Monday, May 10, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, May 10, 2010


Another of my all time favorites...

(Pretty funny "alternate take.")

Hey... just because the world economy is imploding doesn't mean we can't still do karaoke - at least till the power goes off...

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12 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575235790051926202.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

U.S. stock futures surged Monday, tracking a rally in European markets as investors cheered a European Union plan designed to stave off a run on the euro.

(*CLASSIC DERANGED MAD SCIENTIST LAUGH*)

* THE SO-CALLED "STAVE OFF" BEING BASED UPON CREATION OF YET MORE UNSUPPORTABLE DEBT...

More than three hours before the start of trading, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures jumped 403 points higher to 10,738.

* WOW... (*SNORT*)... IMAGINE HOW THE MARKET WOULD CLIMB IF ATHENS WERE TO BE STRUCK AND DESTROYED BY A METEOR BEFORE GREEK "YOUTH" AND UNIONISTS CAN BURN THE PLACE TO THE GROUND THE OLD FASIONED WAY!

The 54.4 point advance for the S&P 500 contract far exceeds any one-day advance this year...

(*GIGGLING LIKE AN INSANE SCHOOL GIRL*)

The euro gained more than 2%...

* BASED UPON THROWING GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD AND REMOVING CAPITAL FROM PRODUCTIVE PRIVATE MARKETS TO POUR INTO FAILED STATE-SPONSORED PONZI SCHEMES... (*HEADACHE*)

* FOLKS... THIS IS SHEER INSANITY MIXED WITH A LARGE DOSE OF OLIGARCHIC CRONY CAPITALISTIC INCEST.

* RECALL, FOLKS... THEY STILL HAD CHAMPAGNE IN THE FUHRER BUNKER UP TILL THE LAST... (*SIGH*)

May 10, 2010 at 9:35 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/arts/music/10horne.html?hp

Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.

* SHE WAS A GREAT LADY...

* NOW SHE'S UP THERE WITH FRANK... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AIRKB_4-E

May 10, 2010 at 10:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6465E220100507

The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January. USDA updated its figures on Wednesday.

* YEP... THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS MOVING FULL SPEED AHEAD UNDER CAPTAIN PELOSI AND ADMIRAL OBAMA... (*SMIRK*)

USDA estimates enrollment will average 40.5 million people this fiscal year, which ends Sept 30, at a cost of up to $59 billion. For fiscal 2011, average enrollment is forecast for 43.3 million people.

* YEP... NO REASON WHY THE DOW JONES SHOULDN'T SHOOT THROUGH THE ROOF... (*SNORT*)

May 10, 2010 at 10:35 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/05/10/euro-bailout-what-is-another-trillion-if-youve-already-spent-1-trillion/

It is hard enough keeping track of the U.S. financial rescue — between the front door bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit and the “back-door” bailouts of AIG’s counterparties.

Well, try keeping track of how many billions have now been spent propping up the European banking system since the financial crisis in 2008.

UK Banks have $100 billion exposure to Greece, Portugal and Spain...

German banks and French banks have exposures of $43 billion and $75 billion respectively to Greece alone...

Today’s trillion dollar "rescue" [of Greece] comes on top of the $64 billion that the UK injected into its banks in October 2008, the $94 billion that German injected in its own troubled banks that Fall, the $54 billion that France spent and the $9 billion that Spain spent.

* WAIT... THERE'S MORE...

The Netherland spent $14 billion propping up and Switzerland spent $5.3 billion bailing out UBS.

(And those are just direct capital injections. Germany also spent $513 million in government guarantees to support bank lending in 2008.)

[Oh... and don't] forget the controversial bail out of AIG, either. Sure, it was a U.S. company, but there were nearly two dozen European banks, including Deutsche Bank, Banco Santander, RBS and Lloyds that received $50 billion of U.S rescue funds to cover their trades with AIG.

* SURE, FOLKS... NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT... BUY-BUY-BUY!!! THE WORLD ECONOMY IS OBVIOUSLY AS SOLID AS... er... TIGER WOOD'S GOLF GAME AND MARRIAGE...

(*SMIRK*)

May 10, 2010 at 1:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575236030191182938.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

* RIDDLE ME THIS: WHICH COMPANY DOES THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBE...?

...the company has had losses totaling nearly $148 billion, or nearly double its profits for the previous 35 years.

COM'ON... YOU CAN DO IT... (ANOTHER HINT, PERHAPS? SURE!)

...will require an additional $8.4 billion in government aid after reporting an $11.5 billion net loss for the first quarter...

* REMEMBER, FOLKS... WE'RE IN THE MIDST OF "THE OBAMA RECOVERY!" (*GRIN*)

* ONE MORE HINT...

The quarterly loss was an improvement from the $23.5 billion loss for the first quarter of 2009 and marked the 12th consecutive quarterly loss for the Washington-based firm.

* GIVE UP...??? (BUT IF YOU'VE GUESSED CORRECTLY... GOLD STAR!)

* COM'ON... YOU KNOW...

(*DRUM ROLL*)

* YEP... FANNIE MAE!

May 10, 2010 at 1:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575235553288878626.html?mod=WSJ_hps_SECONDTopStories

Assailants killed nearly 100 people across Iraq on Monday, with a series of bombings in central Iraq at a textile factory at quitting time and a string of shootings targeting Iraqi security forces in the capital, according to an Interior Ministry official.

May 10, 2010 at 1:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/07/navy-seal-mccabe-found-not-guilty/

* I MEANT TO NEWSBITE THIS EARLIER BUT IT SLIPPED THROUGH THE CRACKS:

It only took a 7-member jury one hour and 40 minutes Thursday afternoon to find Navy SEAL Matthew McCabe not guilty on all counts. McCabe had been charged with assault for allegedly roughing up Ahmed Hashim Abed, the accused terrorist who allegedly masterminded the grisly killings six years ago of four American contractors in Iraq.

* THAT MAKES THREE OUT OF THREE!

May 10, 2010 at 1:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704370704575228311111072860.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

President Obama can now count among the political pearls of his first year in office a record drop in U.S. carbon emissions.

The sand in the oyster, however, is that this was mainly the result of the recession...

(*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)

The federal Energy Information Administration reported last week that greenhouse gas emissions fell 7% last year - the largest-ever percentage and absolute decline since the EIA started tracking the relevant data in 1949.

The U.S. carbon footprint has shrunk in three of the last four years, though the 2009 plunge was due in particular to the severe economic downturn. (It took a 3.3% drop in per capita GDP and a 4.8% decline in overall energy consumption - 9.9% in industry - to usher in this eco-paradise.)

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

Other factors were also at work. Electric generation, for instance, grew less carbon-intensive as utilities switched to natural gas from carbon-heavy coal as commodity prices fell.

* ...AS COMMODITY PRICES FELL; THUS, THE REVERSE CAN BE EXPECTED AS COMMODITY PRICES RISE... (*SIGH*)

But the reality is that economic growth and energy use are tightly linked, and oil, coal and other fossils fuels make up some 83% of America's energy mix. World-wide, economic studies show that a 1% increase in GDP per capita generally translates into a per capita CO2 increase between 0.5% and 1.5%.

* DO... YOU... UNDERSTAND...??? TO PRESS HOME THE POINT:

[T]echnologies like biofuels, solar and other science experiments have been "only" five years away from commercial viability for the last three or four decades. Despite vast new subsidies for alternatives and carbon taxes that will add trillions of dollars up and down the U.S. energy chain, this reality suggests that Mr. Obama's "clean energy economy" will look a lot more like 2009 than the Arcadia of Presidential hyperbole.

* FOLKS... AS OIL AND COAL GET MORE EXPENSIVE... YOU AND I GET SCREWED WHILE AL GORE... (*SHRUG*) ... HE CONTINUES BUYING MANSIONS... (*SIGH*)

May 10, 2010 at 1:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704446704575206380880867088.html

The attorneys general of 13 states recently filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the Medicaid portions of the new health law. Given the dismal track record states and individuals have had challenging New Deal social programs, many pundits have concluded their suit will be dismissed out of hand.

I wouldn't be so sure.

* BTW... THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE IS RICHARD A. EPSTEIN... (*SMILING SHRUG*)

The new health law gives states frontline responsibility for setting up an untried system of "exchanges" through which individuals will purchase health-care insurance. States receive partial federal support for running the exchanges up to 2015, after which they run them at their own considerable but uncertain expense. States can opt out of organizing these exchanges—but only if they extend Medicaid coverage to more of their residents, including all uninsured persons whose incomes are 133% to 200% of the poverty level.

This program is highly coercive and it raises a constitutional problem of the first magnitude.

ObamaCare's defenders say there is no problem - since no state has to participate in Medicaid at all, they're free to walk away entirely from the ObamaCare deal. But this too is a fake option.

* NOW PAY ATTENTION, KIDS...

Suppose a thief takes your family portrait worth $100 to you and then makes a take-it-or-leave it offer to sell it back to you for $50. You prefer the picture to the money. He prefers the money to the picture. Does that make the thief's offer a win/win? Of course not. It is ransom. ObamaCare's defenders say there is no problem - since no state has to participate in Medicaid at all, they're free to walk away entirely from the ObamaCare deal. But this too is a fake option. States may leave Medicaid but the Medicaid taxes their citizens pay will support the program in other states. The state's option to leave Medicaid would be real only if the federal government refunded its citizens' Medicaid taxes or paid them into the state treasury[!]

Under the Constitution the states are not wards of the federal government. Clever federal tax and spending statutes must not be allowed to reduce states to a servile status that allows the federal government to force massive wealth shifts among them.

May 10, 2010 at 1:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/10/in-bed-with-fannie-and-freddie/

America's greatest economic liability is also the greatest political liability for the Democratic congressional leadership. [This liability...] Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

A group of Republican senators led by John McCain, Arizona Republican, last week proposed to give the housing market giants five years either to become self-sufficient or to go out of business. They would also reduce the total amount of losses that taxpayers would cover to $400 billion. Rather than debate the particulars of this idea, Democratic leaders appear more interested in burying any and all such changes. A group of Republican senators led by John McCain, Arizona Republican, last week proposed to give the housing market giants five years either to become self-sufficient or to go out of business. They would also reduce the total amount of losses that taxpayers would cover to $400 billion.

Rather than debate the particulars of this idea, Democratic leaders appear more interested in burying any and all such changes. And no wonder. Renewed scrutiny of the two institutions would remind the public that senior Democrats were in bed, sometimes literally, with Fannie and Freddie.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts spent a number of years blocking various attempts to regulate government-sponsored enterprises, famously saying that that he did not see any "safety and soundness" problems worthy of note.

Franklin Raines, a former Carter- and Clinton-administration official, pocketed $90 million as Fannie Mae's CEO - a figure bolstered by the agency's overstated earnings.

Former Clinton appointee Jamie Gorelick was paid $26 million as Fannie's vice chairman.

Veteran Democratic honcho Jim Johnson, who led Sen. John Kerry's vice presidential search committee and temporarily led Mr. Obama's veep search, enjoyed $21 million.

Mr. Johnson later resigned from the Obama team when he was identified as a "friend of Angelo" - one of those who were given below-market loans directly by Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo.

Among other "friends of Angelo" were Mr. Raines, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

Fannie Mae was the biggest buyer of the outrageously risky mortgages that proved to be Countrywide's undoing.

Fannie and Freddie's campaign donations almost always have gone heavily to Democrats. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Barack Obama was the second-largest recipient of contributions from Fannie and Freddie sources during his brief Senate tenure.

(*SHRUG*) FACTS ARE FACTS, FOLKS... (*SIGH*)

May 10, 2010 at 11:40 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://detnews.com/article/20100510/BIZ/5100335

In a state with the nation's highest jobless rate, landscaping companies are finding some job applicants are rejecting work offers so they can continue collecting unemployment benefits. [S]ome seasonal landscaping workers choose to stay home and collect a check from the state, rather than work outside for a full week and spend money for gas, taxes and other expenses...

Members of the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association "have told me that they have a lot of people applying but that when they actually talk to them, it turns out that they're on unemployment and not looking for work," said Amy Frankmann, the group's executive director. "It is starting to make things difficult."

Chris Pompeo, vice president of operations for Landscape America in Warren, said he has had about a dozen offers declined. One applicant, who had eight weeks to go until his state unemployment benefits ran out, asked for a deferred start date.

Some job applicants are asking to be paid in cash so they can collect unemployment illegally, said Gayle Younglove, vice president at Outdoor Experts Inc. in Romulus.

"Unfortunately, we feel the economy is promoting more and more people and companies to play the system and get paid or collect cash money so they don't have to pay taxes," Younglove said.

* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA, MY FRIENDS; THAT SAID, THE RINOs ARE JUST AS BAD BY AND LARGE.

The federal jobless benefits extension "is the most generous safety net we've ever offered nationally," said David Littmann, senior economist of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market-oriented research group in Midland. The extra protection reduces the incentive to find work, he said.

One former landscaper, who has been on unemployment for a year, said he will search for work when the benefits expire, but he estimates he earns about $50 to $60 less a week than he would if he were working. "It's crazy," he said. "They keep doing all of these extensions."

B&L Landscaping in Oak Park finds the labor pool is noticeably weaker and less motivated...

* AGAIN... WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA, FOLKS.

May 10, 2010 at 11:41 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-10/citigroup-to-pay-director-joss-350-000-for-three-weeks-of-consulting-work.html

Citigroup Inc. will pay director Robert Joss $350,000 for as little as three weeks of work...

Citigroup, 27% owned by the U.S. government...

Joss’s consulting contract makes him the highest-paid director since the retirement in 2009 of Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, who was chairman of the Banamex banking subsidiary in Mexico. Hernandez was reimbursed more than $2 million a year for private-aircraft use, security guards, the operation of armored vehicles, an office and a secretary.

The consulting payments to Joss are in addition to the $225,000 in cash and deferred stock given each year to all outside board members. Last year, Joss got a prorated amount of $112,500.

* HEY... WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO OBAMA'S PAY CZAR...???

May 10, 2010 at 11:41 PM

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