Tag Archives: bailout

Making Ron Burgundy Proud

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The commercials are frickin’ hilarious. Ron Burgundy, Anchorman, selling the Dodge Durango.

The ad campaign is brilliant. In one, Burgundy (aka Will Ferrell) talks about the size of the glove box, which comes standard, in case you didn’t know. In another, he shoos off some “dirty dancers” who are dancing too close to his beloved Durango. In a third, he wins a staring contest against a white horse, who he mocks as having insufficient giddy up compared to the horse power of the SUV.

There would have been no ad campaign like this if George Bush hadn’t started the bailout of the auto industry at the end of his tenure. Continue reading →

Stop Using Government as an ATM

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

One of Ronald Reagan’ most famous speeches had to do with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall that separated Free Western Germans from Trapped Communist Eastern Germans under the control of the Soviet Union post World War II.

‘Mr. Gorbachev: Tear Down This Wall!’ President Reagan declared on June 12, 1987 outside of the Brandenburg Gate. 29 months later, it fell by the weight of its terrible history to the side of freedom and injustice.

Who says ‘words can’t make a difference’? Continue reading →

Bank Regulations Killing Banks

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

A Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel looks at a troubling trend in the banking industry. No, not the JPMorgans of the industry losing $2 billion on bad bets, but on small community banks who don’t have the word “billion” anywhere on their balance sheets.

According to her piece: “A growing number of tiny community banks are deciding it’s time to put out the ‘for sale’ sign … many executives of these small lenders are frustrated by costly, new regulations.”

Let’s head into the Way Back Machine: In October, 1975 New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy. Sort of like California in the summer of 2012.

New York’s Democratic Mayor and Governor (Abe Beame and Hugh Carey) came to Washington, DC begging for Federal help. President Gerald Ford said he would veto any bill which would have the effect of taxpayers in, say, Michigan, bailing out New Yorkers whose profligate ways had led them in that fiscal blind alley.

The New York Daily News published a famous front page with a photo of Ford and the blaring headline: Ford to City: Drop Dead. Continue reading →

Where’s Good News?

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Let’s start with Europe and work our way back.

The Greeks held elections last week and they have not been able to form a government since.

The leader of the “Leftist” party (read, Communist), Alexis Tsipras, has told the rest of the European Union that he believes Greece should ignore the promises it made to be bailed out and, in essence, go off on its own.

According to the New York Times, “European leaders have warned that if Greece does not keep its promises, Europe will stop financing it, which would quickly lead to Greece defaulting on its debts and leaving the euro zone, as the countries who share the common euro currency are known.”

I’m not exactly sure what the Greek version of “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” is, but Tsipras appears to be chanting it. If a coalition government cannot be formed, new elections will be called and polls indicate the anti-bailout candidates will gain strength. Continue reading →

Economic Shank Shot

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

My Uncle Bob calls it the dreaded perpendicular shot.

In golf, when you mis-hit a golf ball so badly that it almost kills the person standing next to you, you have hit a shank. A shank can happen to anybody. And it is very, very scary when it does happen.

The golfer has no idea how it happened or why. One minute you are hitting the ball straight as an arrow. Then next minute, your ball is whizzing around the head of your playing partner.

There was a great scene in the movie “Tin Cup”, when Kevin Costner, the washed-up player who attempts a dramatic come-back after winning a qualifier to play in the U.S. Open, gets a bad case of the shanks on the practice tee before he starts his round. His caddie, played by Cheech Marin, goes through a crazy routine that seems completely non-sensical, all to achieve one goal: To get Costner’s character to forget about his shank and to start hitting the ball again.

I was thinking about that scene and about shanks in general when thinking about what happened to our financial markets four years ago. Continue reading →