Making banks into GSE’s

TBTF will be the law of the land for the chosen few:

Too small to be bailed-out? Prepare to be absorbed.

‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’

The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it [ London Times ]

Last year he famously switched allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama during the Democratic nomination process for president. Now, he reveals, he regrets his change of heart. How’s Obama doing? “Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.”

#Regrets, I’ve had a few#

Could not have said it better myself, part deux

Obama: should he be referred to as Bush Lite, or Bush III?

Tactical Error: Health Care vs Finance Regulatory Reform

I believe the brain trust behind the Obama White House has made a huge tactical error.

As Rahm Emmanuel likes to say, one should “never waste a crisis” — and the White House has done just that.

There was a narrow window to effect a full regulatory reform of Wall Street, the Banking Industry and other causes of the collapse. Instead, the White House tacked in a different direction, pursuing health care reform.

This was an enormous miscalculation.

I’m not sure who to blame, but the leading suspects (in order) are Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, Tim Geithner, and (perhaps) David Axelrod. Instead of a populist clean up of The Street (ala Eliot Spitzer circa 2,000), Obama advisors allowed a smoldering resentment to take hold and build amongst the electorate. The massive taxpayer wealth transfer to inept, corrupt, incompetent bankers has created huge resentment amongst the populace — regardless of political affiliation.

There was widespread popular support for a full reform of finance. What the White House should have pursued was: 1) Reinstatement of Glass Steagall; 2) Repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act; 3) Overturning SEC Bear Stearn exemption allowing 5 biggest firms to leverage up far beyond 12 to one; 4) Regulating the non bank sub-prime lenders; 5) Continuing high risk trades to be compensated regardless of profitibility; 6) Mandating (and enforcing) lending standards, etc. [emphasis added]

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Never waste a crisis, indeed . . .

[ more at The Big Picture ]

This adminsitration is loaded down with do-nothings like Rodham and Holder, know-nothings like Shitener and Summers, know-it-alls like Emmanuel and the press secretary (whose name must never be spoken, lest he see it in print and stoke that ego even more) who has no real power, but whose attitude represents the supreme arrogance of lottery winners.

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We get the government we deserve.

Max Keiser takes offense to Goldman Sachs story

Part I

Part II

Get out the anal lube

Are you an underwater home-debtor lacking in financial smarts? Do you think it’s okay to trust the government, since, well, you are convinced the gummint is ultimately looking out for your best interests? Are you considering taking advantage of the “Making Home Affordable” modification program?

I shouldn’t be doing this, because maybe it is better for you to get what you deserve (“an expensive edumacation”).

So consider this post a public service announcement.

Why? I am in a generous mood. Also, what I and others clearly see is a government working in tandem with bankster apparatchiks to create social injustice; to deceive you; to take advantage of you; to turn you into what I can only call a 21st century debt-serf, wedded to a death contract (“mortgage”) for possibly the rest of your life.

So, if you are considering a mortgage mod, in the spirit of  ’the adversary of my adversary is my compadre,’ I’ll bottom line this for you: prepare yourself to be buggered sideways.

If you happened to be at home and watched those annoying, hard-sell, daytime teevee commercials (with a portrait if Our Dear Leader looking all starry-eyed- or stoned- in the upper left hand corner) trying to entice you to save your (not my) American Dream(tm), don’t be suckered-in like you were the last time. These are the very same mortgage brokers who fucked you without a condom the last time. They’re operating under a different flag now, but trust me(tm) it’s them. Yes, that’s right, the ones who got you that generous no-doc loan with an Alt-A or ARM the last time.

They didn’t care about you then, and they want another shot at you (because they believe you are, yes, stupid). They want to flip you into a new mortgage with usurious terms, for a 3-5,000 dollar commish and then discard you on to the junk pile of future defaulters and go on to find the next sucker.

You might want to reconsider falling right into that trap again.

Otherwise, you might want to find a jar of what we have generously picture above. Try looking in the notion section of your local drug store.

So, here’s some help. A couple of bloggers have posted what just might help you to make the correct decision, even if that decision is walking away…

Naked Capitalsim

Housing Kaboom

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“People have a right to know what’s truly going on in their societies, rather than fall prey to the interests of politicians and financiers that are better served by hiding what’s real. ” -Ilargi

Enveloped in a Green Chute

Capital crimes

The U.S. is about to go broke and they’ll take us down with them [Macleans.ca]

America is about to go broke and every Western country, including Canada, will pay the price.

Abortive coup in the US ignored by media, hushed up by TPTB [Info Clearing House]

On the coming neo-feudalism [Animal Spirits]

FEMA’s National Level Exercise scheduled for late July is supposedly a counter-terrorism drill, but I would bet it involves practicing how to impose martial law.

What’s in your bug-out bag? [Chris Martenson.com]

You bought your neighbor a house, you paid off their credit cards, and now you get to buy them a car. Congratulations America, you have now gone full retard.

New, Hard Evidence of Continuing Debt Collapse! [Martin Weiss]

Goldman Sachs has “Self-Actualizing” information on Hyper-Inflation [Goldman Sachs Rules]

“The Greenspan era has nurtured a vast financial sector. All the people in this business need something to do. Since they invest other people’s money, they are biased toward bullish sentiment. Otherwise, if they say it’s all bad, their investors will take back the money, and they will lose their jobs. Governments know that, and create noise to give them excuses to be bullish.” -Andy Xie

The Treasury is really the nasty piece of work, so why does the Fed gets all the blame? [Market Skeptics]

Its a plan to crash our currencies, what comes nexts is special drawing rights, the 2009 name for the Bancor devised by john maynard keynes backed by 12 or so different commodities or the amero. However, it will have the same problems as the dollar, just on a global scale. We want sound money and money that is not issued by globalists. Wake up people there is a worldwide conspiracy going on to bring all of us further into global and regional government. We need currency competition and national soveriegnty all of us. US, Canada Mexico . -Bukkake-sake

Andy Xie: Tight Spot for Fed, Blind Spot for Investors [Caijing.com.cn]

“In the long run, all companies go bankrupt.” -Andy Xie

It’s Finished, It’s Over, The Fat Lady has Sung, rotsa ruck [London Review of Books]

De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire [Prof. Michael Hudson]

Devolution doesn’t threaten the Status Quo, so that’s why it is: Coming Soon! [Of Two Minds]

Middle class household(s) might actually respond with an anger deep and hot enough to become political if their middle-class lifestyle was taken away in one swoop. But devolution insures that the process is akin to the famous analogy of the boiled frog: if the temperature of the water is increased slowly enough, the frog never notices (or so the story goes) that he is being boiled alive.  [Charles Hugh Smith]

In hindsight, perhaps I should have hung on to that storage locker.

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Who regulates the regulators?

Taxpayers on the meat hook

Not what you want to hear, I know

***UPDATE***

Still, Lewis and Cohan [link to article in headline image below], critical as they may be, refuse to put into words what should be evident: the present administration has no intention whatsoever of opening up any book, or investigate who did what on Wall Street. The few executives who have been forced out are simply those who fell out of favor, not the most inept or suspicious figures. Bernie Madoff will be victimized and hung out to dry, but the extent of his crime and the names inside his network will be kept secret. The same will be true of Tangelo Mozilo, who could potentially drag down with him scores of financiers and politicians, but won’t be allowed to. In the end, Lewis and Cohan elect to lose themselves in what can only be called rhetorical propositions to provide clarity; rhetorical because they don’t (re-) present a chance in hell.

[-Ilargi The Automatic Earth]

– ***UPDATE***

Eating the Seed Corn

President Obama and his advisors, Treasury secretary and Fed chairman are gambling trillions of borrowed dollars that pouring the borrowed money into failed banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers and assorted other sinkholes will somehow magically spark a renewal of those ephemeral “animal spirits” which cause consumers to run out and borrow stupendous sums and then squander it all on new stuff.

Would anyone care to guess how many American households are burning through their savings, withdrawing IRA funds or draining the last of their remaining credit just to get by? At least one of my friends is draining his retirement funds to live while some investment real estate sells and he launches a new enterprise. If the real estate fails to sell, he could run out of money despite being worth quite a lot on paper. I doubt he is the only one in this circumstance, or the only one eating the seed corn in hopes 2010 will be better.

Only a fool who perversely wants to lose money would give credit to an over-leveraged, over-indebted borrower with no collateral.

As interest rates on the trillions borrowed skyrocket then the interest payments alone will crowd out spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, etc., essentially impoverishing the American people who placidly stood by while the bet was placed (“$3 trillion on number 13, please”) and lost.

[Of Two Minds]

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Root cause of the financial meltdown

That would be the Greenspan Put. Can you say moral hazard boys and girls?

Wall Streeters figured out that they could go balls to the wall in regard to risk, because the dessicated and decrepit fraudster would always bail their ass out. So your investments, your retirement funds, your personal wealth, which was nothing more to the pirates than OPM (“other peoples money”) could be gambled and they would “earn” handsome commissions- whether you made gains or not.

Fraudsters like Madoff, Stanford, etc. could thrive and multiply because they could rely on protective coloration by hiding amongst the hedgehogs in plain sight.

When the American public finally awakes and realizes that they’ve been had, that their pensions funds have been trifled with inside help, and this most recent boom/bust cycle was clear evidence of the practice of crony capitalism at it’s most efficient, maybe they’ll decide, like I did, that they need to fight the power. The first place to start is cut up the credit cards (or freeze one in a block of ice J.I.C.), become a saver, and begin live within one’s means. Then begin to educmacate oneself about what really happened.

Then watch out, because when there is no recovery a whole lot of people are really going to be pissed.

They thought they elected Obama to fix things. Oh yeah, he is really fixing things. By keeping the same people, who were responsible for the entire mess in the first place, in positions of decision-making. And as you can see, if you’re paying attention, the Fed., Inc. is printing money (“devaluing the currency”) with the left flank, as the (not ‘your’ any longer) gummint is stealing from your future to prop up their peeps (“cronies”) with the right flank. This all comes AT YOUR EXPENSE and because the invoice hasn’t yet come in the mail, most of you HAVE NO FREAKIN’ IDEA of the size of it.

I haven’t even touched on the naked power grab by the Feds over states now they are vulnerable (and unable to print money), the abrogation of the Constitution, and the complete disinterest by the Obamanation in reforming the financial markets.

Never. Gunna. Happen.

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“Sub-prime is contained” -Benron Bukkake, 2007