As millions of Americans struggle to hold on to their homes, Wall Street has found a way to make money from the mortgage mess, The New York Times’s Louise Story writes.
Investment funds are buying billions of dollars’ worth of home loans, discounted from the loans’ original value. Then, in what might seem an act of charity, the funds are helping homeowners by reducing the size of the loans.
I encourage all to go to "http://www.barackobama.com/issues/" and review OFA's core issues. Do we not have a common economic goal with people in other districts in every state? Yes, we do! Is it obtainable? Yes it is, at least it will be once we combine all of our collective thoughts and efforts.
ECONOMY- OFA's Issue Statement basically states: Change how we do business, rebuild our economy on a new foundation. I think it also implies that we all should share in our nation's economic growth and rewards. Not just the top two percent! I reject the thought or premise that a recovering economy will not produce jobs until months or years later. Where does it say Wall Street Bankers, Investment, Healthcare, and Insurance executives must get preferential treatment. Could it have started years ago when these same executives promoted an unregulated perverted free market economic ideology. To the working and middleclass disadvantage, have they also persuaded our representatives in government to consider us to be meaningless simple minded consumers and not intelligent demanding citizens?
Join with me not to be a socialist but to be pragmatist. We need a JOBS based economic recovery. Let us have an opportunity raise and feed our families in a stable place we call home. We need to design, process, and manufacture products in America like those productive Americans before us. There is inherent pride when we can show our family, products that we made in our workshops, factories and on construction sites. A quality life style we can be proud of.
A jobs based economic recovery would also discourage our children from joining gangs. If they can grow up with hopes and dreams and see a pathway to a quality life style, they will want to work. We must realize "Hopes" and "Dreams" eventually turn into goals and success stories. Jobs paying a living wage will indirectly dissipate the growing street gang crises and hopefully reduce it to a controllable nuisance.
Scandalizing methods of making money by shifting paper around in secrecy and under the cloche of darkness on Wall Street is no different than shifting twenty dollar notes around in secrecy and under the crack or coke of darkness behind Main Street.
We need JOBS, financial and insurance regulations, fair tax and trade laws that will remake America into a great industrial society. An educated and skilled workforce that manufactures finished products from raw materials. One that builds great Machinery and wonderful Landmarks. Give us JOBS and a chance to participate in this recovery.
We cannot wait for weak legislation to accidently happen once or twice a year. We cannot accept our Congressional Representatives bragging about being obstructionist introducing numerous phony amendments and then after all that, voting NO. We certainly cannot accept it from Rep. Barton Gordon (D?-TN-6) a BLUE DOG DEMOCRAT in the great Congressional Sixth District of Tennessee. I say " BLUE DOG DEMOCRAT " as a negative intonation. We need a progressive democrat like President Barack Obama.
The first step to success is that we have to want it. The second step is organizing and doing something about it. The third is monitoring or measuring our progress. Forth, continuously improve, change or make corrections to the process. Fifth, monitor, re-measure and accept no less than success. Just as OFA's issue statement says, " We will not rebuild our economy on the old model of bubbles and busts. We'll only climb out of the current crisis by creating a new, sustainable foundation for our economy's future -- and make the tough choices to put our economy back on the road to long-term prosperity." Think about it, talk about it, today we look back and see the economy still needs aggressive change. Our foundation cracked a year ago and is still unstable. We need to help President Barack Obama implement change at an accelerated pace. Do we think Rep. Barton Gordon is up to the task? I am now questioning this?
By Padmini Arhant
According to the latest reports, the current jobless rate is 10.2% with 16 million Americans competing for 3 million jobs. Apparently, this figure does not include the underemployed. The Corporate related unemployment is further expected to rise up to 10.8% by the end of next year. Another grim factor is the joblessness among the self-employed and the small business retrenchments reportedly escalate the figure to an alarming 17.5% resembling the severe depression era.
Growing unemployment is a major impediment as consumer spending is directly linked to the job market posing a downside for the entire economy. Despite, the economic growth at 3.5% along with the 9.5% annual productivity for the recent quarter, the American workforce is yet to benefit from the surge in these areas.
The most affected sectors appear to be construction, manufacturing and retail. Although, the recent stimulus signed by President Obama extends unemployment benefits for 14 weeks and 20 weeks to the worst hit states combined with the tax credits for the first time and other home buyers, the problems confronting the industries required to generate jobs is attention worthy.
Please refer to http://www.padminiarhant.com for the remaining content.
Thank you.
Padmini Arhant
Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall Street is minting money — and looking forward again to hefty bonuses.
Many Americans wonder how this can possibly be. How can some banks be prospering so soon after a financial collapse, even as legions of people worry about losing their jobs and their homes? Read more about Wall Street...
By Padmini Arhant The ravenous economy has absorbed about $3.7 trillion dollars via bailouts and stimulus plans, (please refer to individual stimulus package topics for breakdown) yet the nation’s jobless rate rising like a tidal wave rather than settling along the shores. Several arguments mounting regarding the precarious job situation across the nation with some fifteen states like California, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and others experiencing double digit in job losses accumulated over a period of time.
Not surprisingly, criticisms with an ominous prediction such as a possible return of the ‘Great Depression’ from various political and economic factions pouring against the current administration’s level of action and apparent inaction in averting the precipitous decline of the job market...
Please check out the related topics Economic Bailouts on an Unprecedented Scale, Bush Bailout Packages and Obama Bailout Packages with more on the way.
Further riveting details and visuals @http://www.padminiarhant.com
Is it just me- or is anyone else starting to feel 'had'?
Covering up and not prosecuting the torture scandal?
Going back on one of the most ringing campaign promises regarding transparency? And I get weekly requests to donate more money from the Obama campaign? Maybe I was just a dumb wide-eyed child.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/ns/politics-white_house/
Storyline: On June 19th if some act in greed, en masse, the global economy will totally tank. What is special about June 19th is that in the financial realm it is known as the quadruple witching hour. The final hour of the stock market trading session on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December, when in addition to the expiration of option contracts and futures contracts, which indicates a triple witching hour, the expiration of single stock futures (SSFs) also occurs.
What is extra special about this June 19th is that by raising the H1N1 Virus to level 6 in an emergency secret meeting today, establishing a global Pandemic status, it triggers the force majeure clauses in contracts. Force majeure or “act of God” is somewhat ironic because if there are acts out of greed then the very system that permitted it will collapse by an act of God. Normally a force majeure clause removes the obligation to honor a contract, due to natural events beyond one’s control. So while in reality the somewhat mild H1N1 (swine flu) virus which is hardly a threat or cause for alarm could be used as a legal excuse to not honor contracts. However the real reason the contracts cannot be honored is not a result of the virus but rather the greed and corruption of those that had been running the system which failed because of imbalance due to greed and corruption. Of course if certain numbers can resist temptation, acting from a holistic perspective, then the system, as a result of collaboration, could be reconstructed without a total failure, or maybe not.
This could really get interesting and I am starting to see that the truth may be making a play to bring certain things to light and triggering a major systems evolution, and in fact a realization is coming that will bring change. It is a bit like a game of chess.
See it does and is happening in reality; check out this Google news search for force majeure.
http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=force+majeure+
At one link we find this good question, what is the answer?
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Economic Force Majeure
Source: Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP - Does a severe downturn in the economy constitute an event of force majeure? If you can no longer get financing because banks do not have the money to lend, can you claim force majeure because events are beyond your control?
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The answer could be yes and no, depending on the role one is playing and in what context.
Here are some perspectives I proffer.
The Global Accounting System (monetary systems) are a man made creation it is not natural. If the Global Accounting System were based on natural principles we might say it was then beyond our control, however it is not at this time. The Economic System is actually manipulated and some things are contrived by independent agency attempting to produce effect, in other words unnatural cause. We have an economic system where there are some natural market forces at work but it is really dominated by human nature. Of course there are events that influence the system both natural and man made. In this context we might say the answer is “no”.
We also have the economic participants who must in order to live and sustain themselves utilize a system that is beyond their control, it is controlled by others sometimes to the controllers benefit and not that of the economic system participants as a whole. Therefore the inability to obtain financing to allow continued value creation could be considered beyond their control. In this context we might say the answer is “yes”.
One could also open up a can of worms with something I have pointed out long before, man is a part of nature, so any thing man does is an act of nature in a greater context, of course that also means that man is subject to the laws of nature, and if doing something that causes imbalance, threatens life or creates suffering, it will be corrected or if that is no possible destroyed by the natural forces of nature. In other words when an element in nature stops listening to the signals from the rest of the elements in the system it may cause dissonance and disruption in the system and threaten the whole body and therefore for the body to survive, if it cannot be corrected it must be destroyed.
There will be much greater understanding and realizations as one completes the articulation of economics in an easy to understand manner from a scientific and natural perspective and disseminates it. This will highlight the flaws of the current systems design and destroy the illusions that it is based upon that lead to detriment not benefit.
I also note that many in executive management may not intend detriment however when seeking guidance from those with vested interests one is getting distorted or inferior advice which results in detriment to the majority and the system as a whole. Management’s key deliverable is the correct choosing of individuals or entities to play support roles which include the ability for discernment of the truth and reality behind appearances and the ability to detect a compromised agent or those lacking in capacity.
There is a major need for change in this country at both the local and the national level. A reorganization of the government progroms to bring them up to date and moderized. We need our government to work for us the American Citizen and not big business.
Woodrow Wilson was right when he said that the trouble with Washington DC was that Wall Street had to much power there. It has only gotten worse. Wall Street and the Bankers got regulations loosened and caused the crash of 1929 and the government fixed it, only to have them loosen them again to create the current crash. What a mess.
Wall street has been the real force to stop healthcare reform. The healthcare industry stocks are too powerful. What would happen if they were not allowed to do as they please? A lot of stock holders would lose thier shirt. Once Wall street gets into something it's hard to get them out.
We have to be willing to take these people on or they will just keep robbing us. Not with a gun, but with a pencil or computer, but it is robbery all the same.
Over the past eighteen years I have resided, as an expat, in a country where a modern unspoken “Class Society” as existed. I use the word “modern” to empathize what is currently transpiring within the small social economic middle class and much larger segment of society, the lower income earners.
Recently, since 2002 these two aforementioned groups of individuals have experienced opportunities of social advancement in the country by its elected government, which understood; the uneducated, the economically disadvantaged and the hardcore unemployable would only compound this nation’s problems and bring the country more into an unfavorable focus within the international community, thus limiting foreign investment and international trade.
It is difficult for me to believe the country I departed eighteen years ago, America, has digressed to the standards of the country I came to live in and this new country is currently in the process of eliminating its former “class structure” policies and attitude towards its citizens.
America is my home country, my first and always will be the country I recognize as a loyal citizen of, but when I read and follow up on articles I’ve posted, such as, “Our American Society’s Shameless Crime”, I question where our country lost its meaning, to itself and the world community.
We are a huge land, a continental nation, rich in resources with a core belief that your talents and drive can take just about anyone anywhere. “In America, at least, we don’t resent the rich … we want to be rich,” said President Barack Obama.
A recent article authored by Jeff Greenfield on CBS News online points out some interesting observations, which are worthy of note and a large amount of self reflection upon ourselves, here is one of many excerpts from his writing’s entitled “Drawing The Battle Lines Of Class Warfare”
There is a powerful current of anger that runs from Main Street to the Halls of Congress. And it’s raised once again an argument that’s almost as old as the Republic: Is too much wealth and power concentrated at the top? Should the government try to redress that balance?
We see the excesses of wealth afforded to those on Wall Street, corporate executives, professional sports figures and entertainment celebrities. I guess I have to paraphrase a saying somewhere spoken in a movie I once saw where I actor said “How much, is enough?”
My personal feelings are a person should not be limited by the money they earn for their respective talents, but more so, how our elected officials manage the taxes collected from their wages.
Or is that idea nothing but “class warfare”?
Two centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson denounced “bankers and speculators” as the biggest danger to the Republic.President Andrew Jackson waged war against the Second Bank of the United States, and the “elite circle” of financiers.And Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his Presidency by indicting the “money changers” who he said had caused the Great Depression:“The rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence,” FDR said in his first inaugural address in 1933.“There was a great deal of cultural as well as political resentment at the rich, for having gotten away with murder in effect for too long,” said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz. “One certainly saw that in the 1930s. You can’t look at a popular movie from the early 1930s and feel that palpable sense that the rich, personified by a fat guy sitting on moneybags with a cigar clenched in his mouth … that they are the enemy.”
Two centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson denounced “bankers and speculators” as the biggest danger to the Republic.
President Andrew Jackson waged war against the Second Bank of the United States, and the “elite circle” of financiers.
And Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his Presidency by indicting the “money changers” who he said had caused the Great Depression:
“The rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence,” FDR said in his first inaugural address in 1933.
“There was a great deal of cultural as well as political resentment at the rich, for having gotten away with murder in effect for too long,” said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz. “One certainly saw that in the 1930s. You can’t look at a popular movie from the early 1930s and feel that palpable sense that the rich, personified by a fat guy sitting on moneybags with a cigar clenched in his mouth … that they are the enemy.”
Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown feels this way regarding corporate America and we the people:
“I think there’s no question that the government sings with an upper class accent,” he told workers in Ohio.“The government has too often sided with the people with great advantage against the least privileged,” Brown said. “In the last three decades, the five percent at the top have done much, much better than the rest of society.”Populists like Senator Brown argue that, according to recent data from the Economic Policy Institute, the top one percent of Americans have more than 22 percent of income, a number that hasn’t been matched since 1929.“Those who have done very well under this system, those who have made huge, huge, huge profits, and not shared those profits with their workers, why should they not pay a higher tax rate?”
“I think there’s no question that the government sings with an upper class accent,” he told workers in Ohio.
“The government has too often sided with the people with great advantage against the least privileged,” Brown said. “In the last three decades, the five percent at the top have done much, much better than the rest of society.”
Populists like Senator Brown argue that, according to recent data from the Economic Policy Institute, the top one percent of Americans have more than 22 percent of income, a number that hasn’t been matched since 1929.
“Those who have done very well under this system, those who have made huge, huge, huge profits, and not shared those profits with their workers, why should they not pay a higher tax rate?”
While Republican Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona is a mirror opposite of Senator Brown:
“When you have the top one percent roughly 35 percent of all income taxes,” he said, “it’s tough to make the case that those at the top aren’t paying their share of income taxes.”America may have a more unequal distribution of wealth than other nations, Flake says, but that misses the point:“Look eastward to Europe: You have a so-called fairer distribution of income there,” he said. “But it’s a lower income, and it’s a lower quality of life than we have here. And I think it would be tough to argue otherwise.”But Flake is no apologist for the Wall Street players who put the global economy in danger:“They knew full well at some point, it would not last. They knew full well at some hint of a bubble bursting in the real estate market that they were gonna be in trouble. But they went ahead knowing they could get theirs and then go away, I guess. And so I think people were justifiably outraged, and still are.”
“When you have the top one percent roughly 35 percent of all income taxes,” he said, “it’s tough to make the case that those at the top aren’t paying their share of income taxes.”
America may have a more unequal distribution of wealth than other nations, Flake says, but that misses the point:
“Look eastward to Europe: You have a so-called fairer distribution of income there,” he said. “But it’s a lower income, and it’s a lower quality of life than we have here. And I think it would be tough to argue otherwise.”
But Flake is no apologist for the Wall Street players who put the global economy in danger:
“They knew full well at some point, it would not last. They knew full well at some hint of a bubble bursting in the real estate market that they were gonna be in trouble. But they went ahead knowing they could get theirs and then go away, I guess. And so I think people were justifiably outraged, and still are.”
Again I insert my own personal feelings about the changes occurring in America and will continue to change until a more equal balance is achieved between “rich” and “poor”. The following are my observations of how we as Americans have divided ourselves into classes:
These are but a few, but I do believe a change in coming and even if it might be difficult to accept, we will all be better off over time.
The following 1957 video represents our class system as it was before when we were a nation of people, not individuals.
1957 Social Classes in America
Social Class In America (1957) Sponsor: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. Producer: Knickerbocker Productions Sociological discussion of ascribed status, achieved status, vertical mobility and horizontal mobility in America. We follow the lives of three men from high school on through their professional lives. Rather pessimistic conclusion on the possibilities of movement across class boundaries. “These three babies are equal under the law, but they are not equal in terms of class…” This sociology lesson breaks educational film taboo by speaking directly about social class, shocking the ears with its frankness.
Social Class In America (1957) Sponsor: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. Producer: Knickerbocker Productions
Sociological discussion of ascribed status, achieved status, vertical mobility and horizontal mobility in America. We follow the lives of three men from high school on through their professional lives. Rather pessimistic conclusion on the possibilities of movement across class boundaries.
“These three babies are equal under the law, but they are not equal in terms of class…” This sociology lesson breaks educational film taboo by speaking directly about social class, shocking the ears with its frankness.
Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:
Wall Street Parties while Real People literally Cry themselves to Death.by Jason M. Christos from http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgpmp8mq_105gd4g9xgp
Last night a program aired on T.V. that made me want to cry. I saw real peoples faces crying because they are going to die, due to clinics closing. Imideatley I ask myself why is wall street partying with the Obama Plan money while these people cry themselves to death literally. I want to help, I want to start a quick non-profit. And accept donations for these people via paypal. Anybody who is with me contact me. These are REAL PEOPLE DYING IN OUR COUNTRY while wall street throws BAILOUT parties! We CAN'T depend on the government! we must act now and let these people know that they are loved. I will update as soon as possible as soon as I start a private non-profit for their benefit. Contact me if you want to help (314) 827-2189
Here is a link to the program. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/03/60minutes/main4917055.shtml
I think after you look these real people in thier eyes you will lose faith in the Obama Plan and Government in general. This is the responsibility of WE THE PEOPLE.
I guess I’m not giving up on AIG until someone is behind bars or there’s some dare good answers to questions of “Who took our money and what was it used for?”
Right now I should be authoring postings on the G20 and how our President is fairing with the European leaders who feel we should report to them on all matters American; but I still hung-up on AIG and how any corporation felt it was above the law and dictated its terms and conditions to us the taxpayers.
Today the Wall Street Jounrnal published this online article, informing its readers there was an auditor that was installed as the result of a settlement that deferred prosecution of AIG for allegedly helping financial institutions fudge their books. Deferring prosecution was the Bush administration’s preference when it came to enforcing financial regulations.
For me the issue is “Why didn’t this come to light earlier”, this could have solved many a questions, time and especially money. So, is there some darkness unknown to the Obama administration, because I’m sure had this administration learned of this auditor’s existence sooner, appropriate action would have been rendered, by bring this auditor into the shinning daylight of our gloomy economic burdens we’re facing.
Below is the article from the Wall Street Journal, authored by Ryan Grim and entitled: “Congress Wants AIG Mole’s Documents”.
Members of Congress are pushing for access to confidential reports filed over the past several years by a government-appointed auditor who has been sitting in on AIG deliberations.The auditor, whose presence was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was installed as the result of a settlement that deferred prosecution of AIG for allegedly helping financial institutions fudge their books. Deferring prosecution was the Bush administration’s preference when it came to enforcing financial regulations.“Whatever rationale there may have been for confidentiality doesn’t appear to apply anymore,” Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) told the Huffington Post. “If the idea was that having a government appointed lawyer sitting in the board room would make sure that AIG went forth and sinned no more, it obviously didn’t work out that way.”The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has requested documents.Other Democrats in Congress are also requesting the documents, aides say, including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).“That would be some real interesting reading, if we got everything from that mole,” said Cummings, who’s been chasing AIG since the initial government seizure. “We get so much incomplete information from AIG and maybe this is a way to connect all the dots.”The government should be able to abrogate whatever settlement it entered into, members of Congress argue, because it now represents both sides of the agreement. “We now own AIG. We are by far the majority stock holder. If there is a reason still for not making public what he saw and heard, I’d like to hear it,” said Miller.Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) agreed. “While there might be legal constraints that typically prevent at least some information from being disclosed outside the government, these extraordinary circumstances call for greater transparency. After all, AIG is now more than 80 percent owned by American taxpayers,” she said.“It was a deal between the corporation and the government,” Miller said. “It was obviously intended to protect the corporation. We can waive that now since we own it. If you’re 79.9 percent stockholders and you say you want to waive confidentiality, you waive confidentiality.”
Members of Congress are pushing for access to confidential reports filed over the past several years by a government-appointed auditor who has been sitting in on AIG deliberations.
The auditor, whose presence was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was installed as the result of a settlement that deferred prosecution of AIG for allegedly helping financial institutions fudge their books. Deferring prosecution was the Bush administration’s preference when it came to enforcing financial regulations.
“Whatever rationale there may have been for confidentiality doesn’t appear to apply anymore,” Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) told the Huffington Post. “If the idea was that having a government appointed lawyer sitting in the board room would make sure that AIG went forth and sinned no more, it obviously didn’t work out that way.”
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has requested documents.
Other Democrats in Congress are also requesting the documents, aides say, including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).
“That would be some real interesting reading, if we got everything from that mole,” said Cummings, who’s been chasing AIG since the initial government seizure. “We get so much incomplete information from AIG and maybe this is a way to connect all the dots.”
The government should be able to abrogate whatever settlement it entered into, members of Congress argue, because it now represents both sides of the agreement. “We now own AIG. We are by far the majority stock holder. If there is a reason still for not making public what he saw and heard, I’d like to hear it,” said Miller.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) agreed. “While there might be legal constraints that typically prevent at least some information from being disclosed outside the government, these extraordinary circumstances call for greater transparency. After all, AIG is now more than 80 percent owned by American taxpayers,” she said.
“It was a deal between the corporation and the government,” Miller said. “It was obviously intended to protect the corporation. We can waive that now since we own it. If you’re 79.9 percent stockholders and you say you want to waive confidentiality, you waive confidentiality.”
Do you find yourself asking this question: How is it that so many ostensibly smart people in the financial world made such terrible choices for so long?
I find myself supporting of our President’s administration when it comes to our country’s economy; however, we must find the answer to this question “Is it “Money or Power”, which drives our banking industry, stock exchanges and multinational businesses, before an absolute cure can be prescribed to the nation’s economic burdens.
I feel we, as a country, we have admitted to our own mistakes to the international community and should they accept our dilemma or not; we must insure both to ourselves and the world this will occur again, if we want to reestablish the country as an economic leader.
An author, Tony Schwartz, writing for the Hoffington Post, offered his views on how we, as a society, must change from a “Me” group of people, to a “Us” society. In other words, for the last thirty years we have been strictly subscribed to the principles of a “Me only” generation of individuals. Mr. Schwartz’s article is entitled: “How Self-Interest Destroyed The Economy” and bares some reading and careful though on our behalf.
Here is an except from his article:
As for Wall Street more broadly, the bubble that finally burst had many enablers: regulatory agencies that failed to play the oversight role they were assigned; politicians from both parties who oversaw the deregulation of the financial markets; ratings agencies who colluded with the banks that paid them by giving unduly high credit ratings to their toxically risky bonds; and the rest of us, millions of investors and borrowers who poured money into markets as if they could only rise, and took out mortgages in order to buy homes we knew we couldn’t afford. We wanted what we wanted, and we didn’t think much beyond that. Bankers and their agents were happy to give us what we wanted in order to get what they wanted, and they didn’t think much beyond that. Far too many of us conspired to get as much as we could while the getting was good, never stopping to consider that if everyone keeps trying to get more - leveraging their bets and running up debt to do so — there will eventually be a day of reckoning.
As for Wall Street more broadly, the bubble that finally burst had many enablers: regulatory agencies that failed to play the oversight role they were assigned; politicians from both parties who oversaw the deregulation of the financial markets; ratings agencies who colluded with the banks that paid them by giving unduly high credit ratings to their toxically risky bonds; and the rest of us, millions of investors and borrowers who poured money into markets as if they could only rise, and took out mortgages in order to buy homes we knew we couldn’t afford.
We wanted what we wanted, and we didn’t think much beyond that. Bankers and their agents were happy to give us what we wanted in order to get what they wanted, and they didn’t think much beyond that.
Far too many of us conspired to get as much as we could while the getting was good, never stopping to consider that if everyone keeps trying to get more - leveraging their bets and running up debt to do so — there will eventually be a day of reckoning.
Again another video, which to me, sways us to believe “every things going to be OK, if Wall Street Manages it own self.” The sad part this is our national media; not presenting the News, instead opinionating what we watch and perhaps for some of us trust in.
CNBC Needs to Change
CNBC should publicly declare a drastic change of direction, committing to responsible journalism in an effort to hold Wall Street accountable in the future. As a first step, it should bring new economic voices on the air with a focus on those who were right about this crisis in the first place. The stakes are too high for CNBC to continue acting as the unofficial mouthpiece of Wall Street. This is not a game. Together we can bring about the much-needed change we seek. That is why it is so important that you sign this petition today and then encourage your friends, family and co-workers to do the same.
CNBC should publicly declare a drastic change of direction, committing to responsible journalism in an effort to hold Wall Street accountable in the future. As a first step, it should bring new economic voices on the air with a focus on those who were right about this crisis in the first place.
The stakes are too high for CNBC to continue acting as the unofficial mouthpiece of Wall Street. This is not a game. Together we can bring about the much-needed change we seek. That is why it is so important that you sign this petition today and then encourage your friends, family and co-workers to do the same.
There was plenty of outrage on Capitol Hill last week over the executive bonuses paid out by AIG after getting federal bailout money. But another money trail could make us voters just as angry: the campaign dollars to members of Congress from banks and firms that have received billions via the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
That’s right!
While a few big firms, such as Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, have curtailed their campaign giving, others are quietly doling out cash to select members of Congress, particularly those who serve on committees that oversee TARP. In recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Bank of America (which got $15 billion in bailout money) sent out $24,500 in the first two months of 2009, including $1,500 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and another $15,000 to members of the House and Senate banking panels. Citigroup ($25 billion) dished out $29,620, including $2,500 to House GOPWhip Eric Cantor, who also got $10,000 from UBS which, while not a TARP recipient, got $5 billion in bailout funds as an AIG “counterparty.” “This certainly appears to be a case of TARP funds being recycled into campaign contributions,” says Brett Kappell, a D.C. lawyer who tracks donations. (A spokesman for Cantor did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Hoyer said it’s his “policy to accept legal contributions.”)
Think about this for a moment (that’s all you should need) here elected officials receiving campaign contributions from the same guys in essence they’re investigating. I haven’t looked up the word “kick backs” in the dictionary, but this sure sound’s like a synonym for the word.
The article from Michael Isikoff and Dina Fine Maron appeared in Newsweek and is entitled: “Follow the Bailout Cash”, which is very aptly titled.
Below a video of Fox News, interviewing Eric Cantor, House GOP Whip, videoed on January 15, 09, so could the real questions that need to be asked is when did congressman Cantor receive his campaign contribution, how did he vote on Troubled Asset Relief Program and how much of a fight did he put up before his vote?
TARP Trouble - Eric Cantor on Fox News
House, Senate to vote on release of $350 billion in bailout bucks.
Hi All,
Greetings and Salutation!
I watched the movie version of “Chicago” the other night. Today, I think about this AIG fiasco and remember Richard Gere’s well done rendition of “Razzle Dazzle ’em” in that movie. The sly lawyer as he diverts attention from what is fact to what is emotion. In the instance of this AIG fiasco, diverting attention to bonuses paid executives and away from the truth. Any really, really, good swindle or scam uses that “Razzle Dazzle ‘em” rule. One must have a focus of attention somewhere other than upon the fraud itself. The shenanigans at AIG bring to mind a movie called “Paper Moon”. Destiny teams a little girl and a middle-aged man up as con artists. The man pays for some items in a story with a large bill. Behind him in line, the little girl pays for something with a small bill. When the girl sees her change, she balks, claiming that she had given the clerk the larger bill. Her distressed cry that the larger bill is a birthday gift with a birthday inscription on it, inciting emotions. Found in the cash drawer is a larger bill with the inscription the girl claims. The girl “earns” the larger bill via her deception. AIG is much the same con, right down to the little girl taking the fraud into a simpler swindle. A couple of more obvious short-changing maneuvers to increase her take or maybe just to show off her flair for the con game. In the AIG situation, these would be bonuses unnecessary yet still, bonuses useful in diverting attention toward facts to attention toward emotions. It can be a bit more complicated but the primary things that occurred up to and including the bailouts is the same. There are many faucets to this fraud. However, the base fraud is a matter of giving a small bill and pretending it is the large bill. The deregulation of laws, which had created borders betwixt Wall Street, the Banks, and the Insurance companies, that allowed great fraud to be committed. Long ago and far away, something called “buying on margin” came to be. This entailed a situation whereby a person could post X dollars of collateral and the stock market company would give an equal amount of credit. Thereby, one could have $100.00 in collateral and buy $200.00 in stock. This is termed “leveraging” and was fine when regulations were in place. The advent of such things as “options” for “hedging” will greatly increase this leveraging situation to create a “win-win” situation for the smart investor (or better said, “Sly” investor). The stock market always somewhat of a gamble, one could now “bet” that a stock would fall in value and make the big bucks. Even if one did not actually own the actual shares of that stock, one could control hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock with only a few hundreds of marginal dollars. Marginal dollars are the big bill that the little girl did not really give the store clerk; it never existed. However, the real big bill, which the store clerk gave back to the little girl, did exist. In effect, it was money used to “bail out” the clerk and the store due to emotional circumstances. One day it hit the news that a company called “Lehman Brothers” had taken the big dive and the world would collapse unless the government did not step in to help. The sky was falling, as it were. The big cats including the FED knew that Lehman would collapse if someone did not purchase it (and revise the books) or the FED did not step in with help. The stack of cards to build the house was going to come down. The FED knew long before Lehman Brothers failed that it would happen. Instead of bracing (or bailing out) Lehman Brothers, the Fed let Lehman Brothers fail. The auspice incongruously put out that Lehman would fall by itself and create only a pothole on Wall Street. This is incongruent because anyone familiar with the system would know that Lehman would take others with it. Lehman failed and AIG became responsible for the billions in insurance it sold against such a failure. The government fooled to step in with billions and no oversight. The insurance that AIG had sold and could not cover, billions in insurance to protect investors that they not lose their investment AND not lose the monies that did not exist; stocks and options bought on MARGIN. What a quandary, what a great fraud is the scam perpetrated on an unsuspecting people. AIG had insured billions of dollars that did not exist. Until the FED marched in and turned those dollars into real cash, the clerk handing the poor little child her take and her bonus for her short change game. The executives earned those bonuses because they pulled the biggest heist in history. In addition, they are taking the people’s eye off the proverbial ball and probably giving AIG plenty of time for a probable shredding enterprise. Find the insured and one will find the trail of fraud or one can play with the millions in bonuses and ignore the billions in fraud.
Loveya,
Since the Dow Jones Industrials hit bottom on March 9, 2009 at 6,547.050 it has climbed back over a 1,000 points and by 1,228.81 points or 18.7 % on March 23 to 7775.86.
[[This is my opinion and I’m not an economist or stock trader but based on economics, predictions, and speculation I’d say the DOW has hit bottom at 6,547.050
"what you are saying is like blowing holes into the titanic, then abandoning ship after it sinks 35%, then saying the people on board trying to rescue the ship caused it to sink another 15%, and actually hoping it sinks all the way!?"
It looks like a few holes got patched up and the engines are back online, the titanic stopped sinking.At present time, Friday 13, 2009 almost 1:30, the DOW just got into green after being down this morning, watch for an afternoon rally.]]
Robert Kutter, posting for Huffington Post came up with very interesting memos regarding our President’s concerns over the economy and those minding the store on this issue, namely Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
The memos mysteriously came to like from source(s) unknown in the article, but they are supposedly from the President to his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.
The way I read the memos is the President is concerned that additional view points are needed from knowledgeable, outside sources, which would more or less sever as a secondary source of needed input. Furthermore, the President seems worried is Recovery Package is relying to heavily on bailing out the big banks and investment firms, such as, Citicorp and AIG.
Rahm Emanuel seems to share these same feelings and presents some possible options for consideration to the President.
Personally, just to sooth the nation’s fears and media’s questioning of the Recovery Package, this could be a workable good solution by our President and confirmed by his Chief of Staff.
Here’s the article as it appeared in the Huffington Post authored by Mr. Kutter and entitled: “White House Confidential”.
White House Confidential Robert Kutter Huffington Post
From: BHO
To: Rahm Emanuel
Subject: The Banks
Extremely Sensitive
Rahm,
I’m concerned that I’m getting only one viewpoint on how to solve the banking crisis, from Larry and Tim. A kind of echo-chamber effect sets in where they talk mainly to Wall Street and to each other, and different views are not heard. Larry is a very effective gatekeeper.
They both seem convinced that bailing out outfits like AIG and Citigroup, using even more money both from Treasury and the Fed, is the only way to go. And nobody inside the administration is really challenging them on the economics.
The problem is that neither the financial markets nor public opinion is buying it. My recovery package can’t work if the banks keep dragging down the economy, and time is not on our side. We’re burning through money that will be very difficult to get Congress to replenish if we blow it this time.
We’ve had some good strategy conversations about the politics. Limiting executive pay helps. So do these trips outside Washington where we can identify with ordinary people. But the Republicans are eating our lunch on the A.I.G. bailout, and Lou Dobbs is making us look like allies of the people who caused the crisis. The press is full of stories about people from Countrywide and the hedge funds profiting a second time, as purchasers of underwater bonds. We can survive all that–if Larry and Tim’s plan actually works. But I’m beginning to wonder.
Could you set up some conversations with some well informed people who have a different view? What’s your advice on how to handle Larry and Tim? We can’t very well go behind their backs. Larry is keeping a low profile, and letting Tim take all the heat even though Larry totally shares the approach. Tim is all alone. He doesn’t have a senior sub-cabinet official confirmed yet to help him. A chorus is building calling for his head. Do we want to set up some very discreet one-on-one conversations with critics, or bring Larry and Tim in, too?
Also, Rubin is constantly on the phone to everyone. His fingerprints are all over this mess, but people still take him seriously. Is he looking out for the system, or for Citi and Goldman? I’m beginning to have buyer’s remorse that we hired so many of his protégés.
BHO
—–
To: The President
From: Rahm Emanuel
Re: A Second Opinion on the Banks
Mr. President:
I share your concerns both on the optics and on the substance of the plan not working. Basically there are three views of how to proceed with the banks. One is the Tim/Larry approach: Lend money to hedge funds and private equity speculators to get purchases of securities from banks flowing again, so that bank lending resumes. The problem is that this does not sop up existing toxic bonds. The Street seems to have no confidence in it. And, appearance-wise, it looks like rewarding the bad guys.
The second approach is the good bank/bad bank strategy, where the bad assets are taken off the books of the banks, and they can resume operations again with clean balance sheets. The problem is that the taxpayer pays, it costs more money than we have, and the same bad actors keep running the banks. Alan Blinder makes the case for this approach, in Sunday’s Times, about as well as anyone. But he didn’t convince me.
The third approach is “conservatorship” or “receivership” (let’s keep avoiding the N-word) where a government agency–probably an expanded FDIC–takes temporary charge of the big banks (the top four hold more than half of all the deposits). That way, the government cleans up the balance sheets, existing management goes, and we can break them up into manageable parts where no bank is too big to fail. The taxpayer shares the loss with the bondholders. Bank stockholders lose, but they’ve already lost upwards of 95 percent of the value of the shares.
I’m no expert on this, but the third option seems more likely to actually work, more likely to head off a full blown depression, is less costly to the taxpayer, and is far better politics.
The middle option is flawed–more expensive for taxpayers, more windfalls to speculators–but it’s better than the Tim/Larry plan.
But I definitely agree that we should hear from more outside experts. Here’s what I recommend:
Some of the best sessions in the campaign were the times when you put fifteen people with different views around a table, let them argue it out, and then you decided. As long as Larry and Tim are heading the economic team, we can’t very well exclude them, but we should bring in others–and you should hear this argument in the raw, and not filtered.
This should be a very small event, and participants should be emphatically asked to keep the meeting confidential. It should not be a media event like the recent White House summits on fiscal responsibility and on health reform, where we papered over vast ideological differences for the sake of the appearance of consensus.
If we are not absolutely certain that this won’t leak, then let’s do it as several one-on-one conversations with you, maybe with Summers arguing the other side. Leaks from Summers or Geithner spinning dissent inside would be just as damaging as leaks from one of the outsiders. But if we can keep it confidential, there is no substitute for hearing the arguments hashed out by both sides. As participants, I’d recommend:
From the Administration:
The President
Larry Summers
Tim Geithner
Rahm Emanuel
David Axelrod
Skeptics of the Geithner/Summers approach:
Joe Stiglitz, Columbia University
Paul Volcker, former Fed Chair, heads your outreach panel
Sheila Bair, heads FDIC
Nouriel Roubini, NYU
Elizabeth Warren, chair, Congressional Oversight Panel, Harvard Law
Damon Silvers, deputy chair, Congressional Oversight Panel, AFL-CIO
From the Fed:
Ben Bernanke, chair
Dan Tarullo, governor
Don Kohn, governor
As for others, Alan Greenspan is somewhat skeptical, but I’m not sure we need him in the meeting, and we certainly don’t want self-interested people like Rubin. This is also not the time for bipartisanship; we can get Republican and Wall Street input at a separate meeting (in any case Geithner more or less speaks for Wall Street.) Paul Krugman has been very critical and ahead of the curve, if nasty to us, though his last column on the budget was kind to you (finally!) But he also plays a journalist role, and he might be tempted to use what he learned in a column, even indirectly. This also precludes people like Kuttner. He’s very friendly to you, but he’s been pretty hard on the economic team. I don’t quite trust the guy.
Sincerely,
Rahm Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His best-selling book is “Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency.”
Complementing and coinciding with the President’s concerns over the economy is his weekly address to the American people back on March 7th where he addresses his concerns over the importance of the Recovery Package.
3/7/09: Your Weekly Address
President Obama capped off a busy week in Washington remarking on new lending guidelines aimed at lowering mortgage payments; an initiative to generate funds for small business and college loans; the release of his administration’s first budget which includes $2T in deficit reduction; and the start of long overdue health care reform.
What and “all” we Americans and the international community basically understands is the United State’s economy is in trouble; and for some unknown and unexplainable reason the folks that “we think” lost our money while destroying our economy, are still in charge for some foolish reason; of which, we are still relying on these same institutional folks to restore the broken system they corrupted to their advantage.
Simply stated, for me, this is like requesting Al Capone to assist us in revising our Internal Revenue Service’s tax codes or Bernard Madoff’s given time off for good behavior for his bring to light the troubles of our SEC regulation policies?.
Also, for some reason I receive the impression that we as “ordinary people” are not capable of understanding the problem; hence the words of “complex issues” as presented and used by our Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, along with “reinvestment needs time to settle”, as spoken by Hank Paulson our former Treasury Secretary. So, the question comes to mind, “are we this uneducated” or could it be “our saviors in the government unable to understand the magnitude of the problem?”
We are definitely afraid of the words “Socialism” and “Nationalize” when it comes to AIG, Citicorp, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch because this possibly means too many of us, bigger government, which in turn, means higher taxes, which is not wanted or needed. Perhaps the simple answer lies within who is trying to solve the economic problem within our government.
So, as an individual, perhaps of limited intelligence, for not being able to totally grasp and understand the complexity of the economic problem; I wonder if Eric Holder of our Justice Department could perhaps help the CEOs of the aforementioned institutions to educate the American public and myself, as to “why” we are in these troubling times, “where” did our money go and “how” do we recover our country’s economic strength.
Placing these CEOs on the “hot seat” I’m sure will simplify their complex possible solutions to our problem while educating us all as to how the “old boys club” really as operated for the past thirty years.
What brought this posting to being comes from a lady I have a deep amount of admiration for; Ms. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post in an article entitled: “Tim Geithner, CNBC, and the Second Coming of Known Unknowns”, which was posted on her website, March the 9th of this year, and which follows:
Tim Geithner, CNBC, and the Second Coming of Known Unknowns Arianna Huffington Huffington Post March 9, 2009 | 02:38 PM (EST)
A formerly famous and now mostly forgotten poet of nonsense verse once said: “There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns….there are also unknown unknowns.”
That was, of course, Donald Rumsfeld, but it doesn’t sound too different from your average briefing/Congressional testimony/interview by Timothy Geithner. Besides being awash in toxic paper, credit default swaps, and collateralized debt obligations, we seem to be drowning in unknowns. Only, I get the sense that there are fewer unknowns than we’re being told.
While we’re rewarding the risk-taking shareholders of various zombie banks — not to mention the mysterious, unconfirmed counterparties to AIG’s serial recklessness — how about rewarding the taxpayers, if not with an actual return on our bailout investment then at least with information about what exactly is being done with our money? It’s time to call in all the unknowns.
Instead, we’re greeted with a wall of manufactured complexity by the people whose job it is to make known unknowns into known knowns. There is nothing complex about the way CEOs like John Thain, Ed Liddy, Lloyd Blankfein, John Mack, Vikram Pandit, and Ken Lewis turned bailout billions into Wall Street bonus money — and no justification for keeping taxpayers in the dark about the giveaways (Vanity Fair’s Michael Shnayerson breaks down the jaw-dropping and blood-boiling numbers).
Which brings us to the holy temple of unknown unknowns — CNBC. The financial channel’s Erin Burnett (Street Signs, Squawk on the Street) was on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night, suddenly seeing all kinds of complexity, nuance, and ambiguity in what can be known and not known about the economic crisis. Does the government know more than they’re telling us, asked Bill.
“I don’t think they know,” said Burnett. “I don’t think anybody knows.”
And: “I don’t even know that the CEOs themselves know.”
And: “Tim Geithner may know more than most, but no, he doesn’t know.”
And as for whether the financial geniuses at CNBC should have known something:
“It’s easy to say [there's] a bubble, but you don’t know when it’s gonna burst. And I think that the question of timing and magnitude, nobody got. That wasn’t just a CNBC pundit thing, that was any expert out there.” I guess she missed experts like Roubini and Taleb.
And I certainly don’t remember that kind of circumspection in the run up to the meltdown. For a look at what the CNBC sages thought they knew, and how wrong they were, there is, of course, Jon Stewart’s already legendary evisceration.
As Stewart shows, the essential truth of what went on is really quite simple. Using complexity as a cover for accountability has a long historical track record of ending in disaster.
“The most dangerous thing in any economic crisis is denial,” writes MIT professor Simon Johnson, a former official at the IMF, where he specialized in dealing with banking crises around the world. He’s become one of the leaders of the camp arguing that the administration needs to admit the scope of the banking problem and deal with it sooner (wildly expensive) rather than later (insanely and unsustainably expensive). While “the degree of denial in the United States has fallen dramatically,” Johnson writes, “there is one major aspect of denial still remaining: the scale and nature of our banking difficulties.”
(Johnson, by the way, is doing his part to get rid of unknowns at his blog Baseline Scenario, which includes a terrific primer on the financial crisis.)
Johnson’s insights mirror those of Paul Krugman, who writes that “officials still aren’t willing to face the facts. They don’t want to face up to the dire state of major financial institutions because it’s very hard to rescue an essentially insolvent bank without, at least temporarily, taking it over.” Not coming clean and doing what needs to be done, adds Krugman, “could result in an economy that sputters along, not for months or years, but for a decade or more.”
Speaking of nationalization, CNBC’s Burnett told Maher, “Nobody wants it on the left, nobody wants it on the right” — even as calls for it continue to come from both the left and the right, demonstrating once again how obsolete that way of looking at the world is becoming. America’s Business Channel, indeed.
The list of knowable knowns that we still don’t know about includes the final destination of the taxpayer money the government keeps funneling to AIG. The Wall Street Journal reports that around $50 billion of the $173 billion in bailout funds given to the insurance behemoth has gone to pay off financial institutions that had insured their wildly irresponsible credit default swaps with AIG.
So who, exactly, has our money — and why don’t we know? AIG CEO Ed Liddy prefers not to say. Same with the Fed, which refused a congressional request for the names of AIG’s derivative counterparties. According to unnamed sources, the list includes Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank.
It’s worth noting that, thanks to the industry-written 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, derivatives claims are not stayed in bankruptcy — so the financial institutions that gambled and lost would nevertheless be the first ones paid off. Isn’t gaming the system fun?
The stimulus package — and the media’s coverage of it — has also been a hotbed of known unknowns. Or, if you prefer, unreported knowns.
According to a Media Matters study of 59 network news broadcasts about the stimulus in the three weeks prior to the vote, only three mentioned concerns that the package was inadequate — even though many economists believed it was not big enough to do the job. Another known known treated like an unknown when we most needed to know. And now, of course, we’re already getting reports that the bill was, indeed, too small.
I’m not saying that everything about this crisis is knowable — far from it. But there are a number of very simple truths that are being hidden behind a smokescreen of complexity and unknowability.
It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics to know that you can’t have CEOs whose companies have received billions in bailout funds going to court and threatening to sue employees to keep the public from knowing which executives pocketed millions in bonuses — and you can’t have them pretending that no bailout money was used to pay said bonuses.
You can’t have insolvent banks pretending that the problem is one of liquidity, and then using taxpayer money to protect their balance sheets instead of lending money to credit-worthy businesses and consumers.
And, ultimately, you can’t allow the same people who were part of the problem to be part of the solution. There is absolutely no way on earth that the same flawed thinking that got us into this mess will ever get us out of it. We need to clean house, taking the steering wheel away from the executives and the compliant boards that steered us over the economic cliff. They didn’t get it then; they still don’t get it now (see handing out bonuses, hosting spa retreats, redecorating, and throwing lavish parties while America teeters on the verge of economic collapse).
That is something we all know that we know — even Tim Geithner and the experts at CNBC.
Complementing my posting regarding “Tim Geithner” and his explaining of where the Obama Administration stands on the economy and their expectations:
Charlie Rose -Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary
Additional information on Rose’s interview with Timothy Geithner may be found on Huffington Post here:
Charlie Rose Interviews Timothy Geithner: “Capitalism Will Be Different”
Update 11 March 09:
Bernanke’s Vision for Change from Wash Post - World News by Annys Shin and Lori Montgomery
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke yesterday laid out his most comprehensive vision yet for how to overhaul the rules governing the nation’s financial system, and advocated changing accounting methods that he said have exacerbated the financial crisis.
OK, I can understand there’s a few executives upset over their bonuses packages being limited by our President and taking a lot of heat for being basically caught gambling with our hard earned wages, pensions, retirement funds and tax payer dollars, but lets remember rewards to go the “winner” and not the “swindlers”.
This comes to my attention, really since the election, back on November 4th, Wall Street doesn’t like President Obama for reasons that started some time back in the Presidential Primary’s. What I’ve noticed is when he spoke of the economy and his concerns over Health Care the markets closed lower on that day; not by the small time investors, but more so by the big stock block buyers in the market.
Now the economy is in trouble over the lack of enforced regulation of the market; I sincerely believe they’re forcing the blame of our slowed recovery on the President, by when he speaks of bailing out companies the market swings positive, when he referrers to the market in negative light, it falls, especially when he refers to Health Care.
Since the Reagan years I feel Wall Street has always had there way in the White House, and this notion holds true for both Republican and Democratic Administrations. It’s time for this to come to an end by reminding these “Fat Cat Institutions” the White House is located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and not Wall Street in New York.
Here’s what I consider a very neutral article, posted by the Associated Press and authored by Ben Feller, entitled: ” Obama: Stocks are a `potentially good deal’”. I have taken the liberty of high lighting certain lines and phrase, which are relevant to the points I’m attempting to make within this posting.
Stock Exchange
Obama: Stocks are a `potentially good deal’
By BEN FELLER - 3 March 2009 Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Wall Street tumbles, President Barack Obama offered up some investing advice on Tuesday, telling a wary nation that stocks are becoming a “a potentially good deal” for those willing to think long term. The White House later cautioned people not to read too much into the statement.
Obama also said he will not base policy on what he called the “day-to-day gyrations of the stock market.” The Dow Jones industrial average fell again Tuesday after plunging on Monday to it lowest level in more than 11 years.
The index has lost more than half its value since a record peak in October 2007. The toll on retirement plans, college savings and nest eggs has been huge.
“You know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics,” Obama said during an appearance with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.”
Yet lately, Wall Street’s direction has been down, period. Investors are in despair over the state of financial companies, the deepening scope of the recession and doubts about the government’s various attempts to bolster the banking sector and create jobs.
Obama says those plans will work.
“I’m absolutely confident that credit is going to be flowing again, that businesses are going to start seeing opportunities for investment,” he said. “They’re going to start hiring again. People are going to be back to work.”
The White House is out for a balance. Obama and his aides must recognize the depth of public worry and fear about the unraveling stock market, yet keep trying to get people to understand that Wall Street is just one, volatile measure.
Obama said his focus is on the long-term recovery of the U.S. and world economy. He said lax regulation and risky, faulty investing have put a beating on the banking sector, which in turn has resulted in a lot of losses.
“It’s not surprising that the market is hurting as a consequence,” Obama said.
And then he sounded a bit like a financial adviser by referring to a common measure used to assess whether a stock is overvalued or undervalued.
“What you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal,” he said, “if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.”
Was that the president telling people to buy stocks?
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs urged caution. He said people shouldn’t “overly read into” any suggestion that they should buy or sell in their particular portfolio. Asked again to calibrate exactly what Obama meant, Gibbs said: “I guess I didn’t read into it as much as many people may have.”
In his comments with Brown, Obama urged the American people to take a longer view as massive efforts to reshape the economy unfold.
“We are cleaning up a mess,” he said. “It’s going to be sort of full of fits and starts in terms of getting the mess cleaned up, but it’s going to get cleaned up.”
The following YouTube video is an ABC News clip entitled: “Wall Street Hits 12 Year Low With Obama’s Socialist Policies”, which was posted on February 23rd of this year and what some American Institutions and people feel President Obama is attempting to do with our banking system.
Wall Street Hits 12 Year Low With Obama’s Socialist Policies
Since Feb 10, when the Obama administration announced it’s plan for socializing the banking system, stocks have lost nearly 14% of their value. “Wall Street is the bastion of Free Market Capitalism, and Nationalization, even if it’s meant to save the banks, is something that happens in socialist countries. It’s not supposed to happen in the US” - ABC News Of Course, many are becoming aware that both Democrats & Republicans are to blame for the situation the United States is in. Congress, our Presidents, and ultimately the people, are to blame for being ignorant or supportive of the private Federal Reserve system, and allowing it to continue it’s monopoly, control, and manipulation over the entire United States money supply, resulting in artificial boom and bust cycles. Our third President and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, often stated that a central bank was the most dangerous threat to freedom and the United States. President Jefferson got rid of the 1st Bank of America. And, President Andrew Jackson got rid of the 2nd Bank of America, calling it a “den of vipers and thieves.” Our third central bank is disguised as the “Federal Reserve,” but it’s no more federal than the Federal Express shipping company. Help restore freedom to America, join; http://www.campaignforliberty.com
Since Feb 10, when the Obama administration announced it’s plan for socializing the banking system, stocks have lost nearly 14% of their value.
“Wall Street is the bastion of Free Market Capitalism, and Nationalization, even if it’s meant to save the banks, is something that happens in socialist countries. It’s not supposed to happen in the US” - ABC News
Of Course, many are becoming aware that both Democrats & Republicans are to blame for the situation the United States is in.
Congress, our Presidents, and ultimately the people, are to blame for being ignorant or supportive of the private Federal Reserve system, and allowing it to continue it’s monopoly, control, and manipulation over the entire United States money supply, resulting in artificial boom and bust cycles.
Our third President and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, often stated that a central bank was the most dangerous threat to freedom and the United States. President Jefferson got rid of the 1st Bank of America. And, President Andrew Jackson got rid of the 2nd Bank of America, calling it a “den of vipers and thieves.”
Our third central bank is disguised as the “Federal Reserve,” but it’s no more federal than the Federal Express shipping company.
Help restore freedom to America, join;
http://www.campaignforliberty.com
