Politics
- Started
- Last post
- 33,755 Responses
- TheBlueOne0
Calvin and Hobbes, 15 years ago. Basically nailed the current economic situation:
- ukit0
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/2…
Only five days into the Obama presidency, members of the new administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are already dancing around one of the most politically delicate questions about the financial bailout: Is the president prepared to nationalize a huge swath of the nation’s banking system?
Privately, most members of the Obama economic team concede that the rapid deterioration of the country’s biggest banks, notably Bank of America and Citigroup, is bound to require far larger investments of taxpayer money, atop the more than $300 billion of taxpayer money already poured into those two financial institutions and hundreds of others.
But if hundreds of billions of dollars of new investment is needed to shore up those banks, and perhaps their competitors, what do taxpayers get in return? And how do the risks escalate as government’s role expands from a few bailouts to control over a vast portion of the financial sector of the world’s largest economy?
- I just heard more like 3 Trillion for the banks alone, WTF, WTF...utopian
- BattleAxe0
government works every single day for you , the bigger the level of government the less you feel it's direct impact as a citizen.
If you got to work today , on a public street , if you took a shower and have running water, where able to turn on the lights , etc
yes you pay for that , but you pay government for that, they got it right, they got out of the way ,
we can nit pick and talk about traffic jams, or power outages but we all know anything can always be better ,
- government also enforces the environment that private enterprise can compete fairlyTheBlueOne
- TheBlueOne0
"Which brings us to the real question: if these naturally occurring forces [of creative destruction] have proven themselves effective [in capitalism] so many times across multiple industries
, decades and centuries, why do we fight it so defiantly when it comes to banks? The obvious answer is that banks are different because we as consumers have our money there. If a Silicon Valley startup files for bankruptcy, the only likely losers are their ostensibly wealthy investors, and possibly their lunch catering company. However, when a bank fails, the potential losers are every depositor in the bank, as was demonstrated during the Great Depression. The federal government tried to alleviate this fear by creating the FDIC which acts as "insurance" for bank customers against a possible bankruptcy. This worked for awhile until a combination of deregulation and increased bank mergers led to the rise of huge behemoths whose total deposits far exceed the FDIC's or anyone's ability to insure them.All successful insurance models are based on the theory that the maximum size of any individual claim is a tiny fraction of the money available, and the odds of a large percentage of clients filing claims at the same time is very, very small. Auto insurers spread their risk through millions of car policies across the country and no single claim from any client can have a large impact on their overall reserves.
Recent numbers from the FDIC suggest that it currently has approximately $55 billion on hand. The FDIC also has lines of credit with the Treasury department for situations where its cash on hand proves inadequate. This all sounds well and good until you look at what it's charged with insuring. By its own math, The FDIC estimates that the $55 billion of reserves is insuring $4.4 trillion in deposits, a 1.25% ratio. The problem with this is not the ratio of reserves; it's the distribution of deposits. Bank of America, as an example, currently has more than $600 billion in deposits. That exceeds 10x the amount the FDIC currently has and more than the US government has injected into the entire banking system to date. The 6 largest banks by deposits have over $2 trillion in combined deposits, almost 50% of the total of the country's bank deposits."
- waterhouse0
Have any of you guys been catching this Rod Blogojevich stuff today? This guy's screaming for clinical help!
- "...screaming out..." is how that should better read.waterhouse
- ukit0
He's prepping his insanity defense
- waterhouse0
Yeah, that or:
a) making quick talk-show-appearance money for a future criminal trial
b) somehow erroneously thinking if he can name drop Mandela, MLK, Oprah and Obama's Chicago friends he might get some presidential cover
c) similarly is mistaken that he really still has a legal leg to stand on
- ukit0
Barack Obama struck a note of foreign policy confidence Monday night, telling an Arabic news station that al Qaeda leaders and Osama bin Laden "seem nervous" now that they don't have George W. Bush as a recruiting tool.
In his first formal interview since taking office, the president spoke with the Dubai-based station Al Arabiya on topics pertinent to the Arab and Muslim worlds. Much of the interview was spent defining the new approach that the United States would implement in that region: respectfulness over divisiveness, listening over dictating, engagement over militarism. But the president drew the line when it came to terrorist organizations.
"Their ideas are bankrupt," he told host Hisham Melhem, when asked to respond to recent audio clips from al Qaeda leadership calling him various epithets. "There's no actions that they've taken that say a child in the Muslim world is getting a better education because of them, or has better health care because of them."
- << I dig that. Much more grown up than Bush and his cowboy "America ... Fuck Yeah!" speak.tommyo
- "We'll Smoke them out" sounded good at firstBattleAxe
- "The axis of evil" still make me laugh... http://en.wikipedia.…utopian
- utopian0
Bank bailout could cost $4 trillion
Banks don't have enough capital to fix their problems, which means the Obama administration may need a lot more money to clean up the financial mess.
Thank George Bush for deregulation!
- Actually you'll need to thank Clinton and Bush...TheBlueOne
- fuck bush********
- and clinton for believing the greenspan, too true tbo.DrBombay
- ********0
Citigroup to buy $50M private jet
Despite recent financial troubles, the bank is going through with the purchase to avoid a multimillion-dollar fee.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/…
- ukit0
The high-flying execs at Citigroup caved under pressure from President Obama and decided today to abandon plans for a luxurious new $50 million corporate jet from France...
ABC News has learned that Monday officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company's new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to "fix it."
- haha********
- bush would have never done that, our new president is pretty dope.DrBombay
- haha
- TheBlueOne0
- The U.S has become one pathetic greed driven zest pool!utopian
- TheBlueOne0
My Fellow Americans,
I address you here to make the suggestion that for the Obama years, we make a slight change to our National Anthem. Nothing drastic, but as illustrated by this cool mofo here:
That is all.
- designbot0
Obama getting some push back on his stimulas plan....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ameri…I am sure it will pass soon regardless.
- I'm shocked. The Republicans will vote against the bill which has been made shittier to please them?TheBlueOne
- Well I'm just glad not everyone has lost their mind, regardless of the motif behind the push back.designbot
- TheBlueOne0
Ah, I love America. You run a bank into the ground? The government hands you buckets of cash. You're a poor, old man? Die in your fucking home.
- sad, sad, sad!! this makes me irate.thisispillowhead
- but America is the greatest and most powerful Nation in the worldBattleAxe
- </bs>BattleAxe
- You get caught stealing $50/5 years in prison. You get caught stealing $50 billion/$500 billion bailout.utopian
- BattleAxe0
where is Israeli Defence Minister talking from , it just looks odd talking about something so grand with Google and HP as sponsors, WTF!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middl…
Israel launches attacks in Gaza
- ukit0
Current approval ratings (approve/ disapprove)
Obama: 67 / 29
Pelosi: 39 / 37
Reid: 33 / 41
McConnell: 29 / 46
Boehner: 21 / 47- Still can't believe the Repubs picked a guy named "Boehner" as their leaderukit
- Yeah because Barack Obama is pretty fucking grand.tommyo
- zing!TheBIueOne
- Yeah but Obama isn't a euphamism for a penis. At least not yet...TheBIueOne
- omgitsacamera0
lol
- omgitsacamera0
this is just fucking sad.
- designbot0
Iran demands apology from US:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middl…This guy is clearly off his rocker (Ahmadinejad). I do have faith that Obama could help make our relationship with Iran a bit less tense for lack of a better word. He is in a very unique position imo, because of his upbringing and the way the world sees him, to change the image of America especially to the Muslim nations. Even though he is not a Muslim, since his father was, many people still view him this way (since in Islam religion is passed from the father to child) I see this as a huge strength. But it is also interesting to see Iran's reaction here, I don't think this would have happened with any other president. I can't help but feel like Iran may actuallly think Obama is (sort of) on their side. How about you guys stop trying to create nukes and take out out Israel, then we'll talk seriously.
- i don't think they've ever tried to take out isreal or been shown to have nukes but fuck it its just poltical talkKwesiJ