patrick.net

Brand,

what you said made perfect sense. I am sure the WS insiders know exactly where the trigger point these computer trading programs are set at.

why does the Treasury need the $700B?
The Fed can only loan (or swap out) against the toxic assets. The Treasury needs the $700 Billion to actually buy the underlying assets.

EBGuy,

why don't they resort to printing from the thin air? I am still very perplexed at where the $630B comes from, I never realized that we had $630B lying somewhere, they should have told me earlier then I could have slept tight.

Brand,

I believe that this week's Wall Street trading will go down in history as the most politically manipulated trading by a small group of insiders to finish their looting of America.

I hope these Wall Street insiders will not bring rage again upon their race, because there are lots of people from this ancient tribe that I respect and like very much, like Jon Stewart, Al Franken, and my family doctor, all honest and noble men.

CNN (and probably others) are turning up the heat to the max to pressure the public into supporting the bailout bill. We need to get out the following message:

No bailout without equity
is the modern day equivalent of
No taxation without representation.

Do not pass a bill to buy bad assets, if absolutely necessary
invest the public money in senior-preferred-voting-convertible-stock ONLY. It is crucial that the public as shareholder has its interest aligned with the remaining shareholders of the troubled institutions.

why don’t they resort to printing from the thin air? I am still very perplexed at where the $630B comes from, I never realized that we had $630B lying somewhere, they should have told me earlier then I could have slept tight.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here... printing would obviously debase the currency. The Fed gets the money from the Supplementary Financing Program at the Treasury Dept -- which gets dollars from patriotic (and scared) Americans and foreigners (central banks and the lot) who are buying Treasuries at even at extremely low interest rates.

The Treasury needs $700B for the Paulson Plan because Ben wants to run a central bank, not a graveyard (Over here boys. Bury the bodies where you see the TAF and TSLF signs.

They probably want to buy these crappy loans and use the anticipated future proceeds to fund Social Security.

EBGuy,

I am being sarcastic. I just think we are down that path, so why don't we just hurry down and be done with it. It is not like we can ever crawl out of the debt hole if we don't debase the currency.

What's the options left? Committing ourselves to be the debt slave for the rest of our and our children's life? Or, debase the currency and deal with a sharp drop in quality of life, but we are freed of debt.

The only reason why we haven't started debasing is perhaps all the elites haven't entirely cashed out of their USD positions.

Hmmm how about instead of bailing out the GBFs (greedy boomer fucks) we take the 700 very very very large and build a bunch of LHCs? (Large Hadron Colliders)?

Just a thought. Another option would be paying the Zep 200bil for reunion concert in Idaho, and another 100bil for hookers and blow.

Sound good Dennis, or is it justme?

We will probably start debasing the currency right after the election.

Hmmm how about instead of bailing out the GBFs (greedy boomer fucks) we take the 700 very very very large and build a bunch of LHCs? (Large Hadron Colliders)?

So that enough strange-lets can be created to temporally reverse the bubble bust?

Interesting video on "Real reason for bailout"

http://www.youtube.com/user/kdenninger

I think if we don't pass 700B bailout, china might have special plan for us.

This is what happens when you become Debt slaves to other countries.
They start black mailing you the moment they see you weak.

But ho...a story of an honest banker. From NRO's Mark Steyn.
Two weeks ago, I was overseas and called my assistant back in New Hampshire to find out what was up. And, after all the tedious business stuff, she mentioned that she'd gone into our general store just before closing and was surprised to find that behind the counter, working the evening shift, was our bank manager (of one of these First National Bank of Dead Skunk Junction-type banks). "Oh," explained Shelley [name ever so slightly changed to spare her blushes]. "I went crazy with the spending, and figured I could use some extra cash to dig myself out of the hole."

What happened to the good old days when failure of eadership meant resignation or removal by party.
Why on earth is Pelosi still Speaker?
Why on earth is Paulson still the treasurer?
In our rush to bad bailout, what is being kept from the public?
Even a fast discovery period in Congress is better than no discovery period.
Something really stinks.

I'm reposting this. Everyone take 30 seconds to send a message to you senator and congressman.

http://congressorg.capwiz.com/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=11987806

hahahaha...

http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/081001/100108_mortgage_plunge.html

Mortgage applications dropped 23% last week, and the article attributes this to the unavailability of credit, which makes no sense. Why would people stop applying?

Surely it couldn't be the fact that Paulson told us the world would end this week unless we crowned him King.

What happened to the good old days when failure of eadership meant resignation or removal by party.

Now, that happens only in Sushi-land. (But they used to commit Seppuku.)

Surely it couldn’t be the fact that Paulson told us the world would end this week unless we crowned him King.

If the world ends, so be it. We choose liberty over bread.

Anyone else want Judicial Review?
Right now the exective branch is banging the fear gong and demanding 700b revolving. credit from the Treasury.
Congress is playing partisan politics (and for now has accidently done the right thing)
Where is the Supreme Court to say, "Let me save you some time on that bill. It is not consittutional. Pass it and we revoke it."

I thought it was ironic in the debate last week that they had the constitution in the background while both candidates were talking about the unconstitutional things they would do.

Somehow the thought of the Constitution immediately brings up the image of Ron Paul.

"Somehow the thought of the Constitution immediately brings up the image of Ron Paul."

Also not so ironically... it was funny watching them try to jimmy into opposing positions when they agreed on virtually everything.

One quick comment to add on the Case-Shiller HPI data. If you download the spreadsheet with the historical index prices, you notice a trend in the last downturn. During the summer selling season, usually around August there is a local peak before the downward trend continues for the rest of the year. Guess what, its different this time.
Charlie Rose was a mixed bag last night. A NY Times columnist and Mort Zuckerman commented that Main Street has no clue how bad the coming downturn is going to be (two years minimum); they were amazingly frank about this, which I really haven't seen much of on TV. They were also very pro-bailout (not in its current form, thankfully), and thought Congress would get something together in the next week

The government kicked off a program Wednesday that aims to prevent foreclosures by letting an estimated 400,000 troubled homeowners "swap their mortgages for more affordable loans"

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081001/mortgage_aid.html

EBGuy,

I also viewed Charlie Rose with Mort Zuckerman.

Zuckerman is just one of many that are reiterating that the rescue must be in the form of preferred stock, not bad asset purchases.

Why is this not getting any traction? In fact, it seems that the whole anti-bailout crowd has fallen asleep.

Has anyone seen a web location where alternative bailout proposals are polled? We need a major site where the better alternatives are listed and the public can register there preference.

there = their

TOB say : snmr, why am i thinking that they figured out a way to dump that on the taxpayer?

No Matter what we do, They will figure out a way to dump it on tax payer.
There is no other place this shit is going to go.

No matter which direciton you throw shit it always lands on the ground esp when there is too much of it.

George Soros is advocating a plan based on purchasing equity, not assets, per the commentary article he is publishing in Financial Times today.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d68e10cc-8f45-11dd-946c-0000779fd18c.html

An excerpt from the George Soros opinion article:

----

" Tarp would invest in preference shares with warrants attached. The preference shares would carry a low coupon (say 5 per cent) so that banks would find it profitable to continue lending, but shareholders would pay a heavy price because they would be diluted by the warrants; they would be given the right, however, to subscribe on Tarp’s terms. The rights would be tradeable and the secretary of the Treasury would be instructed to set the terms so that the rights would have a positive value.

Private investors, including me, are likely to jump at the opportunity. The recapitalised banks would be allowed to increase their leverage, so they would resume lending. Limits on bank leverage could be imposed later, after the economy has recovered. If the funds were used in this way, the recapitalisation of the banking system could be achieved with less than $500bn of public funds."

----

Not everyone is agreeing with Soros that allowing a temporary increase in leverage fropm 12:1 to some higher number is a god idea, though.

George Soros is advocating a plan based on purchasing equity, not assets, per the commentary article he is publishing in Financial Times today.

I respect Soros as a trader, NOT as a political philosopher. Ron Paul has a better solution. We must let the failed enterprise be liquidated. If that is going to cause a global meltdown, the blood is on those who caused this mess in the first place!!!

Let's keep it simple and ask whatever terms Warren Buffet got in GS & GE.

dont forget the blood on your doorpost.

LOL. Ten plagues?

I thought we are in Revelation territories? Or are we still in Exodus? :)

It is all Adam's fault for not killing the snake!

I would love to o an informal poll here.
I think many followed this board because they newk prices were out of whack in the BA and they wanted to know when that might change.

Does anyone really care ny more about housing? With the sheer magnitude of this thing?

Does anyone really care ny more about housing?

Why not? But many of us knew this was beyond a housing bubble.

2012 is coming. The Mayans knew.

Here's something I'd like to know: Where does Warren Buffett currently keep all his biilions of cash? In a bank? In treasury bill or bonds? Under his mattress?

He seems to be able to come up with cash quite readily, and he doesn't seem to have it locked up in some illiquid money-market fund, eirther.

TOB, I assume you are joking.

I am reading so much news I know to be false. Fox, Bloomberg, CNN, CBS, NBC, NY Times, the list goes on and on.

I feel that the entire media simply does not kow the diffrence between a provable fact and and a conlusion drawn from their biased opnions that they try to connect to facts.

For example: The market is down is a fact.
They say, the market is down since the House rejected the bailout
Or they say, the market is up in anticipation of the bailout.

After this massive media watching I have been indulging in, I think I will never watch or read the news again. What a load of BS it all is. Reporters are idiots. Commentators are idiots.

welcome to Kevin Fucking Martin’s FCC!!!!!!! gotta love it!

Yeah, but it's not just the broadcast media that does this. Read the front/financial/science page of any paper but the WSJ and you'll see dozens of the same. And that doesn't hold the WSJ very far above the indictment; they just seem to make fewer of these, "My Electric Bill went up and the market crashed! That musta been whut done it!" deductions. (IMO) And god knows the streaming media avoids Aristotle most chances it gets.

You want logic, look at a circuit board.

Duke,
Let me be the first to respond to your informal poll. I am an early believer of the housing bubble, sold my house, am now renting, also believed that the stock markets were inflated, got into a large cash position, and now have a very conservative portfolio. I have been reading Patrick for a couple of years. Also was kind of sympathetic to Ron Paul, and especially concerned about the enormous federal debt obligations that my children will have to face.

At first it was fun and informative being on this site. Frustrating sometimes to see how much denial the country was in, but ultimately smug as it became evident that I was "right".

Now it is not fun. I am concerned, scared for my friends, my children, and everyone who through no fault of their own will face hardship. The posters here, instead of being concerned and waving red warning flags, now appear downright nasty-vengeful because of now they're talking about their tax-dollars. Some guy stated - do it the Ron Paul way, let everything go to hell if it must so the right people get punished. It is still our country, and most of all, it is our children's country. To see people who don't know all the facts but spout vitriol at this time just disturbs me.

Now Patrick's philosophy seems like as long as I can pound house prices into the ground, I don't care if this country goes to hell in a hand-basket.
No fun any more.