End The Fed!!!

WHERE IS THE MONEY?

Time and Money

Time and Money

* A quick and dirty breakdown of the Great Bailout Bamboozle,
* Could this be the end of Pax Americana?
* Your own Bad Banks commentary and plenty more...

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Joel Bowman, en route to Hong Kong, defers to the learned Rude readership...

You’d think in these times of economic hardship, nations around the world would be welcoming spenders of every sort into their borders. Alas, it is getting harder and harder to find a place willing to take your money, at least one that doesn’t kick you out every few months.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s Weekend Edition, your editor is off on yet another visa run this morning. But fear not, for your fellow Rude readers have plenty to say about all this Bad Bank business and the troublesome situation at hand. Here we offer a few emails from the Rude inbox...

“The banks will not lend because there is no one worth lending to who wants or needs a loan,” observes one reader, whose name may or may not be Dusty.

“Part II,” Dusty continues, “The banks are holding the new cash very close because they know that the worst is yet to come. They knew about the Credit Suisse Mortgage Resets Chart before Credit Suisse did.

“Part III: The banks getting those Federal monies are so screwed up they do not know what they are doing anyway. Their senior officers and staff are just trying to figure out new ways to scarf up the additional money and run off with it.

“…There is a cure for everything,” Dusty continues. “We may well be in the midst of another major Depression ... that might play out much like the current Japanese situation.

“It has been said that the wealth of the New World took Europe out of the nightmare of the times described in the novels of Charles Dickens but that, when that wealth was consumed and scattered too thinly among too many new humans, the times of Dickens would resume. We are close to that, if not already there. Note that at least one of Charles Dickens novels was about the French Revolution. It is not too difficult to believe that America is ready for a similar event to clean up the mess we find ourselves in.

“The French started all that with a rejection of the political status quo, then went on to kill everybody with any political, intellectual or financial savvy, and ended with Napoleon and something resembling, for the era, a world war. I personally hope that things in America never get that bad. But I would not like to have to bet on it either way.

“America was the first to lead the charge away from European Colonialism and may be the first to lead the charge into the real New World Order. It is also worth mentioning from this perspective that when Rome fell and the Pax Romana ceased to be, no person or place was safe for centuries. So it might also be if America and the Pax Americana goes down.”

Sticking with history for the moment, another reader writes in with some market figures of yore.

“It’s déjà vu all over again,” observes the person/s known only as BGW. “Look at the Dow from the Johnson-led recovery (say 2/26/71) - 878.13, to the Reagan tax cut (say 6/18/1982) - 788.62.

“Eleven plus years with a loss and nothing to show for it but the occasional dividend.

“And recall the stagflation that consumed more - much more - than the accumulated dividends in the last half of that miserable era.

“And Mr. Johnson is said to be one of Mr. Obama's heroes... WOW!”

Finally, Mr. de la Rosa, writes in from sunny Florida.

“There are a number of reasons for today's financial situation,” our Floridian representative begins. “I believe that one of the reasons is that today's leaders and aspiring leaders were forged in a generation of "not my fault'. These people believe that they are immune from personal responsibility for failures as long as they have an excuse that others will buy or can baffle others with their B.S.

“Some argue this began with the ‘Woodstock generation’ and continues today. How many recall Harry Truman's mantra ‘the buck stops here’, much less comprehend it?

“Perhaps this explains why so many ‘common people’ have an intense distrust for our government and business leaders, and time has demonstrated that in the end the common man proved to be correct!

“Thanks you for allowing me to express my concern for our wonderful nation.

No sir, thank YOU. Now that we have shamelessly outsourced today’s introduction, it’s time to turn the floor over to Bill Bonner, writing from Paris, France. In today’s column, Bill has some words of his own for Mr. Geithner & Co. Please enjoy and, as always, keep those emails coming to the address at the bottom of the page.