Could they be right? Maybe our political analysts can tell us if we should short bank stocks (if we were allowed to)?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The CSO said that the Gross Domestic Product measure of output fell by 1% in the first six months compared with a year earlier.

Gross National Product, which excludes profits from multinational companies, fell at an annual rate of 2.1% in the second quarter.

A breakdown showed that capital spending in the period was down almost 19% on the same period last year, hit by the slump in house building as well as lower spending on machinery and equipment.(RTÉ

Hopefully the analysis that the country outside Dublin would bear the brunt of it will be correct, from my selfish point of view.

No inspiring or exciting story here! I just kinda got a break from some people re: my studies and am happy about it. No money involved, even! What kind of bailout is that? Feeling duped now.

(...)

MASS LAYOFFS IN AUGUST 2008

In August, employers took 1,772 mass layoff actions, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S.  Department of Labor reported today.  Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single employer; the number of workers involved totaled 173,955, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Layoff events reached a program high for the month of August (with data available back to 1995), and associated initial claimants reached its highest level for the month since 2001.  The number of mass layoff events this August increased by 260 from the prior month, while the number of associated initial claims rose by 22,784.  In August, 599 mass layoff events were reported in the manufacturing sector, seasonally adjusted, resulting in 72,244 initial claims.  Over the month, mass layoff events in manufacturing increased by 156, and initial claims in-creased by 14,774.  (See table 1.)

From January through August 2008, the total number of mass layoff events (seasonally adjusted), at 12,542, and initial claims (seasonally adjusted), at 1,274,765, were the highest for the January-August period since 2003.

The national unemployment rate was 6.1 percent in August, seasonally adjusted, up from 5.7 percent in the prior month and from 4.7 percent a year earlier. In August, total nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 84,000 over the month and by 283,000 from a year earlier.

Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the Chinese central bank | PR | 25 Sep 2008

"We are in the same boat, we must cooperate," Yu said in an interview in Beijing on Sept. 23. "If there's no selling in a panicked way, then China willingly can continue to provide our financial support by continuing to hold U.S. assets."

An agreement is needed so that no nation rushes to sell, "`causing a collapse," Yu said. Japan is the biggest owner of U.S. Treasury bills, holding $593 billion, and China is second with $519 billion. Asian countries together hold half of the $2.67 trillion total held by foreign nations.
[...]
China should stop intervening in the foreign currency markets and thus allow rapid appreciation of the yuan, he said. While this would cause pain for exporters, China could ease the transition by using its strong fiscal position to aid those who lose their jobs. It also should stimulate domestic demand to offset lower income from overseas sales.

Without yuan appreciation, China will continue to accumulate foreign reserves, which means further accumulating "IOUs from the U.S.," said Yu. "This is paper and it may default and it will not increase China's national welfare."

A reason to enact Dodd's plan to buy out the global securities market before recess-- end of business 26 Sep 2008 to 18 Jan 2009?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Obama 49
McCain 47

Ras also says McCain is polling significantly lower in his national tracking poll the last two nights.  The headline number for the three nights is now O49-46M, and it sounds like Obama will go up, and McCain down, tomorrow, putting it back on the path to being in line with the other tracking polls finally.

GOS/R2K says it's O49-43M now.  Seven-point spread on the one-night numbers (O49-42M), so it may be widening.

Jim Lehrer also revealed that he notified both campaigns, prior to McCain pulling out, that he was going to switch the topic to economics on Friday because of the crisis.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

US `will lose financial superpower status'

The US is poised to lose its role as a global financial "superpower" in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, said on Thursday as he called for a regulatory crackdown on financial markets.

"The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. This world will become multipolar" with the emergence of stronger, better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament.

(...)

"Crisis management alone will not rebuild the lost confidence," he said. "We must civilise financial markets, and not just through moral appeals against excess and speculation. Self-regulation is no longer sufficient."

The US belief in "laisser-faire capitalism; the notion that markets should be as free as possible from regulation; these arguments were wrong and dangerous," he said. "This largely under-regulated system is collapsing today."

The US had failed in its oversight of investment banks, Mr Steinbrück said, adding that the crisis was an indictment of the US two-tier banking system and its "weak, divided financial oversight."

He pointed the finger at Washington for failing to take seriously proposals Berlin had made as it chaired the Group of Eight industrial nations last year. These proposals, he said, "elicited mockery at best or were seen as a typical example of Germans' know-better attitude."

You go, peer!

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

what is proposed is not the nationalization of private corporations but rather a corporate takeover of government. The marriage of highly concentrated corporate power with an authoritarian state that services the politico-economic elite at the expense of the people is more accurately referred to as "financial fascism." After all, even Hitler never nationalized the Mercedes-Benz company but rather entered into a very profitable partnership with the current car company's corporate ancestor, which made out quite well until Hitler's bubble burst.

you are the media you consume.

Lawmakers: Financial bailout agreement reached

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writers 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Warned of a possible financial panic, key Republicans and Democrats reported agreement in principle Thursday on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry and said they would present it to the Bush administration in hopes of a vote within days.
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Emerging from a two-hour negotiating session, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman said, "We are very confident that we can act expeditiously."

"I now expect that we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate (and) be signed by the president," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

The bipartisan consensus on the general direction of the legislation was reported just hours before President Bush was to host presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain and congressional leaders at the White House for discussions on how to clear obstacles to the unpopular rescue plan.

Miss Nancy sez, It's a go! Better memorize it.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Even if I looked like caca warmed over, I had a smile on, so it was good manners.

Back to permadoom.  (;

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

Obama 51
McCain 38

Selzer doesn't poll many races outside of Iowa, but when she polls, she's the only one who beats SurveyUSA, so this is very encouraging.

Research2000 has Obama moving back into the lead in St John's beloved New Hampshire:

Obama 48
McCain 44

Ras allegedly has some polling coming out later tonight.

Still waiting on bailout news.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

`Race to Bottom' at Moody's, S&P Secured Subprime's Boom, Bust

Sept. 25 -- In August 2004, Moody's Corp. unveiled a new credit-rating model that Wall Street banks used to sow the seeds of their own demise. The formula allowed securities firms to sell more top-rated, subprime mortgage-backed bonds than ever before.

A week later, Standard & Poor's moved to revise its own methods. An S&P executive urged colleagues to adjust rating requirements for securities backed by commercial properties because of the ``threat of losing deals.''

The world's two largest bond-analysis providers repeatedly eased their standards as they pursued profits from structured investment pools sold by their clients, according to company documents, e-mails and interviews with more than 50 Wall Street professionals. It amounted to a ``market-share war where criteria were relaxed,'' says former S&P Managing Director Richard Gugliada.

``I knew it was wrong at the time,'' says Gugliada, 46, who retired from the McGraw-Hill Cos. subsidiary in 2006 and was interviewed in May near his home in Staten Island, New York. ``It was either that or skip the business. That wasn't my mandate. My mandate was to find a way. Find the way.''

(...)

Moody's could produce a lower default rate by incorporating a decade of ratings stability for structured finance into its assumptions. The average five-year loss rate on U.S. structured finance products between 1993 and 2003 was 1.9 percent, compared with 6.3 percent for corporate bonds, the company had said in September 2004. A drawback was that raters didn't have data going back to the 1920s, as they did on corporate bonds.

In a press release on the report, Moody's said ``structured- finance ratings are broadly comparable in quality to the ratings of corporate bonds.''

`More Aaas'

Philippe Jorion, 53, a finance professor at the University of California, Irvine, criticizes the Moody's decision to factor ratings stability into its evaluations.

``This uses the output of their model as input into their models,'' Jorion says. ``This type of model is totally out of touch with the underlying economic reality.''

The way was found...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

AIG's last annual report reveals that it had written coverage for more than $300bn of credit insurance for European banks. The comment by AIG itself on these positions was that they were "for the purpose of providing them with regulatory capital relief rather than risk mitigation in exchange for a minimum guaranteed fee". Thus, a formal default by AIG would have exposed European banks to large increases in regulatory capital requirements, with possibly devastating effects on their ratings and market confidence. Thus, the US Treasury has saved, inter alia, the European banking system....The crucial problem on this side of the Atlantic is that the largest European banks have become not only too big to fail, but also too big to be saved.

For example, the total liabilities of Deutsche Bank (leverage ratio over 50!) amount to about €2,000bn (more than Fannie Mae) or more than 80 per cent of the gross domestic product of Germany. This is simply too much for the Bundesbank or even the German state, given that the German budget is bound by the rules of the European Union's stability pact and the German government cannot order (unlike the US Treasury) its central bank to issue more currency. Similarly, the total liabilities of Barclays of around £1,300bn (leverage ratio 60!) are roughly equivalent to the GDP of the UK. Fortis bank has a leverage ratio of "only" 33, but its liabilities are three times the GDP of its home country of Belgium.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/euro-monitor/253731/european_banking_on_borrowed_time

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Obama 50
McCain 44

The more interesting finding: 50% of the public has no confidence in McCain on the economic crisis.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.