I can already sense trouble with this story and I haven't even posted it yet. I apologize in advance to our audience of female readers, but the prurient male in me does not reside far below the surface. And I do like Liz Claman.
McTeer gives Bernanke "at least a 9" on a ten scale. Give me a freaking break. Deluded and captured. Dedicated to perpetuating the status quo, he is Mr. Bob McTeer. Thank heavens for Dean Baker. Start the short clip at the 2-minute mark. Bernanke and Greenspan get absolutely torched. Brought a massive smile to my face. You probably don't want to miss this one.
Swedish Finance Minister Stefan Ingves at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Conference taking place this weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Solid discussion.
Alexis Glick With Anti-TARP, BB&T CEO Kelly King On Colonial Bank, The FDIC & Sheila Bair
BB&T takes over $22 billion of Colonial assets and the peek under the hood has been neither pretty nor pleasant for CEO Kelly King. BB&T recently announced that they will apply an estimated markdown of 67% to Colonial's construction loan portfolio. Let that sink in a for a moment. That means that assets being marked at 100 cents on the dollar were actually worth 33 cents in the eyes of an honest CEO. This is in addition to the $3 billion that taxpayers forked over to cover Colonial's irresponsible lending.
This is what happens when a captured Congress, beholden to the banking lobby, forces the FASB to legalize lying. With no need to mark portfolios honestly, we perpetuate massive insolvency. By the time the FDIC steps in, these banks are insolvent several times over versus their tiny capital base. This shite is borderline criminal and there ought to be a law. Wait, there was.
This is a collection of 4 short videos actually, all about 2 minutes. Some may not love Willard's delivery, but his message has been exceptional.
I haven't decided how many (4) clips I'm putting inside. The first is Schiff from last week and I'll add a few others. As I view his library on FBN, almost every clip deals with the issues we cover.
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Wall Street bailouts, too big to fail, and the AIG conduit are among her targets. Excellent, short discussion. Give Huffington a few moments to get warmed up. Interview is from WNYC radio.
I still don't believe HFT to be the monster that some claim. Nonetheless here's an easy-to-follow primer from Marketplace's Paddy Hirsch.
Majority Of Americans Now See War In Afghanistan Not Worth Fighting
Citigroup's Asset Guarantees To Be Audited By Neil Barofsky SIG TARP
Bacchus: Social Security To Go Broke In A Few Years
Public Workers Hefty Pensions Strain Budgets
More Detail On JPMorgan's Bailout Of California IOUs
Colonial Bank Marks A New Low For Loans
Coming Soon: Lehman Brothers, The Movie
A Quick Death For Cash For Clunkers
Rex Rice For Congress (Anti-Bailout Candidate)
You're The CDC: Play The Swine Flu Video Game (excellent timewaster)
Gm Cancels Buick SUV 1 Week After Announcing It
Carly Fiorina Considers California Senate Run Against Boxer
Petition For A Free And Independent Texas (voters growing restless)
Crime Spotting: Crime Has Never Looked So Good
Newspaper Industry Ad Revenue At 1965 Levels
Will Microsoft Be Able To Continue Selling Word?
Huffington Post: Tuesday's Late Night Comedy Round-Up
Wednesday's Links (28 Articles)
Schiff responded quickly to Buffett's NYT editorial with a broadside launched on FBN. Schiff's thesis is the same as ours: only after advocating wasteful, borrowed stimulus spending has Buffett gotten religion on debt and deficit issues. Excellent short discussion.
Does this guy sleep? Never seems to take a break. This is medium Max. Not completely over the top. Targets include Goldman Sachs, the banking oligarchy, Wall Street, Obama, Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. Excellent short clip runs about 4 minutes. As usual with Max its part comedy part straight truth. He makes me laugh therefore he gets posted a lot.
Well it's about time Buffett came around. Been making the case repeatedly and painfully. Since the day we launched. The debt and deficits are going to kill Obama. A $2 trillion deficit this year is 4x(Bush). That's a big freaking number. Warren Buffett finally got on board the sanity train with his editorial in this morning's New York Times 'The Greenback Effect'. The shit stat of the whole piece is that we are spending 185% of what we take in this fiscal year.
Here are a few thoughts from the Oracle (yet none of this is new information):
Henry Blodgett and Aaron Task discuss the Buffett editorial.
Warren Buffett's NYT Op-Ed On The Debt Crisis
JP Morgan To Bail Out California's IOUs
Bob Novak's Public Service: Exposing The Corrupted
Mark Cuban: Thoughts On The Economy
In Appraisal Shift, Lenders Gain Control
Pay Czar To Scrutinize New AIG CEO Pay Package
Lehman Bankruptcy Fees Keep Climbing
LA Real Estate: Tales From The Deep
81% Of Americans Deluded About Their Home's Value
Options Backdating Conviction Of Brocade CEO Greg Reyes Overturned
Paulson Rewrites History Before Congress
Another Triumph For American Journalism
The Financial Crisis: An Inside View (from a Treasury official under Paulson)
Reluctant Shoppers Hold Back Recovery
Google Hires Mortgage Analyst (why?)
Only 25% Of High Schoolers Should Be Attending College
What They Brought To The Table
New Study: Does Exercise Reduce Your Cancer Risk?
For Senior Athletes, Drug Questions Emerge
Brain Is A Co-Conspirator In Vicious Stress Loop
Mental Stress Training Is Planned For U.S. Soldiers
Father And Son Across 1,000 Finish Lines
I try to stay above the fray in the health care reform discussion because my brain can't break from it's obsessive-compulsive pattern of constant re-firing on bailouts, and so I just haven't had the time to learn the issues well enough to open my mouth. But I will still offer 3 basic thoughts on healthcare:
I do understand national debt and deficit issues far too easily however, and so videos like this one always strike a chord. It's another great visual clip from 10000 Pennies.
Aug 21, 2009 at 3:41 AM
