Cynics Party - Latest Comments in Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

nojo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:46:20 -0000

You think I'm going to be sympathetic towards someone who uses Yahoo mail?

And besides, when they say "hacked", they mean "easily guessed password". I'll let FCS take some guesses about what the winner was.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

TonyRamone — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:27:47 -0000

Wait, a potential VEEP who uses yahoo for official bidness, and a future preznit who doesn't use the intertubez?

Roaring Zeros, indeed.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

rptrcub — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:00:53 -0000

Aaaand to counter whatever economic edge Obama had or focus on the economy, we've got a story sure to gain Talibunny more sympathy. Mind you I don't condone this, but it's going to give the "oh you poor thing" people more crap to pull at their heart strings.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Original Andrew — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:49:43 -0000

The past eight years I've been trying to decide which name to use for this decade. I've been going with "the Millenium," which sounds all futuristic but kinda bland.

Well I finally read a brilliant one the other day that neatly sums it up: The Roaring Zeros.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Tommmcatt_Interrupted — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:43:10 -0000

@Rptcub

Did you read that? My god, a Trillion-Mark note was worth about 24 US Dollars. Can you imagine the Poverty that must have caused?

Brrr.....gives me the shivers.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

rptrcub — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:01:57 -0000

I can has Papiermark?

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Original Andrew — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:58:40 -0000

And that's another funny thing. People are debating whether they should move their checking account from a bank to a credit union, etc, etc, but if we have a true fiscal-economic collapse, it'll be immediately followed by a period of hyperinflation that'll wipe out the value of your US dollars anyway.

What's really scary about the bailouts is that Paulson and Bernanke are basically pulling the levers on the printing presses and hoping for the best. It's not backed up by anything (other than the full faith and credit of the US Guvmit--cue the laugh track).

Remember those pictures from Germany in the 1920s when they burned stacks of currency because it was cheaper to just burn the money than buy firewood or heating oil?

Ha ha, heckuva job, "free-market Republicans!" If Adam Smith were alive today his face would melt off ala Raiders of the Lost Ark.

P.S. "We're all Communists now!"

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

nojo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:57:44 -0000

@Ped: I'm far from the financial expert here, but my vague understanding is that the Federal Reserve is a semi-autonomous agency set up in the teens to print money. And do a bunch of other stuff.

The chairman (I think; I'm not going Wiki here) is appointed by the President for ten-year terms. The regional board members (all those cities on your money) probably have a similar arrangement.

It's still part of the guvmint, but it's not part of the executive branch -- not like, say, the Treasury. I think the idea was to give it politically independent management, since the 19th century was chock full o' monetary fun and games.

It's not like Fannie and Freddie, which were -- what? -- federally chartered private agencies? An Enron-style off-books accounting scheme? Something like that.

Or maybe not. Say, what are my silver certificates worth?

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Original Andrew — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:31:20 -0000

@ Pedonator,

You mean heads they win, tails they win?

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Pedonator — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:24:35 -0000

After reading the article I'm more confused than ever about the nature of the Fed. When is it a private central bank, and when is it part of the government? Everyone keeps referring to the Fed bailout of AIG resulting in the "government" owning an 80% stake.

I'd really like to hear the Paultards' take on this! Are we watching the death throes of our fiat currency? Is this just the ploy of the hyper-Cynical Overlords to keep the game going a few more months because there are still a few drops of blood left to be sucked out of the corpse of the Republic?

What's really so devastatingly funny is that the straw that broke the camel's back was the "credit default swaps". These uber-captialist FUCKS that took over the nation years ago (sealing the deal under Slick Willy, natch) placed these wild bets and then took out insurance to cover their gambling losses!

Heads they win, tails we lose!

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

TonyRamone — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:40:52 -0000

I miss Nabisco, and fear that he is wandering the streets of lower Manhattan, cap in hand, loins girded with worthless Lehman paper. Regulators, we need change (back to the old) we can believe in!

OBTW, best comment I heard today: "What, did I wake up in Cuba this morning? Bush has nationalized more private enterprise than Castro!"

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

JNOV — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:53:28 -0000

the comments come
the comments go
the comments stay
the comments flow into the binary abyss

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

KurtGodel — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:40:13 -0000

@nojo: that's OK. I'd rather be Koufax than Godel anyway.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

nojo — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:18:22 -0000

@kurt: Not yet...

But apparently Disqus, which uses its own database to store comments all over the place, is not without its own disruptions. I think we're going to switch back to the "internal" comment system once (and if...) we get it working again. Of course when that happens, all today's comments will disappear. Geeking is a zero-sum game...

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

chicagobureau — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:12:32 -0000

To your point (prommy -- reply button = FAIL... but I am not complaining a bit -- lovely to be back online with y'all):

Geezer was on the CNBC this morning (yes, I know, financial porn). He basically said, even today, that the government should not bail out AIG. Sen. Shelby said the same thing this afternoon. But there truly was no choice. You can have hundreds of thousands of insurance policies go POOF.

McCain should be privately thrilled with this. If AIG went down, the election would be basically over, absent some Obama bombshell (or, of course, the stupidity of the American people -- which can never be discounted). Market goes down in flames, fingers start getting pointed, and all of the pointees have that "R" next to their name. Plus, McCain was chair of the Commerce Committee when the wheels of this trainwreck were in motion. In other words, OVAH.

Of course, he'll probably be praising Bernanke and Paulson tomorrow for their swift action to correct a problem that he absolutely positively had nothing to do with. Let's see if the media calls him on it. (Odds: 25m to 1 against. But there's a chance!)

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

KurtGodel — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:10:15 -0000

did the comments go away again?

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

rptrcub — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:25:35 -0000

Also, everybody: if you give money to the Unicorn or even if you're just on his mailing list, I think there's a survey going around. Err-body: TELL THE MAN TO ATTACK ON THE ECONOMY HARDER, FASTER, STRONGER. And con Hillary into acting like she likes him. Thank you.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

rptrcub — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:24:29 -0000

I'm sure you could get some money into her creamery for special projects involving new ways of manipulation of teets. (Cow teets, of course...)

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

KurtGodel — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:07:13 -0000

So my tax dollars are going to prop up a company that is based on sucking in premium dollars and then not paying claims. I'd rather put money into Sarah Palin's creamery. So to speak.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

prommy — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:07:09 -0000

Events are moving too fast for Bush and McCain, so much for no more government help, you know, rewarding risk and failure.

Bush, Cheney, and McCain all so far out of their league on this stuff, bluster and denial ain't working, and the major peoples and institutions who do know this stuff are probably telling them lots of stuff they don't want to hear, and even though they sure don't like to hear stuff they don't like to hear, this is a topic on which they might be maybe havng to listen, even though it hurts so bad to have to accept that you are not only not infallible, you are a fucking idiot, and that you simply cannot spin and bluster your way, because this is affecting people's money and their bottom lines, and, well, its just a lot harder to catapult the propaganda when people have something objective and real that disputes the propaganda, their fucking portfolio's value plummeting.

Ha he he. Ya can't create reality when it comes to money, your fantasies bump real hard into real reality.

Re: Fed Nationalizes Wall Street

Bandwidth Nerd — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:58:45 -0000

Does this mean (since we're nationalizing everything) I'll finally be able to get FiOS at my house?