Broken

Floor traders: all dressed up and nothing to trade.

Now Santelli will have to get a real job.

The Obama bear: Stocks are now down 20% since inauguration day. "It speaks to the carnage that’s in the economy and the lack of confidence in the measures that have been announced."

When stocks plunged during Bush's 1st year, guys like HiSpeed blamed Clinton. In Obama's 1st month, naturally the plunge is Obama's fault.

Gotta love the consistent thinking.

"Fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics," professor Bradley Schiller writes in a WSJ op-ed. "Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren't likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future."

Maybe Obama should be like McCain and say that our economy is "fundamentally strong". That should make idiots like Schiller happy.

DryShips: The Time to Buy Is Now

Dryships?

Good luck with that.

Doug Kass comes to the defense of Cramer: "Individual investors are better served listening to Jim Cramer, both with regard to his recommendations and his methodology, than any other business commentator extant." (previously)

I short Cramer's buys.

David Reilly: "Banker bashing is great sport. It satisfies the populist need for an identifiable villain in the financial crisis. It provides an outlet for our collective anger. It absolves us from thinking about just how we - the credit-card-loving, mortgage-craving, debt-addicted consumers of America - helped foment the meltdown."

Yep, consumers FORCED bankers to lend the money.

If Obama screwed up in nominating and backing Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader who ponied up $140,000 in back-taxes and interest, what does that say about his support for Geithner?

Who cares?

If Snow White is the only job candidate that will meet your ethics requirements you won't be able to hire the competent and experienced. What you want to avoid are obvious conflicts of interest, like, say hiring Paulson of Goldman-Sachs to run Treasury.

So Tom Daschle failed to disclose and pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars of income. This one is going to be fascinating to watch.

"It is very sad state that these people only get a slap on the wrist, whereas anybody else would have went to jail over this."

No, you would not go to jail. You would pay your back taxes, plus interest, plus penalties, just like Mr Daschle.

Human psychology is bizarre. The last administration would disclose nothing and stonewall everything. No problem. Dick Cheney and Haliburton? No problem. John Snow, CSX, and Citadel? No problem. Daschle? OMG, huge problem.

If you punish disclosure, there will be none.

Cramer on Obama's "there will be a time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them" - "Let me tell you something, we heard Lenin."

Glen D:

The bankers are saving their riches with your tax money, are you happy with that? Kinda socialist, isn't it?

Krugman: "Question: what happens if you lose vast amounts of other people’s money? Answer: you get a big gift from the federal government — but the president says some very harsh things about you before forking over the cash."

Since the markets have failed, the only solution left is the government. Take over failed banks, liquidate, and sell the carcass to the highest bidder.

Despite common perception that the New Deal ended the Great Depression, it did not, economics professors Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian say. In fact, it prolonged it. Something the Obama administration must bear in mind: policies that decrease competition are dangerous.

Garbage it is.

Look at plots of GDP, total employment, and stock market from 1928-1940. From 1928 to 1932, Hoover is down, down, down. By contrast, the FDR administration's growth rate in all three categories is unmatched by any post-war president. The only down year is 1938, when FDR cancelled many New Deal programs. New programs were re-instated in 1239 and growth resumed.

Yet the some nutjobs on the right insist this is failure. It's like arguing with Creationists. Impervious to real data.

A few years back, Slate Magazine called Baltic Dry Index the best economic indicator you've never heard of. It's up 34% over the past three months. Could this be a recovery mustard seed?

Don't count on it. The index had fallen well below the break-even price for running a ship.

Line U-6: A Sell Signal for Bulls and Bears

Yep, the obaminoids are fascist Marxists, for sure. There is no other explanation for what he we know he is going to do. He will tax the wealthy and give it all to the imigrants and the non real Americans!


On Jan 06 09:54 AM Zooey wrote:

> Your observation on the labor report can be substantiated in several
> ways, but what you and the rest of us hesitate to admit is that the
> Congress does not care for a lasting recovery in a capitalist system,
> but rather lasting political control over the economy and society.
> This builds utter dependence on the political class.
>
> The new regime hates to waste an "emergency"; it is an opportunity
> to impose major changes. The end of capitalism is much nearer than
> most Americans know.

TARP Funds Fueling Global Buyouts, Not Lending

Citicorp just bought a Spanish infrastructure company for $10 billion. Nice use of the $20 billion you, the tax payer, just gave them.

Citibank Tops Bank Website Rankings for Second Straight Year

I kid you not, Citibank is buying an infrastructure company in Spain for ~$10 Billion. What does that have to do with increasing lending? Nada, as far as I can tell.

How much bailout money did Citi just get? $20 billion immediately and $300 billion in guarantees?

This is BS. Citi is acquiring the company, Itinere Infraestructuras, through its infrastructure fund,
Citi Infrastructure Partners.

www.khl.com/magazines/.../