Common ground between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street

Check out these thoughts at Liberator Today which echo our own.

Danny Elfman on the 99%-ers

Ladies and gentlemen, the genius behind Oingo Boingo, The Simpsons and Nightmare Before Christmas soundtracks, and Jenna Elfman:



I'm so tired of hearing you whine
About the revolution
Bringin' down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby!

You're just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And you tell me that we've got to get back
To the struggling masses (whoever they are)
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about suffering and pain . . .

Movie Review: Drive

I recently saw Drive, not knowing anything about it other than it inspired a man to throw a hot dog at Tiger Woods because he "wanted to do something courageous and epic."

The movie is strange. It starts off with pink script credits reminiscent of Miami Vice or 80's John Hughes teen movies. And the soundtrack, though original, is heavily influenced by 80's music.

After an opening heist and getaway scene sets the hook, the film turns to a character drama replete with love interest, cute kid, flawed but loving mentor, etc. And then Ryan Gosling does the worst James Dean act I've ever seen. He stands around, wearing a denim jacket, leaning against doorways, and not talking. Except he doesn't look cool and disaffected as James Dean did. He looks retarded. I thought this might be Gilbert Grape 2: The Driver Years.

The theme song from the movie is "A Real Hero" by "College featuring Electric Youth," though I'm not sure whether College is the chick singer and Electric Youth is the synthesizer or vice versa. The lyrics were so clunky that I initially thought they were a tribute to the retard Gosling, but alas, they appear just a contorted way to arrive at the line "Real human being, and a real hero..." as a chorus which sounds really cool the way the chick with the great voice sings it to Top Gun music.

All of which is a really bizarre way to lead up to the main point of this review: you have got to go see this movie. It is amazing. It is a real genre-bender. The bad acting fades away and the weird music becomes compelling. The film is a good human drama and a good action movie (one middle-aged couple left mid-film because of some Tarantino-ish ultraviolence), and the combination of the two is incredible.

I can't begin to do justice to this movie, so let me leave you with this song which I initially found so cheesy and now can't stop listening to.

It Depends What the Definition of Default Is

You silly sovereign CDS holders thought you had something of value didn't you? I'm so sorry, the appropriate instrument for today's "event" is the CHS - Credit Haircut Swap. Credit Default Swaps on sovereigns are worthless. Thanks for the risk-less cash flow though, piggy.

More from ZH, the source of the graphic

So,
the European joke has come full circle. Indebted nations borrow more
money to bail out other indebted nations who ask insolvent banks to cut a
50% off deal on the loans that were given to them, but the insolvent
banks will then have to raise capital which the will of course borrow
from the over-indebted nations whom they just gave money to. Get it?
Problem solved - BTMFD!!!

Also Mish with some commentary

As a result of labeling 50% haircuts "voluntary", Credit Default Swap contracts have proven to be useless when it comes to protecting against sovereign default. The serious implication is investors will need to find another way to hedge.

And Denninger

In yet another stunning "agreement", this will somehow not trigger credit default swaps - in other words, they're not really default swaps any more, now they're "whatever we call thems when we want them to be whatevers."

UPDATE: another ZH Post authored by Finance Addict

The big question–apart from how many investors they will get to go along with this, given that they couldn’t reach their target of 90% investor participation when the write-down was only going to be 21%–is whether this will trigger a CDS pay-out.

That this is even up for discussion is mind-boggling. These credit default swaps are meant to be an insurance policy in case Greece doesn’t pay the agreed upon interest and return the full principal within the agreed timeframe. If they don’t pay out when bondholders are taking a 50% hit then what’s the point? I call shenanigans.

Sound familiar?

Fiat currencies of the ages: French Assignats.





HT: Jesse.

When Irony Attacks!

A mere month into the grand experiment that is Occupy Wall Street, the kids discover the joys of dictatorial bureaucrats who take all their money and tell them what to do.

Even in Zuccotti Park, greed is good.

Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in -- but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protesters is fraying tempers.

Some drummers -- incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday -- are threatening to splinter off.

“F--k Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

Smith is a member of the Comfort Working Group -- one of about 30 small collectives that have sprung up within OWS. The Comfort group is charged with finding out what basic necessities campers need, like thermal underwear, and then raising money by soliciting donations on the street.

“The other day, I took in $2,000. I kept $650 for my group, and gave the rest to Finance. Then I went to them with a request -- so many people need things, and they should not be going without basic comfort items -- and I was told to fill out paperwork. Paperwork! Are they the government now?” Smith fumed, even as he cajoled the passing crowd for more cash.

The Finance Committee dives on whatever dollars are raised by all the OWS working groups, said Smith, and doesn’t give it back.

These kids just got more education in one month about how the real world works than they got in their five-year, $100,000 debt, Grievance Studies programs.

Steve Jobs, teabagger

HuffPo via Instapundit:

“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where “regulations and unnecessary costs” make it difficult for them.

Jobs also criticized America’s education system, saying it was “crippled by union work rules,” noted Isaacson. “Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.”