And Speaking Of Land Grabs::

in response to this:

The Mother of All Management Buyouts

Martin Kelly writes from Scotland:

You're dead right to describe the bailout as a coup - in fact, it's worse than that; to all intents and purposes it's a management buyout of the American financial and political systems.

And done with Other People's Money!

I've been blogging about this since last Tuesday (to anyone who's willing to listen) - there is absolutely no normative difference between the proposed operation of Paulson's bailout and Gaetano Salvemini's description of Mussolini's economic theory as being that 'profit is private and personal, loss is public and social'.

a highly knowledge friend in the industry writes:

It is a land grab. Imho, .......as currently proposed will result in hundred of bank failures. GS [Goldman Sachs] and MS [Morgan Stanley] just became bhc why? To buy insolvent banks on the cheap..

I spend a lot of time studying things other than economics

Reading history, studying art...how come I could see this meltdown coming a mile away (and thus stayed out of the housing market) but none of these 'geniuses' could? I can only think that they knew they were participating in a scam.

Now, all across mainstream media, 'experts' are feigning shock and awe - as if **poof** this 'crisis' appeared overnight.

Michele Malkin, making sense:

Kill the bailout: The Big Lies

By Michelle Malkin • September 24, 2008 12:19 PM

The Biggest Lie of the bailout pimps is this: Give us $700 billion of your money and we promise we’ll give it back someday.

The Second Biggest Lie of the bailout pimps is this: Give us $700 billion of your money and not only do we promise we’ll give it back to you, but you’ll actually make money back off your “investment.” Later. Someday. Really.

HAAAAHHHH! Did you feel a tremor? That was me, laughing my you-know-what off. I think it registered 7.0 on the LMAO Richter Scale.

They banned short selling

They banned short selling

They threw a trillion dollars at the problem

They bailed out AIG

They backed up money markets

They put out happy talk

And none of it worked

Getting spooked?

Wall Street, Neocons, Liberals, Economic Theorists, ..

in short, our elite, have utterly utterly failed and have shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt that their pet theories about globalization, economics and foreign policy are massive failures...is it perhaps time for someone else to take the helm?

Unlike, say, the so called wasp elite that willing divested themselves during the 1960s 'revolution' the current elite, I suspect, aren't going to go so nicely or quietly....

Decline and Fall It's the autumn of our old republic

As I read the latest headlines reporting the ongoing implosion of the domestic economy and the ominous signs of a pending explosion in the international sphere, I watch a leaf fall from a very great height. The redwoods out here are like the pillars of a temple built by Titans, and a leaf caught in a distant branch has a long way to fall. I mistake it for a golden butterfly at first, but as it wafts downward, and my tired old eyes come into focus, I see it is a leaf. It's Indian summer out here in California wine country, the best time of year, and it's easy to turn away from the news of a collapsing civilization – because what's really collapsing is my retaining wall, and that ain't good!

Great Post From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn

" a game of pretend in desperate need of some realism by our political leaders."

Someone is taking note, we're confident, that Ratner wants federally tax-exempt bonds for his privately owned arena, which would be a net loss for New York City, while the federal government is on the verge of spending something like $700 billion in taxpayer money to bailout Ratner's fellow fat cats. Tax exemptions for no return, but rather a loss? Are you kidding?

...........................................................................
I suspect Ratner wants to get a hold of other people's land the same reason Wall Street firms want to get a hold of OPM, because he can.

I suspect Ratner will sit on it, perhaps make a huge parking lot (which should be profitable since he pays none of the costs) for a decade or so until the market picks up again -and then build, well, whatever - a huge failed megaproject like Atlantic Mall or Metrotech, which in turn the city will bail out by moving offices there (no doubt from another failed Ratner project)

Ratner mastered 'too big to fail' long before Wall Street.

My daily "WTF" thought about this bailout "crisis'

Some lawmakers have proposed putting caps on executive salaries as part of the bailout. Wall Street snapped back that executives might lose incentive to perform well if this was the case. The old 'free market' whine again...this time applying it to government bailout without a hint of irony. Yes, those pay incentives really motivated them to make sound, sober judgments that would lead to profitability, didn't it?

Wall Street has long been a fan of outsourcing 'the world is flat' globalism and other main street wrecking theories, so turnabout is fair play.

Anyone remotely familiar with the Indian educational system knows, as screwed up as it is in many ways, the entrance examinations to the top universities are rigorous, to the point where most American post graduate students would miserably fail a freshman entrance exam. In other words, there's lots of smart people among that one billion, and as any out of work American programmer knows they'll work hard for less. So I am sure we can find some bright Indian MBA graduates to sort out our financial mess, and I am certain that many of them will have better ethical standards than Paulson & Co. - not that that's hard to do. I am sure they would be quite happy with say, 250,000.00 dollars- well, Euros, a year for the trouble as opposed to $250,000,000.00 for screwing up, and hey maybe one of them could hook me up with Priyanka Chopra:


Although they sometimes can display mind-numbing, comical arrogance, in my experience Indians are generally polite, well mannered (almost an old school Britisness about them) reserved, and often ethical to the point of impracticality. What a refreshing change that would be.

Steve Sailer On the "Rescue" of Wall Street

The Mother of All Management Buyouts

Martin Kelly writes from Scotland:

You're dead right to describe the bailout as a coup - in fact, it's worse than that; to all intents and purposes it's a management buyout of the American financial and political systems.

And done with Other People's Money!

I've been blogging about this since last Tuesday (to anyone who's willing to listen) - there is absolutely no normative difference between the proposed operation of Paulson's bailout and Gaetano Salvemini's description of Mussolini's economic theory as being that 'profit is private and personal, loss is public and social'.

Has Anyone Noticed...

That with all of this talk of bailout there hasn't been any talk of culpability? It would be truly extraordinary if no one was prosecuted. Then again, I remember two little tidbits from my brief days lugging ledgerbooks at an investment house:

a. John Gutfreund (or however you spell it) 's clerk was immediately fired after the early 90's Solomon Brothers scandal... but Gutfreund walked away with a 10 million or so bonus.

b. Michael Milikin's Sales assistant spent more time in jail than he did.

In other words, what I imagine will happen is that some low level manager or trader will be prosecuted and the big guys will walk away with fat checks, courtesy of the taxpayer.

From Ron Paul

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

Where the WASPs Aren’t

Great Article From Austin Bromwell about the 'unreality' of Media- that the new elite (jewish) still props up the old, faded elite (Anglo) as the 'establishment'
as an object of contempt and hate. Could we imagine, for a moment, replacing all the WASP names with Jewish ones? Could we imagine the outrage?

Its amazing, but many people still believe these conventions because of MSM...then again they also believe Israel has done no wrong and Sadamm had weapons of Mass Destruction.
...........................................................................
Zeitgeist
Where the WASPs Aren’t
Posted by Austin Bramwell on September 23, 2008

Gossip Girl

The TV show Gossip Girl, now in its second season, chronicles the
“scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite"—"elite" meaning private school kids and their families. Replete with iphone-toting teenagers, haute couture and on-location filming, the show pretends to at least a surface verisimilitude. When it comes to underlying sociological realities, however, it offers nothing but the most fatuous distortions.

For example:

• In Gossip Girl, the obligatory fish-out-of-water character lives in a capacious Williamsburg loft with sliding industrial doors and exposed brick. From this, we’re supposed to infer that his family not only has less money but that they’re more authentic and less status-driven that the denizens of the Upper East Side. In reality, many New Yorkers would cut out their own eyeballs to get a big Williamsburg loft. Here are some of the prices. Further, as status symbol, a Williamsburg loft arguably trumps a Park Avenue co-op. Williamsburg is where the cool white people live; only sell-outs live on the Upper East Side.

• In Gossip Girl, kids get into elite colleges by not-so-deftly signaling their membership in the good old boys network. One applicant even says to an interviewer, “Why should I get into Dartmouth? Because I’m a [impressive family name].” In reality, name-dropping in an interview is probably the one thing (other than telling a racist joke) an applicant could do to ensure that he doesn’t get admitted. Further, as colleges like to trumpet the “diversity” of their student body, an Hindu or an Eskimo has a better chance into college than a preppy with an ancient pedigree. Finally, colleges compete for do-gooders with exceptional brains. The world of Gossip Girl, where slackers and nincompoops get in through family connections, simply doesn’t exist.

• In Gossip Girl, rich kids all have names like Waldorf, Archibald, Bass and van der Woodsen. (In keeping with media’s loathing of the Texas Bass family, the villain is named “Chuck Bass.") In reality, however, the families of the old Protestant Establishment make up only a minority of New York’s wealthy elite. They haven’t entirely disappeared; they still host their debutantes balls, the Forbes family still keeps the Social Register afloat, and a handful of institutions (mostly hidden from public view) are still controlled by WASPs. Some WASPs even have substantial fortunes. (Those fortunes, however, are rarely very old; no Knickerbocker family like “van der Woodsen” can afford New York’s social whirl.) But WASPs as a whole just don’t have the numbers, much less the will, to dominate New York society. As Louis Auchincloss gently puts it, they have “lost their monopoly.”

Instead, perhaps a plurality of the rich private school kids in Manhattan—even at historically Protestant schools—are Jewish. The Jewish Daily Forward goes so far as to report that Trinity and Dalton, two of the top private schools in New York, are “largely Jewish.” An entire media industry follows the lavish bar mitzvahs of Manhattan private school kids. The closest real-world model for the high school in Gossip Girl, The Dalton School, has historically been the most recherché school for Jewish New Yorkers. (Most WASPs prefer to send their children to the old single-sex grammar schools.) Tellingly, the media now treat Dalton as the most posh school in Manhattan.

In Gossip Girl, however, Jewish kids don’t even exist, much less predominate. Everything about Gossip Girl is modern, from the drugs to the iphones, except for the sociological background, which the writers may as well have lifted out of the Gilded Age.

• It almost goes without saying that Gossip Girls gets nothing right about WASPs. WASPs don’t flaunt their wealth; on the contrary, they cultivate their shabbiness, the better to signal to the world that they don’t need money (which they probably don’t have anyway) in order to rank socially. To demonstrate your WASP bona fides, you drive a 1980s Buick station wagon, not a Rolls Royce.

In fairness, in mischaracterizing America’s upper class, Gossip Girl is merely following pop culture convention. Virtually every Hollywood movie and TV show, from Scent of a Woman to Family Guy, assumes that a WASP episcopacy that collapsed two generations ago still controls this country’s wealth and power. (Indeed, it is hard to think of any pop culture product that doesn’t associate wealth with WASP privilege.) I’m told even told that “chic lit” novels routinely assume that all Upper East Side socialites hail from patrician WASP families and despise anyone who doesn’t. The authors of these novels then do book signings on the Upper East Side in front of audiences that know full well that the novels bear no resemblance to the world they actually live in.

In the end, Gossip Girl is an example of market failure. The public probably really would like to know how the rich live. WASPs, however, unlike others wealthy groups, have not formed a pressure group to punish studios that portray them unfavorably. (WASPs instead prefer to express themselves politically through benign environmental causes, with perhaps a little feminism mixed in.) Consequently, pop culture purveyors have zero tolerance for unflattering depictions of other groups, but give writers absolute license to defame WASPs.

Don’t pity the WASPs, who surely deserve their fate; pity instead the audiences who have to suffer though one hackneyed treatment of the upper class after another. Great fame and fortune awaits anyone who somehow manages to overcome this market failure. When he does, I might actually tune in and watch.
.....................................................................

Bramwell gets a lot of right here... I will comment more later, but I will say this, the new elite and new system still has to 'pretend' the old establishment exists. Why? And once people find out who really runs the prep schools, Ivy Leagues and most elite institutions in NYC if not a large part of the US and just how much their ethics have changed, what are the implications? For example, does our support of Israel take on a whole new light? Or our support of the Oligarchs and hostility towards Russia? What about the hostility towards Christmas ornaments? All the sudden it looks a lot more hatred than fairness.

Philip Weiss is the only one I know who speaks frankly about this, and lost his job at the Observer doing so. There are often spirited conversations often involving Jews and WASPs (I always thought that a bit redundant, since I have never seen an Anglo Saxon of color) at his website.

Amoral Familism

Amoral Familism And Baby Formula

[Henry McCulloch] @ 3:43 pm [Email author] [Email this article] [Print this article]

Although Phyllis Schlafly doesn’t use the term amoral familism, she sees what is at work in the Chinese tainted baby formula scandalPatrick Cleburne has covered for VDare.com. Cleburne also perceived immigration-driven amoral familism at the expense of Americans in the selective persecution of American teenagers by (unwelcome, to this American at least) Korean import and U.S. government lawyerGrace Chung Becker

Schlafly warns of Americans’–actually, all who rely on the Western, Christian tradition as an ethical foundation–need to be very wary in dealing with those whose traditions provide no such moral bedrock:

“The China infant milk scandal, even though it has so far not damaged any American babies, has exposed a major defect in the concept of free trade. It’s dangerous to buy products from a nation whose economy is not based on Judeo-Christian morality.

The American private enterprise system depends on honesty as normal and accepted behavior. We don’t have or want a policeman on every corner, or an army of government officials to inspect every bottle of baby formula or tube of toothpaste.

We do have regulations and random checks, but the majority of producers and sellers are restrained from criminality by adherence to the Judeo-Christian ethic.”[China Poisons Its Infant Formula, By Phyllis Schlafly--Townhall.com, September 23, 2008 ]

Everything Schlafly says here is true. But what she says is incomplete, and one more example of how even the most rock-ribbed-seeming of mainstream conservatives fail to grasp the most vital issues facing our fading civilization.

If, as Shlafly says, it is “dangerous to buy products from a nation whose economy is not based on Judeo-Christian morality”, isn’t it even more dangerous to import, through reckless and uncontrolled immigration, what amounts to a new domestic economy run by people from nations whose economies are not based on that morality, who as producers and sellers won’t be restrained from criminality by adherence to the Judeo-Christian ethic, because it is not theirs?

No doubt immigration enthusiasts will say the natives aren’t always restrained from criminality by Judeo-Christian ethics either. True but irrelevant, and nothing more than a reflection of fallen human nature. In fact, a realistic view of man’s condition only strengthens the arguments for restricting immigration – if one has to be somewhat wary even of one’s countrymen, who are supposed to be restrained by our traditional ethics, how can it make sense to import as our neighbors millions who obviously are not restrained by them at all, and may indeed find them laughable?

Mass immigration has introduced alien ethnic cronyism on a vast scale into America, as any student not only of today’s deluge but also of the Great Wave well knows. The whole point of amoral familism is that among many of the world’s ethnic groups honesty to those with whom one does not have close kinship ties is not normal and accepted behavior. As it happens, our suicidal immigration (non-)policies endlessly bring millions of members of just such ethnic groups here to be our neighbors. Americans, who in general do not practice amoral familism, are easily driven from entire sectors of our economy by those more conscious of their ethnic interests. To give only one example, when is the last time you saw a motel run by anything other than Indians? Think those Indians will hire your American kid to manage one? Since ordinary Americans seem incapable of acting consciously in their own ethnic interest, what we should do about this appears obvious.

So, many thanks to Phyllis Schlafly for this column, and for fighting the good fight for so long. But I can’t give Schlafly more than a B+ for this one, because she fails to reach the obvious conclusion: if Americans can’t trust imported products from low-trust societies, it makes no sense at all to import their producers, whose conduct is guided by those societies’ ethics. End immigration from such societies. As much as possible, reverse it.

And the next time you drop in to your local Chinese takeout for some cheap dumplings, you might give the Sanlu Group’s quality control a thought before you say “no MSG, please.”

........................................
Oh, no, according to free market fanatics (except of course for wall street) the 'free' market solves everything.....

Overall a good essay but "Judeo-Christian" is a silly way to phrase it, as anyone who has ever dealt with an Hasidim camera dealer knows. Seriously I think the 'high trust' civilization also comes from North European cultures and the only other society in the world that comes close is Japan's, though, for various reasons, they never developed a balance between the individual and society as we did (past tense).

But that is past. The Long March of the 1960s has succeeded - and the marxists/leftists/useful idiots who wanted to destroy our society have done so. The repercussions haven't hit in full force yet, but they will. The little discomfort we feel is only the beginning. As I often end posts...no wonder they want to ban guns.

An amnesty for stupidity...

Middle-class American families have paid and paid – in lost jobs, lower wages, a falling median income – to save the big banks from the consequences of their follies. And those bank bailouts are behind the trade deficits that set five records in the Bush era, reached 6 percent of GDP, forced huge U.S. borrowings from abroad and ravaged the dollar.
more.....

Neocons: Save Wall Street, Screw Main Street

That's been their agenda all along and now its as naked as ever...

I Say It’s Spinach, And I Say The Hell With It

Posted by Tom Piatak on September 19, 2008

Now that Henry Paulson has decided that the taxpayers will pay billions and billions of dollars to relieve Wall Street of the bad debt it can no longer successfully peddle, neoconservatives are lining up to salute. Here is David Frum, giving a “shout out” to Barney Frank for being “prescient” enough to call for Uncle Sam to pick up the tab for all the bad subprime mortgages and investment vehicles based on the bad loans that should never have been given, and would never have been given when prudent and reasonable people were responsible for home mortgages. But Frum is careful to retain some free market credibility by saying that this massive government intervention is “not like bailing out an automobile maker (a bad idea).”

Really? Chrysler repaid the government loans it got, and went on keeping tens of thousands of Americans in gainful employment. Even today, the Big Three are vital to the economic health of many American communities, particularly in the part of America I have always called home. Frum’s view is that the industrial Midwest can go to hell, but that Wall Street must always be cosseted. I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.

..................
Endless wars for fake 'democracy', open immigration, policies overtly designed to screw the middle class and break the Anglo-Protestant core of America, never before have they been so transparent.

Oh, and they are pro gun control as well...not surprising...
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Astute commentary:
There are so many things wrong with Frum that one doesn’t know where to begin. But on this issue, supporting actual manufacturing and mere finance are completely different things. Finance is supposed to be a mere instrument of production, not an end in itself. Speculation converts finance into an end, not a means. But such speculative funds compete with productive investment.

The flood of funds into the housing market raised the price of houses, but this was not an economic gain; it was a loss. People do feel better when the price of their homes go up, but why should they? Adding 20% market value doesn’t make your home bigger. It could make it less stable, if the increase in value doesn’t arise (as it should) from an increase in economic activity in your area.

The bailout will fail, and the country along with it. We are close to collapse, and this is a last-ditch effort. The new president will have be faced with dire choices. One of those choices will be repression; the powers that be will do what it takes to hold on to power. Consider that as you vote.

Reason #214234523456 Not to Vote for McCain

McCain vs. MIAs On YouTube

[Peter Brimelow] @ 9:45 am [Email author] [Email this article] [Print this article]

I remarked yesterday that Sydney Schanberg’s account of John McCain losing his temper at MIA activist Dolores Alfond at a 1992 Senate hearing could be confirmed by the video record. Now our friend Jerri Ward has found it on YouTube:

McCain comes across as a pompous jerk and does indeed lose his temper. Of course, the Senate is full of pompous jerks. But this one is running for President. Whether there’s more going on - whether McCain is really motivated by a desire to supress the MIA issue - certainly remains an open question

The American Empire:

The American Empire: Too Big to Fail? Who gets bailed out – and who doesn't

In reading about the federal bailout of all those financial wheeler-dealer outfits that are supposedly "too big to fail," the layman may be forgiven for failing to comprehend the intricacies of the arcane financial instruments currently backfiring on their whiz-kid inventors. Such exotic creatures as "credit default swaps" may elude the understanding of the hoi polloi, but one thing the man in the street does know: he'll never be "too big to fail," of that he can be sure. He's just not the Bear-Stearns type, and Congress would never shell out a penny before he loses his savings and his home, which – due to the propaganda of Panglossian economics, whereby houses stopped being homes and became investments – amount to pretty much the same thing. The paper-pushers of Wall Street made untold trillions out of a policy that was doomed to fail [.pdf] in advance, and whose critics have long predicted would end in precisely the manner our tale of economic woe is unfolding. The policy of bank credit expansion, which enriches the already wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, has a fatal allure. It induces an initial euphoria, the false promise of permanent prosperity. This Panglossian view is the perfect economic system for an emerging empire, especially one with such inflated pretensions as ours. It is the economics of hubris – the same grandiosity that let us imagine we could implant "democracy" in the arid soil of Iraq and make the desert bloom. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. bestrode the earth like a colossus, America's stock was rising, and the pride that goeth before a fall imbued our leaders with the illusion that they couldn't fail. The American empire, they thought, is too big to fail. It's the end of history – and the rest will just be a mopping-up operation, that will be well worth the costs. The failed policies that led to our current economic predicament – the whole system of central banking and fiat currency – are precisely those policies that benefited those who are now demanding to be bailed out. They may have bankrupted the country, but you can be damned sure they aren't going down with the rest of us, no sirree!

The Really "Big" Bubbles...

The signs of an investment bubble:
a. investors and pundits claim a 'new paradigm' and the old rules don't apply.
b. the market will never go down, prices will always rise (there will be ever increasing demand.
.................................................................................

Well, seems to me that our entire economy has become a bubble:
a. pundits claimed "deficits don't matter", and that the 'old rules' of a sound economy no longer applied ( diversified industries, strong manufacturing base).
b. we based our economy on 1. suburbanizing farmland 2.growing the population - common sense should tell us that this is obviously not sustainable but common sense has never played a part in any of this.

..................................................................................

So will the 'big bubble' burst - will foreign buyers of our T-bills and other government issued debt say, wait a minute! there's nothing to back this?

If that happens...then what?

The Other "Big Bubble" Is our government/elite engineered 'diverse' multicultural society (now even espoused and accepted by republicans.

Again, it 'threw out' the old rules of a civil society and claimed a "new paradigm". As I have repeatedly said, no country can have the sort of massive demographic changes we have had and not be radically altered -which, of course, was the point all along, but like the mortgage crisis, it can only lead to collapse, not paradise.

The Wall Street Journal Is Talking About Demolishing Homes,

...to diminish the oversupply...yet our politicians are still backing Atlantic Yard's megadevelopment? what does that tell you about:
a. Ratner's political influence
b. the greed and stupidity of our politicians?

People are now estimating that the financial industry and housing markets could be depressed for ten years, which would mean New York City and New York State's tax revenue will be as well (since so much of it comes from those industries), yet Bloomberg and the state still want to sink billions in Atlantic Yards? They still want to give Ratner land to pave over into a huge parking lot that he 'might' start building on in ten or twenty years? The greed and backroom dealing is naked now - yet nothing from the press, not a pip from politicians- the seem to think they can get away with it. No wonder they are so adamant about gun control.

So When Does the Biggest Bubble of All Burst?

...more later, I have work to do.

Paulson Missed the Bubble and Understated the Financial Crisis at Every Point

From Dean Baker (who, by the way has a great book "the Conservative Nanny State")

Paulson Missed the Bubble and Understated the Financial Crisis at Every Point
Sunday, September 21, 2008 10:22 AM

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is telling Congress that if it doesn't give him a $700 billion blank check the financial system is going to collapse. It would be reasonable for reporters discussing this request to present some background on the track record of the person asking for this enormous blank check.


In March of 2007, after the first shock waves of the housing meltdown had already hit, the Associated Press reported Mr. Paulson's view that the credit difficulties linked to the housing slump would be limited.


In August of last year, after the second round of financial shock waves disrupted markets worldwide, Paulson commented, "We have the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime."


Just last March he warmly endorsed a reduction in the capital requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying "additional capital [invested in mortgages by Fannie and Freddie] will enable the companies to help more homeowners and will strengthen the underlying fundamentals of the mortgage market."


At every point along the way, Secretary Paulson has failed to see the extent of the crisis resulting from the collapse of the housing bubble. This raises serious questions about his judgment. Reporters should be discussing Paulson't track record in the context of this bailout proposal.


--Dean Baker

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Yes Mr. Baker, they should be, but they won't. Just like they refused to even recognize the housing bubble, ignored the mass evidence against WMD in Iraq, and so on. Our press serves powerful interests, not the truth.

Gov. To Taxpayers: Bend Over a Little Bit More, Please...

Default Swaps May Be Next In Credit Crisis

Ultimate Moral Hazard Looms in the Markets

By JULIE SATOW, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 22, 2008

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The biggest Wall Street story most Americans haven't yet heard of is the $62 trillion unregulated credit default swaps market.

Steve Sailer writes::

The Diversity Recession: What Was The Financial (And Political) Establishment Thinking?

By Steve Sailer

The weird thing about the tumbling of the latest financial house of cards is that the cornerstone, such as it was, was confidence in the increasing ability of the bottom half of society to pay back unprecedentedly large debts.

Underlying these vast pyramids of debt was, all too often, a promise by a single mother who works at the DMV or a drywaller from Chiapas to (following a brief teaser period) make mortgage payments of, say, $3750 per month for the next several decades.

............

What's totally strange about the mortgage meltdown, however, is that the bet, at its base, was on the more marginal members of society to be able to pay off their inflated debts—a bet on the pretty-close-to-poor to get pretty-close-to-rich.

And that made no sense at all.

.......

Are you some kind of Communist who is saying that America''s free enterprise system can't generate enough high-paying jobs to pay for all this debt?

Are you some kind of racist who is saying that America's increasingly diverse population won't pay back their debts?

Oh, wait—it just didn’t.

And they just haven’t.

Hmmm.

[Steve Sailer (email him) is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog.]

If you only read one Line from the Buchanan Article Below

make sure it is this::

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation.

....................................
What is this financial elite going to do next? They are hoping to deliver the knock out blow the middle class (who would oppose any radical restructuring of government) - which will mean the end of the US and the beginning of a North American Union. They will use this 'crisis' to raise taxes, increase government control while simultaneously dismantling it - discombobulated as that sounds - one can see it in action in the UK /Labour/Tory government alliance..

The party's over

The party's over
Pat Buchanan on Wall Street: 'What we are witnessing today is how empires end'
Posted: September 19, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

By Patrick J. Buchanan

The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.

The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.

Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.

This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ("Greed Is Good!") capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.

A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.

(Column continues below)

Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess – that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?

"Government must save us!" cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government – the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt – all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.

We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.

The party's over

Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.

But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.

As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.

At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.

Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.

John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.

Who are we kidding?

What we are witnessing today is how empires end.

The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us – the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved – the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.

Top Broker: NYC Real Estate Already in Steep Decline

"Investment Banker" Now a Dirty Word at Park Avenue Co-Op Apartments

By BRIAN ROSS
September 18, 2008

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Manhattan's finest co-op apartments may have already lost a fourth of their value as a result of the financial crisis, and the worst is yet to come, says leading New York estate broker Kathy Sloane, of Brown Harris Stevens.

Manhattan's finest co-op apartments, like these along Park Avanue on the Upper East Side, may have...

Manhattan's finest co-op apartments, like these along Park Avanue on the Upper East Side, may have already lost a fourth of their value as a result of the financial crisis, and the worst is yet to come, says leading New York estate broker Kathy Sloane, of Brown Harris Stevens.

(Daniel Barry/Bloomberg News/Landov)

An owner of a five-million dollar Park Avenue apartment, only an average residence by investment banker standards, "may be lucky to achieve $3.5 million" a month from now, said Sloane, whose clients have included celebrities, the super-rich and prominent families including the Clintons.

"If someone saw a bid between $3.8 million and $4.2 million from a qualified buyer, take that bid," said Sloane in an interview to be broadcast on 20/20 Friday night.

Public Absorbs the Risk and Loss, Private Companies Absorb the Profit.

Wow, just like Atlantic Yards.

Ron Paul On Obama's fake 'Change"

Ron Paul On McCain, and on Mr Change...

EVERYTHING'S OK! (the market rallied)

Yes, everything's ok!. I received a half dozen emails yesterday berating my 'pesmisstic' outlook on the economy, and the 'proof' I was wrong was in the market rally. Amazing, well maybe not, maybe, typical:

1. "We will not have any more crashes in our time."
   - John Maynard Keynes in 1927
2. "I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool's paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future."
   - E. H. H. Simmons, President, New York Stock Exchange, January 12, 1928

   "There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity."
   - Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928

3. "No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment...and the highest record of years of prosperity. In the foreign field there is peace, the goodwill which comes from mutual understanding."
   - Calvin Coolidge December 4, 1928
4. "There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash."
   - Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist , New York Times, Sept. 5, 1929
5. "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."
   - Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929

   "This crash is not going to have much effect on business."
   - Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929

   "There will be no repetition of the break of yesterday... I have no fear of another comparable decline."
   - Arthur W. Loasby (President of the Equitable Trust Company), quoted in NYT, Friday, October 25, 1929

   "We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices."
   - Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

6. "This is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan... that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years."
   - R. W. McNeel, market analyst, as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929

   "Buying of sound, seasoned issues now will not be regretted"
   - E. A. Pearce market letter quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929

   "Some pretty intelligent people are now buying stocks... Unless we are to have a panic -- which no one seriously believes, stocks have hit bottom."
   - R. W. McNeal, financial analyst in October 1929

7. "The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services...America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin."
   - Stuart Chase (American economist and author), NY Herald Tribune, November 1, 1929

   "Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street."
   - The Times of London, November 2, 1929

   "The Wall Street crash doesn't mean that there will be any general or serious business depression... For six years American business has been diverting a substantial part of its attention, its energies and its resources on the speculative game... Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over. Business has come home again, back to its job, providentially unscathed, sound in wind and limb, financially stronger than ever before."
   - Business Week, November 2, 1929

   "...despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression such as would entail prolonged further liquidation..."
   - Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929

8. "... a serious depression seems improbable; [we expect] recovery of business next spring, with further improvement in the fall."
   - HES, November 10, 1929

   "The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most."
   - Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, November 14, 1929

   "In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect."
   - Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929

   "Financial storm definitely passed."
   - Bernard Baruch, cablegram to Winston Churchill, November 15, 1929

9. "I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress."
   - Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury December 31, 1929

   "I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence."
   - Herbert Hoover, December 1929

   "[1930 will be] a splendid employment year."
   - U.S. Dept. of Labor, New Year's Forecast, December 1929

10. "For the immediate future, at least, the outlook (stocks) is bright."
    - Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in Economics, in early 1930
11. "...there are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over..."
    - Harvard Economic Society (HES) Jan 18, 1930
12. "There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about."
    - Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930
13. "The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity."
    - Julius Barnes, head of Hoover's National Business Survey Conference, Mar 16, 1930

    "... the outlook continues favorable..."
    - HES Mar 29, 1930

14. "... the outlook is favorable..."
    - HES Apr 19, 1930
15. "While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst -- and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us."
    - Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, May 1, 1930

    "...by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent..."
    - HES May 17, 1930

    "Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over."
    - Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930

16. "... irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery..."
    - HES June 28, 1930
17. "... the present depression has about spent its force..."
    - HES, Aug 30, 1930
18. "We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression."
    - HES Nov 15, 1930
19. "Stabilization at [present] levels is clearly possible."
    - HES Oct 31, 1931
20. "All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S."
    - President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933

.

In Talking With Even Financial Folk...

People don't seem to really comprehend the magnitude of what just happened. The government has effectively nationalized huge portions of the financial industry, which in turn, can control huge portions of the rest of the economy.

This means the government - who knows what branch yet, but lets assume the executive - now has the means to carry out policies without constitutional consent and outside the normal structure of government.

Andrew Sullivan Actually Posted Something Intelligent On His Blog?

the wonders of financial turmoil...of course, its a quote from someone else:

"I fear the government has passed the point of no return. We have the irony of a free-market administration doing things that the most liberal Democratic administration would never have been doing in its wildest dreams. It’s pure crisis management. It’s the Treasury and the Federal Reserve lurching from crisis to crisis without a clear statement on how financial failures will be handled in the future. They’re afraid to articulate such a policy. The safety net they are spreading seems to widen every day with no end in sight," - Ron Chernow, a leading American financial historian

When they say don't Panic.......

From Dean Baker @ Beat the Press:

Surprised Economists Urge People Not to Panic on NPR

NPR had a segment on Morning Edition which featured several economists urging people not to pull their money out of money market funds. All three economists told people that money market funds are still very safe, even though some did report losses due to the recent turmoil in financial markets.

It is worth noting that the expert crew on NPR were all caught by surprised by this financial turmoil. Listeners should keep this in mind in assessing their current perspectives. This is one reason why NPR and other media outlets should seek our non-surprised experts for their assessments of the situation. (For the record, I would largely concur with their assessment of money market funds, although I would say the risk is not zero.)

It Just Occurred To Me....

George Bush has nationalized the largest portion of the finance industry since FDR. He has expanded the government and spending in like proportions that will only get worse. So what, exactly do the Republicans stand for?

Nicholas Stix Nails It Again.

The Heretical 2: Requests for Asylum and Letters from Santa Ana Jail

[Nicholas Stix] @ 3:39 pm [Email author] [Email this article] [Print this article]

On July 31, in The Heretical 2: Asylum Seekers the Refugee Industry Won’t be Fighting for, I wrote of two Englishmen, writer Stephen Whittle (pen name Luke O’Farrell), 41, and his publisher, Simon Sheppard, 51, both of whom were convicted in July in England of“publishing racially inflammatory written material.”

On September 11, I wrote on the case of 19-year-old Jeremiah Munsen, an American who on Monday began a four-month federal prison sentence in Louisiana for engaging in symbolic speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Monday’s VDARE.com mailout asked,“Why is Obama’s Friend Bill Ayers Free and Jeremiah Munsen in Jail?” Until fairly recently, the English-language world was a beacon of freedom of opinion. Today, however, the “land of the free,” England, Canada and Australia are increasingly indistinguishable from EU, Communist, and Third-World tyrannies.

Whittle is guilty of having written essays variously excoriating and mocking Jews, Moslems and blacks (and Jews), Jews, blacks (and Jews), Jews and their Gentile “useful idiots”, homosexuals (and Jews); and Sheppard of having published them, which in England are crimes. (In England, it is not a crime to write anti-white, anti-Christian screeds.) Yes, folks, we’re in Alex Linder country.

While free pending sentencing, Whittle and Sheppard fled to America, where they immediately sought asylum and were arrested. Since then, America’s MSM have kept their existence a more closely guarded secret than what Barack Obama/Dunham/Soetoro did on theChicago Annenberg Challenge. If only Whittle and Sheppard were belligerent Moslem Bantu, HIV+, or Hispanic, illegal immigrant, gang-bangers, they’d by now be safely ensconced in the refugee-industrial complex.

Writing from jail, Whittle and Sheppard asked a mutual acquaintance, who has requested anonymity, to pass along their letters and requests for political asylum to me. Note that the legal arguments used against them by the Bush Administration could transform the Internet from a tool of worldwide intellectual liberation to one of global enslavement.[VDARE.COM note: All links below were added by VDARE.com--the pleas themselves were written with a Bic pen.]

14 August 2008

REQUESTS FOR POLITICAL ASYLUM

SHEPPARD, SIMON GUY and WHITTLE, STEPHEN

SUMMARY

The Applicants arrived at LAX on 14 July 2008 and made their asylum request to the first official they encountered. The basis for their asylum claim. Is a three-year claim of legal harassment by the governing British Labour Party,culminating in an unprecedented prosecution and subsequent conviction for internet web pages hosted in Torrance, California. Were the applicants to be returned to Britain they would face substantial prison terms.

...............................
Stix nails it here- its not about whether you agree with Whittle and Shepherd (as he humorously alludes to concerning their Jewish conspiracy mongering) its the fact that those on the 'outer edge' of free speech are now being openly prosecuted and our government - republican and democrat - in collusion with European governments.

Once that standard is set, the next 'outer edge' can be prosecuted, and so on. Hate the use the tired holocuast cliche, but first they came for the communists... Though this time, it is the communists coming for us.

This isn't really about 'hate' as Stix points out - any wack theory can easily be debated and refuted. Its about suppression of thought.