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What about the CR military? Oh thats right they dont have one. US protects the CR!
By the way your welcome.What about the CR military? Oh thats right they dont have one. US protects the CR!
By the way TicoPaz your welcome.I will try to stay on topic, and maybe this thread has run its course, but a 500 point downturn in the Dow just woke me up again.
The US looks like it is turning itself into a third world nation. Fat cats at the top robbing and pillaging, and the poor bums in the middle will bear the brunt of a depression. Since when have there been so many former Goldman Sachs execs administering our economy? Paulson, and the new guy (can’t remember his name) who will distribute the $700bn bailout, are all from the same Wall street crud. I think we’ve had something like three former Goldman employees as treasury secretary. How come there are only two brokerage houses left? Morgan Stanley and GOLDMAN SACHS.
Nooooo they aren’t there to protect their friends..Right. What a load of BS we’ve been spoonfed by this administration and congress. The bailout won’t bail us out, just the club. They’ll continue to plunder the wealth of the US, till there is nothing left. And they won’t do a day in a cell. You steal a candy bar, and you’re doing time. Great to live in a free country!
The only freedom we’ll have ls to choose our favorite flavor of ice cream, or the color of our car, ( if we can afford one) and that will be about it. I guess I couldn’t stay on topic either.
Alfred, actually, that seems to be right on topic as opposed to, for example, some spurious sniping on the relative merits, or lack thereof, of US military largesse.
It certainly does seem to be the case that the arsonists that started this entire conflagration are the ones who are being invited to rebuild the whole sorry mess. If that doesn’t remind one of how organized crime works, I don’t know what would.
There are plenty of grim looking political figures in the world today who are busily trying to convince each other and the rest of us of the imperative of redesigning the world economic regulatory system so as to deal with any future economic shock of similar magnitude.
But, as you suggested, the plundering will continue. The obscene greed that is so often demonstrated by these capitalists run amok will continue unless some boundaries are instituted.
How about legislating maximum yearly pay at US$5,000,000 per year (including bonuses), maximum house size of 7,500 square feet (700 sq.m.), and no cars over US$100,000 worldwide. Perhaps with less motivation to be greedy, making money to the exclusion of all else will become a thing of the past?
The United States is only in the early stages of this financial meltdown. Those of us in the middle class have rejoiced at what Wall Street has done in the past 25 years moving up to become 21% of our GDP. Of course the stupidity of my own life is that I thought living on inflated housing prices and increased credit was actually real increase of my own wealth. Dumb me but at least I joined the party with Wall Street. The United States is now a nation high on debit with nothing to show for it but mortgage and credit card statements. But I must say Wall Street has done a fine job of once again convincing the government to bail them out once again. Since both political parties drink from the same money trough, it was to be expected that the Congress and the Administration would give Wall Street what it wanted.
I love the my fellow citizens like to yell “commie” or “socialism” when our nation comes up against our own stupidity when we fail ourselves in the face of our own greed. If you want to check out more you may consider watching Kevin Phillips, author of “BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM,” at this link, http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09192008/watch2.html .
His talk with Bill Moyers is about 26 minutes, you can also print off the transcript to study later.
Now I am off to find my path out of my credit and inflated housing value addiction.
Thanks,
Tom in Portland no longer on a budget since my bubble has busted![ http://www.forbes.com/wallstreet/2008/11/12/paulson-bernanke-fed-biz-wall-cx_lm_1112bailout.html ]
Financial Crisis
Washington’s $5 Trillion Tab
Elizabeth Moyer, 11.12.08, 5:15 PM ETFor all the fury over Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright puny when compared to the running total of the government’s response to the credit crisis.
According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system.
The estimate includes many of the various solutions cooked up by Paulson and his counterparts Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve and Sheila Bair at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as the credit crisis continues to plague banks and the broader markets.
The Fed has taken on much of that total, including lending a cumulative $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window and making a cumulative $1.8 trillion available through its term auction facility, a series of short-term transactions it began making available twice a month in January. It should be noted that a portion of the funds lent in these programs has been repaid and that the totals represent what has been made available.
The Fed also took on tens of billions in debt, including $29 billion in debt of Bear Stearns, and made $60 billion of credit available to American International Group. It is committing $22.5 billion to set up a special purpose vehicle to manage some of AIG’s residential mortgage-backed securities, and it is financing $30 billion of a second fund to hold $70 billion of multi-sector collaterized debt obligations on which AIG wrote credit default swaps.
The Treasury, in addition to the $700 billion raised in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, agreed to guarantee money market funds against losses up to $50 billion, will inject $40 billion of capital into AIG and is backing the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to the tune of $200 billion.
The FDIC, meanwhile, is guaranteeing $1.5 trillion of senior unsecured bank debt.
Not included in the total are the Fed’s long-existing discount window lending to commercial banks, the mortgage modification plan announced by regulators on Tuesday, support for the Federal Home Loan Banks and a myriad of other programs.
Paulson and Bernanke have tried any number of ways to stop the free fall in housing prices and unfreeze the credit markets, with limited success. Rates that banks charge each other for three-month loans have dropped to 2.1% over the corresponding Treasury security, from their high of 4.8% in October. But lending is contracting as banks brace for rising credit costs and corporate borrowers hunker down.
The Treasury has turned its focus from attempting to buy troubled assets from banks, which was the original intent of the October Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, to injecting capital in the form of preferred equity stakes.
It started out with $125 billion worth of investments in eight major U.S. banks and has since expanded the program to an increasingly broad range of financial and nonfinancial companies. And with just $60 billion left of its initial $350 billion authorization under the emergency act, the Treasury faces a growing number of companies–including Detroit’s automakers–begging for assistance.
David Hendler, an analyst at CreditSights, says it looks as if government is left holding the bag, and of course that translates into everyone.
“The losses have to be taken, but no one wants to take them,” Hendler said at a conference Wednesday, speaking about the banks and their handling of troubled assets. “It seems like the taxpayers are going to be taking a good portion of that.”
Scott, the article you posted is astounding in the amount of money being spent to keep the economy of the U.S.A. afloat. All I can say is, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Please read the article below that adds to my certainty that indeed things will not change and more of the same is all that is on the menu. There will be no change in how the world’s economy works. Just short term pain for ordinary folks with a few sacrificial lambs, like a bank or two or even an automobile company thrown in to appease some of the anger.
“Advice from Japan: Keep on Spending”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081115.wkoo15/BNStory/International/Hi Scott,
It just amazes and dismays me to see how the masses have been dumbed down and pacified with reality TV to the point that even when a crime this big is committed putting everyone but the controllers of the cash at permanent financial risk that not one head has been put on the block. As you question,…Why have we not seen bodies flung from the upper floors? My God, even after the debacle of disinformation of 911 and the Iraq war,…..NOTHING. What exactly do you have to do to get people off the couch? Take away their Pringles and beer perhaps.
We are not only financial broke,….society is spiritually and morally broke as well. You can’t expect a revolution from a somnambulistic mob.
Bill Wilkinson
Toronto Canada
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