ch.annel2-i.s-n.ow-a.ngry

move along

Found via CR’s blog - but the main part is in images so i’ll just quote a bit from those, but really this is pretty fucking amazing:

Madoff [stated] that his investment advisory board was a fraud. [He] stated that he was “finished,” that he had “absolutely nothing,” that “it’s all just one big lie,” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme.” … [He] also stated that he estimated the losses from this fraud to be at least approximately $50 billion.

That’s only one hedge fund, hopefully the other were more scrupulous, but considering how much fallout there’s been in the hedge-fund industry…

Sure, most of the crash of 29 and the great depression stock loss happened that October - we just had our black October, you can see it in the huge drop at the end of the blue line. But there’s no reason for things to get better until things start getting better, and with unemployment setting records there is no way we’re in for a quick recovery. Putting money in stocks right now is guaranteed to lose you money in the short term unless you are really lucky. And by short term, I’m guessing next 2-5 years.  Banks and businesses are failing left and right. Titans of industry, $2 trillion dollar Citi is about to collapse like the house of cards it has proven to be. I’m guessing many people called a bottom to the crash of 29 after the month of October was over, because it was so bad, how could it get worse?  And they were sorta right, they had a slight recovery, but went on to skid for nearly three years and remained nearly flat until the 80s & 90s. After that, there was an exponential curve, a parabolic arc up that gravity eventually catches. People have been calling a bottom to markets since January at least. How long before companies on the Dow Jones index start going bust? Good thing they replaced AIG with Kraft a few months back - or maybe not, since Kraft has actually lost a higher percentage of net worth since the switch.   If it were just America, it would be one thing. But this thing is global, folks, just like the Depression 1.0 - this will take a while to recover from, even if it doesn’t turn out to be Depression 2.0. 

China’s stimulus plan comes on top of more than $4 trillion in government pledges around the world for bank bailouts, credit guarantees and fiscal spending to contain the damage from the worst financial turmoil since the 1930s Great Depression.

It pains me to trot out that old warhorse again but ‘a few trillion here, a few trillion there, now you’re talking about real money.’

Trillions of dollars shouldn’t even come up in polite conversation, but now it wont go away. Oh well, win big, fail big. Swish! 25% of the world’s economy, 25% of it’s fail. Oh well, as long as money is a made up concept, we can just make up some more of it to FIX EVERYTHING.

EVERYTHING!

Later, we will Obamanize a human.

Maverick this!  

We won. America won.

Obama wanted to be president during the worst possible time. I can only think of a few worse times to be elected POTUS, and they involve the Civil War and the Depression 1.0.

As someone quoted what someone else said and needs to be spread around: “Rosa Parks sat, so Martin Luther could walk. Martin Luther walked, so Obama could run.” And as they all learned or will learn, that was the easy part. Obama’s acceptance speech (no one who actually listened could rightly call it a victory speech) quoted MLK - from the day before he was assassinated.

Many champions of rights in our country have been killed, by our citizenry. Many others as well, either attempted or successful. We have a history of assassination (and attempts) with our presidents. Four successful, sixteen attempted (Nixon, Ford, Clinton and Bush I were all popular enough to get two tries).

Teddy Roosevelt was shot (by John the Saloon-Keeper, yet another historic figure in America’s long history with the ‘the’ clan) after he had already lost the presidency and was running again, as a 3rd party candidate. This was after he lost an eye (as president, in a boxing match at the white house). He had, to put it bluntly, more cojones than pants to carry them around. Obama’s gonna need the same, he faces some very tough problems, most of which are beyond anyone’s real control.

And, you know, with all the trash that’s been talked this election, the funniest thing turns out to be the rumor that Barak Obama wasn’t sworn into the Senate with a bible and wouldn’t be sworn into the White House with one. Why, you ask?

Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, borrowing Wilcox’s morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on aBible,^[46] in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents.^[47] Expressing the fears of many old-line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented “that damned cowboy is president now.”^[48] Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley’s cabinet and his basic policies.

When Roosevelt won the Presidency in his own right, he was age 46. When he assumed the Presidency from the late McKinley, he was the youngest at age 42. He had problems with the regulation of industry, the environment, healthcare, the safety of our republic, and went up against powerful, moneyed oponents for the good of the people.

100 years ago the successor to that great man was picked, surely a hard act to follow (even though he would probably be appalled at Obama’s ancestry and applauded Bush II’s anti-muslim aggression but such went the gestalt of the time). Yesterday, a great man was picked, and his predecessor may be an even harder act to follow.

Time will surely tell, but whether good or ill, history has been made. Let’s not let the hard work of the last 227 years down.

That’s right, CNN’s 2004 election coverage still says Kerry is the projected winner of New Hampshire - 4 years in and we apparently still haven’t figured it out. Really?

I wonder how the election is priced into the market futures. I’m guessing Monday and Tuesday will see one of two things, either crazy volatility (the norm in these interesting times) or relative stability as everyone holds their pants before shitting bricks on Wednesday morning as panic sets in as the election drags on. You don’t honestly think this is going to be resolved quickly after the last two elections.

And really, in one month the stock market dropped from 2006 levels to 2003 levels - and we’ve heard cries of bottom the whole way down to the 2006 level. I find it astonishing that people still say “wow things are so cheap” without discerning what that ‘cheap’ is relative to. You can spend $100 on a stock that’s selling for a penny a share, and still lose money as that stock dips down below a penny. If you don’t consider carefully your investments, and consider whether you’re trying to make quick money vs. support a company you believe in for the long haul (though if you think about this - 5 years of stock gains, mostly wiped out within a month? ) you might find out just how worthless a stock can be.

But this really gets me. From the Wall St. Journal:  

As the scale of the economic crisis becomes clear and comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s are tossed around, there is a very real danger that America could succumb to the feeling that we no longer have the luxury of worrying about distant lands, now that we are confronted with a “real” problem that actually affects the lives of all Americans. As we consider whether various bailout plans help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the subtext is that both are much more important to Americans than Haifa Street.

One problem with this emotion is that it ignores the sequel to the Great Depression — the rise of militaristic Japan marked by the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, both of which resulted in part from economic dislocations spreading outward from the U.S. The inward-focus of the U.S. and the leading Western powers (Great Britain and France) throughout the 1930s allowed these problems to metastasize, ultimately leading to World War II.

Is it possible that American inattention to the world in the coming years could lead to a similarly devastating result? You betcha.

Do people really still believe there are countries out there that want to attack us for being us, and not for us killing people day in day out in foreign countries? The only security situation this chump describes is one of our own making. He forgot to mention the rampant inflation (a loaf of bread cost in the billion of Deutschmarks at the time), and ultra-liberal lassiez-faire democracy that was prevalent in Germany at the time. Also, he forgot to mention the absolutely insanity of Hitler - as bad as al Qaeda may be, at least they have only called to wipe out our way of life - not our entire race.

And I’ll tell you this - once we stop giving al Qaeda an excuse to attack us (i.e. not fucking around in middle eastern countries’ affairs we have no business being in anyway) they’ll have a really hard time convincing people to go die for them. “Kill the great satan! They drink lattes and drive cars!” “But, praise allah, why should we die for them to not drink coffee?” “They… dress funny!”

I mean, think about how hard it is to get your average citizen to vote. It takes a lot to get a guy to kill himself to kill you, they have to really think there is something at stake. Once we stop militarily intervening, what could they possible have to recruit with?