SAR #8269

I liked it better when they wore masks and carried guns.

Paulson and Bernanke are proposing to buy bad paper from everyone, at rates far above their value. The bailout is specifically designed to funnel money to those who don’t need it.

Perennial : Greenland's ice cap, which contains over 10% of the earth's fresh water, continues melting faster than expected. In some places the ice is melting four time faster than previously. Over 100 cubic miles of it will melt away into the North Atlantic this year.

Plus ça change : The old adage "Follow the money" has been updated to read "Follow the lobbyist." I'm not sure what the change was.

Pass The Hat: Paulson keeps defending outrageous executive compensation because "we need the broadest participation possible" in the bailout. If a CEO has not driven a company to the point of needing rescue, fine. Either you have run your company in the ground and need the rescue, or you haven't and have earned your big bucks. We're not going to actually force companies to take our money, are we?

Probabilities: The end of Washington Mutual will most likely be the same old same old: The FDIC closes the bank, sells off the good stuff, eats the bad stuff. Hungry yet?

Part of the Problem: Americans are not aware of the fragile reality supporting their determined sense of entitlement. They want the problem - whatever it is - solved without bothering their cruise-controlled, air-conditioned, fossil-fueled throw-away lifestyle.

Shoe, Fits: "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance. " Paulson obviously lied to Congress about his own plan. Is there any reason to trust him with anything at all?

In Dire Straits Everybody got excited because Buffett saw fit to pounce on Goldman Sachs. He is not buying an undervalued company with strong management in this instance. He is making a large wager on the US taxpayer giving Goldman's a whole lot of money for nothing and earning a 17% return on his money.

There's A Word For This... : LA State Rep John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, wants to pay poor women $1,000 to be sterilized. It's his way of cutting back welfare costs because, he claims, people on food stamps reproduce faster that better educated taxpayers.

Sure Thing: The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers predicts the US will put economics before environmental concerns.

Stirred, not Shaken : The school solution seems to be to take a perfectly good firm and merge it with a perfectly horrible firm, weakening one and not doing much for the other. I find it best to keep the vermouth some distance from the gin.

Previews: Escalating energy costs have put 80,000 Kenyans at risk of losing their jobs.

Peanuts: The proposed $700 billion bank bailout is just a down payment on the $5 trillion some feel the task will require.

Going Once, Going Twice... First it was those evil short sales. Now Chairman Cox wants regulatory oversight of the credit-default swaps market (CDOs). Nothing worse than a new convert.

Gunslinger: US foreclosures total about $50 billion a month, and will for the next couple of years. So will Treasury and the Fed be back next summer for the next $1 trillion? Yes. Will we give it to them? Yes. Where's Shane?

Porn O'Graph: US gasoline stocks, DOE 9/23/08.