More from Grayson<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/PXlxBeAvsB8&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/PXlxBeAvsB8&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, Video at 11:23 PM GMT+4
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We’d love more of this! <video>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKP05AyfRsI</video>
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, History, Justice, Video, politics at 11:04 PM GMT+4
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You Douche!
Douche!
We could have drank at the bar we’ve always gone to and spent half the fucking money, but NO…
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, Video, politics at 7:02 PM GMT+4
2 Comments »
This is so fun to watch! One of those ‘tea parties’
Posted by Al Swearengen as Comedy, Economics, Video, politics at 9:34 PM GMT+4
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Rep. Grayson hits this out of the park again…pay attention to what is said after the 4th minute especially
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, Video, politics at 12:33 AM GMT+4
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Nice clips – a freshman Rep from Florida
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, Video, politics at 12:06 AM GMT+4
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You have meddled with the primary forces of nature, Mr Beale, and I won’t have it!
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, History at 1:58 AM GMT+4
2 Comments »
This is why you’re a fool to even watch this channel. It is a bullhorn for lies that corporate America would love to have spread around. I’m so glad that I don’t recognize any of these people.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics at 11:55 PM GMT+4
8 Comments »
Bailout:
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, History, Video at 1:16 AM GMT+4
6 Comments »
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, History, Video, politics at 11:41 PM GMT+4
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Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 12:32 AM GMT+4
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Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics, Music at 11:21 PM GMT+4
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Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics, Music at 8:37 PM GMT+4
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This is going to be the focus tomorrow…buckle your seat belts! Trying to get it right in my head over the weekend wasn’t easy, until Sunday night came and there was no announcement to be made out of the Treasury Dept…here’s my take:
I picked up a couple of different scenarios that sounded possible, but the theme throughout seemed to be that the banking community had to come together and each eat a piece of Lehman’s worst ABS…apparently an altruistic streak runs through all great bankers…wow…What I’m worrying about is that the market has been trading w/ the impression that the treasury will consume the bad deals and coordinate like they did with Bear Sterns. Moral hazard is front and center, since Merrill bit the bullet and sold it’s distressed holdings for 30 cents on the dollar, there hasn’t been another one of these cleansings that has made news since then. The fact that Merrill could find buyers for what it had to get off of its books, means that Lehman can find a market once they decide to stop playing games…all I read is that ABS (CMO, CMBS, CDO, etc) are too complex to compare the holdings of one firm to another…this is a bad argument to use against the government or short sellers who are demanding that the firm mark those assets to market. Once Merrill was able to move its distressed debt to others in the market, the music stopped…no more ragtime
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 11:08 PM GMT+4
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Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 9:26 PM GMT+4
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Two more transactions for this morning. Diversifying further out of gold, increasing stake in BAM and keeping cash on hand.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 8:40 PM GMT+4
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(TP) “In a 1998 interview, Osama bin Laden — the terrorist organizer of 9/11 who still roams free — listed as one of his many grievances against the U.S. that Americans “have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims†by purchasing oil from Persian Gulf countries at low prices. The real price of a barrel of oil should be $144, bin Laden demanded. Ten years ago today, the price of a barrel of oil was just $11. Heading into this holiday weekend, the price of a barrel of oil rested at $144 — a thirteen-fold increase. One month after 9/11, the New York Times wrote of possible “nightmare†scenarios that would deliver bin Laden’s goal. Neela Banerjee warned that among the “misguided decisions†that would put oil supplies at risk would be “that the United States attacks Iraq.†The Times included this quote in its story:
“If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he’d turn off the tap,†said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. “He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel†— about six times what it sells for now.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Bush idocy, Economics at 11:43 AM GMT+4
17 Comments »
“U.S. stocks tumbled, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst June since the Great Depression, as record oil prices, credit-market write downs and a slowing economy threatened to extend a yearlong profit slump…Initial jobless claims totaled 384,000 in the week ended June 21, unchanged from the previous week’s tally that was higher than previously estimated, the Labor Department said. The total number of people collecting benefits rose by 82,000 to 3.139 million in the week ended June 14, the highest since February 2004.“ -Bloomberg
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 7:15 PM GMT+4
6 Comments »
Rove made this observation here…I found a nice chart on Think Progress pertaining to this:
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics at 3:10 PM GMT+4
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By Josh P. Hamilton and Betty Liu – May 3 (Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said the global credit crunch has eased for bankers, and the Federal Reserve probably averted more failures by helping to rescue Bear Stearns Cos.
“The worst of the crisis in Wall Street is over,” Buffett said today on Bloomberg Television. “In terms of people with individual mortgages, there’s a lot of pain left to come.” Buffett was interviewed before the Omaha, Nebraska-based company’s annual meeting, attended by about 31,000 people.
Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics at 11:00 PM GMT+4
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Selling at least half of the gold. Buying Transocean (w/in a week or two), natural gas producers (basket – ETF, Russian play, NGS?), BAM (Brookfield Asset Management), long Yen short USD (looking for an ETF)…selling 15% of the IAU shares and turning 5% into shares of BAM at the opening price.
16,337 shares IAU, $1,506,108.06 (closed at 92.19)
2,450 shares sold at opening price 4/10/08
3,350 shares BAM bought at opening price 4/10/08
more to come…
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 11:02 PM GMT+4
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Yup
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, politics at 10:39 PM GMT+4
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Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 12:40 AM GMT+4
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November 27, 2007 – I liquidated the portfolio and put it all into gold, ending with 16,337 shares of IAU – avg price $77.70 Total Value – $1,329,020.80 – (The fantasy portfolio had gained 20.16% since it’s inception in February ‘07 with $1,106,000)
Current Value – $1,551,292.37 – 16.72% since 11/27/07 – 40.26% since 2/21/07
My view hasn’t changed. There is no reason to be confident enough to enter the stock market at this point. My advice…check your 401K options and see if you can park it all in an ‘Inflation Protected Bond Fund’ or short of that, a money market account.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 2:59 AM GMT+4
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How much of an asshole is this guy? Bernanke and Paulson are testifying before Congress, the former having just slashed 125 basis points off the Fed rate faster than any central banker in history…every week brings out the discovery of another body (UBS being the latest). As if they didn’t have enough to worry about:
Greenspan says U.S. on the edge of recession
And who are the nitwits handling other peoples’ money for a living, traveling or paying to hear Greenspan’s take on anything? They should all be fired first thing tomorrow!
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 12:30 AM GMT+4
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If someone just made this story up…
(Reuters) – Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research)(PBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research), said Thursday that computers containing “important information” of oil and gas field research off the Brazilian coast were stolen. “There was a theft of equipment that contained important information for the company,” Petrobras confirmed by phone. “The event is under investigation.” The company said it has copies of the stolen data but did not specify the nature of the data.
…The subsalt cluster has aroused strong interest from the oil industry after Petrobras said, in late 2007, it had recoverable reserves at between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of light crude in the Tupi field and in-place reserves of up to 20 billion barrels. [ID:nN23604539]
(CNN) The objects were being transported by U.S. oilfield service company Halliburton Co. (HAL), the Web site said. The hardware contained confidential information on research that led to recent discoveries of massive new oil and gas fields in ultra-deep waters off the Brazilian coast, Terra said, without giving sources.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, Justice at 12:21 AM GMT+4
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“…Dwarf thieves had infested Swedish buses,9 Lithuania was pondering changing its name,10 and a plot by retired Turkish Army officers to kill Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk was foiled. 11 Police in Malda, India, were battling avian flu by conducting a poultry massacre. “We have planned to collect ‘backyard chickens’ from the houses in the evening and kill all of them late at night,†said the district’s deputy director of animal-resources development, N. K. Shit.12 George Piro, the FBI field agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein, recalled his last meeting with the Iraqi dictator, when the two smoked cigars and Saddam kissed Piro on the cheek three times. “It made me feel,†he said, “somewhat awkward.†(by Christian Lorentzen)
Scott Horton is without a doubt my favorite writer at the moment. Harper’s online has his work up for free on the site’s front page. You can find out why John Yoo hasn’t come over for dinner lately. Keynesian economics, Leo Strauss, J$hn Ashcr$ft, Afghanistan, “Blitzwasser†or hot-water incident (so named for the kettles of boiling water that the citizens threw at federal tax collectors), Don Siegelman…
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics, History, Justice, Military, politics at 11:25 PM GMT+4
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This is a good one…
(Lead Story – NYTimes Sunday Business Section – By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ) …Linking Mr. Scruggs, Mr. Patterson and other figures in the case is an obscure former college football star, farmer and politically well-connected adviser to Mr. Scruggs named Presley L. Blake (Google Search). At the hearing on Tuesday, prosecutors described Mr. Blake as a key go-between in an elaborate bribery plot, and they are now examining his ties to Mr. Scruggs. No charges have been brought against Mr. Blake.The story of Mr. Blake, who has received at least $10 million from Mr. Scruggs, threatens to reveal just how Mr. Scruggs worked the political back rooms of Mississippi — and Washington — to win a huge settlement with cigarette makers that garnered him approximately $1 billion in fees as well as a role in “The Insider,†the 1999 movie about the battle with Big Tobacco. Mr. Scruggs’s connections have never been a secret: his brother-in-law is former Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. But the expansion of the investigation is especially significant because for Mr. Scruggs, law and politics have been closely intertwined…
Posted by Al Swearengen as Economics, Justice, politics at 2:39 PM GMT+4
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From the 2005 book ‘Greenspan’s Fraud‘ by Professor of Economics (SMU, Dallas) Ravi Batra:
The verdict of history is that ethics works, and deception designed to foster the interests of the few does not. Ethical policies start out with direct benefits to the poor and the middle class, whereas deceptive policies directly favor the affluent in the name of benefiting the poor and the middle class. Ethical actions generate a trickle-up of prosperity, whereas deceptive actions offer a trickle-down. Trickle-up means that the poor benefit the most, followed by the middle class and the affluent. Trickle-down, by contrast, signifies that the wealthy reap maximum reward, possibly followed by the middle class and the destitute.
Ethical prescriptions keep the tax burden low on the poor and those in the middle, while unethical policies transfer the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and the middle class. Ethical ideas keep aggregate demand high through high wages stemming from free enterprise, whereas deceptive practices try to revive demand in the name of free enterprise by generating debt. Ethical measures work for the benefit of all, while unethical measures benefit the few and torment the most.
Let’s take another look at the 1950s and the 1960s, when high economic growth coexisted with confiscatory income tax rates, as high as 90 percent on top incomes, but never below 70 percent. Those were the halcyon days of ethical economic policy. The sales tax rate hovered around 2 percent, whereas the Social Security tax for an individual worker barely averaged 3 percent on the first $5,000 of wages.
The tax system was ultra-progressive in the 1950s and the 1960s. In addition, the minimum wage in the period averaged $1.25, which is about $8 in 2004 prices. The economic policy was highly ethical; it was designed to provide a living wage to the unskilled and minimize the burden on those who can least afford to pay taxes. It produced vast benefits for society. Growth averaged 4 percent in the 1950s and 4.4 percent in the 1960s even without the bonanza of the computer evolution; real waged soared for all, at the average rate of 2.5 percent per year; consumer, corporate, and government debt was extremely low. Unemployment fell to as low as 3.5 percent in 1969.
Now let’s see what unethical policies, such as Greenomics, have accomplished. Between 1981 and 1983, the tax system became ultra-regressive, and has remained so to this day. Today the payroll tax is 6.2 percent on a wage base of $87,900, along with a Medicare tax of 1.45 percent. Overall, the Social Security tax burden is now much higher than in the 1950s and the 1960s. You can see what an enormous weight these levies place on the poor and middle-income groups. The top-bracket income tax rate is now just 35 percent, with capital gains and dividends barely facing taxation. The ultra-regressive system is going to be even more regressive in the future, because just as tax rates fall at the federal level, those enacted by states are expected to rise to make up for lost federal aid.
What did Greenomics have to show for itself in 2004? A trade deficit exceeding $600 billion a year? A federal budget deficit in excess of $400 billion? A federal debt over $6 trillion, compared to just $366 billion in 1969? An overall debt level that is twice the level of GDP? Net foreign debt in excess of $3 trillion, compared to a surplus in 1969? An after-tax production wage, earned by 80 percent of working Americans, that is just three-fourths of its level in the 1960s? And, of course, a CEO wage that is several hundred times the production wage, compared to just 40 times during the 1960s. It is abundantly clear that the CEO club now owns the government and economic policy.
The fall in the after-tax minimum wage is really unbelievable. In 1968, the hourly minimum was $1.60 per hour. Since the cost of living has risen by a factor of five, the equivalent minimum wage in today’s prices is $8, compared to the actual level of $5.15. This amounts to a wage decline of 36 percent. Furthermore, the Social Security tax rate in 1968 was just 4.4 percent, compared to 6.2 percent today. So after the payroll tax deduction, the minimum-wage drop approximates 40 percent.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen, Economics at 1:38 AM GMT+4
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