The EU/IMF raiding bank accounts in Cyprus to bail out the country's financial system sets a dangerous precedent and investors should "run for the hills" said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, on "Squawk on the Street" Thursday.

Rogers said that with Cyprus, politicians are saying that this is a special case and urging people not to worry, but that is exactly why investors should be concerned.

"What more do you need to know? Please, you better hurry, you better run for the hills. I'm doing it anyway," Rogers said. "I want to make sure that I don't get trapped. Think of all the poor souls that just thought they had a simple bank account. Now they find out that they are making a 'contribution' to the stability of Cyprus. The gall of these politicians."

"If you're going to listen to government, you're going to go bankrupt very quickly," he added.

"I, for one, am making sure I don't have too much money in any one specific bank account anywhere in the world, because now there is a precedent," he said. "The IMF has said 'sure, loot the bank accounts' the EU has said 'loot the bank accounts' so you can be sure that other countries when problems come, are going to say, 'well, it's condoned by the EU, it's condoned by the IMF, so let's do it too.'"

Jim Rogers, a voice closely followed by market participants, began shorting financials, home builders and Fannie Mae in 2006, and is famous for co-founding the Quantum Group of Funds with billionaire George Soros. Quantum is famously regarded for "breaking" the Bank of England and forcing a devaluation of the pound.

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The rest of the article and video of the interview.

This is pretty bad but serves as a reminder why Geithner and Bernanke should go:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now, how about the crime bosses from Goldman-Sachs?

Update: More sources on the matter

• Lehman Bankruptcy: 'Repo 105,' Firm's 'Accounting Gimmick,' Was Like 'A Drug,' Emails Show
• Report Shows How, Collapsing, Lehman Hid Woes
• Lehman Senior VP Warned Auditors About Repo 105

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So says the Wall Street Journal, in a scathing editorial about bailout skullduggery:

The cavalier use of brute government force has become routine, but the emerging story of how Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke forced CEO Ken Lewis to blow up Bank of America is still shocking. It's a case study in the ways that panicky regulators have so often botched the bailout and made the financial crisis worse.

In the name of containing "systemic risk," our regulators spread it. In order to keep Mr. Lewis quiet, they all but ordered him to deceive his own shareholders. And in the name of restoring financial confidence, they have so mistreated Bank of America that bank executives everywhere have concluded that neither Treasury nor the Federal Reserve can be trusted. [...]

Evaluating the policy of Messrs. Bernanke and Paulson on their own terms, this transaction fundamentally increased systemic risk. In order to save a Wall Street brokerage, the feds spread the risk to one of the country's largest deposit-taking banks. If they were convinced that Merrill [Lynch] had to be saved, then they should have made the public case for it. And the first obligation of due diligence is to make sure that their Merrill "rescuer" of choice -- BofA -- had the capacity to bear the losses. Instead they transplanted the Merrill risk to BofA shareholders, the bank's depositors and the taxpayers who ensure those deposits. And then they had to bail out BofA too.

The political class has spent the last few months blaming bankers for everything that has gone wrong in the financial system, and no doubt many banks have earned public scorn. But Washington has been complicit every step of the way, from the Fed's easy money to the nurturing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and since last autumn with regulatory and Congressional panic that is making financial repair that much harder. The men who nearly ruined Bank of America have some explaining to do.

Whole thing here. Hit and Run, Reason
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Katherine Mangu-Ward

Banks who jumped at bailout money now seem surprised to discover that the fine print gave the government the right to retain ownership stakes in the banks for up to 10 years. Sure, banks were lead to believe the warrants provision was minor, and wouldn't be a problem when the time came to negotiate repayment terms. But if there's anything this financial crisis should have taught us, writes Associate Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward, it is to be skeptical of lenders who casually promise that paying back enormous loans won't be any problem at all (ask anyone with an adjustable-rate mortgage). 

Read all about it here.

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Every tax day, a handful of lefties pen paeans to the federal government, and how they do and the rest of us should feel inspired, patriotic, and invigorated when we pay our taxes.

Here’s one example from this year. Here’s another.

The sentiment is particularly misguided this year, as we begin year seven of a misguided war waged under false pretenses; we’re hearing new revelations every day about how the federal government has systematically violated our constitutional rights, and the human rights of others; and the government is spending billions, and risking trillions, to prop up private companies that took stupid risks and should have gone out of business for doing so–despite that the majority of the public opposes the bailouts.

Still, I always want to ask people who write these articles, why not pay more than your fair share, then? If greed (i.e., wanting to keep as much of your own money as possible) is evil, and if government really is so benevolent and wonderful (provided your party is running it, of course), why not pay double or triple what you owe? The point particularly applies to wealthier supporters of big government. But even journalists, I’d think, if they were true believers, could afford to send a quarterly $500 check to the federal treasury.

Think of it as a donation to your favorite charity–only a really, really awesome one that’s filled with noble, self-sacrificing public servants; is run by selfless politicians who run for office only out of the goodness of their hearts; never violates our rights, despite that it has the power to do so; wastes virtually no money at all on overhead or bureaucracy; and generally makes all of us all-around better human beings.

MORE: Hell, some of them publicly ask for assistance on how to pay less that what they rightfully owe.

A Radley Balko article.
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Democrats may have eliminated provisions on birth control and sod for the National Mall in the "job stimulus" -- but buried on page 147 of the bill is stimulation for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases!

The House Democrats' bill includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In the past, the CDC has used STD education funding for programs that many Members of Congress find objectionable and arguably unrelated to a mission of economic stimulus [such as funding events called 'Booty Call' and 'Great Sex' put on by an organization that received $698,000 in government funds.]

"Whether this funding has merit is not the question; the point is it has no business in an economic plan supposedly focused on job creation," says a stimulated Hill source.

Developing...



.pdf file of bill
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LONDON (AP) -- World stock markets plunged Friday as the U.S. Senate's rejection of a $14 billion deal to rescue Detroit's ailing automakers stoked concerns that the recession in the world's largest economy will be even longer and deeper than projected.

The FTSE 100 of leading British shares was down 127.87 points, or 2.9 percent, at 4,260.82, while Germany's DAX fell 185.22 points, or 3.9 percent, to 4,581.98. The CAC-40 in France fell 130.48 points, or 4.0 percent, to 3,175.65.

Earlier, Asian markets tumbled, with Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average down 484.68 points, or 5.6 percent, to 8,235.87. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slid 5.5 percent to 14,758.39.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a big sell-off later on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average was projected to drop 259 points, or 3.0 percent, to 8,311, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index was forecast to fall 32.90 points, or 3.8 percent, to 841.60.

An AP article
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posted by Austin Wilkes

Anti-government and bank rage reached a boiling point Monday in the small island nation of Iceland, where residents have seen unemployment and inflation skyrocket following the fall collapse of the Icelandic banking system. Iceland, a nation recently prided as a great example of the “Scandanavian Model” of a prosperous welfare system, has in a matter of months been transformed into the least politically and ecnomically stable nation in Europe. The International Herald Tribune reports below:

Tiny Iceland has seen its banks and currency collapse in just a few weeks while prices and unemployment soar — leaving a country regarded as a model of Scandinavian prosperity in a state of shock.

Luckily, Icelanders seem to be able to identify the perpetrators as the ruling government and the central banking establishment that has grown up around it-

Thousands of Icelanders marked the 90th anniversary of their nation’s sovereignty with angry protest Monday, and several hundred stormed the central bank to demand the ouster of bankers they blame for the country’s spectacular economic meltdown….

“The government played roulette and the whole nation has lost,” writer Einar Mar Gudmundsson told a noisy but peaceful anti-government rally of several thousand people in downtown Reykjavik.

The Icelandic system, one built upon even greater leverage than that of America, has come to its current state of despair in the blink of an eye. Hopefully citizens of other nations will realize they could be next and pressure their officials to take the necessary precautions to provide for the most swift and orderly decline and ultimate recovery.

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Amazing, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, talking about the Fed's funny money. Maybe she still remembers Weimar Republic and its hyperinflation.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, turned the tables on her international critics on Wednesday by accusing the US and other governments of making “cheap money” a central tool of their economic management, thus planting the seeds of a similar crisis in five years.

“Excessively cheap money in the US was a driver of today’s crisis,” she told the German parliament. “I am deeply concerned about whether we are now reinforcing this trend through measures being adopted in the US and elsewhere and whether we could find ourselves in five years facing the exact same crisis.”

Ms Merkel’s comments came as the European Union proposed a €200bn economic stimulus plan aimed at avoiding a deeper recession through tax and infrastructure plans. There were immediate doubts as to whether member states would back the measures.

The proposals envisage the EU’s 27 states contributing about €170bn with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank providing the remaining €30bn, partly through accelerated spending programmes.

“Angela Merkel and other conservative leaders such as [Italian premier Silvio] Berlusconi may well water down the plan and refuse to make the necessary national investments,” said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister who heads the Socialist party in the European parliament.

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