statism watch

Your paper money is best expressed as a fraction 1/x – where x represents the number of dollars in circulation.

CBC News
October 3, 2008

In one swoop, Canada’s central bank shoved another $12 billion into the country’s financial system Friday, an increase of 150 per cent from previous injections.

The move means the Bank of Canada has boosted the extra dollars it has pumped into the Canadian economy from $8 billion to $20 billion.

“In light of persistent pressures in these markets, the bank announces additional steps to provide term liquidity through term purchase and resale agreements,” said the central bank in a press release.

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CBC News
October 3, 2008

The Toronto and New York markets lost ground Friday even though U.S. legislators approved a revised $700-billion US package to address the credit crisis.

Markets were up in the morning but began to slide after the package was passed shortly after 1 p.m. ET.

By the close, the TSX/S&P composite index was down 97.19 points to 10,806.67. It had been up as much as 380 points earlier in the day.

In New York, the Dow Jones index closed down 157.15 points, or 1.5 per cent, at 10,803.35. It nearly touched 11,000 in earlier trading.

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You may wish to review the article “Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System“to put this in its proper context. Henry Paulson, ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs,  may still own shares of his former corporation in a blind trust, an investment bank reported by Bloomberg News to be among the largest potential beneficiaries of the bailout.

Paul Craig Roberts, Counterpunch
October 3, 2008

Is the Paulson bailout itself as big a fraud as the leveraged subprime mortgages?

Yesterday, here on CounterPunch, I discussed the bailout as proposed and noted that the proposal cannot succeed if it impairs the US Treasury’s credit standing and/or the combination of mark-to-market and short-selling permits short-sellers to prosper by driving more financial institutions into bankruptcy.

A reader’s comment and an article by Yale professors Jonathan Kopell and William Goetzmann raise precisely this question of the fraudulence of the Paulson package.

As one reader put it,“We have debt at three different levels: personal household debt, financial sector debt and public debt. The first has swamped the second and now the second is being made to swamp the third. The attitude of our leaders is to do nothing about the first level of debt and to pretend that the third level of debt doesn’t matter at all.”

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Steve Watson, infowars.net
October 3, 2008

Democrat warns that a panic atmosphere is intentionally being nurtured to get bill passed

A Democratic Congressman has warned that a panic atmosphere is being intentionally created in order to get the financial bailout billed passed, further stating that several members of Congress were told before Monday’s vote that martial law will be instigated in America if the legislation fails.

Congressman Brad Sherman of California’s 27th congressional district told the House in a speech yesterday evening that he personally knew of several Congressional representatives who have said they were threatened with the prospect of all out martial law should they vote in opposition to the $700 billion bailout.

Sherman essentially intimated that powerful forces who want the bill passed have attempted to blackmail elected representatives.

“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified.” Sherman stated.

“Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.” The Congressman continued.

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