Comments on: We Made Money On TARP?

By: michael reynolds

michael reynolds — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:47:45 +0000

EX:

Cool. The language is clean and there’s no sex but it’s very dark in other ways. But fun, too. I hope.

By: ExiledIndependent

ExiledIndependent — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:17:34 +0000

Cool–I’ll read the first one with him and see how it goes. He’s dug the Patterson Maximum Ride stuff, but I personally have a philosophical aversion to single-paragraph chapters….

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:35:11 +0000

I have no problem with you guys talking about this stuff. Carry on.

By: michael reynolds

michael reynolds — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:29:17 +0000

Exiled:

They’re basically young adult, 13 and up. My son read them at 11, but then he’s my son. They’re pretty intense, sme definitely disturbing material. So fair warning.

Sorry, Justin.

By: ExiledIndependent

ExiledIndependent — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:56:20 +0000

Michael, great to hear! What age group is it for? I’ve got a precocious near-tween that would really dig the concept behind these books (sorry for being OT Justin!!).

By: michael reynolds

michael reynolds — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:16:34 +0000

Tully:

Unfortunately it translates to “private school tuition.”

Lousy kids.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:06:19 +0000

Word,
that’s what I’ve said for years. basically the approach they need to take with the herd is “OMGZORS YOU’RE ALL GOING TO GET CANCER IF WE DON’T HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, AND THEN BROWN PEOPLE WILL INVADE AND TEACH YOUR CHILDREN SPANISH!”

By: Tully

Tully — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:03:41 +0000

The government is going to end up with a majority share in Citibank. If the gov't really wants to help out the taxpayers, they can mail me my share of the shares. I will put them in the taxable portion of my retirement account and hope they're actually worth something someday. If they tank out I can write down the book loss. Next up, Bank of America. I also see that GMC is only listed at $5B in the chart above, which doesn't include the other $7.5B of TARP the gov't is going to throw into it. Which will leave the gov't as the majority shareholder there, too. Nice of them to bail out the fine people of Cerberus Capital Management for both their GMAC majority and Chrysler majority holdings, while leaving all the other shareholders and debtholders to swing in the wind. Because the very-well-connected donkeys and elephants with investments in Cerberus want to make sure that they are protected from the losses us little people are suffering. Deficits are generally only destructive when they keep growing faster than the economy does, pushing up debt levels faster than income base. Just as your own debt levels get bad fast if they keep growing faster than your income. Because sooner or later they reach levels as a proportion of income that you cannot service, and the cards come tumblin' down. We're still in the "your interest rates are rising because you're becoming a bigger credit risk" stage. Congrats, Michael! That translates to "new Mercedes," right? ;-)

By: the Word

the Word — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:12:10 +0000

We only seem to care about deficits when money is being spent on people rather than wars(even completely unnecessary ones) or tax reduction. I have a conservative friend who constantly told me deficits don’t matter when Reagan and Bush were ringing them up…and he’s a big money investment advisor.

Perhaps we could call health care defense spending. It would skate through then.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:54:43 +0000

At some point we may run out of paper to print money – here’s hoping at any rate. Spending it when we don’t have it (by Obama’s own admission) is insane ! When will some wise soul say enough is enough already??

By: Jeremy from NJ

Jeremy from NJ — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:50:10 +0000

Lol – Congratulations Michael.

By: michael reynolds

michael reynolds — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:57:47 +0000

I don’t think any of this is really very important.

I think we should all come together, join hands, and agree that what’s really important is that I will hereafter be referred to as “New York Times Best-selling Author Michael Grant.” HUNGER by MIchael Grant. #8 on the NYT kidlit list coming out 6/21.

A shameless plug? How dare you accuse me of such a thing!

By: Tully

Tully — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:19:35 +0000

Force banks that don’t need TARP money to take it, and be sure to collect the vig. But the banks won’t complain, as they made money off of the deal too! As long as they can buy back control of their own company by reclaiming those preferred warrants the government forced them to sell. Which they couldn’t do unless they really didn’t need the money in the first place…

Quite a racket. Why, one would almost suspect that a big bunch of those banks were dragged into the program to provide cover for the favored hurtin’ getting bailed out by the taxpayers, and the profit made off of them is just a plus. If one were a cynic, that is.

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:51:47 +0000

Now all the governament has to do is burn the money, since they printed it out of thin air in the first place.