Get Ready for MUCH More of This

Republic Windows and Doors, like a lot of companies around the world, ran out of money, and had to close up shop. Naturally, the (union) workers there are angry, probably even more angry than if they’d been asked to take pay cuts. So, rather than leave, they’re occupying the plant, demanding the severance and benefits they say they’ve earned.

President-elect Obama says they are “absolutely right” to do this. Interesting choice of words for a President-to-be, who is the chief enforcer of laws in the U.S. They are absolutely right to do this? Does he realize just how many more of these situations he’s going to face in his single term, especially since he is throwing his support to the movement?

Here’s the story.

The most interesting and telling part though, is this:

One of the factory’s workers, Silvia Mazon, said in Spanish that she needs the money owed to her for an $1,800 monthly house payment. The 40-year-old from Cicero said she has enough money saved to survive for one month.

“We’re making history,” she said.

An apparently Spanish-only speaker, working in a factory in Chicago with only a single month’s savings and her house payment is $1,800?

This, is why the work of James Kunstler, George Ure, Michael Panzer and others, is so important. This situation is going to get worse. Much worse, and there will be a huge number of people like the unfortunate Ms. Mazon, who were participating in an economic model they thought was never-ending. One where real estate always rose in value, there were always blue collar jobs available, and new cars and plasma tvs grew on trees. Unfortunately, these assumptions were wrong, and those who didn’t understand that will be hungry, moneyless and angry.

Have you thought about what you will do then?

Morons Leading

First of all, let me state my opinion.

Christopher Dodd is the worst kind of leader we could possibly have. What kind of chump takes a “sweetheart deal” from Countryside when he oversees that industry’s regulation (or lack thereof)? I know, I know, that’s the whole POINT of getting elected to Congress, to feed at the trough of graft. I get that. But, jeesh, Chris. Be a little more shamed, would you?

Now, he’s calling for the resignation of the head of GM as a condition of bailout.

Okay. Dodd and Obama say things like Obama did on TV today:

“The big three U.S. automakers have made repeated strategic mistakes,” Obama said. “They have not managed that industry the way they should have.” Any financial aid must be “conditioned on them making significant adjustments.”

Is he kidding? What business has he or Dodd ever run that he can make statements like that? Where did these geniuses, almost all of them in Congress there because they couldn’t make the kind of living they can get stealing from the taxpayers, relying on their business acumen or hard work in the private sector, get their business savvy?

What business do they have telling anybody anything? Wasn’t Dodd part of the oversight of the financial industry (hence, the kickbacks and sweetheart mortgages he got) that is melting down? Wasn’t he talking about how healthy it was when there were those ringing alarms about Fannie and Freddie, only to be beaten down and called idiots for their opinions that we were heading for disaster?

Christopher Dodd is a failed regulator, and should be given no oversight of anything more important than a mop, but I’m sure he’d screw that up as well.

Amazing.

The TARP Has Failed

Predictably, the bailout has failed.

The Cutting Edge lays out the promises made, none of which have been kept. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who should be held accountable for the fiasco he has needlessly piled onto the fiasco that this government’s economic policy has helped create, is apparently, as the site says “winging it.”

By any reasonable assessment, the Troubled Asset Relief Program has been a miserable failure and a complete waste of taxpayer money. The basis used to ram the bill through Congress was the purchase of the toxic assets off of bank’s books. Not one dollar has been used for this purpose. The main purpose for passing the $700 billion bailout was to restore confidence in the markets.

On October 3 when the TARP was signed into law, the S&P 500 was at 1,114. Today, it is 887. The 20 percent decline in the markets in six weeks doesn’t show much confidence in Paulson’s acts. Paulson changing course every few days has shown the world that he is “winging it.” He has floundered from buying toxic assets to jamming capital down the throats of banks to his current plan to support consumer debt. Did Paulson lie to Congress about buying toxic assets?

Paulson has handed out a grand total of $310 billion of the initial $350 billion tranche. He would have to go back to Congress for the 2nd $350 billion tranche. Congress was supposed to create a five-member congressional oversight panel, but hasn’t. The White House was supposed to nominate, and the Senate was supposed to confirm a special inspector general to audit and investigate where the funds are going. After six weeks, President Bush hasn’t proffered a nomination.

Poorly run automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler), poorly run cities (Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Phoenix), and poorly run states (California) are begging for a piece of the pie. The banks that received the first $179 billion have not made any loans with the special money. Indeed, some are using the money to buy other banks. It appears their goal is to become “too big to fail.” Others, like Citigroup, are using the money to buy back bad assets from off the balance sheet SIVs they created. SIVs are the “structured investment vehicle” instruments that Citibank invented in 1988 to become part of its so-called “shadow banking” system. The solvency of the SIV world is now in question.

Hence, TARP has failed.

But then again, maybe not. The TARP has obviously failed to do what we were told it would do, but were we told the truth about its purpose?

I don’t think so.

I believe the TARP may have been intended to provide a huge pile of cash to do two things:

1. Rescue the Wall Street gamblers who created this mess and who are in bed with the regulators. Remember, Paulson worked on Wall Street, so his buddies are his “skin in the game.” Also, remember the corruption that runs rampant through Washington, DC, like Christopher Dodd’s sweetheart loans from Countryside – he’s the head regulator of that industry in Congress now.

2. Keep the stock market bouncing around, and up occasionally, while the Bush Administration is still in the White House. Many think a group funded by Paulson’s TARP money is the entity creating these end of day rallies that in the last half hour of trading, prop up the DOW. Once the money (and the Bush Administration) is gone, these “economic commandos” will disburse, and a massive crash could occur.

At least that’s the theory.

Ron Paul Says Obama Admin More of the Same

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul told Russia Today recently that the G20 Economic meetings were just talk about more of the same, and that behind the scenes, the leaders of the world’s biggest countries were discussing one-world central banking, and managing a single fiat currency.

What would this mean? Disaster.

Keep these things in mind:

Every fiat currency in the history of the world has failed, as the dollar is set to do.

A “reversion to the mean” will not protect the United States’ wealth and the standard of living anywhere near what we have now. This whole thing means that the 20th Century was “The American Century.”

The 21st won’t be.

Editor’s note: Ron Paul was America’s best hope in the 2008 election, but the mainstream media decided to marginalize Dr. Paul, a long-time Congressman from Texas, because though he’s a Republican, Dr. Paul doesn’t seem interested in putting the needs of current one-party system rule (despite the farce the “Republicans” and “Democrats” want you to believe in) above the needs of the American People.

Link to Dr. Paul’s interview with Russia Today.

It Doesn’t LOOK Like We’re In a Depression

One of the best posts ever, at Michael Panzer’s Financial Armageddon, “Gone, Over, Toast.”

I’ve noticed recently the same phenomenon, that though all indicators say we’re in a severe economic meltdown, and entering a “greater depression,” life still goes on as before. The lights still work, the trucks still roll and in some cases, Black Friday was a success.

But, as we noticed last night, restaurants are empty, the airports aren’t madhouses, and there’s the palpable sense from those in the know that winter is coming.