The unraveling of the financial fauxconomy appears to be accelerating. After lying earlier in the week about their liquidity problems, Bear Stearns is on the brink of collapse. Today’s emergency bailout – hastily orchestrated in the wee hours of Friday morning – was the first such move by the US Federal Reserve since the Great Depression. The Fed is authorized to take such action only under “unusual and exigent circumstances,” and the threat of a full market seizure certainly qualifies.

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Miklaszewski has a good piece on the shakeup.

Jim Rogers on what he’d do in Bernanke’s shoes: “I would abolish the Federal Reserve and I would resign.”

Carlyle Group collapsing; California home prices already 20% off peak; next up – I dunno, maybe bank runs to get some of these fancy new fivers, which are worth about a buck?

Woman stuck on toilet for two years. Reminds me a little bit of poor old Gayle Grinds.

OK – got a few phone calls and e-mails from y’all so I guess I need to say something about this. The primary thing I find disturbing about the news surrounding Governor Spitzer is his hypocrisy. He has prosecuted these operations in the past – apparently with great fanfare and pride. I have not followed his career very closely, but people who have worked with him tell me he is a good, competent guy, if sometimes a bit socially and professionally clumsy. Read the rest of this entry »

A great article by Glenn Greenwald on the American media, the disturbing results of its symbiosis with the political elite, and some comparisons with the British press. (The last video is the most painful, BTW.)

The lead writers for HBO’s show The Wire wrote a great piece in TIME this week railing against the War on Drugs. Their suggested approach: jury nullification. They say,

“If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

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Cool little piece at Forbes by Congressman Paul on what we’re facing with the dollar.

More homedebtors than ever walking away.