The Doctor wrote: IVNORD wrote: debrewguy wrote: Once more, I say - give the bailouts to the citizen, let him vote with that money as to who (corporation-wise) should survive and who should be left to die. How do you envision this giveaway to the citizen? Could it be so that easy money would be spent foolishly?     And of course if we give away easy money to large, multinational corporations they will spend it in the best interests of America and its economy.

I've never said that. But it's easier to control spending habits of a few corporations than 300M people

IVNORD wrote: kibble_alex wrote: and if we are not careful with the bank bailouts, we may be in a rare deflation state. I know the situation with banks in England in general. Just curious what you mean by the corelation of the bailout and deflation.

Well look at it this way. If the British Govt. bail out all our banks, or even just some of the major banks, then its balance will be intensely cut (billions are required to bail out the bank of Scotland alone). This will shortly lead to higher taxation, we will all be skint, meaning that the price of living will have to come down to stop us meeting the same fate as Zimbabwe.

debrewguy wrote: Once more, I say - give the bailouts to the citizen, let him vote with that money as to who (corporation-wise) should survive and who should be left to die.

How do you envision this giveaway to the citizen? Could it be so that easy money would be spent foolishly?

Slartibartfast wrote: This is from a New York Times interview with Jamie Galbraith: Do you find it odd that so few economists foresaw the current credit disaster? Some did. The person with the most serious claim for seeing it coming is Dean Baker, the Washington economist. I saw it coming in general terms. But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis? Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.

This fellow does not suffer from excessive personal modesty... there were plenty of people seeing it coming in general terms.

johnobvious wrote: I usually at least leaf through the Wall St Journal every day and it is depressing and becoming a vicious cycle.  People losing their jobs, people spending less so more places have to cut jobs and so on and so on.  The United States has built it's economy on people wanting to own so much superfluous crap and others building businesses and employing people to sell them that crap that once we all opened our eyes and realized that maybe we only need essentials, it is like a house of cards come crumbling down. And when we buy less stuff, we are also importing less stuff so that affects other countries as well who have built up industries on American's desire to own.

Consumerism is the mantra of the past couple decades. Hard to tell if it's harmful or beneficial as it has both its positives and negatives

johnobvious wrote: Bailout or no, I think we are in the dumper for quite some time.

Looks this way.

Slart, I read a long article about the cheese thing in the WSJ.  They are selling cheese for less than it costs to make it.  There is something like 500 small, independent parmigiano cheese makers in Italy and there is more supply than demand.  The strong should survive and the weak go out of business.  That is a free market system.  But the Italian gov't is going to make an ill-fated attempt to fix the situation when it will only delay many of these outfits shuttering their doors.

I know first hand about this situation.  I work for one of the top pet supply companies in America.  I keep track of all the competition as part of my job.  I have a list of over 700 other companies selling pet supplies (no pet food or cat litter) in the USA.  Any clown can import a toy from China or cook up a new treat in their kitchen, get assigned a manufacturer's code (upc number for their company) and they are out peddling their wares.  A lot of these small guys are going to face dire straits through this turndown.  There will not be a buyout for them, nor should there be.  I don't like to see people out of work but when they get into this particular business it is dog eat dog (pun intended).  And it is part of my job and my company's goal to hasten as many departures out of our market as we can.

Funny how governments trust the little people when it comes to cutting taxes (let them choose where they want to spend, they know better than governments), but it doesn't trust them when it comes to handing out multi billion dollar corporate welfare.
Once more, I say - give the bailouts to the citizen, let him vote with that money as to who (corporation-wise) should survive and who should be left to die.
If GM goes under, do you really believe that their 20% market share of sales will disappear ? Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, heck Subaru, will take up the slack. And with those companies expanding their operations in host countries as the sales increase, much of the slack will be picked up. It will just mean that GM/Ford/Chrysler workers won't get their $75/hour, and their retirees won't get pension increases every new contract.
Yes, you read that right, American car companies and the Unions would include increases to retirees pension for those already retired.

Has Zimbabwe ever not been a terrible place to live?

More happy news:

Former Nasdaq chairman arrested for fraud

Madoff reportedly told employees Ponzi scheme lost billions for customers

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NEW YORK - Bernard Madoff, a longtime fixture on Wall Street, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, U.S. authorities said.

The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market who remains a member of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc’s nominating committee, is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he founded in 1960.

But the alleged fraud involved a hedge fund he ran from a separate floor of the building where his brokerage is based.

Madoff told senior employees of his firm on Wednesday that “it’s all just one big lie” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme,” with estimated investor losses of about $50 billion, according to a criminal complaint against him.

A Ponzi scheme is a pyramid-type swindle in which very high returns are promised to early investors, who are paid off with money put up by later investors.

Prosecutors charged Madoff, 70, with a single count of securities fraud. They said he faces up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $5 million.

“Madoff stated that the business was insolvent, and that it had been for years,” Lev Dassin, acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

Authorities said that, according to a document filed by Madoff with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on January 7, 2008, Madoff’s investment advisory business served between 11 and 25 clients and had a total of about $17.1 billion in assets under management.

“Bernard Madoff is a longstanding leader in the financial services industry,” his lawyer Dan Horwitz told reporters outside a downtown Manhattan courtroom where he was arraigned. “We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events.”

A shaken Madoff stared at the ground as reporters peppered him with questions. He was released after posting a $10 million bond secured by his Manhattan apartment.

The SEC filed separate civil charges.

“Our complaint alleges a stunning fraud -- both in terms of scope and duration,” said Scott Friestad, the SEC’s deputy enforcer. “We are moving quickly and decisively to stop the scheme and protect the remaining assets for investors.”

The SEC said it appeared that virtually all of the assets of his hedge fund business were missing.

Madoff had long kept the financial statements for his hedge fund business under “lock and key,” according to prosecutors, and was “cryptic” about the firm.

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities has more than $700 million in capital, according to its website. It is a market maker for about 350 Nasdaq stocks, including Apple, EBay and Dell, according to the website.

The website also states that Madoff himself has “a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark.”

Slartibartfast wrote: micky wrote: Tapfret wrote: Please don't boot me for posting the S word, but this is just too apropos.  maybe they'll boot me for quoting it as well..... nice gig if you can get it...  the private jets with hats in hand was priceless.   Should be a condition from Congress as well....  each one of their jobs... immediate resignation.. no f**king bonuses.. golden parachutes or whatever.  Like that guy I read about who asked for a 10 million bonus simply because the finanical institution he led (the name escapes me) only lost so many billions but didn't go tits up.  Nice.... almost to the point of agreeing with the wackos on the right and just saying.. let the f**kers go bankrupt.. and start over.  The workers are screwed either way.... You mean I've been showing restraint all this time from linking to comics and images with curse words for nothing?

leave it to us to find ways around the autocensor