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

BRUCE MARKS: Well, the problem is, with all due respect to the economists, the economists have been saying this is a cycle. Well, for people—eight years ago, I testified in Congress, and I said that if you allow Fannie or Freddie and the industry to get into subprime lending, it will be an economic catastrophe, and the taxpayer will be forced to bail them out. Well, eight years ago, if I knew that, the industry knew that. The problem, when you deal with economists, is they don’t know the mortgage business out there. And so, they’re thinking about this as a cycle. This is not a cycle. You have to focus on the mortgage business, because that’s the fundamental problem out there. And if you deal with the mortgages, you stop the foreclosures, you help the ten million people and more who are at risk of foreclosures. That’s dealing with the underlying issue, and that’s what we have to do. Let’s not deal with the symptoms; let’s deal with the underlying issue. 

 Emphasis mine. Now that’s some flavor I can, and do, roll with.

Among prominent conservatives who publicly assailed the administration’s proposal in recent days was former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But Mr. Gingrich said in a statement posted on his Web site Monday that he would “reluctantly and sadly” vote for the proposal if he were still in office.

“This bill is not the best proposal for solving the housing crisis. It is not even a good proposal for solving the crisis,” the statement said. “However, it is the only proposal Secretary [Henry] Paulson would support, and his support was essential in this setting.”

Paulson will do whatever the law that Congress passes says he will do, or they can investigate him and put him in jail. End of story. Congress is 1/3rd the law of the land (well, constitutionally. With Bush-interpreted laws, congress is 3/3rds his bitch). Paulson’s job is written into the law of the land, and can thus be modified at Congress’ will, pending executive approval or veto-override if congress is pissed enough, and then only overturned by the supreme court if it agrees to take the case. And if anyone doesn’t like that, they can kiss the founding fathers’ asses. They wrote the constitution and the separation of powers with exactly this kind of situation in mind, where the president is a corrupt war criminal bent on rogering the american people blind. They gave congress the power to tell the president to eff off if they think he’s a big enough fuckup. I think presiding over fallacious wars and doubling the national debt while robbing the poor to pay for the rich is proof enough of fuckuperry.  

Today’s drop represented roughly a 5.4% drop in the from-peak DOW average.  Couple more days like this and the Dow will be saying it’s Depression 2.0 time. Thankfully for some the market is bumpy, so it will take a while for these days to come about, and maybe they wont go that far, but life recently hasn’t been all that reassuring.

Do it here at CNBC.

I’m damned glad it’s the financial system that imploding, and not implosion triggers, for what it’s worth. 

 MBAs of the world weep, and head back to school. 

The U.S. is turning to foreign governments and other overseas investors to buy a good chunk of what could total $700 billion in Treasury debt expected to finance the bailout. Foreign investors also are needed to shore up the depleted capital of the nation’s financial institutions, seen in the plan by Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group to buy a large stake in Morgan Stanley, which is weighed down by bad debt and market distrust.

 Shockingly, the only place this bailout money could come from is DEBT, because our country is BROKE. The only time your debt should exceed your annual income is if you’ve bought a house (or in the case of being a country, perhaps another country). And since everyone in America except the smart rich guys are broke, guess where the money’s gonna have to come from? Foreign countries scared to death our financial collapse will ruin them as well. 

A check late Wednesday night in Matthews and southeast Charlotte found gas at only two of 23 stations — less than 10 percent.

The problem seems limited to the western Carolinas, as there are no reports of gas shortages in Raleigh-Durham, Columbia, or along the coast.

Gas company and government officials are blaming the shortage on refinery problems in the wake of Hurricane Ike, which struck the Houston area more than a week ago. But it is unclear why only the Charlotte and Asheville areas — along with some other metropolitan regions, such as Atlanta and Nashville — have been more seriously impacted than others.

It feels as if Ike hit years ago.  Seriously though, gas shortages in North Carolina? That’s pretty far from Texas - where else? Not very specific, just regions in the south. I’m curious for specifics. This little blip with the specifics hasn’t hit the national news scene, a nod in the direction of W.G. 

VIA BOSTON

Reuters: Bair reiterated that there will be more bank failures but the number will nowhere near the number seen during the savings and loans crisis more than a decade ago.

“I think the number of failures is still going to be low by S&L standards.”

The high numbers of failures during the S&L years was due to a law in Texas requiring banks with branches in different counties to be considered their own “banks” - so when a bank went under, up to 40 “banks” went with it on the same day due to the laws at the time. Look at the number of bank failures in disingenuous - you’ll need to look at other factors.