Yup, my lips were getting chapped trying to speed read 'em.

If we close our eyes and pretend, this all goes away.

Me thinks its time for BTO....

Total assets of $300+Billion doesn't really seem like that much.

I mean,even if losses were 1/3 of total assets for every institution on the list, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of bailouts we've performed so far.

Let's add in the assets of C, JPM, and BAC (not to mention the GSEs) and see how big the total of assets at troubled financial institutions really is.

As Michael Q, who is an equity analyst, noted:

2% margins on export-oriented businesses is not representative of any sort of real competitive advantage. A real competitive advantage when it comes to exporting would show double-digits profit margins. This whole sector is hanging by a thread…nearly none of the activity China has engaged in since the downturn is secular or self-sustaining.

If the 2% is true, China is in more trouble than I thought.

fried wrote:

I.M.F. Chief Calls for ‘Fire Brigade’ to Aid European Banks

Maybe Sheila can open an offshore branch... will that fix our balance of trade?

dryfly wrote:

CRE is going to do to us what RRE did to you all.

And we in the bubble central states get both, aren't we lucky.

quick drive-by anecdotal data points from my life...

Darby & Darby, a NYC-based patent boutique founded in 1895, folded up shop suddenly a week ago. A competitor, Finnegan Henderson, is arguably the most respected patent firm in America, and supposedly sent around an internal memo recently suggesting that February was the worst month in a year? decades? ever?

My wife works for a government/defense contractor, and reports that contractor terminations for lack of funding are increasing exponentially in recent weeks.

Does anybody have any happy news to share?

Josh - Does anybody have any happy news to share?

Found out my contractor job will be going away sometime this year. (Good news for the tax payer right? )

noob goldberg wrote:

If I thought it was all broken I, for one, wouldn't be chatting about it on this forum.

Me either - yogi must have had indigestion.

yjacket wrote:

........the upside is I know I can survive when the SHTF!

Yep.....ignorance sometimes is quite loud if the refrigerator is full.

Josh wrote:

Does anybody have any happy news to share?

My neighbor is trying to sell his house to develop some property in Yuma! Does that qualify as good news?

And no, we don't talk to each other that much (his front entrance runs along my backyard and he's down about fifteen feet, so we just shout hello occasionally.)

Edit: He actually is already in the process of developing, but decided to move on site to supervise.

Saw something more accurate a week ago, Resume Gradual Adjustment of the Yuan_English_Caixin

Recent surveys looked at the effects of yuan appreciation on a number of labor-intensive industries, such as the textiles. Several associations for labor-intensive industries estimated their net profit rates would fall 1 percentage point for every point of yuan appreciation. Profit margins for many companies in these industries are in the 3 to 5 percent range. And since exporters suffered severe shocks during the international financial crisis, their ability to weather a yuan appreciation may be strained.

The guy the WSJ quoted was making the Chinese government's case. While not lying, he is intentionally being misleading. I have seen the 3-5% figure quoted elsewhere when I searched for it. Logically it makes sense, the margin to handle all the price swings in rent, inputs, labor, etc from one piecemeal contract to the next for the small marginal exporters. This is why there is so much quality substitution, that's the only way for the small exporter to make a profit

dryfly wrote:

most of this new work is from competition going BK

I'm recently revisiting arguments from 18-24 months ago that BK is part of a healthy process, and if our government could just try and ensure an orderly process, the U.S. would be much better off pushing insolvent institutions and individuals into BK. The BK itself qualifies as good news to me, so long as the work is still done by someone on the other side.

Josh wrote:

Darby & Darby, a NYC-based patent boutique founded in 1895, folded up shop suddenly a week ago. A competitor, Finnegan Henderson, is arguably the most respected patent firm in America, and supposedly sent around an internal memo recently suggesting that February was the worst month in a year? decades? ever?

This data-point, if reflective of the entire patent industry, should be almost more disturbing than the difficulties experienced in manufacturing and the housing sector. If R&D expenditures have dried up so much as to cut down the amount of patents being filed, that's not particularly comforting for the state of future competitiveness and innovation.

Or am I interpreting this incorrectly.

Mattison Surface Grinder 12 x 60 Inch In SC near GA - eBay (item 370268507930 end time Mar-30-10 07:40:26 PDT)

Josh wrote:

The BK itself qualifies as good news to me, so long as the work is still done by someone on the other side.

It can. In this case it's inevitable - praise it or damn it - doesn't change it - they are going down.

The thing is it might take a decade to get everyone working again and at close to comparable compensation. On paper its all good - try explain that to the families losing out.

noob goldberg wrote:

Now imagine if the review was undertaken from the perspective of doctors, hospital administrators, and patients...

Why ask them - they paying for anything?

I would hope so, but some seem to disagree. I'm okay with a capitalistic review . . .but do people actually think that a bill coming from Congress, who gave us TARP, STIM I, and heaven knows what else etc. is actually going to do a good job of it?

The blind faith in the fed. gov. astounds me.

Actually, it doesn't it's not that people actually trust the Fed. gov. to do anything right, it's all about what's in it for me. As long as I get my piece of the pie, screw the rest of you suckers. I want my pony, my mort. mod. my right to a job, my right to health care, mine, mine, mine.

So people implicitly know the fed. gov. won't and more importantly CAN NOT fix the problem. It's all about me.

And once that is played up it's all about the sob story. I bet dollars to donuts those who feel so sad and sorry about the sob story and say "well it's just not right" haven't donated much of anything to charity. I've found in life the ones who push the hardest for social charity are the worst for actually doing something personal about it (but that's just my experience).

noob goldberg wrote:

I assume the patient is the one paying,

What country are you from again?

yjacket wrote:

I've found in life the ones who push the hardest for social charity are the worst for actually doing something personal about it (but that's just my experience).

Thankfully, that has not been my experiance.

mp - are you pimping that surface grinder? My people have a couple of them [got one for almost free in one of the BKs they took over].

Yeah, I wish so too. I love helping people out, but more on the teaching someone to fish vs. giving it to them. I have seen things that have absolutely wrenched my heart in pieces, but the best way to fix it is to teach people a better way, rather than band-aid over it.

I don't know I come from a long line of rebellious people (southern blood ). I really hate being told to give or told I must buy HC. If I'm in that situation, I might just write a big screw you on the tax forms and tell them I'll see you in court. Paying taxes is one thing, but a health care tax which is in essence a life tax elevates it to a whole new level.

Brother Power: Naked Chinese Man vs. Modern Society | chinaSMACK
69-year-old granny buried alive, family members get 5 homes plus 600,000 as compensation | ChinaHush

noob goldberg wrote:

I thought he was holding a silent wake for the Bridgeport company.

Well, at least someone got it.

He wasnt really grinding his axe, ... That looks like a lot of machine for 7 grand....

Just learning about the Triffin dilemma:

Triffin dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Triffin dilemma, less commonly called Triffin paradox, is the fundamental problem of the United States dollar's role as reserve currency in the Bretton Woods system, or more generally of a national currency as reserve currency.

Briefly, the use of a national currency as global reserve currency leads to a tension between national monetary policy and global monetary policy.

This is reflected in fundamental imbalances in the balance of payments, specifically the current account: to maintain all desired goals, dollars must both overall flow out of the United States, but dollars must at the same time flow in to the United States. Currency inflows and outflows of equal magnitudes cannot both happen at once.

The dilemma is named after Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin, who first identified the problem in 1960.

Bridgeport, bye bye.

It was nice.

mp wrote:

They had excellent mechanical machine maintence ways are very nice on this machine. It is under power in our south carolina location and you come come try it out here. We have a matching (same main castings) vertical spindle way grinder specially built for grinding the dovetails for bridgeport milling machine tables . This machine has a pope vertical spindle and was custom built by Mattison for bridgeport. We also have some bridgeport tables. These machines were used at the factory to grind Bridgeport tables so here a chance to own the actual machines bridgeport used to grind tables. We will list the way grinder later.

Buy them and go into the spare parts biz - be a good idea too if the base casings ever wore out - which they don't. Oh well.

FUBAR and WASS LLC wrote:

Last time the Chinese devalued their currency, we had the Asian currency crisis once it worked through the system.

It would again... and of course be 'contained' to Asia... right? Right?.... [crickets]

yjacket wrote:

I would hope so, but some seem to disagree. I'm okay with a capitalistic review . . .but do people actually think that a bill coming from Congress, who gave us TARP, STIM I, and heaven knows what else etc. is actually going to do a good job of it?

I've generally (with some notable failures) attempted to stay out of this debate because I don't have any skin in this particular argument.

Irrespective of the country, however, I think that healthcare is something a little bit different. I'm from Canada, and we're quite willing to accept that rich people will drive nicer cars than us, live in fancier houses, eat exotic food, have housekeepers, fly first class everywhere, have a summer home, attend better schools, etc etc. I don't think--even in Canada--that many people begrudge the rich for having access to those accouterments of their success. In many ways the Canadian Dream, if one exists, is almost identical to the American one.

But if you're a 40 year old father who just watched their son die because he couldn't find a way to pay for a surgery that could have been available if he was rich....well, I don't know how that would affect a person, or what they'd be willing to do. In Canada we chose that, for better or worse, with regards to health-care everyone is equal. I don't know if that's the right approach, and I'm not advocating it for anyone else, but I think access to affordable health-care has broader social implications than is often recognized.

EDIT: That said, if I did have some skin in the game I would almost certainly agree with your reservations as you outlined them above.

Yeah, that's a good idea, dryfly. As soon as I start getting involved in health-care arguments I know I've overstayed my welcome.

Asian currency crisis. 

Although the currency crisis has not affected mainland China's renminbi to a large extent, China still has the potential of experiencing a major financial crisis. The problem began in 1981 when the government changed the banking system from one in which banks financed investments and provided funds to enterprises as part of the government's central plan to one based more on banking principles. Banks were to provide funds only as loans rather than as investments and were to charge interest and require repayments. Suddenly, the flow of funds from the banks to state-owned enterprises became liabilities that had to be repaid.

China's four state-owned specialty banks do 75% of the nation's deposit and loan business. Data on the condition of these banks is sketchy, but in late 1994, the four banks reported over 570 billion yuan (about $68 billion) in bad loans or about 20% of all the loans they had issued. Overdue loans were 11.3%, idle loans 7.7% and uncollectible loans 1.3%. These accounted for 90% of the officially recognized bad loans in the banking system.37 These figures, however, are likely to be understated because the state-owned banks have been lending to state-owned enterprises, and only about 30% of those enterprises are profitable, 20% have been losing money for years and are beyond salvaging, and the remaining 50% are somewhere in between.38

The state-owned banks, therefore, have accumulated a huge portfolio of bad debts that have little prospect of being repaid. As was pointed out at a conference in Beijing in January 1997, China's national economy is being threatened by a latent monetary credit crisis. Furthermore, even though loans now are supposed to be allocated according to sound banking principles, in practice a large amount of monetary assets is still being allocated ineffciently through administrative and planned economic channels. State-owned banks have been required to provide loans to support enterprises which are running at low profit rates or at a loss. These are "loans for preservation of stability and unity" and "loans for clearing up defaults." The resultant depletion of assets of state-owned banks has become an important factor threatening their own survival.39

Look how far we've come

glad I could finally add bit of useful information noob.

"so what makes healthcare some kind of special case? "

Most of the first-world other than the US see decent healthcare for it's citizens as something that separates 1st world countries from 2nd/3rd world ones.

poic wrote:

But the long and short is that there was then and probably still are a lot patents being applied for without an actual application behind the idea.

as i remember it president clinton made a speech one day in march 2000? and said no patents would be handed out on genome sequences and the market crashed (as did my share of it) but then a few days later the patent office itself came out with a memo -the only time i can recall ever actually hearing from the patent office- saying essentially 'never mind what he said, patents are patent and rules such as those involving utility etc. still apply
anyway my impression was you can't just 'grab' a piece of the genome without a good and valid reason
am i wrong on that?

TJ and The Bear
Keeping it strictly to economics, do you know how much time, money, and effort it takes to raise a new human? It can be cheaper to repair one with all of the existing sunk cost. Letting them die would be detrimental to the size of the national pie. If that safety net were not there, there would be the ultimate incentive to earn money by any means necessary -- without regard for the law. Furthermore, people who did save would be likely to "over save" to cover their health care expenses, which could be troublesome with regards to both investing and consumption. Finally, "market based" healthcare doesn't appear to result in reduced obesity, smoking, drinking, drug use, or other risk factors.

The arguments for single payer, or similar, systems utilize market based principles. Like there isn't an opportunity to allow competition when a procedure is needed. Healthcare is capital intensive, and is pre-disposed to regional monopolies. There are economies of scale in overhead. Savings on marketing. Knowledge sharing productivity gains.

There isn't a perfect system out there yet, but with every new shock or strain there is an opportunity to learn or adapt. It's not a recipe you should be after, it's a process.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

so what makes healthcare some kind of special case?

I don't know. But somehow when we think of what it means to be human, denying care seems deeply inhumane. It's a tricky switch from decent care for someone's health, and what is now possible (ignoring associated costs).

poic wrote:

these were huge patent applications and the patent department didn't really have the scientific background to really look at them. So you ended up with a lot of fluff applications

yes......i think you have the answer right there.

EHP,

Completely agree with the "economies of scale" and other points. I was just arguing philosophically, extending the point someone made earlier. Everyone wants Cadillac care at Yugo prices, and that's never going to happen.

Oh, and regarding this statement... "Letting them die would be detrimental...", well, one could argue that one of the biggest problems we face today is overpopulation. Jus' sayin'.

poic wrote:

I agree with the view that a basic level of healthcare for all citizens is something that uniquely separates a 1st world country from a 2nd/3rd world.

You're assuming a differing opinion when I have not stated such. Oh, and it's the very cost of "a basic level of healthcare for all citizens" (via Medicare, Medicaid, cost-shifting, etc.) that's breaking the bank. The administration isn't trying to cover the uninsured so much as force money out of them to pay for those that are already running up the bills.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

Completely agree with the "economies of scale" and other points. I was just arguing philosophically, extending the point someone made earlier. Everyone wants Cadillac care at Yugo prices, and that's never going to happen.

So act like a leader. Be honest with the people, and trust that they will follow your decision.
You are overpaid, this hospital has no reason to exist, we can't afford you running up these bills for that, you need to pay more taxes, etc

If people do get married, and make the marriage work -- then why not healthcare? Surely the desire for healthcare is more tame than lust and personal relationships

Josh wrote:

I'm an unreliable interested party, but I think you are interpreting it correctly. Its not necessarily R&D that dried up. Its the drying up of demand for protection of IP rights in the U.S., due perhaps to the perceived decrease in prospective value of those rights going forward, or perhaps the simple drying up of that demand in a deflationary environment where cold hard cash is in great demand.

I think it's a number of things. One the patent frenzy got really out of hand. Two the supreme court made a very significant ruling that greatly expanded what counts as prior art. That happened about two years ago and I think it's taken a while for it to sink in how worthless it made most patents.

A lot of patents were for combine well known A with well known B and get A + B just as you'd expect. The supreme court said basically if the result of 1 + 2 is 3 then then patent no worth dingus. Probably doesn't make patent trolls and their lawyers happy, but as a practicing engineer it makes me happy.

poic wrote:

I actually don't think Medicare and Medicaid are a basic level of healthcare.

Definitely not with Medicare, as I just stated. In many (but not all) ways it's a cost-no-object plan hidden behind massive cost-shifting.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

It is all a funny situation

No doubt.

Was trying to provoke thought more than attacking you or making this personal.

Perish the thought! I consider these friendly debates, and the livelier the better for exploring ideas and learning things. You are an especially good one for discussion, and I appreciate the "Northern" perspective.

I never intend to offend anyone, although I'm not averse to throwing things back at people when they make ridiculous statements. Lucky for you that you don't tend to do that.

"A lot of patents were for combine well known A with well known B and get A + B just as you'd expect. The supreme court said basically if the result of 1 + 2 is 3 then then patent no worth dingus. Probably doesn't make patent trolls and their lawyers happy, but as a practicing engineer it makes me happy."

Through no fault of my own I ended up on two patents related to my software work in genomics (trust me my work was not anywhere close to ground-breaking) and got to sit through the whole application process. I was quite surprised how generic a lot of the explanations were. This was more than 2 years ago so perhaps it's gotten more detailed oriented since then.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

The money entrenched in retaining the existing system probably means that it will continue until it no longer cash flows

That's why I've come to believe that true American UHC requires the death of Medicare. You can imagine how that idea would fly with the AARP crowd.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

That's why I've come to believe that true American UHC requires the death of Medicare. You can imagine how that idea would fly with the AARP crowd.

I think Medicare was killed when they got what they wanted, because they weren't the only ones who got what they wanted Storms on the Horizon - Richard Fisher Speeches - News & Events - FRB Dallas

Please sit tight while I walk you through the math of Medicare. As you may know, the program comes in three parts: Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays; Medicare B, which covers doctor visits; and Medicare D, the drug benefit that went into effect just 29 months ago. The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy.

Kauai_Kahuna wrote:

If this problem bank thread is going to stay a

No need. I think we're probably all in violent agreement here.

You have something original to say (and potentially argue) about banks?

Kauai_Kahuna wrote:

If this problem bank thread is going to stay a medical insurance bailout thread, then I think I need to . . . point out something completely off topic as well.

3%, 5%? It is irrelevant to discuss what margins Chinese exporters work with until you nail just how much VAT rebate they get, and also whether that VAT is actually assessed in the first place through the successive transactions in the pipeline. These rebates can run from 12-18% on invoice value.

I tried poking around in that rabbit hole once, and it was deep and dark.

Doubts hit new home sales
16 March 2010
Shanghai Daily

NEW home sales in Shanghai continued to be sluggish in the first two weeks of this month amid low supply as real estate developers are uncertain of the prospects for the market.

About 218,000 square meters of new homes, excluding those designated for relocated residents under urban redevelopment plans, were sold in the city between March 1 and March 14, less than half of the volume in the same period a year earlier.

The supply of new homes during the two weeks plunged to 93,000 square meters, even less than 10 percent of the stock in the same period in 2009, Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said yesterday.

"Most real estate developers are still not sure about how to price their products properly," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at Uwin. "On one hand, they fear that sales will be affected if they set their prices too high but on the other hand, they might lose money if the price is set too low. Releasing supply in small volumes could help test the water for them."

The market did an about-turn over the past two-and-a-half months after a crazy 2009 when housing prices nationwide soared at a record pace.

"Most developers won't likely to launch large volumes of new homes into the market until they get a clearer perspective," Lu added. In Shanghai, the housing market usually starts to pick up in March with both supply and sales rebounding notably after the traditional slack January and February when the Spring Festival holiday occurs, analysts said.

While transactions in the housing market were sluggish, prices continued to stay above the 20,000 yuan (US$2,928) per square meter mark. The average price of new homes hit 20,487 yuan per square meter in Shanghai in the first 14 days of the month, against 19,696 yuan per square meter in February, according to Uwin statistics.

The Shanghai Statistics Bureau also said yesterday investment in real estate development climbed nearly 12 percent to 23.1 billion yuan in the first two months of the year and housing sales dropped 7 percent to 2.83 million square meters in the same period.

One of the major differences between the United States and the other industrialized countries in terms of medical care is end of life care: when people are terminally ill in the United States (they are going to be dead within a few months no matter what), they often undergo large numbers of expensive operations. Other countries don't do this.

Headed out again shortly but I must respond to above

Dryfly wrote:

It isn't all broke yogi... some places yes

Of course not. There are even financial PHD's that add value.
Not every socialist movement results in a Gulag either, as you implied.

I take it you'd agree that Warren Buffett doesn't personally add hundreds of billions of dollars of value, as much as thousands of surgeons. Of course any social[ist] policy will redistribute some wealth somewhat unfairly.

So that means you just throw in the towel and let Wall Street pay whatever bonuses they can squeeze from public Fed money?

If a surgeon demanded all of a dying billionaire's money to operate he'd be in jail. But a manufacturer can build an unlimited personal fortune if he develops a patent?

Just a quick google search of other mouth breathing hippies:

JSTOR: The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 31-47
The S & L insurance mess: how did it ... - Google Books
American Spectator American Spectator - The Big Fix

But I didn't need to read them. Any idiot can spot a ponzi scheme that only puts up cash of 1.15% of the amount it "insures", but actually has much less than that on hand.

A more inclusive health-care system is either going to cost more or result in less for everyone.

Not if the system is made more efficient by becoming single-payer. The savings accruing from eliminating the insurance layer of the HC process would reduce the overall cost of delivering HC by at least 20%.

There's plenty wrong with the US HC system--and plenty right with it, too. But it needs to be fixed, no matter how great it is, because it is consuming 15% of the economy.

Unfortunately, that problem can't be addressed rationally because those who profit from HC have enough juice to prevent it from happening.

I don't see how anyone can argue with my statements here, but I suppose someone here will.

unirealist + 1
LoserBeachBum + 1
I'm so conflicted.
I look at it as just another tax, my concern is that the money will just continue to feed a system that is not serving the needs of the people, and just being soaked up by the scum sucking vacuum that is the middle men / insurance companies / hospital administration / et al.
Does anyone have a link for the final bill that is being voted on this Sunday?
Is it being updated with changes still every 10 minutes?

TJ and The Bear - Well, nothing like KK killing a thread on his way out.

I come here to praise CR and HCN , not to bury it.
The evil that is the FED lingers long,
The good is oft stolen by the TBTF,
So let it be with all transgressions, American Idol is on.
Let it further distract the citizens,
From the grievous fault committed.....

Tried to work Mafiacracy in there, just too tired.
OK, time to get some sleep.

Rob Dawg wrote:

Seems like enough to cover 10% losses for 10% of the insured or 20% losses for 5%. That's insurance. Insurance is not meant to protect against systemic failure nor can it cover willful misapplication of FDIC regulation that the percentages are based upon.

Exactly the underlying business is insurance. A Ponzi scheme is notable in that there is no underlying business and payments to investors depend on an exponentially increasing number of new investors.

What I've noticed is that because they manage risk and depend on investments to maintain reserves, insurance agencies end up being squeezed hard during downturns. More so because during boom times competition and high returns on their investments encourage them to go lighter on their reserves and charge too little. When the SHTF, those high returns disappear and the losses start to mount. Then they have to barrow money and raise rates right when it's most likely to piss people off.

So in my book the FDIC is merely a predictable side show in this whole mess. Exact same thing happened during the S&L crises.

I just received this link from a super talented painter friend in Genoa named Corrado Zeni.
It's the greatest Rube Goldberg like art happening set to music I have seen in some time -
talk about the genius of invention!!!
YouTube - UN DOMINO MAI VISTO - OK GO - THIS TOO SHALL PASS(VIDEO UFFICIALE

Looks like I missed the party. Busy end of the week and ended up having to fly today, ie Saturday; much less convenient.

But 7 huh? Typical. I've been betting 7 or 9 for months!

Not that it makes much difference these days, although there are still ticker names going down. But if it ain't a whale, don't tell me the tale.

More curious behavior in the bond market. 2y10 spread has tightened right up, and bloomie's quoting some useful idiots on buying the belly of the curve... just in time for, hey look, a massive pile of mid-tenor notes going on sale!

Yield Curve Flattens for Fifth Week on Fed Rate, Inflation View - Bloomberg.com

C

How are they supposed to do that when they're paying ~$3.00/hr. ?
...
yep, watched Hanoi devalue 3 times in last year or two and they've had to put a number of illegal
factory strikes over pay increases. the factory workers in Nam have very tight margins, not a lot of
discretionary income so any devaluation really hurts and they get really pissed.
Devalue the Renminbi?
me thinks not, and if they do almost de minimus...

Tom - look on the bright side, your liabilities are highly liquid.

C

Me too, Tom. Never used to have allergies, now my nose leaks like a cheap chinese-made faucet.

Where is HomeGnome? Wakey, wakey, you little lawn ornament.

BFF Poll for Fri. March 19th 2010

May I have the envelop, please?

And the winners are:

71.97.186.189
128.200.147.74
JP
NGBROI
B and B Hawaiian Dope
lawyerliz
sporkfed
steelhead
amiramr0
Vonbek777
REBear
Tom Stone

Pellice, you obviously don't understand the appeal of a Randian Utopia. See Somalia for a reference point

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Wakey, wakey, you little lawn ornament.

---

Gnomes and s are completely separate species, gnomester. Hope you don't mind me posting the winners. Though I didn't go into the money this week, I couldn't help spreading the good news.

Pellice wrote:

And I don't get why we are supposed to rejoice that we aren't suffering at the level of third world poverty. Is that all we are supposed to aspire to?

It's a badge of honor among 'Merikins. We dumb, and proud of it!

So, anyone marching today?
It is March 20th.
I'll be in the streets of SF.

HomeGnome wrote:

Good on ya, adornosghost.

Thanks-
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition — San Francisco Bay Area

I've been marching all month, think i'll go for a ski in the forest for the trees.

Good morning from the mountains of central America.

Nice~

Golden poppies have started appearing in numbers around here, soon there will be hillsides full of them...

Making a mountain out of a mole hill on the prairie! LOL! Not Iowa either one more to the west.

Tom Stone wrote:

Gotta treat them right if you want to keep them.

---Guys, pay attention.

March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said government bailouts of large financial firms are “unconscionable” and must be ended as part of a regulatory overhaul following the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

“It is unconscionable that the fate of the world economy should be so closely tied to the fortunes of a relatively small number of giant financial firms,” Bernanke said today in the text of a speech in Orlando, Florida. “If we achieve nothing else in the wake of the crisis, we must ensure that we never again face such a situation.”

Bernanke Says Large Bank Bailouts ‘Unconscionable,’ Must End - Bloomberg.com

No, genius, if we achieve nothing else we must ensure that the firms that held the system hostage to bailouts are not allowed to get away with it, or you can be sure they will try it again.

Tell us hypocrite Chairman Bernanke, which large firms did you unconscionably bail out in secret?

...they say he threw away a promising carreer in music

Scene: s sprawled on their backs, bloated bellies distended, looking like balloons.
The Thanksgiving turkey carcass stripped to the bones laying on the floor.
The guests thankful that the s don't like cranberry jelly.

Benny: "Baaad s! Baaad! Don't do that again."

s: Burp.

Would there be any reason why the other Unabankers would have differed in their business practices from Lehman?

It's the kind of business where no good scheme is secret for very long...

Good Morning. liz. Hope you're feeling better.

Mother OK?

We need you two on your feet.

Woops. I'm forgeting to :icon: this morning.

for liz.

for JD.

Thankss Bosch.
Baaaad s . . . .from which they conclude boh we'sbetter slink away before they notice, nextt time. Thanks juvie, everybody.

OT. Has this been posted?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/19/raj-patel-colbert-report-benjamin-creme

A combination of Steven Colbert, an obscure cult, and global economics.