Message from Hudson

Albrecht Durer - Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Wednesday
September 17, 2008
1:43 P.M.

Dear Robert:

Writing to you, as you are a “landsman” (tr. Yiddish: “kindred soul”; “countryman”; “fellow member of the ‘shtetl’”).

I just did a quick, blurry-eyed “tote-up” this morning on the immediate high points of what unregulated “free market, low government regulation, two-fisted ‘entrepreneurship’ worship” has done to the national economy.

Here:

SEPTEMBER 2008

Bailout of Bear Stearns (shotgun marriage to JP Morgan Chase & Co) $ 29.1 billion

Bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $ 400 billion (approximate; possibly more)
(De Facto Nationalization)

Failure to bail out Lehman Brothers;
Shotgun marriage of Merrill Lynch to
Bank of America Private sector ‘takes the hit,’ in contrast to
Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Bailout of AIG
(Government Purchase of 79.9% of
equity warrants for AIG stock) $85 billion (in a return to the pattern of Bear, Stearns,
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)

Cost of 1 month (September) operations of wars $ 6.0 billion (ignoring supplemental funding bills)
in Afghanistan and Iraq
(1.5 billion per week = 6 billion per month =
72 billion per year)

DEBT ADDED ONLY IN MONTH OF SEPTEMBER $520.1 billion (put straight onto the taxpayers)

…………………………………………………………………………………….

CRUDE “TOTE-UP” FOR JUST THE MONTH OF $ 520.1 billion for private-sector bailouts
SEPTEMBER, PLUS (SEPARATELY) FIVE ½ YEAR’S
OPERATIONS OF WARS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ $ 386.0 billion for 5 ½ years of wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq (again, ignoring supplemental funding bills)

TOTAL NEW DEBT ADDED ONLY IN MONTH OF SEPTEMBER
PLUS 5 ½ YEARS OF WAR OPERATIONS IN
AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ $ 906.1 billion (again, put straight onto the taxpayers)



This, from the “cloth-coat” wearing, “small town values” party of “fiscal responsibility.”


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

(Referring to the request on Tuesday night by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson
and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke for Congressional
agreement for the government to bail-out/invest in AIG):

“Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Chairman of the
House Financial Services Committee, said [Treasury
Secretary] Paulson had not requested at Tuesday
night’s meeting, and did not appear to need, any new
legislative authority for the bailout.

“The Secretary and the Chairman of the Fed, two Bush
appointees, came down here and said, ‘ We’re from
the government, we’re [Congress is] here to help them,’ “
Frank said. “I mean, this is one more affirmation
that the lack of regulation has caused serious
problems. That the private market screwed itself up
and they need the government to come help them
unscrew it.”

The North County Times
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Page A-4, Column 1

(Consistent story ran in The Financial Times of London
of same date.)


Thought that you would like this. (But I also always knew that you were a cancerous subversive agent, Robert.)

As they would say out in the American “small town” heartland: “You sound like you must have some o’ them ‘Socialistical” values.”

Jewish, to boot.

“Have a nice day.”

Hudson
(“JudgeRoyBean”)