In an age of the Internet, preserved news bits, and YouTube we still have a mindset in Washington that thinks the world revolves around them.
Bush, Bernanke, Paulson, McCain, and Palin are all in this crowd of leadership. Karl Rove is one as well. But, let's get to some points. Bernanke, as head of the Federal Reserve, he and Treasury Secretary Paulson were the primary architects that reported with Bush on the initial "no strings attached" $700 Billion bailout plan. Well, with Bush attached to that news everyone knew that was going to be a farce. Congress told them to come back with a real idea...
So, their idea was to buy up the toxic mortgages and package them in order to help alleviate the stress on homeowners that are balancing on foreclosure. Well, still with no oversight or strings firmly in place, Congress gave them the money they asked for. Then, immediately, Bernanke and Paulson decided to spend their allowance a bit differently than they had expressed by giving it to all of their white collared friends on Wall Street. Then, something happened on the way to the forum...NOTHING!
The economy got worse, way worse.
The story goes on, but we'll cut to the chase. Bernanke announced an idea yesterday. It seemed as if he thought it was a new idea...It seems to be a similar idea that I espoused to be the program a while ago. He said to bring down the mortgage pricing for those struggling. Bring it down to the 3 percent level for about 5 years or so, with the government helping out on some of the back end.
Wait, hasn't the government already helped out on the back end? I mean, they have given banks hundreds of BILLIONS?!!
Then he came out with a great idea! He thought another option would have the government purchase delinquent or at-risk mortgages in bulk and then refinance them into the "Hope for Homeowners" or another government program that insures home mortgages. Uh, didn't we hear this one before?
Then he called for more action from banks to help in this time of crisis.
Uh, Ya Think?!
How about mandating them to do something. Banks have been taking our future tax dollars and doing NOTHING!
This is insane!?
After his great speech, the Dow dropped over another 200 points. It opened this morning another 150 points lower.
Good job with helping. Let's see, we as a society it seems agree that most of the execs on Wall Street should lose their jobs for failure. Paulson should lose his job for failure, Bernanke isn't doing shit and should go, the heads of the big three could leave and things would be fore the better...oh, and that Bush guy should have been gone a long time ago. In fact, he should go to prison for all that he has done, but that is another story...
Bernanke stressed the importance of curbing the foreclosure mess because it is so inter-linked with the economy's health. "Weakness in the housing market has proved a serious drag on overall economic activity," he said. "Steps that stabilize the housing market will help stabilize the economy as well."
Uh, Ya THink!?
Back to the initial plan that I was touting about a month or so ago. That one plan backed by the now heavily refinanced financial industry, the Treasury would seek to lower the rate on a 30-year mortgages to 4.5 percent by purchasing mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's unclear exactly how much the plan would cost. It is possible that Paulson will ask Congress for the second $350 billion installment of the $700 billion financial bailout package to bankroll the effort. Maybe, if the first round of money went into this idea in the first place we wouldn't be needing the second round of money...
But, I said that every loan out there should be able to be refinance into the 4% rate. Some will and some are still in loans that might be fine for them and lower than this, so it would be their choice. It needs to be available for EVERYONE!
Then, Sheila Bair who heads the FDIC chimed in saying, "Getting mortgage rates down is positive, but it doesn't help people that currently have unaffordable mortgages because it doesn't help them refinance. Low interest rates help some consumers, but the ones that really need help and can't refinance are not helped."
Ah, helping everyone! What a great idea!
Paulson has been opposed to tapping the bailout pool to fund a mortgage-relief program championed by the Sheila Bair at the FDIC. The $24 billion FDIC plan would use some of the rescue money to help back refinanced mortgages that would lower monthly payments.
Let's see, Paulson or Bush aren't keen on giving the blue collar folks in Detroit any fund either. Bush...you know that guy. The man with the amazing disappearing act in times of trouble. When the towers were being blow to shit, he kept on reading a book to the children...upside down. I don't think that that specific book was printed upside down either...Now, with the worlds worst economic crisis since 1930's depression, he is working on his library and his public view of his term.
I can give him a hint...You Suck, sir!
This, the 213th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
Showing posts with label Big Three. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Three. Show all posts
Friday, December 5, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Context over Dogma
I, for one, think that the auto makers should receive money, but we should fire the execs. There are way too many working Americans effected by this industry that are on the edge if we don't help them out where the execs failed. Wall Street has got theirs (to which I do not think they should have-and also in the manner to which that they have). As we move through and listen to the big three auto makers of America beg for money for their failed products and ideas we come to this video that I have below.
I find it interesting as to how GM is asking for $9 Billion, when if liquidated, as an on paper audit of the firm would indicate, that the company's true value is only around $3 Billion. Why the extra funding? Perhaps the extra is for the health and pension funds that Wall Street pissed away and will not return with their own bailout money, since they are using it to payout bonuses (I mean incentives) and spa trips, etc...Right...but I digress...Again, that is millions of Americans that rely on those companies for their retirement and insurance (just what Wall Street pissed away...)
Also, if the bosses couldn't do it right for the past few decades,(and of course we need to give blame to the Bush tax incentives for large car purchases and the fact that people bought them...) why would we give them these funds and still have the same failed managers and executives managing the firms? I agree with Michael Moore, as to, if we as tax payers are going to be owning these companies, we should immediately fire the managers and executives then mandate that with these tax dollar funds they make efficient electric and hybrid cars and trucks, as well as, build high speed rail lines for the country. It is our money and we need modern transportation like in Europe and Japan. All of that will put hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, to work for these new rail lines and retooling and re...
Just like what happened with Roosevelt and with the New Deal, then the car manufacturers were told NOT to make cars but were ORDERED to make tanks, guns, and items necessary for our society and the war effort. Well, guess what, we have a new war on. The war on fiscal solvency.
When a President declares war, as we have seen exemplified through this finally ending failed administration, lame ducked, shamed faced...sorry, I got carried away.
A President has special executive powers to mandate ideas, projects, processes, and regulations if there is a war on something. That's why they call it a war on something...anything...this way they can use special executive powers to make things happen that they normally would not. I say, let there be a declaration of a war on the economy. For this, Wall Street MUST give money to companies, small businesses and tax payers to help them with their financial messes to which Wall Street orchestrated. Detroit MUST make ecological affordable vehicles and high speed mass transportation to which will help our country move back and forth instead of the necessity to rely on the continually failing airline industry...Oh, yeah, those guys get bailed out too...remember those...
If we are going to go down this socialistic path, we as a society should benefit from OUR money and OUR needs. That's what socialism is, for the society as a whole and not simply for the rich.
Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution which represents the transitional stage between capitalism and communism. I don't think that is altogether true or necessary. It is not necessarily a transition to communism. We can have socialism with capitalistic tendencies. Or should I say, WE DO HAVE socialism with capitalistic tendencies. Let's call it regulation with a bailout. Right now, what we have recently created in this country is the world's largest socialistic government, with capitalistic tendencies. There was not revolution, but there is class struggle, and even still the rich are currently winning this fight hands down. But, if the tax payers are going to be owning these firms on Wall Street, and in Detroit, we MUST have that accountability and oversight that the Republican party has so carefully forgotten about, as well as how much they deregulated over these past thirty years.
Ironically, (and perhaps it is the gods having fun with us), it was September 11th, when our own government financed a coup that assassinated and overthrew, Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist leader of Chile, in 1973. This is our pattern, is to state publicly and adamantly, and to brainwash our society that capitalism is the best system in the world and socialism or communism must be crushed. Make no mistake, I am not against capitalism. I enjoy the fruits of my hard earned dollars just as much as the next person.
What is the dilemma is that we destabilize socialist countries and overthrow democratically elected leaders of other countries after we demonize their leaders for running a system not like our own. We create crippling and stagnate economies after these actions in these countries for the American financial institutions to exercise their might in these "now democratic" societies. We then set up American corporate interests for raw materials and manufacturing to enslave the working class of these countries for the "now democratic" state, that is after we instill the new leader of the country that we want and who sees things the American way. Just like, back in Sept. 11, 1973, when we installed the murdering dictator General Augusto Pinochet. We have done this in Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Cuba, Iran...Iraq...
The irony is hitting us square in the face now and we must come to terms with our own societal two faced rhetoric as we have shown clearly to the world that a free capitalistic system is not the "only" way. There is no one way for anything. It is in our best interest to educate ourselves of our own misgivings and see the socialistic one way mirror to which we now find ourselves on the other side of.
Oh, sorry, I got sidetracked. I wanted to discuss cars...
Watch this! Perhaps Detroit can learn from this!!
This, the 212th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
I find it interesting as to how GM is asking for $9 Billion, when if liquidated, as an on paper audit of the firm would indicate, that the company's true value is only around $3 Billion. Why the extra funding? Perhaps the extra is for the health and pension funds that Wall Street pissed away and will not return with their own bailout money, since they are using it to payout bonuses (I mean incentives) and spa trips, etc...Right...but I digress...Again, that is millions of Americans that rely on those companies for their retirement and insurance (just what Wall Street pissed away...)
Also, if the bosses couldn't do it right for the past few decades,(and of course we need to give blame to the Bush tax incentives for large car purchases and the fact that people bought them...) why would we give them these funds and still have the same failed managers and executives managing the firms? I agree with Michael Moore, as to, if we as tax payers are going to be owning these companies, we should immediately fire the managers and executives then mandate that with these tax dollar funds they make efficient electric and hybrid cars and trucks, as well as, build high speed rail lines for the country. It is our money and we need modern transportation like in Europe and Japan. All of that will put hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, to work for these new rail lines and retooling and re...
Just like what happened with Roosevelt and with the New Deal, then the car manufacturers were told NOT to make cars but were ORDERED to make tanks, guns, and items necessary for our society and the war effort. Well, guess what, we have a new war on. The war on fiscal solvency.
When a President declares war, as we have seen exemplified through this finally ending failed administration, lame ducked, shamed faced...sorry, I got carried away.
A President has special executive powers to mandate ideas, projects, processes, and regulations if there is a war on something. That's why they call it a war on something...anything...this way they can use special executive powers to make things happen that they normally would not. I say, let there be a declaration of a war on the economy. For this, Wall Street MUST give money to companies, small businesses and tax payers to help them with their financial messes to which Wall Street orchestrated. Detroit MUST make ecological affordable vehicles and high speed mass transportation to which will help our country move back and forth instead of the necessity to rely on the continually failing airline industry...Oh, yeah, those guys get bailed out too...remember those...
If we are going to go down this socialistic path, we as a society should benefit from OUR money and OUR needs. That's what socialism is, for the society as a whole and not simply for the rich.
Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution which represents the transitional stage between capitalism and communism. I don't think that is altogether true or necessary. It is not necessarily a transition to communism. We can have socialism with capitalistic tendencies. Or should I say, WE DO HAVE socialism with capitalistic tendencies. Let's call it regulation with a bailout. Right now, what we have recently created in this country is the world's largest socialistic government, with capitalistic tendencies. There was not revolution, but there is class struggle, and even still the rich are currently winning this fight hands down. But, if the tax payers are going to be owning these firms on Wall Street, and in Detroit, we MUST have that accountability and oversight that the Republican party has so carefully forgotten about, as well as how much they deregulated over these past thirty years.
Ironically, (and perhaps it is the gods having fun with us), it was September 11th, when our own government financed a coup that assassinated and overthrew, Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist leader of Chile, in 1973. This is our pattern, is to state publicly and adamantly, and to brainwash our society that capitalism is the best system in the world and socialism or communism must be crushed. Make no mistake, I am not against capitalism. I enjoy the fruits of my hard earned dollars just as much as the next person.
What is the dilemma is that we destabilize socialist countries and overthrow democratically elected leaders of other countries after we demonize their leaders for running a system not like our own. We create crippling and stagnate economies after these actions in these countries for the American financial institutions to exercise their might in these "now democratic" societies. We then set up American corporate interests for raw materials and manufacturing to enslave the working class of these countries for the "now democratic" state, that is after we instill the new leader of the country that we want and who sees things the American way. Just like, back in Sept. 11, 1973, when we installed the murdering dictator General Augusto Pinochet. We have done this in Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Cuba, Iran...Iraq...
The irony is hitting us square in the face now and we must come to terms with our own societal two faced rhetoric as we have shown clearly to the world that a free capitalistic system is not the "only" way. There is no one way for anything. It is in our best interest to educate ourselves of our own misgivings and see the socialistic one way mirror to which we now find ourselves on the other side of.
Oh, sorry, I got sidetracked. I wanted to discuss cars...
Watch this! Perhaps Detroit can learn from this!!
This, the 212th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
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