These people are asking and getting Tax money so fast, I can't keep up with how much we own at this point. It seems like the going amount requested is between 600 Billion to 1 trillion per request.
Just how much do we have left to give out at this time? Is anyone maintaining a accurate balance sheet?
Cool. Good thing the bond market has an infinite supply of money or we might be in trouble. $500B for the FDIC, another $750B for the banks. Am I double counting the same bailout money? Does anyone know the difference? When is this more than a bailout? How much debt do we float before we call it a currency intervention/devaluation?
Sadly, yes. And putting money in a home safe or a credit union, and pulling back from spending is still the best advice. His advice to go buy stocks is equally wrong-footed.
Never take financial advice from a stock broker, a RE agent, an insurance salesman or a President.
How many ordinary Americans are significantly vested in the stock market, fried? Ok, a trick question...just loaded...once more: "go buy stocks" --would you say that works better in the Caymans than it does in Flint?
This is another legacy from shortie: never trust a President, even those ones that can read as if they knew what they were talkin about.
Make the distinction between shortie's "Go shop" and in these new circumstances, a softer message from an intelligent, possibly more honest and compassionate president than his predecessor...who seems to be hiding...good thing, I suppose.
C'mon, CR--please trot out those posts that you and Tanta wrote way way back in 2006, when you documenting the horrid loans being stuffed into Phoneie and Phraudie. I didn't discover this blog until 2006, so if you started earlier, please do tell!
I'm intrigued by the notion that someone who is advised by a guy who's most significant contribution to the public discourse was to say that "Girls can't do math" is suggesting that bloggers (even ones with Nobel prizes) haven't thought this through all the way.
Obama is insane. Ramping up social programs, increasing taxes, proposing carbon tax unlilaterally and massively adding to the already insolvent medicare system. Our government is already too big and funded from outside. How will the chinese like to fund our health care system when they barely have one of their own.
We're doomed, because leaders don't have a shred of common sense. Just idology.
250 Billion nice way to fudge the numbers BHO. Love to see the math behind that figure.
CR BHO and others need to marginalize blog because they have no control or leverage to use against them. Mainstream media can be threatened with a decrease in government funding/cooperation or large advertisers could pull advertising. Blogs fall into that area in the wild frontier... here come the government censors! Watch out CR!
Bernanke: Fed will use all tools at its disposal Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
I wonder if he's including direct monetization. For me, this is the reason not to touch TBT.
So, is it impossible to overwhelm the Fed with relentless Treasury selling. I think so. I am maintaining a position adding and removing. ALso carry OTM puts, just in case to hedge. Treasuries will implode. I think sometime this year. The O'drama recklessness pretty much insures it.
I won't touch the crap either way. short or long treasuries. Double shorting is out of the question. Politics is much harder to predict than stock prices. Better to short crap companies that are destined to fail. You won't lack for targets there.
The establishment is waking up to the idea that they really have to discredit blogs and the internet, because it is not controllable like the MSM.
Yeah good luck with that. Oh those blogs that were warning you of an impending deflationary bust, don't listen to them. They just haven't looked at the problem CAREFULLY enough.
No, instead you should believe the people who have looked at the problem CAREFULLY, and say the only way out is to give another $750 BILLION Dollars to the people who created this mess.
...The establishment is waking up to the idea that they really have to discredit blogs and the internet, because it is not controllable like the MSM...
Thank you for mentioning the term "establishment". I was thinking about that term in its 60s incarnation earlier and wondering about it's new application: Some sort of impersonal and intractable behemoth, something like yelling in the fog or yelling at glaciers to stop their progress that resists all protestations to no avail.
They named a highway exchange after him. It will have exits going to nowhere and hell.
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank will “forcefully” use every resource to restore financial-market stability and revive U.S. economic growth.
“We will continue to forcefully deploy all the tools at our disposal as long as necessary to support the restoration of financial stability and the resumption of healthy economic growth,” Bernanke said in prepared remarks for an event today in Dillon, South Carolina. The Fed chief returned to his hometown to attend a ceremony naming a highway interchange after him.
Instead of saying, “how sad, too bad” to these counterparties, the Fed decided (in the words of the Wall Street Journal), to unwind “.. some AIG contracts that were weighing down the insurance giant by paying off the trading partners at the full value they expected to realize in the long term, even though short-term values had tumbled.”
It's interesting that this doesn't meet the test for theft and that noone has tried to prosecute Bernanke for this. It would seem that taking taxpayer funds and using them to overpay for assets is what Defense contractors got into trouble for. Shouldn't the Fed be disallowed from doing exactly the same thing? What's different (even if it's a technicality)?
RE: Blogs
I think it's a big change that he's even mentioning the role of blogs. It's unfortunate that it seems he hasn't found CR yet, but the blogs are definitely starting to have an effect on public policy.
No, he hasn't found CR. Or Jesse's Cafe, or Michael Morgan, or Denninger's MarketTicker, or Kunstler's ClusterfuckNation, or Mish. He also hasn't found RGE Monitor, or Kitco...
In fact, I doubt Obama's ever even read a blog. Too busy practicing politics.
if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer
eff him. There is a clean answer, which is to enforce the laws prohibiting fraud and uphold the Constitution.
That means widespread prosecutions of banksters, and an end to bailouts and guarantees that are not authorized by Congress. (Parenthetically, it also means a halt to our undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
If he can't do these things, he's become the problem.
“What I don’t think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their mattresses and pull back completely from spending,” he said.
Can't tax what you can't track. Can't confiscate what you can't find. Can't freeze what you don't deposit. Can't rig a game if no one antes. Of course he doesn't people to vote with their assets and cash. Why, why that would almost be like a vote of no confidence.
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.
We have no proof OB could run a lemonade stand. Who is he going to blame when the reality of very low tax income hits and he pissed away a ton money! Need more OB where does it come from?
You might want to consider what would happen if:
a) no additional money was spent
b) the US financial system completely failed
Money is fungible, Koo's idea of maintaining total credit outstanding, the debt undertaken today will not be the debt ultimately paid off under any scenario
I can't evaluate your comment because it's on a blog. Talk to my friend Timmay G and he'll give it careful consideration. Be sure to drop a few Goldman Sachs names at him. Works like a charm.
" 05It's George Bush's fault. Oh wait that excess is used up and not valid any more!01"
Well, Bush did have 8 years to fix (or exasperate) the problem. Obama has had a little over a month. Republicans are just desperate to make this Obama's depression.
While I like Obama less and less each week, it is definitely ridiculous to place the blame for this problem on any one person and equally ridiculous to place the blame on any one political party.
That said, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone with half a brain that one political party would try to get the public to blame the other in an attempt to gain additional power.
Not this Republican. I intend to give him until September 11, 2009. That date look familiar? September 11, 2001, when everything became Bush's fault...
"Just how much do we have left to give out at this time? Is anyone maintaining a accurate balance sheet?"
I've been trying. With this latest number of $750 billion, it looks to me like we're coming up on $6 trillion. I could be wrong, though, it's all gotten so confusing.
You know, that's why Obama doesn't like bloggers. They are so negative. They seem to think reality is something more than a theoretical construct. They will need to be reeducated. And soon.
On a weekend TV show in Boston, Mike Barnicle referred to bloggers as "Idiots". That Mike Barnicle must be very smart to be that certain he's in a position to judge bloggers like CR. Soon he'll be quoting CR and representing it as original material, but nevermind.
Here's an article regarding Barnicle's ethics and wisdom: CNN - Boston columnist resigns amid new plagiarism charges - August 19, 1998
This is going to really fugly. The paralysis of American political system is obviously setting in on top of the economic crisis. The "system" is in vain trying to save itself by doing the same things again and again because the ruling class is unable to respond any other way.
We talked about all these very issues a lot last fall. Has that much changed?
At that time I thought perhaps they get could get by with a fast $4 trillion injection into the US financial system, it turns out the situation hasn't changed but I was just optimistically naïve
I'm doing my best to separate what are emotive arguments and what are logical arguments, so any elaboration is appreciated
EvilHenryPaulson replies:
Today, 4:21:54 PM “We talked about all these very issues a lot last fall. Has that much changed?
The state was looted thoroughly but the problem was not solved. Now the state must be looted again, ostensibly in an attempt to solve the problem. What has changed is the state has become considerably more indebted to no real (public) effect.
I'm doing my best to separate what are emotive arguments and what are logical arguments, so any elaboration is appreciated
To reiterate Rob Dawg, as Fire Sign Theatre says, "did you remember to carry the bum?" The size of the problem and the size of the solution are only related tagentially. You could say they even have a negative inverse relationship at this point, depending on how much you think TARPonimics has replaced the real economy -- a real solution would end the tarponomic income the TBTF firms are receiving.
I think from Japanese experience that TARPonimics is an instantly adopted, superior substitute to real economics, and the strained / failing state experience in general tends to bear me out.
Be careful reading me that you're not writing off as slanted text what is a strictly technical description of these events.
The economic aspect of this crisis is pronounced and becoming predominant, but the initial crisis was purely political. However, a solution was not found and that credit crisis period is receding into the past, and the systemic crisis in the credit markets is now quite entrenched as a real world economic downturn.
It was about people's relationships with school pals and golf chums and brothers-in-law and not forcing them into insolvency. That's mostly over now, though, and all the banks have been thoroughly zombified. Now we get to have a Treasuries bubble and a horrible credit shortage in the developing world simultaneous with a global depression to look forward to.
There has been a large financial disturbance now that the debt machine has stalled (not enough oxygen and the carb isn't plugged up). There are 3 categories of responses: Underdamped, Critically damped, and Overdamped. In the long run they all end up at the same point where there is less notional wealth.
Every choice will suck, you have to get over that. Start thinking about learning from mistakes and preparing to rebuild. What institutions failed, why, how do we make use of that knowledge... If it was corrupt politicians, well then it is everyone's fault for acquiescing to a political system that apparently allows for the encouragement and festering of corruption. A working system would have at the very least promptly removed them from office when uncovered. If it was economists, then why were the so extremely few people recognize, understand, and correctly time the problem not listened to in favor of those consistently out to lunch intellectually. If it was individual selfishness, then how was it possible for millions of people to act in concert beyond their peak debt carrying capacity. If it was the frankenstein banking system, then what banking units co-exist well and which must be separated. If it was rating agencies, then how was it they managed to become the dominant source of approval. If it was international trade distortions, why did existing arbitration bodies not resolve the matter....
I exude hubris, but if I was given today the sole decision making authority in the US I would rack up $8tn in debt without raising an eyebrow. The chance to prevent it has come and gone. We are dealing with a problem at least 30 years in construction. You have to give up all pretence that anyone, even yourself, could make it all better overnight.
The absolute best that we can hope for is the crashing to happen as fast as possible, and to be prepared with more robust institutions going forward to make the most out of whatever we have.
Was prevention even an option? Delaying the inevitable seems to have been the only other choice. There was too much money on the side of trying to keep it going to have really fought it I think.
Gore's lockbox lost votes, even though it was the right way to go.
I would say there was a chance to stop the problem, which always would in the short term appeared as a negative, before the problem threatened the system itself. Because the system was not used prudently, it will be broken, and continue to be broken until we can keep everything within sustainable levels.
No different than a farmer over producing from a field, it's something we have had to manage for millennia. The global financial system is just one more new context to learn the limits for.
EHP: "..which always would in the short term appeared as negative,.."
I believe this is what assured the problem would not get fixed. Before civilization, that is most of human history, the key issue was getting through the next week, or for the far sighted, the next winter. There were not a lot of selective pressures for abstract analysis of possibilities more than a year off, if that. Most people act for short term gain, and with credit it's easy to trade the future for the here and now.
Not that people can't learn: for a long time after the depression society was very careful with credit. But those with first hand experience are mostly gone, so apparently we must learn the same lesson once again.
So much for "change"...another $750 billion to banks and just $75 billion for homeowners. At least there's a little change, but BHO can keep his brand of change, because it won't work.
BHO refuses to keep illegals from receiving stimulus money. He went back on his protectionist campaign to keep jobs in the US. THIS SPEAKS VOLUMES. IT IS NOT CHANGE. IT IS MORE OF THE SAME.
OK, then Obama, try us. If you talk real slow, I'm sure we could understand the complications with just pre-privatizing insolvent banks.
I'm SO tired of these patronizing attitudes by politicians and the media (and I actually supported Obama, and thought he was different). Just tell us what alternatives you considered, what you decided to do, the pros and cons of the decision, etc. We can handle AND comprehend the truth.
How is it even conceivable that anyone else could understand?
Wait a minute - I have been told from a zillion sources that cutting taxes would solve the crisis immediately. Surely they have a full understanding of the problem to be so sure of the solution.
We have an entry-level executive running the place. It's his first real executive job. This is on-the-job training for a rookie. Ideology is important, but does it get the job done? I wonder.
My apologies for underestimating Leader O. I thought it would take 30 months for him to match the previous administrations contribution to the national debt. He's proven far far more effective than that.
I'm not in support of the bank bailouts, but I still don't think it's fair to compare Bush's accumulation of debt to Obama's ... Bush presided over the "boom" years, and Obama is left trying to deal with a monumental credit collapse.
From what I can tell, you by and large ignore posts you don't like. So how about this, what would President Elect Rob Dawg propose if he took office tomorrow, and there were no domestic political constraints on your actions.
Direct and completely off base personal insult aside offering me the pilot's seat after the plane has run out of gas and entered a flat spin with the controls locked is not some choice. Given free reign tomorrow I'd do my best for a controlled crash. As part of the controlled crash I wouldn't waste my airspeed trying to stay aloft just a little longer hoping for angels to appear under my wings. I would lie to the passengers. I wouldn't blame the previous pilot. I would look for possible expertise in the passengers rather than telling them to shut up and stay quiet (bloggers).
Abandoning the analogy, I would raise taxesputting a little bit more progression in the upper end. I would phase out and tighten the home exclusion. I would phase in higher gas taxes with weight towards states and not the FHWA. I would stop subsidizing wasteful transit policies that misallocates a limited public resource. I'd cancel a whole mess of manned military vehicle programs. I'd offset some of that with an expanded NASA aeronautics arm. I would ask the other federal agencies to submit 10% lower CFY budgets.
Since I inherited this mess I can't say let AIG counter parties take their lumps, they already have the money and won't give it back. Well, wait a minute. It isn't as if they aren't going to need more favors. Yes, I'd do back room clawbacks of some of these bailouts. I'd also jettison all this crap about goodwill loses and loses against past earnings. I would henceforth forbid subdividing of mortgage and small business lending products. Borrowers would be granted right of first purchase whenever the product changed hands.
WTF? You just said let a few posts ago to let it crash as fast as possible and you're snidely questioning what Dawg would do as president? There are no solutions to this problem. We are going down. We can either throw money away while we go down - money that could be used to help rebuild a new stable financial system - or we can stop bailing out the criminals and let them burn. Then we rebuild.
Use tarp money to capitalize responsible banks. Let the guilty banks fail and the responsible banks could buy the assets cheap. Prosecute ALL parties involved in this fiasco(to include elected officials who took the bribes..dem and repub alike). Let the peeps who bought way more then they could afford by lying on their loans declare bankruptcy and lose it all. Enact the laws and regulations that have been ignored or undermined.
"If you count the guarantees, I think it's over ten trillion"
Yeah, could be. That's basically a doubling of the total debt within the space of six months. Nice. That's the magic of "compound interest" for ya.
This thing is done. Based on those CDS rates for U.S. treasuries, I think we've already entered a positive feedback loop where interest rates & defaults are tearing out a bigger hole than they can fill with borrowing.
I figure the Feds have perhaps ninety days before this thing goes boom.
This thing is done. Based on those CDS rates for U.S. treasuries, I think we've already entered a positive feedback loop where interest rates & defaults are tearing out a bigger hole than they can fill with borrowing.
I don't know if I agree with the choice of measure, but I do agree with the conclusion. Definitely true, and funny, that when we go down, there'll be a short Ts/long US CDS feedback loop going on while it happens.
I figure the Feds have perhaps ninety days before this thing goes boom.
It can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. It'll take some crisis to push it over. The Concert of Powers can go on making meaningless promises forever, it's some Gavrilo Princip that ends the sitting-parlor gasbaggery.
It'll be an energy crisis or a hurricane or a war or some foolishness that shows us too resource-strapped to respond. There's too many vested interests, the system won't reconfigure until failure.
Associated Press
Congress OKs stopgap bill to keep government open
By ANDREW TAYLOR – 21 hours ago
"WASHINGTON (AP) — With a $410 billion catchall spending bill stalled in the Senate and a midnight deadline looming, Congress rushed through stopgap legislation Friday to keep the government running for another five days.
The House passed the bill by a 328-50 vote; the Senate acted by unanimous voice vote. President Barack Obama signed the measure later in the day, White House officials said early Friday evening."
More fear...
there'll be a short Ts/long US CDS feedback loop going on while it happens.
Isn't that happening now with GE common. Those who wrote protection on GE Capital bonds are hedging default by shorting GE common stock under the assumption that a default would drive the stock to zero. This strategy seems to be self fulfilling.
KD doesn't know what he's talking about in this situation. Does the CDS writer short stock and then buy calls to protect against unlimited upside risk of common? Karl just likes to put his name/face out there.
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
Yah it always sucks to get told you're half-assing it.
Hahahahah. They grow fast in Fla! but of course I planted those months ago. I plant them over 3 months or so, to get a continuous crop. At least every weekend. The hub would starve before it occurred to him to pick an orange or saw off the flower of a broccoli.
Problem is taking so long to fix, cause it takes so long to make the new currency plates....10,000, 50,000, 10,000 etc, denominations to replace the 1,5,& 10 denominations. Hear them press's running???
Actually, no, I don't hear them running. What I see around me, however, are asset prices coming down rapidly, the velocity of money slowing down, and people saving more of their earnings. Hyperinflationary? Um, no. Deal with what you have in front of you first. The hyperinflation may or may not come later.
I've been of that mind but... almost doubling the national debt in the space of six months, coupled with the market crash, has to be really shaking people up. I have no money on it but I think there's a good likelyhood of a panic treasury selloff within the next 90 days. Once that happens, I expect to see ever-increasing interest rates, and once people BELIEVE that is happening... it's done. A constant outflow from paper into anything.
"“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
~~~~
Oh please ... So let's get advice from the very people who caused this mess ... Geithner, Summers ...
Actually Obama used the blogs and IT masterfully in his campaign. I would think to turn your back on these now would be very risky. TBP which is usually much more calmer than the folks here are going nuts today on the AIG situation. The prop. heads are running at 10,000 rpm over there. I actually had to check my header add to see which site I was in. Where this is going I dont have a clue.
TBP seemed to me like an econblog catered more to the "mainstream," although I think CR is data-driven and provides more original content. CR more wonkish, I guess? Anyway, were they slow to come around to the AIG story? I think it was pretty well known that European banks and GS were beneficiaries of the AIG bailout.
Wow, that blogger comment shows a lot of contempt. Of course he does know that bloggers like CR called all this mess long ago, but he'll never own up to that, because then he'd have to pay serious attention to current advice coming from those sources... which of course would run contrary to his real agenda, which is to bail out all the folks who got him into the White House.
Trust me, people will be burning his effigy in public protests by Christmas.
From 2 threads back: JP replies:Today, 10:11:59 AM
He's saying: Enforce all contracts as they were written.
If you bought a house at a stoopid price, then lose your house.
If you bought CDS protection from a company that goes bankrupt, lose your protection.
No, What BR is saying is:
If you bought CDS protection from (naive) AIG , you were too smart for your own good. (should have thought about counterparty risk earlier)
But, if you gave a naive lendee a loan that was beyond his carrying capacity, the naive lendee has to honor the contract even if the debt turns the person into a debt slave
The point is: mortgage lenders and the counterparties are in a similar situation (Dollars that they thought were theirs are not there).
A cramdown is just a political tool in equalising the unequal economic power in the mortgage relationship and by fighting for one and not the other, BR/others are contradicting themselves.
If you bought CDS protection from (naive) AIG , you were too smart for your own good. (should have thought about counterparty risk earlier)
Yes, so suffer the consequences of your actions.
But, if you gave a naive lendee a loan that was beyond his carrying capacity, the naive lendee has to honor the contract even if the debt turns the person into a debt slave
But, if you gave a naive lendee a loan that was beyond his carrying capacity, the naive lendee has to honor the contract even if the debt turns the person into a debt slave
Yes. Suffer the consequences of your actions. Lose the house.
When CNBC was arguing that the homeowner who called in should keep paying, Barry called them out and said the owner should send in the keys.
So again: Banks should suffer the consequences of their actions.
The content of what these two clowns are trying to peddle to save GE stock is sickening. I wish someone like Dr. Doom or the Black Swan or Barry R. was on there to tear them a new one.
You know, I think everybody in America knows we are screwed regardless of what we do. I don't think any Average Joe (and not just the one on this blog) thinks any if these bailouts are doing any good or will prevent the meltdown. I think everyone now realizes that there is nothing but pain ahead of us for many years. So why does Obama continue with the same disastrous policies that have been the norm for the past decade. The only explanations are that he is a crook or he is a fool. If O would just go on TV and explain to the American people that we are broke and that there will be no more bailouts regardless of the consequences, I think people would view him as heroic. Now they just view him as a tool and a stooge.
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because we are having trouble finding people willing to work at the Treasury Department, so there just aren't enough hours in the day! My Treasury Secretary barely has enough time to get the plays called in from Robert Rubin.”
I've been kind of amused with the amount of time Geithner seems to spend in front of various congressional committees testifying. In addition to the actual time spent testifying, there must be prep time too. How does he do anything? Not excusing his morally hazardous record so far, but the man seems to be on TV every day.
If Obama would only look here he would see the obvious answer(s): the stupid government is the problem, ANYTHING government does is stupid, they are ALL crooks -- it is all a plot to help banksters -- we want OUR money back NOW -- taxes are ALL bad -- the END is near -- we are DOOMED -- Bush was better than this -- but it is a lot of fun to watch it go down -- it is especially gratifying to bash out of touch idealists like Obama -- cynicism is cool, as we predict disaster and revel in the ignorance of everybody in charge -- "taxpayers" = my personal (very selfish) self-interests -- my wallet is more important than ANYTHING else -- OK, Mr President, try making us happy (NOW).
BO's problem with the bloggers suggestions is similar to CR's problem with the commentariat's suggestions on fixing JSKit. No way to satisfy everyone, and useless to try. In the end CR did it his way. And so will BO. When you get to be president, you can try to do it your way. I'm sure you'll find dealing with Congress challanging enough, much less the blogosphere. In the meantime, enjoy your 1st Amendment right to revile and insult our President, and use him a scapegoat to vent your pitiful frustrations.
Representative= ALL concerns-neutral
Not ideologies or religions , although as one of those anarcho capitalists this situation has certainly increased my faith that big, cumbersome,out of touch bureaucracies do not work-they fall under their own weight. It is a beast-the more you feed it, the bigger it gets, the more it wants to eat.....the more you feed it, the bigger....
I am not a believer-no faith in mobs OR messiahs
The president said he could not assure Americans the economy would begin growing again this year. But he pledged that he would “get all the pillars in place for recovery this year” and urged Americans not to “stuff money in their mattresses.”
“I don’t think that people should be fearful about our future,” he said. “I don’t think that people should suddenly mistrust all of our financial institutions.”
Hey Ho, I don't trust them, I don't trust you, and I damn sure dont trust the US goverment.
Gold, Guns, Groceries and maybe a little Candan mad money.
His shortcomings have already been noted throughout the blogsphere...he has no inkling whether his advisors are giving him advice that will work..he was way too green for the job of president, and now that he is in office the best we can hope for is that he is a quick study and will realize that he's been going the wrong way the first couple of months..if not, we are in for it...
Yeah sure, Obama, Krugman and Roubini don't have a clue, do they, while your Wall Street buddies know it all. So we can't nationalize the banks. Oh, BTW, your Fed President, I forget which one, said he was for nationalizing them too, but he is just another stupid blogger, right? Douche.
HAHAHAHAH! You are a classic victim of misdirection!
You will see they WILL BE NATIONALIZED eventually, it only seems that it won't be! And the End effect is the same! Will the debt dissapear?
Follow the money!
Another $750 billion? With all the other money already in the works? This really cannot go on. Next years budget of 3.6 Trillion is almost enough to buy EVERY ounce of gold ever mined (145,000 tons) at $900 an ounce. Does that strike anyone as wild? Buy gold, silver, and then some more gold.
If you haven't looked at it very carefully, or if you're not a corrupt bloodsucking kleptocratic parasite, you don't realize how hard it is to loot a big country like this.
So the "bloggers" haven't "looked at [the financial problems] very carefully" and, therefore, their opinions don't matter.
Translation: We can only listen to the experts.
Problems with this approach:
Most of the "experts" never saw the problem coming, but many "bloggers" did. Were the bloggers just lucky or was their independence the REASON why they were able to see things that today are so obvious?
I'd feel more comfortable relying on experts if they at least revealed the data upon which they rest their opinions. For example, the experts all said Sadam had weapons of mass destruction, but they couldn't share their date for "national security" reasons. We now know they didn't have any date, and their sources were obviously unreliable, conflicted and/or clearly incompetent. Today, the "experts" keep telling us that if AIG, Citi or BAC fail, the whole system will collapse. Okay, how about showing us your math? Instead, the Fed won't even tell us which banks are receiving TARP $ and what the assets the Fed has taken back in exchange.
It was obvious to me when my real estate closing business shut down, nearly totally in October 2007. It wasn't the least bit gradual. Nothing like having your nose shoved in it for reality to sink in. And I started to extrapolate, and then people started rolling their eyes. And now they don't.
Now I see a bottom starting to form. But the REOs need to be financed!!
You and Allen agree but I'm pretty skeptical. We've had bottoms called continuously for the past two years. Let's see if Obama can actually borrow this much money before we call a bottom.
I wonder how severe the longterm blowback will be for the morally unjust transfer of so much wealth to the criminal financial system that created this Frankenstein? Our path of cowardly weakness will have consequences. The legitimacy of power will be more widely questioned, and rightly so. How long should we suffer the lashings for our own master's mistakes? The calculus of liberty is nearing an inflection point.
In reference to the "pillars in place for recovery" comment, maybe the idea is that if the markets crash to virtually nothing, then we have only one way to go, that's up. The only question is how long to get back to 2007 levels. He makes no promises on that but the "pillar" will be in place.... around?... spx = 100? .... then we can get back to unlimited growth.
But this sounds like some "blog idea" of just letting it crash, so it must not be it.
Merced County, California now has the 4th highest unemployment-ranked by County-in the state;
In January, Merced's unemployment rate climbed to 18.9 percent, a 3.2 percentage point increase from December's 15.7, according to the state's Employment Development Department.
The county now has the dubious distinction of being the county with the fourth-highest unemployment rate in California.
California's unemployment rate, which is almost two percentage points above the nation's, increased in January to 10.6 percent.
And I thought the reasons they didn't look at blogs were because they were so often clearly opposed to what is going on. Then again, maybe it's because blogs don't vote or give campaign donations, and most of the posters are anonymous and hard to contact directly.
I'm fast loosing any shred of confidence in Obama and his band of idiots. I think that within a year, they will have destroyed the economy and made the situation much worse than it would have been without government intervention.
He could do well to begin reading blogs. CR, Mish, Yves, Dr. Doom, Setser, Angry Bear and others provide many viewpoints and insights that are obviously lacking in any macroeconomic discussions in DC.
It's sad to see that "change" is going to be more of the same.
There must be some reason he's concerned about people stuffing money in mattresses;
otherwise, he would not have mentioned it. They must have considered the possibility
that people may do so.
I have been thinking an odd thought. What if the method of dealing with problem banks is an organized deliberate plan? Why would it unfold this way?
Capitulation.
If shareholders and bondholders have already watched the value of their holdings go way down (bonds half off or more, stocks 95% off or more), they are much less worried that a takeover will wipe out a material amount of money. At some banks, the bondholders might get 30 or 50 cents on the dollar. The stockholders are often holding what feels more like a stock option than an actual stock.
Compare this to taking down a bank where stockholders thought they still had $100 billion of market cap, and bondholders thought they were getting par.
I've wondered about that too, or something along those lines. Clearly they don't subscribe to the 'fix it sunday evening before the asian markets open'. They are not coming out weekly with some words to prop up the market. I'm beginning to think they are deliberately taking a 'hands off' approach to the stock market - as they should. Still surprised some posters are upset at the admin for not doing something to prop up the market but then get upset when the market rallies for a day, the old PPT conspiracy.
I say let the market run its course - so people will understand the meaning of risk again. I guess some folks always thought there would be a Greenspan or Bernanke put.
To quote Mr. Obama, "...because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another."
Unfortunately, what we need is a clean answer, aka a Clear Answer -- one way or another. I've heard of enough of trying to talk the economy in one way or another. Policy is made for a reason. People respond to it.
Yes. It's a legacy of years of mismanagement. Problem is, Obama is lifting the bar on insanity to the moon. He is jacking it up so bad it's going to wipe the country out in a matter of months.
after reading the thread its clear that theres a lot of hatred out there for obama and his predecessors efforts to prop up the banks and the banksters
while i dont agree, i can relate,...but consider this
our prez and his minions are trying disparately to prevent total collapse and are so afraid, that they are willing to put off justice and fairness (via prosecutions, nationalization and taxes) to a later date
for those who feel it would be better to just let-er-rip and pick up the broken pieces after the system is all smashed up...
im guessing , you are going to get your wish...
more and more it appears that the depth and breadth of the collapse will swallow even the best attempts to stem the financial apocalypse about to occur
maybe obama is wrong to try, but i dont believe as some have callously claimed, that he is a criminal or stupid etc
just a driver who climbed behind the wheel as the car busted thru the guard rail
and now if you will excuse me, i will return to my digging
Yes, I agree. The situation is unfortunate. Currently, I am spending too much time thinking about the moral illegitimacy of their actions and the upcoming backlash. It could very well be the case that their human-mind-limited intervention in the emergent complex system that is the market will result in nothing more than saving only those in the heart of the financial system. If that is the case, the legitimacy of the entire State will be in serious question. If you end up in failure, it is better to have gotten there through moral legitimacy. But maybe such a concept is too simple for a group of cowardly politicians. It may be easy when sitting in a position of power and privilege to belittle the value of liberty, but they should take caution because I think their supply of political capital runs lower each time they put the system before the people. Hopefully it only results in political upheaval and nothing more dire. Read Studs Terkel's Hard Times carefully if you want a closer peek at what might become of our social dynamics in the near future.
"dont blame Obama......bush and his crony capitalist friends made all this mess"
I agree. But...
Obama's approach is still too much "it is what it is" for my taste. Geithner is a disaster at Treasury. Obama should find someone in industry, not finance, who can get in and sort this mess out rather than prolonging failed policies. And if not industry, then law; I am pretty sure there are folks at the $1000 per hour level (in bankruptcy law preferably) who could do a fine job dealing with Wall Street. Granted, it might be a tough sell to persuade those lawyers to take the pay cut...
Obama is in the driver's seat. Just because he inherited a certain paradigm in the credit markets (and is stuck with Bernanke for another couple of years) it doesn't mean he can't change the paradigm. It's called leadership.
our prez and his minions are trying disparately to prevent total collapse and are so afraid, that they are willing to put off justice and fairness (via prosecutions, nationalization and taxes) to a later date
--
The longer you postpone justice and fairness, the worse things will get - the larger the losses, the more epic the looting.
Forbearance when given in the S&L crisis did NOT allow the banks to "grow out of" their problems, which was the phrase used at the time. They just created more fraud, more malinvestment, and looted more.
I think this administration will loot until to continue to do so will threaten their grip on the reins of power. I think they have 6-12 months until this happens, if it does. And yes, it's looting. Most absolutely do understand they are protecting the banks, and what that means. They are Chicago School - never doubt they understand the real rules of the neo-liberal game.
You can't give a sociopathic kleptocrat a pass, and expect him to reform. S/he must be imprisoned, their assets seized, their elite status revoked. Nothing else will work.
"You can't give a sociopathic kleptocrat a pass, and expect him to reform. S/he must be imprisoned, their assets seized, their elite status revoked."
Perp walks. Who were the two clowns on real time last night and were was the adult supervision when they were ganging up on Bill when he was asking for justice.
This press release is intriguing. The Pakistani government has been at odds with the Taliban. Actually gave them a section to run - with Sharia law. They've (the Taliban) been involved in judicial matters throughout other areas as well. I'm led to believe they ARE jihadists (death to all non-muslims), and women are like cattle - they have no rights. How does THIS kind of ally play out?
Did anyone else notice the announcement that Intercontinental Exchange Inc. will open its new ICE US Trust on Monday? This is their new clearinghouse for trading of Credit Default Swaps, the first in the U.S.
It’s sort of an international market for financial weapons of mass destruction. Maybe they should establish an index of traded CDSs. They could call it the FINWEP. The FINWEP would track an index of the 1000 most dangerous swaps, and it would be a decapitalization-weighted index, since all of its components would have negative value.
The proprietors have trademarked the name “ICE Trust” for this operation, probably in the mafia sense of “icing” the victims. But I think this name lacks imagination. Something like “Death Watch” would be more appropriate.
Of course, in order to have an index (the FINWEP) to track, you have to have trading. That means that someone needs to get out in front and start selling the swaps. I propose that Warren Buffett would be a good front mane for this sales effort. Who better to sell these instruments than the man who gave them their proper name: “Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction”? Clearly Mr. Buffett understand how to sell these things – after all, they’re a lot like insurance policies – that insure against things like the sun coming up in the morning – Oh, but without collateral or backing. Mr. Buffett’s homey style and presentation would help to obscure the risk – after all, these are obligations of very large companies, and we all know that very large companies are safe and secure, don’t we?
The pitch might go something like this: “Here we have the Vintage 2006 Bank Bazooka swap. This little unit is perfect for gambling on banks under $500 million nominal capitalization. A couple of these will take out even the most conservative small institution.”
“Over here on the other side of the warehouse, we have the 2008 MOIB (Mother of Investment Banks) swap. This puppy took out Bear Stearns and still has plenty of destructive power left!”
“If buying swaps directly is out of your price range, we are now offering units of the FINWEP index by special arrangement with Rearguard Investments to keep your overhead and 12b-1 fees low. This fund is the mother of all black hole weapons, and you can see that it is currently devouring AIG in great gulps. The boys that run my insurance companies are cheering for this one, as it’s really improving the competitive landscape at present. By this Spring, we expect that it will have completely consumer AIG and most of the U.S Treasure to boot!”
Wisely, ICE has made provisions for the possibility that not all may go well with this effort. From their announcement: “Although it is an ICE subsidiary, ICE Trust's membership, Board of Directors, officers and operating staff are separate from ICE's other exchange, clearing house and brokerage operations.”
I was trying to be funny. Not sure if the snark came through...
To your point, we talked about this Bloomberg article the other day; it describes the negative-basis trade, in which speculators holding both bonds and CDSs really don't care if the company goes BK.
While we're giving the Banksters another 3/4-trillion dollar vig, The jihadists in Pakistan are getting familiar with the "doomsday" button on THEIR nuclear football.
If he were anyone but Barack Hussein Obama he'd be subjected to serious questions regarding his true intent, loyalty, opinions, beliefs, birthdates, places.
It's not that big, its bigger. What we are experiencing is gangland warfareon a global stage. Think Carl Sagan, while looking back to '20s Chicago. The US is the target, the mob has fractured into many mobs. The banking system is in play. Politics are the rules to be broken, or not. Meanwhile another contender is stepping up to run the mob. It seems after reading LB, that it's a coalition.
Reuters Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com
UPDATE 2-Pressure may mount to know who got AIG bailout blns
Sat Mar 7, 2009 5:24pm EST
(Adds no comment from Goldman Sachs)
By Toni Reinhold
"That we find ourselves in this situation at all is ... quite frankly, sickening," said Senator Christopher Dodd, the Democrat who chairs the committee. "The lack of transparency and accountability in this process has been rather stunning."
Eric Dinallo, superintendent of New York State's Insurance Department, railed on Friday against AIG's failed business model, likening its insuring credit-default swaps as gambling with somebody else's money.
"It's like taking insurance on your neighbor's house and even maybe contributing to blowing it up," he said at a panel sponsored by New York University's Stern School of Business.
U.S. lawmakers have said they are running out of patience with regulators' refusal to identify AIG's counterparties.
yes, the infallible blogs. My god, man, every opinion imaginable is represented in the blogs. They are just as much wrong as they are right. When opinion is a matter of ideology, everyone is right.
Anon -- "So what are some of the issues the market might face in the event of a GE Capital bankruptcy? Would USGov intervene?"
And you come to us from the White House for answers?! Well, that's an improvement. But really, all I can do is LOL. They've already assumed GE is dead in the water. Haven't you heard about naked short selling?
I don't think he will need that much money because the banks will not want to take it, unless they are desperate. After the compensation limits and government dictates, banks will avoid federal money and try to return what they already took as fast as they can.
I dunno, EHP. I really respect your ideas, but this isn't a sitcom where all problems are solved in 25 minutes: This is Real Life(TM) where decades of poor choices have painful and lasting consequences.
Problems by politicians to "fix the problem" seem to make the adjustment worse.
But I have to hand it to Fredrick Lewis Allen who said in 1939 that abou the only parts of the New Deal that really worked were spending and "devaluation" (inflation). I doubt it will be different this time (given that the banksters won't allow the just, legal bankruptcies to take their course).
Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
Will Rogers
It's gonna be a hoot watching this fool piss on that fench. =-X
The country now has Obama on a short leash and the natives are not getting the answers or plans they want. Trust is a terrible thing to lose. It's over. The lame duck has begun.
Hey, what happened to "yes we can" ? Campaign rhetoric, quicky shelved. Now what, that the catchy phrases are a distant memory ? Mall speeches don't look so wonderful with tent cities in the background.
"maybe obama is wrong to try, but i dont believe as some have callously claimed, that he is a criminal or stupid etc"
Mock turtle,
Obama is doing some things that I think are wonderful and long overdue...overturning the ban on stem cell research, overturning the ban on contraceptive info for foreign aid, taking climate change seriously, making a run at health care reform, and at least addressing the fact that millions of Americans are on the knife edge, and directing money towards umemployment benefits and hopefully food stamps.
My anger is that he is taking advice from the same folks who led us into this mess...and who show a callous disregard for those outside the global financial elite.
Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, none of these shows any concern about the political costs of shielding the recipients of bailout dollars. All I hear from people is a rumbling that the banks are robbing the country...and Obama is seen as helping them do it. He has got to get out front and explain clearly who is getting the money and why he thinks it worthwhile. The more secrecy the more distrust...and even if the reciepients are foreigners, let Obama stand up and make his case. He is articulate and persuasive...let him state clearly what he believes in.
If the economy collapses, and he goes along with shuffling the money offstage, nothing else he does will matter.
fried, thats all well and good, but whats missing is the prosecution of the guilty... i.e. those individuals who made the concious decisions to put this countries financial system at risk. They failed in their duties, both to the shareholders and to this country. Those bastards need to be crucified.
Obama is proving himself more embarrasing by the day.
Yeah obama the reason it isnt clear cut is yiou have to bail out the givers. Obama says it is too complicated - stiglitz and his nobel and krugman too think otherwise. To name a few. Buit obama thinks you should be buying stocks too. this guy is a fool.
Here is the actual link to London Bankers comment at RGE
RGE - Roubini Says Recession May Continue Until End of 2010 - India Today and Bloomberg
and the link to where LB's comment was transcribed at Yves' blog (free access)
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3782644139927778760&postID=2702671305389273816&page=1&isPopup=true
This comment thread has been HALO-IZED by CRbot.
http://realize.org/cr/halokit.php?halourl=http://www.haloscan.com/comments/calculatedrisk/4117523010107183579
does this include the $500B that Dodd's requesting for the FDIC?
1st - Sorry ... always wanted to do that.
Retard
These people are asking and getting Tax money so fast, I can't keep up with how much we own at this point. It seems like the going amount requested is between 600 Billion to 1 trillion per request.
Just how much do we have left to give out at this time? Is anyone maintaining a accurate balance sheet?
Yes. I remember when $750B was a "bazooka". so big that we'd never need to use it.
now we throw it out there like chump change.
Mr Manhattan, now there's a bazooka. Go see The Watchman to see what I'm talking about!
do you think it was computer enhansed or was that why he got the part?
Cool. Good thing the bond market has an infinite supply of money or we might be in trouble. $500B for the FDIC, another $750B for the banks. Am I double counting the same bailout money? Does anyone know the difference? When is this more than a bailout? How much debt do we float before we call it a currency intervention/devaluation?
“What I don’t think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their mattresses and pull back completely from spending,” he said.
Wasn't this the criticism of Bush handling of the post 9/11 recession?
500 Billion is separate from the 750 billio
Sadly, yes. And putting money in a home safe or a credit union, and pulling back from spending is still the best advice. His advice to go buy stocks is equally wrong-footed.
Never take financial advice from a stock broker, a RE agent, an insurance salesman or a President.
How many ordinary Americans are significantly vested in the stock market, fried? Ok, a trick question...just loaded...once more: "go buy stocks" --would you say that works better in the Caymans than it does in Flint?
This is another legacy from shortie: never trust a President, even those ones that can read as if they knew what they were talkin about.
Make the distinction between shortie's "Go shop" and in these new circumstances, a softer message from an intelligent, possibly more honest and compassionate president than his predecessor...who seems to be hiding...good thing, I suppose.
I just came back from Home Depot. The only place I know where you can get incompetent help in a different language from each employee you ask.
When that 750B is gone they will ask for another. If you ever had teenage kids - you know how it works.
AARRR ORRR!
I will form a zombie army and lead it to take over your remaining solvent systems!
Resistance is futile.. submit to your CDS!
I, for one, welcome our new zombie bank overlords!
We are all zombies. But I wanna be a zombie overlord!!
Everybody pull $100 cash outta your bank account on Monday. And Tuesday. and Wednesday. . .
I can't pull anymore cash outta my bank-I did that when the first failout passed under Shrub.
Since I gots little fiat pieces of paper in my mattress, am I a zombie overlord?
Yess. But you should replace some of 'em with round shiny metal things. Tho, that could get lumpy.
Ooof. My back isn't gonna like that lumpy mess of shinies, not that I have too many. Maybe I'll put those under the bed.
Oops, there's a bunch of zombies under there. I knew I should have vacuumed more often.
Lawyerliz :
Pulling out money from us is useless. It shall be regenerated by the FED.
FED.. heh ...! "FEED It FED" shall be our new motto.
You are in danger of being labelled a saver, desist immediately and submit to your credit!
You are wise. Maybe I will let you head our new credit divison.. Mastercardulous!
We shall begin taking over plastic when zombification is solidified!
be sure to back the zombie dollar with 1lb of fresh brains
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully
That was my impression too. Those blog people haven't looked at this problem very carefully.
After all, if bloggers had looked at the problem carefully, they would have seen this coming, like my guys did.
...oh, wait a minute...
C'mon, CR--please trot out those posts that you and Tanta wrote way way back in 2006, when you documenting the horrid loans being stuffed into Phoneie and Phraudie. I didn't discover this blog until 2006, so if you started earlier, please do tell!
I'm intrigued by the notion that someone who is advised by a guy who's most significant contribution to the public discourse was to say that "Girls can't do math" is suggesting that bloggers (even ones with Nobel prizes) haven't thought this through all the way.
Larry is a fool but that's not what he said. You are either a liar or you're stupid.
Obama is insane. Ramping up social programs, increasing taxes, proposing carbon tax unlilaterally and massively adding to the already insolvent medicare system. Our government is already too big and funded from outside. How will the chinese like to fund our health care system when they barely have one of their own.
We're doomed, because leaders don't have a shred of common sense. Just idology.
The Chinese already have a health care system, why should they begrudge another one?
Go shopping!
Meet the new boss.. same as the old boss!
250 Billion nice way to fudge the numbers BHO. Love to see the math behind that figure.
CR BHO and others need to marginalize blog because they have no control or leverage to use against them. Mainstream media can be threatened with a decrease in government funding/cooperation or large advertisers could pull advertising. Blogs fall into that area in the wild frontier... here come the government censors! Watch out CR!
We need another Bank Asset Reflation Fund now!
How about Funding All Reprobate Thieves? :-$
They have used so much bandaid that banks are now nicely mummified.
No! My brothers in Japan will come and we shall take over your futile solvent systems!
Bernanke: Fed will use all tools at its disposal
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
I wonder if he's including direct monetization. For me, this is the reason not to touch TBT.
So, is it impossible to overwhelm the Fed with relentless Treasury selling. I think so. I am maintaining a position adding and removing. ALso carry OTM puts, just in case to hedge. Treasuries will implode. I think sometime this year. The O'drama recklessness pretty much insures it.
I won't touch the crap either way. short or long treasuries. Double shorting is out of the question. Politics is much harder to predict than stock prices. Better to short crap companies that are destined to fail. You won't lack for targets there.
The establishment is waking up to the idea that they really have to discredit blogs and the internet, because it is not controllable like the MSM.
Yeah good luck with that. Oh those blogs that were warning you of an impending deflationary bust, don't listen to them. They just haven't looked at the problem CAREFULLY enough.
No, instead you should believe the people who have looked at the problem CAREFULLY, and say the only way out is to give another $750 BILLION Dollars to the people who created this mess.
...The establishment is waking up to the idea that they really have to discredit blogs and the internet, because it is not controllable like the MSM...
Thank you for mentioning the term "establishment". I was thinking about that term in its 60s incarnation earlier and wondering about it's new application: Some sort of impersonal and intractable behemoth, something like yelling in the fog or yelling at glaciers to stop their progress that resists all protestations to no avail.
They named a highway exchange after him. It will have exits going to nowhere and hell.
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank will “forcefully” use every resource to restore financial-market stability and revive U.S. economic growth.
“We will continue to forcefully deploy all the tools at our disposal as long as necessary to support the restoration of financial stability and the resumption of healthy economic growth,” Bernanke said in prepared remarks for an event today in Dillon, South Carolina. The Fed chief returned to his hometown to attend a ceremony naming a highway interchange after him.
What was that definition of insane again...
Oh, but this time he will do it forcefully.
That'll make all the diff.
YouTube - maroon 5 - highway to hell live (acdc cover)
Nice split infinitive.
My comment went away. Was I censored?
It's George Bush's fault. Oh wait that excess is used up and not valid any more!
Nah, still valid.
I just said that OOOOOOO should finance REOOOOOOOs.
The Fed’s moral hazard maximising strategy
FT.com | Willem Buiter's Maverecon |
Instead of saying, “how sad, too bad” to these counterparties, the Fed decided (in the words of the Wall Street Journal), to unwind “.. some AIG contracts that were weighing down the insurance giant by paying off the trading partners at the full value they expected to realize in the long term, even though short-term values had tumbled.”
HAHHAHAHA!
It's interesting that this doesn't meet the test for theft and that noone has tried to prosecute Bernanke for this. It would seem that taking taxpayer funds and using them to overpay for assets is what Defense contractors got into trouble for. Shouldn't the Fed be disallowed from doing exactly the same thing? What's different (even if it's a technicality)?
What's different is this form of corruption is legal.
RE: Blogs
I think it's a big change that he's even mentioning the role of blogs. It's unfortunate that it seems he hasn't found CR yet, but the blogs are definitely starting to have an effect on public policy.
what happened to his "chief technology officer"?
I don't know. Should I know? Didn't know there was such a thing. Maybe this CTO turned out to be a tax cheat?
He should be worried about blogs. The public discussion can't be controlled like the newspapers that are failing!
"The public discussion can't be controlled like the newspapers that are failing!"
And that is why Blogs are so despised by TPTB. For everyone that gets mainstreamed, two more pop up and take it's place.
Which is why the government will eventually seize control of the DNS servers.
No, he hasn't found CR. Or Jesse's Cafe, or Michael Morgan, or Denninger's MarketTicker, or Kunstler's ClusterfuckNation, or Mish. He also hasn't found RGE Monitor, or Kitco...
In fact, I doubt Obama's ever even read a blog. Too busy practicing politics.
The Fairness Doctrine will be applied to all forms of media, blogs included.
if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer
eff him. There is a clean answer, which is to enforce the laws prohibiting fraud and uphold the Constitution.
That means widespread prosecutions of banksters, and an end to bailouts and guarantees that are not authorized by Congress. (Parenthetically, it also means a halt to our undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
If he can't do these things, he's become the problem.
"if you are not with us you are with the bloggers"
It's pretty obvious now. The "Change" crowd voted in a stupid dipshit.
“What I don’t think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their mattresses and pull back completely from spending,” he said.
Can't tax what you can't track. Can't confiscate what you can't find. Can't freeze what you don't deposit. Can't rig a game if no one antes. Of course he doesn't people to vote with their assets and cash. Why, why that would almost be like a vote of no confidence.
The default version of "None of the above."
Test Halokit cache invalidation after post...
Test Halokit cache invalidation after post...
3/6/09: Your Weekly Address
YouTube - 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.
We have no proof OB could run a lemonade stand. Who is he going to blame when the reality of very low tax income hits and he pissed away a ton money! Need more OB where does it come from?
You might want to consider what would happen if:
a) no additional money was spent
b) the US financial system completely failed
Money is fungible, Koo's idea of maintaining total credit outstanding, the debt undertaken today will not be the debt ultimately paid off under any scenario
I'm weighed down. So will somebody give me a billion dollars?
I promise to spend it wisely.
I can't evaluate your comment because it's on a blog. Talk to my friend Timmay G and he'll give it careful consideration. Be sure to drop a few Goldman Sachs names at him. Works like a charm.
"I promise to spend it wisely."
That's why we have rejected your request.
" 05It's George Bush's fault. Oh wait that excess is used up and not valid any more!01"
Well, Bush did have 8 years to fix (or exasperate) the problem. Obama has had a little over a month. Republicans are just desperate to make this Obama's depression.
Let's have a garph of that exasperation.
(Exaggeration? accentuation?)
OB is the third administration that is clueless to responsible money management. So add Clinton in this, Red and Blue betrayal of America.
It seems AWFUL early to write off O'. I for one will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, I'm giving him the doubt
Add Reagan to that list, too. He was the leader when the total debt and debt related to GDP really started to take off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
Add them all... the pull back and forth has been going on since the beginning-easy to point over your shoulder and blame the man before....
Add to that list Bush 1 (voodoo economics) and Reagan, the mack daddy of bad econ.
Republicans are just desperate to make this Obama's depression,
That's what I am most bitter about - he's not only letting them do it, he's actively assisting them in their efforts.
You're the heads to their tails. Destroy the left/right wingers!
While I like Obama less and less each week, it is definitely ridiculous to place the blame for this problem on any one person and equally ridiculous to place the blame on any one political party.
That said, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone with half a brain that one political party would try to get the public to blame the other in an attempt to gain additional power.
Not this Republican. I intend to give him until September 11, 2009. That date look familiar? September 11, 2001, when everything became Bush's fault...
FAIL!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Obama thinks we're going to trust him???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Whatever your gubbermint asks you to do, do the opposite, they are your enemies.
"Whatever your gubbermint asks you to do, do the opposite, they are your enemies."
We get what we deserve. I have seen the enemy and he is us.
"Just how much do we have left to give out at this time? Is anyone maintaining a accurate balance sheet?"
I've been trying. With this latest number of $750 billion, it looks to me like we're coming up on $6 trillion. I could be wrong, though, it's all gotten so confusing.
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=500_billion_more
Jiminy Christmas.
Why bother? We are approaching the event horizon, about to be
torn apart by tidal forces.
What he wants to do can't be done. It never could be done. When
that is clearly shown, something else will be done.
"What he wants to do can't be done".
You know, that's why Obama doesn't like bloggers. They are so negative. They seem to think reality is something more than a theoretical construct. They will need to be reeducated. And soon.
If you count the guarantees, I think it's over ten trillion.
lawyerliz: Looks like I'm using and outdated meaning of the word.
ex-as-per-ate: obsolete : to make more grievous : aggravate
A garph of my exasperation:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . ./
. . . . . . . . . . . . . /
. . . . . . . . . . . . /
. . . . . . . . . . . /
. . . . . . . . . . /
. . . . . . . . . /
Etc.
Countdown to Zombification!!
The World According to Garph. I like it!
"...we don't spend a lot of time looking at blogs..."
Depends how much you consider "a lot." Or maybe they're spending a lot of time looking at Blog. Blog, singular, 'cause CR's all they really need.
On a weekend TV show in Boston, Mike Barnicle referred to bloggers as "Idiots". That Mike Barnicle must be very smart to be that certain he's in a position to judge bloggers like CR. Soon he'll be quoting CR and representing it as original material, but nevermind.
Here's an article regarding Barnicle's ethics and wisdom:
CNN - Boston columnist resigns amid new plagiarism charges - August 19, 1998
This is going to really fugly. The paralysis of American political system is obviously setting in on top of the economic crisis. The "system" is in vain trying to save itself by doing the same things again and again because the ruling class is unable to respond any other way.
And a rapidly increasing divergence between the system's leaders and its "followers" - who are furious about the banks and their bailouts.
This divergence will not end well. Unless you think gucci-loafered bankersters and traders and politicians hanging from lampposts is a good thing.
Leader O is determined to deficit spend until he is told to stop. Clearly he has no idea the ramifications of what being unable to borrow will bring.
We talked about all these very issues a lot last fall. Has that much changed?
At that time I thought perhaps they get could get by with a fast $4 trillion injection into the US financial system, it turns out the situation hasn't changed but I was just optimistically naïve
I'm doing my best to separate what are emotive arguments and what are logical arguments, so any elaboration is appreciated
It is very possible that they are spending $10t on a $4T problem. Don't sell yourself short just because you didn't add in the political vig.
EvilHenryPaulson replies:
Today, 4:21:54 PM
“We talked about all these very issues a lot last fall. Has that much changed?
The state was looted thoroughly but the problem was not solved. Now the state must be looted again, ostensibly in an attempt to solve the problem. What has changed is the state has become considerably more indebted to no real (public) effect.
I'm doing my best to separate what are emotive arguments and what are logical arguments, so any elaboration is appreciated
To reiterate Rob Dawg, as Fire Sign Theatre says, "did you remember to carry the bum?" The size of the problem and the size of the solution are only related tagentially. You could say they even have a negative inverse relationship at this point, depending on how much you think TARPonimics has replaced the real economy -- a real solution would end the tarponomic income the TBTF firms are receiving.
I think from Japanese experience that TARPonimics is an instantly adopted, superior substitute to real economics, and the strained / failing state experience in general tends to bear me out.
Be careful reading me that you're not writing off as slanted text what is a strictly technical description of these events.
The economic aspect of this crisis is pronounced and becoming predominant, but the initial crisis was purely political. However, a solution was not found and that credit crisis period is receding into the past, and the systemic crisis in the credit markets is now quite entrenched as a real world economic downturn.
It was about people's relationships with school pals and golf chums and brothers-in-law and not forcing them into insolvency. That's mostly over now, though, and all the banks have been thoroughly zombified. Now we get to have a Treasuries bubble and a horrible credit shortage in the developing world simultaneous with a global depression to look forward to.
Kübler-Ross --
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
There has been a large financial disturbance now that the debt machine has stalled (not enough oxygen and the carb isn't plugged up). There are 3 categories of responses: Underdamped, Critically damped, and Overdamped. In the long run they all end up at the same point where there is less notional wealth.
Every choice will suck, you have to get over that. Start thinking about learning from mistakes and preparing to rebuild. What institutions failed, why, how do we make use of that knowledge... If it was corrupt politicians, well then it is everyone's fault for acquiescing to a political system that apparently allows for the encouragement and festering of corruption. A working system would have at the very least promptly removed them from office when uncovered. If it was economists, then why were the so extremely few people recognize, understand, and correctly time the problem not listened to in favor of those consistently out to lunch intellectually. If it was individual selfishness, then how was it possible for millions of people to act in concert beyond their peak debt carrying capacity. If it was the frankenstein banking system, then what banking units co-exist well and which must be separated. If it was rating agencies, then how was it they managed to become the dominant source of approval. If it was international trade distortions, why did existing arbitration bodies not resolve the matter....
I exude hubris, but if I was given today the sole decision making authority in the US I would rack up $8tn in debt without raising an eyebrow. The chance to prevent it has come and gone. We are dealing with a problem at least 30 years in construction. You have to give up all pretence that anyone, even yourself, could make it all better overnight.
The absolute best that we can hope for is the crashing to happen as fast as possible, and to be prepared with more robust institutions going forward to make the most out of whatever we have.
"The chance to prevent it has come and gone."
Was prevention even an option? Delaying the inevitable seems to have been the only other choice. There was too much money on the side of trying to keep it going to have really fought it I think.
Gore's lockbox lost votes, even though it was the right way to go.
Nice post BTW.
I would say there was a chance to stop the problem, which always would in the short term appeared as a negative, before the problem threatened the system itself. Because the system was not used prudently, it will be broken, and continue to be broken until we can keep everything within sustainable levels.
No different than a farmer over producing from a field, it's something we have had to manage for millennia. The global financial system is just one more new context to learn the limits for.
EHP: "..which always would in the short term appeared as negative,.."
I believe this is what assured the problem would not get fixed. Before civilization, that is most of human history, the key issue was getting through the next week, or for the far sighted, the next winter. There were not a lot of selective pressures for abstract analysis of possibilities more than a year off, if that. Most people act for short term gain, and with credit it's easy to trade the future for the here and now.
Not that people can't learn: for a long time after the depression society was very careful with credit. But those with first hand experience are mostly gone, so apparently we must learn the same lesson once again.
In the long run we're all dead. LaLaLaLa live for today.
So much for "change"...another $750 billion to banks and just $75 billion for homeowners. At least there's a little change, but BHO can keep his brand of change, because it won't work.
BHO refuses to keep illegals from receiving stimulus money. He went back on his protectionist campaign to keep jobs in the US. THIS SPEAKS VOLUMES. IT IS NOT CHANGE. IT IS MORE OF THE SAME.
Well, homeowners are now a tenth as good as bankers.
They weren't anything at all before.
Whoooo will finance the REOs?
Potential homeowners. 75 bill for the potential homeowners to
any bank that'll sell for 50 cents on the dollar of debt.
Will the new slogan be "CHANGE BACK" ?
fw
"Hope for Change back."
OK, then Obama, try us. If you talk real slow, I'm sure we could understand the complications with just pre-privatizing insolvent banks.
I'm SO tired of these patronizing attitudes by politicians and the media (and I actually supported Obama, and thought he was different). Just tell us what alternatives you considered, what you decided to do, the pros and cons of the decision, etc. We can handle AND comprehend the truth.
He doesn't understand it. His advisers don't understand. How is it even conceivable that anyone else could understand?
How is it even conceivable that anyone else could understand?
Wait a minute - I have been told from a zillion sources that cutting taxes would solve the crisis immediately. Surely they have a full understanding of the problem to be so sure of the solution.
Or maybe not.
Jim
You are assuming they are actually thinking.
We have an entry-level executive running the place. It's his first real executive job. This is on-the-job training for a rookie. Ideology is important, but does it get the job done? I wonder.
I am happy when I am FED.
FEED it FED.. FED it FEED! We are interchangeable too!
I told you so a couple of weeks ago. If you're still holding paper, you're holding ash.
All is not lost.. ash is good for the plants!
Toilet paper is ok!
It is stil two-ply... Always look on the bright side of life!
My apologies for underestimating Leader O. I thought it would take 30 months for him to match the previous administrations contribution to the national debt. He's proven far far more effective than that.
I'm not in support of the bank bailouts, but I still don't think it's fair to compare Bush's accumulation of debt to Obama's ... Bush presided over the "boom" years, and Obama is left trying to deal with a monumental credit collapse.
Yet another fool for thinks he voted for "change".
From what I can tell, you by and large ignore posts you don't like. So how about this, what would President Elect Rob Dawg propose if he took office tomorrow, and there were no domestic political constraints on your actions.
Direct and completely off base personal insult aside offering me the pilot's seat after the plane has run out of gas and entered a flat spin with the controls locked is not some choice. Given free reign tomorrow I'd do my best for a controlled crash. As part of the controlled crash I wouldn't waste my airspeed trying to stay aloft just a little longer hoping for angels to appear under my wings. I would lie to the passengers. I wouldn't blame the previous pilot. I would look for possible expertise in the passengers rather than telling them to shut up and stay quiet (bloggers).
Abandoning the analogy, I would raise taxesputting a little bit more progression in the upper end. I would phase out and tighten the home exclusion. I would phase in higher gas taxes with weight towards states and not the FHWA. I would stop subsidizing wasteful transit policies that misallocates a limited public resource. I'd cancel a whole mess of manned military vehicle programs. I'd offset some of that with an expanded NASA aeronautics arm. I would ask the other federal agencies to submit 10% lower CFY budgets.
Since I inherited this mess I can't say let AIG counter parties take their lumps, they already have the money and won't give it back. Well, wait a minute. It isn't as if they aren't going to need more favors. Yes, I'd do back room clawbacks of some of these bailouts. I'd also jettison all this crap about goodwill loses and loses against past earnings. I would henceforth forbid subdividing of mortgage and small business lending products. Borrowers would be granted right of first purchase whenever the product changed hands.
But I ramble.
And the crowd goes silent again. Just like the previous thread.
TCA, [below]. Thanks.
WTF? You just said let a few posts ago to let it crash as fast as possible and you're snidely questioning what Dawg would do as president? There are no solutions to this problem. We are going down. We can either throw money away while we go down - money that could be used to help rebuild a new stable financial system - or we can stop bailing out the criminals and let them burn. Then we rebuild.
Use tarp money to capitalize responsible banks. Let the guilty banks fail and the responsible banks could buy the assets cheap. Prosecute ALL parties involved in this fiasco(to include elected officials who took the bribes..dem and repub alike). Let the peeps who bought way more then they could afford by lying on their loans declare bankruptcy and lose it all. Enact the laws and regulations that have been ignored or undermined.
"If you count the guarantees, I think it's over ten trillion"
Yeah, could be. That's basically a doubling of the total debt within the space of six months. Nice. That's the magic of "compound interest" for ya.
This thing is done. Based on those CDS rates for U.S. treasuries, I think we've already entered a positive feedback loop where interest rates & defaults are tearing out a bigger hole than they can fill with borrowing.
I figure the Feds have perhaps ninety days before this thing goes boom.
This thing is done. Based on those CDS rates for U.S. treasuries, I think we've already entered a positive feedback loop where interest rates & defaults are tearing out a bigger hole than they can fill with borrowing.
I don't know if I agree with the choice of measure, but I do agree with the conclusion. Definitely true, and funny, that when we go down, there'll be a short Ts/long US CDS feedback loop going on while it happens.
I figure the Feds have perhaps ninety days before this thing goes boom.
It can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. It'll take some crisis to push it over. The Concert of Powers can go on making meaningless promises forever, it's some Gavrilo Princip that ends the sitting-parlor gasbaggery.
It'll be an energy crisis or a hurricane or a war or some foolishness that shows us too resource-strapped to respond. There's too many vested interests, the system won't reconfigure until failure.
Associated Press
Congress OKs stopgap bill to keep government open
By ANDREW TAYLOR – 21 hours ago
"WASHINGTON (AP) — With a $410 billion catchall spending bill stalled in the Senate and a midnight deadline looming, Congress rushed through stopgap legislation Friday to keep the government running for another five days.
The House passed the bill by a 328-50 vote; the Senate acted by unanimous voice vote. President Barack Obama signed the measure later in the day, White House officials said early Friday evening."
More fear...
there'll be a short Ts/long US CDS feedback loop going on while it happens.
Isn't that happening now with GE common. Those who wrote protection on GE Capital bonds are hedging default by shorting GE common stock under the assumption that a default would drive the stock to zero. This strategy seems to be self fulfilling.
Jim
KD doesn't know what he's talking about in this situation. Does the CDS writer short stock and then buy calls to protect against unlimited upside risk of common? Karl just likes to put his name/face out there.
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
Yah it always sucks to get told you're half-assing it.
There is no clean answer? Clean as in neat and tidy, or clean as
the opposite of dirty?
I think I will plant my last 2 broccolis.
Cream of broccoli soup tonite, if I have the ambition.
Damm! that must grow fast! Plant now and soup tonight!
Hahahahah. They grow fast in Fla! but of course I planted those months ago. I plant them over 3 months or so, to get a continuous crop. At least every weekend. The hub would starve before it occurred to him to pick an orange or saw off the flower of a broccoli.
Is it by chance or design that every comment about your husband paints him as a hapless boob?
My favourite clock :
Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)
It is almost the 11th hour!
Lucky there is an infinite number of numbers.
Luck has nothing to do with it! It is a most skillful exposition of the plan defined!
But enough already ...the first three digits of the public debt reminds me of my insatiable hunger .. GEe i can't wait for monday..!
Munch Crunch Bunch of 'EM!
"Obama: Another $750 Billion Needed for Banks"
Hey HO, 750 B ain't gonna be enough.
He didn't say that was the last $750 billion.
You know it.
Problem is taking so long to fix, cause it takes so long to make the new currency plates....10,000, 50,000, 10,000 etc, denominations to replace the 1,5,& 10 denominations. Hear them press's running???
Actually, no, I don't hear them running. What I see around me, however, are asset prices coming down rapidly, the velocity of money slowing down, and people saving more of their earnings. Hyperinflationary? Um, no. Deal with what you have in front of you first. The hyperinflation may or may not come later.
If you count the guarantees, I think it's over ten trillion.
~~~~
Including the Fed, Treasury, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, the national debt and Citi the figure is over 25 trillion dollars...
Another $750E9???? Black holes everywhere now! Can I have $120E3 to do my research? No, I'm just not competitive enough.
"be sure to back the zombie dollar with 1lb of fresh brains"
A rare commodity in D.C.
They may have to outsource.
--
OBAMA -- A leader fit for dopes and loved by Crooks. Everything is as it should be.
What a system!
Jas,
I don't think you've ever been more correct.
"It'll take some crisis to push it over"
I've been of that mind but... almost doubling the national debt in the space of six months, coupled with the market crash, has to be really shaking people up. I have no money on it but I think there's a good likelyhood of a panic treasury selloff within the next 90 days. Once that happens, I expect to see ever-increasing interest rates, and once people BELIEVE that is happening... it's done. A constant outflow from paper into anything.
I'm really hoping it won't happen.
And you think it was all a fluke? What with MJ comimg back.. THRILLER and all!
"“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
~~~~
Oh please ... So let's get advice from the very people who caused this mess ... Geithner, Summers ...
Actually Obama used the blogs and IT masterfully in his campaign. I would think to turn your back on these now would be very risky. TBP which is usually much more calmer than the folks here are going nuts today on the AIG situation. The prop. heads are running at 10,000 rpm over there. I actually had to check my header add to see which site I was in. Where this is going I dont have a clue.
TBP seemed to me like an econblog catered more to the "mainstream," although I think CR is data-driven and provides more original content. CR more wonkish, I guess? Anyway, were they slow to come around to the AIG story? I think it was pretty well known that European banks and GS were beneficiaries of the AIG bailout.
I would agree but my read on TBP is more trader oriented.
Wow, that blogger comment shows a lot of contempt. Of course he does know that bloggers like CR called all this mess long ago, but he'll never own up to that, because then he'd have to pay serious attention to current advice coming from those sources... which of course would run contrary to his real agenda, which is to bail out all the folks who got him into the White House.
Trust me, people will be burning his effigy in public protests by Christmas.
It shall be nipped in the bud. Never underestimate someone who knows the power of Grassroots populism!
I am zombie, hear me AAAAA ORRRR!
There's gonna be a Christmas? Got to love your optimism.
From 2 threads back:
JP replies:Today, 10:11:59 AM
He's saying: Enforce all contracts as they were written.
If you bought a house at a stoopid price, then lose your house.
If you bought CDS protection from a company that goes bankrupt, lose your protection.
No, What BR is saying is:
If you bought CDS protection from (naive) AIG , you were too smart for your own good. (should have thought about counterparty risk earlier)
But, if you gave a naive lendee a loan that was beyond his carrying capacity, the naive lendee has to honor the contract even if the debt turns the person into a debt slave
The point is: mortgage lenders and the counterparties are in a similar situation (Dollars that they thought were theirs are not there).
A cramdown is just a political tool in equalising the unequal economic power in the mortgage relationship and by fighting for one and not the other, BR/others are contradicting themselves.
If you bought CDS protection from (naive) AIG , you were too smart for your own good. (should have thought about counterparty risk earlier)
Yes, so suffer the consequences of your actions.
But, if you gave a naive lendee a loan that was beyond his carrying capacity, the naive lendee has to honor the contract even if the debt turns the person into a debt slave
Yes. Suffer the consequences of your actions.
I say again: The message is consistent.
Whoops. I his send too soon.
But, if you gave a naive lendee a loan that was beyond his carrying capacity, the naive lendee has to honor the contract even if the debt turns the person into a debt slave
Yes. Suffer the consequences of your actions. Lose the house.
When CNBC was arguing that the homeowner who called in should keep paying, Barry called them out and said the owner should send in the keys.
So again: Banks should suffer the consequences of their actions.
I say again: The message is consistent.
"I say again: The message is consistent."
It has been my impression that BR has been VERY consistent in calling for both the underwater banks and homeowners to go BK.
So has Rick Santelli! 917K views so far! Go Rick!
YouTube - Rick Santelli and the "Rant of the Year"
"If ou haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer"
Hahaha.
Translation - "Bend Over".
Yeah, no kidding there's "no clean answer".
Duh.
Bill Maher's Real Time | March 6, 2009 | Cory Booker and Erin Burnett 2
YouTube -
Nice show i see! That Erin is a looker and Cory isn't bad too.. Bill is best!
Bill leads to the FED and I am hungreeee!
"Bill leads to the FED and I am hungreeee!"
The content of what these two clowns are trying to peddle to save GE stock is sickening. I wish someone like Dr. Doom or the Black Swan or Barry R. was on there to tear them a new one.
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,”
Do not despair CR- "they" don't spend a lot of time looking (but I'll bet they are spending some)
Obama is obviously in the soup now ... or he wouldn't take the net on. It is obviously having an effect ...
If they were not aware of these things called "blogs" on the intertubes, why mention it at all? That is unless......
You know, I think everybody in America knows we are screwed regardless of what we do. I don't think any Average Joe (and not just the one on this blog) thinks any if these bailouts are doing any good or will prevent the meltdown. I think everyone now realizes that there is nothing but pain ahead of us for many years. So why does Obama continue with the same disastrous policies that have been the norm for the past decade. The only explanations are that he is a crook or he is a fool. If O would just go on TV and explain to the American people that we are broke and that there will be no more bailouts regardless of the consequences, I think people would view him as heroic. Now they just view him as a tool and a stooge.
Oh, crap. I thought an advisor made that anti-blogger comment.
Oh, man.
Damn, I guess I really do need to buy some ammo now, then.
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because we are having trouble finding people willing to work at the Treasury Department, so there just aren't enough hours in the day! My Treasury Secretary barely has enough time to get the plays called in from Robert Rubin.”
I've been kind of amused with the amount of time Geithner seems to spend in front of various congressional committees testifying. In addition to the actual time spent testifying, there must be prep time too. How does he do anything? Not excusing his morally hazardous record so far, but the man seems to be on TV every day.
If Obama would only look here he would see the obvious answer(s): the stupid government is the problem, ANYTHING government does is stupid, they are ALL crooks -- it is all a plot to help banksters -- we want OUR money back NOW -- taxes are ALL bad -- the END is near -- we are DOOMED -- Bush was better than this -- but it is a lot of fun to watch it go down -- it is especially gratifying to bash out of touch idealists like Obama -- cynicism is cool, as we predict disaster and revel in the ignorance of everybody in charge -- "taxpayers" = my personal (very selfish) self-interests -- my wallet is more important than ANYTHING else -- OK, Mr President, try making us happy (NOW).
Even you are too crazy for me.. I will eat you last!
I'll say it again...
If you didn't write in Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, you are part of the problem.
Geithner - Gone by June
Geithner – Gone by June | The Big Picture
BO's problem with the bloggers suggestions is similar to CR's problem with the commentariat's suggestions on fixing JSKit. No way to satisfy everyone, and useless to try. In the end CR did it his way. And so will BO. When you get to be president, you can try to do it your way. I'm sure you'll find dealing with Congress challanging enough, much less the blogosphere. In the meantime, enjoy your 1st Amendment right to revile and insult our President, and use him a scapegoat to vent your pitiful frustrations.
Everyone here is confident CR will do the right thing.
Representative= ALL concerns-neutral
Not ideologies or religions , although as one of those anarcho capitalists this situation has certainly increased my faith that big, cumbersome,out of touch bureaucracies do not work-they fall under their own weight. It is a beast-the more you feed it, the bigger it gets, the more it wants to eat.....the more you feed it, the bigger....
I am not a believer-no faith in mobs OR messiahs
completely over his head...if he's lost, so is the country...
Community organizer in chief. Really, what did you expect ?
The president said he could not assure Americans the economy would begin growing again this year. But he pledged that he would “get all the pillars in place for recovery this year” and urged Americans not to “stuff money in their mattresses.”
“I don’t think that people should be fearful about our future,” he said. “I don’t think that people should suddenly mistrust all of our financial institutions.”
Hey Ho, I don't trust them, I don't trust you, and I damn sure dont trust the US goverment.
Gold, Guns, Groceries and maybe a little Candan mad money.
I don’t think that people should suddenly mistrust all of our financial institutions.
Hey O, give me one reason why we shouldn't.
Suddenly? Suddenly? I've never trusted them.
He doesn't want to start bank runs, which is valid. S'why I think we should only take a hundred bucks at a time out.
Someone may have posted this already, but the house in the "won't last" post from last night went pending this morning.
SDLookup.com | 1353 Ahlrich Ave - MLS# 090013148
Somebody is financing this? Do they have an escrow set aside for repairs?
His shortcomings have already been noted throughout the blogsphere...he has no inkling whether his advisors are giving him advice that will work..he was way too green for the job of president, and now that he is in office the best we can hope for is that he is a quick study and will realize that he's been going the wrong way the first couple of months..if not, we are in for it...
Yeah sure, Obama, Krugman and Roubini don't have a clue, do they, while your Wall Street buddies know it all. So we can't nationalize the banks. Oh, BTW, your Fed President, I forget which one, said he was for nationalizing them too, but he is just another stupid blogger, right? Douche.
HAHAHAHAH! You are a classic victim of misdirection!
You will see they WILL BE NATIONALIZED eventually, it only seems that it won't be! And the End effect is the same! Will the debt dissapear?
Follow the money!
Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,
One can wonder whether we would have the problems of today if "we" had indeed been reading blogs such as CR faithfully during the past several years.
Who's "we"? Doesn't President Obama always talk in first person singular? My administration, my plan, my presidency, ..., so who's the "we"?
HUM! Calgary.. maybe I will visit once the zombification ends here!
Another $750 billion? With all the other money already in the works? This really cannot go on. Next years budget of 3.6 Trillion is almost enough to buy EVERY ounce of gold ever mined (145,000 tons) at $900 an ounce. Does that strike anyone as wild? Buy gold, silver, and then some more gold.
If you haven't looked at it very carefully, or if you're not a corrupt bloodsucking kleptocratic parasite, you don't realize how hard it is to loot a big country like this.
I could name 25 blogs which offer better advise than any advice that his advisors or Geithner has yet offer.
$750,000,000,000.oo more is an admission of we screwed up - again.
Debt caused the problem, please explain to me how more debt is going to make existing debt better?
What I am hearing is we like to look at Tent City populations grow.
Pathetic!
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/03/05/article-1159677-03C00321000005DC-173_634x312.jpg
ObamaVilles!
They will always be Shruburbs to me.
So the "bloggers" haven't "looked at [the financial problems] very carefully" and, therefore, their opinions don't matter.
Translation: We can only listen to the experts.
Problems with this approach:
It was obvious to me when my real estate closing business shut down, nearly totally in October 2007. It wasn't the least bit gradual. Nothing like having your nose shoved in it for reality to sink in. And I started to extrapolate, and then people started rolling their eyes. And now they don't.
Now I see a bottom starting to form. But the REOs need to be financed!!
Barackman Turner Overdrive:
You ain't seen nothin' yet
Ba ba ba Baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet
Steel Maker ArcelorMittal Idling Cleveland Plant
- NY Times
Largest steel maker in the world, they are.
Reading this I had the oddest feeling that I was in an Ayn Rand novel,
with the sacred industrial fires shutting down.
We're not quite there yet...
"Now I see a bottom starting to form"
You and Allen agree but I'm pretty skeptical. We've had bottoms called continuously for the past two years. Let's see if Obama can actually borrow this much money before we call a bottom.
I meant in real estate only. and only if they figure out how to finance the REOs. . .
Have I said this before???
Must cook dindin.
Best BAC AD : YouTube -
Welcome to zombieland!
Mark to model can be 100% as model is govt will buy these crap assets.
I wonder how severe the longterm blowback will be for the morally unjust transfer of so much wealth to the criminal financial system that created this Frankenstein? Our path of cowardly weakness will have consequences. The legitimacy of power will be more widely questioned, and rightly so. How long should we suffer the lashings for our own master's mistakes? The calculus of liberty is nearing an inflection point.
In reference to the "pillars in place for recovery" comment, maybe the idea is that if the markets crash to virtually nothing, then we have only one way to go, that's up. The only question is how long to get back to 2007 levels. He makes no promises on that but the "pillar" will be in place.... around?... spx = 100? .... then we can get back to unlimited growth.
But this sounds like some "blog idea" of just letting it crash, so it must not be it.
Didn't take long for him to be took over by the zombies. Everybody and their Grandma blog's.
The London Banker's poster does not sound like London Banker to me. Anyone else do a smell test?
typo= The London Banker's post
So Obama just stated that the banking system is insolvent. Like to see how the market reacts to that next week.
Merced County, California now has the 4th highest unemployment-ranked by County-in the state;
In January, Merced's unemployment rate climbed to 18.9 percent, a 3.2 percentage point increase from December's 15.7, according to the state's Employment Development Department.
The county now has the dubious distinction of being the county with the fourth-highest unemployment rate in California.
California's unemployment rate, which is almost two percentage points above the nation's, increased in January to 10.6 percent.
From the Merced Sun, Friday, March 6, 2009.
Wow, they beat even Wayne Co in MI!
And I thought the reasons they didn't look at blogs were because they were so often clearly opposed to what is going on. Then again, maybe it's because blogs don't vote or give campaign donations, and most of the posters are anonymous and hard to contact directly.
I'm fast loosing any shred of confidence in Obama and his band of idiots. I think that within a year, they will have destroyed the economy and made the situation much worse than it would have been without government intervention.
He could do well to begin reading blogs. CR, Mish, Yves, Dr. Doom, Setser, Angry Bear and others provide many viewpoints and insights that are obviously lacking in any macroeconomic discussions in DC.
It's sad to see that "change" is going to be more of the same.
The Latest from Mish:
Rolling The Dice On Jobs
in any crisis the best thing to do is just really half ass it
Certainly much better than a whole ass.
Obama is a criminal.
There must be some reason he's concerned about people stuffing money in mattresses;
otherwise, he would not have mentioned it. They must have considered the possibility
that people may do so.
I have been thinking an odd thought. What if the method of dealing with problem banks is an organized deliberate plan? Why would it unfold this way?
Capitulation.
If shareholders and bondholders have already watched the value of their holdings go way down (bonds half off or more, stocks 95% off or more), they are much less worried that a takeover will wipe out a material amount of money. At some banks, the bondholders might get 30 or 50 cents on the dollar. The stockholders are often holding what feels more like a stock option than an actual stock.
Compare this to taking down a bank where stockholders thought they still had $100 billion of market cap, and bondholders thought they were getting par.
Wow, y'go for a nice walk on a balmy evening in Maryland, and all this breaks out. Amazing.
Some Investor Guy - they've already concluded that and are doing put/CDS machinations on the remainder of coys they have stake in.
All going down, bcos that is where the money is.
C
I've wondered about that too, or something along those lines. Clearly they don't subscribe to the 'fix it sunday evening before the asian markets open'. They are not coming out weekly with some words to prop up the market. I'm beginning to think they are deliberately taking a 'hands off' approach to the stock market - as they should. Still surprised some posters are upset at the admin for not doing something to prop up the market but then get upset when the market rallies for a day, the old PPT conspiracy.
I say let the market run its course - so people will understand the meaning of risk again. I guess some folks always thought there would be a Greenspan or Bernanke put.
Right, IMO, they are doing this so that the sheeple will "need" to depend on the government.
I hate the government.
To quote Mr. Obama, "...because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another."
Unfortunately, what we need is a clean answer, aka a Clear Answer -- one way or another. I've heard of enough of trying to talk the economy in one way or another. Policy is made for a reason. People respond to it.
Where is the policy in all this gibberish?
YouTube - walstreetpro2 Channel
Hey Hobama
Tell this guy about your frigging plan.
Testing Pop-Up Now
best to all.
CR, great service. Try this, Johnny Cash, God's Gonna CUt You Down. It's not meant to be pointed, just a great toon.
YouTube -
C
It worketh.. Many thanks!
pop up works CR.
This is for the rest of the board, in case you're not seeing my thing to CR:
YouTube -
C
ice to see the pop up agai
the refresh button bring us systematically to the first page
the refresh button bring us systematically to the first page
You have the incredible propensity to state the obvious.
Try clicking on a number instead.
Good work CR, all the best!
Yes. It's a legacy of years of mismanagement. Problem is, Obama is lifting the bar on insanity to the moon. He is jacking it up so bad it's going to wipe the country out in a matter of months.
bearly, if he emphasizes consumption then i agree with you
if he emphasizes capital investments...21st ceventury energy, transportation and med / tech development...then i think debt is justified
Maybe we should call them the Talibanks?
Charles - good gag. I like it.
Ok, I'm giving up on page three and will p off and play guitar for a couple of hours.
C
after reading the thread its clear that theres a lot of hatred out there for obama and his predecessors efforts to prop up the banks and the banksters
while i dont agree, i can relate,...but consider this
our prez and his minions are trying disparately to prevent total collapse and are so afraid, that they are willing to put off justice and fairness (via prosecutions, nationalization and taxes) to a later date
for those who feel it would be better to just let-er-rip and pick up the broken pieces after the system is all smashed up...
im guessing , you are going to get your wish...
more and more it appears that the depth and breadth of the collapse will swallow even the best attempts to stem the financial apocalypse about to occur
maybe obama is wrong to try, but i dont believe as some have callously claimed, that he is a criminal or stupid etc
just a driver who climbed behind the wheel as the car busted thru the guard rail
and now if you will excuse me, i will return to my digging
Yes, I agree. The situation is unfortunate. Currently, I am spending too much time thinking about the moral illegitimacy of their actions and the upcoming backlash. It could very well be the case that their human-mind-limited intervention in the emergent complex system that is the market will result in nothing more than saving only those in the heart of the financial system. If that is the case, the legitimacy of the entire State will be in serious question. If you end up in failure, it is better to have gotten there through moral legitimacy. But maybe such a concept is too simple for a group of cowardly politicians. It may be easy when sitting in a position of power and privilege to belittle the value of liberty, but they should take caution because I think their supply of political capital runs lower each time they put the system before the people. Hopefully it only results in political upheaval and nothing more dire. Read Studs Terkel's Hard Times carefully if you want a closer peek at what might become of our social dynamics in the near future.
he anonymous above was mock turtle
"dont blame Obama......bush and his crony capitalist friends made all this mess"
I agree. But...
Obama's approach is still too much "it is what it is" for my taste. Geithner is a disaster at Treasury. Obama should find someone in industry, not finance, who can get in and sort this mess out rather than prolonging failed policies. And if not industry, then law; I am pretty sure there are folks at the $1000 per hour level (in bankruptcy law preferably) who could do a fine job dealing with Wall Street. Granted, it might be a tough sell to persuade those lawyers to take the pay cut...
Obama is in the driver's seat. Just because he inherited a certain paradigm in the credit markets (and is stuck with Bernanke for another couple of years) it doesn't mean he can't change the paradigm. It's called leadership.
Leaders don't use teleprompters.
Period.
Mock: It's his choices for positions.. I mean Geithner? Summers??? Come on!
That's not even trying, that's like handing the keys to the robbers!
choices, geithner summers etc...yeah, you are right, ive come around to your (and others) opinio
Mock Turtle [I think] said:
our prez and his minions are trying disparately to prevent total collapse and are so afraid, that they are willing to put off justice and fairness (via prosecutions, nationalization and taxes) to a later date
--
The longer you postpone justice and fairness, the worse things will get - the larger the losses, the more epic the looting.
Forbearance when given in the S&L crisis did NOT allow the banks to "grow out of" their problems, which was the phrase used at the time. They just created more fraud, more malinvestment, and looted more.
I think this administration will loot until to continue to do so will threaten their grip on the reins of power. I think they have 6-12 months until this happens, if it does. And yes, it's looting. Most absolutely do understand they are protecting the banks, and what that means. They are Chicago School - never doubt they understand the real rules of the neo-liberal game.
You can't give a sociopathic kleptocrat a pass, and expect him to reform. S/he must be imprisoned, their assets seized, their elite status revoked. Nothing else will work.
"You can't give a sociopathic kleptocrat a pass, and expect him to reform. S/he must be imprisoned, their assets seized, their elite status revoked."
Perp walks. Who were the two clowns on real time last night and were was the adult supervision when they were ganging up on Bill when he was asking for justice.
Whoa...
This mock-Halo layout is tough to read.
And if we are going to have prefab emoticons, this crowd is going to need the one with the upraised middle finger.
ATM card and $19 in the bank, OK, I switched back to the grey boxes. The number of comments doesn't appear on the blog - otherwise I think this works.
best to all.
CR,
Thanks for the response and especially thank you for all of your efforts on the comments format.
Please, won't someone just start blowing things up??
And while you're at it, take Lady McBeth too!!
This press release is intriguing. The Pakistani government has been at odds with the Taliban. Actually gave them a section to run - with Sharia law. They've (the Taliban) been involved in judicial matters throughout other areas as well. I'm led to believe they ARE jihadists (death to all non-muslims), and women are like cattle - they have no rights. How does THIS kind of ally play out?
Did anyone else notice the announcement that Intercontinental Exchange Inc. will open its new ICE US Trust on Monday? This is their new clearinghouse for trading of Credit Default Swaps, the first in the U.S.
It’s sort of an international market for financial weapons of mass destruction. Maybe they should establish an index of traded CDSs. They could call it the FINWEP. The FINWEP would track an index of the 1000 most dangerous swaps, and it would be a decapitalization-weighted index, since all of its components would have negative value.
The proprietors have trademarked the name “ICE Trust” for this operation, probably in the mafia sense of “icing” the victims. But I think this name lacks imagination. Something like “Death Watch” would be more appropriate.
Of course, in order to have an index (the FINWEP) to track, you have to have trading. That means that someone needs to get out in front and start selling the swaps. I propose that Warren Buffett would be a good front mane for this sales effort. Who better to sell these instruments than the man who gave them their proper name: “Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction”? Clearly Mr. Buffett understand how to sell these things – after all, they’re a lot like insurance policies – that insure against things like the sun coming up in the morning – Oh, but without collateral or backing. Mr. Buffett’s homey style and presentation would help to obscure the risk – after all, these are obligations of very large companies, and we all know that very large companies are safe and secure, don’t we?
The pitch might go something like this: “Here we have the Vintage 2006 Bank Bazooka swap. This little unit is perfect for gambling on banks under $500 million nominal capitalization. A couple of these will take out even the most conservative small institution.”
“Over here on the other side of the warehouse, we have the 2008 MOIB (Mother of Investment Banks) swap. This puppy took out Bear Stearns and still has plenty of destructive power left!”
“If buying swaps directly is out of your price range, we are now offering units of the FINWEP index by special arrangement with Rearguard Investments to keep your overhead and 12b-1 fees low. This fund is the mother of all black hole weapons, and you can see that it is currently devouring AIG in great gulps. The boys that run my insurance companies are cheering for this one, as it’s really improving the competitive landscape at present. By this Spring, we expect that it will have completely consumer AIG and most of the U.S Treasure to boot!”
Wisely, ICE has made provisions for the possibility that not all may go well with this effort. From their announcement: “Although it is an ICE subsidiary, ICE Trust's membership, Board of Directors, officers and operating staff are separate from ICE's other exchange, clearing house and brokerage operations.”
Cool.
sm_landlord,
If I could get a double-inverse FINWEP etf, I'd back up the truck. I really think these bombed-out companies are due for a rebound...
The tricky bit is figuring out which ones will avoid going through bankruptcy on the way to recovering...
I was trying to be funny. Not sure if the snark came through...
To your point, we talked about this Bloomberg article the other day; it describes the negative-basis trade, in which speculators holding both bonds and CDSs really don't care if the company goes BK.
FINWEP indeed...
Darth Wall Street Thwarting Debtors With Credit Swaps (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
Welll, I agree, but it's never going to happen.
C
PS amp back on. Hmmm. Momma.
While we're giving the Banksters another 3/4-trillion dollar vig, The jihadists in Pakistan are getting familiar with the "doomsday" button on THEIR nuclear football.
If he were anyone but Barack Hussein Obama he'd be subjected to serious questions regarding his true intent, loyalty, opinions, beliefs, birthdates, places.
Aren't you supposed to be out milking something?
It's not that big, its bigger. What we are experiencing is gangland warfareon a global stage. Think Carl Sagan, while looking back to '20s Chicago. The US is the target, the mob has fractured into many mobs. The banking system is in play. Politics are the rules to be broken, or not. Meanwhile another contender is stepping up to run the mob. It seems after reading LB, that it's a coalition.
Damn that new Ricky 12 is fabulous. My toddler helped out, shrieking with delight. Wish I could do that.
C
So what are some of the issues the market might face in the event of a GE Capital bankruptcy? Would USGov intervene?
Reuters
Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com
UPDATE 2-Pressure may mount to know who got AIG bailout blns
Sat Mar 7, 2009 5:24pm EST
(Adds no comment from Goldman Sachs)
By Toni Reinhold
"That we find ourselves in this situation at all is ... quite frankly, sickening," said Senator Christopher Dodd, the Democrat who chairs the committee. "The lack of transparency and accountability in this process has been rather stunning."
Eric Dinallo, superintendent of New York State's Insurance Department, railed on Friday against AIG's failed business model, likening its insuring credit-default swaps as gambling with somebody else's money.
"It's like taking insurance on your neighbor's house and even maybe contributing to blowing it up," he said at a panel sponsored by New York University's Stern School of Business.
U.S. lawmakers have said they are running out of patience with regulators' refusal to identify AIG's counterparties.
Jeez, getting all apocalypso here.
Best go back to playing guitar.
C
“We have no reason to revise that estimate,” he said.
>>
How come he forgot to add 'unless', 'if' or 'but' to that statement? =-O
Comrade Byzantine_Ruins,
Quite interested on your take on what appear to be the two emergent candidates for failed state status, Pakistan and Mexico...
What's great is we can wait a year or two and see Obama realizing the blogs were right.
Depends on how you define "great"
@What's great is we can wait a year or two and see Obama realizing the blogs were right.
yes, the infallible blogs. My god, man, every opinion imaginable is represented in the blogs. They are just as much wrong as they are right. When opinion is a matter of ideology, everyone is right.
Anon -- "So what are some of the issues the market might face in the event of a GE Capital bankruptcy? Would USGov intervene?"
And you come to us from the White House for answers?! Well, that's an improvement. But really, all I can do is LOL. They've already assumed GE is dead in the water. Haven't you heard about naked short selling?
I don't think he will need that much money because the banks will not want to take it, unless they are desperate. After the compensation limits and government dictates, banks will avoid federal money and try to return what they already took as fast as they can.
"After the compensation limits and government dictates, banks will avoid federal money and try to return what they already took as fast as they can."
Just in time for the FDIC to show up?
I dunno, EHP. I really respect your ideas, but this isn't a sitcom where all problems are solved in 25 minutes: This is Real Life(TM) where decades of poor choices have painful and lasting consequences.
Problems by politicians to "fix the problem" seem to make the adjustment worse.
But I have to hand it to Fredrick Lewis Allen who said in 1939 that abou the only parts of the New Deal that really worked were spending and "devaluation" (inflation). I doubt it will be different this time (given that the banksters won't allow the just, legal bankruptcies to take their course).
All blogs are not equal.
Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
Will Rogers
It's gonna be a hoot watching this fool piss on that fench. =-X
The country now has Obama on a short leash and the natives are not getting the answers or plans they want. Trust is a terrible thing to lose. It's over. The lame duck has begun.
Even before mid-term Congressional elections?
Sorry, my last comment was for bearly @ 8:37
Yes. The fence-sitting dems will turn, in hopes they get re-elected. It's effectively over.
"The fence-sitting dems will turn, in hopes they get re-elected."
Turn to who? Rush? Bobby J? Palin?
Lax legislators lambaste loose lending laws
(Try saying that fast 3 times)
Hey, what happened to "yes we can" ? Campaign rhetoric, quicky shelved. Now what, that the catchy phrases are a distant memory ? Mall speeches don't look so wonderful with tent cities in the background.
"maybe obama is wrong to try, but i dont believe as some have callously claimed, that he is a criminal or stupid etc"
Mock turtle,
Obama is doing some things that I think are wonderful and long overdue...overturning the ban on stem cell research, overturning the ban on contraceptive info for foreign aid, taking climate change seriously, making a run at health care reform, and at least addressing the fact that millions of Americans are on the knife edge, and directing money towards umemployment benefits and hopefully food stamps.
My anger is that he is taking advice from the same folks who led us into this mess...and who show a callous disregard for those outside the global financial elite.
Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, none of these shows any concern about the political costs of shielding the recipients of bailout dollars. All I hear from people is a rumbling that the banks are robbing the country...and Obama is seen as helping them do it. He has got to get out front and explain clearly who is getting the money and why he thinks it worthwhile. The more secrecy the more distrust...and even if the reciepients are foreigners, let Obama stand up and make his case. He is articulate and persuasive...let him state clearly what he believes in.
If the economy collapses, and he goes along with shuffling the money offstage, nothing else he does will matter.
And many thank yous to CR, who spent days sorting out the comment section.
Works great.
fried, thats all well and good, but whats missing is the prosecution of the guilty... i.e. those individuals who made the concious decisions to put this countries financial system at risk. They failed in their duties, both to the shareholders and to this country. Those bastards need to be crucified.
"...we don't spend a lot of time looking at blogs..."
.....but they sure as Hell spend time listening to Cramer, Santelli & Limbaugh!
Obama is proving himself more embarrasing by the day.
Yeah obama the reason it isnt clear cut is yiou have to bail out the givers. Obama says it is too complicated - stiglitz and his nobel and krugman too think otherwise. To name a few. Buit obama thinks you should be buying stocks too. this guy is a fool.