<blockquote>"There is a glimmer of hope. In answer to Senator Corker's question, the treasury is indeed having trouble dispersing the bail-out funds. So far it has requested about $350bn of the $700bn, but most of this hasn't yet made it out the door. Meanwhile, every day it becomes clearer that the bail-out was sold to the public on false pretences. Clearly, it was never reaby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Even more radical is Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman. Munger wants Wall Street balance sheets reduced by 70% and insists that the firms "be a market maker, a broker, an underwriter and a custodian of securities but not the hedge funds they have become." He wants to restrict leverage to 50% on every securities transaction except for the Treasury trading deby ProjectC - Project C
By Phil Williams October 27, 2008 Source I had the great fortune early in my career to work in Shell Oil’s planning department where we worked with scenario planning. Scenario planning is a strategic planning tool that looks at various possible scenarios and allows managers to determine how they might react if one or another scenario eventuates. Given that we can’t accurately foretell the fuby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"But it was all part of the greatest mania in human history. As it turned out, the markets could not have been more wrong on the sustainability of the financial backdrop, the economic environment, asset price inflation, and all types of sophisticated financial structures and strategies. Markets were not only absolutely wrong, they were absolutely wrong on so many things oby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Janet Tavakoli, a finance industry consultant who is president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, said the stock market’s gyrations are a result of a severe lack of confidence in the very officials who are charged with cleaning up the nation’s mess. “It is not enough to throw money at a problem; you also have to use honesty and common sense,” Ms. Tavakoli said. “In fact,by ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Inditex has spent more than three decades perfecting its strategy. Along the way it has broken almost every rule in retailing. At most clothing companies, the supply chain starts with designers, who plan collections as much as a year in advance. At Inditex, Zara store managers monitor what's selling daily—and with up to 70 percent of their salaries coming from commissby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"The crisis is the result of well-documented gross negligence, deceit, corruption and incredible stupidity by highly educated, richly rewarded bankers, not to mention their agents and regulators."</blockquote> Crisis caused by negligence and incredible stupidity From Mr Duncan A. MacDonald. Published: October 24 2008 03:00 | Last updated: October 24 2008by ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief. On any given day, as we go about our business, the president is prepared to make a decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most devastating weapons in the world. To declare war requires an act of congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes’ deliberation by the president and hisby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"...Personally, while I recognize the appeal (to others, not me) of the "singularity" narrative, which has the human race making a sudden evolutionary leap into some kind of cyborg-nirvana, I regard it as an utter bullshit fantasy that has zero chance of occurring, given our stark predicament."</blockquote> What Now? By Jim Kunstler October 20,by ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"...But for Smith the division of labour took on swollen and gigantic importance, putting into the shade such crucial matters as capital accumulation and the growth of technological knowledge. As Schumpeter has pointed out, never for any economist before or since did the division of labour assume such a position of commanding importance." -- Murray N. Rothbard, The Ceby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"In summary, while Canadian public policy is not universally better than in the United States, and its political orientation is at least somewhat more left of center, there is a rationality to it that has been missing from the US over the past decade or so. It is worth examining why this might be so. Begin with monetary policy. Unlike the Federal Reserve System, whichby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"By no means do I want to idealize Ukrainian politicians. I am certain that there are also plenty of scoundrels among Ukraine's politicians and bureaucrats. I am speaking of the corrupt officials who change their convictions and alliances and who can swear fealty to freedom of the press one day and take pleasure in extinguishing those freedoms the next. But becausby ProjectC - Project C
By London Banker 17 October 2008 Source The title of this diary is a quote from the Vietnam era that sums up for many the arrogance and pointlessness of American aggression in Asia two generations ago. It keeps coming to mind each time I read President Bush’s (paraphrased) statement this week: We had to nationalise the banks “to preserve the free market.” There is no free market when theby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Today, Wall Street risk intermediation is a bloody wreck; the securities and derivatives markets are in complete disarray; the deeply impaired Wall Street firms have no choice but to rein in lending for securities speculation; and the hedge fund industry is in the midst of a massive de-leveraging and industry collapse. The market for creating, pricing and distributing finby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Rothbard supposes that if we do not return to the classical gold standard with realistic prices of gold, the international monetary system is condemned to constant shifts from floating exchange rates to fixed exchange rates and back again. Both these systems bring insoluble problems, function badly and finally collapse. This prediction can be changed only by a fundamentalby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Born wanted to shine a light into the dark. She had offered no specific oversight plan, but after months of making noise about the dangers that this enormous market posed to the financial system, she now wanted to open a formal discussion about whether to regulate them -- and if so, how. Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt were determined to derail her effort. Privately, Rubiby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Long lines of nervous customers waiting to withdraw their savings -- the images of 1931 have been burned into Germany's collective memory. They have become symbolic for the world economic crisis that began in 1929, plunged millions of people into unemployment and poverty and eventually led to the Nazis' rise to power in 1933. ... Instead of billions orby ProjectC - Project C
How Risk Models Failed Wall St. and Washington By James G. Rickards Thursday, October 2, 2008; Page A23 Source Crooked mortgage brokers, greedy investment bankers, oblivious rating agencies and gullible investors have all been faulted in the financial crisis, and there is bipartisan agreement that regulators were asleep at the switch. It's all well and good to call for substantial neby ProjectC - Project C
Now we need the leadership to use them. By PAUL VOLCKER OCTOBER 10, 2008 Source Today, the financial crisis has reached a critical point. The sharp decline in the stock market and its volatility dramatically make the point. More important if less visible, the flow of credit through the banking system and the financial markets is seriously impaired -- even in part frozen. For months, thby ProjectC - Project C
There is a safe way to securitize home loans. By GEORGE SOROS OCTOBER 10, 2008 Source The American system of mortgage financing is broken and needs a total overhaul. Until there is a realistic prospect of stabilizing housing prices, the value of mortgage-related securities will erode and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's efforts will come to naught. There are four fundamental proby ProjectC - Project C
By John Authers in New York and Sundeep Tucker in Hong Kong October 10 2008 Source World equity markets plunged again on Friday, ending a week-long dive that matched falls seen in the Great Crash of 1929. Amid mounting fears that the frozen credit and money markets posed an imminent risk of a global recession, the pressure for a co-ordinated rescue by the world’s economic policymakers, meby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"The crisis was caused by the largest leveraged asset bubble and credit bubble in the history of humanity were excessive leveraging and bubbles were not limited to housing in the US but also to housing in many other countries and excessive borrowing by financial institutions and some segments of the corporate sector and of the public sector in many and different economies:by ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Those who will yet be born, may they enter the tomb and see what is inside. You who enter this tomb, look and try to understand. Read and restore these inscriptions." -- <a href="é</a></blockquote> Tomb 33 1 Aug, 2008 Source Hidden beneath the most popular tourist destination in Egypt, the Valley of the Kings, lies a maze of corridorsby ProjectC - Project C
By Martin Hutchinson October 06, 2008 Source Since November 2000, this column has warned of a wide variety of economic and market disasters that have appeared impending. With almost 400 columns, a number have been plain flat-out wrong, as well as the innumerable ones that were more or less repetitive of previous effusions. Nevertheless, in the last few months, this column’s varying predictioby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Pieces vs. Courses The final problem to be discussed may be the major problem, the dominant reason, although not the only one, why the computer has been such an abysmal failure in assisting learning and solving the major problems of education. Most of what has been produced are short pieces of software. Seldom have the computer and its related technologies been used aby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Touching is an important means for information, exchange and communication. It is a form of communication that is very important for living and surviving. Touching is essential in our life. To put it more strongly, without touching we cannot live. A specific form of touching is the touch between air and lungs. If we cannot touch the air that surrounds us to breathe vital eby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"The leveraged speculating community played an integral role in the overall Credit Bubble and more specifically to the Bubble in Wall Street Finance. They were instrumental in both spurring financial sector Credit creation/leveraging and directing the Flow of Finance to the asset markets. And the more the leverage and the greater the Flow to inflating markets, the higherby ProjectC - Project C
** Plasma physicist Hannes Alfvén & physicist Enrico Fermi "Alfvén's discovery of hydromagnetic waves is another example of an original idea having a far-reaching impact on multidisciplinary science. On purely physical grounds, Alfvén concluded that an electromagnetic wave could propagate through a highly conducting medium, such as the ionized gas of the sun, or in plasmas anywheby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"When Paulson dumps out his 700 billion in treasuries it's going to be at the short end. That will drive up rates for short-term treasuries. This will obviously draw even *more* deposits into the treasury MMs. That means even less in the commercial MMs and thus less working credit, the eventual commercial MM product. Hence Paulson's billions remove working capitalby ProjectC - Project C
By Martin Wolf Published: September 30 2008 19:22 Source It is just over three score years and ten since the Great Depression. Judged by its rejection of the plan put forward by Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, Congress believes it is time to risk another one. That slump was, arguably, the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century: it was, among other things, responsible for the events thby ProjectC - Project C