Hey, whatever you say, that was a pretty productive week for ol' Hank:
1) Bailed GS out
2) Gave AIG money to give to GS with no strings
3) Killed Lehman, his biggest comp

All of which kept his stock up. Having pols deal with people like this is like sending the village fool in to do battle.

Looks now that Obama is to break his last promise[ all others are broken]. As in George senior "No new Taxes", Wait till we see what is in store for us, we are now to blame for the deficits....not the wall street robber-barren.

And after they finish robbing us and driving us to our paupers' graves, those greedy ghouls will be mining our corpses for parts.

First, I'm not an expert on the economy. Instead I'm enraged that I have to spend this much time following Henry Paulson, Bernanke, and the rest of the dorks. They did the ultimate sin: They made it all about them, and while they did it, they screwed everything up. Most likely it was deliberate. I do believe they were operating with the knowledge that they owned the federal government, so why not plunder the world, and have us pay them to dig themselves out?

What I do is try and read articles on the economy and formulate an opinion - not based on the feel-good stuff from our leaders but the more out-there sites where I sense the truth lies.

Here's the grim assessment: The rosy news is a desperate fake to try and instill confidence where there should be none.

Firms have switched to a form of reporting called "mark to model" where an asset is no longer reported based on it's daily market worth. Instead, models - that the firms choose - are used with the end result being their reporting of how well they're doing is not connected to reality.

This is driven by the ever popular executive compensation, along with the need to fool the public.

We are heading for a period of hyper-inflation. The dollar will no longer be the world's reserve currency. The dollar will essentially become insolvent.

Let's see, anything else? You want a conspiracy theory? The standard of living in Europe, and America is being deliberately destroyed to make way for one world government. That one's out there, along with 9/11 being a deliberate excuse to go into Iraq. By the way, if you want to scoff at that, don't research the people who are saying it more openly now.

It turns out putting Martha Stewart in prison wasn't enough to straighten out Wall Street.

And what if it's true that the world is facing a global warming crisis - not to mention peak oil and several other things?

Why would the rest of the world want to keep the United States living like this, using 25% of the world's resources and creating a huge carbon footprint?

You throw in our threatening military stance and how could you argue that the rest of the world wouldn't love to see us go down? I mean, until football starts, what do we really have to offer?

Just some fun thoughts for a hot Monday. Please understand that this is an ongoing process and I'm not sure what I believe. In fact, I've been in a state of disbelief for quite a while now.

Great dark entertainment value in the recent Stephanopoulos "interview" of Alan Greenspan. Why we are supposed to believe anything this dessicated collection of fecal matter says is beyond me.

The financial crisis is over, according to Mr. Greenspan. It bottomed out last month. And yes, job losses will continue. But the economy is strong.

Yada yada.

One other thing I forgot: Back in 2008 in the waning days of the Bush administration, there was a rapid withdrawal from the banking system of something like 550 billion dollars.
The date this occurred was September 11th, and we don't know who it was or how coordinated it was. Maybe it just happened, but I really doubt it. This started the whole TARP thing as I understand it.

Could this crisis be a way to fleece America as the Bushies left? Was that the bankers deliberately manipulating the markets to precipitate a crisis - on 9/11 no less - so we'd have to rush in and begin bailing them out?

The Birthers are perfect for mainstream media. It can say there is no story they won't look at. But how many Americans even know about the bank run of 9/11, 2008, much less who was pulling the funds?

Could the reason nobody looked at it be that withdrawing 550 billion is not something we can easily pin on Osama bin Ladin?

The July Harpers magazine was another knockout, especially this sobering piece pointing out how much Obama resembles Hoover in his refusal to take the steps that the historical moment requires --

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/07/0082562

Outstanding piece, discussing how Obama and Hoover were both highly intelligent men imprisoned by the conventional thinking that they had mastered.

"The financial crisis is over, according to Mr. Greenspan. It bottomed out last month. And yes, job losses will continue. But the economy is strong."

In other words all is well for the ruling class. The rest of us peons can just go "bleep" ourselves. These guys just keep making the tax protesters and conspiracy nuts look more and more sane as each day passes.

and more on AIG FP in July Vanity Fair too!

There's a real problem with standing up to Wall Street on anything. They can always threaten to bring down the economy if they don't get their way. Or just shock the system like I assume they did on September 11th, 2008 to get Bush moving.

Before it was over Henry Paulson was telling people there'd be martial law if he didn't get the money. Congress told him to get lost but then caved. At first it looked like insubordination. Maybe they just misunderstood that this was an order.

I haven't had time to read your link about Hoover, but I'm starting to think President Obama's taking this position: Just make it not crash. I don't care how, or how much you take, just make it not crash.

If there is a crash, we will look back and wish we could have done it many trillions ago before they fleeced on the way out.

I was very worried when Tim Geithner said there was no chance of a collapse. It sounded like something he has to say, to prevent us from really looking at this situation.

Henry Paulson's recent appearance before Congress featured the bumbling dolt-routine but I have to believe these executives saw the derivatives crisis coming. Paulson sure figured out the advantages of changing the rules to allow them in the first place - rules concerning the ratio of actual funds to the size of risks. That was him - our Portland Timbers money guy.

The highlight of the hearings was when they asked Bernanke where 2 trillion dollars had gone out from the Fed and he said he didn't know.

I hate to suggest this, but I think he's lying.

What he meant to say was, "I don't want you to know." As usual, the message from the ruling class is, "Give us your money and then shut up about it. No questions. You have no need or even right to know."

But hey, that AIG money is gonna trickle down to the rest of us right?

Uh, right?

Last year we said: "Things can't go on like this!" And they didn't. They got worse.

-- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

But misfortunes never come singly.

-- Wiley Post (1898 - 1935)

Bill - I think it was the Fed Inspector General who said she didn't know where the $ went.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpbW64vRrMc

Bill: It is more difficult to explain, or understand, how the banking/finance group of inside insiders could exploit 9/11 by quick-thinking action in the midst of the events happening that day, than to explain and understand on the other hand, simply, that they were 'in the know' and party to setting things up and advance planning, hence their timely split-second coordinated exploitation.

Another ridiculous idea, (not appearing in any of the comments here, so far), suggested to folks in hypnotic spellbound vacuum-brain while watching tv, is that the Big Stuff going wrong is merely incompetence or screw-ups by the Big Guys with the Big Responsibility making the Big Bucks. Like when it finally was shown too obvious to deny that there are no WMDs in Iraq and never were, then that was merely "bad intelligence." As if.

No, it was NOT "bad intelligence." It was LIES. Planned in advance. Anybody in high (socio-political) position of authority and control in these networked times (of total information awareness), does NOT screw-up. Ever. Not once. Or they wouldn't be there -- either they never get to the high position, or they don't last. For one single screw-up. Everything we see (reported) was premeditated and arranged.

Now, back to Bill: Saying you "try and read articles on the economy ... (information from) the more out-there sites" where the truth is.

Me too. And I go on emphasizing the info at Wayne Madsen Report .COM. He's got the best stuff, that's why he charges a subscription fee.
(I also recommend GlobalResearch.CA and TheOilDrum.COM and links they lead to, free to all.)
Madsen explained (months ago, and I put a copy of it in comments here), that AIG has been (since at least 1950) a 'shell company' for CIA intelligence gathering and power control (by money distribution -- funding this, starving that). That's why AIG is NOT going to 'fail,' think of it as an 'arm' of the CIA. It's called a 'cut-out,' an intermediary company 'facade,' so that there are no CIA 'fingerprints' on the events. (From Mission Impossible: "If you should fail, Jim, the Agency will deny knowing you.")

Here's Madsen ['WMR'] today, which you probably didn't see, just as an example showing, (in matters of "the economy"), how much of it is 'rigged' (high crimes) and how much the mainstream media (MSM) is not telling.

August 3, 2009 -- Laundering "black money" through the Social Security Administration

WMR has been tracking the massive theft, some of it systematic, of personal data, including social security numbers, since we began publication in May 2005.

On June 24, 2006, WMR reported: "The epidemic of personal data thefts continues at breakneck speed. Yesterday, the Navy announced that Social Security Numbers and dates of birth on 28,000 naval personnel and family dependents were leaked to a publicly-accessible web site. Shortly prior to that announcement, the Department of Agriculture reported the compromise of 26,000 Social Security Numbers and other personal details on 26,000 Agriculture employees. WMR has previously reported that these thefts are part of a covert U.S. intelligence program to steal personal data on Americans and others to populate Total Information Awareness system surveillance databases. Two officials of two U.S. intelligence activities have confirmed the existence of this program but the FBI has been hamstrung by higher authority not to investigate the thefts thoroughly." [What is this "higher authority" Madsen speaks of? -- Tensk.]

The sources for the information about the intelligence connection to the data thefts were within the Department of Energy at two different locations: Germantown, Maryland and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

WMR has now learned of another possible use of the stolen personal data: massive money laundering through the Social Security Administration.

A source with a large data processing company that was contracted to process social security payments reported that for a significant period of time hundreds of social security payments were being issued to different names. However, the different names used the same Social Security Number. The social security payments were all directly deposited into the same bank account which was not associated with a name.

The data processing firm in question was aware of the laundering operation but did nothing to stop the process. There is the possibility that billions of dollars have been laundered through the Social Security direct deposit payment system over the past several years.

In 2007, Representative Elton Gallegly cited the Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank as turning a "blind eye" to Social Security Number fraud and money laundering in relation to illegal immigration. Gallegly stated: "Wells Fargo was even cited by the Treasury Department last year for 'numerous and recurring deficiencies' in safeguarding against money laundering and terrorist activities. The violations were so egregious that Treasury Department staff recommended a public reprimand. Top officials, however, decided to slap Wells Fargo's wrist quietly and behind closed doors." Gallegly added, "Social Security Numbers have nothing to do with credit." Gallegly also stated that the Bank of America "aids and abets identity theft and money laundering." [There's that "top officials" thing again, 'above' Congress. -- Tensk.]

In 1988, two E. F. Hutton & Company brokers were indicted for laundering more than a half million dollars for "select clients" using bogus brokerage accounts with false names and Social Security Numbers. One of those indicted, Stephen Fusco, died of cancer in 1985 after the FBI investigation of the operation began.

Pick your jaw up off the floor. You can figure that everything WMR details is true, or valid, (because NONE of the named criminals ever denies the accusations ... hear the crickets), or merely for the sake of hypothesis imagine for a minute it is true. Then ask: Why is such outrageous stuff never investigated? never charged? never reported in the media? Hint: It is NOT the case that it has been looked into and found to be false speculation. Just the opposite: Because it is TRUE it is not reported ... or else people get dead ... in suspicious 'suicides' ... stabbed 10 times between the shoulder blades or something.

And furthermore. (Notice, I seldom go this long. People say they "don't read it" ... after they've read it. Please forgive and tolerate my trespass, Jack.) Various facets and perspectives of "the economy" ARE TOO Reported, in snippets, and left to you to connect the dots. One site that does a quality job (however sobering and gloomy) of collecting dismal dots to connect, is so-called Mike Ruppert's so-called blog. Arbitrarily chosen, here is today's headlines menu there:

Monday, August 03, 2009 Out of the Mouth of the IEA, From Jenna Orkin

Collapse
IEA Warning: Oil Supplies Are Running Out Fast
U.S. commercial mortgage delinquencies jump 585% (from Rice Farmer)
1 Month, 24 Bank Failures: Random Event or Wilting Economy?
China: U.S. must manage dollar supply
Weekly Unemployment Claims Portend Disaster
Free Money Runs Out, Congress Authorizes More
Air Safety Plunges in First Half of 2009
Such a graphic verb, given the subject. -- JO
Wall Street Profits from Trades with Feds
75% Favor Auditing The Fed; Fed Job Approval Rating Lower Than IRS
Arizona May Sell State Capitol Building To Balance Budget
Toxic asset insurance slows recovery
Agencies to Set Up Mass Swine Flu Vaccinations (from Rice Farmer)
Far Right Warning: Neo-Nazi Threat Growing Despite NPD Cash Woes
Southern Migration Spikes Power Usage
Electrical Demand Plunges in Ontario, Canada; US Demand Expected to Drop 2%

Intelligence/Defense
Hackers attack MI5 website
Secrets of CIA "Ghost Flights" To Be Revealed (from Rice Farmer)
Microwave Weapon Will Rain Pain from the Sky (from Rice Farmer)

Africa
Foreign Investors Snap Up African Farmland

Russia/Asia
Russia: State Weapons Firm Executive Shot
Tajikistan Moves to Ban Russian Language
Kyrgyz Candidate Condemns Vote as Fraudulent
Pakistan Consumed by Violence as Taliban Power Grows.
Bankruptcy Laws To Be Overhauled
A Failure of State and Military in Afghanistan

Relationships in the Time of Collapse
Brothel Usage Down 30%
China's concubine culture is back
Big spenders tend to marry big savers, researchers find
Are these the marriages that last or the ones that get divorced? And whom should the US marry next, given the dicey state of our marriage to China? -- JO

New film by the makers of CoLLapse
From Secrecy News:
In 2005, the National Security Agency released a partially declassified (LINK pdf) 1952 history of communications intelligence prior to Pearl Harbor with several passages censored. But this month, the NSA released the complete text (LINK pdf) of the document after the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) determined that there was no justification for continued classification of the withheld portions...The new disclosure illustrates once again the efficacy of the ISCAP in overcoming the reflexive secrecy of executive branch agencies, including those that are represented on the ISCAP itself. More often than not, the ISCAP has released information that one of its own member agencies said must remain classified.
Posted by Jenna Orkin

Read 'em and weep.

Bank regulators dig in against Obama shake-up, By Patrick Rucker and Kevin Drawbaugh, Aug 4, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. bank regulators will speak out on Tuesday against some key elements of the Obama administration's plan to reshape financial regulation, saying parts of it were unneeded or could be disruptive.

The officials' defiance, in prepared congressional testimony obtained by Reuters, came despite a warning given to them on Friday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

In private remarks punctuated with expletives, Geithner urged the regulators to end their turf battles and show support for President Barack Obama's plan, according to a person familiar with the situation on Monday.

But that seemed to have little impact on John Bowman, acting director of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), an agency slated for closure under the Obama plan.

"We do not support the administration's proposal ...."

I see my mistake: Bernanke said he didn't know which foreign banks got the half trillion from the Fed.