Weekend Vittles: Treasury's New TVARP Bill to Tax the Cameraman and the Assistant Producer to Provide Relief for TV Anchors

You wired me awake and hit me with a hand of broken nails
You tied my lead and pulled my chain to watch my blood begin to boil
But I'm gonna break, I'm gonna break my, I'm gonna break my rusty cage and run - Soundgarden (which is the greatest name for a band ever)

* Remember the trading playbook here. I've been saying that we're likely range-bound between 7000 and 9500 for weeks, months, quarters and perhaps years ahead. Tough as it is right now to do with stocks up 13% in the last few days, I think you gotta be selling this rally at DJIA 9300. I've been saying the right approach is to sell extreme rallies, especially when they get close to the 9500 area -- and indeed a 13% pop in a few days' time to take us to 9300 is just about exactly that set up. So, follow the playbook and sell/short this rally.

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* Oil's down 35% in October. Down by more than that since my friend, Donald Trump Jr, bet me his inheritance against mine on Happy Hour that oil would see $150 before it'd see $50. He even gave me 1 to 1 odds since oil had been in that straight up groove to $120 something when we made the bet. I still say oil's likely to be below $50 a barrel by the end of 2010. Not there yet though. And heck, you gotta figure it'll squeeze up in volatile action along the way down anyway.

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*Porsche's Volkswagen Stake Sparks Call for Disclosure (Update2)

So the dudes at Porsche, which is worth tens of billions for shareholders, figured out how to game the German stock market system by using options and options derivatives to take control of Volkswagen, which is worth hundreds of billions for its shareholders. Think of it this way - It'd be like RealNetworks bought up options to control Google.

Nobody's selling any more cars or getting higher margins or creating anything of value here. But the financial markets are in such utter disarray and full of so many unintended loop holes from the recent destruction of our financial system by the richest guys on the planet who don't want to deal with the losses that their business models created for themselves, their shareholders and their customers...well, you're gonna see a lot more weird, inexplicable financial game playing.

Somehow I think the largest firms, which are already receiving direct taxpayer aid, are also going to be able to manipulate the game to shift huge volumes of private capital into their own pockets. Just like Porsche just did with this Volkswagen game that makes no sense.

Feeling better about the outlook for economy and the credit crisis now? No, not so much?

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Fed opens swap lines with Brazil, SKorea, Singapore, Mexico

This is constitutional?! Please Supreme Court, step up and do your damn job of checking the out of control power from the Republicans and Democrats who have recently waaaay overstepped the redistribution of wealth and power to themselves and the largest companies and richest people. And now, even redistributing our wealth to other countries without you and me even having had one say about it.

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* Economist Fleming Says FDIC Plan May Stem Foreclosures

Okay, so no more houses are created, no more value is created, no more anything is created, but we allow some bureaucrats at the FDIC to print and/or move a bunch of money from those who created value and services to build their net worth. And somehow we're supposed to believe that's going to be virtuous for those of us who created value and services and that shifting of money from the savers and the renters to those who can't afford the homes they live in is going to "stem foreclosures". And if it does stabilize the housing market for the homeowner off the renter's back, then does the renter to participate in any upside to the value of the house? Or are those profits immediately re-privatized for the homeowner such that the ownership class of this country always gets to keep the profits and push off the losses?

I've got a proposal for the FDIC and Treasury and Fed to consider that follows the same line of logic. I think we should have all national TV news anchors should get a $10 million credit line at 5% interest from the government, which can and should tax all the cameramen and assistant producers and mailroom employees and secretaries and cafeteria workers and the cleaning crew to raise that $10 million.

I promise all you cameramen and producers and mailroom employees and secretaries and cafeteria workers and the cleaning crew that if you don't do this immediately that TV as we know it will cease to exist. We're staring down a TV abyss. And the best part of my TV Anchor Relief Plan (TVARP, as its known in shorthand among those in the know in DC), is that it'll pay for itself.

Yeah, seriously, most analysts will explain to you, Ms. Immigrant from Poland who diligently cleans my office at 1211 Sixth Avenue (but who just isn't as educated as the analysts are and therefore if we can just "educate you" a little better about economics just like the politicians who voted the original TARP deal through used to tell us all the time then you'd feel a lot better about giving your money to me for your own good) is that we're going to [hopefully] turn that $10 million into $15 million.

Oh, you guys in the mail room who gave your money to the politicians to give to me in this TVARP won't actually get that $5 million of profit or your original $10 million loan back -- no, the politicians will know much better how that money should be allocated for your own good than you do, even after they've "educated" you.

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It might be funny if were talking about $10 million. We're talking about trillions that they've already taken from all you cameramen and cafeteria workers and given to the biggest companies on the planet, the guys on Wall Street and their many rich cronies and now apparently other country's citizens too.

Feeling better about the outlook for economy and the credit crisis now? No, not so much?