Economics 101

[philby]

"everybody knows that the dice are loaded
everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
everybody knows that the war is over
everybody knows the good guys lost
everybody knows the fight was fixed
the poor stay poor, the rich get rich
that's how it goes, everybody knows" - Leonard Cohen



The most right wing government of at least my lifetime has abandoned the "laissez faire" economics of Adam Smith (apparently the 'unseen hand' has flipped us) shot past Keynesian theory and embraced socialist ideology to bail out the ailing economy. Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson (former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs) has presided over the "nationalization" of freddie mac, fannie mae and AIG and has today said it will take "hundreds of billions" more to save the economy. The Financial Times of London figures more like 1-2 trillion (09/19/08).
The housing recession, unsecured consumer debt, the beginning of what looks like a commercial market meltdown, exploding derivatives (Warren Buffett has called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction") and looming corporate defaults, among other things, have us on the edge of a world wide depression.
The usual suspects greed and deregulation are cited as the responsible culprits. Some see 'agents of chaos' creating economic turmoil for fun and huge profit. McCain is calling for new regulations. A mortal sin in the right wing theology.
What do you think? Too scary, too complicated, too boring?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...l.creditcrunch

http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/it...erivatives.php

http://www.rense.com/general82/bail.htm

[pythonlee]

Originally Posted by philby

What do you think? Too scary, too complicated, too boring?

All of the above.

[philby]

The historic bail-out bill now being debated in Congress has some strange language.

Section 8. Review. "Decisions by the Secretary (of the Treasury) pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

What the hell are they planning to do?

Full text of the bill:
http://economicpopulist.org/?q=conte...ake-action-now

liberal commentary:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/greider

[philby]

$25 Billion bailout for automakers who screwed up. GM stopped production of the EV1 (electric vehicle) in 99, and removed almost all of them from the road in 2003 (they were only available for lease with a "no purchase" clause). With the republicans they fought off any requirements for higher gas mileage. A little more history: the first party Reagan threw at the White House (Feb. 81) was for the oil, gas, coal and nuclear power elite. As they cheered, workmen tore down the solar panels Carter had installed on the roof of the White House. Very forward looking.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/83bfe68c-8...0779fd18c.html


Even more history on the bailout bill

http://huffingtonpost.com/peter-drei..._b_128731.html


What if the bailout doesn't work?

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...402799_pf.html


How the Swedes did it

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/bu...3krona.html?em

[philby]

Washington Mutual, (WaMu), the largest savings and loan in the US has been sold to JPMorganChase for $1.9B. This is the largest bank failure in American history. It's stock was at $45 a share last year and $0.16 when taken over.

http://redherring.com/blogs/25089


Commercial banks, Citigroup and Wachovia are being called "dead men walking". The lowest estimate on coming bank failures I have seen is 300. The average estimate is more like 1,000.

Surprise, your suck ass city/county/state job doesn't look so bad now. Every cloud has it's silver lining.
Majoring in finance?, it's not too late to change majors. Mom and dad will understand, hope they can afford another year or two. College is a great place to sit out economic hard times. Remember what Frank Zappa said "don't ever graduate" (or was that Van Wilder?).

[philby]

Not that I think much of anybody is reading this, or cares at this point, but there is a way to make wall street pay for it's own screw ups and it's been used in this country before. Speculation has been the cause of almost every major economic recession and depression around the world. The Securities Turnover Excise Tax acts to limit speculation and places the financial burden on those who do so and fail. Despite the history of STET in this country neither party is calling for it. Wall street wants us to bail them out and they own both parties. It's time to call in favors owed.

I got the revolution blues
I see bloody fountains
and ten million dune buggies
coming down the mountains - Neil Young

They know the sheeple will neither revolt nor even vote out more than a few incumbents. Sheeple exist to be sheared. The republicans carry more of the burden for this mess but they're acting like they're against the bailout so they can blame the democrats if it doesn't work and go into the election saying they were against it, like most Americans. But they don't say a word about STETs. It's all good street theater for the befuddled masses.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/26

[philby]

President bush wasted no time signing the historic bailout bill after the House approved it. Now we have to wait and see if it works or if it's just a waste of a lot more money. What is hoped for is saving confidence in the system. Fixing the system will be a lot more complicated than the bailout but it allows a little more time for the "experts" who got us into this mess to patch it up, if they are so inclined. What has slipped by quietly is that the Treasury is planning to guarantee $3.2 trillion of money market mutual funds, that, like derivatives, are too hard to explain to even most bankers. Whoever wins the election can pretty much forget campaign promises about health care and tax cuts. Good luck to all of you.

Reasons not to bailout (too late now)
http://solari.com/blog/?p=1646

[jeepster]

Lost in all this economic quagmire is who to blame. The usual suspects are brought before congressional committees and made to feel slightly uncomfortable before glaring lights and cameras. Meanwhile the financial shenanigans continue and the waters get murkier and blame harder to conclude. I give everyone involved in this worldwide debacle kudos for learning from the past. Unregulated markets are the playing fields of the economic pirates of today.

Credit default swaps (CDS) are totally unregulated and therefore untransparent. These are bets on loans going south. They can, by their sheer number, make credit markets collapse. The estimated total of CDS is $60 Trillion against a worldwide Gross Domestic Product of $54.3 Trillion.

Having thought about the Bail Out Bill the government is now talking about buying stock in banks. This will muddy the financial waters further, bail out the idiots who started it all, and make us all partners in the disaster through at least a semi-nationalized banking system.

This house of cards has been brought down by default of only 6% of housing mortgages (in this country). Already 760,000 jobs have been lost this year. The stock market had it's worst week in history. And yet, where are the guilty parties? Who do you brand as the "Gordon Gekko" this time? A few names have come up as having been paid too much, but not criminal activity. Unregulated markets are free to do as you please in, even if you know that the result will be disaster. Economic disaster is bargain hunting time for those who plundered successfully. A double coup. Kudos ye captains of economic piracy, you got it down to a fine art and will benefit enormously while most will suffer.

I predict that the world's first Trillionaire will arise from the ashes of this economic apocalypse. And that the sheeple will worship him/her.

(Sorry, I've got no song lyrics to go with this, Philby)

[jeepster]

Paul Krugman, Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist, has been awarded the "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences". Krugman has called McCain "freightening" and the GOP "the party of stupid".
He said that things are so bad that there is now no choice but to partially nationalize the banking industry to save it. And then to get government out of it as soon as possible before they destroy it through incompetence.

For the late night crowd, only some of the Coast to Coast guests accurately predicted the time and scope of this economic meltdown. Considering the usually dismal and vague prognosis of such ding dongs (remember Y2K ?) this is quite impressive. Forecasts were based on common sense, Biblical prophesy, native American and Aborigine lore and benign alien beings. And they give the Nobel Prize to a damn economist.

[philby]

I'm sure everyone is tired of all the bad financial news so I thought I'd mention something a little different (but just as bad).
Studies on the economic impact of the worldwide degradation of our ecosystems have arrived at a conservative cost estimate of 7% of global GDP per year ($3.8 Trillion). The loss of food, fuel, clean water, medicines, healthy soil, protection from floods and soil erosion and storing carbon all have an economic impact not usually measured. Since this is occuring year after year and the financial crisis is recent and will eventually end it is much worse than our current economic problems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-teo052908.php