SOTD: Apparat - Steady Uprising

Socializing Risk, Privatizing Profit

The Fannie Mae Housing Bailout Blank Check Save the Well-Connected Investors Bill just passed the Senate 72-13.

What does the bill do? Karl Denninger puts it best:

"Henry Paulson is about to be given an $800 BILLION dollar blank check in the form of an increased Federal Debt Ceiling which he can spend on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac IN ANY WAY HE CHOOSES, INCLUDING BUYING THE CRAPPIEST LOANS THEY HAVE AND STICKING A ONE HUNDRED PERCENT LOSS, $800 BILLION WORTH, ON YOUR TAX BILL.

A huge percentage of the debt issued by Freddie and Fannie - about $1.5 trillion worth - is held by foreign central banks. Paulson is proposing to bail out the Chinese and Japanese governments with our tax money!

Paulson SAYS he will "protect the taxpayer."

THE BILL ALLOWS HIM TO SCREW YOU WITH ABSOLUTELY NO RECOURSE."

Oh well. Now Shrub will quietly sign the thing.

What's another trillion or so in taxpayer liabilities? We'll all have overpriced houses and gas will be $15 a gallon and milk $20. Hello Zimbabwe.

Interestingly, all 13 'nay' votes were Republicans. There are a few people in Congress who get what's going on apparently (too bad only 13). The Democrats are amazingly so incompetent and corrupt that they may actually be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this November.

Worst of all: 15 Senators couldn't be bothered to vote.

Including McCain, Obama and Bunning. Nice.

Bunning was the bill's loudest opponent, but he couldn't be bothered to even vote? What a dick.

The taxpayers are screwed.

Why The Banks Are In Huge Trouble

...The National Australia Bank's decision to write off 90 per cent of its US conduit loans will have dramatic repercussions around the world. Wall Street will be deeply shocked when they understand the repercussions of what NAB has done. It is clear global banks have nowhere near provided for their exposures to US housing loans which in the words of John Stewart are experiencing a “meltdown”.

We are now way beyond sub-prime. NAB says that it is suffering a 55 per cent loss on American housing loans – an event that has never happened in the history of a developed country in recent memory. This is an unprecedented event and means that the cost of bailing out the US financial system is now far beyond the highest estimates. A US recession is now locked in, but more alarmingly, 55 per cent loan losses point to the possibility of a depression...

Why Oil Is Not In A Bubble

...Early this month, Valero Energy in Texas got the unwelcome news that Mexico would be cutting supplies to one of the company's Gulf Coast refineries by up to 15 percent. Mexico's state-owned oil enterprise is one of Valero's main sources of crude, but oil output from Mexican fields, including the giant Cantarell field, is drying up. Mexican sales of crude oil to the United States have plunged to their lowest level in more than a dozen years.

The same week, India's Tata Motors announced it was expanding its plans to begin producing a new $2,500 "people's car" called the Nano in the fall. The company hopes that by making automobiles affordable for people in India and elsewhere, it could eventually sell 1 million of them a year.

Although neither development made headlines, together they were emblematic of the larger forces of supply and demand that have sent world oil prices bursting through one record level after another. And while the cost of crude has surged before, this oil shock is different. There is little prospect that drivers will ever again see gas prices retreat to the levels they enjoyed for much of the last generation....

SOTD: Pat MacDonald - Never Let Me Down Again

Depeche Mode Cover

SOTD: Al Green - Jesus Is Waiting

I want to believe.

SOTD: Kosheen - I Want It All

SOTD: edIT - LTLP

SOTDL: JES - Heaven

SOTD: Rue Royale - Stars

SOTD: The White Stripes - Screwdriver/Your Southern Can Is Mine

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