Wednesdays News Roundup

I added these two links to my 2009 predictions post:
Mish (the BEST financial blogger on the NET)
Frank Shostak (Economist)
Good article explaining why Keynesian response to the downturn is not going to help.

With the new year, the news machine is on full tilt. news from last 3 days.
News
Bank of England set to lower rates to lowest level in 300 YEAR history My Spin: English are worse off than America, kiss the British pound goodbye.
Obama predicts quick approval for 300 Billion stimulus My Spin: Could make it 600 billion. Creating debt to give away money is not the solution. Paying debt down and increasing productivity, plus honest accounting to restore trust is.
New York unemployment claim system failed, overwhelmed by volume My Spin: I'm a software developer, this is highly unlikely, more like the software sucks. The news spin makes for nice news print buzz.
Construction INCREASED for non-residential - My Spin: SRS is looking even better. Build build build, create a commercial real estate collapse next.
US Commercial property in a downward spiral - My Spin: very hard to not buy SRS at these levels, with expectations it will hit over $200 in 09. But SRS is a high risk, hold short term type of play.
As vacant office space grows, so does lending crisis - My Spin: I repeat..SRS anyone?
Commercial property loans signal deepening stress - My Spin: OK..SRS..enough already we get it from various angles.
Treasury invests 15 billion in seven more banks - My Spin: The media & government are mis-using "invest". Kinda like I "invested" with homeless people. Its called giving, with no expectations of a return. If you get it back, great.
Fed started buying MBS on 1/5/09 My spin: Is there ANYTHING the government won't buy? I would like them to announce some garbage finance paper that they publicly reject isn't worth buying.
Russia reduced GAS flow to Europe My spin: Got UNG? (I have about 3K @25.10)
Credit squeeze hits largest companies hardest My Spin: ACK! Large companies employee many people, including me! :)
Obama says trillion-dollar deficits may last years My Spin: Good for gold, oil, and other resources. Bad for making a living in the USA.
Chemical giant LyondellBasell says US operations and European unit file for bankruptcy My spin: Conga line continues...
Chrysler, With $4 Billion in U.S. Aid, Won’t Report Finances My Spin: Secrecy in financial balance sheets solves everything, just look at the last 6 years, a wondrous success story. Now if I can only pull this trick with the IRS......
GE Capital plans to raise $10 billion in the biggest offering of debt backed by the FDIC My Spin: and in a couple of years when inflation hits, interest rates soar people will ask what they can do to stop it. Answer: Not let this crap happen, but there will no way to undo the damage.
77% of Americans Blame Media for making economic crisis My Spin: Want PROOF that I am on the right track?. If 77% Americans can't understand the fundamentals of the crisis, the problem is they don't READ. Thats the problem. Jon Stewart can't dive deeply into the causes. I do blame media for not freaking out in 2005 of the imending doom.
IBM to cut thousands of jobs My Spin: ACK! I love working with IBM. I hope its just the fat being let go.
Woman dies of bird flue in Bejing My Spin: Yea, thats what I need, yet another reason to go paranoid.
FOMC sees spectre of Depression from deflation My Spin: Hello? Does anyone read the REAL news, bloggers like me?
Good blog from Mish on the government rewarding bad companies and punishing good ones

Pretty Funny Comic, thanks to Blog Reader "Paul Lomba"