Bailout is a Limp D***

[prole]

Nope, all that money ain't workin' a lick. Looks like they're probably going to have to nationalize the banking system in order to unfreeze credit since throwing money at capitalist firms with limp-dick oversight only encourages more profit making and/or retrenchment in the face of risk (who knew?). Taking actual control over the bank's the only thing that's going to stop the deflationary death-spiral (consumer capitalism's worst nightmare) and restart lending. Bush'll let Obama do it, though. Thanks buddy.

 

Looking to Washington Amid Turmoil, So Far in Vain

[Jim]

Frikin' Bushies. Because they went at this half heart sos not to disturb the "market forces" too much, the banks are holding back. Meanwhile across the pond the UK mandated how banks had to start lending with the taxpayer's cash and eliminated divedend payments to investors until the loans are paid back. WTF - Bushies could even get the solution to their screw up right. What a mess at the doorstep. A lot of work to do for Obama. Don't let the door hit you on the way out you Idiot.

[fear_and_greed]

it just keeps getting funnier. i guess the printing presses broke down of sumthin'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081120/bs_afp/financeeconomyusgulf_081120072928

[j_b]

Frikin' Bushies. Because they went at this half heart sos not to disturb the "market forces" too much, the banks are holding back. Meanwhile across the pond the UK mandated how banks had to start lending with the taxpayer's cash and eliminated divedend payments to investors until the loans are paid back. WTF - Bushies could even get the solution to their screw up right. What a mess at the doorstep. A lot of work to do for Obama. Don't let the door hit you on the way out you Idiot.

 

Right, but the Democratic party leadership, including Obama, knew most of that before they voted for it. No?

[Peter_Puget]

Pope Benedict in an Oct. 7 speech reflected on crashing markets and concluded that ``money vanishes, it is nothing'' and warned that ``the only solid reality is the word of God.''

[Jim]

Frikin' Bushies. Because they went at this half heart sos not to disturb the "market forces" too much, the banks are holding back. Meanwhile across the pond the UK mandated how banks had to start lending with the taxpayer's cash and eliminated divedend payments to investors until the loans are paid back. WTF - Bushies could even get the solution to their screw up right. What a mess at the doorstep. A lot of work to do for Obama. Don't let the door hit you on the way out you Idiot.

 

Right, but the Democratic party leadership, including Obama, knew most of that before they voted for it. No?

 

True dat! Don't these people friggin understand what they are voting for? WTF.

[mkporwit]

Frikin' Bushies. Because they went at this half heart sos not to disturb the "market forces" too much, the banks are holding back. Meanwhile across the pond the UK mandated how banks had to start lending with the taxpayer's cash and eliminated divedend payments to investors until the loans are paid back. WTF - Bushies could even get the solution to their screw up right. What a mess at the doorstep. A lot of work to do for Obama. Don't let the door hit you on the way out you Idiot.

 

Right, but the Democratic party leadership, including Obama, knew most of that before they voted for it. No?

 

Dodd was on NPR this morning sounding kinda schizophrenic. On the one hand he threatened that the new Congress would revisit the bailout legislation to specifically spell out things like "no dividend payments", "no acquisitions", because banks were not lending to customers... but when pushed as to whether he believed the bailout was currently working or not, he said, yes, fundamentally it is...

 

It was their legislation, they knew what they were voting for.

[Jim]

Dodd was on NPR this morning sounding kinda schizophrenic. On the one hand he threatened that the new Congress would revisit the bailout legislation to specifically spell out things like "no dividend payments", "no acquisitions", because banks were not lending to customers... but when pushed as to whether he believed the bailout was currently working or not, he said, yes, fundamentally it is...

 

It was their legislation, they knew what they were voting for.

 

I personally have a lot of faith in Congress these days. Jeesh.

[prole]

It was their legislation, they knew what they were voting for.

 

I'm not so sure about that. Given the fantastic complexity of the financial system including the exotic instruments at the heart of the problem, I'm sure that many lawmakers simply threw up their hands and handed over their authority to the "experts" (i.e. the Wall St. bankers, lobbyists, Federal (de)regulators, etc. that created the mess). who were expected to miraculously begin acting in the public interest.

[JayB]

Giving the claims of taxpayers on bank revenues higher priority over the claims of stockholders who, via their proxies on the boards, agreed to take the governments money is reasonable, but encouraging banks to make more bad loans is not that will never be repaid in full is not. On the retail level, are we sure that "No one" can qualify for a loan any more, and that all lending to creditworthy persons has ceased entirely? Or is just that the tards who defaulted on their 105%LTV cash-out, neg-am, "Pay-Option" NINJA-ARMS will have to come up with a 10% down-payment, document their income, and content themselves with a house that goes for 3X their annual income if they want to buy again?

 

 

[prole]

Giving the claims of taxpayers on bank revenues higher priority over the claims of stockholders who, via their proxies on the boards, agreed to take the governments money is reasonable, but encouraging banks to make more bad loans is not that will never be repaid in full is not. On the retail level, are we sure that "No one" can qualify for a loan any more, and that all lending to creditworthy persons has ceased entirely? Or is just that the tards who defaulted on their 105%LTV cash-out, neg-am, "Pay-Option" NINJA-ARMS will have to come up with a 10% down-payment, document their income, and content themselves with a house that goes for 3X their annual income if they want to buy again?

 

Yeah, that one was stale a couple months ago. Don't act like a douche and pretend you don't know what's going on.

[JayB]

I'm not sure that I do, but I am reasonably confident that "greed" is at the least, an incomplete explanation for a reluctance to initiate profitable loans. If I had to choose between the two emotions that seem to drive most mass-economic behavior, I'd lean towards fear.

 

My own hunch is that we're still a ways off from complete price discovery, and that there are probably literally hundreds of banks that know that the losses on the loans that they're holding on their books are greater than the value of their collateral and their capital, even after the injection of public money. That is, they're insolvent, they know that they're insolvent, and they're hanging onto every penny they have and crossing their fingers and praying that if they can hold on long enough, the real-estate market will recover, the value of their collateral will bring their assets back to a point where they outweigh (or at least equal) their liabilities. E.g. Collateral value + Capital - Loans Outstanding > 0. Or something like that.

 

Unfortunately, I think that on aggregate, the value of property in the US will ultimately retreat to it's fundamental value - which is the value at which the rents that it generates can at least cover the costs of servicing the debt required to purchase them. Actually, I think that on the whole - the value will retreat to a level below that point before buyers emerge and put a floor under prices. There probably hundreds of banks, particularly those with heavy exposure to construction loans, that this process of price discovery will eliminate by making it clear that their collateral and capital will never recover enough to outweigh their liabilities and they'll have to be liquidated, their assets sold to whoever will buy them for whatever they'll pay for them - before the banking system as a whole will be able to extend credit the way they did back in the days before the advent of the neg-AM NINJA ARM.

 

I hope that the folks handing out the money at least made an effort to conduct some frontside triage on banks before taking an equity stake in them, etc - but I don't think we'll see the end of this until price discovery runs its course, no matter what else is done.

[prole]

 

Beyond grim. "Price discovery"...heh.

[pc313]

I'm not sure we've hit bottom yet,but it's got to be getting close!

 

I don't fore see a big bounce,but more of a thud!

 

And todays news is telling people to stop buying and start saving is just going to bring the economy to a fucking crawl!

 

Welcome to are version of 1929,but we are not alone,its the whole world!

Edited November 22, 2008 by pc313

[KaskadskyjKozak]

.

[JayB]

Beyond grim. "Price discovery"...heh.

 

Price Discovery in Action...

[TREETOAD]

Perhaps all those people displaced from New Orleans can live in those houses!!

[prole]

Still trying to discover the price on these babies.

 

[video:youtube]

[STP]

Hahaha, occultist Christopher Hyatt made the cognizant observation that we are all primates operating primarily on a mammalian level of emotion, that we fancy ourselves as beyond the lower primates though our thought processes are dominated by our frontal lobes. Some primates are just more aware and capable than others.

 

What good is art? Even elephants can be trained to be painters. And apes?

 

Ape artists

orangutans and bonobos make art for charity

Great Ape Trust orangutans and bonobos pick up brushes again for conservation aid

 

Terence Mckenna was one hellva primate and could perhaps be classified as an artist. His "art" could be considered to be transformational, alchemical if you will.

 

[video:youtube]9c8an2XZ3MU

 

 

[prole]

 

...and counting.

 

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

 

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

 

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion

• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion

• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion

• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion

• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion

• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)

• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion

• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion

• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

 

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

That is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis thus far.

 

The only single American event in history that even comes close to matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost: $288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion

 

The $4.6165 trillion dollars committed so far is about a trillion dollars ($979 billion dollars) greater than the entire cost of World War II borne by the United States: $3.6 trillion, adjusted for inflation (original cost was $288 billion).

 

Go figure: WWII was a relative bargain.

 

I estimate that by the time we get through 2010, the final bill may scale up to as much as $10 trillion dollars…---from here.