By yesterday, however, the markets were moving in ways that cannot have made the Fed happy. The dollar fell — an expected result from cutting short-term interest rates — but long-term rates rose, and so did mortgage rates.”Alan Greenspan’s conundrum is becoming Ben Bernanke’s calamity,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG.

That’s right, mortgage rates went up, not down, after the Fed cut, the complete reverse of what they wanted.

The real reason for the Fed’s 50 bp cut.

The situation was indeed critical and the cost of money had to be brought down sharply or the banks would have to sell collateral (CDOs, CLOs, etc.) in a depressed market and write huge losses in their books - If they could find a buyer, that is.

So the cost of money was brought down.

Funny, I thought these guys were all capitalists, and believed in letting market solve problems and in letting inefficient companies die so that better ones can be born. I guess not, because what the Fed did was temporarily bail out the banks - and did so without addressing the underlying problem they have. So not only is the Fed cut not working, it can’t work, because it ignores the toxic mortgage junk the banks can’t sell. But they did throw the billionaires a (leaky) life preserver, while doing precious little to help the poor schlubs who are losing their homes.

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Alisher Usmanov, Uzbek billionaire, wants to buy the Arsenal Football Club. British bloggers began exposing his apparent sleazy, violent past. He retaliated by getting their sites thrown off their servers. This includes the site of Craig Murray, former UK Amabassabor to Uzbekistan. Chicken Yoghurt has the full details of what has now become a major issue in British blogdom.

Some of Murray’s relevant posts are now on UK IndyMedia until he gets his site running again.

An excerpt from one of Murray’s posts.

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a vicious thug, criminal, racketeer, heroin trafficker and accused rapist.

From The Nether-World (read the original, it has copious links to other articles)

Suffice to say that Alisher Usmanov is close to Islom Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan (ally of the UK and USA) who gets his kicks from having his subjects raped with broken bottles or boiled to death. Given Alisher Usmanov and his legal team’s enthusiasm for bullying anyone who has anything less than flattering to say about this wonderful person, I won’t go into the allegations of criminality reported by sources far more reliable than Schillings [their law firm]. For now I’ll just lament the apparent introduction of Uzbekistan’s interpretation of the concept of freedom of speech here in the UK and wonder how this will affect a great British institution like Arsenal football club.

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(The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It is the largest estuary in the Western Hemisphere and a major source of water for much of California.)

Some instructive quotes from just-launched California Water Crisis, who plan to educate the public about the seriousness of the current water situation in California.

“I have just one statistic, one only, and that is 25 million people depend on Delta water for the drinking water of the state. And the probability of a big earthquake over 6.7 is 75% in the next 30 years. And if that were to happen, there are all indications that the Delta would collapse, the water would be gone, there would be no water for drinking, there would be no water for agriculture, there would be no water for fish, marsh, ecosystems,” said U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.

The levees in the Sacramento Delta are old, badly in need of repair, and have compared to those in New Orleans. Yes, they are that feeble.

“Today’s federal court ruling to drastically cut Delta water exports is further proof that our water system is broken, unreliable and in crisis. Judge Oliver Wanger’s decision is a devastating blow to our water supply system and economy,” said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Notice that Schwarzenegger did not attack the decision of the judge, as it is now apparent to virtually everyone all that California faces serious long-term water problems. The judge, in effect, said the system was collapsing and needs fixing now. No one disagrees. The California legislature will be meeting in special session to devise a plan.

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“When we look at the real history of the emergence of ecological thinking and science, there can be little doubt that Marxists and socialists were forerunners of it. They were many of the principal figures in the development of ecological thought and science. So the notion that socialists came to this field late is completely mistaken - it’s almost the exact opposite of the true history.”

More: Who said Marx wasn’t green?

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