Crap Assets! Eurozone Riots! Coming Soon!
Nobody wants to pay top dollar for the pieces of Big Shitpile still held by European banks:
(The banks want to sell their assets near “par”–the value the banks are carrying the assets for on their books–because then the banks won’t have to take losses that would further deplete their capital. The buyers, meanwhile, want deals, and they know that time is working in their favor.)
So now that banks are moving to Plan B, says Gore, which is financial engineering.
Specifically, the banks are packaging up bunches of crap assets, putting pretty bows on the packages, and then using the packages as “collateral” with which to obtain emergency loans from the ECB.
And as Spain, Italy, and Greece circle the drain, Britain is warning its expats to expect, of all things, riots when the Euro collapses:
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
Of course if the Euro collapses, it will probably trigger a worldwide depression. Good job banksters! You crashed the world.
Only if that caption was “Up against the wall motherfuckers.”
But Mercedes will be cheaper than Chevys.
@Dodgerblue: We’re talking Paris/Rouen in late 2012 – if the world doesn’t crash it might happen.
” . . . Europe’s future hinges on Germany, which should ‘dictate its solution’ to the region.” – Nojo’s link.
And that always ends up so well.
@redmanlaw: Well, we know the first few plays from scrimmage. Blame the Jews. Blame the French. Blame the Communists. Re-militarize the Rhineland.
@Dodgerblue: Blame the Jews. Blame the French.
Double fucked, we are, huh?
@redmanlaw: “We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they’ve hardly bothered us since then ….”
Tom Lehrer
@JNOV will finish this lovely sweater today or bust: Yep. I should ask RML if any of the WWII Navajo code talkers are still around. Uncle Sam might be needing them again.
@Dodgerblue: Right‽
Okay, brief research says it was not just Din’e but Choctaw, too. Din’e were Marines (semper fi) and Choctaw, Meskwaki, Cherokee, Lakota and Numunu were Army. The Choctaw were used in WWI.
Cherokee used in 1918, Numunu used in Normandy and Utah Beach invasions (Utah? Whatever.) Hitler knew about the use of NAs during WWI, and sent anthropologists to learn NA langs; they failed.
Meskawaki used in Northern Africa.
Twenty-seven Meskwaki, then 16% of Iowa’s Meskwaki population, enlisted in the U.S. Army together in January 1941. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker
People of Basque ancestry — didn’t work out so well bc there were other people of Basque ancestry trying to decipher codes.
Are any living? Maybe five.
The code talkers received no recognition until the declassification of the operation in 1968. In 1982 [almost twenty fucking years!], the code talkers were given a Certificate of Recognition by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who also named August 14, 1982 “Navajo Code Talkers Day”. [Just one day in one year?]
On December 21, 2000 the U.S. Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, Public Law 106-554, 114 Statute 2763, which awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to twenty-nine World War II Navajo code talkers. In July 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush personally presented the Medal to four surviving code talkers (the fifth living code talker was not able to attend) at a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC. Gold medals were presented to the families of the 24 code talkers no longer living.
On September 17, 2007, 18 Choctaw code talkers were posthumously awarded the Texas Medal of Valor from the Adjutant General of the State of Texas for their World War I service. On December 13, 2007, H.R. 4544, the Code Talker Recognition Act, was introduced to the House of Representatives. The Code Talker Recognition Act recognizes every code talker who served in the United States military with a Congressional Gold Medal for his tribe, and a silver medal duplicate to each code talker, including eight Meskwakis.
No Medal of Honor? This is one fucked up country.
T/J: Annals of pederasty dept: Syracuse assistant basketball Bernie Fine was fired today for (allegedly) diddling little boys. There is an audiotape that CNN has but that I don’t want to listen to. No word yet on whether Bernie had a foundation for underprivileged youth.
@Dodgerblue: Wow. Just. Wow. No — don’t listen to it! Some stuff you just don’t need in your head, even if it’s in others’…against their will.
Why yes, I was looking forward to paying 3.2 million marks for a loaf of bread, why do you ask?
@JNOV will finish this lovely sweater today or bust: Friend of mine, a Syracuse alum, says that Bernie’s wife had an affair with the same kid that Bernie allegedly diddled. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
The banksters blew up the economy in 2008 (well, mostly the shadow banksters) but credit for the demise of the Euro lies most squarely on Angela Merkel’s shoulders. Only the ECB can save the Euro, now, and that only by contravening it charter and signaling its intent to buy up unlimited quantities of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese debt. But Merkel is having none of it. Her pennywise/pound foolish aversion to bailing out the periphery nations is going to bring about the collapse of the European economy.
But I guess financial ruin is a small price to pay for the opportunity to teach its “irresponible” southern neighbors a lesson.
@Dodgerblue: I just love the way people pass (usually –>) women and children around their group of friends and family without a thought or with a plan. Even if you’re an adult (measured by age) and almost an adult mentally, this shit often happens without being able to do anything about it or even realizing WTF is happening.
I’m talking to YOU, Temple Owls cheerleaders. Assholes.
@Dodgerblue: ESPN had the tape in 2003 but did nothing with it. In the meantime, the body county went up.
Nice shots of Sandy Eggo yesterday for the Broncos game, which was so ugly that if my dog had a face like those two offenses I’d shave its ass and teach it to walk backwards. It wasn’t so much that Bible Boy pulled it off in OT, but that someone had to lose this battle of three and outs. Elway was all happy clappy on the sidelines.
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