Proposition 8 - Stolen and Turned to H8

Turns out that there was a huge discrepancy between the exit polls for Proposition 8 and the vote counting results. A swing of 4% from one direction to the other. And a group in Los Angeles did their own exit polling with safeguards inaugurated to minimize lying to the exit pollsters: i.e., filling out printed informal ballots anonymously and inserting them into a locked box. They found even wider swings!

Links: Bradblog.com , WasProp8Straight.org

Not only were we LGBT America citizens queerbashed, so were the majority of California's voters, their state's constitution and the US Constitution!

And it looks like SCOTUS may pull a Conservative Judicial Activist stunt, like they did with Bowers v. Hardwick. :(

Bush and the Rapture.

I found an illustration of the last seconds on Earth prior to the Rapture, at the site Democratic Underground. It depicts Bush with a whole bunch o' Christians on a hillside awaiting the rapture that is just about to happen. Below, World War III rages. Of course, it's just LIKE Bush to disappear whenever disasters and catastrophes happen. Remamber 9/11? Remember Katrina? Remember when the economic meltdown first reached critical mass last September and Paulson -- not Bush -- sent a page-and-a-half piece of proposed legislation to Congress?


Well, here is the Rapture!

Behold, Ourobouros!

Sheila Bair announded the other day that the FDIC may borrow from the banks in order to meet its Deposit Insurance payout obligations that are expected to come down the pike. (No, not the Mass. Pike.) ;-)

Zero Hedge

Even as the FDIC is scrambling to find ways to replenish the practically empty Deposit Insurance Fund, one of its options, namely borrowing from the Treasury, may be a non-starter due to the eggregious monetization by its counterparty, the Federal Reserve, as both run up against the Federal debt ceiling. According
to Bloomberg:

"Any new government borrowing brings the outstanding U.S. government debt closer to the $12.1 trillion limit. Tapping the FDIC’s line of credit or borrowing through the Federal Financing Bank or from private banks also would have implications for the debt limit, Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said in an interview."

More from Bloomberg:

The FDIC board is set to meet next week to decide how to refill funds
depleted by 94 bank failures this year. The options include new assessments on
banks, tapping a $100 billion line of credit with the Treasury Department, or borrowing money from banks or debt markets.

People, I can't begin to tell you how seriously whacked this is! The FDIC borrows from banks to fulfill its deposit insurance obligations and they'll repay the banks by assessing... the same banks! The FDIC and the banking "system" would become like Ourobouros, eating its own tail!

And suppose there's a bank run, like on Citigroup, or on Bank of America? Then all the big banks are in danger of collapsing! And who would be paying out to make the depositors whole to a certain degree? Why, the FDIC!!! And where would the FDIC get the money to bail out the depositors at these banks? Why the big banks themselves!!!!! O -- Ourobouros will be munching way, way up its tail! Once it reaches its own anus... well, you know what'll happen next.

Not Often I Like What Neo-Cons Do

But today, the American Enterprise Institute has put together a splendid webpage showing the progress of the Iranian people's struggle against their own government! And over a stolen election, too! We could have done the same over Bush's alleged "election" in '00 (stolen in FL) or his so-called "re-election" in '04 (stolen in OH), but did not. Bad on us.

And the nutjob Shah, Ayatolah Khameini, said yesterday that the Iranian Government will not give in to pressure, and neither will the Iranian People! Oh, Jeez. The guy's delusional. I suppose a realistic interpretation of the *ahem* "Supreme Leader's" remarks would be that the People and the Government will not yield to each other! For the Iranian Government and the Iranian People are now at loggerheads! Even some of the militia are now flashing peace/victory signs to the protestors!

God save the people of Iran! Allah Akbar! God is Great!

Citigroup Fading Fast

Source: CNN

Chart is self-explanatory. Rumour has it that the street is not confident that this gnomes' lair will be saved before it collapses completely into insolvency.

Coming: Death to Bank of America and Citigroup

The stocks of bank of America and Citigroup have collapsed to below $5.00 a share - they are both penny stocks!

Charting Stocks Gone In 60 Days: Citi and Bank of America Won't Live to See May

Bank of America and Citigroup won’t live to see May. The two banks will be nationalized in the coming weeks, and we think that the announcement can come as
soon as tomorrow evening (Friday evenings are when major bank announcements and failures occur).


The US government has already committed half a trillion dollars to these two firms which is more than 10 times the amount it would cost to buy and control both companies. The market doesn’t believe that $500 billion is enough to save these companies.

Today both banks made fresh new lows with Citi closing at $2.51 and Bank of America closing at $3.93. The 1 year charts below show the short term price movements. You should understand that when a bank stock’s chart looks like
this, even a HEALTHY bank would be in trouble. Nobody wants their deposits tied
up in a company that trades at $2. The outflows of deposits from Bank of America
and Citi must be catastrophic.

And here are their stock price charts!

Source: Chartingstocks.net

The US Gov't will need a lot more than the $500Bn already spent to bail out these banks. Don't count on any bailout for any banks to get through Congress this time -- both Dems and Repubs are majorly pissed off at the banking gnomes who took their year-end bonuses out of the first TARP. When Obama and Geither go to Captiol Hill and tell them that the new TARP is must-pass, the Repubs plus some Dems will shoot it down, probably by filibuster!

I gots two credit cards from Bank of America, both with zero balance. When it goes under, I am sure those cards will be useless!!!!!

The Birds

Over at James Kunstler's "Clusterfuck Nation," someone posted an item about omens presented by flights of birds in ancient Rome, WRT inaugurations and getting major projects started.

Emerson taught that all words have their roots in nature. I was curious
what the roots, or etymology, are for the word "inauguration".

Here's what one online dictionary says: "1569, from Fr. inauguration
"installation, consecration," from L. inaugurationem (nom. inauguratio)
"consecration, installment under good omens," from inaugurare "take omens from
the flight of birds, consecrate or install when such omens are favorable," from
in- "on, in" + augurare "to act as an augur, predict" (see
augur/browse/augur)."I guess people used to inaugurate when the omens were
favorable from watching bird flights? Funny, last week we had a bird flight take
out an airplane in New York, causing it to crash in the Hudson River. Although
no one was killed, it was a very scarey and traumatic event. An omen?

If it's an omen of anything, it means that Pres. Barack H. Obama is the Gorbachev of the United States -- in other words, our last president as the country collapses.

My Take on Developing All That Oil by 2030

Given the current financial crisis, including the Derivatives unravelling, US Gov't inability to sell 92% of its T-bill offer on the 10th, and general Wall Street cock-up, here's my opinion that there will be sufficient financing or adequate capital to develop oil resources sufficient to attain the production flows predicted by the IEA 'til 2030:

Over One Quadrillion Dollars in Derivatives

That is greater than the value of all things on Earth.

The unravelling of these derivatives could eat up all wealth.

And the $700 billion bailout now before Congress will be a joke if this derivatives bubble were to suddenly burst.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/demeritt061608.html

The Bank of International Settlements recently reported that the amount of
outstanding derivatives has now reached the $1.14 quadrillion mark ($548
Trillion in listed credit derivatives plus $596 trillion in notional [or face
value] OTC derivatives)....

Derivatives, as you may know, are essentially unregulated, high-risk credit bets. Unlike the earnest farmer who might employ a futures contract to hedge the price of the beans he’s worked so hard to grow, many of today’s institutions use futures, forwards, options, swaps, swaptions, caps, collars and floors—any kind of leverage device they can cook up—to bet the hell out of virtually anything.

What drives derivatives, at their very roots (if you can somehow get back that far), are base assets that get leveraged to a demented degree. Martin Mayer writing for the Brookings Institute, said, “the receiver of the payments on these loans or securities has bought the securities for the duration of the swap on 95% margin, even though the law says nobody can buy securities without putting up half the price.”

Extrapolated, $1.14 quadrillion in assets “owned” on something like 95% margin has to be one of the scariest phenomena in economic history....

Eventually, shockingly, something will happen. Some bank will slip up, some mathematician will miscalculate or the Fed just won’t react fast enough, and the whole [$1.14] quadrillion derivative complex will come tumbling down around our feet. Only it might not be [$1.14] quadrillion by then. It might be a whole lot more.