bailout

Why do "Free" Markets, cost SO much?

Posted Sun, 11/16/2008 - 13:46 by jamess


If Free Markets are the supposed Engine of Growth,

Why do they always seem to lead to a "money grab",
a greedy "land rush", with the Tax payer ALWAYS picking up the Bill?

Why do the Rich, always manage to get richer?

While those who "play by the rules", just manage to get "pink slips" and foreclosure notices?

And an endless pile of Bills?

Are you better off than you were 8 years ago?

Posted Sun, 10/19/2008 - 15:25 by jamess
Have you been working harder and harder, becoming more productive all the time, only to see your wages, fail to keep up with that ever increasing cost of living?
It's not your imagination ... It's just the way our Economic System tilts ... ------- For example, check out these disturbing trends: Real Median Household Income [Notice the Flat-line trend over the last 8 years.]

Nick Benton's Corner: Wall Street to Leesburg Pike

Posted Tue, 09/30/2008 - 09:16 by carol white
Nick Benton's commentaries are published here with his permission. We have been featuring Benton's weekly editorials every week. This week there are several features by him in the News Press that report and discuss the current looming crisis. I think these are particularly important because they highlight an aspect of the crisis that tends to be overlooked right now but is already having an impact on "Main Street." Editorial: Wall Street to Leesburg Pike by Nicholas Benton The impact of the meltdown on Wall Street on conditions on Falls Church's Broad Street, and Fairfax County's Leesburg Pike, is going to become unmistakable over the next period, and will impact government revenues, pension funds and the commercial market. This is on top of how the housing market slide, associated with what set off the Wall Street debacle, has already impacted budgets and pocketbooks here. Folks had better be prepared to batten down the hatches in ways not needed perhaps since the Great Depression. By all accounts, the region may have been able to avoid the kinds of natural disasters that have leveled New Orleans and Galveston in the recent period, but does have a massive financial tsunami rumbling its way, on its way most of the way around the globe.
MichaelCollins's picture

Bailout Bill Defies Will of the People

Posted Mon, 09/29/2008 - 01:12 by MichaelCollins

Bailout Bill Defies Will of the People

Hedging their bets -- about exactly WHO owns your Mortgage?

Posted Sun, 09/28/2008 - 07:15 by jamess
Promoted as jamess provides us with information that all of us need to know more about to help understand our current crisis - standingup

In the Olden Days (B.D. -- Before Deregulation) 1) you want to buy a House 2) you put 10-20% down and got a mortgage loan, after intensive scrutiny of your income and creditworthiness 3) you spend 30-years making monthly Mortgage Payments 4) you take Ownership of your Home, free and clear. 5) IF you fail to make Mortgage Payments, for 3 months or more, a Snidely Whiplash character would show up from the Bank, and promptly put you out on the street. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) in these 21st century days of Investment Banks and Hedge Funds, riding herd in a "wild west" electronic economy with little to NO Oversight, you may still default on your Mortgage -- yet too often it seems, that No One really knows, exactly WHO owns your House, when you do ...

AIG Executive to be Sentenced for Fraud Conviction

Posted Wed, 09/24/2008 - 05:32 by Land of Enchantment

promoted - cho

In the flurry of financial crisis stories, the media has neglected to mention the recent conviction of an AIG executive for accounting fraud. The crime is for "side letters" - much like the off-book arrangements that figured centrally in the Enron debacle. Cross-posted at Daily Kos Reuters, 9/5/08:

The defendants were convicted (this past Feburary) in connection with a reinsurance deal that prosecutors said misled AIG investors because it enabled the company to improperly inflate its loss reserves, painting an artificially bright picture of its financial results. AIG previously acknowledged accounting improprieties and restated $3.8 billion in earnings from 2000 through 2004 and agreed to a $1.64 billion regulatory settlement in 2006.
It’s good to know that someone bearing responsibility for this mess is going to jail. The AIG failure is probably the result of ginormous fraud schemes, with the bursting subprime mortgage bubble only a contributing factor. It defies credulity that over a trillion in assets reported earlier this year were all wiped out by the mortgage mess, given the regulations governing investment of insurance company assets. There's more to the story. There was a sentencing hearing early this month in Connecticut, where the case was tried. From Bloomberg News 9/6/08:
The executives were convicted for using a sham transaction in 2000 to help AIG add $500 million in loss reserves, a key indicator of an insurer's health. Jurors convicted Ferguson, 66; Monrad, 53; Garand, 61, a former senior vice president; Graham, 60, a former General Re assistant general counsel; and Christian Milton, 60, AIG's former head of reinsurance.
Back to Reuters (linked above)::
In a sentencing memorandum filed late on Friday, prosecutors argued that sentences for the five defendants should be stiffer than the range of 168 months to 210 months calculated in a pre-sentence report. The government also said losses to AIG investors could be estimated at more than $400 million -- with the government's expert calculating fraud-related losses as much as $1.4 billion -- a factor that should enhance the defendants' sentences.
International Herald Tribune, 9/12/08:
The former officers were accused of breaching fiduciary duties by redirecting insurance business that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions to another company they controlled. Simultaneously, Maurice Greenberg, AIG's former chief executive and one of the former officers, began the first of what is expected to be three grueling days of depositions in a civil lawsuit brought against him by the office of the New York State attorney general, Andrew Cuomo. The lawsuit accuses Greenberg of devising transactions to make AIG's financial condition look stronger. AIG's board removed Greenberg in 2005, after regulators served AIG with subpoenas.
MichaelCollins's picture

Bailout Blackmail - Just Say No! The Money Party (7)

Posted Tue, 09/23/2008 - 18:23 by MichaelCollins

The Money Party (7):

Bailout Blackmail

Image cc

Just Say No

Michael Collins

MichaelCollins's picture

The Money Party (6) Meltdown Perpetrators Position Themselves

Posted Mon, 09/22/2008 - 16:43 by MichaelCollins
originally posted 2008-09-21 21:58:19 -bumped

The Money Party (6): Meltdown Perpetrators Position Themselves

Meet the New Boss - Robin Hood in Reverse U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson WikiCommons

"A Cascade of Ruin"

Michael Collins

(Wash. DC) Well, they finally did it. The Money Party exposed the nauseating underbelly of first world finance. It's a cross between a Ponzi scheme and a complex math puzzle, all geared to let those in charge rake off as much money as they can, whenever they can, while they leave us out in the cold. Unfortunately, this time their greed and lack of control has the world poised for a systemic economic meltdown. The collapse and subsequent government rescue of home mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, stock brokerage Merrill Lynch, investment bank Bear Stearns, and, an insurance company, AIG, are designed to show we're moving away from the brink of disaster to a safer place. "The system is working" to manage what Alan Greenspan is calling a once in a century event.

The Fundamentally Political Nature of the Present Financial Crisis: The Constitutional Moment Arrives

Posted Sat, 09/20/2008 - 10:31 by Tony Wikrent
In an extraordinarily important article today The Constitutional Moment Arrives, Stirling Newberry observes that
The key question is this: the American tax payers just bought the banking system. We are going to pay, with interest, upwards of three trillion dollars for it. A relative bargain actually. The question is what we are going to do with it now that we own it.