Just askin'......

"International investors own about 51 percent of the $6.36 trillion in marketable U.S. government debt outstanding, up from 35 percent in 2000, according to data compiled by the Treasury. "

Awesome catch at LOLFed:

"The latest in the mainstreaming of financial fail: Topps is including a “World’s Biggest Hoaxes, Hoodwinks and Bamboozles” series in its 2009 Allen & Ginter’s cards: (link)

Continued.

"Word has it Madoff has been demoted to a common, and will be tucked into   Read more…

Andrew Cuomo, NY Attorney General, has written to AIG and given them till 4pm TODAY to turn over names of people getting the money (i.e.receiving bonuses) in the Financial Products subdivision. If they don't, well their offices can expect a visit from his people with the legal authority to make them talk.

Copy of the letter Here

If you're inclined, send Elizabeth Warren an attagirl email. ewarren at law dot harvard dot edu

Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret

You know all that money we gave the damn banks? Well, be grateful they took it and now go away.

Think you could borrow money from a bank without saying what you were going to do with it? Well, apparently when banks borrow from you they don't feel the same need to say how the money is spent...

"It is entirely appropriate for the American people to know how their taxpayer dollars are being spent in private industry," said Elizabeth Warren, the top congressional watchdog overseeing the financial bailout...

 Read more…

So I'm deep in Republican territory, showing off my black ass and wearing all my UChicago gear, this week. It's interesting. The people around here are upper class rich, but not uberrich. Out and about, here's some useless data point stuff. Because Lambert keeps stealing all my post ideas, it's the best I can do.

-What is it with skinny blonde moms with really big families? Like, poppin out a kid every year until there are so many of them it's hard to count if they're not standing still? I'm talking younger moms, obviously wealthy, the sort your average white Amercian patriarch goes for, "trophy" wives. When I was young, not many of the kids at my (private, populated by Republican spawn) school were from very large broods. But for the last few years, I've noticed more and more of these birthing-olympics moms in tony suburbs. Poor people have always believed children are their wealth, but I seem to remember a time when one of the perks of being a trophy wife is that all you had to produce was 'an heir and a spare.' Has that changed?

-The bailout doesn't seem to be popular here either.

Seeing as how Lambert seems intent on stealing all my post ideas today, I'll post this in case like me, you don't often go to HuffPo. It's worth noting that Larissa used to live in Russia, and knows from Coup. Beyond all the bullshit, she speaks plain truth.

As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.

No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.

What's interesting is that she got more than one threat from wingnuts to turn her in to DHS or some shit just for writing a blog post. Expect more of that in future.

I could probably find one in Sumerian, but I'm sure you readers of the Classics know a better example. In a fair world, BAR authors would be highly paid journalists at national news desks:

by Kesi Foster

Higher education is an American Dream, but may become a "Dream deferred" for community college students. The banks are the villains. "The following lenders have started turning away from community college students: Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust, and PNC. In the case of Citibank, it has stopped offering loans to all community college students in the state of California," writes the author, a community college student. When the bankers turn their backs on struggling community college students, "does that not mean we should have no problem turning our backs on the banks when they want the government to bail them out? "

And so it begins. I expect this to happen over and over again in the coming Obama administration, at both the federal level as well as the corporate. (is there a difference?) The "excuse" that "there just isn't enough money/credit/liquidity" will be employed to slash social program after program, and the poor will bear the greatest brunt. But interest on the debt, paid to foreign governments and the superwealthy? Oh, that will be paid. And the MIC budget? Count on that to continue to grow. Social Security? Feh, there's still plenty of fat there that can be cut, and I don't expect Dems to stand up for it, as they are shown the real books that the Bush regime has kept from their incurious eyes these last eight years. Perhaps it will be a 'nasty surprise' to him, or perhaps his Crack SuperSmart UChicago Economic team will be all ready, handing over a "plan" on Day 1, in which they relate that for the Good of the Nation, the poor shall be required to turn over their first born for slavery "national service" in which they are all shipped to Dubai to work on the New Pyramids.

So Big Blue and lots of other number-inclined bloggers have been telling us all about the housing market crash, or I guess I should call it "multiple markets crash" because it's affected banks, Wall Street, insurance and credit card companies, and a whole lot more. Been to Home Depot lately? So many looking so suicidal. I came across a term I didn't know, and so I went off and did a little casual reading about "undevelopment." Now, before I say anything, read this:

When I was a child I went to school in Kalemie. It was a great honour for one from our village to go to the big town and I was chosen because I was the son of the chief. My family walked with me through the forest to the place not far from here where the bus passed. I will never forget that first bus journey." He fell silent for a moment, staring into the fire.
"I was still at school when independence came in 1960, and in Kalemie I remember almost all of the white families fled across the lake because they were scared. I came home and since then I think I have been to Kalemie maybe two times.

"Our village here, the one you are sitting in, used to have cars come through it every few days. Just a few kilometres away is one of those guest houses the Belgians built. They called them gites and they were always open for travellers coming through by car. But all of that went with the fighting.

"Now when we hear the fighting coming our way, my people and I just flee into the bush. We have learned it is the safest place for us. We know how to survive there. And when we come back, our village is almost always destroyed and we have to build it again.

"Over the years, things have got worse and worse. We have lost the things we once had. Apart from what we can carry into the bush, we have nothing. I think the last time I saw a vehicle near here was 1985, but I cannot be sure. All these children you see around you are staring because I have told them about cars and motorbikes that I saw as a child, but they have never seen one before you arrived."