Deja Vu all over again

Good news! Citigroup, the posterchild for "Too Big to Fail", has realized the error of their ways, vowed never to endanger the system again and is working doggedly to dismantle all the incomprehensible instruments of mass financial destruction that helped get our country into this mess. No more CDO's. They're getting back to traditional banking and leaving the crazy stuff to the private firms where if they blow up it's more like an M-80 than 5 kilo nuke. If only that was true..

Marketwatch-The all-new risk-free CLX!

Say What? Well, they're bankers. Maybe having a government guarantee that keeps you solvent and employed no matter how bad you screw up isn't the formula for long term success and risk aversion we'd hoped. Surely the Mortgage lenders and real-estate speculators have learned the painful lessons of the credit and housing bubble implosion. Haven't they?

WSJ-House-flipping making a comeback

Ummm..wait a minute here. So a bank that should have gone bankrupt but was saved by the taxpayers instead, and has kept most of it's upper level management intact, is unloading all this property fast at huge discounts? Why? Because there's just so much inventory they can't keep up? Yet they somehow find the hours to cook up a spanking new collateralized time bomb. Weird. They're acting like they can't lose their jobs, don't have to take the bank's losses, or pay for any.... Ohhh crap..

Reuters: Unlimited losses for Fannie and Freddie

I don't know about you but I'm a lot more pissed off about what's happening AFTER the bailouts than the bailouts themselves. Why does anyone think that this won't happen again? I'm pretty sure no one outside WA-WA land (Washington and Wall St) thinks we're home free. Looks like the same-ol same-ol from here. But I'm a skeptic. I"m sure with a shiny new "CLX" we can't lose.