International ("external") events are sooooo reassuring....

Fun to think how wonderfully stabilized things are now that the S&P 500 has surpassed 900!

1. U.S. Replaces Commander in Afghanistan in War Overhaul
   By ELISABETH BUMILLER 3:49 PM ET
   The replacement of Gen. David McKiernan less than a year after he took over marks a major change in military leadership in a worsening war
2. A struggle to survive in Pakistan
3. Running out of ideas
4. Dirty Wars: A Primer
5. Unresolved Kashmir dispute is breeding terrorism in region
6. Pakistan on the brink
7. A Nuclear Power Is About to Fall to Islamists

Think the markets have priced this in??

<>

But, in the meantime, for some real fun, here's this:

1. Girls Don't Like George Soros Like They Do Roubini

Morons at CNBC, giggling

As per usual, of course.

But this time they're mocking Roubini in every which way, which is so beyond shameless as to be shameful. But CNBC cannot admit to shame. Not in the genes. Not on Wall St, nor on CNBC, Wall St's megaphone (thank you GE)

To wit: there's a brand-new supposedly funny but actually pathetic little bit they run mocking Roubini's bearish - and absolutely correct - calls over the past 3 years

If you can't beat them, mock them, in jockish lockeroom fashion. Melissa Lee bending over for the soap.....

Indeed

Shift From Spending to Saving May Be Slump’s Lasting Impact

Quick thoughts on recent events

1. The bondholder revolt at Chrysler is as phony as phony can be, and the 'threats' supposedly issued by the Obama team never happened. What's happening here is vulture capitalists getting pissed off that their large bets on America's failure are not gonna pay out
2. The upcoming GM bankruptcy will be very ugly and very prolonged, and will be a huge drag on the 'recovery'.
3. The global stock market rally is fools gold, short term profits nothwithstanding. All it means (if it's real) is that US debt will be ever less attractive to investors, at precisely the moment when the US must raise like $3Trillion in the bond market.
4. Consumers will not/cannot spend like they have in the past 30 years. Thus, presumptions of robust inventory levels etc are way premature, if not totally inaccurate

Obama and American engagement

An intelligent, educated, pragmatic and engaged American President who gets it? Very hard to imagine, but it is indeed real, and is indeed the most hopeful thing about the past 100 days...

Behold:

1. US, Karzai seek to mend fraying relationship at summit
2. Obama Begins Middle East Focus With Israeli President Meeting ...
3. The Mellow Doctrine

That last thing - "The Mellow Doctrine" by Roger Cohen - really nails it. Excerpt:

Call it the mellow doctrine. Neither idealistic nor classic realpolitik, it involves finding strength through unconventional means: acknowledgment of the limits of American power; frankness about U.S. failings; careful listening; fear reduction; adroit deployment of the wide appeal of brand Barack Hussein Obama; and jujitsu engagement.

Already the mellow doctrine has brought some remarkable shifts, even if more time is needed to see its results.

The Castro brothers in Cuba are squabbling over the meaning of Obama’s overtures. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has gone gooey-eyed over the Yanqui president. Turkey relented on a major NATO dispute, persuaded of the importance of Obama’s conciliatory message to Muslims.

From Damascus to Tehran, new debate rages over possible rapprochement with Washington. In Israel, I understand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to drag his Likud party kicking and screaming to acceptance of the idea of a two-state solution because he knows the cost of an early confrontation with Obama.

Not bad for 105 days.

Indeed

1990's Japan? Mark Thoma muses

If the Geithner toxic-asset-removal plan doesn't work as intended -- and there's no guarantee that private-sector participants will step forward in sufficient numbers -- or if the stress tests were not strict enough, missed essential risks, etc., and some of the banks are in much worse shape than we thought, will policymakers be willing to change course? Or will they continue to avoid the more costly but arguably more effective solution of nationalization, cite the stress tests as evidence that banks are relatively healthy and continue to string banks along through a series of capital injections in the hopes that the PPIP will eventually work?

It's been convenient for all involved to say that the legal authority for putting these banks through bankruptcy (nationalization) does not exist, so we have little choice but to stick with the PPIP and hope it eventually works, but Congress could change the law quickly to grant the necessary authority if it really wanted to. But it prefers to avoid the more costly, yet more certain, step and invest in hope instead.

Policymakers have a lot of time and effort and their own reputations wrapped up in the PPIP program, and they do not want to pursue costly solutions given the state of the federal budget. So they will not abandon the current course easily, something that today's testimony made clear.

For that reason, I hope I am wrong about the stress tests and they really do tell us about the health of banks instead of mainly providing political cover, and that the PPIP works better than we could have hoped. Because if it doesn't, we won't save a thing by following in Japan's footsteps and sticking with programs that only prolong the inevitable.

-- Mark Thoma is an economist at the University of Oregon and blogs daily at Economist's View.

Brad DeLong is properly skeptical

About the bank stress tests, 'results' of which have been endlessly leaked and/or trial balooned for a good week now:

Ummm... This Should Not Be Happening
Francesco Guerrera and Sarah O’Connor in the FT:

Bank objections delay stress tests: US regulators will delay the release of stress test results for the country’s 19 biggest banks until next Thursday, after some lenders, including Citigroup and Bank of America, objected to government demands that they needed to raise billions in fresh capital. Citi, one of the biggest victims of the crisis that has already been bailed out three times by the government, is believed to have been told by regulators that it needs more than $5bn in fresh capital, while BofA might need to convert $45bn in government preferred shares into common equity...

The banks should not be negotiating with the government over this.
There comes a point when the right thing to do will be to set up a Maggie Sue--a manufacturing, transportation, services, and other business loan-guarantee authority owned by the government, a financial GSE alongside Fannie, Freddie, and Ginnie--to guarantee "conforming" loans to operating companies, and let the major banks wither.

Remember: the purpose of a financial system is to make new loans so that operating firms can obtain financing on reasonable terms. We don't care what happens to the value of old loans or to current-bank stakeholders as long as companies going forward can get new loans.

Back from vacation - Pakistan, maps, colonialism

Hi



Was away from electronics for a bit. Just got back. Much to post about. But let's start with this perfect little gem:

Pakistan’s British-Drawn Borders



Ends with W H Auden's famous poem 'Partition":

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.

“Time,” they had briefed him in London, “is short. It’s too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we’ve arranged to provide you with other accommodation.

We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.”
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date

And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must.
Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.

Quick thought watching Obama's press conference...

He makes lawyers, and a legal education, amazingly attractive and very much welcome: articulate, informed, detailed, thoughtful, even literate.

Compared to the endless empty BS that an "MBA" (hahahaha) like Bush supposedly is/was, this is amazingly refreshing.

Obama actually knows stuff, and that knowledge is useful! Holy Moly!

Specifically, he illustrates how an actual field of knowledge (law) trumps a fake one (marketing)

Not to mention unlocking real estate values.....

More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops

Bless them

Specter going Democrat

No surprise, of course. The man is intelligent, after all.

Thus, here's what's left of 'Republican' opposition to Obama:

1. Supply-siders like Kudlow
2. Demagogues like Limbaugh
3. Nut jobs like Beck
4. Phonies like Giuliani
5. Frauds like Romney
6. Gun lovers like Brownback
7. Creationists like Huckabee
8. Racists like Hunter
9. Paranoids like Paul
10. Paranoid ignorami like Hannity
11. Paranoid demagogue racist gun lover nut job ignorami supply-side secessionist phony creationist frauds like Perry (leading contender in 2012)

Makes Larry Kudlow atractive.....

Let's call them Kudlows!

A Tiny Hominid With No Place on the Family Tree

The extinct people nicknamed hobbits remain mystifying anomalies in human evolution, out of place in time and geography, their ancestry unknown.

......They walked upright on short legs, but might have had a peculiar gait obviating long-distance running. The single skull that has been found is no bigger than a grapefruit, suggesting a brain less than one-third the size of a human’s

Most excellent Obama map, etc....

Check this out: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/foundationforchange

Very hard to imagine that I actually live in a country with a competent Chief Executive. Takes some getting used to.....

Hysterical post from Cassandra Does Tokyo

Tempting Offer?!?

Begins thusly:

I am not scatalogically-preoccupied. But on Page 53 of this week's Economist magazine - the European edition at least - is an advertisement for Bocconi SDA's Master's in Fine Food and Beverage with a picture of what appears, at first-sight to be a large Parisian sidewalk pile of excrement with the caption "Come and see how tasty a Masters in Management could be." Ummmm, thanks, but no.

And the wrap is great:

Lest you think me unfair to said Masters (for the would-be's of this Bocconi course are arguably harmless), I will happily point out that I do not single them out, for the pavements are veritably littered with piles of crap, from the legislative capitals where lawmakers have whored themselves like street-harlots, while even those that didn't were too timid, ignorant, or fearful of electoral backlash to interrogate the foundations and wisdom of unlimited credit sans regulation or prudential tether, to suburbia and the American heartlands desperation to believe in tooth-faeiries, Santa Claus, Goldilocks, and pixie-dust as panaceas for unsustainable consumption over production, and at the collective level, unsustainable fiscal expenditure relative revenue.

The G-175

G-175 Nations Convene To Discuss How Things Can't Possibly Be Any Worse

The dignitaries, who traveled from all across the world, arrived early Thursday morning to tackle a week's worth of possible resolutions. Items on the schedule included a motion to sit in hopeless resignation as the terrifying spread of hepatitis claimed the lives of millions, as well as a multilateral treaty, signed by all present, to shake their heads in defeat and disgust at rising poverty rates.
Three hours of official cursing at G-20 nations and their inherent wealth and greed followed.
"Our people are starving," said Tanzanian minister of agriculture Steven M. Wasira, contributing to a heated debate over whether all nations involved were completely screwed or absolutely fucked. "We cannot grow anything in the north because of the drought, and flooding in the south has stopped us from harvesting what little food we do have. I come here today to ask that you please help the poor citizens of my—"
Wasira's plea ended abruptly when the Days Inn ballroom the summit was using had to be cleared for a 5 p.m wedding reception.

Effing bulls***!!!

Supreme Court OKs regulation of language on TV

Ferguson: "The Axis of Upheaval"

In case you missed it, here's Niall Ferguson recently in Foreign Policy: The Axis of Upheaval

He's writing about the new, uncertain world of failed/failing nation states and the scary possibilities these states represent. He summarizes things thusly;

Economic volatility, plus ethnic disintegration, plus an empire in decline: That combination is about the most lethal in geopolitics. We now have all three. The age of upheaval starts now.

Ferguson's 'axis of upheaval' is, of course, a play on Bush's 'axis of evil'. And what's scarier about this axis is that 1. it's larger and 2. it's growing. As Ferguson puts it:

The bad news for Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, is that he now faces a much larger and potentially more troubling axis—an axis of upheaval. This axis has at least nine members, and quite possibly more. What unites them is not so much their wicked intentions as their instability, which the global financial crisis only makes worse every day. Unfortunately, that same crisis is making it far from easy for the United States to respond to this new “grave and growing danger.”

Those nine members?

• Russia
• Mexico
• Iran
• Pakistan
• Somalia
• Sudan
• Afghanistan
• Iraq
• Israel/Gaza/Lebanon

Other candidates for this growing axis include: Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Egypt, Congo, Zimbabwe.....

Fun

Steve Waldman: Banks - we need a 'root and branch' fix....

Value for value, Steve Waldman

Excerpts:

If you think that our financial system just needs some tweaks, some consolidation of regulators' organizational charts and sterner supervision, then you should prefer that we had just cut a check, passed Sarbanes/Oxley Book II, and moved on. But that is not what I, or most proponents of nationalization/temporary receivership for insolvent banks, believe.

I ... would be willing to hold my nose and tolerate a Swedish-style guarantee of bank creditors. I'd acquiesce to that even without formal nationalization. Nationalization is ... a means to an end, and the desired end is a world in which too big to fail is too big to exist for any financial institution that originates or holds credit risk in any form. Secretary Geithner could send a bill to Congress today that would put all banks with a balance sheet of over $50B into run-off mode... I'd fax my Congressman and support a $2T on-budget buyout of bank creditors as part of that bill, as long as it had teeth. ("Teeth" would imply making sure that off-balance-sheet and derivative exposures were included in the size cap, etc.)
It's not that us pitchfork-totin' populists are unwilling to pay the bill. It's that we want to know that in exchange for writing a very, very large check, the people that we are paying will actually deliver the goods. Given the behavior of bankers before the crisis and of shifty policymakers during, we have every reason to watch warily and to insist upon every precaution while we hand over

Shades of Simon Johnson here.....

Shades of last year, yet again.....

Andrew Ross Sorkin, in today's Times: Stress Tests? No Big Deal After All

....here’s the rub: If some banks can’t pass this test — which William Black, a former senior bank regulator during the S.& L. crisis, has called “a complete sham” and others have suggested is a whitewash — perhaps we have a larger problem.

Maybe this test is going to show more failures than we thought.

Any banks that actually might “fail” the test, and I put those words in quote marks for a reason, will be given six months to raise new capital on their own or accept capital from the government.

But what private investor is going to invest in any of the failing banks, knowing full well that the government may end up coming in later on and diluting the investor’s stake?

This may end feeling a little bit like a replay of the government’s intervention in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You’ll recall that Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former Treasury secretary, received temporary powers from Congress to take over Fannie and Freddie. At the time, he said he didn’t plan to use those powers, just the threat of them.

Really - this is getting eerie.....

Why oh why can't Team Obama simply get it over with? Yes, it'll be costly both politically and financially, but we keep fiddling while Rome burns, and zombie banks get increasingly desperate to appear alive (remember all those Q1 earnings fantasies?...)

On second thought, this is increasingly also looking like Japan in the 1990's.

Swine flu nut jobs

I had the misfortune to stumble upon this last night:

George Noory hosted a special edition of C2C with examination and analysis of the recent swine flu outbreak. Dr. Gary Ridenour suggested that this virus could further mutate and become even more dangerous. Appearing in the latter half of the show, Alex Jones and Stephen Quayle both agreed the new swine virus was not natural. It's a "genetically altered bioweapon," possibly being "beta-tested in the field" to target specific races, Quayle contended.

To call transpired last night any sort of 'examination and analysis' is laughable. Obviously. Turns out that Messrs Jones (no relation to Jim, save for psychosis) and Quayle (no relation to Dan, save for IQ) are well-known occupants of the lunatic far-right fringe, with radio shows and websites and T-shirts and guns and end-of-days raving hallucinations....Problem is that nut jobs like them are all over the place, and shows like Noory's are spreading the worst sort of epidemic - that of American ignorance and paranoia.

Expect much more of this going forward, alas.....

Fun

Surprise! Citi and BoA need more capital!

Shocked, shocked: Fed Pushes Citi, BofA to Increase Capital

The most non-news news item in many years, but chalk it up in the good news category, if only because it seems to indicate some glimmer of reality leaking into proceedings. Some excerpts:

The findings suggest that government officials are using the stress tests to send a tough message to struggling banks. Bank of America and Citigroup have been the highest-profile problem children in recent months, but it is unlikely that they are the only banks the Federal Reserve has determined might need more capital.

Industry analysts and investors predict that some regional banks, especially those with big portfolios of commercial real-estate loans, likely fared poorly on the stress tests. Analysts consider Regions Financial Corp., Fifth Third Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co. to be among the leading contenders for more capital. Wells Fargo declined to comment. Representatives of Regions and Fifth Third didn't respond to requests for comment made late in the day.

Not surprisingly, the geniuses who led us into this disaster are still in denial:

Executives at both banks are objecting to the preliminary findings, which emerged from the government's scrutiny of 19 large financial institutions. The two banks are planning to respond with detailed rebuttals, these people said, with Bank of America's appeal expected by Tuesday.

And, under the bad news column, file this gem of illogic:

....banks directed to raise more capital shouldn't be viewed as insolvent.

Two more little bits from the article I found amusing:

1. Bank of America's capital hole as measured by the regulators is in the billions, said people close to the company, placing added pressure on management as the company prepares for a Wednesday shareholder meeting in Charlotte.
2. It isn't clear how big a capital deficit Citigroup faces

That last one is just perfect. Kinda like figuring out how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall...

A glimmer of hope?

I think this week's leader in The Economist pretty much nails things: A glimmer of hope?

Selected excerpts, emphases mine:

Beginning with the subhead, after that sort-of-optimistic headline:

The worst thing for the world economy would be to assume the worst is over

..... two other slumps are likely to poison the economy for much longer. The most important is the banking crisis and the purge of debt in the bubble economies, especially America and Britain. Demand has plummeted as tighter credit and sinking asset prices have exposed consumers’ excessive borrowing and scared them into saving more. History suggests that such balance-sheet recessions are long and that the recoveries which eventually follow them are feeble.
The second slump is in the emerging world, where many economies have been hit by the sudden fall in private cross-border capital flows. Emerging economies, which imported capital worth 5% of their GDP in 2007, now face a world where cautious investors keep their money at home. According to the IMF, banks, firms and governments in the emerging world have some $1.8 trillion-worth of borrowing to roll over this year, much of that in central and eastern Europe. Even if emerging markets escape a full-blown debt crisis, investors’ confidence is unlikely to recover for years.

Here in America:

Consumer spending and firms’ investment will be dragged lower by the need to pay back debt and restore savings. This will be a long slog. Private-sector leverage, which rose by 70% of GDP between 2000 and 2008, has barely begun to unwind. At 4%, the household savings rate has jumped sharply from its low of near zero, but it is still far below its post-war average of 7%. Higher unemployment and rising bankruptcies could easily cause a vicious new downward lurch.

After reviewing the ugly situation in Japan, Germany, the UK etc, the summary begins:

....Add all this up and the case for optimism fades quickly. The worst is over only in the narrowest sense that the pace of global decline has peaked. Thanks to massive—and unsustainable—fiscal and monetary transfusions, output will eventually stabilise. But in many ways, darker days lie ahead. Despite the scale of the slump, no conventional recovery is in sight. Growth, when it comes, will be too feeble to stop unemployment rising and idle capacity swelling. And for years most of the world’s economies will depend on their governments.

......Welcome to an era of diminished expectations and continuing dangers; a world where policymakers must steer between the imminent threat of deflation while countering investors’ (reasonable) fears that swelling public debts and massive monetary easing could eventually lead to high inflation; an uncharted world where government borrowing reaches a scale not seen since the second world war, when capital controls ensured that savings stayed at home.

I much agree - especially the bit about a world of diminished expectations, led by a shrinking US consumer sector, and an era of great uncertainty

Not fair to the smaller banks?

It's increasingly looking like the stress tests will harm Regions Financial and maybe another one or two regional banks (Fifth Third gets mentioned a lot) while letting Citi and BoA (most notably) off the hook:

See this: Stress Tests May Force Banks to Convert TARP Stock

April 27 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. banks that received results of their federal stress tests last week were given three options if they need additional capital to withstand the recession. The reality is they may only have one.
Getting federal aid or selling shares -- two of the choices offered to the 19 lenders being tested -- aren’t practical politically or financially, according to analysts, including Jeff Davis, the research director at Howe Barnes Hoefer & Arnett Inc. in Chicago. Lawmakers have opposed adding more to the $700 billion that the government already committed and investors have balked at buying shares of financial firms after a two-year drop.
That leaves the third option presented by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: changing the preferred stock held by the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program into common shares. Doing so would prop up capital under accounting rules and dilute the value of shareholdings for current investors.
SunTrust Banks Inc., KeyCorp and Regions Financial Corp., pegged by Morgan Stanley last week as the “most likely” to need capital, dropped more than 70 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading during the past year. Shares of the three companies were indicated lower in Germany today.
“The best most can hope for is to stay as they are and not be forced to draw down still more TARP capital or convert what they’ve got into common stock,” said Karen Petrou, managing partner of Washington-based research firm Federal Financial Analytics Inc.

If indeed the regional guys take it on the chin while the big boys don't, it will make this article particularly troubling: Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club

No change in the patient

Good question from Macroman

This is perhaps a naive question, but it's one that your author has not seen clearly elucidated elsewhere. What, exactly, is the purpose of the stress tests? It seems fairly obvious that they are not intended as a sober measure of how the banking system would fare under conditions of extreme economic stress. If they were, then the scenarios would offer a bit more choice than "Optimistic and Optimistic (Roubini version.)"
So what, then? Political cover to enable payback of the TARP and/or further injection of funds? To make everyone feel wonderful that the banking system is actually in pretty good shape? (Macro Man would normally scoff at this, but after the market action of the last few weeks, he's not so sure.) In a post-FASB, "say whatever you want" world, what possible purpose does this charade have? Macro Man is curious to hear your thoughts.

My thought is that the stress test are political cover - make it look like the Feds are doing something while they desperately try to buy time for the recovery spending to kick in. Problem is that the recovery $$$ is too little and too back-ended, the banking crisis too severe, and the stress tests not stressful (nor transparent) enough.

Anyone wonder how CNBC got leaked word that only one of the 19 banks will 'fail'? (Stress Test Shows One Weak Link Bank )

Good will losses: "Things continue to get worse"

So says Feng Gu in this article: Losses in Good-Will Values Compound Bank Troubles

Some pretty amazing bits that leap out:

Banks wrote down more than $25 billion in good will in 2008, up sharply from $790 million a year earlier, according to data compiled by Frank Schiraldi of Sandler O’Neill & Partners. By the end of the year, banks still had $291 billion worth of good will on their books. An incomplete tally of write-downs from the first quarter showed that banks had taken a $3.5 billion hit to good-will values

....The value of good will represents intangible qualities like the value of a company’s brand name, its customer base and reputation. Every year, companies that list good will as a leftover asset from mergers have to test its value to see whether it has held up

In light of the ongoing and long-lasting consumer re-trenchment, does anyone really think most 'brand names, customer bases, and reputations" will retain their pre-recession values - or anything close to them? Save for a small few - Apple, WalMart, come to mind - it's gonna be hard to find a consumer brand that doesn't get hammered....(or whose good will has 'help up')

"The United States' Exorbitant Privilege"

Behold, from Mr Setser:

How much “capital flow reversal” insurance should the world offer?

Excerpt:

......it is still striking that the emerging world did more to help the US avoid adjustment from say early 2006 to mid 2008 than the US, EU and Japan seem likely to do (through the IMF and World Bank as well as bilaterally) to help the emerging world avoid adjustment now, even with the recent expansion of the IMF.***

Call it part of the United States exorbitant privilege. So long as key emerging economies peg to the dollar and allow their reserves to rise when private demand for their financial assets rises, the US gets more protection from a sudden reversal in capital flows than other countries with large deficits.

But also call it part of a broad system that has resulted in a persistent uphill flow of capital — and thus part of a broad system that led the US to run larger external deficits over the past few years than really were healthy.

That broad system is unsustainable, and in my view essentially ended in August 2007.

Thus far, not too terribly much has taken place to replace it. (There's a continuing hope that all might be well post-Great Recession) Not. But replace the existing system we must. For my money, it begins here in the US with an actual solution to the banking crisis (break up Citi and BoA, break the grip of Oligarchs etc...), moves next to an awareness that US 'consumers' are no longer such (Obama very much understands this), and then on to getting serious with China/Voldemort (and other large exporters) about over-capacity and currency manipulation....

Future banker: Superb thief, good on TV, clean cut, well-spoken....

Jacoby Ellsbury

PSAVERT - Over 5% in April?

I'm gonna bet so. 5.1%, to be exact :)

A consumer-led 'recovery' a ways away, alas....

Stress tests

This from a warning issued by The National Institutes of Health a few years ago:

"The number of Web sites offering health-related resources grows every day. Many sites provide valuable information, while others may have information that is unreliable or misleading."

Indeed.

See this from Bloomberg: Some analysts were more than a tad dismissive:

Some gems:

The report was “completely worthless,” said David Trone, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia

My problem with this is sort of like Garrison Keillor and Lake Woebegon, where all children are above average,” said Nancy Bush, an independent bank analyst at NAB Research LLC

"A lot of triple talk,” said Jim Glickenhaus, who helps manage more than $1 billion, including shares of Bank of America Corp., at Glickenhaus & Co.

“The assumptions the regulators have used here seem to imply that they’re anticipating a bottoming out of the economic downturn,” said Jeff Davis, director of research at Howe Barnes Hoefer & Arnett in Chicago.

“The question I have, by using fourth-quarter numbers, is this skewed positively?” said Lawrence Kaplan, an attorney with Paul Hastings

“The anticipation over the white paper appears to be much ado about nothing,” said Josh Rosner, an analyst at independent research firm Graham Fisher & Co. in New York.

Your tax dollars at work

After Off Year, Wall Street Pay Is Bouncing Back

Of the large banks receiving federal help, Goldman Sachs stands out for setting aside the most per person for compensation. The bank, which nearly halved its compensation last year, set aside $4.7 billion for worker pay in the quarter. If that level continues all year, it would add up to average pay of $569,220 per worker — almost as much as the pay in 2007, a record year.

Berkshares

http://www.berkshares.org/

User-generated currency, a sign of things to come....

What are BerkShares?
BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region. Dubbed a "great economic experiment" by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities.

Human swine influenza

WOW! He's really getting around!

Pandemic warning: Swine flu symptoms similar to human influenza

Human Cases of Swine Influenza Investigated‎

Dick Cheney: The Visible Man

Unemployed, Unapologetic and Unrestrained: It's Cheney Unbound

Bank stress tests - guesstimates

Interesting article in today's Times by Eric Dash, in which the 19 banks in question are ranked in some order of health: Edgy Banks Start to Get Word Today on Stress Tests

Citing estimates by Frederick Cannon of Keefe, Bruyett & Woods, it seems "banks might need as much as an additional trillion dollars in capital"

Dash's list of banks is as follows:

Poised to withstand potential worsening of the recession:

• Blackrock
• Goldman Sachs
• Morgan Stanley

Custodial banks with the worst behind them (taken their losses):

• State Street
• Bank of New York Mellon

Ditto, 'well-run commercial banks':

• JPMorganChase
• US Bancorp

'At the other end of the spectrum', need additional capital:

• Citibank (duh)
• Bank of America (duh)

Regional banks 'bracing for huge losses' (esp commercial loans):

• Fifth Third
• Sun Trust Banks
• Regions Financial

'Uncertain category' depending upon what regulators decide:

• American Express
• Capital One
• BB&T Bank
• PNC Financial
• Wells Fargo

Oligarchs hiding under desks - pictorial evidence

From the hideous new Yankee Mall (oops, Stadium), where those 5000+ empty seats you see go for as much as $2400 PER GAME!!

The "Quail Hollow" Wells Fargo Wachovia championship approaches

Used to be (last year) the "Wachovia Championship". But Wells Fargo balked post-takeover.

So, instead, it's the Quail Hollow blah blah blah... See this earlier post: The Quail Hollow Championship (in which I argued for Wachovia continuing it's named sponsorship, alas)

Seems even bankers can feign shame by re-naming things they own (and I'd be hiding under rocks too) and are frightened enough to remove any trace of their sponsorship of the thing, but it's unsettling when the media happily plays along: Mickelson To Play In Charlotte's Quail Hollow; Woods Yet To Decide

Check out the "Quail Hollow" website as well: http://www.quailhollowchampionship.com/
Any trace of Wachovia/Wells has been erased as vigorously as Cheney has erased his memory of torturing prisoners.

Thing is, Wachovia/Wells is still paying the tab for this puppy (oops, and taxpayers too!), but they'll go to great lengths for PR purposes to pretend otherwise....

Martin Wolf - no recovery yet

And Mr Wolf has been more right than most....

Why the ‘green shoots’ of recovery could yet wither

Excerpts, emphases mine:

Is the worst behind us? In a word, No. The rate of economic decline is decelerating. But it is too soon even to be sure of a turnround, let alone of a return to rapid growth. Yet more remote is elimination of excess capacity. Most remote of all is an end to deleveraging. Complacency is perilous. These are still early days.

.....this global recession is different from any other since the second world war. Its salient characteristic is uncertainty.

Consider obvious perils: given huge excess capacity, a risk of deflation remains, with potentially dire results for overindebted borrowers; given the rising unemployment and huge losses in wealth, indebted households in low-saving countries may raise their savings rates to exceptional levels; given the collapse in demand and profits, cutbacks in investment may be exceptionally prolonged and severe; given massive and persistent fiscal deficits and soaring debt, risk aversion may lead to higher interest rates on government borrowing; and given the flight from riskier borrowers, a number of emerging economies may find themselves in a vicious downward spiral of weakening capital inflow, falling output and reductions in the quality of assets.

....The danger is that a turnround, however shallow, will convince the world things are soon going to be the way they were before. They will not be. It will merely show that collapse does not last for ever once substantial stimulus is applied. The brutal truth is that the financial system is still far from healthy, the deleveraging of the private sectors of highly indebted countries has not begun, the needed rebalancing of global demand has barely even started and, for all these reasons, a return to sustained, private-sector-led growth probably remains a long way in the future.

IMF: Worst since 1945

Global Economy Called Worst Since 1945
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
The International Monetary Fund said in a report that recovery would take longer than expected, and predicted a 2.8 percent contraction this year for the United States.



Some of the juicier tidbits:



The I.M.F. projected a 1.3 percent decline in global economic activity for 2009, down sharply even from the modest 0.5 percent growth it had projected in January. In the United States, still the “epicenter” of the crisis, according to the fund, economic contraction would be even greater, at 2.8 percent this year, with zero growth for 2010. <>



“The recovery may actually be slower than usual, leading to a slow decrease in unemployment,” said Olivier Blanchard, director of the I.M.F.’s research department, at a news conference at the fund’s headquarters in Washington. “Our forecasts imply that unemployment will crest only at the end of 2010.”



“If there had been no fiscal stimulus across the world, world growth in 2009 would be 1.5 to 2 percent less,” he said. “We would be in the middle of something very close to a depression.” < href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/world/europe/23britain.html?ref=world">British Plan to Raise Taxes and Debt Sets Off Political Sparring< >

Here's a notable excerpt from the UK article:

....some have warned that if the recession is longer and deeper than the Brown government is predicting, the level of debt could lead to Britain’s facing a run on the pound and the possibility of having to turn to the monetary fund for emergency loans, a contingency last resorted to by a Labor government in the 1970s.

The anti-democracy truck!

Alongside bargain retailers, cheap restaurants, debt collectors and bankruptcy lawyers, a midsize factory in Siberia is promoting a product that it hopes is just the thing for hard times. Employees here call it the “anti-democracy truck,” a modified fire truck fitted with a water cannon and designed to quell riots.

'Twould seem as though the Russians have a real market for these puppies:

Economically related social unrest has already arisen throughout the lands of the former Soviet Union. Used-car dealers have taken to the streets in Vladivostok to protest tariffs. In Ukraine, where tens of thousands of steel workers are newly unemployed, protesters gathered on the central square in Kiev. Most recently, in Moldova, an angry crowd stormed the Parliament building and hurled furniture out the windows. Among the protesters were unemployed young people with little prospect of finding jobs in Moldova

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

Too big to behave

Simon Johnson, in arguing this morning for greater, more decisive action by the Feds on the banking crisis (Irreversible Damage: Why Little Action on Banking Can Do Great Harm) makes this excellent point:

If you think the big banks are strong today, as they increasingly defy the government, how easy do you think it will be to take actions against their interests down the road?

Indeed. From credit card abuses to defying the Feds on the Chrysler bailout, big banks are acting in their own interests as always, despite nearly destroying the global economy in the past year.....Incredible.

Here's a bit more from Johnson on the need for more decisive action:

......inaction on banks has at least four adverse consequences:

1. Banks will misallocate capital because of the perverse incentives that come from being undercapitalized; there is less incentive to make careful decisions when you think you may be out of business next year.
   
2. The recession will be deeper because of greater uncertainty regarding the stability of our financial system. Uncertainty is highly debilitating for all long-term decision-making; it undermines investment and makes banks even less willing to lend. The I.M.F.’s World Economic Outlook (start with Chapter 1), which came out on Wednesday, puts on a brave official face, but is really not encouraging — global growth at a record minus 1.3 percent this year and only plus 1.9 percent next year (aside: reasonable growth, as measured by the I.M.F., is 4 to 5 percent per annum).
3. 
   The Fiscal First strategy implies a large buildup of public debt to bail out industry and banks, and to provide a fiscal stimulus. While we “wait and see” on banking, our national debt grows, thus raising the taxes that all of us (and our children) have to pay down the road. A broader redistribution of post-tax income away from ordinary taxpayers continues.
4. 
   In geopolitical terms, China is taking advantage of United States weakness to strengthen its claim on natural resources and build political ties by providing finance to weaker nations. To maintain its political position, the United States needs to be decisive in economic terms and get back to growth sooner.

Geopolitics getting ugly(er)

Two things in particular:

1. Taliban Seize Control of Area Near Pakistani Capital
   By JANE PERLEZ 1 minute ago
   Taliban militants have established control in the strategically important area of Buner, only 70 miles from Islamabad, law enforcement officials said.
2. Iran warns Israel not to attack nuclear sites‎ - Apr 21, 2009
   Israel has threatened military action, but last week President Shimon Peres dismissed the idea that the country was planning an attack on Iran's nuclear ...

Think the markets have accurately priced this stuff? Methinks not. Markets are very much insular, and very much imperfect. It will come as a SHOCK! to the markets when the geopolitical disaster created by Cheney/Bush blows up (literally and figuratively)

Free market capitalism + scorn at the rule of law + Oligarchy - adult supervision = the problem Obama inherits, and the mess Wall St hasn't a clue about...

Julian Epstein eats Don Luskin for lunch

On Kudlow's hideous show, just now. Stay tuned for the video. Great stuff.

The difference between someone who knows what he's talking about and one who, ummmm, doesn't.

Epstein to Luskin: "you have no idea what you're talking about" Must see TV

Employment situation sure to weaken...

This just the latest indicator:

GM Closing Plants For 9 Weeks This Summer Says AP (GM)
The Business Insider - ‎53 minutes ago‎
With the company about to default on its debt, closing the factories makes sense. The other reason for closing the factories is that nobody is purchasing ...

Other economic fundamentals - housing, banking, MEW, consumer credit, retail sales, trade, etc etc continue to worsen....

IMF - cliff diving charts

Pretty spectacular stuff (click for a larger image)

American mediocrity - torture and history

A stunning assessment of the ahistoric nature of the torture permitted by the US the past 7 years is here:
In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use

This entire article is stomach-turning, but the worst aspect has to be the picture of utter mediocrities - poorly educated, incurious, ambitious, ideological - at the heart of this nation's political power structure. Of course, the same holds true for those on Wall St - just add greedy to the mix there. (Am tempted to add 'corrupt' to the list of adjectives, but that would imply some semblence of intelligence/knowledge....)

Sickening excerpts include:

....no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans

The top officials (he) briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

....The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said

Read the whole thing folks. But have a barf bag nearby....

Healthy banks vs healthy assets

Krugman has a gem on his blog tonight: Vast majorities

Well worth reading the whole thing, emphases mine:


So the market was greatly reassured when Tim Geithner declared that the “vast majority” of banks are well capitalized. Count me as baffled. I mean, maybe he was actually giving us a hint about the stress tests — but I took it as a remark that was uninformative at best, ominous at worst.

After all, there are a lot of banks in America. There are 1,722 institutions on the Fed’s list of “large commercial banks”. And I have no doubt that most of these banks — indeed, the vast majority — are in fine shape. That’s because they’re regional institutions that never got into the risky games played by the big guys.

But the big guys are where the money is. The top 10 institutions on that list have 58 percent of the assets. (If we looked at bank holding companies rather than only commercial banks, assets would be even more concentrated.) So it’s perfectly possible that the “vast majority” of US banks are well-capitalized, but that banks with, say, a third of the system’s assets are insolvent.

What Geithner said, then, was true but useless. If anything, his wording was cause for concern: Treasury knows the difference between raw numbers of banks and asset holdings, even if the press seemed to miss the distinction, and if he’d meant to say that the vast majority of assets are held by sound banks, he would have.

Itsworsethanyouthinkitis

The IMF is on board: Financial Stability Report

$4.1Trillion in debt losses.

You think any banks (or the Market) have actually properly accounted for these losses? Methinks not. Certainly not based upon the phony 'earnings' statements we've all just been subjected to.

More inevitable badness around the corner. The similarities to exactly one year ago are getting ever more striking.....

No doubt CNBC hosts will profess to being surprised come the fall when things again melt down.

Insani-tea!

Per last post. How did I miss this last week?

Facism, Socialism, Fox 'News'

For the Fox News types out there I figured I'd perform a public service by providing definitions of these two words. Behold:

fascism
–noun
1.
(sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

socialism
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

While we're at it, here a a few more definitions:

demagogue
–verb (used with object)
3.
to treat or manipulate (a political issue) in the manner of a demagogue; obscure or distort with emotionalism, prejudice, etc.

hysterical
–adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, or characterized by hysteria.
2.
uncontrollably emotional.
3.
irrational from fear, emotion, or an emotional shock.
4.
causing hysteria.
5.
suffering from or subject to hysteria.
6.
causing unrestrained laughter; very funny: Oh, that joke is hysterical!

High degree of uncertainty in the global economy

So sayeth Caterpillar (1Q09 Cat Inc. Results) as they lower guidance for the rest of the year.

Reuters has a nice summary: CAT reports first loss since '92, slashes forecast

Caterpillar matters because there are few companies with a better on-the-ground sense of the real economy all over the globe. Here's one telling bit from the Reuters assessment:

Sales of the company's distinctive yellow construction and mining machinery tumbled 29 percent overall, led by a 46 percent decline in sales in Europe, Africa and the Middle East....

Schlosstein: "We're in the 2nd or 3rd inning of bank losses..."

As in Ralph Schlosstein, co-founder of Blackrock, on CNBC. says bank losses in a deep recession have only just begun. Banks have eaten some sub-prime stuff, but there's much more to come from all sorts of other borrowers - CRE, credit cards, student loans, corporate loans, other housing etc etc.

Says systemic risk is still on the table. Geee, I wonder why all these banks keep fudging their earnings reports? It's becoming impossible to find any honest outside analyst who thinks the system is healthy. And more and more you're hearing from folks that there's worse still ahead of us.....

More on bank profits - "out of thin air"

Andrew Ross Sorkin chimes in:

Bank Profits Appear Out of Thin Air
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Banks are trying to wow their audiences with better-than-expected numbers, but investors aren’t buying it for a second.

Some special gems, emphases mine:

Steven Roth, professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, also pointed out that Bank of America booked a $2.2 billion gain by increasing the value of Merrill Lynch’s assets it acquired last quarter to prices that were higher than Merrill kept them.

“Although perfectly legal, this move is also perfectly delusional, because some day soon these assets will be written down to their fair value, and it won’t be pretty,” he said.

Why can’t anybody read the room here? After all the financial wizardry that got the country — actually, the world — into trouble, why don’t these bankers give their audience what it seems to crave? Perhaps a bit of simple math that could fit on the back of an envelope, with no asterisks and no fine print, might win cheers instead of jeers from the market.

If the stress test is done honestly, it is impossible to believe that some banks won’t fail. If no bank fails, then what’s the value of the stress test? To tell us everything is fine, when people know it’s not?

“I can’t think of a single, positive thing to say about the stress test concept — the process by which it will be carried out, or outcome it will produce, no matter what the outcome is,” Thomas K. Brown, an analyst at Bankstocks.com, wrote. “Nothing good can come of this and, under certain, non-far-fetched scenarios, it might end up making the banking system’s problems worse.”

It's almost impossible to believe, but this banking situation is becoming more and more of a farce with each passing day....

Banks in two years: "Thinner, blonder, younger..."

Love it!

Meredith Whitney on Bloomberg answering the stress test question: 'What will banks look like in two years?' Comes at about the 5 minute mark, but the whole interview is well -worth watching:

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?N=av&T=Whitney%20Expects%20Banks%20to%20Return%20to%20%60Negative%20Earnings%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99&clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/v04.7emHef8A.asf

Central bank 'panic' - Eastern Europe to come?

The always important Brad Setser has posted this: The central bank panic of 2008

Much great stuff, as always. Read the whole thing. But I'm most struck by these bits:

With the benefit of hindsight, a strong case can be made that the IMF’s financial response to the Asian crisis was too timid, with the IMF asking for too much adjustment and providing too little financing. Loans from the IMF and World Bank were clearly far too small to offset the swing in private capital flows

And by all indications Eastern Europe is now experiencing a comparable stop in private inflows, and in all likelihood, those large private inflows will turn into large private outflows. But there also now seems to be a greater willingness to use the IMF to provide more financial support than in the past …

"Too timid" might be the epitaph on this mess, alas

Down the Chinese path to ruin

No, not currency manipulation nor militarism nor the subjugation of Tibet

Rather, this:

China Influence Grows With Car Sales
By KEITH BRADSHER 1 minute ago
China, where car sales have recently passed those of the United States, is increasingly poised to take on the role of global trendsetter.

The Times chooses to accentuate greenish cars in this fluff piece, but please. Ecological catastrophe anyone? And aided and abetted by Western countries (Germany, US, UK, Italy) supposedly hip to global warming and environmental disasters....

What the world needs now is Chinese aspiring to Porsches. An earlier, more honest assessment had this take: Porsche Chooses China for Entry Into Sedans

Same reporter (Keith Bradsher). Different editors?

Hockey - DC vs NYC?

In light of all the debate about whether Washington or New York is now the center of the nation's gravity, I'm struck by the differences between the crowds at the NHL playoff series between the Rangers (New York) and the Capitals (DC)

• In DC, the whole crowd dresses entirely in red (the Caps' team color) as if a single organism, or a Chinese Olympic extravaganza.
• In NYC the crowd is in all different kinds of outfits (many still in suits from Manhattan jobs, many others in blue-collar gear, many in Ranger stuff, others in whatever they threw on - or carefully crafted - etc). They dress as individuals.

The visual difference could not possibly be more distinct: A collectivist/group impression from a DC crowd; an individual/eclectic impression from the NYC crowd.

Of course, this means nothing for things economic, but does speak to, in a very small way, what makes NYC the superior city - Still the one place in this country where individials are most free to be such.

Remember - I'm only for pre-privatisation of Citi etc, not outright nationalization! :)

Spanish deflation?

Worrisome, esp as individual EU member states and the ECB are not in internal agreement as to proper macroeconomic fiscal and monetary responses to all the problems Europe faces. If this spreads to other weakened economies - Ireland, UK, Italy, look out:

As Prices Fall, the Specter of Deflation Rises Over Spain

Excerpts, emphases mine:

“Alarm bells are going off,” said Lorenzo Amor, president of the Association of Autonomous Workers, which represents small businesses and self-employed people. “Economies can recover from deceleration, but it’s harder to recover from a deflationary situation. This could be a catastrophe for the Spanish economy.”

Deflation is not just a Spanish concern. Luxembourg, Portugal and Ireland have reported price drops, too. While the declines have been slight — and prices rose modestly after factoring out food and energy prices, which can fluctuate widely — other figures released this month suggest the risk of deflation is growing.

In Germany, wholesale prices dropped 8 percent in March from a year ago, the steepest fall since 1987. In Japan, wholesale prices fell 2.2 percent on an annual basis. In the United States, the Consumer Price Index fell 0.1 percent in March, year over year, the first decline of its kind since 1955, though prices rose 0.2 percent excluding food and energy.

“It doesn’t mean it will spread here to the U.S., but we need to look closely at Spain and other places to understand the dynamic,” says Simon Johnson, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund. “It’s like the front line of a new virus outbreak.”

"Nagging worries" about the banks

That's the word Jack Healy uses to describe the 4.3% sell off in the S&P today (S. & P. Down More Than 4% as Financial Fears Return)

Those concerns were fueled by a few things:

1. The realization that BoA's 'earnings' were mostly due to accounting changes and one-time events, neither of which is sustainable
2. The Goldman accounting gimmickry from last week which was so obvious to all really sunk in over the weekend. Trust in Goldman is shaken, even on Wall St, and folks wonder why the gimmick was buried on page 7 of their earnings report
3. The Obama plan floated in the Times today to convert existing loans to banks to common stock is really just shuffling deck chairs, and does absolutely nothing about underlying insolvencies
4. Ken Lewis being frank for the first time in a while in announcing that credit conditions will get significantly worse
5. The realization that the consumer is really in bad shape, which has been obvious, but which has been overlooked. Housing is not bottoming, retail is hideous, employment will continue to weaken, home equity is gone, savings have been stripped, etc etc....

Thing is, these 'nagging' worries will continue to nag until some form of the inevitable and overdue nationalization takes place, alas.

<>

The only things holding this back are 1. fear of political repercussions (Socialist!) and 2. hope that the economy is improving, and banks will heal as consumers do. But consumers aren't healing, and once the next round of badness blows in in July, august, September, the failure to have taken dramatic action will appear to have been the bigger political (and economic) miscalculation...

"Concern ECB Discord Deepening"

Per Bloomberg: Euro Falls to 1-Month Low on Concern Europe's Economy to Worsen

Euro Falls to One-Month Low on Concern ECB Discord Deepening

April 20 (Bloomberg) -- The euro fell below $1.30 for the first time in a month and weakened versus the yen on speculation disagreement is deepening among European Central Bank policy makers on measures needed to combat the recession.

This story will gain momentum in the coming months...

Goldmansachs666.com

Barry Ritholtz says it best this morning:

Today, I added a new blog to the blog roll for the first time in months.


I urge you to do the same.

Why? Because they were sued by GS for criticizing the firm:

• 
  “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has been called many things over the years. Plenty of people have raged against its power and wealth. If you spend decades as the most successful investment bank, it goes with the territory. Calling it the devil may be going a bit far, though, even for the flinty-hearted employees of the New York-based bank.
  Last month, a blog called Goldmansachs666.com was set up. Goldman Sachs has taken legal action against the site, alleging it infringes a trademark in the phrase “Goldman Sachs.” The owner of the site, investment adviser Mike Morgan of Jensen Beach, Florida, has promised to contest the litigation and pursue similar campaigns against other banks.
  “They might think it is just a Mickey Mouse Web site, but we’re coming after them,” Morgan said in a telephone interview. “It would be really stupid for the banks to try and stop us. But banks do stupid things all the time.”

Let’s review your tax dollars at work: Godlman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson lobbied the SEC to allow the 5 largest iBanks to be exempt from net capital rules, and then leverage up 40 to 1. Which they did, especially with Mortgage-backed paper and derivatives. Then he becomes Treasury Secretary, and transfers from the taxpayers to these same iBanks — some directly, and some thru AIG — trillions of dollars.


Now, the taxpayer subsidized disaster creator is thin skinned about criticism. Note that the trademark claim is bullshit — its well settled law, via WalmartSucks.com. This 2000 case was originally found in favor of Wal-Mart by World Intellectual Property Organization but later reversed. Walmartsucks.com is no longer operating, but a new site, Walmartsucks.org appears to be run by author Kenneth J. Harvey. As another example of the legality of the “–sucks.com” sites, see also, disney-sucks.com.
>

No one seems to ever learn: If you want to close a critical site down, you ignore — you don’t sue them.


Thus, we add Goldmansachs666.com to the blog roll. If you have a blog, I STRONGLY suggest you do the same.

Ireland, Krugman, Depression

Shabby Celtic tigers

I don’t know how I missed this before, but the blog The Irish Economy has just joined my must-read list. It’s not all about Ireland, and anyway Ireland basically is just like us, only more so. Among other things, the blog has hosted a high-quality debate about the pros and cons of nationalization.
Let me also say that Ireland’s recent policy moves — raising taxes and cutting spending in the face of a severe recession, so as to reassure nervous lenders — are an extremely disturbing omen. Iceland was one thing; but now another advanced economy, with a 7-digit population, has hit the limits of anti-recession policy.

Following up, find me a large US state that's not either raising taxes (and/or fees, haha)or cutting spending or both. Depression sets in after ignorant and ambitious politicos get desperate...

Recovery?

It's not often (never?) that you see such a cliff dive. And American 'consumers' (epithet) are not the salvation. Those 50 years are over.