Loading ...Watched Cramer on you tube said Wamu could go out of buisness in next 5 days.
no bailout
Senator: Bailout not a solution
Some senators condemned the proposal as a bad idea, while others said they worried about taking fast action on such a momentous program.
Sen. Jim Bunning, a conservative Republican from Kentucky and a long-time Federal Reserve critic, said that he could not support the proposal.
“It will not help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages. It will not bring a halt to the slide in home prices,” Bunning said. “This massive bailout is not a solution. It’s financial socialism and it’s un-American.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat from Ohio, said calls from his constituents about the plan have been universally negative. He told the story of one constituent who drove to Washington.
“He quite rightly asked why we were rushing to bailout companies whose leaders got rich gambling with other people’s money,” Brown said.
Brown asked if Wall Street owed the rest of America an apology. Paulson, who served as CEO of Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs for seven years before becoming Treasury Secretary in 2006, pointed at both Wall Street and others for the nation’s current crisis.
“There is a lot of blame to go around,” Paulson said. “A lot of blame [belongs] with big financial institutions that engaged in this irresponsible lending.”
But Paulson also said some blame rests with regulators, rating agencies and others - “people who made loans they shouldn’t have made, people who took out loans they shouldn’t have taken out.”
Even senators who said they believed that they must push legislation forward expressed misgivings with at least some aspects of the broad powers the Treasury was seeking.
Moggy @ 23:23 pm on September 21, 2008
We have been to Alaska, and I agree. The cobalt blue huge chunks of ice falling into the water are spectacular.
aurum
I learn something new from Lemetropole Cafe Every Nite
Hi Bill
I haven’t heard much mention of the Tier 1 Capital requirements that the banks have to report on at the end of the quarter.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_requirement
With all the shareholders equity lost in the past three months I doubt ANY BANK will cover their minimum Tier 1 obligations on the reporting day which is September 30th (next Tuesday).
I would guess that this is a major driver in the urgency to pass the $700B bailout fast. That would explain why Brenanke and Paulson have stated that they will buy distressed assets “at their maturity value” which would change the value from current FMV to the US government bailout value.
The loss in shareholder equity also must be a major reason that the SEC ruled that they would enforce a “no short selling rule” of 800 financial institutions until November 2nd!
Should be a very interesting dance to get around the “Come to Jesus” day of September 30, 2008.
Wouldn’t it also be a resounding victory if gold and silver REALLY take-off before the 30th so the Banking Cabal has to mark their Comex shorts to market….
The battle for our freedom rages!
Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts global cooling
ipso_facto, your offshore-drilling…
who believe in global warming and the CO2-Story?
The fact may be, named in the yahoo-news:
“The almanac is predicting a period of global cooling partly due to the lack of sunspots, a situation which some scientists believe causes cooling on the sun and, subsequently, the earth.”
I read often in the last, there were minimal to no sunspots.
This give still another look to the POO!!
If the Gulfstream seep away, in Europe the average temperature can decline to 15 degree or somewhat else, brrrr!!
http://tinyurl.com/52xwrf
gggs g_s
FABER - Fed Acted Like a Liquidity Drug Dealer
By CNBC.com | 23 Sep 2008 | 05:10 AM ET
The Federal Reserve, which has encouraged excessive borrowing, is to blame for the credit crunch that has gripped world markets for more than a year, Marc Faber, the author of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, told CNBC on Tuesday.
“About 15 percent of U.S. households have negative equity. Who supplied the leverage into the system? It’s called the Federal Reserve Board,” Faber said.
“If I’m the drug dealer I’m not responsible that everybody takes drugs, but I facilitate it, especially if I give it out free of charge, I can enlarge the market share, and that’s what the Fed has done.”
Liquidity will dry up even more, volatility will stay high and financial assets are going to suffer as the crisis continues to unfold. The bailout plan is unlikely to work and the global economy will take the hit, he predicted.
“People rely on the people in Congress, at the Fed, at the Treasury, people that brought us into this trouble, to take us out of trouble. I don’t think they will succeed,” Faber said. “We can have recovery rallies but a new high on the S&P is practically out of the question for a very long time. In real terms, equities are still very high and economically, I think the world will go into a slump.”
The main provider of global liquidity was the U.S. current account deficit, which increased at a fast pace over the past 10 years, but this will no longer be the case.
“Next year, if the economy in the U.S. is as weak as I think it would be, the trade and the current account deficit will continue to contract,” Faber said. “When global liquidity contracts, it’s not a good time for financial assets.”
Other sources of funding, such as foreign reserves of resources-rich countries, are also likely to dry up, Faber said. “I think sovereign wealth funds are going to be very busy supporting their own markets, they won’t have much money to buy assets around the world.
Volatility comes from the fact that, as the private sector tightens lending conditions to adjust its risk management, central banks are injecting liquidity in the money markets to grease the system, he said, adding that banning short-selling will not contribute to reducing volatility and was a “stupid measure.”
“Short sellers are not responsible for current problems. The current problems are caused by the US Fed (Federal Reserve), that was sitting there and letting credit growth go out of bounds,” Faber said.
“We have to see very clearly that the cause of the problem was excess leverage. The biggest hedge funds were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they had the leverage of one over 150 and under the eyes of Congress, under the eyes of the SEC and everybody… and nobody did anything about it. Then, people go and bitch about the short sellers,” he added.
The fact that the rules on short-selling are changing nearly daily, with new names added to the list of securities in which short-selling is banned or with specific rules regarding hedging and confidentiality contributes to adding uncertainty, he said.
The problem is also exacerbated by the fact that nobody knows how long the emergency measure will last or what is next.
“The next emergency measure will be that Americans are not allowed to buy foreign currency and transfer money overseas, and the next measure will be not permitting Americans to buy gold and so on and so forth…. It creates even more uncertainty in the market place when you continually change the rules,” Faber said.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/26848829 or watch the link here
aufever
TA this is true, I sold a little early one stock today, darn it. Rambus also said in short that the direction of his charts could change at any time. Do you remember with the last run up how he was the first to present TA on head and shoulders pattern forming. He was trying to alert the masses to the fall. The difference in general wit TA is news could change everything. Rambus was adapt to update charts..look I use his name in past tense..is adapt to updating his charts. But I do say for now the threat is not quite over yet. But with news more so than before. The thing with news is that when they come out and say everything is okay, the masses believe them. So even thought say fundamentally gold should be at 5000 by now or more and silver 400 or more, it isn’t.
Midas on Canadian Silver
Hi Bill,
talk about getting your hands on some silver? Mission impossible in Canada. Jut got back from the RBC bank. They have 40 ounces of silver left! 100 ounce bars gone. All other sizes gone as well. It would take 8-10 weeks to deliver those 40 ounces they have left! You cannot even place an order for delivery. They won’t let you. Silver maple leaf coins gone, none to be had from RBC. They have some Olympic Silver coins but I could not fill my order for 500 ounces of silver in any form.
Scotia bank as well has no silver left. They will not let you place an order for silver with Scotiabank either at all.
Scotia bank is the biggest bullion dealer in Canada but there is no silver left in canadian banks. The only silver there is out there are the few Olympic silver coins. THAT IS IT!
keep up the great work
Stanley
Booooya
On another note, I was riveted to the TV yesterday afternoon watching Jim Cramer do his thing on Mad Money. This was surreal! From the opening of the show and for the next 20 minutes he flat out insisted that all of his followers buy gold immediately! He said that gold was the only safe asset class left. He said that you must sell 20% of your stocks and use the funds to purchase gold and to have some cash on hand.
He said that if Paulson’s bail out plan didn’t pass Congress, and there is a chance it won’t, we are headed into Great Depression 2. That alone was the reason that everyone needs gold. He said that if the plan does pass, it will be highly inflationary and gold does well during periods of inflation. That would also be a reason to own gold. He stressed that either way, you needed to buy gold now.
As usual, his presentation was with fire and passion, but I also sensed a bit of sadness and real concern from Cramer. I believe that he is sincere, and cares about our country and the small guy and is scared to death about what lies ahead. But Monday’s show was a real turn-around from the man who took his followers out of gold not long ago on the way down. What Cramer doesn’t understand is that gold is NOT a trading vehicle, like the rest of his stocks. You don’t trade away your “insurance.” His advice was to buy Agnico Eagle, Barrick or GLD. He made no mention of physical gold in his presentation. In the end, these former Goldman Sachs guys are all about stocks and we in the physical markets aren’t even on their radar screen. Not yet!
Still, all in all, an amazing sight to behold on CNBC. Slowly, the media may actually be coming around, with Cramer and Gartman jumping on the bandwagon on the same day.
David Schectman
Richard Russell
Question –Russell, would you talk a bit more about your preference for gold coins in one’s possession vs. GLD, which you term “paper gold” and SLV, which you call “paper silver.”
Answer — Yes, as I see it the authorities are doing whatever they want. I’m more inclined to hold actual gold coins. The SEC now disallows shorting in 799 financial equities, an amazing turn of events. Now with central banks all over the world releasing vast quantities of fiat money, it’s entirely possible that gold will embark on a major rise. If this happens, it will throw suspicion on all fiat currency which is the last thing the central banks want. Under these conditions, it would not surprise me for the Fed and the SEC to halt all trading in gold, and the easiest place to monitor such an edict would be GLD. In 1933 the government ordered in all gold held by the US population. I can’t see that happening, but I can see all trading halted. This would throw gold into the black market. and make it very difficult to price or sell your gold. In France, people are forbidden to take any gold out of the country. Remember, gold is the enemy of fiat paper, and in that there is a story. Rising gold throws suspicion on ALL fiat and central bank issued currency..
TQ
“Please don’t make comments like that about a poster here, especially one like Rambus who left because of a poster who wrote some unsubstantiated babble unless you can prove them by supplying a link.”
I was obviously greatly exaggerating. To make a point. TA is not infallible. No one’s. I have no reason to believe that Rambus is not a fine person. But he could not predict the future with TA any more than I can with any number of other systems which work sometimes, temporarily.
onthebeach
I don’t know who they are, all I know is they are not helping people, maybe wealthy people, but not the average Joe. And no you or me should not have to pay, these companies took the risk on speculation they would be up another 100k in a few yrs ,so who cares if they defaulted, they would come out ahead.Now that the bottom fell out, people couldn’t refi out or sell they are stuck with them.You know somehow I think they saw the refis would stop but not the lendiing of new home owners or the value. I remember a few yrs. back when checking on current value of my home, this realator offered to buy my house cash with no fees. Thats how desperate they were to get propertys..to flip. I should of did it. Then I could of used the difference (then, and now) to take it off his hands..cash.
Fullgoldcrown @ 21:18 pm
Great letter! That’s the kind that I hope is somewhat innacurate. 