See these two screws on the left? Think of the little screw as AIG bonuses. That big nasty long screw is AIG funneling $183 billion dollars of your money to foreign banks and to banks that already have wads of cash on hand. Those two screw jobs are not even to scale because the large screw would go past the page. Look those two screws over. Now which one do you believe Populist outrage should be focused on?

So we are all outraged over AIG bonuses. Now lets amplify that outrage to the scale of the ripoff. The bonuses are only 0.001 of the real ripoff that just happened. Your tax dollars were funneled through AIG to foreign banks and to U.S. banks for worthless assets. Your own blind rage is a smoke screen, being used by media elites so you do not see the real screw job going on.

In an Instapopulist earlier we showed the AIG payout disclosure. Now I want to amplify those payouts. In the attached file AIG lists payouts to counter parties.

What happened? Basically a bunch of companies placed bets, called credit default swaps, that home mortgages weren't so great and would probably go bust. AIG (Financial Products), as the great global gambling hall, allowed these bets to be placed. Then AIG got a huge mega wad of cash from the government so they could pay out on these casino hall winnings instead of going bankrupt. Banks who won big are foreign banks and of course Goldman Sachs, former Treasury Secretary Paulson's former company.

Think it's about unfreezing credit markets for you and me? Think it's about contracts? Don't you remember something about other nations taking care of their own banking system? Do you believe the United States should prop up the entire globe or payout U.S. taxpayer money to other nations?

Contracts are broken all of the time and considering this is U.S. taxpayer money footing the bill to pay for the below banks gambling bets, yeah, a nation can break such outrageous contracts. This is especially true considering these very institutions are getting billions of your money from the TARP and Federal Reserve. Did you know Goldman Sachs bought an energy speculation firm while receiving TARP funds?

The Wall Street Journal put together an image to show you how this Ponzi scheme works:

It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

This is a nice illustrated video to explain, in layman's terms, how the credit crisis happened. If you are having problems getting your head wrapped around what is going on, you might watch this.

The blogs are simply ablaze over bonuses, who allowed it, finger pointing and outrage. To that effect, I thought putting the focus on a fairly detailed and informative Congressional hearing is in order.

American International Group’s Impact on the Global Economy: Before, During, and After Federal Intervention.

Firstly one might read the Government Accountability Office testimony. It's quite a mixed bag and one must really be concerned in AIG taking years to rid itself of the London Financial unit, referred to as AIGFP. Later in the testimony, Liddy himself says this is the problem and it needs to be wound down quickly. Quickly is assuredly not years.

On August 3, 1986, Florence Reece passed away at the age of 86. She was one of the greatest poets, songwriters, and social activists to ever come out of the Kentucky hills. Her signature song was "Which Side Are You On?"

The song is probably second only to The Internationale as a favorite for striking workers everywhere. It's a simple and powerful song that is only upstaged by the story behind it, and that's the story I want to tell.

That's how Marc Faber described the market for treasuries today.
Why would he say this? To answer that you have to look at two different factors - supply and demand. For the demand side, you should look at today's Treasury International Capital (TIC) report.

Net foreign purchases of long-term securities were negative $43.0 billion.
...
Foreign holdings of Treasury bills decreased $15.4 billion.

Monthly net TIC flows were negative $148.9 billion. Of this, net foreign private flows were negative $158.1 billion, and net foreign official flows were $9.2 billion.