we interrupt this program for a moment of sarcasm

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This has been a test of the emergency sarcasm system. If this had been a real moment of sarcasm, you would be instructed to tune-in to Groupthink to relieve the pressure from your sublimated adulthood.
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no, really

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The people of Kyrgyzstan are far more civilized than we are... no?
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the good part about hard times

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People lose faith in capitalism.

Like blockheads and biped oxen, we have to wait for the pain before we think about equity.

shocked, i'm shocked i tell you

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Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers
Without safeguards, traders in the $40-billion program could use inside information to profit -- and any losses would be largely borne by taxpayers.
By Ralph Vartabedian
August 14, 2009

Reporting from Washington - A controversial $40-billion government program to buy toxic securities from ailing banks has a flaw that law enforcement and financial experts say could allow traders to illegally profit from inside information.

Critics of the program say that without adequate safeguards, traders could use the tens of billions of dollars provided by the government to manipulate prices and exploit the price swings in other trades.

Because the government is providing 75% of the program's money -- $30 billion -- the manipulations could lead to significant losses by taxpayers.

"It is a conflict by design," said Neal Barofsky, the special inspector general for the banking rescue program who has urged tighter controls on the nine trading firms selected to participate.

The Treasury Department, which is in charge of the program, says it intends to closely monitor trading activity to prevent illegal insider trading and profiteering at the expense of the public interest.

But Barofsky said the government probably stands little chance of beating Wall Street at its own game.

"The Treasury cannot possibly match wits with the innovation and aggressiveness of Wall Street," he said. "If you give them a set of rules and there are technicalities and legal loopholes and things we haven't thought of, they are going to find that out, not because they are bad, but because that is what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to seek out profits at all costs."

The program, known as the Public Private Investment Partnership, or PPIP, allows the nine investment firms to use the government money and $10 billion in private funds to buy up toxic securities held by banks.

The firms, chosen last month from a field of about 100 applicants, have already begun assembling pools of private investors to buy the securities, composed of troubled mortgages that have festered on banks' ledger books and hampered their return to health.

The toxic securities, which could total $2 trillion, plummeted in value during last fall's credit crisis and became virtually impossible to sell because of uncertainty over their worth.

Under the government's plan, traders would jump-start the market by making offers to banks for the securities, thereby setting fair prices for the securities and trading them on the open market. Sales could begin as soon as this month.

The chosen investment firms could earn large profits or bonuses on those trades, but their risk of losses is largely borne by the taxpayers, who are putting up most of the money.

The danger is that traders in the government program could wield enormous influence in the market -- and there are no explicit restrictions on how they could use that influence to profit inside deals of their own.

For example, a trader could privately buy up groups of toxic mortgages on the cheap then later drive up the price by purchasing similar mortgages using government money. The practice, known as "front running," could be technically illegal, but the firms are not barred from coming into the program with such securities and then trading them, Barofsky said.

"If being a trader in the program gives you information that enables you to do trades on the side, that isn't going to go over very well with the public," said Lynn Turner, former chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission. "The inspector general is right."

The practice of using side deals strikes many experts as a return to what created the financial crisis in the first place.

During the Wall Street boom years, massive profits were made by companies trading in unregulated side deals, while ordinary investors earned a fraction of those profits in regulated markets.

Now, the Treasury Department seems to be explicitly creating its own miniature version of that system, said Mark Sunshine, senior consultant at First Capital, a commercial lender based in Florida.

"[President] Obama has not required any tougher rules in the PPIP program at a time when he wants tougher rules," Sunshine said.

Barofsky said a simple solution would be to construct a "wall" between traders in the public program and those in other parts of the firms, thus preventing the manipulation of prices with inside information.

But while the Treasury Department is still finalizing its rules for the program, it has rejected the wall, saying it would dissuade veteran traders from joining because they would be barred from making other trades. The program would be left with junior traders -- the only staff members that investment companies would be willing to isolate from their main businesses.

In a letter to the inspector general, Treasury officials said that investment firms privately told the department that they would not get involved in the program if there was an attempt to wall it off.

The Times asked all nine firms about their current trading practices in mortgage-backed securities and their plans for internal controls once trading begins using taxpayer money.

The firms declined to answer all of the questions, including identifying who would lead their trading teams.

there is no way to win against them

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The vampire capitalists will suck all our blood.

We're done.

As you know, the tv is blasting in the other room here every evening and ABC's "Private Practice" has been blasting into the computer room for the last forty minutes. A bunch of play doctors insisting vaccinations don't cause autism AND acting as though they can FORCE children to be vaccinated against the parents' will. I'm freaking. Every single television show contains propaganda, mental conditioning, mass hypnosis techniques too powerful for independent thought to ever successfully resist.

Here, you fuckers:

Mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired oxidative-reduction activity, degeneration, and death in human neuronal and fetal cells induced by low-level exposure to thimerosal and other metal compounds

Thimerosal (ethylmercurithiosalicylic acid), an ethylmercury (EtHg)-releasing compound (49.55% mercury (Hg)), was used in a range of medical products for more than 70 years. Of particular recent concern, routine administering of Thimerosal-containing biologics/childhood vaccines have become significant sources of Hg exposure for some fetuses/infants. This study was undertaken to investigate cellular damage among in vitro human neuronal (SH-SY-5Y neuroblastoma and 1321N1 astrocytoma) and fetal (nontransformed) model systems using cell vitality assays and microscope-based digital image capture techniques to assess potential damage induced by Thimerosal and other metal compounds (aluminum (Al) sulfate, lead (Pb)(II) acetate, methylmercury (MeHg) hydroxide, and mercury (Hg)(II) chloride) where the cation was reported to exert adverse effects on developing cells. Thimerosal-associated cellular damage was also evaluated for similarity to pathophysiological findings observed in patients diagnosed with autistic disorders (ADs). Thimerosal-induced cellular damage as evidenced by concentration- and time-dependent mitochondrial damage, reduced oxidative-reduction activity, cellular degeneration, and cell death in the in vitro human neuronal and fetal model systems studied. Thimerosal at low nanomolar (nM) concentrations induced significant cellular toxicity in human neuronal and fetal cells. Thimerosal-induced cytoxicity is similar to that observed in AD pathophysiologic studies. Thimerosal was found to be significantly more toxic than the other metal compounds examined. Future studies need to be conducted to evaluate additional mechanisms underlying Thimerosal-induced cellular damage and assess potential co-exposures to other compounds that may increase or decrease Thimerosal-mediated toxicity.

And, here:

Japanese Data Show Vaccines Cause Autism

Just months following the US Court of Federal Claims rejection of the claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism, here you will see data from formal peer refereed medical papers showing that vaccines caused autism in Japanese children and will be doing the same to children around the world. The number of Japanese children developing autism rose and fell in direct proportion to the number of children vaccinated each year

Read this stuff, and tell me if we're still in Kansas....

This is just a tiny taste of it. Every single thing that comes on is dripping with bald-faced lies, and I am screaming and ripping my hair out and my mom is cautioning me not to get so upset about stuff I can't fix... just chill, go with the flow, have a little drinky... relax... you're going to have a stroke.... You should read these articles before they too are ripped down from the net for not serving the needs of Big Pharma. Just a few weeks ago they were making a hairy deal about the proof of this and now it's barely visible. The internet is NOT going to set us free.

this has been the problem for a long time

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And it is way past time to really clean house.

Ain't gonna happen, and we are going to rue it like 9/11 over and over and over....