finance

Chris Knight's avatar

“Gloom, despair, and agony on me.
Deep dark depression, excessive misery.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – the government agency which makes sure that the money you keep in the bank will still be there if the firm goes bust – is running out of money for its fund and risks insolvency, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has told bank CEOs. A lot of banks have gone under in the past several months and its depleted the FDIC’s coffers.

The FDIC is now looking to shore up the fund with new banking fees, and is projected to raise $27 billion.

Will that be enough at all to keep scenes from yesteryear like the one depicted above from happening again?

In my opinion: not likely....

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It’s become “The Rant Heard ‘Round the World”: CNBC’s Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange two days ago, blasting President Obama’s mortgage bailout plans and calling for a new “tea party”…

Santelli’s impromptu screed alarmed the Obama Administration enough that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs attacked Santelli during the daily White House press briefing yesterday.

Most of y’all who read this blog on a regular basis know what I’m gonna say already: that Rick Santelli is absolutely correct. That the American government is rewarding “bad behavior” and consequently is punishing those who are striving to play fairly by the rules.

At every level, government in the United States is out of control. It has “gone rogue”. Our government is no longer of the people, by the people and for the people. It is now an entity unto itself, existing for its own sake, and proven willing ...

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The $787 BILLION package is now enacted legislation, as President Barack Obama signed the bill at a ceremony in Denver.

There might be another “stimulus” coming soon, believe it or not.

And on the day of this esteemed occasion, the Dow dropped 297.81 points, -3.79%, to close at 7,552.60.

And on a somewhat related note, I’ve been hearing some curious rumblings about stuff going down in the Eastern Europe markets, that might bear watching for the time being....

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From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis…

The person who submitted the photo writes…

“Got the photo from a friend. The white sign that has been blacked out used to be the Toy Center. The biggest & best toy store in New Orleans in the late 50’s early 60’s. The Coca Cola bottling plant & Tulane Shirt Company were just to the left on S. Jefferson Davis Parkway. Times have changed.”

I remember back in the early Nineties when Haiti was being torn apart following the military coup that overthrew Aristide. People there became so hard-up for money, that they had resorted to looting cemeteries: digging up graves to steal jewelry, gold teeth and even silk casket linings to sell. That’s the kind of desperation that whenever I see a picture like this or hear somesuch else so similar, I have to wonder how far we really are from the ...

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Could it possibly be because of a certain anti-Barack Obama sign that WGSR general manager Charles Roark devoted obscene amounts of airplay and screentime to this past Friday afternoon, and then again on Monday?

The answer to that question is, evidently, “yes”.

Old Dutch Galaxy had been a major advertiser for WGSR. A chain of four grocery stores around the Danville and Chatham area in Virginia, Old Dutch Galaxy had been running updated commercials every week (on a station that was still running spots for the Reidsville Christmas parade last week, mind ya…).

But the word from our friends around south-central Virginia, is that Roark’s constant harping about a sign calling Obama a “bastard” and his mother a “slut” was way over the top and into the realm of completely inappropriate behavior.

I doubt that this lesson will be anything but lost on Charles Roark, who has abandoned responsible broadcasting ...

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A few months ago George W. Bush proposed wasting hundreds of billions of dollars of our money and it was called “bailout” and some politicians approved it. Today Barack Obama is proposing wasting hundreds of billions of dollars of our money and it’s being called “stimulus” and those same politicians deride it as unacceptable.

I would like to quote “Oceania is at war with Eurasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia” to the Powers That Be, but sad to say, they most likely wouldn’t get it.

And now that he’s President, doesn’t Obama have better things to do than to get into the proverbial “pissing contest” with a radio commentator who is nothing more than a shameless shill for the “other side”?

Don’t we have better things to do than to even care about such a non-story involving two men with apparently arrested development?

Pat Buchanan is right: ...

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Riots erupt in Reykjavik, Iceland after the citizens of that country, feeling more than a little ticked-off now that their country has gone bankrupt, vent their rage against their government (which has now collapsed)…

Mash down here for more about what’s going down over there.

I’ve never been to Iceland, but I’ve met enough folks who have visited the place to know that the people there are a pretty hardy and patient lot: it takes a lot to get ’em riled up, especially this bad. The country’s banks have failed miserably, and its coalition government has now finger-pointed itself into oblivion.

Gotta wonder if we might see this same sorta thing happening on our own side of the pond in the not-too-distant future…

(Thanks to Phillip Arthur for passing along the link.)...

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On Thursday I received the following from Elizabeth Wilner, Director of Public Affairs at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, who asked if I could pass it along to this blog’s readers…

It wasn’t long ago that the idea of an American fiscal crisis was considered speculative at best. Most everyone – the government included – seemed to be living on credit with no end in sight. But recently, the debtors have come calling. Now we’re living in an America where lending institutions have collapsed, more than 1 million homes have entered foreclosure, and the federal deficit has reached unprecedented numbers.

In response to public demand for information about the scope of the country’s financial challenges, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation is proud to announce that CNN/U.S. will air the television premiere of our documentary I.O.U.S.A., together with an unscripted panel discussion with policy leaders about various economic solutions. I.O.U.S.A.

...
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Governor David Paterson has revealed his $121 billion budget plan for New York State and it includes proposals that actually trump California’s “snack tax” of the early Nineties in terms of utter lunacy. There are 88 suggested new taxes and fees, including for digital downloads of songs for iPod and other music devices, beer, soft drinks, cable and satellite television services, movie tickets, and massages (?!?).

This reminds me of 1993, when then-President Clinton was trying to pass a retroactive tax increase (which passed in Congress). I called my Representative in the U.S. House, who at the time was Steve Neal. Never got through to him personally (but then since when does a citizen ever get through to his or her Rep?) but I asked his staff numerous times: “When was the last time that a government taxed itself to prosperity?” They couldn’t give an answer. Neither is Governor Paterson ...

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