Saturday, May 16, 2009

SAR #9136/Weekender

America's reigning religion has demonstrably failed; what now?

Whole Life: Allstate, Amirprise, Hartford, Lincoln National, Prinicipal Financial Group, and Prudential - life insurers all - have been volunteered to be propped up the Geithner Life Insurance, Banking, Finance and Automobile Company to the tune of $22 billion dollars. Actually, that's not the whole tune, the $22 billion is just the opening movement.

Undersized: On a non-annualized basis. Italy's GDP shrank 2.4% in 1Q, Germany at 3.8%. Times four would be a 15% drop in GDP but that's not possible. Is it?

Storm Doors Inc: One of the largest trucking companies in the US, YRC Worldwide, is seeking $1 billion in federal money in order to baill them out of their woefully underfunded pension plan.

Cheer Up, Things to get Worse: Robert Prechter, a technical analyst noted for calling the 1987 stock crash, sees US stock markets plunging to half their lows on March 09, as a deflationary depression sets in.

Futurama: The car of the future is a bicycle

The face Chart That Launched 700 bn: Last fall, big lenders started increasing the interest charged for short-term lending, driving up all other rates and shutting down the economy. Instead of trying to explain the intricacies to Congresspeople, Paulson had a scary chart drawn up. It worked.

Vote Ethanol! Ethanol creates more smog than gasoline, reduces fuel efficiency, destroys fuel pumps and fuel lines, and is destroying large numbers of engines. Larger subsidies are sought.

What Part of This Sounds Right? Obama apparently plans on closing Guantanamo and holding the inmates in the US indefinitely, without trial. Slippery slope, my ass - it's the whole damned ski run except for the crash at the bottom.

Numerology: If the banks didn’t have Fannie and Freddie to sell their mortgage loans (re: the risk) to, how many houses do you think would be sold in the US today?

New Moons & High Tides: S&P is not fooled. It says the credit/banking crisis has "merely entered a new phase" and will continue to 2013. The system and the banks may not fail, but they are going to be on life-support for a long time.

8.0 On the Richter: It's come to this, either they vote for Arnold's soultion, or Arnold will take 8% of property tax revenue from cities and counties. All in favor vot "Aye", opposed, "Aye". We're done here. And they are, there.

3,000 Words: Unemployment is way up, average real weekly wages are way flat, and household debt isn't fit for polite society, all in pictures.

Just Wondering: Some 9,000 people claim they lost nearly everything to Madoff's Ponzi scheme. But is that true? If Bernie had your money for 10 years and pretended to earn 12,5% year after year, after the 10 years 70% of your money had been returned to you.

So Yesterday: AL, ID, ND, OK & SD have passed resolutions asserting their sovereignty uner the 10th Amendment. Mostly GOP sponsored, the resolutions are merely symbolic - but I repeat myself.

Enough, Already: To pay promised Social Security benefits over the next 75 years, the payroll tax rate (half paid by the worker, half by the employer) would have to increase about 2%. To kiss it and make it better for ever and ever, a staggered series of raises to a 4% (2+2) increase would be required. Quit scaring the horses.

Zero as a Positive Number: The CBO says that money lent to the IMF has a 5% chance of being defaulted. This is the equivalent of saying there is a 5% chance the international financial system will collapse.

Porn O'Graph: As high as an elephant's eye and as far as the eye can see...

2 comments:

Demetrius said...

8.0 on the Richter. Did I read somewhere that the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was rated at around that? So where do we find gold these days?

IF said...

Re Madoff: Yes! Except for the wealth illusion the only damage that was done is the amount of money taken out of the scheme by Bernie and company: only a fraction of the 50 billion claimed. The rest was redistributed between the investors. Gambling parlor? (But they did not know it!)