Credit Default Swaps - The Insane Problem and the Radical but Sane Solution

From The Geronimo Manifesto:

The paramount reason for today's cancerous credit crisis is seldom even hinted and never explained.

First, a simple definition. A credit default swap is a form of insurance. A variant of mortgage insurance required of many home purchasers. An insurance policy that requires a company with financial strength to step up to the plate and pay the mortgage if for some reason the home buyer defaults.

A credit default swap is similar: If default occurs, an insurance company pays the income stream of the mortgage.

With one extremely important difference: Payments are made to the owner of the policy, not to the financial institution that stands to suffer a loss.

Financial institutions are allowed, through total lack of regulation, to buy and sell credit default swaps, or insurance they will be paid in event of default, on financial instruments in which they have no financial interest.

Start with a simple example. Assume I know the young son of the couple next door likes to crawl into closets and play with matches. I therefore see a reasonably good shot at "winning the disaster lottery" so to speak, by buying fire insurance on their $200,000 house.

In simple terms, I now have a financial interest is seeing that disaster occurs. If the house, for whatever mysterious reason, burns down an insurance company will pay me the insured value of the house - even though I suffered no loss, financial or otherwise. My neighbor's misfortune is thus magically transformed into my good fortune. A polite way of saying I was paid $200,000, the insured value of my next-door neighbor's house, after I paid the $400 insurance premium.

Being bright and suitably equipped with an MBA from a prestigious eastern university, I well and fully understand the desirable objective of maximizing my return on investment. I can accomplish this in one or both of two ways - increasing the return or decreasing the investment.

I can increase the return by artificially increasing the value of the house - say from $200,000 to $400,000. This will allow me to collect twice as much for suffering no personal loss. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to hire one of my buddies, who happens to be a real estate appraiser, to "document" the higher value.

I could also decrease my investment - meaning the premium I paid for the insurance, say from $400 to $200. The easiest way to do this would be to hire a widely acclaimed "fire risk rating agency" to send out an inspector who will look around (or perhaps only drive by without stopping) and then solemnly declare: "This house is fireproof".

Poors and Standard Fire Rating Company and Doomys Fire Rating Agency would be excellent choices, based on their prior experience.

In the real world, meaning Main Street as opposed to Wall Street, this would be illegal. Against the public interest, because it encourages houses to mysteriously burn down. The insurance policies owned by people without a financial stake in the fire would be declared null and void because they are contrary to public policy, which sees minimizing the number of mysterious house fires as a good thing.

Rather than a bad thing, as now occurs under America's predatory capitalist system.

Now change an assumption. Assume I tell 99 of my poker-playing gambler friends about the boy's strange and dangerous interest. Starting with my appraiser buddy, who's predatory income as a result of a mysterious fire will double, as a direct result of his appraisal.

Now assume the $400,000 house burns to the ground. One hundred or so insurance companies will collectively pay $40 million in claims on the loss of a single $400,000 house. The benefits of a $400,000 disaster are magically multiplied by a factor of 100 and transformed into a $40 million disaster - with one family suffering a loss and 100 families experiencing a gain. The losses of the insurance companies don't count, because, in America's capitalist society, they are in the business of writing insurance - and paying claims for losses.

But in today's society, fire is not the only disaster that can be insured against. Of particular interest, default on a home mortgage can be insured against. And possession of an interest in the mortgage or actual risk of financial loss as a result of default is not required in order to purchase the insurance.

In this case also, I can increase my return with an inflated appraisal and decrease my investment by declaring the risk to be minuscule - meaning rated AAA by widely acclaimed rating agencies.

We can now change another assumption. Assume the playing with matches problem is removed and a new problem is substituted. A problem like the husband and wife both having low-paying jobs and no health insurance, coupled with knowledge that many employers refuse to accept illness as a legitimate reason for missing work and have iron-clad policies that require ill workers be fired for failing to report to work.

Or assume both husband and wife have no seniority and work at jobs that may not exist tomorrow because they were shipped overseas last night.

If I knew one or both of them were developing health problems or that one or both were at risk of being laid off, I would see a reasonably good shot at "winning the disaster lottery" so to speak, by buying mortgage default insurance, also known as a credit default swap, on their $400,000 house.

Then I could sit back, relax and wait for the hoped-for and expected misfortune, which will be my good fortune. As could 99 of my gambling buddies.

Back to the neighbor's home that mysteriously burned to the ground. This tragic event is a great deal for me and my 99 gambling buddies. Our biggest risk is that, having paid the insurance premiums, the home stubbornly refuses to burn to the ground.

Being capitalists, we desire to increase the odds that a disastrous fire will occur. My friends and I with fire insurance policies on my neighbor's house have two options for increasing the odds. One, teach the young child the joys and wonders of paying with matches in closets. Two, hire a professional arsonist.

Holders of credit default swaps have similar but more numerous and less risky opportunities to increase their odds of "winning the disaster lottery".

The best way would be use of fine-print, non-understandable escalator clauses that increase the hard-working couple's monthly payments by a factor of two or three. With rampant inflation, confined to core goods that officially "don't count" in Washington, such as $4.00 gasoline, $5.00 milk and $3.00 bread. With rampant if covert support of immigrant labor, legal or otherwise, who are willing to work for less, without any benefits at all, let alone health insurance, thereby increasing the risk of job loss.

We could destroy OSHA, making on-the-job causes of illness and injury more likely. We could buy legislation that benefits pharmaceutical companies while making both medicine and health insurance unaffordable. We could destroy the economy of Main Street, making job loss more likely. The list is extensive, collectively making early default all but inevitable.

That issue addressed, our biggest worry becomes the solvency of the insurance companies. That problem can best be solved by requiring substitution of a "bigger and better" insurance company with deeper pockets.

Purchasing legislation and regulations (or the lack thereof) is the preferred method.

Much more....read the rest

Bailout Fraud

The $700 Bln bailout is not about US cash. The U.S. is a debtor nation. The cash for the bailout has to be borrowed, primarily from the Japanese and Chinese. According to one person I've spoken to who knows the top Japan and China banking regulators, they are not happy about the U.S. p***ing their money up the wall.

The better informed congressmen have lines of communication to the Chinese & Japanese and know they can't sell it.

Bush in Tuesday's speech insisted the toxic assets could, if held for some years, be sold at a profit.

That's plain rubbish. If that was the case, there would be no need for a bailout. Banks could just sit on their assets until they recover in value. The problem is, they were so wildly overvalued, they are not going to recover in value.

How were they so wildly overvalued. You won't read it in the FT or hear it on the BBC but clearly the answer is lies and fraud.

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Who you gonna call?

From today’s NYT:

In a hastily convened meeting in the conference room of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the two men presented, in the starkest terms imaginable, the outline of the $700 billion plan to Congressional leaders. “If we don’t do this,” Mr. Bernanke said, according to several participants, “we may not have an economy on Monday.”

I don’t know about you, but I find this paragraph outrageous. Ben Bernanke’s hysterical proclamation—or threat, depending on how you read it—is in quotes, and it seems to have multiple sources confirming it, so I have to believe the Chairman of the Federal Reserve actually said this—and that just blows me away!

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The Wall St Economy is a PARASITE on the Real Economy

Have you ever seen a blood-engorged tick? Disgusting.

The Wall Street speculative economy we are being threatened to bail out is a parasitic economy sucking the blood out of our real economy. Except instead of a small but engorged tick on a dog, we have a parasitic economy that has grown to such disgusting proportions that it threatens the host, the real economy where you and I live.

This parasitic economy doesn't manufacture anything but toxic paper betting slips. Many of these slips are completely fraudulent. While sucking the blood out of the real economy, it injects toxic poison back in.

This engorged parasitic economy is now so enormous that its feeble little legs have become useless, but it wants more blood. It wants to suck the last pints of blood out of the host before it explodes in a bloody mess.

This disgusting parasite needs to be removed by professionals and left to die in the dirt, wallowing with its feeble useless legs flailing. The real economy must recover from the tremendous blood loss, and it will.

Great speech by DeFazio

Some reps told to pass bill or get martial law

Economic collapse of 2008: an inside job

NOTE: Elements within the U.S. Government have been threating web site
administrators all over the internet and forcing them to take down the
following article because it's exposes the Bush/Cheney cabal's
involvement in the coming economic collapse of 2008.

Everyone make copies of this article and send it everywhere so
everyone will be fully aware of how the economic collapse was
engineered to happen on purpose.
-----------------------

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their
fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows
the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor
stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes, Everybody knows" -
Leonard Cohen

PROTOCOLS FOR ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN AMERICA
by
Al Martin

And this is how the U.S. Treasury would handle an economic collapse.
It's called the 6900 series of protocols. It would start with
declaring a force majeure, which would immediately be interpreted by
the marketplaces as a de facto repudiation of debt. Then the SEC and
the various regulatory exchanges would anticipate the market's
decline, hour by hour -- when Japan's markets opened the next day,
what would happen when the European markets, and all the inter-
linkages of the global markets. On the second day, US Special Forces
would be dropped in by parachute in the cities where the twelve
Federal Reserve district banks are located.

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Who gives to who? Click to enlarge.

Link

We have the money, if only we didn't waste it on the defense budget

There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon.

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The Bailout won't work and the system will implode

The Paulson Plan means you are going to eat it all, Paulson wants to keep the corrupt greed machine going, A Wall Street Bailout plan means you will pay for their mistakes, Administration trying to scare everyone into accepting bailout plan, Buyouts now like zombie marriages, derivative Death-Star on its way,

The name of the episode, appropriately enough, is "The Paulson Plan." The capsule for the episode reads as follows: Hanky Panky and Buck-Busting Ben decide to renovate the Goldilocks Matrix, giving it a major overhaul, and attempt to redefine the word: "fantasy." Indeed, The Paulson Plan, so-called, may be the most vivid product of a fertile imagination since "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz," which quite frankly are more believable than the reasons given for the implementation of the "The Paulson Plan."

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The "Do SOMETHING to calm people down" argument has just failed

One of the biggest - if unspoken - reasons for proposing the bailout is that quickly doing something big will reassure investors and the public.

That argument has just failed (even with the PPT's best efforts).

Today, the stock market, Nasdaq, S&P, oil and gold all got hammered. Everything being down at the same time means that investors are panicking, and pulling money out of the markets.

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Crisis Control fit for the TV age

The millionaires in the US Senate, apparently moved by the prospect of having to actually live on their salary rather than their substantial investments, passed by a 75-24 vote a sweeter version of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) than the one that failed in the US House of Representatives on Monday, the rejection helping to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 777 points.

The House is scheduled to once again vote on the proposal on Friday; perhaps enough previously recalcitrant arms have been twisted, bent, fractured and, if that doesn't work, ripped straight off the shoulders to obtain a passage vote there, as well.

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In the quiet between the lightning and the thunder

We’re in the coiling moments before the strike… the windup. It’s a different kind of windup than the one that’s been practiced on us for so long. I like to stay away from spooky predictions at this blog. I sense and feel a lot of things that I don’t mention but today I want to mention them because I’m getting some strange sensations about next week and the rest of the year. There’s too many weird things happening; half a million coffins in Georgia… those FEMA camps… those thousands of soldiers ready to be deployed in defiance of Posse Comitatus which got neutered for just such a purpose… and there are other things …but first… first I want to say a little more about ‘the bailout’.

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In the Quiet Between the Lightning and the Thunder

We’re in the coiling moments before the strike… the windup. It’s a different kind of windup than the one that’s been practiced on us for so long. I like to stay away from spooky predictions at this blog. I sense and feel a lot of things that I don’t mention but today I want to mention them because I’m getting some strange sensations about next week and the rest of the year. There’s too many weird things happening; half a million coffins in Georgia… those FEMA camps… those thousands of soldiers ready to be deployed in defiance of Posse Comitatus which got neutered for just such a purpose… and there are other things …but first… first I want to say a little more about ‘the bailout’.

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Investigation into whether America is still a Constitutional government

You know....it's all connected. - Ed.

This website is intended to be an easy-to-read, fully-sourced resource for Congress members, Senators, reporters, and others who wish to discover the current legal status of the United States of America.


The United States has been in a declared state of emergency from September 2001, to the present.

On September 11, 2001, the government declared a state of emergency. That declared state of emergency was formally put in writing on 9/14/2001:

"A national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.

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Mike Whitney: Not One Dime!

The mystery has been solved.

For nearly a year, we have been asking ourselves why the investors and foreign banks that bought up hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from US investment banks have not taken legal action against these same banks or initiated a boycott of US financial products to prevent more people from getting ripped off?

Now we know the answer. It's because, behind the scenes, Henry Paulson and Co. were working out a deal to dump the whole trillion dollar mess on the US taxpayer. That's what this whole $700 billion boondoggle is all about; wiping out the massive debts that were generated in the biggest incident of fraud in history. Rep Brad Sherman explained it like this last night to Larry Kudlow:

"It (The bill) provides hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts to foreign investors. It provides no real control of Paulson's power. There is a critique board but not really a board that can step in and change what he does. It's a $700 billion program run by a part-time temporary employee and there is no limit on million dollar a month salaries....... It's very clear. The Bank of Shanghai can transfer all of its toxic assets to the Bank of Shanghai of Los Angeles which can then sell them the next day to the Treasury. I had a provision to say if it wasn't owned by an American entity even a subsidiary, but at least an entity in the US, the Treasury can't buy it. It was rejected.

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More on Basel II

I'm just putting these data points out here for people to try and connect them. Basel II looks like an important piece of the puzzle. The same names keep popping up in the middle of the mess, and this is a global mess that is being dumped in our very laps. - Ed.

Re: CASPER for SEP 30th - BUSH HOUSE ARREST, G....

From other posts I see that you are at least aware of the BASEL II connection to this entire financial nightmare. Is Casper (whoever that is) aware of the BASEL II accords at all? I've seen it mentioned here in a few posts, but no one has bothered to explain it much. Maybe I can help?

In 1999, central bankers and finance ministers of 10 of the world's wealthiest nations sent their deputies to the tidy Swiss city of Basel. The world's leading financial regulators labored together to strike a balance between ensuring banks'safety and giving them room to take risks and make money, finally in 2004 producing a recommended rulebook called Basel II.

The start date for American banks to begin submitting their plans for compliance to U.S. regulators was Apr. 1.

Basel II is intended to keep banks safe by requiring them to match the size of their capital cushion to the riskiness of their loans and securities. The higher the odds of default, the less they can lend, all else equal.

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The bailout in under 1 minute

If you don't get it now, you won't get it at all.

This is NOT a rescue plan for the economy. It is a bailout for FOREIGN BANKS AND INVESTORS.

Here is PROOF. Send this to everyone, spam the link if you must, and visit http://supportedthebailout.org

WE MUST STOP THIS BILL

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Gilad At zmon - Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?

John Reynolds ends his latest Observer commentary on the ethical implications of the current economic disaster with the following words:

“Above all we need more individuals to make a stand. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York should go further and call for more Christians to work in the city.” (John Reynolds, chief executive of Reynolds Partners, and chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group, The Observer 28.9.08).

One may wonder what Reynolds refers to when calling for more ‘Christians to work in the City’. I tend to believe that more than just a few people out there do understand pretty well what Reynolds is suggesting. Reynolds, the chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group protests against the non-ethical spirit that has been abundant in the City for more than a while. By pleading the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to send more Christians to the City he may try to suggest to us that our financial world must be spiritually de-Judified. I must admit that it took me by complete surprise to read such a suggestion in the politically correct Guardian. I wonder how it happened that such an idea filtered through.

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A theory on what is really going on

I don't know if this is accurate, but it has the virtue of explaining current events in a manner that actually makes sense. Super scandalous. Read the whole thing. - Ed.

I met with a highly connected guy who works with the Washington crowd and is frequently
in Basel dealing with the banks there.

According to him, the Basel II accords require all banks to adhere to certain standards
in order to be part of the international banking community. The European banks
are frustrated with us because of our loose practices. They claim we use unregistered
fund to finance covert ops around the world and no one can trace it. He said that
up to 5 times the "legal" money moves underground illegally. Basel II
attempts to forbid the movement of such money. Also, we allow banks to carry loans
on their books that they know will never be repaid. Since they still list them
as an asset, they are allowed to lend out x times that amount in loans. If they
were to write off these loans an uncollectible, then their asset base would be reduced,
thereby reducing the amount of loans they could make.

The other world banks have had enough of this. Basel II says that all bank financial
statements must be clean and all money "registered." That means they
have to get rid all that phony money off their balance sheets. This friend of mine
told me in June this was coming and if we did not comply with Basel II, our banks
would be kicked out of the international banking community. He also said that if
we did try to comply, by writing off all that bad debt, our banks would become insolvent
overnight because they would have more loans outstanding than they had assets to
back it up.

If you listen to all the subtle clues, you will see that this bailout has much to
do with this issue. We have to clean the bank's balance sheets. That means
not only bad mortgages, but other bad debts. The reason Paulson does not want to
be tied down to specifics is that he wants to cover all the bad debts that are not
related to mortgages.

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Brothers of the Shadows

In his book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace Gore Vidal suggests that the American public has been conditioned to respond to the word ‘conspiracy’ with a smirk and a chuckle. Conspiracy, in other words, is for the nuts and the loners, and is not to be taken seriously. In this way, he argues, through the media’s association of the concept of conspiracy with fringe or extreme elements, the real conspirators go unnoticed.

It is a vital point, and Vidal courageously chases and exposes genuine conspiracies by politicians, the FBI, lobbyists for the tobacco companies, and so on. But the flip-side of the conspiracy coin is the proliferation of fanciful and fantastic theories that now crisscross the globe in seconds with the help of electronic media.

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Reports of tragedy filtering out of Galveston and Bolivar

The following is from an email sent to me by a good friend in Nacogdoches whose buddy has been over Galveston - names have been edited out to protect the folks those who relayed the report. Also relayed from this guy and others: persons going into the restricted area are apparently being patted down and cameras are being confiscated, by Army and Coast Guard personnel.

Okay...I've got some news on this front. Take it for what it's worth, but the guy I got it from is someone I trust to raise my children... He's never once lied to me...ever. And we're close.

He's in a pretty high-up supervisory position for a refinery down on the coast.
His refinery has some equipment and lines in and around Galveston county, and before they were to bring them back on line he and his crew had to inspect the place for damage and potential hazards. So they were given permission....after a background check....to helicopter in and inspect, which meant coming in over Galveston.

I kid you not when I say that he told me they saw AT LEAST 1500 bodies in trees scattered about Galveston. They also saw a lot in various ditches and marshes, esp. on the north side of East Galv. Bay, east side of Trinity Bay, and in the marshes between I-45 and Seabrook/Clear Lake/Deer Park.

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Germany urges USA to deal with its financial crisis

The European Union and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged the United States to deal with its financial crisis and urged U.S. lawmakers to quickly reverse their vote to reject a a US$700 billion (EUR 488 billion) bank rescue plan.

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The TRUTH about the Bailout

You have heard that its all "American Gambles"

You have been told repeatedly by George Bush and Henry Paulson that this bill is about a "rescue" of Main Street, not Wall Street.

You have been lied to repeatedly.

The bill The Senate intends to try to ramrod down your throat is neither about Main Street or really even about Wall Street.

You are going to get VERY angry. Sit down before you read further.

""Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to bail out FOREIGN INVESTORS. They know it, they demanded it, and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen." - Brad Sherman , D-California"

That's right folks. You are going to have $700 billion - about 25% of the total federal budget - put on your personal credit card (via taxes forever) in order to bail out foreign investors.

Oh, and the best part of it is that the underlying assets involved do not even have to be in the United States!

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The Jackpot

Just start reading... - Ed.

Global Analysis International Intelligence

Bush criminal operation to sabotage Basel II

Excerpt:

The US Dark Forces led by Godfather Bush Sr., George Bush 43, Mk-Ultra (‘Himmler’) Cheney, the ‘late’ Henry M. Paulson, the late Robert M. Kimmitt, and their collaborators and partners in High Crimes and Misdemeanours, former President William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodomski Clinton, have been desperately seeking, with the enthusiastic assistance of their co-conspirator Robert Rubin at Citibank, and the other US criminal financial institutions led by the CIA’s Bank of America, to torpedo the implementation of Basel II, since it defangs their corruption at the source, causing the criminal kleptocracy immense problems for the future.

Central to this criminal operation has been the following bluff (equation):

• If Citibank collapses, the stock market will collapse and will go underground, the entire banking system will seize up and the world will be catapulted into a depression, and you know it. Therefore, you cannot tell us what to do, and we will carry on doing what we are doing whatever you want.

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The REAL reason for the sudden rush for the bailout?

Why the big panicked rush to pass the bailout? Two clues:

1.) the U.S. fiscal year ENDS on Sept. 30th and a NEW one starts on Oct. 1st. and
2.) The Basel-II deadline for U.S. banks to be "Basel-II compliant," originally Sept. 1st, must surely come due on Oct. 1st, 2008.

Basel-II compliant banks in Europe and elsewhere will be forbidden to do business with non-compliant banks in the U.S., effectively bringing the non-compliant banks down.

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Bernanke PROVED Paulson plan bankrupt

Thank God we got a "NO" vote today folks.

No, not because the market tanked.

And no, I was not short up to my eyeballs.

I scalp traded the morning but was out when the blowup came, as I didn't expect it - I really did think the bill would pass, my and many other's efforts to stop it notwithstanding.

No, the real news is found here:

"Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone."

Now let's think about this folks.

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Who is Henry Paulson?

The plan to rescue the US financial industry arrogates virtually unlimited money and power over the financial affairs of the state to the office of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Paulson is a figure with a long history of intimate connections to the political and financial elite.

In 1970, fresh from the Masters program of the Harvard Business School, Paulson entered the Nixon administration, working first as staff assistant to the assistant secretary of defense. In 1972-73, Paulson worked as office assistant to John Erlichman, assistant to the president for domestic affairs. Erlichman was one of the key figures involved in organizing President Richard Nixon’s notorious “plumbers” unit that carried out illegal covert operations against the president’s political opponents, including espionage, blackmail, and revenge. Ehlichman resigned in 1973, and in 1975 he was convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury, and conspiracy, and was imprisoned for 18 months.

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Chris Floyd: The Shadow of the Pitchfork

The vote by the House of Representatives to defeat the Wall Street bailout plan is the first act of political courage that the Congress of the United States has mounted in the last seven years. The fact that it was due largely to right-wing Republicans afraid of going down with the sinking ship of the witless leader they have followed blindly throughout his reign is a delicious irony -- but the whys and wherefores of the vote are not important. What matters is that one of America's moribund institutions has flickered to life long enough to derail a disastrous action that would have shoved the nation even deeper into the pit of corruption and ruin where it has been mired for so long.

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If you're looting the Treasury, give it to US

If the government is looting the treasury to the tune of of $700 billion plus, give the American people the money, not the con artists who got us into trouble in the first place.

We'll use the money to pay off our mortgages, credit card and other debt, and to stabilize the economy.

Instead of the peanuts the government gave us in the "stimulus package", this would have a real benefit, and would largely solve American's economic problems.

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Lou Dobbs: Hooray for those who defeated the bailout

NEW YORK (CNN) -- CNN's Lou Dobbs is no fan of the $700 billion bailout plan that went down to defeat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday. He spoke with Kiran Chetry of CNN's "American Morning" on Tuesday about how he thinks there are better ways to solve the financial problems plaguing the U.S. economy.

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Will Wall Street's Meltdown Turn America Into a Police State?

By Scott Thill

Failing banks? Endless war? Call Homeland Security.

"Raw capitalism is dead." -- Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary

"Can't we just all go out and say things are OK?" -- President Bush, to congressional leaders during bailout negotiations

I'm not much of an Army Times reader, but after reading that a brigade was shipping from Iraq in October to serve as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks" in the homeland right before the election, my antennae perked up. Same as they did when I read that an electoral college doomsday scenario exists in which Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote that gives McCain-Palin the White House.

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Michael Ruppert: What Yesterday's 777 Point Market Drop Really Means

US banking collapse a 'controlled demolition'

What does the rest of the world know that we don't? The United States Dollar is dead.

While we are being jerked around by the mainstream media here at home, the rest of the world has already drawn the final conclusion for us, and what they are saying about us isn't pretty.

We are in the middle of a crisis much larger than most Americans could imagine, a portion of America can't even handle it, for that matter. The Bailout is an awful idea, and the majority of Americans realize that. There is even a provision that would grant Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson dictatorial powers, and that is obviously insane, but here we are debating it. It's like asking a dead man whether he wants to be buried or cremated; it's a non issue and Congress is just playing a game to distract the American people. We need to move ahead, and we should begin with taking our country back from the tyrants.

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Reward Good Behavior

Please call members of congress who voted NO yesterday and thank them.

Vote results are here.

Web-bot predictions for the coming weeks/months/years

I just put this forth, via Les Vis link below, for your consideration. Some of us do experience very powerful feelings that something is 'up,' if you will, and this is along those lines....Take it or leave it as you see fit. - Ed.

"The Time Monks" of the Web Bot Project answered questions on Coast to Coast radio during the early morning hours on September 22nd, 2008.

Firstly, here is a short recap to the previous Web Bot interview from September 2nd, 2008:
"The Web Bots see September 22-27, 2008 as precursor dates to the main turning point date of October 7, 2008. Closely watch events during September 22-27, 2008 for hints as to what to expect on October 7, 2008.

Cliff said whenever "it" happens, and whatever "it" turns out to be, "it" will be a date in history you remember like 9/11, we will remember 10/7.

The Web Bots foresee that October 7, 2008 to February 19, 2009 will be filled with emotional intensity, and the length of the release period will be extraordinary. The Web Bots have never picked up any event lasting this long. In comparison, 9/11 length lasted about 10 days. This event will be four months of high emotion......."

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Les Vis: Bare assed naked in a pig skin suit

For quite some time I’ve been saying here and elsewhere that those responsible for the problems of our time are going to be exposed and hung out to dry. It’s a given that most people wouldn’t understand how this could be possible when those responsible control the media that manufactures both the news and the viewpoints which are spoon fed to the public. It seems even more impossible when the foxes run the chicken house as their own poultry farm and when the laws that were designed to protect the public have been suspended or re-engineered to the point where they look like Michael Jackson’s face.

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Whitney: Black Monday? Global investors vote NO on Paulson's bailout

The wrangling continued on the floor of the House of Representatives all weekend, but it is still unclear whether there's enough support to pass Treasury Secretary Paulson's $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Paulson says he has the votes, but Paulson has been wrong before. The bigger question, is whether buying up the illiquid mortgage-backed assets from the nation's banks will be enough to save the financial system from an impending meltdown. The jury is out on that question, too. Professor Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics, summed it up like this, "You're not resolving the two fundamental issues: You still have to recapitalize the banking system, and household debt is going to stay high". A large number of economists believe Roubini is right. The bill will not solve the underlying problems.

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Paulson's plan is still a pig, even with lipstick

Imagine my shock that Henry Paulson (official Treasury Dept photo), who loves snakes by the way, perhaps explaining why his right eye -- the green one, as opposed to the left eye which is blue/gray -- looks like it was transplanted from a lizard, doesn't get along well with other people. - Ed.

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- If Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson thought he could cram a $700 billion plan to buy financial institutions' toxic mortgage-backed waste through Congress with no questions asked, he got a rude awakening last week.

Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were grilled by Senate and House committees on the plan. Those same lawmakers were inundated with calls and e-mails from constituents expressing outrage at what they saw as a bailout of Wall Street for a problem of Wall Street's own making. It took them all weekend to hammer out something they could sign off on.

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Mahmoud Admadinejhad '08

"The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.

This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will."

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Iraq Deformities

Watch video.

Bush the socialist and destroyer

Anyone who has read a good economics book would be quickly reduced to laughter and tears by George Bush’s ridiculous economic address to the nation. He put on his 9-11 suit and tried to warn Americans about the impending disaster: that their access to an infinite stream of paper money might be imperiled if they don’t cough up hundreds of billions immediately. It is very tempting to go line by line and shout back.

“I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.”

And this is why he nationalized airport security, created huge new bureaucracies, spent more than any president in American history, centralized control of education, put up more protectionist barriers than Clinton and his father combined, bailed out airlines, presided over the Sarbanes-Oxley reign of terror, unleashed anti-trust regulators, intensified health-care controls, and pretty much used every headline as an excuse to demand more money and power?

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Wall St pirates won't get unconditional bailout

Planned profits for the elites, successive administrations set the stage for current market debacles, bailout plan set months in advance, threat of a depression from the bailout, Economy set to wither, Wall Street will not go unscathed, a stampede to safety is coming

Slick Willie Clinton did more to tear down our military than any other President in recent history, and now we all know why, in spades. When you are the President tasked by the Illuminati with setting them up to make mega-profits through their military-industrial complex and illicit drug trade, via planned wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, and the initiation of a phony, so-called "War on Terror," the first thing you do is downsize the US military mightily so that all the fighting and support can be privatized, thus paving the way for mercenaries and contractors to do the same work as our soldiers at ten times the cost.

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Mish Shedlock: Final Push to Kill the Bailout Monstrosity

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank are the biggest cheerleaders for a Republican administration sponsored $700 billion giveaway. Both have caved in to administration whims so disgusting that most Republicans will not vote for this bill.

Please consider the New York Times article, Bailout Plan in Hand, House Braces for Tough Vote

The House braced for a difficult vote set for Monday on a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry after a weekend of tense negotiations produced a plan that Congressional leaders portrayed as greatly strengthened by new taxpayer safeguards.

My Comment: The reality is there are virtually no safeguards.

The measure still faced stiff resistance from Republican and Democratic lawmakers who portrayed it as a rush to economic judgment and an undeserved aid package for high-flying financiers who chased big profits through reckless investments.

My Comment: This was a rush to judgment and it does give aid to high-flying financiers who chased big profits through reckless investments. It is a complete waste of $700 billion dollars.

All sides had to surrender something. The administration had to accept limits on executive pay and tougher oversight; Democrats had to sacrifice a push to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages; and Republicans fell short in their effort to require that the federal government insure, rather than buy, the bad debt.

My Comment: The closer one looks the more one can see that Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank gave in to every wish of the Treasury.

“This is a major, major change,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday evening as she declared that negotiations were over and that a House vote was planned for Monday, with Senate action to follow.

My Comment: Nancy Pelosi is a shill for President Bush.

It is virtually impossible to know the ultimate cost of the rescue plan to taxpayers, but Congressional leaders stressed that it would likely be far less than $700 billion. Because the Treasury will buy assets with the potential to resell them at a higher price, the government might even turn a profit.

My Comment: CARL HULSE and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, writers of the NY Times article are as clueless as beached whales to even begin to think there can be a profit. The treasury will keep reloading debt at absurd enough prices to make sure it cannot possibly happen.

Congressional Budget Office Review

The congressional budget office provided its Review of the Emergency
Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Inquiring minds will want to take a look.

New Fax Phone Campaign

This is a two pronged attack. Phone/Fax everyone twice in one last push.
Here is the first message.

Start with your own state, then pick other states at random. Flood them with faxes. Every Fax needs to say this:

Dear senator/congressional rep

If you vote for this Bailout Bill I will vote against you.

I will do more than that, I will work actively for your opponent, no matter who that person is, doing everything in my power to contribute to your defeat.

If you vote for this bill I will contribute my time, energy and money to your opponent, whoever that may be.

I will talk to my friends, my family and my co-workers and urge them to do the same. I have already contacted many friends and have asked them to do the same.

Second Fax
If you only have time to do one, this is it.
Fax Title: Bailout Bill Is A Disgrace

Dear senator/congressional rep

Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank have agreed to the most preposterous taxpaper bailout in history. It is loaded with toothless provisions that are not worth a plug nickel when it comes to protecting the taxpayer.

Fox Oversees Henhouse

The bill sets up an oversight board, which is directed to “ensure that the policies implemented” by Mr. Paulson are proper. Mr. Paulson is to be one of the five members of the board watching over his own actions. He is joined by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Housing Secretary and the director of the Federal Home Finance Agency.

This is supposed to be an oversight committee?

New Proposal Cedes Congressional Authority To The Administration

Paulson, or whoever the next Treasury Secretary is, can buy whatever he wants, at whatever price he wants. Why should Congress give such authority to anyone at any time?

Note that the next Treasury Secretary is not even a known quantity!

The limit on any bailout should be no more than $250 billion flat out with no automatic escalations. If Congress thinks more money is needed it can vote to provide more money later. Ceding blank check power to the president and requiring super majorities to override would set a dangerous precedent.

I am appalled that the administration would ask for such power and I am even more appalled that Congress would be willing to structure a bill this way.

No Insurance

Ceding power to the treasury on how to best implement the insurance provision is also a terrible idea. Congress, not the Treasury should stipulate how insurance should work. Leaving insurance to the discretion of the Treasury is tantamount to agreeing there should not be insurance.

Broad New Powers For The SEC

A provision of the bill gives the S.E.C. permission to suspend the rule for any individual company if it thinks that is in the public’s interest. It is absurd that the SEC should be allowed to wave whatever rules it wants.

We got into trouble in the first place because of poor accounting principles!

No Help For Homeowners

This bill offers no help for homeowners. All it offers is a provision to "encourage" servicers of the underlying mortgages to take advantage of the Hope for Homeowners Program. Exactly what use is that?

Administrative Costs

Where are administrative costs hidden?

Recoupment mechanism

The recoupment mechanism does nothing except to require the President submit a proposal to offset such costs after five years. How could this be so poorly worded? Why should Congress require the president to submit a bill, any bill?

Bill Is A Disgrace

This bill is so full of holes and toothless provisions it is a disgrace to suggest it is close to being ready for a vote. Most importantly, the bill will not create a single job, nor will it solve the underlying economic problems. Over 190 major economists agree.

If you vote for this Bailout Bill I will vote against you.

I will do more than that, I will work actively for your opponent, no matter who that person is, doing everything in my power to contribute to your defeat.

If you vote for this bill I will contribute my time, energy and money to your opponent, whoever that may be.

I will talk to my friends, my family and my co-workers and urge them to do the same. I have already contacted many friends and have asked them to do the same.

Keep phoning and faxing until you Fill Every Congressional Voice Mail Box In The Country.

Fax List For All Congress

You can get a list of fax numbers for all the senators and congressman in MetroFax Compatible Fax List For All Congress.

Fax Now!
Call Now!

If you do not have internet faxing get it.

I went with MetroFax. 1000 pages at a very cheap price.
If you are reading this most likely you can afford $12.
Sign up today and fax to your heart's content.

Contact The House

Please fax AND phone your congressional representative and Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Phone Numbers

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D)(202) 225-4965
Rep. Barney Frank (D)(202) 225-5931
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) (202) 224-3841
Sen. Richard Shelby (R) (202) 224-5744
Sen. Harry Reid (D) 202-224-3542
Sen. Jim DeMint (R) 202-224-6121
Sen. John Ensign (R) (202) 224-6244
Sen. Jim Bunning (R) 202.224.4343
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) (202) 224-3744
Sen. John McCain (R) 202-224-2235
Sen. Barack Obama (D) (202) 224-2854

Call them with this simple message "I have seen the revised bill, you will lose my vote if it passes".

Congressional Phone And Fax Numbers

Click Here For Congressional Phone And Fax Numbers

Senate Fax List

Please fax everyone on this list.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R) 202-224-3416 or 202-224-5137 (try both not sure which is correct)
Sen. Harry Reid (D) 202-224-7327
Sen. Jim DeMint (R) 202-228-5143
Sen. John Ensign (R) 202-228-2193
Sen. Jim Bunning (R) 202-228-1373
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) 202-224-6020
Sen John McCain (R) 202-228-2862

Sen. Barack Obama 202-228-4260
Sen. John D. Rockefeller 202-224-7665
Sen. Dianne Feinstein 202-228-3954
Sen. Ron Wyden 202-228-2717
Sen. Evan Bayh 202-228-1377
Sen. Barbara Mikulski 202-224-8858
Sen. Bill Nelson 202-228-2183
Sen. John Kerry 202-224-8525
Sen. Daniel Inouye 202-224-6747
Sen. Hillary Clinton 202-228-0282

Rep. Barney Frank 202-225-0182
Rep. Nancy Pelosi 202-225-4188

Thanks
Your help is appreciated.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Protests on Wall St - UNREPORTED BY CORPORATE MEDIA

Hundreds of protestors demonstrated agains the proposed $700 Billion bail out plan for the finance and banking industry, yet the national news media in America didn't even report it! Why not? It seems strange that this barely generated a gander from the big news outlets like ABC, CNN, CBS, NBC etc. all of whom have a presence in New York City. Despite having such a large protest event occurring in their backyard, the major news media chose not to tell the American people about it. I had to stumble upon this on the internet to find out about it. That's really indicative of the pathetic state of affairs in the U.S. media today.

Anyway, in case you haven't seen it, I have collected a bunch of video from the protests on Wall Street (Sept. 25) and posted them below. Have a look at what the news media DIDN'T show you! Warning: some of the protest videos contain profanity.

See videos

Marcy Kaptur warns "there are enemies of the Republic"

Stop the Bailout!

CONGRESS: THINK BEFORE YOU ACT!

You are being asked to pass a $700 billion “bailout” or “rescue” package and are told by your leadership that it is “necessary” to prevent a catastrophe in the financial markets and, by extension, on Main Street.

Please think carefully about the following facts before you vote: ·

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Kucinich says bailout doesn't have the votes

Keep calling. Call your House Rep TODAY. - Ed.

As the Wall Street bailout talks continue, a critical Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is not confident that House will pass the legislation, as he told The Hill. "If the votes were there, this would be on the floor," he said. "The votes aren't there."

"Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?" Kucinich asked today. "Why aren't we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren't we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren't we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street? Isn't it time for fundamental change in our debt-based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks?"

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Who is putting "intense pressure" on Bush and Congress to pass the bailout?

An article in CNBC states, "The U.S. Congress and the Bush administration were under intense pressure on Saturday to negotiate a $700 billion rescue".

Who is putting intense pressure on both the White House and Congress to pass the bailout?

Not the American people, who overwhelmingly oppose the bailout.

Not American economists, former treasury secretaries, chairmen of the FDIC, or the Congressional Budget Office, who all say that the bailout won't work, and will actually harm the economy.

So who is putting the intense pressure on our government?

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How the Bailout will work

The scheme is actually pretty simple. Please forgive my primitive graphics abilities.
The fund will buy mortgages from the banks at market value, and then re-sell them back to the banks at a discount.
The fund will then repurchase those mortgages from the banks, who will sell them back to the fund again.
The same product (perhaps an ill-advised mortgage for a half-million dollars taken out on a house in the distant
suburbs of Las Vegas) will be bought, then resold, then re-bought and re-resold in an endless spiral of profit-taking.
The taxpayer will lose on every transaction, the banks robbing the treasury each time each mortgage, or
package of mortgages is swapped.

It is amazing to observe the greatest transfer of wealth in history, from Main Street to Wall Street,
from the many to the few. What is even more amazing is that nobody seems to be stopping it.

Original link.

Whitney: Trouble in Banktopia

The financial system is blowing up. Don't listen to the experts; just look at the numbers. Last week, according to Reuters, "U.S. banks borrowed a record amount from the Federal Reserve nearly $188 billion a day on average, showing the central bank went to extremes to keep the banking system afloat amid the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression." The Fed opened the various "auction facilities" to create the appearance that insolvent banks were thriving businesses, but they are not. They're dead; their liabilities exceed their assets. Now the Fed is desperate because the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the banks vaults have bankrupt the entire system and the Fed's balance sheet is ballooning by the day. The market for MBS will not bounce back in the foreseeable future and the banks are unable to roll-over their short term debt. Game over. The Federal Reserve itself is in danger. So, it's on to Plan B; which is to dump all the toxic sludge on the taxpayer before he realizes that the whole system is cratering and his life is about to change forever. It's called the Paulson Plan, a $700 billion boondoggle which has already been disparaged by every economist of merit in the country.

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Deal reached on financial markets bailout

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative deal early Sunday on a landmark bailout of imperiled financial markets whose collapse could plunge the nation into a deep recession.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the $700 billion accord just after midnight but said it still has to be put on paper.

"We've still got more to do to finalize it, but I think we're there," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who also participated in the negotiations in the Capitol.

"We worked out everything," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the chief Senate Republican in the talks.

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Here to stay, 14,000 strong, and armed with 'non-lethal' weapons.

There are times when certain headlines fly through the news that make your heart drop. Sometimes, it’s a simple headline that can do the trick. Other times, it takes a bit more research before things start to get scary. Follow me as I play connect the dots and introduce you to the military unit that will be stationed near you, in America. To answer your first question: yes they will be available to be used to control civil disobedience. To answer your next question: as long as the military wants them to stay. Perhaps your last question: October, 2008.

A few days ago, small reports were coming out about a new military unit that was going to be stationed within the United States of America. I first heard the report from a friend and suddenly I found myself dizzied by the amount of curse words flying through my head.

The original story that I read was in a blog that included a small excerpt. The title was enough to get me started:

“Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations”

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Afshin Rattansi talks to Max Keiser about laundering $700B

Bailout plan: The House ain't buying it

What to do when your congressman's not talking to you

Good collection of links in this one...

My response to Con. Shuler keeps bouncing back. Does this mean he doesn't like me? In any case here's my attempt to 'Speak truth to power".

Dear Mr. Shuler,

I received your letter to me on the subject of sanctions against Iran.

I would like to express my understanding that members of Congress are elected to represent the interests of the American people and run the government of the United States of America.

I am not worried about Iran. The business of Iran is the business of Iran.

You say that Iran “has a tendency to act aggressively”. As a matter of fact, the country of Iran has stayed inside its borders for hundreds of years which cannot be said for our “ally”, Israel, which regularly attacks its Arab neighbors. The country of Israel has a standing record of violating 65 UN Resolutions while the country of Iraq had 16 violations at the time the U.S. decided to attack and destroy that country.

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Throw them all out!

Are You Tired of Being Ripped Off By Congress and the White House?

Is this Wall Street Bailout the Last Straw for You?


Well we have a chance to do something about it this November, on Election Day. The people of Pennsylvania showed us the way.

Last year, Pennsylvania residents learned that their legislature--Republicans and Democrats--had connived in the middle of the night to give themselves a raise in violation of the state constitution, which said raises could only be given to the next cycle of elected officials, not to those who were voting. They got around this by declaring the increases "undocumented expense reimbursements."

The citizenry rose up and in a leaderless grassroots campaign, they swept out off office many long-time members of the legislature who had voted for the measure, as well as a judge who backed the action (the state's judges get whatever the legislators get)!

If Pennsylvania voters can do this, so can the rest of America.

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Henry Laundering

Here's the straight poop on the hostile takeover of the government that's currently prancing around Washington in drag as a bailout of Wall St. This scheme is an advance transfer of power so that the same fuckheads who have raped and pillaged the United States and the world for the past seven and a half years remain in control after George W. Bush no longer serves as the official frontman for their confidence game. Got it?

Bush and his Wall St cronies have taken the American people hostage. If we don't cough up the first $700 billion installment of a gargantuan ransom demand, they'll show us that they mean, and are, business, by beginning to knock us off one family, one industry, one town, at a time. Whoops, they've already been doing that --- but now that it serves them, they'll publicize these atrocities.

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Is the Bailout a Rothschild trick?

Full story here. Brother Nathanael.

Murray Waas: What did Bush tell Gonzalez?

In March 2004, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a now-famous late-night visit to the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft, seeking to get Ashcroft to sign a certification stating that the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program was legal. According to people familiar with statements recently made by Gonzales to federal investigators, Gonzales is now saying that George Bush personally directed him to make that hospital visit.

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Tbogg: Suffer the godbotherers

Just hysterical, and we need a laugh. - Ed.

It probably won't come as any surprise that one of the reasons that former prisoner of war John McCain decided to enlist Bible Spice from the Great White North as his running mate was because she had already been given the sign of the cross and a big ol' wink from Dobsonite wing of the party. Her evangelical background, as well as her hardline stance on abortion, combined with her skepticism regarding evolution, scientific inquiry, gravity, and the existence of verbs made her mighty desirable to the Jesus folk.... in a purely spiritual way. And without the vote of the evangelicals the McCain campaign was just going to be so much whacking off with no happy ending to come on November 4th.

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Kurt Vonnegut: The Blood of Dresden

It was a routine speech we got during our first day of basic training, delivered by a wiry little lieutenant: “Men, up to now you’ve been good, clean, American boys with an American’s love for sportsmanship and fair play. We’re here to change that.

“Our job is to make you the meanest, dirtiest bunch of scrappers in the history of the world. From now on, you can forget the Marquess of Queensberry rules and every other set of rules. Anything and everything goes.

“Never hit a man above the belt when you can kick him below it. Make the bastard scream. Kill him any way you can. Kill, kill, kill – do you understand?”

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