Just Say Whoa!

Former labor secretary Robert Reich says Social Security isn't nearly as big a problem as media reports would have us believe. Medicare truly is "a monster," but fixing has less to do with a cash shortage, and more to do with slowing the growth-rate of healthcare costs.

Robert Reich is right....but Republicans have been whining and moaning about S.S. from Day 1.

They're against EVERYTHING they didn't think of.

EVERYTHING.

Want to fix Social Security for about 75 years?

Eliminate the Cap.
www.epi.org/economic_s.../

Now get back to work and stop whining about something that is NOT a serious problem!

Harvard economics professor Edward Glaeser asks: Should the government be bribing mortgage servicers to modify loans and reduce payments? Short answer: no.

The cost of a "cram-down" is less than the cost of foreclosure.

Why do banks not like "cram-downs" so much that they bought off 100% of Senate Republicans and some of the Senate Democrats?

Greed, pride, avarice?

You pick.

Tone down the hype, please. A Credit Trader explains why the Bloomberg article describing how Milan city officials used derivatives to bet on the default of the Italian government isn't as shocking as it sounds.

>A Credit Trader explains why the Bloomberg article describing how Milan city officials used derivatives to bet on the default of the Italian government isn't as shocking as it sounds.

I bet if I made lots of derivative bets on the Credit Trader dying in a fiery car crash, they might get a little nervous...

Putting the REIT Maturity Crunch into Perspective

The First Rule of Fight Club is that People with Deep Pockets don't talk about their losses in CRE.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan talks the markets higher, saying we're finally seeing the "seeds of bottoming" in housing, and that it's "very easy to see" financial markets continuing to improve. Greenspan was one of the first to predict a recession in 2007.

Is this the same guy who claimed he wrote his last book while in the bathtub?

I think he's been in the bath water too long and is getting all wrinkled...

Pull the drain plug, please!

This sure smells like a sucker's rally, Andy Kessler says. While the government's no-more-failures policy has taken armageddon off the table, there simply "aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise."

Since when has Capitalism been based on "sustainability"?

Is Wall Street living on some hippy commune now?

Stress testing Obama: Mean Street's Evan Newmark lets the facts speak for themselves.

I believe in The Geoffster, who believes in Cetin.

And Cetin is holding a plate, balancing the entire world on the plate.

Cetin, is of course, standing on the back of a turtle.

And what you may ask is the turtle standing on?

It's turtles all the way down, baby!!!

Those luggage fees sure add up: U.S. airlines collected a record $1.1B in bag fees in 2008, led by American Airlines (AMR) and US Airways (LCC). That's more than double the bag fees collected in 2007.

Southwest Airlines: $0 in extra baggage fees.

$0.

Too rich for foreclosure but too poor for derivatives, Time's David Von Drehle thought he was out of luck... until he realized he could get a $3,500 subsidy for trading in his 2001, 18 mpg "clunker" - for a spanking new 20 mpg model.

Looking forward to another hi-larious episode when the Time's David Von Drehle shows up at the dealer with his $3,500 subsidy and finds out what that new 20 mpg model actually costs to buy...

It's a laugh a minute, folks!

Scott Burns: Is America about to go broke?

No!

Because America has Payday Loan stores!

America will just go to one of these stores, fill out the forms in triplicate and get a 30% APR payday loan!

Sure, we might have to put up our TransAm for collateral, but so what...

Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and UBS (UBS) ink a European dark pool alliance. Institutions use so-called dark pools to execute large share blocks under the radar. The three already pool their U.S. pools.

Wait!

You mean that rich Capitalists have under the table deals that us little guys can't get in on?

Shocking!!!

Next they are going to tell us that there is gambling in Casablanca!!!

Geithner uses the NYT op-ed page to explain how regulators tested the banks.

>Meanwhile Zero says he will chase down Corprates and individual anyones who is in an OSA, by requiring proof of innocence. Its actually laughable

The only thing that is "laughable" about cracking down on wealthy tax cheaters is how y'all are going to fool the NASCAR mullet heads into thinking that is a bad idea.

They have no clue where the Grand Cayman's is located and they certainly don't have enough money to start a OSA.

Please explain to us why someone would need a OSA if they weren't doing something illegal.

Be specific.

A group of 400 executives from state-owned and private Chinese firms will arrive in the U.S. and Canada next month, to hunt for cheap distressed assets. The group is expected to look at the auto, petrochemical, energy, metal, media, furniture and consumer goods sectors.

Just one more indication there is no "plan" by China to "collapse" the USD.

If there was, wouldn't they be able to pick up these assets are much, much lower prices after the "planned collapse"?

FWIW, they appear to be as clueless as we are about the future....

How to Protect Yourself from a Falling Dollar

>Isn’t the USD already hyper-inflated relative to other currencies given that the notional $700 trillion derivatives market and another $360 trillion in credit markets are mostly dollar denominated?

No. Because the USD is the world's reserve currency.

Bernanke will suck those dollars out of circulation, once the economy starts taking off again.

Don't worry kids, adults are in charge now--unlike the past 8 years.

The Day the Capital Structure Died

It would now seem that the business of America is not actually making products--it's shoveling complicated financial "product" that is nothing less risky than a con artist's shell game...