Buffy the Taxpayer Slayer

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY TO INVEST $5 BILLION IN GOLDMAN SACHS; IN ADDITION GOLDMAN TO RAISE AT LEAST $2.5B IN COMMON STOCK OFFERING - FORMAL RELEASE

When Goldman Sachs goes to zero does Buffy the Taxpayer Slayer get preferred PCs from the hollowed out GS buildings?

Personal Bank

found on dealbreaker.com

"What in the World Are You People Doing"

Its called representing the people who elected us, you liberal bitch.


Watch CBS Videos Online

This video is such a partisan joke that I am shocked that CBS has it on their web site.

How the Democrats Caused the Crisis

And Obama voted "present."

Burning Down the House: What Caused the Crisis?

How the $700B was Poised to Fund Communists

Detailed here:

I Took the Red Pill

and

here:

Michelle Malkin

Carpe Diem Reveals the Truth

from the brilliant blog Carpe Diem:

Uncovering the roots of the disastrous home mortgage bubble that popped last year will keep economic historians busy for decades. Yet, one factor has so far been largely overlooked: the bipartisan social engineering crusade to drive up the rate of homeownership by handing out more mortgages to minorities.

More than a negligible amount of the blame for the mortgage meltdown can be traced back to multiculturalism: government-mandated affirmative-action lending, demographic change, illegal immigration, and the mind-numbing effects of political correctness.

Now, I'm a Roman Catholic and I believe deeply in human dignity and preferential treatment for the poor but this statistic show the malevolent affects of affirmative action. A couple of points come to mind:

1) The vast majority of Afro-American poor live in the cities (I know Boston well) and it is nearly impossible to strike a good real estate deal in most cities. To top it off, big city liberal mayors are rapacious tax and spenders. I'm there was no way to buy a home in Boston in 2005 and survive.

2) Ultimately the poor people in these loans are going to be traumatized, their credit will be destroyed and many will never be able to recover from the forclosure, headaches and worry.

3) It would have been one thing to plunk people in 30 year fixed rate loans but saddling first time home buyers with Option-ARMs was pure abuse and a prescription for disaster (like all forms of racism: policies based on race.)

Shumer Laughs At Idea of Selling the Bad Debt

Watch starting at minute 1:54 :

1) Shumer has no idea of how to get rid of the assets the government will buy (because the Democrats will never sell them)

2) He starts smirking and looking off to his right .. obviously the idea of a market mechanism to sell the $700B in mortgage loans is some sort of joke.

Dylan Ratigan should be commended for his earnestness but he needs to realize he is talking to a communist. It would have been a more interesting interview if Ratigan 1) asked what the hell Shumer was laughing about and 2) Asked about the $200 million slated for the radical communist organization ACORN which was embedded in the "deal."

Go Camping!

Yes, it is my nature to think that these are Apocalyptic times but this training I've been getting in technical analysis has been forcing my eyes to link up with the analytical side of my brain. I nearly fell out of my chair last night when I saw this chart. $CAMPER (Mobile Homes & RVs)

Somebody is getting in early on the ole' land yacht trade. Dare I say that this is an early indicator of unrepentant bullish activity. Maybe some heavy hitters are factoring on Americans only being able to afford trailers and campers after getting booted out of their houses.

If I get foreclosed on then I have already picked out my model.

In the meantime here's some ticker symbols to ponder:
THO, WGO, COA, SKY.

Financial Terrorism Part 4

This time from Todd Harrison from Minyanland via Marketwatch.com

Martial law for the markets
Last Friday, the U.S. government waved the white flag and surrendered the capital market process when it banned short sales in the financials. See related Minyanville item.
It was a profoundly sad day for the free market system. I felt as if I lost a close friend of 17 years that I was intimately involved with.
Over the weekend, I discovered there might have been more to that decision than I initially thought. There was chatter on the Beltway that we may have been the victim of economic terrorism, a coordinated short raid that originated in London and Dubai.
While the legitimacy of that remains to be seen, my source is well-respected. Further, as the goals of terrorism are economic destruction and social upheaval, it makes some sense. The stock market is the world's largest thermometer and breaking the capital market construct -- as some would say they did last week -- would effectively achieve both goals.
This is a separate conversation from the financial fabric itself, a monster created through years of experimental engineering. It simply speaks to the fact that we're vulnerable and that weakness may have been exposed from afar.

My Current Market Sentiment Indicator

Financial Terrorism Part 3

What made no sense, was a total ban by the SEC on financials. Then I read the blurb in Slope of Hope, then I said to myself, I wonder if this happened to really pick up in or around Sept. 11.

Well Barry Ritholz, a premier blogger, respected in nearly every circle has DROPPED THE BOMB.

from his amazing blog: The Big Picture

Last night, we discussed the absurdity of banning all short sales. The details of the SEC action have been released (see below). The specifics are a "temporary halt in short selling in 799 financial institutions" until October 2nd.

I have been trying to contextualize this, and I keep coming back to what seemed like a wild theory yesterday that seems a whole lot less wild today. During the day, I had an interesting phone conversation with Joe Besecker of Emerald Asset Management. (We used to do schtick together on Power Lunch, and made for an amusing financial comedy team).

But Joe is a good money manager, a great stock picker, and a thoughtful guy. He raised an intriguing issue: None of the many hedgies he knew were pressing their bets recently. The bear raids on the banks and brokers were NOT a case of piling on by US based hedge funds. And from what he was seeing and hearing about in terms of order flow, the vast majority of the financial short selling the past week or so were being done overseas. It appears that the lion's share of shorting was coming out of overseas bourses such as London and Dubai.It may not be a coincidence that the financial short selling ban is both here and in London.

Then there is another coincidence: The huge increase in shorting of the financials occurred on the anniversary of 9/11. And on top of that, the same institutions attacked on 9/11/01 were the ones suffering in recent days.

Now Barry has to be reserved, let me say it because I'm just a working class stiff from the Boston with a $5000 IRA brokerage account: It was Al Queda. This was no coincidence. The market was headed down, quite naturally, and this is a normal and good thing but what was happening to perfectly healthy firms who go a little stupid was well-timed Financial Terrorism.

Blacks Against Obama

This is a priceless moment.

Obama22 blacks against obama
by dollarsandsense123

Cramer on Financial Terrorism

This is other piece of the puzzle .. apparently the massive naked shorting cannot be traced to hedge funds or normal individual, retail investors.

Cramer on short sellers
by burghnews

Financial Terrorism?

H/T to a poster over at Slope of Hope:

from www.billcara.com

September 18, 2008

America, not the financial markets, in trouble

I would agree with the person who wrote me the following letter that the meeting tonight between Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed Chairman Bernanke, SEC Chairman Cox and the Congressional leaders shows the US at a crisis point. In fact, I think the leaders of America are having a collective nervous breakdown. ADDENDUM

This is pathetic to watch, but we must be on guard because our rights are being taken from us. Make no mistake about that. I received the following letter tonight from someone who follows this stuff much closer than I. I hope you read this material and participate in the dialogue.

Bill, This is near surreal. In 2004 Dateline NBC was filming an expose called “Financial Terrorism in the USA”. It outlined naked shorting, offshore accounts and money laundering for organized crime and terrorists. They scraped the story after market members and DTCC threatened them. Today Jim Cramer came out and discussed his conversations with various short sided hedge funds. They all claimed they were not shorting the financials. They called it a stupid move with all the attention focused on them. Jim identified that the shorts taking place were engaged in financial terrorism by people who wanted to take down the US markets. I had a similar call and discussion earlier today. An individual close to all these big funds stated near identical story. The big funds are on lockdown. They said that with all the attention they did not want to risk jail for this stuff. They are also pissed because these moves being made will actually hurt them. I have also been informed that some of these big funds have contacted the 9/11 Commission/Homeland Security to discuss the possibilities since these guys are not involved. I am at a loss as to what to say…but now you know what I know. It would also explain this sudden next step.

I just caught something weird on CNN. Sen. Chris Dodd has revealed that Bernanke's brief last night to Congress and the White House was met with stony silence at the end. Dodd says, "the oxygen went out of the room." Wolf Blitzer pressed but Dodd would not give details even after Blitzer expressed that the American public has a right to know. Dodd said soemthing about not wanting the American public to panic.

What Dodd is holding back is not analysis of FASB157 or complicated financial jargon ... everybody knows that already. I believe the markets have been under coordinated attack by Al Queda.

I'm only a fledgling technical analyst, the equivalent of a college freshman. Everybody understands that the market was due for a correction and the CDOs and all that were toxic. But I have a theory that the market can handle normal shorting by hedge funds and individuals. What it cannot handle is coordinated attacks.

Jimmy Rogers Drops the Bomb

Going forward, before I place a trade I'm going to watch this video all the way through.

In God the U.S. Mint Does Not Trust

This still needs confirmation but apparently the new dollar coin does not have "In God We Trust."

If there ever was a reason to ban anything, this is it.