Government aid could save US newspapers, spark debate

It isn’t sexual excess, or any other appetite gone wrong, that leads certainly to moral collapse.  It’s the little easy vistas on the road to Gimme City, down the lanes of entitlement that lead to someone else’s unguarded stash.  

It’s the route taken by people nestled in the folds of great prosperity or the ones crushed in the vise of privation.  The latter is forgiven,  the former just a social cancer, eating away at the contract we all sign to take care of ourselves, within arguable human limits.  It takes generations to create a stable society, held together by tradition, restraint, the norms and customs that make good citizenship not only possible, but desirable.  Such a world can be undone in a decade. 

One could ramble for hours on the final degradation of the Bush administration (and America), with its cavalier inability to understand that wealth is not created by fiat.  Access to the fruit of your neighbor’s labor, after you’ve exhausted your own,  is inherently evil in the smallest detail.  On the scale practiced today, it’s an enormity vast enough to nail its victims and beneficiaries to the ground for a generation.

For platinum plated BS and plastic vomit combined, read the link.  The idiots of Connecticut now find a social priority in keeping the most dismal, stupid, biased and ultimately useless product alive in the middle of its supersession.  The print newpaper. 

As a ”news” container, the local hard copy newspaper ”informs” fewer people than the broadsides and pamphlets of long ago.   And for political conformity, the Bristol Press is indistinguishable from the New Haven Register, the Hartford Courant, Waterbury Republican, Meriden Record/Journal, The Middletown Press, or even, especially, The New York Times. 

There is no argument for keeping these rags alive, any of them.  Let them fail and allow something new to take their place.

UPDATE:  End Times from The Atlantic:

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print - the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital….But what if old media dies much more quickly?  What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely?  Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business - like this May?

…everything has its day.

Jim Rogers calls most big U.S. banks “bankrupt”

Jim Rogers, one of the world’s most prominent international investors, on Thursday called most of the largest U.S. banks “totally bankrupt,” and said government efforts to fix the sector are wrongheaded. [snip]

Goldman Sachs & Co analysts this week estimated that banks worldwide have suffered $850 billion of credit-related losses and writedowns since the global credit crisis began last year.
But Rogers said sound U.S. lenders remain. He said these could include banks that don’t make or hold subprime mortgages, or which have high ratios of deposits to equity, “all the classic old ratios that most banks in America forgot or started ignoring because they were too old-fashioned.”

Many analysts cite Lehman’s Sept 15 bankruptcy as a trigger for the recent cratering in the economy and stock markets.
Rogers called that idea “laughable,” noting that banks have been failing for hundreds of years. And yet, he said policymakers aren’t doing enough to prevent another Lehman.

“Governments are making mistakes,” he said. “They’re saying to all the banks, you don’t have to tell us your situation. You can continue to use your balance sheet that is phony…. All these guys are bankrupt, they’re still worrying about their bonuses, they’re still trying to pay their dividends and the whole system is weakened.” (emphasis mine)[snip]

The hovering of the taxpayers’ pockets by Paulson and Congress won’t stop until voters rebel, toss these thieves out of office and indict them.
Actually, I like the Red Queen’s idea, “verdict first; trial later.” It’s suitable for the dirtbags in DC.

Maybe MA can help itself out by taking a page out of CA. book.

Ed Mann says Vermont did with this post at Vermont Loon Watch:

Tax’em till they drop

The more Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke talk, the more apparent it becomes there is no plan for dealing with the financial crisis.  For example, Paulson says the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is no longer going to buy troubled mortgage assets.  Instead, he wants to use the second installment of $350 billion to buy up student loans, auto loans, and credit card debt.  Secretary Paulson says the “illiquidity” (AKA not being able to buy things you can’t afford) in these sectors is “creating a heavy burden on the American people”.

So let’s recap.  We’re abandoning the TARP, which had a modest hope of not being a total taxpayer wipeout because the Treasury would own tangible assets, like houses.  In its place, we’re securing the debt of kids running up 6 figure student loans for degrees in Under Water Basket Weaving and people who’ve maxed out their credit cards buying HDTVs and lattes at Starbucks.  But is this financial crisis really an illiquidity problem?

It seems to me credit has been a little too liquid and giving more crack to the addict won’t help.  After all, isn’t that how we got to no document mortgages in the first place, which started this chain reaction?

The more they flail about, the more I think we can’t bail our way out of this mess.  Either tax rates will hit astronomical levels or bread is heading for $100 a loaf as the Fed printing presses flood us with worthless dollars.  It will be painful, but taking our lumps might be the best path now.

The great tax cut to the middle class reached a bit deeper  than the $250,000 cutoff. In fact, it went a wee bit below $100,000.

By the time The One bailed out the fat cat union bosses at Ford and GM, got open voting card checkoff, it stopped just above $13,900, which is good, cause Lil Ewell here kin now get him sum pants.

And a used Ford, iffen we’re lucky! And sum tarpaper for the saved home.

Michael Ramirez at Investors.com:

A little bit of the pork from the Senate “sweetners” to help the bailout bill. We all can get a toot on to forget the reaming the government is giving us. There was no pork for Vaseline help in the bill. Need to ask Barney about that.

Business & Media will keep you abreast of all the shenanigans.

The last bump of this size Bush called an adjustment; that was Lehman Brothers tilting over. This is nothing more than another adjustment.
However, this one will involve a bunch of swells cutting up their credit cards, selling (if they can beat the repo man) the M3, the Lexus or the Mercedes, the plasma screen TV and every bell and whistle they couldn’t do without because “Bob had one.”
Have you ever seen a stockbroker bang nails or replace a 20-amp breaker? Life inside the “gates” is going to become amusin’.
Here’s a flash for you. The only ones that will get it in the neck are those living on next year’s income. IRA’s, 401k and pensions will take a hit but only those without diverse holdings will drop severely.
If you were flipping houses or specing condominiums, greed gotcha.

In Europe, the elite, those that can tell all how it should be, have their knickers in a wad.

Bailout failure ‘will cause US crash’

The US stock market could suffer a devastating crash with shares losing a third of their value this week if Hank Paulson’s financial bailout plan fails, US Treasury officials have warned.

The financial system could face a meltdown of 1929 proportions unless US politicians succeed in their efforts for a $700bn rescue scheme, experts added. [snip]

Well they certainly are busy telling us what to do. For good reason it seems when one looks at their markets. But, they seem to have it a bit backwards, for their markets visited the loo quickly and in earnest.

Investors fretted about contagion into Europe, where Fortis, which was part of the consortium that bought ABN Amro last year, fired its chief executive after liquidity concerns pushed shares down more than 20pc to a 14-year low. Holland’s ING and BNP Paribas are looking at buying the bank this weekend.

London investors have warned that the FTSE could suffer falls of as much as 1,000 points - a fifth of its value, if the deal falls through.

Peter Spencer, economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club, said: “This is the time you have to bail people out and ask questions later. It is very difficult to see how the US banking system would survive without that.This has the potential to make 1929 look like a walk in the park.”

Of course, it’s the bloody colonials doing it again. Have we no shame! Well, this time we’ll be generous and let the Tories have the soup lines.

[snip]
Markets were anxious about Britain’s fast deteriorating economic outlook and the stability of its banking sector as B&B followed Northern Rock in being nationalised. The worries followed the fire sale of HBOS, the nation’s biggest mortgage lender to Lloyds TSB, and led to the London stock market succumb to a fresh hammering of its leading shares. [snip]

The euro also fell heavily against the dollar amid concern over the eurozone’s banking strife and the adequacy of arrangements for bank rescues in the 15-nation bloc. The euro lost as much as 1.8 per cent against the dollar, falling to levels of about $1.4340 from a US close of $1.4613 on Friday.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index was down 1.3 per cent at 11,743.61, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed 2.1 per cent to 18,286.90.
“They’re worried that another fire is starting in Europe,” said Castor Pang, an analyst at Sun Hung Kai Financial in Hong Kong.

Democrats to try again on bailout: Rep. Van Hollen

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are going to try to move another financial rescue bill after a $700 billion plan was rejected in a House vote, a senior House Democrat said on Monday.

This time it will work, we guarantee it!

Obama: Bailout not dead despite House rejection

OK, Obozo, what part of 228 Nay, 205 Yea don’t you understand?

…Obama…[]…urged markets to stay calm.

That probably was the local green grocer, you know how excited they can get.

Congress depleted this weekend administering anesthesia to the taxpayers; the actual fiscal bailout device is a suppository wrapped in #60 grit sandpaper.

Please use these to prevent severe lower back injury from sudden attempt to stand erect. Secure wrists and ankles before BAILOUT is administered!

No irritation protection necessary, this will take your mind off the insertion!

For this, what do we get? Bad paper, paper the banks don’t want and no ONE can sell. What anchors this paper? Foreclosed houses, which cannot be sold now, will not be sold in the near future and after standing empty, become even more desirable, correct.
Has anyone ever seen abandoned or closed government property? Slums have higher resale value. What do you think a stripped house is worth as collateral to John D. Taxpayer?
This is what your collateral will look like, euphemistically called a “fixer-upper” by your friendly Realtor.

Imagine a $400,000 mortgage securing this wonderful three story country farmhouse with mountain views on a country lane.

Listen to Chris Dodd or Barney Frank, or your congressman/woman entertain you with caring tales of past sensitivity to taxpayer plight. In a pig’s brown eye they do. Paulson certainly doesn’t. Bush read his idea of a good deal off the teleprompter. Bail out my buds and all is swell. (Paulson’s idea of getting along)
However the mushwits in DC tell us we need to jumpstart the housing industry, get them going to put the economy “back on track.”

” HUH?” What are they smoking?

Call your congress critter; tell him/her to be generous. Let the banks and Wall Street keep their great deals for themselves. We need this crash to get people off this insane living on this house of credit cards. Credit tightens up, people drive beaters (just like the Jones’) and they’ll take jobs the illegals won’t do.
Let Paul pay for his sins now. Leave Peter’s pockets alone.

“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”
Andrew Jackson

Have a good look at what is happening in DC now.

All the pomposity of Dodd, Reid, and the rest of those miscreants, who are now worrying about the bailout because they want the lobby money to fill the re-election coffers, here’s how you sound and what look like outside the Beltway.

You’re easy to recognize!

Tell us again how you care about the taxpayers, the little man, the working stiff.

I’ll cry in my beer. ( if I had gas to go to a bar to buy a beer, if I could afford a beer, if my house hadn’t depreciated) I’m glad Obama got a good loan to buy a nice house. I’m glad Rangel and Dodd got good deals on mortgages and Harry got that sweet deal on that desert property.

I understand that auto loans and credit cards might be included in the bailout. I don’t have any of those debts. How much do I have to borrow to be included?

It feels terrible to work, pay all your bills on time, they be left out of this great deal. It really sucks. And I don’t even have money left over to buy a beer to cry in. But I have a picture of all of you!

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”

Robert Heinlein

Lede in today’s NYT trumpets the flight of investors into “safe” places for parking money.
Like T-bills, which were paying about 1.5%, but now in demand, pay under 1%. Revisiting the golden age of the Weimar Republic, our fearless leaders busily reproduce history by fabricating the “Weimar T-bill” just in time to crush the economy ending 232 years of successful existence. After this last round of bailouts, the inflationary spiral will start.

As soon as these idiots realize they aren’t making any money in T-bills, out of the “safe” place the money comes and back into the market it goes where it is at risk.
NOW, where does the government get the money it is using to pay off the incurred debt? Remember no T-bills; does the government jack up the interest rate, which slows down the housing market or does it default on the debt?
Neither, the Treasury just prints more money, boosting inflation.
Oil is back over $100 a barrel. Food is not coming down in price, thanks to the clowns putting corn in gas tanks. Now the government is giving the taxpayer all the toxic debt and the fat cats their money back. We are the proud owners of some where north of a half trillion dollars of crap.
Personally, I rather see the fat bastards jump out windows after they lost everything.

Excerpt from Paper Money by “Adam Smith,” (George J.W. Goodman), pp. 57-62.

Before World War I Germany was a prosperous country, with a gold-backed currency, expanding industry, and world leadership in optics, chemicals, and machinery. The German Mark, the British shilling, the French franc and the Italian lira all had about equal value, and all were exchanged four or five to the dollar. That was in 1914.[snip]

Germany abandoned the gold backing of its currency in 1914. The war was expected to be short, so it was financed by government borrowing, not by savings and taxation. In Germany prices doubled between 1914 and 1919. [snip]

America is off the gold standard too since 1971. We’re on a system of fiat money. So much for full faith and credit, since that change, we too have become a debtor nation,

But the bourgeois habits were very strong. Ordinary citizens worked at their jobs, sent their children to school and worried about their grades, maneuvered for promotions and rejoiced when they got them, and generally expected things to get better. But the prices that had doubled from 1914 to 1919 doubled again during just five months in 1922. Milk went from 7 Marks per liter to 16; beer from 5.6 to 18. There were complaints about the high cost of living. Professors and civil servants complained of getting squeezed. Factory workers pressed for wage increases. An underground economy developed, aided by a desire to beat the tax collector. [snip]

The nervous citizens of the Ruhr were already getting their money out of the currency and into real goods — diamonds, works of art, safe real estate. Now ordinary Germans began to get out of Marks and into real goods. [snip]

The flight from currency that had begun with the buying of diamonds, gold, country houses, and antiques now extended to minor and almost useless items — bric-a-brac, soap, hairpins. The law-abiding country crumbled into petty thievery. Copper pipes and brass armatures weren’t safe. Gasoline was siphoned from cars. People bought things they didn’t need and used them to barter — a pair of shoes for a shirt, some crockery for coffee. Berlin had a “witches’ Sabbath” atmosphere. Prostitutes of both sexes roamed the streets. Cocaine was the fashionable drug. In the cabarets the newly rich and their foreign friends could dance and spend money. Other reports noted that not all the young people had a bad time. Their parents had taught them to work and save, and that was clearly wrong, so they could spend money, enjoy themselves, and flout the old. [snip]

Sound familiar? Put it on plastic, live for now. In debt to the eyeballs and no hope of paying it off.

I guess this is how the government will fund the bail out of AIG, the next bank (which will be either Citi or WB).

Go here for the hand in your wallet.

BTW, the bail out of Freddie  and Fannie were not put on the government books. Seems that would have blown the budget. Nah, who would have thunk it? Lets see you keep some of your earnings off the books.

“The reason Social Security isn’t on the books.” says that brilliant economist, Barney Frank, “is that it is ‘voluntary’.”

Isn’t he great! He’s appearing all week; give him a big hand and don’t forget to tip the hatcheck girl on the way out.

We have our own idiots in Vermont like Welch and Leahy, but your clown is in a class by himself.