European Central Bank to Accept Confederate War Bonds as Collateral, Citibank to Publish Customer Account Data, Sarah Palin Is the Only One to Understand the Senate . . .

And Other News That Did Not Happen, But Could Have

As The Dismal Political Economist reported earlier, he was somewhat astounded to learn that the European Central Bank (ECB) accepted Greek sovereign debt as collateral for loans.  Furthermore, in a move to shore up bank capital bases in Europe, the ECB today announced that it would also accept The Confederate States of America war bonds as loan collateral.  A spokesman said

“We know Confederate War Bonds do not carry high bond ratings, but we think they are solid collateral and that if problems arise we can impose an austerity program on the Confederacy and turn things around there.”

Jefferson Davis had no comment.

After they announced that computer hackers had obtained data on about 360,000 customers, Citibank today said that they were giving up on computer security and would publish on-line all of the information that they had on all of their customers.  Account numbers, social security numbers, personal data, health history, number of parking tickets and frequency of urination would all be made available to anyone who wanted to view the information.

“We cannot even begin to safeguard customer information” said the bank, “so we are just going to let it all hang out there.  We think the impact on our customers will be very small since all of this data has been available to hackers for years”.

After first voting not to end Ethanol subsidies and then voting to end ethanol subsidies Senate Democratic and Republican leaders said today that they would soon vote on whether or not to vote on the issue.  The leadership said it did not expect to get enough votes in order to have a vote on whether or not to vote, but in that case they would revisit the issue and have another vote on whether or not to have a vote on whether or not to vote on the issue.  “Makes sense to me” twittered Sarah Palin.

There will be another Special Election in New York State, this time to fill the vacant seat in the 9^th Congressional District.  Republicans have proposed a set of rules for the election, which are

1. There is to be no mention of the Ryan Plan for ending Medicare by any candidate.

2. Karl Rove gets to spend as much money as he wants in the race, all other spending is limited to $25.00 for both parties.

3. The Bush Recession will be officially renamed the Obama Recession in a non-partisan ceremony in a meeting hall in Queens.

4. There is to be no mention of the Ryan Plan for ending Medicare by any candidate.

5. Nancy Pelosi will be required to campaign for the Democratic candidate.

6. Public employee unions must agree to accept all of the blame and responsibility for New York city and New York state budget problems.

7. There is to be no mention of the Ryan Plan for ending Medicare by any candidate.

President Obama said he wants change the tone in elections and to show he is willing to go 97% of the ways towards meeting Republicans and so is willing to consider accepting these rules.