Yet more on Obama being too financial industry-friendly

[Craig234]

I've regularly recommended Glenn Greenwald as the best blog writer IMO.

His recent column discusses yet more famning information about Obama's economic team, and references some other recent reports.

Link

Obama's top advisor being paid $135,000 for one day visiting Goldman Sachs? Millions in total for 2008? Come on. Read the link for plenty more.

Things seem out of control on this. We have the minority progressive Democrats, the Libertarians having a field day, and the corporatists.

As I asked in another thread, is the financial industry - recently making nearly half of all profit - just that powerful to have blackmail available?

The main silver lining is how Obama says the right things about needing to prevent 'too big to fail' next time, but his economic appointees aren't promising.

Unfortunately, the public just seems to lack the political organization to have a counter to the financial industry lobbyists.

I'd like to see some of the people who were right - the Byron Dorgans - have more input.

I might mention to the righties here to take note how many liberal commentators are going after the Obama administration, but I know it's a waste of time.

 

[wwswimming]

"In one program, designed to restart small-business lending, President Obama's officials are planning to set up a middleman called a special-purpose vehicle -- a term made notorious during the Enron scandal -- or another type of entity to evade the congressional mandates, sources familiar with the matter said."

Enron, Obama style.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...3910.html?hpid=topnews

 

[ProfJohn]

Craig... keep reading and digging and soon you'll understand that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, perhaps even worse.

Did you notice that Freedy and Fannie were loaded with former Democrat staffers right before they imploded?

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: Craig234
...

The main silver lining is how Obama says the right things about needing to prevent 'too big to fail' next time, but his economic appointees aren't promising.

...

and this is silver lining because it makes you think that you are still right about Him being something special? you contradict yourself right within your statement!!! Y'all need to get a grip... He has figured out that y'all will believe whatever He says, and then He can do whatever He wants... when y'all look up at Him with those "why'd You do that?" puppy eyes He just tells you another silver lining and y'all go off wagging your tails saying "it wasn't Him, it was some other bad guy who made His idea not work"...

the guy is just a class a political bullshitter... he's getting worked by his cadre just like gwb... welcome to reality... what i hope is that he isn't getting us all in too deep to sort out down the road... and please, don't start with any 'but the repubs started...' because this is now... what's happening today is what we have to live with... he's the one who (supposedly) has the reins...

the measure of a man isn't what he says... it's what he does...

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Craig... keep reading and digging and soon you'll understand that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, perhaps even worse.

You're the one who needs to keep reading, and you will find the opposite conclusion. Democrats have some serious issues, but are far better than Republicans. Shoo.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
"In one program, designed to restart small-business lending, President Obama's officials are planning to set up a middleman called a special-purpose vehicle -- a term made notorious during the Enron scandal -- or another type of entity to evade the congressional mandates, sources familiar with the matter said."

Enron, Obama style.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...3910.html?hpid=topnews

SPVs were used for decades prior to Enron. A loophole in the SPV laws allowed them to create a non-brain-dead SPV and stick non-brain-dead assets into them. Those loopholes were closed in 2002 with the introduction of FAS140, as well as a slew of other regulatory laws.

The usage of SPVs happens millions of times per day. It is nothing more than a corporate entity that allows for the holding of assets in trust. Wow, so nefarious.

Trying to correlate SPV with fraud is stupid and not altogether surprising from you. You've got no education in the area and you have a chip on your shoulder. Thus, you use something you have no clue about to carry out an agenda.

In other words, you're a tool.

 

[BoberFett]

You wanted government big enough to rein in corporations, and now you've got it. Whether they use that power to rein in or to enrich those same corporations is another story. Surely your angelic Democrats would never choose the latter...

 

[Slew Foot]

Im still waiting for Obama to give AIG back the 100K campaign contribution, surely they need it more than he does.

He talks alot about change and being ashamed of the financial industry, but his actions leave room for second guessing.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Craig... keep reading and digging and soon you'll understand that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, perhaps even worse.

You're the one who needs to keep reading, and you will find the opposite conclusion. Democrats have some serious issues, but are far better than Republicans. Shoo.

Better speakers, yeah. That's true.

 

[Zebo]

dp

 

[Zebo]

The fox in charge of the hen house and zapping normal Americans future revenue and services. Starve the Beast ^2, Bush^2. How about the scumbags Geithner and Summers extolling the 'sanctity of contracts' when we finally got pissed about AIG bonuses and to placate us they are going to withhold $165 million (the amount of the AIG bonuses) from the next taxpayer payment to AIG! LOL Give me $30,000 million and hold back 165 please I beg you. Meanwhile .gov breaks contracts to normal Americans everyday - Like to uphold law and shut these crooks down, like securing borders- no cant' do that cheap labor barons need them, like to have any meaningful Medicare coverage the old have to pay up for B, like making service members get private insurance for wartime injuries. Cleptocracy is in full effect.

 

[1prophet]

Who Really Controls America

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: 1prophet
Who Really Controls America

R.I.P.

Carlin 'got' it :thumbsup:

 

[Evander]

Obama is Wall Street's lapdog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb_Zkm5zqfY

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Craig234
-snip-
Things seem out of control on this. We have the minority progressive Democrats, the Libertarians having a field day, and the corporatists.

As I asked in another thread, is the financial industry - recently making nearly half of all profit - just that powerful to have blackmail available?

I'm begining to believe that the financial institutions are NOT the direct benefiary of Obama's actions. The equity holders are pretty much wiped out (i.e., bank owners).

The banks receiving bailout money are mostly using it to pay off those who invested in CDS's etc.

Who are the primary beneficiaries? The uber wealthy IMO. Those with the capital.

And many many of those aren't US people. We've angered the very wealthy of the world and Obama is satisfying them at our expense.

BTW: You shouldn't blame libertairians here, I do not believe they advocate gov bailouts.

Corportists? I'm not sure what you mean? As I mentioned above, they've lost most of their money (shareholders in corps). I suspect the banks are being kept alive to funnel the money back to the wealthy. Obama couldn't very well just cut them (wealthy investors) checks directly; so the banks are convenient conduits for this reimbursement (as well as PR scapegoats).

I suppose the wealthy may believe that our gov let them down, at least as far as AAA (junk) MBS's. Sort of like we let our WS bankers perpeuate a huge fraud on them.

As far as naked CDS's, the investors/gamblers should take the loss IMO.

Also, the banks have to pay the gov money back. Those (wealthy) reimbursed vis-a-vis bailout money received from the banks don't. Who really got bailed out?

If the banks end up paying back all the gov money (including the great bulk they passed on to others) then they will have paid for this. We'll see, but my guess now is that ultimately they will fold and start over leaving the taxpayers stuck with the bill. Why would they wanna stay in business knowing the profits of future years is just going to pay someone else? Either that, or the gov will funnel more to the banks to allow them to pay it back. If so, it'll likely just be a 'back door' tax on us (taxpayers). The way this has been done in the past is set the interest on money banks borrow from the fed very low, but then they charge us high rates. They make a huge profit on the spread.

The artificially low interest to fed increases our deficit (vis-a-vis a reduction in interest revenue), then we pay higher than appropriate interest to these banks. Few will notice, it's too 'tricky' and obscure.

Fern

 

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Craig... keep reading and digging and soon you'll understand that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, perhaps even worse.

Yup... I usually vote dem because I am socially liberal... As far as politics and economics, they are all corrupt. Its not dems or reps... Its congress - all of it, and most of the rest of the govt too.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: Craig234
-snip-
Things seem out of control on this. We have the minority progressive Democrats, the Libertarians having a field day, and the corporatists.

As I asked in another thread, is the financial industry - recently making nearly half of all profit - just that powerful to have blackmail available?

I'm begining to believe that the financial institutions are NOT the direct benefiary of Obama's actions. The equity holders are pretty much wiped out (i.e., bank owners).

The banks receiving bailout money are mostly using it to pay off those who invested in CDS's etc.

Who are the primary beneficiaries? The uber wealthy IMO. Those with the capital.

And many many of those aren't US people. We've angered the very wealthy of the world and Obama is satisfying them at our expense.

Well, I think you have a legitimate point to ask more specifics about who's benefitting and who's not both from the crisis and from the bailout.

One thing about these situations is to understand that they're not exactly a carefully planned scheme by a group who says 'and on Dec. 17th, let's have these two institutions crash, so we can benefit'. It resembles a lot more, 'let's deregulate so we can have more chance for some big profits through things that may cause big problems later, but will get us rich now. And ya, there's still risk for people doing it.'

The bailouts do help the institutions who owe the CDS payments, who need to add collateral now that the ratings are lowered. Without the bailouts, they'd be out far more - out of business and many others would be too. The bailouts have prevented that. While Morgan Stanley did go out of business wihtout a bailout and fit your description, others are at least getting to liquidate resources at higher prices, or stay in business.

It gets a bit murky when you try to say much about 'the ultra rich'. Part of the problem is the lack of transparency - the 'we don't know, or won't say, where the money went' issue.

The clearest distinction I see is how many people have made fortunes already from the changes that built the house of cards. Long before the crisis, I recall a 60 Minutes segment that began with one guy who was at his $25 million Malibu home, retired, saying he'd made over a half billion in credit default swap sales. He doesn't owe any of that back. That's the reason for this. When it crashed, it was about 'mitigate the damage to Wall Street' as well as some legitimate concern about the harm to the economy if they weren't bailed out.

Were better options like FDIC-type takeovers of big banks passed up in favor of options better for the Wall Street wealthy, i.e., 'throw cash at them'? That seems plausible.

BTW: You shouldn't blame libertairians here, I do not believe they advocate gov bailouts.

I blame Libertarians frequently for their erroroneous ideology, but all I did here was list them as part of the political landscape and say the issues were easy for them to use.

Libertarians haen't really seemed to have any effect on the policies with Obama or Bush.

And I think at best, they might hit on some of the right policies for the wrong reasons, but they might also be disastrous.

Corportists? I'm not sure what you mean? As I mentioned above, they've lost most of their money (shareholders in corps). I suspect the banks are being kept alive to funnel the money back to the wealthy. Obama couldn't very well just cut them (wealthy investors) checks directly; so the banks are convenient conduits for this reimbursement (as well as PR scapegoats).

The missing piece in your comments is all the money they made in the last 25 years with increasing deregulation and increasing leverage.

I suppose the wealthy may believe that our gov let them down, at least as far as AAA (junk) MBS's. Sort of like we let our WS bankers perpeuate a huge fraud on them.

Clearly there were some wealthy people who lost out and were misled - people who often were making, and pretty much all of whom were trying to get, outsized returns.

That's one of the problems with this sort of bubble - who is going to let someone run a fund whose position is susicion that at some point there's a bubble, so take lower returns?

These derivatives were created specificially because institutional investors demanded that they wanted more of those high returns from mortgage-based securities.