Rose Cantine » credit crunch

Fake Tim Geithner on Saturday Night Live

esme — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:20:35 +0000

2005 complaint to SEC says Madoff is a fraud: why no investigation?

esme — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:24:52 +0000

Here’s a 2005 complaint filed with the SEC alledging that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. The document lists several red flags regarding Madoff’s activities and provides evidence in detail, about why the complainant believed Madoff Securities was a Ponzi scheme. What did the SEC do with this?

Madoff_SECdocs_20081217

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business madoff fraud hedge f

The short, disgusting life of the Hummer | Salon News

esme — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:11:48 +0000

Say goodbye to this vile piece of metallic crud:

The short, disgusting life of the Hummer | Salon News

I will admit to experiencing much Schadenfreude watching the creators of this piece of junk crawl (or rather drive in hybrid cars) to Washington DC to beg the government to use OUR money to “rescue” them.

I am now thinking of a piece called 101 Things To Do with an Old Hummer.

Roubini: reasons why consumers won't be spending anytime soon

esme — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:59:47 +0000

Nouriel Roubini, the economist who says we are facing a long period of stagnation and deflation, cites many reasons why consumers won’t be spending in the next few months (excerpt):

The US consumer is debt burdened with the debt to disposable income having increased from 70% in the early 1990s to 100% in 2000 and to 140% in 2008.

The value of housing wealth is now sharply falling by over $6 trillion as home price depreciation will soon be 30% and reach a cumulative fall of over 40% by 2010. Recent estimates of this wealth effect suggest that the effect may be closer to 12-14% rather than the historical 5-7%. And with home prices falling over 30% about 40% of all households with a mortgage (or 21 million out of 50 who have a mortgage) will be under water (negative equity in their homes) with a huge incentive to walk away from their homes.
Mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW) is collapsing from $700 billion annualized in 2005 to less than $20 in Q2 of this year. Thus, with falling housing wealth and collapsing MEH US households cannot use their homes anymore as ATM machines borrowing against them.
Employment has been falling for 10 months in a row and the rate of job losses is now accelerating.

Schwarzenegger to U.S.: California may need $7-billion loan

esme — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:17:39 +0000

Oh no, just when I got done posting the article about car makers getting loans from the federal government, here come the states:

Schwarzenegger to U.S.: State may need $7-billion loan – Los Angeles Times

Paul Krugman: revised bailout plan filled with corporate freebies, won't work

esme — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:22:19 +0000

Krugman: bailout package filled with corporate freebies, won’t work

You can never trust the legislators. They just couldn’t resist adding in corporate tax breaks and freebies. The original plan proposed by Paulson which was bad, was made somewhat better by the Democrats, now it’s made worse so as to get it passed by the Republicans. It’s a worse bill than the one that was rejected last week, according to Krugman.

Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota predicted this financial mess

esme — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:00:01 +0000

Watch this video of Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) predicting the latest financial crisis. Is he the only thinking person up there on Capitol Hill?