The plan was supposedly urgent right?

[Tulpen]

Lawmakers needed to approve that within a week right?

Now the treasury tells us that the first purchase will be at least weeks away.

WTF?

[Supercilious]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

Lawmakers needed to approve that within a week right?

Now the treasury tells us that the first purchase will be at least weeks away.

WTF?

What ??? You really thought this is a "real" crisis and the economy needs a "rescue" ???

Those who believe that, maybe are sill waiting to see Sadam's WMD stockpiles found somewhere in Iraq

[phirang]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

What ??? You really thought this is a "real" crisis and the economy needs a "rescue" ???

Those who believe that, maybe are sill waiting to see Sadam's WMD stockpiles found somewhere in Iraq

reminds me of the first austin powers, where the goon of dr evil is ever so sllowly run over...

[jmdpet]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

reminds me of the first austin powers, where the goon of dr evil is ever so sllowly run over...

[Guest]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

$#* -

The entire credit market is locked up in the US and spreading fast all over Europe, according to Dr. Warburton per today's interview in the select pages. Credit markets locking up is spreading fast outside of the EU and US as well. What part of Dr. Warburton's testimony on this do you choose to flatly disbelieve in pursuit of your favored unitary thesis of a "planned operation"?

You are a really smart guy. You obviously have a very good grasp of a lot of components of the financial markets. But what use is that if you don't keep a wide open door to incoming data and incorporate it's rude awakenings into your estimation of what is occurring? Dr. Warburton is here to tell you - the credit markets are locking up, and a wave of corporations across entire continents is on the clock right now, without means of rolling over any of their credit lines.

I think pet theses need to be hung up here in short order. It's no time to be constructing elegant theorems. Get pragmatic. Get real. Look at the credit heart attack spilling across all of America and Europe and join with your fellow citizens in expressing urgency that tens of thousands of small and mid-sized business are at immediate risk of summarily shutting down here. Really, your gadfly comments below are not timely to this situation.

Respectfully.

What ??? You really thought this is a "real" crisis and the economy needs a "rescue" ??? Those who believe that, maybe are sill waiting to see Sadam's WMD stockpiles found somewhere in Iraq

[D-Mack]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

At least they had time to put a bit "carbon tax" stuff in it

Spelunking the Bailout Bill -- Carbon Tax Audit Anyone?

Ronald Bailey | October 3, 2008, 12:19pm

As many have noted, the bailout legislation passed by the Senate and up before the House today contains a lot of early Christmas presents for various favored industries. One favorite is a provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows for kids. (I'd have thought for-the-kids nannystaters would have argued for banning such dangerous toys which encourage violence rather than hand arrow corporations a tax break, but these are strange times.)

Another provision that has alarmed the good folks over at the Capital Reseach Center is a clause authorizing a "carbon audit of the tax code." CRC's Green Alert warns:

This appears to be an attempt by global warming fanatics to lay the foundation for an economy-killing carbon tax just like the "cap-and-tax" system that is now destroying European industry.

The actual provision reads:

SEC. 117. CARBON AUDIT OF THE TAX CODE.
(a) Study- The Secretary of the Treasury shall enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a comprehensive review of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to identify the types of and specific tax provisions that have the largest effects on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and to estimate the magnitude of those effects.
(b) Report- Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the National Academy of Sciences shall submit to Congress a report containing the results of study authorized under this section.
(c) Authorization of Appropriations- There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section $1,500,000 for the period of fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

...

http://reason.com/blog/show/129258.html

[we_are_toast]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

Lawmakers needed to approve that within a week right?

Now the treasury tells us that the first purchase will be at least weeks away.

WTF?

I heard the logistics of implementing buying this stuff was going to take time. In the mean time, as the titanic lists more and more, I'm looking for Ben to lead the band in an emergency 1/2 point cut.

[metalman]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

$#* -

The entire credit market is locked up in the US and spreading fast all over Europe, according to Dr. Warburton per today's interview in the select pages. Credit markets locking up is spreading fast outside of the EU and US as well. What part of Dr. Warburton's testimony on this do you choose to flatly disbelieve in pursuit of your favored unitary thesis of a "planned operation"?

You are a really smart guy. You obviously have a very good grasp of a lot of components of the financial markets. But what use is that if you don't keep a wide open door to incoming data and incorporate it's rude awakenings into your estimation of what is occurring? Dr. Warburton is here to tell you - the credit markets are locking up, and a wave of corporations across entire continents is on the clock right now, without means of rolling over any of their credit lines.

I think pet theses need to be hung up here in short order. It's no time to be constructing elegant theorems. Get pragmatic. Get real. Look at the credit heart attack spilling across all of America and Europe and join with your fellow citizens in expressing urgency that tens of thousands of small and mid-sized business are at immediate risk of summarily shutting down here. Really, your gadfly comments below are not timely to this situation.

Respectfully.

why waste your time. $#* knowns more than warburton. why he could have written 'debt and delusion'. he knows more than martin mayer, too. why he could have written all 12 of the books mayer has written on banking in the past 40 yrs. and we all know he knows waaaay more than ej. nope. ya can't teach $#* nothing.

all you anti-interventionists... you're gonna get the depression you're dreaming of, that you are going to ride out because you were smart and have cash and gold and no debt. hope you have plenty of room for your relatives to move into your house with you, you know, all 20 of them who do not have cash and gold and do have piles of debt. or do you plan to fell them 'told you so!' until they stop talking to you.

[grapejelly]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

it doesn't matter that this bailout passed. The Fed has added 40% to their balance sheet in the last two weeks. They will monetize everything under the sun. Trillions.

The bailout is to buy off foreign banks so they will continue to buy US government debt. Then the next step is to do principal reductions or "short refis" as people call them. The banks will write down mortgages in return for US government guaranteed new ones. The losses will be borne by the US treasury.

I posted on this but I don't know where it went.

[Guest]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

I guess all credit isn't 'frozen up'

Toyota is now giving money away to sell vehicles.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/10/03/t...-on-11-models/

And my family is welcome to use my unfinished basement. I might even have a camp stove around they can use. And all the free water from the spigot outside they want.

As for writing books as proof of being right... If two guys write 12 books each on a topic and they come to opposite conclusions, which one is correct?

[metalman]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

it doesn't matter that this bailout passed. The Fed has added 40% to their balance sheet in the last two weeks. They will monetize everything under the sun. Trillions.

The bailout is to buy off foreign banks so they will continue to buy US government debt. Then the next step is to do principal reductions or "short refis" as people call them. The banks will write down mortgages in return for US government guaranteed new ones. The losses will be borne by the US treasury.

I posted on this but I don't know where it went.

hey, where'd all the deflationistas go? buried under a flurry of treasury paper, i presume.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

$#* -

The entire credit market is locked up in the US and spreading fast all over Europe, according to Dr. Warburton per today's interview in the select pages. Credit markets locking up is spreading fast outside of the EU and US as well. What part of Dr. Warburton's testimony on this do you choose to flatly disbelieve in pursuit of your favored unitary thesis of a "planned operation"?

You are a really smart guy. You obviously have a very good grasp of a lot of components of the financial markets. But what use is that if you don't keep a wide open door to incoming data and incorporate it's rude awakenings into your estimation of what is occurring? Dr. Warburton is here to tell you - the credit markets are locking up, and a wave of corporations across entire continents is on the clock right now, without means of rolling over any of their credit lines.

I think pet theses need to be hung up here in short order. It's no time to be constructing elegant theorems. Get pragmatic. Get real. Look at the credit heart attack spilling across all of America and Europe and join with your fellow citizens in expressing urgency that tens of thousands of small and mid-sized business are at immediate risk of summarily shutting down here. Really, your gadfly comments below are not timely to this situation.

Respectfully.

My guess as to why the credit markets in the U.S. have frozen-up is that the geniuses at the Fed have set interest rates far too low to offset the risk of lending, even to banks, even overnight.

Why would any banker make a loan to earn a few pennies in interest overnight? Banks have better things to do with money such as charging fees, increasing their spreads, investing offshore, swallowing other banks, etc.

Somehow, this common sense escapes the Fed.

If the libor rate is above the Fed's rate, shouldn't the Fed hike interest rates? The market is giving the Fed a message, but the Fed refuses to listen.

And if a borrower can not pay the world rate on money, why should that borrower get money? Better to have the borrower refused and his business closed than to have the borrower kept in business by artificial and arbitrary policies of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Why should Fed save businesses which have been run poorly--- the big three auto companies in Detroit, for example? This only rewards mismanagement.

Bailing-out Wall Street and the banks won't help free-up the capital markets, but a reversal of the Fed's inane low interest rate policies would help to loosen lending conditions immediately.

[Guest]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

Steve, that can't be the right thesis. Libor and money market rates are to the moon already, and you can't have central banks chasing ultra short term rate changes. These severely stretching libor and money market rate distortions have cropped up in a brief matter of weeks. If you had a central bank chasing such drastic and sudden moves in short term rates, monetary policy would be chaotic. Also in a wider environment of acute credit and debt fragility is no time to start getting adventurous on drastically changing the interest rates that have led up to that condition. Changes have to be exceedingly gradual when the economy has a structural illness, or the economic reaction is merely shock.

My guess as to why the credit markets in the U.S. have frozen-up is that the geniuses at the Fed have set interest rates far too low to offset the risk of lending, even to banks, even overnight.

[Jay]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

And my family is welcome to use my unfinished basement. I might even have a camp stove around they can use. And all the free water from the spigot outside they want.

Well, I'm renting a small place below my means and now we have a new member of the family, so my brothers and sisters will have to figure something else out 'cause there ain't no more room here. And the basement isn't pretty. They should have taken the inumerable hints I have given over the last few years. If they are hungry they can come over and eat some rice, I sure have enough down there, but the meat is for the immediates.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The plan was supposedly urgent right?

Let's say that a small business needs to borrow $100,000 overnight. The Bernankee rate is 2% for the cost of money, and this goofy rate forces banks to lend overnight at 3%. So according to theory, this small business gets $100K for the night for $8.21, and the small business can stay in business.

Would you invest $100K in a business where $8.21 ( Eight dollars and 21 CENTS per day ) makes the difference between staying open or closing?

And looking at this from the bank's point-of-view: Would you risk $100,000 overnight for $8.21? And if the bank has to borrow the $100K from the Fed, the cost to the bank is $5.47 overnight, and the profit to the bank for the loan is $2.74 ( Two dollars and 74 CENTS ).

Try going to a filling-station and see what $2.74 buys to-day. And you would risk $100,000.oo for this sum of money?????????????????

Is this the kind of thinking they teach kids in the economics departments of our major universities? :rolleyes: