Jackson Jambalaya

This is an open thread so fire away. Some news items of interest today:

Cookie Cutter News. Apparently the Solons in Mississippi have decreed the W should change its name to something else. There is nothing wrong with calling it MUW but such is not to be, as they try to run from its esteemed history. They now want to call the school Waverly as the Clarion-Ledger reports today.

WLBT reports Frankie is turning over the financial records to the city council of who is on the city payroll. While Frankie was crying about not wanting to reveal personal information, someone should've asked him how hard it could be to have some of his Wood Street Players get some markers and start blacking out SSN's. Surely after all of those years in Jackson Public Schools they did learn how to color, n'est pas?

Japanese teens are introduced to Southern culture. Wonder if they taught them about catfish grabblin' or making moonshine. Feel free to insert redneck jokes here.

Lest we go by without our daily AIG update, here ya go: Real Clear Politics reports Chris Dodd's wife served on their board of directors. Think there just might be a reason why he looked out for their bonuses and allowed them to funnel billions to other banks? Meanwhile, look at the cottage he claims is worth only $100,000.

Meanwhile, Mish takes Krugman to task for being clueless about the bond markets. Mish quotes Krugman:
"The big policy news [last] week has been the Fed’s decision to buy $1 trillion of long-term bonds, going beyond the normal policy of buying only short-term debt. Good move....
My back of the envelope calculation looks like this: if the Fed buys $1 trillion of 10-year bonds at 2.5%, and has to sell those bonds in an environment where the market demands a yield to maturity of more than 5%, it will take around a $200 billion loss.
I’m not complaining; I think quantitative easing (it’s really qualitative easing, but I give up on trying to fix the terminology) is the right way to go. But we should go into it with our eyes open."

"Mish says jumpin' jimminycrickets and points out why Krugman is wrong:
For starters the Fed cannot force long term interest rates down without committing an unlimited amount of purchases, and perhaps not even then. Simply put, the Fed cannot change the primary trend. If long-term interest rates are headed higher there is little the Fed can do about it.
Japan proved that currency manipulation does not work, and I see little reason for open intervention in the treasury market to work either....
Moreover, as long as the Fed is willing to buy assets at inflated prices, there will be an endless supply of sellers. Given enough time and enough dollar commitment, eventually no one would own treasuries but the Fed. Imagine the complications unwinding that....."

Meanwhile, England tries some Obamanomics and finds no one wants to finance it. What happens if you throw a treasury bond giveaway party and nobody comes?