Weekend Economists' Blake Edwards Sendup December 17-19, 2010

[Demeter]

This week we bid adieu to Blake Edwards, eccentric film producer, husband of the formidable Julie Andrews, father of 5.

He died after 88 years of memorable artistry due to complications of pneumonia.

one example of his obit:

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-16/entertainment/obit.blake.edwards_1_film-business-victor-victoria-inspector-clouseau?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ

Blake Edwards and his actors were a real team, it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins...

Some memorable quotes:

Peter Sellers: People ask me why do I keep compromising my artistic integrity by walking in front of Blake's cameras. Do you know what I tell them? Money.

Blake Edwards: Mr. Sellers, welcome to Hollywood.
Peter Sellers: But this is Italy.
Blake Edwards: Hollywood's a state of mind.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy0ZoiJVmQk&feature=related

[Demeter]

1. What's Up With Bernanke and Goldman Sachs?

If one refers to items posted earlier today in SMW, it looks like Barney Frank's stealth Wikileaks is producing enough fuel to take down something...I hope. Like Bernanke. Maybe even GS. Stay tuned for more clues, hints, speculations, slanging, and so forth, as we try to find out what in blazes is going on.

[Demeter]

2. Goldman’s Sze raises money for hedge fund

Morgan Sze, the global head of Goldman Sachs’ biggest proprietary trading desk and one of the bank’s most highly paid employees, has begun raising money for what is expected to be the largest hedge fund launch since the financial crisis began.

Mr Sze’s new hedge fund – eagerly anticipated by many in the industry – is to be called Azentus Capital and will based in Hong Kong.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/6V36LO/WH2F8/LQ255T/A7NXW3/4O/t?a1=2010&a2=12&a3=15

[Ghost Dog]

23. in Hong Kong.

[Demeter]

3. Card fee cut hits Visa and MasterCard

Visa and MasterCard shares plunged after the Federal Reserve proposed rules to eliminate billions of dollars in debit card fees

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/ZE9K33/HD0YA7/52KB7/WLYFCJ/WL4CFZ/E4/t?a1=2010&a2=12&a3=17

[Tansy_Gold]

4. Wait a minute --

Blake Edwards' remarkable creative talent was all due to complications of pneumonia? Is that why all the rest of us healthy souls are so. . . .dull?

:evilgrin:

Go to your rehearsal, Demeter, and drive carefully and warm up there in the frozen north. I promise to refrain from any further syntactical criticism.


Tansy Gold, who rarely sees her own syntactical fuck-ups faux-pas.

[Demeter]

6. Well, it made sense at the time...

I'm not feeling tip-top. The unending chill and other stresses are gnawing away at my mind and health this week. That's what I hate about these holidays--they should be moved back to March, where they belong...

[Demeter]

5. US charges five as part of trading probe

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested four people in connection with its long-running investigation into alleged insider trading on Wall Street

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/ZE9K33/HD0YA7/52KB7/WLYFCJ/26IML2/E4/t?a1=2010&a2=12&a3=17

[Demeter]

7. I never thought that Peter Sellers was suited for slapstick

Steve Martin did a much better job of impersonating a Frenchman, IMO.

[Pale Blue Dot]

15. Oh, Demeter. I just lost all respect for you.

Steve Martin couldn't wipe the merde from Peter Sellers' shoes. :P

[burf]

21. I'm sorry Demeter,

but I must agree with PBD. My reason is the famous "Does your dog bite"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXn2QVipK2o

Please excuse the ad prior to the clip.

Merry Christmas to all and especially to the good Dr Phool and pups.

[4dsc]

64. "The Party" was perhaps the funniest movies ever made

When I first saw The Party I never laughed so hard in my life at a movie. Simply wonderful.

[Demeter]

8. Obama woos private capital back to mortgage market

The Obama administration is planning to encourage private capital back to the mortgage market by scaling down government guarantees even if Congress fails to pass housing finance reform, according to people familiar with the so-called Plan B for the mortgage market.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/8P1R88/KE2QR2/Q38E1/HDOMG3/EW1S2U/36/t?a1=2010&a2=12&a3=17

OMG

END MESSAGE

[Tansy_Gold]

25. "Plan B"??? What's next? "Plan 9 from Outer Space"???

Well, we got zombie banks. . . . . . .

[Demeter]

9. BP sued in $21bn US Gulf spill action

Eric Holder, US attorney-general: ‘We intend to prove these defendants are responsible for ... economic losses and environmental damages without limitation’

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/72PCY0/NRHD3/V1DSB4/FXLE1R/7V/t?a1=2010&a2=12&a3=16

HMMMM

[Demeter]

10. Senate overwhelmingly approves tax deal

The US Senate has given its final stamp of approval to the deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts in a 81-to-19 vote that will further bolster the agreement’s chances of being enacted by the end of the week

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/72PCY0/NRHD3/V1DSB4/OJCP06/7V/t?a1=2010&a2=12&a3=16

[Demeter]

11. Wikileaks is currently mirrored on 2194 sites

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27007.htm

[Demeter]

12. US military plan to destroy Wikileaks leaked

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2259550/military-plan-destroy-wikileaks#commentsModule

LAST WEEK, THE WHEELS WERE COMING OFF, THIS WEEK, IT'S THE SHEET METAL...

[Ghost Dog]

24. That story's from March,

but I hadn't heard it... And it's worth posting this snippet, for example, from the executive summary:

(S//NF) Anyone can post information to the Wikileaks.org Web site, and there is no editorial
review or oversight to verify the accuracy of any information posted to the Web site...

(U) Diverse views exist among private persons, legal experts, advocates for open government
and accountability, law enforcement, and government officials in the United States and other
countries on the stated goals of Wikileaks.org. Some contend that the leaking and posting of
information on Wikileaks.org is constitutionally protected free speech, supports open society and
open government initiatives, and serves the greater public good in such a manner that outweighs
any illegal acts that arise from the posting of sensitive or classified government or business
information. Others believe that the Web site or persons associated with Wikileaks.org will face
legal challenges in some countries over privacy issues, revealing sensitive or classified
government information, or civil lawsuits for posting information that is wrong, false,
slanderous, libelous, or malicious in nature. For example, the Wikileaks.org Web site in the
United States was shutdown on 14 February 2008 for 2 weeks by court order over the publishing
of sensitive documents in a case involving charges of money laundering, grand larceny, and tax
evasion by the Julius Bare Bank in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. The court case against
Wikileaks.org was dropped by Julius Bare Bank, the US court order was lifted and the Web site
was restored in the United States. Efforts by some domestic and foreign personnel and
organizations to discredit the Wikileaks.org Web site include allegations that it wittingly allows
the posting of uncorroborated information, serves as an instrument of propaganda, and is a front
organization of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).<4>

[bread_and_roses]

26. LOL, great header (n/t)

[Demeter]

13. Michael Hudson: Why Government is More Afraid of Debt than Depression

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27083.htm

VIDEO AT LINK

[Demeter]

14. Ratigan, Stockman: It's the Fed's Fault, Stupid

http://vodpod.com/watch/5128448-ratigan-stockman-its-the-feds-fault-stupid?u=ampedstatuscom&c=ampedstatus

ANOTHER VIDEO

[Demeter]

42. Obama's Sellout on Taxes By MICHAEL HUDSON

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson12082010.html

I almost feel naïve for being so angry at President Obama’s betrayal of his campaign promises regarding taxes. I had never harbored much hope that he actually intended to enact the reforms that his supporters expected – not after he appointed the most right-wing of the Clintonomics gang, Larry Summers, then Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and other Bush neoliberals.

But there is something so unfair and wrong that I could not prevent myself from waking up early Tuesday morning to think through the consequences of President Obama’s sellout in the years to come. Contrary to his pretense of saving the economy, his action will intensify debt deflation and financial depression, paving the way for a long-term tax shift off wealth onto labor.

In achieving a giveaway that Democrats never would have let George Bush or other Republicans enact, Obama has laid himself open to the campaign slogan that brought down British Prime Minister Tony Blair: “You can’t believe a word he says.” He has lost support not only personally, but also – as the Republicans anticipate – for much of his party in 2012.

Yet Obama has only done what politicians do: He has delivered up his constituency to his campaign backers – the same Wall Street donors who back the Republicans. What’s the point of having a constituency, after all, if you can’t sell it?

The problem is that it’s not going to stop here....MORE AT LINK

[4dsc]

65. Wow, talk about a minority view here at the DU.

eom..

[hamerfan]

67. Another great link, Demeter!

The last bit of it:
"The bottom line is that after the prolonged tax giveaway exacerbates the federal budget deficit – along with the balance-of-payments deficit – we can expect the next Republican or Democratic administration to step in and “save” the country from economic emergency by scaling back Social Security while turning its funding over, Pinochet-style, to Wall Street money managers to loot as they did in Chile. And one can forget rebuilding America’s infrastructure. It is being sold off by debt-strapped cities and states to cover their budget shortfalls resulting from un-taxing real estate and from foreclosures.

Welcome to debt peonage. This is worse than what was meant by a double-dip recession. It will be with us much longer."

Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy. He can be reached via his website, [e-mail]

We are so frikkin' DOOMED!

[Pale Blue Dot]

16. And whoosh

As we suggested earlier, there would be virtually no trading volume at all today, and any moves would be driven purely by the deltas. And following the close the fireworks would follows. Sure enough, here's the whoosh immediately following the start of the AH session.




http://www.zerohedge.com/article/and-whoosh

[Po_d Mainiac]

17. Can't be holding over the weekend..again all the volume in the first and last 2 minutes

[DemReadingDU]

32. and don't look down!

[Po_d Mainiac]

18. SEC takes time from viewing porn

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities regulators have broadened their inquiry into the mortgage industry, asking big banks about the early stages of securitizing home loans, two sources familiar with the probe said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/SEC-expands-mortgage-probe-rb-1213049499.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=

Now if Mdme Gold wood be sweet, and insert the picture of that nasty/spiked desert dwelling vegetation, we can at least dream of what the SEC will be probing the banksters with.

[Tansy_Gold]

22. Ocotillo

Oh-koh-TEE-yoh




Close up

[Po_d Mainiac]

19. A mere 5 Banks and Thrifts shit the bed...so far this weekend

Community National Bank..Lino Lakes, MN
First Southern Bank..Batesville, AR
United Americas Bank..Atlanta, GA
Appalachian Community Bank..McCaysville, GA
Chestatee State Bank..Dawsonville, GA
The Bank of Miami..Coral Gables, FL

[CatholicEdHead]

31. More on the Lino Lakes, MN failure

http://www.startribune.com/business/112107299.html

Community National Bank, which has branches in Lino Lakes and Vadnais Heights, was closed Friday by the Comptroller of the Currency and will be taken over by Farmers & Merchants Savings Bank of Manchester, Iowa.
...
Community National Bank opened in 1980. At the end of the third quarter, it had $31.6 million in assets and $28.8 million in deposits. Out of 405 banks in Minnesota, it ranked 333rd by assets.

The bank reported a loss of $1.8 million for the third quarter, but its total risk-based capital ratio -- a measure of bank health -- was 12.1 percent, above the 10 percent threshold the FDIC uses to classify a bank "well capitalized."
...
Several former executives have pleaded guilty to federal crimes after helping themselves to its money. They include Curtis Martinson of Eden Prairie, former bank president Bill Sandison of North Branch, and his son, Ross, of Grant, who siphoned bank funds from a $35 million failed real estate development known as the Ramsey Town Center project.


Eden Prairie, North Branch, and Grant are Twin Cities suburbs (SW and N Metro) and exurbs and heavily GOP leaning.

[Ghost Dog]

20. (How does this look) LEAP/E2020: Explosion of the Western public debt bubble

The second half of 2011 will mark the point in time when all the world’s financial operators will finally understand that the West will not repay in full a significant portion of the loans advanced over the last two decades. For LEAP/E2020 it is, in effect, around October 2011, due to the plunge of a large number of US cities and states into an inextricable financial situation following the end of the federal funding of their deficits, whilst Europe will face a very significant debt refinancing requirement (1), that this explosive situation will be fully revealed. Media escalation of the European crisis regarding sovereign debt of Euroland’s peripheral countries will have created the favourable context for such an explosion, of which the US “Muni” (2) market incidentally has just given a foretaste in November 2010 (as our team anticipated last June in GEAB No. 46 ) with a mini-crash that saw all the year’s gains go up in smoke in a few days. This time this crash (including the failure of the monoline reinsurer Ambac (3)) took place discreetly (4) since the Anglo-Saxon media machine (5) succeeded in focusing world attention on a further episode of the fantasy sitcom "The end of the Euro, or the financial remake of Swine fever" (6). Yet the contemporaneous shocks in the United States and Europe make for a very disturbing set-up comparable, according to our team, to the "Bear Stearn " crash which preceded Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and the collapse of Wall Street in September 2008 by eight months. But the GEAB readers know very well that major crashes rarely make headlines in the media several months in advance, so false alarms are customary (7)!

...

From the European side, we have thus witnessed the difficult, but ultimately incredibly fast, transformation of the Eurozone into a sort of semi-state entity, Euroland. The delays in the process weren’t only due to the poor quality of the political individuals concerned (16) as the interviews of the "forerunners" such as Helmut Schmidt, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing or Jacques Delors hammered on at length. They themselves never having had to face a historic crisis of this magnitude, a little modesty would have done them good.

These delays are equally due to the fact that current developments in the Eurozone are on a huge political scale (17) and conducted without any democratic political mandate: this situation paralyzes the European leaders who consequently spend their time denying that they are really doing what they do, i.e. namely, building a kind of political entity with its own economic, social and fiscal constituent parts, .... (18) Elected before the crisis erupted, they do not know that their voters (and the economic and financial players at the same time) would be largely satisfied with an explanation about the decisions being planned (19). Because most of major decisions to come are already identifiable, as we analyze in this issue.

Finally, it is a fact that the actions of these same leaders are dissected and manipulated by the main media specializing in economic and financial issues, none of which belong to the Eurozone, and all of which are, on the contrary, entrenched in the $ / £ zone where the strengthening of the euro is considered a disaster. This same media very directly contributes to blur the process underway in Euroland (20) even more.

However, we can see that this adverse effect decreases because between the "Greek crisis" and the "Irish crisis", the resulting Euro exchange rate volatility has weakened. For our team, in spring 2011, it will become an insignificant event. This only leaves, therefore, the issue of the quality of Euroland’s political personnel which will be profoundly changed beginning in 2012 (21) and, more fundamentally, the significant problem of the democratic legitimacy of the tremendous advances in European integration (22). But in a certain fashion, we can say that by 2012/2013, Euroland will have really established mechanisms which will have allowed it to withstand the shock of the crisis, even if it’s necessary to legitimize their existence retrospectively (23).

In this regard, what will help accelerate the bursting of the Western public debt bubble, and what will occur concomitantly for its US catalyst, is the understanding by financial operators of what lies behind the "Eurobligations” (or E-Bonds) (24) debate which has begun to be talked about in recent weeks (25). It is from late 2011 (at the latest) that the merits of this debate will begin to be unveiled within the framework of the preparation for the permanent European Financial Stabilisation Fund (26). Although, what will suddenly appear for the majority of investors who currently speculate on the exorbitant rates of Greek, Irish,... debt is that Euroland solidarity will not extend to them, especially when the case of Spain, Italy or Belgium will start being posed, whatever European leaders say today (27).

In short, according to LEAP/E2020, we should expect a huge operation of sovereign debt transactions (amid a government debt global crisis) which will offer Euroland guaranteed Eurobligations at very low rates in exchange of national securities at high interest rates with a 30% to 50% discount since, in the meantime, the situation of the entire Western public debt market will have deteriorated. Democratically speaking, the newly elected Euroland leaders (28) (after 2012) will be fully authorized to effect such an operation, of which the major banks (including European ones (29)) will be the first victims. It is highly likely that some privileged sovereign creditors like China, Russia, the oil producing countries,... will be offered preferential treatment. They will not complain since the undertaking will result in their sizeable assets in Euros being guaranteed.

-------------

Notes:

(1) Worth more than € 1,500 billion per year in 2011 and 2012, including of course the United Kingdom.

(2) The US municipal bond market (" Munis ") is used to fund the local transportation, health, education and sanitation infrastructure, ... It’s worth nearly 2,800 billion USD.

(3) Source : Reuters, 11/08/2010

(4) In a 11/20/2010 article Safehaven tonne indeed openly expressed surprise over the "silence" of the major financial media on the issue.

(5) The Financial Times, for example, has for the last month, begun to publish two or three articles per day on its website’s homepage on the so-called "Euro crisis" and to manipulate news, such as the statements of German leaders, to artificially create feelings of anxiety. Finally, even some of the French media are beginning to realize what an incredible political propaganda machine the Financial Times has become, as this recent article by Jean Quatremer in the Libération shows.

(6) By way of comparison, no investor has lost money in the "Greek and Irish episodes" of the "Euro crisis", whilst tens of thousands have lost considerable sums in the recent US Muni crash... yet the media covers the first and not the second.

(7) LEAP/E2020 would like to remind readers of previous GEAB analyses that the discussion over the "Euro crisis" is of the same order as the Swine fever outbreak a year ago, namely a large-scale manipulation of public opinion to serve two purposes: first, to divert public attention from more serious problems (with Swine fever it was the crisis itself and its socio-economic consequences; with the Euro it is simply to divert attention from the situation in the United States and the United Kingdom), and secondly, to serve the goals of players with a major interest in creating this situation of fear (as regards Swine fever it was pharmaceutical laboratories and other related service providers; as regards the Euro, financial players are earning a fortune by speculating on the public debt of the countries concerned (Greece, Ireland, ...)). But just as the Swine fever crisis ended in a masquerade with governments stuck with colossal stockpiles of now worthless vaccines and masks, the so-called Euro crisis is going to end up with players who will have to redeem their so “profitable” bonds for next to nothing whilst their dollars will continue to fall in value. The summer of 2010 has already shown, however, the direction of events. Source: Bloomberg, 11/18/2010

...

/Full Public Announcement with notes:... http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-50-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-Second-half-of-2011-European-context-and-US-catalyst-Explosion-of-the_a5625.html

[Demeter]

28. In Other Words, This is the Tide That Will Sink ALL Ships!

[DemReadingDU]

36. I had thought the Tide would come in this year

Well, technically, we still have a couple weeks, but doubtful until next year.

I grossly underestimated the amounts of the bailouts to banks and countries to keep the global financial Ponzi inflated. Whenever this Tide finally arrives, it will indeed sink all ships around the world.

[bread_and_roses]

27. Stay warm and well, Demeter -

Really, sounds like the multiple stress-ors in the insane life we've ("we" being the collective, not necessarily every individual) constructed as a society are wearing you down. And no wonder. Try to take care of yourself as best you can, if you can - the "norms" of this insane culture, the terrible burdens it puts on people just to eat, keep warm, stay alive - make that difficult for all of us, but certainly some more than others. How the hell do we stand it? How do we stand for the fragility of our ability to meet our basic needs here, in still the richest country on earth? Why do we allow it?

I just wrote a long post that I erased - it was really an extended rumination and deserving of no more attention than any other cud - but I am going to leave in one part. Here's a question I'm pondering: What could DrPhool have possibly posted that was not based in an ethical value system? And so presuming it was, what am I doing participating - voluntarily - in a forum that bans someone for doing that?

[Demeter]

29. 5th Column Work

the steady drip drip drip of unassailable reason, the pressure of a true market's demands, the persistence of people too stupid to die or give up...

you are being revolutionary!

[DemReadingDU]

33. good question

I really have no answer. We are conditioned to do it though.

Think of all the stuff we buy, and where is most of it made? Are we contributing to our own demise when we won't be able to get that stuff when the global economy implodes?

I think I don't post much anymore, because I'm too doomy.
:(

[hamerfan]

30. K&R!

Blake Edwards is a good choice, but I thought you might have gone with the movie/town Tombstone this week.

[Hugin]

34. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...

I come not to bury Ozymandius, but, to praise (and possibly find a replacement) for him. :/

As announced here: "My friends, it is time for me to retire."

I'm thinking it would be a good idea to put out some feelers and establish a criteria to
begin to insure a successful follow-on of the SMW at the immanent end of the epoch of Ozy.

Or should we go with Lennon's "Life is what happens when you're making other plans." scheme of replacement?

One criteria comes immediately to mind:

The SMW is successful because it starts EARLY in the day. So, I propose that our next point man leader be someone from the Eastern Time Zone, (or an insomniac) if possible.


Edit: Added retirement announcement link. 2'nd edit "you're for your" :eyes:

[Tansy_Gold]

35. Ozy has given us a wonderful gift. That's what good teachers do.

I'm too far away (AZ) even though I'm up early in the morning. But I'm here to help.




TG, TT

[Hugin]

37. You (like me) already contribute as much as you can, Tansy_Gold.

:)

If this were 4 or even two years ago... I'd be on it. Believe me, the spirit is willing, but, the situation is weak. :|

Due to age and decrepitude... and a grab-bag of other assorted miseries. I'm not even suitable to occasionally substitute here in the WEE. (Poor Demeter)

Now, in my life I've been involved in many changes-of-command... and this is no different. We must work to maintain the atmosphere established by Ozy while at the same time allowing a new person to step in and make the SMW their own.

In preparation for the transition, I suggest watching a couple of episodes of M*A*S*H where Lt. Col. Blake is replaced by Col. Potter.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Demeter]

38. Middle income – fewer insured

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/17/3264478/middle-income-fewer-insured.html

As more Americans lose health coverage because of unemployment, the latest snapshot of the uninsured reveals a grim picture: It's not just the poor and unemployed who now go without health insurance.

About a third of California's uninsured had family incomes of more than $50,000 a year in 2009, according to the California HealthCare Foundation.

Indeed, the percentage of uninsured among families earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually has nearly doubled over the past decade...

[Demeter]

39. Trapped in Bank of America Hell

http://banksterusa.org/content/trapped-bank-america-hell

Are you one of the lucky ones? Have a good job, live in a nice neighborhood, enjoy your cozy home? Think foreclosure only impacts the reckless or the unemployed?

Think again.

George Mahoney worked and saved and built his cozy colonial-style home in Lynnfield, Massachusetts in 1981. There, he and his wife raised three lovely daughters. For many years, the Mahoneys paid down their relatively small mortgage with their local bank -- a division of Bank of America (BofA). In 2007, they took out a second mortgage to help a daughter start a small business. Two wage earners, a great credit record -- the loan was a breeze. That was when the trouble began.

About a year after getting the second mortgage, BofA started notifying George that his payments were late. Soon they jacked his credit card interest rates from seven percent to twenty-eight percent. Next, they ruined his credit record. His Sears card dropped from a $10,000 limit to a $500 dollar limit. Then one day in the fall of 2009, BofA initiated foreclosure on the house he had built and owned for 28 years.

The only problem? The Mahoneys had never missed a single payment on either their first or second mortgage.

.............................

Recently-released data from the Federal Reserve shows that BofA received almost one trillion dollars ($931 billion) in taxpayer assistance during the financial crisis. The Fed has also been investigating snowballing allegations of fraud in the foreclosure process, allegations that include false notarizations, false affidavits, accounting fraud, abusive fees, false practice of the law and more. Fed Board Governor Daniel Tarullo told Congress that the problems identified “raise significant reputation and legal risk for the major mortgage servicers… requiring immediate remedial action.” But will it come in time to aid the Mahoneys?

The Mahoney’s experience indicts endemic accounting problems at BofA. Payments are misapplied constantly and the default position is abusive foreclosure. The bank reports some 1.3 million customers behind on their payments, but can regulators trust any data coming out of BofA? How many of these people are trapped in the same hell as the Mahoneys?

YOU GOTTA SEE THIS SITE!

[Demeter]

40. Fancy ATM skips the folding cash, spits out gold

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-17/fancy-atm-skips-the-folding-cash-spits-out-gold.html

Shoppers who are looking for something sparkly to put under the Christmas tree can skip the jewelry and go straight to the source: an ATM that dispenses shiny 24-carat gold bars and coins.

A German company installed the machine Friday at an upscale mall in Boca Raton, a South Florida paradise of palm trees, pink buildings and wealthy retirees.

Thomas Geissler, CEO of Ex Oriente Lux and inventor of the Gold To Go machines, says the majority of buyers will be walk-ups enamored by the novelty. But he says they're also convenient for more serious investors looking to bypass the hassle of buying gold at pawn shops and over the Internet...The company installed its first machine at Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace hotel in May and followed up with gold ATMs in Germany, Spain and Italy. Geissler said they plan to unroll a few hundred machines worldwide in 2011. He said the Abu Dhabi machine has been so popular it has to be restocked every two days...A bank in Vietnam installed its own brand of the machines in a country with a much poorer population but one that values gold more than paper money.

...Each machine, manufactured in Germany, carries about 320 pieces of different-sized bars and coins. Prices are refigured automatically every 10 minutes to reflect market fluctuations. On Friday, a two-gram piece cost about $122, including packaging, certification and a 5 percent markup. An ounce cost about $1,442.

[Demeter]

41. Big Banks Bonus Bonanza

http://www.seiu.org/2010/12/big-banks-bonus-bonanza.php

Once again, Wall Street is on track to pay astronomical bonuses to its star traders, even as the rest of America is reeling from the devastation the banks have unleashed on the global economy. These billion-dollar bonuses come at our expense, have no rational justification, and only serve to destabilize the larger economy. It is time to rein in banker compensation to get the economy working for Main Street again and to prevent another global economic catastrophe in the near future.

(IF UK AND THE EU CAN STOP THIS ABUSE, WHY CAN'T THE US?)

Today SEIU has released a new report, Big Banks Bonus Bonanza. From the report:

Despite unleashing havoc on the global economy, Wall Street is once again getting ready to pay astronomical bonuses this year. The nation's six largest banks alone are on track to pay their bankers a staggering $143 billion in bonuses, benefits and compensation ("bonus and compensation"), more than enough to fill the $130 billion2 total budget gap for all 50 states in FY 2011. If Wall Street pumped this money directly into the economy instead of paying it to its bankers, it could create 3.6 million new jobs, and lower the unemployment rate by 2.3 percent. Bank of America tops the list, with $35 billion in bonuses and compensation set aside for its bankers....



You can download the full report on Big Banks Bonus Bonanza by clicking ON THE LINK AND THEN FINDING (PDF link).

[Demeter]

43. Young people: get ready to grab your ankles

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/young-people-get-ready-to-grab-your-ankles/

If you’re reading this and under 30, let me be absolutely clear about one indubitable point: your government is going to sacrifice your future in order to pay for its own mistakes from the past.

To give you an example, students in London came out to the streets in droves last Friday to protest the British parliament’s most recent austerity measures which tripled the cap on their university tuition to $15,000...Younger folks have comparatively lower incomes, benefits, job opportunities, and political clout than their seniors, yet they are increasingly expected to assume a disproportionately larger burden of the consequences of government folly.

It’s the younger generation that is called on to go fight and die in pointless wars in faraway lands; it’s the younger generation that is forced to assume the debts of their forefathers; and it’s the younger generation that gets relegated to the back rows of the political amphitheater and dismissed by the establishment.

...let’s take a minute and look at the looming fate of the average young person today:

1) Your government-run university tuition is going to go through the roof, saddling you with unfathomable debt before you even enter the world as an adult;

2) Once you graduate, you’ll be the last in the hiring queue;

3) If you do get hired, you’ll be the lowest on the totem pole and the first to be let go when tough times befall your business;

4) Once the labor market eventually stabilizes, you’ll enter your prime earning years with some of the highest tax rates ever seen as your government continues to cannibalize your generation to pay off its largess and indebted entitlement programs that benefited older generations;

5) For your entire working life, you’ll pay into a pension system that is going to be bankrupt by the time you’re qualified to draw on it;

6) More than likely, you’ll never achieve the standard of living that your parents achieved;

7) Whatever wealth your parents accumulated won’t be left to you– the bulk of it will be confiscated by the state (unless your folks were smart enough to plant multiple flags) due to a host of death taxes.

......................................................................

Fortunately, there’s a silver lining (as always). Younger people are generally less anchored and more mobile than their elders, hence it’s much easier to opt out of this perverse system.

If you’re angry that your government is saddling you with the responsibility to pay off generations of bad decisions, then get out of Dodge. Stop playing by the same rules of the game that used to work in the past– the old playbook of “go to school, get a good job, work your way up the ladder” simply doesn’t apply anymore.

Don’t stick around a society that has completely forsaken you and is waiting with knife and fork in hand to carve up your earnings once you finally enter the labor market… get out of Dodge now, while it’s easy to do and you have little to risk....Most of all, stop playing by everyone else’s rules. Refuse to be enslaved by the idea that it’s your civic and moral responsibility to pay off the debts of your government’s failures. Cast off the yoke of their control… and summon the courage to live a life by your own design.

The path to prosperity in the Age of Turmoil depends on this ability to reject the old system, declare your economic independence, and carve your own path.

[Demeter]

44. Why the Correction is Winning the Fight Against Fed Stimulus

http://dailyreckoning.com/why-consumer-prices-are-flat-despite-fed-stimulus/

Are you telling us that after the Fed increases the core money supply by 300%...and says it is going to up it another 100%...consumer prices are still flat?

Yes? Hmmm...

And are you saying that slowing consumer price increases show that the "recovery is gaining momentum?"

Are you kidding?

Oh, dear reader... What claptrap! What nonsense! What balderdash!

The feds make the biggest stimulus effort in history. The Fed pumps $1.7 trillion into the banking system...with a promise of $600 billion more.

And consumer prices don't even budge? What happened to the most fundamental laws of finance? Have they been suspended? Have we entered some perverse, parallel universe?

Or does this mean what we think it means...that the downward tug of the Great Correction is so strong it overwhelms all the feds' efforts...the zero percent prime lending rate...the $700 billion stimulus bill...the $1.3 billion federal deficit...QE I, QE II...

That's no success story. That's a disaster.

Of course, all this money has to go somewhere. And there's no mystery about where it has gone. Commodities are hitting new highs. Oil seems headed back to $100 a barrel. Gold was over $1,400 an ounce.

Even US stocks are up about 25% this year.

As predicted, the feds' easy money has gone into speculative assets...not into the real economy. That's why one out of 10 people in the workforce is officially unemployed...and why, unofficially, it's probably more like one out of every 5.

And it's why consumer prices are NOT rising. Imagine what would happen if this were a real recovery? Imagine that the Fed increased the core money supply by 4 times. Imagine what would happen to consumer prices!

Poor Ben Bernanke must be tired of imagining. He will keep printing money - or so Bloomberg concludes - until he doesn't have to imagine anymore. He'll print until he reads about inflation in the paper!


................
WORSE YET, MOST OF THAT STIMULUS HAS GONE OVERSEAS TO DEVELOPING NATIONS...

[Demeter]

46. A Capital Paradox By John Butler

What, exactly, is economic capital? It is the productive potential of the economy, the ability to make things that people need and want to consume. But unlike paper, capital does not grow on trees. Capital itself must first be produced, in the form of capital goods. Let’s start from the beginning: We all need to consume food. Few of us produce our own. So we need to purchase food with our earnings. When we go to the supermarket and purchase a trolley of food, we are purchasing the output of a mind-bogglingly complex productive process. To highlight just a few aspects of this, consider:

* Arable land requires regular attention to remain productive, including irrigation, soil and fertilizer treatments;

* Irrigation is only partially provided by natural rainfall and drainage. An increasing portion is provided by some mechanical means, e.g. wells, pumps, aqueducts, desalinization, etc;

* Soil and fertilizer treatments are overwhelmingly produced in factories requiring substantial energy input;

* Farm machinery must also be produced in factories and properly maintained thereafter;

* Wells, pumps, aqueducts, desalination plants, fertilizer and farm machinery factories themselves don’t just exist; they too need to be manufactured and, thereafter, regularly maintained with suitable equipment, which must itself be manufactured and maintained with suitable equipment, and so on.

Now why would someone go to the trouble of manufacturing suitable equipment for making suitable equipment for maintaining a factory which is full of suitable equipment for producing fertilizer, which is then packaged and transported using suitable logistical equipment requiring regular maintenance using suitable equipment to a farm when it is loaded on to a tractor (requiring regular maintenance using suitable equipment), which was manufactured in a factory full of suitable equipment which was itself manufactured in another factory full of suitable equipment… ? Well, as with all economic activity, someone must believe that they will make a fair profit by engaging in some aspect of this process above, or else they wouldn’t do so. But do you see the complexity? How on earth can anyone just sit back, survey all these various stages of production and possibly know how each and every step should work, much less what sort of profit should be expected? Well, no one can. (This is one intuitive way of understanding why command economies are horribly inefficient, even assuming that everyone is competent, is trying their best and no one is corrupt, three assumptions that are at odds with historical experience and, as such, highly suspect.)

But if no one understands how this process works, then how does it work at all? Simple: The division of labor. At every stage of every productive process, either within a firm or between firms, there is always someone to perform each specific task. As long as those participating continue to believe that they receive fair compensation for their contribution, they will continue to work accordingly, doing their part to make a highly complex productive process a sustainable reality.

Now that we understand how complicated economic production is in a modern economy, even for something as basic as foodstuffs, let’s consider how the capital stock comes into existence in the first place. Even though no one can conceive of each and every detail in a highly complex production chain as that described above, nevertheless there are people who are willing to step up where they think they see an opportunity and invest their savings in capital goods of some kind, from which they are reasonably confident they will earn a respectable return. So the capital stock originates in savings. No savings, no growth in the capital stock.

Once created, however, the capital stock needs to be maintained. All real capital depreciates, be it buildings, factories, machines, roads, vehicles, refineries, electrical grids and power plants, even, as in our example above, arable land. Without maintenance, the capital stock will eventually depreciate to the point where it is no longer able to perform the functions for which it was originally intended. Beyond that point, it is a write off, either to be abandoned, sold for scrap or otherwise recycled...


Read more: A Capital Paradox http://dailyreckoning.com/a-capital-paradox/#ixzz18TsN8P2R

IT'S UNDENIABLE THAT OUR SO-CALLED CAPITALISTS HAVE PERMITTED THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF THIS NATION TO BE SHIPPED ABROAD, SHUT DOWN, OR LEFT TO DETERIORATE.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! THEY HAVE SCHEMED TO SEE THAT OUR INFRASTRUCTURE SUFFERS A SIMILAR NEGLECT; ROADS, ELECTRICAL GRID, LIBRARIES, PUBLIC HEALTH, THE ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT, ETC.

AND OUR SO-CALLED CAPITALISTS COMPLETELY IGNORE THE HUMAN CAPITAL:A HEALTHY AND EDUCATED AND MOBILE WORKFORCE, PLUS THE NEXT GENERATION IN THE PIPELINE.

THAT IS WHY ALL THE QE IN THE WORLD WILL DO NOTHING BUT CREATE GLOBAL BUBBLES OF MISERY, AND FEED THE LOOTING AND PILLAGING AND RAPE OF ITS PEOPLE.

[Demeter]

47. America: Lower Taxes, More Spending and Fewer Riots By Bill Bonner

Is the US the “sick man” of the globe, asks a Reuters article?

It’s a provocative headline. And the answer is probably “yes,” in many respects.

“Report drunk drivers,” says one sign. “Report Suspicious Activity,” says another. “Report Unclaimed Bags,” says a third.

Americans are being trained to denounce their neighbors. There’s something a little sick about so much tattling.

And here’s something that is not only sick, but fatal:

“Tax deal cruises through Senate,” said yesterday’s Washington Post headline. The House is supposed to follow. (OBAMA SIGNED IT INTO LAW LAST NIGHT--DEMETER)

Now, you take a place like Italy or Greece. The papers report that there are riots in Italy. And in Greece, anti-austerity demonstrations have turned violent.

You don’t see that sort of thing in the US. Nope. Because in America our public servants really serve.

Some of the members of the Senate wanted the rich to pay more in taxes. Others just wanted to be sure the poor got more unemployment benefits and other giveaways.

But after hours of argument, the world’s greatest deliberative body thrashed out a compromise. Forget the taxes. Forget the cuts. Everybody gets something.

Yes, dear reader, that’s what makes America great. You might think it is reckless to extend the tax reductions, what with the nation going broke and all. Or you might think it hardhearted not to give more handouts to the little guy, what with the Great Correction underway. But it’s always inspiring to see the peoples’ representatives joining hands and doing something that is truly stupid. Lower taxes AND more spending too!


Read more: America: Lower Taxes, More Spending and Fewer Riots http://dailyreckoning.com/america-lower-taxes-more-spending-and-fewer-riots/#ixzz18Tujuprw

[Demeter]

48. Keiser Report: Bleeping Bankers! Bleep, Bleep, Bleep A VIDEO COLLECTION

http://vodpod.com/watch/5134465-keiser-report-markets-finance-bleeping-bankers-e104?u=ampedstatuscom&c=ampedstatus

Keiser Report - The Monster: How a Gang of Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America–and Spawned a Global Crisis

http://vodpod.com/watch/5120447-keiser-report-103-markets-finance-fubar?u=ampedstatuscom&c=ampedstatus

The Shadow Unemployed

http://vodpod.com/watch/5123661-the-shadow-unemployed?u=ampedstatuscom&c=ampedstatus

Michael Hudson: Bankers Want A Depression

http://vodpod.com/watch/5135125-why-government-is-more-afraid-of-debt-than-depression?u=ampedstatuscom&c=ampedstatus

[Demeter]

49. Europe: We’ve Passed Insane and Are Now On Our Way to Full-Scale Looney Tune-Ville

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/europe-we%E2%80%99ve-passed-insane-and-are-now-our-way-full-scale-looney-tune-ville?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate

...In all honesty, detailing just how insane the whole Europe situation is can actually drive you mad. In the simplest terms, a bunch of countries lied about their true debt situation using derivatives that were created by the banks in order to join the European union,



Years later, these same countries start blowing up courtesy of their debt problems. However, rather than defaulting on their debts (which would hurt the SAME banks that created the derivatives mess) they start trying to borrow even MORE money (thereby going even further into debt) while cutting social spending.



So the bankers keep their bonuses and massive salaries and the citizens get screwed so a failed experiment (the Euro) can limp on for another six months?



And somehow it’s a surprise that the European citizenry is flipping out?



Let’s be blunt here: the Euro in its current form is finished... done… canceled. Greece got a bailout in June and ALREADY is asking for an extension on the repayment. If that doesn’t make it clear that NONE of the bailout money is going to be paid back, I don’t know what will...

[Demeter]

50. Weekend Reading - When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse - Adam Fergusson

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/12/when-money-dies-nightmare-of-weimar.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JessesCafeAmericain+%28Jesse%27s+Caf%C3%A9+Am%C3%A9ricain%29

[Demeter]

51. US To End 2010 With $13.9 Trillion In Debt, Total Debt Incurred Since Great Financial Crash: $4.4T

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-end-2010-139-trillion-debt-total-debt-incurred-great-financial-crash-44-trillion?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate


Now that all recent bond auctions have settled, and with no further bond auctions scheduled until the rest of the year, we can look at the final tally of US total debt: the number - $13,879,785,000,000. This represents a $1.568 trillion increase in total US debt held by the public for 2010, and $4.388 trillion since the collapse of Lehman. This is in essence the cost to US taxpayers to keep the financial system solvent, as the US has become the biggest marginal leveraging actor in the world, with everyone else, notably US consumers, and Europe, doing all they can to strip as much debt as they possible can. Of course, since this money does not have to be repaid any time soon, or ever, nobody seems to mind, especially not the politicians in Washington. As we have said before, and pro forma for the Obama tax deal, we expect total debt issuance in 2011 to accelerate once again, and to hit just under $2 trillion, putting total US debt at the end of next year at around $16 trillion. We also fully expect the Fed to monetize the bulk of that issuance. We can't wait to hear the positive spin on this one.

[Demeter]

52. Geithner on Foreclosure Fraud: What’s the Problem?

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/12/16/geithner-on-foreclosure-fraud-whats-the-problem/

....Geithner did basically confirm that the Administration wants to get Fannie and Freddie to write down principal for underwater borrowers, saying that Treasury and HUD have similar programs that are priving effective. But from the perspective of the GSEs wanting to limit losses, it would be near-suicide for them to do so. One-half of all homes in California are unaffordable to the borrower. Negative equity is nearing 1 in 5 nationwide. The numbers are huge.

There was a brilliant exchange between Damon Silvers and Geithner, where Silvers couldn’t contain his anger. Geithner refused to acknowledge the simple question of whether more foreclosures in the market drive housing prices up or down. It’s pretty obvious what the answer is. More foreclosure sales at cut-rate prices reduce the going rate for all other sales, and more foreclosures and empty homes on the market reduce property values generally. Geithner didn’t want to agree because his whole argument, essentially, is that foreclosures are good – they “clear” the market, and we should not have a moratorium on them. Geithner finished with a bunch of double-talk about how we have to help people in a crisis. But the question was left hanging out there, “Are foreclosures good for our country or not, and do they lower or raise housing prices?” And Geithner refused to really address it. Because if he said without apprehension that foreclosures were bad, and that government should work to stop them, well… he’d have to do something different that what Treasury is currently doing.

This looks like head-in-the-sand time for Treasury. They don’t recognize a problem here. And yet people are getting hit with foreclosures while they wait to hear about mortgage modifications. When people try to challenge whether the banks are foreclosing legally, the banks intimidate and scare them. The MERS system, designed to evade billions in recording fees, could have clouded title on 60% of the home mortgages in the United States. The only reason we had less foreclosures last month is because of the uncertainty around these issues. I don’t know how you can conclude that there’s no overall risk to the financial system from this, which is essentially a continuation of the financial crisis of 2008.

[Demeter]

53. Obama seeks new tone with big business

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gisI4yBtH6Ed0ieB-YvfeVUQdQ0Q?docId=CNG.f5101c535ed3b394f79d8c72e83edaba.71

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday took steps to ease an atmosphere of confrontation with big business, wooing corporate chief executives in a bid to unleash a hiring spree to battle high unemployment.

After two years of tense relations, Obama and boardroom titans from major US firms emerged from four hours of private talks expressing optimism they can launch a new common mission to trigger exports, growth and job creation.

Obama suggested that the CEOs, cheered by his deal with Republicans on extending tax cuts, said he was confident he had made progress in convincing US firms to use some of their billions of dollars in cash reserves on new hiring...

ONE OF US IS CRAZY, AND I DON'T THINK IT'S ME...

[Demeter]

54. The New Era of Cooperation Between the White House and Big Business

http://robertreich.org/post/2325857692

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., praises the President’s agreement with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts.

“If we’re going to strengthen our economy and grow jobs, this type of outreach — and cooperation between the administration, Congress, and the private sector — are critical,” says Dimon.

Dimon met last week with the President. Thirty other CEOs are meeting with him today.

Dimon’s compensation over the last three years has averaged $21,991,394 a year. The tax deal agreed to between President Obama and the Republicans will give Dimon and extra $1,179,000 next year, according to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice.

The bank Dimon heads was also the beneficiary of the giant Wall-Street bailout of 2007 and 2008. JPMorgan Chase & Co, along with other Wall Street banks, also poured millions of dollars into a lobbying campaign to water down the financial reforms Congress considered earlier this year.

[Hugin]

61. "cooperation between the administration, Congress, and the private sector" AKA Corpratism...

AKA Fascism.

[Demeter]

55. Bank lobbyist to lead Senate banking panel

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/12/16/bank-lobbyist-to-lead-senate-banking-panel/

Last week Sen. Tim Johnson, the incoming chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, hired Dwight Fettig, a lobbyist with numerous financial sector clients, as a "senior adviser" and it is rumored that he will become the committee's staff director. Fettig, who is a partner at Porterfield, Lowenthal & Fettig, previously worked for Johnson as a legislative director from 1996-2003.

Fettig's most recent clients include financial heavy hitters such as the American Bankers Association, JPMorgan Chase and the National Association of Mortgage Bankers.

Prior to joining up with Porterfield and Lowenthal, both of whom are former Senate Banking Committee staffers turned lobbyists, Fettig was the chief lobbyist for Freddie Mac.

It is no surprise that Sen. Johnson would hire a financial industry lobbyist to head the Banking Committee. Johnson has long been one of the most friendly Democrats to the financial industry. This largely stems from his home state of South Dakota being the home of the credit card industry....

[Demeter]

56. Obama budget director goes to work for Citigroup

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/orsz-d16.shtml

President Obama’s recently retired director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, has taken a top position with Citigroup, the third largest US bank with more than $2 trillion in consolidated assets.

Orszag has no experience in banking. He has been hired as a “political asset,” his task to trade on his connections in the White House and Congress to advance the interests of Citigroup. Although his compensation has not been made public, analysts believe it will be at least in the range of $2 million to $3 million per year.

Orszag’s job move underscores the total subservience of the US political system to the financial oligarchy, which not only funds both big business parties, but cycles its leading personnel in and out of the upper levels of the state.

Until June, Orszag was one of the top members of Obama’s economic team, which was responsible for overseeing the bailout of the US finance industry to the tune of trillions of dollars.

The biggest single beneficiary of this bonanza was none other than Citigroup, which was on the verge of collapse in 2009....MORE

[Demeter]

57. LUNCHTIME!

[Demeter]

58. Wall Street Pushes for Delay in U.S. Rules to Curb Commodities Speculation

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-15/cftc-urged-to-curb-commodity-speculation-as-wall-street-resists.html

U.S. regulators this week are considering rules aimed at curbing speculation in commodities trading, as Wall Street firms call for delay and companies including Delta Airlines Inc. urge strict limits.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will miss a mid- January deadline to impose trading restrictions on commodities including oil, natural gas, silver and gold, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler told a House Agriculture subcommittee today at a hearing in Washington. CFTC commissioners will consider the so-called position limits at a meeting tomorrow.

“If we were to propose something tomorrow, it will have a healthy comment period from the public, and that will by its very nature go past the January date,” he said. “So I will tell Congress that no, we will not finalize this by that statutory date.”

The CFTC has received hundreds of comments on how to implement the limits -- included in the Dodd-Frank Act to curb the influence of big traders in markets for crude, gasoline heating oil and natural gas. Commissioners have discussed position limits in at least 75 of their more than 400 meetings with firms including banks, oil companies and hedge funds, according to the CFTC’s website....

[Demeter]

59. Bid Bullion Releases 171,500 Ounces Of Silver "Max Keisers" In Ongoing Campaign To Destroy JPMorgan

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bid-bullion-releases-171500-ounces-silver-max-keisers-ongoing-campaign-destroy-jpmorgan


Anyone who thought Max Keiser would tire of his plan to destroy JPMorgan using a physical crunch may be disappointed. In fact, just the opposite. The outspoken critic of every fraud financial has, with the assistance of Bid Bullion, just launched a limited edition silver bullion named Silver Keiser. The total amount of new silver to be created will be 171,250 ounces. Furthermore, beside sharing his visage with one face of the currency of the JPM resistance, "Max Keiser has nothing to do with Bid Bullion and will not benefit in any way from the sales of the Silver Keisers. Max Keiser was quoted saying - "Bid Bullion has free use of my name and image for this. I have no personal stake, or any business relationship at all with Bid Bullion in the creation and distribution of these coins." Obviously, with numerous silver retailers out of inventory, this issue will likely sell out very quickly. In tangential thoughts we wonder what comes next: the US mint issues Gold-Plated Tungsten Assanges?

[Demeter]

60. Here come the '99ers

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/12/here-come-99ers.html

...As I mentioned last week, the proposed tax legislation provides no additional help for the so-called "99ers". The "extension of the unemployment benefits" is an extension of the qualifying dates for the various tiers of benefits, and not additional weeks of benefits...

[Demeter]

62. Did someone say we're at war?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/15/AR2010121503154.html

If we keep taxes low on America's high earners, the terrorists win.

Or at least they'll have a point.

The way we've compartmentalized our current tax debate - and kept it hermetically sealed from the fact that we're a nation at war - is evidence of the moral rot from which our enemies say America suffers.

Listen to the back-and-forth in Washington. Nothing would be different in the way this debate sounds if we were not borrowing $150 billion a year to fund more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq....

[Tansy_Gold]

63. Kick n/t

[DemReadingDU]

66. ZeroHedge: What’s Going on with Credit Unions?

This is about big banks buying credit unions.

:wtf:


12/19/10 What’s Going on with Credit Unions?

Last week saw a flurry of activity relating the nations credit unions. I’m not sure what it adds up to, but it is curious. For example, Congress passed a law on the subject:

111TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION
S. 4036
AN ACT To clarify the National Credit Union Administration authority to make stabilization fund expenditures without borrowing from the Treasury.


Just the heading of this scares guys like me. The purpose of the law is to avoid Treasury from forking out money to the NCUA? That would be a bailout. Everyone hates bailouts. But there is a large hole in the NCUA system that should be filled. If that bucket is not filled by Treasury then who will fill it?

I believe the plan for the empty bucket is to assess the individual credit unions for several years worth of insurance premiums. This is exactly what NCUA’s big sister, the FDIC, did last summer. The FDIC collected four years of premiums upfront to bolster their underwater insurance fund. In the case of banks, the prepayment shows up as an asset on the books, the expense is recognized over the four years, so there is no economic penalty for the banks to front the losses. The question then becomes, can the individual credit unions pay the premiums? That was addressed in the new law:

Any insured credit union that fails to make timely payment of the assessment or special premium is subject to the procedures and penalties described under 21 subsections (d), (e), and (f) of section 202.’’


Basically this means if they don’t/can’t pay, they are toast. How big is this issue? Consider the following:

As of November month end, 372 federally insured credit unions, with assets of $43.4 billion were designated as CAMEL code 4 or 5. In addition, there were 1,792 CAMEL 3 credit unions with assets of $158.2. Overall, 22.3 percent of all credit union assets are in CAMEL code 3, 4 or 5 credit unions.

The rest of the article is very interesting, especially the text in red...
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/what%E2%80%99s-going-credit-unions

[bread_and_roses]

68. "This bill is not the saviour of the Obama presidency" (tax cuts)

This was posted already in one of the other fora by Better Believe It, but I thought it should go in here for the tax implications. Also, I'd read it earlier and meant to post but was about to go out the door - so I don't feel too bad about stealing it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x40886

"The tax bill is not the savior of the Obama presidency. It could be the beginning of its end" Better Believe It

I am continually astounded at what some around here will claim as a victory - and in this case, as a political victory when it so obviously is a rout.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/19-2

Published on Sunday, December 19, 2010 by Daily Kos
The Political Fights the President Chooses

by Laurence Lewis

There is so much wrong with the Obama tax plan that perhaps the worst single aspect is not getting the attention it deserves. The corporatist media dutifully pay little attention to it, and the polls therefore reflect little public awareness of it. And it's only a political paradigm shift of such magnitude as potentially to change the very nature of the Democratic Party. A week and a half ago, Ryan Grim explained:

Obama, as part of the Democratic package, secured a roughly 30 percent cut in the payroll tax, from 6.2 to 4.2 percent. Allowing it to expire in a year will mean that workers will see a nearly 50 percent jump in payroll taxes as the rate reverts back -- an event that will surely be described as a tax hike. The cut is estimated to cost $120 billion per year.

Democrats have never allowed the rate to be cut, even temporarily, in the history of the program, because payroll taxes feed the Social Security trust fund and create the political base of support for the program, said Nancy Altman, author of "The Battle For Social Security", a history of the program, and head of the advocacy group Social Security Works. Republicans have won a long-sought victory, even as President Obama hails it as a win for his party.

Republicans acknowledged that the expiration of the tax holiday will be treated as a tax increase. "Once something like this goes into place, a year from now, when it expires, it'll be portrayed as a tax increase," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). So in a body like Congress, precedents matter and this is setting a precedent. I think that certainly is going to create some problems down the road if it passes."