The thing about criminal lunatics who live like God’s just keeping their chairs warm is that, well, they do know how to put on a show.

via Warren Ellis » Coming Anarchy.

Until then, Mr. Charles, we gonna handle this shit like businessmen. Sell the shit, make the profit, and later for that gangsta bullshit. Yeah?

Do The Chair know we gonna look like some punk ass bitches out there?

MuthafuckaIwill punk ya ass for saying some shit --

Yo, yo String... String!

WHAT!

Yo. Pooh did have the floor...

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dead Man Walking: Our beloved Dennis Kucinich, the man who's nuts are bigger than anyone in DC, save for Hillary, is proposing putting the Federal Reserve under government control. Dennis for the love of god, stay in crowded spaces. We love you!

Good times, good times.

Maybe some sacrificed chickens will fix the economy...

East Coast Economics has posted a dramatic visual explaining just how much borrowing our government has been doing over the last few months.

Check out the following which shows the $$$ amount borrowed by US banks from the Fed through Dec 2007; the spike marks the Savings & Loan Crisis at the end of the 1980s with borrowing maxing out at $8b. 

[Then scroll down and] take a look at the [second] chart.  It is the same graph as above, but [at a different scale, panned out, and] updated through the beginning of November ‘08.

So where is all of this borrowed money going? Paul Krugman delves into the details of the ongoing policy debate about how to deal with failing banks.

Old-fashioned voodoo economics - the belief in tax-cut magic - has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans. 

But recent news reports suggest that many influential people, including Federal Reserve officials, bank regulators, and, possibly, members of the incoming Obama administration, have become devotees of a new kind of voodoo: the belief that by performing elaborate financial rituals we can keep dead banks walking.

[Krugman sets up an excellent hypo detailing how this would work -- well worth reading.] 

Why go through these contortions? The answer seems to be that Washington remains deathly afraid of the N-word - nationalization. The truth is that Gothamgroup and its sister institutions are already wards of the state, utterly dependent on taxpayer support; but nobody wants to recognize that fact and implement the obvious solution: an explicit, though temporary, government takeover.

Hence the popularity of the new voodoo, which claims, as I said, that elaborate financial rituals can reanimate dead banks.

Unfortunately, the price of this retreat into superstition may be high. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect that taxpayers are about to get another raw deal - and that we're about to get another financial rescue plan that fails to do the job.

[Both articles via Robot Wisdom, image by Olly Moss.]

The shirt Geithner should wear for his first day on the job.

Even before word came on Tuesday that Citigroup might split into pieces to shore up its finances, an unpleasant message was moving through Congress and President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team: the banks need more taxpayer money.

In all likelihood, a lot more money. . . .

On Tuesday, Mr. Bernanke publicly made the case that one of the most unpopular and most scorned programs in Washington — the $700 billion bailout program — needs to pour hundreds of billions more into the very banks and financial institutions that already received federal money and caused much of the credit crisis in the first place.

The most glaring example that the banking system needs even more help is Citigroup. Though it already has received $45 billion from the Treasury, it is in such dire straits that it is breaking itself into parts. . . .

Industry analysts estimate rising unemployment and business failures will lead to another $500 billion to $750 billion of losses in coming months. That could bring total losses from the credit crisis to $1.5 trillion to $1.8 trillion, twice as high as earlier estimates.

Citigroup is not alone. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and most other big banks all expect enormous losses as millions of consumers default on their mortgages, credit cards and automobile loans. Other losses are expected on loans made to commercial real estate developers, small businesses and for highly leveraged corporate buyout deals.

Most egregious of these is Bank of America, who already absored Merrill Lynch and received $25 billion from the Treasury via the TARP and then acquired Merrill Lynch. BoA is now "seeking billions more to shore up its balance sheet as it struggles with mounting losses at Merrill Lynch." As a reddit poster notes, this is equivalent to the South Park Underpants Gnomes' [brilliant] synopsis of the moronic dotcom business model:

• Step 1: Bank of America needs and gets bailout money.
• Step 2: Flush with cash, BOA buys Merrill Lynch.
• Step 3: ? ? ?
• Step 4: Bank of America needs more bailout money.

The government’s willingness to feed Bank of America a new tranche of taxpayer money comes on the heels of greater federal intervention in Citigroup. After pumping more than $45 billion in Treasury money onto its balance sheet, the government has put pressure on Citigroup to dismantle its troubled empire in an effort to stop losses and curb capital injections. . . .

[Still,] “Citi is being unwound because it’s too big and the government wants it smaller,” said Paul Miller, an analyst with Friedman Billings Ramsey. “I think Bank of America, either a year or two out, is going to be dismantled also because its returns are going to be too weak. No management has the expertise or brain power to provide the right required return for investors with institutions that are this size.”

Brace yourselves -- this recession (depression?) is just getting warmed up.

What shiek's keep on their front lawns in Dubai.

Slowdown signs - UAE construction falls by 85%

MEED reported that the value of the UAE construction market fell by 85% over the course of 2008. The latest figures show that just USD 14.4 billion of contract awards were made during the fourth quarter of 2008, down from USD 98.1 billion during the same period in 2007.

Over the past 5 years, the sector has become one of the most important parts of the UAE economy. A recent report by Standard & Poor's estimated that the construction and real estate sectors account for almost half of Dubai's GDP.

Although the last two months of 2008 saw a dramatic fall in activity, the sector has suffered a steady decline throughout 2008 as projects struggled to secure financing in the wake of the global credit crisis. In total, USD 191.8 billion of contract awards were made in 2008, a 60% drop from the USD 482.5 billion of awards made in 2007.

Many schemes due to start construction during 2008 have not gone ahead, and many projects that were under construction have been put on hold. There are now USD 23.2 billions worth of projects on hold, almost 10% of the USD 249.7 billion of projects under construction.

At the start of 2008, many international construction companies hoped the UAE would be immune from the global economic slowdown. But the year's final months showed the market's fragility.