Capitalism is not a “cute theory” like communism. It’s reality.

This more or less explains why we Americans think we’re great and nothing bad can (or should) befall us:
Because we’re Americans! Like, duh!

I love the expression on the Big O’s Face:

… will they allow debato-prompters at the debates?
ht

What a slick way to stick the knife in and twist it … all with a smile:

“I get why she’s hot out there … Why she’s doing well.”
[…]
“People look at her, and they say, ‘All those kids. Something that happens in everybody’s family. I’m glad she loves her daughter and she’s not ashamed of her. Glad that girl’s going around with her boyfriend. Glad they’re going to get married.'”
[…]
“I like that little Down syndrome kid. One of them lives down the street. They’re wonderful children. They’re wonderful people. And I like the idea that this guy does those long-distance races. Stayed in the race for 500 miles with a broken arm. My kind of guy.”
[…]
“I get this … My view is … why say, ever, anything bad about a person? Why don’t we like them and celebrate them and be happy for her elevation to the ticket? And just say that she was a good choice for him and we disagree with them?”
*
… *

There must be much gnashing of teeth inside the O’s tent this morning.
cross-posted @ Cjunk

Did Wall Street miss a total meltdown by a hair?

The market was 500 trades away from Armageddon on Thursday, traders inside two large custodial banks tell The Post.
Had the Treasury and Fed not quickly stepped into the fray that morning with a quick $105 billion injection of liquidity, the Dow could have collapsed to the 8,300-level – a 22 percent decline! – while the clang of the opening bell was still echoing around the cavernous exchange floor.

There are two types of panic on Wall Street … panic selling and panic buying … we’ve seen both as of late. We can debate meltdowns and bailouts until the cows come home … but one thing is certain … Capitalism is going through an enormous test.
Or, is it really capitalism any longer, when 5 or so firms account for fully 50% of the trades on Wall Street and the people with their fingers on the trigger circulate through the same boardrooms … and those boardrooms have tentacles latched onto one, Barry Obama?

Barack Obama has a major Wall Street and Washington problem that the media so far is refusing to acknowledge or explore. He is in the pocket of the Wall Street firms and mortgage security companies that are at the center of the collapse of the real estate bubble. He is closely tied to at least two of the Fannie Mae principals. As Ricky Ricardo would say, “Barack, you got some splaining to do.”
Let’s start with the numbers. Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.

By the way, are you Long or Short Obama 2008?
cross-posted @ Cjunk

A real quick way to tell if there’s a bubble, of any sort, is to compare the price of the asset, versus the cash flows it generates. A stock’s “P/E” ratio is a classic example wherein you compare the stock price (p) versus that of the earnings (e).
Housing is no different in that you can compre the price of a house to the rents it generates, resulting in a similar “House Price to Rents Ratio.” The following chart is from the OECD and has indexed the House Price to Rents Ratios for both the US and Canada to 100 (to adjust for any international discrepancies).

I cannot claim to have studied the Canadian housing market as much as the US, but I found the figures surprising.

Would the financial crisis have happened if, instead of teaching kids “psychology” “phy ed” and making them take foreign language classes they’ll never use in their adult life, we required they take 1 full year of personal financial management?
Just wondering.

Chuck Norris doesn’t borrow at the Fed’s discount window. Chuck Norris LENDS at the Fed’s discount window.

Last Thursday a CBC crew undertook a dramatic chase-down of Gerry Ritz in an airport. The shaky camera footage and the out-of-breath questions suggested a scandal of government-toppling magnitude. Viewers unaware of the details could be forgiven for thinking Ritz was some international criminal finally caught on camera by the Fifth Estate, rather than someone who had used ill-advised gallows humour in a private exchange during a tense crisis.
The Ritz scandal was just the latest installment in an ongoing series. The previous weeks’ scandal began: “Oops again! Stephen Harper pulls his communications director after another false step,” accompanied by a helpful graphic – “Oops again” – and video footage of the *Elections Canada raid* from last April. After a brief bit about gas prices, it was back to business: over the graphic “Derailed,” Mansbridge alarmed: “The mistakes and apologies are piling up! Is the Conservative campaign in trouble?”
Recently the NDP, now that they’re emerging as a threat to the Liberals, has been getting that same treatment. Last Thursday the NDP dropped a candidate after a video surfaced of him taking illegal drugs; it’s the sort of thing that merits a mention, but The National saw fit to air, as top news, a lengthy “worst-of” compilation from the tape. So we saw Dana Larsen taking LSD on a beach, and smoking a joint in a car; it went on and on. The word “NDP” was repeated so gratuitously as to render the report a piece of of Liberal-strategy campaigning, a “think again” warning-piece directed at anyone who’d been considering switching from the Liberals to the NDP.
The CBC’s scandal-mongering is highly suspect for two reasons. First, the scandals are too frequently based on events that happened long before they are presented as breaking scandals. Gerry Ritz’s remarks were made two weeks before the “scandal” broke; the Dana Larsen video was eight years old when it was aired at length in the midst of an election campaign; the Tom Lukiwski tape became a scandal fully seventeen years after a tipsy Lukiwski jokingly made the remarks at a private party. Second, such scandals are often not the result of investigation on the part of CBC journalists, but rather the end result of dirt about non-Liberals being handed over, by individuals who remain unnamed, to producers and/or reporters who then run with it.
Greg Weston:

“With the media leak coming more than two weeks after the fact, and timed to do the maximum political damage to the minister, the PM and the Conservative campaign, there is one obvious question: Who shot Gerry Ritz and why?

“A high-ranking Conservative familiar with what happened on the conference call says no one really has any doubts the leak came from a disgruntled bureaucrat.

“A Tory insider points to previous damaging leaks about the Conservatives’ environmental plans, and cuts to cultural programs as similar push-back from ‘some people who don’t necessarily agree with us.'”

For too long the LPC has had their own public-relations juggernaut, massively funded by Canadian taxpayers, with which to campaign against the other parties. It’s time to stop forcing Canadians who don’t wish to support the Liberals to pay for it.