Fine article!

Also Hugh, Boo, Selise, Teddy – your comments deserve a full article.

wikipedia on Paulson tells me Paulson is the Grand Poohbah of Economic Hitmen, with Cox Chief Toadie.

I’m too overwhelmed to write more.

Thank each and every one of you!

Today’s cry is now “The banks are afraid to lend to each other?” s Oh, really you lying bastards??

This is the same scam oil companies pulled back in the 80’s that caused the gas crisis. I know because I worked with them.
What did they do?? They all capped their wells – in a petulant F*** You to the American people – they deliberately withheld supplies because the price of oil dropped so low they weren’t making a big enough profit.

The banks too, have just shut off the supply of money to everyone because interst rates are so low – they’re just not making big enough profits. Not any profits- just the killing kind they’ve grown accustomed to.

Like many of you, I have accounts with all the major banks. All of my long held low interest high credit lines were suddenly reduced when I became seriously ill , couldn’t work and all the credit reporting sharks sent warnings to my banks that I was now actually using my cards and increasing my debt. Something I did not do before and in fact fought against most of my life. All did that Chase, WaMu, Capitol and Citi. The worst are WaMu and Chase.

But oddly enough, they began flooding me with new offers. Actually pulled me inside the Chase bank office/closing booth where I hold my main accounts and are offering new cards, additional cards with fairly high credit lines – but at double my current interest rates.

So let be perfectly clear, my friends, it is NOT that they don’t have the capital to lend to other banks, to each other. Why should they when they can hold on to it because you’ll pay more – 20-30-40-50% – anything -to save your home and family?

And our government and Congress know it.

Thats the way causality flows in the Progressive Blogworld – top down – and if the Candidate supports it, it must be good!

or are you hoping we forget how much Obama supported the bailout?

Elites 1, ‘ignorant masses’ 0.

This article is worthy of an FDL article (IMO).

They are hanging on to the last vestiges of corrupt crony capitalism.

Paulson and Bernanke lied to Congress to get the plan approved.

Why do they still work for the US government? It is a wonder.

But the sums involved are staggering. Just what I have up there is $4.682 trillion, and I have likely left somethings out.

Chris Floyd had a great post on what this means yesterday:

This was the cult that captured the governments of the United States and Britain (among others), as well as the Republican and Democratic parties, and the Conservative and Labour parties as well. And for almost thirty years, its ruthless doctrines have been put into practice. Regulation and oversight of financial markets were systematically stripped away or rendered toothless. Essential public services were sold off, for chump change, to corporate interests. Public spending on anything other than making war, threatening war and profiting from war was pared back or eliminated. Such public spending that did remain was forever under threat and derided, like the remnants of some pagan faith surviving in isolated backwaters.

Year after year, the ordinary citizens were told by their governments: we have no money to spend on your needs, on your communities, on your infrastructure, on your health, on your children, on your environment, on your quality of life. We can’t do those kinds of things any more.

Of course, when talking amongst themselves, or with the believers in the think tanks, boardrooms — and editorial offices — the cultists would speak more plainly: we don’t do those things anymore because we shouldn’t do them, we don’t want to do them, they are wrong, they are evil, they are outside the faith. But for the hoi polloi, the line was usually something like this: Budgets are tight, we must balance them (for a “balanced budget” is a core doctrine of the cult), we just can’t afford all these luxuries, sorry about that.

But now, as the emptiness and falsity of the Chicago cargo cult stands nakedly revealed, even to some of its most faithful and fanatical adherents, we can see that this 30-year mantra by our governments has been a deliberate and outright lie. The money was there — billions and billions and billions of dollars of it, trillions of dollars of it. We can see it before our very eyes today — being whisked away from our public treasuries and showered upon the banks and the brokerages.

Let’s say it again: The money was there all along.

highly recommend the whole post.

“Insurance on Lehman Debt Is the Industry’s Next Test”

[…] The magnitude of the exposure came into focus on Friday, when the price of Lehman’s bonds was set via a closely watched auction on Wall Street. The debt was priced at a little above 8 cents on the dollar, leaving companies and funds that insured these debts against default on the hook for the remainder.

The price determined the amount that sellers of bond-default protection would have to pay those who bought their protection, called counterparties. The lower the bonds’ price fell, the higher the payouts were going to be.

But even now, the total amount coming due is unknown because the market for credit-default swaps is not regulated or tracked through any clearinghouse of data. “The huge value of credit-default swaps on Lehman Brothers, and the low price obtained in this auction, mean there are billions of dollars in obligations,” said Eric R. Dinallo, the New York State insurance superintendent. “No one knows who owes this money, how much each counterparty owes, or whether any of these counterparties will now be in trouble themselves, with further potential problems for the financial markets.”

Some of those on the hook will quietly settle their trades as they come due, mostly within the next two weeks, and keep doing business as usual. To the extent there are problems, the world may find out about it only when another financial services company discloses its exposure or perhaps even collapses.[…]

IMHO, that’s what your comment above, and other similar ones you have made, appear to me to be about.

Paulson appears to be injecting capital in, before he has plugged the leaks. Per Ian Bailout 101, patch the hull or taxpayers will be paying forever.

Thanks again for all your work.