Drive-by Economy Blogging
Update: From Jack the Grumpy Forester in comments – WaMu bites the dust. You may as well have a laugh.
Actual CNN headline: “Glenn Beck: Crisis an absolute disaster”.
Do you think he came up with that on his own, or did Roget help? Is this guy someone’s brother-in-law?
From MSNBC: U.S. gets a triple dose of bad economic news
WASHINGTON – Weekly jobless claims surged to the highest level in seven years, durable goods orders took a bigger-than-expected tumble and new home sales plunged to the slowest pace in 17 years, according to government data released Thursday.
And they still refuse to say we’re in a recession.
Apparently part of “price discovery” is to determine the “hold-to-maturity” value of the toxic paper the Septic Bank™ is supposed to buy. Given that no one wants to buy it, much less hold it to maturity, isn’t that impossible?
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…in Beck’s case, it’s probably all about the writers. He probably doesn’t even know many of the words…
Washington Mutual apparently died tonight, disappeared by a combination of government takeover and JP Morgan buyout. The speed with which the whole house of cards is collapsing makes all of our hand-wringing back in the 1980’s savings and loan crisis look like fretting over the umpire’s call at a local Little League game. Make that a quadruple shot of bad news, barkeep, and I’d like another double…
They had a run and there was nothing that was going to save them after it started.
i’m not ever again going to be able to think of that song in quite the same way….
Well, Wamu collapsing is a symptom, not a cause. But since we as a nation seem to be utterly determined to party like it’s 1929, I’m just going to grumble Mencken’s famous dictum about democracy being the notion that “the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard” and shuffle back to my iceberg. And to make it even worse, the price of tuna is going up. A penguin can’t even stock up on tasty fishies anymore for his bunker…
FWIW:
Is McCain Planning to Vote Against the Bailout?
Was McCain’s Stunt an Attempt at Palin Damage Control?
Sorry… I’m just PMSL! 😀 I looove American politics… really! There’s nothing funny on TV until the 6 O’clock news lately. LOL
We may well be heading over that cliff… but hell, at least I can go laughing! LOL
I like this too BTW… 😉
Keiser: US Dollar ‘Backed by Bananas’
And for me, this is the money quote!
This is why I am laughing really! 😀 I love irony, and it doesn’t get much better than Bush destroying the USA while Iran, the Nation he wants to destroy, becoming one of the Kings of the hill! Of course… it was Iran’s oil and gas Bush wanted to take, or destroy. Maybe if he’s desperate enough, he may just order a nuke strike as his parting shot. You know… one of his “If I can’t have it, than dammit, nobody will!” tantrums.
Get ready to kiss your asses everyone. 😉
Yep. Folks in the U.S. and Britain knew what they wanted. Now they’re gonna get it, good’n’hard.
This is a more intense version of what happened in the early 1990’s, housing bubble and all, and not a damn thing was learned. This is what tax cuts and deregulation have consistently led to, but some people just don’t get it.
If there is still a county in 20 years and it has managed to limp back to solvency I fully expect there will be a group of idiots in Congress who again propose that we cut taxes on the wealthy and deregulate business to promote growth. No matter how often, or how badly, it fails this idiocy keeps returning.
I don’t understand that either. One good thing that will probably come out of all this, is that the stinking rats in Washington will most likely leave the sinking ship. Cheney has already set up shop in Dubai, and I’m sure he has room for *friends*, as much as anyone like him has any real friends. 🙂 Maybe it’s best to look at it as short-term pain for long term gain. 😉 And once they are out of the USA, the World court and War Crimes Commission can get at them. 🙂
Here’s the most recent report in Reuters:
Wachovia hunts for a merger partner
It seems that the Bushdog idiot, Andy Kessler (WSJ) thinks the bailout will make ordinary people rich! LOL
Bailout Talks Lose Sight of the Cost Question
For anyone wondering what it all means, there is a good explanation here that may help.
The Simple Explanation of Bailouts, Inflation, and Deflation
And, this has to be a gem! Poulson on bended knee begging Pelosi to pass his bill! That’s funny on so many levels! LMAO
What Was Paulson Begging For?
PS: Be sure to read the rest of that one… It shows an interesting dynamic in Politics. 😉
The Hedgemony has no influence over the House Republican caucus since all of their enforcers, like Tom DeLay, had to “spend more time with their” families or lawyers or parole officers. This is what happens when you bring “true believers” into government – they think the lies are facts. They actually think the “trickle down theory” will work.
I’m still waiting to hear why we went from the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” to “economic Pearl Harbor” in four days. There is a big piece missing and no one is rushing to tell people what.
Right now we have panic in the system. Washington Mutual was shaky, but it collapsed because of the disaster talk which led to a $16 billion+ run since September 15. I was reading in the BBC about B&B, a commercial bank, that is probably going to be the next to fail even though it has been reporting good news lately. People don’t believe it, and banks have stopped lending to each other. The damn system is awash in cash, but no one wants to do anything with it. Everyone is afraid and they have gone totally risk adverse. The whole point of capitalism is “risking capital” to get a return on your investment. They damn sure spent a few years taking absurd risks to maximize profits, and now they are finding out that not all bets pay off.
This wasn’t banking. This didn’t belong in The City or Wall Street. This is normally seen in a casino in Las Vegas or Monaco.