I agree.

Curmudgeon, please feel free to leave and never return. Take the ‘moose’ with you.

I’m sure there are other sites that are far more attractive to folks like you.

In case you didn’t know. Most of the regular posters here actually know one another (and have for the past 4-5 years.) We often joke, tease, teach, educate and challenge one another.

Even our ‘regular’ trolls manage to entertain and while chided, are welcome.

Folks who insult, attack, berate and instigate but bring nothing else to the blog I have a hard time tolerating.

Why don’t you folks please find another outlet for yourselves?

Thanks,

sl

Clot/Schump has always been a useless arse, but today’s comments suggest a much more disturbed and potentially dangerous character. If anyone’s interested, the authorities will track IP’s and subpoena ISP records to investigate a death threat.

A couple of quotes from today…

1)”Comments like yours always get to me, and I always feel obliged to respond…not because they “hit home” in any way.

It’s because I can’t believe there are people as stupid as you let loose on the world.

Go kill yourself.”

2)”I don’t think this is worth anything other than me putting you in the hospital.

1031 Route 202, Branchburg, NJ. Please, please set foot on my property.

And don’t worry; you’re not worth a bullet.”

3)”In this case, violence is an excellent answer.

People like this piece of trash should be dead.”

Rest assured, Moose, that you have hit home with this wacko…

This level of discourse, combined with the regular, and seemingly tolerated, drivel from Jamil spell the end of this blog’s relevance…

It is a wonderful thing for people to obey the rules out of love and respect fort each other. That said, when those do not work, one must sometimes resort to fear.

As to why investors may be so eager to put money into bank stocks, one need only consult Standard & Poor’s evaluation of Bank of America’s credit ranking on the eve of its recent stock offering. “We consider B of A to be highly systemically important and therefore continue to believe that B of A would receive extraordinary government support if necessary, though we do not believe such support will be needed,” it said. In other words, they were bailed out once, they could be bailed out again.

Of course, S&P was wrong once before about Bank of America, and it could be wrong again. The political reality is that, no matter how large or interconnected, no bank — and certainly not Citigroup or Bank of America — will be bailed out again anytime soon. The next time the government is forced to step in, that bank’s shareholders will be wiped out, its executives and directors sent packing and its operations wound down or sold off to competitors. Most significantly, creditors and counterparties who were bailed out in the past will get only what they would have gotten from an orderly liquidation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121504939_pf.html

By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, December 16, 2009; A13

There’s the president of the United States, sitting in the Cabinet room at the White House, cameras rolling, talking with the heads of the country’s biggest banks, each one of which had benefited from an extraordinary government effort last year to prevent the financial system from collapsing. The purpose of the meeting is to pressure banks to make more credit available to small businesses, to restructure delinquent mortgages rather than pushing them into default and to call off their lobbyists, who have been trying to water down the administration’s proposal to reform and strengthen bank regulation.

At the same moment, officials next door at Treasury are putting the final touches on agreements that will dramatically reduce the legal and political leverage the administration holds over those very same banks by allowing them to repay the bailout money they received.

Hello? Is this what passes for political arm-twisting and bare-knuckle negotiation at the Obama White House? It’s bad enough that the president’s top priority of health reform was hijacked by a sanctimonious senator who can’t seem to decide which side he’s on. But in a capital where it is more important to be feared than loved, it’s even worse for a president to tear into Wall Street “fat cats” one day and then let them off their leash the next.

As far as I can tell, top administration officials are fixated on voter rage over bank bailouts and the resulting hit to the president’s poll ratings. So they’re looking for any way to show that the economy is improving and that the government will not only get its bailout money back, but earn a profit besides.

By rushing to cash in their chips, however, the administration not only gave up political leverage and additional profit, but took the risk that one or more of the banks may find that it can’t make it on its own.

snip

I grew up going to catholic school in Philadelphia. I think my parents were more respectful of the education process and there was punishment for kids that did not follow the rules. Sometimes fear is an excellent motivator.

Maybe part of it is nostalgia…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/15/cheques-bounced-out-history

Ruths Chis was half empty for lunch, and they now have a Prix Fixe.

I have a soft spot for a Salamander steak.

man, is this like a splash of cold water…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCcCvx68xl8s&pos=1

sl