Naomi Klein:
Now Is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine


Norman Solomon:
Too Big to Fail and Too Small to Matter


Peter Dreier:
GOP: Lose Your Home, Lose Your Vote


Devinder Sharma:
Global Priorities: Feeding Markets, Starving the Hungry

Bill Clinton: Current Crisis Proposal "Not Sufficient"
Josh Orton, 09.23.2008

How The U.S. Could Make Money Off the Bailout - Jon Birger, Fortune
Bailout Is About Saving Credit Flow, Not Banks - John Berry, Bloomberg
Paulson & Bernanke Didn't Make Their Case - Editorial, New York Times
Opening Pandora's Bailout - Holman Jenkins, Wall Street Journal
Do Not Abandon Inflation Targets - Frederic Mishkin, Financial Times
Global Glee at America's Financial Pain - Randall Forsyth, Barron's
Of Interventions & Conservative Principles - Don Luskin, National Review
Fearing Debt Like 1990s Japan - Jonathan Ford, Prospect Magazine

• Economists' Forum - expert commentators debate the issues
• Martin Wolf - Paulson's plan was not a true solution to the crisis
• John Authers - Short View video on shorting ban
• Clive Crook - The wrong kind of bail-out?
• Gillian Tett - The era of leverage is over
• John Gapper - My Wall Street prediction comes true, up to a point
• John Kay - We let down diligent folk at the Halifax
• John Plender - Reserve judgement on the dollar

http://www.jsmineset.com/home.asp Dear Friends,

There is no hope for the future as long as we have to listen to what we have experienced in the last two days. If the Fed pays “Hold to Maturity” prices in the bailout they are accepting onto their balance sheet all the lies that existed and still exists on and off the balance sheets of the banking and investment industry.

Fabrication has taken the US financial system over the cliff. The bailout of the near and dear fabricated to a spiritual level sets in cement the generational nature of this breakdown, the coming dollar collapse, and the reign of gold.

To categorize this bailout of OTC derivative manufacturers as an asset purchase is so wrong it strains the limits of criminality.

DO NOT LET YOUR GUARD DOWN.

THE BAILOUT ONLY BUYS YOU A LITTLE MORE TIME TO PROTECT YOURSELVES.

Good Question

http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/ Bill,
There was a tense moment during the House Banking Committee testimony when a senator asked about the 62 T$ CDS derivative market and that failed institutions have been revealed to have had massive exposure to it. She asked if Paulson intended to buy any CDS derivatives in the RTC fund. Paulson visibly froze. Chris Cox quickly jumped in and said it was a huge market and it needed regulating and is "ripe for fraud and manipulation" but it was far too much of a complex problem to tackle with the current bail-out bill but needed to be addressed! Bernanke then babbled on about how Tim Geitner of the NY Fed had been leading an initiative on this issue and was making good progress! It was like watching Ice Hockey players avoid the body-check. They got away with it because everyone was focused on the 700B$ problem and completely missed the 62 Trillion dollar elephant sitting in the room (good job no one mentioned the 1200 trillion dollar global derivative market elephant!). The other senators probably thought that they said "trillion" when they really meant to say "billion"! http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2
008/09/23/afx5459275.html

THE MOGAMBO GURU
Who's doing
whom a favor?
As Total Fed Credit surges at an utterly amazing pace, part of the vast, global scheme "to fuel economic activity", we are finding out just who is small enough to fail. Only idiots who can't make payments on loans they already have are good for new handouts. For the rest of us - buy gold!
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
Misdirected credit
runs unabated
More alarming than recent efforts to stem the financial crisis is that emergency measures are being taken so early - with the Dow still above 11,000 and GDP growth strong. An unprecedented circumvention of free market forces has been unleashed - but to what end? It will definitely worsen the inevitable financial and economic dislocation. (Sep 22, '08)
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
THE WEEK AHEAD

From Barrons:


1. The Road Ahead
2. The Pain of Deleveraging Will Be Deep and Wide
3. Global Glee at America's Financial Pain
4. Express Your Inner Warren Buffett
5. Buffett Strikes Gold in Goldman
6. White Knight, Dark Market
7. Bailout or Not, Credit Will Be Crunched
8. Dry-Bulk Carriers Are Not Shipshape
9. B of A's Biggest Bet Ever: Big Risks, and Rewards
10. Money Markets Smolder While DC Debates

Why The Paulson Plan Won’t Work - Seeking Alpha
Another Way The Paulson Plan Is Hurting Main Street - FT Alphaville
The Bailout Alternative: Virtual Mark to Market - Blog Maverick
A $700 Billion Slap in the Face - Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal
Crisis Rounddtable: Which World Are We In? - R. Baldwin, Free Exchange
Why Taxing Trades Won't Improve Markets - Zubin Jelveh, Odd Numbers

The Great Bailout Debate DUNCAN CURRIE 09/25/2008 Be sure to read Glenn Hubbard, Hal Scott, and Luigi Zingales; Andy Kessler; Lawrence Lindsey; Gerard Baker; Lawrence Kudlow; Vincent Reinhart; Robert Samuelson; Arnold Kling; Investor’s Business Daily; and an email posted by Greg Mankiw.

We Won't Escape the Worst Recession in 40 Years

by: Pierre de Gasquet and Virginie Robert Interview Nouriel Roubini, Les Echos

OPINION



A Fox to Protect the Henhouse?

by: Robert Scheer, Truthdig.com

OPINION



The Great Switch: Banks Rob People

by: Jim Crotty, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

OPINION



Wall Street Takes Welfare It Begrudges to Women

by: Mimi Abramovitz, Women's eNews

OPINION



The $700 Billion Bailout Plan's Fine Print

by: Nomi Prins, Mother Jones

OPINION



Too Big to Fail and Too Small to Matter

by: Norman Solomon, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

OPINION



The Ideology Gap

by: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect

OPINION

Hedge Funds in the Microwave - Nouriel Roubini, Forbes
A Bailout We Don't Need - James Galbraith, Washington Post
Whatever Is Good For Goldman Sachs... - John Gapper, Financial Times
Yes, We're in a Crisis. But Is It a Disaster? No - Geoff Colvin, Fortune
Paulson's Plan: Useful First Step, But Not Enough - Willem Buiter, VoxEU
Why We Need to Act Now - Anne Krueger, Washington Post
No Thanky to Paulson and Bernanke - Quin Hillyer, American Spectator
What We Learned from Resolution Trust - W. Seidman & D. Cooke, WSJ

Articles of Interest
Dry Rot

• Adrian Ash
• 09/25/2008 10:30 AM

In the Midst of an Extreme Black Swan

• James Quinn
• 09/23/2008 01:26 PM

A Day of Rest

• Doug Wakefield
• 09/22/2008 03:46 PM

Financial heroin

• David Chu
• 09/25/2008 10:47 AM

What's next for the real economy

• Kurt Kasun
• 09/23/2008 09:14 AM

Trillion Dollar Treasury Deficits: Truth and Consequences

• Richard Benson
• 09/24/2008 09:24 A

Banksters Kaptur'ed

While the foreign press headline "Mother of all rip-off's" (which is sadly true, as near I can reckon) there actually is some good news. A few - although very damn few - members of Congress are standing up to be counted. including Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.



You have to see this video; I think the woman is spot on.



It gets better - if you have bandwidth, look what this heroine of Democracy is showing as of last week:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbD62gNi9WE



As to the testimony on Tuesday, I would have to credit Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama for getting it right. As the Wall Street Journal note, "Alabaman opposed rescue of Chrysler, Tough on Paulson."



After watching a bit o f the hearings on television Tuesday, it became apparent, as the L.A. Times headlines, "Congress balks at Treasury's plan for Wall Street."

---

Knowing, as we think we know about upcoming events around October 7th and October 15th, I would personally not be surprised to see a sequence of events like this:

• Congress, finding it hard to ignore the truckloads of constituent calls and emails will drag its feet for at least two weeks.
• Right on cue, about October 7th, something will happen that will cause the Bush administration to declare an 'emergency' of some sort and that will be used as a way to implement the bailout anyway and Congress' role will be simply usurped. Specifically what this is could take any number of forms and still meet the linguistic parameters set out by the predictive linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com, but the possibility of a LIHOP/MIHOP to stampede passage of the Bankster Bonanza or an international consortium of dollar victim countries making a coordinated attack on the dollar would each fit the bill.

As I watched the testimony on Tuesday I kept having this one thought coming up in my head: "These folks are acting as though someone is holding us hostage - almost there's got to be a $700-billion ransom note paid off right now or something very very bad is about to happen that no one is talking about."



I think it was the part where the Treasury Secretary was insistent on the amount ($700bn) but couldn't seem to produce a justification for it.



I've been a 'numbers guy' in the corporate world in strategic planning and marketing. I can tell you from experience that boards of directors and senior managements in any successful American company would fire a marketing director on the spot if they can in and insisted "I need x dollars for a marketing campaign - and I will be making up the details as I go along - but you gotta trust me, this is gonna work." Get me HR on the line, please...



The firing would come so fast as to make your head spin, especially if the marketing director was dodging very simple and straight-forward questions. And his last campaign blew up cost vastly more than he estimated in March.



To their credit, the boyz on the Senate Panel were incredibly polite - and I suppose it would have been improper to get down and direct with the Secretary.



Still, had I been sitting on the panel, I would have several times interrupted Slippery Hank and told him "Would you stop answering the question you want to answer, and answer mine??" There were many instances where if you listened to the question and then heard the answer, it was like Paulson wasn't even on the same planet.



What would happen in a very well-run corporate boardroom pitch? Paulson would have walked in with a projector and put up a PowerPoint with some spreadsheets, and he would have made an air-tight case on how the estimate of $700 billion was arrived at. There would have been a list of key players, some probabilities, and a process map.



Instead, what the Senate ended up hearing was a cocktail napkin plan interlaced with many repetitions of "Trust me on this..." Yet wasn't Paulson one of the key insiders until 2006 in building up the game?

---

Fortunately, besides figuring out how to use the internet as a time machine, my colleague Cliff's also got a technique he picked up called SKED. That's short for "subject knowledge elucidates domain" - and it's a way of taking a paragraph and reducing it to a sentence, and then simplifying the sentence until only a couple of key words remain. It's a surprisingly cool technique, once you learn it, because it allows you to simplify messages and get to the usually quite simple core of a complex subject.



A "SKED" of yesterday's testimony seems to indicate the following:

• The money is not going to be forthcoming quickly.
• Congress is not about to be stampeded.
• In a sense, they are going to "run the clock".

And, as this unfolds, we will arrive at our 'hot date' of October 7th when something seems bound to occur that will either get Congress' cooperation, or give the administration an excuse to simply sidestep them (again).

---

If the SKED'ing is right, and Capitol Hill is not going to roll over on this, then the two outcomes envisioned likely will emerge.



In traditional economics, the choices going forward are for an "endogenous" shock or an "exogenous" shock.



An endogenous shock would be one that emergences from within the markets. Now, just to give you an idea of how endogenous pressures are building in the economy, let me give you two examples.



A buddy of mine in Chicago has a good-sized ad agency. He's been screwed up against the wall because his largest client (a household name, I assure you) is now 60-days out on a sizeable invoice. That, in turn has rippled into his business. Want to invest in Maalox?



And, along a similar vein, Bank of America has told McDonalds' franchise owners that they won't increase the size of their outstanding loans, and although some reports say the "Credit concerns at McDonald's are 'overblown'" I don't think so.



In both these examples, what's going on would be considered 'endogenous' - arising from within the market and driven by market forces. Big players are pushing down on smaller players in a sort of 'big fish eats little fish' way.



The other case, where something 'outside' the market happens could be something like an attack on Iran (not likely until elections are held in Israel, by the way), which might cause OPEC to stop selling oil to the US or the West. This would be considered an 'exogenous' - outside the market - event.



Or, we might be combination of items: An endogenous meltodwn around our October 7th date, an exogenous event around October 15th, and then hitting Iran toward the 25th...which would make things about as messy/bad as we can imagine, but since we're set for 5-months of 'emotional release' might be as messy as can be imagined, I wouldn't rule out some super-sized sequence of events like this.

---

Short term market direction will be known later today. The pre-open looks like a positive start, so it seems according to broker Robin Landry up in Shawnee, Oklahoma, that we could rally for a week or so to 11,700 or even 11,800 at the outside before turning down again..



But, and this is a big but, on the other hand, says Landry "If we see the Dow break below last Thursday's low of 10,459.44, then Katy bar the door - we're going down..."



One thing that seems to be taking place is that the dollar is coming down from recent highs, perhaps indicating that the counter-trend rally from the longer term decline of nearly 30% is over and resuming the downward move. Recall that the Dollar and Euro were about at par in 2000, but here we are 8-years later and the dollar is down to 0.6810 Euro when I glanced at it.



As explained yesterday, competitive devaluations are a very, very bad thing in a country like ours where we have to borrow $2-billion a day from the rest of the world to meet our consumption habit (see the balance of trade deficit) - and if there is a bailout, that will mean printing up another $2-billion a day (or more). Someone sure as hell oughta be asking "Who's going to buy all this paper we're going to be printing up?" That's a hard question to answer, and the lower the purchasing power of the dollar goes overseas and the more expensive things will become here. at home.



This is mostly fallout because your regular monthly mortgage payments were not enough for the Banksters: They took your payments and turned them into a floating craps game - and now that they have mostly all lost, they're expecting to put the craps game costs onto your shoulders. There's a certain desperation in the Paulson/Bernanke plea that isn't yet explained.



Do we acquiesce to their demands? Not no but hell no.




http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm

$700B Bailout - No Oversight, Control - Most Fascist Scheme Yet

Bailout Atrocity - Ron Paul 'Call Your Congressman NOW!'

Americans Must Stop Congress Bailout Treason

Whatever Is Good For Goldman.

Risk Of Paulson Failure Has Markets In Fear

Wall Street's Trillion Dollar Swindle

Bernanke's Confidence Trick Game

Money Markets Grind To A Virtual Halt: Interbank and Repo Rates At Record Highs

• Sep 25: The 3-mo USD LIBOR-OIS spread jumps to record 199bp. 3-mo EUR LIBOR-OIS at 86bp (record was 93bp in Nov 2007). TED spread (3m LIBOR- T-bill) at 316bp
• Sep 24: LIBOR rates at or near record highs in USD, EUR, GBP. There are no real term funding markets except for central banks. The Libor is meaningless. It's for unsecured lending and there is no unsecured lending--> ECB auction of 3-mo loans was the strongest on record, while banks paid a record premium for dollar loans at the Sep 23 Fed sale

Click Here For Full Analysis

Latest Data Shows U.S. Housing Sector is Still Far From Bottoming Out

• Stabilization in the U.S. housing sector is not yet in sight: Inventories and vacancies are still at a record high and continue to put downward pressure on home prices, which continue to fall translating into trillions of real wealth losses for the engine of the economy: the U.S. consumer
• New Home Sales (Aug 2008): at 469K, 17-year low and down -67% from the peak of July 2005 (1.389 mn). This is 11.5% below the revised July rate of 520k and is 34.5% below the Aug 2007 estimate of 702K

Click Here For Full Analysis

Naked Shorting Continues in CDS Market: '$62T CDS Market Must Be Regulated Immediately'

• Even as naked short sales are banned around the world, hedge funds can still bet against a company in the unregulated over the counter CDS market without the need to own the underlying bonds in order to place a bet--> Cox: "Whereas a person who owns a bond profits when its issuer is in a position to repay the bond, a short seller profits when, among other things, the bond goes into default"

Click Here For Full Analysis

Banker who kept his House Clean Rebukes Paulson

Here's a spanking rebuke to Henry Paulson by the CEO of a large bank that not only avoided the mortgage crisis, but seems to be a lone wolf crying in the wilderness. But don't give John Allison too much credit for his staunch criticism of Treasury, he still was the 257th highest payed executive in 2006, as reported by Forbes Magazine. But if the pay for performance theory has any validity, which I'm not so sure of at these prices, Allison would deserve his pay, unlike the many failures on Wall Street and Corporation Street, who take home more. David Millberg at Bloomberg News has more on the full story, a portion of which appears below:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposed $700 billion bank rescue aims to help "poorly run" companies and the primary beneficiaries would be Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, said BB&T Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Allison in a critique of the plan. Treasury "is totally dominated by Wall Street investment bankers" and `"cannot be relied on to objectively assess'' the impact of government policy on the financial industry", Allison wrote in a Sept. 23 letter to Congress. The letter was verified by Bob Denham, a spokesman for BB&T, North Carolina's third largest bank.

Allison, 60, said Congress should "hear from well-run financial institutions" as lawmakers consider the plan, which seeks to ease the credit crunch by buying troubled mortgage- related assets. Under Allison, Winston-Salem, North Carolina- based BB&T avoided the subprime mortgage market, whose collapse led to the credit crisis. BB&T has risen 26 percent this year, the best showing in the 24-company KBW Bank Index.

Mark-to-Market Isn't to Blame - Nicole Gelinas, City Journal
Bankruptcy, and 'Counterparty' Myths - Steve Selinger, RealClearMarkets
A Pledge to Help That Hurts - Floyd Norris, New York Times
What Do They Mean By the Credit Crisis? - Editorial, New York Sun
Main Street Needs the Treasury Plan - Kenneth Lewis, Wall Street Journal
Bailout? Just Do Nothing - Joel Stein, Los Angeles Times
Fannie & Freddie: Equal Opportunity Corrupters - David Boaz, Spectator
Returning Taxpayer Accountability - Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
How to Spend That $700 Billion - Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post
New Capitalism Will Never Be the Same - Irwin Stelzer, Weekly Standard
Warren Buffett Is No Clark Kent - Tracy Corrigan, Daily Telegraph
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Aren't Dead Yet - Roy Smith, Bloomberg

Government Is the Only Solution - Reuven Brenner, National Post
McCain to Wall Street: Drop Dead? - James Pethokoukis, Capital Commerce
Market Mood Swings — Revisiting Ben Graham - K. Brouwer, Fundmastery
Will the Dollar Drown in an Ocean of Debt? - Gary Dorsch, Sir ChartsAlot
An Absence of Leadership - John Mason, Seeking Alpha
Don't Worry About the FDIC - Felix Salmon, Market Movers

Transcripts & Videos
Is Paulson's Plan The Best Solution to Credit Crisis? - Kudlow & Company
Faber Sees 'Watered Down' Bailout; Bets Dollar to Rise - Bloomberg
Bank of NY Mellon's Woolfolk: Too Late To Avoid Recession - CNBC
What Happens After The Bailout? - John Authers, Financial Times

Billion $ Question: What Will Mortgage Backed Securities Be Worth? [Housing Tracker]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/97430-bill...housing-tracker

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdai...080926_1930.php

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdai...080926_3176.php

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdai...080926_9255.php

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdai...080926_9484.php

100 Items To Disappear First In A Panic
By Joseph Almond
5-21-6 #1. Generators (Good ones cost dearly. Gas storage, risky. Noisy..
target of thieves; maintenance, etc.)

#2. Water Filters/Purifiers (Shipping delays increasing.)

#3. Portable Toilets (Increasing in price every twomonths.)

#4. Seasoned Firewood (About $100 per cord; wood takes 6 - 12
mos. to become dried, for home uses.)

#5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If
scarce, stockpile ANY!)

#6. Coleman Fuel (URGENT $2.69-$3.99/gal. Impossible to stockpile
too much.)

#7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats &
Slingshots best HUNTING rifles for birds, rabbits

#8. Hand-Can openers & hand egg beaters, whisks (Life savers!)
The blade on canopener lasts a year so buy several!

#9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugars

#10. Rice - Beans - Wheat (White rice- 50# bag. Sam's Club, but I
recommend you hit INDIAN groceries and get BASMATI rice.
Much tastier, better for you. It comes in brown or white.

#11. Vegetable oil (for cooking) (Without it food burns/must be
boiled, etc.)

#12. Charcoal & Lighter fluid (Will become scarce suddenly.)

#13. Water containers (Urgent Item to obtain. An size. Small:
HARD CLEAR PLASTIC ONLY)

#14. Mini Heater head (Propane) (Without this item, propane won't
heat a room.)

#15. Grain Grinder (Non-electric)

#16. Propane Cylinders (Urgent: Definite shortages will occur by
September, 1999.)

#17. Michael Hyatt's Y2K Survival Guide (BEST single y2k handbook
for sound advice/tips.)

#18. Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc. (Without this item,
longer-term lighting is difficult.)

#19. Baby Supplies: Diapers/formula/ointments/aspirin, etc

#20. Washboards, Mop Bucket w/wringer (for Laundry)

#21. Cookstoves (Propane, Coleman & Kerosene)

#22. Vitamins (Critical, due 10 Y2K-forced daily canned food
diets.)

#23. Propane Cylinder Handle-Holder (Urgent: Small canister use
is dangerous without this item.)

#24. Feminine Hygiene/Haircare/Skin products

#25. Thermal underwear (Tops and bottoms)

#26. Bow saws, axes and hatchets & Wedges (also, honing oil)

#27. Aluminum foil Reg. & Hvy. Duty (Great Cooking & Barter item)

#28. Gasoline containers (Plastic or Metal) Not the fuel itself. That's what got
John DENVER in trouble!

#29. Garbage bags (Impossible to have too many.)

#30. Toilet Paper, Kleenex, paper towels

#31. Milk - Powdered & Condensed (Shake liquid every 3 to 4
months.)

#32. Garden seeds (Non-hybrid) (A MUST) Start saving now. I squeeze
all tomatoes, dry seeds of all melons, all citrus and grow it from scratch.

#33. Clothes pins/line/hangers (A MUST) LIne drying may be a reality
and wind ruins all your work.

#34. Coleman's Pump Repair Kit: 1(800) 835-3278

#35. Tuna Fish (in oil) Good staple to have on hand

#36. Fire extinguishers (or.. large box of Baking soda in every
room...)

#37. First aid kits

#38. Batteries (all sizes... buy furthest-out for Expiration
Dates)

#39. Garlic, spices & vinegar, baking supplies

#40. BIG DOGS (and plenty of dog food)

#41. Flour, yeast & salt

#42. Matches (3 box/$1 .44 at WalMart: "Strike Anywhere"
preferred. Boxed, wooden matches will go first.)

#43. Writing paper/pads/pencils/solar calculators

#44. Insulated ice chests (good for keeping items from freezing
in Wintertime)

#45. Workboots, belts, Levis & durable shirts

#46. Flashlights/LIGIITSTICKS & torches, "No. 76 Dietz" Lanterns

#47. Journals, Diaries & Scrapbooks (Jot down ideas, feelings,
experiences: Historic times!)

#48. Garbage cans Plastic (great for storage, water
transporting - if with wheels)
#49. Hygiene: Shampoo, Toothbrush/paste, Mouthwash/floss,
nail clippers, etc
#50. Cast iron cookware (sturdy, efficient)
#51. Fishing supplies/tools
#52. Mosquito coils/repellent sprays/creams
#53. Duct tape
#54. Tarps/stakes/twine/nails/rope/spikes
#55. Candles
#56. Laundry detergent (Liquid)
#57. Backpacks & Duffle bags
#58. Garden tools & supplies
#59. Scissors, fabrics & sewing supplies
#60. Canned Fruits, Veggies, Soups, stews, etc.
#61. Bleach (plain, NOT scented: 4 to 6% sodium hypochlorite)
#62. Canning supplies (Jars/lids/wax)
#63. Knives & Sharpening tools: files, stones, steel
#64. Bicycles... Tires/tubes/pumps/chains, etc.
#65. Sleeping bags & blankets/pillows/mats
#66. Carbon Monoxide Alarm (battery powered)
#67. Board Games Cards, Dice
#68. d-Con Rat poison, MOUSE PRUFE II, Roach Killer
#69. Mousetraps, Ant traps & cockroach magnets
#70. Paper plates/cups/utensils (stock up, folks...)
#71. Baby Wipes, diapers, tampons, oils, waterless &
Anti-bacterial soap (saves a lot of water)
#72. Rain gear, rubberized boots, etc.
#73. Shaving supplies (razors & creams, talc, after shave)
#74. Hand pumps & siphons (for water and for fuels)
#75. Soysauce, vinegar, boullions/gravy/soup base
#76. Reading glasses
#77. Chocolate/Cocoa/Tang/Punch (water enhancers)
#78. "Survival-in-a-Can"
#79. Woolen clothing, scarves/ear-muffs/mittens
#80. BSA - New 1998 - Boy Scout Handbook (also, Leader's Catalog)
#81. Roll-on Window Insulation Kit (MANCO)
#82. Graham crackers, saltines, pretzels, Trail mix/Jerky
#83. Popcorn, Peanut Butter, Nuts
#84. Socks, Underwear, T-shirts, etc. (extras)
#85. Lumber (all types)
#86. Wagons & carts (for transport to & from open Flea markets)
#87. Cots & Inflatable mattresses (for extra guests)
#88. Gloves: Work/warming/gardening, etc.
#89. Lantern Hangers
#90. Screen Patches, glue, nails, screws, nuts & bolts
#91. Teas/Coffee
#92. Herbal remedies
#93. Cigarettes
#94. Wine/Liquors (for bribes, medicinal, etc.)
#95. Paraffin wax
#96. Glue, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, etc.
#97. Chewing gum/candies
#98. Atomizers (for cooling/bathing)
#99. Hats & cotton neckerchiefs
#100. PROTEIN SUPPLY, nut trees, avocados, Goats/chickens/ rabbits
farm fish like tilapia.

Christopher Story has posted two updates today and both are well worth reading. Those who have followed his reports have a sense of WHY the current crisis is happening and will understand that the corporate media version we see is pure bullshit. This is not about "mortgages," it is about CRIMES.

These updates are contained within the update titled:

LATEST FALSE PROSPECTUS FROM 'PAULSON'S' TREASURY
http://www.worldreports.org/news/174_lates...ulsons_treasury

SECOND UPDATE, 26th September 2008:

WHO'S BEING 'RESCUED'? THE BANKS? WRONG: THE CROOKS

When 'Paulson' was televised getting down on bended knee in front of Pelosi, as though he was proposing to her (yuk), what do you suppose he was saying, apart from possibly asking for a less prominent lamp post? Here's what he may have been pleading to his co-conspirator:

'PLEASE vote for whatever convoluted version of the Plan comes out of the works, because quite clearly if you do not, we'll be TOAST on Monday. I don't care what Congress does, AS LONG AS YOU ALL VOTE FOR SOMETHING, cuz then Dubya will be able to appear on TV and praise me for having saved America and the whole world. But the underlying reason that you MUST DO THIS, darhling, is that it's our pocket money, the on-the-books cash that we need for our new trading platform, so's we can continue our hypothecation operations after we get out of this hellhole, like nothing ever happened. So be a dear, would ya?'

• FACT: The money that Paulson wants Congress to deliver is indeed the crooks' trading platform money. They cannot touch the Settlements. They cannot steal money any longer without getting caught as has happened on multiple occasions. Their own stolen money is stuck and cannot be brought onto the books because it is illicit, and most of it is frozen. So they need some more cash so they can start trading all over. They can turn $700 billion into several trillion in weeks or less.

• FURTHER FACT: Embedded in this deception, which has gone so predictably wrong and is being perpetrated for public consumption, is the lie that the 'rescue' package (ANY OLD package) will be the 'solution' to the crisis. However the mechanism that will RESOLVE this hideous crisis is NOT THIS CHARADE, but something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT, to which is attached a LETHAL DEADLINE. The 'rescue package' serves and exclusively cosmetic purpose in this context.

We refer, of course, to the Settlements. This is all we are 'allowed' to say at this juncture.

At an earlier stage of this Music Hall, 'Paulson' made some comment about his original Plan 'sticking in his craw'. What will stick in the craw of the American people, have no doubt, is that these odious crooks are STILL DECEIVING, because the new money they are after IS NOT for rescuing the corrupt banks at all, but for RESCUING THE CROOKS AND THEIR CRONIES so that they can all go on playing tiddly winks after they manage to escape from the Beltway. They make the stupid and increasingly pathetic assumption here that they will never encounter any of those lamp posts in an upside down position. At this rate, the American people may well have the last word on that score.

• FIRST UPDATE, 26th September 2008:

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THEIR LONG-AWAITED AHA! MOMENT:

It is quite obvious from the justifiably angry responses of ordinary Americans interviewed for TV shows 'as we speak' that the wheels have come off the 'Paulson'-Bernanke Bravado Circus Wagon.
No-one is 'buying' the criminalist operatives' attempt to bamboozle the Congress into divvying up the on-the-books bribery and platform trading money they are seeking so that they can revert to corrupt hypothecation 'dirty financial business as usual' when this disastrous Administration leaves office (assuming it is not afforded the opportunity to implement its now floundering 'coup d'etat by installments' scenario both financially and physically).

Republican legislators are contemplating annihilation at the polls and personal political oblivion if they vote for whatever package emerges, which will most certainly NOT be what the two criminalist operatives thought they could extract from the Legislative Branch by bluster and stutter. Their plan is in tatters and their duplicity has now impressed itself where it matters: on Main Street. This is the END of the road for these crooks, and they know it. 'Paulson's' blackmail ('back us or be wiped out at the election: be our guest') went down like a huge lead balloon, as these veteran Congressmen, whatever their faults, are both individually and collectively NOT STUPID.

They may be compromised, but none of them are sitting on their brains. Everyone knows that the highest-level criminalist operatives are on the wrack. There are even those who are now prepared to accept that this crisis, which has driven Americans from their jobs and homes, with their sons dying in wars launched for ruthless private gain, is about one thing only: OPEN-ENDED OFFICIAL FRAUDULENT FINANCE OPERATIONS. The 'subprime mortgage crisis' was a 'slide' [see below].

As soon as this factor is understood by the general public, as seems likely, there will be hell to pay. Applications for a Permit-to-Carry arms have increased enormously in recent weeks and months, with correspondents emailing the Editor with observations such as:

'Everyone I've talked to affirms they will die with their guns at their hands. We'll fight! These people have overestimated themselves and underestimated us "useless eaters"'.

Our view remains that what is about to change is that THE RULE OF LAW will be re-established and that these criminal operatives will NOT get away with their crimes. Certain information, backed by extremely sensitive 'smoking gun' data, has been in the hands of the appropriate authorities for about a week, that proves inter alia that these crooks have engaged in war profiteering on a scale with no historical precedent, which explains why Bush was never in the slightest interested in the dead bodies that were and are being buried in Arlington Cemetery, which ran out of space to take the daily new arrivals. These people are brought up to INFLICT PAIN WITHOUT FLINCHING.

The intelligence in question is embargoed but it is believed that if matters are not resolved, there will be an avalanche of revelations the like of which has never been seen, even in the geomasonic United States where, every year since the Editor started multiple visits in 1977, there is ALWAYS a huge scandal raging inside the Beltway. The clear intention is that with an imminent change of US Administration (just as happens whenever the European Commission changes) the dirty washing left by the outgoing Government will be incinerated. But we are not talking just about dirty linen. We are talking about enormous, multiple crimes, thefts, embezzlements and two million dead.

The Men and Women on Main Street are saying: 'What do you mean, you want these dictatorial powers and you want us to pay you because 'Wall Street got drunk?'', as the drunkard Bush II told the American people on 24th September. 'YOU have been in power all these years, what exactly have you been doing?'. The answer to that question is that these highest-level criminals haven't been GOVERNING. They've been looking after their criminal investments and spending all day and every day wriggling and playing for time while drowning in the sewage from their own cess pool.

The people have finally seen through the criminal duplicity of these odious creeps, and the bipartisan accord sent to the White House at about 3.00pm on 25th, followed by the White House Meeting from which Shelby emerged saying 'There is no agreement', makes it clear that the Bunker mentality rules. When Pelosi and Reid took 'Paulson' aside (on camera) afterwards, what did they say to him? Something along the lines of 'which lamp post do you fancy?' springs to mind.

The key to the new phase of this historically unprecedented crisis is that the American people have at last experienced the necessary 'Aha!' moment. It's curtains for these crooks. The curtain at the end of Act One of Die Meisterschwindlern, starring the full cast of the Weltkriminalgesellschaft, has collapsed on top of the cast. The lights have gone out and there is a danger of a serious fire.

The building may have to be evacuated, but the management is drunk in charge, so everyone is stampeding for the exit. The safety officers have been asleep for years and now there's no-one around to give any coherent orders. How are the mighty fallen!

And still no mention of the $14 trillion. Naturlich.

• 'Slide': A prepackaged, falsely constructed 'consensus' mindset which precludes further analysis or investigation, yielding a public perception preferred or intended by the kakocracy.

• 'Kakocracy': 'Governance' by the worst elements of society exclusively in their own interests and to the permanent detriment of all other classes and members of society except their cronies.

• 'Sib': A sophisticated deception which reverses normal perceptions. The victim, whether actual or imagined, is the perpetrator. Beware of those who protest too much, in this context.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=132316

Welcome to chaos: Arab nations hit hard as world markets crash
By Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz Correspondent


The long tables set every evening at the entrance of Cairo's Khal el-Khalili bazaar are a traditional sight. They represent efforts by the Egyptian government, the city of Cairo and charitable organizations to feed hundreds of residents who lack the means to buy the basic foodstuffs for Iftar, the meal that breaks the daylong fast during the Ramadan holy month. Although this gesture is not enough to satisfy the millions of Egyptians who earn less than $1 a day, it does create the feeling that the state "is at least doing one good thing for the country's poor," as one worker who was organizing the tables told me in Cairo.

These very tables are also the center of a political struggle between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood. This year, for example, the government prohibited the Islamic organization from holding its annual collective holiday meal and separate public meals in the poor neighborhoods.

To undercut the Muslim Brothers' allegations concerning the government's poor economic performance - the government is blamed for the steep rise in the prices of basic commodities - the minister of economic development, Osman Mohamed Osman, has issued a new report on Egypt's economic situation. The report does not specify how many Egyptians are living below the poverty line, noting only that their number has decreased by half; the proportion of people earning less than $2 a day is said to be 43 percent of the population - some 38 million people. A year ago, the minister explained that anyone who earns $2 a day cannot be considered poor. Realizing that this explanation will no longer do, he has now declared that the government hopes the country will reach a poverty level of 10 percent by 2011.
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A few streets away from the tables in the bazaar, at the Cairo Stock Exchange, the poverty data are of no interest: The Egyptian stock market plummeted 10 percent in two days, and foreign investors withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars. "The state's roulette table is collapsing," a small investor was quoted as saying in the newspaper Al-Masri al-Yum. "This is the end of capitalism. Welcome to chaos."

The Egyptian pound has also fallen to its lowest level in half a year, and inflation has soared to 26.5 percent. The economic development minister's forecast of diminished poverty levels receded further into the distance, and the plan to privatize government companies, as a measure to improve the economy, has become a fantasy.

"When potential foreign investors see their capital evaporate in Western stock markets, the last thing they will want is to buy a failing factory in Helwan," says a journalist in the economic section of the daily Al-Ahram.

Jordan: 'The money's gone'

A Jordanian who returned to Amman this week related, in a phone call, that when he arrived at Queen Alia International Airport, he was informed that his investment broker had been arrested and that the fate of the money deposited with him was unclear: "The government may indict him, but how will that help me? Jordan is not Dubai or Saudi Arabia, and certainly not Washington, which can immediately inject billions into the market to allay fears. Here, if your investment broker is arrested, the money is gone."

This week, the Al-Arabiya network reported that indictments had been filed against 46 Jordanian companies traded on the stock market. The companies' owners will be tried before a special court for security offenses, as their actions are considered harmful to the national economy. If convicted, they face prison terms of up to 15 years. Now it turns out that these companies provided potential clients with false profit forecasts, and also broadcast fake presentations on TV screens about the stocks they recommended.

Thousands of investors filed complaints with the general prosecutor in Jordan, but are unlikely to recoup their funds, which are estimated to total half a billion Jordanian dinars.

The Gulf: Good times

Less concerned about the global market plunge are the Gulf states, which raked in a fortune from the rise in oil prices and created vast monetary reserves that allowed their governments to inject funds into their financial markets to stabilize them. This week, for example, the central bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it would transfer about $14 billion to the country's banks and financial institutions as a loan taken in extraordinary conditions, so they can maintain liquidity at a desirable level. The central bank is considering lowering the liquidity level from the current rate of 14 percent, and it will also buy bonds from the banks.

As was the case throughout the Arab world, foreign investors yanked capital out of the Gulf states immediately after the markets began to crash. The Gulf banks, which are underwriting colossal building projects in those countries, would have faced a real disaster if clients had demanded their money. Thus, after investing $7.5 billion last November to save Citigroup, the Dubai Development and Investment Authority had to repeat the move - this time to save the country's banks.

However, beyond the stability of the banks in the Gulf states and the inhabitants' certain knowledge that the state will not allow the banks to collapse - mainly because most of them are owned by the ruling families and their cronies - people in the Gulf are starting to worry that the big bubble is liable to burst in their faces. Their concern is specifically for the real-estate bubble, which attracted big investors primarily to the UAE, and more recently to Qatar and Kuwait. With all the luxury towers, the neighborhoods of seaside villas, the office buildings designed by the world's leading architects - local economists now think that the real-estate market has reached the saturation point and that a shift to different fields, notably industry, is desirable.

According to a report issued this week by the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting in Dubai, Gulf oil companies and governments indeed intend to divert a larger portion of their profits from petroleum to industry. Already now there are more than 12,000 industrial plants in the Gulf states, which employ about a million people. The plan is to expand the industrial sector by dozens of percent. Industrial growth demands knowhow and professional training along with long-term financing, which does not promise the quick profits that big investors became accustomed to in real estate.

The economic lesson from the fall of the stock markets will compel these countries to undergo a cultural transformation that will posit work in industry as valuable, and educate toward the nationalization of labor and its removal from the hands of foreign workers.

Every so often the Gulf governments launch campaigns to get rid of the latter by toughening the terms for importing them from Asian countries. Recently, the UAE prohibited the rental of villas to bachelors or foreign workers. These campaigns have not produced concrete results, because in the end someone has to build the huge towers and the villas - which is the kind of work the citizens of the Gulf states don't like to do.

In fact, Gulf residents are probably not very upset about these macro-economic analyses. Because when the state ensures the banks against collapse, and when the oil continues to flow, other areas are open to investment. For example, while the political squabbling over the public meals during Ramadan continues in Egypt, the Gulf states imported 119 million tons of food products, and that was only during the first half of Ramadan. Where did all that food go? Much was donated to other countries, a little went for domestic consumption. The good times in the Gulf are continuing, and worried eyes are turned to Washington, which may launch a war against Iran and put an end to the good life.


Related articles:
# Washington Mutual collapses in biggest bank failure in U.S. history
# Bank of Israel chief holds emergency talks over global financial crisis
# HExperts: Israel heading for economic crisis in 2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024568.html

FT.com logo
US 'will lose financial superpower status'

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin

Published: September 25 2008 11:55 | Last updated: September 25 2008 20:28

The US will lose its role as a global financial "superpower" in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said on Thursday, blaming Washington for failing to take the regulatory steps that might have averted the crisis.

"The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. This world will become multi­polar" with the emergence of stronger, better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament. "The world will never be the same again."

His were the most out­spoken comments by a senior European government figure since Wall Street fell into chaos two weeks ago.

He later told journalists: "When we look back 10 years from now, we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture. I am not saying the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, but it will become relative."

The minister, who has spearheaded German efforts to rein in financial markets in the past two years, attacked the US government for opposing stricter regulations even after the subprime crisis had broken out last summer.

The US notion that markets should remain as free as possible from regulatory shackles "was as simplistic as it was dangerous", he said.

But Mr Steinbrück had warm words for the US's crisis management in the past fortnight, including the government's planned $700bn rescue package for the financial sector. Washington, he said, had earned credit for acting not just in the US interest but also in the interest of other nations.

Yet he repeated Germany's refusal to mount a similar rescue operation using taxpayers' money to acquire toxic assets. "This crisis originated in the US and is mainly hitting the US," he said. In Europe and Germany, such a package would be "neither sensible nor ­necessary".

The US, Mr Steinbrück said, had failed in its oversight of investment banks, adding that the crisis was an indictment of the US two-tier banking system and its "weak, divided financial oversight".

He blamed Washington for refusing to consider proposals Berlin had made as it chaired the Group of Eight industrial nations last year. These proposals, he said, "elicited mockery at best or were seen as a typical example of Germans' penchant for over-regulation".

His comments followed calls this week by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current holder of the European Union presidency, for an emergency G8 meeting on the crisis.

Mr Steinbrück's proposals include a ban on "purely speculative short selling"; a crackdown on variable pay for bank managers, which had encouraged reckless risk-taking; a ban on banks securitising more than 80 per cent of the debt they hold; international standards making bank managers personally responsible for the consequences of their trades; and increased co-operation between European super­visors.

Following a meeting with Christine Lagarde, his French counterpart, in Berlin, he said France and Germany would set up a working group of treasury, central bank and supervisory authority officials that would consider tougher regulation of short selling.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

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Patrick J. Buchanan : An Amnesty for Stupidity: About one thing we may be sure. The U.S. deficit and national debt are going to soar. The credit rating of the United States, as this nation of non-savers has to borrow abroad to save its banks, and their banks, is going to fall. We are going to be a poorer nation and people.

Regulators seize Washington Mutual and JPMorgan mops up: IN what is by far the largest bank failure in US history, federal regulators seized Washington Mutual and struck a deal to sell the bulk of its operations to JPMorgan Chase

How the Washington Mutual Takeover Will Affect Consumers: The government seized banking giant Washington Mutual last night and then sold some pieces of it to JPMorgan Chase for approximately $1.9 billion. Here is how this will affect former Washington Mutual consumers:

UK banks hold £95bn of sour assets that could qualify for US bailout plan: Britain’s five leading high street banks have as much as £95.3 billion ($175 billion) of distressed assets on their books that may qualify for the American bailout scheme.

Big bailout is unlikely to work: The U.S. "hold-to-maturity" bailout plan is really just the new "mark-to-myth," and even its heroic proportions are not likely to paper over solvency problems in the banking system.

Asia Needs Deal to Prevent Panic Selling of U.S. Debt, Yu Says: Japan, China and other holders of U.S. government debt must quickly reach an agreement to prevent panic sales leading to a global financial collapse, said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the Chinese central bank.

Bank borrowing from Fed reaches record $188 billion a day: Federal Reserve data showed on Thursday the total amount banks borrowed nearly quadrupled the previous record of $47.97 billion per day notched just the week before.

HSBC to cut 1,100 jobs worldwide: HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe's largest bank by market value, is cutting 1,100 jobs worldwide in the wake of the financial turmoil, a spokesman said Friday.

• O Bailout Package, Where Art Thou? on Sep 26, 2008 | by Macro Man
• S&P 500 Trading Action on Sep 26, 2008 | by Bespoke Investment Group | about SPY
• US Corporate Debt Default Rate Could Top 23% by 2010 on Sep 26, 2008 | by Research Recap
• Entering the Endgame for Monetary Policy on Sep 26, 2008 | by David Merkel
• Horrid Data: Housing, Jobs, Durable Goods on Sep 26, 2008 | by Michael Shedlock
• Bailouts Are Painful - And Should Be on Sep 26, 2008 | by David Merkel
• When It Rains, It Pours on Sep 26, 2008 | by Felix Salmon | about QQQQ, DIA, JPM

Emergency Edition: Wall Street Meltdown
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.
Saturday, September 27, 2008 6:30 AM
Our nation is suffering through a financial emergency, and I wanted to make sure you get this urgent message now, before it's too late. Right at this moment, in an attempt to prevent a Wall ... [More...]

A Big Slap in the Face for Free Markets
by Jack Crooks
Saturday, September 27, 2008 7:30 AM
You can't possibly have hidden yourself from the news of the $700-billion planned bailout that's working through Congress this week. And I won't mince words — I consider it a big slap in the ... [More...]

NewsWall Street JournalKelly EvansSep 27, 2008
GDP Revised Downward


AnalysisVoxEUChristopher M. Meissner, Erwin Bulte, Mare Sarr and Tim SwansonSep 27, 2008
From commodity boom to financial and political crisis

• WaMu Seized By FDIC, JPMorgan Acquires Deposits And Troubled Mortgage Portfolio
• What Kind Of Banks Are Potential Watch-List Candidates?
• Non-Financial Corporations: How Deeply Will the Credit Crunch Hit?
• Tentative Deal On Bail-Out Plan in Limbo Again, But A Solution Is Widely Expected

A Workable, Private Bank Assistance Plan or Why President Bush Should Fire Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson by Chris Whalen Sep 26, 2008

Subprime litigation surges
Financial Post - Toronto,Ontario,Canada
Royal Bank of Canada, RBC Dain Rauscher and RBC Capital Markets are being sued in a civil case over auction-rate securities and claims that RBC failed to ...


Timeline: The economy's southbound journey
StarNewsOnline.com - Wilmington,NC,USA
22: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial agrees to buy up to 20 percent of Morgan Stanley for $8.5 billion. +Sept. 23: Warren Buffett pays $5 billion for up to 9 ...


Bailout storm rages
Times Online - UK
Tomorrow’s auction will be for £40 billion, allowing banks to obtain liquidity against collateral, including mortgage securities, until January next year, ...

ixing the Paulson Plan - Diamond, Kaplan, Kashyap, Rajan & Thaler, WSJ
A Better Way To Aid Banks - William Isaac, Washington Post
The Case for the Bailout Hasn't Been Made - Bruce Bartlett, New York Post
Markets Can’t Wait for Congress to Act - Joe Nocera, New York Times
Bailout May Be Granddaddy of All Carry Trades - John Berry, Bloomberg
Who's Afraid of a Big, Bad Bailout? - John Mauldin, Frontline Thoughts
Deleveraging: A Fate Worse Than Debt - The Economist
The Paulson-Cantor Plan Is a Win-Win - Larry Kudlow, RealClearMarkets
In Praise of Free Markets - Editorial, Financial Times
American Needs a New New Deal - K. vanden Huevel & E. Schlosser, WSJ
Lehman's ex-CFO Callan: 'I Was Lucky To Get Out' - Katie Benner, Fortune
The Good and Bad News of WaMu's Demise - Lawrence White, Forbes

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
We have the money
Few blinked when a US$612 billion Pentagon budget sailed through the US Congress, even as negotiators in Washington were scrambling to find a similar sum to deal with financial meltdown. Congress has been corrupted by the military-industrial complex into believing that, by voting for more defense spending, they are supplying "jobs". In fact, they are diverting scarce resources from the desperately needed rebuilding of the American infrastructure. - Chalmers Johnson (Sep 29, '08)

SPENGLER
US wealth in shrink mode
Leverage is the secret of American wealth, helping to triple over the past 40 years the proportion of wealth held by the average US family compared with its annual income. With leveraging now broken, the bottom could be a long way down. (Sep 29, '08)

CHAN AKYA
Deaf frogs and the Pied Piper
The United States financial crisis is being hailed as the death of market capitalism and has resurrected enthusiasm for socialism, notably as practiced in various parts of Asia. Choose that route, and Asian governments can yet manage to heap misery on their unsuspecting populations for years to come. (Sep 29, '08)

CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
A changed financial landscape
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's bailout of the financial sector may haul the economy back from the precipice. Either way, less finance will now go towards entrepreneurial activities, productive endeavors and the asset markets - and ample government-directed purchasing power will ensure stubborn consumer price inflation.

Big banks, bumbling idiots
The thieving, lying weenies at the epicenter of the biggest US financial catastrophe ever are being given the right to increase the money supply at their whim. And the legislators that have been spending money for decades as if there were no tomorrow also get their say in the matter. This is outrageous!!!