http://chzbronies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-rainbow-dash-solves-debt-crisis-in-seconds-flat.jpg

Debt crisis solved in ten seconds flat?

Not so fast, says Nancy.

I'm nauseated and heartsick with this debt ceiling insanity. 

Harry Reid and John Boehner make me wanna woof my cookies.

I'd like to take our entire political class, tie them in a bag, and throw them in the creek like a litter of sick kittens. 

Forget John Galt, we need John Gotti!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/15/tongue4.gif

i hereby announce my support for republican candidates for office wherever practical. because if this country is gonna be governed (or fail to be governed) based on republican principles no matter who's in office, we might as well actually have republicans in office so they'll be there to take the blame when things go wrong. right now we're bailing out goldman sachs and the weapons peddlers over and over again and blaming it on socialism! you can't make this stuff up.

i hereby announce my support for republican candidates for office wherever practical. because if this country is gonna be governed (or fail to be governed) based on republican principles no matter who's in office, we might as well actually have republicans in office so they'll be there to take the blame when things go wrong. right now we're bailing out goldman sachs and the weapons peddlers over and over again and blaming it on socialism! you can't make this stuff up.


Paul Krugman's latest was about the "balanced" media. which blames both parties for the mess.  Historically true, but currently its the Repubs gumming up the works by not taking yes for an answer

It's another example of Naomi Klein's disaster capitalism.  Instill fear and confusion in the general public then boost everything that isn't nailed down.  It's tantamount to being robbed and raped at gunpoint.

Y'know, as miserable as today's trading action was (seriously, WTF dudes?), I can take solace in this.

I spent the entire fracking day trawling the derpfest of wharrrrgarble that has become Free Republic, and the hippiefreakout of moonbattiness that has become Daily Kos, and both sides are adamantly convinced that they've been utterly sold out to the other.  Obama and Pelosi are jackboot-wearing fascist sellouts, and Boehner and Cantor are librulRINOmutantraitors.  There is not one single person on either the left or the right who is happy with this deal, and who doesn't regard it as a total sellout to the "other side".  

That, to me, indicates that the deal was probably a pretty decent compromise.  Everybody's pissed off.

But the moment that put it all in perspective?  It was after hours, and my finger was hovered over the "justincasetheyscrewitup, buy the 3x inverse fund at the market at whatever price the market will bear" button in one window, C-SPAN in another, with about a minute to go.  The outcome was almost certain - but not 100% certain - and I was like "WTF?  Cheering on the floor of the House?"

Turns out the cheering wasn't for passage or failure.  It was because Rep. Gabby "I need this like I need a hole in the head" Giffords showed up - unannounced (and therefore almost certainly neither a PR operation or sympathy play to garner votes for either side) - on the floor to cast her first vote since some un-named farktard went ape-p00p.  For the next sixty seconds, our Congresstards dug deep and found the one small kernel of themselves that was still capable of acting like an American.

Gabby?  You go, girl!  

And the hyperpartisans on both sides and their respective peanut galleries on the Internets?  Fark 'em all.

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/puke.gif

Obama is a tool.  The Tea Party says jump, Obama says, "How high!"

Giffords is an omen.  She got shot in the brain and she's walking around.  Today the American people got shot in the brain and are tomorrow are gonna be walking around trying to figure out what happened. 

They put Larry Kudlow on "Washington Journal" this morning.  The man has about as much sense as a half a blind retarded sparrow but CSPAN gives him a platform to say, "Ra-Ra-Ronald Reagan, Ra-Ra-Small Government!  Let free enterprise work its magic!"  The only way they could have balanced his act would be to schedule the president of the Flat Earth Society.  His presence felt like an elephant taking hot dump on you at 8:00 in the morning.  Couldn't sit through that wingnut's interview. 

This is not an Ayn Rand victory.  This is an Ayn Rand nightmare.  Mediocre businessmen climbing into bed with incompetent political hacks and sucking off the government teat. 

No great political mind -- or even a half-assed political mind like Rand -- in history would give the thumbs up to what these jackweeds are doing.  Caesar shouts from the grave, "Hey we did the same crap, and the the Visigoths trashed the place!"

Giffords is an omen.  She got shot in the brain and she's walking around.


By which standard she's finally earned the right to vote with her colleagues!  (Sorry, Gabby, I trust we get that I'm dissing your colleagues, not you, but NSA knows I can't resist a one-liner like that :)


This is not an Ayn Rand victory.  This is an Ayn Rand nightmare.  Mediocre businessmen climbing into bed with incompetent political hacks and sucking off the government teat.  


You sure you haven't read Atlas Shrugged?  It took her 1100 pages to say it, but that was the whole point of the book, and a point lost on her detractors and the Teahadists alike.  In defense of her detractors, most of them claim never to have read the book.  The Teahadists, by carrying her mantle, have no such excuse.

All we have accomplished over the past decade has been to replace the aristocracy of the dollar with the aristocracy of pull.

Wait.  That belongs in the serious thread.  

Let's bring the funnay!

W4hfdaC7eL4

As one of the victims of today's market massacre to the tune of another 3%, I won't endorse Fluttershy here, but I sure can empathize with it.  Why bother working, why build anything, why work for 20 years and take even a passing interest in compromise if even a bet on a good outcome is rewarded with about a year's after-tax salary gone up in smoke in the space of eight trading days?  

http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae45/Starscream101/130973348887.png

Why not, indeed, Fluttershy?  Why the fuheck not?

A friend and I were discussing the state of the economy and our relative fortunes in it, and we concluded one thing for certain:

We just get by however we can, we all gotta duck when the sh*t hits the fan.

We just get by however we can, we all gotta duck when the sh*t hits the fan.


Been saving this for a more appropriate thread, but after today's route, if the employment numbers on Friday morning are crap, or if the Italians really do go bankrupt over the weekend, and the world really does burn to the ground next week, at least I came close to earning my way out of the middle class.

Of course, close only counts in horseshoes and tac-nukes.  Even though I didn't make the cut, I take solace in the fact athat the endgame is at least going to be be entertaining.  

Speaking of which, today's market report:

ifTIuA8Dq58

It's 2008 all over again.  Hope you enjoyed three more years of relative peace and prosperity than any of us deserved.

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/20110730_WWD000.jpg

#thankyouwashington

Except the first four letters of the hashtag are wrong, and should be replaced with the three letters shown on that CBS show.

http://www.whitheousedossier.com/2011/08/05/worlds-youngest-disgruntled-investor/

i think foo bar would get a kick out of this...

http://www.whitheousedossier.com/2011/08/05/worlds-youngest-disgruntled-investor/

i think foo bar would get a kick out of this...


(Seeing as how that's pretty much how I spent Thursday.)

http://i.imgur.com/KX8fN.jpg

I blame the smurfs.  Even with the Eurosmurfs sorta-kinda bailing themselves out, the smurfing smurfers in Smurfington smurfing smurfed my smurf.

for some reason it's not letting me fix the link. it's this...

http://www.whitheousedossier.com/2011/08/05/worlds-youngest-disgruntled-investor/

great vid. the blog is fairly obnoxious, though.

nope, link still doesn't work. i think it's autocorrecting it, for some reason. madness! it's madness!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4hfdaC7eL4

victory?

nope, link still doesn't work. i think it's autocorrecting it, for some reason. madness! it's madness!



At first I thought that Comcast was censoring my internet usage. I'm glad it is not just me.



Cat

oh because it's assuming the "the" is "the." fascinating.

er, the "t e h."

er, the "t e h."


blame Chucky and an April Fool's joke from a few years back

blame Chucky and an April Fool's joke from a few years back
i blame obama.  :P

nope, link still doesn't work. i think it's autocorrecting it, for some reason. madness! it's madness!


600 points today, another 150 points after-hours and Europe's still closed.

http://i.imgur.com/AaQWQ.jpg

Sooner or later it starts to add up.  We'll see what Bernanke has in store tomorrow, but my hopes for QE3 aren't very high.

600 points today, another 150 points after-hours and Europe's still closed.

http://i.imgur.com/AaQWQ.jpg

Sooner or later it starts to add up.  We'll see what Bernanke has in store tomorrow, but my hopes for QE3 aren't very high.


;D

KARMA!

600 points today, another 150 points after-hours and Europe's still closed.

http://i.imgur.com/AaQWQ.jpg

Sooner or later it starts to add up.  We'll see what Bernanke has in store tomorrow, but my hopes for QE3 aren't very high.


Hey, the guy with sword and the ape both look kinda like Ben Bernanke!

"Quantitative easing," hmmm...sounds like a laxative ad!

WHICH

has occurred to others:

http://slopeofhope.typepad.com/.a/6a00e009898222883301538e12e5fb970b-800wi

About the Goldman Sachs and the Ben Bernanke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

This guy has some serious detractors, but he has a giant advantage over them; he's amusing!

This guy has some serious detractors, but he has a giant advantage over them; he's amusing!


Funny thing, is, the QE2 was the only thing that's kept us up since last summer, and the possibility of (or elimination of hope for) QE3 - the next "print a ton of money" - is what gets decided tomorrow.  

vjcXFM0lkjk

And by all accounts, that's tomorrow's market report.

Funny thing, is, the QE2 was the only thing that's kept us up since last summer, and the possibility of (or elimination of hope for) QE3 - the next "print a ton of money" - is what gets decided tomorrow.  

vjcXFM0lkjk

And by all accounts, that's tomorrow's market report.


And why doesn't Bernanke buy it directly from the U.S. treasury, and not Goldman Sachs?
???

And why doesn't Bernanke buy it directly from the U.S. treasury, and not Goldman Sachs?
???


For pretty much precisely the reason outlined in the video.  No BS.  That's the whole point of QE: to bail out the investment banks, same thing as it was in Europe (the names of the banks have changed, but it's the same idea) over the weekend.

As miserable as Monday was for anybody even slightly long (myself included), and as miserable as Tuesday looks to be (yay, compared to the -300 I saw an hour or two ago, -150 is the new up!) it could have been a lot worse.