Conflict of interest?

Do you want fries with that?

[Deleted. Don't post in all caps]

Add that to the fact we can barely pay the interest on the U.S. debt and you have a perfect storm brewing.

Should be interesting times ahead.

well, double standards are twice as good :-)

Andrew @ 8:

L.A. Confidential @ 7:

It's basically the same set up that lead to the Great Depression.

That is exactly where it is going and given the manipulted news in our country, we were supposed to be the last know!

People are clueless. And when it happens most people will just figure, well this is just the way tings are and there's nuttin we can do about it. Maybe the gubberment can do someting'.

Dennis @ 10:

L.A. Confidential @ 7:

It's basically the same set up that lead to the Great Depression.

We can only hope, right LA-C?

If I don't post here any more it's because I jumped out a window. I need to find my replacement first.

If we cling to the old school paradigm we'll be in serious trouble. If we snap out of it and bring in the new we'll make it.

It's that simple. Capitalism as we know it is in a late stage of Decay.

Well the good news is Stan O'Steal from Merrill Lynch is out...oh yeah...with 160 million. And (up)Chuck Prince is out at Shittigroup...oh yeah...he gets 100 mill...ever notice the boys at the top have it set up nice? if the company does great, I win big. If the company bleeds billions, I win big. Nice.

Follow the Currency...

Fiat Empire
Aaron Russo's Last Film

Shouldn't capitalism mean that these companies should lose money and perhaps go out of business? Shouldn't the CEO's at these companies get lose their bonuses? Get big pay cuts? Who thinks that will happen?

This is "capitalism" to "conservatives" these days: Businesses do whatever, and if they get in trouble, the "conservative" Republicans will bail them out. It's the invisible hand... of Republicans!

CounterSicilian @ 13:

I know this is a fundamental question, but what is a dollar? How is its value determined? What prevents the Fed from printing more and more of it, if it is not backed by commodity? Can anyone explain the following scenario?

Ideal:

1.lender(bank) < ---commodity(collateral) debtor


2.Lender---(loan /IOU/paper currency)--> debtor


3. Lender<---(loan /IOU/paper currency)-- debtor


4.lender--commodity(return collateral) --> debtor

*5. lender destroys paper currency/IOU

Actual :

1.lender<--commodity (collateral) -- debtor

2.Lender---(loan /IOU/paper currency)--> debtor

*3. Lender !=(loan /IOU/paper currency) debtor defaults

*4.lender needs money

*5. Lender prints currency

*6. paper currency does not come back to lender

You can thank a great Republican called Richard Nixon who in 1971 broke the link between real money ( Gold ) and the worthless paper dollar ( Federal Reserve note ) Today it is just fiat. The floating concept of currency is a failure because there is nothing of value to back it.
The only saving grace is to return to what the Constitution and the founding fathers called for, which was a US Treasury and money established from gold and silver. It would be as simple as the stroke of a pen in overturning the Federal Reserve Act and going back to Consitutional money. That means a sound money backed by precious metals like gold and silver, doing away with the Federal Reserve as well as the I.R.S. as there is nothing in the Constitution that says that ones personal labor is to be taxed.
But as long that you have a banking cartel that controls money, you can never get ahead and will always be in debt just as the government is. The only difference being, that theu own the printing presses and when they want more they just print it. Wish I had a printing press. Why is it we allow our government to debase our currency by printing more and more of it? Is it any wonder why they stopped printing the M3 figure. As Ron Paul said at yesterdays hearing with Bernanke, we are printing 20% more money year over year than at any time in history. In fact, when Greenspan was in charge, he printed more worthless money in his time that since the creation of our country. Now you know the dirty little secret our elected officials never wanted you to know and sure sure won't hear the media talking about it. They jsut think we're simple morons.

One other question you might like to ask your elected representatives. If the Federal Reserve a private banking cartel has all this power over the money in our country, why was the law written in such a way that the books of the Federal Reserve could never be audited?

Remember that the Bush administration utilized the refinancing boom to keep the economy afloat over the last 5 years. Consumers would tapped into the equity of their homes to buy goods and services and prop up the GDP.
Business and mortagage companies benefited greatly during this time taking their share from the debt bubble. Now that this bubble is bursting, capitalist only worry about bailing our companies.

When are americans going to learn.

BIGS @ 21:

Why was Paulson arrested in Germany in dec. of 2006. Why was the Provost Marshal General and Paulson at the Citicorp meeting over the weekend of Nov. 1st 2007. Because Bush 1 and 2 and the Clintons have been stealing 27.5 trillion dollars from the Leo Wanta settlement, this has been going on since 1988. What a bunch of greedy a-holes we have had running the country. It is time for guns and roses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You nailed it buddy! A friend of mine works at CITI and couldn't believe all those black SUV's with little red lights flashing on them this week. The Wnta story is about the biggest financial scam in history and while the media and every elected official knows about it, they still won't publish a word about it. But if your interested, you can read all of the gory details at www.worldreports.org. Christopher Story should win a Pulitzer prize for the time and effort he has put into this factual story. Make no mistake, this government and previous administrations are as corrupt as any that have ever existed, and we the people are the ones who have and continue to pay the price for this financial rape of the United States.
The next time a politician tells you we don't have the money for this program or that, ask them about the 4.5 trillion that ambassador Wanta want to pay his rightful 1.575 trillion in taxes on. I'll bet that politician will first puke, then run off as fast as his feet can carry him.

L.A. Confidential @ 10:

Dennis @ 10:

L.A. Confidential @ 7:

It's basically the same set up that lead to the Great Depression.

We can only hope, right LA-C?

If I don't post here any more it's because I jumped out a window. I need to find my replacement first.

If we cling to the old school paradigm we'll be in serious trouble. If we snap out of it and bring in the new we'll make it.

It's that simple. Capitalism as we know it is in a late stage of Decay.

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

Andrew @ 8:

L.A. Confidential @ 7:

It's basically the same set up that lead to the Great Depression.

That is exactly where it is going and given the manipulted news in our country, we were supposed to be the last know!

People are clueless. And when it happens most people will just figure, well this is just the way tings are and there's nuttin we can do about it. Maybe the gubberment can do someting'.

both points are salient and accurate. people need to stop accepting the damage that happens in their lives by the acceptance of corrupt leadership.

JW @ 19:

"It’s that simple. Capitalism as we know it is in a late stage of Decay."

No its not. This is ridiculous.

The problem here is corruption and fraud, pure and simple. Bad lending practices. Debt spending of irrational proportions. You keep to fiscal conservatism, and every thing would be fine. This would mean...no bs sub primes. Ballanced federal budget. Economies go in cycles, and we are due for a downturn, but its going to be worse because of BUSH and his failed policies, and over exuberance in the mortgage business, not because of capitalism.

Realistically, at this point capitalism in a global economy has been proven to be the best system available for raising standard of living. Are there problems? Yes. We do need to deal with the very real problem of income equallity, but this doesnt mean we go away from capitalism. We do need to restrain corruption and fraud, but this has ALWAYS been the case, and it applies to EVERY SYSTEM equally.

Any Ideology taken to it's extreme and set in stone without balance and moderation is doomed to fail.. Simple as that..

+++++GENERAL MOTORS+++++
The shining face of corporate capitalissimo. Here's a message from our glorious Chairman.

Dear Fellow Shareholders:

Being the captain of the Titanic is no fun.

I am the CEO and the chairman of General Motors, what was, until recently, one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world. For decades, GM was a model of capitalism. Our bonds were the highest quality you could purchase. Our dividend was the safest. Our jobs were among the best in America. Our operations shaped accounting standards. What was good for GM was said to be "good for America."

Today, only a thin veneer of optimistic statements, crafted by my lawyers so that they can't be definitely called "lies," keeps this firm from slipping into bankruptcy.

For example, I told the world in our press release we saw "steady improvement in our financial results" and "strong evidence that our commitment to great cars and trucks is being embraced by consumers around the globe." Luckily for me, "steady improvement" and "strong evidence" are meaningless puffery that can't be proven to mean one thing or another.

Instead of living the life of a captain of industry – where I'd take credit for the hard work of our thousands of employees – I find myself leading an expansive game of financial charades. I have become nothing more than a dressed-up street hustler, running a shell game on you, our loyal shareholders. But at least I have this outlet. As I have done for nearly a year, I will again tell you the sad truth about our operations and our helpless financial situation.

First, as I have told you before, "We have infrastructure and employee obligations that outpace what we can afford given our greatly reduced profit margins and debt load." Specifically, we have long-term debts of $36 billion, retirement benefit obligations of $60 billion, and another $16 billion in various other long-term liabilities.

How did we end up in this position? It didn't happen overnight. For 19 out of the last 20 years, GM operated at a capital deficit. We simply didn't make enough money selling cars to maintain our asset base, make new investments in future capacity, and pay our cash dividend. If you look at the numbers carefully, you see our total capital deficit over the last 20 years was $275 billion. After we worked through our accumulated savings, we began borrowing money – more and more of it every year.

So far this year, we've paid approximately $4 billion in interest on these various liabilities. I estimated, in an earlier letter to you, that we would require about $5.81 billion in cash from operations merely to pay the interest on our debts. I still believe that's an accurate forecast. Our global cost of borrowing continues to increase, as I thought it would. It now costs us 6.3% a year, on average, to borrow money, up from 5.84% last year. As more debts "roll over," this number will increase until it eventually strangles us. We are trapped, unable to let go of our legacy obligations and unable to pay for them.

We know we will not produce anything like $6 billion from operations this year. Likewise, it is very unlikely we will ever generate regular, ongoing profits from operations in excess of our interest expenses. As a result, our accountants have forced us to "write down" the value of most of our tax losses, which had been on our books as an asset. We've told the public this doesn't really matter because the $37 billion charge is a "noncash" expense.

It does matter though: It means we know we are unlikely to ever again record a profit. If we had any reasonable expectation of reaching profitability, we would not have been required to take the write-off. (You won't hear me explain this fact anywhere else...)

Our core problem is simple enough to understand: We can't make enough money selling cars to pay for our debts, or even our interest payments.

This quarter, on a worldwide basis, we earned $122 million from our ongoing automotive operations, which we claim is a terrific accomplishment. In fact, we make a pitifully small amount of money from selling cars – even in the huge global boom we're now experiencing. You should remember: Our third-quarter revenues have never been bigger. Our rival, Toyota, which sells essentially the same number of vehicles, posted operating earnings of $11.2 billion! That's a record for Toyota and a 16% increase over last year. Investors ought to be seriously concerned about the future of the company when, even in a quarter of record global car sales, GM can't turn a profit.

Things are especially tough on us in the developed markets. We lost $248 million on our North American operations and another $90 million in Europe. This doesn’t include all of the corporate overhead, legacy costs, and most of our interest expense.

In total, we lost $2.5 billion – in cash – on our automotive operations in the quarter.

As I've explained before, our only chance to avoid bankruptcy was to experience a big jump in the total number of cars sold and to cut expenses to the bone. That hasn't happened. Our total worldwide car production has actually fallen year over year. Likewise, our global market share continues to slip, bit by bit. In 1992, we made 30% of all the cars in the world. Today, we make 13.3% of all the cars in the world, down from 13.6% last year.

As our production falls, the scale of our business shrinks, making it harder and harder to earn a profit on every car sold. Production is very likely to continue to decline. Even after all of the plant closures and cutbacks, we are still operating below 90% of our current capacity.

I know... all of this seems like bad news. But actually, our automotive business is only slowly bleeding to death. The big hemorrhage is in mortgages...

Our CFO was foolish enough to tell securities analysts that GMAC was "leaning away" from residential mortgages. Not exactly... Actually, GMAC lost $1.6 billion, mostly on subprime mortgages, in the last quarter. Our share of these losses totaled $803 million. We actually don't know how much more we will lose in this business going forward, but as our write-off of those tax assets shows, we certainly don't expect to make any money here for a long time.

What does all of this mean? It's not good news. Let me show you the cold, hard facts.

According to our most up-to-date balance sheet, we have about $37 billion in cash and receivables. That sounds like a lot of money. But we have matching liabilities for all of these assets – and more. Over the next 12 months, $5 billion of our long-term debt will come due. We have current accounts payable of $30 billion and other accrued expenses that mature in the next year of $34 billion. All totaled, we owe $70 billion within the next 12 months. (That's not including all of the rest of our long-term debt, pension liabilities, etc.)

If you have $34 billion in your checking account and you've got $70 billion worth of bills on your desk, you're not exactly "cash rich" are you?

How will we pay for these obligations? How will we come up with the money we need to finance our long-term debts? There aren't any easy answers. And all of the possible solutions will be extremely painful to existing shareholders.

The simple fact is, we're going bankrupt. It's only a matter of time before our accountants force us to insert "going concern" language into our filings. That means they won't approve our audit unless we admit publicly that we know we're heading for a bankruptcy filing.

That won't be a good day to be a shareholder.

Best regards,

Your Chairman

ok people...the "Wanta" thing sounds like pure conspiracy theory nuttiness to me.

Can anyone else qualify this somehow?

Thanks

Josh @ 32:

ok people...the "Wanta" thing sounds like pure conspiracy theory nuttiness to me.

Can anyone else qualify this somehow?

Thanks

That's the problem Josh. The major media outlets have been bought off and their silence is deafening. If you go to Story's site www.worldreports.org, check through his archives going back to the original agreement hammered out between Wanta and the current administration. A friend of mine in banking who didn't believe the story and thought it was some conspiracy nut job talking went as far as requesting a copy of the 2003 trial in Federal Court in Alexandria VA. under the rule of Justice Gerald B. Lee.
Judge Lee made it clear to Wanta that you can't sue a soverign nation ie: your emplyer in this case and Wanta knew that. However, Wanta had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the money was real sitting in title 18 section 6 account's that Wanta had the transaction codes for. The judge stated in his Memorandum of Opinion, that while you can't sue the U.S. gov't, you have proven yourself to be the rightful owner of the funds which at the time was 27.5 Trillion accumulated over 22 years and that he was ordered by the court to bring those funds into the US and pay his corporate taxes which Wanta has been trying to do since November 2006.
I have read all 174 pages of the court case and if you have access to Lexus/Nexus, you can read it for yourself. All members of Congress are very aware of it and the Clinton and Bush Administrations have been trying to keep this from the public for the last ten years. This is the case number if your interested.
U.S. JUDGE LEE’S COURT RULING OVER AMBASSADOR LEO WANTA’S ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY IN RESPECT OF CERTAIN SENSITIVE TITLE 18, SECTION 6 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE CORPORATIONS AND THEIR OFF-BALANCE SHEET OFFSHORE BANK ACCOUNT FINANCIAL ASSETS
CV 02-1363-A,

(see also--35 Edwin Says: )

That, and, I think oil has replaced what gold used to be. I'm no economist, but I hear ya, it all stinks.

Philosophically: What is money? It's an agreement, nothing more.

We are headed into the worst bear market since the 2000 meltdown. I am expecting a Black Monday on the 12th. Hold on to your butts!

Disaster after disaster after disaster and there are STILL plenty of average Americans, the ones most hurt by this stuff, who support deregulation and self-policing of corporate swindlers. It's lunacy.

americans workers are corporate livestock in todays world.

Andrew @ 38:

Edwin @ 35:

CounterSicilian @ 14:

I know this is a fundamental question, but what is a dollar? How is its value determined? What prevents the Fed from printing more and more of it, if it is not backed by commodity? Can anyone explain the following scenario?

Ideal:

1.lender(bank) < ---commodity(collateral) debtor


2.Lender---(loan /IOU/paper currency)--> debtor


3. Lender<---(loan /IOU/paper currency)-- debtor


4.lender--commodity(return collateral) --> debtor

*5. lender destroys paper currency/IOU

Actual :

1.lender<--commodity (collateral) -- debtor

2.Lender---(loan /IOU/paper currency)--> debtor

*3. Lender !=(loan /IOU/paper currency) debtor defaults

*4.lender needs money

*5. Lender prints currency

*6. paper currency does not come back to lender

These days, it's all just a bunch of numbers flying around in computers. The rich fight it out amongst themselves. Any questions and Blackwater visits your house. Know what I'm sayin'? Back to work-- peon. Know what I'm sayin'?

That's what the government would like you to think. It doesn't have to be that way. WE THE PEOPLE are the real power in America. It's not the other way around. As I have stated here before, remember this quote from Jefferson. " When the people fear the government, there is tyranny". " When the government fears the people, there is liberty".

it really has become disney land hasnt it!

Yes of course. People need to be protected from their own stupidity. They took a huge gamble and lost. The only ones who will get bailed out are the lenders themselves. But there is hope. Maybe people will realize that maybe, just maybe they really don't need 2 fat SUV's, an Ipod and a daily $2.00 cup of coffee.

With nothing backing the dollar, The federal reserve(which is really 5 major players) will ultimately crash the economy and the dollars you have save will be as worthless as the members in congress who represent us.

Ron.j @ 50:

Of coarse yesterdays excesses will not be repeated. They have already occured. The damage has already been done.

Greenspan did not want sub prime regulated, so that what occured, could hapen.

It was Greenspan, who told home buyers to get adjustable rate mortgages, at the bottom of the interest rate cycle. It was Greenspan who was praising reckless lending programs in 2005.
The damage is done and Greenspan is now gone. Someone else is now left to clean up the mess.
Greenspan is now blaming the housing bubble on the fall of the Berlin Wall, instead of his 1% interest rates and his refusal to regulate banking, while praising reckless lending programs.

Now, the regulating, which Greenspan said would be futile for him to attempt, is occuring. It was doable, Greenspan simply did not want to do it. It did not fit in his agenda, which was to create a housing bubble, to replace a stock bubble.

Is this the same Greenspan, who was one of the founders of the Trilateral Commission?