KBW Nasdaq Bank Index (BKX)

[*~1Best~*]

Republicans turned down the bill.

Republicans are a bunch of criminals headed by Paulson and Greenspan gangs.

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~"Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" ~ 'Now the votes'


Bailout: 110-page rescue: 'Now the votes'

House Republican leaders push for GOP votes, if "conscience will allow them.'
Posted September 28, 2008 6:55 PM
The Swamp

by Mark Silva and updated at 8:30 pm

The 110-page bailout - the one offering the nation's "clogged' financial markets a $350-billion purchase of bad mortgage debt and then another $350 billion if Congress buys it again - is ready for a vote of the House as soon as Monday and then the Senate as soon as Wednesday, provided that resistant members go along with the deal their leaders have made.

The bill may be available for reading at the Web-sites of the House speaker - http://speaker.house.gov - and at Barney Frank's committee - http://financialservices.house.gov - but, if the nation's credit markets have not already frozen, the House's Web-sites have, probably in the face of demand for these documents.

So the Swamp is posting the 110-page bailout here:bailout bill.pdf

The White House tonight insists that it is not a bailout, burt rather an investment that will avert a crisis, and predicts that the government will recoup its money. See the lettter from the Office of Management and Budget: Nussle letter.pdf


http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/28/bailout%20bill.pdf

And a section-by-section legislative analysis of the measure follows in the page below.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's original three-page outline "unacceptable,' has indeed signed off on something similar. What's added though is a two-stage authority for Paulson and probably his successor to plow as much as $700 billion into bad mortgage-related assets, and then a requirement that, if the government does not make all the money back in reselling the paper as the market improves, the financial institutions that benefited from the buyout will have the repay the balance after five years - not all at once, no one balloon payment.

There are other measures as well: Limitations on the pay for top executives at firms benefiting from this transaction - a first for the nation, as Rep. Frank (D-Mass.) puts it. And there is bipartisan oversight with not only an appointed panel watching over the Treasury's shoulder, but also the oversight of the Governmental Accountability Office and an independent inspector general.

"Now we have to get the votes,' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today. The House may vote as soon as Monday, and the Senate as soon as Wednesday.

"This bill, while not perfect, will help stabilize the economy,' Reid said, "and I think it's going to help the taxpayers.'

"It's not a bill that anyone of us would have written, it's a much better bill than we got,' Frank said. "This will be the first time in the United States that anything has been done to curtail executive compensation.... We have a recognition in this bill that if there is a shortfall in the amount of money collected as we sell these assets than it must be' met by the financial institutions that benefited, not all in a year, but it must be repaid.

"Now we'll see how much support we can get,' said Pelosi, counting on House Republican leaders who balked but then finally bought into compromise plan to bring some votes to the table. This is it, Pelosi said -- this package is locked down and will not be amended. But the Democrats clearly do not want to go these 110 pages alone. "We will have to have bipartisanship to pass it.'

Resistant Republican leaders are calling on their colleagues to support the plan - if their "conscience will allow them.'

"The American people are angry, angry about the situation they find themselves in,' House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said tonight after hours of closed-door meetings with fellow Republicans balking at the plan. "My colleagues are angry about the situation they find themselves in. Nobody wants to have to support this bill.'

"At the end of the day, there really are no taxpayer funds at risk here,' Boehner said. "We do know what's at risk, and that's our economy. And that's why we're supporting this bill.'


In selling the plan to his party, Rep. Ray Blunt (R-Mo.) is calling it "a work-out of the problem, rather than a bailout.'

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says the bill's insurance provision insures that financial institutions will help with the problem.

How many Republican votes can they deliver? "We don't know,' Boehner said, "We've made it pretty clear to our members that we are supporting this bill.... I'm encouraging every member of our conference whose conscience will allow them to support this bill.'

SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS OF THE LEGISLATION


Section 1. Short Title.
"Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008."

Section 2. Purposes.
Provides authority to the Treasury Secretary to restore liquidity and stability to the U.S. financial system and to ensure the economic well-being of Americans.

Section 3. Definitions.
Contains various definitions used under this Act.


Title I. Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Section 101. Purchases of Troubled Assets.
Authorizes the Secretary to establish a Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP") to purchase troubled assets from financial institutions. Establishes an Office of Financial Stability within the Treasury Department to implement the TARP in consultation with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the FDIC, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Requires the Treasury Secretary to establish guidelines and policies to carry out the purposes of this Act.

Includes provisions to prevent unjust enrichment by participants of the program.

Section 102. Insurance of Troubled Assets.
If the Secretary establishes the TARP program, the Secretary is required to establish a program to guarantee troubled assets of financial institutions.

The Secretary is required to establish risk-based premiums for such guarantees sufficient to cover anticipated claims. The Secretary must report to Congress on the establishment of the guarantee program.

Section 103. Considerations.
In using authority under this Act, the Treasury Secretary is required to take a number of considerations into account, including the interests of taxpayers, minimizing the impact on the national debt, providing stability to the financial markets, preserving homeownership, the needs of all financial institutions regardless of size or other characteristics, and the needs of local communities. Requires the Secretary to examine the long-term viability of an institution in determining whether to directly purchase assets under the TARP.

Section 104. Financial Stability Oversight Board.
This section establishes the Financial Stability Oversight Board to review and make recommendations regarding the exercise of authority under this Act. In addition, the Board must ensure that the policies implemented by the Secretary protect taxpayers, are in the economic interests of the United States, and are in accordance with this Act.

The Board is comprised of the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of the Federal Home Finance Agency, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Section 105. Reports.
Monthly Reports: Within 60 days of the first exercise of authority under this Act and every month thereafter, the Secretary is required to report to Congress its activities under TARP, including detailed financial statements.

Tranche Reports: For every $50 billion in assets purchased, the Secretary is required to report to Congress a detailed description of all transactions, a description of the pricing mechanisms used, and justifications for the financial terms of such transactions.

Regulatory Modernization Report: Prior to April 30, 2009, the Secretary is required to submit a report to Congress on the current state of the financial markets, the effectiveness of the financial regulatory system, and to provide any recommendations.

Section 106. Rights; Management; Sale of Troubled Assets; Revenues and Sale Proceeds.
Establishes the right of the Secretary to exercise authorities under this Act at any time. Provides the Secretary with the authority to manage troubled assets, including the ability to determine the terms and conditions associated with the disposition of troubled assets. Requires profits from the sale of troubled assets to be used to pay down the national debt.

Section 107. Contracting Procedures.
Allows the Secretary to waive provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation where compelling circumstances make compliance contrary to the public interest. Such waivers must be reported to Congress within 7 days. If provisions related to minority contracting are waived, the Secretary must develop alternate procedures to ensure the inclusion of minority contractors.

Allows the FDIC to be selected as an asset manager for residential mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities.

Section 108. Conflicts of Interest.
The Secretary is required to issue regulations or guidelines to manage or prohibit conflicts of interest in the administration of the program.


Section 109. Foreclosure Mitigation Efforts.
For mortgages and mortgage-backed securities acquired through TARP, the Secretary must implement a plan to mitigate foreclosures and to encourage servicers of mortgages to modify loans through Hope for Homeowners and other programs. Allows the Secretary to use loan guarantees and credit enhancement to avoid foreclosures. Requires the Secretary to coordinate with other federal entities that hold troubled assets in order to identify opportunities to modify loans, considering net present value to the taxpayer.

Section 110. Assistance to Homeowners.
Requires federal entities that hold mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, including the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve to develop plans to minimize foreclosures. Requires federal entities to work with servicers to encourage loan modifications, considering net present value to the taxpayer.

Section 111. Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance.
Provides that Treasury will promulgate executive compensation rules governing financial institutions that sell it troubled assets. Where Treasury buys assets directly, the institution must observe standards limiting incentives, allowing clawback and prohibiting golden parachutes. When Treasury buys assets at auction, an institution that has sold more than $300 million in assets is subject to additional taxes, including a 20% excise tax on golden parachute payments triggered by events other than retirement, and tax deduction limits for compensation limits above $500,000.

Section 112. Coordination With Foreign Authorities and Central Banks.
Requires the Secretary to coordinate with foreign authorities and central banks to establish programs similar to TARP.

Section 113. Minimization of Long-Term Costs and Maximization of Benefits for Taxpayers.
In order to cover losses and administrative costs, as well as to allow taxpayers to share in equity appreciation, requires that the Treasury receive non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions.

Section 114. Market Transparency.
48-hour Reporting Requirement: The Secretary is required, within 2 business days of exercising authority under this Act, to publicly disclose the details of any transaction.

Section 115. Graduated Authorization to Purchase.
Authorizes the full $700 billion as requested by the Treasury Secretary for implementation of TARP. Allows the Secretary to immediately use up to $250 billion in authority under this Act. Upon a Presidential certification of need, the Secretary may access an additional $100 billion. The final $350 billion may be accessed if the President transmits a written report to Congress requesting such authority. The Secretary may use this additional authority unless within 15 days Congress passes a joint resolution of disapproval which may be considered on an expedited basis.

Section 116. Oversight and Audits.
Requires the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct ongoing oversight of the activities and performance of TARP, and to report every 60 days to Congress. The Comptroller General is required to conduct an annual audit of TARP. In addition, TARP is required to establish and maintain an effective system of internal controls.

Section 117. Study and Report on Margin Authority.
Directs the Comptroller General to conduct a study and report back to Congress on the role in which leverage and sudden deleveraging of financial institutions was a factor behind the current financial crisis.

Section 118. Funding.
Provides for the authorization and appropriation of funds consistent with Section 115.

Section 119. Judicial Review and Related Matters.
Provides standards for judicial review, including injunctive and other relief, to ensure that the actions of the Secretary are not arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with law.

Section 120. Termination of Authority.
Provides that the authorities to purchase and guarantee assets terminate on December 31, 2009. The Secretary may extend the authority for an additional year upon certification of need to Congress.

Section 121. Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Establishes the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program to conduct, supervise, and coordinate audits and investigations of the actions undertaken by the Secretary under this Act. The Special Inspector General is required to submit a quarterly report to Congress summarizing its activities and the activities of the Secretary under this Act.

Section 122. Increase in the Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.
Raises the debt ceiling from $10 trillion to $11.3 trillion.

Section 123. Credit Reform.
Details the manner in which the legislation will be treated for budgetary purposes under the Federal Credit Reform Act.

Section 124. Hope for Homeowners Amendments.
Strengthens the Hope for Homeowners program to increase eligibility and improve the tools available to prevent foreclosures.

Section 125. Congressional Oversight Panel.
Establishes a Congressional Oversight Panel to review the state of the financial markets, the regulatory system, and the use of authority under TARP. The panel is required to report to Congress every 30 days and to submit a special report on regulatory reform prior to January 20, 2009. The panel will consist of 5 outside experts appointed by the House and Senate Minority and Majority leadership.

Section 126. FDIC Enforcement Enhancement.
Prohibits the misuse of the FDIC logo and name to falsely represent that deposits are insured. Strengthens enforcement by appropriate federal banking agencies, and allows the FDIC to take enforcement action against any person or institution where the banking agency has not acted.

Section 127. Cooperation With the FBI.
Requires any federal financial regulatory agency to cooperate with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies investigating fraud, misrepresentation, and malfeasance with respect to development, advertising, and sale of financial products.

Section 128. Acceleration of Effective Date.
Provides the Federal Reserve with the ability to pay interest on reserves.

Section 129. Disclosures on Exercise of Loan Authority.
Requires the Federal Reserve to provide a detailed report to Congress, in an expedited manner, upon the use of its emergency lending authority under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act.

Section 130. Technical Corrections.
Makes technical corrections to the Truth in Lending Act.

Section 131. Exchange Stabilization Fund Reimbursement.
Protects the Exchange Stabilization Fund from incurring any losses due to the temporary money market mutual fund guarantee by requiring the program created in this Act to reimburse the Fund. Prohibits any future use of the Fund for any guarantee program for the money market mutual fund industry.

Section 132. Authority to Suspend Mark-to-Market Accounting.
Restates the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to suspend the application of Statement Number 157 of the Financial Accounting Standards Board if the SEC determines that it is in the public interest and protects investors.

Section 133. Study on Mark-to-Market Accounting.
Requires the SEC, in consultation with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, to conduct a study on mark-to-market accounting standards as provided in FAS 157, including its effects on balance sheets, impact on the quality of financial information, and other matters, and to report to Congress within 90 days on its findings.

Section 134. Recoupment.
Requires that in 5 years, the President submit to the Congress a proposal that recoups from the financial industry any projected losses to the taxpayer.

Section 135. Preservation of Authority.
Clarifies that nothing in this Act shall limit the authority of the Secretary or the Federal Reserve under any other provision of law.


Title II--Budget-Related Provisions

Section 201. Information for Congressional Support Agencies.
Requires that information used by the Treasury Secretary in connection with activities under this Act be made available to CBO and JCT.

Section 202. Reports by the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office.
Requires CBO and OMB to report cost estimates and related information to Congress and the President regarding the authorities that the Secretary of the Treasury has exercised under the Act.

Section 203. Analysis in President's Budget.
Requires that the President include in his annual budget submission to the Congress certain analyses and estimates relating to costs incurred as a result of the Act; and

Section 204. Emergency Treatment.
Specifies scoring of the Act for purposes of budget enforcement.


Title III--Tax Provisions

Section 301. Gain or Loss From Sale or Exchange of Certain Preferred Stock.
Details certain changes in the tax treatment of losses on the preferred stock of certain GSEs for financial institutions.

Section 302. Special Rules for Tax Treatment of Executive Compensation of Employers Participating in the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Applies limits on executive compensation and golden parachutes for certain executives of employers who participate in the auction program.

Section 303. Extension of Exclusion of Income From Discharge of Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness.
Extends current law tax forgiveness on the cancellation of mortgage debt.

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ BAC ~~~ 39R

[*~1Best~*]

International funds robbing US ~~> Another case of collusion?

Commentary: It's time to take a hard look Washington as well as Wall Street

By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch
Last update: 10:38 p.m. EDT Sept. 28, 2008

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- How did I become rich and famous while toiling as a wage slave in the impecunious trade of financial journalism? When my grandchildren ask this question, I will be able to reply: by writing two articles that prevented the financial meltdown, and likely recession, of 2008.

Sort of.

I really did co-write the first one, for Forbes magazine on Jan. 4, 1993. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston had just published a study purporting to prove definitively that mortgage lenders were discriminating against minorities, the hot cause of the day.

But when my brilliant co-author, Leslie Spencer, asked the Boston Fed's research director, Alicia H. Munnell, what minority default rates were, she said proudly that census tract data showed that they were equal. When Leslie pointed out that this actually proved there was no discrimination, because the lenders had somehow weeded out the credit risks down to the same acceptable level, Munnell was dumbfounded and had to concede (on tape) that she did not, in fact, have definitive proof of discrimination at all.

We had discovered a fundamental technical flaw. We sat back and waited for our Pulitzer Prizes.

Nothing happened. The Boston Fed study continued to be cited by press and politicians. Alicia Munnell was apotheosized into the Clinton administration.

Partly this was because Forbes magazine, albeit then very successful, just didn't figure in the media food chain. Its readership seemed to be confined to 750,000 retired dentists. That mattered, in the dark days before the Internet.

But mostly nobody wanted to know. Subsequently, University of Texas economists Stan J. Liebowitz and Ted Day demonstrated that the study's own data was riddled with errors. Nobody paid any attention to them, either.

That's a bipartisan "nobody," by the way. Questioned later about the Boston Fed study, a Bush Fed governor just smirked and said he was sure the banks would make money. If anything, pressure on the financial industry to make marginal loans increased under George II, part of his Latino outreach strategy.

I don't want to say I told them so. But I (we) did.
Of course, the financial industry was all too happy to be pressured. It no doubt figured it could make commissions and, if there was trouble, the government would bail it out.
And guess what?

This brings me to my second rich-and-famous making article, on the 1998 Fed-orchestrated bailout of Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund.

Which, I have to admit, I didn't actually write. I could never interest any editor in it. But they were wrong and I was right. (Notice a pattern?) LTCM was the current bailout in microcosm.

I was fascinated by the LTCM bailout. I couldn't figure out why the Fed needed to rescue a relatively small firm. But two excellent books "When Genius Failed" and "Inventing Money," respectively by Roger Lowenstein and Nicholas Dunbar (who really do deserve to be rich and famous) provided a lot of damning detail, albeit without drawing conclusions.

Bottom line: LTCM seems to have been bailed out because it was well-connected. Its connections were significantly to Goldman Sachs, which in turn was extremely well-connected to federal government. Its former CEO, Robert Rubin, was Treasury Secretary at the time.

By an amazing coincidence, another former Goldman CEO, Henry Paulsen, is orchestrating the current bailout.

Significantly, the books revealed that LTCM has made itself the "chosen instrument" of, for example, the Italian government in its efforts to groom the Italian bond market in order to join the Euro. LTCM repeatedly cornered the Italian bond market with the Italian government's tacit connivance, even though this was devastating to Italian small investors.
Dunbar wrote of LTCM that by the end of 1997: "Governments treated it as a valued partner, to be used whenever markets weren't efficient enough to achieve macroeconomic goals."
My questions: What governments? What goals? Are subprime mortgages just a later example?

How long has this sort of collusion been going on?
After the Panic of 1907, the U.S. Congress set up the Pujo Committee to investigate the so-called "money trust."
Of course, that resulted in the Federal Reserve, which arguably is now part of the problem.

But maybe we should try again.

And this time look at Washington as well as Wall Street. End of Story

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SUMMARY OF THE "EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT OF 2008"

I. Stabilizing the Economy

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) provides up to $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury to buy mortgages and other assets that are clogging the balance sheets of financial institutions and making it difficult for working families, small businesses, and other companies to access credit, which is vital to a strong and stable economy. EESA also establishes a program that would allow companies to insure their troubled assets.

II. Homeownership Preservation

EESA requires the Treasury to modify troubled loans - many the result of predatory lending practices - wherever possible to help American families keep their homes. It also directs other federal agencies to modify loans that they own or control. Finally, it improves the HOPE for Homeowners program by expanding eligibility and increasing the tools available to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help more families keep their homes.

III. Taxpayer Protection

Taxpayers should not be expected to pay for Wall Street's mistakes. The legislation requires companies that sell some of their bad assets to the government to provide warrants so that taxpayers will benefit from any future growth these companies may experience as a result of participation in this program. The legislation also requires the President to submit legislation that would cover any losses to taxpayers resulting from this program by charging a small, broad-based fee on all financial institutions.

IV. No Windfalls for Executives

Executives who made bad decisions should not be allowed to dump their bad assets on the government, and then walk away with millions of dollars in bonuses. In order to participate in this program, companies will lose certain tax benefits and, in some cases, must limit executive pay. In addition, the bill limits "golden parachutes" and requires that unearned bonuses be returned.

V. Strong Oversight

Rather than giving the Treasury all the funds at once, the legislation gives the Treasury $250 billion immediately, then requires the President to certify that additional funds are needed ($100 billion, then $350 billion subject to Congressional disapproval). The Treasury must report on the use of the funds and the progress in addressing the crisis. EESA also establishes an Oversight Board so that the Treasury cannot act in an arbitrary manner. It also establishes a special inspector general to protect against waste, fraud and abuse.

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Internationally colluded ~ re: Hedge Funds Prepare to Reveal Short Positions

It is obvious that financial markets are moved by internationally colluded fund power making astronomical returns pushing markets on targeted stocks.

Transaction tapes would show all transactions which will reveal the activities on each stocks.

Data processing of each stock transactions can be reviewed to identify major players.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Reuters
Reuters
| 28 Sep 2008 | 05:50 PM ET

Hedge-fund managers are reluctantly preparing to disclose their short positions to U.S. regulators Monday, a move set to give a rare public glimpse into their secretive trading strategies two weeks later.

For shareholders who have blamed short sellers for driving down company stocks, it will be a chance to see who is targeting their firm.

It is also an experiment by U.S. securities regulators, putting short sellers briefly on a similar footing to large investors who accumulate stocks and are required to regularly disclose their positions publicly.

Under a temporary Securities and Exchange Commission order, big money managers will have to reveal the number and value of securities sold short each day last week.

The disclosures are part of a series of measures the SEC has undertaken to crack down on market manipulation with an eye to calming markets rocked by a series of bank failures and fears the credit crisis will worsen.

But hedge funds and short sellers have cried foul and one has likened the disclosures to forcing Coca-Cola Co to reveal its secret formula to its competitors.

Short sellers fear that once their positions are revealed to the public, other investors will copy their positions or reverse engineer their proprietary trading strategies.

"Let's suppose a quant fund, another class of hedge funds has a large short position based on a computer model or algorithm, investors or traders could try to artificially squeeze the quant fund by buying what they are short," said Doug Kass, a short-seller who is founder and president of hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management.

Short sellers, who sell borrowed stock in hopes its price will fall, have been accused of driving down stocks in major financial firms like HBOS, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection earlier in September. Bear Stearns was sold to JPMorgan Chase in an emergency sale brokered in March by U.S. officials.

The SEC and other regulators in the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Australia has imposed temporary bans on the shorting of financial stocks.

The U.K.'s Financial Services Authority has also imposed a similar disclosure rule and is requiring investors with an existing short position above 0.25 percent of a financial company's share capital to declare the size of their holding every day.

The SEC will keeps its information private for two weeks.

After that, the information will be disclose to the public on via online Edgar filing system.

The Washington D.C.-based hedge fund lobby group, the Managed Funds Association, has urged the SEC to amend the order and keep the information private.

It is unclear whether the SEC will amend the order.

However, the agency is expected to consider permanent rules requiring short interest disclosure.

The SEC is requiring money managers to file a comprehensive form that includes their short position at the beginning of the day, the number of securities sold short, the value of the securities sold short and the short position at the end of the day.

The form also requires money managers to disclose their largest intraday short position and the time of day of the largest intraday short position.

"The degree of difficulty in completing the new form is related to the degree of short trading activity of each manager and the level of sophistication the manager possesses in capturing the required information," said David Tittsworth, executive director of the Investment Adviser Association, which represents about 500 firms that collectively manage about $9 trillion in assets.

Travis Larson, vice president with Wall Street lobby group the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said most firms will be ready by Monday. "Everyone recognizes it will be a lot of work between now and then," he said late on Friday.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26931679/

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Citigroup Executives to Meet Sunday on Wachovia





By Charlie Gasparino
On-Air Editor
CNBC
| 27 Sep 2008 | 09:41 PM ET

Senior executives of Citigroup are expected to meet Sunday to discuss a possible acquisition of Wachovia in what people close to the talks describe as advanced merger discussions between the two big banks, CNBC has learned.

People with knowledge of the discussions say the talks could break down at any time; Citigroup's interest largely hinges on whether the firm will received federal help to buy Wachovia , which has around $120 billion of bad debt on its balance sheet.

But if the feds lend a hand to help Citigroup dispose of these soured assets, people close to the firm say, that will make Wachovia an attractive takeover target.

Wachovia , based in Charlotte, NC, has $400 billion in deposits and is the nation's sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets, taking into account the conversion of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley into bank-holding companies this week.

The advanced talks with Citigroup come as Wachovia has approached several banks for a possible merger, including Wells Fargo and Banco Santander of Spain.

It's unclear if Citigroup is in the lead to purchase Wachovia, though top officials at Citigroup are clearly interested in a deal, given the high level discussions expected to take place on Sunday.

Wachovia recently engaged in advanced merger discussion with Morgan Stanley , which backed away from the deal, in part, because of the amount of illiquid assets on the bank's balance sheet. One impediment to a Citigroup deal is that both Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and Wachovia CEO Robert Steele are relatively new to their jobs.

"Does Steele really want to give up any chance of being CEO of the company that buys Wachovia?" said one Wall Street executive, who has knowledge of some of the bank's recent merger discussions. "I dont think so."

That said, officials at Citigroup are clearly weighing a possible deal, given the activity that is scheduled to take place on Sunday.

A Citigroup spokesman had no immediate comment.
© 2008 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26918308/

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Freemarketeer scam ~> US Bailout in Chaos, WaMu Is Biggest Bank Failure


Greedy freemarketeers scam away American wealth pushing market up or down using all kinds of schemes of bubble up and bust down.

The crazy greedy freemarketeer only creates chaos to steal wealth from many, instead of solving problems.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Reuters
Reuters
| 25 Sep 2008 | 10:37 PM ET

A rescue for the U.S. financial system unraveled late Thursday amid accusations Republican presidential candidate John McCain scuppered the deal, and Washington Mutual was closed by U.S. authorities and its assets sold in America's biggest ever bank failure.

As negotiations over an unprecedented $700 billion bailout to restore credit markets degenerated into chaos, the largest U.S. savings and loan bank was taken over by authorities and its deposits auctioned off. U.S. stock futures fell by more than 1 percent.

The third-largest U.S bank JPMorgan Chase said it bought the
deposits of Washington Mutual which has seen its stock price virtually wiped out because of massive amounts of bad mortgages. The government said there would be no impact on WaMu's depositors and customers. JPMorgan said it would be business as usual on Friday morning.

Had a bailout deal been reached in Congress, it may have helped the savings and loan, founded in Seattle in 1889. Efforts to find a suitor to buy WaMu faltered in recent days over concerns about whether the government would reach a deal to buy its toxic mortgages.
# Credit Markets Frozen: 'No One Is Trading'
# Banks Need Another $500 Billion: Gross

Earlier on Thursday, U.S. lawmakers had appeared close to a final agreement on the bailout, lifting world stock markets and sending the dollar higher. But things spun off course during an emergency White House meeting between Congressional leaders with U.S. President George W. Bush.

In advance of that meeting, which included the two men battling to succeed him, Democrat Barack Obama and McCain, a compromise bipartisan deal seemed imminent.

After the session, Congressional leaders said an agreement could take until the weekend or longer.

Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby bluntly told reporters, "I don't believe we have an agreement." He later said the deal was in "limbo."
Watch Shelby's White House remarks

A group of conservative Republican lawmakers proposed an alternative mortgage insurance plan, eschewing the Bush administration's Wall Street bailout just weeks before the Nov. 4 election as many lawmakers try to hold on to their seats.

Democrats said McCain had scuppered the anticipated agreement by throwing his support behind that scheme.

"Sen. McCain has sided with the House Republicans who want to start with a completely different approach and reject what President Bush put forward," said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "It's hard to imagine where we go from here," he said.

The conservative group's plan calls for the U.S. government to offer insurance coverage for the roughly half of all mortgage-backed securities that it does not already insure.

The architects of the original plan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, rushed to Capitol Hill for late night meetings to urge House Republicans to get back on track.

"It is critical that this legislation get done quickly," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "We have serious concerns about the state of our credit markets."

Injection of Politics

Senior Democrats said they came away from the afternoon White House session with the impression that McCain was backing an entirely new Wall Street rescue plan, one differing markedly from a Bush administration proposal under discussion for days.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee and a participant in the White House gathering, said negotiations could be set back by the confusion. (Watch Barney Frank's press conference)

"House Republicans, in some kind of arrangement with McCain, went off to wherever. I don't know whether they're ready to negotiate this. Their thing was some totally different mortgage insurance plan ... that would clearly delay this for a week or more," Frank told reporters.

Frank has played a key role in talks over the Bush administration proposal, which would spend taxpayer money to buy up bad mortgage debt from distressed banks in an effort to free up capital markets clogged with billions of dollars of illiquid securities created during the home price bubble.

"We're not going to give up," Frank said, pledging that Democrats will not bring a bill to the floor that lacks support from both parties. But he added, "If the House Republicans continue to reject the president's approach, there's no bill."

Frank said negotiations would continue on Friday, but with no sign that House Republicans would take part.

Earlier, news that a deal was near stabilized beleaguered money markets, frozen by a reluctance by banks to lend. The rate on one-month U.S. Treasury bills shot higher as traders unwound safe-haven trades.

Still, officials from France to China voiced alarm.

"A crisis of confidence without precedent is shaking the global economy," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a speech in Toulon, France.

As Thursday's meeting began, Bush warned, "We're in a serious economic crisis in the country if we don't pass a piece of legislation."
# Look Ahead to Friday: US Stock Market Futures and Pre-Market Data

The enormity of the deal, which would cost every man, woman and child in the United States about $2,300, led many lawmakers to ask Paulson during two days of rancorous hearings this week to take the cash in installments.

The bailout exceeds total lending by the International Monetary Fund since its inception after World War II. The IMF has loaned $506.7 billion since 1947 to countries in crisis as far flung as Argentina, Britain, Turkey and South Korea.

Frank also said the deal would allow the government to take part-ownership of banks and ban companies that sell toxic assets to the government from paying massive "golden parachutes" to executives being fired.

Reflecting that the current crisis appears to be the most serious since the Great Depression of the 1930s, fresh Federal Reserve data showed U.S. banks and money managers have borrowed a record $188 billion daily in recent days from the Fed -- a daily amount roughly equal to Argentina's annual economic output.

"This looks like the balance sheet of a central bank that is keeping the financial system on life support," said Michael Feroli, U.S. economist with JPMorgan in New York.

The swirl of political theater and meetings in Washington followed fresh turbulence in the world economy.

Orders for costly U.S. manufactured goods plunged in August, new-home sales hit a 17-year low, while new claims for jobless benefits shot up last week.

Top U.S. industrial conglomerate General Electric , parent company of CNBC, widely seen as a bellwether of the U.S. economy, issued a profit warning, citing "unprecedented weakness and volatility" in the financial services market.

The crisis reverberated in Amsterdam and Brussels, where Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch financial services group, denied a rumor the Dutch Central Bank had asked a Fortis rival to support the company's liquidity position. Fortis shares sank as much as 21 percent to 14-year lows.

In Asia, hundreds of people lined up outside the Hong Kong branches of the Bank of East Asia , some sleeping there overnight, to withdraw their savings.

China's banking regulator sought to reassure jittery financial markets, denying a report that it had told local banks to stop lending to U.S. banks.

Intense Bailout Talks

The crisis comes after a month of turbulence marked by the government's takeover of mortgage companies Fannie and Freddie Mac, the bailout of insurer American International Group , and the bankruptcy filing of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings.

Concern lingered that even with a bailout, the United States may stumble, prompting a global slowdown.

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said one outcome of the crisis would be a less dominant role for the United States in the global financial system. "The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multipolar," he said.


URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26895236/

[*~1Best~*]

NYSE Expects SEC Short-Sale Order to Last 30 Days
SHORT-SELLING, NYSE, STOCKS, STOCK MARKET, SEC, CREDIT CRUNCH, FINANCIAL SERVICES, BANKING
By Reuters
Reuters
| 24 Sep 2008 | 02:35 PM ET

The New York Stock Exchange expects U.S. securities regulators to extend an emergency short-sale ban to last the maximum 30 days, the exchange's chief regulator said Wednesday.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission emergency orders, which include a ban on short-selling the stocks of of more than 900 financial services companies, are due to expire Oct. 2. The SEC can extend the ban, but for no longer than 30 days in total.

"Given the continued volatility, we expect the SEC will extend to the 30-day maximum," said NYSE Euronext's chief executive of regulation, Richard Ketchum, during a call with market participants.

Last week, amid market tumult, the SEC issued a series of emergency rules aimed at cracking down on market manipulation and restoring equilibrium to the markets.

Traders are required to deliver shares within three days of executing a short sale and are not allowed to short the shares of hundreds of financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group .

The temporary order, including an exemption for option and equity market makers, sent broker-dealers and other market participants scrambling to ensure compliance.

NYSE chief executive Duncan Niederauer said the exchange is in constant communication with regulators and reassured his members that the exchange is stable and the systems are performing well.

When asked if there were an impetus for the SEC to reinstate the so-called uptick rule, Ketchum said the rules don't work very well in the very fast, very electronic markets that the NYSE and all its competitors offer today.

"Duncan is working very hard with others to really try to get the advantages of an uptick rule on a modernized standpoint that the SEC might be able to enact," Ketchum said.

In 2007, the SEC repealed the decades-old rule, which only allowed short-sales when the last sale price was higher than the previous price. Short-sellers and some U.S. lawmakers have been calling on the SEC to reinstate the rule.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26872563/

[*~1Best~*]

No idea ~~>> Dodd, Shelby & Bunning want great depression.

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=32374396

US Senate Banking Committee is useless and lazy committee which does not know what is going on.

Brainless: Dodd, Bunning, Shelby ~~~> US Freemarket system which many American 401K is used to feed international colluded fund wolves is deceptive and defeating system for many Americans. Americans are fooled by internationally colluded funds to steal from big 401k and American wealth. International colluded fund wolves stealing American wealth using financial markets getting astronomical quick returns by moving markets targeting specific stocks.

~~~> US Financial system is venerable without strong regulations and government checks-n-balances, especially internationally colluded funds controlling markets.

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32358878

[*~1Best~*]

~~ AIG, FRE & FNM ~~~

premarket
FRE 1.87 0.55 41.67%
FNM 1.84 0.53 40.46%
AIG 5.36 0.36 7.20%

[*~1Best~*]

BLAME ~~~>> Senate Banking Committee ~~~ no good

Dodd, Shelby & Bunning want great depression while they had not done anything during the last decades when they could have prevented the Clinton-Greenspan financial scam, the seed of disaster which we are facing now.

~~~ Senate Banking Committee ~~~ no good

The New Great Depression ~~ you are warned!!

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=32374396

[*~1Best~*]

~~~> US Freemarket system which many American 401K is used to feed international colluded fund wolves is deceptive and defeating system for many Americans. Americans are fooled by internationally colluded funds to steal from big 401k and American wealth.

~~~> US Financial system is venerable without strong regulations and government check-n-balances, especially internationally colluded funds controlling markets.

[*~1Best~*]

GREED & POWER ~~> We have information "overload". Politicians are controlled by big money even at the top.

The problems which we and the world are facing are not because a lack of intelligence on particular area as we have many intelligence agencies; but we have problems around the world because of GREED and POWER seekers.

Right now, we have Christian and Muslim faith manipulation using Oil and Terrorism by "Greed and Power group".

[*~1Best~*]

H.y.p.o.crite ~ Senate Banking Committee ~

They are nothing but oxymoron ritual wasting money and time to go through nonsense for decades.

They have not solved or prevented any problems except going through puppet shows wasting time and money.

They are nothing but an idiotic puppet scammers.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE DURING THE LAST DECADES?! NOTHING

In fact, they are a part of the grand scam.


~~~~

The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to: banks and banking, price controls, deposit insurance, export promotion and controls, federal monetary policy, financial aid to commerce and industry, issuance of redemption of notes, currency and coinage, public and private housing, urban development and mass transit, and government contracts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Banking_Committee

[*~1Best~*]

Professionals ~~> Confidence in Banking Committee ~~ "NONE" as they have done nothing for decades.

NOW, they are doing nothing, but, ~ bla, bla, bla ~ nothing is getting done.

They have "NO-IDEA", and they are just sitting around chat, chat, chat.

~~~>>> We need to have a few first class audit committee formed by financial professionals.

Judiciary professional financial professionals who can audit entire programs on regular basis.


They are nothing but chatting-committee going around the circle while they have little idea about what is really going on with all kinds of loopholes. They are just wasting time and energy accomplishing nothing. Just formal wasting time banking committee.

There is no way time to explain and to accomplish anything during the meetings. Q/A session is just a show, a show for a purpose to show. That's it.

No substance in accomplishing anything.

We need judiciary financial professionals who can audit entire programs on regular basis.

[*~1Best~*]

~~~>> Punish the Market Crisis Culprits: French President

"MONEY TRAIL" audit will find truth, but it is obvious to know who are involved.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Reuters
Reuters
| 23 Sep 2008 | 04:18 AM ET

Those responsible for the crisis that has swept global financial markets should be punished, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said overnight in his first reaction to the latest bout of economic turmoil.

In an acceptance speech at an award ceremony attended by U.S. and French business leaders, Sarkozy called for the "truth" on the crisis to be uncovered.

"Today, millions of people across the world fear for their savings, for their apartment, for the funds they have put in banks. It is our duty to give them clear answers," he said.

"Who is responsible for this disaster? May those who are responsible be punished and held accountable," he said hours before he was due to give a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

The U.S. government has unveiled a $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street firms to rid them of the toxic mortgage-related debt which felled investment bank Lehman Brothers and threatens to wreak further financial havoc.

The plan, which has yet to be approved by Congress, has been criticized by some observers, who argue that it is unfair for the bankers who sparked the crisis not to bear the full brunt of its consequences.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, however, argues that his bailout plan will prove cheaper for taxpayers than leaving companies to suffer the cost of the crisis themselves.

Sarkozy's comments earned him a lukewarm reaction from the members of the business community who had paid $1,500 to $75,000 each to see Sarkozy receive a "humanitarian award" at a black-tie gala event and eat a light meal.

The French president is due to give an economic speech on Thursday, in which he is expected to speak at greater length on the market turmoil and outline elements of the 2009 draft budget, which will be unveiled the following day.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26848877/

[*~1Best~*]

US Freemarket system which many American 401K is used to feed international colluded fund wolves is deceptive and defeating system for many Americans.

Americans are fooled by internationally colluded funds to steal from big 401k and American wealth.

Americans are fooled by internationally colluded funds to steal from big 401k and American wealth.

[*~1Best~*]

Market psychopathic analysis: re: Bailout Plan Will Be Drag On Fragile US Economy


Market manipulation is like psycho-pusher with crazy justification for excuses pushing markets.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32333832

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Albert Bozzo
Senior Features Editor
CNBC.com
| 22 Sep 2008 | 01:53 PM ET

If you’ve been worried about the health of the economy and you also have doubts about the soundness of the Treasury’s Wall Street rescue plan, then be afraid, be very afraid—because the US economy may get a taste of what Japan’s suffered over a decade-long period.

“The Wall Street mess will now have collateral damage to the real economy,” says Steve Hanke, a former White House economist. “We're coming into this thing in a terrible situation.”

Hanke and other economists see some similarities with Japan’s decade-long economic malaise – combination of real estate asset bubble, banking crisis and misguided and expensive government intervention.

“A lot of the symptoms of the pain and adjustments will be exactly the same, “ says Hanke, now with the Cato Institute and Johns Hopkins University. “We've got some major adjustments coming in the economy, some major slowdowns.”

Depending on who you ask, that means anywhere between two to five years of no growth or slow growth, while the government rescue plan plays out along, the housing and real estate sectors stagger to recovery and the American consumer restores his own shaken balance sheet.

Opponents of the $700 billion plan see no payoff for the real economy. “This plan is not about housing, not unless you’re talking about investment houses.” Says FAO Economics Chief Economist Robert Brusca. “This is not a plan aimed at reviving the economy. This is all about trickle down.”

Even those who view the plan as necessary but insufficient see hard times ahead..

“The consumer needs repair, job layoffs are increasing, real wages are not increasing,” says money manager James Awad, managing director at Zephyr Management. “In the corporate sector, everybody’s in a protect-your-balance–sheet-mode. Most corporate executives are going to think cash is king. Overseas economies are slowing, which means exports are going to be a bit slower. So, that leaves the government and the government is constrained by huge deficits.”

Are we there yet? Sorry, but no.

“This is the beginning of the adjustment and the Fed and Treasury intervention slowing that down,” says economist Ram Bhagavatula, managing director at the hedge fund Combinatorics Capital. “Its not like this economy is ready to go if credit is cheap and flexible.”

“I think it is horrendous,” says former FDIC Chairman William Isaac. “There are less expensive way to stabilize depositors if people are nervous.”

Isaac notes that there were some 3000 bank and savings and loan failures between 1980-1991; depositors didn't panic “because they had confidence in the government,” says Isaac, now chairman of the Secura Group of LECG.

Japan Vs. US Cases

Most economists say the Japanese government made the mistake of extending the country’s financial problems by one form of intervention or the other – corporate aid packages, repeated stimulus packages with one-off tax rebates that consumers didn’t spend and a ever lower interest rates. The stock market sank and then languished for years.

In the US, the economy is suffering from both conventional and extraordinary forces. There’s the unwinding of the leverage bubble triggered by the historically low rates of the Allan Greenspan and near simultaneous defense spending explosion of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts as well as the cyclical downturn, which is gaining momentum and generating higher unemployment and layoffs.

(Watch the accompanying video to see what Pimco's co-CEO El-Erian has to say...)

Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office’s issued its baseline ten-year budget projections—which assume no policy changes over the period—and forecast that debt held by the public would explode from $5.4 trillion in calendar year 2008 to $7.9 trillion in 2018.

Add to that, the government’s series of credit crunch crisis moves culminating in the Treasury plan and you have another $1.8 trillion at the minimum.

Hanke, who adamantly opposes the Treasury’s bailout plan, says the lessons of the Iraq-Afghanistan wars certainly apply and that uncertainly about the plan, as well as setbacks and/or outright failure.

“There will be lots of uncertainty to it,” he says. “Just think of the sentiment about the war on terrorism and how that deteriorated over time with bad performance. The same thing happens in the financial sector. There’s a huge overhang on the consumer side.”

That’s especially problematic at a time when consumer spending is slowing—along with tax receipts from most corners of the economy—and the economy is expected to begin contracting as soon as the fourth quarter.

There’s also little chance of austerity with a new administration. Sticker shock about the bailout aside, the two contenders remain wedded to their economic proposals, none of which are likely to provide budget relief.

Hanke says “substantial increases in spending, put the economy on an unsustainable path.”
© 2008 CNBC.com

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26441422/

[*~1Best~*]

Using Drama Scam play ~~> Bailout Plan: Negative for the Dollar?

Nothing, but scam after scam financial drama to swindle markets.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=863289098&play=1

The bailout plan is broadly dollar negative, say Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Bank & Bill Smith from SAM Advisors. They discuss the dollar's direction, with Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley Asia, CNBC's Amanda Drury & Martin Soong.
Last Update: Sun. Sept. 21 2008 | 7:20 PM

[*~1Best~*]

FREEMARKETEERS ~~ Paulson, Greenspan, Paulson hedge, gangs with deception and scams ~ colluded information and funds making trillions using long/short.

[*~1Best~*]

LEH divest: Nomura Agrees to Acquire Lehman's Operations in Asia-Pacific

By Takahiko Hyuga

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Nomura Holdings Inc. agreed to buy bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s Asia-Pacific unit, seizing on Wall Street's crisis to speed up a push to become a global investment bank.

Nomura, Japan's largest securities firm, will take over 3,000 Lehman employees as part of the deal, according to a statement to the Tokyo bourse today.

Lehman's demise allowed Nomura President Kenichi Watanabe to restart an overseas push that was rolled back by predecessor Nobuyuki Koga in 2007 as losses on U.S. mortgage investments swelled. Last week's financial-market turmoil reshaped Wall Street and provided Asian and European firms with an opportunity to grab market share in trading, underwriting stock sales and advising companies on takeovers.

Lehman's main units in Japan filed for bankruptcy last week following the parent company's Chapter 11 filing, listing about 4.7 trillion yen of liabilities. The firm negotiated over the weekend with other potential buyers including Barclays Plc and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., according to two people familiar with the matter.

Barclays, the U.K.'s third-biggest bank, bought Lehman's North American business last week in what Barclays President Robert Diamond called the deal of a ``lifetime.'' Barclays agreed to pay $1.75 billion, including Lehman's New York headquarters and two data centers.

Nomura stopped buying U.S. subprime mortgage loans and repackaging them as securities after losing 31.2 billion yen on the business in the quarter ended June 2007. The firm said the following month it would shut its U.S. residential mortgage business after defaults caused a 73 billion yen loss at the unit.

Watanabe, 55, changed course after the worsening credit market meltdown pushed Lehman into bankruptcy and forced Merrill Lynch & Co. to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. Nomura has reported about $2.4 billion of credit losses and writedowns, compared with $13.8 billion at Lehman.

In March, Watanabe said Nomura must ``take risks'' to compete with Wall Street firms as Japan's economy slows.

The Japanese firm bought U.S. electronic brokerage Instinet Inc. for $1.2 billion in February 2007 and purchased a 15 percent stake in Fortress Investment Group LLC for almost $6 billion the preceding month. Less than a year later, Nomura began rolling back its U.S. expansion as the nation's mortgage market became mired in soaring delinquencies.

To contact the reporter on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at [e-mail]
Last Updated: September 22, 2008 10:09 EDT

[*~1Best~*]

~~ Trillions short profit ~~ re: Paulson Presses Congress To Approve Bailout Quickly


This means that greenspan and paulson scam network made trillions shorting markets. His buddies, e.g. greenspan and paulson hedge fund, were shorting markets.

Trillions in their alledged swiss bank accounts.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


By CNBC.com With Wires
CNBC staff and wire reports
| 21 Sep 2008 | 05:28 PM ET

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that the nation's credit markets remain frozen and Congress must move quickly to pass a $700 billion bailout package for financial firms.

But key Democrats said the legislation needs changes to provide better protections for taxpayers and homeowners in danger of losing their homes.

The bailout plan follows a wrenching week that transformed Wall Street with Lehman Brothers' failure, the agreed sale of Merrill Lynch and a government takeover of ailing insurer AIG .

It was also possible that within days one of the two remaining U.S. investment banks -- Morgan Stanley —would accept a partner.

"The credit markets are still very fragile right now and frozen," Paulson said in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. "We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly."
# Follow the Money: What's in the Bailout Plan

Paulson made the rounds of the television talk shows to stress the need for speed in getting the bailout package approved. The administration spent the weekend negotiating the details of the proposal with members of Congress with the expectation that it can be passed in the next week.

Paulson said that "it pains me tremendously to have the American taxpayer put in this position but it is better than the alternative."

The sweeping proposal would have the Treasury buy up bad mortgage-related debts from financial institutions, including U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banks, to try to stem the worst financial storm since the Great Depression.

Total Cost: $1.8 Trillion

Altogether, the plan could end up costing $1.8 trillion. Click here for details

Two key questions, however, remained unanswered even after Paulson appeared on four national television talk shows. What price will the United States pay for these toxic debts, which spawned a global credit crisis. When will it start buying them?

For Investors
# Is It Time to Buy Stocks Now?
# Measuring Risk in Volatile Times
# What the Experts Think You Should Do
# Is Your Money-Market Fund Safe? Find Out
# Slideshow: Biggest Chapter 11 Cases in US History
# Eight Tips for Investing in Hard Times
# Need Safety? Take a Look at Bonds
# What If You're a Client of Lehman, Merrill or AIG?
# Have an AIG Insurance Policy? Don't Fret
# How You Can Protect Your Money

Paulson painted the proposed intervention into private markets as a necessary evil, arguing the consequences of inaction would be so dire that the large burden taxpayers would shoulder would be worth it.

"This is not something that we wanted to do. This was something that was very necessary," Paulson said on the NBC Sunday program "Meet the Press." "We did this to protect the taxpayer."

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, a member of the Democratic leadership, said Democrats would not load up the bill with numerous extraneous provisions and said a measure to give a lift to the economy would likely be moved separately.

Still, speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Schumer and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the plan needed stronger taxpayer protections and needed to do more to help distressed homeowners. In addition, they said more oversight of the program was essential.

"We totally understand the gravity of the moment ... but you cannot just turn over $700 billion of taxpayer money and not insist that the taxpayer is going to be protected," Dodd said.

The sentiment was similar in the House of Representatives, where Democratic staff from the Financial Services Committee gave Treasury staff a list of several proposed changes: limits on the compensation of executives of firms offloading assets, greater efforts to stem foreclosures, and oversight by the Comptroller General -- the government's main auditor.

"It's ...hard to tell the average American that we're going to continue to have foreclosures that destabilize neighborhoods and deprive cities of revenues they need, but we're going to buy up the bad paper," the committee's chairman, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, said on the CBS program "Face the Nation."

Bill by Week's End

Even as negotiations got under way, Schumer and Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl predicted lawmakers would quickly resolve their differences and pass a bill by week's end.

"The chances are better than 50-50 that we will get it done by the end of the week," Kyl said on "Fox News Sunday."

Paulson, who would have sweeping powers over the massive war chest under the Treasury plan, said the final cost would likely be far shy of the $700 billion initial price tag since the government would be able to hold the debt until markets stabilize and prices recover.

"This is the least costly path," he said on CBS.

If the Treasury tapped its full authority, the bailout would put every man, woman and child in the United States on the hook for more than $2,000. To cover the cost, Treasury asked Congress to hike the government's debt limit to $11.3 trillion from $10.6 trillion.

While the three-page Treasury proposal said participating firms would have to be based in the United States, Paulson said foreign firms should be able to unload assets if they have large U.S. operations.

"If a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," he said on the ABC program "This Week."

The Treasury chief did confirm that hedge funds -- investment vehicles for the wealthy -- would not be eligible.

Under Treasury's plan, the government could acquire up to $700 billion in home and commercial mortgages and related assets over the next two years, but it could hold them longer. But the conditions on the type of assets and the source of them could be waived by the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, if necessary to stabilize markets, the Treasury said.

The Bush administration also proposed that decisions made by the Treasury secretary in connection with the bailout would not be reviewable by any court.

Paulson "is in effect becoming the dictator of the American financial system for a few months, subject to congressional oversight," said Wall Street historian John Steele Gordon, author of a book about the national debt.

Troubled Home Loans

The plan was hatched amid grave concerns that other major banks could collapse and that credit markets were close to freezing, threatening the U.S. and global economy.

"We have a global financial system and we are talking very aggressively with other countries around the world, and encouraging them to do similar things, and I believe a number of them will," Paulson said on the ABC.

Lawmakers said Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had offered starkly grave assessments of the economic cost of inaction in private briefings.

"What they told us was the contagion here and the depression in the market was such that you were going to see a shutdown of the lending businesses not just on Wall Street" but for all Americans, Frank said on CBS.

Bernanke on Sunday was talking by phone and meeting in person with Treasury officials and lawmakers, while Paulson also was working the phones as counterproposals emerged.

Paulson told "Fox News Sunday" that some form of auction process would be used to buy the toxic assets, which have clogged the financial system and led many banks to recoil from lending.

Under the proposal, Treasury could hire asset managers to handle the debt purchases, which could include residential or commercial mortgages and related instruments originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.

While financial markets responded positively last week as news of a large-scale financial bailout began spreading, it was unclear whether the provisions would be enough to pull the U.S. economy out of the doldrums.

"I won't bet against the American people ... We will work through this," Paulson said on NBC. "I wouldn't bet against the long-term fundamentals of the U.S. economy."

—Reuters and AP contributed to this report
© 2008 CNBC

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26819306/

[*~1Best~*]

The Money Maker ~~~>>> Goldman at Topless Bar Entertainment ~~~ it looks like GOLDMAN contributed to Obama with different reasons, but GOLDMAN is a brutal money maker using any legally allowable walking on thin lines, it seems. Ethic is not their concern at all.

~~

Remember ~GS entertainments at topless bars~ before business deals

~~ > Why would GS be the top contributor to nobama ~~> Corporatism ~~> Paulson = x-GS

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32287799

[*~1Best~*]

~~> US Financial system is venerable without strong regulations and government check-n-balances, especially internationally colluded funds controlling markets.

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ $BKX ~~~ 78.75
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32284884

[*~1Best~*]

US Launches Broad Rescue Of Financial Markets
LEHMAN AIG, MORGAN STANLEY, JPMORGAN, PAULSON
By CNBC.com
CNBC staff and wire reports
| 19 Sep 2008 | 09:42 AM ET

The U.S. government launched several multibillion-dollar programs to guarantee holdings in money-market mutual funds and curb short-selling while developing a more sweeping plan to mop up toxic mortgage debt, sending global markets sharply higher on Friday.

U.S. stocks opened sharply higher following big rallies in Europe and Asia.

The price of gold and US Treasury bonds, traditional safe havens in times of turmoil, both slipped back.

The dollar rose, while oil prices surged.

U.S. officials rushed to shore up ailing money markets after signs that this long-safe corner of financial markets, home to some $3.5 trillion of deposits, was at risk of falling victim to the year-old credit crunch and bring the crisis to Main Street.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it would use $50 billion to back money market mutual funds whose asset values fall below $1 a share.

Separately, the U.S. Federal Reserve said it would lend even more money directly to financial institutions so they could purchase certain assets from money market funds.

The latest government efforts come after the credit crisis, which had largely been seen as problem for Wall Street risk takers, threatened to spill over into Main Street after some super-safe money market funds buckled.

"For the next year, the U.S. Treasury will insure the holdings of any publicly offered eligible money market mutual fund -- both retail and institutional -- that pays a fee to participate in the program," the Treasury said in a statement.

President Bush approved use of the Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee payments, Treasury said.

The fund, which traces its roots to the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, allows the Treasury to conduct various transactions with the Treasury secretary's authorization.

The surprise moves comes as the Treasury and the Federal Reserve consider broad government intervention to prevent the collapse of the financial system, shaken in rece fallen to near zero earlier in the week as investors panicked and rushed for the safety of government securities after the oldest U.S. money market fund "broke the buck," or fell below $1 net asset value.

The dollar, meanwhile, rose to a one-week high against the Japanese yen as investors regained an appetite for risk amid all the steps being taken to address the credit crunch.

The Treasury said concerns about the net asset value of money market funds falling below $1 have exacerbated global financial market turmoil and caused severe liquidity strains in world markets.

For Investors
# Are Stocks Low Enough to Buy Now?
# Is Your Money-Market Fund Safe? Find Out
# Slideshow: Biggest Chapter 11 Cases in US History
# Eight Tips for Investing in Hard Times
# Need Safety? Take a Look at Bonds
# What If You're a Client of Lehman, Merrill or AIG?
# Have an AIG Insurance Policy? Don't Fret
# How You Can Protect Your Money

"Maintaining confidence in the money market fund industry is critical to protecting the integrity and stability of the global financial system," the Treasury Department said in a statement.

The panic in money markets began Tuesday, when the Reserve Primary Fund, a money-market mutual fund whose assets have tumbled 65 percent in recent weeks, fell below $1 a share in net asset value, because of its losses on debt issued by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

In the industry, money money funds whose net assets drop below $1 a share are said to have "broken the buck".

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke plan to work through the weekend with Congress on a plan to deal with the toxic bank assets that have been choking the financial system for a year.

"This is a more substantial and systemic solution than the ad hoc interventions we have seen in recent days," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief investment strategist at CFC Seymour in Hong Kong.

"At present, confidence is the most important factor, and this will only be maintained if the rescue plans are delivered on both sides of the Atlantic," said Andrew Turnbull, senior sales manager at ODL Securities.

As government authorities brought out the big guns to tackle the financial crisis, U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley continued talking to Wachovia and other banks about a merger, while discussing a possible increased investment from China's sovereign wealth fund, sources familiar with the plans said.

Sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp, Morgan Stanley's largest shareholder, was in talks that could see its stake climb to as much as 49 percent from its current 9.9 percent that it paid $5 billion for in December, sources familiar with the matter said.

UK lender HSBC Holdings walked away from a $6.3 billion deal for control of Korea Exchange Bank fuelling speculation it may be turning its attentions to one of its embattled rivals in the West instead.

After Britain's Financial Services Authority imposed a four-month ban on short selling financial stocks on Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission followed suit on Friday with an immediate 10-day ban.

French regulator AMF said it was also talking to other Eurozone regulators about market dealings, leading to expectations that the ban would snowball.

Meanwhile the world's central banks redoubled their efforts to lubricate the seized-up money markets. Japan, Australia, India and Indonesia pumped in $42 billion after the U.S. Fed co-ordinated a $180 billion package a day earlier. In Europe, there were signs that the stress was easing.

The roots of the current crisis can be traced to lax lending for home mortgages — especially subprime loans given to borrowers with tarnished credit — during the housing boom. Lenders and borrowers were counting on home prices to keep zooming upward. But when the U.S. housing market went bust, home prices plummeted. Foreclosures spiked as people were left owing more on their mortgage than their home was worth. Rising mortgage rates also clobbered some homeowners.

As financial companies racked up multibillion-dollar losses on soured mortgage investments, and credit problems spread globally, firms hoarded cash and clamped down on lending. That crimped consumer and business spending, dragging down the national economy — a vicious cycle policymakers have been trying to break.

"The root cause of the stress in the capital markets is the real estate correction," Paulson said, adding he hopes to have a solution "aimed right at the heart of this problem."

Bernanke said a resolution would help "get our economy moving again."

The federal government already has pledged more than $600 billion in the past year to bail out, or help bail out, some of the biggest names in American finance. There was no immediate word on how much the new rescue plan might cost.

—Reuters and AP contributed to this report
© 2008 CNBC

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26789018/

[*~1Best~*]

SEC List: The 799 No-Short Stocks

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32283268

[*~1Best~*]

Fed Announces New Steps To Promote Liquidity
9/19/2008 8:50 AM ET
In its latest effort to provide stability to the financial markets, the Federal Reserve Board announced Friday that it will be using two "enhancements" to existing programs to promote liquidity in the market.

The first initiative extends realm of non-recourse loans at the primary credit rate to U.S. depository institutions and bank holding companies. This will allow these organizations to buy commercial paper from money market mutual funds, the Fed said, helping funds that hold commercial paper to meet investor demands and boost liquidity in commercial paper and broader money markets.

The second initiative will allow the Federal Reserve to buy federal agency discount notes from primary dealers. These notes are short-term debt obligations issued by Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

The news from the Fed followed actions by other government authorities to help stem the financial crisis that has hit the markets in the past few days.

The SEC announced that it would temporarily ban short selling in financial stocks, following up on a similar rule put in place in the UK. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department said it has set up a program to guarantee the U.S. money market mutual fund industry.

Late Thursday, leading lawmakers and top administration officials met to discuss further solutions to the crisis. No details were announced at that time, but speculation remains that some entity will be formed similar to the Resolution Trust Corp. that helped ease the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s.

Wall Street has faced a series of emergencies over the past few weeks. Early this month, the government was forced to take over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Early this week, investment bank Lehman Brothers was pushed into bankruptcy after it was unable to find funding.

Just a few days ago, the Federal Reserve extended an $85 billion loan to insurance firm AIG, pulling that company back from the brink of collapse.

[*~1Best~*]

SEC Halts Short-Selling in 799 Financial Stocks
SEC, SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, SHORT SELLING, STOCK MARKET NEWS
By CNBC.com
CNBC.com
| 19 Sep 2008 | 06:13 AM ET

The Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily banned short-selling on 799 financial stocks to boost investor confidence on Friday, one day after the UK Financial Services Authority took a similar step.

"The Commission is committed to using every weapon in its arsenal to combat market manipulation that threatens investors and capital markets," SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement.

"This action, which would not be necessary in a well-functioning market, is temporary in nature and part of the comprehensive set of steps being taken by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the Congress," Cox said.

The SEC’s emergency order will be effective immediately and will terminate at 11:59 p.m. New York time on October 2, 2008, the Commission said in a statement.

The order may be extended beyond 10 days if the SEC deems an extension necessary in the public interest and for the protection of investors, but the order will not be extended for more than 30 calendar days in total duration, it said.

"Today’s decisive SEC action calls a time-out to aggressive short selling in financial institution stocks, because of the essential link between their stock price and confidence in the institution," the statement said.

"The Commission will continue to consider measures to address short selling concerns in other publicly traded companies," it added.

The decision is positive for stocks, analysts said.

"Obviously, the ability not to short will decrease the selling pressure so this is definitely a buying opportunity, but for the short term," Dodge Dorland, Chief Investment Officer at Landor Capital Management, told "Worldwide Exchange."

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson briefed Congressional leaders on plans to address the "illiquid assets" on U.S. financial institutions' balance sheets, possibly including the creation of a government facility to take on financial firms' bad debts, CNBC reported on Thursday.

The proposal to create a massive facility to buy mortgage-backed securities could cost as much as $500 billion and would involve the purchase of both private-label and government-guaranteed mortgages, an administration official told CNBC.
© 2008 CNBC.com

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26786833/

[*~1Best~*]

Ban "Shorts" All Together?
PISANI, TRADER TALK, BLOG, CNBC, CNBC.COM, MARKETS, STOCKS, STOCK MARKET, STOCK MARKET NEWS, CNBC STOCK NEWS, CNBC MARKET NEWS, INFLATION, OIL PRICES
By Bob Pisani
Reporter
cnbc.com
| 18 Sep 2008 | 03:57 PM ET

The Dow rallied 250 points shortly after 1 pm ET when the UK government announced they were banning short selling in financial stocks until January, and would require hedge funds to reveal their short positions.

While most stock traders here in the U.S. are in favor of some sort of "brake" on short selling, most are not in favor of an outright ban on it. If we ban short selling, should we ban long buying too? Why not a bank holiday, and just close the markets?

There's clearly growing pressure to do the same thing here in the U.S. But perhaps other moves that are less drastic would be sufficient:
(Contd.)
________________________________________
The Panic of '08
# Is It Time to Buy Low?
# Slideshow: Victims of the Credit Crunch (So Far)
# Crescenzi: Scary Chill in Commercial Paper

________________________________________

1) The SEC has made it clear they are conducting house-to-house searches of hedge funds to determine if there are any trading abuses; they are also seeking approval to force the funds to report their short positions regularly.

2) expect more "investigations": the New York Attorney General said they have started a "probe" of short selling in AIG, Morgan Stanley, and Lehman .

3) The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the nation's largest pension fund, has stopped lending shares of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for the purpose of shorting the stocks. They followed the California State Teachers' Retirement System, which also stopped lending the shares.
# The Dow 30 at a Glance

4) most traders also support bringing back the rule that requires that traders seeking to short a stock can only do it on a plus tick (a trade where the stock moves up), which is supposed to make it more difficult to quickly amass a short position.


Questions? Comments? [e-mail]

[*~1Best~*]

Lawmaker Confirms Meeting On Loan Plan
9/18/2008 5:40 PM ET
Federal officials will meet Thursday evening with Congressional leaders to discuss "a significant market action" RTTNews has learned.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., confirmed the meeting in an interview with RTTNews . Bachus said believes the session will discuss the formation of a federal entity to address turmoil in the financial markets that led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, federal intervention to prop up insurance giant American International Group and the takeover of the government-chartered mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee of which Bachus is the ranking Republican, refused to confirm the meeting, though he hinted in that direction.

Frank would merely say his earlier comments denying a meeting would take place were "no longer operative."

Earlier reports that formation of such an entity to help banks deal with bad debt sent Wall Street stocks soaring to their biggest single-session gain in six years on Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 410 points or 3.86 percent.

[*~1Best~*]

The government takeover of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) should be a positive for most banks. The deal will lower mortgage rates and will also allow the Treasury Department to purchase mortgage-backed securities from firms in the open market. That will allow a lot of mortgage paper that is currently clogging the system to start moving again. However, several banks will be hurt by the bailout of FNM and FRE because they own a considerable amount of FNM and FRE preferred equity relative to their capital bases.

According to my math, the government will essentially own about 80% of FNM and FRE after the bailout. The current preferred equity will no long pay a dividend until at least 2010. While the preferreds have traded 45% to 65% lower already, they will most likely be completely wiped out from here. If the companies can recover, there might be some value to the common and preferred equity in five to ten years. However, as the companies enter run-off, my guess is that the common and preferred equity will not regain much value.

Some banks such as Valley Financial (VLY) have already announced that they will take a charge for the decline in the value of their FNM and FRE preferred equity. From the Valley National press release:

In the second quarter of 2008, Valley National Bancorp ("Valley") disclosed that it holds Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac perpetual preferred stock with a cost basis of approximately $79 million. Such securities are held in Valley's available for sale securities portfolio and as such are subject to a potential other than temporary impairment charge. The estimated fair market value of these securities has declined from June 30, 2008 by approximately $40 million as of September 2, 2008, which if recognized would result in a $25.7 million after-tax impairment loss, or approximately $0.19 per fully diluted average common share for the third quarter of 2008. Valley sold a small portion of these securities during the third quarter, bringing its current adjusted cost basis in such securities to approximately $70 million. The aggregate amount of losses and other than temporary impairment that may be incurred on these securities during the third quarter of 2008 is difficult to determine, given the low trading volumes and the significant volatility in the market values of these securities. Based on management's current projections, a potential other than temporary impairment and loss on these securities would not impact its subsidiary bank's (Valley National Bank) ability to maintain capital ratios above the "well capitalized" regulatory requirement, or Valley's ability to pay its regular quarterly cash dividend to common shareholders.

Five banks have significant exposure to Government Sponsored Enterprise [GSE] equity that it could impact their capital ratios and force them to raise additional capital, according to Friedman Billings Ramsey's research. The percentages in parentheses represents the percent of tangible capital is held in GSE preferred equity. From Friedman Billings:

The top five exposures in our dataset by this metric were Gateway Financial Holdings (GBTS 8.1%), Midwest Banc Holdings (MBHI 26.3%), Financial Institutions, Inc (FISI 15.0%, based on securities collateralized by GSE preferreds), Westamerica Bancorporation (WABC 10.6%), and Sovereign Bancorp (SOV 8.9%). We have used an estimated after-tax exposure (using an assumed tax rate of 35% for all companies, for simplicity) in this analysis to improve the transparency of the relationships of these exposures to bank and thrift equity and capital, as unrealized gains or losses in these securities would only affect equity on an after-tax basis.

The next five banks on the list could also find themselves in need of additional capital after writing down the value of their GSE Equity exposure. Flushing Financial Corp (FFIC - 7.5%), Valley National Bancorp (VLY - 6.5%), Astoria Financial Corporation (AF - 4.8%), East West Bancorp (EWBC - 4.1%) and Washington Federal (WFSL - 3.6%).

The full list of banks with material exposure to GSE preferred equity is listed below. All data comes courtesy Friedman Billings Ramsey.

(click to enlarge)

Bank exposure Preferred GSE

Source: Friedman, Billings, & Ramsey & Co.

So while the majority of banks and financial stocks should rally on this news, several banks could be seriously hurt and even trade significantly lower.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/94375-ten-banks-that-will-be-hurt-by-the-takeover-of-fannie-and-freddie?source=yahoo

[*~1Best~*]

Britain bans short-selling of financial stocks

By Steve Goldstein
Last update: 1:52 p.m. EDT Sept. 18, 2008
Comments: 427
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Britain's Financial Services Authority on Thursday banned short-selling of financial stocks and prohibited any increase in new bearish positions in the sector. Also, disclosure will be required on all positions of more than 0.25% of a stock. The regulator said it may extend the bank to other sectors. The ban is due to remain in force until Jan. 16, but it will be reviewed in 30 days. "While we still regard short-selling as a legitimate investment technique in normal market conditions, the current extreme circumstances have given rise to disorderly markets. As a result, we have taken this decisive action, after careful consideration, to protect the fundamental integrity and quality of markets and to guard against further instability in the financial sector," said Hector Sants, chief executive of the FSA. (Changes story to show ban is on financial stocks only for now) End of Story


~~~ $BKX ~~~






http://tinyurl.com/2rsyh4

[*~1Best~*]

~~ International Free Market Colluded Money ~~

Americans are being robbed by international FREE MARKETEERS ~~

Our financial market is not what it used to be. International big funds are robbing Americans wealth using volatility in the stock markets for quick money. We need to educate Americans about the change as stock markets are now FOR PROFIT manipulated by internationally colluded money. Americans are used to be robbed by the international FREE MARKETEERS, especially using stock markets with colluded international bank funds for quick money scams. It is obvious that many international noise makers are rattling Americans to confuse, to divide, to brainwash for easy dupe money scam.

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ XLF ~~~ 20+/- s

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ $BKX ~~~






http://tinyurl.com/2rsyh4

[*~1Best~*]

US Economy is running on debt.

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ XLF ~~~

[*~1Best~*]

~~ BKX trading at 67



Posted by: __1Best__ Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 11:21:52 AM


~~ $BKX ~ 69.20 after trading to 71 strong rally from 46.52 S, as alerted, decades low. 85 +/- target


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


http://beta.investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=30758216



Posted by: __1Best__ Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 9:27:03 PM


~~~ $BKX ~~~ 56.84 strong rally from 46.52 VLT S








http://tinyurl.com/2rsyh4

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ $BKX ~~~ 59.27 which is the project target and 61.8% retracement of the entire price advancement since 1994 low 24.82. This is also prior triple bottom support area. It formed Megaphone RST as noted on posts 9314, 8771.
It will like find supports at 58 +/-.
Ref: iHub board 8800
(posts 9314, 8771, 8583, 6628, 5257)

"C" Citigroup is fundamentally a dog of the financial group in 2008, however, it has stronger outlook in 2009 as C EPS growth for 2009 is 2482%.

GS, WFC, USB, AXP, BK, MET, AFL... are stable and favorable.

http://trend-signals.blogspot.com/2008/06/citi.html

[*~1Best~*]

~~ BKX ~~




BKX 60.87 meeting the projected target area of 60-63 which is 61.8% of the entire price advancement since 1994 low 24.82. This is also prior triple bottom support area. It formed Megaphone RST as noted on 6/8/2008 (8771).With BKX higher beta within the sector, predicting precise bottom of the volatility is challenging; nevertheless, I think that 57-60 will likely a bottom. From 1993 low 21.50, the relative retracement is 57 +/- which is lower end of progressive targets. iHub 8800 (posts 8771, 8583, 6628, 5257)


~~~ $BKX & XLF ~~~




http://tinyurl.com/2rsyh4




~~~ XLF ~~~

[*~1Best~*]

~~~ BKX LT Megaphone ~~~ BKX closed at 69.62 after breaking 75 S

BKX targeting Oct 2002 low 63 +/-

http://beta.investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=29874892

[*~1Best~*]

$BKX ARM fooling, OPEC oil big fool SUV 1000% price hike, Obama fooling muslim/christian mumbo jumbo





Obama Manchurian or Mohammedan Candidate?
By Judi McLeod
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover012207.htm






~~~



http://www.usvetdsp.com/dec06/obama_muslim.htm

Barak Hussein Obama - Who is he?
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
December 29, 2006

After only being a U.S. Senator for a couple of years, Barak Hussein Obama, Democrat Senator from Chicago, has managed to catapult himself to the status of a messiah in the Democrat Party. The result is that ever since, he's been walking on water toward the White House.

Obama says after his visit with friends and family in Hawaii during the 2006 year-end holidays, he'll announce if he's going to run for president in 2008.

Bets are that he will.

Who is Obama and what has he done?

Independent columnist, Andy Martin (Out2.com) says he believes Obama is a political fraud who "lied to the American people."

Martin says Obama may be a threat to the Jewish community because he is a closet Muslim.

"I feel sad having to expose Barack Obama," says Martin, "but the man is a complete fraud. The truth is going to surprise, and disappoint, and outrage many people who were drawn to him. He has lied to the American people, and he has sought to misrepresent his own heritage.

"Obama's life story is vastly different from the one he portrays. My point: if he will lie about his mother and father, what else is he lying about? Can we expect 'bimbo eruptions?'

"Fiction: Obama stated in his Convention speech: 'My father … grew up herding goats.' The 'goat herder' claim has been repeated endlessly. It is a lie.

"Fact: Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama was a prominent and wealthy farmer. His son, Obama's father, was a child of privilege, not privation. He was an outstanding student, not a herdsman.

"Fiction: Obama was given an 'African' name.

"Fact: Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion..

"He has treated his Muslim heritage as a dark secret. His grandfather was named 'Hussein.' That is an Arabic-Muslim, not African, name. Hussein was a devout Muslim and named his son, Barack Senior, 'Baraka.' Baraka is an Arabic word meaning 'blessed.' Baraka comes out of the Koran and Arabic, not Africa.

"Barack Senior was also a devoted Muslim, and also chose a Muslim name for his son, our own Barack Obama, Junior. Again, his name was an Arabic and Koranic.

"Fiction: Obama Senior was a harmless student 'immigrant' who came to the United States only to study.

"Fact: Obama was part of one of the most corrupt and violent organizations in Africa: the Kenyatta regime. Obama's father ran back to Kenya soon after the British left. It is likely Obama's father had Mau Mau sympathies or connections, or he would not have been welcomed into the murderous inner circle of rapists, murderers, and arsonists. I believe Obama's secret shame at his family history of rape, murder and arson is what actualizes him. Our research is not yet complete. We are seeking to examine British colonial records. Our investigation to date has drawn on information on three continents.

"And what about Obama's beloved Kenyan brothers and sisters? None of his family was invited to Boston to share his prominence. Are his relatives being kept in the closet? Where are they? More secrecy, more prevarication.

"It is time for Barack Obama to stop presenting a fantasy to the American people. We are forgiving and many would still support him. It may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel. His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles where Obama now enjoys support," Martin said.

Debbie Schlussel, a conservative political commentator, columnist, was more pointedly critical about Obama's Islamic connections, she wrote on her blog, debbieschlussel.com/, "while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it.

"In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not."

Is a man Muslims think is a Muslim, Schlussel asked on her blog, " a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

"Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?"

Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Barack Hussein Obama Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, of Wichita, Kan.

Obama senior met his wife, a white woman, when he was a student attending the University of Hawaii. Obama junior was born in Hawaii.

When he was two-years old, Obama's parents divorced and his father returned to Kenya, where he eventually served as a senior economist in the country's Ministry of Finance.

When Obama was six, his mother, an atheist, married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim and moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro was born after the family moved to Indonesia.

Soetoro enrolled his stepson in one of Jakarta's Muslim Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the rest of the world. Obama later attended a Catholic school in Indonesia.

At age 10 Obama was sent back to Hawaii to be raised by his white maternal grandparents and to attend the prestigious Punahou Academy.

He attended Occidental College, followed by Columbia College and Columbia University.

After Obama's parents divorced when he was two, he spent only one month with his father before his father's death in a vehicle wreck when Obama was 20.

After college, Obama entered Harvard Law where he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review. He received his law degree in 1991 and moved to Chicago where he took a job with a civil rights law firm.

Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. He lost in a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Obama says he is a Christian with "deep faith rooted in the Christian tradition." He is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago, which on its web site declares to be a "congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and "an African people" who "remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization."

Trinity United Church of Christ adopted a "Black Value System" which pledges allegiance "to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System" and a "personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System."

According to ontheissues.org, Obama has proven himself to be a nearly perfect leftist democrat. He is pro-abortion, anti-gun, against ban of same-sex marriage, against teaching family values in public schools, against ban of flag burning, against privatizing Social Security, against the death penalty and three strikes laws, for hiring more women and minorities, for increased funding for health care and for campaign finance reform.

He believes in the separation of church and state - except when he campaigns in black churches.

Who is Barak Hussein Obama?

Many Democrats are promoting him in the media as the Democrat's best hope for winning the White House in 2008.

Referring to Obama's 2006 year-end visit with friends and family in Hawaii, Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, recently stated: "He's going to make his decision here and announce it to us. Then he's probably going to officially announce his decision once he returns."

The Associated Press reported that Obama is expected back in Washington, DC the first week of January 2007.

[*~1Best~*]

$BKX formed sym triangle consolidating after the sharp pull back.
Need to break above 87+/- to 95 +/- 50% RT for upside.

~~~


AAPL (innovative product development) vs C (deceptive ARM loophole)


Some wonder about "AAPL" is bigger than "C". No need to wonder about it after "C" took high risk. They grew fast since 1990 outpacing other peer banks;

however, their higher risk taking habit finally caught up with them; especially, afer the Weil's repealing "Glass-Stegall" act.

While AAPL invented new product to excel the company, "C" used ARM loophole which finally took the company down.

We do not have any evidences for who are really responsible for the entire ARM dreadful fiasco, only God knows each man's intention.

In LT bank performances, "C" is showing high beta. As "C" took high risk, once, taking high risk paid off, but not this time.








http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=28626043

Preposterous but true: Apple's worth more than Citigroup
Posted Apr 16 2008, 07:57 PM by Charley Blaine
Filed under: Investing, Google, Apple, Citigroup
Rating:

I'm not making this up. Apple's market capitalization is bigger than Citigroup's. The actual numbers at today's close were $135 billion for Apple and $123 billion for Citigroup.

This fact, which came courtesy of Barry Ritholtz's blog The Big Picture, struck me as, well, preposterous. Check these most basic of comparisons:

Sales: Apple's sales for its 2007 fiscal year: $24 billion. Citigroup's 2007 revenue: $147 billion.

Assets: Apple's assets at the end of its 2007 fiscal year: $25.3 billion. Citigroup's year-end 2007 assets: $2.2 trillion. Yep, trillion.

The relative values, of course, make sense, especially when we look at one more measure.

Annual profit: Apple earned $3.5 billion in fiscal 2007, which ended on Sept. 29. Citigroup earned $3.6 billion in 2007.

Profit for the most recent quarter: Apple earned $1.58 billion in its most recent quarter, which ended on Dec. 29. Citigroup lost $9.8 billion for the fourth quarter of 2007. It reports first-quarter earnings on Friday.

Citigroup is paying -- a lot -- for the subprime mortgage mess and for a bad bet that becoming the world's largest financial services company would mean ever-growing profits forever. Fact is, Citi's stock peaked at $58 in August 2000 (yes, August 2000) and is down 59% since then.

While Apple's stock was battered by the dot-com bust and bottomed in April 2003 at $6.56, it is up 2,200% since then.

But what Barry didn't put in his note was this:

This is the second time Apple's market cap has exceeded Citigroup's since December. Apple was, in fact, worth more than Citi for roughly two weeks starting in mid-December. That's when Apple's shares were in the midst of a major run that produced an intraday high of $202.96 on Dec. 27. Citigroup was, of course, sinking. On Dec. 31, Apple's market cap was about $174 billion, and Citi's was $155 billion.

Both stocks really crumbled this winter, which allowed Citigroup to take the lead back on Jan. 23 in the aftermath of Societe Generale's multi-billion loss from bad trading. Apple finished the day at $112 billion. Citi was at $138 billion. (This is really a big-whoop number. Citi's market cap was $290 billion at the end of 2006.)

Apple took the lead back from Citi again on March 13.

Three final points:

Point 1: Citi's market cap bottomed at about $98 billion when the stock hit $18.62 on March 17. It's up 25% since then. But Apple is up 29% since Feb. 26 when the stock hit $119.15, producing a market cap of just under $105 billion.

Point 2: Google's market cap, now about $143 billion, has been larger than Citigroup's every day since the end of October. And this even though Google fell nearly 45% between early November and mid-March.

Point 3: Would anybody in his right mind invest in Citi again? Maybe. The Federal Reserve did rescue Bear Stearns, and Citi would definitely be a bank that the Fed would say is too big to fail. And the recent stock chart for Citi says that, if the stock can stay above that $18.62 low, it might be a good longer-term bet.

[*~1Best~*]

$BKX nice rally from the support 75 +/-

[*~1Best~*]

$BKX trading at LT S 76 +/- and C trading near at 7yr Jul 2002 low

Need new market, new hope, new dream




http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-03-06-troops-health_N.htm?csp=34
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. troop morale improved in Iraq last year, but soldiers fighting in Afghanistan suffered more depression as violence there worsened, an Army mental health report says.

[*~1Best~*]

$BKX - nearly 78% retracement to Oct 2002.

Market is distressed and commodity is hyped.

Bernanke and Bush: No stagflation, no recession

[*~1Best~*]

$BKX update

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=25714219

$BKX : re CFC rumor, evil armageddon made a rumor on CFC and tanked the stock off 26.27%

With this astronomical money which the evil money makers scooping up all the money around the world, what are they going to do with it? They can take it when they die... go to hell.

BKX at 80.59
http://trend-signals.blogspot.com/2008/01/bkx-to-targeted-83.html