the fightin Irish

they can dish it out and they can take a bankruptcy, if they have to.
So, let's get it over with, is the message from the Emerald Isle.

but, what if they fall from grace with God? it's just banksters



checkitout: from Independent.ie
We will default, so let's get on with it
But it's not all bad -- a top financier thinks Ireland's glass is half full and our bank debts will be shared, writes Daniel McConnell
By Daniel McConnell

Sunday June 05 2011

Ireland will default, when it does happen we should not do it alone but with Greece and Portugal; we should consider leaving Europe given how badly they treat us; we need to take a scalpel to our public sector and Ireland will take five to seven years from now to recover.

Those are the views of Larry McDonald, former Lehman Brothers vice president turned international best-selling author, who was in Dublin last week speaking at the Irish Funds Industry Association.

McDonald was, until September 2008, vice president of distressed debt and convertible securities trading at Lehman Brothers. He was heralded by many colleagues at Lehman for both his early 2006 call on the subprime crisis and the $46m in trading profits realised from it.

I sat down with him on Friday afternoon last in the heart of the IFSC to discuss his take on Ireland's future. And while his stark outlook may shock many, his candid, no-nonsense pronouncements are exactly what we need to see more of from our Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his government ministers.

A respected commentator internationally, McDonald, who predicted the sub-prime crisis in the US, had just come from a meeting with Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan, who he described as "quite the poker player," when we met.

I began by asking him the biggest question. Will Ireland default or not? He was unequivocal in his answer.

"When you look at the way the bonds are trading, there will be haircuts [debt write downs], absolutely."

"These haircuts, which are called forbearance, is essentially extending the maturity. It's a technical default, but it's not a hard default."

.....

it's pretty lonely trying to save the world

As we all know, the US banks are the alpha and omega of corruption,
and the lack of laws and oversight have made it worse.
Blame Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

Unfortunately for the corrupt Congress, a few brave soldiers
have decided to guard the fort to keep Beelzebub at bay. [fools!]
They did the obvious stuff: make a law to return to Glass-Steagall
which kept the stock market banks separate from the savings banks.

Reasonable. stop the cheating. stop the bailouts

14 people, out of 200
supported this law, all Democrats

checkitout: Karl Denninger
Ignore this thread
Glass-Steagall: Where Are The Tea Partiers And Republicans?

Gee, Marcy Kaptur introduces this, and where are the sponsors?
Roscoe Bartlett [R-MD6]
John Conyers [D-MI14]
Danny Davis [D-IL7]
Marcia Fudge [D-OH11]
Jesse Jackson [D-IL2]
Walter Jones [R-NC3]
James McDermott [D-WA7]
James Moran [D-VA8]
Kurt Schrader [D-OR5]
Louise Slaughter [D-NY28]
Edolphus Towns [D-NY10]
Maxine Waters [D-CA35]
Lynn Woolsey [D-CA6]

Where's Ron Paul in this list? Bachmann? Anyone with an "R" after their name?

What does this bill do? Put Glass-Steagall back in force. That's all. The text is refreshingly short and not difficult to understand at all.

To repeal certain provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and revive the separation between commercial banking and the securities business, in the manner provided in the Banking Act of 1933, the so-called "Glass-Steagall Act", and for other purposes.

The text begins with:

(a) Wall Between Commercial Banks and Securities Activities Reestablished- Section 18 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1828), as amended by section 615(a) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

You keep hearing about how the "Tea Party" is about fiscal responsibility and capitalism. Well, if so, where's their support of this? Why isn't this bill on the floor right now, being debated and passed with broad, near-unanimous bipartisan support?

anthropogenic global warming gets a new name

You know how we had, at one time, this idyllic little planet
in the Milky Way galaxy.
We basically took over as the big animal on campus
and have since totally trashed the place, like drunk
college kids on initiation.

To congratulate ourselves, we have thought of a new name for our period.

candidates:

Oops, I blew up another nuke plant period
the Gulf of Mexico is clean period
Anthropo- obscene -behaviour period
Anthropocene period
and the winner is...
what's my cene?
the Anthropocene

Let's celebrate with some Toxicity & cute lewdness:

checkitout:
Geologists press for recognition of Earth-changing 'human epoch'

Experts want the human imprint in the geological record to be acknowledged as a new epoch, the Anthropocene

* Gaia Vince
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 June 2011 16.22 BST

Mushroom cloud over Bikini Atoll from a nuclear test [get your own picture]
Our footprint could be visible as radioactive material from bomb tests like those at Bikini Atoll in the 1950s, increased CO2 and mass extinction. Photograph: Corbis

These are epoch-making times. Literally. There is now "compelling evidence", according to an influential group of geologists, that humans have had such an impact on the planet that we are entering a new phase of geological time: the Anthropocene.

Millions of years from now, they say, alien geologists would be able to make out a human-influenced stripe in the accumulated layers of rock, [it's called pollution- Costick67] in the same way that we can see the imprint of dinosaurs in the Jurassic, or the explosion of life that marks the Cambrian. Now the scientists are pushing for the new epoch to be officially recognised.

"We don't know what is going to happen in the Anthropocene," says geographer Professor Erle Ellis of the University of Maryland. "But we need to think differently and globally, to take ownership of the planet."

hey all you anarchists and communists

You'll be happy to know that it was modern capitalism that killed itself off.
You can't take credit, you armchair politicians.
While you were hiding in your cafes and your underground pubs, the world
went and changed.
Now we're headed into worse territory.

We are now in a new period where the bankers rule the planet,
and governments do their bidding.

what Max Keiser calls the Casino Gullag
[essential reading for the casino]

The casino is for the big boys, and the gullag is for the rest of us.

rigged markets are the norm.
the US stock market has rising values
and yet low volume of trades.
Meaning?= robo trades and fake trades
to make fees for bankers.
Even if we have money, we can't get savings interest
because the rates are set low for the banks (free money).
Companies can't get loans, so no good jobs.

Watch it and weep.

J.S. Kim On the Edge with M Keiser

One happy note. JS says that when the middle class becomes part of the

poverty class
then it's revolution time.
Until then, the anarchists and communists can go back to dreaming
about utopia.

checkitout: 2 things
1
techcrunch
Why The Groupon IPO Feels Like A Swindle
Tweet- Erick Schonfeld
12 hours ago
Erick Schonfeld@erickschonfeld
Erick Schonfeld
The reason the Groupon IPO feels like a swindle is because profits are nowhere in sight and founders are saying trust us while they pocket $

2 zerohedge
There's Your Problem Right There ... Insider Trading Rules Don’t Apply To Congress
Submitted by George Washington on 06/03/2011 19:40 -0400
Well, there's your problem right there ...
I've repeatedly pointed out that Wall Street executives are incentivized to lie, cheat and steal. So - of course - they will continue to lie, cheat and steal.
I've repeatedly noted that Wall Street owns the politicians:
* Lobbyists from the financial industry have paid hundreds of millions to Congress and the Obama administration. They have bought virtually all of the key congress members and senators on committees overseeing finances and banking. The Congress people who receive the most money from lobbyists are the most opposed to regulation. See this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
* Obama received more donations from Goldman Sachs and the rest of the financial industry than almost anyone else
* Summers and the rest of Obama's economic team have made many millions - even in the first few months of being appointed, or right beforehand - from the financial industry
* Two powerful congressmen said that banks run Congress
* Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have all said that the United States is controlled by an oligarchy
The chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University (Donald J. Boudreaux) says that it is inaccurate to call politicians prostitutes. Specifically, he says that they are more correct to call them "pimps", since they are pimping out the American people to the financial giants:
Real whores, after all, personally supply the services their customers seek. Prostitutes do not steal; their customers pay them voluntarily. And their customers pay only with money belonging to these customers.
In contrast, members of Congress routinely truck and barter with other people's property...
Members of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services.
Politicians force taxpayers to pony it up -- just as the services rendered for a pimp's customers are rendered not by that pimp personally, but by the ladies under his charge. The pimp pockets the bulk of each payment; he's pleased with the transaction. His customer gets serviced well in return; he's pleased with the transaction. The only loser is the prostitute forced to share her precious assets with strangers whom she doesn't particularly care for and who care nothing for her.
Also like the ladies under pimps' power, taxpayers who resist being exploited risk serious consequences to their persons and pocketbooks. Uncle Sam doesn't treat kindly taxpayers who try to avoid the obligations that he assigns to them. Government is a great deal more powerful, and often nastier, than is the typical taxpayer. Practically speaking, the taxpayer has little choice but to perform as government demands.
So to call politicians "whores" is to unduly insult women who either choose or who are forced into the profession of prostitution. These women aggress against no one; like all other respectable human beings, they do their best to get by as well as they can without violating other people's rights.
The real villains in the prostitution arena are those pimps who coerce women into satisfying the lusts of strangers. Such pimps pocket most of the gains earned by the toil and risks involuntarily imposed upon the prostitutes they control. No one thinks this arrangement is fair or justified. No one gives pimps the title of "Honorable." Decent people don't care what pimps think or suppose that pimps have any special insights into what is good or bad for the women under their command. Decent people don't pretend that pimps act chiefly for the benefit of their prostitutes. Decent people believe that pimps should be in prison.
Yet Americans continue to imagine that the typical representative or senator is an upstanding citizen, a human being worthy of being feted and listened to as if he or she possesses some unusually high moral or intellectual stature.
It's closer to the truth to see politicians as pimps who force ordinary men and women to pony up freedoms and assets for the benefit of clients we call "special-interest groups."
But it's not only that the politicos have been bought and paid for. They - like Wall Street titans - are incentivized to lie, cheat and steal.
Specifically, Congress members and Senators can trade on inside information.
As Forbes' blogger Kyle Smith notes:
One thing you can do as a member [of the House or Senate] is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.
...
Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.

you blinked first

Ya, well, you poked me in the eyes, you sh*t!

Well, the cowboy of Greece, Papandreou has made the bankers blink.
It's not a win, mind you, because he could still get lynched by his own 'people'.
In fact, the grand plan is for his conservative rival to take over and continue
the rape-and-pillage plan of the great overlords, the MoD (Masters of Debt).

The bankers blinked because if they hadn't helped now,
Greece wiould've defaulted, bankrupting the big Euro banks.

The only reason that Greece can now breathe a little bit is that

Germany has "seen the wisdom."

The wisdom they 'seen' is

their banks are over-leveraged and have no money
to cushion against a loss, like from a Greek haircut
[Greek haircut]
so, if Germany squeezes Greece,
Greece defaults,
German banks go bankrupt.

So, everybody gets to play 'kick the can down the road',
until the next crisis.

see ya in Dublin.
soon

In fact, if you look at my 'feckless Greeks' article below
You'll see that the banks still have
licence to kill , with derivatives, CDOs, CDSs
all that toxic sh*t
so that they can make a cushion for that next crisis.
Which crisis?
the one the banks are causing to sovereign nations,
by f^%&*king around on the markets.

I love circular logic.

who owns this place? there's a bill to pay

There's a University College Dublin Economics professor
who's got a flair for blogging.
And he basically said, if the ECB gave 160 billion euros to Irish banks,
through the Irish government, then the ECB own Ireland and should pay to
straighten it out.

I like the Irish reaction. They have not given up yet.
I heard they just might ask for a second loan. Priceless!

checkitout: 2 things
Irish times- Morgan Kelly
....This allows Ireland to walk away from the banking system by returning the Nama assets to the banks, and withdrawing its promissory notes in the banks. The ECB can then learn the basic economic truth that if you lend €160 billion to insolvent banks backed by an insolvent state, you are no longer a creditor: you are the owner. At some stage the ECB can take out an eraser and, where “Emergency Loan” is written in the accounts of Irish banks, write “Capital” instead. When it chooses to do so is its problem, not ours.
At a stroke, the Irish Government can halve its debt to a survivable €110 billion. The ECB can do nothing to the Irish banks in retaliation without triggering a catastrophic panic in Spain and across the rest of Europe. The only way Europe can respond is by cutting off funding to the Irish Government....

2
Daily bell
We may witness a broad based bank run in Ireland. I’d say the odds are pretty high and one is well underway already according to the chart below. On the other hand, if you stop witnessing bank withdrawls then you can really start worrying because that means the people of Ireland have figured out the game. They’ve figured out that the Central Bank of Ireland isn’t central at all. They can take their country back. They can default and they can start over, but they’ll be taking a pound of flesh out of the entire hide of the Eurozone and a huge loss in the value of all those Euros they’ve been drawing out of the Irish banks. If I was them, I would go for the property, forget the Euros. Stake a claim on the buildings, infrastructure and heritage of your country by refusing to use anything.
A bank run in the Eurozone is a sucker’s bet (unless you expatriate from Ireland) because they will simply devalue the Euro proportionately within your trade boundaries and you end up with nothing left in your country of value that isn’t owned by outsiders. Remember the folks who print the Euros also print the Dollars. Go turn in your driver’s license, your license plates, quit driving, turn in your social security card, buy an extra fire extinguisher and some candles, cancel your insurance, and take a 30 day vacation from commercial transactions and see what kind of a response you get from the banks. If you can’t make it to work without a car, then share with your neighbors. Better yet, quit your job. It only takes a 15% – 20% drop in GDP to stop the machine in its tracks.

I wouldn't lend to people like us

The budget guy of Illinois says that his state needs a 12-step
program because it's gone a bit wild.

People should not give them any alcohol, sorry, money.

[I would not join a club that would have me as a member. Nor would I let them lend me money- Groucho]

checkitout:
Treasurer says he would call bond houses, warn against lending to Illinois
BY HANNAH HESS • hhess@post-dispatch.com > 217-782-4912 STLtoday.com | Posted: Monday, May 23, 2011 2:42 pm
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • Illinois chief fiscal officer said Monday he is willing to dial up the bond houses and finance companies to alert them that lending the state more money, as Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed, would be a "major risk."
' 'If I need to send letters o the rating companies to tell them the treasurer of Illinois is opposed to more borrowing, I'm going to do that," said Republican Treasurer Dan Rutherford.

everybody stay calm and don't expose your brains

We've been under threat of a zombie banker attack for a long time,
otherwise known as a stock market crash.

Now, we have help. The US Centre for Disease Control
have produced the definitive zombie apocalypse defense guide.

http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp
Because, I don't know about you, but 90% of right wing and left wing
economists think that nobody is dealing with those zombies.
Time for some zombie policing , people!

checkitout:
Economists from the Left and the Right Agree: Neither the U.S. Nor Europe Is Dealing With the Real Problem
Submitted by George Washington on 05/23/2011 20:58 -0400

Today, economists from both sides of the political spectrum said that no one in the U.S. or Europe are dealing with the real problems.

Niall Ferguson told Bloomberg that no one has the political will to deal with Greece, and so Europe might experience a crisis as big as the 2008 crash in the U.S.:
Paul Krugman argues that austerity has failed in Europe, but that the European Central Bank " "i[s] just not willing to face up to the failure of its fantasies" and to restructure Greek debt.

(In more Europe news, Moody's will issue a big credit warning on 14 of the UK's 18 biggest banks tomorrow).

And in the U.S., former Reagan head of the Office of Management and Budget - David Stockman - says that both Democrats and Republicans are now advocating for default in America, since Democrats won't compromise on spending and Republicans won't compromise on taxes. (Before Dems label Stockman as a radical anti-taxer, remember that he recently said that the Bush tax cuts were "the biggest fiscal mistake in history", and that extending them won't stimulate the economy)

if you ever see some guy named Sarkozy trying to sell you some democracy

[I taught 'im everysing I know.]

there's this guy named Sarkozy, right?
Sounds like a joke name @sarc. Get it?

Well, he says he's the Prez of that French country. what's it called?

He says the Internet should not replace democracy.

Democracy?
Where the F%^*(k is that?
what place on the planet is that?
would somebody please look under some rocks.
All I see is oligarchies.

And I hear he takes cold hard cash, in his pocket,
from greying, tax-dodging bitches.

Thank you Sarkozy.
You're mighty helpful.

-Costick67 ~(8^P

checkitout:

Sarkozy opens 'historic' forum on future of internet in runup to G8
Guests at eG8 digital forum including chiefs of Facebook, Google and eBay are told that 'total global revolution' achieved by net must not replace traditional democracy
* Kim Willsher in Paris
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 May 2011 12.29 BST

However, Sarkozy warned the internet could not be allowed to become a "parallel universe" or a replacement for traditional democracy.

"You have given every individual the chance to be heard everywhere by anyone. People have never had this chance before in history, but that right cannot be held by destroying the rights of others.

"Total transparency has to be balanced by individual liberty. Do not forget that every anonymous internet user comes from a society and has a life."

He added: "Governments are the legitimate guardians of our societies and do not forget this."

He said leaders of state had to learn how the internet could be used "to reinforce democracy, social dialogue and solidarity" and to create a "more efficient state". However, he said, "we have to make sure that the universe that you are responsible for is not a parallel universe outside laws and morals"....

it's those feckless Greeks who are squeezing our wholesome banks

[it's a dance to the death. It's either his country or her banks- art by WilliamBanzai7]

I know that everybody in Germany is making plenty of olive oil

stomping on Greece.

I got some news for them.
We wouldn't be in this dance with death if it weren't for the

banks f^&*king around so much
and one of the worst is Deutschebank, the Douchebank

What a relief to learn that the EU has lost
the opportunity to get banks into line,
but , at least the bank shares have gone up.
that'll feed some poor kids.

So, now everybody knows that the ECB is yelling at Greece
because it's hiding the fact that the Northern banks
are up to their necks in debt, not just Greek debt.
If Greece collapses, the Euro collapses because the banks
will have to collapse.



[enjoy this video which describes how German banks are responsible for
at least Spain's problems, because we know they're responsible for Ireland's]

-Costick67 ~(8^P

checkitout:
from REUTERS
Hopes of softer capital rules lift European banks

Fri May 27, 2011 8:09am EDT
BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - European bank shares rose Friday on hopes that new international capital rules for lenders would be applied with a lighter touch in the European Union as Germany and France demand more leeway. [that wouldn't be lobbying for the benefit of the rich, would it?- Costick67]
Berlin and Paris have pushed for more flexible treatment of some types of bank capital including controversial hybrid bonds in a debate over the rules that are designed to make banks more stable, an EU source said Friday.
Germany wants lighter treatment of some hybrids, bonds that combine characteristics of debt and equity, which have been used in the past to bolster banks' capital cushions. [oh, I see. Creative debt management- Costick67]
2 Deninger lays out the corruption CLEARLY
How To Fix Being Broke: Borrow More Money!
Amazing....
BERLIN—Germany is considering dropping its push for an early rescheduling of Greek bonds in order to facilitate a new package of aid loans for Greece, according to people familiar with the matter.

Berlin's concession that it must lend Greece more money, even without burden-sharing by bondholders in the short term, would help Europe overcome its impasse over Greece's funding needs before the indebted country runs out of cash in mid-July.

What this really means is that Merkel has been apprised of the fact that her banks over there have written too many swaps and are too highly leveraged to survive a Greek default without yet another round of taxpayer funds from the Germans. She is therefore willing to risk political suicide (which is almost-certain) in order to avoid having to admit that the game-playing has continued post the original Greek crisis, and that in fact there has been no de-leveraging or cleanup of the German (and French, incidentally) balance sheets at all.

In fact, what I suspect is that these banks over in the Eurozone have been buying up these Greek bonds at a nice discount and then tendering them to the ECB on a Repo basis for cash at full par value. This of course is manifestly unsound but it's what happens when nobody can see inside the "magic box." The problem comes if Greece suddenly decides not to pay, at which point the Repo transaction becomes uncovered and the ECB is screwed. [HOWD'YA LIKE THEM CORRUPTIONS?- Costick67]

I'll lay even odds that Greece doesn't have until June 29th. [wrong-Costick67]
...
Oh yeah, I get it - we can't possibly let the truth out. You know, the ugly truth: Greece is insolvent and so are a significant number of banks that lent it money while being levered up 30:1.
Yes, still levered 30:1. You are over there in Europe, aren't you?
Why I bet you are.