Leads to....more failure. Who could have guessed? U.S. bailout program increased moral hazard: watchdog Ω A must read!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's $700 billion financial bailout program has increased moral hazard in the markets by infusing capital into banks that caused the financial crisis, a watchdog for the program said on Wednesday.
The special inspector general for the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) said the plan put in place a year ago was clearly influencing market behavior, and he repeated that taxpayers may never recoup all their money. The bailout fund may have helped avert a financial system collapse but it could reinforce perceptions the government will step in to keep firms from failing, the quarterly report from inspector general Neil Barofsky said.
Wow, these guys are real mental giants.
And handing out oodles of "free" taxpayer money leads toooooo... Lots of people trying to get their own piece of the money pie! Surprise! Ω
WASHINGTON -- The House ethics panel said Thursday that it is investigating Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who came under scrutiny for allegedly helping a bank with which she had ties secure a meeting with Treasury Department officials about obtaining bailout funds.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that Ms. Waters allegedly helped OneUnited Bank of Boston get a meeting with Treasury officials to negotiate a $12 million bailout. On Thursday, the ethics panel acknowledged for the first time that it is investigating her.
Sidney Williams, Ms. Waters's husband, was on the bank's board of directors until last year.
Last November, Rangel and five other members of Congress took a junket to the Caribbean with $100,000 from Citigroup -- just weeks after Congress bailed out banks with $700 billion in taxpayer funds.
As We Know It" Barack Obama may attend Copenhagen summit if there is climate change progress Ω
"The US is fully committed to trying to get a strong and pragmatic and solid agreement and the President is fully focused on that.
"We are not thinking about a Plan B either," he said.
A communique issued at the end of the meeting agreed developed nations will be judged on targets while developing nations will have to prove they have taken action.
It also said that public finance, as well as private sector money from the carbon markets, should be used to help poor countries adapt to climate change and develop renewable energy. Gordon Brown has suggested this should be around £60 billion every year.
The active participation of all stakeholders in this transition should be sought [, be they governmental, including subnational and local government, private business or civil society, including the youth and addressing the need for gender equity].]
From page 122--
17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:]
(a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees
Steal from the rich and give to the poor. The thing is, America won't be rich much longer at this rate. Which is the whole idea behind the "carbon debt" concept. It's impossible to bring all these third-world countries up to our level, so we have to be brought down to theirs. It's Obama's wet dream brought to life and pumped full of steroids.
or "Fox in the Henhouse" FDIC bank fund in the red until 2012Ω
Even as regulators try to replenish deposit insurance fund, it will be over two years before it boasts a positive balance, warns agency chief.
Translation--We're out of money, and we have no clue when we'll have more.
Why Social Security Will Go Bankrupt Sooner Than People ThinkΩ By Paul B. Matthews On May 12, 2009, the trustees for the Social Security system released their annual report, "The 2009 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds."
Following release of this report, many media outlets were quick to report (or should I say regurgitate) the findings sited in the trustee's executive summary -- notably that Social Security payroll tax collections would begin to exceed benefits paid in 2016, a year shorter than had been forecasted in 2008.
The current House and Senate bills will also break the president's second promise—not to add to the deficit. In part because the health insurance that the administration's plan forces people to buy is expensive, the plan proposes to give individuals large financial subsidies to partially offset the cost.
That the programs will ultimately go bankrupt is clear from the trustees' reports. On pages 201 and 202 of the Medicare report, you will find the conclusive arithmetic: over the next 75 years, Social Security and Medicare will cost an estimated $103.2 trillion, while dedicated taxes and premiums will total only $57.4 trillion. The gap is $45.8 trillion. (All figures are expressed in "present value," a fancy term for "today's dollars.")
The entitlement-based subsidy, combined with the proposed Medicaid expansion,would add between $700 billon and $1.2 trillion to federal spending over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The new entitlements would come on top of existing federal health-care entitlements that the government has been neither able to control nor finance. The U.S. Postal Service: Our Next Bankruptcy?Ω The General Accounting Office (GAO) has announced that the U.S. Postal Service is in danger of financial insolvency.
WASHINGTON (AP) - What is $1.42 trillion? It's more than the total national debt for the first 200 years of the Republic, more than the entire economy of India, almost as much as Canada's, and more than $4,700 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
The administration estimates that government debt will reach 76.5 percent of gross domestic product - the value of all goods and services produced in the United States - in 2019. It stood at 41 percent of GDP last year. The record was 113 percent of GDP in 1945. Much of that debt is in foreign hands. China holds the most - more than $800 billion.(--See THIS and THIS.) In all, investors - domestic and foreign - hold close to $8 trillion in what is called publicly held debt. There is another $4.4 trillion in government debt that is not held by investors but owed by the government to itself in the Social Security and other trust funds.
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you with your finances."
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling Ω
United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power. Russia and China Hold Peace Mission Drills to Show USA Its Place Ω Russia and China will hold their joint military exercise on July 22-27 on the territories of the two countries. About 3,000 military men, 300 units of military hardware, over 40 planes and helicopters will take part in Peace Mission-2009 drills. --"Peace Mission Drills" Nice, someone's been reading their Orwell.
“There is a political motive there too. We want to show it to the USA that Russia has a strategic partner – China – and that Russia will not be following the USA’s directions. Moreover, Russia is ready to demonstrate that it is following a different political course,” the specialist said.
Russia and China are the two superpowers that will maintain balance in a New World Order where the US empire must shrink back within its own borders and withdraw its tentacles that have spread all over the world, much to the righteous anger of the world community.
So Russia and China join forces...so as to insure that no rogue superpower ever again will present a danger to lives, to peace and tranquility. With that out of the way, the true enemies of man can be conquered: hunger, disease and poverty. --Yeah, 'cause they've been doing such a good job of that for their own people for the last 90 years. Mass murder, forced abortions, grinding poverty, genocide, the gulag...*cough* AKA, "Hope and Change", baby!
Karl Marx Predicted Collapse of US Dollar in 1857 Ω
The great October fall of the US dollar is turning into an avalanche. On Tuesday, the American currency lost nine kopeks in Russia and reached a new minimum mark this year - 29.5 rubles per dollar. Within six months (April through September) the dollar lost over 10 percent at the world foreign exchange trading, which marked the sharpest decline since 1991. Some experts believe that the American currency is close to collapse, which may lead to a new financial crisis. --See my post "The Perfect Storm" for more details.
Pravda prints the truth...that the US papers won't. And in other news, Hell has, indeed, frozen over. Ω
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
Last century the two largest Eastern powers, Russia and China, were prevented from uniting forces against the West by three main factors.
1. A deep cultural divide. 2. A schism in their interpretations of Communist ideology. 3. A very well-placed mistrust of each other.
Now, however, the Bear and the Dragon are negotiating terms in an unholy alliance that may produce offspring deadly to the US.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday wrapped up a three-day visit to the Chinese capital, during which Russia signed dozens of commercial pacts worth $3.5 billion and set the framework for a separate, multibillion-dollar agreement to build two natural gas pipelines to China from gas fields in Russia's Far East.The agreement highlights the determination of both nations to diversify their economies and seek new customers and vendors. It also reflects a political desire by both to steer a course independent of Western powers and especially the United States.
Sounds innocuous enough, until you take a few other factors into account.
"Russia and China have become genuine and comprehensive strategic and cooperative partners in recent years," Putin was quoted by Xinhua as saying. Ω
Rumblings from the Bear-
If Russia rises, it means that the USA falls down.- Pravda (check out their link in 'USA') Ω
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized talk of sanctions against Iran on Wednesday, undermining U.S. efforts to present a united front against Tehran's nuclear program at a crucial moment.Ω
Today, also in Pravda- "Russia and India will start the development of a new supersonic missile nearly invincible to interception." Ω
As for the Dragon-
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the U.S. Congress the Chinese have become more assertive in staking claims to international waters around economic zones and were "more military, aggressive, forward-looking than we saw a couple years before"Ω
An increasingly acrimonious trade dispute between China and the United States over the past three days is officially about tires, chickens and cars, but is really much broader. Ω
And we're sucking up to them so they won't destroy us. Sickening. Not to mention, futile. As our largest debt-holder, we subsist on scraps from their table now.
Despite the election of a stark-raving socialist to power in the US, the rest of the socialist/fascist world still hates us. You can't wipe out three generations worth of loathing in a single Presidential term.
The Left's insidious subversion of America's Judeo-Christian culture is swiftly nearing fruition. While the secular socialists running most of the rest of the world couldn't take us down with brute force, their ideological compatriots have been gnawing away at our framework from the inside. Hence, "We're All Socialists Now" was blithely printed in Newsweek shortly after Obama's coronation.
Time is swiftly running out to reverse the tide, does sufficient will to try still exist in the hearts of the people? For a beautiful paean to America, see here.
England "Mr Obama had refused five separate requests from the Prime Minister for a private meeting during his U.S. trip for the UN summit in New York this week." Poland “BETRAYAL! USA sells us out to the Russians and stabs us in the back!”
Israel "Obama's foreign policy as a whole makes it fairly easy to imagine him ordering the US military to open hostilities against a US ally to defend a US adversary"
Step 4. Cozy up to our enemies and dictators. "He has sent special envoys to dictators in Cuba and Syria."
Iran "Mr. Obama, officials said, has long said he was willing to negotiate with whoever would respond, including Ayatollah Khamenei."
Venezuela
Russia*** "Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads."
***Fox News erased this story and moved the link. I hadn't saved the page because it was FoxNews! WTH is going on here? ***Update 10/15- Link restored, no explanation.
North Korea "Mr. Obama -- having vowed to "meet without preconditions" with brutal despots, such as Kim Jong Il -- runs the grave risk of making things even worse."
Saudi Arabia
Step 5. Throw freedom fighters under the bus.
Iran"Obama cuts off funds to Iran human rights groups"
Tibet "Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama 'to keep China happy'"
Step 6. Civil War
Part A. Turn Americans against each other. "White House to Democrats: 'Punch back twice as hard' "
The MSM has been pining for a recession since, well, since a Republican won re-election. Now that they have one, they just want it to go away before Obama starts to look bad. I wonder how long it'll take them to realize that horse has left the barn..
After spending the past several years making doleful predictions while the economy boomed, ("PERSONAL FINANCES – Sixty-one percent say their own finances are excellent or good, unchanged from last week.") the liberal media finally has what it longed for so intensely, a deep economic downturn. Problem is, now it's on the Democrat's watch. The media scramble to cover for Obama and the Dems brings rodeo clowns irresistibly to mind, as they flap their arms and flail wildly in an increasingly transparent attempt...
...to divert the attention of the infuriated bull, aka John Q. Public. As a dazed Obama/Pelosi team crawls through the mingled haze of dirt and cow patties, take another bite of corndog and check out this video. (Which was quickly disabled on Youtube..)
Now that we've had a good laugh, time for a good cry. Before you read this, remember, I'm just The Messenger.
Don't shoot.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency,” according to excerpts* released by the World Bank. *Link taken down, sorry folks. World Bank regretted posting that, apparently. I have learned my lesson and will cache future links.
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell to its lowest level in almost 14 months against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners as signs of global economic recovery spurred demand for riskier assets.
It is also clear that China is literally “putting its money where its mouth is.” China has devoted an enormous amount of resources building up its domestic gold mining industry, soaring to #1 in the world this decade, and it recently stunned the world with the announcement of a huge increase in its official, national holdings (see “China now has 5th largest gold reserves”).
China's gold reserves jumped by 76% from its last announcement in 2002 – up to 1,054 tons. Given that official government purchases on the open market are recorded and announced, this means that rather than buying all that gold openly on the market (which would have driven up the price while they were buying) China has been accumulating gold surreptitiously, through buying up its domestic production – strongly suggesting that ramping-up its gold production was part of a long-term strategic plan to become one of the world's largest (if not the largest) holder of gold among governments.
Mmm, mmm, mmm...Barack Hussein Obama...
Brace yourselves, folks. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
Ever wonder what would happen if you spent 40 years of your life building a company from a small regional bank into a national powerhouse...and then ticked off some liberals?
Ken Lewis (known to leftists as "Scapegoat") could give you an earful on that subject. He came to Bank of America's predecessor, North Carolina National Bank, as a credit analyst in '69. He was serving as the head of both international and domestic operations when it became NationsBank in 1991, and ten years later took the reins as CEO, President, and Chairman of what was by then known as Bank of America.
2001, as you may recall, was an inauspicious year to begin such a high-profile job. The dotcom bubble of the late 90's had burst, and the economy had begun to contract even before the attacks of 9/11 temporarily paralyzed the country. Mr. Lewis weathered the storm with aplomb, making Banker of the Year. By focusing on increased efficiency and financial discipline rather than his predecessor's aggressive acquisition-making, Mr. Lewis brought the bank through the rough patch quite well. During the first two years under his management BofA returned over 40%, while the Dow Jones TSMI reported a 35% loss over the same period.
Over the next seven years, BofA continued to prosper with Mr. Lewis at the helm. Each succeeding acquisition, from FleetBostonFinancial in '04 to the troubled Countrywide Financial in July of '08 broadened the reach and scope of the bank to finally become the largest asset-holder in the country. Mr. Lewis was made Banker of the Year...again. A high-profile bid to purchase struggling giant Merrill Lynch propelled him into the media's open arms, with a warm and fuzzy 60 Minutes interview.
Widely lauded by the media as a savior of the economy in the wake of last year's crash, they none the less turned on him swiftly when the newly-acquired Merrill Lynch was sent reeling by a whopping $15 billion loss in the fourth quarter. Mr. Lewis proposed ditching the deal in December, but was reportedly threatened with his job by government officials if the deal didn't go through. It went through a month later, and has been an albatross around Mr. Lewis's neck ever since. He wouldn't go quietly into the night, though.
“This was a necessary and overdue change,” said Michael Garland, a spokesman for Change to Win, an investment group that has been pressing for Mr. Lewis’s ouster for months. “The onus is now on the board to engage with shareholders to name a successor who can quickly restore Bank of America’s credibility with regulators and investors.”
Investment group? What an innocuous way for the NY Times to put it..
The Change to Win Coalition was formed in 2005 by seven activist unions dissatisfied with the the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s failure to reverse organized labor's long decline. Led by Andy Stern, the president of Service Employees International Union..
Now the sneering elitists are gloating over the down and out rube from the South..
At the time, I couldn't help but think that Lewis was another out-of-towner who had been pickpocketed near Times Square.
..so twanged the urbane Daniel Gross of Slate, who apparently has a problem with Republicans..
In dealing with the new regime in Washington, the out-of-towner was at a disadvantage compared with the New York crowd.Unlike the heads of New York-based investment banks, Lewis had never been part of the local, which is to say, Democratic, power structure. The two big winners of Survivor Wall Street: 2008-09 are Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase CEO Dimon, both active Democrats with close ties to the Obama administration. (Check out Blankfein's and Dimon's donations here and here.) By contrast, Lewis' political donations show he was tight mostly with North Carolina politicians and mostly with Republicans. (What unmitigated gall.)
Ironically, while most industries have been shedding faster than my cat, BofA has actually added 46 financial advisers to the Merrill Lynch division and begun a new $20 million advertising campaign. Since I began writing this article, even more positive news has come out.
Merrill's businesses contributed $1.8 billion to Bank of America's first-half net profit of $7.5 billion, or 28 percent, even after the bank posted $27 billion in loan charge-offs and higher loan-loss reserves, according to company filings. Those businesses are likely to account for 25 percent to 30 percent of the bank's profits over the next three years
The share of the bank's revenue that came from investment banking and wealth management rose to 47 percent in the first half, after the Merrill acquisition, from 29 percent last year, according to the bank.
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