Swiss are not happy about US probe of UBS

Now this is interesting:

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country’s biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy.
The populist SVP, the country’s biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider to help shut the camp down.
Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the United States in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement.
The SVP said gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the United States should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of U.S. funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the failure of U.S. regulators.
The SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties, but its populist policies have shaken up usually consensual Swiss politics.
via Swiss party wants to punish U.S. for UBS probe – Reuters.

You see, this is what happens, when the United States entangles itself in the affairs of other Governments. Switzerland has been a neutral country for years and a somewhat friend of ours, now they’ve become a enemy. Real smart there Barry, Real fucking smart.

Obama to Unveil Class Warfare Plan

I knew this was coming:

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.
In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation’s economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that Obama hopes to enact later this year.
A summary of Obama’s budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation’s costly and inefficient health care system Monday, when he addresses more than 100 lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring “fiscal responsibility” to Washington.
In his weekly radio and Internet address today, Obama expressed determination to “get exploding deficits under control” and described his budget request as “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”
Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical to the nation’s future: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.”
Obama faces the long-term challenge of retirement and health programs that threaten to bankrupt the government years down the road, as well as the more immediate problem of deficits bloated by spending on the economy and financial-system bailouts. His budget proposal takes aim at the short-term problem, administration officials said, but also would begin to address the nation’s chronic budget imbalance by squeezing savings from the federal health programs for the elderly and the poor.
Even before Congress approved the stimulus package earlier this month, this year’s deficit was projected by Congressional budget analysts to approach $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since World War II. With the stimulus and other expenses, some analysts say the annual gap between federal spending and income could approach $2 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.
Obama proposes to dramatically reduce those numbers by the end of his first term, cutting the deficit he inherited in half, said administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget has yet to be released. His budget plan would keep the deficit hovering near $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011, but shows it dropping to $533 billion in 2013 — still high in dollar terms, but a more manageable 3 percent of the overall economy.
To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from “winding down the war” in Iraq, a senior administration official said. The budget assumes that the nation will continue to spend money on “overseas military contingency operations” throughout Obama’s presidency, the official said, but that number is significantly lower than the nearly $190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year
via Washington Post – Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan.

Well, one can forget about any new jobs coming to Michigan or anywhere else in America, because if Businesses are taxed, they will not hire new people. Just more class warfare from the Democrats. I also notice that Obama is cutting funds to Iraq and Afghanistan, that will be the precursor to ending the war. Because you cannot fight a war, if you do not have the funds.

We are headed into a repeat of the 1990’s all over again, ending the deficit on the backs of the wealthy in the Country, while the rest of Country gets off scott free. Where is the fairness in that? The reason why this is so bad is this, if you tax the wealthy and business owners, they are much less likely to hire new employees and also they are less likely to spend money, thereby adding to the economy. This whole idea of the Democrats of Tax and Spending our way out of our Economic woes is just plain idiotic.

We are headed towards very scary times in America. Act accordingly.

(H/T and Thanks to Drudge)

Awesome Karl Denninger lays the smack down on White Press Secretary Gibbs

This is just too awesome!

Wow! I love it when smart people to stuff like that…

Karl Denninger’s Blog

(H/T Lew Rockwell)

HELL FREEZES OVER! Andrew Sullivan says something nice about Ron Paul

Holy Moses ‘n Aaron! I never thought I’d see this day, ever!

I do not know these things. But I do know that a serious engagement with the ideas and principles of a non-Keynesian approach to economics – of the kind Ron Paul talks about – is worth having again. At some point the right will have to govern again; and reminding people of the dangers of excessive government, excessive debt, and printing money will be necessary. The groundwork needs to start now. And it needs to be free of partisan cant and ideological posturing.
via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (February 20, 2009) – A Conservative Of Doubt.

I agree with Sullivan; for a change. I feel so Odd, and like I need to shower. 😉

CNBC's Rick Santelli goes off on a rant about the Bailouts and the Stimulus

Sometimes I just wuv BreitBart. This has to be one of the best things I’ve ever seen on MSBC/CNBC.

Exit Question: I just wonder how long it is before Rick Santelli gets terminated for not embracing the politics of hope and change?

Manufacturing Suffers

Some more grim news… 🙁

Via the Economist:

$0.00, not counting fuel and handling: that is the cheapest quote right now if you want to ship a container from southern China to Europe. Back in the summer of 2007 the shipper would have charged $1,400. Half-empty freighters are just one sign of a worldwide collapse in manufacturing. In Germany December’s machine-tool orders were 40% lower than a year earlier. Half of China’s 9,000 or so toy exporters have gone bust. Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January. The number of cars being assembled in America was 60% below January 2008.
The destructive global power of the financial crisis became clear last year. The immensity of the manufacturing crisis is still sinking in, largely because it is seen in national terms—indeed, often nationalistic ones. In fact manufacturing is also caught up in a global whirlwind.
Industrial production fell in the latest three months by 3.6% and 4.4% respectively in America and Britain (equivalent to annual declines of 13.8% and 16.4%). Some locals blame that on Wall Street and the City. But the collapse is much worse in countries more dependent on manufacturing exports, which have come to rely on consumers in debtor countries. Germany’s industrial production in the fourth quarter fell by 6.8%; Taiwan’s by 21.7%; Japan’s by 12%—which helps to explain why GDP is falling even faster there than it did in the early 1990s (see article). Industrial production is volatile, but the world has not seen a contraction like this since the first oil shock in the 1970s—and even that was not so widespread. Industry is collapsing in eastern Europe, as it is in Brazil, Malaysia and Turkey. Thousands of factories in southern China are now abandoned. Their workers went home to the countryside for the new year in January. Millions never came back (see article).

This is what happens when you create an economic bubble, by loosening up regulations to sell mortgages to those who cannot afford them. The whole world suffers. Our American companies suffer, the World manufacturing sector suffers. It is a domino effect. The problem is, that the United States is going about this all wrong. Instead of changing the way our economic system works. They are simply trying to reinflate the broken bubble. It is like trying to tape up a busted air ballon and trying to put air back into it again. It works for a while, but ends up breaking again.

Greenspan says "nationalize now"

Now this is something:

The US government may have to nationalize some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has told the Financial Times.
In an interview, Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers.
”It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”
Mr Greenspan’s comments capped a frenetic day in which policymakers across the political spectrum appeared to be moving towards accepting some form of bank nationalisation.
“We should be focusing on what works,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told the FT. “We cannot keep pouring good money after bad.” He added, “If nationalisation is what works, then we should do it.”
Speaking to the FT ahead of a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday, Mr Greenspan said that “in some cases, the least bad solution is for the government to take temporary control” of troubled banks either through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or some other mechanism.
The former Fed chairman said temporary government ownership would ”allow the government to transfer toxic assets to a bad bank without the problem of how to price them.”
But he cautioned that holders of senior debt – bonds that would be paid off before other claims – might have to be protected even in the event of nationalisation.
”You would have to be very careful about imposing any loss on senior creditors of any bank taken under government control because it could impact the senior debt of all other banks,” he said. “This is a credit crisis and it is essential to preserve an anchor for the financing of the system. That anchor is the senior debt.”
via FT.com – Greenspan backs bank nationalisation.

Let me get this straight, one of the main douche bags that was responsible for the meltdown of the bank industry and the economic collapse is now telling us what we should do with our banks?

<— click

Grim Local News – GM, Chrysler seek more money and will cut more jobs…

Kind of a depressing local story for me:

Video:

The Story:

Billions of dollars in government loans to prop up General Motors and Chrysler won’t be enough. The companies, which have received $17.4 billion so far, filed plans with the government more than doubling that request to a staggering total of $39 billion.
The requests, made in government-required restructuring plans filed Tuesday, were accompanied by plans for thousands more job cuts, slashing of models and brands, union concessions and the prospect of even further expense cuts.
In a dramatic acknowledgment that conditions in the U.S. auto industry have grown significantly worse in just two months, GM alone said it would cut 47,000 jobs globally by the end of the year — 19 percent of its work force. It also said it would close five more U.S. factories, although it did not identify them.
Chrysler said it will cut 3,000 more jobs and stop producing three vehicle models.
The grim reports came as the United Auto Workers union said it had reached a tentative agreement with GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. on contract changes. Concessions with the union and debt-holders were a condition of the government bailout.
GM said it could need up to $30 billion from the Treasury Department, up from a previous estimate of $18 billion. That includes $13.4 billion the company has already received. The world’s largest automaker said it could run out of money by March without new funds and needs $2 billion next month and another $2.6 billion in April.
“We have a lot of work to do,” General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said. “We’re still going at this with a great sense of urgency.”
via The Associated Press: GM, Chrysler seek billions more, to cut more jobs.

I think I’ll just refrain from public commentary on this one. There’s family, my family involved here; so, I’m totally biased. I just do not think those Conservatives who opposed this money to these companies really get it. All I am going to say. Anyone that’s read this Blog, or wants to know what I think. Do a search on “Tarp Loans” and you’ll see why I feel the way that I do.

Republicans now supporting nationalization of banks

It looks like the party of Freedom is selling the American people up the river:

Nationalization, long regarded in Washington as a folly of Europeans, is gaining rapid ground among US opinion-formers. Stranger still, many of those talking about federal ownership of banks are Republicans.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for North Carolina, said that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agreed with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.
Mr Graham said that people across the US accepted his argument that it was untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.
“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”
Barack Obama, the president, who has tried to avoid panicking lawmakers and markets by entertaining the idea, has recently moved more towards what he calls the “Swedish model” – an approach backed strongly by Mr Graham.
via FT.com – Bank nationalisation gains ground with Republicans.

Nationalization is nothing more than Communism. We are being sold up the river. Remember this come 2010.

(H/T Drudge)

Obama signs the Generational Theft Act and Promises Another, Markets Tank…

I figured this was coming:

The Story:

President Obama has not ruled out a second stimulus package, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said on Tuesday, just before Mr. Obama signed his $787 billion recovery package into law with a statement that it would “set our economy on a firmer foundation.”
The president said he would not pretend “that today marks the end of our economic problems.”
“Nor does it constitute all of what we have to do to turn our economy around,” Mr. Obama said at the signing ceremony in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the way of playoffs.”
Mr. Gibbs, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Denver, said, “I think the president is going to do what’s necessary to grow this economy.” While “there are no particular plans at this point for a second stimulus package,” he added, “I wouldn’t foreclose it.”
Mr. Obama began the first leg of a two-day trip, using the museum ceremony to spotlight the bill’s clean-energy provisions. The president will also visit Phoenix, where he will unveil his new housing plan on Wednesday.
After a bruising legislative battle on the stimulus bill, which drew only three supporting votes from Republicans in the Senate and none in the House, the White House is trying to recapture the debate over the economy. Mr. Obama’s message is that the bill will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.
While the bill has been criticized by conservatives as bloated with pork-barrel spending, it has also been criticized by the left as too tepid and not bold enough to jumpstart the economy. Mr. Gibbs’s remarks on the plane seemed to echo that concern.
In describing the package, the press secretary called it “a strong start towards economic viability” and “the beginning of getting our economy back on track.”
via Signing Stimulus Bill, Obama Does Not Rule Out Another – NYTimes.com.

I figured Obama would do this, sign one porkus bill into law and say, “This is not the end, but just the beginning of the pork!”

Meanwhile, the markets basically tanked, even more so than last week: (Via the New York Times)

From Hong Kong to eastern Europe to Wall Street, financial gloom was everywhere on Tuesday.
Stock markets around the world staggered lower. In New York, the Dow fell more than 3 percent, coming within sight of its worst levels since the credit crisis erupted. Financial shares were battered. And rattled investors clamored to buy rainy-day investments like gold and Treasury debt.
It was a global wave of selling spurred by rising worries about how banks, automakers — entire countries — would fare in a deepening global downturn.
“Nobody believes it’s going get better yet,” said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Do you see that light at the end of the tunnel? Any kind of light? Right now, it’s not there yet.”
At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 297.81 points or 3.7 percent to 7,552.29 points as losses in General Motors, Bank of America and American Express dragged the blue chips lower. The only Dow stock in positive territory was Wal-Mart, which rose after reporting better-than-expected profits.
“If we get substantially below 800 then look out below,” said Marc Groz, chief investment officer at Topos, a risk-advisory firm in Greenwich, Conn.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index slid 3.7 percent to drop below 800, which analysts said was an important trading threshold.

Investors know what this is, it is basically nationalization of our Economy, our banks, everything. They are just not going to invest money in a Government owned banking system. I believe this drop is just the beginning. Wait till it totally collapses and the world is thrust into chaos. It will be an interesting time, indeed.