For the late riser (like myself) that missed the original 1AM posting:
Greek Ouzo crisis escalates into global margin call as confidence ebbs - Telegraph 

Flow data shows an abrupt withdrawal of German and Asian capital from Club Med debt markets. The EU's refusal to offer Greece anything beyond stern words and a one-month deadline for harsher austerity – while admirable in one sense – is to misjudge how fast confidence is ebbing. Greece's drama has already metastasised into a wider systemic crisis. The world risks a replay of the Lehman collapse if this runs unchecked, this time involving sovereign dominoes.

Barclays Capital says the net external liabilities of Greece are 87pc of GDP, or €208bn (£182bn). Spain is worse at 91pc (€950bn), and Portugal worse yet at 108pc (€177bn); Ireland is 68pc (€123bn), Italy is 23pc, (€347bn). Add East Europe's bubble and foreign debts top €2 trillion.

The scale matches America's sub-prime/Alt-A adventure and assorted CDOs and SIVS of the Greenspan fling. The parallels are closer than Europe cares to admit. Just as Benelux funds and German Landesbanken bought subprime debt for high yield with AAA gloss, they bought Spanish Cedulas because these too had a safe gloss – even though Spain's property boom broke world records. They thought EMU had eliminated risk: it merely switched exchange risk into credit risk.

I'd normally not bother with the Weekly Standard (I'm presently pissed at neo-cons), but in this case I believe that they're correct:
Government Intervention Will Leave a Lasting Hangover | The Weekly Standard

A new paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, professors of economics at the University of Maryland and Harvard University respectively, covers the experience of 44 countries over 200 years and concludes, “Our main finding is that across both advanced countries and emerging markets, high debt/GDP levels (90 percent and above) are associated with notably lower growth outcomes…. Seldom do countries simply ‘grow’ their way out of deep debt burdens.” If you are the worrying sort, add to these your answer to a question put by Larry Summers, now the president’s economic adviser but at the time free to speak his mind, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?” Efforts to reach Mr. Summers to obtain his current answer to his question proved unavailing.

Who does Greece think/want to "bail them out"?

edit: Mevermind, I answered my own question.

"Greece's spiraling deficit - estimated at 12.7pc of its gross domestic product last year - stands far beyond the 3pc threshold permitted by the rules of European Monetary Union (EMU)"

I guess WE couldn't belong to this "Club" either, huh?

RealClearMarkets - On Government Spending, America Has a Candor Gap

We have a massive candor gap, led by President Obama but also implicating most leaders of both parties. The annual budget necessarily involves a bewildering blizzard of numbers. But just a few figures capture the essence of our predicament.

First, from 2011 to 2020, the administration projects total federal spending of $45.8 trillion against taxes and receipts of $37.3 trillion. The $8.5 trillion deficit is almost a fifth of spending. In 2020, the gap is $1 trillion, again approaching a fifth: Spending is $5.7 trillion, taxes $4.7 trillion. All amounts assume a full economic recovery; all projections may be optimistic. The message: There's a huge mismatch between Americans' desire for low taxes and high government services.

Second, almost $20 trillion of the $45.8 trillion of spending involves three programs -- Social Security, Medicare (health insurance for those 65 and over) and Medicaid (health insurance for the poor -- two-thirds goes to the elderly and disabled). The message: The budget is mainly a vehicle for transferring income to retirees from workers, who pay most taxes. As more baby boomers retire in the 2020s, deficits would grow.

Third, there is no way to close the massive deficits without big cuts in existing government programs or stupendous tax increases. Suppose we decided to cover all future deficits by raising taxes. Taxes would rise in the 2020s by roughly 50 percent from the average 1970-2009 tax burden.

That's the guts of it.

Cinco-X wrote:

We have a massive candor gap

The American candor has a 12 foot wingspan from the liberal left to the conservative right.

Here's one for dryfly and nova:
Change Your Mind

Mises Daily: Monday, February 08, 2010 by Doug French
"People don't think the shallow reading harms them, but it does."

Despite the juiced-up GDP numbers of the last two quarters, there is no illusion that the depression is over and the boom has resumed. While GDP is reported as being positive, the employment numbers remain weak. The headline jobless number has one in ten people out of work. Include those who have become discouraged and dropped out of the labor force, and the number is one in five. Since the start of the depression at the end of 2007, 8.4 million payroll jobs have been lost.

Gaining employment has been especially hard for young people. "From December 2008 to December 2009, the employment of 16–24 year olds in the United States fell by 1.78 million, or a third of the total drop in employment of 5.4 million," reports David G. Blanchflower in The Peninsula. Even college graduates are suffering as wages fall with fewer opportunities.

The artificial boom that misdirected so much capital into financial services, real estate, and other areas of consumer and investor excess also misdirected human resources. The bust now is cleansing those unneeded and redundant jobs. But those professions were what college students had been preparing for.

Now those boom-time career opportunities will be limited, if not gone. For example, despite the crash and the extensive layoffs in the industry, money-management firms report receiving the same number of applications for entry-level jobs.

And while Washington is trying valiantly to reinflate boom-time industries and protect those jobs with cheap money, government bailouts, and deficit spending, Austrian economists know that the structure of production — including employment and the services that work provides — must change to meet consumer demands .

"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers," writes Daniel H. Pink, "the keys to the kingdom are changing hands."
A Whole New Mind

In his bestselling book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Pink argues that the future belongs to those who can recognize patterns, empathize with others, be creative, and provide meaning to peoples' lives.

Mr Slippery wrote:

The American candor has a 12 foot wingspan from the liberal left to the conservative right.

The author acknowledged that fact. From the article:

It's also true that Republican presidents and congressional leaders (some exceptions: Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Judd Gregg) have ducked the hard questions.

NEWSFLASH: Greece has changed its coat of arms to this.

Out of Hibernation? - Up and Down Wall Street - A. Abelson - Barrons.com

By ALAN ABELSON
Bears show their ugly heads, and markets everywhere take a pasting. Jeremy Grantham on financial razzmatazz.

Note: I do not necessarily advocate any changes like this to our government

Change - what change? I thought that was a pretty apt description of what we already have.

dum luk wrote:

Change - what change? I thought that was a pretty apt description of what we already have.

Point taken-

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Are they so afraid of public opinion that they couldn't have the meeting in anything less than complete secrecy...

Maybe to coordinate another round of "you buy my bonds, I'll buy yours"?

31 - 17 Saints

great game, may be the high point of the year

Good thing this situation is contained to those rare instances where there exists economic interdependency.

dum luk wrote:

I'm set for a greek tragedy. I love a good drachma.

If there's income disparity now, I wonder how much will a Grecian urn after this debacle.

(You guys have already taken all the good ones)

So, are they still measuring GDP and stuff like that in Greece, to keep the 3-card-monte game alive ?

slightly OT
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/hoye/hoye020610.pdf

I LOVE greasy chicken.

Fed to Outline Future Tightening Steps - WSJ.com

seems angry this morning...

Greece just needs some hopium, works for the Banksters.

The Notorious A.I.G. wrote:

NEWSFLASH: Greece has changed its coat of arms to this.

Holy crap, the Notorious AIG! Welcome back!

In his bestselling book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Pink argues that the future belongs to those who can recognize patterns, empathize with others, be creative, and provide meaning to peoples' lives.

Cinco - its BS - I've been hearing that all my life from people like that [creative empathic types] advocating a wider more liberal education. Fine who do they hire to fix their computer? Help them with taxes? Rebuild their transmission? Or a million other task specific technically 'dense' tasks they need done?

I agree the wonks won't rule the world - instead they'll rule their cubicle like they always did and little more - and the world will still be ruled by a handful of creative empathic thinker 'touchy feely' types. But there aren't that many good positions available for the touchy feelies and way too many of them... they used to populate middle management - now that's ending - after a few are chosen to run the world the rest will have to settle for retail, wait staff or be performance artists.

Meanwhile the wonks will still be fixing transmissions.

volker the viking wrote:

31 - 17 Saints

great game, may be the high point of the year

And the low point of the year was probably the halftime show. I thought Roger Daltrey hoped to die before he got old.

TCA wrote:

I thought Roger Daltrey hoped to die before he got old.

I noticed John Entwistle had the sense to pass on this one.

Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:

I noticed John Entwistle had the sense to pass on this one.

Keith Moon too. Maybe the NFL can get Led Zeppelin to play next next. Their entire rhythm section is dead too.

Rob Dawg wrote:

Will there still be 8 by this summer?

We make Russia and Italy pay up in advance, although this year we're also requiring the UK to put down a deposit.

Seeing as everybody's loaning to each other to keep everybody's economy afloat, will pot-luck be the main course on the menu?

TCA wrote:

Keith Moon too. Maybe the NFL can get Led Zeppelin to play next next. Their entire rhythm section is dead too.

Hmm. Looks like John Paul Jones isn't dead yet. I guess I thought that because Page and Plant treated him like he was for so many years.

Haha AB, I love Boudreaux jokes....Cute one.

noob goldberg wrote:

We make Russia and Italy pay up in advance, although this year we're also requiring the UK to put down a deposit.

They'll be asked to pay in maples no doubt. Can California sit at the liitle kids table if we promise to be quiet?

TCA wrote:

Keith Moon too. Maybe the NFL can get Led Zeppelin to play next next. Their entire rhythm section is dead too.

John Paul Jones is dead!?

I was surprised they didn't choose Sinatra for the halftime show.

...once upon a time

YouTube - the who my generation woodstock perfect quality

As someone who is considered a lefty, though as I have mentioned I am pretty much ambidextrous... and someone with high empathy and insight... we will never rule the world...in some ways we see the world as it is, even though that seems contradictory since we are considered idealists not grounded in reality...it is because we aren't firmly connected with the group think veneer that everybody else operates under...but the truth is, like Merlin in Excalibur...for every great insight or feat...it takes a massive amount of time to recoup...why I love keeping a low profile and minimizing effort...big believer in efficient behaviors, it delays entropy. We will always be the mystics who arrive on scene to accomplish a change needed by the group mind on the herd...like I said before necessary to separate someone and allow them to see a piece of the whole in order to move the group so to speak...at least this is the pleasant dream I sell myself. I have my Alexander fantasy as well, but in my dreams I am always Aristotle wondering what Plato would think of my creation...

dr munch wrote:

Yes had a new singer on their last tour. I thought musically they sounded great--Howe and Squire can still rock.

My buddy saw them with the original singer as I recall. So Howe is back with Yes now; I thought he split with them back in the early '80s.

Cinco-X wrote:

John Paul Jones is dead!?

No, but apparently John Entwistle is ... I really need to check the obits page more often.

Go !

It seems so many are concerned with Greece's problems. Has anybody compared California's problems to Greece's? My guess is that California's problems are larger and will have greater effect.

Howe's side band, Asia, opened for yes on the summer tour. Double duty for Howe.

awgee wrote:

It seems so many are concerned with Greece's problems. Has anybody compared California's problems to Greece's? My guess is that California's problems are larger and will have greater effect.

Yes. Yes they will.

Okay, I'm very behind at work today. Enjoy your day, all.

Mick re-released his song, Get Off My Cloud.

It's called, Hey You, Get Off My Lawn!

Is there some lag between hosting the Olympics and a nation going kaput ?

Black Star Ranch wrote:

you think WE'RE tired of hearing Teenage Wasteland

I like Baba O'Reilly and so does my teenage daughter-

I love music. Love the 60s and 70s groups...but you need to stop at some point. Only ancient artists worth listening to live in my opinion are classical and acoustic types... The Who just didn't seem to 'belong' last night at half-time....I actually felt sorry for them... sounds strange I know, but they were great artists, and what was on presentation didn't do justice to them or their music.

Got a Dominoes Pizza add on CR's home page.

dryfly wrote:
Cinco - its BS - I've been hearing that all my life from people like that [creative empathic types] advocating a wider more liberal education.
As a creative-empathic type with a wider more liberal education, I concur with dryfly... we can be inspiring in some respects but creativity comes and goes, and a lot of the time we aren't doing much of anything but bloviating. The engineer even on a bad and terribly uninspired day can crank out something useful - math doesn't care about your mood or motivation

I am still wondering 'how on earth Manning thru that amateurish interception' at a critical time? Did not compute.

Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:

Go !

Looks like he's having trouble holding on today; probably due to the light volumes....

Greenspan's last two appearances on Meet the Press regarding employment.

December 13th, 2009

MR. GREGORY: Dr. Greenspan, where are we next year? Where is unemployment in December of next year?

DR. GREENSPAN: It's going to be lower. You know, we're going to get a special bonus that nobody really expects in the fact that the bureau of the census announced that it's going to employ 792,000 workers by April. That's a big--it's not a huge number, but it'll take several 10ths of a percent off the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate will be significantly lower a year from now. But between now and then, largely because of people coming back into the labor force, almost irrespective of how much employment expands, the unemployment rate will probably stay high. I don't think it will stay at 10 percent, but it's not going down very quickly or very dramatically.

February 7th, 2010
MR. GREGORY: Dr. Greenspan, one more question about jobs. So you think that unemployment rate goes up again before it comes down?

MR. GREENSPAN: I'm not sure. One of the reasons is the official data on unemployment is a sample and it fluctuates, and--as we observed in, in the January report. If you literally took it seriously as to the exact numbers, there were 784,000 job increase in January. Now, that didn't happen. And so that what we can expect is a backing and filling. I think we're going to stay at approximately the 9 to 10 percent level here for a goodly part of the rest of this year with the sole exception of that period when they start to hire a very large number of census workers. Remember, this is the decennial census.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. GREENSPAN: And that's going to have some positive effect. But it's very difficult to make the case that unemployment is coming down anytime soon.

Yeah, The Who are a bit past it now.

I was like "Ooh, the CSI theme tune!". Exciting stuff for the elderly.

One of the best single pieces of music I ever heard in terms of enjoyment, was the Salvation Army brass band in Aberdeen strike up the Thunderbirds theme, just as I started coming down the escalator.

YouTube - Barry Gray - Thunderbirds Theme

They'll never know how much enjoyment I derived from inserting myself into the titles of one of my fave shows.

Vonbek777 wrote:

I actually felt sorry for them

I suppose. True they are 3X the age of the players in uniform. But the ticket purchasers (those that actually matter) probably all had fond memories of the days when the Who had songs that occupied the airwaves.

I kinda liked the performance but what do I know.

BANK OF AMERICA 14.71 -0.29 -1.93 39,536,073

BOA gettin' hammered; I wonder if they have exposure in Greece?

volker the viking wrote:
31 - 17 Saints
great game, may be the high point of the year
And the low point of the year was probably the halftime show. I thought Roger Daltrey hoped to die before he got old

for anyone that saw the pregame show.... was it me, or did Wynton Marsalis' "song" about The Saints seem highly derivative of Jack Kerouac's "San Francisco Blues"?....

thought the half time show looked great, was mixed well for TV..... not the best choice of a group for a Superbowl halftime, Codger Daltry and Pedo Townsend did alright but they really just need to hang it up already - their elderly rock posturing does not juxtapose well with the music they recorded 30-40 years ago.

THE world's top central bankers began arriving in Australia yesterday as renewed fears about the strength of the global economic recovery gripped world share markets.

Representatives from 24 central banks and monetary authorities including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank landed in Sydney to meet tomorrow at a secret location, the Herald Sun reports.

The central bank cartel system has failed. The economies of the world require transparent, open source currencies. If you don't think so, why are you using Mozilla Firefox?

They could have improved the show if only they had just used a little more formaldehyde.

"Is there any chance Germany might give up on the euro--they're not noted for generosity outside the Sudetenland?"

I'm still puzzled as to why they ever went along with it in the first place. They are finance in europe and at this point still are.....for how long who knows.

Ciao
MS

By all accounts, I didn't miss a thing. Or maybe I did. Was that bikini game on too yesterday? I couldda been tempted to watch that for a few minutes.

Vonbek777 wrote:
The Who have moved past their own music so to speak...that is what was sad. Like a priest who has lost faith but still does Mass
They did good work in the day, and now are living off the proceeds, squeezing the catalog for as much money as they can get, and a superbowl gig would be hard to pass up. They're former rock superstars in their sixties, what else would you expect?

Cinco-X wrote:

BANK OF AMERICA 14.71 -0.29 -1.93 39,536,073
BOA gettin' hammered; I wonder if they have exposure in Greece?

No, someplace worse, much worse.

Who is speculating against Greece

It is the time of conspiracy theories, and here is one. Jean Quatremer has obtain information that one large investment US investment bank, and two important hedge funds are behind the attacks against Greece, Portugal and Spain. Their plan is to create panic, and thus to make large amounts of money. He also mentioned that two hedge funds are furious not to have been allotted funds from the recent Greek refinancing.

Europeans want to tough it out

"We're not going to discuss the financing,"

Mortgage Bankers Association Sells Headquarters at Big Loss - WSJ.com

No we wouldn't want to show weakness now...

Ciao
MS

The Notorious A.I.G. wrote:

Thanks for the welcome back, noob. When I saw the "Fears of Lehman-style tsunami" headline in the Torygraph, I thought I'd stop by and visit my favourite financial doomers.

You have long held my favourite hoocoodanode handle. Now, if we could just convince to stumble back into the threads it'd feel like Lehman all over again.

1 currency now -yogi wrote:
The songs represented rebellion against established order and corporatism but the Super Bowl is the epitome of established corporate order.
A bitter irony isn't it? That's why I love seeing aging rock stars

bearly wrote:

But the ticket purchasers (those that actually matter) probably all had fond memories of the days when the Who had songs that occupied the airwaves.

When I was a kid, and The Who were still getting a lot of air play, you rarely heard Elvis, Chuck Berry or Little Richard on the radio. Nowadays, I listen to the radio, and still hear Hendrix, Zeppelin, and The Who, and much of it seems fairly up to date. BTW, I'm talking about stations like
ROCK 101 :: WGIR-FM | 101.1fm :: Manchester, NH
WAAF - Homepage
http://www.wheb.com/main.html and
94HJY-The Home of Rock and Roll
not classic rock stations....

Haha noob, it is an awesome handle. One of my other favorites is "ShineOnYouJamieDimon"

Rob Dawg wrote:

No, someplace worse, much worse.

LOL; you mean.........Dawgafornia

Who else are multimillionaires supposed to represent but their brethren?

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

Old boomers who control everything jacking themselves off and singing about their rebellion against the man, lighting up the whole sick act with a million bulbs and a live network feed, sponsored by Cialis.

What was the Onion piece someone posted awhile back ... Alzheimers making boomers incorrectly remember the 60s even more than normal.

Yeah, it is kind of weird...

It'd be like Benny Goodman being the halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl in 1978.

Watch "the Kids are alright" Townshend (who is one of the best interviews ever) goes off on what his generation didn't do but "stood for". One of the best quotes is "we did NOTHING"

Ciao
MS

The Notorious A.I.G. wrote:

When I saw the "Fears of Lehman-style tsunami" headline in the Torygraph

Interesting synopsis:

Jacques Cailloux, Europe economist at RBS, said markets want the EU to spell out exactly how it is going to shore up Club Med states. “They are working on a different time-horizon from the EU. They don’t think words are enough: they want action now. They are basically testing the solidarity of monetary union. That is why contagion risk is growing,” he said.

Are they going to learn from the mistakes of Paulson et al, and take one unwavering and predictable approach, or are they going to flit from crisis country to crisis country with a variety-pack of silly bandaids? We learnt that the flitting is much worse than doing nothing at all.

My vote is for mass confusion and indecipherable objectives.

Rob Dawg wrote:

much worse.

Anthem Blue Cross dramatically raising rates for Californians with individual health policies - latimes.com

Hoops, get out there and get a job STAT, dammit. I need a lot of you guys to be productive so my Medicare & SS income stream doesn't miss a beat. And our nation's security demands it. Hurry!

You don't really want to see the financial scab that lies underneath those band-aids.

Cinco-X wrote:

Rob Dawg wrote:
No, someplace worse, much worse.
LOL; you mean.........Dawgifornia

The company that swallowed Countrywide is having indigestion. Hoocoodanode? Here's BAC,v. Citigroup (w/ Well So Far gone): WELLS FARGO & CO NEW Share Price Chart | WFC - Yahoo! Finance
It's almost like comparing relative exposures. I still pick WFC to blow up first, C second and BAC for a breakup.

Black Star Ranch wrote:
Hell - what else are they gonna do? What else do they know?
Exactly. There was not much there... The plumber gotta plumb, the trader gotta trade, the aging rock stars gotta sing the songs of their glory years in front of an audience of billions. Not a bad gig for aging rock stars.

Watch RBS as well, they've been getting hammered for a couple weeks now.

Creative thinkers, inventors, cubicle wonks, platos, emerson's, and stephen hawking's of modern day society all stand on the same foundation--the Laborer. The people who walk the line, till the fields, dig underground or climb upwards toward the sky to build, repair, splice, clear away debris, etc... provide societal basic needs. Computers wonks, poets, scientists, government reps, etc are the gravy of a functioning society provided on the backs of the Laborer. Katrina, Haiti, etc are mother nature's reminder of society's fragility. Computer wonks existence depends on electricity. Electricty doesn't exist without the laborer. Wall Street is allowed to live in fantasyland and believing the laborer is unecessary until the lights go out.....There's a thought

The search for the Greek bailout plan continues...

What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area.

From The Fugitive. Starring Harrison Ford as the elusive Greek bailout.

bearly, I'd get a job, but because of the crippling, well-documented inefficiencies of our thrown-together public-private health insurance model, our manufacturing base has moved overseas and jobs with benefits are too expensive to offer. I'd start my own business and create jobs that way, but because I do not enjoy the bargaining power of a large corporation, private health insurance rates are so expensive that they would render the entire enterprise unprofitable. I know what I'll do! I'll do what every other small business owner and farmer is doing and marry someone in government and use their benefits to subsidize my business! How efficient!

Seems the Whales overfed on the krill.

rps wrote:
Wall Street is allowed to live in fantasyland and ignoring the laborer is unecessary until the lights go out.....
You're correct about the foundations. And Wall*Street -- and they'll party on till the money's gone!

MS wrote:

Just got my new bill from them.....my coverage went from $225 to $350 a month.

My health insurance went up 9% (but I decline it), dental went up 8%, vision unchanged, life [death] unchanged. My wife's work covers health, we have double dental, and I get cash back for declining health insurance at work. Pays for the Xmas gifts in December.

Thain's hiring is nothing more than the system installing one of there own for the connective aspects of his former relationships. IMO he is nothing more than a used tampon

Sorry..had to say it.

Ciao
MS

rps wrote:

Creative thinkers, inventors, cubicle wonks, platos, emerson's, and stephen hawking's of modern day society all stand on the same foundation--the Laborer.

That you've ranted on the internet rather than scratch this dreck in the dirt between furrows throughly discredits your own assertions.

On February 10th, the Greek civil servants are walking out. The country's main labour union is calling for a general strike on February 24th. Austerity measures not going over well with the populo...

Late getting to this party, but -

The federal govt. is shut down today? Because of 2' of snow?

Really.

I'd hate to see what happens in a real catastrophe.

Not quite true... most of the artist I listen to are still hiding their meaning... Sometimes the poet's message isn't meant for the time he lives in. A good song my last a few generations, be redone... time will tell if it works as good as a stone tablet.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
What ever you do, don't pick that scab. Gang Green really stinks.
Yes, but Gang Greenspan smells Rand-y

You make me "Rand-y" baby....

Vonbek777 wrote:

Sometimes the poet's message isn't meant for the time he lives in.

The messages of the best poets are timeless. They capture the human condition.

Mr Slippery, MS
Can I correctly assume that pay did not increase more than the cost of insurance?

there's no need for mystery in musical lyrics.

What the fuck is up with that, anyway? When did people start demanding that their lyrics make sense without any need for creative interpretation? Everyone I play music for is perplexed when the lyrics aren't composed with See Jack See Jack Run type clarity

On February 10th, the Greek civil servants are walking out. The country's main labour union is calling for a general strike on February 24th. Austerity measures not going over well with the populo...

Don't worry, we can fix this problem by securing the opportunity to take on some debt at usurious rates by selling the right of peasants to collect water from any source, including rain, to a foreign multinational. Call in the IMF! If that doesn't work we can privatize the police force too. Bearly, maybe you can spread some fear and misinformation so that they think their government wants to kill them so that they abandon their public health insurance model.

Comrade Kristina wrote:
You make me "Rand-y" baby....
Oh yeah -- Our value criteria and rational worldviews seem SO compatible. Let's invest!

Cinco-X wrote:

But the early '70s produced some of their best albums-

I agree. But the greed heads had taken by that time, and everything was becoming huge biz. You were not seeing great bands in small venues, with little control over content and production.
It had become a business model, not a gig.

EHP-

In my case it's all relative as I'm a 1099 so my pay is irrelevant to it. My initial premium on this policy was $175, it was raised to $225 after the first year and now to $350 the second. I have never used it as it sucked in any case....but lord help me if I had.

Ciao
MS

Stated a tad more succinctly in "The Breakfast Club". ("Without lamps there'd be no light...")

We've had wonks here who've said unions should be banned. That's OK, even morons are protected by the First Amendment.

You violated a cardinal rule...see I can talk to people about politics and religion all day long...but never talk about your music. My children can both hum classical pieces already...even have their favorite songs...4 year old loves Bolero...can't understand why the other children call him names on the playground when he talks about Bolero...

Benny Goodman at the '78 Superbowl-- yeah.

When Edith and Archie sang "Those Were the Days" they were referencing a time that was closer to them then than they are to us now.

Or maybe souls of the dead, eh Chichikov?

I'm not that Chichikov. Anyway, those 'souls' were supposed to be alive.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:
What the fuck is up with that, anyway? When did people start demanding that their lyrics make sense without any need for creative interpretation?
A couple months ago, I got to hear "Poker Face" at karaoke, as performed by a ten year old girl. I almost threw up.

Turks rejoicing over this Greecian problem or are they vulnerable as well?

Never rejoice when your neighbor's barn burns. The rats have to move somewhere.

FORECAST

What are you, storm, gigantic screen?
The sky has overcome the sea;
What does your dark horizon mean?
Uneasy and afraid are we

Are you rain or sleet and snow,
Killing rain or killing frost?
Coming on, majestic, slow,
Who is saved and who is lost?

Cities cower, overhead
A sound of wild oncoming wings
Provokes the dullest to a dread
Of unseen ever-present things

The storm ascends and yet within
No sense of shame, complicit sin

Pavel
February 4, 2010

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

Never rejoice when your neighbor's barn burns. The rats have to move somewhere.

That's awesome. I might have to turn that into my email signature.

In the runup to the second stage of the Great Depression II the Americans, without intending to be ironic, made the best comment on why we were here.

A band that epitomized revolution against everything the Super Bowl stands for at one time provided the half time music. Old geezers selling memories of a youth to a crowd that for the most part had never experienced.

Once again what might have been was commercialized, respun, and made to be new to suck in eyeballs and money for the fantasy machine.

Vonbek777 wrote:

4 year old loves Bolero...can't understand why the other children call him names on the playground when he talks about Bolero...

Hopefully you haven't giving him a name like Sierra, Apple or something else likely to result in schoolyard beatings. Grade school might be tough....

Comrade Kristina wrote:

many people dropped out of the program on the last 25% rate hike.

It feels like that is the plan

Agree, always a tug-a-war between the holy-man and the chief. Guess it comes down to whether you believe history is a force that moves people forward though time...the end of a Poe song...

Father:
This cannot be all that there is to life, because in our confrontation
with an enormous and cold universe, there is something comical to the idea
that we can really enforce our will on humanity. Power...corrupts!

It's your world. Do with it what you want!
No. That's not the way to do it.
Power Corrupts...That's not the way to do it.
Paradox
No. It's your world
No. It's your world
No. It's your world
NO!

Control it! Control it!

Daughter :
This is scaring me.

Daughter :
I live at the end of a 5 and 1/2 minute hallway
I live at the end of a 5 and 1/2 minute hallway

Father:
And at the end of it all lies, of course, the final
phenomenon of deterioration - entropy, which is a predictable
deteriortion when the creative energy ceases:
Everything has to fall apart.

Daughter:
Why are you always so serious?!

rps wrote:
Basic needs first, physicists, astronauts, venture capitalists (make me gag), are living in the laborers gravy boat.
The difference is that those categories of folks, even the VCs, aren't just gambling with leverage and sticking the laborers with their losses. They're part of the "leisure" class, but they are also using much of that leisure in a way that profits many directly and indirectly. Or used to, in the case of astronauts.

It's really The Guns of August, not from a military alliance interconnectivity basis though.

Instead, all combatants are locked in a race to the bottom financially and nobody can afford to get off the ride, and it's a white knuckler...

I am sure they have a bottle of Greecian Formula hidden away that will hide the problem for 4 weeks.

you haven't giving him a name like Sierra, Apple or something else likely to result in schoolyard beatings.

By bullies named Dubya, Dick, G. Gordon?
What kind of name is Cinco, anyway, a furriner?

nova wrote:

Old geezers selling memories of a youth to a crowd that for the most part had never experienced.

very very heavy man

Real world work doesn't seem to ever fit the hands of those who think they know.

Well I am home schooling, but since we are a big athletic family, they will be doing team sports...nothing like putting a non-group thinker into team sports. I used to think it was a form of torture, now I know it is necessary for survival... as for names, big on etymology... so our names are nice and classical picked for the meaning not the sound or popularity of course.

JD, is tommy by any chance related to Rahm?

Alzheimer's Disease Causing Baby Boomers To Misremember 1960s Even More | The Onion - America's Finest News Source 

It just struck me as odd that the Dow Jones "Industrials" Average includes 4 financial companies:

BANK OF AMERICA 14.65 -0.35 -2.33 74,023,339 10:57
JPMORGAN CHASE 37.64 -0.66 -1.72 21,767,647 10:57
TRAVELERS COS IN 49.79 -0.49 -0.97 1,079,460 10:57
3M CO 77.85 -0.69 -0.88 1,316,039 10:57
IBM 122.69 -0.83 -0.67 2,024,537 10:57
AMERICAN EXPRESS 37.62 -0.23 -0.61 2,414,629 10:57

and they're 4 of the top 6 losers this morning.....

Yancey Ward wrote:

So, any guesses how many points the Dow levitates above 10000 at today's close?

I think everyone will expect it to end at least 60 points up, and someone will come in near the close to take advantage of that expectation.

But I'm holding EEV, so my judgment is clouded, to say the least; delusional is probably more accurate.

We don't have the uppity Latin types here in Merica, so you can take away stuff from us here and we just grin and bear it and do nothing, but the plot is boiling over, over there, and who knows what's gonna happen?

...does it feel a little 1848 there, or is just me.

Is there a potato famine in Ireland?

Anak wrote:

"My Way".
Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord - NY Times

Then, of course, there is Sids version:
YouTube - The Sex Pistols - My Way 

Funny thing about creative types...you know the saying...the book wrote itself...sometimes that is true. I can tell the difference between my true dreams and my 'own' dreams most of the time. There are some truly so weird, I have no idea where they came from... but if you are a chosen one of a muse...your agenda like Jonah, hardly matters...

Deutsche Bank And Unicredit Pull Out Of Greek Repo Market, Cease Lending Against Greek Collateral | zero hedge
...
China Inflation Scramble Is Now Official As World's Second Largest Economy Prepares For Cold War With U.S. | zero hedge

“We should retaliate with an eye for an eye and sell arms to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela,” declared Liu Menxiong, a member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference.

“This time China must punish the US,” said Major-General Yang Yi, a naval officer. “We must make them hurt.”

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

Kunstler is just a sour old crank.

He's an entertainer, like Matt Taibi.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

sour old crank

Quite possibly

Is that a sign of something?

Check the fluid remaining...

C'mon little ... where's my on-side punt?

Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:

C'mon little Elmo! ... where's my on-side punt?

This is one tired-looking market. Just over 70 million on the Dow. Pathetic.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

Kunstler is just a sour old crank. Listen to him try to tell us why nuclear power couldn't POSSIBLY provide us with enough energy to replace oil and gas.

Hoops, dig into the subject - not saying you will end up with the big K but it is not an airy armwave to get there - here is a link if you are interested:

National Petroleum Council: Facing the Hard Truths About Energy

Cinco-X wrote:

I thought it was you and Nova talking about steering your kid towards a Liberal Arts Degree!? Perhaps I'm mistaken...Sorry about that-

No we both agreed a liberal arts education is fine - but that isn't the same as saying it will produce 'rulers of the world' like the guy claims who wrote that book. [Not saying YOU said that saying the author claims that]. I think having those skills [being able to think] makes happier people but in the end most of us either fix something or serve somebody or are unemployed - not much creativity in that. Damn few get to be masters of the universe. I wouldn't go either route [left brain or right brain emphasis] based on hoping it lets me rule the world. I think the whole premise of his book is flawed. Other than that its prolly a good read.

Vonbek777 wrote:
Your name is really Casandra isn't it?
Does this skirt make my ass look fat?

How does being able to think make you happy? Personally, it is quite depressing most of the time...and then if you go Buddhist to make sense of it all...does becoming one with everything really make you happy...I mean personally I fear oblivion...

ResistanceIsFeudal (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Mon, 2/8/2010 - 9:39 am
Vonbek777 wrote:
Your name is really Casandra isn't it?
Does this skirt make my ass look fat?

Aw, crap. There goes another keyboard!

there's no need for mystery in musical lyrics.
.

Means that Louie Louie has been definitively manifested into swanky airport lounge action.

But see, I'm not afraid of death. I am okay with you only live once...wasn't always, but having kids sort of changes things (at least for me)...sure I want a long life and time for my dreams...but I mean this afterlife transformation gives me the creeps. I just want to opt out. Don't want to be part of the heavenly choir, don't want to punish myself in hell... just give me a nice piece of land and plant a tree on top of me.

OR that first level of hell...hang out with all the good non-believers and philosophers...what a concept... hey these guys were morally good, we can't have them suffering.... just put them in stasis...deny them hope... playing cards for eternity, least the conversation would be good.

rps wrote:
With friends like these who needs enemies?
We do. It keeps the game honest, and forces us to keep focus on something besides passive entertainment.

Vonbek777 wrote:

But see, I'm not afraid of death. I am okay with you only live once.

You have wisdom. I have foolishness

dum luk wrote:

This morning Greece is with STUPID (Spain, Turkey, UK, Portugal, Italy and Dubai) as five-year sovereign credit default swap spreads were recently at 4.23 percentage points, compared with Wednesday’s closing level of 3.97 percentage points.

Who says bankers aren't creative...STUPID, the new PIGS.....

Is it too much to ask that an economics blog (Mises daily) report accurately? E.g., "The headline jobless number has one in ten people out of work. Include those who have become discouraged and dropped out of the labor force, and the number is one in five."

Actually, it is accurate to state that the jobless number has one in ten people in the labor force out of work, not one in ten people. Consider that the US total population is approximately 308 million. The total labor force including the unemployed is about 154 million. Back out a 20% U6 unemployment number, and the employed US labor force is 123 million. 40% of the total US population is working, and not even supporting the other 60%.

And the Super Bowl ads were all just plain awful. Another sign of cutbacks at corporate America?