January 2010 notes from edith – 1/31. What’s keeping Congress from zapping the Credit Default Swap?
You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss and the CDS is still a CDS – as time goes by. Yes, time is whipping by and Congress has not done one lousy thing about the Credit Default Swap, the biggest threat to America’s good times in the future.
They’re not insurance policies for Americans’ financial safety, they’re there for speculators’ safety. They exist for a skuzzball to buy an unlimited number of CDSs against any financial instrument, whether he owns it or not. Then sit back and hope the instrument fails.
It aborts good decisions and begets bad ones. And is still doing it. As a usual thing, when a disease hits a nation, a government steps in to protect the populace from further infection. What’s stopping it now? Is it Indifference, incompetence, corruption or lunacy?
Maybe it’s all of the above.
1/30. What do Tea Partiers want?
“When they write the history of the backroom arrangements which accompanied the cobbling together of the health insurance reform proposal, no deal was more rank than the sweetener that (Sen. Mary) Landriu demanded in return for her vote. The Democrats, who were desperate, held their noses and paid the bribe,” said Charles Cooper in CBS News.
Landriu was proud. She quickly corrected a report that she got credit for an extra $100 million for Louisiana, saying it was really $300 million. What a gal. What a smell.
This is precisely what steams up the Tea-Party goers, not ideology or electing party loyalists to government slots and their slot machines. It’s about getting rid of such parasites as Landriu who make deals for themselves and the hell with you.
T-Partiers are for truth in government, and consequences for lies and corruption.
1/29. Letting his bet ride.
The prez is betting that his original plans for America that he campaigned on before the meltdown are still the ones he’ll stand pat on. Things changed after the election but he didn’t. He’s still focused on an extreme leftist makeover.
He’s marching on, not missing a beat every time a sour note blares from background music from voters in places like New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.
And even with his record breaking number of “speeches, lectures, press conferences and tutorials on his policies…In response independents have abandoned him, conservatives have steeled their resolve against him, and liberals have lost faith,” says Jonah Goldberg in the Houston Chronicle.
Yet he stands pat on his “system” to beat the odds. He should sleep it off or have a cup of coffee and get back to the office.
1/28. The state of O’s union with reality – none
In the State of the Union address, the prez called attention to his own virtues in pursuing such things as health care reform with grit and tenacity. He didn’t say it was his fault that he hadn’t succeeded – someone else failed. His only lack was his failure in “not explaining it more clearly,” he said.
Bur he has spoken often enough about it to make it clear. It just seems that we aren’t able to take in a clear picture – too complicated. And the speech was the same on jobs, deficits and economic growth – self justifying and stuck in the past.
Michael Gerson in the Washington Post made it clear when he said,” Barack Obama has lost his promise. He has lost his momentum. He has lost his touch. He has lost his filibuster-proof Senate majority. He has lost his first year in office.” And --
“Tonight, he lost his grip on reality.” We have to agree. But thank heaven voters haven’t lost it. It’s real when there’s no paycheck coming in.
1/27. The secret of life is in the filibuster
We were told by the GOP during the Republican majority that the filibuster should be killed, and now the Dems are saying the same thing with Scott Brown in to nullify the filibuster-proof body. So what is it? Good or bad?
It is necessarily bad for whoever is in majority power, for the good of us all, says Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. It’s there to keep steam-roller politicians from rolling over other Americans. But it seems to be overused these days say Dems and GOPers and nearly everybody else except Independents.
Well, overuse of the filibuster is “evidence of a deeper problem – the increasing polarization of politics,” explains Marcus. So what, you say.
This is what. Polarization comes when more people begin to realize that they are being defrauded by the few. When they don’t realize it, they are happy as dumb bunnies living in a coop, having baby bunnies and eating salads and no meat. Dumb bunnies don’t realize how much red meat there is out there.
So we’re waiting -- polarized. Where is that whistleblower that we’ve been hearing rumblings about?
P.S. – I like that title about the secret in the filibuster so much that starting in February I’m putting the title first and then February 2010 notes from edith afterwards.
1/26. Two takes of why Geithner must go
A lot of people think Wall Street Lapdog Geithner, is standing in the center of the scandal of “collusion and possible illegal behavior gathering around the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for its megabillion-dollar takeover of insurance giant AIG,” says William Greider in The Nation.
Here’s what this analyst said. “Facts of the deal are catching up with him now and none are good, since they raise doubts about his competence and his public integrity,” with special attention to attempts to conceal what happened.
Here is what another said. “Globally he has done enough iffy things to take away any confidence in him. And furthermore, we want him investigated, and believe he’ll be dancing on the head of a pin to keep himself from being found guilty,” says Angie Pratt in PoliicalPosts.com.
That’s clear enough. Now let the investigation do what it’s supposed to do, with no iffy reports on the subject.
1/25. Be careful what you joke about, Mr. Buffett
Warren Buffett, you know, the affable multi-billionaire, the folksy financial wizard, who nobody knows how he did it, is giving a cheerful warning about Ben Bernanke. While you’re not in a joking mood, you’ve noticed how he chuckles between sentences in TV interviews.
Now, with a smile, he says Bernanke is necessary to the Fed’s mission and warned of a major stock market drop if Bernanke’s nomination runs into serious trouble.
He humorously said, “Just tell me a day ahead of time, so I can sell some stocks,” ha, ha, ha. But this is no laughing matter. Bernanke, himself, wasn’t laughing when he {finally) invited Congress’ watchdog Government Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive review of the AIG episode.
What might that show you were doing at the time, Mr. Buffett, or shortly before – getting the word to buy, or short or sell? Ha, ha, ha? Whatever.
But without Bernanke maybe Americans can laugh last.
1/24. O could take a lesson from Conan O’Brien
It took $45 million for NBC to convince Conan O’Brien to get out the door so Jay Leno could come back in. And even thought it was millions instead of billions or trillion his problem was a lot like O’s problem with the banks.
Leslie Savan in The Nation says that even though the banks were scared witless in late 2008 they were hoping for “some slap-dash patch, some absurd dodge, some last-minute fix – like giving Hank Paulson nearly a trillion dollars in TARP money and the keys to the Fed window,” – to “save their butts.”
It did, but not the butts of the rest of America. O assumed that in return he’s get a lot of bills passed, including the health reform bill, but the “political/financial complex” dug in their heels,” said Savan.
What O needs is an O’Brien-type moxie to force cooperation from them or pass laws to take their bonus money back. He only needs a 51 percent majority for that.
That’s the lesson in there for O. As for the rest of us, though, there isn’t much money for him to take back.
1/23. Corporations, unions & their lobbyists big winners in Supreme Court roulette
Place your bets – red, black, even, odd or pick a number – this time the supreme deciders have picked Bugsy Moran Reps over Al Capone Dems. Next time they may switch back or switch to whoever else spins their wheel.
It’s not their fault. Presidents choose them. We don’t – except indirectly from our small influence over who gets to be president. As for spinning wheels, corporations, unions and their lobbyists are now the designated ones to stand closest to the wheel with the longest reach. Individuals. 300,000,000 of them, have to stand behind a velvet rope where they can gawk and marvel at the winners and their “special” results.
Now that the law has been tilted toward the inanimate bodies what can a real body do? Well, he can go for the throat with his last real vote. Turn off the TV ads, MSNBC, CNN, ABC and, yes, FOX and go for the Internet. That’s where the Supremes said that individuals have too much advantage over the non-individuals.
So – believe it. Do it. Use it to vote in polls, make comments, forward good comments, register complaints, send e-mails to Congressmen, spot good tactics, start a movement, sign petitions, expand sources – and read up a sweat. Do it before they figure out how to take the wheels off the Internet.
1/22. Hey, team, how about that Volcker quarterback?
Still showing the moxie for his quarterbacking in the early-80’s stagflation days, TV portrayed Volcker beaming in a huddle at the White House yesterday as O endorsed his play. O called it the “Volcker rule.” This delighted fans such as Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT, who said, “It’s a fundamental shift.”
He has replaced Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in the bank-reformers’ hierarchy and moved past Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council, reports David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum in the Washington Post.
Industry officials were “startled and disheartened” that Geithner’s more moderate treatment in bank reform is moving over for Volcker’s recommendations to prevent banks from taking advantage of the safety net to make speculative investments.
But ominously, Geithner’s Wall Street companions are suggesting that O’s shift is “just that the president needed Volcker politically to make him look tough on big banks.” We have to hope that isn’t true. We have to hope that reform means “more than just fighting the last war,” as Cho and Appelbaum say, “it needs to address sources of future risk.”
At the huddle, however, Geithner wasn’t beaming. It’s his future he’s worried about.
1/21. How much did the O team rake in from Wall Street?
Here’s a list of a few actors on the O team who were paid royally and handsomely by their Wall Street connections. Tim Zimmerman calls it “jaw-dropping.” Put on your fire-retardant suit and read.
Larry Summers, O’s chief economic advisor received $5.2 million for part-time work at a massive hedge fund and got $2.7 million for speaking fees. Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, took in $7.4 million at Citi just before coming to work at the W.H. but after serving at a key post in the transition.
David Lipton, presidential special assistant, made $1.5 million from Citi managing its risk group and received a $762,000 bonus at the time he started at the W.H. Jacob J. Lew, a deputy secretary of state, was top officer of Citi’s alternative Investments and got $1.1 million in 2008 and an undisclosed amount in 2009.
Gene Sperling, a top advisor to Tim Geithner earned $887,727 for Golman Sachs simply for providing “advice on charitable giving,” and made $158,000 for speeches. Lee Sachs, another top Geithner aid “reported more than $3 million in salary from Mariner Investment Group hedge fund and was still owed a bonus.
Lewis Alexander, a top Geithner aide and former chief economist at Citi was paid $2.4 million in 2008 and first few months of 2009. Mark Patterson. Geither’s chief of staff, and former top lobbyist at Goldman got $637,230 in 2008 for 3 month’s work. Good news for last – Paul Volker is joining in to really help the country.
1/20. Dear Congressman, our analysts are trying to save your skins
Dear Sirs, our analyst friends are trying to save your skins with good advice and that goes for your friends in the administration and the justice departments.
For instance, Karl Denninger insists that those who committed fraud must be tried and punished and that fraud includes selling products that you know are at risks that you are not admitting to. Punishment teaches.
He wants you to know, too, that we won’t tolerate a forced-fed health care or any other forced-fed bill. And we don’t want unreasonable credit card interest (30%) or foreign trading partners that exploit our labor and rob us of our production secrets and jobs.
And then John Mason offers the warning for you and us voters to be careful because there are few regulations that smart operators can’t figure a way around and there is “little that supervision can do to keep them from failing due to some speculative activities.”
Only two things can really help. One: requiring more capitalization to make them less likely to gravitate toward risk and the other is much more “transparency in transactions, deals and balance sheets” for the public. Knowledge is power and ignorance is weak. And that includes you, Mr. Lawmaker. Yours truly,
Mr. and Mrs. America.
1/19. Secret bill-writing is today’s norm
Back in 1789 the House and Senate met in conference to iron out differences on legislation to be sent to the president for signing. Today conferencing means talking to oneself with no noise from the opposition. Bipartisan conferences are lying there prone, almost dead.
In the 1973-75 Congress it filed 190 conference reports of formal House-Senate negotiations. In 2006-07 that number fell to 28. Last year, in the 1st year of the present Congressional session, there were just 11 conference reports. Eight of those were on budget measures that lend themselves to conferences that split he differences on cost,
The conference on the $767 billion stimulus bill met only after the White House and Dem leaders had resolved key differences. It quickly adjourned after Republicans asked when the negotiating would begin, and it never reconvened.
Party leaders now call the shots, and for the U.S. it’s good bye to bi-partisanship – for good. Or, make that bad.
1/18. Wall Street pay comes from a concentration of wealth and brains
It’s not so much a puzzle as it appears says Robert J. Samuelson. When you are in the middle of so much wealth it’s hard not to land big fish hand over fist from such depths of dollars.
In the 60s, they made 62% of their revenue from commissions for buying stock & bonds for others. Now it's only 8%. Today's huge revenues are from buying those things for themselves and manipulating the rules in their favor - with the smartest brains to do it. Some of the smartest people tend to go in for finance after graduating from qualifying universities.
Most people are paid based on what they produce. In finance, after banks were freed from restraints in the 80s, most are paid on the amount of money that races through their hands on its way to many destinations. And big risks paid off because the government provided a safety net for the whole system.
After the committee for responsible fiscal action gets through some of the smart people may be enticed into using their brains to produce products that will add to the general wealth of the nation instead of just slicing off sushi for themselves.
Too bad the committee’s report comes after the November election.
1/17. There is an awful idea before Congress
The awful idea is to give up its powers of taxing and spending to an 18-man panel that will assume Congress’s Constitutional rights and duties. This is what Sens. Kent Conrad, ND-D and Judd Gregg, NH-D, drafted, and endorsed by 33 others, to create the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action to solve he budgetary crisis,
“Responsible” action? They haven’t been responsible? And the super-18-men panel is surely responsible?
“Year one of the Obama administration was devoted to deliberately exacerbating the fiscal crisis. The gusher of spending, combined with the new multitrillion-dollar health-care entitlement, is half of liberalism's plan to radically and permanently increase government's grasp on the nation's wealth. As a response to the crisis, the task force would produce the other half,” says George Will today in the Washington Post.
"During the life of this task force, which will perform Congress's fundamental duties, all senators and representatives will be considered on vacation and will not be paid. If the task force's recommendations are accepted by Congress, there will be no congressional pay until 2050."
“Let’s vote,” he says. Let’s do, we say.
1/16. The Pecora Hearings have a clone pecking at its shell
Ever hear of the Pecora Hearings that happened in 1932? No? Well, it was a telling dig beneath the Sphinx of bankers’ shenanigans that set the stage for the New Deal bank regulations. They worked.
But the regulations were ditched with the Gramm-Rudman Act in 1985 when bankers were set free to do shenanigans again. The Pecora clone is scratching at its shell with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Its members called up a few bank CEOs for input and one, Clueless Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, didn’t know what brought on the present crisis.
He said : a financial crisis is something that “happens every five to seven years," it's just a part of life. Wrong. After the Pecora hearings we had no major crisis for half a century. Put that in your pipe & smoke it, dunderhead. And Inarticulate Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs said a manmade cataclysm is the same as a quake, a rare accident, a freak of nature, and we shouldn't overreact. You’re wrong, too, dude.
There was nothing accidental in this financial fiasco. Short-term profits and gambling with others’ money are not accidents. Bankers haven’t learned anything about placing responsibility before greed. Support your Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee, people. They need it with all the ignorant CEOs being interviewed.
1/15. We have another minute to live
The Doomsday Clock was set back a minute from 11:55 to 11:54 in a positive turn away from sliding to midnight or what atomic scientists call the zero hour in their measurement of dangers to the world’s existence. It’s the 19th time it has moved in 63 years.
Those who are wearing Armageddon watches may have to adjust them.
The clock was conceived by Manhattan Project scientists in 1945 in enumerating threats to humanity. The group’s report in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says the turn back was to reflect a “more hopeful state of world affairs,” citing more nations are signed on to reduce arsenals of nuclear weapons and securing bomb materials and more are pledging to limit gas emissions.
But it’s up to another group, we suppose, to grade the nations’ governments and count the minutes until a political Doomsday. It could be more excruciatingly painful than a hit from an atomic bomb.
1/14. “Sorry” is not having to say it
“’Sorry’ still seems to be the hardest word on Wall Street,” headlines Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. He was commenting on Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s carefully crafted answers to questions from the federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
It looks as though Blankfein can’t quite squeeze out a squeaky “I’m sorry for all the trouble we bankers have caused.” Too hard to say the word?
Au contraire. We believe that they’re afraid you’ll put 2 and 2 together and find out they are sorry human beings. And it’s much more than bonuses. It’s what they did to get huge profits that are way out of proportion to their value to the economy. Maybe even of negative value.
Did they use insider information? Probably. It was available to them. Was there fraud? Probably. No one was looking. Was risk their icon? Absolutely. The commission must dig deep, and they must use their subpoena power to uncover any and all of the dirt beneath the dirt or it’s is just going through the motions.
Let’s not let the commission be in a position of having to say they’re sorry, too.
1/13. Bernanke has news for you
While facing confirmation for a second term as Fed chairman before the Senate, Ben Bernanke had a piece of news we hadn’t heard from him – that of the factors that possibly fueled the housing bubble “low interest rates weren’t one of them.”
Not a fuel source for the bubble? Is he a dope or a fiend or a dope fiend?
In a Wall Street survey 42 of 54 economists say the rates contributed at least “partially” to the market bubble. Another survey said 13 out of 24 agreed. Bernanke is looking anxiously at the Senate to confirm O’s nomination of him for another term. The rate thing may make or break it and Bernanke thinks it shouldn’t.
That’s the news as he sees it.
1/12. Suddenly your problem is my problem
And suddenly your wishes are my wishes, says O and all the incumbents, as the approaching November 2 date jogs their memories. Oh, yes, there are people out there who don’t have jobs.
And here, they say, is our shopping list for November 2 -- jobs, without spending money. All tied into Employee Free Choice Act, immigration, taxes, short-term stimulus and other economic aberrations, jobs keep disappearing instead of increasing. It’s hard, but we’ll do it.
Sen. Ben Cardin, MD-D, said that “a jobs bill in the Senate would have to be crafted in the same manner as the nearly $1 trillion health care bill, which budget scorekeepers said would reduce the deficit over 10 years.”
Well, that’s encouraging. Should we laugh or cry?
1/11. Skunked already by campaign funding voters could be double-skunked
And you thought campaign funding was over-dominated by corporations and other special interests. Just wait. If the courts see it the way Citizens United do, which sued for more corporate say-so in elections, the corporate say-so could hit the stratosphere. While you whimper at the bottom of a well.
“The biggest potential change would come if the court grants corporations the same free speech protections now granted individuals under the First Amendment,” says CU exec Trevor Potter.
The ruling could give them a little or a lot, and could go so far as to undo the Tillman Act of 1907, which barred corporations from donating directly to federal elections, not to mention the 2002 reform act by John McCain and Russ Feingold.
If skunking is not your cup ‘o tea, make plans to vote for guys who will undo the rules if they come up stinking.
1/10. Okay to tax for not having something?
The Constitution makers created a system of enumerated powers saying all powers not specifically given to the federal government remained with state and local governments. Those for the individual mandate for all Americans to have health insurance cite the 16th amendment’s taxing power and the commerce clause as enumerated power for this health bill tax.
In fact, it is a “fine” but they are careful to call it a “tax” for sake of the commerce clause. But taxes are for having something like a car, house, streets, income, armies and police to protect. A tax for not having something doesn’t connect with the usual idea of taxation.
Many are in doubt about such things as the equal protection clause, the takings clause as with the commerce clause, but it’s finally up to the courts to decide.
Ronald Trowbridge in the Houston Chronicle says, “The bill must be challenged in court. Forcing Americans to buy a certain private-sector product is an overdose of big government that may be toxic to the plain meaning and intent of the Constitution.”
Or do these ends justify these means? Maybe there is another way.
1/9. What is moral hazard or relativity and when does a lie morally become a lie?
Immorality is the biggest elephant hunched up in our living room, but he’s been sprinkled with invisibility dust. We don’t know he’s there until he’s exposed by a surprised citizen or lucky reporter who isn’t blinded by ideology. Take MIT’s Jonathan Gruber. Please.
Gruber wrote op-eds for the Washington Post and Atlantic Monthly in support of the administration’s and Congress’s health plan without revealing he is a government-paid contractor at $400,000 to analyze costs and effects of the health plan for the above agencies. His support lost credibility after this revelation on DailyKos blog and website Politico
And Benny Madoff wasn’t a lie until whistleblower Harry Markopolos repeatedly exposed him to the SEC. His sons later quoted their father as saying it was “all a big lie.” And then Tim Geithner didn’t reveal his hidden instructions to keep equally hidden the government washing bailout money through AIG to big banks until smelly emails were uncovered.
When is a lie a lie? When it is caught and revealed. Before that it is the gospel. This immorality play reeks, is destroying trust and turning Americans into cynics. Stop it. No more immoral, self-serving lies from two-bit government punks and their masters. -- Git, dogs.
1/8. The only change is in the record.
Americans got tired of the way Republicans were running the government. They wanted change – anything – but what they had. So after the 2008 panic and not cottoning to John McCain they scrambled on to the Democrat band wagon hoping there was a jet engine in there somewhere.
O saw that and promised “vetoes of wasteful spending, no more lobbyists, an honest Congress for once, financial sobriety, and no more red-state/blue-state, at-your-throat politics,” says Greg Pierce in the Washington Times.
But they were just promises and “here we are a year later with the largest drop in popularity of a first-year president in poll-taking history,” says Pierce. It’s the only change we actually got and a majority is “now opposed to “almost all of the Obama program -- more stimuli, bailouts, deficits, and takeovers; statist health care; cap-and-trade; and therapeutic-apology/ reset-button diplomacy abroad.”
It’s a new, old kind of “elitism, or rule by elites, which is a form of undemocratic authoritarianism.” And the real change is only in the polls. But, for now, it’s a start.
1/7. If Dodd can do it so should the whole Congressional body be able to
The Dodd retirement may help the banking bill says Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press. “Freed from his liberal base and moneyed donors, Sen. Chris Dodd can now cast himself as the honest broker in negotiations over a massive Wall Street regulation bill,” he says.
Dodd can cut deals with GOPers and Independents more easily and can stand tough for banks putting more of their own “money at risk…and that regulators have more control over previously hidden financial transactions,” says Kuhnhenn. Hooray and hallelujah.
That’s how it could be for the whole body of Congress if it would change campaign laws to reduce influence of big money in excess of ordinary voters’ influence. Say, if a company wants to contribute $10,000 to a campaign, the fed government gives the other side the equivalent with the help of that company or the big money can’t be contributed.
And they could see that paid-for junkets to meetings at resorts for congressmen are extended to all lawmakers, or maybe the junkets should be videoed for CSPAN for us all to enjoy, pool parties and all. We know stuff could be done so that all Congress could behave as Chris Dodd is now free to behave. So let’s see to it.
1/6. A growing economy? Here’s what’s growing
Our 2.2 percent GDP growth in the 3rd quarter is quite small compared to the typical growth of 7.3 percent after end of a typical recession. What’s growing is parasitism. The number of federal employees making big money is growing fast.
In the Defense Dept., for instance, “civilian employees earning US $150,000 or more (annually} increased from 1,865 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009,” says analyst Marc Faber. He sees the US becoming a banana republic – where the elite are the only ones who get three squares a day.
These are parasitical groups like Federal employees, government contractors, lobbyists and the politicians who orchestrate the show. The public gets a banana a day if they’re lucky.
Just think – from 1,865 to 10,100 in the middle of a recession – what a crock.
1/5. For pork barrel addiction little change is in the air
Rep. Jeff Flake tried 48 times last year to offer amendments to strip pork-barrel spending projects for the spending bills and failed 48 times. He & other pork busters failed to win a single anti-earmark vote in either house.
Pork barreling is bigger than ever. When Dems took control of both Houses they promised to cut dollar amounts of pork items, and require members to post all of their pork requests online so everything would be public and all could see what they were asking for.
The public displays, though many times hard to find on web sites, has been of use but not in Congress’ appetite control.
"It's given the public and in general, and also investigators, a road map to look at. We wouldn't have the investigations going on unless we had this kind of transparency," the Arizona Republican said. "But in terms of shaming members in cutting back on earmarks, I've been disappointed because it really hasn't changed the game very much. … We're a very tough bunch to shame."
They would certainly be shamed if they were ousted from office. It’s up to the public to make a difference in pork consumption as well as corruption in general.
1/4. Listen up. Foreclosures in for an unseemly leap in 2010
It’s interesting for sellers, buyers and those who would like to stay put in their homes, that things don’t appear as they seem.
Troubled home owners who can’t qualify for a “modification” or who can’t perform well while on the “trial program” and don’t get permanent change services are required to offer “short sale” or “deed-in-lieu” alternatives “when they make sense,” says analyst Karl Denninger. The Treasury program –HAMP – says so.
That means there will be a lot more foreclosures (failed HAMPers) in 2010 – nearly three quarters of a million more. These “extend and pretend” games, which are due to stop in the spring, are” not converting delinquent loans into sustainable payment and ownership opportunities.”
For a home buyer who buys now to use the $8,000 “credit” it might be the “most expensive $8,000 you have ever received compared to the deal you would obtain had you waited a couple of months and bought into the maw of the short sale and deed-in-lieu unload,” says Denninger.
Buyers after the unload may be the only civilian winners in this bloody economic conflict or war or whatever you want to call it.
1/3. Will the whole dang country be declared “blighted?”
If the biggies, you know the too-big-to-fails and the too-arrogant-to-thwarts, had their way I warrant that they’d pick off most of the country to declare “blighted,” confiscate it and put the rest of us on reservations. It happened before to the first natives of America. Then they called it manifest destiny. Now it’s called eminent domain.
The Constitution says government may not take private property other than for a “public use’ such as a road or a park. But in 1954 a case about a crime & infectious disease-ridden area in D.C., public use was broadened to include "blight." And anything can be tagged "blighted" for greed's sake.
The Supreme Court expanded the term in 2005 to include a middle-class neighborhood and transferred it to a developer who would pay more taxes to the city Of New London, Conn. Now it has happened in Brooklyn, N.Y. on 22 acres a developer wanted to put high-rises and a new Nets basketball arena on. “Blight” was discovered and N.Y. highest court ratified it.
It’s that easy. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor warned in 2005 that the consequences “would not be random,” and the beneficiaries would be people “with disproportionate influence and power in the political process.”
How!
1/2. The aughts ought not to have happened the way they did
The economy has gained over the last 70 years -- mainly benefitting the wealthy – but a disaster decade was smoldering underneath for 30 years to happen in the 2000 aughts.
It ought not to have happened that way. A trend started in the 1970s to lean growth toward the rich side of the coin. It was heads I win, tails you lose in creeping inflation, deregulation and real wages actually in decline.
The crowing inglorious event was the 1999 canning of the Glass-Steagall Act that had worked well from the 1930s to keep bankers aimed down the straight and narrow. Instead, they sought every side road and nook and cranny to put money they didn’t have at risk. And the risk paid off for the gamblers. They got all their marbles out of the game, plus fantastic profits and the public lost its shirt.
The 2010s and teens have a new ring in our ears. Starting with this year, every two years will bring another election and another chance for the public to express an opinion of their congressmen and president.
Don’t miss one. We could make the teens a new start for the century.
1/1. Analysts’ New Year’s Day predictions for 2010 – iffy
“The easy money has been made already,” said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management. “You're not going to see another 65 percent move in the next nine months.” Stocks had made a good improvement as signs of economic recovery appeared.
“But sustaining that momentum in the new year likely would require a big drop in the unemployment rate and strong corporate profit gains, along with stable borrowing costs as economic growth accelerates— a combination few analysts are forecasting,” says Tim Paradis for the Associated Press. What are we to believe?
Here we believe that the news will be unpleasant unless we change how Congress reacts to the guys who pay them to run for office and to pass laws according to their wishes. The only way we have to influence this dilemma is to clean-sweep all of the lawmakers out of office to impress upon them that we mean business – whole heartedly.
And then do it again if necessary. They have to have a rude and definite awakening. Just like the one we had with the bailouts and broken promises.
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