So you think you are saluting the American Flag when you deposit money in a financial institution with an American Name?

9/28/07
http://www.thestreet.com

Bear Stearns has reportedly been courting a Chinese investment for some time. The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2006 that chief executive James Cayne met with China Construction Bank to sell the firm a $2 billion to $4 billion stake via a convertible bond offering.

The paper reported then that because the arrangement was a convertible bond, as opposed to a direct equity investment, the structure of the deal allowed the Chinese bank to avoid regulatory hurdles.

Indeed, convertible sales are convenient ways for investors to amass stakes in companies while avoiding shareholder votes and occasionally regulatory hurdles.

A “RedState” Owned Banking Institution?

Earlier this spring, China’s state-run investment unit agreed to take a $3 billion stake in Blackstone Group prior to its initial public offering.

The state-run investment fund will officially launch on Saturday, according to reports, and it will put $200 billion of the nation’s $1.3 trillion currency reserves to work in the global marketplace.

The firm lobbied on Securities and Exchange Commission oversight of mutual funds and hedge funds and other securities legislation, according to the form posted online Sept. 18 by the Senate’s public records office.

New York-based Bear Stearns managed two failed hedge funds that were forced into bankruptcy this year after it made losing bets on securities backed by subprime loans, which are made to borrowers with risky credit.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070927/bear_stearns_lobbying.html?.v=1

The bank said it had written down its fixed-income portfolio by SFr4bn ($3.4bn), mainly because of losses on US subprime mortgage-related securities, triggering a third-quarter loss of SFr600m-SFr800m.

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto100120070316206008

Do you know what is the national defense percentage of the total budget, and how it has trended over the years?

This question actually needs to be answered. Too few people actually know.

GAO-07-226CG:

1965 43%
1985 27%
2005 20%

Gee, we must be spending a lot on the war.

Anyway, those caring Dems just raised the federal debt ceiling another trillion (with a t) so the issue hopefully won’t have to be revisited again until after the election. However, as the dollar goes down maybe a trillion ain’t enough for the next 14 months. After all, they gotta raise enough to feed and provide housing and health care to all those voters!

Here is your future, it’s based on the past:

http://www.kunstler.com

This feels like the Roman Empire because it is the Bush/Cheney/Carlyle/Haliburton/Saudi/Catholic/PseudoChristian/Neoconchickenhawk/dumbass/lemming/pseudoconservative/greedyrottenbastard Empire…

104,000 Netbank Customers are now owned by Netherlands ING for a paltry 14 million, 140 per head. Of course ING only took the customers that were covered by FDIC. Was there a competitive bidding process or did the FDIC overlords say, here, take this piece of the spoiled American pie, they are too stupid and corrupt to stand up to anything these days?

China could buy US on the open, free market right now and i still can’t read a damn bit of chinese…

adios, go shopping, kmart has a sale on velcros…

Why does this feel like the Roman Empire.

Meanwhile, the congress just increased the debt limit by one more trillion….keep on arranging the deck chairs.

Excerpts:

“US Dollar Beaten to a Pulp; Is Euro 1.50 Next?”

Friday September 28, 5:39 pm ET
By Kathy Lien, Chief Currency Strategist strategist@dailyfx.com

- Canadian Dollar Hits 31 Year High, Australian Dollar at 18 Year High
-Euro taking out 1.42

“Slower growth and rising inflationary pressures resurrect the risk of stagflation. The last time we had serious stagflation problems was in the early 1980s.” “For most companies, expansion is probably the last thing on their minds at the moment.”

Mr. Steven F. Herbert , 50
Chief Exec. Officer

Mr. Charles E. Mapson , 49
Chief Legal Exec., Chief Legal Counsel and Sec.

Mr. James P. Gross ,
Chief Financial Officer

Mr. R. Theodore Brauch , 48
Chief Risk Exec.

Mr. Joyce Bellows
Officer

NetBank Inc.
1015 Windward Ridge Parkway
Suite 100
Alpharetta, GA 30005
United States
Phone: 770-343-6006
http://www.netbank.com

sweet dreams, thank the good lord for your mattresses…

Supposedly I’m already a customer of ING now (the company that’s buying out NetBank’s assets), and the check I just wrote should clear the bank. However, my new-car joy is overshadowed by the apprehension that I’ll be looking over my shoulder for the repo man over the next several days!

I became a NetBank customer in the first place 5 or 6 years ago when they bought out CompuBank, my first Internet bank account that went belly-up. As much of a technology guy as I may be, I think on Monday morning I’ll be switching my paycheck direct deposits over to a credit union account and saying farewell to banking through the series of tubes they call the Internets.

1) “The FDIC insures bank deposits of up to $100,000″

2) “NetBank had $109 million in deposit accounts that exceeded the FDIC limit. Those customers will become creditors in NetBank’s receivership, the FDIC said.” – yahoo news…

3) “The FDIC receives no Congressional appropriations