Now what?

Maybe I'm not that good at body language, though I've spent years with unstable children; and maybe it's having to speak to a semicircular audience of journalists outside the White House, and he hasn't learned the actor's trick of seeming to direct his attention steadily to one indeterminable member of the audience; but Hank Paulson's statement made just now (c. 21.45 British Summer Time), with the left-middle-right upanddown movement of his head, and the earnestness of his mouth and lips, makes him look panicky.

But maybe the worst players in the banking market should be allowed to burn out anyway, as Marc Faber has said for a long time.

How many of the crucial 10 swing votes in the House were down to the polemical fax-fomenting of Mish, Denninger at al?

And will the Establishment force them to vote again and again until they get it right? Nancy Pelosi and her "bipartisan" mantra (3 or 4 times in one statement) seemed to hint at this.

Under New Management

If I understand him, Nouriel Roubini (htp: City Unslicker) is saying don't buy the rotten apples, become the greengrocer's senior partner.

My plan: a $15 trillion dollar bailout.

US nonfinancial debt (second quarter 2008) is $32.4 trillion dollars. This pie chart gives a breakdown of the debt by type. US GDP in 2006 (est.) was $13.13 trillion - let's guess it's $14 trillion now. Thus debt as a proportion of GDP is about 230%.

This graph shows that the 50-year mean ratio of such debt to GDP is 120.1%. So to get back to a long-term average, DEBT MUST HALVE. As I said in a reply to a comment today, it's like a game of musical chairs, but taking away half the chairs in one go.

In fact, an almost perfect fit would be to cancel all the mortgage debt in the USA - just to get back to the level of debt averaged over the last 50 years.

And Marc Faber is saying the bailout will need 5 trillion, not $700 billion.

Hmmm....

Why don't we get really bold: $32.4 tn debt x 46% in the form of mortgages = $14.9 trillion. Give everybody their houses free of debt, make future loans on domestic property illegal. Yes, there'll be inflation, but the liberated houseowners will be able to afford it.

Will the banks be ruined? They're ruined now. Will the government have to nationalise them? They're doing it now.

These are revolutionary times. We may not be able to scourge the moneylenders from the temple, but at least we can chase them out of our houses.

Yes, the result's a house price crash, if you can't pump up the price with phoney-baloney money. But no debt, so so what?

The banker has inflated everything so you have to borrow to have anything. He's made himself indispensable, like a pusher of addictive drugs standing outside the school gates, giving away samples to get you hooked. He's your "friend", your "main man", who'll make you "well".

Bankers and their pet traders have become insanely rich by making you poor. Your assets are big on the outside and hollowed-out by debt on the inside; it's why they call it a bubble.

Do you know your enemy?

Faber says $5 trillion, not $700 bn

Dr Faber thinks the real cost will be seven times greater than the proposed bailout.

... and here are his thoughts on where to be invested - and the current advantages and future perils of holding cash:

Spectator letter is published

The Spectator magazine has published my recent letter; heavily edited, but at least it was the first in the list, so that's some sort of recognition:

"Storing up more trouble

Sir:

Your leading article (20 September) calls for a ‘kick up the backside’ to the banking industry. That kick should be aimed elsewhere. The British and American governments have not merely permitted this crisis to happen, but positively created it by a deliberate relaxation of monetary controls. Worse still, they have now decided that instead of destroying excess credit by asset deflation, bankruptcies and share collapses, the monetary inflation is to be consolidated by absorption of bad debt into the public finances.

I don’t see how this can end well. Some commentators are already saying that, if passed unaltered, the proposed American financial legislation could, once properly understood, trigger a major crash in US financial shares, possibly before this letter is published.

I think The Spectator and its economically savvy readers should put on fresh pairs of winkle-pickers, and gather in Whitehall and Washington for some kicking practice."

GSE losses "only $25 billion"

Bloomberg reports on the bailout plan. Only $25 billion? Phew - a couple of Senators were thinking maybe $1 trillion, as The Motley Fool's TMFSinchiruna points out.

Could I please have "only" 1% of the lower figure for my modest needs? You won't miss it - after all, look at what you haven't missed so far. I'd even write you a specially nice letter of thanks.