Economics 101

[jeepster]

Despite his references to the Illuminati (who might exist for all I know) Bob Chapman writes a mean article on our economic problems that I cannot find fault with except that it doesn't go far enough.

http://www.theinternationalforecaste...Street_Disease


French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, considered to be the best government expert on finances in the world, begged Paulson to bail out Lehman Brothers or face the panic we got. Now she's warning about hedge funds going south.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...-Brothers.html


In other news, the largest Chinese Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is going to open a branch in New York City. Might as well be close to all the assets they're buying up for pennies on the dollar.

Notice the lack of focus on the economy at the last presidential debate ? Notice that the MSM is getting less interested in the economy ? Do you wonder why ?

The GOOD NEWS is, you can still buy a LOTTO ticket for $1.

[jeepster]

For those of you who think I'm extremely liberal (I am), I thought you might like to read what the last person I actually voted for has to say about the current financial mess, Ron Paul.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/17/ron.paul.qa/



There are many like Andy Lahde who have made a fortune off the insatiable greed of others, but few so honest about it. Not mentioned in the referenced article is that he made a rather large donation to NORML.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...-him-rich.html

[philby]

And she's probably skinny now. No rush, things have still got a long ways to go. All that worthless Lehman paper goes on sale Tuesday. They'll try to hide it but our government will have to back most of it.
Al Abelson has a good article on barrons.com that wraps things up pretty well.

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB...weekend&page=1

Nice work, Jeep, even tied Andy back to NORML and your weed thread. Have you heard from him, is he coming back to SM? I think he still owes me.

[jeepster]

It's been a long time since I watched 60 Minutes or admired anything they did. Usually they over simplify to numbing effect. However, this week that worked well on explaining how one law did so much harm. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 removed credit default swaps (CDS) and derivatives from federal government oversight and stopped states from enforcing existing gambling laws against them. H.R. 5660 and it's companion bill S. 2383 (yes Phil Gramm R-TX co-sponsored it) were both passed just before the Christmas recess without debate and sent to lame duck President Clinton as part of an omnibus budget bill that had no hearings or recorded vote.
We all know the result.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4546199.shtml

http://www.sec.gov/about/laws/cfma.pdf