Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, October 03, 2008
Bailout Plan WIll Fail due to Flawed Understanding of the Financial Crisis / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
We are being told loudly and repeatedly that the gargantuan mortgage bail-out package is necessary because illiquid mortgage-backed securities are clogging our financial arteries, threatening the economic equivalent of cardiac arrest. The idea of the plan is to transfer these supposedly valuable, but currently unmarketable, assets to the government so that private institutions can freely lend once more. The monumental flaw in this argument is that the mortgage backed securities are in fact highly liquid, just not at the prices the owners would like to receive. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 03, 2008
$700 Billion Bailout Package a Necessary Evil / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
Years from now conspiracy theorists will no doubt contend that the historic $700 billion 2008 bailout package came about because the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury wanted to further cement their control over the U.S. economy and government. Focusing on Bernanke and Paulson's apocalyptic words leading up to the bailout vote, not to mention some anti-Fed writings from Thomas Jefferson, conspiracy theorists will note how powerful men scared Congressmen into adopting their plan, how the rules of the financial game were changed to help Wall Street, and how the American public, once again, saw their hard earned dollars stolen from them. Needless to say, what the conspiracy theorists will be doing is giving Bernanke and Paulson far more credit than they deserve. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 02, 2008
France, Germany Clash Over Proposal to Bailout European Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Tensions are building up in the Eurozone as France, Germany Tensions are building up in the Eurozone as France, Germany Clash Over Proposal to Bail Out Banks .France and Germany clashed over whether to create a fund to bail out banks pounded by the global credit crunch, kicking off a European version of the debate that has been raging in the U.S. for two weeks.
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Thursday, October 02, 2008
Senate Bailout Bill Will Fail US Taxpayers / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Shah Gilani writes: My sister lives in a landmark building in Coral Gables, Fla. There was a fire in one apartment in the building. After that fire was brought under control, the fire department - for some unknown reason - dropped a hose in the burned apartment, and left the water running … for hours.
That inane maneuver destroyed many apartments, crippled the building's infrastructure and resulted in the building being temporarily condemned. The entire building was closed down for many months. Every person who lived there had to relocate. My sister, fortunately, had the wherewithal to take up temporary residence in the world-famous Biltmore Hotel .
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Thursday, October 02, 2008
$700 Billion Bailout the Largest US Tax Hike in History / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
The following image was used by my friend Charles Goyette whose talk show I was on every Wednesday for several months. Charles left for personal reasons and I miss him. Rumor has it he is working on a new deal and I certainly wish him the best of luck.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Bailout Bill Marks the End of America as We Know It? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
OCTOBER 1, 2008—Tonight the Senate passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill by a vote of 74-25. This follows the rejection of the bill by the House on Monday. In an MSNBC poll, 62 percent of Americans oppose the giveaway, but the lobbyists are doing everything possible to assure the rejection is overturned. According to Bob Borosage, co-director of The Campaign for America 's Future, House leaders “are bringing in the small business lobby and the banking lobby to buy the twelve Republican votes they need.”Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Europe Puts Pressure on Bush to Pass Bailout Plan / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Bloomberg is reporting Trichet Says U.S. Must Pass Plan to Rescue `Global Finance'European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet said U.S. lawmakers must pass a $700 billion rescue package for banks to shore up confidence in the global financial system.
"It has to go, for the sake of the U.S. and for the sake of global finance," Trichet said in an interview in Frankfurt with Bloomberg Television late yesterday. "I am confident, but of course it is the decision of the U.S. Congress."
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The Political Nature of the Credit Crisis / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
Classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo referred to their discipline as “political economy.” Smith's great work, “The Wealth of Nations,” was written by the man who held the chair in moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow. This did not seem odd at the time and is not odd now. Economics is not a freestanding discipline, regardless of how it is regarded today. It is a discipline that can only be understood when linked to politics, since the wealth of a nation rests on both these foundations, and it can best be understood by someone who approaches it from a moral standpoint, since economics makes significant assumptions about both human nature and proper behavior.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Why the Bailout Vote Failed / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives grabbed a half dozen bags of sincerity, looked directly into every TV camera they could find, and lied. The House had just defeated, 228–205, a bipartisan $700 billion bailout bill. But it was the Democrats who were the subject of vicious rhetoric.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Pre-Planned Financial / Economic 9-11 of 2008? / Politics / Market Manipulation
WHAT: A pre-planned collapse of the US (and global) financial and economic systems.
WHO: The same characters who perpetrated the original 911.
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wall Street Mega-Crash: The Last Bank Standing / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Dateline Washington, October 19th (get it?) 2010: the Peoples Bank & Trust of America has now established itself as the only bank of any kind in the USA, totally owned and managed by the US House of Representatives. A 2/3 majority must now approve all investment banking transactions; your district representative's staff reviews individual mortgage applications; and all 401(k), IRA, and remaining employer pension assets have been rolled into the Social Security Slush Fund.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Bernanke and Paulson in the Dark on Bailout Impact / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Pre Vote Commentary - Welcome to the Weekly Report. This week we use the words of Ben Shalom Bernanke to describe why the $700Billion bailout will fail. I am going to assume the Bailout is enacted in one form or another and is probably announced around the Far East market opening times. However, there is a possibility that if Congress has not agreed then no soothing words will be forthcoming and a crash in share prices is used to "galvanise" action. We shall see.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
How To Stop A Run On The Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
The global banking system has frozen up. There is no trust between banks and there is no trust by depositors of banks. This has caused a run on the banks, and has led to the failure of Washington Mutual and Wachovia. Internationally, several large banks have failed.Bloomberg is reporting Libor Rises Most on Record After U.S. Congress Rejects Bailout .
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Political Leaders and Pundits Are Clueless About Bailout Rejection / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Stephen Pearlstein is the Washington Post 's Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist. In print and as a TV talking head—like on Chris Matthews' Hardball late last week—Pearlstein is one of the foremost media cheerleaders for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill.
Or should we call it the Bush-Paulson-McCain-Obama- Pelosi-Reid-Dodd-Frank Wall Street bailout bill?
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Monday, September 29, 2008
How Voter Fury Stopped The Bailout Plan / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Inquiring minds are considering the Wall Street Journal article How Voter Fury Stopped Bailout
Left-Right Combo By Opponents Put Plan on the Ropes.
The defeat in Congress of a proposed $700 billion economic-rescue package followed an intense outpouring of voter anger, fanned by politicians, interest groups and media on the left and right, that overwhelmed calls from the president and top lawmakers to pass the deal.
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Bailout Battle Continues: What's Next? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
We won the battle. Please remember this is a war.Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Treasury Secretary Paulson, Obama, and McCain all still want to pass this stupid bill.
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Monday, September 29, 2008
Republicans Defy Bush and Vote NO to Socialist Bailout Bill / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
FINALLY, someone said “No” to the criminal gang that runs the U.S. economy when the House voted down the Bush-Paulson $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan by a vote of 228-205.
Shame on the Democrats! Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip Rahm Emanuel delivered “yea” votes from 60 percent of Democratic House members and thereby gave the bill the only chance of passage it had.
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Monday, September 29, 2008
Congress Votes NO to Bailout Plan- We Won!!! / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
I want to thank each and every one of you who took the time and energy to defeat this monstrosity. This was an enormous victory for Democracy.205 Yes - 228 No - We Won!!!!
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Monday, September 29, 2008
Financial Catastrophe Entire Global Financial System in Collapse / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
The crime of the century. The greatest one ever. Author Danny Schechter calls it "Plunder." The title of his important new book on the subprime and overall financial crisis. Economist Michael Hudson and others refer to a kleptocracy. A Ponzi scheme writ large. Maybe an out-of-control Andromeda Strain. An economic one. Deadly. Unrecallable. Science fiction now real life. Potentially catastrophic. World governments trying to contain it. Trying everything but not sure what can work. Maybe only able to paper it over for short-term relief. Buy time but in the end vindicate the maxim that things that can't go on forever, won't.
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Monday, September 29, 2008
Bailout Plan No Solution to America's Ponzi Scheme Economy / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Risks of the Proposed Bailout: Part II - Would I support a bailout under any circumstances? Maybe. But only if there was a clear plan laid forth with specific guidelines and it was to be executed by credible and competent leaders. And only after I saw dozens of bank, Wall Street, and mortgage CEOs and others have their assets stripped and sent to prison. But all of Washington has been way behind the curve the entire time. And they have not raised the issue of accountability as I define it.Read full article... Read full article...