Candidate Comparison Chart

(h/t Kdoug)

This is emblematic of how much the McCain campaign has derailed in light of the economy that the GOP and their failed neocon policies coupled with complete deregulation have ushered in...

Economy Derails and McCain says: Slime Obama!

Economy Derails and McCain says: Slime Obama!

Via Steven D at The Booman Tribune:

DOW Jones Industrial Index down nearly more than 300 400 500 points since the opening bell. NYSE Trading would be suspended one hour if there is an 1100 point decline in the DJIA before 2:00 pm today under current NYSE rules.

And $600 Billion Dollars of US assets frozen in UK bankruptcy involving Lehman Brothers.

In Europe and Asia markets are going nuts too.

And all McCain wants to do, via BooMan, is point to stupid GOP talking points about Barack Obama.

McCain's announced plan was to make every attempt to shift the focus of the campaign off of the economy and onto Barack Obama. In particular, McCain wanted to use a kind of Kevin Bacon seven-degrees-of-separation argument to tie Obama to the dubious activities of people for which Obama bears no responsibility. It was a weak strategy to begin with, but a tumbling stock market will make it impossible. Perhaps even more troublesome for McCain is the fact the Obama campaign has launched a major media campaign to re-raise and educate the public about the Keating 5 scandal.

Don't look at the economy that is running off the tracks and "ssshhhh! about all that Keating 5 stuff":

John "Keating 5" McCain can color me surprised...

I never noticed...

Bill Maher's "New Rule" asking people not to think the worst about John McCain just because he is white:

Now, take a look at these pictures. Here are the CEOs of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and the Lehman Brothers. I know the first thing that jumps out about these faces is that they all happen to be white, and they all happen to be responsible for stealing. But what you have to understand is that these whites are a product of a society that made them that way. It was the neighborhoods and the schools they went to: Harvard, Yale, the Wharton School of Business. They never learned the value of doing real, actual work and the first step to fixing that is better role models, so kids growing up white today don’t think the only way out of Westchester is corporate crime. Or a government handout or sailing. So I get it, the temptation is to look at McCain and vote against him because you don’t see an individual, you just see another typical welfare whitey.

And it’s true, he’s spent his entire life shuffling from one low-paying government job to another. Well, except those years he spent in prison. Typical! And between you and me, he’s not very articulate. Oh, he may have some street smarts, but he’s not what you call an educated man. He freely admits he’s ignorant about the economy. And apparently the only thing his white running mate knows how to do is crank out one baby after another. And now of course, her teenage daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. Because she learns it at home! But that doesn’t mean we should assume all white people are like that, just because so many of them are.

C&L has the video

It's not like John Keating 5 McCain should ever be damned for this kind of stuff just because he is white. McCain should be damned for this kind of stuff because he is in the GOP.

A little more on John "Keating 5" McCain:

During the 2000 Republican Presidential Primaries, Slate.com writer Chris Suellentrop wrote an excellent in-depth feature article about John McCain and his role in the Keating Five. This is a must read article for every American, especially for anyone who thinks John McCainis a hero.

Two Important things to know before you read the article:

1. John McCain admitted to intentionally filing false income tax returns to defraud the IRS by not claiming thousands of dollars in gifts McCain and his family received from Charles Keating and Keating’s company. Years later, when the IRS noticed Keating’s company had written off the gifts to McCain as business expenses, McCain fessed up and admitted filing false returns and made a “donation” to the U.S. Treasury to cover the amount he defrauded American tax payers. (Committing tax fraud is one of the least offensive things John McCain has done over his career, but this article just focuses on his role in the Keating Five, and the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal of the late 1980’s-early 1990’s). McCain also leaked information about the Keating Five to the press multiple times in an effort to appear above the other Senators in the scandal. A 1989 Phoenix New Times article summed it up best with their title - McCain: The Most Reprehensible of the Keating Five.

2. John McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, along with her father, made a $359,000 investment in retail property owned by Charles Keating in 1986, a year before John McCain first met with federal regulators on behalf of Keating. Keating was later convicted on 73 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and other crimes. Years later, Cindy McCain sold her investment for $15,000,000.

For anyone not aware of the Keating Five, here’s a very simple summary.

Because some in the media don't want you to know about the Keating 5... It is just a little bit too maverICKY all over again.

Meanwhile, Sarah Winky Palin is out there screeching that "this election is all about a guy who did bad things when Obama was 8 years old, dontcha know?":

Sarah Palin recently accused Obama of palling around with terrorists. This is funny because she has her own radical extremist connections that could be construed as terrorists as well. Palin accused Obama of seeing America as so imperfect, that he was pallin around with a terrorist. Funny enough Palin for years was pallin around with a group of Alaskan radicals that saw America as imperfect enough that they wanted to secede from the union.

While Obama knew Ayers years after he had reformed and began making an honest contribution to society, Palin was a member and or strongly affiliated with a radical Alaskan secessionist party whose founder died in plastic explosives deal gone bad. Her husband was definitly a member from 1995-2002 according to voting records. While is is questionable to call them terrorists, they were definitely radical secessionists who did not fall in line with the Republican credo of ‘loving America’ or McCain’s slogan ‘Country First’.

If you want a really good idea of about what Sarah Palin's connections to the secessionist group AKIP are, that article at Blackplanet goes on to interview AKIP leadership to try and get to the bottom of it.

Meanwhile, while many have known about the radical Mark Chryson's - Sarah Palin's friend of 15 years - ties to AKIP, what many people miss is that Mark Chryson appears to be a batshit loopy bigoted Nazi sympathizing holocaust denying type.

Here are some of the web sites Sarah Palin's Mark Chryson hosts on his own personal web pages, and this is some weird, scary and wacky stuff:

Okay, it appears that web-ak.com is a webhosting company that is owned by this friend of Palin's. I went to this site and had a look around. Under the links page, we find something called the "Waco Holocaust Museum". Now, note that this is on the links page and is hosted on the same domain. In fact, it appears to be the only thing on the links page on the same domain. At the bottom of this Waco page, there are more links, a big list of them at the bottom. Half the links don't work (archive.org anyone?), but the ones that do work include:

"Seventh Seal" An 'apolitical' history of the Axis (Nazis).

"The Confederate Memorial Association"

"Brasscheck" Appears to be a 9/11 truther site.

"Real History Archives" Assorted conspiracy theories.


"Brood of Vipers" More conspiracy theories.

"Final Conflict" Incoherent website about Nationalism. The page has an article "Did six million really die?"

Enjoy!

Mark Chryson is one radical, scary and wacko dude.

And Mark Chryson was friends of the Palins for 15 years - the entire time Todd Palin was a member of this radical secessionist group, AKIP - and Chryson even helped Sarah Palin take down the Alaskan GOP chairman.

Now... That is all just Secessionist Sarah Palin's ties to the far reaches of wingnuttery batshit loopyness, but not all of her ties to it...

a builder named Steven Stoll, a computer repairman named Mark Chryson, and a third man named Mike Christ. All three subscribed to a bellicose, "Patriot" movement brand of politics -- far-right libertarianism with a John Birch streak.

According to Stein, Steven Stoll -- whose local nickname, according to Phil Munger, is "Black Helicopter Steve" -- was involved in militia organizing in Wasilla the 1990s, and subscribed to most of the movement's paranoid conspiracy theories: "The rumor was that he had wrapped his guns in plastic and buried them in his yard so he could get them after the New World Order took over."

This wasn't particularly unusual in the valley at the time. Like much of the rural Northwest, survivalist worldviews often led to Patriot organizing activity and its attendant paranoia: "There were other folks who also got all worked up about the supposed Y2K thing," Stein said, recalling a home he'd looked at with a full array of bunkers and stored food supplies.

But Stoll, Mike Christ, and Mark Chryson were a special case: "They would demonstrate in front of the Wasilla Council," recalled Stein, saying that the causes varied but invariably involved an animus to "socialist" government, such as planning and public education. "This same group [Stoll, Christ, and Chryson] also challenged me on whether my wife and I were married because she had kept her maiden name. So we literally had to produce a marriage certificate. And as I recall, they said, ‘Well, you could have forged that.’ "

And they were a vocal part of Sarah Palin's base of support.

Look... These two incompetent, corrupt and failed conservatives can try to distract you from the GOP's economic legacy that is unfolding before your very eyes right now with BS about Obama as an 8 year old BUT I guarantee we will talk about what these two have done as irresponsible adults.

And the GOP better realize...

What This Election Is Really About

Barrack Obama on what this election is really about:

This financial crisis is a direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years. It’s the result of speculators who gamed the system, regulators who looked the other way, and lobbyists who bought their way into our government. It’s the result of an economic philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else; a philosophy that views even the most common-sense regulations as unwise and unnecessary. Well, this crisis is nothing less than a final verdict on this failed philosophy – and it’s a philosophy I’m running for President to end.

That’s what this election is all about.

Crooks and Liars has some video up:

“I don’t know what yardstick Senator McCain uses, but where I come from, there is nothing more ‘fundamental’ than a job. The fundamentals of our economy are not strong and it’s time we had a President who understands that.” - Barack Obama

Avoiding Transparency - Towns Shuttering Websites

Some small towns - like Lyme, Salem, Colbrook, and Harwinton - in Connecticut are shuttering their websites because of new transparency laws:

Bart Russell is the Executive Director of Connecticut's Council of Small Towns.

His group wants the state's FOI Commission to issue an advisory opinion on the law that went into effect Wednesday that requires municipalities to post information from public meetings on the Internet.

Under the new law, meeting agendas must be up twenty-four hours in advance and minutes posted within seven days after a meeting. Russell says the towns want to be transparent but the time constraints aren't reasonable.

I am trying to figure out what would make it so hard to comply here since all it takes is for the webmasters of these sites to add an easy "upload button" somewhere for the town workers to click on and upload files? I can understand some short delays as the code monkeys write up something and add a searchable section of the site to upload them to. If they are too cheap to pay for the sites they could easily do it on Blogger by cut and pasting the agendas and minutes into a Blog. It isn't that hard to do.

Look... It took me all of 20 minutes to set up that Sample Blog for New Milford and another minute to write a title for the post and to cut and paste the information out of an Open Office Document file and into the post.

If you or your town has internet access there is no excuse to skirt posting the information in a timely manner.

Just a video in honor of the many code monkeys that do volunteer to do this kind of community organizing for many towns across the USA for free.

Welcome To Foreclosure Alley

Bob @ Politics in the Zeros would like you to visit

Foreclosure Alley
The Inland Empire area of southern California is one of the hardest hit areas for foreclosures.This TV report (which I meant to post earlier) shows some of the devastation.

Go on over and check out the devastation...

Red State Should Check Their Dictionary

Before they start a laughable attack on Joe Biden...

We know that Sarah Winky Palin's flub with the General's name was a minor one, the issue is more the fact that Winky Palin said the opposite of what the General said concerning a "Surge" (escalation) in Afghanistan not being useful in that country and, also, seemed to think reciting his statements on counter insurgency operations and other issues given by the mis-named General justified her lie.

But Red State thinks that the GOP giggle gaggle should be making fun of Joe Biden for dropping names:

"The Vice Presidential Debate
Posted by: Pejman Yousefzadeh
From what I heard, her worst gaffe was calling General McKiernan in Afghanistan "General McClellan," which appears to indicate that Sarah Palin was having a Civil War flashback. Of course, Joe Biden referred to "Bosniacs" so the gaffes were not one-sided and for a Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to refer to "Bosniacs" . . . well, it's kinda interesting, to say the least. I wonder if people will make an issue of it. They should and they most certainly would if Sarah Palin made that comment. Again, it is kind of silly that we are penalizing candidates for innocent verbal flubs that have little to nothing to do with how they would govern, but fair is fair and this gaffe deserves a fair amount of ridicule. Wonder what the Bosnians thought about this statement."

Now... I know that Winky Palin may have had you, the willingly uninformed right wingers, mesmerized with her non-answers to questions - How can you win a debate when you don't, NO, you REFUSE to even answer the questions? Anyways - but your entire right wing giggle gaggle of Grade 3ers that she winked at all night would do much better to check your dictionary before you get all falling over yourselves silly OR, at least, read up a bit on Bosnia and other foreign countries so you might actually have a world view worth commenting on:

Although the international community has done a laudable job in getting refugees and displaced persons back into their homes, the effort to find enough common ground amongst Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims), Croats and Serbs to run the country on their own, or to develop a sense of loyalty to their common state, has failed.
Davos man meets Homo Balcanicus by Bardos, Gordon N. / The National Interest

As the Bosniacs retreated, a plain-clothes policeman discharged a pistol in the air, and "at least two plain-clothes officers" then fired into the retreating marchers, killing 1 person and wounding 20.
Former Yugoslavia by UN Chronicle

That had resulted in another round of population movements along ethnic lines, further separating Bosnian Serbs and Bosniacs and delivering a "telling blow to the multicultural nature of Sarajevo society",
'Relatively stable military environment' established by collective ... by UN Chronicle

When you do finally learn to check your dictionaries, you might be well on your way to graduating 3rd grade and - one day, maybe 10 or 20 years down the road - you might even merit being a front page Blogger somewhere...

Some remedial homework for you Red State kids... Since you won't be getting extra credit... And don't spill your right wing koolaide on it at snack time!

And as a side note: Isn't it nice that we have a Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who actually knows what he is talking about? Imagine that kind of competence in the White House?

You Deserve A Break Today!

Go ahead and hide out here for a few minutes reading this laugher of a photo essay:

While most people will be watching Thursday's VP debate to find out whether Sarah Palin will start speaking in tongues, there's also the little matter of diarrhea-mouth hothead Joe Biden. The Obama camp is worried about the notoriously unpredictable Biden getting too aggressive (read: red-faced bellowing) while addressing Gov. Palin and losing the coveted "we hate people who aren't nice to the woefully underqualified" vote.

You've worked hard towards this moment too. Take a few minutes to laugh it up a little. Then get back to work ya slackers!

Glen Beck is a Soup Salad Sandwich

Glen Beck's thought process is a freakin' mess:

While interviewing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on his CNN Headline News show last night, right-wing talker Glenn Beck declared that there’s “nobody in Washington that anybody trusts anymore.” Saying that he’d “like oversight” of the money Congress is allocating for the bailout of the financial system, Beck suggested Gen. David Petraeus would be the perfect person to provide the oversight:

BECK: thought of it, Senator. I`d like oversight, but here`s who I would like to provide the oversight for the people who are overseeing this mess, and that`s General Petraeus. I would like to see somebody bring General Petraeus in and have him sit there with all the stars on his shoulders and say, “Ok now, explain again how you didn`t create this mess?”

Now... Let me think real hard on that one... OK?

Black market arms deals...

The attacks were no mystery. What puzzled Turkish police was the weapons' origin. Glocks are high-quality sidearms, but by last year they had practically become common street weapons in Turkey. More than 1,000 had been taken from criminals, guerrillas, terrorists and assassins all over the country, and authorities believed tens of thousands more had found their way onto the black market

There are many more where those came from. At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive "disappearance" and diversion of weapons Washington intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. The potential size of the traffic is stunning. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.

snip

Major U.S. arms transfers began when Gen. David Petraeus was commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command—Iraq (MNSTC-I), better known as Minsticky. Its mission was to train, arm and organize Iraq's military and police forces, but the Iraqis' weapons came via the State Department, and the supply line was actually run by private contractors.

Not just no but HELL NO!

What This Election Is Really About

Barrack Obama on what this election is really about:

This financial crisis is a direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years. It’s the result of speculators who gamed the system, regulators who looked the other way, and lobbyists who bought their way into our government. It’s the result of an economic philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else; a philosophy that views even the most common-sense regulations as unwise and unnecessary. Well, this crisis is nothing less than a final verdict on this failed philosophy – and it’s a philosophy I’m running for President to end.

That’s what this election is all about.

Crooks and Liars has some video up:

“I don’t know what yardstick Senator McCain uses, but where I come from, there is nothing more ‘fundamental’ than a job. The fundamentals of our economy are not strong and it’s time we had a President who understands that.” - Barack Obama

Time Magazine: The Truth About The Bail Out

Forbes, just yesterday, let the truth slip out about how the bail out would artificially keep your cost of living higher. Today, Time Magazine tells you to your face the facts about a bail out:

Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail
By Ari J. Officer and Lawrence H. Officer

Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history.

Rescuing financial institutions is not the best solution.

Information and facts are the only things that will protect you from any attempts by the government to take your money and hand it over to the support the lavish lifestyles of these corrupt, reckless and foolish investors.

Bank Crisis 101 - The Simplest Explanation You Will Find

'Warren Buffett once called derivatives,
"financial weapons of mass destruction"'

They try to hide what it is using fancy words like credit derivatives. Over and over again they tell you it is too complicated for the average person to understand. They are lying to you. You can easily understand this if you read these pieces together. They keep talking about mortgages but they are the smallest part of this entire "shitpile." It is a scam and the bushies have been waiting for months to unleash this "crisis" as an election issue.

Via A Tiny Revolution (h/t Buzzflash), A few words from Abraham Lincoln on this subject:

He's referring to a dispute between private shareholders of the Illinois State Bank:

It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay the fiddler...all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.

Lincoln's speech was given just as one of the greatest speculative bubbles in US history was bursting.

Real leadership in crisis of the likes that we have not seen in this country for decades... Perhaps, even, since the last Great Depression.

Bailing Out the Oil and Energy Markets

You really want to know how the bail out will hit you in the pocketbook?

While everyone knows the U.S. government is looking to bail Wall Street banks, few people realize that it's also bailing out speculative oil and commodities traders in the process, fueling a sharp rise in energy prices.

Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEH - news - people ) and AIG (nyse: AIG - news - people ) held enormous trading positions in commodities markets. If those positions had been liquidated suddenly, the price of everything from wheat to oil would have collapsed. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the main regulator of U.S. commodity markets, allowed Wall Street's investment banks and trading companies to take control of massive positions in commodities markets called swaps held by Lehman Brothers and AIG.

The result: Oil prices spiked by a whopping $16 per barrel on Monday, the largest single-day rise in oil prices ever.

"If speculators were forced to liquidate their positions, oil would easily be $65 to $75 per barrel by the time the liquidation was complete," said Michael Masters, the founder of Atlanta-based hedge fund Masters Capital Management. Tuesday, oil was trading at $108.74 in midday trading in New York.

These companies all have REAL assets to sell off that can cover the costs of their failures in buying and selling of scraps of paper that have zero value other than their manufacturing of commissions and bonuses for these Banks.

People are screaming about losses on the stock market if we don't bail them out. I still believe strongly that it is all a very necessary and well deserved market adjustment. But even if you are on the side of giving cash to these criminal and scheming banks... Think about the other costs to your own pocketbook beyond just your personal investment portfolio.

Real tangible assets: The food you eat, the gas you put in your car, the paper you read or write on. All of these commodities are kept at an artificially high price because of a bail out.

Most Americans don't own that much in the stock market for them to be killed by losing a bit of money because a few banks failed. Most Americans do eat, drive and some of them even read and write.

Everything you do on a daily basis is costing you more because of artificially high prices.

Now, with news that the fed was printing out 630 Billion dollars on paper made from their magical money tree, and before the 700 billion dollar TOXIC BILL had been voted down... Think about the double whammy you are getting from a bailout. (Never mind the fact that it means it was really a pre-planned 1.33 trillion dollar hand out to these criminals?)

Not only are you paying artificially high prices for these commodities because these banks don't have to sell off their commodities to bail themselves out BUT you will be paying even higher prices with a devalued American dollar because the Fed is printing even more funny money that never existed.

Do you not realize when you are really getting fucked over by the system? A system that bush and his neocon cabal has gamed against you with all of these premeditated maneuvers...

Previously Brewed in New Milford:

Bank Crisis 101 - The Simplest Explanation You Will Find

Warren Buffett once called derivatives,
"financial weapons of mass destruction"

They try to hide what it is using fancy words like credit derivatives. Over and over again they tell you it is too complicated for the average person to understand.

They are lying to you.

rdf at The EuroTrib sums it up in the simplest of terms for those of you that don't understand what the supposed bank crisis is all about:

The Crisis Explained - Really
by rdf
Thu Sep 25th, 2008 at 10:24:14 AM EST

Analogies are never perfect, but here's one using horse racing. Don't expect a perfect correspondence to the banking situation, but I think it is close enough for government work.

Joe goes to the track and bets $2 on a horse.

Two guys standing nearby get into a discussion and Fred says to Sam, "I'll bet you $5 that Joe wins his bet."

Next to them are Bill and Bob. Bill says: "I'll bet you $10 that Fred welshes on his bet if he loses."

Next to them is Sally. Sally says: "For $3 I'll guarantee to Bill that if Bob fails to pay off, I'll make good on the bet."

Sally then goes to Mary and borrows the $7 needed in case she has to ever pay off and promises to pay back $8. She doesn't expect to every have to pay since she believes Bob will always make good. So she expects to net $2 no matter what happens to Joe.

A quick calculation indicates that there is now 2+5+10+3+7 = $27 riding on the outcome of the horse race.

Question how much has been "invested" in the horse race?

Answer:

$50,000 by the owner of the horse who is expecting to recoup his investment from the winnings of the horse and other future deals. Everyone else is gambling, not investing.

The issue with the home market is that the only "investor" was the person who bought the home. All those engaged in the meaningless derivatives spun off from this are gambling. You can see how quickly the face value of all these side bets can exceed the underlying investment. Who is holding these side bets - not the homeowner? It is the people at the failing investment banks, hedge funds and similar enterprises. Notice that the bailout is being directed at them not the homeowners.

The real world is, of course, even more complicated. Over the last 30 years people have been allowed to place bets on everything starting with the value of stock averages. They might as well bet on the temperature in Newark at 8:00 AM.

So when you hear everybody saying this is a crisis caused by the housing collapse, be skeptical. We are in the midst of a classic pyramid or Ponzi scheme and there is no way out except for people to lose a lot of money. All that is different this time is that it is the taxpayers who are being asked for the cash.

I keep trying to explain to people how this is a scam and how the American people are going to be victims of it if they don't pay attention to it. They don't want you to know how simple this ripoff is.

Does that explanation above sound so complicated? That is an explanation that needs to go viral!

And all you really need to know about this now is that the bushies have been holding on to this to use it as an election issue for quite a while.

The thing that really pisses me off - and that most of the people, journalists and politicians don't seem to get or, at least, some of them intentionally ignore - is that the mortgage aspect is just a tiny little part of the entire shitpile.

The mortgage part of it is what really started to show the cracks in this scam, and it is one of the very few parts of this ponzi scheme with real and tangible assets to show at stake - the bulk of the shitpile are scraps of paper with absolutely zero value.

While it may look superficially similar to the recent implosions of such investment giants as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman, the takeover and bailout of AIG is quite different, and means that the market is entering the next and even more dangerous phase. What is driving the fall of AIG – and potential government losses that may far, far exceed the $85 billion bailout announced late on September 16th - is not mortgages or real estate (directly), but fears that AIG’s huge, global credit-default swap positions will unravel. The $62 trillion dollar credit derivatives market is 50 times the size of the subprime mortgage derivatives market, and is indeed larger than the entire global economy.

Unfortunately, few people understand credit derivatives, or the full risks to the United States and global markets and economies. In this article, I will take a Credit Derivatives Primer that I published in the spring of 2008 - which anticipated this exact type of event - and update it for the current situation. Through reading this article, you should be able to greatly increase your knowledge of what credit derivatives are, and why they are a far greater danger than subprime mortgages. We will end with introducing some concepts about how individuals can protect themselves and even profit from these unprecedented market conditions – something you won’t find in recent financial history or conventional investments.

...snip...

On September 1st, few knew that AIG, the largest insurance company in the world with over $1 trillion in assets, was in deep trouble. By September 12th, the rumors about major trouble were everywhere. By September 15th AIG’s corporate life expectancy was being measured in days, and the question was: bankruptcy, buyer or bailout? By the evening of September 16th, the federal government had massively intervened, making an $85 billion loan to AIG in exchange for a controlling 79.9% equity share of the company.

Welcome to the brave new world of credit derivatives driven collapses. A world that is far more dangerous than the world of subprime mortgage derivatives. A complex world that because of its sheer size can potentially cause more damage in a matter of days than the subprime mortgage derivatives caused in their first year in the headlines.

Go to the following link and apply what you learned from the horse race to it remembering that a credit derivative is just a bet or a side bet. Bets where the oddsmakers start messing with the odds in unreal ways: The people that were selling and buying these scraps of paper, their managers, partners and firms profiting from and behind it all are negligent in their dealings - criminally negligent, IMHO - AND the Feds that backed all of this are equally criminal.

But whom exactly will all of the taxpayer money benefit?

A little clue to Joe and Suzy Sixpack: Unless you own a bank or one of these other failing businesses, it ain't you!

They gambled, they lost... And now they want you to pay off their gambling debts.


Previously Brewed in New Milford:

Buy Your Shitpile? HELL NO!

Given what we know about the closed door meetings on Capitol Hill, I want to know what the meeting insiders - from the corrupt Bush administration on down to the supposedly surprised Senators and Representatives and including all of the other government officials that have known or just found out about this - have done with their own investment portfolios in the last little while.

I say "supposedly surprised" since the Bush administration had fought tooth and nail to keep investigations into a big part of this financial fraud under wraps until their recent pre-election extortion demands to rape the American taxpayers:

Sure, Spitzer should have de-socked before his career-ending indiscretion. But we should revisit the prophetic message that was lost to the tsunami of Spitzer's scandalization two weeks later.

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers,
Feb. 14, 2008. Washington Post.

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders...These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Spitzer's omen went further to note that not only did the White House do nothing, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye after 50 state Attorneys General and many legislative attempts failed to halt the worst of the predatory lending excesses.

The AGs and their banking superintendents fought the Bush Administration's use of a Civil War era banking provision which established federal preemption of all state predatory lending laws and the new rules which emasculated state consumer protections from national banks.

Shortly before Stone's November tip finally mobilized national law enforcement to rescue Americans from the perverse activities of Spitzer and his calf-length socks, he left a final warning:

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

We're now to let Industry's insider dictate the terms under which we'll spend the heritage of our grandchildren to repurchase the bloody bag of instruments of our rape?(em. mine -CM1)

The Spitzer investigations were dogging just the mortgage aspects of the entire shitpile that bushies are trying to sell to us... Which would have eventually exposed the entire underbelly of this well before the Bush administration wanted to.

They try and tell you, over and over again that it is too complicated to understand. BULLSHIT!

All you really need to know is that the bushies have been holding on to this to use it as an election issue.

The thing that really pisses me off - and that most of the people, journalists and politicians don't seem to get or, at least, some of them intentionally ignore - is that the mortgage aspect is just a tiny little part of the entire shitpile.

The mortgage part of it is what really started to show the cracks in this scam, and it is one of the very few parts of this ponzi scheme with real and tangible assets to show at stake - the bulk of this shitpile are scraps of paper with absolutely zero value.

While it may look superficially similar to the recent implosions of such investment giants as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman, the takeover and bailout of AIG is quite different, and means that the market is entering the next and even more dangerous phase. What is driving the fall of AIG – and potential government losses that may far, far exceed the $85 billion bailout announced late on September 16th - is not mortgages or real estate (directly), but fears that AIG’s huge, global credit-default swap positions will unravel. The $62 trillion dollar credit derivatives market is 50 times the size of the subprime mortgage derivatives market, and is indeed larger than the entire global economy.

Unfortunately, few people understand credit derivatives, or the full risks to the United States and global markets and economies. In this article, I will take a Credit Derivatives Primer that I published in the spring of 2008 - which anticipated this exact type of event - and update it for the current situation. Through reading this article, you should be able to greatly increase your knowledge of what credit derivatives are, and why they are a far greater danger than subprime mortgages. We will end with introducing some concepts about how individuals can protect themselves and even profit from these unprecedented market conditions – something you won’t find in recent financial history or conventional investments.

...snip...

On September 1st, few knew that AIG, the largest insurance company in the world with over $1 trillion in assets, was in deep trouble. By September 12th, the rumors about major trouble were everywhere. By September 15th AIG’s corporate life expectancy was being measured in days, and the question was: bankruptcy, buyer or bailout? By the evening of September 16th, the federal government had massively intervened, making an $85 billion loan to AIG in exchange for a controlling 79.9% equity share of the company.

Welcome to the brave new world of credit derivatives driven collapses. A world that is far more dangerous than the world of subprime mortgage derivatives. A complex world that because of its sheer size can potentially cause more damage in a matter of days than the subprime mortgage derivatives caused in their first year in the headlines.

The people that were selling and buying these scraps of paper, their managers, partners and firms profiting from and behind it all are negligent in their dealings - criminally negligent, IMHO - AND the Feds that backed all of this are equally criminal.

But whom exactly will all of the taxpayer money benefit?

A little clue to Joe and Suzy Sixpack: Unless you own a bank or one of these other failing businesses, it ain't you! And the beneficiaries of said scam are already out there trying to seed the blogosphere with disinformation on it:

Everybody's An Expert

I get emails like this sometimes, from insiders who know what they're talking about, and over time I've learned that while they may be insiders all that means is they have access to more gossip. That gossip often doesn't turn out to be true.

In any case, a straw man is being erected. There is no crisis which requires $700 billion to Hank Paulson's friends THIS WEEK. That's the argument. There may be serious problems in the financial sector which require government attention. There isn't something which requires an insane act of Congress NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW.

-Atrios 10:40

It is a fucking election fabrication and a scam, and I still say...

Fuck the banks - Let them fail

I am sitting here listening to the hearing on this and all I keep hearing is “think about this from the American taxpayer who is already on the hook”… BS

The only people already on the hook are the one’s that own these banks.

The Europeans are having the same problem and their answer? Let the banks get through it on their own. If that doesn’t clue everyone into how much of a fallacy this whole issue is, I don’t know what will?

Rush into the Iraq war…
fear! fear! FEAR!
Rush into the patriot act!
fear! fear! FEAR!
Rush into fixing (PRIVATIZE IT, DAMNIT!) social security…
fear! fear! FEAR!
Rush into a bailout of incompetent banks...
Fuck the fearmongering!

Banking disaster? Only if you own one of these failed banks… I am not buying this “bush reality” - not even a little bit.

It all looks like a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich for no other purpose than to support their failure at our expense.

The fear of a looming recession? We are in it whether or not these banks fail and it is going to get worse whether or not these banks fail. I have a great idea! Let a couple of these banks go under and watch what happens? If I were a betting man, I would be willing to bet someone will profit off of it, and we will still be in a recession.

You want me to buy your shitpile? Not just NO! But...

HELL NO!

You can buy our shitpile instead:

Buy My Shitpile

With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government's help!

Use the form to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD "MMMbop", it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.

I have a stack of papers sitting beside my desk - not to mention the rolls of it in the bathroom - that I can value at trillions of dollars too!