It Takes a Pillage

Interview with Nomi Prins begins after 13:00, but the opening commentary is worthwhile:

Keynes vs. Hayek

H/T

Feeling really small?

Backstory.

Is this bluster indicative of any sort of threat to Bush 44?

Karl Denninger seems to think this is sponsored by disillusioned Dems who now see their support for Bush 44 (aka Mr. Changey-hopey-ropey-dopey) as- and I’m being polite here- misguided.

Today’s quotations offering insight, perspective, apportioning responsibility, pointing out delusion

“The only lesson that central bankers and politicians have learned is that there is nothing wrong with a Ponzi scheme. It is just that you can’t allow the game to end. Present initiatives to arrest the problems are merely designed to prolong the game without addressing the root cause and imbalances.” -Satyajit Das, New Money

“With its talk of new taxes on banks, is Team Obama reverting to its now well established pattern of crony capitalist giveaways with the occasional phony populist reform as an increasingly ineffective disguise?” -Yves Smith, Administration Bank Tax Plan: An Empty Populist Gesture by Design?

“Almost all people are delusional and think the post-bubble housing crash is the aberration, and that the housing market will return to normal one day in the (near) future. They do not understand that the bubble was the aberration, and those days are over and dead. They thought the bubble prices were the new norm. And the strange thing is that they liked it. They delighted in receiving a high price for their home, and never seemed to be able to factor in the reality that they would also pay a higher price for another home. Not understanding the bubble is a principal part of the problem in getting those people to understand the whole of their financial problem. Also, people do indeed desire to avoid default and they fear the effect that a poor credit rating will have on their future. I agree with Lowenstein that most credit rating fears are a bit overblown, and besides, it is far less problematic to absorb the short-term trauma from a shoddy credit rating and radically improve your long-term financial prospects while shedding the iron monkey on your back.” -Karen De Coster, It May Be Financially Irresponsible to Pay Your Mortgage

“Much of the devolution we now face is a direct result of the degradation of integrity. This moral/ethical component of financial implosion is glossed over by the MSM because the Power Elites have implicitly undermined integrity and morality as a means of soldifying their control of the propaganda machine (the media) and of the national income.” Charlie Smith, The Inherent Problem with Offering Specific Advice

Also, check out this Youtube rant Massive Tzunami of Home Defaults Coming or How to Rob America Blind

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“If the Mortgage Bankers Association is against defaults, its members, presumably the experts in such matters, might take better care not to lend people more than their homes are worth.” -Roger Lowenstien

Circular logic of the war on terror

Mutilated child and the blood on Obama's hands

If terrorists are indeed attacking us because they, quote: “hate our freedoms”; and if America chooses, in the ‘War on Terror” to allow it’s government to take freedoms away; then has not America already lost the war, and haven’t the terrorists won?

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“I would rather have my son stay in the basement play the computer games until he is 30 years old than send him to protect the opium crops.” -Anon

The Golden Goose Ramp Job

More:

More Observations On The Federal Reserve Buying Stocks [ ZeroHedge ]

A Three-Month Flat Market? Yes…If You Exclude The Constant After Hours Manipulation [ ZeroHedge ]

Federal Reserve Seeks to Protect U.S. Bailout Secrets [ Bloomie ]

This just in- Wall St. more dangerous than Al Qaeda

What we don’t know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin… Now that it can count on government bailouts, Wall Street has more incentive than ever to pump up its risks — secure that it can keep the bonanzas while we get stuck with the losses.

[ Frank Rich, NYTimes ]

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As Paul Volcker, the regrettably powerless chairman of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said recently, there is not “one shred of neutral evidence” that any financial innovation of the past 20 years has led to economic growth. Citi, that “innovative” banking supermarket, destroyed far more wealth than (former Chairman) Weill can or will ever give away.

The switcheroo

Contrary to what some would like to believe, it does not establish a right to health care. It establishes a duty to buy health insurance. Those are not at all the same. There is no assurance in this bill that insurers will not deny coverage or delay payments as they do now, and no provisions to deal with the strain on the system (likely de facto rationing) when millions of now-uninsured can afford at least some level insurance. The health care version of the now-standard Obama bait and switch tactic could lead not just to curtailment of the new plan, but could easily become the poster child for an even bigger push to cut other entitlement programs, even ones that are functioning well.

[ Yves Smith ]

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A growing number of Americans are bypassing doctors and going directly to online and storefront labs for diagnostic testing. Most often they pay for these tests out of their own pocket. The results may persuade the consumer to pursue the matter further with a personal physician but, in any case, the consumer is in charge of who sees the results.

[ MPJerry ]

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The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

-Maggie Thatcher

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If they can get you to ask the wrong questions then the answers don’t matter.

-Thomas Pynchon

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By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

-John Maynard Keynes

Come and see the fraud and corruption inherent in the system

Jim the Realtor visits a foreclosure that waaaay-back in 2007 was one of about a dozen homes at the center of a complex fraud engineered by Realtards(tm) and their mortgage-broker cronies in Carlsbad, CA.

The fact that that these Realtards(tm) stole at least four million dollars from the banking system (and ultimately your tax dollars, thanks to Hanky Panky and his cabal-eros) and are still walking around- and still in business!- is testament to how rampant corruption exists at all levels… from .gov, to Wall St. (sub-prime CDO’s anyone), to Main St.

Since the cronies are the ones still in power (doesn’t anyone at least lose their job?), nobody will be going to jail. Bukkake, Rubtard, Hanky-panky, Doddery,  Summers, Cheney, Shitener, all need to spend some time in stir contemplating the mess they made, but they don’t even get so much as a time-out.

That they can continue to do business and roam freely makes a mockery of truth, justice, and the American way.

With ALL of this country’s law enforcement engaged in pursuing an invisible foe, get out the lube so you’ll be ready when it’s your turn to be ass-raped.

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Some add’l info: 1., 2., 3., 4.