tried but didn't last]... they told him they would LOVE to train him in communications & computers in the CG but that there was a 'small chance' he might be inserted with a marine corp unit instead of stateside because they are chronically short 'good techies'. Another reason he decided to pass up the 'opportunity'.
You want to avoid creating starving artists at all costs.. they end up becoming dictators of European powers if left unchecked.
Or bad short order cooks at Waffle House
Plan C is 'find the brown pants'...
I thought it was "First, write two notes...."
nova (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/9/2009 - 3:39 pm
You want to avoid creating starving artists at all costs.. they end up becoming dictators of European powers if left unchecked.
Or bad short order cooks at Waffle House
Waffle House? It would seem this could solve the "starving" part, with a little creativity.
That is why they work there. Plus they can smoke. Those types always do
"They assured my sister he would be safe on a carrier the entire time."
Never saw the movie Sgt. Benjamin.
Timmy G - "Now THIS plan, this plan "C," will work!"
TARP I, TARP II, Stimulus I, PPIP I, PPIP II, PPIP III... seems we should be well further along than plan "C."
Re: the waffle house, if the only employer left is a completely unsanitary, smoke-filled shack I'd be ashamed to find myself sober or in the light of day, I am way understocked on ammo.
If the only employer left isn't a completely unsanitary, smoke-filled shack I'd be ashamed to find myself sober or in the light of day, I am way understocked on ammo.
Let's see, plans A through C are now being use. Let's begin working on PREPARATION H.
"And you'd probably end up breaking ice in the Bering sea."
I met a grizzled guy some years ago in Virginia who had been with the Coast Guard on patrol in the Bering Sea during the height of the Cold War (when we did more than break ice up there). He was on deck, forward, during a storm when a large wave hit the ship and the force of the wave threw him against the bitt. It broke his back. He was hauled below and was left to cope in sick bay for a few days with his injury (and presumably some morphine) until the seas calmed enough for him to be taken off the ship and into port and a hospital.
For coasties, it's not all picking up dumb sailors and their babes. For some reason, it's always sail boaters, not power boaters. Hmmm . . .
Just emailed the Post the following:
In your story headlined, Treasury Works on 'Plan C ...' you report that Treasury has assembled 'a team'. Why don't you name who is on that team? Do you yourselves know or are you simply reporting that you have been told a team was formed?
Can you please list for me the members of Treasury's team working on Plan C?
Will report back here on any response
Have we learned NOTHING ???
from the Post article
"The Obama administration announced last week that it would loosen the eligibility requirements for a program aimed at helping borrowers with no equity to refinance into cheaper mortgages.
Acknowledging that falling housing prices have made it increasingly difficult for borrowers to qualify, officials said the program would now be open to those whose mortgage debt is up to 125 percent of their home value. The program, launched in February, was initially open only to those borrowers who owed no more than 105 percent of their home value. "
Why newspapers are failing. example 10,173 --
The Post "reports" - Another government effort to buy mortgages, including commercial loans, off the books of banks has been shelved because of a lack of interest from industry. A companion plan to buy toxic bank assets, some of which back commercial loans, is being downsized for similar reasons.
God forbid that the Post reporter actually do some research and tell us common folk the reasons why banks were not be interested in selling their toxic assets. Now that might be a worthwhile story!
He who hath not visited Waffle house, hath not lived a life worth living.
Glad they're still working from a plan.