Restoring Confidence to the System
Awesome:
cartoon via sinfest
Hat tip Rock
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 | 09:47 PM | Permalink
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Oh yes. Tatsuya's been on a roll. I'm a bit partial to the 9-23 and 9-25 comics myself.
Posted by: requiem | Oct 14, 2008 10:07:21 PM
Deninger:
America Has Died - To Thunderous Applause
America's House and Senate, just a couple of short weeks ago, passed a law that was denounced by The American People, where representatives and senators were receiving calls 50:50 against - 50% "No" and 50% "Hell No".
In response, Wall Street banks employed spam-call-banks to "counter" this outpouring of public opinion and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies broke the law by sending out emails and other communications that essentially threatened their employees with loss of their job if they did not lobby for this horrible bill to be passed.
The bill passed after Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke threatened Congress with the imposition of Martial Law. Yeah. Tanks in the streets stuff. Literally.
This was disclosed in the well of the house by a few brave representatives, including Representative Sherman.
Were you told this was how Congress was browbeaten into passing this law? Were you told that Congress was essentially threatened that tanks would be deployed into our cities and towns if Congress did not pass this bad law that Paulson and Bernanke demanded?
Well, yes you were. Representative Sherman disclosed this fact in an impassioned speech in the Well of the House.
Did CNBC or CNN report that? No, but CSPAN did carry it.
If you watched.
But the law was in fact to allow the buying of $700 billion of "troubled mortgages" and related assets.
Or was it?
See, buried in that bill was a nasty little catch-all "any other asset the Treasury says promotes financial stability."
One little sentence, with which you surrendered forever the principles of economic capitalism and replaced them with government totalitarianism.
Fascism.
And a week later half of that money was instead spent on a massive bailout of Wall Street through the injection of perpetual preferred stock, saving every single nickel of executive stock and options. No dilution of existing shareholders, nor any haircut for their bondholders, thereby preventing the capital structure of the firms from absorbing the losses as is intended and required under the law.
In other words, you, The Taxpayer, have been intentionally looted by the puppet-masters at Treasury (Hank Paulson) and The Fed (Bernanke, Geithner, et.al) to the tune of $250 billion dollars, while these folks in the so-called "private sector" keep each and every nickel of the money they stole from you while peddling their fraudulently-sold and packaged subprime and Option ARM mortgages.
Law standing for more than 200 years intended to guarantee that the stockholders and bondholders of a firm stand in a carefully-chosen capital structure as the cushion when a firm becomes incapable of providing for itself was destroyed not through the operation of law or statute, but by executive fiat. Instead of being forced to accept the loss that should have come from the imprudent and even felonious acts of these firms and their executives, we, the taxpayer, are instead having our pockets picked, with our children and grandchildren, along with those not yet born, being forced to absorb the bill. Instead of those stockholders being expected to shoulder the loss as a direct consequence of their refusal to hold management accountable for its bad conduct, we the people are handed that loss in the form of foreclosures, higher interest rates and insane inflationary spirals.
Unlike in Sweden, which had a similar banking crisis, no disclosure of balance sheet "asset values" has been required, no executives were fired, compensation was not clawed back and no executive stock or options were voided. Those who "invested" in these firms were "protected" from the just cost of the foibles and even felonies committed by any and all up and down the chain, and the executives have kept their homes and yachts in The Hamptons - not because they earned them, but because our so-called "government" granted to them a monstrous bailout check written on your wallet, your children and your grandchildren.
You, on the other hand, will get exactly nothing out of this. Not one job will be created. House prices will continue to fall and foreclosures will continue to mount. The "bankruptcy reform" law remains, meaning if you can't pay you will be turned into a perpetual debt slave. The real economy will get nothing from this. Bridges, roads and schools will receive not one nickel from this massive transfer of your money to the wealthy bankers who robbed, cheated and stole from you. States will get nothing, even though their budgets are squeezed as well.
In short, none of the money is going to help you, the consumer, the real economy, or the state in which you live. All of it is being spent to bail out the institutions, shareholders and executives in the firms that intentionally created this mess in the first place by screwing people up and down the line for the previous ten years.
What's worse, by guaranteeing interbank lending if a bank goes down now the government will be on the hook for what could be hundreds of billions of dollars overnight - with no means of escape.
The talking heads all speak this morning about "regulation and oversight", but the implementation of this law is nothing of the kind.
This is in fact a looting of the American Public and Treasury by a law passed under fraudulent pretense and then redirected under even more fraudulent pretense to directly benefit those who just extracted hundreds of billions of dollars from your wallet after robbing you, your children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, grandmother and grandfather of everything.
If we had an honest government in Washington DC this would result in an instantaneous Bill Of Impeachment for both Paulson and Bush in the House of Representatives and we'd have two candidates for President vowing to reverse all of this on Inauguration Day, irrespective of which one of the two clowns wins.
But we do not - we have a government in Washington DC that has been bought and paid for by the same bankers who just looted you to the tune of $350 billion dollars by literally putting a gun to Congress' head, and they said "sure!"
What's even worse is that we have a citzenry - that is, you - who will sit like a lapdog and take this sort of crap from our government as your savings, retirement and wealth are plundered mercilessly.
You've been violated America, and you have not only tolerated it you've cheered while it happened.
I bet, in fact, you cheered the nearly 1000 point rise in the DOW yesterday, even though it came from the expectation that you would be robbed blind to pay for the foibles of these bankers that arose from their felonious and outrageous conduct.
"America dies to thunderous applause" instead of pitchfork-and-torch-style outrage, which is what we should have seen.
But we won't, will we?
You will cheer because your 401k recovered a bit (never mind that its still down by 1/3rd from last October), and by the time the rest of the value in that account is lost, it will be too late for you to act.
And make no mistake, the DOW and S&P 500 are going lower. Much lower. My targets have been revised; 1070 was my "bear target" last December, but given what we've seen, I must now consider that the 2003 Bear Market lows are not going to hold, and DOW 5,000, S&P 500 at 500, are more realistic targets.
Why?
As a hint of what is to come, Nancy Pelosi has stated that she wants to tax your 401k with a one-time levy or even a levy on appreciation or contribution, never mind that you already pay tax when you withdraw the money to spend in retirement.
The economy will continue to worsen. With essential government funds redirected to pay off the bankers and make sure they don't suffer, you will instead, along with all of the businesses and industry that make this nation great, never mind providing you with a paycheck.
And the bankers? This is a pair of them leaving the Treasury meeting yesterday:
Do they look upset with the terms of the deal they were "forced" to take? Or do they look like they just screwed you out of $250 billion dollars and are laughing all the way back to Wall Street?
You have given up your right to object America, because you are not objecting now. You are not in the streets. You are not in DC. You are not raising hell with your elected representatives and the un-elected, appointed smiling faces who just looted you once again, this time to the tune of a quarter of a trillion dollars.
LIBOR came in quite a bit - about 12 basis points for three month money. That's significant, and supports the rally you will see this morning. But the IRX, while it rose to 3.7, remains at "oh my God" levels, well below the 15ish that would suggest normal conditions with a Fed Funds target of 1.5%.
The real casualty is American Capitalism and the American Economy, which will get not one nickel of benefit from this. In due time the market will reflect this, although clearly, it will likely take some time, as I have always called equity traders "short bus" riders, and with good reason.
The insane amount of treasury bond issuance necessary to support this will cause the long end of the curve to rocket higher, a move that began today with the TNX now standing proud over 4%. This means higher borrowing costs for you, despite what you're being told, and that in turn means lower values for your house. That's right - your house is going to go down further in value, not "stabilize" or "increase". That's the hidden way they will pay for this - on your back - by forcing the value of your house down via materially higher borrowing costs. This will begin immediately; that 6% rate you've seen recently will soon be history.
So my advice is to use this rally to raise cash.
You're going to need it, as this rally is likely to have less staying power than you would like, and the real economy, which was thrown under the bus this morning to bail out of the rich bankers, will soon reflect reality.
Posted by: Gene McCreary | Oct 14, 2008 10:12:38 PM
Frankly, they just need to bring Calvin and Hobbes back...pretty please....
The kid reminds me of Calvin.. Bill Watterson was a genius.
We may need a little deranged humor in the next year or so.
Posted by: Bruce in Tennessee | Oct 14, 2008 10:28:48 PM
Yay, SINFEST!!
A Fave.
Posted by: donna | Oct 14, 2008 10:34:43 PM
I wish all would read Mr. McCreary's post. I applaud you sir.
Why didn't they just sell some of the "world's largest gold reserves" in Fort Knox to pay for all of this, instead of printing money we don't have? What are they saving that gold for? I mean, after all what's it for if you can't use it for an "emergency" like this. Hmmm.....I wonder.
For this bailout we give money to the banks to save them, to get them lending again, then they charge us interest to "borrow" it from them when they "loan" it back to us. Maybe the banks should give us interest free loans... hey, wait a minute, if we've got 700 Billion dollars, we don't even need loans, we're loaded!!!
Posted by: Scott Simpson | Oct 14, 2008 10:47:41 PM
Scott, the Fort Knox gold reserves are worth about $140 billion at current gold prices. Of course trying to sell them would significantly reduce current gold prices, so I doubt you could actually get that much for them.
In other words, if the numbers being thrown around ($700 billion, say) reflect reality (which is not obvious), then the Fort Knox reserves are quite inadequate for handling the situation.
Posted by: Boris | Oct 14, 2008 10:51:42 PM
To Gene:
Frighteningly well said... solid observances!
Posted by: Scalded From | Oct 14, 2008 10:57:10 PM
First a short selling ban and now this:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6690:
Posted by: Pat G. | Oct 14, 2008 11:02:54 PM
Gene,
An excerpt and a link to Denninger would have sufficed. I hate long C&P blog comments.I read the comments for what readers say.If you want to quote that is fine, and go ahead and provide a link to the complete text.
There is no need to post the whole damn thing here.
Posted by: Automated Robot | Oct 14, 2008 11:22:21 PM
I don't want to restore faith to the system. I hate the system. Time to reboot.
Posted by: notsofastfriend | Oct 14, 2008 11:25:56 PM
Just got home from work, super long day, nothing good happened, then I came home and read this and it was the first time I laughed all day.
Posted by: ben | Oct 14, 2008 11:33:01 PM
Requiem 10:07 PM:
(LOL at 9/25) Liberty is hot, and supportive!
Posted by: Dude | Oct 14, 2008 11:44:25 PM
Bruce writes: "The kid reminds me of Calvin.. Bill Watterson was a genius."
Slick might bear a resemblance in that cartoon, but Sinfest has quite a bit more (fairly light) sex and drug humor, plus religion - God, Satan, Jesus, and Buddha feature regularly.
Posted by: Jon H | Oct 14, 2008 11:48:03 PM
Slick might bear a resemblance in that cartoon, but Sinfest has quite a bit more (fairly light) sex and drug humor, plus religion - God, Satan, Jesus, and Buddha feature regularly.
And Mohammed?
;)
Posted by: Dr. Kenneth Noisewater | Oct 15, 2008 1:44:16 AM
All contents © copyright 2008 by Tatsuya Ishida/Museworks
Tatsuya is hiliarous.
past that,
The post, above can be found @: http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/P1.html
14 OCT 008
Posted by: Automated Robot | Oct 14, 2008 11:22:21 PM
AR,
sometimes other art.s should be reposted, in full, for different sites have different problems at different times + the memory hole will always be with us..
and, past all that, Way to, Rays!~ 3 down, 1 to go..
Posted by: Mark E Hoffer | Oct 15, 2008 1:56:34 AM
I suspected this, but no one has reported on it. it seems that after giving them all this money, Paulson has no powe to ensure that the banks actually lend this money out as intended. They could just sit on it, use it in their next hairbained scheme, or even buy more mbs.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2065100&sid=amZ3uCIUB8GQ
Posted by: Mike in NOLa | Oct 15, 2008 2:03:40 AM
That cartoon is right on. It's funny how something subject to so much spin and obfuscation can be presently clearly in a few small frames.
The idea of principled leadership based on integrity seems to be dying. We've let the system go too far, get too out of hand, and we're seeing the results. This is a horrible precedent to set.
The Truth Shall Set You Free - Paulson to Banks: "Take our money, damn it!"
Posted by: Truth08 | Oct 15, 2008 2:47:07 AM
@ Posted by: Mike in NOLa | Oct 15, 2008 2:03:40 AM
Totally!
Just imagine you’re MS, GS, or a foreign central bank. Once you receive the bailout money in return for your crap assets, what will you do with it? Will you give a special dividend to shareholders? Will you invest it? If you invest it, how?
(a) If you’re giving it to shareholders, where will they spend it? Most goods are imported. So, the money will leave the country.
(b) If you invest it, would you invest in the US? Or would you invest in companies servicing the needs of growing emerging markets?
(c) You might provide capital Buffett/CEG-style: to companies in dire need of financing with extremely valuable assets (e.g., electricity generation).
(d) You might sit on it and buy assets of failing companies in bankruptcy court. (Note: there are no more jobs retained or lost by buying an asset (a) before bankruptcy or (b) after bankruptcy. Companies can shut down or retain business units at any time.)
(e) If the Fed starts paying interest on deposits, you might just take them up on the offer of collecting interest with very little risk.
(f) If the Fed buys crap at higher-than-market rates — which there’s been every indication they will do — and auctions it off at a loss, you can repurchase your own crap.
Frankly, I expect the companies flush with new cash to approach these opportunities in reverse order. I.e., they can bide their time (earning interest from the taxpayer!) and “pick and choose” their capital deployments carefully.
So,what will the bailout money stimulate? Not the US economy. Especially when you see the possibility described in the last bullet, do you see how this is a completely useless reshuffle? It transfers the losses to the taxpayer and enriches banks/bankers. No more.
With the recent announcement by Fannie/Freddie to buy $20B/month of crap, you can even imagine them reselling it at a loss, too, to banks.
And the Fed wants to buy commercial paper, too!
This is a shitstorm, people! Are we getting closer to a "total destruction of the currency"?
Posted by: wunsacon | Oct 15, 2008 4:10:59 AM
Are we getting closer to a "total destruction of the currency"?
Posted by: wunsacon | Oct 15, 2008 4:10:59 AM
wunsa-
nice points, above my clip, too..
LSS: the underlying 'fundamentals' of, even, our faith-based currency have long been shot.
The wrong Claxon sounding at the Right time, and we'll see 'non-linearity' occur that'll make the last two weeks look domesticated, by comparison...truly, these be different days, no time for daze..
Posted by: Mark E Hoffer | Oct 15, 2008 4:32:51 AM
"Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
Posted by: aynrand | Oct 15, 2008 6:01:27 AM
Posted by: Siman | Oct 15, 2008 7:20:34 AM
I don't understand when people say that the preferred stock investment will not dilute existing shareholders - the earnings are split between more shares than before, with the government getting a guaranteed 6% (going up to 10% after a few years). How is that not dilution?
Posted by: Smokefoot | Oct 15, 2008 7:50:39 AM
«preferred stock investment will not dilute existing shareholders - the earnings are split between more shares than before, with the government getting a guaranteed 6% (going up to 10% after a few years). How is that not dilution?» Liquidation rights? But yes, it is a bit of a joke.
Posted by: Blissex | Oct 15, 2008 10:19:27 AM
Another humorous commentary in that vein, from the Daily Mash:
"Banks to lend you your own money".
Posted by: David | Oct 15, 2008 4:13:23 PM
