MONEY: The worst is not yet over

Friday, September 18, 2009

http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/2009/09/15/daily-maul-under-obama-big-banks-get-bigger-shocker

DAILY MAUL: Under Obama, Big Banks Get Bigger – Shocker!
Submitted by Rob Williams on Tue, 09/15/2009 – 4:57am.

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In promoting and subsidizing the takeover of failing banks by the biggest banks and investment houses, the Post notes, the government violated federal antitrust regulations, which prohibit any single bank from controlling more than 10 percent of deposits nationwide. They also violate Justice Department antitrust advisories on the degree of control over regional financial markets by individual banks.

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What a surprise!

So the next time, the problem will be even bigger. And the gooferment will have a bigger role in the “solution”.

Argh!

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RANT: Municipal plate on the GSP

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Monroe’s MG63207 sped down the GSP tailgating.

No cops.

Guess there is a fire convention in Wildwood. The many other fire related cars and trucks with SG and MG plates seemed to be in no need to endanger everyone to get there!

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RANT: An open letter to Bill O’Reilly

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

OPEN EMAIL TO BILL O’REILLY

Bill:

Like your show, find it “challenging”.

My pithy comment for you is that “The government gets to tell its version of every story that may or may not be the truth. It appears to take decades for the whole truth to leak out from the edges.”

Did FDR know about Pearl Harbor? Historians have long debated whether President Roosevelt had advance knowledge of Japan’s December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Using documents pried loose through the Freedom of Information Act during 17 years of research, Stinnett provides overwhelming evidence that FDR and his top advisers knew that Japanese warships were heading toward Hawaii. The heart of his argument is even more inflammatory: Stinnett argues that FDR, who desired to sway public opinion in support of U.S. entry into WWII, instigated a policy intended to provoke a Japanese attack.

Kennedy assassination? As an amateur shooter, that shot, at a moving car with a junk rifle without practice from elevation and with swirling wind, is per se “unbelievable”. A killing zone ambush from the grassy knoll and one other position (i.e., the three shots of Zapruder audio) is much more plausible.

And on and on. Truth about Lincoln leaks out. Wilson campaigning on a Peace Platform. FDR follows Hoover’s plan. LBJ Gulf of Tonkin. The Federal Reserve creation at Jekyll Island.

And this on the WTC.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/09/10/911-our-truth-and-theirs/

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Of course, the Israelis and our own government denied everything. Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, scoffed: Israel, spying on the United States? Why, who ever heard of such a thing?! The US government, for its part, disdained all such reports as “an urban myth.” The Israel lobby moved quickly to make sure the Cameron reports were thrown down the Memory Hole, and Cameron was accused of – you guessed it! – “anti-Semitism,” on account of having spent time in the Middle East in his youth.

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I’d just like you to be a little more skeptical of the “official story”. Admit that the powers that be, and their willing accomplices in the main stream media, want the sheeple kept in the dark, stupid with today’s gooferment union education, and paying for the privilege.

Yes, I’m a “birther”. I don’t know what to believe. For me what gives the story “legs” is Obama spending good money to keep everything hidden. That’s the smoke that sets off the detectors.

Unfortunately for what once was the Great Republic, we have smoke ‘n’ mirrors being used all over the place to our detriment.

As a tin foil hat kinda guy, it’s too bad we can’t treat all conspirators like Arthur Thistlewood. Maybe then we’d get the truth from the government.

Don’t be so trusting! To quote the fictional Doctor House, “They all lie.” And, I’m shocked — “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Captain Renault in Casablanca — that you are more circumspect.

P.S., Instead of interviewing the beautiful people, how about giving a “conspiracy nut” two minutes on video to express their favorite conspiracy and then you can rip them to shreds. But, be careful, you might find an erie thread of truth in their statement. Then what will you do?

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RANT: Too big to fail?

Saturday, September 12, 2009

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aUTh4YMmI6QE

Lehman Monday Morning Lesson Lost With Obama Regulator-in-Chief
By Alison Fitzgerald and Christine Harper

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“They should be broken up and sold off,” Fine, 58, said he declared, as Geithner scribbled notes before thanking him for his time and ushering him out into the January chill.

The Treasury secretary didn’t follow through on Fine’s suggestion, just as he didn’t act on the advice of former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker, or Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila C. Bair, or the dozens of economists and politicians who pressed the White House for measures that would limit the size or activities of U.S. banks.

One year after the demise of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. paralyzed the financial system, “mega-banks,” as Fine’s group calls them, are as interconnected and inscrutable as ever. The Obama administration’s plan for a regulatory overhaul wouldn’t force them to shrink or simplify their structure.

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Washington is corrupt.

Big financial entities make BIG financial contributions.

We probably don’t know half of the stuff that goes on below the surface.

So, we the taxpayers, get screwed repeatedly.

If you were the regulator, and you were presented with an “easy” solution (i.e., break up, sell off, and limit the future size), what would you do?

Seems easy to me.

Pick a big number say 1B$ (that’s billion with a B) and say “No finaincial entity insured by the Fed or the Federal Government gets bigger than that!”

Seems trivial to me.

But, where would the big campaign contributions and payoffs come from?

Washington and all the little DCs are corrupt.

We need more work, workers, and a lot less politicians.

Every wonder why there are SO MANY lawyers?

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QUOTE: Gooferment spending

Friday, September 11, 2009

“When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it.

When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on.

When a man spends someone else’s money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn’t care at all how much he spends.

And when a man spends someone else’s money on someone else, he doesn’t care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that’s government for you.”

—-Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman

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RANT: The answer is always MORE gooferment

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

http://www.anncoulter.com/

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It doesn’t matter if liberals start calling national health care a “chocolate chip puppy” or “ice cream sunset” — if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess.

Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now.

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The gooferment creates the problem AND, of course, the answer is more gooferment!

Argh!

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MONEY: UN says kill the dollar!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/6152204/UN-wants-new-global-currency-to-replace-dollar.html

UN wants new global currency to replace dollar
The dollar should be replaced with a global currency, the United Nations has said, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world’s monetary system since the Second World War.
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
Published: 6:45PM BST 07 Sep 2009

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In essence, the report calls for a new Bretton Woods-style system of managed international exchange rates, meaning central banks would be forced to intervene and either support or push down their currencies depending on how the rest of the world economy is behaving.

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And, why are we in the UN? We’re financing this “barbara streisand” against our own self-interest. We “nuked” Sadam for suggesting oil should be priced in Gold not dollars. Let’s see if we do the same to the UN for a similar suggestion!

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POLITICAL: Keep the H1Bs here in the USA

Friday, September 4, 2009

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/free-the-h-1bs-free-the-economy/

Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy
by Vivek Wadhwa on August 30, 2009

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This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.

I have a suggestion for our President on how to boost economic growth without spending a penny: Free the H-1B’s.

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I know Vivek from our days at First Boston.

He’s absolutely correct. We need to disassemble the “illegal immigration” infrastructure. If we stop putting out milk (i.e., welfare in the form of freebies like education, health care, food stamps), then we will get fewer stray cats (i.e., immigrants who come for the wrong reasons).

Clearly, the H1Bs are valuable additions to the workforce. Let’s keep them rather than, thru ignorance, allow them to slip away.

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MONEY: FDIC “insurance”?

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi117.html

FDIC Walks a Tightrope
by Bill Sardi

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Bair’s second assignment is to slowly put small insolvent American banks out of business, over a thousand of them, while fostering public confidence in the FDIC insurance company’s ability to insure the public’s money. The FDIC admits to only 416 on the agency’s “problem bank” list. Frankly, without bailout money, few banks would have adequate reserves. By collapsing small banks, depositors are likely to bank their money at larger institutions. So Bair is really a shill for the large bankers to rub out their smaller competition, though she may have no other option in this instance.

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So, why if “too big to fail” is bad, does the gooferment limit the size of a single bank to say ONE ONE THOUSANDTH of it’s reserve. And, oh by the way, why doesn’t it have a REAL RESERVE? Not so IOU from the FED or the Treasury.

Argh!

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FUN: You have to admire initiative!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dailyreckoning/~3/BS0uO_tqS5Q/

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From the Bristol Evening Post:

“Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8 coaches. It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same charming and very polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The charges are £1. per car and £5. per coach.

“On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management phoned Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking attendant.

“The Council said, ‘That car park is your responsibility.’ The Zoo said, ‘The attendant was employed by the City Council…wasn’t he?’ The Council said, ‘What attendant?’

“Gone missing from his home is a man who has been taking daily the car park fees amounting to about £400. per day for the last 23 years…!

“Total sum just short £2.9 million.”

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You just have to smile!

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