Annex Bulletin 2008-18                             September 15, 2008

Happy bargain hunting!

Bob Djurdjevic

Click here for PDF (print) version

MARKET UPDATE: A RARE "I TOLD YOU SO" UPDATE

Walk the Talk? Not on Capitol Hill or White House

Screw Taxpayers to Help Bankers

Senate and House do what politicians get paid to do: Toe the line and screw taxpayers to help bankers

SCOTTSDALE, Oct 3 – As our clients and readers know, I profoundly detest "I told you"-pieces.  Yet in the last two days, several of you have urged me to run another update on the current "financial crisis" and the Wall Street bailout. You argued that some of my old pieces would be even more valuable now just because they had predicted the use of taxpayers' money to shore up private banks. 

Nor were these stories a week, or two weeks old, in reference to current affairs context.  Some of them were written almost 11 years ago, when the Southeast Asia banking crisis swept the world.  Check out  "Wall Street's Financial Terrorism," for example, a piece that was also carried in March 1998 by CHRONICLES, a Chicago-based current affairs magazine.

"You might want to dust this off and bring it back out.  It’s still true," one reader wrote to me last night (Oct 2).  I complimented him on long memories and good research.  And so reluctantly, here it is again...  "WALL STREET'S FINANCIAL TERRORISM," if you're interested.

Furthermore, about two weeks ago, when the news of the $700 billion-bailout first broke, I said to several friends, "just watch those puppets in Washington stand on their soap boxes and talk up a storm about protecting the taxpayers' interests.  And then watch them vote to screw the taxpayers and help the bankers."

When did you ever hear of a politician walking his talk?  They all know what side their bread is buttered on and by whom.  No wonder they also say that, "any time you hear a politician scream, you know someone has just told the truth." :-)

The $700 billion (and growing) bailout package is no laughing matter.  It goes to confirm another old truism.  They also say, "when you owe a bank a million dollars, the bank controls you.  But when you owe a bank a billion dollars, you control the bank."

And what if a bank owes $10, $20, $50 or more billion dollars?  Well, then it controls the government, as the votes in the Senate and the House have proven.

That's why I used the record 777-point drop after the first House vote as an opportunity to buy some undervalued stocks.

And what was the market reaction?  A shrug.  The Dow Jones index, which was up 290 points before the vote, declined to a level only 75 points than yesterday after the House vote became fact.  And now (11:30 PDT), it is DOWN 14 point.  This reconfirms another old adage - "buy on rumors; sell on facts."

Meanwhile, back to Washington, remember what I have been telling the media during the last several elections, when they asked me who I would vote for? (I replied, "anybody but a Republican or a Democrat").  That's because they are all horses sporting different colors but racing for the same stable owners (banks and big business). 

"The Presidential Election '96 had all the excitement of a one-horse race, a big yawn!," I wrote in a 1996 column in Washington Times.  Yes, folks, 12 years ago! (see "The American Century and Demo Farce", Nov 1996).  But I also warned that, "real autocracy may follow the current 'demo farce'."  Everything that's been happening since 9/11, including the latest Wall Street bailout, has the earmarks of a "real autocracy."  Or more accurately, PLUTOCRACY (as I also wrote in March 1997 - see "Plutocracy of the New World Order").

If in doubt, just check out yesterday vote in the Senate that overwhelmingly (74-25) approved the bailout package.  I've highlighted the prominent Democrats and Republicans [Obama, Clinton, Biden...(D);  McCain, Lieberman, Bingaman... (R)].  They all voted the same way: Screw the taxpayers to help the bankers.

Well, as I said at the top of this piece, quoting King Solomon from 30 centuries ago, "There is nothing new under the sun."

* * *

Senate bailout vote

Wed Oct 01, 2008 at 06:10:01 PM PDT

Akaka - Aye
Alexander - Aye
Allard - No
Barasso -  No
Baucus - Aye
Bayh - Aye
Bennett - Aye
Biden - Aye
Bingaman - Aye
Bond - Aye
Boxer - Aye
Brown - Aye
Brownback - No
Bunning - No
Burr - Aye
Byrd - Aye
Cantwell - No
Cardin - Aye
Carper -
Casey - Aye
Chambliss - Aye
Clinton - Aye
Coburn - Aye
Cochran - No
Coleman - Aye
Collins - Aye
Conrad - Aye
Corker - Aye
Cornyn - Aye
Craig - Aye
Crapo - No
DeMint - No
Dodd - Aye
Dole - No
Domenici - Aye
Dorgan - No
Durbin - Aye
Ensign - Aye
Enzi - No
Feingold - No
Feinstein - Aye
Graham - Aye
Grassley - Aye
Gregg - Aye
Hagel - Aye
Harkin - Aye
Hatch - Aye
Hutchison - Aye
Inhofe - No
Inoye - Aye
Isakson - Aye
Johnson - No
Kennedy - n/v
Kerry - Aye
Klobuchar - Aye
Kohl - Aye
Kyl - Aye
Landrieu - No
Lautenberg - Aye
Leahy - Aye
Levin - Aye
Lieberman - Aye
Lincoln - Aye
Lugar - Aye
Martinez - Aye
McCain - Aye
McCaskill - Aye
McConnell - Aye
Menendez - Aye
Mikulski - Aye
Murkowski - Aye
Murray - Aye
Nelson, FL - No
Nelson, NE - Aye
Obama - Aye
Pryor - Aye
Reed - Aye
Reid - Aye
Roberts - No
Rockefeller - Aye
Salazar - Aye
Sanders - No
Schumer - Aye
Sessions - No
Shelby - No
Smith - Aye
Snowe - Aye
Specter - Aye
Stabenow - No
Stevens - Aye
Sununu - Aye
Tester - No
Thune - Aye
Vitter - No
Voinovich - Aye
Warner - Aye
Webb - Aye
Whitehouse - Aye
Wicker - No
Wyden - No

MARKET UPDATE 2: GOVERNMENT'S CHRISTMAS GIFT TO BANKERS

For the First Time in History...

Consumers Debt Drops, But Government's Soars

American Plutocracy Thriving: Taxpayers to Bear the Burden of Corporate Bailouts

SCOTTSDALE, Dec 11 – At a first glance, the story that crossed the wires around noon today looked like a first good news story for American consumers in a long time.  It is not.  Appearances can be deceiving.  For, the "Princes of the New World Order" have merely figured out a new way of fleecing the taxpayers.  First with the bankers', then with carmakers' bailouts.

So what's the new story?  For the first time in history, the U.S. households' debt has declined, the Federal Reserve reported this morning.  Stung by the loss of $2.81 trillion in their net wealth, people paid down their debts in the third quarter for the first time since at least 1952, since such records have been kept.

But hold your horses.  Put that champagne back on ice.  Our shopaholic society can't be been cured so easily of a spending disease that took over half a century to develop.  The U.S. central bank also reported that the debt taken on by the federal government soared by 39.2% to a postwar record.  Which means the taxpayers are still stuck with a bill for all those corporate bailouts.

And now some details...

As of the end of the third quarter, the American households' total outstanding debt shrank at an annual rate of 0.8% from $13.94 trillion to $13.91 trillion, the Fed said in its flow of funds report. Consumers paid off more mortgage debt than they took on for the first time on record. Mortgage debt fell at a 2.4% annual rate to $10.54 trillion.  But other consumer debts, such as credit cards and auto loans, increased at a 1.2% annual rate in the quarter to $2.6 trillion. Total U.S. domestic non-financial debt increased at a 7.2% annual rate.

Which is hardly a cause of celebration.  Except for bankers.  First, they get the public funds to write off their bad debts.  Then they get to make money on the loans to the public (i.e., government) to fund the bailouts.  It's a win-win scenario for bankers, and a lose-lose deal for consumers. 

As you can see, the American plutocracy is alive and thriving...

For additional Annex Research reports, check out... Annex Bulletin Index 2008 (including all prior years' indexes)

Or just click on SEARCH and use "company or topic name" keywords.

Home | Headlines | Annex Bulletins | Index 1993-2008 | Special Reports | About Founder | Search | Feedback | Clips | Activism | Client quotes | Speeches | Columns | Subscribe