Jin Liqun explains with crystal clarity the prerequisite conditions for China’s potential role as a “white knight” riding to the financial rescue of the Eurozone. To whit – if it is not good for China, and it is not a good investment, China is not going to participate in the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Then in explicit terms, with no BS, no mincing of words, and no diplomatic artifice, Jin Liqun lectures Europe on exactly the problem with the Eurozone labor laws and welfare state.

“The donklephant is a genetic monstrosity whose every moment of existence is unbearable agony.” – Jon Stewart

All week I’ve watched GM CEO Ed Whitacre walking down a factory floor in a GM advertisement, crowing about repaying government loans while saying he could respect the opinion of those who did not want to give GM a “second chance”. It is good to know that Ed can respect my opinion of the bailout. He might be interested to know that my current opinion is that his claim that GM repaid the loan from the US Government in full and ahead of schedule is more than a little disingenuous. I hope Ed still respects me.

Jon Stewart Clip

Our auto company GM is “repaying” some of the bailout money early! Or so say the headlines. But the reality is a little bit different. Some background, in case you don’t remember all the payments you made to own 61% of GM. The government placed $6.7 billion in a “contingency fund” in case things got [...]

Who’s this guy? Meet Kenneth R. Feinberg, the new pay “czar” for the White House. He’s tasked with reigning in the out of control compensation at companies the government helped recently. I think it should be noted right off the bat that this is tied to executive compensation and bonuses…two pots of money that are [...]

And this is for 2008…a year when their failure nearly brought the entire world’s financial system to its knees. I don’t care if these bonuses were contractual or not. New circumstances (you know…like BANKRUPTCY!) could allow them to renegotiate with their employees. From the AP comes the list… Citigroup… Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest [...]

Not too many people are dancing over the news of GM’s bankruptcy, but opinions are decidedly mixed on what the government ownership of the car company will mean. Lee Cary, of American Thinker sees the era of Government Motors dawning with coercive attempts to force a Green fleet onto American consumers. This, in Cary’s opinion, [...]

All the kings horses and all the bond deals couldn’t keep GM from cracking. As feared, the car giant has filed for bankruptcy. Now what? The plan is for the federal government to take a 60 percent ownership stake in the new GM. The Canadian government would take a 12.5 percent stake, with the United [...]

I don’t think think this comes as a huge surprise, and it’s certainly disheartening. From Wash Post: The government signaled yesterday that its financial rescue efforts may have reached their high-water mark, announcing that the much-anticipated “stress tests” of 19 large banks showed that only one, GMAC, was likely to need additional taxpayer aid and [...]

Despite all the government assistance and talk of providing more, GM lost $6 billion last quarter with earnings dropping by 47%. GM executives say car buyers are turning away from GM out of concern the company will end up in bankruptcy and won’t honor its warranties. Could the prospect of bankruptcy help force bankruptcy? To [...]

Okay, that’s not really what they said, but it’s certainly the net effect. Because there will be no bailout money forthcoming for this industry. More from the AFP: The White House on Monday expressed “concern” and “sadness” over the state of the ailing US newspaper industry, but made clear that a government bailout was not [...]

Between Wells Fargo and this news, doesn’t anybody think that this may put a slight damper on those Tea Parties on Wednesday? From MarketWatch: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday it swung to a profit in the first-quarter compared to the prior period, and announced it has commenced a public offering of $5 billion of [...]

And there was much rejoicing… From MarketWatch: NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wells Fargo & Co. said Thursday that first-quarter earnings will surge to a record $3 billion, well ahead of analyst forecasts, as loan losses and provisions dropped from the previous difficult quarter and its mortgage business thrived. Wells shares jumped 22% as the bank [...]

At the center of President Obama’s overhaul strategy for Wall Street are the “stress tests” which will be applied to all financial institutions. But how accurate will the test results be? That will depend on whether the treasury takes off-balance-sheet assets into account, experts say. This is Danielle Ivory, reporting from the American News Project [...]

After months of hand-wringing, bailouts and backlash, new GM CEO Fritz Henderson says bankruptcy is still a very real possibility: The company, he said, has until June 1 to accomplish changes sought by the government, or it will be in bankruptcy. The 60-day deadline should be enough time, but if it becomes evident that the [...]

So it’s pretty apparent people are upset that there are different rules for the automakers and banks. Well, I’m not sure what to tell you except the entire economy isn’t leveraged against the health of the Big 3. Yes, they’re vitally important and I think we should continue to help them out, but they don’t [...]

And after the AIG mess, I say we give it to him. How we allowed one company to take down the entire system still feels unreal to me. How on earth could we allow that to go down? Crazy, crazy, crazy. But it did happen and we are suffering massive fallout as a result, so [...]

Given all the press the AIG bonuses have garnered, you’d think our only economic problem was a few nearsighted/greedy execs at one insurance firm. Today, the House took AIG backlash to the next level by passing a bill which would levy heavy taxes on such bonuses. Specifically: The bill would levy a 90 percent tax [...]

The AIG bonus plot thickens, but only slightly. Because while it appears that people in the Treasury department knew about the bonuses, they didn’t think it was necessary to inform their new boss about them? From TIME: “Treasury staff was informed about the new bonuses in a Feb. 28 memo that the March 15 [bonus-payment] [...]