Recent comments

  • What is funded vs. non-funded in your chart above?

    Reply to: Only the Shadow Knows - Dr. Doom Speaks   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • What is instead of bailing out Wall Street they gave all the money to US manufacturing, tied to hiring US workers and became the largest VC bank in the world.

    I think the most corrupt executives should be required to work among the other blue collar workers hired.

    I did see that complaint on India but considering the mass exodus of big Pharma to China as well as India I strongly suspect that has more to do with the competition between China and India than the FDA's concern for bad drugs and manufacturing processes.

    I guess India wasn't so nice about some patents from some of the big pharma industry as well recently...damn them, something about the public good or something...

    now magically their manufacturing isn't up to snuff...
    and China's is? Brazil is?

    Reply to: Manufacturing Monday: German firm opens up in US, Volt not 100% American, and drug inspections   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • This is no longer about just mortgages.

    Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration widened the scope of its $700 billion plan to avert a financial meltdown by including assets other than mortgage-related securities.

    The U.S. Treasury submitted revised guidance to Congress on its plan a day after first submitting it, as lawmakers and lobbyists push their own ideas. Officials now propose buying what they term troubled assets, without specifying the type, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by a congressional aide.

    The change suggests the inclusion of instruments such as car and student loans, credit-card debt and any other troubled asset. That may force an eventual increase in the size of the package as Democrats and Republicans in Congress negotiate the final legislation with the Bush administration, analysts said.

    ``The costs of the bailout will be significantly higher than originally considered or acknowledged,'' said Josh Rosner, an analyst with independent research firm Graham Fisher & Co. in New York. ``How, given these changes, can the administration and Federal Reserve believe they are being forthright in their unrevised expectation of future losses?''

    Reply to: The Selling of a Crisis - So Horrible They Cannot Describe It   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Truly! Where is the comedy when one needs it!

    It sure does read like this and I couldn't help but think of alpha male behavior...crisis! I must have absolute control reaction too.

    But I don't think that's what they are doing, they knew full well, esp. Paulson if he just came from Goldman Sachs about this entire impeding implosion so the fact they did nothing earlier really makes it not pass the smell test.

    In terms of the threat, I do believe the global financial gambling system is probably on the brink of collapse.

    the issue is the fix. When one has private enterprise where stock is based on their profits which is really debt inverted, I don't see how one cannot just say game over.

    My issue is with their solutions.

    Reply to: The Selling of a Crisis - So Horrible They Cannot Describe It   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Juxtapose Bush Administration officials promising fireballs falling from the sky if we don't invade Iraq, with the current officials and politicians promising plagues of locust if we don't bail out the Wall Street banks.

    Reply to: The Selling of a Crisis - So Horrible They Cannot Describe It   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • It sure appears they are doing the Hoover/Japan plan and what I find amazing is supposedly Bernanke studied these in depth..so what, did they inject some philosophy into the analysis to somehow conclude that what did not work with some magic elixir tweak will?

    Good god, do what paid off in the past.

    Here's a minor point. On this shadow banking, off the balance sheet stuff, supposedly they had internal models yet magically didn't predict this?

    Who wants to bet that these executives have gobs and gobs of money parked in some corrupt Island paradise somewhere?

    Reply to: People are Asking the Wrong Question   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • The plan is a HOLC, which will assuredly absorb some losses but enable refinancing on mortgages.

    Are you kidding on Ron Paul?

    I'm also talking about legislation that is already written, already analyzed, already vetted versus a new piece of legislation thrown together in the middle of the night.

    What I'm saying is because she was running she had economic advisers and they worked on these policies, bills for months and months....so they are literally all typed up, ready to go, could be passed in hours.

    Reply to: Wondering Where Our Bail Out Is? A Few Lone Voices in Congress   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • I listened to a House Banking Committee hearing in January.
    Ron Paul questioned Bernanke at length. He said that the U.S.is bankrupt, the dollar worthless, we can't go on piling up debt like this. We need to go to a gold standard. He is still running.

    I also listened to the Obama and McCain Eco's on Lou. Neither really understand what actually happens at ground level when you move mortgage backed securities to a federal entity: a write down in primary or secondary capital. There is little voluntary "lifting of the Kimono."

    But truth be told, there are about 4 options:

    1) move the mortgage backed and mortgages at fair market value - any bank in this situation will take a hair cut and few will volunteer unless forced or desperate

    2) take the mortgages at face - a terrible option but it could happen - taxpayers get raped

    3) strip out mortgage backed from mortgages , pay FMV for mortgage backed securities, sell mortgage backed securities for profit bought at loss - Wall Street types love this and this will almost certainly happen

    4) take the mortgages at FMV, forget the mortgage backed securities and make the bank sell and eat losses on mortgage backed securities

    5) put all in a HOLB, FHA, VA and forget private solutions.

    Reply to: Wondering Where Our Bail Out Is? A Few Lone Voices in Congress   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • uh

    1. There are proposals in place, Clinton putting out a very specific one as alternatives.

    2. this post is well cited with very detailed analysis if you bother to click on the links and read

    3. I note you just are slamming the author and not adding to any analysis that would be constructive.

    Reply to: What in the Hell just happened?   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Pretty much sums it up:

     

    And this prescient classic from 2007

     

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • This is waaaay to sloppy and brief a summary to support analysis of the thinking.
    You say that the government took Fannie and Freddie capital to their own purposes? And that the treat of takeover and not bankruptcy caused the fall of the stock value? And who bore the cost of those stock declines and for what amount?
    There is nothing here at all that suggests an alternative, but even if there were, I'd suspect it would be sweet talked as much as the current "plan" is badmouthed.
    Why did the rest of the market, which is NOT finacial, crash and then rise?
    This "report" is far too speculative and shallow to be useful, except, yeah, it's scary, and really fun story if you like being scared.

    Reply to: What in the Hell just happened?   16 years 3 months ago
  • It's pretty clear, Paulson and the Lobbyist machine know full well how to frenzy up and control the Press and they are trying to whip a frenzy to get this passed like....tonight...your classic fear reaction before anyone has a chance to think about what is happening.

    other countries may adopt rescue plans claims Paulson after it was leaked out that foreign banks were going to access US taxpayer cash and the dissent is building.

    They are clearly also running the Shock Doctrine on Congress with this you must act right this very minute.

    Gee wiz, how long have people been warning about this...yet magically one must act within 24 hours as if this is all news?

    This is a setup.

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • In case folks are not aware, Milton Friedman is one of Bernanke's heros.

    They believe the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression by contracting the money supply.

    If you do not know Friedman is the architect of the Shock Doctrine

    I agree with NDD here that we have a classic shock doctrine moment going on.

    Now supposedly Bernanke has studied not only the Great Depression but also the Japan financial crisis.

    My question is has he studied and has a philosophy of the Friedman Chicago school?

    Cause they can study that til doomsday but I'm sorry their philosophy is just not the way we want to go in a Democracy!

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Was it Leno who said we are in a new chapter in US history?

    Chapter 11!!

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • I posted her entire speech and plan in a comment. She sure does and frankly I watched that speech and read her proposal and she is dead on and just thought to myself, boy did the wrong person get the nomination. I'm sorry but she is so on it in comparison to Obama it's just frightening.

    I want a do over on the primary!

    Here is the comment with the embedded video speech.

    Reply to: Wondering Where Our Bail Out Is? A Few Lone Voices in Congress   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Krugman and Roubini as well

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • We are returning, painfully, to a day of plain mortgages with a new version of the Home Loan Bank Board, the FHA and VA. No mortgage backed securities. Just mortgages. For a moment, let's look back at the Crime Scene this week.

    -for a short while, 90 Treasuries yielded 0.10 % - 10 basis points, for reference compare that to the nadir of 90 day yields in 1932 - 62 basis points - lower yields in this depression than the last.

    - gold prices, driven by market forces alone, spiked more this week than any other time, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - excepting 1934 and 1971, when FDR and Nixon closed the windows nationally and internationally and doubled prices

    - all interbank lending stopped, remarkable when considering that interbank lending for trade continued through the Bank Holiday of the Great Depression all the way back to Florence, Milan and Genoa of the 1450's !!

    - the increase proposed in the Debt Ceiling will raise to $11.3 Trillion, percentage-wise the greatest percentage increase since FDR's 1934 Budget

    - for the first time, the U.S. underwrote the assets of an insurance company - AIG, this had always been done through state funds and other insurers

    To insure the bets of a fool, like the mortgage banks, you need and even greater fool - AIG. To insure the assets of AIG, you need the greatest of fools, Bush and Poulson.

    Reply to: Wondering Where Our Bail Out Is? A Few Lone Voices in Congress   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Robert Reich says it's a real bad idea. Thinks good old fashioned Ch. 11 bankruptcy is the way to go. Then he says it looks hopeless and Congress is going to give Paulson a blank check but says they should make a series of conditions.

    Paul Craig Roberts is blasting the deal too.

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • bipartisan support growing in the Senate.

    People, write your representatives. We have a takeover happening as we type.

    Reply to: EconoBlogosphere's unanimous verdict: Wall Street bailout plan will soak taxpayers   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Another excellent guest and interview on Moyers.

    Phillips truly is an honest broker on economic and financial matters. One of my favorite economic commentators.

    Phillips makes a key point that our problems began when the finacial sector was given priority and favor over the manufacturing sector.

    He also made the sports analogy that a baseball game has umpires - tyh umpires in the finacial sector were insiders

    Neither party or candidate is offering any real solutions, both share the blame in the meltdown

    Reply to: Text of Bail Out Act Before Congress - TAKE ACTION NOW!   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:

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