Chart courtesy of Reuters
Absolute, 100% fraud. Case closed. Geithner knew this was going on and gave it his blessing. How could he not, he was the head of the NY Fed! Now Turbo Timmy is in charge of the Treasury? Unbelievable. How come this shyster isn’t behind bars? How come you Americans aren’t demanding this? I honestly don’t understand.
This is the BIGGEST scandal in US history.
Ever.
And that is no exaggeration.
Remember a year ago Obama set executive pay limits for those people whose companies received federal bailout money? Well, that was sooooo February 2009:
After resigning as president and CEO of General Motors in December, Fritz Henderson might have gone into hiding or decided to sit out the harsh Michigan winter on a Florida beach.
Instead, here he is popping up again, this time as a consultant to GM on international operations at the very fancy fee of $59,090 a month for 20 hours of work a month. That works out to almost $3,000 an hour for a CEO who was ousted after just eight months on the job.
Consider that one a *job saved*. To date, the Obama stimulus has either saved or created 2 000 001 jobs.
Yet I seem to remember Obama railing against executives receiving outrageous compensations? Cue dream sequence, February 2009…
“For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis isn’t just bad taste — it’s a bad strategy — and I will not tolerate it. We’re going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid — so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won’t find them up to the same old tricks,” the president added.
Under Obama’s plan, companies that want to pay their executives more than $500,000 will have to do so through stocks that cannot be sold until the companies pay back the money they borrow from the government. The rules will be implemented by the Treasury Department and do not need to be approved by Congress.
A year ago, Obama “wouldn’t tolerate these kinds of compensation packages” for top executives, but this year he seems to be able to tolerate them just fine. You know what that means, don’t you? It means Obama has become more tolerant. And that’s a good thing. It’s a sure-fire sign of someone maturing.
To be fair though, Fritz isn’t a top executive getting over $700,000 a year for working a mere 20 hours a month, he’s a consultant who gets over $700,000 a year for working a mere 20 hours a month.
For a mere consultant to make more money than most top executives at GM, that must mean he must have a pretty solid skill-set, correct?
Although Henderson’s compensation seems a little steep, getting him back to work makes sense. Nobody ever questioned his brains or his work ethic.
And it was in-part thanks to Fritz Henderson, that even through The Worst Economic Downturn Since The Great Depression™, GM was still able to keep it’s ranking as the worlds #1 #2 #3 #4 whatever the hell it is now, car manufacturer in the world. It’s obvious that without Fritz and his mad skillz and unquestionable work ethic, GM would have been bankrupt and possibly nationalized by the Obama administration.
Thank any God but the Christian God THAT didn’t happen.
According to many a headline The Mayor has read today, good times are here again, as ONLY 84,000 jobs were cut by US companies in December:
The number of private-sector jobs has steadily declined for the past 23 months. The December ADP numbers marked the smallest reductions since March and sparked hope that the national jobless picture was improving.
“Employment losses are now rapidly diminishing and, if recent trends continue, private employment will begin rising within the next few months,” the report stated.
Only in liberal circles could 84,000 lost jobs in one month be construed as good news. It’s like believing an anorexic is getting better because she only lost 5lbs last month instead of the 10 lbs she usually loses.
To put this into perspective, try remembering the horrible, horrible Bush years. Remember how the unemployment rate was at a minuscule 5% under BUSH, but according to the lamestream media the economy was in shambles? But now things are rosy as. A 5% rate of unemployment under GWB was/is twice as bad as a 10% rate of unemployment under Obama.
If the writer of that article wasn’t such a suck-ass little fanboy, he would have given his article the title, “ANOTHER 84,000 jobs lost in December. 4 million since Obama took office, the most jobs lost under ANY President in the history of the USA”.
Then again, liberals hate facts that don’t fit their narrative.
Auto Blog - Ford has just announced plans to reduce its unionized workforce by offering a buyout package to all 41,000 UAW members currently employed by the automaker. Reuters reports that Ford workers with at least one year of experience can take a payout of $50,000 plus a new car voucher worth $25,000 or an additional cash payment of $20,000. Retirement-age workers can opt to take their pensions plus the $25,000 new vehicle voucher or the $20,000 payment. Finally, skilled-trade workers that are eligible for retirement can opt for a $40,000 payout plus their pensions.
News.com.au - WORLD airline passenger traffic fell 3.1 percent in 2009, the biggest drop in aviation industry history, fuelled by the global financial downturn, the International Civil Aviation Organisation said (**remember though, we’re out of the recession).
Bloomberg - China’s Speeding Bullet-Train Program May Brake Economic Growth.
NBC Connecticut - Unemployment claims have been flooding into the state Department of Labor, dragging the filing system to a crawl. “Due to the high volume of claim filing, you may experience some difficulty filing your claim via the Web or by telephone. We apologize for any inconvenience,” the Web site says. A spokeswoman says the Department of Labor issued 156,673 benefit checks during the week of Dec. 13-19, up nearly 50 percent from 105,431 last year. The agency has been “incredibly busy” with claims and was “flooded with calls,” she said.
Bloomberg - The economy in the U.S. expanded in the third quarter at a slower pace than anticipated as companies curbed spending and cut inventories at an even faster pace, reductions that have set the stage for acceleration in growth. The 2.2 percent increase in gross domestic product from July through September compares with a 2.8 percent gain previously reported by the Commerce Department in Washington (**Keep in mind that originally it was pegged at 3.5%, then lowered to 2.8. Now it’s 2.2. Take away Cash for Clunkers, and the economy contracted. Again. And how did the stock market react to this dismal news? By going up 50 points).
LA Times - “While bankruptcies are up, overall, small-business closures are up even more,” Headd said. California has been particularly hard hit. The latest data show small-business bankruptcies up 81% in the state for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, compared with the previous year. Filings nationwide were up 44%, according to the credit analysis firm Equifax Inc. The actual number of small businesses in trouble is probably higher, experts said, because many owners file for personal bankruptcy rather than seek protection for the business.
SHTF Blog - “Those in their 40s and younger are about to get an education in how real life works. Not the life created by Wall Street and the Fed, because that era is about to end and with it the fairy tale life they have been used too.” “There is no question that another bout of inflation is on the way and that the dollar will continue to fall in value. We do not believe gold and silver are today reflecting reflation. They are reflecting a flight to quality because professionals and a minority of other investors have lost faith and trust in the top 20 central banks. Thus, today we are witnessing a flight to quality and safety.” “We believe that the US dollar will be officially devalued in a year to 1-1/2 years from now to be replaced with an international trading unit. That will cause another flight to quality to gold and silver.”
Reuters - Banks whose executives served on Federal Reserve boards were more likely to receive government bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the study from Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura, professors at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Banks with headquarters in the district of a U.S. House of Representatives member who serves on a committee or subcommittee relating to TARP also received more funds. Political influence was most helpful for poorly performing banks, the study found.
Seeking Alpha - What does the future foretell for the U.S. economy in 2010? Well, why wonder when we can show you!
Politico - Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith announced Tuesday that he’s switching parties – saying he can no longer align himself “with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy and drives us further and further into debt.”
CTV - Healthier car sales boost Canadian retail numbers (take out car sales and retail sales actually went down - how’s that for a green-shoot?)
SHTF Plan - While the “subprime tsunami” brought the first wave of foreclosures to Las Vegas, the next wave is coming from more credit-worthy borrowers in higher-end homes and from homeowners who’ve lost their jobs or have negative equity in their homes and can’t sell. The Mortgage Bankers Association is reporting some 7 million home loans in default, creating what some analysts have called a “shadow inventory” of foreclosures being held by banks.
Gold Eagle - The 1929 and 2008 Bear Market race to the bottom.
Bloomberg - ‘Sizzling’ Shanghai Homes Defy Tax, Bubble Concerns
Market Skeptics - If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.
Calculated Risk Blog - TARP Deadbeat List Grows to 55 (green shoot?)
Seeking Alpha - Chevron Corp. (CVX) – the second-biggest U.S. oil company – announced the discovery of a new offshore natural gas site (Satyr-1) in Western Australia’s Carnarvon Basin. The discovery builds on the integrated energy giant’s leading position in this hydrocarbon-rich area and follows the Achilles-1 find in October. Drilled to a total depth of 4,560 meters, the Satyr-1 well encountered 130 meters of net gas pay.
Forbes - China’s economy is the envy of the world. As developed nations struggle to eke out a bit of growth and to get unemployment rates out of double digits, Chinese output gallops ahead at an 8% annual rate. This $4.7 trillion economy, it seems, is the world’s dynamo and the prototype for the future. Take a close look, however, and you may come away thinking China resembles nothing so much as Japan shortly before its stock and property markets melted down two decades ago. A speculative frenzy of borrowing and bidding up is at work. If and when prices crash, there will be hell to pay.
My Budget 360 - The Commercial Real Estate Default Wave is Here: Commercial Mortgage Defaults Now at 16 Year High. 3.4 Percent of all Commercial Real Estate Loans in Default.
Yahoo News - Canada may require people taking out mortgages to come up with a larger downpayment if it looks like indebtedness is getting too high, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in a interview released late on Sunday.
My Way - Regulators on Friday shut down two big California banks, as well as banks in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, bringing to 140 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the weak economy and mounting loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over all seven (notice how all the bank closures happen on Friday’s when the news cycle is ground to a halt?).
Gold Eagle - Full circle of gov’t debt default (great read, give yourself a half an hour though).
Bloomberg - Peru is poised to receive more credit-rating increases after Moody’s Investors Service moved it to investment grade because the country is posting above-average growth while keeping its budget deficit under control, said Credit Suisse Group AG and Societe Generale SA (growth and lower spending can be a good thing? Who woulda known?).
NY Times - Mexico was hit with a second sovereign debt downgrade on Monday, reflecting the country’s battle with a severe recession, sliding crude oil output and a failure to overhaul its clunky economy.
Seeking Alpha - Today, the Department of Labor released its latest read of Joblessness showing seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims increased by 7,000 to 480,000 claims from last week’s revised 473,000 claims while “continued” claims increased 5,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 3.9%. At this point, we are either in the “post-crisis” recovery or the “eye before the storm” of a double-dip. Could the worst of the job-shedding be behind us? Is a major disappointment shaping up for 2010?
Bloomberg - Falling production in commodities from rice to milk is bad news for just about everyone except investors. Rice may surge 63 percent to $1,038 a metric ton from $638 on Philippine imports and a shortage in India, a Bloomberg survey of importers, exporters and analysts showed. The U.S. government says nonfat dry milk may jump 39 percent next year, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasts a 25 percent gain for sugar. Global food costs jumped 7 percent in November, the most since February 2008, four months before reaching a record, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Yahoo Finance - Getting a Mortgage in 2010: 10 Things to Know
The Pragmatic Capitalist - German bunds to fall 2.25%, the VIX to fall to 14, and gold to fall to $870 an ounce are just some of the ‘outrageous predictions’ Saxo Bank made for next year. Christian Blaabjerg from Saxo Bank told CNBC the forecasts are “the Black Swans of the financial markets” and “we somehow point toward these as more structural factors.”
The Motley Fool - A tough year ahead for the US economy?
The Pragmatic Capitalist - Rail freight continues to report dismal figures despite improvement in the sequential data. The latest data showed carloads are down 10.2% vs 2008 and 18.5% vs 2007. Intermodal traffic is down 3% year over year and down 14.3% vs 2007. Despite the weakness, some industries are beginning to show some signs of relative strength.
Truth Alliance - Even the Criminals of Climategate Avoid Gore
SHTF Plan - World War III is On the Way (December 2009)
SHTF Plan - A variety of reports today, with mixed interpretations, are sure to keep investors and the general public wondering what the heck is actually going on. After reports last week that retailers are showing growth, we wondered how accurate the numbers actually were in Retails Sales Show Growth…Or Do They?
Telegraph - Obama’s Health Care bill given body blow by Joe Lieberman.
Zero Hedge - The National Association Of Home Builders just reported a December number of 16 that was not only lower than consensus estiamtes (18) but the lowest since June. There goes the last green shoot. The market (without looking) should be up on this news (you know what this means don’t you? The markets will rally by 200 tomorrow).
Whiskey & Gunpowder - Science Hasn’t Failed About Climate, Government Has.
The Market Oracle - U.S. Housing Underwater, Securitized, and Screwed by the “Pass the Trash” Strategy
Zero Hedge - A World Crisis No Bailout Can Stop
The Market Ticker - So the Obama Administration thinks it can issue $150 billion in new debt a month eh? Here’s the question: Who is going to buy? I can tell you who isn’t buying - foreigners
The Market Oracle - Agri-Food’s and the Global Warming Research Dollars Ponzi Scam
SHTF Plan - Hyperinflationary Depression - No Way of Avoiding Financial Armageddon
Neithercorp Press - The great secret to the “Global Warming Debate,” the underlying current that no one in the mainstream seems willing to discuss openly, is the fact it is not really a debate about the environment; it is actually a catalyst, a symbolic fight over a mountain of social conflicts that have existed for generations. The battle over Global Warming is a mechanism by which our culture is divided into mostly superficial and contrived political and social stances. Republican vs. Democrat, Science vs. Religion, Anti-Corporate vs. Free Market, Hippie vs. Redneck, Vegetarian vs. Carnivore; Global Warming is a great farce comprised of many smaller farces.
The Market Ticker - It may be “politics as usual” to never talk about how bad the economy really is - never talk about the budget deficit in honest terms - and never talk about how revenues are and have been cratering across the board for governments. But when you are facing a truly horrific situation in this regard, and you need everyone on board to make sacrifices - especially government positions where employees feel especially entitled - ”politics as usual” is particularly dangerous.
Seeking Alpha - Yes, we have a few green shoots in the economy. But all the stats coming out are based against the incredibly dismal year we had in 08. In other words, things are getting marginally better compared to the worst year in the last 200.
Bloomberg - Most Europeans believe the worst of the economic crisis has yet to feed through to the labor market, the European Union said, citing a Eurobarometer survey.
Bloomberg - Foreclosure filings in the U.S. will reach a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
Seeking Alpha - Commercial real estate downturn marches on.
Reuters - Germany to sell H1N1 vaccine due to weak demand.
Brussel’s Journal - The European Union, in order to save itself from the faults of its own legislation, has decided that Iceland and the Icelandic people are expendable. Realising its own failures the EU has decided, through the British and Dutch governments, that the Icelandic authorities have to shoulder the responsibility which is rightfully the EU regulators’. This is what the so-called Icesave dispute is mainly about.
The Market Ticker - Dubai - screwing everybody.
Brisbane Times - THE OPPOSITION finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, believes the United States government could default on its debt, triggering an ”economic Armageddon” which will make the recent global financial crisis pale into insignificance.
Business Insider - The 10 Countries Most Likely To Default
Bloomberg - A record 37.2 million people, or about one out of every eight Americans, received food stamps in September, as the recession drove a surging jobless rate, according to a government report.
Rolling Stone- Obama’s big sellout (when the Rolling Stone starts to catch on, oh my…)
Politico - In a bold but risky year-end strategy, Democratsare preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year’s rather than have to face the issue again prior to the 2010 elections (done deal, I’m a day late on this one - but it’s worth reading to see the hypocrisy).
Global Economic Analysis - Stimulus Checkup - 100 ridiculous projects funded by the American Recovery Act
Politico - Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor (haha).
Money And Markets - When you think about the government’s exploding debt burden, you probably don’t focus on interest payments. But those payments will likely total $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years, amounting to more than half the government’s $9 trillion in debt. Interest rates are near zero now, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s massive monetary stimulus. But at some point the Fed will have to reverse that easing.
Whiskey and Gunpowder - The world is not yet ready to give up its addiction to paper currency. Actually, the world may be getting a snoot-full of it, but governments are not. You see, paper currency has an unbelievably strong attraction for governments. Do you know what it is? Do you wanna know?
My Budget 360 - It is hard to justify the 1,100 mark for the S&P 500. The 676 low of March, as disastrous as it may have felt, actually reflected a more accurate measure of earnings potential of the 500 S&P companies. The S&P 500 is a good index because it measures 500 companies with a current collective market cap of $9.6 trillion. The S&P 500 over a century of data has seen price to earnings ratios of between 5 and 10 after severe contractions. It is safe to say that what we are experiencing is a strong contraction.
Money And Markets - Governments the world over have spent the past year bailing out, backstopping, insuring, and stimulating their financial sectors and economies. Trillions of dollars, euros, yen, and pounds have been thrown around like Halloween candy. Officials have assured us there’s little risk to that strategy. But we have warned consistently that the opposite is true. Our stance: If you borrow and spend too much, all you’re going to do is transform a Wall Street debt crisis into a Washington debt crisis.
A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer:
The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.
As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not “unreasonable.” The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.
Adding to the puzzle, the new language was quietly tucked away in a clause in the bill still captioned “No lifetime or annual limits.”
Just a few months ago, Barack Obama wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times where he had this to say about insurance companies and their policy of limiting coverage:
They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. And we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. No one in America should go broke because they get sick.
If the Democratic healthcare bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits of the dollar value of medical care as long as those limits are not “unreasonable”, who then would decide what’s “unreasonable”? Senators? The insurance companies? Death Panels? Hmmmm, death panels.
To add to the intrigue, no one in the Democrat ranks knows who actually slipped this loophole into the healthcare bill. Seeing though that this is Harry Reid’s bill, I would think he’s the one that has to take responsibility for it.
There are a few reasons why this clause could have been inserted into the healthcare bill: 1) Insurance companies wouldn’t support this bill if the clause wasn’t there, 2) the healthcare bill is hundreds of billions higher than it should be and this is a stealth way of reducing the overall cost, 3) it’s all about the power. The power to decide who lives and who dies. The power to control the lives of the population.
Look at it this way: For example - Let’s say that it has been decided that a person with cancer is allowed to have $150,000 in coverage each year. And that works out well for a few years, everyone is covered sufficiently and everyone is happy. A few years go by, and is want to happen with every government plan and organization, healthcare becomes increasingly expensive and massively bloated. So the lawmakers go back and change the definition of “reasonable”. $150,000 was “reasonable” a few years ago, but considering how the economy is not performing up to expectations and healthcare is close to bankruptcy (see Medicade, Medicare, Social Security, Government sponsored pension funds, Postal service, Amtrax, etc) $150,00 now considered “unreasonable”. So now a more reasonable amount is $93,000.
The government will say, “It’s for the greater good, we all have to make sacrifices. Think of the children…and their children…etc.” Most Americans don’t have cancer, so what do they care? Most Americans care more about their plasma TV’s or their PS3, cancer coverage isn’t even on their radar. Put another way: If most Americans aren’t concerned with an already bankrupt America and a government that has socialized banks, insurance companies, car companies, and is now socializing 1/6 of their economy, what makes you think Joe Six Pack will care about this?
But YOU care, and that’s what matters. You can still do something before it’s too late. Because once this is signed into law, it’s going to be there forever. It’s going to get bigger, more bloated, and you WILL lose the healthcare you have. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of WHEN.
Despite what the cheerleaders have been telling you at the various state-controlled media outlets, Black Friday wasn’t a smashing success. According to hard numbers released by The NPD Group, sales of large ticket items were down by a massive amount, while overall sales were down 1.2% compared to last year. Yes, compared to the worst Black Friday ever on record, sales were actually 1.2% lower. Green shoots & leaves, my brothers and sisters.
You know what this means, don’t you? Exactly - the stock market will go up 200 points today.
My Budget 360 - The New Economic Misery Index: Five Sectors that Show Financial Pain for Americans. Food Stamps, Bankruptcy, Credit Access, Employment, and Housing.
Breitbart- President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to “spend our way out of this recession” until more Americans are back at work. Without giving a price tag, Obama proposed a package of new spending for highway, bridge and other infrastructure projects, deeper tax breaks for small businesses and tax incentivesto encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient (notice how comrade Obama won’t give a “price tag” for his new stimulus proposals, but he was quick to give out a price tag when it came to Afghanistan).
Bloomberg - Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling imposed a 50 percent levy on banker bonuses and said he will increase income taxes after elections next year as the worst recession on record drives up U.K. government borrowing.
The Treasury expects to raise 550 million pounds ($896 million) targeting payouts at all banks operating in the U.K. from today and another 3 billion pounds from incomes earned after April 2011. Borrowing will rise by 4.6 billion pounds to 611 billion pounds in the four years through March 2013.
Whiskey & Gunpowder - Natural gas prices have plummeted. Natural gas storage is at a maximum. Producible gas reserves are up 35% in the United States. Demand for natural gas is down because of the economy. Then suddenly a new-found U.S. natural gas producible reserve is suggesting that the U.S. in fact will be self-sufficient or close to it as soon as 2030.
Why are all of these things happening?
Henry Makow - What happened in Dubai just over a week ago was the bright flash, and the media have used the intervening period before the shock wave hits to reassure everyone that everything is going to be just fine - “You just relax, nothing will come of it, it’s only $60 billion down the drain or whatever - have a cup of tea”. The trouble is that it’s not $60 billion at all - the reality is that this is a default on a massively larger scale.
The Pragmatic Capitalist - The AAR is out with their latest railtime indicators for the month of November.
Bloomberg- U.S. homeowners have lost about $5.9 trillion in value since the housing market’s peak in March 2006 as mounting foreclosures and the recession weighed on prices, according to Zillow.com. Almost half a trillion dollars was wiped out this year through November as housing headed for a third straight annual decline.
Zero Hedge - Census Bureau Reports Collapse In State Tax Revenue, Liquor Stores Only Bright Spot.
Money and Markets - 11 Startling Forecasts for 2010.
