patrick.net

anyone who wants to bet on extension of shorting ban tonight?

I would not bet against it...

FDIC now has the unlimited backing of Treasury, but how deep is Treasury's pocket?

I say, America, let's just not do this back and forth saga for TV show, the writing is on the wall, we will be debased or we will debase anyway. Let's just save some time and go straight to debasing the currency overnight, get it over with so we can start building up from the bottom.

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

This is the destined path, only that the stupidity will take us 3 or 4 years to get there, if we are smart, we can get there right away. Most American people, the debtors, have almost nothing to lose. We produce enough food in this country to feed the world. Those most at risk are the rich people holding USD bond assets, f*ck them. Any American that is not in USD or USD fixed income will profit from this, in fact the more indebted he is, the better off he will be.

Patrick,

Are you in any position to engineer a web-based poll that lets people
detail the reason they are opposed to the rescue package in its current
form? I'm no expert myself, so I cannot contribute html or anything.
But I can make up some questions I'd like to see polled.

The main questions I think need asking are:

--------------------------------------------------

1. What mechanism should the rescue plan employ:

a. purchase of bad assets from impaired financial institutions

b. purchase of preferred stock in impaired financial institutions
(preferred, senior, voting, convertible stock)

2. Give an approval rating for the following plans, from 1-10:

a. House Bill (2008-0928) (link)

b. Congress amended version (2008-1001) of House Bill (link)

c. Calomiris plan (link)

d. Stieglitz plan (link)

e. Soros plan (link)

3. How does the 2008-1001 Senate Bill score (1-10) in terms of how it
prescribes and implements the various detailed aspects of the rescue
plan:

a. mechanism of intervention (purchase of bad assets)

b. implementation of intervention (Treasury/Paulson discretion)

c. pricing mechanism of purchases (Paulson discretion)

d. taxpayer protection

e. CEO compensation and golden parachute limitations

f. transaction approval requirements

g. transaction reporting detail requirements

h. transaction reporting timeliness requirements

i. oversight by oversight board (Paulson, Bernanke, Cox, FHFA, HUD)

j. oversight by congress

k. oversight by the executive branch

l. oversight by the General Accounting Office

m. legal responsibilities of the Treasury Secretary and the oversight board

n. judicial review

o. conciseness of the bill (not being co-mingled with unrelated legislation)

--------------------------------------------------

By the way, I have searched high and low for web polls that address the bailout plan. I was astounded to find none at all. Search for "web poll bailout" got nothing, for example.

Patrick,

I just sent you a link to a thread on Paloaltoonline.com where the Realtors are still claiming "it is different here". It is just like your site from a few years ago.

Hilarious.

Patrick,

Om the topic of pitchforks, Senator Bernie Sanders is giving Paulson hell right now on the senate floor (see C-Span), and he put up a big poster board with a photo of Paulson. Definitely big enough to stick a pitchfork through.

FDIC now has the unlimited backing of Treasury, but how deep is Treasury’s pocket?
Someone pointed out to me that the Treasury's borrowing is limited to a debt ceiling.
The Public Debt Subject to Limit is the maximum amount of money the Government is allowed to borrow without receiving additional authority from Congress. Furthermore, the Public Debt Subject to Limit is the Public Debt Outstanding adjusted for Unamortized Discount on Treasury Bills and Zero Coupon Treasury Bonds, Miscellaneous debt (very old debt), Debt held by the Federal Financing Bank and Guaranteed Debt.

Here is a chart if you want to know what the carnage looks like.
The current Debt Limit was increased from $9.815 trillion to $10.615 trillion effective July 30, 2008.

Let's just be frank, don't do these piecemeal extension of shortselling, just ban it permanently. Because by Oct 17, we will have to extend it again. In fact we will have to extend all the way till Nov, so why bother?

TOB,

I say we just repudiate the entire debt, and start over with a clean slate, let the US government debt rating become D, so what? The problem is this country's credit rating and currency ought to be at that level, and in the effort of propping it up, we will suffer far more far longer.

If we just face the reality, the illegal immigrants will leave, you don't even need to round them up. The aging population will die naturally, you do not even to do medicare reform. All those WS insiders living off pushing paper will suddenly have no paper to push.

Voting is going on right now.

In the last 20 years, was there any single incidence that the request of raising debt limit was voted down? Just curious.

Bad News!!! It looks like it passed.

Yep, the score is now 58-18, looks like a pass.

74-25

Get your 401K out, retirement in the US will be hell in another 2 decades.

Faced with the choice of fast death and a fairer society, we opted for a slow death the Japanese style and saving the first class passengers first when this Titanic goes down. Women and children don't get off first, it's those who have the most money that will secure a seat on the lifeboat.

This bill will buy you another few months until after the election, make sure you take proper steps to safeguard your personal asset and future.

Where are the angry mobs that we saw last week? We need them more than ever to keep the House from passing this $hit sandwich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfZbcVAUL0

Here is a good song for the mood that I am in. I can't wait for Jan 20, 2009!

I am speechless.

Better to use a real pitchfork. That is a picture of what is more commonly known as a potato fork.

Of course, now they can blame the unavoidable recession on the couple of extra days it took to pass the thing.

You know, I'm not angry; I'm very, very sad.

Paulson, you mother fucking thief, I just hope we find out where they lay your wretched corpse to rest when you finally pass on, so we can perform unspeakable acts on your grave. You might want to make sure your coffin is urine-proof.

short Says:
Better to use a real pitchfork. That is a picture of what is more commonly known as a potato fork.

I asked those guys at Lowe's for a pitchfork, they didn't have any item called that! This was the closest I could find. At this point, it is an acceptable approximation.

Trust me - those tines won't bend if they hit bone.

Not that I've ever impaled anyone, but I have bent pitch fork tines.

"FuzzyMath Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Malcolm,
Of course the dollar is stronger. We just saved $700 billion
The only thing we have to beware of is falling into a deflationary spiral… but Ben won’t let that happen. They’ll print money to balance it out.
The important thing about continuing to vote down the bill is the message behind it… that we will protect our currency."

From the last thread but I had the same concern so I wanted to agree with Fuzzy:
I am of the belief we need some inflationary pressure to stimulate wage inflation in this country. We have (Wal Mart Effect) deflated ourselves to almost completely wiping out our value-add base. If the decisions we make today don't lead to that we will see real stagflation as wages freeze and foreign pressures on supplies and consumption lead to increased prices on imports as well as our own products including food supplies.

Last night on CNN they did a great montage of the President's comments on the economy as time was passing by.

Robust->Fundamentally sound-->Troubled in some sectors but overall very healthy-->In trouble but still have the funamental strengths-->Down turn with some tough times-->Armageddon, we need to act fast or we could face economic collapse.

OO Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
"Faced with the choice of fast death and a fairer society, we opted for a slow death the Japanese style and saving the first class passengers first when this Titanic goes down. Women and children don’t get off first, it’s those who have the most money that will secure a seat on the lifeboat."

Patrick, are you buying Puts on lifeboat seats? Some regulator will call it naked short selling if I reserve mine from now.

I can’t wait for Jan 20, 2009!

Why? So you can see which one of two senators who voted for the bailout will be President?

Headset, that's classic!

You're not making anyone feel better though.