Jade Queen

How to Fix the Fed - A Lesson from AIG

AIG could have been chopped up, with the banks forced to take pieces rather than cash, it would seem to me. Had they done due diligence concerning AIG? If not, would it not have made sense to make them have consequences?

As to the damage to be done by allowing the transparency promised, what about the damage from not delivering?

If there is transparency, even the blogosphere gets to be part of the sunlight falling on things. As it is, the executive branch and congressional leadership know more than ordinary congresspeople, not to mention ordinary people. How is that a constructive influence from congress?

Secrecy undermines credibility. This isn't somebody's bedroom. This is the people's business. The first step back to credibility would be disclosure. Even as they scurry to prevent timely disclosure, it is likely to happen anyway with all the attention the unemployment situation is directing toward the federal government.

They should agree to disclosure and come clean, sooner rather than later. I can't believe the stuff that should be private that is public, and vice versa.

The Bernanke Fed's Bogus Transparency

The latest report is over 140 signers for 1207. They need 70-something more to come up with a majority. If a majority signs on as sponsors, it will be difficult for leadership to obstruct. If it passes in the House, the Senate might obstruct, but over 140 house sponsors is dramatic. The internet will be full of it, and there could be celebrations in the streets, which might be hard to hide. Also, major media has been giving Ron Paul air without messing with his mike, jamming his earpiece, or otherwise sabotaging. Some congresspeople must be squirming, not to mention their patrons. Maybe we will get perp walks and more undercover bugging records. Hefty fines may accompany the walks. Retail clerks' should not have to pay for prisons to house these guys, but it could be entertaining to see them in new outfits, say, Osh-Koshes. The implications for investing over the long term are to invest in things that help people be independent of government and corporations that depend on government for subsidy and protection.

Why the Government Should Stop All the Bailout Secrecy

Ron Paul has proposed HR 1207, a FED transparency act. This time he has got quite a few co-sponsors, including Democrats. The truth outs, sometimes glacially in spite of alleged global warming. There's a corresponding bill in the Senate as well. In the meantime, Walter Williams, now asking to be called John Williams, is connected to a really interesting group in Spokane called Arm in Arm. My guess is there are a plethora of shadow-currency and shadow-government plans floating around in case inflation approaches banana league. NPR ran a wonderful story about anarchist exchanges that run like Alcoholics Anonymous. Bring your first name or a pseudonym and exchange whatever you don't want for what you do. You can even sing and dance for a carrot. It seems as if D.C. doesn't care what goes on in Spokane or out in the arms and legs of the country, but the belly could start to get hungry if the arms and legs go their own ways. That's why I'm in a credit union that holds on to its local paper and in solar, on a bet that people will invest some of their bile in independence. U.S. people seem passive as a group, but I used to work in mental health. I know what can happen when passives go the other way.

Great Depression Not Imminent, But Inevitable

Lumping the BRIC's together isn't accurate. I would not put a cent in Russia or India, sadly. I wish I could. I find corruption issues just too serious in those two economies.

China and Brazil are different. I went to China in 2001 expecting to see poverty. This is not what I saw, by a long shot. Pollution is reducing their population. They are seeing the need to deal with that, and when they decide to deal with an issue, things happen.

After all, Chinese officials don't travel off-shore that much.

I watched a thousand, or however many it was, dance around all organized at the Olympics, and I thought to myself, "That couldn't happen here (in the U.S.), though it is POSSIBLE to orchestrate cats."

What's more, China has had massive class mobility. I think Bush may have wanted class mobility here (as in "I want more home ownership. Make it happen."), at least briefly, but everything he has done worked against it.

Some in China surely want to get off the fossil train. China has tested methodically to find the smartest and most hard-working students. She then sends them to the best universities all over the world. She uses wikipedia and probably MIT's open-university stuff to make good translations on good corporate websites that seduce the geeky potential customer.

China and Dubai (Masdar) are going to throw the world's proved brains into getting some of us ready for less fossil use.

Brazil forced the U.S. car companies to make better cars there, as did the Europeans. I don't know enough about Brazil to be invested there yet, but there are some investors who do. Brazil has also had some class mobility and some interesting progress with urban challenges, which isn't easy to do. I know big money is going in down there.

I own a Chinese renewable-energy stock.

Why I Need a Government Bailout

I am trying to start a very important blogging business creating cross-over good feelings between right fringies and left fringies. The left ones are all really cute vegan-activist cheerleading women who are upset about animal-eating but scared of guns. The right ones are fundamentalist second-amendment true believers. I need a billion, but I might be willing to settle for slightly less.

Thanks for the posting that prompted my personally slanted riff. I needed that. Cheers.