No Prayer Necessary

Just give people - not banksters - free money already.

After an incredibly volatile day on world markets, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, warned of a looming "collapse in global demand" which threatens to push economies around the world into a new recession.

Wanker of the Day

John Steele Gordon.

POLITICO DISCOVERS ELIZABETH WARREN SCANDAL!!!!

Thanks Politico, for checking Drudge and even pretending! Namely:

Still, members of the public would not be able to find her panel salary unless they cross-referenced it with her executive disclosures, which are available through the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Just like Hitler!

Friday Cat Thread

Friday Night

Tomorrow is Saturday.

Happy Hour Thread

Early because...it's Friday!

Crises

You can see how everybody starts to jump a bit when TEH MARKET starts to crash. The labor market crashed years ago and still hasn't recoverd.

I Should Keep Repeating Until Very Serious People Listen

The solution to all of this is to give people free money. Just give everyone a $10K platinum coin.

And no I don't know if the Treasury has authority to do that, really, but it's what should happen, instead of "more free money for failing banks."

Public Enemy #1

If nothing else, Elizabeth Warren might serve to distract the right and "center" from every other democrat.

Lending Crisis

The press calls it Europe's "debt crisis," to suggest the problem is with bad guvmints borrowing too much money. The truth is Greece would probably be better off defaulting, but the banking system and other European economies wouldn't be. It isn't a debt crisis, it's a lending crisis. Nobody put a gun to their heads and made them lend the money.

TEH MARKET

BBC News tells me that market participants are eagerly awaiting more government action.

Late capitalism is awesome.

Put The Straights Back In The Closet

Leaving the booing aside, we can marvel at the brilliance of the word salad from my favorite former senator.

Santorum: What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That's tragic. I would just say that going forward we would reinstitute that policy if rick santorum was president. That policy would be reinstituted as far as people in I would not throw them out that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration. But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.

If only the big gay gayeee gayee gays would stop talking about all the hot sexy sexytime all the damn sexytime everything would be ok. Oh, and have you met my wife and 4 children?

Too stupid to breathe.

Very Late Night Thread

Enjoy

Doubling Down

It's the austerity you assholes.

The Prime Minister said that the failure of leaders in the US and Europe to tackle government deficits now “threatens the stability of the world economy”.

Mr Cameron spoke as stock markets around the world fell sharply again, with the FTSE-100 suffering its biggest drop for more than two years.

Politicians, central bankers and investors are increasingly worried that the world’s biggest economies are sliding back into a recession, dragged down by government debts.

Please appoint some horses to senior political positions. They really couldn't do any worse.

Huzzah!

More free money for incompetent rich assholes.

The EU internal markets commissioner, Michel Barnier, said the 16 banks that nearly failed the stress tests “are judged to be fragile and must also be strengthened further. We want the recapitalization for these banks to be by private means. The era of bailing out banks must end. But I cannot, of course, exclude the possibility that some of the above banks will require state aid

You could also give some state aid to mere people. Ah fuck'em.

Thursday Evening

The new facebook reminds me of Discs of Tron.

I'm not sure why.

Happy Hour/Dinner

Chilli here. With red wine.