I know we've seen The Big Picture visualize a trillion dollars, but here's another version in video form. From Mint:

To keep up to date on the bailout fuckery, check out ProPublica.

Explaining why the latest floated plan from Obama's "top economic advisors" (is that you, Timmy and Larry?) doesn't make sense.

The proposal is to "stretch" (the NYTimes' word) the bailout funds by converting the existing loans to the biggest banks into common stock. This turns the loans into capital for the banks, thus improving their balance sheets, and good things ensue (or so we are told). Because, uh-oh! the stress test are expected to show that some big banks, including my own personal parasite BoA, are in need of more capital. (I know the feeling!)

Quoth the Times:

So I was planning to write a long, witty song-and-dance about a theme to which I've occasionally alluded lately: the importance of globalization in this bailout crisis. But then I decided I'd spare the words and write it out as a few easy and very approximate steps.

Brad DeLong is one of the few liberal(ish) economists willing to stick his neck out and spend his personal credibility as a blogger and academic economist on the bailout plan. For him, apparently, there are only two options: paying off the bankers works, and we are able to dig ourselves out of a Depression, or the Depression falls into apocalypse. However, apparently he's willing to stake his reputation on the former hypothesis:

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Via goddammitkitty, who sometimes used to post around here until real life made her cut back. Language a bit NSFW for workplaces where you are forbidden from using vernacular terms to discuss excrement:

I hope this meets Lambert's standards for non-truthiness.

The Canadian comedy troupe This Hour Has 22 Minutes has the following appeal to viewers everywhere:

You know, I'm beginning to lose track of how many different ways Versailles is screwing us. The latest is another round of the government conspiring with Wall Street to try to hide the size of the big shitpile by paying more for assets than they are worth.

Via Yves Smith:

From Andy Lees at UBS (hat tip reader Scott, boldface his):

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Seen while exiting the subway yesterday:

Further (a)musings on the subject are here.

Q: Where did some of these incompetent and corrupt bankers spend their time and the banks' money last year?

• an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who saw "Kelsey and Keely together" and later saw "Aria and Skyler at the same time"
• an investment banker at JP Morgan Securities who "l
  
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And if it's not just Detroit then it can't really be the fault of the UAW now can it?

Europe's motor industry is in a panic. In boardrooms across the continent the talk is of the biggest emergency for 60 years -- or at least since the 1973 oil crisis.

As executives ask the European Union for a €40-billion bail-out to match or surpass the $25-billion sought by the American Big Three manufacturers -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler thousands of staff are being laid off. Sales are collapsing as the recession bites, with vehicles stacking up at ports around the world.

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From Mark Thoma, writing about Robert Reich's piece Are We Courting A Populist Backlash?: [my emphasis]

There are lots of reasons, but if we had better social insurance, good enough so that the health and welfare of workers and their families was not threatened by the failure of the automakers, it would be a lot easier to avoid a bailout.

image from Progressive Majority Wisconsin

ScienceBlogger Mike the Mad Biologist is all over the story of how Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, has been dissed and mistreated by the folks in charge:

Sheila Bair, Geithner, and the acceptance of male hysteria.

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Change you can believe in!

The Washington Post appears to have changed an already published article without noting the change. The original article started out:

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has agreed to accompany Treasury Department officials to meet with Capitol Hill leaders to help the Bush administration gain access to the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue package, government sources familiar with the matter said.

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Is it "gone where the woodbine twineth"?

Bloomberg's filed a FOIA request to find out what we don't know, which is good news, since our extremely courageous, highly functional, and secretly progressive Democratic Party hasn't so much as sent out a sternly worded letter, let alone held hearings. I wonder why?

But what would you expect when Big Money gets two trillion NOW NOW NOW, with no plan, and no accountability?* Bloomberg:

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Timothy Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for U.S. Treasury Secretary, is seeking to push Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair out of office.

Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has argued Bair isn't a team player and is too focused on protecting her agency rather than the financial system as a whole, according to two congressional officials and a person familiar with his thinking. Bair has battled with Geithner and fellow regulators over aid to Citigroup Inc. and other emergency actions, making her enemies in the Bush administration.

“The idea of having an independent actor [which, legally, Bair is; last I checked, the FDIC didn't report to the Fed -- or Obama] on the stage with you who might not be singing the same tune can make you nervous,” said Wayne Abernathy, a former Treasury official who is now executive vice president with the American Bankers Association in Washington. “They recognize that she's a very independent person.”

It isn't clear that Obama would ask Bair to step down. Such a move would be fraught with political risk for the new administration, especially on Capitol Hill, where Bair's campaign to rework mortgages for struggling homeowners has won respect from top lawmakers, including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, his counterpart in the House. ...

There you have it. For Big Money creatures like Geithner, if you defend homeowners and households, you're not on the team, and in the Village, that's the ultimate Bad Thing To Be. Can't these guys listen to Elizabeth Warren? "Any effective policy has to start with the households"?

So, Geithner's the bad cop. Now, for the good cop, Obama:

Reuters:

After allocating $20 billion to a Federal Reserve consumer lending facility announced on Tuesday, the Treasury has just $20 billion to spend before it must return to Congress for permission to access a second $350 billion in the program.

So, maybe it's time for a midcourse correction. Let's review. They're using our money, taxpayer money. How have things worked out so far? Any lessons learned?

Bailout America with Medicare for All

The biggest difference between US and foreign auto production is that only US automakers are saddled with the burden of paying the health care costs of current workers and retirees.

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MSNBC's Brzezinski falsely asserted "the average Big Three automaker union worker's compensation is $73/hour"

Black Agenda Report

Should the auto industry get a Wall Street style blank check bailout? Or is this the ideal time to make US auto and other industrial jobs globally competitive by enacting the kind of single payer health care system every other wealthy industrial nation on the planet uses?

As I have said before, it is not a coincidence that the chief sponsor of single payer represents Detroit.

Powerline Proves Universal Health Care Makes GM and Chrysler Profitable

The chart to the left shows the losses and profits per car of some major car companies. John over at Powerline uses it to argue that there should be no bailout, because the Big 3 are so unprofitable it's just pointless. Let's do some simple math. Take a look at GM's loss per car, about $700. What is GM's cost per car for health care? $1,500. What happens if you add $1,500? A profit. Of $800/car.

Bloomberg has filed FOIA requests to find out who Hank Paulson has given two trillion* in emergency loans to, and what collateral he accepted. (This is a separate program from the Bush + Reid + Paulson + Obama + Paulson bailout bill, where accountability is also non-existent.) Here's how the Fed responded to one request:

``I have confirmed that the information you seek is confidential commercial information,'' Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh said in the letter. ``The information at issue contains confidential commercial business information regarding securities pledged as collateral in connection with JPMCs acquisition of Bear Stearns.''

I'll bet. And here's how non-Villagers react to that:

Remember Neel Kashkari*, the Goldman Sachs "creative class" gofer who's running the trillion dollar bailout for Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson's golfing buddies at the big banks?

Here's what Neel Cash-and-Carry had to say about process at his bailout press conference just over a week ago:

Consistent with Congress' intent, we are committed to transparency and oversight in all aspects of the program ...

That was then. This is now. So how's that "transparency" thing working out?

Via the excellent Bailout Sleuth:

Outsourcing the bailout to contractors is really a beautiful racket, isn't it?

Well it seems Citigroup has decided that even with the help of F.D.I.C. that it just did not want to take on even part of the bad loans/debt Wachovia had from its' earlier mergers. According to the NYTimes , Wells Fargo gets to have it all and create a $1.42 Trillion company stretching coast to coast.
Citigroup wants to sue Wells Fargo for $60 Billion for interfering, but may not be able to because:

And Senate Wednesday. House contact info and Senate contact info. Phone them. Fax them. Use FaxZero and you can send 2 free ones every day. Faxes take up space in offices. Use them. Push back hard, and do it now.

The New York City Central Labor Council held an Emergency Mobilization Press Conference today at noon in front of the NY Stock Exchange. We packed Wall Street with the usual verve.

Unions to Congress: A Blank Check is a Bad Idea.

Photos? Have I got photos?!

Update: NYCCLC press release below...