From The New York Times:
Fearing a financial crisis worldwide, the Federal Reserve reversed course on Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that would give the government control of the troubled insurance giant American International Group.
I’d like a line of credit too, please. I’ve developed a new type of pizza oven and I need money to stay in business. The oven tends not to work, either burning the pizza or not cooking it inside, plus it has a strange tendency to burn buildings down. Oh, and I sold a bunch of them to people with no money, so I’m broke.
Still, my pizza oven is as good as the investment products the insurance-financial complex have been offering.
More seriously, it’s obvious we’re all on the hook for this mess because the alternative is a worldwide depression. Things are still looking fairly serious, but the point is that sometimes we have to do what is practical and leave the vacuous right-wing ideology where it belongs, on the shelf. Most of us learned this lesson from reading basic American history about the Great Depression/New Deal era. But the righties were so busy trying to repeal the Enlightenment they couldn’t process little details like capitalism needs a referee or it will destroy itself.
This should be the end of conservative nonsense about “free markets” being, in and of themselves, the answer to nearly everything. It won’t be, but any conservative arguing today that regulation always needs to be reduced or eliminated is arguing in favor of worldwide depression. Nice platform.
Let’s see the Republicans put some lipstick on this pig. I’m sure they’ll start blaming Andrew Jackson or Woodrow Wilson or something.
This is a very profitable business in ordinary times – the Fed have made a good investment and I suspect all monies advanced will come back with interest.
There was NO alternative. And the Feds now own 80 per cent of the giant firm.
I read your post twice and don’t see why the big blame whine. Fiscal turmoil every couple of decades is not exactly a new problem,
and to me this is better than a collapse of the whole world economy and long term attack on the dollar.
Get a grip, you and Goldy are becoming the Blame Twins.
By the way I know a dozen people who bought with these quirky loans, later re-financed and are in their own homes.
Many of the problems could have been averted by an old fashioned FHA type system – but hind sight is always great.
This really pisses me off. I have $150,000 in equity in my house, but can’t get a loan for a new roof because of a few late payments on other bills. Guess I’m just not a big enough fuck up to qualify for special attention.
@1
Just because there were a limited set of alternatives doesn’t mean that shouldn’t look at the cause and avoid it in the future. And just because it’s not a new problem doesn’t mean it doesn’t warrant a solution.
As early as 2005, T. Rowe Price’s chief fixed income analyst was telling wealth management clients to significantly reduce their exposure to financial institutions, especially those who held mortgages or derivatives. Her reasoning was that deregulation had allowed bundling of securities with mixed credit quality and, along with low interest rates had encouraged a glut of liquidity. Too much money chasing too few borrowers consequently lowering the bar for borrowers. Deregulation also allowed a wider range of financial institutions to hold the derivative instruments than before and lowered the amount of liquidity needed to cover outstanding loans.
Perhaps the deregulation was a mistake and it would be wise to examine reinstating some of those removed regulations.
It’s reasonable to conclude that free markets are not exactly efficient and that boundaries on acceptable behavior are as necessary as traffic laws.
This has been 30 years in the making, what with the right calling for “getting government off the backs of business” and promising that a “free market” would bring enduring prosperity so great nobody would have to pay taxes, and the Democratic leadership following along like a bunch of lemmings because they were scared shitless they might lose a vote or two if they told the unwashed masses that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Oh, yeah…all of ’em, on both sides of the aisle, have been lining their pockets with the largesse of the crooks whose shenanigans they’ve been jigging the system to hide.
Well, GUESS WHAT, GUYS? IT DIDN’T WORK! The fat cats danced, and now all of us, and several generations of our offspring, are going to have to pay the fiddler.
There’s actually a parallel between the neocon’s economic wet dream and the delusional heresy of the dominionist “Christians”.
Let’s wreck the economy, and we’ll all be rich!
Let’s wreck the government, so we can do whatever we want!
Let’s blow up the world, so we can all get “raptured” into heaven without having to die!
Who could have guessed back during those heady days of Reaganomics and “trickle down” that the “free market” greed train would ultimately lead to socialized state ownership of capital assets like AIG?
Oh yeah.
Marx.
Let’s hear it for the Glorious People’s Revolutionary Insurance Collective!
Even semi-serious Republicans have still managed to convince themselves that the Great Depression was caused by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, and the extent of an ostrich posture required to believe such a proposition is exceedingly large.
How can a tax on imports, which, at the time, comprised approximately 6% of GNP be responsible for a 31% drop in GNP? And why, if Smoot-Hawley had such a terrible effect, did the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922, which had a similar magnitude, have no discernible effect whatsoever on economic output?
The claim that Smoot-Hawley had anything more than a miniscule effect on the Great Depression is patently absurd on its face, yet you still find conservatives who, through the most specious of arguments, attempt to lend credence to this idea. Why? Because the alternative requires that we accept the notion that government must play a role in regulating the economy.
When you’re a conservative, ideology trumps reality every time.
They should have never bailed out Bear Stearns.
I agree with them letting Lehman Bros. sell assets & fade into the sunset.
Reluctantly, I agree with the need to inject capital into AIG.
Where is the Democrat-controlled Congress on trying to stop this?? Oh yeah, let’s hold some “hearings”! No action. If they don’t like it, why don’t they stop it??
Just another example of loving fiscal misery & agony and using it as a pawn for political power Jon.
Where is the Democrat-controlled Congress on this??
@1: “the Fed have made a good investment and I suspect all monies advanced will come back with interest.”
Really? By this logic we taxpayers should be using public money to snap up as many profitable ventures as we can…after all, that’s the purpose of government, eh?
I remember all that “profit” the public reaped from the S&L fiasco. Where’s my yacht?
I see during all this time of turmoil, O-blah-blah steps out with all his Hollywood fellow celebrities. Look how much O-blah-blah relates to the common man!!
Obama Picks Up $9 Million at Glitzy Hollywood Fundraiser
by Associated Press
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Barack Obama partied with Hollywood celebrities Tuesday night and with the help of Oscar-winning singer and actress Barbra Streisand raised an eye-popping $9 million for his presidential campaign and the Democratic Party.
The night was split into two glitzy events, a reception and dinner costing $28,500 each at the Greystone Mansion, followed by entertainment by Streisand at the nearby Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. About 250-300 people were expected at the dinner and about 800 at the entertainment, which cost $2,500 a ticket.
Dinner guests seen by reporters, or noted by waiters, included Will Ferrell, Jodie Foster, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Lee Curtis and DreamWorks founders Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenbach.
Rog–
I put a sell order in on 2,000 shares of NOV @ $54.81 1st thing this AM.
Paid 49.81 2 days ago.
See if it goes.
Just got the confirmation………
Sold @ $54.81
$10,000 profit in 2 days.
There are lots of opportunities out there right now…..short-term buys.
Still hanging on to Wells Fargo….although my broker suggested I look at selling 1/2 my holdings.
I’m tired of all these ST Capital Gains…plus WFC is the cream of the crop in the beat-up financial market plus good dividend.
Will hold for now.
Milton Friedman made an entertaining guest on Johnny Carson, but no one was fooled by his voo-doo economics — not until that heart-warming schmo RR came along — and charmed 52% of the American public into denying their own common sense.
#9 – You don’t get it. No actual money will flow from the US Treasury – these are bonds that will be backed by full faith and credit – bought by international investors – and repaid with interest. Interestingly, with fiscal uncertainly in the air worldwide, actual bonds from the US Treasury have top world wide investor appeal.
The full faith and credit of the US Treasury is far greater than your meager tax stream.
The bonds will be paid, they will do something to break up the company and either keep an interest for a while or divest.
Good solution. The decline of trading markets under panic motive has cost the wold economy trillions and means loss of liquidity so essential in all countries and all business and personal ventures.
The world economy is now linked and the US has to act as a global leader no matter how our own problems seem so important.
Above poster can’t get a new roof, fiscal echos mean some people in the third world can’t buy food. When bulk rice prices world wide go up 50% it is just nickels and dimes to us, and hunger (ie. starvation) to many.
Washington State unemployment is up to 6%.
*Dept of Revenue (Gregoire’s appointee) has failed to post 2nd Quarter-2008 Retail Sales
Gregoire increases spending by $8 BILLION
Also, where are updated Washington Budget forecasts?????
Seems like Gregoire is hiding facts from voters.
Well, if you’ve been watching the liberal news you would have watched the glee people like Chris Matthews who was happy people are hurting cuz it helps his cause.
But smart people hope these Senate hearings happen. It will show the Donkey in 2004 and 2005 stopping banking reform. I look forward to them.
Here is one time Robert Reich is actually saying something worthwhile: “In the latter years of the Clinton administration — when I was not there any longer, I should add — there was an attempt by Alan Greenspan and Bob Rubin and a few others to deregulate financial markets, and they did. They split commercial banking off from investment banking. And many people say, “Well, that was the beginning of the problem,” and then, of course, in 2003-2004, Alan Greenspan reduced short-term interest rates to the point where every single bank wanted to lend money. I mean, if you could stand up straight you could get a bank loan because there was so much pressure to get that money out the door. Money was so cheap. So, yes, there is some responsibility on Democrats, some responsibility on Alan Greenspan and the Fed.” – Now who controlled the Senate rhp6033 during this time? Hint – Not Republicans!!!!!
Jon, did you know Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson former CEOs of Fannie Mae are working on the Obama campaign as economic advisors? Look up Fraklin Raines Jon. If you were paying attention I explained who Franklin Raines is. You Jon, are too dumb to accept these facts.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....y_id=30261
“Congressional Democrats were and remain the leading defenders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, promising to resist efforts to shrink the companies, now under government control, and sell off their assets. Democrats had plenty of help from Republicans, to be sure, but it was mainly conservatives who have been warning for more than a decade that their public risk/private profit model was a disaster waiting to happen. – What? Conservates ringing the bell about these institutions.
Of course Jon Devore doesn’t do his homework, so Puddy will. So as I stated above, let’s see if Congress will be honest here!
“Obama’s unwillingness to take on his own party is his weakness and McCain’s strength.”
Fannie and Freddie are Democrat controlled gov. backed companies.
Senator John McCain had the judgment to see a problem before it happen. Barry on the other hand well what I can you saying about the kid.
Here is a link that should inform you about the collapses of the real estate market, which doomed the financial market. Pepsi will not investigate this only WALL STREET she is corrupt.
This info was post on another headline by patriots.
http://swampie.wordpress.com/2.....annie-mae/
@16
While I type you post glad we have both maybe just maybe these left wingers might see it.
Don’t hold you’re breath truth is something they have no need for or want to find.
They have always lived in a lie.
Why hasn’t the community reinvestment act of 1995 been mentioned.
Why should living in a poor neighborhood be a consideration when getting a loan, shouldn’t it be all about one’s income/credit history.
Ida @ 14: The “full faith and credit of the United States” is only as good as it’s ability to pay it’s bills. My credit rating’s pretty good too, but if I borrow more money than I can pay back, I’m in big trouble, and so is the guy that approved my loan.
Remember that the “Crisis in Social Security” isn’t really a problem with Social Security at all. The system was always set up to use current contributions to pay retiree’s pensions. The only potential problem was that there were going to be more retirees than current wage-earners, so they adjusted the contributions to a higher level to accumulate a surplus to deal with those “high demand” years. But the surplus is invested in T-notes, which are essentially IOUs from the federal government, which means that when the time comes to pay for the baby-boomer’s retirements the Social Security administration is going to go to it’s safety deposit box and open it up to find a bunch of IOUs from – the Treasury Dept. It will go to the Treasury Dept. and submit the IOUs for payment, and the Treasury Dept. will say “Gee, we don’t have that money. I guess we’ll have to ask Congress and the President to raise taxes to pay for it.” Now, this wouldn’t be a big problem if we had relatively low national debt and a balanced budget (like Bush inherited from Clinton in 2000). Instead, we’ve got Republicans spending money like drunken sailors and ballooning the deficit (and the total national debt) to record levels.
So at some point, somebody has to pay the bills, and you can bet the Republicans are convinced that it won’t be them doing the paying. As Leona Helmsely said: “Taxes are for the little people”.
You can stretch “Full Faith and Credit” to the breaking point. The Republicans are heading towards that breaking point at breakneck speed.
Now you all know of course yelling loser boy will claim the San Francisco Chronicle is a “Murdoch” publication and it’s truths must be ignored. He will also claim Carolyn Lochhead is a lying sniveling dupe!
Wait a minute… SF Chronicle supports Nancy Pelosi – the Marin County Queen. SF Chronicle supports that old school mayor Dianne Give Military Contracts to my Husband Feinstein. Oops, I guess they are a liberal bastion after all.
Cynical, as I told you in the other thread, Obama is NOT for the little people. He knows who pays his freight and he kisses their ASS too.
John@16: Just a little PuddySearch and you can find the best info on how this debacle started and who was in charge of the bank. Then when you add their contributions to it…
I bet there will be no “Abramoff” investigation into this banking scandal. But someone in the banking lobby is responsible.
Don Joe: Do you read IBD? I do. Great editorial article here:
http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArt.....0789279709
“Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.” – Nooooooooooooo. That can’t be!
Most leftist morons won’t read the article and hence will be uninformed.
What would be so bad about letting this American International Group go into bankruptcy? Good riddance, I say.
Remember when I posted the NY Post article where Obama was dabbling into foreign policy regarding the Iraqi pullout.
– yelling loser boy claimed the NY Post was a Murdoch rag so he don’t trust them.
– Daddy/Mommy Love said Obama was being statesmanlike.
Well here’s the truth again being delivered by Puddy!
Wendy Morigi, Barack Obama’s national security spokeswoman said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial. In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office”
Hmmm…? Isn’t that exactly what Taheri wrote yelling loser boy? Another of your stupid fallacies of where the REAL news comes from explodes in your putrid face. Barack Obama will all that I’m traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan fanfare and the three three letter libtard news anchors kissing his ASS went to Iraq and interfered with the diplomatic efforts of the elected United States government without State Department approval. And since we are in a war zone, Obama told the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the President.
So yelling loser boy, since Obama’s national security spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi, Barack verified the story, how exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful in the Murdoch owned NY Post?
You are such a fool yelling loser boy! HAs complete clueless irrational idiot.
What did REPUBLICANS do to prevent this crisis?
(crickets)
What “leadership” did the stupid fucking CHIMP show?
Oh I get it. If he only was allowed by the Dems in Congress and the “librul media” to cut taxes even more this wouldn’t have happened.
Moronic right wing bullshit. The silver lining to this crap is that the idiots have handed the election to Obama. That’s usually how it works.
Puddybud @23
Puddybud ,
The uninformed media (cnn,msnbc,abc can ignore this scam for a while however,even they will have to report this @ 3am.
yelling loser boy, where have I excused the administration?
URL
Citation
Time and Date Stamp
Nowhere, HAs complete clueless irrational idiot!
This is why I want Congressional hearings. Once thinking people put the chart up there of the culprits and how many work for Obama…
This damning information will be like a rock in a pond. Sinking fast!
Throwing Money at Problems
The Republicans used to accuse the Democrats of “Throwing money at problems”. In recent years it’s become obvious that is a particularly Republican trait.
Allow me to provide a short illustration of the concept, before giving actual examples. Suppose a new CEO takes over the business. He has a stock option package pegged to share prices at the end of each quarter – the better the stock value, the more he personally makes. Now, sales are hard to increase over the short term. New products require more expense for R&D without a short-term return. So the best way for him to prop up the stock prices, in the short term, is to cut expenses. A lot.
So the CEO aggressivly cuts expenses. He slashes the R&D budget (which would only benefit the next guy, this CEO expects to move on to his next gig within three years or so anyway). He reduces repairs and maintenance budgets to bare minimums. He lays off thousands of skilled and experienced workers, either replacing them with far fewer unskilled new hires, or outsources the jobs overseas. He slashes administrative staff and management, requiring one person to do the work previoiusly done by three.
Now, eventually, these decisions are going to catch up with the company. If the CEO sticks around too long, he will find himself with quite a few problems. Expensive equipment will have to be replaced for lack of an adequate repair and maintenance program. Mistakes by new, less skilled employees will turn out to be very expensive lin the long run. Mistakes will be made in all departments as administrative staff and lower management simply doesn’t have the time to do their jobs properly, and shortcuts end up costing the company money.
When that happens, the CEO just starts throwing money at the problems. He pays a lot more to settle lawsuits caused by defective products, administrative blunders, and crash R&D programs to catch up with the competition. He blames the problems on “unforseable problems” or the “global economy” and asks for the stockholder’s patience as he works through the difficulties.
That’s pretty much the Republican plan for government, in a nutshell. You saw it in spades in the failed FEMA response to Katrina – an agency which was being dismantled suddenly had a big job to do, and it couldn’t do it properly. To counter the PR problem, they started “throwing money” at the problem by issuing $1,000 debit cards to anyone who would fill out a form. Then they complained when the expected instances of fraud or abuse of those cards was disclosed later. Of course, that’s why professional disaster response people have systems in place with controls and administration to avoid those types of problems. But for the Republicans, they preferred to eliminate the professionals and then throw taxpayer money at the problem instead.
The same problems shows up in spades here. Try to get away with too little oversight and regulation of the financial markets, and then throw billions of taxpayer dollars at the problem to try to fix the problem later.
Same song, different verse.
Oops found more Robert Reich material:
“Obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions. Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.”
Golly you’ll never see this type of analysis from HAs putrid economist Paul hanging Chads Krugman.
Puddy’s getting pretty desperate. After Republican control of the Congress from 1994-2006, Republican control of the White House from 2001-20008, and control of the Supreme Court by Republican Appointees for as long as I can remember, he is still desperatly trying to blame the current financial collapse on the Democrats.
Keep trying, Puddy! This one belongs to the Republicans!
Look – they’re still blaming it on Bill Clinton.
It’s Obama/Biden in a walk on November.
LMAO!!! Imagine that. REPUBLICAN state-owned enterprises!
AIG is an insurance company. Who told them to invest in crappy paper?
rhp6033: I am delivering history. Something lost on your small mindedness. I want Congressional hearings. Please bring them on.
Republicans didn’t control “Congress” from 1994-2001. They had the leadership in both houses until May 24, 2001. Jumping Jim Jeffords gave it to Daschle until January 3 2005. Then when banking legislation was tried Little Chucky The Knife Schumer cut it with Chris Dodd. Good try at revisionist history.
I want them to show the charts of who was in charge where and where they are now (Psst, they are in Obama’s campaign). Please rhp6033 call for the hearings.
Join me rhp6033 Call for the hearings. Spin this all you want. Join Puddy in the call for hearings…
Frank Raines, a classmate of mine at Franklin HS, is a true success story. I can see why Pudnuts, loser that he is, would be jealous.
rhp6033 what part of “Congressional Democrats were and remain the leading defenders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, promising to resist efforts to shrink the companies, now under government control, and sell off their assets. Democrats had plenty of help from Republicans, to be sure, but it was mainly conservatives who have been warning for more than a decade that their public risk/private profit model was a disaster waiting to happen.” – don’t you understand?
Was that a sulfurous smelly excretion in post #36? Why yes it is. It’s from an ASS member!
Summary of Puddy’s defense of the Bush administration’s mishandling of the current financial crisis:
It’s all the Democrat’s fault! They created these pesky government agencies to promote reasonable housing for the public, if it didn’t work it must be because they did a bad job of it! And some Democrats got some campaign contributions from financial types, too! It must be a conspiracy!!!! Somebody should have made those bad old Democrats who were in the minority in Congress until 2007 FORCE the Bush administration to do it’s job!!!! The Bush administration WANTED to do it’s job, but it couldn’t do it unless the Democrats FORCED it to!!!
WAAAAA!!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAAA!!!!
@38 It would seem far more likely that what you presently smell is the goatshit on your face.
Since most of you lefties get your “news” from Olbermann…
OMGoodness: “Zucker described Olberman’s role as that of “an editorial page.”
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvn......asp?c=rss
But at the Republican Convention I watched PMSNBC for a good laugh when Olberman said this: “If at this late date, any television network had, of its own accord, shown that much video tape and that much graphic video tape of 9/11…it, we, would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that video tape the way I did, I apologize. It is a subject of great pain, for many of us still, and it was probably not appropriate to be shown.”
Maybe Keith will admit this too?
rhp6033: How wrong you are. You are living in rhp6033 reality. Spin spin spin rhp6033, cuz even leftist print media agrees with the historical fact. Why can’t you? These people are in Obama’s campaign. I want them exposed in congressional hearings…
Hence I want these hearings rhp6033. How many times do I need to say this? When the American people judge for themselves we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
Join me in a call for hearings…
Puddy;
Are you SERIOUSLY trying to say that the Republicans didn’t hold a majority in both the U.S. House and Senate from May 2001 through January 2007??????
Are you claiming that the Democrats in the minority position in Congress were more powerful than the Republican majority? Or that somehow their Jedi mind-control was able to exercise a more powerfull enfluence on the weaker minds of the Republican colleagues?
Or that somehow a Democrat was the “shadow president” from May 2001 onward, and Bush simply responded to his orders??????
Talk about revisionist history!!!!!
Hey, I’m all for Congressional hearings starting in January 2009. Let the truth out!!!!
Of course, Bush will still try to exert executive priviledge to prevent anything damaging from being disclosed by his administration. In a way, that’s a good side to the expected pardons which he will be passing out right before he leaves office – it prevents Rove & Co. from using the Fifth Amendment as an excuse not to testify.
By the way, don’t be distracted by all that black smoke coming out of the chimneys of the White House on January 19th. It’s not a terrorist attack. It’s just the Bush Administration burning documents.
The wingnuts are desperate to lay this at the feet of Bill Clinton – that’s their answer to all their fuck-ups.
Why not lay it at Greenspan? When he chopped interest rates to the the bone, that gave the banks hardly any choice but push money out the door as fast as they could. If one lender maintained lending standards, that meant he lost business to his competitor. Surely Greenspan knew this would happen.
But after the dot com bubble popped, all Greenspan knew how to do was blow up another bubble. He wasn’t going to lobby Congress or the Chimpanzee administration to intervene in the economy. Republicans would only laugh at him and wonder if he lost his mind. So he introduced a distortion in the economy, ridiculously low interest rates, to keep the whole ugly mess going.
Now there’s no choice for the REPUBLICANS but to institute STATE-OWNED enterprises! LMAO!! Sweet justice.
Rhp6033 asked me: “Are you SERIOUSLY trying to say that the Republicans didn’t hold a majority in both the U.S. House and Senate from May 2001 through January 2007??????”
Yes, don’t you remember Jumping Jim Jeffords giving Donkey Senate control May 24, 2001?
You forgot this?
Golly yelling loser boy @45: What did the congressional record say about Greenspan’s testimony vs. worthless conjecture by you?
rhp6033: What I’m saying is the Senate Donkey filibustered many things. It’s their right just as now the libtard MSM cries fowl when the Republicans do it as their right.
The 1999-2001 and 2001-2003 Senate Sessions had 58 filibusters each.
Can’t you search the records before spouting off rhp6033?
Speaking of lipstick, looks like the lefties are at their smearing best again:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/palin.asp
Again democrats are misogynists. Plain and simple.
Puddy @ 46: Okay, you got me. I had forgotten about Jeffords, who switched from Republican to Independent in May 2001 giving the Democrats a temporary (and tenuous) majority in the Senate of 50-49 until the 2002 elections gave the Republicans a majority again. I will amend my future remarks accordingly, in the interest of accuracy.
But are you seriously saying that that seventeen month interval between much longer periods of Republican control of the Senate makes the Democrats responsible for the current financial crisis????????
Dipstick Democrats Lead Financial Crisis:
The credit crisis and the lack of oversight over government-subsidized lenders like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac occurred on the watch of George Bush, and many blame his economic team for their lack of oversight in the collapse. Barack Obama has made this point one of his major campaign themes, arguing that John McCain would provide more of the same failures that Bush did. However, what many do not recall is that Bush wanted to tighten oversight with a new regulatory board for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government recipients for the express purpose of addressing bad loan practices — and Democrats blocked it.
The New York Times reported this five years ago:(9-11-03)
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.
This should have been a no-brainer, right? With hindsight, we can see that the Bush administration had accurately diagnosed the problem in the lending market and had a plan to address it. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reluctantly supported the plan. However, Democrats objected (emphases mine):
Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.
11. Mr. Cynical spews:
Rog–
I put a sell order in on 2,000 shares of NOV @ $54.81 1st thing this AM.
Paid 49.81 2 days ago.
See if it goes.
09/17/2008 at 6:46 am
12. Mr. Cynical spews:
Just got the confirmation………
Sold @ $54.81
$10,000 profit in 2 days.
So Rog–
How does that little move look??
John425@51:
SAY IT LOUD AND SAY IT PROUD
SAY IT on thread It wasn’t so much a “line in the sand,” as a circle (p=7023)
Puddy @ 24
As a matter of fact, no, I don’t read Investors Business Daily, and your link provides ample evidence as to exactly why. That article is a piece of crap for a variety of reasons. For example, the Community Rebuilding Act addresses the number of loans made in low-income areas, not the dollar amounts of those loans. Nevertheless, the IBD article simply assumes that low-income borrowers are inherently more risky regardless of the dollar amounts of the loans.
I’ve suggested this to you before, but, for some reason, you insist on being misinformed: start reading Barry Ritholz’s blog.
John @ 51
Hm. I wonder what this was all about, and why did the Bush Administration thumb their collective noses at it?
Speaking of Barry, this is why I don’t read Investors Business Daily, and precisely why no one else should either.
And to think, some idiots even subscribe to IBD. Amazing.
@52 Zzzzzzzzzzzz
A bankruptcy filing for AIG would have created a worldwide financial disaster. What is really tragic about this is the gutless wonders who parade around as politicians that are completely incapable of making a decision without seeing which way the wind is blowing first. The Speaker of the House spoke out on the AIG matter and attempted in vain to make it a political issue and shoot at those that support immediate help to prevent financial caos. She has done nothing more than illustrate that she is just incapable of serving in her current position. I predict here and now that the US Treasury will reap a fairly significant financial benefit from taking a 79.9% ownership interest in AIG.
One final comment on this subject… as it seems no one is reading this anymore…
If half the thought and energy spent on creating ways to blame was spent on a solution, the problem would easily be solved.
BTW, AIG is in a business alittle more important to the world than a pizza oven