Hedge fund collapse? Why not banks and brokerages instead? Why not cities and towns?

Florida Holds $2.2 Billion of Debt Cut to Junk Status
This article goes over the how mortgage-backed securities are threatening some cities and towns that invested in them. But buried at the end is a little history on the collapse of banks and brokerages. Not exactly the hedge funds I was looking for, but tragic enough:

Potential losses by states are part of the subprime meltdown that shook up Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's biggest brokerage, in October. The firm reported a $2.24 billion third- quarter loss and an $8.4 billion write-down, leading to the firing of CEO Stan O'Neal.

Executives Step Down

The next week, subprime losses reported by Citigroup Inc., which at the time was the largest U.S. bank by market value, led to the departure of CEO Charles Prince.

In June, two bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds holding subprime debt reported losses of $1.5 billion. Bear Stearns fired Warren Spector, the firm's co-president for fixed income and asset management and the bank's stock lost 30 percent of its value in the following two months.

Michael Tsarion selling conspiracy

Michael Tsarion speaks on 2012 - The Future of Mankind at the Granada Forum in LA on Aug 3, 2006. This video is 2 hr 24 min 48 sec. There is a link to www.originsandoracles.com.

He mentions the conspiratorial movement/alternative history. While watching, I began to develop some rules about how to sell a conspiracy theory.

• Quote from greats to make your points.
• "Henry Ford said 'people deserve the government they get.'"
• "Einstein said that when the bees go, the humans have 2 years left." (Ian Crossland)
• MC Escher in Powerpoint slides.
• Break down words and make them fit your agenda.
• government = from the latin - to control minds
• sanity from the same root as sanitize
• Use other conspiratorial works as sources, even if they are fictional:
• They Live -- a conspiratorial sci-fi movie.
• Use other conspiratorial theories to bolster your own.

He tells a good story, though.

Timewave Zero

I've been exposed to Terrence McKenna's ideas of the novelty theory of time-- time goes through peaks and troughs that correspond to novel ideas and traditional ideas in history-- and found myself looking through his ideas once again, inspired by a youtube video about a talk he gave on "The World and it's double".

He talks about history and novelty here:

I did a Google search for terrence mckenna timewave zero and came up with this site, which says that the singularity will be "a suprahistorical order in which our ordinary conceptions of our world will be radically transformed." This caught my eye, but what I really want to know is what is going to happen after this event. What is the conception of the world that we will inherit?
Perhaps it will be a world that the ancients understood; that inspired the Mayans to create their long count calender; that got the pyramids built; in which religions and great ideas were caught, molded, and expressed. Perhaps it is the time the tower of Babel was built, and God struck it down, made men speak in tongues, and made us forget time and history. I see the end of history as just another cycle, to be replaced again at some point with what we have now-- novelty and tradition. Maybe it will last 1000 years; the 1000 years of peace that the Bible mentions as a precursor to Christ's return.
Terrence McKenna died in 2000 of brain cancer.

Bernanke: Fed will respond "as needed"

Bloomberg report.

October Employment Numbers

Weird can't tell which is correct. I thought this quote was from an article written today, however, I found it again after clicking away from it and it says it was written at 5:55pm on November 1. That would be right as the crude oil price numbers sound correct:

With the market growing pessimistic about the economy, the Labor Department's report on October jobs creation, scheduled to be released Friday morning, will be taking on even more importance than it usually has. The data is expected to show unemployment remained steady in October, with payroll growth of 85,000 new jobs, compared with 110,000 in September.

But the title of the article is the Dow drops 360. And the Dow dropped 360 today:
Stocks Plunge With Dollar; Dow Down 360
Are we going through some sort of time warp?
Ok, on second glance, the Nov 1st article says:

The Dow fell 362.14, or 2.60 percent, to 13,567.87.

And today's article says:

The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 360 points -- just about matching its plunge of last Thursday.

That makes more sense. It goes on to say:

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 360.92, or 2.64 percent, to 13,300.02.

It's a slow bleed...

Fed speaks II

Lacker says the mortgage crisis isn't over yet. I say just wait until next year's rate cuts. Dissention in the ranks by non-voting members. If it gets much worse you may see more regulation in the mortgage market.
Warsh is waiting for more information.
Poole says we may need more cuts, which worries me, because he was against this before the first one.
Instead of Greenspan, now we have a five-headed monster to deal with when attempting to decode future moves.

Miskin Speaks; Fed outook is as volatile as the markets

Miskin spoke to the House Small Business Committee. Bloomberg report. Reuters. Looks like he's taking back what he said about taking back the Halloween rate cut. "Wait and see" seems to be the tone of this cautious Fed. Later today we'll hear from Warsh, Lockhart, and Poole, then Bernanke tomorrow.