WTO is a Trade Organization without any real bite. Needed now is a Global Central Bank with the power to prevent (via levelizing) some of the regional tsunamis that will inetivably occur. (Soros has long suggested this.)

Ok, I can see the great concern and we did see the fall of Lehman cause a crash of the interdependencies created between all of these derivatives....

this is a real problem...but I do not see them decoupling the system and isolating the problems with coming up with almost another fire to put out a fire in this new TOP as well as feeding the Zombie banks.

I sometimes wonder if they should have just let the entire system collapse, meltdown in October and then pull a FDR..
shut the entire thing down for a couple of weeks and open up as you say a bunch of good banks, insure the deposits and start sorting through the rest of it all via a Resolution Trust Corporation etc. type of structure.

but in their defense, the legitimate reason (I think) they are doing this is to stop the collapse of the house of cards....
but they seem instead to be perpetuating it.

I don't know which economist/expert coined the term Zombie banks but it is so absolutely descriptive of what's going on....I think whoever coined this phrase should get some sort of award.

CSPAN is not offering embedding and that's a very useful tool in addition to being able to search transcripts and then just show the relevant clip. These hearings are usually 3 hours long and so it's impossible for people to listen to so many hearings, so long and need those tools to zero in on the clip of concern.

Everybody bug CSPAN will ya? They are slowly but surely getting it on web 2.0 and I can do some "tricks" and embed their videos anyway but it would be simple if they just offered it.

They have a fairly cool transcript coordinated to video clip script but they don't implement it most of the time.

AIG took advantage of "skewability"...the unregulated space
between SEC and CFTC. (See the Commodities Futures Modernization Act.) Much of the securitized bullshit now needs to be shoved back in the faces of those that created them and spread the risk...all around. The cogniscenti. Let them eat shit, now. It's their time to die.:-) Bring it on!
(Guys like Paulson ought not be exempted...)

You see, they're related. Roses love Manure, especially in spring. Except, here we're dealing with manure of an altogether different kind. That would be called...Dark Goo!
AKA...the Olde OkeeDoke. By now we have so many confusing open window programs that...we all be thoroughly confused,
even the rules makas:-)

Sort of like...Pirates of the Carribean at Disneyland.

but check the last video on the Sunday Morning comics...I think they are also making USB interfaced coffee. ;)

Yeah, we need more bloggers who are diligent...there is so much going on, I also was confused on the ISM figures, posted too fast.

The WSJ had an article about this a few months back.

The first option is one that has been used — having the Treasury Department sell debt, with the money then deposited at the Federal Reserve. The Treasury has decided to scale back that effort, however. This leaves the Fed with the possibility of selling its own debt. That’s an attractive possibility for this reason: Whereas the commercial banks are worried about their balance sheets, outside of the banking system, among regular investors, there’s clearly massive demand for short-term debt, as Treasury bills have fallen into negative-yield territory. If the Fed were to issue debt that was considered on a par with the Treasury’s debt, it would presumably attract tons of buyers.

Kind of makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, huh?

Krugman is the latest and links to Calculated Risk on it.

Krugman:

Indeed. Every plan we’ve heard from Treasury amounts to the same thing — an attempt to socialize the losses while privatizing the gains. We’re going to buy up all the bad assets at premium prices; no, we’re going to offer the banks guarantees against losses; no, we’re going to let private investors buy the stuff, but offer them de facto guarantees against losses in the form of non-recourse loans.

Thank God for those little bloggers and lay people...
if none of us were here, would we even pick up on this
yet another taxpayer screw job?

They are happy to unload it on the FED in exchange for AAA Treasuries. So what the heck do they need Options for? Will they start playing spreads?

It has always been about class warfare.