No rescue in sight for what ails economy
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-econ5-2008oct05,0,353217,full.story
"The wheels seem to be coming off the economy right now," said Brian P. Sack, vice president of the respected forecasting firm of Macroeconomic Advisers. "It's hard to see how we avoid a recession, and it could prove a tough one to climb out of."
Even if the financial bailout plan begins to work, the nation will be lucky if all it experiences is a bad slowdown. The alternative, economists say, is something much worse -- a contraction that might go on for years.
The latest sign of trouble came Friday when the government reported that American employers sliced September payrolls by 159,000 jobs, the ninth straight month of losses and one that puts the country on track to shed a million jobs this year.
But jobs are only part of the trouble; almost every major player in the economy -- which had been growing until recently, if only slowly -- is now beating a hasty retreat:
* Consumers, who account for more than two-thirds of the nation's total economic activity and who boosted their spending earlier in the year thanks in part to more than $100 billion in government stimulus checks, have reversed course and begun cutting expenditures. Real consumption, after adjustment for inflation, slipped two-tenths of a point in June, a half-point in July and flat-lined in August, the latest month for which numbers are available, according to the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
...[Skipped]...
As for retail, it had grown into one of the major employers in the economy as Americans saw their incomes and wealth rise and wanted to buy more stuff.
But with the incomes of the majority of Americans flat-lining and wealth declining as home values and investments plummet, the retail industry is likely to shrink as well.
"We expect 8,000 stores to close this year, which is probably a record," said Howard Davidowitz, head of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a New York retail consulting firm.
"This will be the worst Christmas shopping season in a century," he predicted.
-----
Comment:
Um, yeah...the bailout is not designed to do anything but force the taxpayer to hand over billions, possibly trillions, to the very same financial gurus that wrecked their own investment firms. If you have tracked this story at all, we are literally handing over a minimum of $700 billion to people who modeled tranches of bad mortgage securities instruments on the track record of good mortgages in order to slap on the veneer of a blue chip investment onto them and thereby woo unscrupulous investors into parting with their hard-earned cash.
There is no planned oversight to speak of in the bill that has already been passed. It's all bullshit. It is one big giveaway. There is no provision to make the taxpayer a future stakeholder in any of the wealth that may later be generated by these companies. Say bye bye to billions.
In your nightmares you might imagine that the very wealthy share their wealth with the rest of us - but that is the same sad, bullshit "trickle down" economic theory that is always trotted out to justify this exact same strategy every time. These people have more money than they can realistically spend in their lifetimes even if they spent all of their time trying to do that instead of trying to get their hands on even more money.
What the bailout doesn't do, and was never designed to do, is stimulate the economy in any meaningful way. All it does is prop up some investment firms that were going under.
Why should the American taxpayer care about that even slightly?
Where is aid for middle-america? Where is the help we need to give to people in foreclosure? When people lose their homes, and then possibly their jobs because they have become financially unstable, they go on welfare and other kinds of public assistance. Did you know that people with bad credit find it difficult to get jobs because prospective employers consider them a security risk? Isn't it better to take over these bad mortgages, renegotiate them, allow people to stay in their homes, help them keep their jobs and thereby keep the wheels of the true economy rolling along? That's how you manage a slow-motion disaster: one family at a time.
The upshot here is this: the real bailout is yet to come.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Bailout Double Hostage
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/flash/player-time.html?start=2008-10-02%2020:06:57&stop=2008-10-02%2020:18:45&net=1
-----
Comment:
Chicken Little politics. More importanly, this...
...Senate roll call vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213
...House roll call vote:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml
My personal hit list:
Senators -
***Dianne Feinstein (D)
***Barbara Boxer (D)
Representatives -
*** Dennis Cardoza (D-18)
*** George Radanovich (R-19)
I am voting for the opposition. No mercy.
-----
Comment:
Chicken Little politics. More importanly, this...
...Senate roll call vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213
...House roll call vote:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml
My personal hit list:
Senators -
***Dianne Feinstein (D)
***Barbara Boxer (D)
Representatives -
*** Dennis Cardoza (D-18)
*** George Radanovich (R-19)
I am voting for the opposition. No mercy.
The Wrong Bailout
Wary of Public Outcry, Revised $800B Wall St. Bailout Stuffed with Earmarks to Sway Election-Year Incumbents
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/3/wary_of_public_outcry_revised_800b
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think this bill, five weeks before an election, is illustrating for the American people, when there are two currencies of power—votes and money—that even at this time, when the power of votes is at its cyclical high, meaning just before the election, they are almost laughing at the American people, in the—by the nature and structure of this bill. This is a very sad result.
...[skipped]...
JUAN GONZALEZ: Robert Johnson, you mentioned Henry Paulson. The New York Times has an article today, a fascinating look at how this crisis unraveled, and they claim that back in 2004, it was Paulson himself, who, as head of Goldman Sachs at that time, had meetings with all the other major investment banks and the Securities and Exchange Commission and convinced the SEC to allow them to reduce the amount of money that they kept in reserves to back up any debt that they had, in essence, that he pushed the SEC to reduce regulation and allow them to take the risks that ended them up where they are today.
ROBERT JOHNSON: I read that story, as well, and while I can’t comment in the sense of having been there, it doesn’t surprise me. Investment bankers were trying to relieve constraints, diminish capital and give themselves the freedom to take more leverage, and that is a very significant part of why we’re in this mess today.
I do also want to underscore that I believe it was Secretary Paulson who made the call to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, that led to the very, very violent restructuring of AIG with taxpayers’ money, which led to the crisis that led to this bailout bill. I believe, when people take the zoom lens out and look at the history of this bill, they will look at Henry Paulson as being the person who made the critical error that has sent us not only into a national, but a worldwide, credit freeze right now. He’s got a lot of work to do to earn his reputation back with the taxpayers’ $700 billion in the next chapter, and I am nowhere near as comfortable as Warren Buffett is about having him be the person to do that.
...[skipped]...
What I would like to see in this bill, I would like to have seen the money injected as capital infusion by buying preferred stock into the banks, so that the taxpayer would retain some rights, existing stockholders would be deluded. Existing stockholders, after all, are the owners of the companies that made this mess. Then, in the recovery, the Treasury could make back as much as, some estimate, $300 billion on that stock ownership, instead of having those existing stockholders make that money.
Secondly, and perhaps a place where we should have started, was the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation acknowledging the overhang of these—and unaffordability of all these mortgages and developing a restructuring, which, by the way, would raise the value of the securities, these mortgage-backed securities, that are toxic assets sitting in all the banks.
I do believe we need a bailout. As I said the other day when I was talking with Bruce Marks, I do not think this is a synthetic or fake crisis. We do need to inject what you might call life back into the organs of the economy. There was a story this morning. The Federal Reserve reports that bank lending to small businesses is being cut off very rapidly. And this does not portend well for the economic health of every region of the United States.
But homeowner relief, some significant regulatory reform, equity capital injections into the banks, which, by the way, because of the use of capital and the leverage of capital, you get ten to twelve times the impact on the credit flow in the economy as when you pay—when you overpay for toxic assets as the TARP facility would.
I think it was a very misconceived bill. Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, John Makin on the American Enterprise Institute, Alex Pollock, the American Enterprise Institute, Lucian Bebchuk at Harvard Law School and Olin Foundation—these are conservatives and liberals all standing around saying, “Why are you doing the wrong thing, Secretary Paulson?” And Congress went along.
...[skipped]...
Yes. It went up by roughly $150 billion for those kinds of special pork-related projects. Now, what you’re seeing is the Congress and the Senate are daring the American people to get mad and throw them out. As David Sirota said in his first book, Hostile Takeover, this isn’t about choosing between Rs and Ds; this is about a bipartisan money machine working against the population. They’re daring you. They’re daring you to turn out in five weeks and, in essence, support challengers against incumbents, because the incumbents are the ones responsible for doing this bill.
-----
Comment:
Democracy inaction or the beginning of some kind...?
My advice: vote every motherfucker that voted for this travesty - this great social and financial injustice - out on his ass!
Seriously.
There were and are dozens of ways to do this better and far more wisely.
And let's be very clear about one other thing. This really doesn't fix anything. It's just a money-grab. Who gives a shit if some investment firms go belly up? Who cares if foreign investors cry like bitches? This is very specifically about how to spend money for which we taxpayers work very hard. We were all just robbed - every person in the U.S. now owes a part of this handout worth a few grand and rising. Because that's the real problem: they didn't fix the underlying problems, those will still need to be fixed and escalate the price of this bailout.
I don't like to be alarmist, but this could be the final looting that is even possible. When you fall back from your current position, is there another to which you can fall back to the next time? Or is this it - the final belt-tightening before the end?
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/3/wary_of_public_outcry_revised_800b
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think this bill, five weeks before an election, is illustrating for the American people, when there are two currencies of power—votes and money—that even at this time, when the power of votes is at its cyclical high, meaning just before the election, they are almost laughing at the American people, in the—by the nature and structure of this bill. This is a very sad result.
...[skipped]...
JUAN GONZALEZ: Robert Johnson, you mentioned Henry Paulson. The New York Times has an article today, a fascinating look at how this crisis unraveled, and they claim that back in 2004, it was Paulson himself, who, as head of Goldman Sachs at that time, had meetings with all the other major investment banks and the Securities and Exchange Commission and convinced the SEC to allow them to reduce the amount of money that they kept in reserves to back up any debt that they had, in essence, that he pushed the SEC to reduce regulation and allow them to take the risks that ended them up where they are today.
ROBERT JOHNSON: I read that story, as well, and while I can’t comment in the sense of having been there, it doesn’t surprise me. Investment bankers were trying to relieve constraints, diminish capital and give themselves the freedom to take more leverage, and that is a very significant part of why we’re in this mess today.
I do also want to underscore that I believe it was Secretary Paulson who made the call to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, that led to the very, very violent restructuring of AIG with taxpayers’ money, which led to the crisis that led to this bailout bill. I believe, when people take the zoom lens out and look at the history of this bill, they will look at Henry Paulson as being the person who made the critical error that has sent us not only into a national, but a worldwide, credit freeze right now. He’s got a lot of work to do to earn his reputation back with the taxpayers’ $700 billion in the next chapter, and I am nowhere near as comfortable as Warren Buffett is about having him be the person to do that.
...[skipped]...
What I would like to see in this bill, I would like to have seen the money injected as capital infusion by buying preferred stock into the banks, so that the taxpayer would retain some rights, existing stockholders would be deluded. Existing stockholders, after all, are the owners of the companies that made this mess. Then, in the recovery, the Treasury could make back as much as, some estimate, $300 billion on that stock ownership, instead of having those existing stockholders make that money.
Secondly, and perhaps a place where we should have started, was the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation acknowledging the overhang of these—and unaffordability of all these mortgages and developing a restructuring, which, by the way, would raise the value of the securities, these mortgage-backed securities, that are toxic assets sitting in all the banks.
I do believe we need a bailout. As I said the other day when I was talking with Bruce Marks, I do not think this is a synthetic or fake crisis. We do need to inject what you might call life back into the organs of the economy. There was a story this morning. The Federal Reserve reports that bank lending to small businesses is being cut off very rapidly. And this does not portend well for the economic health of every region of the United States.
But homeowner relief, some significant regulatory reform, equity capital injections into the banks, which, by the way, because of the use of capital and the leverage of capital, you get ten to twelve times the impact on the credit flow in the economy as when you pay—when you overpay for toxic assets as the TARP facility would.
I think it was a very misconceived bill. Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, John Makin on the American Enterprise Institute, Alex Pollock, the American Enterprise Institute, Lucian Bebchuk at Harvard Law School and Olin Foundation—these are conservatives and liberals all standing around saying, “Why are you doing the wrong thing, Secretary Paulson?” And Congress went along.
...[skipped]...
Yes. It went up by roughly $150 billion for those kinds of special pork-related projects. Now, what you’re seeing is the Congress and the Senate are daring the American people to get mad and throw them out. As David Sirota said in his first book, Hostile Takeover, this isn’t about choosing between Rs and Ds; this is about a bipartisan money machine working against the population. They’re daring you. They’re daring you to turn out in five weeks and, in essence, support challengers against incumbents, because the incumbents are the ones responsible for doing this bill.
-----
Comment:
Democracy inaction or the beginning of some kind...?
My advice: vote every motherfucker that voted for this travesty - this great social and financial injustice - out on his ass!
Seriously.
There were and are dozens of ways to do this better and far more wisely.
And let's be very clear about one other thing. This really doesn't fix anything. It's just a money-grab. Who gives a shit if some investment firms go belly up? Who cares if foreign investors cry like bitches? This is very specifically about how to spend money for which we taxpayers work very hard. We were all just robbed - every person in the U.S. now owes a part of this handout worth a few grand and rising. Because that's the real problem: they didn't fix the underlying problems, those will still need to be fixed and escalate the price of this bailout.
I don't like to be alarmist, but this could be the final looting that is even possible. When you fall back from your current position, is there another to which you can fall back to the next time? Or is this it - the final belt-tightening before the end?
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Brad DeLong on Nationalization
Time Not for a Bailout, But for Nationalization...
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/09/time-not-for-a.html
Nationalization has the best chance of avoiding large losses and possibly even making money for the taxpayer. And it is the best way to deal with the moral hazard problem.
It might work like this. Congress:
In addition, Congress:
Paulson had his shot. It's time for the Democrats to pass a nationalization in the taxpayers' interest bill and dare Bush to veto it. If he does, then announce that the congress will pass it again the day after the election. And if he vetoes it again, announce that congress will pass it yet again on January 21, 2009.
-----
Comment: As DeLong notes, we want to avoid doing nothing and allowing fear to freeze liquidity. My only concern is that he doesn't seem to be distinguishing between any of the many types of financial firms. I guess he's seeing them all as a kind of public good no matter their particular stripe.
What I also like about his idea is that is avoids the poison pill as discussed below and regains political clout for those proffering this kind of sensible plan. It could be the Democrats if they have any brains.
::rolls eyes::
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/09/time-not-for-a.html
Nationalization has the best chance of avoiding large losses and possibly even making money for the taxpayer. And it is the best way to deal with the moral hazard problem.
It might work like this. Congress:
- grants the Federal Reserve Board the power to take any financial firm whatsoever with liabilities and capital of more than $25 billion that is not well capitalized into conservatorship
- requires the Federal Reserve Board to liquidate any financial firm in its conservatorship when it judges that the firm is insolvent (paying off in full or not paying off in full the liabilities of the firm at its discretion), unless
- the Federal Reserve Board finds that preservation as a going concern is in the interest of the taxpayer, in which case Congress
- grants the Federal Reserve Board the power to transform equity stakes in the firm into junior preferred stock at par value and then transfer ownership and custody of the firm to the Treasury
- requires the Federal Reserve to terminate conservatorship if the firm becomes well-capitalized once again.
In addition, Congress:
- grants the Treasury the power to issue up to $500 billion of troubled asset redemption bonds, the proceeds of which are then to be loaned to the Federal Reserve to be used to cover the liabilities of those liquidated firms that the Federal Reserve judges it is in the interest of the taxpayer to have their liabilities paid off in full.
Paulson had his shot. It's time for the Democrats to pass a nationalization in the taxpayers' interest bill and dare Bush to veto it. If he does, then announce that the congress will pass it again the day after the election. And if he vetoes it again, announce that congress will pass it yet again on January 21, 2009.
-----
Comment: As DeLong notes, we want to avoid doing nothing and allowing fear to freeze liquidity. My only concern is that he doesn't seem to be distinguishing between any of the many types of financial firms. I guess he's seeing them all as a kind of public good no matter their particular stripe.
What I also like about his idea is that is avoids the poison pill as discussed below and regains political clout for those proffering this kind of sensible plan. It could be the Democrats if they have any brains.
::rolls eyes::
Monday, September 29, 2008
Losers Take All
Big Financiers Start Lobbying for Wider Aid
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22lobby.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.
-----
“Is this the United States Congress or the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs?” Rep. Dennis Kucinich Rejects $700 Billion Bailout
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/29/is_this_the_united_states_congress
This is a copy of the bill which will provide for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. It has provisions in it where it talks about helping homeowners, but when you read the fine print, you see it has language like “may” instead of “shall” and “encouraging” instead of “mandating” help for the millions of homeowners who are worried right now about whether they’re going to lose their home. There’s no help for them in this.
...
So what we have here is a rescue plan that essentially gives all the speculators a bailout and puts the bad debts in the custody of the government. The president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank has said that this plan could create a fiscal chasm, says that the problem isn’t tight monetary policy, it’s the reckless behavior of some of these investors who have now found themselves in a position where a government bailout is going to help reward their bad behavior.
...
Well, you know, that implies that you would accept the underlying premise. I reject the underlying premise that we needed this bill. And as a matter of fact, that we’re putting this up before an adjournment in an election season shows that Congress is being put under extraordinary pressure to bail out Wall Street. We haven’t looked at any alternatives, Amy. This is—you know, it isn’t as though, if you had a liquidity crisis, that—you know, a real one—that you’d start to look at all the alternatives. We haven’t done that. We have a bill here, a bill of more than a hundred pages, that we haven’t had a single hearing on the bill, you know—on the concept, yes, on what Paulson and Bernanke asked for initially. But, you know, we need to have hearings on this. There’s 400 economists and three Nobel Prize-winning economists who have said, “Whoa, wait a minute! What are you doing? Why are you rushing this?” You know, this thing doesn’t smell right, frankly.
...
I said we’re the Congress of the United States; we’re not the board of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is struggling to survive. And, you know, their former chief is now the head of the US Treasury. He’s in a position to be able to direct assets in a way that would help enhance his own financial standing. I mean, that’s a clear conflict of interest. And, you know, that’s something that needs to be said. You know, why are we permitting the person who has essentially been in a position where he’s managed assets that—you know, many of which are now in trouble, and he can come back and help clear the books for a lot of his friends? This is wrong. It’s fundamentally wrong. And, you know, it’s one of the things that adds a degree of stench to this.
...
Well, there’s many ways that you can stimulate the economy. One is that you can have massive infrastructure spending. You could get that started right away. It would have to go far beyond what Congress passed the other day. If you want to spend money into circulation and move the money in the economy, you can do that through spending on things that are tangible: bridges, water systems, sewer system. You can stimulate the economy by having a national healthcare plan. I mean, that would take a little bit longer to set up, but that would be a huge break for all these businesses that are having difficulties.
...
Well, you know, the word “oversight” has new meaning here. You know, oversight could mean “I overlooked something.” And frankly, the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way while all these—all this fast-paced trading was going in derivatives and derivatives of derivatives. We have about a four—$500 trillion, almost a half a quadrillion dollars of derivatives floating out there that no one really understands how that’s going to affect the underlying economy when some of these things start imploding.
...
You know, I think that—I think we’re looking at a situation here where it is precisely the lack of regulation and the lack of oversight by the administration that has caused this. Congress is going to have hearings next month, but frankly, we should be having hearings now, before we pass a bill. I mean, it’s just upside-down that you have hearings about the underlying problem after you pass a bill, because you have hearings first, you do the analysis, and then you come up with a fix that can protect investors, strengthen the economy.
...
We need to challenge again the underlying assumptions about a debt-based economy, about whether or not we should revisit the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, which has an unfortunately privatized monetary system and created a system which includes banks having the ability to create money almost out of thin air with a fractional reserve. We have to look at the implications of that, maybe put the Federal Reserve under the Treasury and have the Treasury really be responsive to the interests of the American people and keeping the economy going.
-----
I see those that want to take and how they will keep taking. Remember how Warren Buffett wanted in on the action? Here is more of the same.
And then I see Kucinich - who is normally derided as a UFO-freak - as one of the few that is making any sense whatever. But his political clout has been completely marginalized. Kucinich's presidential candidacy was of real interest me. So, of course, he didn't have a bloody prayer.
I'm with the seers of moonbeams...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22lobby.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.
-----
“Is this the United States Congress or the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs?” Rep. Dennis Kucinich Rejects $700 Billion Bailout
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/29/is_this_the_united_states_congress
This is a copy of the bill which will provide for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. It has provisions in it where it talks about helping homeowners, but when you read the fine print, you see it has language like “may” instead of “shall” and “encouraging” instead of “mandating” help for the millions of homeowners who are worried right now about whether they’re going to lose their home. There’s no help for them in this.
...
So what we have here is a rescue plan that essentially gives all the speculators a bailout and puts the bad debts in the custody of the government. The president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank has said that this plan could create a fiscal chasm, says that the problem isn’t tight monetary policy, it’s the reckless behavior of some of these investors who have now found themselves in a position where a government bailout is going to help reward their bad behavior.
...
Well, you know, that implies that you would accept the underlying premise. I reject the underlying premise that we needed this bill. And as a matter of fact, that we’re putting this up before an adjournment in an election season shows that Congress is being put under extraordinary pressure to bail out Wall Street. We haven’t looked at any alternatives, Amy. This is—you know, it isn’t as though, if you had a liquidity crisis, that—you know, a real one—that you’d start to look at all the alternatives. We haven’t done that. We have a bill here, a bill of more than a hundred pages, that we haven’t had a single hearing on the bill, you know—on the concept, yes, on what Paulson and Bernanke asked for initially. But, you know, we need to have hearings on this. There’s 400 economists and three Nobel Prize-winning economists who have said, “Whoa, wait a minute! What are you doing? Why are you rushing this?” You know, this thing doesn’t smell right, frankly.
...
I said we’re the Congress of the United States; we’re not the board of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is struggling to survive. And, you know, their former chief is now the head of the US Treasury. He’s in a position to be able to direct assets in a way that would help enhance his own financial standing. I mean, that’s a clear conflict of interest. And, you know, that’s something that needs to be said. You know, why are we permitting the person who has essentially been in a position where he’s managed assets that—you know, many of which are now in trouble, and he can come back and help clear the books for a lot of his friends? This is wrong. It’s fundamentally wrong. And, you know, it’s one of the things that adds a degree of stench to this.
...
Well, there’s many ways that you can stimulate the economy. One is that you can have massive infrastructure spending. You could get that started right away. It would have to go far beyond what Congress passed the other day. If you want to spend money into circulation and move the money in the economy, you can do that through spending on things that are tangible: bridges, water systems, sewer system. You can stimulate the economy by having a national healthcare plan. I mean, that would take a little bit longer to set up, but that would be a huge break for all these businesses that are having difficulties.
...
Well, you know, the word “oversight” has new meaning here. You know, oversight could mean “I overlooked something.” And frankly, the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way while all these—all this fast-paced trading was going in derivatives and derivatives of derivatives. We have about a four—$500 trillion, almost a half a quadrillion dollars of derivatives floating out there that no one really understands how that’s going to affect the underlying economy when some of these things start imploding.
...
You know, I think that—I think we’re looking at a situation here where it is precisely the lack of regulation and the lack of oversight by the administration that has caused this. Congress is going to have hearings next month, but frankly, we should be having hearings now, before we pass a bill. I mean, it’s just upside-down that you have hearings about the underlying problem after you pass a bill, because you have hearings first, you do the analysis, and then you come up with a fix that can protect investors, strengthen the economy.
...
We need to challenge again the underlying assumptions about a debt-based economy, about whether or not we should revisit the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, which has an unfortunately privatized monetary system and created a system which includes banks having the ability to create money almost out of thin air with a fractional reserve. We have to look at the implications of that, maybe put the Federal Reserve under the Treasury and have the Treasury really be responsive to the interests of the American people and keeping the economy going.
-----
I see those that want to take and how they will keep taking. Remember how Warren Buffett wanted in on the action? Here is more of the same.
And then I see Kucinich - who is normally derided as a UFO-freak - as one of the few that is making any sense whatever. But his political clout has been completely marginalized. Kucinich's presidential candidacy was of real interest me. So, of course, he didn't have a bloody prayer.
I'm with the seers of moonbeams...
Right-Center-Left. Oh, Wait - there is no left!
You know, I communicate with people from many walks of life via the internet. One of the things that surprises me constantly is the jingoistic adherence to words like "Leftist," or "Marxist" or even phrases like "they hate America." One usually hears this kind of thing from "dittoheads" that listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and mistake his brand of entertainment for the facts of things.
Well, I'd like to set the record straight on something about American politics: there is no left. What socialist aspects of American government there are exist as the only checks in a system heavily tilted in favor of wild west style capitalism. And with the bailout being contemplated you can see where that leads: corporate welfare at the highest levels and at the most offensive cost.
The Grand Old Party is certainly the right. Their's is the party of corporate cock-sucking fascism. The Democrats actually take the center position. From an international perspective, I'd say the Democrats were actually just right of center and not the true middle. At the possible left are the many disenfranchised, tiny political groups that represent more progressive viewpoints. Many of these fractious splinter groups maintain what would on an international scale be seen as left positions, but they also do not collectively represent any kind of coherent left. The views of such people are rarely if ever discussed in major media nor are their views any significant part of public debate. In our two party system, with one group at the right and the other group near the center it's absurd to talk about the center group as being the "left." The Democrats are hardly Marxist, socialists, nor do they appear to hate America any more so than the Republicans who have of late been so willing to decimate our Constitutional safeguards.
I mean sure, as compared to the extreme right - anything left of that position is to the left, but that doesn't make it thee left. See what I mean? Simply being left of fascism might be a perfectly reasonable, non-leftist viewpoint.
There is no left in American politics, none that matters at any rate.
What we really have is fascism and near-fascism.
Well, I'd like to set the record straight on something about American politics: there is no left. What socialist aspects of American government there are exist as the only checks in a system heavily tilted in favor of wild west style capitalism. And with the bailout being contemplated you can see where that leads: corporate welfare at the highest levels and at the most offensive cost.
The Grand Old Party is certainly the right. Their's is the party of corporate cock-sucking fascism. The Democrats actually take the center position. From an international perspective, I'd say the Democrats were actually just right of center and not the true middle. At the possible left are the many disenfranchised, tiny political groups that represent more progressive viewpoints. Many of these fractious splinter groups maintain what would on an international scale be seen as left positions, but they also do not collectively represent any kind of coherent left. The views of such people are rarely if ever discussed in major media nor are their views any significant part of public debate. In our two party system, with one group at the right and the other group near the center it's absurd to talk about the center group as being the "left." The Democrats are hardly Marxist, socialists, nor do they appear to hate America any more so than the Republicans who have of late been so willing to decimate our Constitutional safeguards.
I mean sure, as compared to the extreme right - anything left of that position is to the left, but that doesn't make it thee left. See what I mean? Simply being left of fascism might be a perfectly reasonable, non-leftist viewpoint.
There is no left in American politics, none that matters at any rate.
What we really have is fascism and near-fascism.
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