Late in the fall of 1988 the accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand (C&L), won a competitive award to construct a computer system that collected the monthly security and loan information relating to Ginnie Mae’s mortgage-backed security program. As a C&L consultant with a math major and a Wharton M.B.A., I was put in charge of testing the system as it was being developed.

Where is Howard Beale when we need him?  Two years into the Greatest Recession Since the Great Depression (GRSGD) and our financial leaders are still telling us that we need to be patient while waiting for our economic recovery.

Since receiving its last quarter’s data from the nearly 8,000 active banks in the United States, the FDIC is reporting another 700 plus banks as being troubled and part of their “problem bank list”.  Simply being on the FDIC’s problem bank list, however, does not mean or imply that a bank will be shutdown.  It simply means that the bank is showing some signs of problems, including such things as poor asset quality, insufficient equity to cover losses, poor risk management, etc.

The names of the FDIC problem banks are not made public.

This summer, the IRS rewarded Nicolas Cage for his “efforts” with a $6 million tax lien on his New Orleans’ properties for unpaid taxes. So the IRS, lead by tax cheat Timothy Geithner, is cracking down on Nicolas Cage for unpaid taxes. How ironic. Or perhaps, “how fitting” would be a better way to put it. After all, I think Tim Geithner, our spend-happy congress, the Federal Reserve, George Bush and Barack Obama can give Nicolas Cage a run for his money (what little is left of it) when it comes to irresponsible spending. Honestly, look at what our government has been doing:

The drop in the trade-weighted dollar index was led by the dollar’s 16% depreciation against the Canadian dollar, and a 12% decline against the euro. So watch for traveling Canadians towards the end of the summer; it’s getting nice and cheap for them to come visit.

The prestigious Onion News Network reports President Obama has decided to cut spending, but not with stimulus dollars or TARP. Rather, Obama pulls the plug on plans to develop billion dollar dragon tank.

But if the economy doesn’t turnaround in a meaningful way by the end of President Obama’s first term, what is the next move for central planners? Just when you think they’ve ran out of bullets, they pull out a golden gun. Could the next move be a nudge towards a cashless society? Whispers of such an about-face have turned into legitimate policy debates in Japan. The total shift to electronic money would be designed, and sold to the Japanese people, as a way to fight the deflationary spiral they’ve battled for a decade plus (coined “the lost decade”). Nothing scares the central bankers more than deflation. And nothing works better to push through policy than fear. Americans have learned all about fear mongering through both the Bush and Obama administrations.

With news of a “pay czar” coming down the shoot, this makes upward of 20 such top officials who answer directly, and only, to President Obama. These people may claim executive privilege, while simultaneously working free from the checks and balances of the legislative and judicial branches of government. In addition, it adds to a growing pool of unelected officials in Washington, who have no reason to be accountable to citizens.

It doesn’t seem like the Fed’s style to send taxpayers a check funded by equity or profits.

The May numbers are out and the United States lost over 500,000 jobs last month. The Dow Jones may have rebounded some, but every liberal, and most conservatives, will tell you that just affects those evil rich people. Average folks are still losing their jobs despite bailout after stimulus after bailout, etc.