I have never seen som many people at my polling place! Voting in Minnesota will probably top 80% of the electorate. Hopefully, Minnesota will go for Obama and will have a new Democratic Senator, Al Franken. If yes, Al will continue the Wellstone legacy. If these things do not happen, I am going to get physically sick.

In the third quarter of 2007, Volvo AB booked 41,970 European orders for new trucks. Volvo AB is the world's second-biggest maker of heavy rigs. Orders received in the third quarter of this year were just 155.

Volkswagen is the biggest company in the world today. Its bigger than Exxon! Is it because of a great technological breakthrought? No. Is it because of superior management? No. The Automatic Earth described it better than I can:

"After Porsche said it wanted 75% of Volkswagen, VW went up 150% yesterday, and 93% more today (that’s an almost 500% increase!), to become the biggest company in the world. Not because it's doing great; in fact, it's rumored to be drowning. Which is why parties like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and major hedge funds were shorting the stock. Porsche's announcement forced them to cover their shorts and buy VW like mad men. And so you get to be the global no.1 because gamblers are paying off their losses."

Al Capone was taken down by the IRS, not state murder statutes. Palin needs to be taken down, destroyed as a politician. She should be running beauty pageants--not running for Vice President.

CNN has a report that $70 Billion of the bailout will be used to pay bonuses to the bankers! See

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/business/2008/10/23/dcl.todd.executive.compensation.cnn

CNN has a report that $70 Billion of the bailout will be used to pay bonuses to the bankers! See

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/business/2008/10/23/dcl.todd.executive.compensation.cnn

From The Lynch Report:

"Obligation per Taxpayer:

$1,014,000,000,000. / 134,362,678 = $7,546.74

So, there you have it: $7,546.74 for each and every taxpayer, on average, spent by the government to buy assets at prices no one is willing to freely buy them at."

This quantity does not include all of the other goodies that Paulson has handed his cronies.

The S&P 500 was 744. This is the day when Greenspan said, "How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values which then become the subject of unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade. And how do we factor that assessment into monetary policy? We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability. Indeed, the sharp stock market break of 1987 had few negative consequences for the economy. But we should not underestimate or become complacent about the complexity of the interactions of asset markets and the economy."

There have been no fantastic inventions since 1996, no new discoveries of oil or new revolutionary fuel, no new techniques for growing more crops with less water. If 6437 was "irrational exuberance" in 1996, the DOW and other indices have a long way to fall.

I watched some of McCain's speech in Lakeville, Minnesota. What a bunch of fucktards! The film displayed the ugly underbelly of our state, which is one of the most racist and anti-semitic states in the union. I am no McCain supporter but I think he showed a modicum of decency.

Minnesota used to have one of the best educational systems in the United States. Not any more, as displayed by the crowd in Lakeville. I hope that Obama takes Minnesota. He has the Twin Cities. He won't get support from the redneck ring that circles the Cities. Lakeville is part of that ring. I think that folks in the Range will vote for Obama. I am not sure what Southern Minnesota will do.

Most all of the banks are insolvent which is why they won't loan to each other and won't open their books. Pumping them up the real capital and buying their worthless stock won't make them any less insolvent. They aren't even zombies.

The action of Paulson, and worse, the complicity of Congress is insane. We are living in a true nightmare now.

According the the Lehman Brothers dissolution sale conducted today, it is 90.25 cents on the dollar.

The following has been reported by Bloomberg:

"-Sellers of credit-default protection on bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. would be forced to pay holders 90.25 cents on the dollar under initial results of an auction today, setting up the biggest-ever payout in the $55 trillion market.

Preliminary results of the auction to determine the size of the settlement on Lehman credit-default swaps set an initial value of 9.75 cents on the dollar for the debt, according to Creditfixings.com, a Web site run by auction administrators Creditex Group Inc. and Markit Group Ltd. A final price is scheduled to be announced at 2 p.m. New York time."

Gyrations in the market may, in part, be hedge funds having this liability, selling their assets to cover the losses.

This toxic waste has to be flushed out of the banking sytem FAST. They jackasses who created this problem are not my friends so I say take over the banks with federal marshalls, if necessary. Arrest anyone resisting assistance. Bring in "clean" federal auditors to audit all of their books. Shut down the banks too far gone. Arrest all of the perps engaging in this fraud.