Daily Archives: March 5, 2009

German


German

Windmill Pipe


Windmill Pipe


Whenever we have spates of low temperatures, we either turn off water to outbuildings and drain the pipes or allow certain faucets to drip during the cold nights. We let water drip in our old farmhouse as well. Pier and beam houses (set on river rocks in this case) grow notoriously cold underneath in the winter. There

Hooray For Hol… er, Bollywood!


Hooray For Hol… er, Bollywood!


I didn

Big Sports, Biig Money


Big Sports, Biig Money


Who is the highest paid state-employee of your state: The Governor? The President of the state University? The guy who decides what the slogan should be for the license plate? If you live in Connecticut, among other places, it

Governor Rick Perry:


Governor Rick Perry:

Apparently, Being Silly For Girls Starts Early


Apparently, Being Silly For Girls Starts Early


At age nine, my son is beginning to understand a fundamental truth regarding the complex nature of the male/female relationship, which he summed up with the following conclusion:


Girls make boys act stupid.


He then offered irrefutable evidence to support his theorem:


Brittany told Joey to act like a monkey at lunchtime. And he did. Until Mrs. Flipendorf caught him stealing someone

My Day In Court With The DoD: Everyone Was Wearing Black Suits But Me…


My Day In Court With The DoD:
Everyone Was Wearing Black Suits But Me…


I was all excited this morning because I was finally going to get my day in court regarding my case against the Department of Defense. Were they finally going to pay me the $1,780 they owed me

Botching The Digital Switchover


Botching The Digital Switchover


Well, that didn

State Department Warns Idiots… As Only An Idiot Would Do


State Department Warns Idiots… As Only An Idiot Would Do


As Uncle Hugh used to say, “For a good time, don

Calfornia Rep Files Bill To Legalize Pot


SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.

TMA Calls For Transparency Over Insurers


AUSTIN, Texas

CNN Probes Bush Role In Grave Robbery


WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. Jindal


Mr. Jindal

Bill Filed To Lower Voting Age In Texas Primaries


HOUSTON, Texas

50.000 Troops To Remain In Iraq Post-2010


WASHINGTON, D.C.

Bush Surprises SMU Class


DALLAS, Texas

Study: Sex Ed Horrible In Texas Schools


AUSTIN, Texas

Don’t Worry, Be Nationalized — Bank Nationalization Goes Mainstream


Bank Nationalization Goes Mainstream


DALLAS, Texas It’s now official.


The idea to nationalize the major U.S. banks has gone mainstream.


How do we know?


The discussion on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos last week revolved around not whether nationalization had merit as a way to clean up the nation’s financial mess, but whether the federal government’s seizure of these banks should be called “nationalization” in the first place.


“Nationalization somehow makes people more anxious,” stressed Business Week columnist Suzy Welch.


“So do it, but call it something else?” asked Stephanopoulos.


In the context of a wider economic program, yes, she replied.


Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman took a page from the finance blog Calculated Risk by offering the phrase “pre-privatization” in place of the anxiety-ridden word “nationalization.”


Conservative columnist George Will sat there beside himself among the other three panelists.


“With credit now treated essentially as a public utility, the difference between what we have and what nationalization would be is marginal. One number: the market capitalization of Bank of America is $19 billion. Since October they have received $45 billion in public funds. So what’s the difference?” he asked flippantly.


Indeed, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters later in the week that the government’s role in aiding the banks is merely “semantics.”


The banking system is so bad (its assets are less than its liabilities) that the far right has also voiced the need to nationalize the banks at least temporarily.


Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently told The Financial Times that nationalization was perhaps the “least bad” option.


“I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do,” said the so-called “Maestro.”


Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina struck back at critics scoffing his view of the government taking majority ownership in the major banks.


“The truth is we’ve put more money into the Bank of America than it’s worth,” he told The Charlotte Observer earlier this month. “That’s not nationalization. That’s just stupid.”


Graham continued, “It’s not responsible to take options off the table that might work. I never suggested that the government take over every bank in America. I did say it might be better in some cases to take over a bank and restructure it.”


Ah, but the “nationalization” process is taking place as we speak. In fact, Krugman called the process “as American as apple pie.”


“We have nationalized 14 banks already this year. We don’t call it that but there were 14 banks, two a week, that the FDIC seized because they didn’t have enough assets to pay their depositors. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation says, ‘Ok, we are taking over. We are cleaning out the stockholders.’ We are going to do exactly, what Nouriel [Roubini] said, we should be doing for some major banks. So actually nationalization properly understood is as American as apple pie,” said Krugman on Stephanopoulos’ show.


Let’s replay that quote again.


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