Surprise!!!!......

His Royal Highness, Oba mama is now hobnobbing with the world elite. Trying to figure out how to beg our way into the good graces of European losers.

(Does bowing to kings make our President a loyal minion or simply showing his foreign upbringing? Yes he bowed!)

We conquered their sorry asses back in my dad's day and spent trillions rebuilding them in our image. Then we went ape shit and gave these clowns their political independence and tried keep them under economic control with our dollar.

This plan, however,  started unraveling under Nixon, who fearing a new depression took us off the gold standard and began the long road of inflationary expansion.

Too bad for this plan brown people wearing towels on their head decided to join the 20th century, wasn't it?.

OPEC came into existence to make war on us by restricting the supply of oil. This in turn generated government firing up printing presses  leading to the Jimmy Carter disaster of 14% inflation and interest rates after the Iranians threw out our hand picked dictator.

Ingrates!!

Leading up to unrestrained borrowing and spending because nobody could get elected in this country by constraining spending or raising taxes to maintain a stable currency.

Now the shit is hitting the fan but hopefully this is the big one. If not there won't be anyone left to bail us out next time. One thing we have to worry about is we need to change our ways and build stuff to sell and balance our trade deficits or our middle class disappears.

But not with our luck. It'll come when we can't finance an extra 50 or 60 million people on Social Security and need to borrow a few trillion for Medicare.

Good luck.

We need miracles in a hurry. Maybe Jesus will come and fix it for us?

Yes, this could be the dark ages. Will you and I live long enough to see it? After all boom and bust because of borrowing  and printing of money has always lead to "regime change", war and anarchy. And we can keep it up for a long long while.

Time will tell. (What will Oba mama kiss when He grovels in China).

Read what this guy has to say:

American Thinker: The Obama We Knew But Denied

What if an American President campaigned as a pragmatic centrist, promised tax cuts to 95% of the American people and pledged himself to a new era of government honesty, openness and bipartisanship, but never had any of those intentions? The result might be a cabinet full of tax cheats, political cronies and lobbyists, and a president peddling an overstuffed budget of liberal dream-schemes at a time when the American economy can least afford an extra nickel for folderol or fiddling.

Meanwhile Rome is burning.

President Obama rolls the dice and grabs a can of kerosene.

This president's budget, plus the Faux Stimulus monstrosity, plus the TARP bailouts all add up to the biggest, most irresponsible spending spree in American history. Yet, according to some of the best and brightest economists on the planet, these schemes are built upon overly rosy expectations, will do little to stimulate any economic growth and promise to punitively tax the very people and industries we need to provide investment capital and jobs to actually create the pie from which all these liberal cherries are to be plucked.

They own our sorry asses....

Poor bastards.

We'll murder them and their children if this keeps up. One tenth of one percent of the guns in this country is all it takes. (200 hundred thousand)

Want to take a chance?

I hear CNBC talking heads defending Wall Street welfare queens multi-billion bonuses. Got to keep these people working in these banks.

Why?

Jesse's Café Américain: How the Financial Industry Holds America Captive

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Wall Street welfare queens

Any one doubting that there are two competing gangs in politics...

Read on.

Sheriff Needed, Inquire Within - iTulip.com

Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

By MIKE WHITNEY
The former governor of New York might have some rocky moments in his confirmation hearings, but if Obama really wanted to police Wall St – which of course he doesn’t - he’d replace current SEC chief Mary Schapiro with Eliot Spitzer. Schapiro is another Wall Street toady who believes that the markets can regulate themselves. As the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, she stood by while the financial giants increased their leverage to unsustainable levels and spread their derivatives-contagion to every part of the system.

Schapiro also missed the Madoff scandal, the auction-rate bond fraud, the blow up at Lehman Brothers, and the mortgage meltdown. She was blindsided at every turn. Her dismal performance as a private-sector regulator proves that she's the wrong person for the job. Even the far-right Wall Street Journal has lambasted Schapiro. In an article titled "Obama's pick to head SEC has record of being a Regulator with a Light Touch" the WSJ relayed this revealing anecdote:

The Financial Services Institute, a trade group, was meeting, and Ms. Schapiro addressed the crowd about Finra's efforts to fight frauds aimed at senior citizens. Frank Congemi, a financial adviser, asked what Finra was doing to regulate "packaged products" such as complex mortgage securities. Mr. Congemi says that Ms. Schapiro replied: "We have rating agencies that rate them." The credit-rating agencies, by this time, were being heavily criticized for having given triple-A ratings to mortgage bonds that became unsalable as foreclosures rose.

Mr. Congemi says that at the May 7 meeting he retorted: "What is that going to do to markets and people's trust when these things go to zero?" He says Ms. Schapiro replied that she couldn't answer hypothetical questions. (Wall Street Journal, Obama's pick to head SEC has record of being a Regulator with a Light Touch")

This story sums up Schapiro's do-nothing attitude perfectly. She's doomed to follow in the footsteps of her feckless predecessor, Christopher Cox, who stuck his head in the sand while the five biggest investment banks levered up to 30 to 1 and brought the whole global house of cards crashing to earth. Schapiro will undoubtedly torpedo any effort to police the markets or to bring charges against any of the Wall Street Godfathers.

Take it from an "Insider"...

"Saving" governments form their ruling elite is damn near impossible. Cutting their expenditures, balancing their books and cutting graft are big doses of medicine.

But reform? Yea, right.

The Atlantic Online | May 2009 | The Quiet Coup | Simon Johnson

One thing you learn rather quickly when working at the International Monetary Fund is that no one is ever very happy to see you. Typically, your “clients” come in only after private capital has abandoned them, after regional trading-bloc partners have been unable to throw a strong enough lifeline, after last-ditch attempts to borrow from powerful friends like China or the European Union have fallen through. You’re never at the top of anyone’s dance card.

The reason, of course, is that the IMF specializes in telling its clients what they don’t want to hear. I should know; I pressed painful changes on many foreign officials during my time there as chief economist in 2007 and 2008. And I felt the effects of IMF pressure, at least indirectly, when I worked with governments in Eastern Europe as they struggled after 1989, and with the private sector in Asia and Latin America during the crises of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Over that time, from every vantage point, I saw firsthand the steady flow of officials—from Ukraine, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and elsewhere—trudging to the fund when circumstances were dire and all else had failed.

Every crisis is different, of course. Ukraine faced hyperinflation in 1994; Russia desperately needed help when its short-term-debt rollover scheme exploded in the summer of 1998; the Indonesian rupiah plunged in 1997, nearly leveling the corporate economy; that same year, South Korea’s 30-year economic miracle ground to a halt when foreign banks suddenly refused to extend new credit.

But I must tell you, to IMF officials, all of these crises looked depressingly similar. Each country, of course, needed a loan, but more than that, each needed read more

The geezers are coming.......

And they want their money.

Going to get ugly sooner than later.

Recession Bites Into Social Security’s Surplus: Kevin Hassett - Bloomberg.com

We have all been so busy whining about bonuses at American International Group Inc. and arguing about the so-called card- check legislation that we forgot to watch the Social Security surplus. While we were looking away, that surplus disappeared, eight years ahead of schedule.

Something extraordinarily important was revealed in mid- March and received almost no news coverage. If you typed in the words “Social Security” on Google’s news service last Friday, the top hit was a New York story about a man who kept his dead mother in a freezer ever since she died back in 2007, just so he could continue to collect her benefit checks.

Almost as gruesome is the news about Social Security’s finances. Social Security has for years been the near-term bright spot in the federal budget. Each year the program has raised $50 billion to $100 billion more in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. Sure, deficits were expected far off in the future, but the current program was on sound financial footing.

Those days are, for the moment at least, behind us. According to the latest Congressional Budget Office estimate, the Social Security surplus will be only $3 billion in 2010. That number is almost surely too rosy, and the actual realization next year will be a big deficit. In February, according to data from the Social Security Office of the Actuary, the program paid out more in benefits than it collected in taxes and interest combined. There will be many more months like that before we are through.

All Hail O California.....

WTF.

Californians actually dumped a worthless Grey Davis for "Arnie".

Why?

LewRockwell.com Blog: "Then they came for the black-painted cars..."

Just when you thought it was safe to drive in the People's Republic of California--as long as your car isn't painted black, here's the latest "innovation" for "saving the planet" that is beginning to gain traction (pun intended) in our "most progressive" state: mandatory checking of tire pressure by auto repair shops every time a customer brings his car in for maintenance.

"An issue that briefly brought President Barack Obama ridicule on the campaign trail last year is gaining traction in California, where air regulators are seeking to mandate proper tire inflation as a way to reduce fuel consumption.

The state Air Resources Board on Thursday adopted a resolution requiring auto repair shops to check tire pressure every time drivers bring in their vehicle for maintenance, oil changes and smog tests. The next step is to develop detailed rules to implement the mandate, which will take effect in July 2010.

Do as I say?.....

The elite are not going to be denied. They will make out just fine after the government screws us over to protect the powerful who bribe their way through life.

Any company or person who gets in their way will be knocked down. Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, Newt Gingrich, and Peter Schiff's father, Irvine, just to name a few.

But the biggest target is good old Walmart. This company plays the game too well. giving the customer what it wants and getting local governments to subsidize them to do so. Paying just enough in wages to keep us there and offering practically life time employment.

When is the last time you heard that from a "Union shop?"()Heh heh.

LewRockwell.com Blog: A Sure Bet!

A Sure Bet!
Posted by Butler Shaffer at March 29, 2009 12:59 PM

I am willing to bet that the politicos, academics, and other self-styled "experts" who continue to deride Peter Schiff as a "kook," nonetheless follow his advice in making their own investment decisions. Like the elitists who want to ban gun ownership for ordinary people - while insisting upon it for important persons such as themselves - or who oppose private schools for others - but not for their own children - the institutionalization of the double standard is essential to members of the power structure.

We got our bonus for the last quarter..

Remains to be seen if we get the next one. Sales have fallen about 9 % this month.

At least we are getting the store remodeled. Ready for the huge crowds from bankrupt competitors, I guess.

Walmart still rules as their stock has held up pretty good until Oba mama gives us union rule.

I still expect a so so summer at the store as unemployment catches up with Northern Idaho. So far 7.5% hasn't had a big effect (FROM ABOUT 4% 2 years ago) but you never know because we are in uncharted waters.

My crew is now down to 4 full time from 7. Until sales pick up I don't expect any new hires to fill the vacancies.

The guys we have are the best I have had here in the 18 months I've been here and we are getting it done.

As for the local economy, when stimulus money finally gets here it won't mount too much because we have very little infrastructures to build or repair.

Other than that, the real estate market has fallen off about 10 % from very low levels anywhere else in the West but with unemployment this high and a lousy "affordability index". (25 % of your monthly income equals your house payment) I don't expect much improvement.

This by the way, as I have been blogging will be a big piece of getting us out of this mess. You can't have millions of people "gambling" with the roof over their heads.

Until sanity returns and banks clear their books of corrupt loans we can expect a rerun in Real Estate as every one "needs" a house. Especially if the taxpayers give them one (heh heh)

History is made.......

I'm agreeing with "The Rolling Stone."

Our political leaders have been bought. They only pay attention when absolutely facing having to find a real job. Very seldom do we get a chance to pay that attention to them because they are so beholden to big media.

Why else go on those T.V. shows and blather about their great policies and plans.

All aimed at taking your money and giving to people whom they think are worthy.

How much did they give to you?

Try this solution to get us out of this mess:

Round up the bad guys and jail them. Before they get killed.(Heh heh)

The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

We are broke.....

When we get back to even we will begin to buy, invest and create jobs. Broke is a temporary position. Except for those of us who will be retiring in the next few years.

Millions of us!

The big bust is yet to come. We will have plenty of printing press money soon. Jobs will be given out to anyone who shows up and clocks in.

All government created and paid for, mostly.

Expect gas to hit 7 or 10 bucks in the next year or so barring a complete collapse of OPEC.

Which could happen.

Then the sky's the limit.

Tax revenues will boom as we get hit with big tax hikes to pay the government bonds to the Chinese. We have to pay no matter what or it's curtains. They will insist or Wall Street tycoons will have to jump out the windows. (dream on!)

History tells us that financial collapse occurs in fiat money systems when the economy runs out of borrowers and everyone stops spending and saves for  future spending. (Why else would we save?)

Remember when  gas prices went through the roof and too many broke dicks went bust. So broke they couldn't buy gas and eat at the same time.

Let alone pay 50 % of their take home pay on crappy little house 30 miles from work.

Those guys have been wiped out. Time for another round of boom and bust until we run out of suckers again.

Yes we will!

P.S You'll need a government job or your company needs a government guarantee to survive or as I'm doing, open a small and discrete side business. Cuts down on taxes until I get my SS check.

Then I disappear from the radar. (Heh heh)

Geithner's Five Big Misconceptions

The trouble with the economy is that the banks aren't lending. The reality: The economy is in trouble because American consumers and businesses took on way too much debt and are now collapsing under the weight of it. As consumers retrench, companies that sell to them are retrenching, thus exacerbating the problem. The banks, meanwhile, are lending. They just aren't lending as much as they used to. Also the shadow banking system (securitization markets), which actually provided more funding to the economy than the banks, has collapsed.

The banks aren't lending because their balance sheets are loaded with "bad assets" that the market has temporarily mispriced. The reality: The banks aren't lending (much) because they have decided to stop making loans to people and companies who can't pay them back. And because the banks are scared that future writedowns on their old loans will lead to future losses that will wipe out their equity.

Bad assets are "bad" because the mark

freeman Dyson says "Global Warming" is a religeous belief.....

One of the premier scientist talking here. Long article but he calls Al Gore an "opportunist"and will do anything to promote "environmentalism".

His critics will say that he's over 80 and senile. Long dead before the polar bears disappear and New Yorkers have to boat to work.

Pretty sharp criticism from people who never have to worry about a job. Food. Or doing something useful for a living.

That's usually why leftists enter politics, entertainment and academia.

Beats working for a living, right? 

Magazine Preview - The Civil Heretic - Freeman Dyson - Profile - NYTimes.com

Dyson says it’s only principle that leads him to question global warming: “According to the global-warming people, I say what I say because I’m paid by the oil industry. Of course I’m not, but that’s part of their rhetoric. If you doubt it, you’re a bad person, a tool of the oil or coal industry.” Global warming, he added, “has become a party line.”

What may trouble Dyson most about climate change are the experts. Experts are, he thinks, too often crippled by the conventional wisdom they create, leading to the belief that “they know it all.” The men he most admires tend to be what he calls “amateurs,” inventive spirits of uncredentialed brilliance like Bernhard Schmidt, an eccentric one-armed alcoholic telescope-lens designer; Milton Humason, a janitor at Mount Wilson Observatory in California whose native scientific aptitude was such that he was promoted to staff astronomer; and especially Darwin, who, Dyson says, “was really an amateur and beat the professionals at their own game.” It’s a point of pride with Dyson that in 1951 he became a member of the physics faculty at Cornell and then, two years later, moved on to the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became an influential man, a pragmatist providing solutions to the military and Congress, and also the 2000 winner of the $1 million Templeton Prize for broadening the understanding of science and religion, an award previously given to Mother Teresa and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — all without ever earning a Ph.D. Dyson may, in fact, be the ultimate outsider-insider, “the world’s most civil heretic,” as the classical composer Paul Moravec, the artistic consultant at the institute, says of him.

It's a conspiracy to disagree with Oba mama.....

Contracts to commit fraud are illegal. Threaten to punish the "Bonus" recipients and get the money back.

All this belly aching is silly. Close these up and start over.

Not politically correct and can't be done.

All these guys are in on the scam. Are we surprised?

Glenn Beck - Interviews - Glenn Beck - Another sign you are in a militia: Congressman Paul

RON PAUL: What it is is they're worthless. You know, they claim that there's no market for them. Well, there is no market because they're worthless. They are finding victims and we're the victims. The taxpayers are the victims. They can't sell them because they have no value and they should allow them to be eliminated. They have to be liquidated. But this whole idea that they have to be bought up is preposterous. That's why they wouldn't -- this thing could be practically over if they just allow these companies to go into bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court would have handled this, we wouldn't have had to appropriate any money, we wouldn't have had to mess with regulating salaries. That whole thing could have been stopped just by following the law which should have been bankruptcy court.

Fascism is a thought process....

It becomes "normal".

Government and big business climb in bed together and take turns in power. These people live together, marry each other and their children go to the same schools together. They read the same newspapers, books, and watch the same type of movies.

They hire people to run for office that will protect their interests and then get people"appointed " to the same government offices that regulate these same interests.

The most famous lately are Paulson and Geithner. These guys got us into much of this mess and now they'll take turns protecting their private employers, Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve, who brought us to the brink of ruin.

But what really is interesting is when governments are so afraid of us that they have to "regulate" the "color" of our guns. (heh heh).

No, really!

Read on:

Liberty For All

BELLEVUE, WA - The Second Amendment Foundation and three Washington, D.C. residents today filed a lawsuit challenging a regulation by District of Columbia city government that arbitrarily bans handguns based on a roster of “acceptable” handguns approved by the State of California.

The District is using this list despite a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last summer that protects handguns “that ordinary people traditionally use for self-defense.” This scheme could eventually bar the ownership of any new handguns.

Attorney Alan Gura, representing the plaintiffs in this case, noted that District bureaucrats “told Tracy Ambeau Hanson her gun was the wrong color.” Americans are not limited to a government list of approved books, or approved religions, he said. A handgun protected by the Second Amendment doesn’t need to appear on any government-approved list either.

“The Springfield XD-45 is approved for sale in Washington,” Gura noted, “so long as it is black, green, or brown, but her bi-tone version is supposedly ‘unsafe’

Walmart on a tear.....

Sales were better than expected so we got a 115$ bonus. Remains to be seen if we get another. Sales off this month a little.

Not sure what effects the bailouts will have on us. Still think they put off the inevitable (temporary) collapse of the economy.

With trillion dollar deficits consumer spending should be at least relatively stable until inflation explodes.

Unfortunately for Oba mama the construction spending is pretty much not coming until next Spring.

Hope it's not to late for the politicians to save their asses. (heh heh)

Not !

As long as we keep these people in charge the longer the mess continues because they will spend the rest of their lives trying to save their sorry asses.

With our money, of course.

Only in Washington.......

being a borrower and lender at the same time is what all banks do.

When you subsidize crime guess what you get? Why would anyone borrow to invest in future  profits (maybe) when you can get a guaranteed return form the government?

Why can't we get in on these scams?

The Madness of Barack Obama: Why Free Money Is Destroying America

Right now, the Federal Home Loan Bank will lend money to community banks for 10 years for around 200 basis points (2%) less than you can earn holding a matching duration Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac note. Thus, smart entrepreneurs are now borrowing money from Obama and then lending it back to him, risk free, all while earning 2% on the spread. (This, by the way, is almost exactly what mortgage REIT Annaly does.) Considering where interest rates are and the low cost of acquiring FDIC insurance, it's hard to imagine why anyone would buy any other credit.

calling Al Gore.....

You better get in on this scam now or miss out.

Don't worry Oba mama will stick it to us.

Yes he will!

American Thinker: The Clear and Cohesive Message of the International Conference on Climate Change

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” -- from the Oregon Petition, signed by over 31,000 scientists

United by that conviction, over 800 scientists, economists, and policy makers arrived in New York City last Sunday to attend the Heartland Institute’s 2nd Annual International Conference on Climate Change. They came to talk a wide range of subjects, from climatology to energy policy, from computer climate models to cap-and-trade, from greenhouse gas (GHG) effects to solar irradiation. But most of all they came to help spread the word that the answer to the question posed by this year’s theme -- Global warming: Was it ever really a crisis? -- is a resounding NO.

I'm ready........

Are you?

Really?

Taki's Magazine: The House Poor

Toss the too-big-to-fail baloney, says Woods, and let insolvent, inefficient, bloated giants fail, because the free market will take the best of what’s left and make good use of it without having to poach the taxpayers’ pockets for Friday night beer money. As to Fannie and Freddie, say goodbye, and as to all government bailouts of private institutions, good riddance. “Problems caused by excessive spending and indebtedness,” says Woods, “cannot be cured by more spending and more indebtedness, any more than the cure for excessive lending is more excessive lending.”

Finally, since “money is the most socialized sector in the American economy,” it must be liberated. We don’t need yet another layer of government dedicated to monetary oversight, as Ben Bernanke has argued for in the past few days; we need a separation of money and state. And such a thing is only possible if the central bank again becomes a subject of public debate (as it once was.)

Just because Oba mama's family were....

Doesn't mean He is. I think most of these guys in politics are fascist myself. (Basically, Fascist believe that government should control everything in your life for the good of the country.)

But what does a real socialist think:

Obama's No Socialist. I Should Know. - washingtonpost.com

It took a massive global financial crisis, a failed military adventure and a popular repudiation of the Republican Party to make my national television debut possible. After 15 years of socialist political organizing -- everything from licking envelopes and handing out leaflets to the more romantic task of speaking at street demonstrations -- I found myself in the midtown Manhattan studio of the Fox Business Network on a cold February evening. Who ever thought that being the editor of the Socialist magazine, circulation 3,000, would launch me on a cable news career?

Government is the problem.....

With a withering away of the middle class I figure the Empire will finally have to retrench and come back to the states.

Remember, it's the middle class who make it possible for the governments to maintain this whole house of cards.

I wonder if Reagan read Rothbard?

Sobran's --- The Reluctant Anarchist

Murray’s view of politics was shockingly blunt: the state was nothing but a criminal gang writ large. Much as I agreed with him in general, and fascinating though I found his arguments, I resisted this conclusion. I still wanted to believe in constitutional government.

Murray would have none of this. He insisted that the Philadelphia convention at which the Constitution had been drafted was nothing but a “coup d’etat,” centralizing power and destroying the far more tolerable arrangements of the Articles of Confederation. This was a direct denial of everything I’d been taught. I’d never heard anyone suggest that the Articles had been preferable to the Constitution! But Murray didn’t care what anyone thought — or what everyone thought. (He’d been too radical for Ayn Rand.)

Repeat after me.....

Welfare for the rich is good. Welfare for the rich is good.

Welfare for .... Ah fuck it!

Citi's Pandit hits paydirt - Mar. 16, 2009

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Citigroup, which has received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid, disclosed Monday that CEO Vikram Pandit received 2008 compensation valued at $10.8 million.

The bank also announced changes to its board and nominated four new independent directors, including former U.S. Bancorp (USB, Fortune 500) chief Jerry Grundhofer.

New York-based Citi, like many other banks that have received taxpayer funding, has come under fire for its spending on executive compensation and other perks.

But since Citi (C, Fortune 500) took its first round of exceptional federal aid last November, the bank has been trying to show it's being more responsible. Pandit said late last year he plans to take just $1 a year in salary until the bank returns to profitability.

Our gang is just getting warmed up....

Our government is comprised of competing gangs battling over the stolen loot. As I have been saying for years now this mess will eventually crash around our ears as no "change " is possible.

Now I believe it would be best if we let it. Not one vote until there is nothing left of the ruling elite. I will be here in Idaho watching the blood fly as the gimme gimme crowd claws itself to pieces.

What's interesting is this is just the beginning.

Crash and boom are guaranteed by government fiscal action. Print and borrow until we run out of suckers.

A few years from now we start the cycle over and crash even harder. Inflation is guaranteed to wipe out all these unpayable debts destroying the middle class.

My generation remembers 10 cent Cokes and 25 cent packs of cigarettes, 5 cent Hershey bars and don't forget 28 cent a gallon gas.

How about I bought a duplex for 10 grand. Payments were 125 a month. Guess how much the rents were for.

In 1972 we were wealthy. What happened to the working class?

Inflation!


Wait until 2012.

Groupthink :: View topic - Contradictions of Socialism (I saw the future & ran away)

If one were accidentally to open his eyes and compare the "progressive" narrative with facts on the ground, one might start asking questions. Why, for instance, if the war on terror breeds more terrorists, haven't there been attacks on the U.S. soil since 2001? Why, if George W. Bush had removed our freedom of speech, was nobody ever arrested for saying anything? And if Obama has returned us our freedoms, why was a man harassed by police in Oklahoma for having an anti-Obama sign in his car? Why would anyone who supports free speech want to silence talk radio? And why is silencing the opposition called the "Fairness Doctrine"?

After the number of "caring," bleeding-heart politicians in Washington reached a critical mass, it was only a matter of time before the government started ordering banks to help the poor by giving them risky home loans through community organizers. Which resulted in a bigger demand, which resulted in rising prices, which resulted in slimmer chances of repaying the loans, which resulted in more pressure on the banks, which resulted in repackaging of bad loans, which resulted in a collapse of the banks, which resulted in a recession, which resulted in many borrowers losing their jobs, which resulted in no further mortgage payments, which resulted in a financial disaster, which resulted in a worldwide crisis, with billions of poor people overseas - who had never seen a community organizer, nor applied for a bad loan - becoming even poorer than they had been before the "progressives" in the U.S. government decided to help the poor.

Citigroup reports 2 billion profit......

We're saved!!!

Wait a minute. Didn't we just give these clowns 30 billion? They only profited 2 billion?

Hmmm.... You know, if I was given 30 billion, I would just close the doors and tell the government to pound sand.

Take him 10 years or so to figure out what happened. Especially when I buy a  dozen congressmen for a million or so a piece.

Hell, maybe a hundred years.

Might even run (buy) for office myself. Hire the whole family. Hire a lot of families.

In the mean time, for us little guys here's the important information.

Trucks.

Notice the price of diesel has fallen about even with gas?

Trucking disappears and we die! Even the gangs in Washington!


Wall Street Journal

Con-way Inc. (CNW) Chief Executive Doug Stotlar voiced some optimism Tuesday that a persistent slide in freight volumes could be stemming, citing a seasonal uptick so far in March.

"We hope that we're at the bottom," Stotlar said, speaking at a Raymond James conference in Orlando, Fla.

Con-way's stature as a top trucking and logistics company gives it a bird's-eye perch to "see the uptick before it's being ...

our King is serious.......

It appears that the President can "veto" parts of a spending appropriation by ignoring it.

O.k. How about Congress sending bills to an executive agency for approval? Sound like Emperor "prerogative" to me.

Congress must kow tow to Obamama!

Why not disband these assholes and have the Emperor run thing.

With the Supreme Court' permission, of course. (appointed by the president)

Read the whole piece and see what you think:

Obama Outlines Plan to Curb Earmarks - WSJ.com

House Democratic leaders and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey agreed with Mr. Obama's proposed new rules and said any requested earmarks also should be submitted to the appropriate executive-branch agency for a 20-day review of the project to ensure its legality and worth.

But the proposals immediately met with skepticism from spending watchdogs and outright opposition in the Senate. Senate aides said Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) saw the proposals -- especially the mandatory executive review -- as too restrictive.

Some people agreeing with me .......

Are scary.

However, he forgets the trillions my generation will add to the deficit. 

Medical alone destroys our children. In order to pay Patti and I $1800 a month would take half my son's income.

My daughters would have to pay her uncles. As for medical?

His theses is that deficits worldwide will grow and be untenable under projections for the foreseeable future.

He's an optimist.

You can see why I believe no oil producing country is safe. We need immigration and a lot of energy to support all these voters. We need to reinflate the bubble to save those sorry assed shit heads in Washington.

Or continue begging China for our money back.

Read the whole article:

oftwominds

2. Global savings are not infinite. The U.S. comprises about a quarter of the global economy as measured by GDP; by at least some measures, for the U.S. Treasury to borrow $2 trillion a year then a significant percentage of total global savings must be diverted to Treasuries.

Recall that virtually every other government on the planet is also busy selling trillions of dollars of their own debt to fund their own deficit spending, and that private debt for new mortgages, corporate debt, etc. sucks up additional funds. It's not hard to foresee a point at which newly issued debt exceeds the available savings/surplus capital.

A cup of coffee at McDonalds is a better buy...

At least Obamama saved the abortion mills today by executive order.

But as for the auto industry?

Good luck!

What's more the housing bust has reached New York. Get ready for "radical action".

Heh heh.

For those of us with jobs and credit the world will be ours. Until the geezer Tsunami of retirement hits.

Boom!!!!

A Crash Course in the World Credit Markets

03/06/09 “Substantial doubt,” say auditors at Deloitte & Touche. They’ve been studying GMs figures. The numbers make them wonder whether the automaker can continue as a “going concern.”

Here at The Daily Reckoning, we’ve got substantial doubt about a number of things.

As to GM, we share the auditors’ concern. The world is full of car factories. Most of them can make cars better, faster, and cheaper than GM. Meanwhile, demand for autos is not growing as quickly as the global growth in auto-making capacity – especially in America. Not that we’re trying to pass judgment. Let the Mr. Market do that!

But GM has friends in high places…ready to lean on the scales of Mr. Market’s justice. The automaker has already borrowed $13.4 billion.

Soak the rich?.....

Soak Hell! Take all their money so we can quit bitching about it.

Oops. Didn't make a bit of difference? We're even more fucked!!

Duh!!!!

The Downfall of the American Consumer by Bill Bonner

Who pays?

Ah…that’s an interesting subject in itself. Obama says he’s going to soak the rich. But the rich are already pretty well marinated. Reagan’s tax cuts freed them to earn more money – and pay more taxes. Now, the top 5% pays 60% of the costs of government. The bottom 40% pay no taxes at all. They get all government “services”…which is to say their boondoggles…for free.

Civil War?.....

Na!

These clowns can't survive without Fed bail out funds.

Simply close the doors and go home would be their only chance of avoiding kissing Washington's ass.

Of course, Obamama could simply order the national Guard to round up the legislatures. Heh heh.

Remember Ob is a gangster form Chicago. What does he know?

Five More States Invoke the 10th - HUMAN EVENTS

Last week, HUMAN EVENTS reported that eleven states, Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, had all “all introduced bills and resolutions” declaring their sovereignty over Obama’s actions in light of the 10th Amendment.

These actions are in response to the Obama administration’s faux-“stimulus” legislation which directly assaults the rights of states to reject the money coming from the federal government. So far, several Republican governors -- among them South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal -- have said they would refuse all or part of the stimulus money because of the constitutional infringements and because of the additional unfunded liabilities they impose on the states.

This week, HUMAN EVENTS is happy to report that five more states have decided to invoke the 10th as well.

True test in California......

Prop 8 changes (amends) the state constitution. Gay marriages illegal. It's now before the Supreme Court of california.

Why?

What part of constitutional amendments are unconstitutional?

Only under tyrannies.

Soon this will be mute because Californians will be moving out by the millions, as I and my son have done.

Nothing left but left wing fascist and broke dicks.

Even mexican gangs won't be able to make a buck. Heh heh.

Amen.......

It's all a scam to get us to support the leeches who own us.

The American Tradesmen: Weary Cogs in the Engine of the American Empire by Mark R. Crovelli

On the domestic scene, the tradesman is forced to bear equally onerous burdens in order to support the empire. The empire’s domestic tentacles have wriggled and forced their way into every nook and cranny of the American economy. In order for the tradesman to make a living for himself he must bow down, ask permission, or hide from the legions of bureaucrat-regulators and policemen that claim the right to tell him what is permissible and impermissible in this so-called "free market" economy. He cannot even hang sheetrock without first gaining permission to operate as a contractor from fat bureaucrats he has never met, filling out reams of paperwork to take care of the taxes and permits required by the empire’s local henchmen, and then having his work "inspected" by someone who claims to know his trade better than he does. If he is fortunate enough to jump every hurdle correctly, he will be rewarded with what the federal government calls the "self-employment tax," robbing him of a massive portion of the fruits of his labor.

I voted for this guy.....

He was right on about "free trade". The whole thing about our government is to keep the "oligarchs" in power. That's what "bailouts" mean.

In order to do "good" for the world they need us to consume, consume, consume until we croak.

In their fantasies, of course.

Unfortunately for them we are running out of taxpayers. Giving everyone a check means less reason to work hard. Less work less tax. Before you know it "why work" becomes the norm. Hey ain't being a Democrat wonderful?

Of course, now foreign lenders require that we reduce deficits. with every American on the dole!

They should live so long!

Read on:

Pitchfork Time - HUMAN EVENTS

Patrick J. Buchanan
Pitchfork Time
by Patrick J. Buchanan
03/03/2009


In his campaign and inaugural address, Barack Obama cast himself as a moderate man seeking common ground with conservatives.

Yet, his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the Right.

The real Obama has stood up, and lived up to his ranking as the most left-wing member of the United States Senate.

Barack has no mandate for this. He was even behind McCain when the decisive event that gave him the presidency occurred -- the September collapse of Lehman Brothers and the market crash.

Republicans are under no obligation to render bipartisan support to this statist coup d'etat. For what is going down is a leftist power grab that is anathema to their principles and philosophy.

Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21 percent of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28 percent in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7 percent of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II.

Add that 28 percent of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12 percent spent by states, counties and cities, and government will consume 40 percent of the economy in 2009.

We are not "headed down the road to socialism." We are there.

Since the budget was released, word has come that the U.S. economy did not shrink by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, but 6.2 percent. All the assumptions in Obama's budget about growth in 2009 and 2010 need to be revised downward, and the deficits revised upward.

Look for the deficit for 2009 to cross $2 trillion.

Who abroad is going to lend us the trillions to finance our deficits without demanding higher interest rates on the U.S. bonds they are being asked to hold? And if we must revert to the printing press to create the money, what happens to the dollar?

As Americans save only a pittance and have lost -- in the value of homes, stocks, bonds and other assets -- $15 trillion to $20 trillion since 2007, how can the people provide the feds with the needed money?

In his speech to Congress, Obama promised new investments in energy, education and health care. Every kid is going to get a college degree. We're going to find a cure for cancer.

Who is going to pay for all this?

The top 2 percent, the filthy rich who got all those Bush tax breaks, say Democrats. But the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing.

Those paying a federal tax rate of 35 percent will see it rise to near 40 percent and will lose a fifth of the value of their deductions for taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

Yet, two-thirds of small businesses are taxed at the same rate as individuals. Consider what this means to the owner of a restaurant and bar in Los Angeles open from noon to midnight, where a husband and wife each put in 80 hours a week.

At year's end, the couple finds they have actually made a profit of $500,000 that they can take home in salary.

What is the Obama-Schwarzenegger tax take on that salary?

Their U.S. tax rate will have hit 39.6 percent.

Their California income tax will have hit 9.55 percent.

Medicare payroll taxes on the proprietor as both employer and salaried employee will be $14,500. Social Security payroll taxes for the proprietor as both employer and employee will be $13,243.

In short, U.S. and state income and payroll taxes will consume half of all the pair earned for some 8,000 hours of work.

From that ravaged salary they must pay a state sales tax of 8.25 percent, gas taxes for the 50-mile commute, and tens of thousands in property taxes on both their restaurant and home. And, after being pilloried by politicians for having feasted in the Bush era, they are now told the tax deduction they get for contributing to the church is to be cut 20 percent, while millions of Obama voters, who paid no U.S. income tax at all, will be getting a tax cut -- i.e., a fat little check -- in April.

Any wonder native-born Californians are fleeing the Golden Land?

Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a "lead indicator" of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying?

Having fallen every month since Obama's election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the republic.

The president says he is gearing up for a fight on his budget.

Good. Let's give him one.

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

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Here are a few of the comments submitted by our readers. Click to view all
Report Abusive PostPat Barak won an election.
Barak is Mr Prez to you.
Barak can run America any way Mr Prez wants to.

I believe Barak will make America strong again

PS I was not a Obama voter, I went Mrs. Clinton
Mar 03, 2009 @ 03:32 AM
Jim Taylor, TN
Report Abusive PostPat

What can I say but BINGO. Short, sweet and on point. It is sad that more Americans have been successfully dumbed down to not realize or even sense this was coming. The concern about Obamas socalled innocent associations, upbringing, voting record, hidden school records and talking points were but down as being racist, but the public, which has little to no survivor instincts remaining walked right into the trap. The historic president is on a mission to be the the Messiah along with the DC power crazed unhwholly alliance of socialist/fascist in the congress and the cowards in business who think they will be immune down the road...

No Representation in USA Our Country Is Under Attack
Mar 03, 2009 @ 03:40 AM
afuel, NorCal
Report Abusive PostYou say,
but the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing.

Mr Buckannon you seem to not like poor people. Top 5%? You are only for big money capitalist investors. People ruining America!
Mar 03, 2009 @ 03:42 AM
Curt Wetzel, Missouri
Report Abusive PostI am one of those lucky Californians. I am allegedly 'rich' because I retired as a Police Captain, and have taken a job as a deputy sheriff. Its great to be rich... Its also great to receive a state tax IOU because they have no money (so they keep ours) but cut virtually nothing. Start cutting not by cutting jobs, cut organizations like CARB-a group who has ruined our economy and done NOTHING to help the state. Cutting CARBS--a great idea for a California Diet.

www.conservativemusiconline.com
Mar 03, 2009 @ 03:56 AM
Lance Morrison, CA
Report Abusive PostTricky tricky Pat wrote "Who is going to pay for all this? ... The top 2 percent, the filthy rich who got all those Bush tax breaks, say Democrats. But the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing."

The key word is "income" in the phrase "income taxes". The high-enders got lots of breaks under GWB on other taxes besides the income tax. Time to roll those back.

Pat is a speechwriter, not a serious policy idea-person. Everything he says is based on debater's tricks, just like the Neocons he despises so.

Governor Elliot Spitzer resigned for hiring prostitutes, but David Vitter is still Senator from Louisiana. At least the Governor didn't make 'em play diaper games! Stormy Daniels for US Senate in 2010!
Mar 03, 2009 @ 04:17 AM
SoMG, Long time Pat-watcher
Report Abusive PostClever californians go for australia. Free marked oriented government, sun, beach, ...
Mar 03, 2009 @ 05:49 AM
John Galt, anywhere
Report Abusive PostPat, the country who works hard, pays their taxes and was saving for a rainy day have their umbrellas up!
We knew this was coming, we tried to tell you. thanks for standing up and telling the truth. The emperor has no clothes!
Mar 03, 2009 @ 05:53 AM
TennesseeVolunteer, memphis, tn
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The GOP acted like "cheap" Democrats......

The Repubs deserve to lose for that. Spending money like it grows on trees, borrowing money from future generations, attacking oil producing countries for no good reason (at least we could have confiscated the oil).

What were they thinking?

And where was Rush Limbaugh when Bush ran amuck and buried Reaganism?

As for the Dems, at least they bribe some of us once in awhile! If your going to ruin the country at least give me a bail out.

That's all it amounts to. Bankrupt everyone so we can pick up the pieces and start over.

Of course we have to start over without Dems and Repubs.

They got to go!!

LewRockwell.com Blog: Why the GOP is irrelevant and clueless

The GOP still thinks that the key to success lies in trashing immigrants, starting more wars, and kissing the backsides of crazed evangelical Christians. The small government agenda is a convenient ploy, but I've never seen the slightest evidence that anyone in the party actually believes that small government is a good thing. If they did think so, they'd have slashed spending and blocked all deficit spending back when they controlled the entire federal government for 6 years. So, in 2010 look for a lot of rhetoric about how them Messicans are stealing your jobs and how brown skinned foreigners are coming to get you. And bailouts are good! Just not Obama's bailouts.

As I have been writing....

We need a "Jubilee". A debt moratorium, if you will. It used to be the norm in most of the world that when everyone is broke you bankrupt the financiers and start over. Unfortunately most "financiers" in the past were Jews. That wasn't good for them. To many scrimped and saved for generations and lent their money for profit only to get robbed and murdered.

The difference we have now days is for the taxpayers to guarantee the loss. Not all at once of course, but you have to bankrupt the stockholders and the greedsters and make whole the system. Credit Unions  and savings bank that can only lend to a local customer is the key. Not global straddling behemoths.

Do it yesterday as time is not on our side.


How about some more Washington insider insight.

Six Minutes with the Renegade Economist - Michael Hudson Special...

Guy has it in a nut shell.......

We don't have evil geniuses running the show.
 
We have greedy Fascist manipulating our money. In order to get richer they buy enough of the media and our politicians to accumulate power and luxuries.

Running our lives is not much on their agenda, however. Taking care of their own is. If destroying everything we believe in is what it take, then that's what will happen.

But what can we do?

it seems most  politicians we have has to play ball or be out of office. There is always someone in love with power to take their place. Rhetoric means squat. Party? Yea right. Elections? Make me laugh.

At times it appears that they are all powerful but they can't keep up with the ever  ending cycle of greed begetting greed creating more greed. Eventually there is nothing else left.

Waste and fraud permeates their every corner as you can't rob everybody to pay everybody because over time somebody has to lose. Finally we are all caught up in it until we run out of new players.

When you play Empire this happens every time it's been tried:

       ClubOrlov: Social Collapse Best Practices

First: growth, of course! Getting the economy going. We learned nothing from the last huge spike in commodity prices, so let’s just try it again. That calls for economic stimulus, a.k.a. printing money. Let’s see how high the prices go up this time. Maybe this time around we will achieve hyperinflation. Second: Stabilizing financial institutions: getting banks lending – that’s important too. You see, we are just not in enough debt yet, that’s our problem. We need more debt, and quickly! Third: jobs! We need to create jobs. Low-wage jobs, of course, to replace all the high-wage manufacturing jobs we’ve been shedding for decades now, and replacing them with low-wage service sector jobs, mainly ones without any job security or benefits. Right now, a lot of people could slow down the rate at which they are sinking further into debt if they quit their jobs. That is, their job is a net loss for them as individuals as well as for the economy as a whole. But, of course, we need much more of that, and quickly!

So that’s what we have now. The ship is on the rocks, water is rising, and the captain is shouting “Full steam ahead! We are sailing to Afghanistan!” Do you listen to Ahab up on the bridge, or do you desert your post in the engine room and go help deploy the lifeboats? If you thought that the previous episode of uncontrolled debt expansion, globalized Ponzi schemes, and economic hollowing-out was silly, then I predict that you will find this next episode of feckless grasping at macroeconomic straws even sillier.

The plot thickens....

More people will believe  that Obamama is the top evil genius. He came at the right time. (The Repubs can't lie half as good. After all He da man!)

Even in the midst of a disaster!

Hell the conspiracy nuts are ecstatic. Like a stopped clock they are correct periodically because they believe this economy can be "controlled" and once in awhile it looks that way.

Don't tell them that if our world  could be controlled by these evil geniuses  we would all join up!!!

Where do I sign? I'm tired of being a peon. I'll obey the secret code and use the sneaky handshake. I'll even vote for the "correct " candidate. (OK I promise  to vote as many times as needed for all the candidates. Hell any candidate. )

But what's in it for me, huh? Power, wealth, pussy (OOPs) Toyota pickups, free cable and don't forget the clean underwear every Friday.

I'll even wear a tin hat, TRUST ME.

Want to get them stirred up?

Remind them that the last time we had a Depression Roosevelt ran and won 3 terms. He'd still be president if he hadn't croaked.

How many terms will "they" give Oba mama, hmm?

OK your HIGHNESS, I'm ready,  beam me up.

No TARP Can Mend the Economy Now - The International Forecaster

We still believe the economy can be held afloat in spite of its condition for another two years despite the increase in deflation. We still don’t see the elements of collapse, but it is on the way. Be patient, it will arrive and you won’t like it. The elements that brought about this horrible situation are starting to be recognized as the culprits and for the criminals that they are. If we were they we’d quickly go into hiding because we do not give five cents for their chance of survival. Over the next two years the impact of events will be staggering. Wall Street and banking will get their comeuppance from the public, who don’t really understand how really corrupt and deadly they are. The public is not trained to and can never understand how evil and diabolical these people are. They are willing to take down the entire world economic and financial system to bring about their satanic dreams of world government. The average decent mind cannot conceive of something so evil. These are the people who deliberately wrecked our economy via free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. America cannot ever recover unless tariffs on goods and services are imposed. The plug has already been pulled on manufacturing. Next is consumer consumption, the next three to four years in housing, then Wall Street, banking and insurance.

The collapse we see in the distance will bring about social dislocation and Martial law. The Illuminists know this and are laying the preparations now to subdue the people. The question is will our military shoot their own fellow citizens? We believe 90% will not. That 10% that attempt to will be killed by their own troops. That is why at this point we believe we can work with the American military. We expect revolutions worldwide, so we do not expect many foreign troops to interfere. Let’s say Argentina sends 30,000 troops to the US, what a perfect time and opportunity for revolution. The entire world is going to be in a terrible state of affairs.

Guy has it in a nut shell.......

What I learned from playing all this poker....

You have to know when to fold them.

And never chase good money with bad.

This crash ends when all the bad loans are flushed out of the system. Fold the "underwater" loans. Forgiving you trespassers
is not hot air but necessary to save our ass.

Why chase good money with bad? Picking on fools may satisfy our outrage for a while but it doesn't rebuild a shattered world economy.

Do you seriously want to solve the credit problem? Kill the all the "national" banks. Shut them down. Close them and start some new ones. No mercy.

Do it yesterday.

Reset everyone's credit to 640 so the suckers can start over. (My call for complete debt moratorium is coming, one way or the other,yes it is.)

Set credit  lending top limits at %10. Yes that old Bible thumping limit. It has worked for thousands of years.I remember it was the law in upstate N.Y. when we were kids. Foreclosures were rare (I never heard of one) and only used when necessary. Credit card rip off Ponzi schemes were virtually impossible.

Outlaw second mortgages! What are we waiting for? Texas had this as law forever, then they went nuts.

Can you hear me now?

What the fuck were banks thinking, let alone any half wit, that using the roof over your head to fund Disney land trips and shopping sprees was good for your economic health.

Stay away from banks.

Join a credit union and save a few bucks every payday. Borrow small and often, pay it back on time and you'll be able to buy any thing you can afford. Even if your credit is shaky.

As long as you pay it back.

Oh yeah, kill the lawyers!

(At least this keeps them out of government.)

Anyways the following is from a Russian emigre who watched Russia implode:

ClubOrlov: Social Collapse Best Practices

First: growth, of course! Getting the economy going. We learned nothing from the last huge spike in commodity prices, so let’s just try it again. That calls for economic stimulus, a.k.a. printing money. Let’s see how high the prices go up this time. Maybe this time around we will achieve hyperinflation. Second: Stabilizing financial institutions: getting banks lending – that’s important too. You see, we are just not in enough debt yet, that’s our problem. We need more debt, and quickly! Third: jobs! We need to create jobs. Low-wage jobs, of course, to replace all the high-wage manufacturing jobs we’ve been shedding for decades now, and replacing them with low-wage service sector jobs, mainly ones without any job security or benefits. Right now, a lot of people could slow down the rate at which they are sinking further into debt if they quit their jobs. That is, their job is a net loss for them as individuals as well as for the economy as a whole. But, of course, we need much more of that, and quickly!

So that’s what we have now. The ship is on the rocks, water is rising, and the captain is shouting “Full steam ahead! We are sailing to Afghanistan!” Do you listen to Ahab up on the bridge, or do you desert your post in the engine room and go help deploy the lifeboats? If you thought that the previous episode of uncontrolled debt expansion, globalized Ponzi schemes, and economic hollowing-out was silly, then I predict that you will find this next episode of feckless grasping at macroeconomic straws even sillier.

Free trade is about to die.....

Back to the future. It can't come soon enough.

take it from a former "Washington insider" Paul Craig Roberts  who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

A Change is Gonna Come- and it won't be voluntary - iTulip.com

The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under.

America’s 20th century economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. America’s economic success was based on protectionism, which was ensured by the union victory in the Civil War, and on British indebtedness, which destroyed the British pound as world reserve currency. Following World War II, the US dollar took the role as reserve currency, a privilege that allows the US to pay its international bills in its own currency.

World War II and socialism together ensured that the US economy dominated the world at the mid 20th century. The economies of the rest of the world had been destroyed by war or were stifled by socialism [in terms of the priorities of the capitalist growth model. Editors.]

The ascendant position of the US economy caused the US government to be relaxed about giving away American industries, such as textiles, as bribes to other countries for cooperating with America’s cold war and foreign policies. For example, Turkey’s US textile quotas were increased in exchange for over-flight rights in the Gulf War, making lost US textile jobs an off-budget war expense.

Sometimes when your right.....

You really don't want to be.

Unfortunately it'll get worse. Just don't tell any one because they got guns. Heh heh.

Where's my rope?

Boomer wealth is evaporating - Feb. 25, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- What a turnaround for the American Dream!

According to a report released Wednesday, the real estate market bust and stock market declines have carved a huge chunk out of the assets of baby boomers, the largest age cohort in U.S. history.

So much home equity has been lost that should boomers need to sell their homes, 30% of those aged 45 to 54 would owe money at closing, according to "The Wealth of the Baby Boom Cohorts After the Collapse of the Housing Bubble," a report released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-partisan think tank. About 18% of boomers aged 55 to 64 are underwater and would have to bring money to the table.

The CEPR also found that people who were renting homes in 2004 will have more wealth in 2009 than those who were owners. That's true for all five wealth groups the study analyzed, from the poorest to the wealthiest.

"The collapse of the housing bubble, which led to the current recession, has already destroyed almost $6 trillion dollars in housing wealth for homeowners," said report co-author Dean Baker. "This reality is compounded by the recent collapse of the stock market. Many baby boomers will only have Social Security and Medicare to rely on in their retirement."

Ha ha hah ah ah ah........

Their trying to kill me. After doubling the budget this year alone we're going to halve it in the next 4 years.!!!

Why didn't this genius just leave the budget as is? Save a lot of time even though it  makes lousy TV. After all He has to look Presidential.

Then again, what are they going to come up with when all this "stimulus"  doesn't work?

Remember after a while, most of the "economy" is government spending or lending. No one can fart without government help or permission. Therefor,  everyone waits for the Fed to decide every detail. Not much of a future there, is it?

Then again, it's my understanding that it  takes a government running surpluses to cut budgets.

Where's all this surplus going to come from?

Your house? Confiscate my future SS check? Steal it from my mother's $900 a month retirement? How about grabbing some more foreign money?

There must  plenty of that left.

Of course, if they bitch we can just bomb them into next week. Heh heh.

Obama pledges to cut nation's deficit in half - Feb. 23, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Barack Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation's $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.

He identified exploding health-care costs as the chief culprit behind rising federal deficits during a bipartisan "fiscal responsibility summit" convened to discuss ways to restore fiscal stability without deepening the recession.

Ha ha hah ah ah ah........

Their trying to kill me. After doubling the budget this year alone we're going to halve it in the next 4 years.!!!

Why didn't this genius just leave the budget as is? Save a lot of time even though it  makes lousy TV. After all He has to look Presidential.

Then again, what are they going to come up with when all this "stimulus"  doesn't work?

Remember after a while, most of the "economy" is government spending or lending. No one can fart without government help or permission. Therefor,  everyone waits for the Fed to decide every detail. Not much of a future there, is it?

Then again, it's my understanding that it  takes a government running surpluses to cut budgets.

Where's all this surplus going to come from?

Your house? Confiscate my future SS check? Steal it from my mother's $900 a month retirement? How about grabbing some more foreign money?

There must  plenty of that left.

Of course, if they bitch we can just bomb them into next week. Heh heh.

Obama pledges to cut nation's deficit in half - Feb. 23, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Barack Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation's $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.

He identified exploding health-care costs as the chief culprit behind rising federal deficits during a bipartisan "fiscal responsibility summit" convened to discuss ways to restore fiscal stability without deepening the recession.

retire???.........

Uh... No.

Be lucky if we can eat. Hell I know more about this than the criminal class in Washington.

At least when we go fishing we can tell the old lady it's what's for dinner. Heh heh.

These clowns had better be grateful my generation is only at the beginning of retiring. (we just started officially  last year in January).

Just imagine several hundred thousand "mad bombers" and Timothy McVeighs.

Think we got enough cops?

How do we feed , clothe and medicate 79 million more pissed off old geezers who will demand their handouts from government, hmm.

We played by the rules: get an education, get a career, kids,house, invest in 401k's and vote for the assholes who got us into this mess.

Oh these fuckers are going to pay, all right. One way or the other. Putting black guys in charge is not going to save them.

Can't wait to see it.

Five strategies to rescue your retirement - Feb. 23, 2009

(Money Magazine) -- Will I ever be able to retire now? That's a question you're likely asking yourself these days. After a year in which your 401(k) has been hammered by the biggest stock losses since the Great Depression, your home equity has been whacked by the collapse of the real estate market and the specter of being laid off looms larger every day, no one can blame you for being skeptical.

In fact, more than two-thirds of the respondents in a recent poll CNNMoney.com poll said they'll have to postpone their retirement as a result of the current financial crisis; more than a third worried that they'll be chained to their desks for life.

Now for the good news: You've got more weapons at your disposal to win the battle against a hostile economy than you may imagine. Read on for specific strategies to help you position your portfolio for a rebound, take advantage of other financial assets in your arsenal and make the most of the time you have left in the work force.

Obviously the Empire must regain control.....

They need to rule the money, all the money, from within the whole globe.

P.S. the "experts" know. They are just afraid of us when we find out the extent of their complicity in the swindle.

Volcker sees crisis leading to global regulation - Yahoo! Finance


* Eileen Aj Connelly, AP Business Writer
* Friday February 20, 2009, 6:29 pm EST


NEW YORK (AP) -- "Even the experts don't quite know what's going on."

Speaking to a number of those experts Friday, Paul Volcker, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, cited not only the lack of understanding of the global financial meltdown but the "shocking" speed with which it had spread across the world.

"One year ago, we would have said things were tough in the United States, but the rest of the world was holding up," Volcker told a conference featuring Nobel laureates, economists and investors at Columbia University in New York. "The rest of the world has not held up."

In fact, the 81-year-old former chairman of the Federal Reserve said, "I don't remember any time, maybe even the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast."

He noted that industrial production is falling in countries across the globe faster than in the U.S., one result of the decline caused by the breakdown of unbridled financial markets that operated on a global scale.

"It's broken down in the face of almost all expectation and prediction," he noted.

Volcker didn't offer specifics on how long he thinks the recession will last or what will help start a recovery. But he predicted there will be some lasting lessons from the experience.

"I don't believe it will be forgotten ... and we will revert to the kind of financial system we had before the crisis," he said.

Get ready for Gold......

China and Russia have a deal for oil and gas. China is using our money, they have trillions, to set themselves up as an independent world power. Coal, oil, gas, gold, iron ore and huge food deals so far. Contracts all over the world to protect themselves.

Soon they will have enough money to buy a corner on gold and stop using the dollar. They'll have the oil producers in their pocket as they will be the only country buying.

Every empire such as we had struggles with "over reach" as ours has done and bankrupts their working class destroying their main source of income.

Then they can't pay for protecting their markets. Their markets no longer are profitable and slip through their fingers.

Then the Empire attacks it's own citizens. "Free speech" 'becomes "permissible" speech. Every act becomes regulated. Riches are bestowed through loyalty to governors.

Then we blow each other away.

Got guns?

Hopefully everybody takes a deep breath and we go back to the good old days bitching about ingrate foreigners.

Selling Ponzi schemes and borrowing thousands on make believe real estate deals.

And let's not forget voting for $8 a week tax cuts. Heh heh.

Meanwhile, study Spanish so you can get a job!

I'm planning on becoming a bootlegger.....

Why not?

Worked for the Kennedy's.

Fed's threaten to shut off water to California farmers.

Got food?

Buy now. Really nutty idea. 25% of our food comes from these guys.

May just bootleg water. Heh heh.

George Washington's Blog: Respected Economist John Williams Advises Hoarding Gold And Booze To Barter

Respected economist John Williams has been tracking the real fundamentals of the economy for many years at his website Shadow Stats.

Williams believes that the printing of trillions of dollars to fight the depression will lead to a "hyperinflationary depression".

Williams is advising people to stock up on gold and booze to bargain with once the hyperinflation makes dollars worthless:

“Three or four years into the future I think we could be in a hyperinflation, within the current year you’re going to see much higher inflation than most people are looking at,” Williams told MarketWatch.

Williams said that his definition of hyperinflation would be a situation in which a $100 dollar bill would become more functional as a piece of toilet paper than a store of value.

“This is a time when you want to preserve your wealth and assets because inflation will knock the value out of it,” he added, advising that people buy physical gold and assets other than the U.S. dollar.

“Then when the hyperinflation hits you’ll see disruption of normal commerce, you won’t have enough $100 dollar bills to buy what you want,” said Williams, adding that items to barter with, such ...read the rest.

Checkmate........

The Empire is toast.....maybe.

China covers her ass and Russia sucks up to the future world leader. That's the bet. I think they are on the right track as about 20 years ago the "smart" money moved overseas from  here getting themselves positioned for moving the Empire off the American shore.

It was sold as 'free trade' but it simply means creating wealth and bypassing the socialist nonsense in western countries.

Why pay all the overhead when you simply sell the stuff and not worry about being "socially responsible".

Especially when America becoming bankrupt. (Usually signified by a country becoming a debtor nation) and soaking up capital to pay for various welfare schemes, that can't be paid for, from foreign entities.

History will tell but I think these guys are in for a surprise. What goes around comes around. I remember when Japan was the new wonderkind back in the 80's and would take over the world.

How did that work out?

Remember selling us short was not one of the smart guys better moves then. And I'm betting not now either.

We still have all the guns and can aim them wherever we want. And can take what we want.

We've done it before.

Jesse's Café Américain: Russia and China Sign Oil Deal for the Next Twenty Years

Russia, China sign $25 billion energy deal
17 Feb 2009, 1721 hrs IST, AGENCIES

MOSCOW: Russia and China signed a $25 billion energy deal in Beijing on Tuesday that will see China secure oil supplies from Russia for the next 20 years in return for loans, Russia's state pipeline monopoly Transneft said.

As part of the broad energy supply deal, China will lend $15 billion to Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil major, and $10 billion to Transneft, a vital boost for energy companies as they struggle to raise capital amid straitened lending conditions and plunging oil prices.

WTF?????....

Pretty good dope, I'd say. All you have to do is borrowing more and you save more.

I'll take a million of that. Kind of like buying houses with out an income. Or Obamama giving everybody a free government loan. 

Or $8 bucks a week.

New reward cards make it easier to save - Money Features


Posted by Ismat Sarah Mangla
February 17, 2009 1:27 pm

If this recession cloud has one silver lining, it’s that Americans are saving more. (How that’s probably dismal for the economy as a whole is another post for another day.) But the truth is, we’re probably still not saving enough. Even in these tough times, saving requires a fair amount of self-discipline. I was talking to the Undercover Economist the other day, and he said that beyond automated processes such as 401(k) paycheck deductions, socking away cash is still excruciatingly difficult.
Fidelity Retirement Rewards

Fidelity Retirement Rewards

Now, it seems like credit card companies are capitalizing on the need for more automated savings programs by offering new reward cards that supposedly help customers save or pay down debt. For example, there’s the Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card, which allows users to earn 1% back on purchases (and there’s no cap on the amount you can earn). But the rebate doesn’t result in cash in your wallet; instead, it’s paid in $25 increments toward the loan principal on most Wells Fargo mortgages. And then there are the Fidelity Retirement Rewards or 529 College Rewards American Express Cards: You earn 2% cash back on purchases (again, no cap), but the money must be deposited into a Fidelity IRA or 529. (You can also redeem points for WorldPoints rewards, a program that offers travel and other merchandise.)

Dinosaurs r us.....

Newspapers are nauseating to read. Pure and simple.

At least Obamama gave us $8 a week so we can buy one. Heh heh.

The American Spectator : Authors of Their Own Doom

By William Murchison on 2.2.09 @ 6:10AM

Just what I needed: more bad news about the news business. My business, one way or another since 1964, when I labored not only as general assignments reporter and feature writer for a small-town newspaper but also took photos and, yes, converted same to plastic engravings via that technological wonder, the Fairchild Scan-A-Graver.

I have been around. How I sympathize now with James Warren's morose reflections on the Atlantic's Internet site concerning the acute need for newspapering even as the customers for our grand old product drift away. He writes: "Newspaper penetration -- the number of households looking at a paper -- now amounts to less than 18 percent of the population, compared with 33 percent back in 1946.…Papers are throwing out employees almost weekly, cutting national and foreign bureaus if they have them.…In some cases, entire newspapers are shutting down."

Got to watch this.....

I usually disagree with this guy but for one thing: this depression is going to last a long time.

Especially his solution is to give every broke dick more credit. He must figure what the Hell can it hurt? 5 or 10 years from now according to him we should be out of it.

Then we retire by the millions. Broke. Our assets were in housing and the stock market. Gone.

Pray for inflation to bring these markets back. What a program!

What's a guy to do?

Save and pay off debt. Be ready for bargain hunting. Become a small bank. Every body will need a loan. Heh heh

Paul Krugman Nobel Prize Winner in Economics on Washington Journal at CSPAN Junkie

The rot sets in.......

Start with a trillion or so in bad loans here, a trillion over there and next thing you know we have a complete meltdown in Europe.

Taking everyone with them.

Who's got the money to make them good.

At 33 dollar oil these guys are all broke. Soon a world wide currency will have to be implemented to "save the world'.

Yes it's all about oil and speculation in currencies and no one is safe right now.

Of course rope and pitchforks would make me feel better. Heh heh.

Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown - Telegraph

If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung.

Austria's finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP.

"A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector," reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says bad debts will top 10pc and may reach 20pc. The Vienna press said Bank Austria and its Italian owner Unicredit face a "monetary Stalingrad" in the East.

Mr Pröll tried to drum up support for his rescue package from EU finance ministers in Brussels last week. The idea was scotched by Germany's Peer Steinbrück. Not our problem, he said. We'll see about that.

Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region's GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut.

Not even Russia can easily cover the $500bn dollar debts of its oligarchs while oil remains near $33 a barrel. The budget is based on Urals crude at $95. Russia has bled 36pc of its foreign reserves since August defending the rouble.

My generation of boomers is screwed....

Going to take more than electing a black Marxist to Messiah hood to save our collective asses.

Safe Haven | Puncturing Deflation Myths, Part 1

That collapse in the value of the currency necessarily forces a major redistribution of wealth, and the segment of the population that is most devastated by this seems to always be the same. It's the retirees, and the people close to retirement. When we look to Germany, when we look to Argentina, when we look to Russia - it is the pensioners who are impoverished more than any other group.

Unfortunately, history is repeating itself again. When we look at the headlines about the destruction of retiree investment values, pension assets and so forth, we're really just seeing the beginning. Because the crisis "solution" that is being chosen, which is creating dollars without the ability to pay for those dollars, essentially represents the annihilation of most of the retirement dreams of the baby boom generation, even if that is not yet recognized. There is not an even cost that is being born by society as a whole, rather some segments are bearing much more of the burden than others. If your peer group (particularly Boomers and older) is headed for disproportionate financial devastation, then happenstance is unlikely to offer a personal way out. Instead, you must instead take quite deliberate actions to change your personal financial position so that wealth is redistributed to you, rather than away from you.