Dow average rises and so does the media BS!

Media outlets like CNN and others are making a big whoop de do about how the Dow Jones industrial averages oth are rising into the positive territory for the first time this year. Sounds good doesn't it? That what the Obama administration would love you to believe. But, before you take those numbers at face value remember the both Citigroup and General Motors were knocked off the Dow Jones list recently. How could it not go up with those pieces of crap stocks not in the average anymore. File this news in the Hello Suckers file for now.

Seize the ????

"The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document." - Washington Post

File this under what the F?

Eating the Bear

Last night I was on the Amtrak heading back to Washington D.C. reading the weekend Financial Times. There are a few articles about the Bear Sterns bailout. But, what struck me was the timeline one of the articles had. It traces the demise of some of these geniuses of Wall Street but, more importantly the amount of money we taxpayers have been pumping in to correct the mess so far:

Timeline

Jul 2007 Bear reports hedge fund losses of $1.6bn
Aug 5 Warren Spector quits as Bear co-president
Aug 10 Fed provides $38bn of liquidity to the market
Aug 17 Fed cuts discount rate by 50bp
Sep 11 Joe Lewis, a British billionaire, buys 7 per cent of Bear
Oct 4 Bear cuts 310 more jobs
Oct 29 Stan O'Neal ousted as head of Merrill Lynch
Nov 2 Bond insurers' troubles emerge
Nov 4 Chuck Prince quits as CEO of Citigroup
Dec 8 Joe Lewis raises Bear stake to 8 per cent
Dec 21 Bear reports Q3 loss of $859m
Jan 7 2008 Jimmy Cayne resigns as chief executive
Jan 21 Fed makes emergency 75bp interest rate cut
Mar 7 Fed injects $200bn into market
Mar 10 Bear shares start plunging
Mar 11 Fed delivers an additional $236bn rescue

Along with this money when you add the $156 billion from the "stimulus bill" you can see pretty soon we are talking about some real money that we fellow taxpayers are laying out because these masters of the universe of Wall Street never questioned the words "sub prime". And it's not over yet. File this under "Hola Suckers" taxpayers.

Blood on the floor

"Stock markets around the world plummeted yesterday as a financial crisis that began in the market for U.S. home mortgages spread to almost all corners of the globe."-Washington Post

Welcome to the global economy. The ripples from the Wall Street ponzi scheme known as the sub prime market has turned into a big wave that threatens to clear the beach. I hope that most of us investors survive and those bankers who came up with the idea of giving $650,000 home loans to illegal immigrants making $18,000 dollars per year and other bad risks get swept out to sea and never return.