Daily Show: Jim Cramer Interview

Watch this.

No kidding.

It isn't just that Jon Stewart is brilliant and hands Cramer (host of CNBC's Mad Money) his ass. That's nice, but really, who cares... (Warning: NSFW Language throughout interview.)

Watch this because by the end you'll grasp at a deep level how the financial media has not just

• failed to report on the problems in the markets,
• failed to do any investigative reporting, but also
• failed to call "fire" when an inferno was ablaze.

As Jon makes clear and Jim Cramer eventually cops to, CNBC and the rest of the financial "media" helped set the financial markets on fire through their selective, biased, and non-journalistic "reporting" whose primary purpose was to entertain, get ratings, and promote the market (which they themselves and their bosses and organizations were invested in.) Their shows were ENTERTAINMENT, not journalism, having little to (yes, I'll go there) nothing to do with reporting of actual financial news or markets in any journalistic sense.

These so-called financial media were and are part of the fraud which caused the bubble leading to the collapse.

Jon calls them/him out, and Cramer admits it.

An absolute must watch all the way through.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer Interview, CNBC: Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer Interview, CNBC: Part 2

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer Interview, CNBC: Part 3

There's more...

Crisis of Credit Visualization

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

There's more...

Back in NYC

Drinking Coffee and Taking it Easy

Back in NYC having driven up this morning.

Before leaving D.C. we got memento copies of The Washington Post to store away. Once we got here, I got Final copies of The New York Times, New York Post, and Newsday. The inauguration and I was there. *smiles* About which I will write my own story -- and many more -- once I've had time to let them sink in and simmer.

Of the hundreds and hundreds of people I've spoken to so far, many only briefly, NOT ONE has said having President Obama in office sucks, stinks, is bad, or even suggested it may not be all it's cracked up to be. The closest is someone today said that no one person could possibly measure up to all these expectations. Oh, wait... that was me.

It was n a conversation with a New York financial analyst (we were having lunch at a deli over by the main library; I had lox on a plain bagel plus tomato and lots of onion) who was worried about four years going by and what will people think if not everything is done?!! I reassured him the Obama team is keenly aware of the problem and is concentrated on what needs to be done NOW, not on everything which could possibly be done given unlimited money and time. Where is the most bang for the buck, given their concerns?

For me, the biggest bang is in shifting the fundamental basis of the dollar from being backed by petroleum (which is a scare commodity) to a dollar being backed by renewable "green" energy (which are abundant commodities, or will be as we develop and move the technologies for them from developmental technologies to production commodities with economies of scale.)

This will result in a contextual shift first to an economy in which the world's reserve currency is backed by abundance rather than by scarcity, to a world where people naturally THINK and then ARE, that is, a world in which people LIVE THEIR LIVES FROM ABUNDANCE as the default condition instead of a world in which people live their lives from scarcity by default. Changing the backing of the dollar -- the world's reserve currency -- from increasingly scare petroleum to renewable and increasingly abundant "green" energy WILL be as large a shift in human development and human rights as the invention of technology (tools) themselves.

Yes, I mean to make this large a claim. The creation of tools contextually arose along with the invention of identity, which brings with it that there is a "me" and there is "all you people." Which in turn brings into existence, especially given the conditions under which human beings lived 20,000-30,000 years ago, their smaller brains, the smaller linguistic space within which they invented their world... the world invented naturally and I assess inevitability, brought with it, scarcity. An "us" v. "them" world of competing for scarce, natural resources which man harvests from the heavens, the seas and the earths (which are infinite, even though the resources they contain ultimately may be scarce.)

Water is scarce. Food is scarce. Fertile virgin women of good families are scarce. Strong powerful men with property and wealth are scarce. Real estate is scarce. Oil, beaver pelts, tulips, cocaine, Percocet, votes, and rivers to build dams on are scarce.

Our economy, the very dollar itself, is build on hydro-carbons which while once seemingly black gold, an endless sea, are now obviously increasingly scarce.

The world-wide economy built from the time of early man till today, build on scarcity down to its very core, is crumbling, rumbling, cracking, crumbling. What we don't think through clearly is this: should the economy actually collapse, the half of the world which is dead broke would probably live. You and I (perhaps not literally you or I, but the so-called First World) would die by the billions. A world-wide economic collapse would produce a species die-off.

An economy built on scarcity has got us this far. Now the world must shift on its foundations. Revolution to the way "everyone knows it is" must occur or the world as we know it will end.

The context of money must change.

Enough For Everyone

This contextual shift means that for the first time since human beings invented tools, captured fire, learned how to slay animals at a distance, planted crops, and began to invent a future together, for the first time, there WILL BE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE AND EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT IS TRUE. Abundant energy as the backing of money means there is enough energy for everything for everyone, and the government backs the money supply with its guarantee. That the full faith and credit of the United States says THERE IS ENOUGH. So says the United States. Count on it.

Having dinner with Jen at 6 tonight.

MUCH more about the inauguration (and New York). Call it, LM and Jesse's excellent adventures... as we get them written. Plus PHOTOS and VIDEOS.

Including the best video GNB has EVER posted. True.

****

Just spent an hour or so in the the reading room at the Main Library. Then ZOOMED down 42nd with New York pedestrians JUMPING FOR THEIR LIVES as my scooter bore down on them. Muhahahaha.

Seriously. I scared the hell out of the mid-town insurance types. The nice ladies I went out of my way to be careful with. And the asshole's so busy on their phone they were knocking the little old ladies out of their way, I made jump for their lives. *smiles sweetly*

Aggressive? Who's aggressive? (*reaches into red bag and takes meds I should have taken last night and this morning. Checks* 'Hmm. Perhaps I forgot to take them. ' *takes meds for entire day...*)

Dropped off the scooter with Alex on the east side of Lexington between 42 & 41. I'll write more about Alex Wong and Big Apple Mobility later - he and his scooters are worth an entire wonderful post. Renting a scooter from Alex was one of the three best decisions of the entire trip. We'd have failed without the scooter, no question.

Walked back over to Park, and up towards 42nd. I'm in the Starbucks on the east side of Park, just short of 42nd.

More from me tomorrow. Today I'm relaxing from the intensity of the last six-seven days, laying back, catching up on a tiny tiny bit of my email, but mostly, relaxing and letting sink in what is happening.

Once it's started to sink in a bit, I'll start writing post after post after post about everything. So much happened, and I want to write. For the first time in a long time -- I've been really wiped out -- I have a need to sit down and pour out good posts.

Sitting here, reading, drinking an enormous coffee, then dinner with Jen tonight.

Talk with y'all soon.

There's more...

Jobs Lost in One Month: 533,000

JOBS Open Thread

That's right, in one month 1/2 million jobs gone.

How are your doing? Is your job gone, under threat, teetering, safe?

What plans are you making as insurance against the rocky economic foreseeable future?

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SIMPLE ANSWERS: Why is the Economy Bailout Needed?

Jesse's Mom (Promoted from Comments)

There's serious shit going on out there that needs addressing. This bailout needs to be tough and punitive for the "big boys." They had a grand time fleecing us all, they must pay. And Paulson (to whom Bush wants to give a blank check) surely should have seen it coming.

Hemingway reportedly said when asked how his bankruptcy happened, "Well, gradually, and then suddenly."

Do not forget: One week ago today, on October 15, McCain told us the economy was "sound." Sure, now....

PS. I was a bankruptcy lawyer for 25 years. This isn't so darn complicated as our leaders would have us believe.

My mother, a noted bankruptcy lawyer said, "This isn't so darn complicated as our leaders would have us believe."

She's got that right.

• Knock the top 15-30% off home mortgages.
• Give Bankruptcy Judges power to handle mortgages
• Don't give CEOs a break or a way out. If they run, jail them.
• The Government buys the distressed notes/lands, sets fair prices, and either
• lets current principle owners stay in their homes, or sells secondary homes. Either way, a market price gets set, and not by the crooks who fleeced everyone already.

We did this once already, during the S&L bailout. This is a larger, deeper round.

To the people who ask, WHY must this be done.

It must be done because CHINA & JAPAN (and Germany and Europe) hold our paper. If we do not act, they will stop loaning us $2 billion, that's BILLION dollars with a "B" per day, and the United States will -- because of who our Federal Reserve Chairman is -- try and print enough bad money, to try and make up the difference.

That is called hyper-inflation. As if you had a pocket of $100 bills, and it couldn't buy a loaf of bread. And by this afternoon, literally, a pocket of $1,000 bills couldn't buy a loaf of bread. ANY cash, paper money, anyone gets their hands on, they RUN, actually physically RUN to the nearest store, to spend it on something, anything, right now, because an hour later, it will be worth 25-50% less.

There is at least one country in the world right this very moment -- can't remember the name -- in the grip of a hyper-inflation.

Should China or Japan -- but it's really China -- stop loaning us money, we will simply be fucked without lube. The Great Depression will look like six year olds playing tea. When Russia when through a full devaluation of the Ruble, it took them (I believe) close to ten years before they started to return towards normal.

Just as one example as how bad life got in Russia, their were sex tours set up to Russia from all over the world (including from the United States) for whatever your kink is. Underage was nothing. The one I remember is Professor sex. People flew in to Moscow on special tours in order to have sex with Ph.D's. These educated women, these women with doctorates in their late 20s, provided for their entire extended families and turning tricks with C students who got off on doing it to Professors. Because $50 USD was worth more than $10,000 rubles. (And if I'm off a bit in my precise numbers, I'm making a point, not trying to be precise. What I'm saying, happened in Russia. It has happened in many other places when the money has gone ka-Zam. It could happen here also. As it did in the South after the Civil War.)

Do I think it will get that bad? Am I encouraging panic?

No. And no. Although as we've said at GNB many times, you bet your ass I believe everyone should store six months to a year of food -- and yes, this is a class thing; poor and working class can not afford this I regret to say -- and medicines, several water purifiers, and about 100-200 other critical items (eyeglasses.) Plus a jump kit for each family member. Plus a jump kit in your car for each family member and spares, you betcha.

Do I think worst case (or almost worst case; other cases are even uglier) is likely? No. I do not. Really I don't. Do I think it is a possibility? Yes.

I don't think it will happen. China would have to, in the vernacular, piss on its own boot.

China's central bank -- every central bank in the world -- owns LOTS of dollars. The reserve clearing currency of the world is the United States dollar. Said differently, it is the Dollar in which all international debts, loans, and transactions, ESPECIALLY OIL TRANSACTIONS, are cleared. And everyone needs energy.

Every central bank in the world owns BILLIONS of dollars, good old U.S. of A. greenbacks, specifically in order to clear loans with other central banks, and even more importantly, in order to clear its OIL AND NATURAL GAS accounts, which with very rare and not important exceptions, are denominated exclusively in the U.S. Dollar.

Therefore... if ANYONE, including China, which owns a massive amount of dollars, were to make a move on the dollar, they'd be pissing on their own boot. Said differently, if China were to fuck over the United States, which it could, simply be refusing to loan us more money. If it did, it would be hurting its OWN dollars at the same time it hurt the U.S. dollars.

However, if China did make a move on the U.S. dollar supply, all of a sudden the U.S. would need lots and lots of money, real.damn.quick. But because we suddenly needed money, and no one is lending it to us easily, the interest rate we'd have to pay to get it would go through the roof. (When a thing is scare, it costs more. Economics 101.) And as the interest rate the US Government pays on money it borrows is, by definition, the LOWEST interest rate around, then every other interest rate in the US would skyrocket. (Every interest rate in the world is tied to the Fed Discount Rate.)

Skyrocketing interest rates... businesses can't borrow money. They can't buy stuff they need. No operating capital. Layoffs happen. People are out of work. Depression.

Why wouldn't China do this? Looks like a great way to take out the U.S., a serious rivel for control of the world's remaining energy supplies, and the only remaining super-power. If they take us out, China takes over the world.

Why not?

Because China hold TRILLIONS of dollars in their central bank. They keep lending us money. We loan then dollars, at the rate of $2 billion a day. If China makes a move on the dollar, China would be in effect, destroying all of the money they've loaned us, that is, their own economy -- and the rest of the worlds -- right along with ours. Furthermore, China needs not only their own economy, but that of the rest of the world in order to export goods.

Under what circumstances WOULD China stops loaning us money? How could it get SO bad China would wreck everything, bring the whole world down?

• If we become unreliable, not paying back what we owe, skimming off the money for the benefit of the rich defaulting on the rest. Oops.
• If we become a genuine military threat. Then they just fuck our economy and take the hit. Their rural economy can handle the hit better than our technological/oil economy. Plus too bad if 100-200 million starve there. Here... not so good.
• If we threaten to destroy the market to the point it is too dangerous for them to have their money in dollars.

Hmmmmm.

And I notice I haven't even talked about the dangers of China's own 9-10% inflation. Which it can NOT sustain. Which may result, er, is likely to result, er, WILL result in its stopping loaning the United States billions of dollars daily, sometime in the next one to five years, with all of the above consequences. Hopefully not all at once. A slow landing, not a sudden crash. But China will have at least a recession, if not a depression, lasting five to fifteen years as it completes its transition from a rural to an industrial (and perhaps even a technological society.) If China does have a depression, so will the United States and the world.

Be that as it may...

This is why the U.S. MUST make the market safe now.

China and Japan have sent clear and unmistakable signals that we WILL fix this problem. Now. They are not stupid. No one commits global suicide. Yet at some point, retrenchment inside the Middle Kingdom must look better than allowing the foolish Americans to continue burning through the wealth of the world.

Therefore, we return to what I have said before.

• Call your Senators. Tell them to HOLD THE LINE.
• Or work as slaves literally the rest of your lives.
• Your children and grandchildren as well.

Yep... there are other ways this could be done.
Make the amount MUCH less for now. Revisit it after the election.
The point is simply to reassure the Street help is coming. All the help does not have to arrive now. The Street simply needs to know it will get there.

Anything short of Holding the Line is too much. The REPUBLICANS blew this. They don't get a voice.

Make the call.

There's more...

Please Respond Immediately Forthwith In Confidence

Dear American:

I cordially correspond today to request you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude which is most seriously important.



I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused urgent need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.



I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.



This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. For this inconvenience you will be rewarded with grand fees of 1/1,000,000th of 1% of possible profits due to off shore laundering of skim funds due to reprinting of said funds.



Please reply with mother's maiden name, routing and account numbers of all of your bank account, IRA, 401K, pension funds, gold and silver accounts, serial numbers of any weapons you own, and college fund accounts and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.



Please Respond Immediately Forthwith In Confidence.



Yours Faithfully and Sincerely,

Minister of Treasury Paulson

h/t Melina and Richard.



Now, let's get real.


Here's Ian Welsh.

Firedoglake

Chris Dodd Stares Down Paulson

So there was "Goldman" Hank, holding a gun on the economy and staring Congress down. "Give me the 700 billion, or the economy gets it!" he threatened. For two days it looked like he was going to get away with it, 700 billion dollars to spend on the Wall Street gang, the boys who'd already shot the economy up so bad it was in danger of bleeding to death.

Then Marshal Dodd came swinging through doors, shotgun in hand, and said "not so fast Hank. Put the gun down, and back away from the economy. We're going to do this my way."

For a moment calm reigned, then from off one side came a high pitched squeak, "you just put down that gun Dodd," said Bush as he leveled his blunderbuss "the Veto" at Dodd, "and you let my good friend Hank walk away with the money or I'll use this gun." He swivelled and instead of aiming it at Dodd, put its muzzle right against the economy's head. "I'll do it. Don't think I won't! I've killed an economy before!"

Hand still on the trigger, Dodd glanced over at Reid. The old man's fighting days, some said, were long gone. Dodd hoped Reid had one big fight left in him. If he didn't, the economy was done, and Paulson would get away, scot-free.

So yeah, the Dodd plan. Good plan. Buying up mortgages for 15% less than the current market value of the house, then reissuing a clean mortgage to homeowners helps the banks while still giving them a slight haircut (but only slight, odds are home prices will drop more than 15% before the slide is over.) It helps homeowners stay in their houses. It sets a market price so that banks know what mortgages are worth and thus what the derivatives based on houses are worth. And giving the mortgages bought to the FDIC, one of the few agencies that Bush didn't cripple, is genius.

Giving the government stock equal to the value of any bailout for the company is also only fair. If they get bailed out, taxpayers should have a chance to get their money back. If they don't like that, well, beggars, and they are beggars, shouldn't be choosers.

There's more...

If that wasn't enough, Ian kicks it again.

Firedoglake

What the Dodd Bill Needs To Be Complete

As much as I think the Dodd bill is a significant improvement over the Paulson power grab, and I do, it is missing a number of important things.

First, as Kay Hagan points out, the review portion seems to be missing teeth. If the review board doesn't like what the Secretary is doing, what can it do about it? Also, she's right that it needs to meet once a week, not once a month. This crisis is moving too fast for once a month.

Second, there doesn't seem to be any provision for paying for this beyond praying it'll eventually pay for itself. I don't see any good reason not to add in Bernie Sanders suggestion of a 10% surcharge tax on the Americans who earn over a million a year. They're the ones who benefited from the last 8 years, who benefited from the policies which caused this disaster, they're the ones who should pay to clean up the mess.

Next, the bill (Section 10) allows for insurance of money market funds but doesn't appear to require that if they fail anyway, they be taken over by the FDIC. This needs to be a bedrock principle, if you blow up your business, the government gets it, you don't get to keep it when in a free market you'd be bankrupt.

I also don't see any real re-regulation of the industry in this bill. That needs to occur, and it needs to be in the bill, because once Wall Street has their bailout they will fight against being properly regulated tooth and nail. This needs to include very strict rules not allowing the use of default insurance any more, getting rid of most different types of swaps, regulations limiting the use of securitization and limits on how debt in general can be sold. (In particular, debt should probably not be able to be sold more than once, and originators should be forced to keep at least half on their books to avoid them selling stuff they know is crap.)

Dodd needs to add an organization which has the right to regulate banks. This needs to be in badly.

There's more...

Call your Senator. They flat out ignore emails and there isn't time to write. CALL. Call today.

Look, I know we ask you sometimes to write or call about this or that. THIS IS THE NEXT 20 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, FOLKS.

FUCK the Presidential elections. Fuck the Supreme Court.
DIS DA REVOLUTION, MAN.

Right fracking now.

Thirty, forty years, some of us have waited. Here it is. Today. RIGHT NOW.
We screw this up, we are slave fucking labor working for the MAN.
I mean the words I'm using.

Get on the phone.
Call your friends.
Call your family.
Call everyone you know.

Tell them to tell their Senators and Congressman...

HOLD THE LINE. Do not give an inch to the Republicans.
No one fucking inch.

• Support Dodd's plan.
  
• They broke it. They lose control of what happens now.
• No unelected official in charge.
  
• The government owns what it pays for.
• Middle-class people get their mortgages relieved also.
• Bankruptcy Judges can grant mortgage relief.
  
• People over $1 million can pay a 10% surcharge -- they've been making millions on our labor, fair is fair.
• Congress has oversight ongoingly. End of discussion.
• Screw up, go to jail. This is not "get out of jail free" boys. It's save the country, not you.
  
• And no fucking golden parachutes for CEOs, no way, no how.
• Make them pay.

HOLD THE LINE...
Or your grandchildren will still be paying these Republican crooks.
Pick up the phone -- make the call.

There's more...

Cronism Key Pillar of Bailout Plan

Getty photographer Chip Somodevilla and NYT

So, I already expressed my SHOCK(not) at the idea that the estimated figure that Paulson was asking for was actually and underestimation and the predicted costs would be much higher.

So imagine my surprise to find out that Goldman Sachs, where Paulson was formerly CEO, is having an undue influence and an over emphasized benefit in their good buddy Hank's bailout bonanza?!

But the conflicts are also visible. Paulson has surrounded himself with former Goldman executives as he tries to navigate the domino-like collapse of several parts of the global financial market. And others have gone off to lead companies that could be among those that receive a bailout.

In late July, Paulson tapped Ken Wilson, one of Goldman’s most senior executives, to join him as an adviser on what to about problems in the U.S. and global banking sector. Paulson’s former assistant secretary, Robert Steel, left in July to become head of Wachovia, the Charlotte-based bank that has hundreds of millions of troubled mortgage loans on its books. By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

Oh, and they will get more money than anyone else too-- also a shocker.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley may be among the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion U.S. plan to buy assets from financial companies while many banks see limited aid, according to Bank of America Corp.- Bloomberg

Once again, it is clear that we got a "Brownie" at the helm in a crisis. I have an idea, let's create an Arabian horse show circuit where these guys can all go and work together. They can tour the world with their horses and leave the rest of us alone.

More on all things Hank and Goldman at Think Progress.
And thanks to Bagnews for pointing out the great ghost like fractured photo of Paulson. Makes me uneasy just looking at it.

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Shocked, I say, To find out that the proposed bailout will cost more than they said it would!

IN a development that should surprise absolutely no one, Hand-out Hank (h/t HS) has underestimated the actual cost of the bailout he is requesting from congress and the American tax payers.

WOW they asked for one amount but it will really be much much more. That sure sounds all to familiar too me.

The U.S. Treasury submitted revised guidance to Congress on its plan a day after first submitting it, as lawmakers and lobbyists push their own ideas. Officials now propose buying what they term troubled assets, without specifying the type, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by a congressional aide.

The change suggests the inclusion of instruments such as car and student loans, credit-card debt and any other troubled asset. That may force an eventual increase in the size of the package as Democrats and Republicans in Congress negotiate the final legislation with the Bush administration, analysts said.

``The costs of the bailout will be significantly higher than originally considered or acknowledged,'' said Josh Rosner, an analyst with independent research firm Graham Fisher & Co. in New York. ``How, given these changes, can the administration and Federal Reserve believe they are being forthright in their unrevised expectation of future losses?'- Bloomberg

This isn't really a government anymore, it actually just a band of highwaymen and the country has become a money pit.

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Marcy Kaptur Gets It

h/t Tanbark

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Main Street Vs. Wall Street

Dangerously flawed-- John McCain says;

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done the last decade for banking, would prove -- and provide more choices for innovative products and less burden by the worst of the excessive state regulations.

and we say;

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