.....The Massachusetts Secretary of State has charged Merrill with “fraud and misrepresentation” for selling them a CDO that was "highly risky and esoteric" and "unsuitable for the City of Springfield.” (Most cities are required by law to only purchase Triple A rated bonds) The city of Springfield bought the CDO less than a year ago for $13.9 million. It is presently valued at $1.2 million---MORE THAN A 90% LOSS IN LESS THAN A YEAR.

Merrill has quietly settled out of court for the full amount and seems genuinely confused by the Massachusetts Secretary of State's apparent anger. A Merrill spokesman said blandly, “We are puzzled by this suit. We have been cooperating with the Secretary of State Galvin's office throughout this inquiry.”

Is it really that hard to understand why people don't like getting ripped of? ...

Courtesy
Mike Whitney.

......So the foreign banks and investors are finally waking up to the fact that they were ripped-off and they want their money back. It's about time. They were defrauded and they deserve restitution. The first article about the impending tidal wave of subprime litigation appeared earlier in the week on FOX Business.com "Lawsuits Begin to Spill Out of Subprime Mess" http://www.foxbusiness.com/article/lawsuits-begin-spill-subprime-mess_460851_55.html The subprime boondoggle will play out in courts for years to come.

But, back to Milstein. What does he want? He wants to buy back the subprime debt that was sold to gullible foreign banks "at a discount" but then record it on the banks' balance sheets at full value.
Whoa. Now, there's a neat trick. In other words, he wants to pay a nickel for the "debt", but then record it as a dollar to meet his capital requirements.
Is this really how bankers think?
Oh---and by the way---he also wants the American taxpayer to guarantee the debt in case the nickel loses some of its value. Nice touch, eh? Milstein adheres to the old adage, "Privatize the profits, socialize the losses."
Finally, Milstein adds that his only interest is his “concern for the health of the global financial system.”

Can you feel the love?

The tragedy of the stimulus charade is that some variation of Milstein's proposal is sure to be enacted. Otherwise it wouldn't have shown up in the NY Times. The Times frequently uses the op-ed page to put up trial balloons for changes in policy. It's the same here. The banking establishment and the administration have finally settled on a 'bail out plan' and "We the People" are going to foot the bill. Congress is already on board and Bush is just a swipe-of-the-pen away from another trillion dollar giveaway to big business. The banks and money-lenders always get their pound of flesh while the rest of us get screwed. Some things never change.

Courtesy
Mike Whitney

War is a form of corporate welfare cloaked in patriotic language. One need only follow the money to understand what it is really about.

- Charles Sullivan

....Now, ask yourself: Why has the U.S. government been occupying Iraq for the past 5 years? Didn't they already "get" Saddam? Hasn't he already been executed?

The answer is that U.S. officials, having "gotten" Saddam must now "get" the "bad guys" in Iraq. And who are the "bad guys?" They're the Iraqis who are angry over the killing of Iraqis, including women and children, who had to be killed in the process of "getting Saddam."

As they continue to bomb all these "bad guys," they continue to kill more innocents, including more Iraqi children and their families, which then incites more fury, which then causes more "bad guys" to join the insurgency. Those additional "bad guys" are then used as the excuse to continue the occupation of Iraq, an occupation that for obvious reasons will go on indefinitely.

- Jacob G. Hornberger

.......Maliki said he was putting it all on the line when he attempted to invade Basra. I say ‘attempted’ because the assault was apparently so poorly planned that the government armored vehicles couldn’t even get into the city, being too wide for the narrow lanes. Brilliant. We’re likely to be spending three trillion bucks on some drunken fool’s Middle Eastern debacle, and nobody thought to ship over a tape measure?

- David Michael Green

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAXtLgMedyI

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTXEWh2yT_g&eurl=http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19705.htm