theobannion

Obama's Financial Reforms: Who Stands to Lose

All of that is at least interesting, if not great; but there's a long distance between a proposal & a final result. Let's not forget that the tens of thousands of industry lobbyists haven't spent all their bribe money yet.

SOB.

GM's Tough Treatment Should Be a Model for Other Bailouts

Sorry to keep busting in, but I just read an interesting article from Reuters, part of which follows: "Bartmann, who is 60, said his fund would purchase consumer loans from struggling banks through the public-private investment partnership. With a matching co-investment from Treasury and as much as six-to-one leverage through FDIC-backed bonds, Bartmann could purchase up to $14 billion in loans." (uk.reuters.com/articl...

Six to one leverage? Wasn't excessive leverage in the system part of the problem?

If there's anyone out there who passed accounting, let me know what I'm missing.

SOB.

GM's Tough Treatment Should Be a Model for Other Bailouts

Good article. But the banks have had special clout in American politics since Alexander Hamilton's day. And not to push ancient history, Ed Kock presented himself as a wild-eyed liberal, a working man's man, as did a former young senator from New Jersey whose lifelong interest was politics (he remains nameless only because I can't remember his name - keep forgetting to eat more fish because I keep forgetting to take my gingko biloba. Where was I...?) Right - so whose pockets did they fall into as soon as they were elected? The manufacturers'? What does America manufacture anymore besides endless & insatiable consumer demand for toys & other widgets? No, they fell to the very bottoms of the pockets of the bankers, & in Kock's case, the big developers as well.

Without serious and unrelenting pressure from the people of this country, nothing will change.

Write your congresspeople & senators. Call & talk to their staffs. Make an unrelenting & unabashed pain-in-the-ass of yourself. Join a demonstration, even if it's for the first time in your life.

Sit home and do nothing, and you remain part of the problem.

Bankers should be sweating - but betcha they're smiling and playing golf - when they're not entertaining on their yachts with Dom Perignon. Or watching their thoroughbreds go around the track against a stop-watch in their Maryland or Connecticut backyard.

SOB.

Bear Stearns: One Year Later

I think the clock starts ticking when the fraud is discovered.


On Mar 16 11:24 AM James Wilson wrote:

> Numbers lie and lairs lie.
>
> Charges can be brought how long after fraud ???

Preview from Europe: Two Day Bounce Doesn't Materialize as Markets Slump

Great cartoon. I'm glad you had the good sense & perspicacity to name your witness "dogdirt."

SOB.