Hope you like the smell of napalm in the morning.
Otherwise, this will not be your sort of day. Yves, Smith
Best of Five: The Bush administration, after proving itself incapable of escaping from its own disasters - 9/11, the budget deficits, Iraq, Afghanistan, eavesdropping and the destruction of civil rights, New Orleans - would have us believe that, just this once, it has a solution that won't make the problem worse.
Common Sense: Hate to let reality and logic intrude on the soap opera, but James Galbraith has a perfectly simple solution to this particular case of indigestion.
Compatibility: A war crimes prosecutor at Guantanamo has ethical problems that lead to his re-assignment. Seems he had some, and the military objected.
Vocabulary Assignment: Look up the word kleptocracy. Add it to your computer's spell-check dictionary.
Without comment: Former VP Al Gore, Nobel Prize winner: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants... " will Gore be the first to attack the line of men in riot gear or is he suggesting I lead the charge?
Location, Location Location: Pakistan says it shot at a US helicopter that had invaded their airspace. The US maintains it's not their airspace.
Those Were The Days... Sales of New Homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 460,000. Lowest since 1982. I don't think $700 billion is going to do the trick.
One of the Guys: Documents the White House hadn't gotten around to destroying show that Secretary Rice, among others, played a 'central role' in discussions that lead to the US adopting terror as a routine way of life. Or death.
Keeping Score : Developing nations now produce more than half the annual CO2 output, which is growing at four times the rate in the 1990's. We are not winning this one. We're not even trying.
An Oily Mess: Pemex's production is down 16% year to date. Pemex supplies 40% of the Mexican budget. What happens when social spending is cut 6.5% ?
One Step Over the Line: The current administration has given customs officers the power to question travelers about their political orientation and religious beliefs, and to seize, read, and copy documents (including the content of laptop computers) without any hint of probable cause. This lowers customs agents to the same level of lawlessness as Homeland Security and the FBI.
Lavoris: Did Bush summon McCain back to Washington as some sort of punishment? Did he want to give McCain one last kiss?
Quoted : "The seizures and convulsions we have experienced in the debt and equity markets have been the consequences of a sustained orgy of excess and reckless behavior, not a too-tight monetary policy," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher Sept 25, 9008 He also said the $700 billion bailout would plunge the US deeper into a fiscal abyss.
Porn O'Graph: Number One With A Bullet: TED spreads.
1 comment:
I find your daily collections indispensible. Here's a lighter take of mine, from Anecdotal Economics, which you are welcome to post. http://anecdotaleconomics.blogspot.com/2008/09/parable-of-hank-unjust-steward-with.html
The Parable of Hank, the Unjust Steward (With Apologies to the Gospel of Luke)
1There was a rich country who had a Secretary of the Treasury, and charges were brought to the nation's Elected Representatives that this Man was squandering the Nation's property.
2 So the Elected Representatives summoned the Secretary of the Treasury and said to Him, "What is this that We hear about You? Give Us an accounting of Your management, because You cannot be our Treasury Secretary much longer."
3 Then the Treasury Secretary said to Himself, "What will I do, now that these Elected Representatives and the People may take My position away from Me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am almost ashamed to beg."
4 "I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed from the Nation's Administration," said the Secretary of the Treasury, "any number of very large and profitable Bank Holding Companies/Investment Banks will welcome Me back as Chief Executive Officer with an unbelievably enormous Compensation Package."
5 So, summoning Nation’s beleaguered Banks and Financial Institutions and Other Debtors one by one, the Treasury Secretary asked the first, "How much do you need to be fully and abundantly Recapitalized?"
6 The first troubled Former Investment Bank CEO answered, "Fifty Billion Dollars." The Treasury Secretary said to the Now-Bank-Holding-Company CEO, "Take your Troubled Assets, sit down quickly, and make them valued at One Hundred Fifty Billion, and give them to Me at this 'Near-Maturity' Price, and You shall be made whole."
7 Then Treasury Secretary asked another besiegeded Major Bank CEO, "And how much in Distressed Assets do You possess?" He replied, "Thirty-Five Billion Dollars." He said to Him, ‘Take Your Balance Sheet and make it Eighty Billion Dollars, and give them to Me at this 'Near-Maturity' Price, and You shall be made whole."
8 And the Nation and its Elected Representatives commended the dishonest Secretary of the Treasury because He had acted shrewdly and in His Own Self Interest and They gave Him 700 Billion Dollars; for the Nation and its Elected Representatives figured that since China and Russia and Other Creditor Nations were funding this Troubled Asset Relief Plan, and those in the future to come, who among them really cared?
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