Friedrich von Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards,

In a recent post, I made a suggestion that we consider creating new lending channels to funnel publicly supplied credit to real economy borrowers, thus obviating the need to bail out Wall Street in order to ‘save’ Main Street (supposedly the goal of the exercise).

In making such a suggestion I was trying to highlight the unbelievably corrupting precedent that that would be set by bailing out such once-profitable and still politically connected firms without wiping out their shareholders and management.

However, I see via Barry Ritholz at The Big Picture that I am not alone in proposing such a scheme. Intriguingly, this proposal (far much more detailed than mine, or, for that matter, the Paulson plan) is based largely on concerns of efficiency and the need for the financial sector to evolve past the failed model of the past fifteen years.

The scheme is the brainchild of Bill King of M. Ramsey Securities Inc.

Mr. King begins with several trenchant observations, including:

- The Paulsen-Bernanke Bailout Plan does not insure that those banks and brokers that receive bailout aid will increase lending. The reality is the market is hoarding liquidity and these banks are likely to do the same. More importantly consumer lending has been a small, often insignificant part of their business. They made money by trading and through securitization of debt.

- It is necessary to create a new system parallel with the existing dysfunctional system in order to mitigate the inevitable economic and financial damage and to facilitate, as seamless as possible, the transition to a functioning financial system or new model of credit and banking.

- The Wall Street model, securitization and extreme leverage, is obsolete.

[…]

- Hank and Ben assert that it is paramount to keep credit flowing to consumers; the bail out is a necessary adjunct.

Some of the basics of the King Report Bailout Plan:

- Directly recapitalize banks by the US government allocating $500B into a plan for community-type banks to increase their capital in partnership with the government.

- The government would match existing or some percentage of existing bank capital. If it would be better, a separate bank could be created. Place a limit of say $1B per bank.

- This would create $5 trillion of credit at conservative 10 to 1 leverage. This is more than the entire private mortgage market. It is a much better use of capital instead of absorbing $700B of losses with no means to discern [or reasonably anticipate] resultant credit creation.

- Give the banks a tax rate of 15% on consumer and commercial lending for 5 years and the right to buy out the government share of the operation at some premium.

There is more, read about it here.

Will something like this get implemented? I doubt it, but even if it doesn’t, such proposals should serve to highlight a key point: an unstated consequence of the Paulson/Bernanke plan is to keep the current system, and the current winners, firmly in the saddle atop our financial and political life. Under the label of a ‘bailout’ the Paulson Plan is actually a profoundly reactionary step, retarding our progress to a sustainable financial paradigm and further entrenching special interest politics at the heart of our economic and political systems. I think understanding this explains many of the glaringly inefficient elements of the plan, such as couching the bailout as a purchase of troubled debt rather than the injection of publicly owned equity.

As Mr. King puts it:

[Bernanke] and Hank's bailout plan is tantamount to bailing out Univac, Digital Equipment, etc, in the eighties, which would've retarded the development of Dell, Microsoft, Intel and other nascent technology companies.

Hey, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Cheers,

Friedrich

In the real political world, I think one of the effects of this "bailout" is going to be a large tax rise on the highest earners.

I put "bailout" in quotes because though that will often be the effect, the goal and intention has and will be to keep the financial system solvent (and controlled by Americans) and able to resume lending. That's why Lehman was allowed to fail, but fanny and freddie were not, nor would Merrill or Goldman be. The judgments at the margin are difficult and will sometimes be arguably wrong, but they must be made.

What we REALLY shouldn't be bailing out are massively over-extended home "owners". Many but hardly all of these are in the lower half of the income scale. There is no systemic function whatsoever to bailing them out, only a political and populist one, which is fundamentally corrupt.

The quid pro quo for this massively jarring equity disparity in our democracy is going to be a sharp rise in taxes for high earners.

If the threshold is set high enough I find that hard to object too much to. The trouble is that setting a high threshold radically decreases the total take in tax revenue. There really aren't all that many people earning more than 1 million a year.

The impulse to soak the really rich after this though is going to be irresistable. The question is going to be how deep into the innocent upper middle class is this impulse going to actually cut, especially since when the American public hears of a 350K income they imagine that being made in their home down in Michigan, rather than in New York City or California, where it more often actually is (and where the real estate and other costs remain after the crash correspondingly vastly higher).

Posted by: dougjnn on September 27, 2008 4:18 PM

Like youre even serious about this nonsense.

Part of the assumptions about a financial collapse are that the system OD'd on some unprofitable transactions. Now it can be argued (and it is , often , by the Ted Kazinskys) that the system is full of cancer cells who ar too selfish for the social contract that is the US.

But if I were you I wouldn't argue this. The coilition that is putting up spirited opposition to the bailout bill (other than those doing it for naked politics) represent constiuents that live on the federal government quite simply printing money to fund their budgets(viz, defense, Law enforcement,Drugs, Agriculture- corporate or othervice and Oil) which makes the "success" of their "plan" an effective method of suicide by the wagons of a gravy train because the engine needs fixing.

But then we all know youre just calling a bluff and will drive off the road at the last minute and cry through the mud in the canal for some kind of "conservative resurgence" because"the liberals bailed out wall street, right?

I'd be so disappointed if someone in the conservative ranks has not already authored this scam.

need a talk show host to bloviate?

Posted by: Ramesh on September 27, 2008 5:09 PM

From today's column by Larry Kudlow:

Republican leader Eric Cantor has an excellent idea for a federal bond insurance guarantee for straight mortgage-backed paper, financed by private sector insurance premiums. That will improve investor confidence in mortgage bonds and will make those bonds highly marketable[emphasis in the original column].

So my question is: why isn't this measure alone enough to get us past the crisis moment? If mortgage bonds will be highly marketable once investors are assured they are government insured won't the injection of liquidity that will result be enough to get us past what is essentially a confidence/liquidity crisis?

Posted by: ricpic on September 27, 2008 6:03 PM

no.

Posted by: Ramesh on September 27, 2008 6:25 PM

If you really want to get a shooting war started, try changing those idiotic laws that mandate "lending by color codes". I don't believe I've heard any politician explicitly discuss the need to rip out the root cause of this corruption. Either banks are going to be run based on sound business practices or they are not. If they are not, we are headed over the falls.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 27, 2008 6:34 PM

Dougjnn: I agree, I suspect we will see increases in taxation on high income earners in the future, no matter who gets elected president or what they say about it now.

Ramesh: I don't understand what you're getting at, except you apparently assume that only a Republican stooge would criticize this bailout, hence I must be such a stooge. Have you taken a look at what Paul Krugman is saying about it? As I have suggested a 'big government' solution here - the creation of public sector banks -- I'm a bit surprised at your assumption that I'm taking a position only so I can snipe at the liberals in the future. I'm not. Likewise you might check out what Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism says about the shortcomings of the bailout, remembering that she's clearly on the left hand side of the aisle. Take a look at her post "New IMF Study of Banking Crises Contradicts Bailout Bill Premise and Details" at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/new-imf-study-of-banking-crises.html as a good start.

Finally, looking back in history, I ask you what Andrew Jackson, a rather significant figure in the history of the Democratic Party, would have made of such a bailout of the wealthy, powerful and influential on these terms.

Charlton: I do remember something to the effect that the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on September 27, 2008 8:42 PM

"[Bernanke] and Hank's bailout plan is tantamount to bailing out Univac, Digital Equipment, etc, in the eighties.."

Yes, exactly. Before the crisis, Merril Lynch was wise enough to unload weak assets at 20 cents on the dollar. The bailout could enable less insightful firms to sell to the government at better prices, in effect punishing the wise and rewarding the foolish.

Posted by: Lester Hunt on September 27, 2008 9:19 PM

1.I dont want to get a shooting war started
2. lend by all the color codes you want. there's a new sheriff in town. it's called the world financial markets
3.there is no "corruption" in the financial market. only in thehome lending market. the financial market collapsed under it.
4. these are not banks. these are investment banks
5. Im not sure we have started speculating on the possiblity of makig an attempt to understand, in our policy prescriptions, of thinking about the possibility of understanding what is sound business practice in investment banks.
As of now I have only seen lynching and scapegoating. I don't expect that, when this is over, one way or another, that we will be any closer.

Often I wonder why I bother. (and its not your fault, blowhards, I'm just telling you what i think...about the mess.

Posted by: Ramesh on September 27, 2008 9:23 PM

`Fredriech,

Thanks for a well thought out post. Please appreciate that Im not coming at this from a democrat point of view. I'm attempting to bridge the enoromous chasm between reality as it is and the state of american left right politics as they are...to address what's essetially a huge chomp bitten off the body-economic in America.

Some solutions are common sense band aids..which may actually lead to longer term health, and others are naked ideological policy prescription that will merely keep the brain dead patient alive.

I'm not going into which is which at this point. I just think that there is very little time for packaging and marketing (one person's keynesian solution is another's marshall plan..in sum they are tantamount to the same.

I AM accusing the right of machinizing partisan plots, because I see the right currently out of ideas about the political and the economic, because the republican brand of politics gets so little credence in the US these days, and because the republian brand of economics is somewhat rudderless and has bankrupted the system, (greed is a very republican Ideal...no?), so what does a desperate man do? Drama...so that he may survive to fight another day.

This does not mean that I think the emotional or idealogical capital of the right is exhausted, only that youve let your sons take out the maserati and trash it.

Its going to take time and commited true believers to make it work again.

Posted by: Ramesh on September 27, 2008 9:50 PM

and the IMF paper you link to talks about a BANKING collapse.

What we have in the US(and the world) is a MARKET collapse.

Please tell me you understand the difference?

Posted by: Ramesh on September 27, 2008 10:13 PM

I may not be very smart, but I think I know a smoking gun when I see one...

http://tinyurl.com/4drjrf

If you build a casino and complain that gamblers are showing up, what kind of idiot are you?

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 27, 2008 10:43 PM

I likewise appreciate your point of view also Ramesh. However, the collapsing market bubble of housing could not have ever been inflated without the financial sector's active, enthusiastic help. Or the Greenspan Fed's active, enthusiastic help. Or the Chinese government's active, enthusiastic help.

If you check out the IMF study, you'll see that real estate MARKET (and other asset) bubbles are a frequent side effect (in a feedback loop kind of way) of credit overexpansions that end in BANKING collapses. In short, we're in pretty much the same boat as Indonesia a decade ago except that (1) we've got the reserve currency and (2) China and the oil exporters are feeding us amazing amounts of cash.

And none of this makes me think any more highly of the competence and professionalism of Wall Street, or that we should make endless sacrifices to getting them back up and running. But maybe that's just me.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on September 27, 2008 11:07 PM

More damning evidence here...(note the date)...

http://tinyurl.com/3jdn9e

No comment on this one...except to laugh...

http://tinyurl.com/4k92gm

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 27, 2008 11:35 PM

If you don't like your steak rare, Ramesh, maybe this will help you "get it"...

http://tinyurl.com/4ccrsm

They were polite enough to skirt the underlying cause, but it's visible for anyone with a room temperature IQ.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 27, 2008 11:49 PM

And please don't think I'm just picking on Democrats here. This is from the White House website...

http://tinyurl.com/3rxnz2

Did I mention I'm pissed about this?

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 28, 2008 12:15 AM

Fredrich ,

That is what markets are supposed to do..bring buyers and sellers together and price assets.

your interchangable use of the word "market" to refer alternately to the real estate market , the banking industry and god knows, the vegetable market....or something, gives me to believe that you think that this is something amateurs can discuss with the trained as if they are on equal footing. I must dispute that assumption.

Economists and investment bankers are really better placed than you to understand this crisis, and people at the center of it are better placed to understand it than people flown in from academic hideouts.

and no, I don't think they are particularly more "corrupt" than the average conservative.

Posted by: Ramesh on September 28, 2008 7:34 AM

Charlton Griffin:

"I may not be very smart,...."

no.

Posted by: Ramesh on September 28, 2008 9:23 AM

Sadly, Ramesh, the well of my ignorance is probably bottomless. However, I'm willing to learn, if you'll take a few moments to explain yourself.

In the meantime, however, I note the following from Avinash Persaud. Mr. Persaud is currently Chairman of Intelligence Capital, a financial consultancy and a Member of the Board of three investment boutiques. Previously, he was managing director, State Street Corporation; global head, currency and commodity research, J. P. Morgan and Director, fixed income research, UBS. I'm guessing he may understand distinctions amateurs like myself will not.

After an eighteen month cycle of write downs of assets, forced sales and further write downs, banks have travelled from illiquidity to the borders of insolvency. Banks asset values can no longer support bank liabilities. Capital is insufficient. Swapping troubled assets for cash - the essence of the TARP - may strengthen asset quality, but by crystallising the current distressed price of assets, it does nothing to address the problem of asset levels being too low relative to the level of liabilities. This was the right course 18 months ago, but not now. It is fighting the battle of illiquidity not insolvency.

The TARP prayer is that by strengthening asset quality, banks would be able to raise fresh capital, but there is no guarantee of this. Investors will be mindful that even if the quality of the existing assets improves, banks are on the edge of insolvency, their current business models of securitisation, mortgage lending, equity short-selling and prime brokerage need to be rethought and other investors with as deep pockets as the sovereign wealth funds are nursing large losses for stepping in early. Tax payers may easily find themselves on the hook for another round of cash. Recall that Lehman Brothers, one of the smaller investment banks, went bankrupt with US$639bn of assets.

TARP also manages to save the blushes of bank creditors by putting tax payers at risk. This is not the time for moral outrage to cloud clear thinking, and it should not be forgotten that policy-makers share much blame in this crisis, but it does seem a little perverse to protect those that were paid to take the risk of banks failing, and instead to tax those that were not.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on September 28, 2008 11:45 AM

"Economists and investment bankers are really better placed than you to understand this crisis"

Aren't those the same people who got us into this mess? I have seen no indication that these people know what they are doing, and while I'm sure some sort of Federal action is needed, I can't say as I trust these "experts" to craft the right response. And incidentally, anyone who thinks that only conservatives are greedy has not met many liberals, and has no business casting aspersions on the intellect of others.

Posted by: Tschafer on September 28, 2008 12:17 PM

I know nothing about nothing myself. But I was fascinated by a couple of postings from nonlinear fitness guru, economist, and generally fascinating-guy Art DeVany:

Link

Link

Link

Great quotes:

"I think Congress loves this mortgage/credit crunch mess. They have been trust into the role of saviors of the American Economy."

"The problem is not the market, but that many people were encouraged to speculate with extreme leverage, without understanding the risk. How many bank CEOs know enough math to understand stable distributions? Probably none. Does Paulson, unlikely. Does Bernanke? We would hope so, but we can’t be too sure."

"Credit is not causal. It is related to the state and pace of the economy. Credit expands in good times and declines in bad times. Overall it has expanded throughout the past two decades in pace with the economy. We are being told that it is causal. All the talking Pols who created this problem with Sarbannes Oxley and FASB mark to market pricing and the promotion of Fannie and Freddie are saying that credit is causal, that a collapse of credit will bring the economy down with it. But, it is the other way around. The decline in the economy is bringing with it a decline in the demand for credit."

"I am an emergency physician, and I can tell you the ER is ground zero for the health care implosion. I worked a short 6 hour shift this week and saw 18 patients. Only 2 of the 18 patients weighed less than 300 pounds!"

Oops, that last is from an email sent to Art by a reader. Interesting too.

Link

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on September 28, 2008 1:34 PM

Ramesh, if you have anything of intelligence to say, you'll have to prove it by avoiding ad hominem attacks. That is always the last resort of the scoundrel who has no other argument.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 28, 2008 2:16 PM

FWIW, here's John Lott's account of what has brought us to this pass.

Link

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on September 28, 2008 3:04 PM

An entertaining journalistic account from the Telegraph about desperation in D.C.

Link

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on September 28, 2008 3:58 PM

Hey, are we all still glad that Ron Paul got knocked out of the campaign?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on September 28, 2008 3:59 PM

Charlton - It appears to me that the subprime debris is a sympton or an effect of the underlying folly, not the ultimate cause of the mess. If operators hadn't been able to ply their nifty "financial innovations" among dumb and irresponsible borrowers (and lenders) in the housing market, they would have found some other venue for packaging and selling up debt and clearing out (or trying to clear out) before the music stopped. (That the diversity industry was not behindhand in getting to the party and shoving its snout in the trough should surprise no one, though. Apparently it can be seen rooting about in the bailout bill, too.) Probably few generations pass without human beings coming 'round once again to believing they can keep the Rumplestiltskin con, spinning straw into gold, rolling forever. (Here's a short tale on the "it's the derivatives, stupid" theme from today's paper.)

Posted by: Moira Breen on September 28, 2008 5:36 PM

Freidrich,

I guess your quoting an Indian name should effectively counter my non arguments and bring me around....unfortunately...I think about 70% of the indian sounding names are people that have craved attention so long, that when they get it they parrot some party's line ...case in point ramesh poneru, dinesh di silva.....(the jindal guy is some kind of an exception)

Havng got the preamble out of my system,

I see that the bill is close to passing and I'll stop posting about this when the bill passes.

My point isInvestment banking functions on some substantial amount of trust. not the least amount of trust has to do with the fundemental faith that the market will exist tomorrow. This is irrespective of whether the participants in the market are pre apartheid south africans diamond miners or if they are Soviet communists taking bets in the capitalist system simultaneously betting on its collapse and profiting from it.

The market is a neutral player. it rewards profit and punishes losses.

The market however bets heavily on its own continuing existance. this means not only that the building on broad street will be populated by hermes ties, but also that , when people have money that earns less returns, and want to take more risk, they can use the time value of money and the volitility of returns of a cash flow, can price assets relative to one another and facilitate people buying and selling these assets.

well, the real estate market does not function like this. its values are simply that you take a buyer for whatever the market will pay. So I'd go to Atlanta and look at a property that looks like a country club suburb, with no country club, which is priced at say 350,000 and I'd come out of the gates and find a Much bigger lot with a ranch style home priced at 110,000. The funny thing is BOTH these prices are valid.

Now imagine that someone sits in Shanghai, taking an option on either property. He can be forgiven for thinking that property 2 will be as valuable as property I if only he knocked down the ranch and built a colonial on the lot. Will it?

This was the basis of the boom.

Now, when there were too many such mortgages chasing money, without such appreciation, the people holding them did the following: they looked at the zip codes and the fact that the asset existed, and simply said, "if only we wait long enough, house prices will go up." and bought options on these mortgages., that if there was a crash in prices, they'd buy them at the historical price.

There was a crash, and they couldn't put up the money to deliver on the contract.

Now please see that this is not corruption in the market, it is just that the Investment banking market is like a bulldog biting a rhino. even if rhino meat is comestible, the bulldog's size and the rhino's thick skin will ensure certain death for poor tiger, even if we admire his guts to take on a rhino in the first place.

The Bailout merely creates a pool of American liquidity that will provide buyers when people take their marbles out of the mortgage market and bet on Oil or something instead.

It gives confidence to the market that there will be buyers of the 65 trillion outstanding mortgage backed paper, (good mortgage paper) even if the chinese take their marble and go home.

so your bunch of patriots(in the house) are too stupid to see that theyre shooting their own economy in the head by talking about insurance and other such half assed ponzi schemes. (BTW insurance is like saying, when there's a run on a bank, your solution is to give everyone ATM cards.)

Charlton,

That wan't an ad hominem. it was a description.

Posted by: Ramesh on September 28, 2008 7:37 PM

The bill based on tarp only brings the market fresh life.

it does not make bad portfolios good again.

but youre saved from a wideranging run on America's banks, so that you can go about the good business of creating wealth for your chinese masters again.

isnt capitalism a wonderful place?

Posted by: Ramesh on September 28, 2008 8:38 PM

Ramesh, you can take your affirmative action position and shove it. That's an invitation. And please do it in the country of your ancestral heritage. I'm sure brilliant leeches like you could do more good elsewhere instead of feeding on the naive good will of liberals in my country.

To get back to my contention (and ignoring Ramesh) that there is a straight line correlation between affirmative action and the banking meltdown, see this brilliant discussion by Steve Sailor...

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/080921_cornerstone.htm

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on September 28, 2008 9:44 PM

Ramesh – You should know that on this particular blog the notion that white people can cause such a massive problem without there being some brown people to blame is a lost cause. You can forget about all those white folks knocking down perfectly good 1200 sq. ft. ranch houses to build 5000 sq. ft. McMansions. They could not have caused the mortgage crisis. No, it must all be dark skinned folks lying about their income and perfectly honorable and intelligent mortgage lenders who, through no fault of their own, with no greed or desire to make a quick buck, were forced by evil liberal policies to lend to brown skinned folks lying about their income. Isn't it obvious? The greed of Wall Street elites is a red herring, it is all the fault of brown people lying in order to move into housing they can't afford.

Posted by: Chris White on September 29, 2008 7:46 AM

Ramesh, stop with the puerile adolescent trope of left: nice, caring, compassionate and right:evil, selfish, heartless. Can we get some maturity please?

Right now, there are both Democrats and Republicans who are opposed to this bill, lots of people from both sides of the house are unhappy. Both political parties can claim responsibility for the current mess and so can the stupid public. Here's a thought experiment, go back to 2006 and imagine a responsible politician trying to get a bill through which would tax excessive capital appreciation on peoples houses in an effort to reign in the asset bubble. How many people would have voted for him? No, the proles would have been just as vociferous as the greedy Wall St barons in condemning him, the idiot media and most of the financial journalists would have chimed in as well. There is no way in hell that he would have had his bill passed 85% of people would have come at him with the pitchforks.

The roots of this financial crisis lay in modern Western culture not in finance. Our society expects the state to bail us out of trouble, always, we have for years been separating action from consequence. Dumb Johnny doesn't want to study, don't fail him since it may hurt his self esteem. Janet doesn't take the pill and gets pregnant, let her have an abortion. Charles touches the third rail, sue the rail company for not writing a warning on the track. Blow a billion dollars in a hedge fund, get the government to bail you out. No one assumes any fucking responsibility, everyone wants to privatise pleasure and socialise pain. The version of capitalism we have seen in the last 20 years or so is the version you get in a morally bankrupt society. Capitalism is it's reflection.

Both parties have well established track records of getting the state to bail out their constituents when they have gotten themselves into a mess. Opportunistic Republicans will always try to take the state's wealth and give it to the undeserving rich while the opportunistic democrats have a well established track record of distributing the state's wealth to the undeserving poor.

I don't see much of a moral difference between giving money to a greedy Wall St Baron or in giving it to lazy welfare bum. Both parties are undeserving.

The core of this bailout debate is about responsiblity and deserts. Who is responsible for this mess and do they deserve to be bailed out? My take on all this is that all adults who have the right to vote--and are therefore responsible adults--and who have made stupid financial decisions deserve to suffer the consequence of their actions, anything less in contrary to natural justice. Bailing out the captains of finance is just as repulsive as bailing out the morons of remodeling. There are good people on left and right who see this issue for what it is, a moral issue. This bill violates natural justice for it rewards the incompetent and undeserving and hence it is evil. What it does do in spades though, is send the message that if you are financially responsible and without any political connections your gonna get screwed.

Posted by: slumlord on September 29, 2008 8:29 AM

"Ramesh, you can take your affirmative action position and shove it. That's an invitation. And please do it in the country of your ancestral heritage. I'm sure brilliant leeches like you could do more good elsewhere instead of feeding on the naive good will of liberals in my country."

Straw man.Youre confusing me with al sharpton or jesse jackson or someone. Mastrubate more.

"Ramesh – You should know that on this particular blog the notion that white people can cause such a massive problem without there being some brown people to blame is a lost cause....."

I know. Im not trying to convince this blog.Just talking straight. plus chinamen aren't brown people theyre slanyeyed slitsgoing the wrong way...or something...

"Ramesh, stop with the puerile adolescent trope of left: nice, caring, compassionate and right:evil, selfish, heartless. Can we get some maturity please?"

Straw man. coping mechanism for inconvenient reality poking through all the left right verbiage.

Posted by: ramesh on September 29, 2008 11:10 AM

and you dumbasses (you know who you are) will be well served if you read my posts instead of presuming that Im asking for your opinion about anybody's skin color.

Posted by: ramesh on September 29, 2008 11:14 AM

But taking opinions about "affirmative action" in your posts seriously,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seems to me that the people PROVIDING affirmative action are rich asians, and those benefitting from it is the republican core .

I mean , think about it.. The US army functions on the pleasure of the Saudi Royalty, The Texas Oilmen and the ruling junta in the US survives on their pleasure too,

Wall street survives at the pleasure of the Chinese, The US government certainly needs all those chinese dollars to finance your excesses (you know who you are).

Detroit survives at the pleasure of the Japanese,

and Hollywood, these days, it seems , survies at te pleasure of the indians.

So when your overwheight ,unshaven white (uh...republican?) woman needs a handout, do you think she goes to Dick Chaney...who survives at the pleasure of the Omani royalty...?

Posted by: ramesh on September 29, 2008 11:34 AM

Ramesh,

You said there is no corruption in the financial market. There is corruption at every level. Either you just got to this country or you do not work in finance.

Posted by: Scott on September 29, 2008 8:19 PM

scot

you must be right....all the time...

why do you need me?

Tat's right...you don't!

Posted by: ramesh on September 30, 2008 11:12 AM






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