patrick.net

Killing a 'warning to management'
September 25, 2008

INDIAN Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes has shocked industrialists by saying the lynching of a CEO by a mob of sacked workers on Monday should serve as a "warning" to management to show compassion.

Mr Fernandes blamed the brutal murder on "simmering labour discontent" and warned businessmen not to push contract workers too far.

He said managements were often in a position to give workers permanent jobs but only gave contract work.

Nandan Nilekani, chairman of software giant Infosys, accused Mr Fernandes of giving the murder "a totally different spin".

"Nothing can justify the lynching of any person and no dispute can be settled by murdering an adversary," he said.

Credit Crunch to Stay Until Bank Leadership Goes
Thursday August 21, 2008

Nassim Taleb has a reputation for straight talk, and his books provided foresight and insight into the current crisis. In a recent Bloomberg on the Economy show, Taleb reassures us that he's won't mince words. He claims that the credit crunch and economic bumps will stay around as long as top management at financial institutions does.

Taleb compares the banking crisis to medical care: the doctors killed all the old patients, and now the same doctors are claiming that they can save our new patients. Their views on risk and management did not keep us out of trouble, so they won't get us out of trouble.

To hear more, download the Nassim Taleb interview (MP3 File).
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vq9bffStoNko.mp3

Bush is speaking at 9pm. Anyone want to bet against that this is going to be some bs about how congress needs to come together in true bipartisan fashion and screw the people with a blank-check bailout bill?

I think the strong manufacturing sector will buoy all storms. The US is fundamentally strong, we make so much stuff that everyone wants do buy. Don't we?

I think you should ask yourself, "who is responsible for this"?

The Boomers!

I think the best course of action is to elect a no talent assclown boomer seeing as the previous two did such a good job.

FUCK YOU, I WAS AT WOODSTOCK.

Hitler gave good speeches also, and! without a teleprompter.

I hope you die before you get old.

http://nowallstreetbailout.com/

Sign the Petition to Congress
"We are signing this petition in opposition of a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. Banks and their millionaire CEO's should take losses for risky lending, not taxpayers."

TOB, the Fed is already giving them loans directly in the form of the TAF. Problem is, the Fed is running out of treasuries in their coffers. If they keep playing the game they have been playing, they would need to print more money. And since they are already worried about inflation, I'm guessing they decided against that route, and instead want to steal it from us.

Meanwhile congress thinks we are outraged about compensation packages when really it's the whole fucking plan that stinks. The only people that want this thing to pass are traders, because it will make their stock prices go up for 2 days.

Let the banks eat the pile of shit they created.
I'm willing to take the consequences just to see them burn.

http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/Economy.htm

Rebuilding Homeownership

Homeownership remains key to creating an opportunity society. We support timely and carefully targeted aid to those hurt by the housing crisis so that affected individuals can have a chance to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home’s market value. At the same time, government action must not implicitly encourage anyone to borrow more than they can afford to repay. We support energetic federal investigation and, where appropriate, prosecution of criminal wrongdoing in the mortgage industry and investment sector. We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all. We encourage potential buyers to work in concert with the lending community to educate themselves about the responsibilities of purchasing a home, condo, or land.

Republican policy aims to make owning a home more accessible through enforcement of open housing laws, voucher programs, urban homesteading and – what is most important – a strong economy with low interest rates. Because affordable housing is in the national interest, any simplified tax system should continue to encourage homeownership, recognizing the tremendous social value that the home mortgage interest deduction has had for decades. In addition, sound housing policy should recognize the needs of renters so that apartments and multi-family homes remain important components of the housing stock.

TOB,
The Fed currently has around $480 Billion left in Treasuries. Of that, $185 Billion has been swapped out through the TSLF. They have only about $295B left to throw at the problem (well, plus a $40B injection from the Treasury last week), though some of that is already spoken for (see AIGs credit line). But most importantly, the toxic crap is still owned by the banks (or at least that is still the pretense at this point). Clearly, though, the Fed will continue to need help from the Treasury to continue on this trajectory.

McCain is pulling a fast one to try to look like a man of action, all the while trying to avoid to face Obama in debate on Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_el_pr/mccain

I predict this sneaky move will backfire on him, Obama is too smart to let him score cheap points with this posturing.

Obama supporters are striking back by saying that crisis makes the election all the more important, and that the debate should go on. They also question McCain's ability to multitask. Come on, the debate is on Friday night. He can't manage to talk with Bush, Paulson, and Congress on Wednesday without having to cancel Friday's debate? That's weak.

If they want to structure this plan as an investment, then make it a structured one, whereby the people are paying into a separate fund, whereby which they can begin pulling money from that fund at a specified date.

Instead, they are going to raise taxes to pay for this. Of course, the tax will start out as "temporary", but will then be made permanent like every other tax we have. Then our money will be "invested" in a program that even in the miracle of success, will then be pulled out and spent on a useless war, or welfare, or some other stupid scenario.

Let's not kid ourselves, our government at this point is no better than the banks. "Their" (meaning our government) investment is NOT equal to OUR investment.

This whole thing is so ridiculous I can't even put it into words.

TOB,
Why don’t these major banks just sell bonds?
Well, this really IS a credit crisis. The TED spread has gone crazy and banks are very suspicious of each other, so investors are even doubly so...
As for "war bonds"... I have yet to do my patriotic duty, but that's essentially what those 5.0% CDs at WaMu are... In fact, this is about the only place to get funding these days, and one of the reasons all the investment banks fell or converted to bank holding companies. Note: the Paulson Plan was also a nice incentive...
Does Supplementary Financing Program for the Federal Reserve sound like a "credit crisis war bond" to you? This is not covert "printing", but explicit borrowing through the selling Treasuries. I am curious to know if Congressional approval is required or if there is a discretionary amount available for this Hanky Panky. Depending on your bias , this is either sustainable (flight to safety, plenty will come) or inflationary (need to offer higher rates as our foreign masters just walk away).

"Starting Oct. 1st, the 3rd infantry division will be placed on active duty within US borders under the command of NorthCom. This marks the first time NorthCom has been assigned an active duty unit.

The 3rd will be training in how to deal with things such as civil unrest and crowd control, public panic due to nuclear, biological or chemical attacks, massive poisoning or explosives. They will also be trained in using non-lethal weapons."

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

snmr,

Wow. That is heavy stuff. What is the name of that law again, which forbids using military forces as domestic police? Or did it get repealed by one of the patriot acts? I forget.

On another note, Hank Paulson was looking ragged on Capitol Hill today. He is looking like some of his banker buddies are holding a gun to HIS head.

The Original Bankster Says:
there is no country more superstitious and oppressive than India.

You, sir, have probably never been to Africa. I don't mean to piss on your little Indian fetish here, but I have seen some things in Africa that I still cannot believe I witnessed.

Posse Comitatus act

Just Me, this is what you are thinking of.

Exclusions and limitations of Posse Comitatus act

There are a number of situations in which the Act does not apply. These include:

* National Guard units while under the authority of the governor of a state;

* Troops used under the order of the President of the United States pursuant to the Insurrection Act, as was the case during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.

*Under 18 U.S.C. § 831, the Attorney General may request that the Secretary of Defense provide emergency assistance if civilian law enforcement is inadequate to address certain types of threat involving the release of nuclear materials, such as potential use of a nuclear or radiological weapon. Such assistance may be by any personnel under the authority of the Department of Defense, provided such assistance does not adversely affect U.S. military preparedness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act#Exclusions_and_limitations

Thanks, Neutron. Per Wikipedia, the various new patriot-act type laws that had been undermining the Posse Commitatus act as late as 2007, have all been repealed in 2008.

So what is the defense department think it is doing here. I find the linked report quite frightening.

Justme,

I think nothing will become an issue/threat for you if you make no trouble for the overlords. I would be more worried about trying to secure your job through this crisis.

Here's what some hack at the Homeland Security department has to say about it.

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/Trebilcock.htm

I find it disturbing.

justme Says:
McCain is ... trying to avoid to face Obama in debate on Friday.

McCain probably feels that his an position on the Paulson Poison Plan (tm) is too "embarrassing", and does not want to risk being asked about it during a debate.

I heard that he said he is heading back to DC because it looks like the Poison Plan won't pass, so he wants to go help stick it to the electorate. Kind of hard for to face the public while he still has blood on his shirt.

The US government is not dumb, of course it knows a big crisis is brewing. I actually got accidentally trapped in a martial law period while traveling in the Philippines years ago.

It was in fact easier for a foreigner from a developed country to get out under a martial law in developing countries, since you can always hide out in the embassy. We offered USD to the soldiers and since we carry foreign passport, they quickly made way for us to board a plane.

Now what do I offer to national guards? Gold? Euro? Oops, I am even carrying the same darn passport, I can't even hide out at a foreign embassy.

This is going to suck.

Btw, I am not terribly worried about the 3rd infantry, the 20-30K soldiers are a drop in the bucket to secure anything for a vast piece of land like the US.

In some Asian countries where coup d'etat is more prevalent, population is usually very concentrated at the capital and so is money and resources. You take Manila, you get the whole country, same applies for Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.

What can 30K soldiers do? Secure DC and Boston, that is about it. Never mind there will be civil revolutions all over the US. I don't know about the exact ratio, but the number deployed in the coup d'etat that I've seen and lived through is typically 10-20K per major city, in countries with very meek citizens, unarmed.

I am going out on a limb like Shiseki, in order to stage a coup d'etat of any sort in the US, you will need soliders in the range of 500K.

If this is a plan by the fucking neocons of the BushCo, they, as always, underestimated the deployment needs again.

I also wonder how many loyal soldiers he can secure? The coup d'etat deployment is typically comprised of soldiers who have been trained and groomed under the offending general for years, so they are very loyal to him. Does Bush still garnish any loyalty in anyone except the evangelical church goers?

smells like suspension of election folks, act of desperation or deliberation?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anOdbqXviIp4&refer=home

What can 30K soldiers do?
"As of December 31, 2007, WaMu operated 2,257 retail banking stores and 233 lending stores and centers in 36 states."
That's about 12 soldiers per bank branch to keep order. I'll buy some more if they go under two tomorrow...

so. If I go to Vegas and blow $25000 on blackjack and then in my dispair kill a hooker, and then end up owing her pimp for her "lost game", and borrow money to kill her pimp, thereby ending his "pimp game", if I then borrow money to play more blackjack, and loose it, can I petition Paulsen to bail me out also.

FUCK YOU MOTHER FUCKING BOOMERS.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson offered a plan on Saturday to authorize the government to use taxpayer funds to buy up billions of dollars in bad mortgage-backed securities that were created by investment banks during the home price bubble.

As a result, securitized debt instruments that depended on those homeowners being able to repay their loans are now broken.

Can someone please riddle me this, SO FUCKING WHAT?

All this feels like some Robert Ludlum novel. It's been a while since I have read his novels - but many had grand conspiracies. Basically create a pretext to grab even more power.

I think the top banksters perfectly understood the game all the way. They made this ponzi scheme too big to fail and now are delivering the first step of their coup d'etat.

Maybe The Illuminati really exist.

I would have enjoyed this novel, but it's f*cking reality.

Can someone please riddle me this, SO FUCKING WHAT?

I would again give the same analogy that I gave in a previous thread. This 700B is just a little protection money. Else they will kill the entire economy. You see, only 2K per person in US. Would you rather have your entire wealth robbed ? I mean - would you rather have everything robbed all at once or a little by little ? These are the only 2 choices you have.

ALL YOUR MONIES BELONG TO PAULSON.

This is a new mafia. Very sophisticated. Their style is -

1. We have a strong dollar policy.
2. US Banking system is sound.
3. Give me 700B or else ...

Dear Kaptur, Brown, and Voinovich,

I would rather face the consequences of a banking collapse than allow the Ponzi scheme of Wall Street to continue. The first step of a recovering drug addict is to stop the drug use. This usually results in very painful withdrawal pains. We now must endure the pain of our excesses to fix the problem rather than treat the symptoms of a serious disease.

If you vote yes on ANY more bailouts using tax money, I will vote Against you for the rest of your political career!

This is the letter I just sent off to all my representatives in Washington. They will only defeat this bill if enough people are going to be angry about it and not forget it.

ABC is going to run all the School House Rock cartoons about civics. I sure hope they remember to edit them so that no one will know how a bill used to become a law, or how the Consitution defined the roles of government, or what the Pilgrims were fleeing from.

I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill.....

You see Johnny, when the powerful make bad decisions they pass a bill to make the workers work a little harder to 'protect' (freeze) the class structure in this country. Otherwise it would be chaos OH YEAH!

We already are burning through 2 billion a day because we can't tax ourselves enough to pay the current bills. What on earth makes these guys think they can add 700 billion plus to the current 54 trillion in liabilities? This will all end up worse when the world puts us on a credit freeze.

http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/ticker_home.asp

How much more of their "lunch" money can we barrow before they finally cut us off? Currently our government and private buisinesses are barrowing money from the chineese. They are now are comeing for money from our treasury.

We must allow them to all fail and force them to stop their self destrctive people.

What I hate is that all the speaches are loaded with fear. If we don't attack Iraq, they'll gas somebody. If you don't buy a house, you'll never get one. (We all know how that turned out) If we don't have government intervention, the world will cease to spin on its axis. I know that it would be bad, but "wolf" has been cried so many times it means nothing to me. In fact, it pisses me off. The goverment isn't trying very hard to keep the citizenry on its side. What tactic did Bush use tonight, fear. I do not know of one person that is not disgusted with the handling of this situation. They want to fear this into existence and fear it in fast. And as we all know, fast policy is usually bad policy.

I think Bush knew all along from the crap in Aug 2007 that we were on our way to what we have now. I think he thought that he could get out of the way before it hit after the elections. Too bad it blew up in his face a bit too early and he now must deal with it while he tries to get the heck out of Washington.

January 20 2009 can't get here sooner.

Though nobody is feelin’ groovy these days, voters want to tell Congress: Slow down, you move too fast. According to a poll released today by Marist College, more than two-thirds of registered voters, 68%, want Congress to wait on the $700 billion financial sector bailout, stating more time is needed to understand the costs and risks.

Just 26% said it’s more important Congress act to stabilize the financial industry this week. The Marist poll also finds that a majority, 54% overall, blame the economic crisis on Republicans while 25% blame Democrats. Further hurting the GOP: 22% of Republican voters and 56% of independents blame Republicans.

Barack Obama is favored to handle the current economic crisis by six points. When asked who has a better record on economic issues, however, survey respondents favored John McCain by a double digit margin, with 48% choosing McCain and 36% choosing Obama.

The survey was conducted on September 22-23, and 1,005 adults were surveyed, including 879 registered voters The poll has a 3.5% margin of error.

If Obama becomes the winner of the biggest boob prize in all of US history. He has no idea just what he is walking in to. I will hold my nose and vote a man in that I have serious doubts about. I am have the audacity of hope to think he will be too entangled in other messes to care about my 2nd amendment rights.

I am not voting for Obama, I am voting against McCain. If Obama tries ay funny stuff like make me an out law for having guns, my reply will come from Goliad, TX "COME AND TAKE THEM" !!.