patrick.net

short,

SIRI, that has a similar history as CC. I do not know is a relaxed "credit crunch" will help satellite radio as much as an electronics dealer.

But, both are so cheap now, how much can you lose?

OO,

Is the "foreign capital flight" you are talking about the removal of dollars to foreign banks, or the exchange of dollars for other currencies? Are they worried about a devalued buck or are looking for better interest rates.? Raising the FDIC limit would only prevent flight from those who think US banks will collapse and depositors will lose anything over the limit.

Headset, sirius is needing to refinance some debt, I think that is a big reason the stock is depressed. When the "bailout was considered last week it shot up over a dollar. If it actually passes I look for a repeat, and a quick buck. How much can I lose, well, everything if it goes against me.

I have a question for anyone that was pro bailout...

After housing drops another 20%, then what?

$2 trillion?

Fuzzymath,

it is not about then what, it is about buying time to get out before the mama ship sinks.

Nobody in the Congress or particularly the Senate is stupid enough to believe that $700B is able to save the US, not even for a dumbf*ck like the Scrub himself. This is a plan to BUY time, so that the very wealthy can loot the US for the last time (or last couple of times), put up the facade as if things are under control while moving their own asset offshore to Geneva or Malta.

Without the bill we are all bagholders, with the bill, we, the second class and third class passengers are now holding the bag.

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

by Greg Palast
Global Research, March 14, 2008

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an "escort" $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush's new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there's a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush's man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers' bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer's lynching and the bankers' enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

Link to rest of the story:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8336

No, I am talking about exchanging USD for other currencies especially when the USD exchange rate is high. They are afraid of a collapse of the USD. Swiss Franc seems to be a big favorite.

The net effect of such dollar flight is more than canceled out by the joint CB intervention out of self-interest, and the de-leveraging process of USD carry trade right now. But if the public sentiment starts to change, the latter factors are just temporary.

Raising FDIC limit will only keep domestic dollars from fleeing, for now, because we live in a USD denominated world. I am more afraid of what will happen if the system gets lubricated enough later so that people don't have to scramble for USD for their margin call.

I don't know why anyone is mad at Paulson, he represents the finest of American capitalism. He simply wants to preserve his own capital. Who can argue with that?
And he has hundreds of millions of it...

The majority of the $700B *will* go to Wall Street, which will in turn prop up the house of cards a bit longer so that this country full of self-centered a-holes can get their loans for overpriced pieces of trash.

Meanwhile the big players get away with even more money, your kids and grandkids are taxed into slavery, and system crashes down in six months anyways.

The entire system is broken, and needs a correction.

BTW, did anyone read the bill? Oh yeah, it went from 3 pages, to 110 pages, and now the bloated turd that the sold-out senate passed is 450 pages loaded with every bit of pork and pet projects any senator wanted to stuff in.

450 pages!! Doesn't that scare anybody? Not to mention the $700B bailout at the center has not changed a bit.

I think I would have rather had the original 3 pages from Hanky Panky, because he still gets what he wants, and we get 447 pages of new laws.

Effing Morons!!!

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00212

Link to how the vote went down. Thanks a lot Feinstein and Boxer. What a disappointment.

I'm going to frame the letter I got from Boxer some time ago saying there weren't any plans for bailouts.

Just got back from watching Lakeview Terrace starring Samuel L Jackson. It is a very good movie. So what does this have to do with the bubble blog? Well that movie recently came out, we went at a peak time of 8:00 and we were 2 of a total of 6 people in the theater. Also, this isn't a dumpy theater that no one goes to, it is a Regal stadium theater.

They had to go and stuff the solar stuff in the bailout plan. God almighty give me strength.

OO , I agree with your conclusion that dollar will eventually fall. I am not sure about the timing though.Dollar inherently is overvalued and the current mess makes it more so.It has to go down just like US housing went down due to economic fundamentals. The timing could be way off though.Its interesting that the financial collapse is causing all other currencies to look bad too. safety is relative and not absolute. Dollar's strength is relative and not absolute.Dollar is rallying during all financial uncertainities due to its "relative" safety. I can see a slow death of dollar and not a sudden one unless we go into a deep depression in which case it would be world wide and no currency would be safe except gold.
I am skeptical that it will turn into germany type hyper-inflation when production is not even enough to cover basic goods/services. I see more of a very deep recession with more deflationary inclination.When banks become paranoid in lending, its mostly deflationary.

* not an investment advice*

Ok, but the previews for that movie looked ridiculous. Who wants to see a movie where a cop neighbor goes crazy on the new couple?

But 6 people? It was a pretty good movie, though I have to admit that could account for some of the corelation. Hey at least it was easy to find a good seat.

correlation -sp sorry

per the dollar,

I get the feeling we're just going to see more of what we saw earlier this year. Dollar declining, commodities rising, economy sucking even worse.

As for exchange rates with other countries... who knows. They're all fucked too.

I can't think of any possible route where this turns out ok. Anyone?

I think OO is onto the bottom line. We just got looted. They aren't protecting the dollar, but they aren't giving up on it either. If they picked one or the other, the people would be better off. As is, we're going to muddle along for 4-5 years, while the fucks we are giving $700 billion to squeeze the rest of the remaining hard cash out of our pockets.

If the house can get rid of this bill, then I see the hill on the other side of the valley. If it goes through, it feels like looking over a cliff. There would be no way out.

And yet Europe has to be facing a similar situation. Properties in Spain, Germany, Italy and eastern Europe have been going through the roof. London prices look like New York prices (not that they shouldn't). So if we all deflate or inflate together, then it's all a relatively stable equilibrium for the import/export balance.

Alright so its pretty much a given that the bill will pass the house too. What next?

The Original Bankster Says:
Paulson refuses to consider any other terms than : 700b, no questions asked.

It is MUCH worse than that. Paulson has threatened to get the potus to veto the bill if:
1. a clause is inserted which excludes foreign debt
2. a clause is inserted which requires the collateral to be on US property (so CP on a failed mall in Europe or China can still be unloaded on to us)
3. anything interferes with his ability to decide what price to pay
4. a clause that prevents the Treasury Sec. from adding new "asset" types into this plan, at his sole discretion

Clearly, this is about bailing out foreign banks - because precisely THAT is deemed non-negotiable.

Exactly who is the rat-bastard working for? (answer: the international banking cartel. Sorry folks, I regret to say, the conspiracy nuts seem to have got this right for once.)

I asked those guys at Lowe’s for a pitchfork, they didn’t have any item called that!
I'll bet Orchard Supply has the real thing. Heck they still sell farrier's tools.

HeadSet Says:
One of the “amendments” the Senate added to help the bill pass the House was to increase the FDIC limit from $100k per depositor to $250k.

Meaningless - in the event of a large bank failure, the FDIC is insolvent at 100K per depositor, so it is impossible for them to really cover 250K. Of course, the reason this confidence-trick will "work" is that now the Fed has been asked to provide an unlimited backstop to FDIC. Your money will be worth less than the paper that the U.S. constitution is printed on (after the Senate has wiped its arse on it tonight), but it will keep you warm and fuzzy as you throw another log of "dollars" into the fireplace.

Malcolm Says:
I’m going to frame the letter I got from Boxer some time ago saying there weren’t any plans for bailouts.

Malcolm, buddy, can you please upload or scan that letter someplace from where I can print it? I will write "LIAR" using a scarlet permanent-marker across that letter, and include it in the correspondence that I am sending to the senators who voted for this bill.

I am writing to them to explain exactly why I am now supporting their opponent and how much $ my friends and I are sending to their opponent's next election campaign. This letter will be a great "exhibit A"

OO Says:
F*ck the foreign lenders, they don’t have enough aircraft carriers to come after us anyway. You might as well do this now before they build up their military muscle. Debase the USD, go to a new currency standard, wipe out all out existing debt obligations.

That makes sense ... if you are actually looking to protect American interests. The powers that be are patently not doing this - they are only interested in preventing losses to the banks (a.k.a. "the financial system").

Oh look, stock market down close to 3% already this morning. Must be because we took to long to vote in that bill.

I can't wait to hear the spin after it drops 5% on the day.

well written article by a consulting company on the bailout...

http://www.growthink.com/content/no-bailout-4-reasons

Fuzzy, here is the spin: "The market is disappointed that it has to wait until Friday for the final vote".

On a more serious note, it never ceases to amaze me how headline writers and financial pundits have absolutely no problem coming up with an all-but-certain one-liner justification for why the market went down or up on any given day.

I think most of the time they have no clue what is going on. If they did, they should tell me what the market will do *tomorrow*.

TOB: You must read P. J.!

Hey, my email has been attacked! A zillion invalid emails were sent out with p@patrick.net as the return address. This means my mailbox gets flooded with rejection emails, and mail from p@patrick.net also gets placed on spam lists, and therefore blocked.

The timing of this makes me paranoid that someone really doesn't want me to be able to get email for the next few days...

Patrick

ECB not lowering rates was a big mistake. Hello deeper recession in Europe!
And. . . let the in-fighting begin. Is anyone suprised the banks of Europe are now fighting over how to bail their system out?

Advice for the world's governements: Nullify ALL CDS as illegal contracts.

Re-capitalize your banks through governement infusions.

Don't think the US can back-stop this. We can't. The problem is wayyyy to big.

Paulson and Congress. Let's talk now on the appropriate scope of this.

Bernanke, you may be a student of the US Depression. But what if the trigger for the depression: bad loans on mis-priced RE captial, massive leverage, and a new ingerediant - portfolio insurance, is true not just in the US, but EVERYWHERE.
So much for your helicopter idea.
Globalize your thinking Ben. This isn't the 1929 Depression. This is the 2009 GLOBAL DEPRESSION!!!

Patrick : I would suggest you to create a new temporary email id in the mean while and post it on your blog so that users can reach you.

we went at a peak time of 8:00 and we were 2 of a total of 6 people in the theater. Also, this isn’t a dumpy theater that no one goes to, it is a Regal stadium theater.

I noticed that empty seat trend when I saw Iron Man. The cause may be housing related. Think of all the guys who HELOC'd a big flat panel TV and justified the expense to the wife as "we'll save on movie tickets."

Duke wrote:Bernanke, you may be a student of the US Depression. But what if the trigger for the depression: bad loans on mis-priced RE captial, massive leverage, and a new ingerediant - portfolio insurance, is true not just in the US, but EVERYWHERE.
So much for your helicopter idea.
Globalize your thinking Ben. This isn’t the 1929 Depression. This is the 2009 GLOBAL DEPRESSION!!!

Maybe we will be saved by parts of the world which didn't embrace US style laissez-faire-debt-based-capitalism yet.

I can’t wait to hear the spin after it drops 5% on the day.

ABC news had an interview with one of the Reps who voted nay on the House bill. The rep was saying that before the vote, his constituents were overwhelmingly against a bailout. After the vote down and the 700 point Dow drop, he said he is getting about 50-50 split on for/against bailout. He said he heard from many folks who claimed "$30k loss in thier 401k," etc.

I wonder if he will speak of those who say "The Senate passed the bailout bill and I lost $30k in my 401k."

The only corellation is that each time their is a vote on the bailout, the market crashes. Doesn't matter whether it passes or not. Therefore, lets not bring the bailout up for any more votes.

Here's the guy who managed RTC1 admitting we won't make money.

Making Money on RTC2

Also, we have to thank Rick Santelli from CNBC for being the only person who has been arguing for Tax Payers.

Wow nice link on RTC2.

Try this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/business/02crisis.html?_r=2&em=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1222970661-P4VJuvmL6ibzKprii+U4HA

Finally. Finally as reporting gets better I simply cannot watch it now as it casues too much anxiety.

I find myself getting pretty cavalier about the 700b.

Can someone find out what the US and Global run-up in RE value was over the last 8 years. Somethng like $6T in US alone? If we lose all of that $6t and magnify it by the leverage applied to that 6T. Now do that for the world. EEEEGADS!

It was pretty sickening to see the idiots in Congress these past few days. It's even more sickening to realize that they are the representatives, and hence a reflection of, the American people. Perhaps they should change the moniker for the US to Land of the "It's ALWAYS somebody else's Fault".

Everybody here is sure furious that the "guilty asshole banks" are now needing to get bailed out by the "guiltless innocent Taxpayer". Really? The banks are certainly no saints, but they just happen to be sitting on the wrong chair when the music stopped. Just follow the money, and see if your grubby little hands were not in some way accountable too.

For every bad loan made, every poor bastard who bought a house at a high price, someone was at the other end of the trade. Could have been a lucky guy who just happened to be able to sell his house at the right time, or it could have been a speculator. They benefited from this bubble. Who are they? TAXPAYER.
And the people who felt rich, and took out a big HELOC, had a great time in Europe, drank lots and lots of Napa wine, and bought big screen TVs and Hummers? They had a good ol' time these past few years. Who are they? American TAXPAYER.
How many people worked in the construction business, building houses, fixing up kitchens (people gotta have Granite Countertops)? They made out for many years. Who are they? French? No. American Taxpayers.

People got big tax cuts from Bush. Goddamn hypocritical Republicans. Did they get concerned that this country was consumed by greed, and one day they might have to pay, and turned down their tax cut? Nooooooo. Who are they? American TAXPAYER.

You worked at Best Buy? Home Depot? Caribbean Cruise lines? Name an industry. Got bonuses? Plenty of time-and -a half? Didn't save too much of that? Didn't occur to you that one day, this is all coming home to roost? Who are these people? American TAXPAYER.

There is PLENTY of blame to go around, so let's not pick on Paulson and put his picture on a pitchfork. People with pitchforks are never good guys, mostly dumbasses who get excited and just want to tear down stuff. Ever seen Frankenstein the movie? So you identify with one of those "townspeople"?