Mother-Of-All-Bailouts funds used up, Auto Bailout the Last Payment, More Required!
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged Congress to release the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue fund after the government exhausted the first $350 billion in less than three months. https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Congress, which passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program on Oct. 3, “will need to release the remainder of the TARP to support financial market stability,” Paulson said today in a statement released in Washington.
The Treasury today agreed to lend $13.4 billion to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, after spending $335 billion mostly to increase bank capital. Lawmakers, who can vote against giving Paulson the remaining funds, have criticized the Bush administration for not using the rescue package to help stem foreclosures.
From:
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
And, as I correctly predicted, the realisation of the failure of Paulson Plan 1 would bring about dollar collapse. Well we are into that - the next stage is US Soverign Default, which they are currently attempting to avert by cranking up the printing presses. And we all know know where that leads....
Butterfly - close your eyes!
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As he famously stated that nothing was untoward in Iceland - he won't acknowledge the position on the ground now:
Iceland ‘Like Chernobyl’ as Meltdown Shows Anger Can Boil Over
By Ben Holland
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- It was the week before Christmas in Reykjavik, and all through the town Eva Hauksdottir led a band of 60 whistle-blowing, pan-banging, shouting demonstrators.
“Pay your own debts,” they yelled as they visited one bank office after another in Iceland’s capital. “Don’t make the children pay.”
When she isn’t leading one of the almost daily acts of protest in this land devastated by the global financial meltdown, Hauksdottir sells good luck charms made from the claws of ptarmigans, a local bird, and voodoo dolls in the form of bankers. She says she expects to lose her home, worth less than when she bought it two years ago, after the amount she owes jumped more than 20 percent.
Unrest following the end of a five-year economic boom is overshadowing the holidays in a country of 320,000 near the Arctic Circle, where the folklore is filled with magic, trolls and elves. Expansion ended with the collapse of the U.S.
subprime mortgage market. The fallout in Iceland may presage civil disruptions elsewhere, as job losses multiply and credit bills come due. Few nations can count themselves safe, says Ian Bremmer, president of the New York-based Eurasia Group, which analyzes political risk for businesses.
“As people have their expectations changed radically, you can have protests come out of nowhere,” even in developed countries, Bremmer said.
‘Maybe Axes’
Riots in Greece this month, sparked by the police shooting of a teenager, became tinged with economic dissension. A group of Kuwaiti equity traders marched on the emir’s office in October to demand the closing of the stock exchange to stem losses. Even in U.S. cities, civil disorder is “conceivable” if unemployment rises above 10 percent from November’s 6.7 percent, Bremmer says.
Hauksdottir, the owner of a Reykjavik witchcraft shop, says over a cup of thyme and juniper tea that only civil disobedience can force banks to stop collecting debts that people can’t pay.
“We’ll use our voices, and then if we have to we’ll use our hands, and maybe axes,” Hauksdottir says.
At Reykjavik’s half-built concert hall, a symbol of the good times that juts from the harbor toward the North Pole, the visitor center is closed to visitors. The principal owner, Landsbanki Islands hf, failed in October. Marketing director Thorhallur Vilhjalmsson says he’s making ends meet on severance pay.
“Iceland right now is like Chernobyl after the blast,” Vilhjalmsson says. “It looks normal, but there’s radiation.”
Kicking Down Doors
The protests may escalate as bills come due and severance pay runs out for those who lost jobs at the three biggest lenders, including Landsbanki, the second-largest, says Stefan Palsson, a historian. He once led the Campaign Against Militarism, opposing NATO bases in the 1960s.
He said he’s surprised ordinary people are backing activists once considered “hooligans.” There was public outrage three years ago when environmentalists poured yogurt over aluminum representatives to protest a new plant.
“Now you have protesters kicking down doors at police stations, and respectable elderly people saying ‘Well, they’re young and full of enthusiasm, and anyway, they’re right!’” he said.
Inflation rose to 18.1 percent this month, and the International Monetary Fund predicts that Iceland’s economy will shrink 9.6 percent next year. The Washington-based global lender of last resort put together a rescue package for the country worth as much as $5.3 billion last month.
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
I predict a similar article will be published about the UK this time next year... As for the US, well.........:mid:
