The dogs in the street know Washington is going to have to come up with more cash to plug the gaping holes in banks’ balance sheets. Of course, our Orwellian government doesn’t want us to think that major banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America are insolvent. Instead, we are to believe the “doublethink” that banks are simultaneously profitable and in need of billions of dollars in fresh capital. (Tax dollars, of course. Private investors, for some strange reason, aren’t so keen to invest in these zombies.) And so confident are the Washington bureaucrats in the power of their propaganda that they really expert us to believe that this extra capital is not need because banks are insolvent, but because they need the extra cash to cover future losses. This pernicious form of reality control will delay any real economic recovery by completely undermining investors’ confidence in the financial

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Mid-East Violence Drives Crude Higher; IndyMac to be Sold by Year’s end; Retailers in for Tough Start to 2009; Six-month Treasury Rate Hits Record Low; Commercial Banks Report $6 Billion in 3Q Revenue

Crude prices rose back above $40 a barrel yesterday (Monday), as Israel and Palestinian forces exchanged fire and casualties mounted in the region. Light, sweet crude for February delivery rose $2.31 cents to settle at $40.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A group of investment firms that includes J.C. Flowers & Co., Dune Capital Management, and Paulson & Co., is set to purchase IndyMac Bank, one of the nation’s largest failed banks, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) according to CNNMoney. Neither the FDIC nor any of ...