Oddly, now it seems the biggest threat of nuclear plants comes from grid failure. Is there any talk of more redundancy in backup power for US nuclear plants?

Obviously there should be.

Sorry to pepper you and this isn’t even a question. My sense is that Obama had no choice because there in nobody within government institutions or those who influence them who takes ‘our’ side. Or in other words there is nobody to turn to that would even consider change.

Neil, do you have any sense that Obama knew that HAMP was designed not to work. What is the status of the, I think, $40 billion of that money.

Larger, is Treasury paying most of the money back to Treasury on an ongoing basis. I recall 3 years ago some Treasury flac telling a congresscritter who was essentially begging for Treasury to give the money back into the General Fund to FO

It is certainly no consolation but I consider Geithner scum. I loved when Dick Fuld called him an errand boy, or some such. It is funny in a sad way he too is held in contempt by the big boys yet continues to be their errand boy. They are rich beyond imagining, he is just a schumck

Neil, could you address the decision to pay off certain AIG (GS) MBS ‘insurance’ policies.

Neil, can you imagine who might take the Secretary chair. To say the least Geithner was perfect. He knows where all the bodies are buried. Isn’t it true he has limited all information into a very tiny circle of insiders?

I have not read the book but it seems you were treated within Treasury with contempt. Was this made apparent like with Elizibeth Warren in a sub basesment office. Did it extend to the personal level?

Neil, as you have proven yourself not to be a Party Man or a Company Man or Institutional Man, but your own man, will you portray your professional prospects?

oh still here
Neil, the biggest story I think is the GSEs. In that the bailout of the GSE MBS investors is going to cost taxpayers at lest $500billion.
TARP was not involved in that correct?

Can you address this

darn, missed it

Finally it all comes together. The day we have been waiting for. The FEMA camps will now go active. Soon millions of Texans will be enslaved, herding free range chickens as their daughters are impregnated by gay Negroes.

First this is an exceedingly odd thing. An ‘agreement’ has no force of law. It’s one thing to make an agreement but why would the banks start sending the money if another AG just might decide to enforce the laws. And let’s make it clear a big part of this is an agreement not to enforce the law. How crazy is that?

Then too the list of others not willing to go along has rendered the thing DOA I believe. I went on record yesterday saying Schneiderman would cave but he has more than a few allies among other AG’s which I didn’t know.

That any agreement is going to be limited and not include the entire laundry list of bank errors and possible fraud means that there is less to this ‘agreement’ than it first seemed.

BAC is in the worst shape on mortgages because they were so dumb as to volunteer to be bagholders, for Countrywide. If they somehow survive it is still going to be years before the bleeding stops on this stuff.

When it became official in March 09, as opposed to obviously probable, that the corrupt would be given a pass in order to save the system then the system itself became corrupt officially.

As much as we hate the Tea Party, slaves to their old prejudices, it has to be understood that at a sort of pre cognitive level they too are responding to the corruption of the system. Now I argue they and the conservatives insured that corruption but no matter, going forward the devolution of governance and disappearing consent of the governed is an incredibly bearish trend that will only accelerate.

These were not secret loans. The total amounts were not secret. The only thing that was not known was the who. The specific programs involved were the TAF and the PDCF. They were officially and publicly announced for anyone to see on the Fed web site. The amounts were posted each week on the Feds H41 report.

That non American located banks took so much should not be a surprise to anyone. Over half the Primary Dealers are non US entities. Besides, corporations have no nationality.

None of which to say the entire thing does not stink on many many levels. It’s just nobody pays attention to the mechanisms of money. Believing that it’s all performed by some secret cabal and is too complicated to understand anyway.

Ignorance of money and finance has been worn as a badge of honor by liberals for a couple of generations. Thus the field was ceded to the money men by default. Liberals relegated to the sidelines booing and name calling.

To further the rant, the now universal ‘liberal’ clamor for easy money and more credit is only an extension of the things that for 30 years put us where we are today.

The important thing to know is that Obama’s economics, the elites economics, are near collapse. Forget about the election. If we muddle through till then he wins, if we don’t he loses. Neither will have any material effect on you.

One can apportion guilt any way you like but the result of what happened are surely punishment. Who is getting punished? Well you know and it is beyond astounding that any nominally representative government can stand while allowing the many to suffer and the few to prosper. The very few who were far more guilty, no matter how you apportion it.

So we have a failure of governance that is progressing still and the reckoning is going to be terrible. For everyone. The failure of the economy is not separate from the failure of government, they are the same thing. It is a political economy and it will not heal itself. It is going to fall apart. No matter how bad you think things may get I suggest you multiply it by 10.