BadMormon

on the Madoff Issue

you know I don’t care what you do, you CAN NOT spend 650 BILLION – that’s right, 650 BILLION dollars. There are swiss bank accounts full of madoff ill got gains and we ALL know it.

In Case The Tumbling Stockmarket isn’t Visual Enough for you!

THE BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES BLOG

THE BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES BLOG

Greenspan not so great after all…

The oracle is among the last to discover what the rest of us have long since experienced in more tangible ways: Unbridled self-interest, it turns out, isn't rational at all, and simply consumes until it destroys even its own environment and needs saving from itself.
What else could have been expected in a market designed by Greenspan and others to operate a kind of derivative-driven Hobbsian "state of nature" where there is "no justice and no injustice because there are no laws"?
And how could he not have known? How, when he was warned again and again, and either ignored his critics or silenced them, and scorned calls to regulate the financial instruments that played a huge role in bringing about this crisis? Why did he do nothing at all to stop it or reduce the harm that would inevitably be done? Why did he choose instead to let the bubble burst and pick up the pieces later?

Pam’s House Blend:: “Drop Dead” Conservatism, Part One

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Grim

The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 8.5% by the end of next year and inch even higher in early 2010, economists for Goldman Sachs wrote Friday. The cumulative trough-to-peak increase of more than 4 percentage points in the jobless rate would be the most since World War II, they said. Goldman analysts lowered growth forecasts for the next three quarters, and said they now expect the Federal Reserve to cut its interest rate target to 0.50% by December. "The main reason for these changes is the accumulation of evidence that U.S. domestic demand and production are dropping sharply," they wrote. "We do not see a resumption of anything close to trend growth before 2010."

Goldman forecasting biggest rise in joblessness since WWII – MarketWatch

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Bailout for actual people!

So the banks are failing because they’re holding as assets these shitty mortgages that nobody can pay. So the government buys the mortgages from the banks, so the banks aren’t clogged up with these shitty assets and can start lending each other money again. Right?

Now, why doesn’t the government just take that 700 billion dollars, give it BACK to the taxpayers. That is, a stimulus package that goes something like this: If you’re holding a shitty mortgage, you get money. Then the homeowner pays the mortgage off with the government money, the bank gets its money, the homeowner gets to keep the house. Non-homeowners get a smaller stimulus package, like the $600 one Bush passed recently.

go yoga GO!

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I like this plan. However the issue is more than sub-prime from what I know.  It’s cause the companies are defaulting on promises too.  All companies run by building themselves based on PROJECTED REVENUE.  Which means during a .com boom when companies make TONS they start building stores and outlets betting they can pay them off with the money the boom is spose to bring in next quarter, or year or whateves.  Of course if booms goes cause there’s nothing of substance to the .com or cause the oil price is too high to afford SUV’s the global killers, well the company is over extended.  This is when they do layoffs.  Cause payroll is easiest chunk of a company to cut.

I personally think we should legalize marijuana.  Tax the shit out of it.  That will clear up our national debt and put us back in the saddle.  Plus the growing it is good for the planet, more oxygen, it replenishes the soil (unless hydro) and you can even cook up the seeds for a nourishing high protein gruel.

Time to Save the Economy

Juan Enriquez is a debt crisis expert. He has dealt with economic collapse in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, and Korea. And now he’s seriously concerned about the U.S.

In his presentation at Pop!Tech 2008, Enriquez stirred the crowd to help craft a prescription to avert the oncoming crisis, stating that the best chance we have to change course is during the first sixty days of the new presidency. His 10 Commandments are open to editing and debate, because as Enriquez says, “This is too important a topic to get wrong.”

10 Commandments for the President Elect to Save the US Economy | Services | frog design

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there’s a slideshow if you hit the link.  I’m not sure if it’s right or not (probably is) but it is another piece to think about.

a little dense but nice deconstruct of capitalism today inside

Enlightened self-interest is, however, no longer a plausible alibi – we just know too much. And, as a matter of fact, bourgeois ideology often tells us bluntly that the alibi is a fraud – as when game theorists concocted the “prisoners’ dilemma” and proved that social solidarity of some sort could be far more effective in delivering a net good than a narrowly conceived self-interest.

LENIN’S TOMB: A breviary on socialist planning

Words of a Nobel Prize Winner

Regular readers know that I have never forgiven the Federal Reserve chairman for his role in creating today’s budget deficit. In 2001 Mr. Greenspan, a stern fiscal taskmaster during the Clinton years, gave decisive support to the Bush administration’s irresponsible tax cuts, urging Congress to reduce the federal government’s revenue so that it wouldn’t pay off its debt too quickly.

Since then, federal debt has soared. But as far as I can tell, Mr. Greenspan has never admitted that he gave Congress bad advice. He has, however, gone back to lecturing us about the evils of deficits.

Greenspan and the Bubble – New York Times an article from 2005 when we could have stopped the global toppling of capitalism we see today.

Credit default swap is part of the issue

I didn’t know this one.  I’m still not sure I understand it.

There are so many pieces to this collapse, WORLDWIDE collapse.  I keep running across more that I had no idea was happening.  The problem with our economy is that financial institutions (BANKS, INSURANCE AND WALL STREET) are using money to make money off of another bundle of money.  It’s more of a gamble than Roulette.  Poor people in subprime mortgages would be fine if the money guys didn’t understand credit and gambling is BAD FOR YOU! and Fucked our economy completely to make their own fortunes. Fuckers.

Credit default swap – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

which political party makes you money

Op-Chart – Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants – Interactive Graphic – NYTimes.com