Friday, March 14th, 2008

Time	Event
12:31p	Bailout Update The Federal Reserve is Bailing out Bear Stearns... Thats right... I'm not talking about interest rates or policy change to help these guys out. I'm talking CASH: Nearly half the value of Bear Stearns, or about $5.7 billion, was wiped out in a matter of minutes as investors felt the bailout signaled that the credit crisis has reached a more serious stage, and now threatens to undermine the broader financial system _ and the U.S. economy. ... JPMorgan, which has been hurt far less by the mortgage morass than other investment banks, is providing secured funding to Bear Stearns for 28 days, and those loans will in essence be insured by the Federal Reserve. ... JPMorgan Chase said the financing would not expose its company to any material risk JPMorgan is providing the "loan" but if Bear Stearns defaults, the Federal reserve will pay JP the value of the loan. Keep an eye on this one, as JPMorgan is the most likely buyer of Bear Stearns. Let me make this clear: There was a run on a non-comercial-non-federally insured investment bank, and the fed just covered a note that will give it enough operating capital for 28 days... at which time guess what? Bear Stearns won't have any money to pay back the loan, and will default. The fed will then pay JP morgan the full value of the loan, and THEN JP morgan will simply buy Bear Stearns. What would happen without this bailout? JP morgan would buy Bear Stearns, except it wouldn't be quite as profitiable of a pick up, because the fed wouldn't be giving Bear stearns 28 days of operating capital. Basically, the fed is paying JP morgan 28 days of BS operating capitol, because, we can't expect investors on wall street to actually suffer the consequences of their bad investments.... What, some of you out their might ask, about all those poor investors who put money into BS? shouldn't they be protected? NO! BS depositors are large coroporate interestes who chose a high yeild/high risk investment bank... They were purposefully chosing to participate in the risky behaivor BS was engaging in. They wanted those high returns, and were willing to take the risk. But now? They don't suffer any consequences for investing their money unwisely... They get those high returns, and they get no risk, and they will end up doing the same thing 2-5 years from now, choosing riskier investment banks because they know if things go really bad, Unkle fed will come and bail them out. FUCK THEM. Excuse me while I shed a tear for their sorry asses. I've got MY companies capitol wrapped up in a federally insured Money market account that gets a whopping 4% return (actually, less, now that the fed keeps lowering interest rates). I do this because I don't have friends in the federal reserve that will bail me out if I happen to invest my companies capitol foollishly. So fuck them twice. (Comment on this)
12:51p	Good News on the FISA/Amnesty fight. From The Gavel: The House has just passed the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978... the House bill does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed. Over at Dail Kos, there's a roll call on who voted against amnesty: Some of the house "blue dog" Democrats who initially supported amnesty flipped on this issue, and helped pass the house bill that has no amnesty. If they are your reps, Call them and thank them - phone numbers are provided This whole issue is about much more then criminal charges against telco's. The ONLY avenue left that will Bring to light who and what Bush was illegally wiretapping is through cases against the Telcos. Amnesty means we will never know. Expect major PR push back from the Republicans and white house on this issue... but we won this round. (Comment on this)
7:08p	Hello world? So, every once in a while, I fire open my LJ friends tool, and check out who's friended me lately, and whenever appropriate, try and friend people back. Usually, I end up with a pretty even mix of people who have added me, and people who have removed me from their friends list, or people who have simply deleted their journal. I'm beyond little ego bullshit of wondering why people have removed me from their friends list. But I am always curious about the people who have added me. Please, if you have a minute, respond to this post, and introduce yourself, if we don't already formally know each other. Also, if you can point to either the post that got you interested in my LJ, or one of your favorite entries, or whatever, I'd really appreciate it. I keep this blog for mostly selfish, self involved reasons... It sprang up out of my despair over the political situation in the country. I knew I was "preaching to the converted" and wasn't informing anybody else of anything that they didn't have a basic grasp of... but it was important for me, during a time of extreme cognitive dissonance. Most news, and social outlets refused to acknowledge things that seemed obvious to me. The connections I made here, and at other blogs was important -- I wasn't alone... I wasn't crazy. Or maybe I was, but there were other people that were crazy just like me. It helped. The worm has since turned on some things. But a basic level of cognitive dissonance still remains in the public discourse... The way things are "framed"... the way things that are important are marginalized, while the marginal are brought front and center, and expounded in in great detail. The "sex scandal" of the NY governor comes to mind as the latest example of this. Anyway... thanks everyone for reading my journal, and thanks in advance for any feedback you make... to this post, or to any in the future. It is very much appreciated. (24 Comments | Comment on this)

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