UnTARPED

A handful of banks have successfully paid back the TARP money, getting the government monkey off their backs. Not coincidentally, their stock prices soared beginning just about the time they made their announcements. Any bank that keeps their TARP money now is advertising its ill health, expect the money to come flooding back in to the gubment.

UPDATE: Just got the skinny from a friend who works for a large institution that has and is looking to pay back TARP funds. They are getting pushback from the Treasury on paying it back! The feds, apparently, fear exactly what I pointed out above - the emergence of clarity around the have and have-nots. Hmmm. Gee, we can't let people know which are the zombie and banks and which ones are healthy. Although, the market seems to be doing a fine job of sorting them out.

Buy a Ford, Go to NJ for Beer...Or Simply Submit to the Thievery

The only way we will get our runaway governments (state and federal) under control is to deny them the oxygen they need to breath by exercising the shrinking freedoms we have. The federal government is now in control of General Motors and Chrysler and you can be assured that this new control will be used to advance politcal agendas, such as crappy green cars that we don't want. The only answer is to kill off this ward of the state and support government-free enterprises with our dollars. So buy a Ford, or one of the many other vehicle nameplates that are not arms of the federal government.

Apropos the Empire State, NYers have to react to the disgusting new budget by taking pains to vote with your feet and your dollars. Buy your bottled water, beer and wine in NJ. Dump an extra cell phone if you can, maybe even get rid of that second car. Yes, it's is inconvenient, but what else are you gonna do?

Roundup

Wow, the dumbasses in Congress may have created a bigger mess than we could have imagined.  Jake DeSantis's letter made the rounds today, but here's another Galtesque reaction that could actually do damage in the billions of dollars.  

Fedex's threat to cancel orders for 30 new Boeing planes is EXACTLY the type of stuff we need to see out of the business community these days in reaction to Obama and the socialists in Congress, and exactly the type of thing I recommended here on this blog.  It is not enough to just make the smart capital allocation decisions to a) invest abroad or b) not invest, but businesses need the courage and the candor to tell it like it is.  Crap all over business and business will go elsewhere.  Make investment less attractive and you'll get less of it.  Kudos to Fedex for putting the consequences out in the open.  I only wish Caterpillar's CEO was so bold as to rebut Dear Leader when he lied about how the stimulus package disaster would put CAT's workers back to work.

Check this out too.  This guy was a HUGE Obama booster and fundraiser, and yet he won't even sign on to make a success out of what is the most critical project of Obama's nascent presidency.

Best line of the day from a commenter at Instapundit:  "So the government is using the unregulated institutions to help bail out the regulated institutions."  The former would be hedge funds and the latter would be banks, for the uninitiated.

Diesel From Chicken Guts: No Subsidy, No Dice

Another alternative energy dream hits the brick wall of economic reality.

Pitchfork Brigade Needs to Stand Down

Here in the great Northeast we are all abuzz (in fear actually) of the pitchfork brigade that has formed in our nation's capital to levy punitive taxes on all of us in the financial services industry over the misdeeds of a few and the misunderstanding of the very small and inconsequential retention bonuses paid to the few folks worth their salt left over at AIG keeping the lights on.  Citibank and JPMorgan sent around late day emails assuring people that they would work with policymakers to avert this ill considered law - and that is about as nice as I can describe it.  Krauthammer has it right, but let me say this...this law is a disaster in every way.  It is not justified by any stretch.  Punishing the tens of thousands of people who work hard and with integrity in our financial system to make amends for the stupidity of a few who are already expelled from the system, is a gross injustice and it would have devastating consequences.  First, the New York City economy would implode.  NYC is just squeaking by on the little financial services activity that is still going on.   This law would send NYC over the edge into the abyss.   Then it would ripple throughout the economy as the NY money center banks and capital markets firms lose people and suffer disruption and uncertainty.  This is to say nothing of what it would do to communities like Charlotte, and San Francisco, Minneapolis and Boston (remember, Wells Fargo, State Street, US Bank were all forced to take TARP funds).  I can't even begin to articulate how dumb a reaction this is, and it has me quite fearful, not for myself, but for our economy and for our country.  Tonight my friend assured me that it would never pass.  "Oh yeah", I said?  Who is the voice of reason in the halls of power ?  Where precisely is the brake going to be applied?  We speculated that some grey haired Democratic power broker like a Felix Rohatyn would place a call to the White House and make sure that it didn't pass or Chuck Schumer, at least, would see the devastation that his constituency faced and mount a counter campaign.  Is this our best hope - some miracle intervention?  We are on very dangerous ground, we are tottering on the edge of recession looking into the abyss at Depression and our leaders seemed determined to bungle us over the edge.  

Here is my suggestion...we need an outright slaughter of the incumbents in 2010.  Although I have a partisan preference, I am not calling for a change in the partisan makeup of our legislature; I would be happy if the partisan makeup stayed the same but that every current member of Congress was sent packing.  We literally need 535 completely different people as our elected representatives.  Of course that seems a pipe dream but that is what needs to happen, short of revolution.

Chalk Up Another 8 Billion

Just another potential ginormous multi-BILLION barrel discovery of oil.  Again in Brazil.  (ExxonMobil is holding a great hand here in today's oil industry, they will only get more powerful.  If you hate Exxon now, you're in for more angst.  Choke on it.)  But there is no more oil out there to find, folks.   We're running out.  Nothing to see here.

We tax the living daylights and demonized the tar out of oil companies, but they keep spending billions of dollars and finding tons of oil.  Imagine what would happen if we were nice to them!  (I am talking about in the US, in Brazil they are nice.)  Gas would be $0.50 a gallon.

Ugh..

America, this is what happens when you elect a clueless former community organizer to the highest office in the land...

Score One for the Kid (although it wasn't that hard).

Did I tell you this would happen?  Yes I did.