Iraq War

"When the Romans built a bridge, the architect would have to stand under it when the scaffolding was removed. If he did his work badly, the bridge fell down and he was killed.

We'd like to see some feet poking out of the rubble of the Iraq War. Is that too much to ask? Rumsfeld. Bush. Cheney. And all the jackasses in Congress who went along with it. Of course. But how about these war criminals too:

Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby, John Bolton, Eliot Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney Jr. They said our troops would be "greeted like liberators." They claimed the war would "pay for itself" with Iraqi oil.

And let's not forget Thomas L. Friedman. He said an invasion of Iraq would be one of the great "revolutionizing" events of history... and that American GIs weren't really fighting men, but were "nurturing" a great new democracy.

Surely there is some corner of Hell, dark and hot, reserved for these intellectual miscreants. The sooner they get there the safer we will all be." - Bill Bonner

Uh-oh V

"... Look at the U.S. banking system. Look how much capital is deposited in U.S. banks versus the actual reserves at these banks.

Bank of America, for example, holds $1.1 trillion in deposits. Against that, it holds $457 billion in liquid assets – a $643 billion shortfall. Withdrawal requests are instantaneous… It would take the bank much longer to actually sell those assets in order to meet withdrawals. And should that situation occur, the value of the assets it's liquidating would be impaired.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is the entity responsible for insuring bank deposits. But it doesn't have any money. The whole thing is a mirage… The power of the printing press is the only thing standing behind this insurance."