TPS

Yes, please tell us you are not more than 11 years old...whoever wrote that title...

I have the 6, almost 4 years now. I went for the larger model because you can get 4 sets of clubs in the trunk. Talked a friend into getting his wife the 3, and she loves it. Nice sporty car and the gas mileage is is good. The only complaint I have about mine is that it's not so great getting out of snow (low frame). Other than that, am very happy with my Mazda.

Sorry I missed the sarcasm button. Certainly he "got what he deserved," but he's also the scapegoat to assuage the public. What about all the fraud from Wall STreet in this crisis? The ratings agencies lied about the quality of asset-backed securities. One group at Goldman was selling those securities to investors, while another was making cds bets on their default. A hell of a lot more people should join mr. madoff....

Yes, how nice that someone is going to jail for the worst financial crisis in history. I'm glad they got the guy that forced the government to payout 12 trillion dollars to save the financial system. We got our man!

Must be a relatively new requirement for the job. I wa impressed that Bush was able to dodge that shoe!

My point is that you need an increase in the revenues collected significantly higher than the "average" annual collected. The issue raised was how to bring down the deficit? Raising the cap gains rate won't raise significantly more revenue if you don't also have significant gains. Btw, won't the gains since March be offset by the losses over the previous 3 months?

You need an "asset bubble" for that to have any significant impact on revenues, and I think we're out of those for awhile... My guess is we'll see one or both of these: increased taxes on the upper bracket (or let the Bush cut for the top expire); some type of national sales or value-added tax.

Of the 9 games that Edwards and Reed started and completed in 2008, the Bills were 7-2. It could just be a coincidence, but I don't think so. Reed is Edwards' go-to guy.

The dollar's descent began 7-8 years ago. The recent "flight to safety" was just that. The crisis will only hasten its end as reserve currency, but it will still take quite some time as there is no alternative.

My few cents: I agree with one of your initial statements that it has been expansion of the Fed's balance sheet as LoLR that has mainly stabilized the financial sector; TARP was enacted after weathering the worst of the crisis. The biggest chunk of it has been given to AIG and used as a pass-through to help (mainly) the two remaining finance titans who provide most of the "expertise" at the Treasury... I'd say Paulson abandoned the original idea for TARP because every sane economist was publicly criticizing it as a giveaway of taxpayer money and calling for direct public investment/nationalization. Lehman went under because P&B denied them access to funds to weather the liquidity squeeze. I'm sure there was no conflict of interest there....

If you mean internationally, that could be one source of inflation as it will make imports more expensive (all else equal, if you assume we spend 15% of our income on imports, then for every 10% depreciation of the dollar that can lead to 1.5% additional inflation). With respect to your second point, the Fed has created reserves in the banking system (swapping bad assets for reserves); it has not printed ludicrous amounts of money. The banking system has almost $1 trillion in excess reserves right now, and until they start lending, that's all it is--electronic chits, not paper. And if you believe the economy will continue to sputter, as Japan did, then there won't be signifiant loan demand, which is how those reserves become "money." As long as there is excess capacity (relatively high unemployed labor and real capital) in the US and around the globe, inflation of goods and services will remain weak no matter how many reserves are injected into the banking system. On the other hand (and I believe this is what you all think is happening), if the Fed starts monetizing the deficits, and from its balance sheet it doesn't look like it's done so yet, and government spending is used to buy goods and services, not toxic assets, then that could put upward pressure on prices if it helps push unemployment down and capacity utilization up. The Fed can get away with "monetizing the debt" (printing money) until the latter happens.

Where is all the money the fed is printing? Who has it? Who's spending it? How will it make prices of goods and services go up if no one's incomes are changing and more people are losing jobs?

Most people haven't gone through a deflationary period, aka the Great Depresson. A little inflation is better than deflation any day. Ask the Japanese. Countries spend their way out of recessions all the time, mainly through what's known as automatic stabilizers: taxes go down and spending goes up automatically in downturns causing deficits to widen. In severe recessions the govt will pursue expansionary fiscal policy, like Obama has done. In other cases they'll use the excuse of supply side economics to pursue expansionary fiscal policy, which causes deficits. A lot of posters keep saying there's going to be a great inflation. I'd wish someone would explain exactly how that will occur. Given what the Fed has done, how exactly will it create inflation? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Ultimately B will back off but not until he's sure there's a recovery. And, as I"m sure you know, they have discussed their "plan" to pull liquidity from the system once they are sure. Most of the Feds actions have been to essentially swap reserves for (bad) assets. The Fed's Treasury holdings have only increased by $80 bil over the past year. The Treasury hasn't had much difficulty funding its needs because no one wants to be holding anything else but so-called "risk-free assets." That will of course change at some point. As for "printing cash," most of what the Fed has "created" is being held as excess reserves by the banking system--elctronic chits. Inflation won't happen unless the Fed starts handing cash to you and me, or speculators start pushing up the price of commodity futures again...

I met him at a party not long ago--I thought he was the son of the hosts, and I almost said "what, going for the Losman look?". I have to say, he is a really nice kid, and he does like Buffalo a lot. At that time, he said he recently received an offer from a team, but turned it down. I am sure he will accept an offer in the near future, and I wouldn't be surprised if he also decides to continue living in Buffalo, as he does have a very nice girl friend from the area (also at the party). Despite his rocky stay with the Bills, I hope he does stay in Buffalo.

K-9, great reference to the good ol' days here at ....??? tbd? those characters were before the political board was made, yes? Good times. The entire place has gone down hill...imho...

It would be nice if you added some data to support what you blather about. The reason states with big budgets are in trouble is because the national economy is in trouble. When people get laid off tax revenues go down, and states are required to balance their budgets. Big states with big budgets get big news. It's how things work. As for the private sector, they are the ones laying people off. It will be a bit before they bring money back to the state...

The market has a "natural course"? The market has an equilibrium? Do you think markets are efficient? Sorry, I just don't think it's that big of a deal. I guess I am disagreeing with you, although you really haven't stated your thoughts specifically. There is no reason to unload all of the shares at once, and I am sure the government won't. On the other hand, if your point is that the government can give someone or some institution a windfall, that's quite possible--the government has been doing that for along time... G'night.

Dude, It's investment banking 101. The government works with a group of financial institutions and agrees to sell at a specific price. The institutions then take the risk of selling the shares over whatever time horizon makes them the most money. I don't think they are racist either; they will sell to dark pools or light pools of liquidity.

Seems pretty simple since there's no hurry to unload the share. There are several options. Wait for Citi to recover (and the market in general), then a gradual sell off. Or, sell significant "chunks" of stock to large institutional investors (probably Goldman depending on who the T-Sec is...) at an agreed upon price--just like IPO, who then holds and sells off in a similar way. It's not like there's no precedent here.

Hmmm...I thought this was a universal political rule, independent of labels. I must've been wrong; it's only the left that uses anything and everything for political gain.

Wrong way Corrigan. I didn't know that Erie County took over businesses? WNY is an example of a bloated, inefficient government, not of the FDR/Obama type. You are trying to make the case that Obama's policies will lead to a sort of WNY malaise, when there is no equivalent example.

No, my point was that your comparison between WNY and Obamaconomics is BS. And I am sure in early 2007 you would've argued that all of those corps I listed were doing well and were efficiently managed. They were also reaping the benefits of good 'ol supply-side economics...

Sorry Fagen, but I saw that headline, and it threw me. Great to me means an A; good a B. I really like this kid, and given his work ethic, I hope he develops into a "good" blocker. Give me a guy with his offensive skills AND a good blocker; damn we've needed that at TE for a long time. We've had too many "great" blockers at TE over the past 10 years....

It is true that the size of government weighs heavily on the economy here, and needs to be slashed. But those who argue that government is always inefficient ignore how poorly private management is and can be as well. Should we bring in management from Chrysler, GM, Lehman, Bear Stearns, AIG, Merrill, WaMu, UBS, and on and on and on....to run government "efficiently"? There is no general solution. It's possible for governmnt to be efficient and inefficient. It's possible for the private sector to be the same. In fact, the managers we bring in to run government almost always come from private industry, yet they have about as much success as they do in the private sector. Why? Because they don't come in and try to efficiently manage government, they come in to use it to their own advantage. As I've said many a time, government is a redistributive mechanism, and who ever is in charge, redistributes to enrich their own. As long as we remain divided, both sides (Dems and Reps) continue to do the same !@#$ing thing...