- Well apparently not everybody is broke these days, because a certain pharmaceutical giant is going to pony up $41 BILLION to acquire a certain other pharmaceutical giant. [MarketWatch]
- Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife Susan was killed in a recent car accident that also wounded the PM. People suspect foul play because duh, this is Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe hates Tsvangirai’s guts. The new widower says it was all an innocent accident and everybody needs to calm down. [BBC News]
- Warren Buffett offered investors cheerful words such as “the economy fell off a cliff” and (paraphrase) “inflation will soon make your existing $400,000 mortgage look like pocket change.” [Reuters]
- The state of Massachusetts expanded its socialist healthcare scheme by subsidizing unemployed workers’ COBRA payments. Meanwhile, every productive capitalist in the state has fled this horror, just like in Atlas Shrugged. [Boston Globe]
- Tim Geithner has ruined the economy through lack of Treasury Department staffing. [New York Times]
- At least we aren’t alone in this economic mess of ours. We have managed to drag the entire planet Earth into the first global recession since World War II. [Washington Post]
COBRA Subsidies Are The Opiate Of The Masses
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{ 28 comments }
Prediction: this sniveling little intelligent designer is the new voice of the Republican Party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv7R19xL9Is
yeah, thanks so much for dragging us into your financial clusterfuck, america.
oh, and 1st post pwnage.
- entropy
aww…not the first post.
[re=260452]entropy[/re]: By “us” I can only assume you to be a citizen of another planet. If other countries on this planet wouldn’t have butt-raped the U.S. dollar for so long, maybe we’d all be in better shape.
Sara, thanks for getting the week off to such a “hopeful” start with your post of happy news. Doesn’t Merck make Oxycontin?
Going Gault. What a fucking bunch of status seeking, over entitled morans thinking that money = talent.
If you can only buy these jackasses for what they’re really worth and sell them for what they think they’re worth.
[re=260452]entropy[/re]:
And dude. LAY OFF THE 1sT BULLSHIT or go back to whatever kiddie website you normally visit.
Fallen off a cliff eh? Nothing that new Commerce Secretary Wile E. Coyote can’t handle.
Gee, with $40B+ on hand, Merck could help subsidize COBRA well beyond Massachusetts and ease the financial stress on a lot of households. Fuckin’ greedy dickheads!
And now the productive Massachusetts capitalists, safely hidden-away in their light-refracting force field protected mountain valley, await the day after complete economic collapse when America will cry out for help. And like the Watchmen they will whisper…no.
Warren Buffett needs an AM radio talk show so he can spread his optimism. He should change his name to a single catchy word. May I suggest Bung?
That’s it, we’re all moving into Buffett’s guest house, or failing that, T. Boone Pickens.
And I don’t like the look of overworked Geithner; it’s approaching Peter MacNicol-level craziness in Ghostbusters II. Be careful that he next Congressional testimony doesn’t begin with a 10-minute paean to Lord Vigo, the Scourge of Carpathia.
We have managed to drag…
USA! USA! “Goodbye from the world’s largest risky investment…”
“five years from now, I can guarantee you that the machine will be running fine.”
-Warren Buffet
What’s that in Friedman Units, Warren? (FU-s for short, that is.)
Merck isn’t paying $40 b in cash, but $20b-ish in cash and the rest in stock. But a premium deal right now seems like, well, bad timing (although I know nothing about this business other than that it’s corruptly captured the FDA).
Krugman thrashes Obama’s economic policy yet again: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=2. I’m surprised by teh prez’s ad hominem attack against blogs; some of the blogs supporting nationalization include Krugman, Buiter, and Roubini–people with more credibility than Obama’s own top people, frankly.
Yes, it’s early days in the administration, but you’d like to see evidence that the administration is making right decisions (say, pulling up on the stick when the plane is diving, rather than staying the course).
The Post’s photo representing India is the same as every jorno-pic representing India: a big bunch of people in a scuffle.
Such aid could prove critical to political stability as concerns mount over unrest in poorer nations, particularly in Eastern Europe, generated by their sharp reversal of fortunes as private investment evaporates and global trade collapses.
On my brief list of things to be happy about, this is a good time not to be living in the Sudetenland.
Other than Geithner, there’s nobody else to make the case in public for these policies.”
Which is part of the problem. He doesn’t exactly exude confidence; considering his previous failures I guess it’s expected. We’re fucked with this jackal at the helm.
[re=260503]bitchincamaro[/re]: The problem is not the confidence that Geithner exudes, but that the policies are bad. I continue to be astounded at the American attitude on “confidence”… is this a product of the self-esteem movement? The problem with the economy isn’t that nobody has confidence; it’s that everyone is broke. Broke people lack confidence.
As someone who works in the staffing industry (aka headhunters) I see firsthand the perverse effects of our fucked-up insurance system in this country. I’ve had people turn down jobs that were significantly better for their career because they couldn’t afford to go on Cobra until their new insurance kicked in, and they were afraid to go without insurance even for 2 or 3 months (understandably). I’ll never understand why businesses aren’t screaming to have government take over the insanity that is health insurance in this country and get it the hell off their plates (and their income statements).
Sorry, no snark, just frustration.
[re=260458]Sussemilch[/re]: Those Acme futures I picked up are looking mighty good after Buffet’s interview.
[re=260480]NewAlgier[/re]: There isn’t anything that anyone–Obama, Geithner, Buffet–can do to turn around the economy in the short term. The short terms being the next couple of years.
Check out the numbers–unemployment continutes to accelerate, the banking system remains locked in a death spiral, “wealth” (a chimera to begin with in many cases) is destroyed. And the collapse will continue.
Wonkette remains the best source for unbiased commentary on the coming apocalypse.
[re=260524]donner_froh[/re]: Agreed. But I’m not talking about the short term; anything the administration does will be effective two years from now. But that makes it all the more important to get cracking _now_. There are kids born today who won’t get fed properly for two and a half years, minimum. The way Geithner and company is pushing, it might be closer to five.
Wonkette remains the best source for unbiased commentary on the coming apocalypse.
Check Yves Smith: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com
[re=260509]CorkPopper[/re]: This is why I can’t understand why the GOP has given in to the Limbaugh crowd. Socialized health care improves productivity and ought to be a major Republican initiative, if they weren’t a pile of retards.
[re=260506]NewAlgier[/re]: His relentless support of failed policy is my main point. Obama reads from the same page, but somehow makes it sound almost workable. I continue to get up and go to work after laying off half my staff and cutting hours and payroll. Despite it all, I remain positive. The alternative really sucks balls.
[re=260506]NewAlgier[/re]:
*sigh* Economics always has been and always will be purely a behavioral science. Since the behavior of buyers and sellers is so unpredictable, so must be the market direction. However, the procrastination exhibited by the Bush administration allowed the bad news to grow far beyond anybody’s control.
[re=260555]NewAlgier[/re]: Some people have a theory that companies with good insurance (usually the big ones) like it this way, because it discourages people from leaving. Makes as much sense as anything. That, or the Republicans have some sort of babelfish that turns commonsense healthcare proposals into “SOCIALISM! GOVERNMENT! BAAAAAD!!!” inside their brains, and they can’t hear anything else.
[re=260562]Servo[/re]: the problem isn’t that the market has no intrinsic value – it does, but was way out of line with what people were willing to invest, and what they were investing itself was increasingly valueless, since it was made up of earnings on overvalued investments…there’s still some air to come out of this balloon, and after that, we need to take a big breath before filling it up again…we need to invest now in our real futures, before the cost of hobo beans go up…or else stockpile (like me) the ingredients of Cuba Libres, which is hard to do with my own investment in depletion of this stock on the rise….
Heh, bring on that inflation! Then, my mortgage will be $200k, and I can choose between a week’s worth of groceries, or paying off the whole mortgage! Yippee! We are all Zimbabweans now.
[re=260592]Toomush Infermashun[/re]:
I was talkin’ about direction, not value.
NewAlgier:
Royal City called–and they said you’re bad luck.
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