Oh, yes we follow.

Personally, I think we're in need of a "Prudent Saver Financial Protection Agency", as they are the ones being robbed blind.

Consumers and debtors -- they're being protected, or at least heavily incented, nicely at the moment. Plenty of aid for debtors and consumers. For savers, not so much.

My quote of the Month:

"My first choice is a strong consumer agency," the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor."

Fight For The CFPA Is 'A Dispute Between Families And Banks,' Says Elizabeth Warren

Hey consumer: when dealing with bankers, always use protection.

Barney Frank called the idea of sticking the agency up the Fed a "bad joke", so let's not go there.

I didn't bring up the buzzcocks: YouTube - Pete Shelley - Homosapien (not that there's anything wrong with a fine rock and roll song)

Nice.

"Yingling Brothers, Ballnum and Beary"

I like it

their position has always been “we’re totally against it.”

Well, one can readily see their point. What we need is an agency to protect banks from their borrowers. The banks are suffering mightily, all because some customers took the money and now don't have the means to pay it back. Scandalous!

You know what they say,"Poor people are sharks."

I'm sure glad that thanks to the mighty, invisible hand of capitalism that consumers are safe.

Nemo wrote:

"Yingling Brothers, Ballnum and Beary"

Too clever for me at this hour, nemo

Those zero-hedge guys are stealing our

Yet with each passing day, all those who are fully aware that the Fed's course is one of self-destruction, grow bolder, until finally one day a new class of investors - the Fed vigilantes will emerge, looking for cheap opportunities to make a killing (think ABX) on the other side of the "Fed trade", which ultimately will lead to a systemic catharsis of unprecedented proportions.

At that point neither gold, nor lead will be in any way useful. Beta and gamma radiation will make sure of that.

I ain't no Fed vigilante.

[However, if you'd like more info regarding open source currencies, post-apocalypse...]

The strangleholders?

YouTube - Stranglers - No More Heroes

I say give it to Sheila and the FDIC. They aren't doing anything anyways.

Things were more contained when the States were not superceded. Perhaps this isn't a function for the Federal level.

This looks like a good start, although that ol truth in lending thing doesn't seem to have worked that well:

The basic consumer protection statute enforced by the Commission is Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, which provides that "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce...are...declared unlawful." (15 U.S.C. Sec. 45(a)(1)). Safe Web amended Sec. 5(a) "unfair or deceptive acts or practices" to include such acts or practices involving foreign commerce that cause or are likely to cause reasonably foreseeable injury within the United States or involve material conduct occurring within the United States.

"Unfair" practices are defined as those that "cause[] or [are] likely to cause substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition" (15 U.S.C. Sec. 45(n)). In addition, the Commission enforces a variety of specific consumer protection statutes (e.g., the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Truth-in-Lending Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Cigarette Labeling Act, the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 and others)) that prohibit specifically-defined trade practices and generally specify that violations are to be treated as if they were "unfair or deceptive" acts or practices under Section 5(a).

From FTC Office of the General Counsel - About

But hell, what's the real difference between sticking the new financial products watchpoodle in the Fed where it won't do any good, or out on its own as an independent agency with a small staff, budget, and endlessly exposed to interagency fights and jurisdictional challenges, where it won't do any good either.

C

BBC News - Brazil slaps trade sanctions on US over cotton dispute

The Brazilian government has announced trade sanctions against a variety of American goods in retaliation for illegal US subsidies to cotton farmers.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) approved the sanctions in a rare move.

Brazil published a list of 100 US goods that would be subject to import tariffs in 30 days, unless the two governments reached a last-minute accord.

It said it regretted the sanctions, but that eight years of litigation had failed to produce a result.

It said it would raise tariffs on $591m (£393m) worth of US products - from cars, where the tariff will increase from 35% to 50%, to milk powder, which would see a 20% increase in the levy.

Walk heavy and carry a toothpick.

BBC News - Greece asks US to help crackdown on speculators

'George Papandreou said he wanted to see the US impose stricter regulations on hedge funds and currency traders.

Ms Clinton said the US wanted to work with other nations to reform the "unregulated financial market that globally moves money at the speed of sound, if not light, and leaves in its wake all kinds of consequences that governments have to contend with".

Actions speak louder than words.

Thanks for that article, Counterpointer. If the Great American Experiment is measured from the beginning 500~ years ago, then a collapse taking a decade or two is relatively swift. If, as Ferguson suggests, our peak was Clinton/Bush, we have perhaps a decade left before Desolation.

Behold the Wonders of Our Insatiable Conceits
And gaze upon the barren plain.
Where once our greatest triumphs lay,
Ruins, unmourned monuments decay.

With no regard for past or future,
Giants passed this way.
Windblown footsteps fade.

Dust and sand remain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time to prepare for work. Happy ing everyone.

Counterpointer wrote:

happy talk from Paul Farrell

nice read, thanks

I think Farrell is mistaken. Some empires collapse swiftly, many do not. How many scores of years did it take the Ottoman Empire, "the sick man of Europe," to collapse? Or our baseline Roman empire? Or Byzantium? Or the British empire, challenged in 1776, finally more or less ended in 1946? The collapse of communism in 1989-90 is more the exception than the rule.

I also think his emphasis on glory-seeking leaders as engines of collapse is not correct. I think Tainter's idea, that the wars of empires are part of their efforts to solve dilemmas, is a better explanation. We could have had glory by going into Rwanda. But not oil!

JPMorgan Top Hedge Fund, Pensions & Investments Says (Correct) - Bloomberg.com

The worst thing about following trading markets is that you have to know what the complete idiots on CNBC are chattering about. The women are cute, but...

Lala Song Player - Maria Bartiromo by Joey Ramone

RIP Joey Ramone

What´s happening on Wall St.
What´s happening at the Stock Exchange
I want to know
What´s happening on Squawk Box
What´s happening with my stocks
I want to know
I watch you on the TV every single day
Those eyes make everything okay
I watch her every day
I watch her every night
She´s really outta sight

Maria Bartiromo
Maria Bartiromo
Maria Bartiromo

Wha´s happening with Yahoo!
What´s happening with AOL
I want to know
What´s happening with Intel
What´s happening with Amazon
I want to know
I watch you on TV every single day
Those eyes make everything OK
I watch her every day
I watch her every night
She´s really outta sight

Maria Bartiromo (5x)

What´s happening on Wall St.
What´s happening at the Stock Exchange
I want to know
What´s happening on Squawk Box
What´s happening with my stocks
I want to know

I watch her at the big board every single day
While she´s reporting you best stay out of her way
I watch her every day
I watch her every night
She´s really outta sight

Nova, bravo.

We don't use ATMs for this reason. Its not that hard. I'd rather look a teller in the eye and know that doing business with the SMALL bank means someones kid gets fed. It also means they KNOW me and I'm not a faceless cog. Same for the pharmacy. I REFUSE to have it 'mailed' to me. I've been going to the same one for 10 years. They KNOW me and its payed off too when there have been the occasional screwups.

For a SERVICE BASED society...Where pray tell is the freaking service?? If you call a big business, all you get is a menu of options. (yeah, I know the trick about hitting zero but the waits are unacceptable to get to a person that actually has a pulse).

Robots can serve a great purpose, doing repetitive work, doing dangerous work but they are not the panacea. And if a robot can paint a car, then why can't I have an affordable robot that can clean my bathroom?

lol yogi.

I hear the market close message from Maria..'do you know where your money is?' Turns out, no one did. And ironically, people follow their money better than those quaint days of "its 4 o'clock and do you know where your CHILD is"? Prolly a lot of the younger folks here don't remember that as there's a generation or two that opened their home to an empty house at the end of their school day.

I remember in NY, "it's ten o'clock, do you know where your children are?"

The Joey Ramone song is pretty catchy.

Fascinating political dynamics in Greece.

Pellice, history is a great teacher. I think it is a mistake though to translate those times to these in terms of how everything unwinds. The instant world of communications, trades, etc. means that billions can cross borders in a nano-second. I've noted in my lifetime how much faster cycles happen, indeed they can go much deeper than anticipated before corrective action can be taken by the slow human and even slower bureaucracies. The dotcom bubble/burst is one example. After legislative changes in 1999, we can see the results of less than 10 years of that deregulation experiment which has threatened the entire worlds economy. There is little time to react for individuals, they are outgunned by a wide margin by those large trading desks with faster computers and links to exchanges.

Although I think history is a teacher here, I also think that because of these advancement the way the unwinding happens will be different and perhaps a lot more painful. Slower changes are easier to deal with than sudden ones but this time it maybe well out of the hands of TPTB. Instant news, news that is conveyed now by people who aren't journalists or beholding to their ad revenues also adds an element of faster and more volatile political/social change.

We forgot the lessons leading up to GD1 (or I should say the architects of this mess did). The parallels are astounding. Its astounding that policies and markets that worked just fine with some constraints to keep them serving utilitarian functions were stripped and laid open for the unscrupulous, short sighted.

We will reap what we have sown.

Benchmarking by manufacturers should be in private, especially if it's downward.

Every large publicly-owned corporate manufacturer tends to let its product deteriorate. They leverage : their reputation, hire cheap labor to chase profits, become .
Toyota will be in trouble in front of a jury of 12 Americans.

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

Every large publicly-owned corporate manufacturer tends to let its product deteriorate.

And every index fund investor needs to learn about survivor bias.

Akkk, my daughter, homework done, demands the computer to penpal around, so

If you look at in a commodity sense this is not a big deal. May be due to my own immaturity this kind of logic grabs my imagination

The Golden Truth: Is China Getting Long CDS Contracts on Govt Debt Which Require Payment in Physical Gold?

Good morning Dooma Loompas...

I don't see it as a done deal, although I see the emergence of an international open source hard currency which will render arbitraged national currencies obsolete.

Good riddance.

shill wrote:

Greek police stormed a government printing

So, police have to use force to prevent a government printing office from printing budget documents?

For each function, under whose orders, one wonders?

Employee killed, 2 wounded in Ohio State shooting - Yahoo! News

nervous

thanks, I hadn't seen that article. Seems like a safe place to park some money. If there is such a thing.

Chinese need to do something about their inflation.

Yuan forwards strengthened to a one-month high as economists forecast a report this week will show consumer prices climbed the most in 16 months in February, putting pressure on the central bank to resume currency gains.

Runaway Prius hits 90 mph before stopping with aid of CHP - latimes.com

Pennsylvania helps jobless residents pay their mortgages - Mar. 8, 2010

Lol, can't make your Mortgage, no problem take another loan.

Note the quote's

"our, last, best and final offer"

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

Toyota will be in trouble in front of a jury of 12 Americans.

Oh, have you ever got that one right. The show-trial in front of Congress wasn't much more than Smoot Court. But, boy, did they ever take all that rope and tie a perfect hangman's knot with it.

Another case study for B-school in a generation.

I'll see your Ohio shooting and raise you two Texas shootings. One at WallyWorld.

Gunman Targets Father, Son in Dallas Office Shooting - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com That one was at a "financial services building"

Walmart Shootout Results in Gunman Dead and Officer Injured - Crimesider - CBS News This one at a WalMart.

Things are getting scary, quickly.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

points

Things are getting scary, quickly.

Na not quick enough, when Obowa tries to implement the National ID program that is when things will get real interesting. But I figure the ID program is a ruse, so no one pays any attention to the man behind the curtain...you know Health care reform.

Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:

goldbugs will bring a silver hammer

As a nice guy you forgot to mention the insufferable moral indignation that we wear as body armor

Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:

And they had to use a bullhorn to tell him to slow down with the emergency brake and turn off the engine?

Think of it as evolution in action.

Have any mentioned yet how Fred Flintstone stops?

Please please me and get back with the fab 4 references and let it be already.

anothern

Volcker started the increase in Fed power with the Monetary Control Act of 1980 and last week he said he wanted to "corral the excesses in derivatives markets". Volcker stated that there is a "growing concensus" in Europe and the US to wind down failing banks. "In medical analogy, the arrangements would amount to euthanasia and a decent burial, not lengthy life support," he said.
I myself say good for him. However, he says nothing about bringing back Glass-Steagall and later he talks about improving regulation by countering the speed at which banks develop new financial instruments. What kind of double talk is that? I say he is a moderate financial engineer, but still one of the group.The federal reserve needs to be disbanded since they are an integral part of corporatism, the NWO, and the fleecing and parasitization of the US pension system and the and lowering of the standard of living for 99% of Americans. The knowledge based economy or service economy w/o manufacturing is nothing more than a fraud perpetrated by the suppy siders. They want nothing but the best highways, schools, airports, roads, etc, but they don't want to pay
for them except with foreign money in exchange for US jobs and foreign debt. There is no free lunch.

Senate to take up unemployment insurance extension - Yahoo! Finance

Extend and pretend....Must keep the masses happy....

In some states people are eligible to receive benefits for up to 99 weeks.

Hahaha why work!...hell I must be nuts, I think I just might lay myself off and take a year of R&R...hell why wait till I am 65 I can enjoy it while I am young.

t r orwell wrote:

There is no free lunch.

And a parasite that hopes to live to reproduction age knows when to say "enough".

Most Americans still unprepared for retirement - survey - Mar. 9, 2010

Wait wait, my bad....what retirement.

I keep thinking here that NG and oil (silver and gold as well) will revert to something like their historical ratios. Not happening now, though.

Rob Dawg's most likely asleep, so I'll channel him for a minute:

Make one - just one! - of these oil / NG speculators take physical delivery at the corner of Broad and Wall, and prices will revert to levels supported by supply and demand overnight.

Alternatively, we can keep consuming roughly 20MBPD at (let's guess) $30/bbl over equilibrium price, so as to keep funnelling an unnecessary $600 million a day into the pockets of the and their ilk.

Boy howdy, what a dilemma!

MOOK! Bravo...REPEAL THE GD F'ING CFMA. Its also the path for trading in those 'dark pools'. I'd like for Phil Gramm to swim the rest of his life in a dark pool with very heavy viscosity, no light and no life preserver.

IRS to Track Online Sellers' Payment Transactions Beginning Next Year

...being for the benefit of money kiting there will be a show of might and lack of transparency

Mook wrote:

Make one - just one! - of these oil / NG speculators take physical delivery at the corner of Broad and Wall, and prices will revert to levels supported by supply and demand overnight.

But every time they roll to a forward contract, they're selling the immediate one, yes? So unless you tinker with the carry charges (or the cost of money, LOL) it won't change the dynamic, right?

where's Traderwalt when we need him??

Mook wrote:

Make one - just one! - of these oil / NG speculators take physical delivery at the corner of Broad and Wall,

That would be an environmental disaster there matching the financial disaster formulated there and forced upon the rest of us...

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Obama's Housing Shell Game; Short Sales and Relocation Assistance

We've now come full circle. Instead of trying to get people to stay in their homes, Obama is willing to pay them to leave. Please consider Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss.

On the other hand, if it forces the market towards true price discovery, it's a good thing.

ADMISSION By FDIC: Massive Balance Sheet FRAUD - The Market Ticker

I am constantly amused by those people who claim there is some vast "conspiracy" in this country when it comes to banks, balance sheets, and fraudulent lending and accounting.

There is no conspiracy.

It is, in fact, "in your face" fraud.

Boldfaced Font Warning!

traderwalt wrote:

That would be an environmental disaster there matching the financial disaster formulated there and forced upon the rest of us...

We could always make 'em take physical delivery in the Aztec sense.

Cinco-X wrote:

Boldfaced Font Warning!

I truly enjoy poking at old Karl, but he's seldom misguided. Just a pain in the ass , overbearing, I told you so sort.

California watchdog sees climate policy job losses - Yahoo! News UK

volker the viking wrote:

I truly enjoy poking at old Karl, but he's seldom misguided. Just a pain in the ass , overbearing, I told you so sort.

Me too, on all counts!

How does one go about cleaning off the digital spittle on the inside of one's computer screen?

Reverse the vac hose too blow....that should do it.

you have to spray for it

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

How does one go about cleaning off the digital spittle on the inside of one's computer screen?

If you're using the latest version of Firefox, just push the blue arc on the toolbar below and between the "History"&"Bookmarks" menus.....

NFIB: Small Business Optimism Declines in February

I thought the bouncing head diversions were Mayan?

energyecon wrote:

This is the issue with all of the big solutions we discuss here - we will first need to develop capacity (infrastructure investments).

Can't we just click on the "steel tank infrastructure ETF" instead? Building stuff gets dirt under my fingernails.

Feds: Calif. man ran student visa fraud ring  | ajc.com

i am so familar with this place,never been there but called the ins(now ICE) daily for weeks,days,hours trying to find out if they knew where son in laws green card was. got thur one day and the ins agent? clerk? told me "it had been sent out in nov 2000. he also told me that"it had probably been stolen" i guess he wasnt kidding. funny thing was he went to atlanta to re-new.what a mess-up in one way but in the other if he had gotten it it would have been a rush job i mean a rush job since he applied aug 00 and it was "sent out" in 11-00. i hate those people.told them that it was a good thing that i was natural born cause if i had to do it,i would be illegal.
just bitching. but this guy was getting cards from the real place( just like that ahole said) off