Let the banks and brokers go down

I'm getting nervous about Obama's economic team and their plan.

What most concerns me is that they seem focused on repair and restoration rather than on replacement and invention. I'm looking for generation, not regeneration and most of Obama's team seem to come with minds shaped by long submersion in the troubled waters of our recent bank and investment cultures. His guys apparently are not capable of blowing the doors off what is and coming up with something entirely new. Or maybe they know what they are doing but are so deeply vested in the dead and dieing financial institutions that they are compelled by self interest to try to resuscitate them.

I don't own stock and I don't give a damn if the failed banks go down.

Oops

Wasn't somebody supposed to take care of that?

WASHINGTON - The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized - and that bank failures were so infrequent - that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.

Now with 25 banks having failed last year, 17 so far this year, and many more expected in the coming months, the FDIC has proposed large new premiums for banks at the very time when many can least afford to pay. The agency collected $3 billion in the fees last year and has proposed collecting up to $27 billion this year, prompting an outcry from some banks that say it will force them to raise consumer fees and curtail lending.

Link via Eschaton

Bushville? or Cheneyville? you pick

If you are a member of the working class without rich relatives you might check up on your camping gear. Shakeout the tent, check the Coleman stove, air out the sleeping bags because it could be you are in for a stretch at a Bushville campground for the homeless.

No doubt Cheney and his Wall Street cronies thinks all this is a healthy weed out of the dead wood (that would be you and me).

Here's a link to an NY Times article on tent cities.

Billmon

I miss a lot. Didn't know, for example, that Billmon had resumed posting, now in a diary at Kos. Found it this morning by way of naked capitalism. So, this afternoon I'm going sit back and read all Billmon's posts. After a quick survey it looks like they began last July.

Billmon's posts are here: link. If a post catches your interest make sure you click through on the "there's more" link.

Shoe thrower

Muntadher al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist on trial for throwing his shoes last year at then-President George W. Bush, said the former American leader's "bloodless and soulless smile" and his joking banter provoked him.

Rescue Via a Blue Swan

Whatis the blue swan you ask? It is immediate rescue via an unforeseen agent. In our present situation it could be:

New technology that delivers free energy.

Arrival of friendly flying saucer people who teach us how to fly unaided, heat our homes and light our cities with hydrogen, live forever, and instantly transport ourselves and goods to markets in other galaxies.

No Lieberman. No Robert Gates.

Change please.

No fool like an old fool

Delusional and/or demented McCain may be obsessed with fantasies of romancing Sarah.

Could be this old womanizer got carried away and his vp selection process was driven by dreams of romancing Sarah on Air Force One.

"mistake prone Biden"

For many journalists, including those at the New York Times, "mistake prone" has become part of Biden's name.

So, to be fair, why not "frequent liar" McCain? Or "truth" challenged" McCain?

Biden vs Palin

or an episode of Reba?

The Big Picture

From the Big Picture:

Want to get a sense of exactly how expensive the Paulson Plan is?

1 million seconds is 11 days

1 billion seconds is 32 years

1 trillion seconds is 3 centuries

The Big Picture

"Terrorist" Attack on Financials?

Not necessarily a wingnut attack of paranoia. One very smart guy thinks enough of the possibility to write about it. Link

Sarah Palin's greatest hits

Here's the list: LINK

McCain? Simply confused by all of it

Lumpy goes senile over Spain. link

How swift boating works

Exactly right explanation of how swift boating works from Josh Marshall

Free apes

Compassion.

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans. Link

Dukakis moments

We need more images of McCain in those studly, very dark glasses, "Navy" baseball cap, and golf shirt, especially those where average height people tower over him.

Hearing aids can be repaired.

I'm not telling my wife, or anyone else for that matter, but today I broke my $2000(plus) hearing aid. I was getting into the car, leaving the gym, and not wearing my eyeglasses. I noticed a large cashew in the cup holder that must have fallen out of the bag of mixed nuts I had for lunch. I forgot that before going into the gym I had carefully put the hearing aid safely into the cup holder, a little fortress. (Is this a senior moment?) I popped the nut into my mouth and bit down hard. It crunched and I knew. A little wad of tiny electronics spilled out, between the two hearing aid pieces in my hand. They must be damaged. Who could possibly fix these little wires and teeny lumps of important appearing items?

I will have to spring (secretly) for another hearing aid and cover my loss with, maybe, canceling a few years of gym membership. Or sell a dog.

I was sick. Thanks to Bush and company I have some serious income reductions and have money worries. The hearing aid helps keep the peace between my wife and me. I don't need max volume on the TV. I don't automatically say "what?" in response to anything she says. The hearing aid is an important item in our house.

After picking up my boy Rowdy from the vet where he was recovering from $300 (plus. I can't bear to reveal the actual amount.) surgery to remove what likely will turn out to be a wart and not the melanoma I feared, I went to the hearing aid supplier.

"I didn't have my glasses on and I stepped on it in locker room," I lied.

"This is a good break" the receptionist said. "There's an odd little dent here though. No problem. I'll take it upstairs and glue it," she said cheerfully.

....and glue it?

That's it? Glue it like a broken cup. That's it?

It is. Right now the glued hearing aid is safely enclosed in a little plastic bag, in the car in the cup holder so I can't get my hands on it until the glue dries completely, no matter how urgent the need for me to test it and make sure it still works.

The only bad thing that could happen now would be for me to spill the beans to my wife, or one of her siblings. The hearing aid story would become a defining moment. A tale told again and again and again, and summoned forever with subtle references.

Would you like another nut dear?

Please let me keep my mouth shut.

our tax dollars at work.

The Bush regime has pulled us all into the sewer. Is it too much to hope that someday they will called to account for these atrocities?

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."

Link

Via majikthise

Too easy for us to overlook and forget. Let bygones be bygones.

authorities don't know the motive....

The U.S. military confirmed Wednesday that a former Guantanamo detainee from Kuwait carried out a recent suicide attack in northern Iraq.

A spokesman for U.S. military's Central Command told The Associated Press that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi took part in an attack in Mosul.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye said authorities don't know the motive for the attack, which was reported last week by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. Iraqi security forces were apparently targeted.

a little more here.