Daily Update: Tuesday Sept 23: House of Cards

It's interesting that it takes the nation teetering on the edge, and an election cycle, to get candidates to start talking about reigning in federal spending, but it's never too late to sound responsible we suppose. Here we have Obama campaigning yesterday in Wisconsin, sounding sensible:

"I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there," Obama said at a rally in Green Bay. "We will fire government managers who aren't getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government."

The only way we can do all this without leaving our children with an even larger debt is if Washington starts taking responsibility for every dime that it spends," he said."

On the other hand, this is not the time to chat up your spending plans, so this position, now, is not exactly bold.

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We kind of wonder what, exactly, is on Goldman's books that they can sound so upbeat. Or is this the voice of the man who knows his debt monkey burden will be lifted off his back and sent away?

Goldman Sachs, granted permission Sept. 21 to transform into a bank holding company, may raise capital to buy assets assuming it finds the right opportunities, said company spokesman Lucas van Praag in New York.


``If we see assets that are attractive, we might raise capital in order to be able to acquire them,'' he said yesterday, adding that Goldman has ``no immediate plans to raise capital.''

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Crude oil had it's largest one day rise yesterday, moving up $25 to around $130 per barrel, and a friend asked, "Should I be looking at some commodity ETF's?"  "No," we responded, not wanting to commit our friend to making a purchase based on irrational price movements not adequately explained in the financial press.  Supposedly data about supply and demand from over the previous weeks caused price movements that suddenly couldn't contain themselves, hence Monday pop.  The Commodity Futures Trading Commissions is "closely monitoring" prices.

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And in the LA Times, via Drudge Report,  we get Europeans outraged at America, with the finance minister of Italy actually making some valid point about what truly hurts America (and thus becomes the biggest threat).

"Greenspan was considered a master," Tremonti declared. "Now we must ask ourselves whether he is not, after [Osama] bin Laden, the man who hurt America the most. . . . It is clear that what is happening is a disease. It is not the failure of a bank, but the failure of a system. Until a few days ago, very few were willing to realize the intensity and the dramatic nature of the crisis."

Greenspan's response? "I was never the biggest threat in the Big Brother House!"