Politics
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- ********0
- TheBlueOne0
Last week:
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis said the largest U.S. bank wants to start repaying $45 billion of federal bailout money next month, after completing a government stress test, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.
Lewis had previously said he hoped to pay back all of the money Bank of America took from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program as soon as later this year, without saying when repayment would begin.
Today:
"Ken Lewis from Bank of America (BAC) doesn’t seem to be able to run away from last month’s promise to repay TARP funds fast enough.
In his latest media appearances, including an interview on CNBC, Lewis said that BofA would repay taxpayers for the $45 billion in TARP proceeds his bank received. Eventually.
But he quickly added that the economy will have to rebound. And then several quarters will have to pass."
- TheBlueOne0
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/200…
"The key point is that neither the public, the Fed nor the Treasury seem to understand is that the CDS contracts written by AIG with these various non-insurers around the world were shams - with no correlation between “fees” paid and the risk assumed. These were not valid contracts as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geithner and Economic policy guru Larry Summers claim, but rather acts of criminal fraud meant to manipulate the capital positions and earnings of financial companies around the world."
A must read if this issue interests you...
- GeorgesII0
who will be the "super cop"...
I'm sick and tired of people telling me I think too much, but isn't it obvious now that the plan is now official and mainstream- Your "critical thinking" fuse is blown. You should look to get that fixed.TheBlueOne
- PonyBoy0
Eight and a half percent.
- ukit0
Sarah Palin's sister in law arrested for burglary
"Police arrested 35-year-old Diana Palin at a house on West Mill Site Circle near Wasilla's Multi-Use Sports Complex.
Homeowner Theodore Turcott told police an unfamiliar gray 1993 Toyota Camry pulled into his driveway Thursday morning, according to a affidavit filed Friday at Palmer courthouse. Turcott told police he'd been burglarized twice in the last week: Someone stole $2,200 on March 26, leaving $400 behind; after another apparent break-in Tuesday all but $9 was gone.
Turcott told police, when he didn't recognize the woman getting out of the Camry, he grabbed a gun and hid in the bathroom to see what happened, said Wasilla police Deputy Chief Greg Wood.
Palin made straight for the bedroom cabinet where Turcott kept his cash, Wood said.
Turcott confronted her, detaining her until police arrived, he said.
But before officers got there, Palin's 4-year-old daughter came in the house, the prosecutor handling the case said during a Palmer District Court hearing Friday afternoon."
- ... and Biden's daughter caught snorting "white powder"... so what.********
- ... and Biden's daughter caught snorting "white powder"... so what.
- ********0
President Obama + European Journey = Fail?*
* Perhaps not a (EU) PR fail, but a policy fail? Pontificators, please.
- lowimpakt0
what policy fail exactly? I
Personally, I think the G20 is largely a policy "fail"? why?
because the G20 still leaves 2.5 billion of the world's people unrepresented in the "new order". These 2.5 billion people are the world's poorest. While the G20 is aiming at "getting the economy going" so we can buy more cars and iPods and shit people are starving to death. The G20 has effectively said to these people "hold on till we fix a problem with our banks that we created in the first by doing exactly the same thing we are doing to 'fix' the situation". Boosting the IMF is a shitty idea because it has been a massive failure in so many areas.
Another reason why I think it's a failure is because they managed to squeeze out the climate change issue by pushing it onto the COP15 meeting in December. While COP15 is really important and a big step (i'm involved on the sideline in the running up to it) it needed a stronger mandate from the G20. It is still a fundamental misunderstanding or the horizontal nature of climate change.
plus loads of other shit.
- // As long as that 2.5b people don't have internet they don't exist as far as I'm concerned.tommyo
- ukit0
Good article on the debate within the Democratic party on how to deal with the banks.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/19232…
"On one side are those who want to fix the financial house we have; on the other are those who think we should knock it down so we can build a brand-new one—a new Wall Street, in other words. The keep-the-house-intact crowd includes Geithner and Bernanke, as well as Obama-appointed regulators like Mary Schapiro of the SEC.
They want serious fixes to the Wall Street system—new rules and regulations to repair the old house and ensure that it doesn't burn down again in the future—but they don't much want to change its structure. Having giants like Citigroup and Bank of America dominating the landscape is OK with them, as long as those giants follow the new rules.
On the other side of the debate are critics such as Paul Krugman and possibly Paul Volcker and Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who think the old house is structurally unsound. They believe that not only can't we solve the present crisis by merely tinkering with the old house, but that we'll assuredly find ourselves in another crisis down the line if we don't dismantle it entirely."
Note to conservatives throwing around words like socialism etc - Obama is listening to the moderate Wall Street types, not the nationalization advocates.
However, it also brings up a good point that Krugman and others fail to address in their critiques - nationalization is no quick and easy fix, in fact it could be a disaster.
"Geithner, in an interview with NEWSWEEK last week, approvingly cited a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by William Isaac, the former head of the FDIC. Isaac argues, like the Treasury secretary, that taking over the worst big banks (nationalizing them) is just too gargantuan and risky a task.
"Unlike the talking heads, I have actually nationalized a large bank," Isaac wrote. This was the Continental Illinois Bank, the nation's seventh-largest, which fell into trouble during the banking crisis of the 1980s. The 1984 nationalization—or takeover—worked. But it took seven years for the government to sell it off, and that was in an up-market.
Why wouldn't this work today? Isaac asks. "Let's begin with the fact that today our 10 largest banking companies hold some two-thirds of the nation's banking assets, and some are enormously complex. Continental had less than 2 percent of the nation's banking assets," he writes. Further, "who will run these companies when we dismiss the existing senior managers and board members? We had significant difficulties attracting quality people to Continental even without today's limits on compensation. ... What's more, we won't be able to stop at nationalizing one or two banks. If we start down that path, the short sellers and other speculators ... will target for destruction one after another of our largest banks. Finally, the FDIC's plan for Continental Illinois required it to shrink to half its size within three years. To do that now to Wall Street, in the middle of a severe recession "where deflation is a realistic concern," runs against the government's expansionary policy.
- TheBlueOne0
A letter fro Thomas Jefferson. Anything sound familiar?
More things change...
- TheBlueOne0
"The financial industry brought the economy to its knees, but how did they get away with it? With the nation wondering how to hold the bankers accountable, Bill Moyers sits down with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout"
Watch. you'll probably get angry.
- this is an awesome interview. everyone should watch.monNom
- robotron3k0
"Obama to call for nuclear-free world"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090…
Crazy Idea, no NUKES in the world...
- shoot em all at the sun. That'll teach it to melt our polar ice capslocustsloth
- sofakingbanned0
I am going to put one of those yellow ribbon stickers on my car for you.
- TheBlueOne0
You know what I find fascinating? We had two fairly major shootings in the national news here, one in Binghamton NY and one in Pittsburgh. I've been watching alot of CNN for the last 48 hours and the news is focusing on the NY shooting, which was done by an immigrant. Lots of "Profiles of a killer" and guys like Lou Dobbs weighing in on guns and immigrants and shit.
The PA shooting meanwhile, in which was a standoff in which 3 cops were killed has recieved far less play and got a perfuntory "police were responding to domestic violence call". I have seen no attempts to "profile" the shooter in the case, who it turns out looks like a radical right-wing rascist.:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-…
draw your own conclusions on what the "liberal media" reports.
- You're reaching a bit here, TBO.********
- Really? I think not. My morning newspaper had two page story on NY shooting, nothing on PATheBlueOne
- You're reaching a bit here, TBO.
- ********0
Obama goes to EU to ask for more spending = FAIL
Obama goes to EU to ask for more combat troops = FAILObama's trip to EU = FAIL
- BonSeff0
anyone with half a brain knows these trips aren't going to get a lot done after the reputation disaster america has suffered for 8 years. everybody knows that trust is built, and once you lose it, it is twice as hard to regain. so go ahead and point and laugh. the rest of us are slowly un-facepalming from the bush years. this shit is gonna be some work, and a whole lot of rhetoric.. but politics is what it is.. meh
- ********0
^^ BonSeff, Obama should listen to your words VERY carefully
You said, "everybody knows that trust is built, and once you lose it, it is twice as hard to regain."
- GeorgesII0
responding to TBO, denial is good as long as your country is not sinking in an economic recession leading to hyperinflation
and here's google news search, now maybe you should wake up, maybe not ,
http://news.google.com/news?pz=1…
