Barney W Bush

Credit default slop, redux

By A.J. DiCintio

Busy living their lives, most people don't have time to memorize every last name of every last product hawked by the modern financial industry.

Therefore, I'll explain straightaway that the title plays with the name of the financial instrument called a "credit default swap" or "CDS," which is an insurance policy a lender buys to protect himself against default.

As for clearing up the business about "slop," I simply ask readers to think about the following two recent historical facts:

First, that dreams of very easy, very big money danced in the heads of AIG big shots when they sold boatloads of CDS's to banks looking to protect themselves against the astounding losses they would incur if the "sub-prime" mortgage market went south.

Second, that the stink filled bubble created by the "ownership society" dreamed into being by stupidly dogmatic, unforgivably airheaded politicians and regulators such as George Bush, Barney Frank, and Alan Greenspan and carried out by contemptibly irresponsible big bankers did inevitably burst, creating a financial crisis that doomed the nation to long term pain and sent AIG reeling toward bankruptcy — until what Barry Rithholtz calls "Bailout Nation" stepped in.

Here's how mcauleysworld — to whose effort I add three more essential components — did its part to make this sordid, painful history easy to understand:

[The Fed's easy money policies and the "ownership society" scam] ¨ Fannie & Freddie ¨ Toxic Mortgages ¨ Toxic Mortgage Securities ¨ Credit Default Swaps ¨ Collapse ¨ Bailout ¨ [Today's Ugly "New Normal"]

Having established that Washington's politicians conspired with Wall Street and its K Street lobbyists to betray Main Street in a manner so disgustingly ironic "too big to fail" AIG was saved from bankruptcy by taxpayer money that paid Goldman Sachs and foreign banks 100 CDS cents on the dollar, I now turn to "redux."

Here, thanks must go to John Mauldin (johnmauldin.com), whose interpretation of data compiled by economist Kash Mansori warns that American banks are at it again, having currently sold "$120 billion of credit default swaps" to European banks seeking protection from default by one or more of the PIGS [Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain].

President George W. Bush and His Pets

George W. Bush is the son of President George H.W. Bush, who I already told you about .  You probably remember that the older Bushes owned Millie, the springer spaniel who had a litter of puppies in the White House and who also wrote a best-selling book.  Well, when the younger George Bush got to be president in 2001, he still had one of Millie's puppies, who was named Spot Fletcher, and she moved back into the White House, where she had first been born.  Spot Fletcher was named after Scott Fletcher,  who was the shortstop of the Texas Rangers when Mr. George W. Bush used to own the team.  And even though Spot Fletcher sounds kind of like a boy's name, the dog it belonged to was really a girl. Well, before I tell you more about President Bush's pets, I will just tell you a little bit about the man himself.  He was born on July 6, 1946, and he grew up in Texas.  He went to Yale University and to Harvard Business School.  Then he worked in the oil business for a while.  He married Laura Welch in 1977.  In 1994, he was elected Governor of Texas, and he ran for President in 2000.  He got elected, but it was a close election that had to be decided by a group called the Electoral College, and a lot of people were angry about how the election turned outxddc.  But Mom said I shouldn't talk about politics, so I won't. Anyway, when President and Mrs. Bush and their twin daughters moved into the White House, they had Spot the springer spaniel, like I already told you.  And also they had a Scottish Terrier named Barney, who was born on September 30, 2000, in New Jersey.  His mother, Coors, was owned by Christine Todd Whitman, who was the former Environmental Protection Agency Director and the former Governor of New Jersey.  Ms. Whitman gave Barney to Mr. Bush as a gift. Barney got to be famous right away because he had his own website and he made videos for YouTube with people such as Dolly Parton, Tony Blair, and Karl Rove.  The president loved Barney very much and liked to play ball with him on the White House lawn.  He said that Barney was "the son I never had."  When the war in Iraq was going badly and the president's poll ratings went down, some people said that Mr. Bush was using Barney as a WMD -- a "weapon of mass distraction.

George W Bush, Bushism, Harken Energy Scandal, Public Image of George W. Bush, George W. Bush Presidential Campaign 2004

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