Zombie Banks

A zombie bank keeps draining bailout capital from the government but doesn't respond with any meaningful lending that helps the economy recover. The prevalence of zombie banks made the long Japanese recession of the 1990s especially painful. Arnold and his guests discuss solutions such as wiping out the zombie banks, and then creating new healthy banks with taxpayers as the shareholders or taking over troubled home loans and giving them to smaller community banks to restructure.

Never-ending recount The judges ruled Friday on which sets of absentee ballots would be considered (not counted, just considered for counting), and Coleman’s lawyers struck back Monday, asking them to reverse their ruling, reports Jay Weiner in MinnPost. Weiner sees the move as preparation for an appeal after the judges’ “final” decision on who won … and there’s still no word on when that decision will come. Trial, and posturing, continue today.

A zombie bank drains bailout capital but doesn’t respond with any meaningful lending,” reports MPR’s Chris Arnold. When the government props up a zombie bank, it’s not lending but it won’t die. Andy Kessler, a former hedge fund manager, says zombie banks “eat the fabric of the economy,” and warns: “I’ve watched every single one of those zombie movies and everybody knows you can’t cure zombie-ism … you gotta shoot ‘em, you gotta get rid of ‘em, cut their heads off, put the silver bullet through their hearts—and get some healthy banks.”

Liberty Media

Liberty Media has agreed to $530 million in loans to Sirius XM Radio, saving the satellite radio provider from possible bankruptcy and giving Liberty a 40 percent equity stake. Under the agreement, Liberty [LINTA 3.16 -0.15 (-4.53%) ], controlled by media mogul John Malone, would offer loans to Sirius [SIRI 0.17 0.07 (+71.3%) ], a portion of which will help pay $171.6 million in debt that was due on Tuesday.

Sirius XM Satellite Radio appeared close to staving off bankruptcy by striking a deal with Liberty Media, the owner of DirecTV, people briefed on the matter said Monday. The two sides have not finalized an agreement, but any such deal is likely to involve the beleaguered satellite radio operator selling a stake in itself to Liberty, freezing out a takeover bid by Echostar Communications, which owns the Dish Network.

Mr. Ergen and Sirius’s chief executive, Mel Karmazin, have had a long-running feud, one that complicated negotiations between the two companies. It was unclear earlier in the talks between the two whether Mr. Ergen would keep Mr. Karmazin on as Sirius’s chief executive, though the two had made some progress over the past week. But Sirius appeared to clearly prefer a deal with Liberty, Echostar’s biggest rival and a white-knight bidder who would have largely preserved the satellite radio company’s existing structure.

Eric Cantor

Eric Cantor therefore deserves our praise and congratulations on the results of the Porkulus bill in the House. Not once, but twice, did he as Whip help ensure that the bill passed the House without a single Republican vote. That’s unity, and that kind of unity doesn’t happen without at least some effort. it would be in this Porkulus bill effort. Even the “pared down” seven hundred billion dollars ($700,000,000,000) is a ridiculous amount of money, and will pave the way for a try at a tax hike.

Cantor sees the world a little differently than most Americans; his world belongs to the wealthy, and the middle class and poor are seen as an impediment to his world. You are the garbage to be swept off the street; he will gladly support prisons to incarcerate you, but not colleges to educate you.

Cantor's first measure introduced to Congress was the Education Empowerment Tax Credit Act that would provide for a $1,000 per-child education tax credit for all parents with school-age children. The bill would help parents to meet their children's individual education needs. The credit could only be used toward the purchase of computers, encyclopedias, tutors, special education needs and private school tuition.