Archive for December, 2008
Four Really, Really Bad Scenarios
December 18th, 2008I found this one most interesting. Via: Politico: The Alternate-Dollar Nightmare “The Number One vulnerability is the dollar itself,” Rickards concluded. “We’re printing them and shoving them out the door, and the Fed is basically out of bullets. So why hasn’t the dollar collapsed? The short answer is, global investors don’t have any other choice.” […]
Moody’s: 70 Percent Chance That GM Will File for Bankruptcy
December 18th, 2008Via: Washington Post: General Motors is likely to file for bankruptcy protection with government backing, giving bondholders a recovery of more than 25 cents on the dollar, according to Moody’s Investors Service. There is a 70 percent probability that the restructuring plan for U.S. automakers will consist of a prepackaged bankruptcy financed by government loans […]
Madoff’s Auditor… Doesn’t Audit?
December 18th, 2008Via: Fortune: The three-person auditing firm that apparently certified the books of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, the shuttered home of an alleged multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, is drawing new scrutiny. Already under investigation by local prosecutors for its potential role in the scandal, the firm, Friehling & Horowitz, is now also being investigated by the American […]
George Bush: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”
December 18th, 2008Double plus good, comrade! * Queue applause * Translation: Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could […]
Oil Under $40; More Oil Stored on Ships at Sea Than at Any Time in The Last twenty Years
December 18th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. Oil is decoupling from the dollar now, to the downside. Gold is up sharply, the dollar is down sharply, oil is down sharply. I don’t think there was any doubt about it before, but people are definitely moving their paper based […]
California: U.S. Marines to Staff Vehicle Checkpoint Along with Law Enforcement Agencies
December 18th, 2008Via: DUI Blog: The Morongo office of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in conjunction with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and the USMC military police will conduct a joint sobriety/driver license checkpoint on Friday, December 12, 2008, somewhere in the unincorporated/incorporated area of San Bernardino County. Research Credit: DT
Chrysler to Shut All Factories for a Month, GM Will Shut 20 Factories for Part of Q1
December 18th, 2008It’s snowballing now. Via: New York Times: Chrysler said Wednesday that it would close all its factories for at least one month, starting at the end of this week, in response to plunging vehicle sales in the United States. Chrysler said Wednesday that it would close all its factories for at least one month, starting […]
Change We Can Believe In: Obama Chooses Monsanto Creature, Tom Vilsack, for Secretary of Agriculture
December 18th, 2008The fever dream reality of the Obama hive mind goes something like this: Obama is just pretending to be evil so that he can get into power, but then the Hope and Change, etc. will flow. —The Cognitive Mechanism Behind Political Fundamentalism… And Probably Lots of Other Fundamentalisms We have just lost cabin pressure, and […]
Toronto Stock Exchange Suffers Daylong Trading Halt
December 18th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: The Toronto Stock Exchange suffered a daylong trading disruption after a computer failure prevented quotes from being disseminated, causing the worst halt for a major market since September. Most trading on Canada’s biggest stock market didn’t begin on schedule at 9:30 a.m. in Toronto, and buying and selling was halted about 20 minutes […]
Bailout Payout Tops $8 Trillion
December 17th, 2008Via: Politico: As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. taxpayers. It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners. Amid […]
