September 2008

The Wall Street Come Back - Due to SEC Possible Change of Accounting Rules Mark-to-Market

While the pundits threaten and promote Paulson's bail out plan, there are actually other things going on which Wall Street seems to like.

"News that the SEC is working with FASB [Financial Accounting Standards Board] on 'fair value' accounting rules that could delay implementation of the onerous mark-to-market provision are giving stocks fresh legs higher," according to analysts at Action Economics

From CBS Market Watch.

SEC and FASB in negotiations:

The "Choosen Few" Get a Conference Call with Paulson on the Bail Out

Naked Capitalism has quite the story on how Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson Gave a Conference Call to a select few Interested Parties, but a mistake was made and the public got in on the call. Oh what they are reporting!:

This is simply scandalous. To have a group of interested parties get a privileged briefing by government officials on a matter of keen public interest flies in the face of what a democracy is supposed to be about. The proper method would either be a published FAQ on the Treasury website or a briefing with the media included. But why should I be surprised? Favoritism has been a staple of the Bush Administration.

The call confirms what many who can read legislation are saying:

  1. There is no oversight
  2. They get the $700B all at once
  3. There are not limits on Executive Pay

Trouble in the SEIU

Seems there is corruption and all sorts of internal problems going on in the SEIU, the labor union which split off from the AFL-CIO, led by Andy Stern.

The Service Employees International Union said that Rickman Jackson, who served as chief of staff at the Los Angeles organization, has taken a leave of absence from its biggest Michigan local less than a week after the president of the Los Angeles chapter relinquished his post.

Both departures followed reports in The Times that the local and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of its president, Tyrone Freeman, and spent similar sums on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, restaurants such as Morton's steakhouse, a Beverly Hills cigar lounge and a Hollywood talent agency

.

There also appears to be war with a health care workers local:

Panic!

Turn on the local news, 15 minutes of fear, doom, gloom, switch the channel, more nightmarish scenarios... and the solution of happy days will be here again? It all rides on the bail out! "Experts" explain how you can lose everything unless Congress passes the bail out!

Now this is clearly generating artificial panic. The market did go down and it's been going down as it will in any correction but that is not a collapse, that is a correction.

I'm not alone watching the spin machine create absolute panic.

Forbes also pointed out that many things are simply not that bad.

Manufacturing Monday: Crazy Venom's Used Car Sale!

Greetings folks, and welcome to another installment of Manufacturing Monday.  If you're looking for updates on the financial bailout, sorry today I'm focusing on manufacturing.  Though I highly recommend the many other, if I may say, much more talented bloggers than I who also cover economics.  Nope, today we're talking automobiles!  So let "Crazy Venom" here show you what's on the lot!

 

Volt to charge up Flint's economic engine with it's own.

Congress Rejects Bail Out Bill - Fails to Pass House of Representatives

House Rejects Paulson's Bail Out

Onto the Senate, not. Believe this or not, while Democrats have been the primary negotiators on this bill, other Democrats are sending out emails calling this Lipstick on Paulson's Pig, and is the fault of Republicans.

This time....I do not think so!   Proof?

The vote tally was:

  • Democrats   Yea: 141
  • Democrats   Nay: 94
  • Republican  Yea:  64
  • Republican   Nay:  134

Total:   Yea: 205  Nay: 228

A simple majority was needed, which was 218.

Clerk has bill title wrong but how Congress voted is here.

The Fed Turns on the Spigot

This is unprecedented. Maybe I should have waited another day to post this diary. Look at this.

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks to $620 billion from $290 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand to $450 billion from $150 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

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