Wonkette
Your friendly neighborhood Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — the nice people who insure consumers’ bank deposits — has been having a sort of a rough time lately, what with all the banks constantly going broke. The insurance fund was pretty heavily depleted over the past year, thanks to horrific failures like IndyMac which cost the FDIC more than $10 billion. And it’s not like we have seen the end of bank failures, nosir!
So. Chris Dodd would like to make it easier for the FDIC to borrow money from the Treasury Department — as much as $500 billion through the end of 2010. Right now the FDIC’s line of credit with Treasury stands at $30 billion. Is this at all horrifying, that the FDIC, which has not borrowed any money at all from the Treasury for more than a decade, might need half a trillion dollars in the next two years?
Nah. They just need “flexibility,” says chairman Sheila Bair.
Remember how at the beginning of the Iraq War all these skinflint libtards were complaining that the war cost us a billion whole dollars every month, and that seemed like a lot of money? Five hundred billion is the new billion. This FDIC money will look like NOTHING by December 2010.
Bill Seeks to Let FDIC Borrow up to $500 Billion [Wall Street Journal]
And the longer Wall Street’s bumboy Geithner keeps fucking things up, the more money FDIC will need. Can any libtards here explain why Obama’s economic team is deliberately fucking things up? And no Nate Silver bullshit like, “We’re not really sure he’s fucking things up yet.” He is. He is looking at failing faster than any president in history.
RUN ON THE BANKS. RUN, RUN, RUN NOW!!!!
I need me a taste of that flexibility.
Or a job, mine was eliminated. Either one would be helpful, also.
Your money is Bill’s House! And Frank’s Farm! And Sally’s school! And Gene’s hooker! You see your money is our money!
It is truly a wonderful life.
If Phil Gramm insists that all these banks going broke is a figment of our imagination, then I for one am prepared to believe him. I mean, would the guy who brought us deregulation of the finance industry be lying to us?
billions and billions to EFF-DIC?
Cue Pink Floyd’s ‘Run Like Hell’.
NewAlgier: Yes, it’s so reasonable to start judging someone who’s been in office for *almost two months*. And it’s oh so reasonable to judge a Treasury Secretary with *no* deputy and *no* undersecretaries.
This is Bush who’s still dumping on us. Not Obama. Period.
SayItWithWookies:
He’s not lying, he’s just a complete dumbass.
NewAlgier: Reminds me of Point of No Return, a great movie which was never released yet. The captain of an airliner was drunk and disorderly and not a good pilot anyway. He crashed into trees off the runway before he had it airborn and he crunched two Piper Cubs shortly thereafter. Then he put his ship on plummet and passed out. They all proceeded very rapidly from 30 thousand feet to 20, 15, …
They pried the joystick out of his hand and a passenger who had pilot training in Sarasota took over. Immediately, the co-pilot began sneering in self-defense of his team. What’s this outsider usurper know? We’ve already lost a thousand feet in the five minutes he’s been in control!
Hey, shouldn’t there be some government-backed organization, some big humoungous financial dealio, whose job is to insure these important corporations and whachamacallits?
What? - it is? Oh. I see. Never mind.
NewAlgier: Go away
Can I haz TARP to keep my hobo dwelling warm?
Bowdoin:
AGL or MSL?
My co-op wrote me a very nice letter saying all my mounds of money is just fine and safe. I noticed the letter was post marked from the Bahamas. Should I be worried?
NewAlgier:
Is your voice as annoying as your writing?
Not to worry. The banks will be able to pay their skyrocketing FDIC insurance premiums with bailout money.
Next up: Treasury Department to petition Congress for bailout money…
I liked Old Agiers better, before the rent boys knew they could turn a buck.
As long as AIG makes it through this, we are completely and utterly safe. Their business model is sound, yes?
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s “Nate Silver bullshit”. It keeps preventing me from being inaccurate, or just plain wrong!
shortsshortsshorts: You cannot inquire about AIG. They are financed by the space aliens who currently remain hidden but will swiftly destroy our planet as soon as they suspect they aren’t going to get paid.
Ahh..the Right Wing at work; today, featuring the “Failed 44 day old Presidency” and the “Tumbling Markets”, and then wonder why, with all the doom and gloom, 24X7 on the teevee, people are scared to invest. It’s a rabbit hole of their making.
All my money’s gone, so I win whether FDIC survives or fails. I do win, don’t I?
NewAlgier: Hey Hannity, we know y’all have talking points, but do you think you could change them up a bit? You won’t look so stupid when they play the montage of you all repeating them word for work on TDS that way.
Because, yes, this started the second hopey was elected…..blah, blah, blah. Don’t you have a fake cowboy in Dallas to fellate?
NewAlgier: Just let me adjust my tinfoil hat here. It could take a minute, to filter out eight years of Bush economic policy, so hang on just a min… Ah! There it is.
Yep. This economic meltdown is definitely Obamas fault!
Sheila, take a bow. Kick the grime of this world in the crotch, dear.
Tommy Says Soooo, Jugdish!: You’d be better off burning that barrel you’re wearing and making clothes out of the TARP.
NewAlgier: Since you hold Obama responsible for bad economic news when he has only been in office six weeks, who is to blame for the terrorist attack that happened eight months into Georgie Bush’s administration?
Remember back in the early ’80s when the stock market started to heat up and ol’ Raygun got on the tele saying “could they be telling us something?” In an alternate universe, far, far away they’re telling us something again.
NewAlgier: He DID have a few little problems he inherited, and he HAS only been in office for several weeks, so let’s chill a bit, shall we?
NewAlgier:
So far, the only solutions offered by the Confederate Mouth-breathers are A) Stay the course and let the market forces correct the situation, and B) All other plans are bullshit and will certainly fail.
While GeeDub was buying barstool saddles for his Neverland Ranch and changing his address for his Highlights subscription, Team Obama was hard at work looking for solutions; before he was even sworn into office.
NewAlgier: We’re just picking up the tab now for the last 25 years of excess and greed and fraud and negligence.
We failed to be cautious and prudent when it might have helped us to avoid the current disaster. Now we’re all in the same FAILboat. Main Street and Wall Street are both culpable, and the problem is one that’s truly global. Everyone has a piece if of political or economic shit on their shoe, and the losses will be spread out in some form or the other. The main question now is who will bear the bulk of the losses, and that’s a zero sum game. To the extent that taxpayers play the patsy and shovel free money at shareholders and bondholders, the markets will be happy. Any hint that those who took the risks in the first place might be culpable for some of the losses will make the market unhappy.
Currently, the interests of the market and the interests of the taxpayer are diametrically opposed.
To blame Obama for this continuing global crisis right now is a little like blaming Eisenhower for not winning World War II within 1 month of D-Day. No matter what he has or has not done in the last month, we have a long hard road ahead of us.
Hey guys, be nice to NewAlgier — he went to a tea party recently and all they had left was lemons. So he’s still a little…bitter.
NewAlgier: Looks like you walked into the wrong room.
jagorev: As someone said recently, “We’ve given Obama a bucket of sh*t and asked him to make a cake.”
wheelie: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/black_man_given_nations
Bah, trillion is the new billion. You can’t buy shit with a billion. Next we’re just going to start printing up money to give it to companies that need bailed out. Frankly we’re getting closer everyday to experiencing something only lucky Africans get to experience: using wheelbarrows of money to buy a loaf of bread. I don’t know what kind of container you’re going to have to use to carry the wheelbarrow buying money in.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
So should I be stuffing money into my mattress or not? If not now, when?!$$$1!!!
I would run on my bank if I had in money in it…
Once again, Zimbabwe leads the way.
SayItWithWookies: Summer is coming. In September start heading south. Follow the other hobos.
NoWireHangers: Forget money. Think dubloons and soy beans.
Gopherit: Situation No. 3 on the Colbert Report Wednesday night:
The currency is soy beans.
Their is no money left.
Congress is made up of werewolves.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. NewAlgier: Wanna cyber?
Who should Rick Santelli yell at about this?
I’m ready to commit to my new hobo life; I just can’t find the right hobo girl. Are my standards too high?
I voted Obama and am proud that I did. I think he’s better than Hilz and McNasty. This is why I’m upset: because I work in the financial services industry and I know that the fastest way out is to fire me and everyone like me, take over the banks, and recapitalize them.
I support the stimulus; I support Obama on health care. Hell, I live in Canada and even here, I’m a liberal.
He’s failing not because he’s had only two months in office, but because he’s had a year to think about saving the financial system. Krugman agrees with me, not y’all. Obama’s fucking libtards like us because he’s dithering on solving the greatest problem of our generation and dooming millions to years of unnecessary unemployment. Real libtards would be extraordinarily pissed off about that.
Fire Geithner, fire Summers, hire Volker, and start again. I wouldn’t work in Geithner’s clusterfuck of a Treasury department either. I’d pay what little money I have left to work for Volker.
NewAlgier: Mr. Brooks is that you again? Are you having second, second thoughts about your column in the Times this morning? What - Rahm didn’t call to tell you who much he liked your writingz? And so you are pissed again.
Aww! He will call, Davey. In the meantime. It’s Friday. Go relax, don’t wait by the phone. The Obamatons will call again. They always do.
NewAlgier: He’s had less then six months since it hit the fan in September. A year ago execs at Lehmans were licking custard off your nipples and tipping you well for it.
NewAlgier: You voted for Obama and you live in Canada? I didn’t know we could do that.
Mustang: If NewAlgier is a US citizen, but non-resident, he certainly can vote in the national election. I’ve got ex-pat relatives (US Peace Corps) that have been voting from outside the country, so more facts needed before whaling on NewAlgier ’bout the exercise of his franchise.
Ruh roh! Looks like a good time for the FDIC to rethink their Suze Orman ad campaign, which currently appears at every bus stop ever in the city of Chicago.
http://www.fdic.gov/Consumers/consumer/news/cnfall08/images/orman.jpg
NewAlgier: I’m going to back up NewAlgier here. I’m not sure if appointing Volker would be the answer, but currently, Geithner seems not to know his ass from a hole in the ground. Obama has the “finest minds” for his economics team, but they’re all fighting the last war. They know what to do when an economy is running well, not what to do when it’s an absolute shitshow.
Tommy Says Soooo, Jugdish!: Bear Stearns exploded a year ago. Happy anniversary!
NewAlgier: Bear Stearns’ situation is different from Lehman Brothers. Bear Stearns fall down, go boom. Chase buys.
Lehman Bros. fall down, goes boom, plunges through the earth’s crust and takes the economy with it.
Since September.
Tommy Says Soooo, Jugdish!: Chase buys with bullshit government guarantee. The same guarantee that AIG and Citi/Shitty got that LEH didn’t get. March. Geithner’s guarantee, I will note.
Geithner learned the wrong lesson from Lehman… instead of trying to guarantee everything in sight, he should be winding down these zombies under a rational plan. Intellectually, he is like a Republican who believes that tax cuts are the solution for everything. He thinks endless guarantees are what we need to get housing prices back up to the way they were in the good ol’ days.
At some point, you see enough and decide you’ve got the wrong guy for the job. If you’ve brought a knife to a gunfight, you don’t wait a year (or six months) to figure that out. You get a gun.
I don’t think we should just fire poor Timmy Geithner. I think we should tar and feather him, burn him, crucify and then . . . uh, what should we do then?
NewAlgier: I agree that most banks need to be nationalized. But I also think that there aren’t many people with the qualifications to be Treasury Sec. who aren’t already so immersed in the finance industry that they’d wipe out the savings of all their rich friends in one fell swoop. I’m holding out for the stress test results (yes, and hoping they weren’t just some gimmick). Ideally Geithner’s trying to arm himself with a preponderance of evidence so that he can overcome any resistance to shutting down the hopeless cases and dealing firmly with the shaky ones.