BANZAI7 NEWS--The Dubai government will not guarantee the liabilities of its precariously indebted Dubai World holding company, leaving creditors to face "short-term pain" that could run into the billions of dollars.
Sweden: “We are not prepared to own Saab,” Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said last week. “We are not buying a carmaker with welfare money.”
Ben Bernanke had the following comment on these developments: "These people are missing a tremendous buying opportunity!"
Warm weather is expected to delay this years ski season in Dubai.
BANZAI7--The Large Hadron Collider created by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, officially became the world's highest-energy particle accelerator on Monday.
AIG, the systemic hydrogen bomb created by Hank Greenberg also set a new record with a reserve shortfall of $11 billion.
A senior securities analyst at Sanford Bernstein and Co., who is also a nuclear physicist, explained that he had set out to find something entirely different — whether any American insurers had the strength to raise their prices soon. The enormous Hadron Collider was programed to send two beams of protons shooting through AIG's balance sheets at 1.18 teraelectronvolts (TeV).
His first rough cut of the data “made no sense,” he wrote, and when he looked more closely he found that the shortfall at A.I.G. was distorting the financial universe as a whole.
BANZAI7--Starting tomorrow, all Goldman Sachs employees aren’t allowed to gather in groups of 12 or more outside the office. All means all!
Goldman, if you recall, canceled its holiday party for a second year in a row — banker soirees being seen as somewhat bad form at time when it seems everybody else is standing in the unemployment line.
YOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO CHRISTMAS PARTY (Beastie Boys) WilliamBanzai7
Sing along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NdAUnnU9Ac
You wake up on the trading room floor - man you just wanna go You ask your CEO, "Please?" - but he still says, "No!" You missed six parties - and your just a trading room clerk But your boss preaches bailout class like you're some kind of Federal clerk
(chorus) You gotta fight for your right to Christmas party
The man upstairs caught you toking in the well - and he said, "No way!" That hypocritical geek - smokes quantitative crack all day Man, living at 85 Broad is such a drag Now your Ivy League boss threw away your best porno mag (Bust it!)
(repeat chorus)
Don't step out of this trading house if that's the clothes you're gonna wear I'll kick you out of my bank is you don't cut that hair That geek baldman busted in and said, "What's that noise?" Aw, Lloyd you're just jealous - it's Banzai7 and the Bailout Boys!
BANZAI7--The Greek government is trying to sell at least EUR25 billion ($16.7 billion) worth of bazouki bonds to Chinese banks as part of its efforts to refinance the country's massive public debt, a person familiar with the situation said Friday. The Bond offering would be secured by a first mortgage on the Parthenon and a perpetual right to use all of the Greek Islands during the peak Holiday season.
"Greece has been in touch with Chinese banks," the person, with direct knowledge of the situation, told Dow Jones Newswires. "The Chinese banks have great expertise financing gargantuan Olympic projects and are interested in shipping the Parthenon for use as a Macau sauna facade."
Straight down the middle He drove it straight down the middle Then he started to swerve just a wee wee bit That's when his wife lost sight of him That Cadillac SUV has never been found to this day But it went straight down the middle just like they say
Whack down the driveway She smacked it like in the fairway Then she started to slice just a smidge off line It was aimed at his head for two but he bounced just in time His caddie says long as you're still awake you're okay Yes she smacked him straight down the middle quite a ways
The moon was never brighter The greens were never darker And he was never keener to play He aimed it straight down the middle It went zing down the middle Oh the life of a golfer is not all gloom There's always the lies to tell in the locker room And the details can get dicey when you see Rachel Uchitel wrapped in a towel You can see why it went straight down the middle today
Oh the life of a golfer is not all gloom Though they charge a hefty fine for hitting hydrants under the Florida moon But he told his story when wrapped in a towel That he drove that SUV straight down the middle Where it wound up is a riddle But it went straight down the middle thats what they say
REUTERS--Dubai's debt woes could further unhinge an already fragile U.S. commercial real estate, as it illustrates the importance of that tiny country to global investors in an increasingly interconnected world.
A state-owned investment conglomerate Dubai World, with $59 billion of liabilities, set off a global stock market selloff this week after it said it wants to restructure its debt, including at its property subsidiary Nakheel.
"This downturn has had more of a global impact," said Tony Ciochetti, chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Real Estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
WB7--The fact that MIT has a center for real estate tells it all in a nutshell.
ABC NEWS--ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs and World Online misled investors during the 2000 initial public offering (IPO) of the Dutch Internet provider, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday.
The listing of World Online in March 2000 was the biggest Dutch Internet IPO at the time, valuing the company at 12 billion euros ($18 billion). The stock plunged after it became known that World Online's chief executive had sold shares far below the IPO price before the stock was floated.
ABN AMRO and Goldman Sachs were jointly global coordinator, lead manager and bookrunner of the IPO.
"The unlawful behavior of World Online, ABN AMRO , and Goldman Sachs has been confirmed by this ruling of the Supreme Court," the court said in a statement.
"Since last September, the government's case for bailing out AIG has rested on the notion that the company was too big to fail. If AIG hadn't been rescued, the argument goes, its credit default swap (CDS) obligations would have caused huge losses to its counterparties—and thus provoked a financial collapse.
Last week's news that this was not in fact the motive for AIG's rescue has implications that go well beyond the Obama administration's efforts to regulate CDSs and other derivatives. It's one more example that the administration may be using the financial crisis as a pretext to extend Washington's control of the financial sector."
This is what a wing nut named Peter J. Wallison, a so called Financial Industry De-Regulation "Scholar" at the American Enterprise Hacktank has to say in today's WSJ.
Mr. Wallison is absolutely right, Bush, Paulsen, Bernanke and Geithner were all agents operating under secret orders from candidate Obama. They were all acting in a vast Obamian economic conspiracy, launched in the twilight of the dimly lit Bush Presidency, for the hostile US government takeover of Wall Street...or was it the friendly Wall Street takeover of the US government?
What does "Scholar" Wallison think?
Who besides Republican minority leader Bonehead cares.
Whatever happens, one thing we should not allow is Conservative douche bags to claim the subprime meltdown and the AIG shadow Wall Street/Goldman bailout were engineered by Obama. This particular conservative douche bag happens to be House Minority Leader John Bonehead's appointee to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. That's the emergency Bi-Partisan Commission appointed to issue its report on the crisis the end of next year.
BANZAI7 NEWS--Unofficial Swiss election returns show voters approving a right-wing initiative banning construction of new minarets attached to mosques.
In a related development, Saudi Arabia is reported to be planning a vote banning Swiss Bank accounts.
BANZAI7 NEWS--New details have emerged in the Thanksgiving White House gate crasher affair. The Secret Service believes that Michael and Tark Salamis may have infiltrated the first bedroom.
Unidentified White House sources confirm that Michelle Obamas's tooth brush reportedly tasted of Cherry flavored double bubble on the evening of the Dinner. The President is also rumored to have discovered a pair of rogue boxer shorts under his pillow and a used condom wrapper under his night table.
BSNAZAI7--As White House officials fended off new questions about how Tark and Michael Salami, a fame-seeking couple, gate crashed their way into the president’s glittering state dinner last week in honor of somebody from the Asian Subcontinent, the aspiring reality-TV losers themselves began trying to sell their story for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, Tiger Woods was briefly hospitalized after crashing his own gate and is also fending off questions.
LONDON (Dow Jones)--European stocks fell sharply and bond spreads widened Thursday after Dubai World's request for a standstill on its debts. The giant holding company is owned by the government of Dubai and grew fast while accumulating liabilities of about $60 billion during the boom.
The following is a summary of coverage of Thursday's events and reaction:
DUBAI BANKS: Dubai banks Emirates Bank International PJSC (EBI.AI), National Bank of Dubai (NBL.EDH) and Mashreqbank PSC (MASQ.DFM) and the Dubai Islamic BankPJSC (DIB.DFM) have all been put on credit watch by Standard & Poor's rating agency after the city state's largest corporate entity, Dubai World, asked creditors for a six-month standstill on debt repayments.
EUROPE BANKS: European banks face potential losses on an estimated $40 billion in exposure to Dubai after Dubai World asked creditors for a six month standstill on debt repayments, raising fears that recent signs of improvements in banks' bad debt levels could reverse and Dubai's problems could weigh on the global recovery.
ASIA: The shock from Dubai World's restructuring and call for a standstill on its group debts spilled over into Asia Thursday, with global Islamic bonds issued out of the region weakening sharply.
People in the market linked the selloff, particularly in the sukuk of the Indonesian government and Malaysia's national oil company Petronas, to the debt-laden city-state's surprise announcement Wednesday, but many were convinced it was a knee-jerk reaction.
DUBAI DEBT: The cost of insuring sovereign debt issued by Dubai increased again early Thursday, according to data provider CMA.
It now costs $570,000 to insure $10 million of Dubai sovereign debt against default for five-years, up from $440,000 at Wednesday's New York close.
The cost of insuring emerging-market sovereign debt also rose markedly, as the fallout of Dubai World's restructuring announcements and Vietnam's decision to revalue the dong weighed on risk appetite.
MARKETS: The dollar is still rising after midday in Europe, driven both by fear of a debt default by Dubai World as well as talk of intervention by the Bank of Japan and suspected intervention by the Swiss National Bank. European stocks fell sharply.
SAUDI: Gulf International Bank, or GIB, said it was postponing its planned dollar-denominated bond issue after news that the government of Dubai was restructuring Dubai World. In a statement, merchant bank GIB, which is 97.2%-owned by the government of Saudi Arabia, said the decision was "made in the best interests of investors participating in the deal" and that it will "continue to monitor markets in the future to access funding opportunities."
DP WORLD: Dubai started to untangle the $60 billion financial mess of its once prized Dubai World conglomerate by ring-fencing its profitable ports unit. DP World (DPW.DIF) will be excluded from the debt standstill and restructuring of Dubai World and its subsidiaries, the ports operator said in a statement posted on the Nasdaq Dubai Web site. DP World, which operates the Middle East's largest container port, is considered the best assets within the Dubai World conglomerate. Most of the company's problems appear to stem from its troubled real estate unit Nakheel, which borrowed heavily to build vast property projects including Palm shaped residential islands in the Gulf.
REUTERS--Just when investors were settling down to lock in a few of the year’s profits and put their feet up for the end of the year holidays, a black camel has come waddling out of the desert to put everything on edge.
The unwelcome cygnus atratus came in the form of Gulf emirate Dubai telling creditors of Dubai World and property group Nakheel that debt repayments would be delayed. Fears of contagion spread widely, hitting world stocks, lifting the dollar out of its basement and driving demand for European debt so much that a roughly 6-month trading range for futures was breached.
TIMES OF LONDON: The value of British banking shares plunged by £13.7 billion today amid growing fears the UK financial sector could be heavily exposed to Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate which yesterday asked for a standstill on its $60 billion (£36 billion) debt pile.
Investors had been hoping the British financial sector had worked through much its toxic debt, which included exposure to America's sub-prime mortgage market.
However, Credit Suisse estimates European banks are exposed to about half of Dubai's $80 billion borrowings, naming Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as the UK lenders most at risk from the Emirates worsening debt problems.
The emergence of Dubai's financial problems now raises fears UK banks could face more writedowns on bad debts, and chimes with warnings earlier this week from Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing general of the International Monetary Fund, who said that global banks had only worked through half their toxic assets since the banking crisis broke two years ago.
WB7: Here's something to think about. These developments have conveniently occurred the day before a long weekend trading holiday in the US. All those hedge fund managers and traders with big EM exposure are going to be asking the same thing today: "Honey, where's the Malox?" While they pretend to be absorbed in today's game, they will also be worrying about how the Black Camel that roiled the European markets is a inconvenient metaphor for the Black Turkey haunting commercial real estate assets in the US.
"One London trader said: "Dubai is weighing heavily on the market, it has its fingers in so many pies that it could have a contagion effect and there are concerns another country could have problems on the back of this."
"He added that today's activity was very similar to when Lehman Brothers collapsed, warning that Dubai's problems could be the catalyst for the market to fall further."
SEEKING ALPHA--The carry trade of borrowing in US dollars and investing in emerging markets for high returns is a liquidity bubble and an accident just waiting to happen. Perhaps the situation in Dubai should be regarded as a wake-up call.
Investor perception of stock market risk has just hit a five-year low in the United States. Any contrarian investor would have to conclude that such monstrous complacency could only come before a market crash, as indeed it did last autumn.
Shocks in emerging markets like Dubai are the flutter of butterfly wings that produce a hurricane elsewhere, and $59 billion is a bit more than a butterfly. Investors should exit all stock markets and buy bonds or precious metals or short emerging markets. Gold hit $1,195 as this article was written.
BANZAI7 NEWS--The government of Dubai announced that as a friendly Thanksgiving gesture to its bankers, it has taken their money and constructed a man made island in the shape of a turkey tail.
In related news, Secretary Geithner and Ben Bernanke are holding an emergency meeting to explore ways to bail out Dubai.
BANZAI7 NEWS--Ukraine sought to calm foreign investors' fears of a sovereign default after European markets wobbled last week on the consequences of the restructuring of a syndicated loan by the state railway firm. Investors have feared a state default throughout the year as the ex-Soviet state plunged deep into recession and most recently as the International Monetary Fund suspended its $16.4 billion bailout programme.
"Dubai Inc.—that collection of state agencies and state-backed companies that has powered the city forward—now faces a debt crisis as scary as anything that threatened the banks of the U.S. and Europe. It has to pay back or refinance almost $50 billion in four short years.
The key cluster of Dubai companies owes as much as $90 billion, or 126% of gross domestic product, much of it in short-term bonds and loans from the world's top banks."
Business Week
BANZAI7 NEWS--Dubai World, with $59 billion of liabilities, is seeking to delay debt payments, sending contracts to protect the emirate against default surging by the most since they began trading in January.
The state-controlled company will ask creditors for a “standstill” agreement as it negotiates to extend maturities, including $3.52 billion of Islamic bonds due Dec. 14 from its property unit Nakheel PJSC, Dubai’s Department of Finance said in an e-mailed statement. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s cut the ratings on several state companies, saying they may consider the plan a default.
NYT--For the banks that financed the debt-fueled ascent of Dubai — analysts’ estimates put its total debt at about $80 billion — the move by Dubai to obtain a standstill highlights a truth that many in the region had been trying to make clear to bankers. It is that Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich governing emirate of the United Arab Emirates, will not unconditionally bail out its more profligate neighbor. Instead, a genuine restructuring of Dubai’s debt, with pain being shared equally between Dubai and its bankers, needs to take place.
WB7: Better keep an eye on this one. Who are Dubai's lenders and who is on the paying side of those Dubai CDSs? Remember the Asian Financial Crisis and the Ruble Crisis? Someone somewhere is not having a very Happy Thanksgiving because this turkey is over cooked.
Then again, I could be wrong. This could just be a welcome holiday diversion for bankers already worrying about their deteriorating commercial real estate exposure.
CAMEL CONTAGION UPDATE:
FT--Bond markets reacted with alarm to the news yesterday that Nakheel, the property arm of Dubai World, was restructuring a bond it was due to redeem next month.
Dubai World is owned by the government, leading investors to worry about the wider implications should the Nakheel announcement be considered a technical default.
"The severity of the reaction shows that investors view this as shockingly bad news," said Rob Whichello, head of BNP Paribas's bond syndicate desk for central and eastern Europe and the Middle East. "They've been surprised by the announcement and clearly expected that something would have been worked out."
The developments came at a particularly sensitive time for other government bond investors, who have already been unsettled this week by a sharp rise in the cost of protecting against default by Greece, a eurozone member.
"The concern for the market as a whole is not so much a lack of confidence in an individual sovereign, more about the cumulative impact of a series of problems," said Gary Jenkins at Evolution Securities.
"Quantitative easing and a structural move towards government debt has helped funding thus far, [but] the risk remains that if a growing number of governments start to lose the confidence of the market that pressure will be put on yields generally."
Bailout Ben (aka Helicopter Benny), the intrepid pilot of Bail Force One, is on a mission to engineer the biggest bailout in the history of the universe! Benny's helicopter is flying lower and lower, and if he doesn't bail out every single company he will crash & burn!
Bailout cash and piggy bank
The names of the companies to be bailed out are shown on the bottom of the screen, in stock ticker format. For example, C for Citigroup, GM for General Motors.
The debt of each company is denoted by the blue and green bars. The taller the bar, the greater the toxic debt.
Tap the screen to drop a bundle of dollars and help bail out a company. Only one wad of cash can be dropped at a time, so manage your bailouts carefully.
Land the helicopter and see Benny dance to the funky beat*. Or be trampled by a herd of piggy banks, angry at the lack of money flowing their way. Sometimes they get really mad and then it’s “Oh my gosh they killed Benny!”
Secretary Geithner said: "The Bailout Ben IPhone App is yet another promising sign that jobless Americans know exactly how to recover."
BANZAI7--Google Inc. is apologizing for a racially offensive image of the first lady that appears at the top of the list when users search for pictures of Michelle Obama on its site.
Google placed a text ad above the image titled "Offensive Search Results" that states "Sometimes our search results can be offensive. We agree."
As an experiment, BANZAI7 LABs has prepared an image of Google CEO Eric Schmidt morphed with the face of Mr McGoogle, a Chimpanzee scientist who works in the Lab.
We have tagged the Image "Eric Schmidt" and are waiting to see if and when it comes up on top in a Google Image Search of "Eric Schmidt".
This image has been prepared in the interests of good science. BANZAI7 Labs apologizes if you find this image disturbing.
NYT--The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is considering giving BlackRock, its real-estate adviser, the heave-ho after the firm steered the pension plan into an investment in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a pair of gigantic Manhattan apartment complexes now considered one of the biggest real estate flops of the boom, The Wall Street Journal reported.
At the height of the real estate bubble in 2006, an investment group led by New York City real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty Advisors paid $5.4 billion for the pair of complexes.
BlackRock then advised Calpers to sink $500 million into complex, which real estate analysts now say could be just two to three months away from a likely default.
WB7: Here's are two good questions. What is California Public Employee Pension money doing backing real estate scheisters who are shaking down rent controlled apartments in NYC. Does anyone from Black Rock live in Stuy Town?
THANKS GIVING TURKEY IN THE TREASURY (Turkey in the Straw) WilliamBanzai7
Well his name is Timmy Geithner, he's just another Wall Street dupe and both sides of his brain are made of free market poop His jobless recovery was false and his teeth was too and there wasn't much that he could do
A Turkey in the Treasury A Turkey in the Hay A Turkey in the Straw What did you say? Roll em twistin up a bailout bonus guffaw Just another Wall Street clown called Turkey in the Straw
Well them banking boys say its safe under Timmy's G's roof Likes to snooze while they pour the bonus juice He says whats the use to screw the golden goose When you got to spit out most the subprime juice
A Turkey in the Treasury A Turkey in the grass A Turkey in the straw Blankfein: "I get a kick out of this" Roll em twistin up a bailout bonus guffaw Just another Wall Street clown called Turkey in the Straw
WB7: This video documents the precise moment when jazz split from country western music.
BANAI7 NEWS--RH Macy's confirmed that in honor of the Wall Street recovery, this year's Thanksgiving Parade of giant inflatables will include Lloyd the Rat, Mr. Bubbles and Geithner the Clown.
LA TIMES--A crudely altered photograph of Michelle Obama, which often comes up as the first result on a Google image search of her name, will not be removed from the company's search process despite protests that the depiction is racist and repugnant.
"It's offensive to many people, but that alone is not a reason to remove it from our search index," Google spokesman Scott Rubin said. "We have, in general, a bias toward free speech."
The image, which depicts the first lady as having monkey-like features, is posted on a blog called "Hot Girls" without explanation.
Republican's have expressed similar objections to an images of Sarah Palin that come up on Google Image Search.
For a demonstration, see the Google Image Link at right.
BANZAI7 NEWS--Facebook Inc. took steps to solidify the control of founder Mark Suckerberg and other existing shareholders in the event the social-networking company goes public.
The closely held Silicon Valley firm, emulating one of Google Inc.'s well-known strategies, established a dual-class stock structure that would increase the voting power of Mr. Suckerberg, who is the company's chief executive, and other existing shareholders if they hold onto their shares during an IPO.
Other exciting features of the Facebook IPO are expected to include Open Shareholder, a plan which will automatically recommend Facebook shares to all of your online Friends, and Dividend Widget, a program that will allow shareholders to pretend Facebook generates positive revenue streams.
BANZAI7 NEWS--Robert Beanmush, chief executive of American International Group Inc., signed a noncompete agreement in a sign he needs to be committed.
Mr. Beanmush "needs to be committed for leading this company as CEO until the job is done," AIG Chairman Harvey Golub said in an interview following a board meeting on Tuesday. "The board is very satisfied that his commitment will be real real and heartfelt." "We don't want Mr. Beanmush to quit only to be rehired by Hank Greenberg."
Exactly what heartfelt job are we talking about? Repaying the US Government, maximizing returns for AIG's employees or care taking a Croatian Outhouse?
BANZAI7 NEWS--Two price indexes released Tuesday indicated that the momentum the housing market showed over the late spring and summer is faltering, even as the government said the economy grew at a slower pace in the third quarter than previously reported.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, a closely watched measure of the housing markets in 20 metropolitan areas, barely rose in September, rising 0.3 percent from August on a seasonally adjusted basis. Prices fell for the month in nine cities in the index, including Boston, New York, Seattle and Charlotte, N.C.
BANZAI7--Policy makers at the Federal Reserve have become slightly more optimistic about the pace of the economic recovery, but they continue to predict that unemployment may probably remain permanently above 9 percent, according to new forecasts released on Tuesday.
BANZAI7--Washington Post Co.'s flagship newspaper plans to close its remaining U.S. news bureaus outside of the Washington, D.C. area, in a symbolic retreat for one of the country's major newspapers.
The six affected journalists in the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago bureaus will be offered new posts in Washington. Three news aides in those locations will lose their jobs, the Post said. "It won't affect our circulation since people in Washington don't really care about what goes on in the rest of the country."
All future national news will be drawn from Google News, the business section of the NY Post, TWITTER and the WilliamBanzai7 Blog.
NYT--They are a familiar sight on street corners across the five boroughs of NYC: Men and women standing behind folding card tables, urging passers-by to throw a little change into the empty plastic water jug marked “U.H.O.”
But an investigation by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo appears to have confirmed what many New Yorkers secretly (if somewhat guiltily) suspected all along: The United Homeless Organization, supposedly a nonprofit group set up to help feed and house the homeless, was actually an elaborate fraud.
According to a complaint filed by Mr. Cuomo on Tuesday morning, U.H.O. does not operate a single shelter, soup kitchen or food pantry. It does not provide food or clothing to the homeless. It does not even donate money to other charities that do.
Most of those coins and bills, Mr. Cuomo contended, end up in the pockets of those working the donation tables, who paid a daily fee to the group’s founder and president, Stephen Riley, and its director, Myra Walker, for the right to use the U.H.O. tables, jugs and aprons. The rest of the money is kept by Mr. Riley and Ms. Walker, and has been used for a variety of expenses not related to U.H.O. business, including expenses at Weightwatchers.com fees, Toys ‘R’ Us, PC Richards, Bed, Bath & Beyond, as well as premium cable and electricity bills at their homes.
BANZAI7--Conservative Republican Party activists want to withhold money from GOP candidates who stray too far from party orthodoxy.
Ten Republican National Committee members are distributing a plan to impose a purity test – calling for money to be withheld from anyone who disagrees with conservative principles on more than two of 10 core issues.
Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates:
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits, lower taxes, higher rates of unemployment and the reduction of basic services for all Americans by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill; (2) We support market-based health care reforms designed solely to enrich the health insurance industry and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare; (3) We support market-based energy speculation and enhanced global warming by opposing cap and trade legislation; (4) We support workers’ right to be fired; (5) We support the capping of immigration and assimilation of foreigners into American society and oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants; (6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting endless rounds of military-recommended troop surges; (7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat, so long as it does not impact the financial outlook for the American military industrial complex; (8) We support detention of homosexuals who are not Republican politicians and donors; (9) We support the principle of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor; (10) We support the right to keep and bear automatic weapons by opposing any and all government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further
RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee.
REUTERS--Just in time for the busy Thanksgiving drive to your in-laws, Chrysler announces that it is scrapping plans to fast-track electric cars to market.
While that may not be alarming, it is surprising that it occurred just months after Chrysler took $70 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a test fleet of 220 hybrid pickup trucks and minivans.
That’s “million” with an “m.”
It also comes a year after Chrysler cited its devotion to electric cars as one of the reasons why the Obama administration and Congress needed to give $12.5 billion of taxpayer bailout money to the company.
NYT--The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.
But that happy situation, aided by ultra low interest rates, may not last much longer.
Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.
Meanwhile:
WSJ-- Banks have spent the past year dealing with a mountain of bad assets. Now attention is turning to trillions of dollars of debt they have maturing over the next few years.
Banks unable to maneuver around the challenge could be forced to refinance their debt at sharply higher costs.
The situation was caused by banks engaging in cheap borrowing during the credit-market boom that began in the middle of the decade and lasted through 2007. As financial markets hit crisis mode, banks were propped up by government guarantees that enabled them to keep selling debt -- but with much shorter maturities.
And:
NYT--The government-administered insurance fund that protects depositors fell $8.2 billion into the red for the first time since the fallout from the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s as the pace of bank failures accelerated in the third quarter.
BANZAI7 NEWS--The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their undersea mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery.
Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif.
These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already over saturated market.
SECRETARY GEITHNER GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER (GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER, Randy Brooks) WilliamBanzai7
Chorus: Geithner got run over by a bailout reindeer Walking home from the White House Christmas Eve. You might say there's no such thing as public outrage, But as for Barack, Dodd and Barney, they believe.
Verse:
He'd been drinkin' too much Wall Street eggnog, So its best he had to go. But he wrote a silly proposal full of regulatory flim flam Defiant as he was, he said real Wall Street reform?, "Hell, no!"
When they found him Christmas morning', At the scene of the attack, There was a note stuck to his forehead It said, "Just get us all our bail out dollars back!"
(Repeat Chorus)
Now we're all so proud of Jamie Dimon, He runs JP Morgan Bank just so well. See him in there watchin' Goldman's PR Hell, Drinkin beer and playin' cards like a banker who thinks he doesn't smell.
It's not Wall Street Christmas without Geithner No free bailout toasters, no one to block the Glass Steagall Act And we just can't help but wonder Can Obama bomb Osama with FWMD in a sneak attack?
(Repeat Chorus)
Now the Special Inspector's report is on the table And it shows how Goldman's Blankfein danced his bailout jig. And just how badly Geithner's NY Fed got gang banged By the Goldman/AIG bailout drilling rig.
Better warn all your Congressmen and politician neighbors Better watch out for yourselves! They should be putting Wall Street hacks in Treasury After being schtupped by Goldman Sachs and AIG!
Twas the night before Squidmas, when all through Goldman Squid house Not a creature was stirring, not even a louse; The bonus stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Blankfein soon would be there;
Bailed out bankers and traders were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of bonus booty danced in their heads; And Timmy Geithner in his silly 'kerchief with no salary caps, Had just settled down for another long nap.
When out on Main Street there arose such a clatter, Main Streeters were screaming why should Wall Street just keep getting fatter and fatter? With unemployment rates rising and so many a cupboard bare. All those finagling financiers could do was just sit there and stare.
Then, what to their wondering eyes should appear, But a hodgepodge of new Bills threatening all they held dear, They all thought they were bigger and better than most But those 2 big 2 fail deadbeats soon would be toast.
Then in a moment before it could all stick, Those financial extortionists emptied their bailout stockings and took the loot quick, And out in the distance they heard St Blankfein exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Squidmas to Goldman Squid, and to all squids a good-night!"
Comment on WSJ Blog:
* the vampire wrote:
To williambanzai7
Well done. Merry Squidmas and a Happy Vampire Year to everybody on Main Street. We look forward to bleeding you dry again next year.
St. Blankfein and Santa Dimon
Comment on Yahoo Finance:
Hilarious!
Nice including the "Christ" part of Christmas since Blankfein considers himself up there with God anyway........
BANZAI7 NEWS--The Large Hadron Quantitative Collider, the world’s too biggest and most expensive to fail science experiment, produced its first derivative collisions on Monday, said scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, outside Geneva.
Seemingly making up for lost time after years of financial disasters, the collisions came only three days after engineers had begun shooting contracts known as credit default swaps around their 17-mile underground trading room. The physicists announced that they had succeeded in making simulated Goldman Sachs and AIG derivative portfolios collide, producing what they called “systemic collision events” in the bailout giant detectors in the collider.
Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found...
Names of the Dead.com is a site where people can post the stories
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
BANZAI7--An auction house says it is selling a rare first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Fecies" found in a family's guest lavatory in southern England.
Christie's auction house said Sunday the book — one of around 1,250 copies first printed in 1859 — had been on a toilet bookshelf at a family's home in Oxford. Luckily the book had not been put to use as all of the pages remained in tact.
The book will be auctioned on Tuesday, the 150th anniversary of the publication of the famous work. Christie's said the book is likely to sell for 60,000 pounds ($99,000). It will be replaced by a First Edition copy of Sarah Palin's "I Am Going to Disrobe."
WSJ--The White House is lukewarm about proposals by congressional Democrats to introduce broad legislation to create jobs, instead favoring targeted measures to increase employment rates on Wall Street, administration officials said.
WSJ--'We won't have a real market-based financial system until it is safe to let a financial firm fail,"
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week.
He's certainly right, though you wouldn't know it from Mr. Bernanke's own actions the last two years. Meanwhile, the politicians are preparing to give the Fed and Treasury more power to bail out all and sundry companies on an unprecedented scale, and so far without any objection from the Fed chairman.
Reading the pending bills to "resolve" failing financial houses from Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd, the challenge is to conceive of someone who is not eligible for unlimited taxpayer funds. The list of potential bailout recipients under both bills runs from bank holding companies to hedge funds to auto makers, consumer retail chains, the Catholic Church, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Nicolas Cage, the Madoff Family, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and just about anyone else engaging in finance or home economics of one kind or another.
WB7: The above quotation is made by a very confused man who seems to think that financial firms can only fail if it is safe for them to do so. Is this the new definition of market capitalism?
Wondering why Timmy Geithner is a regulatory douche bag? Meet Neal Wolin, Geithner's Deputy Secretary of Douche.
Neal Wolin, was the general counsel of Hartford, but before that he’d been the general counsel to the Treasury Department and he happens to have been the guy that pushed through the reversal of Glass-Steagall.
He wrote the actual words in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and 'love your neighbor as yourself.”
“All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go into investment banking and trade derivatives, in particular, mortgage backed collateralized debt obligations issued by bank-sponsored Special Investment Vehicles. (Mathew 19: 16 -21)
For more: http://crosscut.com/2009/11/22/flip-side/19391/
BANZAI7 NEWS--The granddaughter of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini has said that blood and his brain have been stolen to sell on the internet.
Alessandra Mussolini, a former showgirl turned MP, said she immediately informed the police when she found out.
The listing, on auction site Ebay, reportedly showed images of a container and ampoules of blood.
Ebay, which does not allow the sale of human matter on its site, said that the listing was removed within hours.
Plans are in the works for a new film titled: "They Saved Mussolini's Brazere."
BANZAI7 NEWS--The sparkly white glove Michael Jackson wore for his first moonwalk was the star of a rock auction Saturday, fetching an astounding $350,000, the latest indication the new Asian asset bubble.
The winning bidder counted himself lucky to be taking home the prize.
"It was a bargain - we were expecting to pay millions more," said Hoffman Ma, a Hong Kong hotel executive. "We're going to put it on display in our hotel. It will be free for everyone."
'In Asian economies, Hong Kong included, we've seen very massive inflows of funds due to very low global interest interest rates and quantitative easing,' Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, told an investor conference, adding that loose monetary policy risks creating asset bubbles in Asia.
There is the potential risk of an asset bubble,' Chan said. 'I'm not saying an asset bubble has already formed, but is Jackson's glove really worth $350,000?'
BANZAI7 NEWS--Bank of America Corp.’s board may extend its search for a new, emergency chief executive officer into 2010 if directors can’t settle on a candidate in the next four days, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reports confirm the Mr. Neutron is still available for the assignment. Neutron, a walking "systemic bomb", is believed to be the only Being capable of operating BAC.
HANK'S BAILOUT RESTAURANT (Arlo Guthrie--Alice's Restaurant) Adapted by William Banzai7
This song is called Hank's Restaurant, and it's about Hank Paulson, and the restaurant, but Hank's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Hank's Restaurant.
You can get anything you want at Hank's Bailout Restaurant You can get anything you want at Hank's Bailout Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the Federal Reserve Bank You can get anything you want at Hank's bailout Restaurant
Now it all started Thanksgiving Day 2008- when my friend and I went up to visit Hank at the restaurant, but Hank doesn't sit in the there, he sits near a fella named Blankfart in Goldman Squid Wall Street office, in a big glass corporate tower. And being in a tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs. Havin' all that room, they decided that they didn't have to take out their AIG subprime garbage for a long time.
We got up there, we found all the toxic subprime garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the non-performing asset dump. So my frined and I took the 700 billion tons of subprime garbage, put it in the back of a red Humvee stretch limo, including CDSs and CDOs and other implements of mass financial destruction and headed on toward the non-performng asset dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "No Dumping on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the financial garbage.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot hole and at the bottom of the hole there was a pile of Dot.com garbage, prospectuses, analyst reports etc. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down.
That's what we did, and drove back to the restaurant, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from FBI Director Mueller. He said, "Kid, we found your name on an offering circular at the bottom of a half a ton of subprime garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Mr. Director, I cannot tell a lie, I put that OC under that garbage."
After speaking to Director Mueller for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the subprime garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the NY Bureau office. So we got in the red Humvee Limo with the CDOs and CDSs and implements of financial destruction and headed on toward the FBI's NY Bureau office.
Now friends, there was only one or two things that the Director coulda done at the FBI's office, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving toxic asset backed garbage around the vicinity of Wall Street again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the FBI's office there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said Mr. Mueller sir, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the car."
And that's what we did, sat in the back of the car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about Wall Street, where this happened here, they got three Federal regulators, the SEC, the CFTC and the FBI, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was all kinds of state and federal regulators running around, this being the biggest financial crime of the last five years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And the FBI, they was using up all kinds of equipment that they had hanging around the antiterrorist bureau. They was taking plaster tire tracks, finger prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography.
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Director Mueller said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt." And I said, "I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "did you think I was going to hang myself for subprime fraud?" Mueller said he was making sure, and friends Director Mueller was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. The FBI Director was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Hank (remember Hank? It's a song about Hank), came by and with a few nasty words to Mueller on the side, Bailed us out using Federal taxpayer money, and we went back to the restaurant, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.
You can get anything you want, at Hank's Bailout Restaurant You can get anything you want, at Hank's Bailout Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the Federal Reserve Bank You can get anything you want, at Hank's Bailout Restaurant
Dear william, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein feels bad about crashing our economy. To make up for it, he's said he's sorry and has decided to give back $500 million of the money his company has made to small businesses.
It's a gesture so empty, it's insulting. Never mind that $500m is one good day of trading for Goldman Sachs. Never mind that it's less than 1% of what they got in taxpayer-funded assistance; or that it doesn't even compare to the $11.4 billion they paid themselves in the first half of 2009 alone.
What's really insulting is that it doesn't even begin to undo the damage Goldman Sachs has done to small businesses - like the Stella D'Oro bakery - in the last two years: http://action.seiu.org/helpstella Help the workers at Stella D'oro
Yesterday, Lloyd Blankfein said he's committed to job creation. He should tell that to the 150 Stella D'Oro workers in New York who lost their jobs when a Goldman Sachs-owned company bought the business and shut down their factory. The workers, whose tax dollars bailed out Goldman, have tried to meet with Lloyd Blankfein repeatedly. They wanted to show him the harm he was doing to their already struggling community.
He didn't listen. Maybe we can get his attention. Will you call Goldman Sachs and ask them to use the tax dollars we gave him to help the workers at Stella D'Oro? http://action.seiu.org/helpstella
We gave Goldman Sachs $63 billion of our tax dollars so they could clean up the economic mess they created. But they've only made it worse. Call Goldman Sachs and tell them to stop with the PR stunts and start helping Stella D'Oro workers and all the small businesses they've forced under: http://action.seiu.org/helpstella
BANZAI7--Some of the largest shareholders in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have urged the Wall Street firm to reduce the size of its bonus pool, arguing that it should pass along more of its blockbuster earnings to investors, according to people familiar with the situation.
The investors hold tens of millions of shares in Goldman Sachs, which is on track to make the biggest employee payout in the firm's 140-year history.
Their complaints in private conversations with the company and at analyst meetings show how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors.
WB7: Someone needs to disabuse these naive investors. All too big to fail banks like Goldman Squid exist for the benefit of employees first and foremost, and thereafter the US government assuming it has to step in. The latter instance being inevitable in derivative trading La La land.
BANZAI7 NEWS--It goes without saying that there's no smoking in class. But there is a good deal of sniffing of stash, discussion of the finer points of inhaling and debate over which plant gives the biggest hit.
Welcome to Detroit's cannabis college, recently opened with courses on how to grow marijuana – and harvest, cook and sell it too – after Michigan legalised the drug as a medicine.
Students get instruction from horticulturalists, doctors and lawyers as well as hands-on experience cultivating plants and guidance on how to protect their stash from thieves.
BANZAI7 NEWS--The number of people at least one month behind on their house payments rose to a record in the third quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.
Nearly 10 in 100 homeowners are delinquent, according to the association’s data, up from about seven out of 100 in the third quarter of 2008.
BANZAI7--Irish football officials have lodged an official complaint with world ruling body FIFA after Thierry Henry confessed that he handled the ball in the build-up to the goal which sent France to next summer's World Cup.
Television cameras showed Henry guiding the ball with his hand twice, before William Gallas scored from his resulting cross to give "Les Bleus" a narrow win in the two-legged World Cup play-off against the Republic of Ireland.
"I will be honest. It was a handball but I am not the referee," the Barcelona striker told reporters after the match in Paris. "Anyway, if Lloyd Blankfart can do it, why can't I?"
“We participated in on field tactics that were clearly illegal fouls and have reason to regret,” Blankfart, 55, said at a conference in New York hosted by the Directorship magazine. “We apologize. But to be honest, we are not the referee.”
BANZAI7 NEWS--Here are some very interesting tidbits published in a post on Seeking Alpha (http://seekingalpha.com/article/173592-the-financial-crisis-nowhere-near-over).
This first chart shows the derivative exposure of 25 US commercial banks that had trillions (with a “T”) of dollars’ worth of exposure to derivatives on their balance sheets. At the time, the writer observes that if 4% of the notional value of these derivatives was “at risk” and only 10% of that 4% went bad, that you would wipe out the total equity at the five largest US banks. Ouch!!!!'
Look at the figure for Goldman Sachs. Q: Who is the 2 biggest 2 faileth? Ouuuuuuuuuch!!
This next chart shows is sourced from an SEC filing by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. It shows the ten largest net short positions that they are running. For the layman, these means which stocks Goldman is betting will go down.
Here is what the writer has to say about this:
"For starters, four of the top 10 are financial companies. The largest financial short is Wells Fargo (WFC), which Goldman has committed $289 million to betting against. After that it’s Mastercard (MA) ($266 million), then PNC (PNC) ($202 million) and finally AIG (AIG) ($152 million).
Looking at Goldman’s positions, it’s plain as day that Wall Street’s “finest” do not believe the financial crisis is over (why would they be betting against the banks if they did?). It’s also clear that Goldman’s analysts have noted, as I have, that both Wells Fargo and PNC both have massive exposure to the derivatives market (the fact that Goldman also has massive derivative exposure is beyond ironic).
However, where things get absolutely absurd is Goldman’s short position of AIG. Goldman, as has been widely documented, was one of the largest benefactors of AIG’s bailout (the then investment bank had massive counter party exposure to AIG’s toxic balance sheet). To see Goldman now betting against AIG after receiving $13 billion in tax payer money to ensure that the former didn’t go under along with the latter is outrageous (if not infuriating) to say the least.
On a final note, I wanted to point out Goldman is also shorting a Euro index (betting against that currency) as well as two gold mining companies (Barrick (ABX) and Agnico Eagle Mines(AEM)). This indicates that Goldie is bearish on both the euro and gold. which hints that Wall Street’s finest are likely betting on a US Dollar rally (that would, after all, be the most obvious catalyst for a correction in gold and the euro).
To be blunt, it’s clear that Goldman (like me) believes the financial crisis is nowhere near over."
Hmmm...
Betting against big financials with huge derivative exposures. Telling and ironic.
Betting against AIG. Disgusting.
Betting against the Euro and Gold. Hold onto your stimulis President Obama.
All content and images depicted on the WilliamBanzai7 Blog are intended solely as political editorial, critique, social commentary, satire and parody concerning current events and public figures.
As such, they should be viewed solely as opinion, comedy and artistic expression rather than factual reports regarding the relevant subject matter.
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