A "Monstrous" Weekend Economists May 20-22, 2011

[Demeter]

Godzilla (ゴジラ, Gojira?) is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games, novels, comic books, television series, and an American remake. An American reboot is currently in development by Legendary Pictures.

With the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a monster created by nuclear detonations and a metaphor for nuclear weapons in general. As the film series expanded, the stories took on less serious undertones portraying Godzilla in the role of a hero, while later movies returned to depicting the character as a destructive monster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla

IN THAT RESPECT, GODZILLA PARALLELS THE FORTUNES OF NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY IN JAPAN, FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN BOMBS, TO THE POWER OF THE AMERICAN GENERATORS, TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NUCLEAR REACTORS BY EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI AND THE RELEASE OF DEADLY RADIATION...



Gojira (ゴジラ?) is a combination of two Japanese words: gorira (ゴリラ?, "gorilla"), and kujira (鯨（クジラ）?, "whale"), which is fitting because in one planning stage, Godzilla was described as "a cross between a gorilla and a whale",<5> alluding to his size, power and aquatic origin. A popular story is that "Gojira" was actually the nickname of a hulking stagehand at Toho Studio.<6> The story has not been verified, however, because in the fifty years since the film's original release, no one claiming to be the employee has ever stepped forward and no photographs have ever surfaced. Kimi Honda (the widow of Ishiro Honda) always suspected that the man never existed as she mentioned in a 1998 interview that "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories".<7>

Godzilla's name was written in man'yōgana as Gojira (呉爾羅?), thus the kanji used were for phonetic value and not for meaning. Many Japanese books on Godzilla have referenced this curious fact, including B Media Books Special: Gojira Gahô, published by Take-Shobo in three different editions (1993, 1998,<8> and 1999).

The Japanese pronunciation of the name is (ɡodʑiɽa) (SEE WIKI LINK FOR AUDIO PRONUNCIATION) the Anglicized form is /ɡɒdˈzɪlə/, with the first syllable pronounced like the word "god", and the rest rhyming with "gorilla". When Godzilla was created (and Japanese-to-English transliteration was less familiar), it is likely that the kana representing the second syllable was misinterpreted as ; in the Hepburn romanization system, Godzilla's name would have been rendered as "Gojira", whereas in the Kunrei romanization system it would have been rendered as "Gozira".

AS A TRIBUTE TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE, AND A WARNING TO THE WORLD, WE EXPLORE THE MANY ASPECTS OF THIS WORLD ICON. POST THEM IF YOU'VE GOT THEM.

OH, YES! WE WILL ALSO EXPLORE TOPICS OF ECONOMIC INTEREST.

TODAY'S THEME SELECTED BY RFRANKLIN, FAITHFUL PARTICIPANT OF THE STOCK MARKET WATCH, AND THIS WEEK'S LUCKY WINNER! THANKS FOR PLAYING! YOU, TOO, CAN WIN!

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1. Attributes OF A MONSTER

Godzilla's appearance has changed over the years, but many of his characteristics have remained constant. His roar has remained the same, only changing in pitch. Godzilla's approximate appearance, regardless of the design of the suit utilized for the creature, remains the same general shape, which is instantly recognizable: a giant, mutant dinosaur with rough, bumpy charcoal-blue scales, a long powerful tail, and jagged, bone-colored dorsal fins. Godzilla's iconic character design is a blended chimera inspired by various prehistoric reptiles, gleaned from children's dinosaur books and illustrations from an issue of Life magazine: Godzilla has the head and lower body of a Tyrannosaurus, a triple row of dorsal plates reminiscent of a Stegosaurus, the neck and forearms of Iguanodon and the tail and skin texture of a crocodile.<9><10> Godzilla's dorsal plates have themselves altered in size and appearance over the years.

Godzilla's body and facial structure changed often from film to film. The first films depicted the creature with a more feral head and facial structure, to indicate his status as a feared threat. As the character became more of a heroic figure—particularly to children, who became a large part of Godzilla's target audience from 1965 until 1978 in the Showa era—the creature's shown as having human or near-human intelligence in most films. Godzilla was originally believed by many to be green when the original black and white film was produced, and promotional artwork in America and other English speaking countries depicted him as such. The creature was also depicted as being green in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon and a number of toys in the United States prior to the Trendmasters toy line, which depicted Godzilla in his actual coloration. Godzilla actually has a greenish hue in Godzilla 2000 and again in Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, but returns to his classic charcoal gray in subsequent films in the Millennium series starting with Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

Although his origins vary somewhat from film to film, he is always described as a prehistoric creature, who first appeared and attacked Japan at the beginning of the Atomic Age. In particular, mutation due to atomic radiation is presented as an explanation for his size and powers. The most notable of Godzilla's resulting abilities is his atomic breath: a powerful heat ray of fire from his mouth. Godzilla is also depicted as being resistant to damage thanks to a tough hide and an advanced healing factor, which itself became a focal point in Godzilla vs. Biollante and Godzilla 2000. He is portrayed as being strong and dexterous, sometimes utilizing martial arts techniques in combat. Described as a transitional form between aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates in the original film, Godzilla is able to survive in the ocean for indefinite periods of time and is as adept a fighter underwater as he is on land.

These particular abilities are portrayed consistently among Godzilla's many incarnations, though he also possesses skills, often employed as weapons of last resort that are only seen on rare occasions to beat certain enemies.

[hamerfan]

22. Godzilla Roar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYDIEh9dpk&feature=related

[Demeter]

2. TWO GEORGIA BANKS GO DOWN BY 6 PM

CertusBank, National Association, Easley, South Carolina, acquired the banking operations, including all the deposits, of Atlantic Southern Bank, Macon, Georgia, and First Georgia Banking Company, Franklin, Georgia. The two banks were closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the FDIC as receiver for each institution. To protect depositors, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) entered into purchase and assumption agreements with CertusBank, N.A.

All 26 branches of the two closed banks will reopen during their normal business hours beginning Saturday as branches of CertusBank, N.A...Atlantic Southern Bank had 16 branches, and First Georgia Banking Company had 10 branches...

As of March 31, 2011, Atlantic Southern Bank had total assets of $741.9 million and total deposits of $707.6 million; and First Georgia Banking Company had total assets of $731.0 million and total deposits of $702.2 million. Besides assuming all the deposits from the two Georgia banks, CertusBank, N.A. will purchase essentially all of their assets.

The FDIC and CertusBank, N.A. entered into loss-share transactions on the failed banks' assets. The loss-share transaction for Atlantic Southern Bank was $585.1 million, and the loss-share transaction for First Georgia Banking Company was $452.1 million...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) for Atlantic Southern Bank will be $273.5 million and for First Georgia Banking Company, $156.5 million. Compared to other alternatives, CertusBank, N.A.'s acquisition of the two institutions was the least costly option for the DIF.

The closings are the 41st and 42nd FDIC-insured institutions to fail in the nation so far this year and the eleventh and twelfth in Georgia. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was The Park Avenue Bank, Valdosta, on April 29, 2011.

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33. A THIRD BANK DOWN IN WASHINGTON STATE

Summit Bank, Burlington, Washington, was closed today by the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Columbia State Bank, Tacoma, Washington, to assume all of the deposits of Summit Bank.

The three branches of Summit Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of Columbia State Bank...As of March 31, 2011, Summit Bank had approximately $142.7 million in total assets and $131.6 million in total deposits. Columbia State Bank will pay the FDIC a premium of 0.75 percent to assume all of the deposits of Summit Bank. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Columbia State Bank agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.

The FDIC and Columbia State Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $113.4 million of Summit Bank's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $15.7 million. Compared to other alternatives, Columbia State Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Summit Bank is the 43rd FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Washington. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Pierce Commercial Bank, Tacoma, on November 5, 2010.

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34. $445.7M LOSSES FOR THE NIGHT

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3. HULU OFFERS 13 EPISODES OF GODZILLA: THE ORIGINAL ANIMATED SERIES

http://www.hulu.com/watch/205104/godzilla-the-original-animated-series-the-fire-bird

AND SO FORTH

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4. SPEAKING OF MONSTERS:Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa BY Greg Palast

http://www.gregpalast.com/strauss-kahn-screws-africa/

...Director-General DSK's cruelty, arrogance and impunity toward African and other nations as generalissimo of the IMF is right in line with the story told by the poor, African hotel housekeeper in New York City.

Let's consider how the housekeeper from Guinea ended up here in New York. In 2002, this single mother was granted asylum. What drove her here? It began with the IMF rape of Guinea...In 2002, the International Monetary Fund cut off capital inflows to this West African nation. Without the blessing of the International Monetary Fund, Guinea, which has up to half the world's raw material for aluminum, plus oil, uranium, diamonds and gold, could not borrow a dime to develop these resources. The IMF's cut-off was, in effect, a foreclosure, and the nation choked and starved while sitting on its astonishing mineral wealth. As in the sub-prime mortgage foreclosures we see today, the IMF moved quickly to seize Guinea's property.

But the IMF did not seize this nation's riches for itself. Rather, it forced Guinea to sell off its resources to foreign corporations at prices much like the sale of furniture on the lawn of a foreclosed house. The French, Americans, Canadians, Swiss (and lately, the Chinese) came in with spoons out and napkins tucked in under their chins, swallowing the nation's bauxite, gold and more. In the meantime, the IMF ordered the end of trade barriers and thereby ruined local small holders.

As a result of the IMF attack, Guineans who could, fled for freedom and food. This week, then, marked the second time this poor African was molested by the IMF...Since taking over the IMF in 2007, erstwhile "Socialist" Strauss-Kahn has tightened the screws in an attempt to maintain the free-market finance mania that ruined this planet in the first place...DSK's lawyers say the relationship with the housekeeper was "consensual." But DSK says that about all IMF agreements with nations over whom it holds life and death powers. (That's like saying a bank robbery is consensual so long as you don't consider the gun.) Whether it was agreed-upon sex or brutal rape, it could only have been "consensual" in the same way that the people of Guinea consented to IMF-ordered financial rapine...

GREG CONTINUES WITH A LIST OF DSK'S PREDATIONS UPON GREECE...AT LINK

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28. STRAUSS-KHAN'S DEFENSE--OLIPHANT

http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/308fd2506325012ee3c300163e41dd5b?width=750.0

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29. IMF chief 'feared political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape'

OCCAM'S RAZOR SAYS THIS IS UNLIKELY

Dominique Strauss-Kahn feared that one of his political opponents would pay a woman more than $1million to say he raped her, it emerged today.

The extraordinary revelation emerged in Paris as the International Monetary Fund head remained in a New York police cell accused of launching a sex attack on a hotel maid.

A writer in the French capital has also come forward to say that the 62-year-old attempted to rape her a decade ago.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387625/IMF-chief-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-feared-political-enemy-pay-woman-allege-rape.html#ixzz1MwRYTQSn

[Demeter]

51. Marshall Auerback: IMF’s Predatory Policies Likely to Continue with New Leadership

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/marshall-auerback-imf%E2%80%99s-predatory-policies-likely-to-continue-with-new-leadership.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

It doesn’t matter who leads the IMF when the institution is governed by ideology.

Greece and Ireland appear to have lost an important political ally with the sidelining of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as both plead for more financial assistance from European partners to avoid an early restructuring of debt. The key word is “appears,” as in truth, arsenic remains arsenic, even if it is coated in sugar by an ostensible champagne socialist like Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

The reality is far more brutal for all of Europe. The IMF is bank-centric. Its standard requirement is that any recipient of its “aid” maintain a primary budget surplus, which amounts to a prohibition against fighting recession by increasing domestic demand via fiscal stimulus. The rationalization behind all IMF programs is that countries that follow “sound” financial policies — balanced budgets, tight money, deregulation, and privatization of capital assets — will be rewarded with a stamp of creditworthiness. They should then benefit by being able to borrow from private capital markets on favorable terms, relative to their own histories and the record of countries which are deemed less responsible. In principle this should mean they can run deficits on their trade accounts, loan-finance the purchase of capital goods imports to support development, and maintain high levels of economic growth and job creation. They should be able to do all of this and still attract inflows of direct foreign capital investment...

[Demeter]

55. How Power Corrupts

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/how-power-corrupts/

SOME SIMPLE EXPLORATIONS FROM PSYCHOLOGY STUDIES...FACILE, BUT PROVIDING INSIGHT

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58. How to spot a psychopath

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/21/jon-ronson-how-to-spot-a-psychopath

CONTINUING OUR EDUCATION...


...Faking mental illness to get out of a prison sentence, Maden explained, is exactly the kind of deceitful and manipulative act you'd expect of a psychopath...

..."They say psychopaths can't feel remorse," said Tony. "I feel lots of remorse. But when I tell them I feel remorse, they say psychopaths pretend to be remorseful when they're not. Trying to prove you're not a psychopath is even harder than trying to prove you're not mentally ill...They give you a psychopath test," said Tony. "The Robert Hare Checklist. They assess you for 20 personality traits. Superficial charm. Proneness to boredom. Lack of empathy. Lack of remorse. Grandiose sense of self-worth. That sort of thing. For each one they score you a 0, 1 or 2. If your total score is 30 or more out of 40, you're a psychopath. That's it. You're doomed. You're labelled a psychopath for life. They say you can't change. You can't be treated. You're a danger to society. And then you're stuck somewhere like this."

THIS STORY GAVE ME CHILLS

...The consensus from the beginning was that only 1% of humans had it, but the chaos they caused was so far-reaching, it could actually remould society. And so the urgent question became, how could psychopaths be cured?

[Demeter]

61. Eurozone crisis may derail Irish recovery, warns IMF

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/20/imf-warns-ireland-rescue-eurozone

Ireland could be blocked from borrowing...on the international money markets until at least 2013, leading to a prolonged period of public spending cuts and lower growth, the Washington-based organisation said... without EU-wide rescue plan...

HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT THAN BLACKMAIL? OR DRUG-PUSHING--THE DRUG BEING DEBT.

[Demeter]

59. IMF Aborted Strauss-Kahn Probe in 2008

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-20/strauss-kahn-imf-probe-aborted-in-2008-as-alleged-victim-wouldn-t-testify.html

An internal investigation by the International Monetary Fund into allegations that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then its managing director, abused his position of power failed because the alleged victim refused to cooperate.

Piroska Nagy, an IMF economist who had a brief romantic relationship with Strauss-Kahn in January 2008 didn’t participate in the bank’s internal probe in the summer of 2008, she said in a letter three years ago. She wrote to Robert Smith, the outside lawyer who was brought in to investigate Strauss- Kahn’s behavior after the internal probe stalled. She cooperated in Smith’s investigation.

“Because I did not fully trust the internal processes at the fund, I declined to cooperate with the fund’s initial investigation,” Nagy wrote on Oct. 20, 2008, just days before Smith concluded his investigation.


MY PERSONAL CONCLUSION--THE MAN WAS AND IS A PIG, AND IT WAS ONLY A QUESTION OF WHEN SOMEBODY WOULD PULL THE PLUG ON THE COVER-UPS.

IF THE TIMING OF THAT EXPOSURE IS THE RESULT OF A CONSPIRACY TO DERAIL HIM, DOES IT REALLY MATTER? WHY SHOULD SUCH A MAN BE IN CHARGE OF ANYTHING?

[Prometheus Bound]

44. I think you should put this in its own thread.

[Demeter]

45. Feel Free

[Demeter]

5. Showa series OF GODZILLA FILMS

The Showa-era Godzilla film series began with the release of Godzilla in 1954 and lasted until 1975, spanning fifteen films. This currently amounts to over half the Godzilla movies in existence.

In the original film, Godzilla is portrayed as a terrible and destructive monster born from nuclear materials. Following the first movie's success, Toho quickly followed up with the sequel Godzilla Raids Again. In this film, Godzilla battles the monster Anguirus beginning the trend where Godzilla would fight other giant creatures. In the fifth film, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla takes the role of a hero - a role he plays until the end of the Showa series. As the protagonist, Godzilla is frequently charged with protecting Japan against other monsters, aliens, and other evil characters.

The Showa-era movies played on the fears and interests of audiences during the period in which they were made. For instance, Godzilla was designed to warn people about the negative side effects of nuclear weapons. Likewise, Godzilla vs. Hedorah carried a message about the dangers of pollution. As space exploration and the Space Age were popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of Godzilla's films featured fights with alien monsters or an alien invasion. For instance, in the movie Destroy All Monsters, an alien race takes control of Earth's monsters only to later lose control and be destroyed by their captives.

[Demeter]

6. VIDEO TRIBUTES TO THE SHOWA SERIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db5SlBqFr7w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw5kETK-zRY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg3qx1G9VVk

DOCUMENTARY (SPANS BOTH SHOWA AND The Heisei-era Godzilla film series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_D5E56kxSU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSG7sfA0wcM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSG7sfA0wcM&feature=related

[Demeter]

13. Showa series (1954–1975)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_%28franchise%29

The initial series of movies is named for the Showa period in Japan (as all of these films were produced before Emperor Hirohito's death in 1989). This Showa timeline spanned from 1954, with Gojira, to 1975, with Terror of Mechagodzilla. With the exceptions of Godzilla Raids Again, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Mothra vs. Godzilla, much of the Showa series is relatively light-hearted. Starting with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla began evolving into a more human and playful antihero (this transition was complete by Son of Godzilla, where he is shown as a good character), and as years went by, he evolved into an anthropomorphic superhero. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was also significant for introducing Godzilla's archenemy and the main antagonist of the series, King Ghidorah. The films Son of Godzilla and All Monsters Attack were aimed at youthful audiences, featuring the appearance of Godzilla's son, Minilla. While Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla was notable for introducing Godzilla's robotic arch foe and secondary villain of the movie series Mechagodzilla. The Showa period saw the addition of many monsters into the Godzilla continuity, two of which (Mothra and Rodan) had their own solo movies. This period featured a well documented continuity, although the 1968 film "Destroy All Monsters" takes place in 1999 (chronologically making it the final original Godzilla movie).

[Demeter]

18. Filmography

1. Godzilla, King of the Monsters
2. Gigantis the Fire Monster
3. King Kong vs Godzilla
4. Godzilla vs The Thing
5. Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster
6. Monster Zero
7. Godzilla vs The Sea Monster
8. Son of Godzilla
9. Destroy All Monsters
10. Godzilla's Revenge
11. Godzilla vs The Smog Monster
12. Godzilla on Monster Island
13. Godzilla vs Megalon
14. Godzilla vs The Cosmic Monster
15. Terror of Mechagodzilla
16. The Return of Godzilla
17. Godzilla vs Biollante
18. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
19. Godzilla vs Mothra
20. Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla
21. Godzilla vs Destroyer
22. Godzilla
23. Godzilla 2000
24. Godzilla X Megaguiras
25. Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: All-Out Monster Attack!
26. Godzilla X MechaGodzilla
27. Godzilla X Mothra X MechaGodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.(upcoming)

[Demeter]

7. OUR OWN VAMPIRE SQUID: The People vs. Goldman Sachs PART 3

I AM SERIALIZING THE LATEST MATT TAIBBI ARTICLE ON OUR OWN AMERICAN-MADE MONSTER...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511?page=3

...By the end of 2006, Goldman was sitting atop a $6 billion bet on American home loans. The bet was a byproduct of Goldman having helped create a new trading index called the ABX, through which it accumulated huge holdings in mortgage-related securities. But in December 2006, a series of top Goldman executives — including Viniar, mortgage chief Daniel Sparks and senior executive Thomas Montag — came to the conclusion that Goldman was overexposed to mortgages and should get out from under its huge bet as quickly as possible. Internal memos indicate that the executives soon became aware of the host of scams that would crater the global economy: home loans awarded with no documentation, loans with little or no equity in them. On December 14th, Viniar met with Sparks and other executives, and stressed the need to get "closer to home" — i.e., to reduce the bank's giant bet on mortgages.

Sparks followed up that meeting with a seven-point memo laying out how to unload the bank's mortgages. Entry No. 2 is particularly noteworthy. "Distribute as much as possible on bonds created from new loan securitizations," Sparks wrote, "and clean previous positions." In other words, the bank needed to find suckers to buy as much of its risky inventory as possible. Goldman was like a car dealership that realized it had a whole lot full of cars with faulty brakes. Instead of announcing a recall, it surged ahead with a two-fold plan to make a fortune: first, by dumping the dangerous products on other people, and second, by taking out life insurance against the fools who bought the deadly cars...

By February 2007, two months after the Sparks memo, Goldman had gone from betting $6 billion on mortgages to betting $10 billion against them — a shift of $16 billion. Even CEO Lloyd "I'm doing God's work" Blankfein wondered aloud about the bank's progress in "cleaning" its crap. "Could/should we have cleaned up these books before," Blankfein wrote in one e-mail, "and are we doing enough right now to sell off cats and dogs in other books throughout the division?"

How did Goldman sell off its "cats and dogs"? Easy: It assembled new batches of risky mortgage bonds and dumped them on their clients, who took Goldman's word that they were buying a product the bank believed in. The names of the deals Goldman used to "clean" its books — chief among them Hudson and Timberwolf — are now notorious on Wall Street. Each of the deals appears to represent a different and innovative brand of shamelessness and deceit...Hudson lost massive amounts of money almost immediately after the sale was completed. Goldman's biggest client, Morgan Stanley, begged it to liquidate the investment and get out while they could still salvage some value. But Goldman refused, stalling for months as its clients roasted to death in a raging conflagration of losses. At one point, John Pearce, the Morgan Stanley rep dealing with Goldman, lost his temper at the bank's refusal to sell, breaking his phone in frustration. "One day I hope I get the real reason why you are doing this to me," he told a Goldman broker...Goldman insists it was only required to liquidate the assets "in an orderly fashion." But the bank had an incentive to drag its feet: Goldman's huge bet against the deal meant that the worse Hudson performed, the more money Goldman made. After all, the entire point of the transaction was to screw its own clients so Goldman could "clean its books." The crime was far from victimless: Morgan Stanley alone lost nearly $960 million on the Hudson deal, which admittedly doesn't do much to tug the heartstrings. Except that quickly after Goldman dumped this near-billion-dollar loss on Morgan Stanley, Morgan Stanley turned around and dumped it on taxpayers, who within a year were spending $10 billion bailing out the sucker bank through the TARP program.
............................................................................

To recap: Goldman, to get $1.2 billion in crap off its books, dumps a huge lot of deadly mortgages on its clients, lies about where that crap came from and claims it believes in the product even as it's betting $2 billion against it. When its victims try to run out of the burning house, Goldman stands in the doorway, blasts them all with gasoline before they can escape, and then has the balls to send a bill overcharging its victims for the pleasure of getting fried.

[Demeter]

8. Heisei series OF GODZILLA

The Heisei-era Godzilla film series lasted from 1984 to 1995 totaling seven films for the second series.

The Heisei-era films differed drastically from the Showa-era films in a variety of ways. The most prominent difference being that Toho did away with portraying Godzilla as a hero. While occasionally Godzilla would take the role of an antihero, he was still hazardous to humanity. The Godzilla suit was updated to look more realistic and much more intimidating than previous outfits. Another significant difference is the series was given an overall plotline with story arcs. Each movie happened in some sort of sequence, and referenced previous movies to further the plot of the series.

As in the Showa era, the first movie of the Heisei era, The Return of Godzilla, had Godzilla as the only monster to make an appearance. All succeeding Heisei-era movies would have Godzilla fight other monsters. In this series' final movie, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Godzilla dies after undergoing a nuclear meltdown.

In the same way the Showa era spoke to audiences of its time, the Heisei-era Godzilla films took on popular themes of the 1980s and 1990s. In Godzilla vs. Biollante, the movie explores advancing technology and the negative effects of genetic engineering. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah touched on US-Japanese relations stemming from World War II and introduced a time-travel plot. Other themes included commenting on research into hazardous material and making environmental statements.

[Fuddnik]

9. Screw all you people. I'm outa here!

No, not that way. I bought a Rapture Raffle Ticket from Pat Robertson, and won an express ticket to heaven. It got me in 24 hours ahead of the big rush tomorrow.

Seems like a nice place. But, the internet service is lacking. Although I've only been here 20 minutes, it seems like I waited in line for a millenia at the Internet Bar and Grille.

Funny thing. I don't see any politicians around here. Democrat or Republican. Gandhi is at the table next to me, but he wasn't really a politician. Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Palin tried to get in, but their tickets were ruled fraudulent and forged , and they got tossed. And I don't mean back to Earth either. Sarah was screaming something about being a virgin, and Newt Gingrich had requested her. They said, "Who"?

More updates later. Maybe. It's Happy Hour, and I don't know if it ever ends.

Oh, btw, if anyone is interested, my clothes are on a barstool at Captain Jacks Restaurant in Tarpon Springs, Florida. There's about $150 in the pocket. Help yourself. Might as well take the credit cards too. Enjoy!

[Demeter]

14. Some people have all the luck!

Enjoy eternity, Doc!

[Fuddnik]

25. Wait a minute......

There's some angel here. Looks kinda like a politician we should recognize...... Says, there's been some kind of mistake..... Pat Robertson kept all the sales and we're all getting sent back, but for our trouble we get complimentary tickets to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando instead.

I asked about my clothes and money, and he said something about joining Sarah and Phylis,...He will arrange for a toga now.

{{{{POOF}}}}

Now, I've got a Tarpon Springs cop babbling something about indecent exposure, and the barmaid says I didn't pay my tab. She says I should lay off that Tequila.

[bread_and_roses]

10. Yaaayy! 1st Rec!

At least 1st recorded - have no idea if the un-rec'ers have been about - I don't know how you can tell - maybe you need a star? Anyway, great theme! And I even have an apt post in mind, which I'll get to later. G'dtr is here. Eight's still take a lot of attention! Later!

[Fuddnik]

11. I always save mine for Sat. morning.

That helps kick it to the top.

[DemReadingDU]

16. 2nd!

Nice sunny day here in Ohio, finally!
I've been outside most of the day catching up on much needed yardwork.
Later!

[Fuddnik]

12. And those pics remind me of an ex-girlfriend when she got mad.

Something Bill Cosby would call a "conniption".

[Demeter]

15. My Sister Sent Me this Lawyer Joke--It's Rather Monstrous

The madam opened the brothel door in Milngavie and saw a rather dignified, well-dressed, good-looking man in his late forties or early fifties.

"May I help you sir?" she asked.

The man replied, “I want to see Suzy."

"Sir, Suzy is one of our most expensive ladies. Perhaps you would prefer someone else”, said the madam. He replied, “No, I must see Suzy."

Just then, Suzy appeared and announced to the man she charged £5000 a visit. Without hesitation, the man pulled out five thousand pounds and gave it to Suzy, and they went upstairs. After an hour, the man calmly left.

The next night, the man appeared again, once more demanding to see Suzy. Suzy explained that no one had ever come back two nights in a row as she was too expensive. "There are no discounts. The price is still £5000."

Again, the man pulled out the money, gave it to Suzy, and they went upstairs. After an hour, he left.

The following night the man was there yet again.

Everyone was astounded that he had come for a third consecutive night, but he paid Suzy and they went upstairs.

After their session, Suzy said to the man, "No one has ever been with me three nights in a row. Where are you from?"

The man replied, " Edinburgh."

"Really," she said. "I have family in Edinburgh."

"I know," the man said. "Your sister died, and I am her Lawyer. She asked me to give you your £15,000 inheritance."

The moral of the story is that three things in life are certain:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Being screwed by a lawyer!

[Demeter]

17. A GREEK TRAGEDY BY Eric Fry OF DAILYRECKONING.COM

The Yield on 10-Year Greek Government Bonds

The panic in Athens is no surprise, as we explained in yesterday's Daily Reckoning. The Greeks are bankrupt. The Greeks have been bankrupt for a while, of course, but investors were slow to believe it. Or rather, investors were quick to believe that last year's €110 billion bailout from the European Union and the IMF would be sufficient to prevent the Greeks from defaulting. But with each passing day, that bailout package is looking increasingly insufficient. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as the saying goes. And the finances of the Greek government are emitting a distinctly porcine aroma. They are a mess, plain and simple. To continue our metaphor, bailouts from the EU and IMF cannot remediate the pigpen; they merely spritz a little perfume on the pig.

The only legitimate solutions to the Greek debt crisis will require both painful adjustments in Greece and punishing losses for bondholders. That's called default. After default, the borrower walks away stigmatized, the lender limps away chastened. Both sides walk away with less than they had at the outset of their relationship. Both sides suffer. But, importantly, default clears the way for new growth. Because default recognizes all losses, while simultaneously pricing assets to real-world values, new investors can enter the fray to initiate a new cycle of investment and (hopefully) capital formation.



Greek and US Budget Imbalances, as a Function of Each Country's GDP

The AAA American balance sheet is not so different from the junk-rated Greek balance sheet. The biggest difference between these two sovereign credits is that the former can print as many dollars as it wishes, the latter cannot print any euros whatsoever. A printing press greatly facilitates debt repayment. The Greeks should get one...But since the Greeks can't print euros, and are incapable of raising taxes significantly or cutting spending significantly, a default seems the likeliest outcome. A Greek default would not be the end of the world, but it might be the end of something...like the Welfare State "business model." Greece is not the only bankrupt European nation; it is not the only country that promises too much to its citizenry, while receiving too little in terms of tax receipts. In fact, Greece has lots of company...from Portugal to Ireland to Spain to - dare we say - America.

To borrow and distort a famous phrase from Milton Friedman, "We are all bankrupt socialists now."

OR, WE COULD ALL TAX THE RICH UNTIL THEY BLEED...

[Pale Blue Dot]

19. HOORAY FOR GODZILLA!!!

My favorite: Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. It's mental AND environmental!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELDVjutzan8

[Demeter]

20. SELF-DELETED BY MEMBER

This message was self-deleted by Demeter.

[Demeter]

21. In an Undercollateralized World

http://dailyreckoning.com/in-an-undercollateralized-world/

The world is undercollateralized. This is the single most important feature of the 2011 economy. Sixty years ago, if assets were worth less than loans, it was possible to work our way into the black. In 1950, 59% of US corporate profits were from manufacturing; 9% were from finance. The roles of manufacturing and finance have reversed. Thus, we witness the desperate attempts to forestall what cannot be prevented. Yet, the world must deleverage. Banks must write off loans. Loans to bankrupt developers and companies must be called. Living standards must fall. The authorities are doing all they can to prevent the necessary deleveraging. That is the context in which Michael A.J. Farrell, CEO of Annaly Capital Management (NYSE:NLY), spoke to investors during his company’s first quarter 2011 conference call:

“The change that is happening in the financial markets is a chaotic mess. I believe the simultaneous execution of radical monetary policy, fiscal policy, and financial regulatory reform is introducing rather than reducing systemic risk in the global financial system by ignoring the simplest lesson of the scientific method. Rather than change one variable in a complex system and test the outcome, regulators and policymakers are changing virtually all of them at the same time: QRM , risk retention, the Volcker Rule, Basel III capital rules, derivatives clearing and related margin requirements. GSE reform. FAS 166 and 167. Zero-bound fed funds policy and QE2. Deficit financing, structural budgetary imbalances, and debt limit debate.”

We are overleveraged, undercollateralized, and accentuating these unsustainable imbalances. Lewitt notes, “the Federal Reserve has accounted for 101 percent of the net Treasury bond issuance during the first four months of 2011.” He goes on: “The US government has been the largest purchaser of Treasuries, promulgating a Ponzi scheme of unprecedented scale.”

The US Treasury issues debt and QE2 buys it. Lewitt notes that 10-year Treasury yields have fallen from 3.59% on April, 11 2011, to 3.15% on May 6, 2011. Since the Fed is the sole net buyer, the 10-year-yield is not a real interest rate. This is also true of the zero-percent short-term yield, one of the trial balloons listed by Michael Farrell. Interest rates are integral to the pricing of assets. A country without an interest rate has a stock market with a price, but not a value. The future-focused investor should estimate the value of stocks, commodities, and bonds as if interest rates were 5% higher. That day will come to pass: when assets seek the price of their true collateral...

Read more: In an Undercollateralized World http://dailyreckoning.com/in-an-undercollateralized-world/#ixzz1MwJj80eD

[Fuddnik]

26. We could use a new Congress.

And a couple of new parties to get it done. The one we have is completely dysfunctional and totally corrupt. Get rid of them all.

[Demeter]

23. WHY DO THE MONSTERS ATTACK PUBLIC EDUCATION?

"To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave."

- -- Frederick Douglass - (1818-1895), escaped slave, Abolitionist, author.

[Demeter]

24. GODZILLA'S SECOND INCARNATION

Heisei series (1984–1995)

The Heisei-era Godzilla film series lasted from 1984 to 1995 totaling seven films for the second series.

The Heisei-era films differed drastically from the Showa-era films in a variety of ways. The most prominent difference being that Toho did away with portraying Godzilla as a hero. While occasionally Godzilla would take the role of an antihero, he was still hazardous to humanity. The Godzilla suit was updated to look more realistic and much more intimidating than previous outfits. Another significant difference is the series was given an overall plotline with story arcs. Each movie happened in some sort of sequence, and referenced previous movies to further the plot of the series.

As in the Showa era, the first movie of the Heisei era, The Return of Godzilla, had Godzilla as the only monster to make an appearance. All succeeding Heisei-era movies would have Godzilla fight other monsters. In this series' final movie, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Godzilla dies after undergoing a nuclear meltdown.

In the same way the Showa era spoke to audiences of its time, the Heisei-era Godzilla films took on popular themes of the 1980s and 1990s. In Godzilla vs. Biollante, the movie explores advancing technology and the negative effects of genetic engineering. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah touched on US-Japanese relations stemming from World War II and introduced a time-travel plot. Other themes included commenting on research into hazardous material and making environmental statements.

The timeline was revamped in 1984 with The Return of Godzilla; this movie was created as a direct sequel to the 1954 film, and ignores the continuity of the Shōwa series. Because of this, the original Godzilla movie is considered part of the Heisei series instead of being a part of the Showa series. The continuity ended in 1995's Godzilla vs. Destoroyah after a run of seven films. The "new" Godzilla was portrayed as much more of an animal than the latter Shōwa films, or as a destructive force as he began. The biological nature and science behind Godzilla became a much more discussed issue in the films, showing the increased focus of the moral focus on genetics. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah gave the first concrete birth story for Godzilla, featuring a Godzillasaurus that got mutated by radiation into Godzilla.

Millennium series (1999–2004)

The Millennium series of Godzilla films are the third and currently last of the film series. The six films were released from 1999 through 2004.

The Millennium series attempts to bring some Showa-era trends back including, with one exception, the lack of continuity between movies. Godzilla is, however, still a hazard and a destructive force in the Millennium series...

The Millennium Series is the official term for the series of Godzilla movies, unofficially called the "Shinsei Series" (or even the "Alternate Reality Series") by American fans, made after the Heisei series ended with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. The common theme to this era is that all movies use Godzilla (1954) as the jumping-off point. Since the films are different, the sizes are different in some cases. Godzilla's most prominent size in this series is 55 meters (180 feet). In Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack he was 60 meters (about 196 feet), and in Godzilla: Final Wars he was 100 meters tall (about 328 feet). Godzilla was originally supposed to be 50 meters (about 164 feet) in Final Wars, but budgetary cutbacks in miniature sets forced this size change...

[Jefferson23]

27. The first Godzilla, that is the finest one imo. Raymond Burr seems

like the American conscience when he narrates the devastation scenes.

It was a chilling film then, still is today.


K&R

[DemReadingDU]

54. 1956?

Is this the movie?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0197521/

[Jefferson23]

103. Yes, that's the one and the best of them imo. n/t

[Demeter]

30. I had no idea that Godzilla had such a hold on the American psyche

but then, I've always felt like I was born in the wrong century, if American, and the wrong country, if in the right century.

Glad to see everyone enjoying the theme...where's our winner, though?

[Demeter]

31. EGYPT HAD ITS SPHINX--MONSTERS

Mubarak to apologize, plead for amnesty, as army asks Egyptians to rebuild nation

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/17/149369.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Former president Hosni Mubarak is to apologize to the nation and plead for amnesty, three months after he was overthrown by a popular uprising, the country’s military leader called on his people to help improve internal security and work for a better economy.

A report in Tuesday’s edition of the independent daily al-Shorouk quoted Egyptian and Arab official sources as saying that Mr. Mubarak was “drafting a letter which will be broadcast on Egyptian and Arabic channels, apologizing on behalf of himself and his family for any offence caused to the people.”

He is also to apologize “for any behavior which may have stemmed from false information passed on to him by his advisers.”

This point is especially intriguing because it would seem to give Mr. Mubarak denial—which is to say, he could point fingers at former associates, some of whom are already under investigation or have been sentenced after speedy trials. However transparent Mr. Mubarak’s strategy might be, it could offer Egypt’s current military rulers a way out from prosecuting their ailing former boss. In any case, it is considered unlikely that the courts would condemn Mr. Mubarak to death—as some revolutionaries have demanded—or even incarcerate him. Such moves would conceivably turn world opinion against Egypt at a time when the beleaguered nation has many economic and social problems to tackle...

Suzanne Mubarak turns over $3 million to Egypt, claiming that’s all she possesses

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/16/149360.html

Former First Lady Suzanne Thabet Mubarak told prosecutors on Monday that she would turn over all her assets to Egypt. She said that she possessed only $3 million.

Various estimates have her and her husband, former President Hosni Mubarak, in possession of several billion dollars. There was speculation Monday evening that the state would not prosecute Mrs. Mubarak in view of her offer. There was also speculation that some prosecutors did not believe her arithmetic, and that an investigation into her finances would continue.

Earlier, doctors failed to complete an angioplasty on Mrs. Mubarak, potentially prolonging a stay in hospital after anti-corruption authorities ordered her detention.

Al-Ahram newspaper cited medical officials as saying doctors at a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh had been due to undertake the angioplasty on Sunday evening after suffering a heart attack...The report did not say why the catheter procedure had failed and did not give a date for any new attempt. Typically, an angioplasty procedure fails when arterial blockages are extremely severe.

[DemReadingDU]

52. delete wrong place

[DemReadingDU]

53. delete dupe

[Demeter]

32. I know it's only 8:30 PM EDT

but my sleep has been disturbed these past two days....see you all later, after 40 winks or so...

Carry on!

[Demeter]

35. Debt Ceiling Breach; Will Liberals Follow the Tea Party's Example? By Mike Whitney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28127.htm



...Some Republican congressmen think that a default will be "no big deal", that bondholders and Social Security recipients will just get their checks a little later than usual. But these people don't understand the way the system works or what's at stake. As The Economist's Greg Ip says, "Treasury debt underpins a vast and complex web of financial relationships around the world which would all be thrown out of whack by even a technical default." The mere suggestion that the US might delay payments to bondholders could roil markets and cause irreversible damage to the Treasuries market. That, in turn, could put the dollar into a nosedive and, perhaps, end its role as the world's reserve currency. Here's an excerpt from a post by economist Menzie Chinn who sums it up perfectly:

"....what would be key to causing a crash in the dollar's value would be a failure to raise the debt ceiling in a timely fashion. In almost any model I can think of, that would either cause a flight from US government debt, or -- even if we only go to the brink -- elevating the risk premium, and hence total interest payments, on US Treasury debt indefinitely. Thus, it's the height of irresponsibility to make unrealistic demands for deficit reduction based solely on spending cuts, thereby risking a crisis. ("What Would Really Bring about a Dollar Dive?, Econbrowser)

Nearly every other economist says the same thing. Congress is playing with dynamite....What's obvious in the budget negotiations is that the Republicans haven't the foggiest idea of how the financial markets work. Of course, the Dems aren't much better either, but at least they (occasionally) consider the advice of experts. Not the Republicans. They seem to take great pride in their boneheadedness. They think that threatening to blow up the economy is a sound strategy for forcing cuts to entitlement spending. They don't realize that their little game of chicken could backfire and change the perception that the US is a safe place for investors to park their money. In fact, the thought never seems to have entered their minds.

...This WILL happen. How do we know? Because this is what happened in 2008 and (unfortunately) nothing has changed. If the US defaults, then the risk premium on US Treasuries will rise and their price will fall. That means that the trillions of dollars that have been exchanged for UST's in the repo market --where financial institutions exchange cash deposits for high-grade collateral--will be revalued causing massive losses for the holders of UST's. Those losses will ripple through the money markets and commercial paper markets knocking down the same financial dominoes they did when Lehman Brothers failed. Bottom line: None of the Dodd-Frank reforms have increased financial market stability at all. The system is as vulnerable to a meltdown today as it was in September 2008....This is precisely what happened to the banks during the financial crisis. Financial firms that had been providing full-value for securitized bonds... got worried that those bonds might contain toxic subprime loans... So they reduced the amount of money they would lend on the bonds. These so-called "haircuts" set-off a slow-motion panic that lasted for over a year, draining nearly $4 trillion from the shadow banking system. The problem was compounded by the fact that no one knew which bundles held the worst mortgages or which banks had the biggest pile of bonds. So, interbank lending began to freeze, LIBOR skyrocketed, and the credit markets ground to a standstill. When Lehman Brothers defaulted on September 15, 2008, the downward spiral accelerated and the entire financial system crashed.

If the US defaults on its debt, Treasuries will be repriced, the country's biggest banks will discover they've got less capital than they thought, and the financial system will suffer another meltdown. Only this time, it will be much worse, because Treasuries will no longer be regarded as the premier risk-free financial asset upon which all other financial assets are measured. That means the US will have to pay higher rates to meet its obligations which will make it harder to dig out of recession. Wall Street and Big Business understand the gravity of the situation which is why they've tried to discourage GOP brinkmanship. But--to their credit--congressional members of the Tea Party have shrugged off the arm twisting and stubbornly stood their ground. Eventually, Obama will see that they have him over a barrel and he'll cave in...There's a lesson here for political activists. The Tea Party has stumbled upon a perfectly-legal "asymmetrical" strategy for effecting change, that is, locate the vulnerabilities in the system and exploit those weaknesses to shape policy. There's no reason leftists can't play the same game, provided they're willing to get their hands dirty.

[Demeter]

36. WELL, MAYBE

I THINK THE THING TO DO IS DEFUND THE WARS, THEN.

[Demeter]

40. The New Normal

http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-normal.html

There seem to be to be two broad narratives of our present situation. The dominant, official narrative, is that there was a technical crisis of money flow, precipitated by a bolus of bad debts which then caused a collapse of confidence in the value of several large asset classes. What was required was to show that such assets would always retain their ability to find a buyer and thus their value, even if the buyer had to be, in the immediate term, the public purse. The public purse was duly opened to steady nerves and sales, and massive purchases of whatever could not find any other buyer were duly made. The plan was and is that the purchased assets would be sold by our governments, back to the market once other buyers returned.

The dissident narrative is that this was never a technical crisis of money flow - liquidity - but one of insolvency due to the troubled asset classes being, in fact, vastly over valued. The collapse in value and the lack of buyers was not a temporary lack of confidence in an otherwise sound financial system, but a rational shunning of paper assets whose previous value was almost entirely due to the press of gullible buyers who were keen to partake in the buy, flip and buy some more ponzi scheme of speculation.


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


The dissident narrative I advance says that what we are told are temporary and extraordinary measures are nothing of the sort. The measures taken to 'deal' with the 'crisis' have in fact created, whether by accident design, a new and very much more reliable, system for ensuring that the super rich stay that way. The new system horrifies me because it has put finance above democracy, markets over governments, and it appals free-marketeers because it sets up an untouchable aristocracy within the markets who are not allowed to lose and who can therefore take what they want, when they want, from whomever they want and the law will not touch them. Neither the law of the land nor the law of the markets. Free marketeers and those on the left like me find ourselves in the unlikely position of sharing an abhorrence for what the super elite are doing... What we have in place now is a system of permanent and institutionalized acceptance that the largest accumulations of wealth and those who own, manage and serve them can never be imperilled or threatened either by democratic rule of law nor even the workings of the markets themselves. Both perils have been removed for the super rich and their banks because it is now established that the purpose of government is to make sure the system and the hierarchy of wealth and power at its peak, remains untouchable and unchangeable.

With this accepted, the rules of sovereign democratic government and global finance have mutated beyond recognition. Today when banks need more of their assets purchased by the public purse in order to relieve them of possible losses, the public purse is opened without discussion. What this means is that you and I are NO LONGER simply buying up, as a temporary, emergency measure, mistakes made in the bubble of three years ago. We are there to buy up the results of any greedy speculations made in the last two years. Government purchases and the QE which fund them are no longer part of dealing with any 'crisis' at all. They are now part of how the banks do business. They are the new normal.... This isn't a crisis. This is the new business of profit without risk. It isn't even really a 'bail out'. The new normal is a no risk machine for expropriating public wealth. The banks can now buy what ever they want, the higher the risk the better, because the new system guarantees that there is no risk for them. The banks can speculate on sovereign debt, currencies and commodities knowing that if they are in the elite, they will be bailed out. Not in the spectacularly embarrassing fashion of 07-08 but in the low key ways dreamt up in the last two years. A plethora of 'exceptional' funding measures, bond purchases and abrogations of the rule of law in favour of bank profit, which are all, in fact, bank bail outs at public expense.

Crisis? What crisis?

[Hotler]

104. We are so fucked. n/t

[Demeter]

47. "Evidence of a Dark, Self-Destructive Impulse"

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/05/evidence-of-a-dark-self-destructive-impulse.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+%28Economist%27s+View+%28EconomistsView%29%29

It's irresponsible to even consider the idea of defaulting on debt payments:

The Debt Ceiling Fiasco, by Alan Blinder, Commentary, WSJ: The debt ceiling "crisis" started on Monday when the U.S. government reached the legal limit on how much it is allowed to borrow... But don't worry—yet. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has a variety of ways to push back the day of reckoning to early August.

What happens then?... Nobody really knows, but ... receipts cover only about 60% of expenditures. So ... the U.S. government's total outlays ... will have to drop by about 40% immediately. ...

Mr. Geithner could wind up brooding over horrible questions like these: Do we stop issuing checks for Social Security benefits, or for soldiers' pay, or for interest payments to the Chinese government? Such agonizing choices are what make default imaginable. ...

Should it occur, the consequences could be severe. ... That said, outright default is not my main concern. Several other things are:

For openers, suppose the federal government actually does reduce its expenditures by 40% overnight. That translates to ... about 10% of GDP. That's an enormous fiscal contraction for any economy to withstand, never mind one in a sluggish recovery with 9% unemployment. Even contemplating such a possibility is evidence of a dark, self-destructive impulse.

Second, markets now assign essentially zero probability to the U.S. losing its fiscal mind. They'd be caught flat-footed if the threat of default suddenly started to look real, possibly triggering a world-wide financial panic. ...

And finally,... should the view take hold that threats to default are now a permissible weapon of political combat in the world's greatest democracy, U.S. government debt will lose its exalted status as the safest asset money can buy—with unpleasant consequences for the dollar and interest rates.

Fights over the budget are normal and proper in a democracy... But threatening to default should not be a partisan issue. In view of all the hazards it entails, one wonders why any responsible person would even flirt with the idea.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703421204576329374000372118.html

Basically, Republicans are threatening to blow up the economy if they don't get budget cuts big enough to blow up the economy (or at least big enough to threaten the recovery, including the recovery of employment, and reduce social programs that benefit the middle and lower classes).

[Demeter]

62. Debt Ceiling: No Chance of US default

Read more: http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/05/debt-ceiling-chance-default.html#ixzz1MzOAACsj

Republican Senator Pat Toomey is now making the point that with debt payment an executive priority, and with tax receipts more than sufficient for interest payments, not raising the debt ceiling will not mean default, instead it will mean other federal spending will get cut, which he pronounced analogous to a partial government shut down. While this has always been factually correct, it is only very recently that this has become the lead response from the Republicans, in direct response to warnings by the Democrats of a US default.

With the Democrats being exposed as factually wrong and guilty of at least innocent fear mongering, their entire negotiating position is weakened by both the facts and their reduced credibility in general. So I have to conclude the end result will be dramatic spending cuts, no tax increases, a large reduction in long term aggregate demand, and most likely reductions in short term aggregate demand as well.

The Democrats are now left with fighting for alternative spending cuts, with the military a prime target. In fact, they may already be cutting military spending, as the executive branch is not necessarily compelled to spend the funds authorized by Congress, but can selective not fund or delay funding in the normal course of business. So, for example, they may be able to cut $150 billion a year from actual military spending and score it as something over $2 trillion in savings over 10 years, which would reduce the need for other cuts currently under consideration. And this might be the motivation for brining as many troops back home as possible, from all over the globe.

These kinds of cuts would remove maybe 1-2% of nominal GDP from 2012, support unemployment and the dollar, help keep the Fed on hold, as, in general, fear of becoming the next Greece continues to cause us to work to turn ourselves into the next Japan.

[Demeter]

63. SO, NOW YOU KNOW, J. Q. PUBLIC--

YOU ARE CHOPPED LIVER!

[Hotler]

80. Wall St. playing both sides of the street?

Wall Street and Big Business understand the gravity of the situation
From Wednesday SMW. The doubters — backed by Wall Street — reject Geithner’s repeated claims that failing to raise the statutory cap will force the federal government into the first default in its history.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55087.html

[Demeter]

37. MARK FIORE'S OIL ANTHEM

http://www.markfiore.com/political-cartoons/watch-oil-industry-ceos-call-you-unamerican-animated-video-mark-fiore-animation

[Demeter]

38. Making Things in America By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/opinion/20krugman.html?ref=opinion



...First, what’s driving the turnaround in our manufacturing trade? The main answer is that the U.S. dollar has fallen against other currencies, helping give U.S.-based manufacturing a cost advantage. A weaker dollar, it turns out, was just what U.S. industry needed...Yet the Federal Reserve finds itself under intense pressure from the right to make the dollar stronger, not weaker. A few months ago, Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, berated Ben Bernanke for failing to tighten monetary policy, declaring: “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens than debase its currency.” If Mr. Bernanke had given in to that kind of pressure, manufacturing would have continued its relentless decline.

And then there’s the matter of the auto industry, which probably would have imploded if President Obama hadn’t stepped in to rescue General Motors and Chrysler. For those companies would almost surely have gone into liquidation, closing all their factories. And this liquidation would have undermined the rest of America’s auto industry, as essential suppliers went under, too. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were at stake.

Yet Mr. Obama was fiercely denounced for taking action. One Republican congressman declared the auto rescue part of the administration’s “war on capitalism.” Another insisted that when government gets involved in a company, “the disaster that follows is predictable.” Not so much, it turns out.

So while we still have a deeply troubled economy, one piece of good news is that Americans are, once again, starting to actually make things. And we’re doing that thanks, in large part, to the fact that the Fed and the Obama administration ignored very bad advice from right-wingers — ideologues who still, in the face of all the evidence, claim to know something about creating prosperity.

[Demeter]

39. Former LPS Employees Allege 30% to 78% Error Rate in Borrower Mortgage Records

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/former-lps-employees-allege-30-to-78-error-rate-in-borrower-mortgage-records-contradicting-bankerregulator-cover-up.html

The City of St. Clair Shores Employees’ Retirement System is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Lender LPS that was amended and expanded yesterday....The document goes through a detailed account of firm’s use of robosigners, surrogate signers (aka forgers) and its document fabrication service, DocX. While this may seem to be old hat, some of the details are nevertheless intriguing (management at least bothered to try to select forgers based on their ability to make signatures that resembled the original; anyone who questioned whether this activity was proper was fired within a week). More important, this lawsuit does serious damage to the claims of bank defenders (the latest being Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal) that foreclosure abuses were merely about cutting corners and everyone who was foreclosed on deserved it. But as we’ll see shortly, the underlying records were often corrupted, thus calling into question whether the foreclosure actions really were correct. Remember, LPS’s reach is wide. 14 of the 15 biggest loan servicers are its clients and every one of the 50 biggest banks use some of its services.

Moreover, the suit also repeats the charge made in other suits, that the LPS business model was built on the illegal sharing of legal fees, and goes even further, alleging that LPS exercises so much control over its “network” attorneys that it was engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.

But the new and more troubling material is the mess LPS has made of bank records. LPS employees were given password controlled access to borrower payment records and could and did alter those accounts. These passwords were routinely and widely shared, in contravention of good practice. And since everything at LPS was organized around maximizing throughput rather than doing anything correctly, the errors were widespread...It’s easy to become jaded over banking industry abuses, but stop a second and consider what this means. To improve its profit margins, the company at the heart of the mortgage servicing industry ran roughshod over everything it touched, including the accuracy of borrower records. And we have bank regulators like the industry lapdog the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (which John Carney correctly calls “the worst banking regulator in the world” and Simon Johnson says should be abolished) continuing to defend the garbage in, garbage-out process of its recent servicer abuse whitewash Foreclosure Task Force. As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, it failed to do any verification of the accuracy of the servicers’ records, when evidence of servicer fee abuses (pyramiding fees, junk fees) plus LPS-created problems (such as the failure to remove certain types of charges that are impermissible in bankruptcies) means the largely clean bill of health given by the officialdom is utterly bogus.

The banks and the regulators desperately need to maintain what increasingly looks like a fiction: that all foreclosures are warranted. Because banks process large volumes of checks and credit cards with a high degree of accuracy, they get the benefit of the doubt as far as how they keep other accounts. So it’s easy for the industry to assert that they are ever and always right. And even allowing for a considerable amount of bank errors, it is no doubt also true that the majority of foreclosures are probably warranted. Many people have suffered income losses so large that they are hopelessly under water. But borrower defense attorneys have long alleged that a high percentage of the cases they represent are servicer driven foreclosures, and the LPS and US Trustee revelations make these claims seem far more credible than they might have a few months ago.

LOTS MORE A LINK, INCLUDING THE CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT DOCUMENT

[Demeter]

41. Florida Kangaroo Foreclosure Courts Likely to Fold

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/florida-kangaroo-foreclosure-courts-likely-to-fold.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

We reported from time to time on the special foreclosure courts created in Florida to clear up its foreclosure backlog, and this horribly implemented experiment looks as if it is moving to a well deserved death.

In concept, creating a specialized court system to provide extra capacity and judges who focused only on that issue was a sound move. In practice, it was an embarrassment and a disaster for many borrowers. As we recounted last September:

These new foreclosure-only courts are special creations of the Florida legislature, funded separately from the usual court system. They are manned by retired judges, which means in many cases they are not familiar with real estate law.

But perhaps most important, the explicit objective of these courts is to clear up the backlog. And that is coming to pass not by the Legislature having thrown enough resources at the problem (that is, having greatly enlarged court capacity to process more cases in parallel) but by pushing for faster resolution. The problem is that an accelerated process runs roughshod over due process and allows banks to foreclose when they may not be the right party, or worse, when the foreclosure is the result of servicing error.

...In March, Republican Governor Rick Scott approved a $14 million loan to foreclosure courts statewide that must be repaid by the end of the state’s fiscal year on June 30. And the governor’s office says no additional funding will be coming on July 1. Judges are already cancelling hearings in anticipation of the funding shortage.

If the the Florida’s foreclosure courts shutdown, which attorneys in the state currently expect, the result may well be a heavy burden on its overall judicial system. But homeowners battling the banks will likely benefit. Many claim lenders’ lawyers have served them with fraudulent documents that overstate their loan balances and misrepresent their cases.

[Demeter]

50. Registrars of Deeds as Unexpected Foot Soldiers Fighting Mortgage Abuses?

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/registers-of-deeds-as-unexpected-foot-soldiers-fighting-mortgage-abuses.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

As regular readers no doubt know, the reason for creating the electronic mortgage registry service MERS was to save on recording fees when notes (the borrower IOUs) were transferred through multiple parties when mortgage securitizations were set up. As MERS legal status has come under questions, a few local registrars of deeds (the officers in charge of local recording offices) have made estimates of the losses to their county and have come up with significant numbers.

As more and more information about mortgage abuses have gotten media coverage, some registrars of deeds have dug further into their records to document their extent.

So far. only a couple of local officers are undertaking these assessments, on their own initiative. At the same time, their efforts provide persuasive evidence of the extent of abuses, and thus help support the critics’ case. If more recorders were to take interest and start digging in their files and come up with tallies of various types of misconduct, this could have a significant effect on the debate. A favorite tactic of the banks has been to treat problems as “mistakes” and therefore exceptional. If more local level compilations show that “mistakes” are common or even pervasive, it will reveal that these alleged errors were a cynical profit maximizing policy dressed up as incompetence. And it would again show the banks to be liars.

[Demeter]

68. Lawyers Threatened With Sanctions for Talking About Foreclosure Abuses

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/lawyers-threatened-with-sanctions-for-talking-about-foreclosure-abuses.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

...One damning illustration: even though Florida has been a virtual cesspool of legal malfeasance, with its biggest foreclosure mill having shuttered its doors and impermissibly not passed open cases on to other lawyers and all of the other big players on the ropes, not a single lawyer has been sanctioned. Yet two lawyers in the state were threatened because they’ve dared to say a candid word or two about the mortgage mess. The bar association’s excuse is investigations take time, but the old state attorney general has been investigating these firms since last August. The state bar’s speed in efforts to silence members who are candid versus the leisurely pace in taking action on rampant abuses smacks of cronyism...

[Demeter]

70. Putting “trust” back in American housing finance

http://blogs.reuters.com/christopher-whalen/2011/05/17/putting-trust-back-in-american-housing-finance/

News reports suggest that New York prosecutors are preparing fraud charges against a number of large investment banks for defrauding insurance companies with respect to mortgage loans. These allegations and many civil claims with precisely similar predicates illustrate one of the most important aspects of the subprime financial crisis, namely the construction and collapse of the non-bank financial sector...The subprime investment vehicles of 2007 were almost precise copies of the trusts employed in the years leading up to the Great Crash of 1929. The investment trusts of the early 1900s were often fraudulent vehicles used by Wall Street to enrich the sponsors and stiff investors — like many private deals done during the past decade. Railroad trusts and other seemingly reputable issuers of debentures were highly unpredictable and the assets underlying a trust were always opaque. There was no SEC and no public disclosure standards to provide even minimal information to investors about the assets inside a trust. And the Robber Barons owned the courts, too.

In 1925, during the laissez faire presidency of Calvin Coolidge, the progressive Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis, laid down the law on the assignment of all collateral, from commercial receivables to mortgage notes...In plain terms... an assignment of collateral is deficient without “the effective disposition of title and creation of a lien.” A financial transaction involving security that lacks these features “imputes fraud conclusively,” wrote Brandeis. Indeed, by that measure, many mortgage backed securities (MBS) created over the past few decades are fraudulent as a matter of law.... The creation of the ersatz housing title registry, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), by the banking and mortgage servicing industry was effectively an end-run around the clear legal standard set by Brandeis. In litigation and foreclosures, these make-believe standards for securitizing home loans are turning into dust in the hands of the banks and investors. Lenders who relied upon MERS to document their secured interest in a mortgage are increasingly at risk when the title is contested...

In more and more cases where the supposedly secured party cannot produce a properly endorsed mortgage note, the courts are ruling in favor of the debtor. Experts in the fields of the law and forensic accounting tell me that missing or nonexistent mortgages leave investors effectively unsecured — and leave debtor homeowners unsure about the identity of the true note holder...A very troubling issue... is related to the issue of missing documents, namely the growing number of foreclosure cases where a mortgage was pledged multiple times. One of the dirty little secrets about MERS and the use of electronic registry systems generally is that they enable fraud. A bank or non-bank seller can pledge the same loan as collateral multiple times if there is no hard requirement to deliver the physical note as per Benedict, which is an open invitation to fraud.

There are a number of proposals in Congress at present for fixing the private mortgage finance sector, but virtually none address the issue of what constitutes a good sale or pledge of a mortgage note in the US...One thing you can depend upon is that there will be no fixing of what is wrong with the US real estate sector until Congress addresses once and for all the issue of delivery of a note as collateral for a mortgage backed security. Unless, and until, we fix the private mortgage securitization market, the housing sector will not stabilize and the chance of further deflation will remain a threat to economic recovery.

MORE DETAIL AT LINK

[Demeter]

42. Why Do Opponents of Social Security Have So Much Difficulty Getting Their Facts Right? Dean Baker

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/why-do-opponents-of-social-security-have-so-much-difficulty-getting-their-facts-right

The obvious answer is because it doesn’t matter. Those pushing for cuts in Social Security and the other big items on the right’s agenda can get the basic facts about Social Security, the budget and the economy wrong over and over again and it doesn’t in any way affect their standing in the public debate on these issues. One need only look at the career of former Senator Alan Simpson, who has repeatedly shown that he doesn’t have the most basic understanding of the finances of the Social Security system, yet is still seen as a respected voice on this topic.

In keeping with this “ignore the facts” approach, the Progressive Policy Institute recently released a paper by Sylvester Schieber telling readers that Franklin Roosevelt would be pushing large cuts in Social Security benefits for middle income workers. Schieber and the Progressive Policy Institute have been pushing cuts to Social Security for close to two decades so it is not exactly surprising that they would be trying to take advantage of the current hysteria around the budget deficit to push their agenda on this topic.

What is interesting is that in their eagerness to take money away from ordinary working people they showed even more disregard for the facts than usual. They referred to the Center for Economic and Policy Research as “a research arm of the AFL-CIO.”

Why would Mr. Schieber and the Progressive Policy Institute think that CEPR is a research arm of the AFL-CIO? CEPR lists our funders on its website, which clearly states that “CEPR does not receive any funding from corporations, unions, or foreign governments”. Neither the AFL-CIO nor any individual unions appear on this page. Or, they could have looked to the 990 forms filed with the IRS every year. In fact, CEPR provides a link to our financial forms on the sidebar on nearly every page of our website...

[Demeter]

43. The Chart That Should Accompany Every Discussion of Deficits

ANOTHER GOOD CHART TO HAVE:

[Demeter]

46. He's a Star!

[DemReadingDU]

56. I didn't know that, wow!

[Demeter]

48. Benmosche 9% Yield Hunt May Mean AIG Got Junk, Mortgage Bonds

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-17/benmosche-getting-9-yields-may-mean-aig-got-junk-rmbs-in-leap-of-faith-.html

American International Group Inc. (AIG)’s hunt to boost investment income may have steered the bailed-out insurer toward junk bonds and securities backed by home loans...Yields on corporate bonds, which comprise more than half of AIG’s $238.3 billion fixed-income portfolio, are near record lows as the Fed keeps benchmark interest rates in a target range of zero to 0.25 percent. That’s forcing investors to buy lower-rated or longer-duration bonds to maintain returns.

Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche is working to lift annual returns on AIG’s portfolio by as much as $700 million as he seeks capital in a public share offering after posting insurance underwriting losses. Benmosche is getting yields of 8 percent to 9 percent on about $5 billion invested this year after the Federal Reserve rejected AIG’s bid to repurchase mortgage bonds turned over in its bailout, he said last week.

“He’s either going out really long duration or really buying some suspect stuff,” said Paul Howard, director of research at Solstice Investment Research in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Benmosche’s target may have required buying high- yield corporate debt or mortgage-backed bonds in a “pretty big leap of faith” that higher interest rates won’t erode returns.

SO, THAT'S HOW THEY GOT IN TROUBLE...AND THEY'RE DOING IT AGAIN! AND THAT'S WHY THEY WANTED TO BUY BACK THEIR MAIDEN LANE JUNK BONDS...

[Demeter]

71. Maiden Lane puts pressure on MBS market

http://www.housingwire.com/2011/05/17/maiden-lane-puts-pressure-on-mbs-market

When the Federal Reserve decided to block American International Group's (AIG: 30.80 -0.13%) attempt to buy back its portfolio of subprime assets, the government took a bet the notes would be worth more on the open markets...According to mortgage-backed securitization traders, that decision is proving to be a risky gamble.

They say the latest round of MBS sales from the Maiden Lane II vehicle that holds the government's AIG toxic residential loans is being met with waning enthusiasm. Reports in The Wall Street Journal and Structured Credit Investor both call it "investor fatigue."...In a letter to the Fed, one MBS trader said, "if you charge ahead and bleed out one or two lists a week for the next 10 to 12 weeks, prices will continue to go lower, and in the interest of maximizing value for the taxpayer, I think it is time to re-engage the large portfolio bid you had or make available to other counterparties the ability to bid large chunks of what you have left to sell." Roughly two-thirds of the bonds offered last week sold, a source tells HousingWire. This would be a huge shift from the more successful offerings in April...

Maiden Lane is the name of several residential mortgage securitization platforms created to clear toxic mortgage investments. The original Maiden Lane was created to facilitate the merger of JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 43.13 -1.98%) and Bear Stearns. Maiden Lane II was created to alleviate capital and liquidity pressures on AIG from its securities lending program by purchasing $20.5 billion in RMBS from several of AIG’s U.S. insurance subsidiaries. It is primarily mortgages supported by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises. Also in large volume are RMBS made up of pools of option ARMs and alt-A mortgages.

Here is a chart of the Fed's wind down of Maiden Lane II:

[Po_d Mainiac]

85. What if

AIG's reasoning to buy back the ML II shit is to cram the fraud riddled garbage back onto the originators? The chairsatan sure woodn't want to see that occur. Which explains the FED's refusal to sell the shit back.

The banksters wood be fucked.
YMMV

[Demeter]

92. These "Smartest Guys in the Room" STILL Think They Can Sell

to a greater fool, or browbeat the originators to pay up. Or Uncle Sucker.

They've bought their own bullshit. They think here's intrinsic value in the waste paper, or at least enough for their purposes.

[Demeter]

49. GEITHNER-ZILLA GETS A TONGUE-LASHING

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/guest-post-geithner-says-the-size-of-the-shock-was-larger-than-what-precipitated-the-great-depression%E2%80%9D.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

As I noted last year:

Greenspan says that the financial crisis was caused by a once-in-100-year event.

Tim Geithner says its more like once every 40 years.

Jamie Dimon implies every 5-7 years.

But Simon Johnson says its really once every 5 years(!)

Would the American people stand for the lack of any real reform if they knew that the financial system will likely melt down again within the next 5 years?

Geithner has been a big part of the problem...Geithner’s entire approach is wrong, because the economy can’t recover until many of the “financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape” are broken up... The government has been anemic in addressing unemployment. Moreover, it is not like their approach fell on them and they couldn’t do anything about it. Geithner … and the boys made a conscious decision to side with the oligarchy at the expense of the people...No wonder we’re going to eventually have another crash...And because Geithner (along with Bernanke) have insisted that the big banks be bailed out at Main Street’s expense, that the status quo be protected instead of reformed, and that the U.S. insure the debts of the too big to fails, the next crisis will be even bigger than the last.

[Demeter]

74. Geithner Emerges as Obama’s Indispensable Man: Albert R. Hunt

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-15/geithner-emerges-as-obama-s-indispensable-man-albert-r-hunt.html

SO, DO WE RENAME TIMMY "WORMTONGUE"? OR MAYBE, PETER PETTIGREW?

If, two years ago, reports of Timothy Geithner possibly leaving reached the White House, some advisers would have seized on them as an opportunity; President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary got off to a very rocky start, and was considered a short-termer. Today, if rumblings that he’s thinking about stepping down made their way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., there would be near panic. Geithner is as close to an indispensable figure as there is in the Obama administration...The 49-year-old Treasury chief is unrivaled in economic policymaking in the administration, commands respect in Asia and Europe, and is a presidential favorite.

Some associates say that in recent months, he has ruminated privately about leaving before the end of this term, perhaps when the battle over the debt ceiling is resolved this summer. A few knowledgeable people take this seriously; most doubt it...The post of Treasury secretary demands punishing global travel, and painful obsequiousness to Congress. By one count, Geithner has testified before congressional committees 52 times, with many more private meetings, and House Republicans would love to double that number this year. Over the past three years, no public official, save the president, has endured a more grueling pace...At home, his relations with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recall the celebrated alliance of Robert Rubin, Summers and Alan Greenspan in the 1990s. The difference is, this time, given the political heat from the Republican right, neither man talks about the relationship much.

The Treasury secretary’s political acumen has improved, as have his once acrimonious relations with congressional Republicans. “You can have a conversation with Tim Geithner,” says House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. His political instincts, however, fall well short of his financial ones. He’s no James Baker, who was President Ronald Reagan’s astute Treasury chief. Geithner was genuinely surprised by the outrage on Main Street over the bonuses paid to executives of American International Group Inc. (AIG) after the insurer was bailed out by taxpayers. His role model for the current job probably is his friend and predecessor, Bob Rubin. There hasn’t been a secretary since Rubin left 12 years ago who possessed Geithner’s influence both with the financial community and the president.

Still, if Geithner were to leave after the debt crisis, the legacy would be incomplete. That’s one reason that people who know him believe he will stay. Another is his genuine loyalty to Obama and a sense of pride in the administration’s accomplishments. More so than all but a handful of people in the higher echelons of government, Geithner is genuinely devoted to public service. It’s in the genes. His father was a top Ford Foundation official, mainly in Asia -- where he supervised Obama’s mother - - and his uncle, Jonathan Moore, was a leading Republican official and Harvard College dean............................The father of a college-aged daughter and a son in high school, Geithner has spent almost his entire life in public service. His means are relatively modest; his net worth is estimated in official disclosures between $770,000 and $1.8 million.

POOR TIMMY! DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU WANT OT RUN DOWN TO DC WITH A CUP OF HOT COCOA AND SOME CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES?

[xchrom]

57. awesome thread!

:applause:

[Demeter]

60. It's a Little Out of My League

but the topic is very significant to the week's, nay, decade's events, and Google is my friend...glad you are enjoying it.

[xchrom]

69. kudo's to you -- you've found some great stuff. nt

[Demeter]

64. Politico Has Not Heard About the Collapse of the Housing Bubble and Economic Crisis

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/politico-has-not-heard-about-the-collapse-of-the-housing-bubble-and-economic-crisis?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beat_the_press+%28Beat+the+Press%29

That is the conclusion that readers of a Politico article headlined, "budget surplus to deficit: how we got here," must conclude. This article attributes the increase in the deficit in the Obama years to increased spending coupled with tax cuts, only mentioning in passing at the end of the article that the single biggest factor in the rise of the deficit was the economic collapse. It fails to point out that virtually all of the additional spending and tax cuts by President Obama was carried through for the explicit purpose of counteracting the loss of private sector demand due to the collapse of the bubble.

It is absolutely inexcusable for a serious news organization to run a piece like this. The collapse of the housing bubble was by far the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression. Complaining about the size of the deficit under President Obama, while only mentioning in passing the reason for the deficit, is like complaining about a city's use of water without mentioning that it had been trying to extinguish a massive fire.

If reporters and editors were held accountable for the quality of their work in the same way as dishwashers and schoolteachers, people would be fired for this piece.

[Demeter]

65. Interactive map: State unemployment, April 2011

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/interactive_map_state_unemployment_april_2001/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+epi+Economic+Policy+Institute&utm_content=Google+Reader#When:15:44:05Z

[Demeter]

67. Signs show strategic default on the decline

http://www.housingwire.com/2011/05/16/signs-show-strategic-default-on-the-decline?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=signs-show-strategic-default-on-the-decline


...60% of all defaults were strategic by the middle of 2009, more than double the percentage in January 2008. But analysts wanted to get more specific....Across the private-label mortgage-backed securities market, the analysts found 10,000 strategic defaults fit their definition, down from nearly 20,000 one year ago..."Overall, strategic defaults have stabilized as home prices flattened, and initial jobless claims declined," analysts said. "A trend worth watching, no doubt, but we can comfortably say that strategic defaults are less than 30% of all defaults, and the pipeline of borrowers (delinquent more than 90 days) has even lesser strategic delinquencies."

But there is still the possibility of the trend heading upward. The latest offer from the 50 state attorneys general in the foreclosure investigation includes provisions that allow for some borrowers to receive principal reduction. In March, at least four of the AGs sent a letter to the others, warning that such requirements may only attract more borrowers into strategic default.

Currently, 42% of underwater borrowers remain current on their mortgage, according to the JPMorgan Chase analysts. And they also warned of the risk these borrowers pose.

"Of course, the moral hazard of potential strategic defaults in the future is still present. Even though these borrowers have not been defaulting in large numbers, the event risk remains that they could," analysts said.

[Demeter]

66. Eric Schneiderman vs. Wall Street and its political servants

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/20/schneiderman/index.html

CAPSULE BIO OF THE BRAVE MAN'S CAREER--IMPRESSIVE!

[Demeter]

72. New Homeowner Scam: Mortgage Securitization Audits

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/new-homeowner-scam-mortgage-securitization-audits.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Con artists who prey on people who are already in financial hot water deserve their own circle of hell. The latest sighting comes via April Charney: “mortgage securitization audits” which charge thousands of dollars for dumping public information into binders. From Brian Canupp’s website:

While millions of Americans are in the middle of the foreclosure storm a cottage industry of companies and individuals providing Mortgage Audits are now attempting to capitalize on the fear and desperation gripping many homeowners….

In the last 6 weeks I have met with three families that had paid up to $2,100.00 for an audit. All three of these “audits” were three ring binders filled with documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission Home page and articles from the newspaper detailing successful mortgage defense decisions. These products are problematic for a number of reasons:

The documents from the SEC are free and available to the public.

The newspaper stories, while informative, cannot be used as
precedent to a judge.

The analysis does nothing to breakdown what has happened with your
payments after they were received by the Mortgage Company.

The “expert” who is rendering the opinion would never be accepted by a
court to testify in an expert capacity.

The analytical process supporting the audit conclusion is flawed and
that leads to an impossible opinion.

None of the analysis brought to me by clients have included a review
of the money paid by the homeowner.

[Demeter]

73. Banks find it easy to skirt federal laws protecting servicemembers from foreclosure

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/Banks-find-it-easy-to-skirt-federal-laws-protecting-servicemembers-from-foreclosure

...The Servicemember Civil Relief Act requires active duty soldiers be informed of civil actions like foreclosure, and allows them to delay the process until they are home to defend themselves.

Attorney John Odom is a nationally known expert on the act, and says it also protects soldiers against default judgments because, "Active duty personnel are not free to come and go as they might need to defend themselves," Odom tells us.

The I-Team has uncovered case after case in the Tampa area, around Florida, and the nation where banks have foreclosed on the homes of active duty military personnel....

[Demeter]

75. Economic Bust in Australia:Near-Record Corporate Bankruptcies, Employment Drops Unexpectedly;

Economic Bust in Australia:Near-Record Corporate Bankruptcies, Employment Drops Unexpectedly; Rise in Bad Home Loans;Record Low Property Transactions

I GUESS IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE COVERED THE WORLD...

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/05/economic-bust-in-australianear-record.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29

[Demeter]

76. Credit Error? It Pays to Be on V.I.P. List

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/your-money/credit-scores/15credit.html?ref=business

The credit rating bureaus, whose reports influence everything from credit cards to mortgages to job offers, have a two-tiered system for resolving errors — one for the rich, the well-connected, the well-known and the powerful, and the other for everyone else.

The three major agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, keep a V.I.P. list of sorts, according to consumer lawyers and legal documents, consisting of celebrities, politicians, judges and other influential people. Those on the list — and they may not even realize they are on it — get special help from workers in the United States in fixing mistakes on their credit reports. Any errors are usually corrected immediately, one lawyer said.

For everyone else, disputes are herded into a largely automated system. Their complaints are often electronically ferried to a subcontractor overseas, where a worker spends, on average, about two minutes figuring out the gist of the matter, boiling it down to a one-to-three-digit computer code that signifies the problem — “account not his/hers,” for example — and sending a dispute form to the creditor to investigate. Many times, consumer advocates say, the investigation translates to a perfunctory check of its records.

“The legal responsibility of the credit reporting agencies and of the creditors is well established,” said Leonard Bennett, a consumer lawyer in Newport News, Va. “There is a requirement that they do meaningful research and analysis, and it is almost never done.” ...the problem, advocates say, is that consumers cannot vote with their feet. “They cannot remove their information from the bureaus,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center, who wrote a report on the automated dispute process in 2009, “or take their business elsewhere.”

[Demeter]

77. Barry's Temple of Godzilla

http://www.godzillatemple.com/index2.htm

only on the internet...

[Demeter]

78. Also, Check Out Wikizilla!

http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[Demeter]

79. Demeter's going out to plant flowers

and other things. Have at it, everyone!

[Fuddnik]

81. How to torture a dog.

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

[Demeter]

84. Poor Doggy!

[DemReadingDU]

87. At our house, it's cheese

It used to be spouse would open a package of cheese and 2 dogs and 1 cat would sit looking at him until he gave them a few morsels.

Now, all he has to do is open the refrigerator door, and he has the pets begging.
:)

[Fuddnik]

89. My two are extortionists.

We have a little hallway and pantry between the kitchen and master bedroom, that leads to the garage. All of the dog treats are kept there next to the breadbox. If you happen to go into the bedroom, bathroom or garage, they both block your way, and sit down, until they're given their protection treats.

Little criminals.

[Fuddnik]

82. The end of the world as we know it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmBDgAcIt-0&feature=fvsr

[DemReadingDU]

86. Well, that's a different video!

Fast pictures!
What's with the blurry yellow duck?

[Fuddnik]

88. The only thing I can figure.

It has something to do with that old Rubber Duckie song.

[bread_and_roses]

83. An apocalyptic monster in Japan ...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/20-1

Fukushima's Apocalyptic Threat Demands Immediate Global Action
by Harvey Wasserman

Fukushima may be in an apocalyptic downward spiral...

... Fukushima Units One, Two and Three are all in various stages of melting down.

Molten fuel at Unit One may have burned through its reactor pressure vessel, with water poured in to cool it merely pouring out the bottom.

A growing pond of highly radioactive liquid is softening the ground and draining into the ocean.

There is no way to predict where these molten masses of fuel will yet go. ...

Goddess, I hope it's not as bad as it sounds, but know it's probably even worse ....

[Fuddnik]

90. Six Feet Under Rapture Video.

For those who don't have HBO, the two guys in the truck filled up a bunch of inflatable sex dolls with helium for a frat party. The lady got raptured by a bus.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LXuNpF6NVg&feature=player_embedded

[Fuddnik]

91. The apocalypse on SMW and WEE starts next week.

You thought being inundated with doggie pictures was bad? Bwaahaahaaha!

I just ordered a pocket video camera, and set up a youtube account. I'm going to make Rosco a star!

You'll be subjected to dog videos!

It really is the end of the world as we know it!

[Demeter]

93. Mercy!

And by the way, it's raining, for a change....

[Fuddnik]

94. Kick and Rec!

[Demeter]

95. The Coming Euro Crack-Up A currency divided against itself cannot stand.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/coming-euro-crack_558504.html

A spectre is haunting Europe​—​the spectre of the disintegration of the eurozone. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre: German chancellor and French president, the Brussels eurocracy and the bonus-laden bankers. Let the ruling classes tremble. The debtors have nothing to lose but their burdens...So Karl Marx might have written were he watching unfolding events in the eurozone. In a sense, it is like watching a slow-motion train wreck.

A quick review: Some 17 of the 27 nations that constitute the European Union have abandoned their own currencies in favor of the euro. This means they have given up control of their exchange rates and their interest rates, the latter set by the European Central Bank on a one-size-fits-all basis. In fact, it is the state of the German economy, the area’s largest, that dictates interest rate policy for the entire 17-country group. When Germany was suffering under the weight of the costs of reunification, its sluggish economy needed, and got, a low-interest rate policy from the European Central Bank. That eventually proved too stimulative for, say, Ireland, which was in the midst of an inflating property bubble...The creation of the eurozone also led lenders to assume that the credit of every member was just about as good as the credit of Germany and France. So Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy could sell sovereign debt at very low interest rates and use the borrowed money to finance an expansion of their welfare states​—​Greeks, for instance, could retire at 50 if they were in a hazardous occupation such as hairdressing (all those chemicals). More important, countries like Portugal, with a poorly educated workforce, and Spain, with politically run regional banks making imprudent loans to local property developers, became noncompetitive with their eurozone colleagues and international rivals. No problem: Fiscal policy was not controlled from the center, and investors hadn’t yet realized that lending to the so-called PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) was a hazardous occupation. So the latter could tap the credit markets to fill the gap between tax receipts and spending, and benefit from German-level interest rates.

Then the rating agencies rose from their torpor and downgraded the sovereign debt of Greece, helping to drive interest rates on its government bonds to unsustainable levels. Enter Brussels with a bailout for Greece. And when Ireland’s deficit soared to 32 percent after the government decided to guarantee the debts of its insolvent banks, enter Brussels with a bailout for Ireland. Now Portugal, burdened with an economy that has not grown for a decade, also is rattling its begging bowl, and another bailout is being negotiated with a conclusion along the lines of earlier bailouts imminent, never mind that the previous two have done more harm than an honest confession of insolvency would. If at first you don’t succeed, repeat the mistake...The main bailer, of course, is Germany, its economy growing smartly on the back of an export boom​—​it does not make what China makes, but makes what China buys. Chancellor Angela Merkel has two reasons to play Lady Bountiful. The first is her belief, shared by the German elite, that if a euro country declares bankruptcy, the currency will lose credibility and the entire European project will come unhinged. That would leave Germany alone at the top of the European heap, Europe’s most powerful country with its most powerful economy. History makes many Germans less comfortable with a German Europe than with a European Germany.

Second, there is the small matter of the German banking system. The German banks, especially the state-run Landesbanken, are so woefully undercapitalized that some are planning to opt out of the new stress tests because they know they will fail. These banks are sitting on 220 billion euros of sovereign and bank debt of Greece, Portugal, and Spain, and if those IOUs become worthless, the German financial system might come tumbling down or at minimum require a taxpayer bailout. To make matters worse, France sits on another 150 billion euros of this dicey paper...Voters are beginning to ask why they should suffer through painful austerity programs to spare imprudent bankers from the consequences of their foolishness...The vision of a united Europe still has a powerful hold on the elites of Europe, who see the transfer of power from nation-states to an unelected bureaucracy as insurance against future wars and, if truth be told, a relief from democratic pressures. In addition, the prospect of a euro that would replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, or at least weaken its role in world trade, has a powerful hold on the French, who make no secret of their antipathy to Anglo-Saxon capitalism...

MUST READ FOR THE EURO AND UNDERSTANDING EUROPE'S PREDICAMENT

[Demeter]

96. The Myth that the Banks are Solvent

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/05/the-myth-that-the-banks-are-solvent.html#ixzz1N4y5XVnQ

...So why are we busy implementing policies that simply maintain a credit-based economy? All around the world, policymakers continue to foster the fiction that all we have a temporary illiquidity problem, not a problem of excessive leverage, excessive debt, and a legacy of assets that were vastly overvalued based on economic scenarios that had no chance of coming to fruition. Given the inappropriate premises under which policy makers in the U.S., the U.K., and the euro zone have dealt with the leverage of financial institutions, it’s obvious that problems will continue to languish if the administration does not change its course of action. This will heavily constrain the global economy’s capacity to recover and will lead to multiple Japanese style “lost decades” around the globe.

The whole boom of the last 25 years was predicated on financial deregulation, massive fraud, and a huge build up of private debt as a consequence of inadequate fiscal policy to generate full employment and rising incomes. Growth was based on household borrowing and the continuation of negative saving trends (that is, household deficit spending). A good place to start recovery efforts, therefore, would be to change this method of economic growth by promoting employment, rather than capitulating to the siren songs of the bankers whose recklessness got us into this mess.

In a much saner world, we would be in the midst of a government-led investment push, much like the Space Race or the Manhattan Project, to drive new energy technologies forward by scaling up production and innovation, both apt to lower unit cost points. There would also be a concerted effort to establish the new infrastructure required. (After all, highways were constructed in part for national defense purposes, and railroads and canals had their share of public subsidization.) But with the ease of capture so visible, no such effort led by the government could be trusted enough to be supported, especially by a citizenry that has become one of fragmented (and anxious) consumers. Deficit austerians in government fail to understand that a budget deficit is essential for stable economic growth if the contribution of net exports (the difference between exports and imports) is not strong enough to sustain domestic demand while the private domestic sector is trying to save.

We need to put an end to these ridiculous policy responses. We not only require substantially increased supervision and regulation of the financial sector, but must also put a stop to the practices that brought on the crisis in the first place. If left alone to deal with the current problems, market mechanisms will push management and owners of insolvent institutions to ramp up losses and engage in yet more fraudulent accounting, leading to an even bigger crash down the road.

THE QUESTION REMAINS--WHAT ARE THE DECIDERS THINKING--AND ARE THEY THINKING AT ALL?

[AnneD]

97. I can't believe THIS did not get posted yet....

Nothing goes together better than monsters and metal. I have been very busy and did not get to post....but this is an excellent theme. Love it, go go Godzilla.





http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=Yinf-E3t2yA

[Demeter]

105. There's something wrong with your link, AnneD

[AnneD]

114. Blue Oyster Cult

Godzilla

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=ln8-Y-fIbqM

[Demeter]

98. DYLAN RATIGAN VIDEO

Mortgage Whistleblowers Say Servicers Foreclosed Rather Than Modify, HAMP Program Designed to Help Banks, Not Borrowers

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/mortgage-whistleblowers-say-servicers-foreclosed-rather-than-modify-hamp-program-designed-to-help-banks-not-borrowers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

[Demeter]

99. Marshall Auerback: Revenue Sharing for the States – How It Works, Why We Need It and Why Nixon Liked

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/marshall-auerback-revenue-sharing-for-the-states-%E2%80%93-how-it-works-why-we-need-it-and-why-nixon-liked-it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Our policymakers continue to believe that they must first ‘get credit flowing again’ to restore output and employment. Unfortunately the reverse is the case: restoring output and employment will restore the flow of credit. Creditworthiness precedes credit.

And yet, as we get closer and closer to D-Day on the debt ceiling limit, the negotiations continue to turn on how much income the government should drain from the economy, even as private sector activity continues to stagnate. All moves to date by the Treasury and Federal Reserve have only served to shift financial assets between the public and private sectors. And that includes quantitative easing. Nothing has directly added to aggregate demand (the overall demand for goods and services).

The economy has therefore continued to deteriorate, with only the ‘automatic stabilizers’ like unemployment insurance slowly adding financial assets and income to the private sector as the counter-cyclical deficit rises. The rate of federal deficit spending now exceeds around 8% of GDP and seems to have begun moving the economy sideways, but has been insufficient to offset the impacts of the worst recession in over 70 years. Indeed, the combination of a tepid fiscal response — which appears to have been just enough to ward off a second Great Depression — and the premature fiscal withdrawal are largely to blame for the weak and teetering recovery.


.......Yes, we have recovered from the worst of the crisis. But it is delusional to believe that economic recovery can really get underway until we have added something close to 10 million jobs. The current level of job growth will not see us get anywhere near that target for at least another 3-4 years. Indeed, in the absence of revenue sharing, we are likely to see more attacks on workers of the kind that has characterized recent budget battles in Wisconsin and Michigan. Wall Street crashed their pensions and created the fiscal crisis now afflicting the states. But this administration is still caught in the grips of that failed economic paradigm. If President Obama were to fight for revenue sharing, he would develop tens of thousands of local government allies. He would also have a very powerful issue with which to fight the next election, as well as a winning economic argument.

ANOTHER MUST READ

[AnneD]

100. Godzilla will never die .....

Cool psa


http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/results?q=godzilla%20dad

[Demeter]

101. Guest Post: Exxon CEO Admits that Oil Should Be $60-70 Dollars a Barrel Based on Supply and Demand

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/guest-post-exxon-ceo-admits-that-oil-should-be-60-70-dollars-a-barrel-based-on-supply-and-demand.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


VIDEO

[Demeter]

102. Capitalists Who Make vs. Capitalists Who Take

AUDIO INTERVIEW ON RADIO FREE DYLAN

http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/05/11/umair-haque-on-radio-free-dylan/

[Demeter]

106. "Eight Facts about Social Security"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/eight_facts_and_three_thoughts_about_social_security/2011/05/09/AFJTVUjG_blog.html



2) For the average 65-year-old retiring in 2010, Social Security replaced about 40 percent of working-age earnings. That “replacement rate” is scheduled to fall to 31 percent in the coming decades. Source.

3) Social Security’s replacement rate puts it 26th among 30 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations for workers with average earnings. Source.

4) Without Social Security, 45 percent of seniors would be under the poverty line. With Social Security, 10 percent of seniors are under the poverty line. Source.

5) People can start receiving Social Security benefits at age 62. But the longer they wait, up until age 70, the larger their checks. Waiting to 66 means checks that are 33 percent larger. Waiting to 70 means checks that are 76 percent larger. But most people start claiming benefits at 62, and 95 percent start by 66. Source.

[Demeter]

107. Fukushima Updates VIDEOS

No idea whether here's any truth to them, but it's hard to find ANY discussion at all...

http://www.fairewinds.com/updates

[Demeter]

108. In rural Illinois, money talks, defendants walk

http://m.mcclatchydc.com/dc/db_112243/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=jXgNYecD

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Defendants accused of rape, homicide, drug dealing and other serious crimes in five rural southern Illinois counties have paid thousands of dollars into "anti-crime" funds that benefit or are controlled by local prosecutors in return for probation or dismissal of charges.

Professors at some of the nation's top law schools say this practice undermines public trust in courts and gives the appearance that defendants with enough money get preferential treatment and can buy their way out of trouble. They say such payments violate a basic ethical principle: Monetary contributions or payments resulting from plea bargains should not in any way benefit or appear to benefit the offices of the prosecutor, the judge or police involved in the prosecution.

"It is clearly unethical and a violation of the Constitution," said legal ethics expert Monroe H. Freedman, a professor at Hofstra University Law School in Hempstead, N.Y. Like other experts contacted for this story, Freedman cautioned he was not commenting about any specific case. MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

109. Repudiation of Gold Indexation, Cramdown, Legal Impediments to Monetary Policy Outcomes

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/repudiation-of-the-gold-indexation-cramdown-legal-impediments-to-monetary-policy-outcomes/


...Following the inflation during the Civil War, almost all long-term financial contracts in the U.S. came to include a “gold clause” which effectively indexed to gold the value of the payments to creditors. This clause protected creditors against devaluation of the dollar since they could demand payment in gold or the equivalent value of gold in nominal dollars if the price of gold were to rise during the life of the contract. On June 5, 1933, Congress passed a Joint Resolution nullifying gold clauses in both private and public debt contracts. One legal authority has remarked of this Resolution: “In legal history there is probably no other statute of a purely private-law character which has engendered such enormous financial changes…”

The abrogation of gold clauses was a key part of Roosevelt’s “first hundred days,” providing the foundation for much of the New Deal policies directed at reflating the economy including the departure of the U.S. from the gold standard. Although the Supreme Court struck down most of Roosevelt’s early New Deal programs, the Court upheld the government’s ability to alter financial contracts by refusing to enforce gold clauses. Given that the price of gold rose from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce when the U.S. officially devalued in 1934, the abrogation of these clauses was tantamount to a debt jubilee….

[Demeter]

110. On the Treasury’s Curious Denial That Geithner Blocked Deal on Irish Debt

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/on-the-treasurys-curious-denial-that-geithner-blocked-deal-on-irish-debt.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29




AND AS SUPPLEMENT:

WSJ Caught BLATANTLY Scrubbing.....

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=185817

[Demeter]

111. America's College Bubble Next to Burst

http://www.inflation.us/collegebubbleburst.htmlhttp://www.inflation.us/collegebubbleburst.html


The National Inflation Association (NIA) is pleased to officially announce that it will soon be releasing its hour long documentary 'College Conspiracy', which will expose the U.S. college education system as the largest scam in U.S. history. NIA has been producing 'College Conspiracy' for the past six months and plans to release the movie on May 15th. NIA members will be given the first opportunity to watch this must see documentary, which we hope will change the college education industry for the better.

NIA expects 'College Conspiracy' to take college education by storm and expose the facts and truth about tuition inflation to prospective college students. Almost everybody applying to college has heard the oft-repeated statistic that Americans with college degrees earn $1 million more in lifetime income than high school graduates without a degree. This is one of those statistics that gets repeated so many times that just about everybody accepts it as fact, but nobody actually does the research to confirm whether or not it is true. 'College Conspiracy' will prove once and for all if indeed this so-called statistic is true or just a myth.

If 70.1% of high school graduates enroll in a college or university, how does a college degree give you an advantage over the rest of the population? Back in the early 1960s, Americans didn't need to go to college. We were a creditor nation with a strong manufacturing base. With an unemployment rate of only 5%, jobs were available to almost everybody. Less than 50% of American high school graduates enrolled into college. For those who did attend college and graduate with a degree, it was actually something special that made you stand out from the rest of the field, because not everybody had one.

American college tuition inflation has been out of control for the past decade. During the financial crisis of late-2008/early-2009, almost all goods and services in America at least temporarily declined in price. The only service in America that continued to rise in price throughout the financial crisis, besides health care, was college education. Despite real unemployment in America reaching 22%, students were brainwashed into believing that if they were lucky enough to be blessed with the privilege to get half a million dollars into debt to obtain a college degree, they will be on a path to riches and have a guaranteed successful career; whereas those who don't attend college are destined to be failures in life....

[Demeter]

112. A senior minister has revealed that Ireland will never repay the 250bn euros it has borrowed

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384767/Fine-Gael-Minister-admits-Ireland-plans-restructure-250bn-borrowings.html#ixzz1LprJG1TR

[Demeter]

113. There's so much more crime and depravity, let alone supidity

that we're going to need another meeting next Weekend.

Anybody got a good theme for it?

Some parting clips of the great monster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OaVOMn-YTA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8trsDPpAI5E&feature=related

[AnneD]

115. Loved the theme...

First one with Raymond Burr was great. Loved the recent one with Matthew Brodrick. When I was growing up,they kept trying to foist romance novels on me, cause that was what girls were suppose to like. Not this chick. It was SciFi, b grade monster and horror movies all the way. I turned out ok so it must not have been all that bad for my tender brain. Aside from the fact that I never wanted to sail through Tokyo harbor, I have no lasting mental anguish.