The ripple effect of Government Socialism spreads:
Asian stock markets slumped Monday amid resurgent concerns that a recovery in the global economy is unlikely to materialize until next year and worries about the global financial sector following fresh government bailouts for the insurance giant American International Group and Citigroup.
The Nikkei 225, Japan’s benchmark index, was down 4 percent and the Kospi in South Korea fell 3.6 percent, while the key index in Hong Kong sagged 3.8 percent. Singapore’s stock market fell 3.3 percent, and the markets in Australia and Taiwan dropped 2.8 percent. Stocks in mainland China declined least, falling 0.2 percent by Monday afternoon.
Stock in banks like Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Financial Group were more than 4 percent lower in Tokyo because of fears about the health of the global banking system, after the United States government moved to take a larger stake in the ailing banking giant Citigroup and was set to give an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to AIG.
And in Hong Kong, trading in HSBC was suspended in the wake of reports that the British bank will announce on Monday that it is tapping investors for about £12 billion, or about $17 billion.
“It’s pretty despondent everywhere,” said Dwyfor Evans, a strategist at State Street Global Markets in Hong Kong. “Okay, there are signs that some of the leading indicators have stabilized to some extent, but it’s at a very, very low level, and we’re not seeing corporate investment picking up, or consumers starting to spend again – in other words, the traditional mechanisms by which economies come out of a recession are absent at this time.”
While Barack Obama might be the President that saved the working class family in America, he might very well go down as the President who destroyed the free market capitalist system in America and around the World. Although, I will admit, that he did have help. Bill Clinton’s polices, along with the inaction of the Republican Congress of 2003, did nothing to stop this mess.
The bad part about is, I and everyone else will be most likely dead before it is all straightened out.
ABC Radio Network spokesman Louis Adams said Harvey died Saturday at his winter home in Phoenix, Ariz., surrounded by family. No cause of death was immediately available.
Harvey, who was born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., was married to the late Lynne Cooper of St. Louis who died less than a year ago. They had one son, Paul Jr.
He was a news commentator and talk-show pioneer whose staccato style made him one of
Paul Harvey - Broadcasting Icon
the country’s most familiar voices. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2005.
Known for his resonant voice and trademark delivery of “The Rest of the Story,” Harvey had been heard nationally since 1951, when he began his “News and Comment” for ABC Radio Networks.
In a statement, ABC Radio Networks President Jim Robinson calls Harvey “one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation’s history.”
He began his radio career in 1933 in Tulsa, while he was still in high school, his Web site said.
Paul Harvey News consisted of more than 1,200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces Network stations that broadcast around the world and 300 newspapers, his biography reported.
A virus that weakened his vocal cord forced him off the air in 2001. But he returned to work in Chicago and was still active as he passed his 90th birthday.
My Grandfather, on my Mom’s side used to listen to Paul Harvey, when she was a little girl. What a loss, a legend in broadcasting is now gone. Harvey was a Conservative, it showed in his broadcasts. Here are two clips of Harvey in his prime from 1963, right before Kennedy was assassinated:
President Obama explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate, and assures special interests that he is ready for the fight. (this video is public domain)
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
Washington, DC
Two years ago, we set out on a journey to change the way that Washington works.
We sought a government that served not the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few, but the middle-class Americans I met every day in every community along the campaign trail – responsible men and women who are working harder than ever, worrying about their jobs, and struggling to raise their families. In so many town halls and backyards, they spoke of their hopes for a government that finally confronts the challenges that their families face every day; a government that treats their tax dollars as responsibly as they treat their own hard-earned paychecks.
That is the change I promised as a candidate for president. It is the change the American people voted for in November. And it is the change represented by the budget I sent to Congress this week.
During the campaign, I promised a fair and balanced tax code that would cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, roll back the tax breaks for those making over $250,000 a year, and end the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas. This budget does that.
I promised an economy run on clean, renewable energy that will create new American jobs, new American industries, and free us from the dangerous grip of foreign oil. This budget puts us on that path, through a market-based cap on carbon pollution that will make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy; through investments in wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient American cars and American trucks.
I promised to bring down the crushing cost of health care – a cost that bankrupts one American every thirty seconds, forces small businesses to close their doors, and saddles our government with more debt. This budget keeps that promise, with a historic commitment to reform that will lead to lower costs and quality, affordable health care for every American.
I promised an education system that will prepare every American to compete, so Americans can win in a global economy. This budget will help us meet that goal, with new incentives for teacher performance and pathways for advancement; new tax credits that will make college more affordable for all who want to go; and new support to ensure that those who do go finish their degree.
This budget also reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession. Given this reality, we’ll have to be more vigilant than ever in eliminating the programs we don’t need in order to make room for the investments we do need. I promised to do this by going through the federal budget page by page, and line by line. That is a process we have already begun, and I am pleased to say that we’ve already identified two trillion dollars worth of deficit-reductions over the next decade. We’ve also restored a sense of honesty and transparency to our budget, which is why this one accounts for spending that was hidden or left out under the old rules.
I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I.
The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people. I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November. That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead – change that will grow our economy, expand our middle-class, and keep the American Dream alive for all those men and women who have believed in this journey from the day it began.
A video showing a King County Sheriff’s deputy pummeling a 15-year-old girl in a holding cell was released Friday over the strenuous objections of the officer’s attorney.
The case goes beyond police misconduct, County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said in a prepared statement.
“It’s about criminal misconduct. And that’s why he needs to be prosecuted,” he said.
The video of the Nov. 29 incident was disclosed Friday, one day after Deputy Paul Schene, 31, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault in King County District Court.
Schene, an eight-year veteran, works out of Precinct 4, which covers SeaTac, Burien and high crime areas in White Center and Skyway.
He is the third sheriff’s deputy since 2006 to face charges on allegations of excessive force. All three are from the Burien precinct.
A detective assigned to the girl’s case discovered the video Dec. 1 and immediately forwarded it to supervisors.
The Seattle P-I requested a copy of the holding cell video and all reports from the incident under the state’s open records law. A judge on Thursday denied a request from Schene’s attorney to bar the video from public disclosure.
“We take this very seriously and we’re very concerned about this,” sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Laing said Friday. An internal investigation would begin after the criminal case is finished.
Several years ago, Schene shot and killed an unarmed, mentally disturbed man following a traffic stop that degenerated into a “knock-down, drag-out” fight. The shooting was ruled “justifiable.” Shortly after that incident, he was stopped for driving under the influence (apparently of prescription medication). He was given a deferred sentence and placed on probation, so that he could continue to bless the people of King County with his singular professionalism.
Let’s hope this dirty cop gets what is coming to him. Jail time and and removal from the police force, permanently. 😡
The mayor of a small Southern California city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.”
Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at Monday’s City Council meeting.
Grose came under fire for sending the picture to what he called “a small group of friends.” One of the recipients, a local businesswoman and city volunteer, publicly scolded the mayor for his actions.
Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose said he didn’t mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons.
While I feel that the said email was extremely stupid. I find it quite ironic, considering what I blogged about last night, that this guy is resigning. The gents over at Chicago Boyz are saying “Name that Party!“, and Moonbattery says, “what about freedom of speech?” Good question. Let a black person make all sort of nasty racist slams to a white person, and that’s okay, but let a white person mock a black person, and all hell breaks loose. It just so damned ironic.
Normally, I would be ripping this organization a new one. However, for a change, the ACLU is taking up a rather good cause here:
A fight over a fish mural has landed in federal court.
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the city of Clearwater on behalf of a local bait and tackle shop that has been embroiled in a months-long standoff with the city government over a mural painted on the side of its building.
City officials say the painting, which depicts a half-dozen game fish such as grouper and snook, amounts to an unauthorized sign under Clearwater’s laws. They have fined the business nearly $700 and have ordered it to paint over the mural or face steeper fines.
But the ACLU’s federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday, accuses the city of trampling on the First Amendment rights of the Complete Angler, a fishing emporium on Fort Harrison Avenue just north of downtown Clearwater.
The store’s owner, Herb Quintero, argues that the mural is art, not a sign. Last month, in response to the city’s order to remove the painting, he instead covered it with a banner displaying the text of the First Amendment. The store recently was cited again.
“Only in Florida could a business owner be targeted and fined for displaying artwork, and then in protest of the fine, display the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — and then be ticketed for that,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.
Any other time, I would be giving this group royal sand; for their communist roots and so forth, but this time, it seems that ACLU is taking up a very good cause. (For a change….) (Hope and Change?!?!? Hrmmmm….) Florida, I am told, is infamous for their overreaching Government.
Maybe it is a image make over, Maybe it is a plot to make Conservatives, like me, speak favorable about them, so that they can implement their communist agenda through B. Hussein Obama. Now, where’s my tinfoil hat?!?!?!?!? 😉 😛 😀
Update: Reader Dru Jeanis reports that there is a website for the shop and supporting of the shop, it is located here.
This is just freakin’ STOOOPID! (not, not Stupid, but STOOOPID!)
The mayor has sent an apology for an e-mail sent to a local businesswoman and community volunteer that she says is racist and offensive.
Keyanus Price, an African American, said she was appalled when she received an e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose’s personal account that showed a picture of the White House with a watermelon patch imposed as the White House garden.
“I was horrified when I read that e-mail,” Price said. “What I’m concerned about is how can this person send an e-mail out like this and think it is OK?”
Being a public official, Price said, made the matter worse.
“He’s putting the city into a bad place, and he is a liability,” Price wrote in an e-mail.
Grose sent an e-mail apology to Price, her boss and the City Council saying he did not intend to be offensive. He also called and left Price a message, he said.
“It was just poor judgment on my part, and I am deeply sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t meant to hurt her.”
Seriously… Why the hell would ANYONE in a public office send out an idiotic e-mail with a picture like that to anyone? ‘Cause they STOOOOPID, that’s why! (If you’ll forgive my inner ghetto for coming out… :D)
I know I’ve been accused of not being the brightest bulb in the box, sharpest knife in the drawer, ect… But I even know not to do dumb stuff like that. I mean, I’ve done my share of dumb stuff in my day, but this takes the Duncan Hines to whole new level.
Anybody care to take a stab at interpreting this?:
Media baron Rupert Murdoch issued an urgent internal communication late Monday, warning his staff: “We are in the midst of a phase of history in which nations will be redefined and their futures fundamentally altered.”
The dramatic call comes as markets continue their plunge and the future of media becomes increasingly muddled.
“Many people will be under extreme pressure and many companies mortally wounded,” Murdoch declared.
“Our competitors will be sorely tempted to take the easy beat, to reduce quality in the search for immediate dividends.”
He continued: “Let me be very clear about our company: where others might step back from their commitment to their viewers, their users, readers and customers – we will renew ours.
“The direction of the business now and over the next few years will define the character of our company for decades.”
😆 I must confess that’s one the more funnier headlines I’ve seen in a while. It links here.
Who let this rather hilarious headline fly? None other than Matt Drudge.
Update: I was mistaken, ooops! LA Times originally published that funny headline and Matt Drudge picked it up. Guess I should check the story link, before I publish. 🙄 Ooops… 😳
Just the same, I still found it to be quite funny. 😀
The Russian Coast Guard sank a Chinese coastal freighter, the New Star, on February 15th, after the ship left the Russian Pacific port of Nakhodka without permission. The New Star arrived in Nakhodka nearly three weeks ago, with a cargo of rice. But the firm that purchased the rice complained that the cargo was of low quality, and demanded a lower price. The Russian buyer went to local officials, and got the government to forbid the New Star from leaving until the matter was settled. Caught in the middle of this dispute between the Chinese rice broker and the Russian buyer, the Hong Kong owner of the New Star ordered the captain to leave port anyway. When the Russian Coast Guard was notified, they sent a patrol ship out to bring the New Star back. The Russian patrol boat caught up with the New Star, about 80 kilometers from Nakhodka, and ordered the Chinese ship to return to port. The Chinese ship refused, and eventually the Russians opened fire with a 30mm auto-cannon. After several hours, 515 30mm shells were fired into the hull of the New Star, causing it to take on water and begin to sink. While getting off the New Star, eight of the crew died when one of the two life rafts flipped over in rough seas. The other eight members of the crew were picked up by a Russian Coast Guard ship.
Freedom Fighter Radio adds the following… (Please note, the legitimacy of these claims cannot be verified):
Most disturbing about these reports are them stating that the New Star is owned by the J Rui Lucky Shipping Co Ltd. which is a private limited company registered in Hong Kong and has long been known by Russian FSB Analysts to be an International shipping carrier of US Military and CIA cargo to support their Global War on Terror under contract with the American giant services company KBR whose former leader was US Vice President Cheney.
These reports further state that President Obama and the Globalist elite he represents are now ‘desperate’ in their attempts to stage a 9/11 type false flag operation in order to complete the subjugation of their citizens prior to the expected outbreak of massive social unrest they state will be occurring during the coming summer months as their economy continues to implode.
To the fears being felt by the American and European Globalists we can read as reported by German experts:
“The global financial crisis could lead to an economic meltdown – and to instable democratic structures in the western world. Because governments spend more billions than they possess, the outcome will probably be a massive inflation connected with millions of lost jobs – or even the total collapse. That’s why President Hussein Obama needed an astronomic 3B-stimulus. But the Big Bailout will probably end as Big Bang: With no changes on the more-growth-more-capital-more financial market power mentality there will be no escape from the crisis. A global monetary reform seems to be the last exit from chaos and before social unrests will inevitably start.”
These German fears were further confirmed yesterday by the former head of the US Federal Reserve, and as we can also read:
“Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday the current global recession will “surely be the longest and deepest” since the 1930s and more government rescue funds are needed to stabilize the U.S. financial system.”
The report goes on to talk about FEMA Prisoner camps and other such nonsense, none of which has been verified by legitimate news sources. Only by conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and his ilk. I have often wanted to ask Alex, how does it feel to make a living off people’s paranoia?
Like I said, slow news day, really sllllooooowwww news day.
The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country’s biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy.
The populist SVP, the country’s biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider to help shut the camp down.
Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the United States in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement.
The SVP said gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the United States should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of U.S. funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the failure of U.S. regulators.
The SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties, but its populist policies have shaken up usually consensual Swiss politics.
You see, this is what happens, when the United States entangles itself in the affairs of other Governments. Switzerland has been a neutral country for years and a somewhat friend of ours, now they’ve become a enemy. Real smart there Barry, Real fucking smart.
President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.
In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation’s economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that Obama hopes to enact later this year.
A summary of Obama’s budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation’s costly and inefficient health care system Monday, when he addresses more than 100 lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring “fiscal responsibility” to Washington.
In his weekly radio and Internet address today, Obama expressed determination to “get exploding deficits under control” and described his budget request as “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”
Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical to the nation’s future: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.”
Obama faces the long-term challenge of retirement and health programs that threaten to bankrupt the government years down the road, as well as the more immediate problem of deficits bloated by spending on the economy and financial-system bailouts. His budget proposal takes aim at the short-term problem, administration officials said, but also would begin to address the nation’s chronic budget imbalance by squeezing savings from the federal health programs for the elderly and the poor.
Even before Congress approved the stimulus package earlier this month, this year’s deficit was projected by Congressional budget analysts to approach $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since World War II. With the stimulus and other expenses, some analysts say the annual gap between federal spending and income could approach $2 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.
Obama proposes to dramatically reduce those numbers by the end of his first term, cutting the deficit he inherited in half, said administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget has yet to be released. His budget plan would keep the deficit hovering near $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011, but shows it dropping to $533 billion in 2013 — still high in dollar terms, but a more manageable 3 percent of the overall economy.
To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from “winding down the war” in Iraq, a senior administration official said. The budget assumes that the nation will continue to spend money on “overseas military contingency operations” throughout Obama’s presidency, the official said, but that number is significantly lower than the nearly $190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year
Well, one can forget about any new jobs coming to Michigan or anywhere else in America, because if Businesses are taxed, they will not hire new people. Just more class warfare from the Democrats. I also notice that Obama is cutting funds to Iraq and Afghanistan, that will be the precursor to ending the war. Because you cannot fight a war, if you do not have the funds.
We are headed into a repeat of the 1990’s all over again, ending the deficit on the backs of the wealthy in the Country, while the rest of Country gets off scott free. Where is the fairness in that? The reason why this is so bad is this, if you tax the wealthy and business owners, they are much less likely to hire new employees and also they are less likely to spend money, thereby adding to the economy. This whole idea of the Democrats of Tax and Spending our way out of our Economic woes is just plain idiotic.
We are headed towards very scary times in America. Act accordingly.
A federal discrimination lawsuit filed this month against the Lansing Board of Water & Light says two employees in November wore Ku Klux Klan-like hoods to apparently taunt a black co-worker.
That incident is one of several allegations made by Corey Clay in the lawsuit filed Feb. 9 in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
Clay, an electrical worker from Lansing who was hired in 2001, endured “a racially discriminating hostile work environment” for many years with little or no management response, according to the lawsuit.
BWL spokesman Mark Nixon said that after learning about the November incident, management took immediate action that resulted in “disciplinary action and the termination of a Board of Water & Light employee.”
Nixon added: “The law firm representing Mr. Clay is aware of these actions.”
Clay’s Clinton Township-based attorney, Heidi Sharp, said one of the employees was reinstated recently.
Clay works as an apprentice under that employee’s purview and is evaluated by him, Sharp said.
The situation “has just been devastating to him emotionally,” she said.
I have to really wonder. What is the other side of this story? Not one to pre-judge, but something tells me there is much more to this story than is being reported by this very liberal media outlet.
Yeah, I know what I wrote here. I still feel that way too. But this is not about Racism, this is about the Liberal Democrats controlling Conservatives right to free speech. The, ahem, chimpsLiberal Black Democrats want to control what we honkey White Conservatives write, and I think it is a bunch of bullshit.
So, bring it on, there Mr. “Interloper”. I dare ya.
Iran has now built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.
In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.
They said Iran had now accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz. If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material – enough for a bomb.
“It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb,” said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
The new figures come in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday.
This revealed that Iran’s production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.
$0.00, not counting fuel and handling: that is the cheapest quote right now if you want to ship a container from southern China to Europe. Back in the summer of 2007 the shipper would have charged $1,400. Half-empty freighters are just one sign of a worldwide collapse in manufacturing. In Germany December’s machine-tool orders were 40% lower than a year earlier. Half of China’s 9,000 or so toy exporters have gone bust. Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January. The number of cars being assembled in America was 60% below January 2008.
The destructive global power of the financial crisis became clear last year. The immensity of the manufacturing crisis is still sinking in, largely because it is seen in national terms—indeed, often nationalistic ones. In fact manufacturing is also caught up in a global whirlwind.
Industrial production fell in the latest three months by 3.6% and 4.4% respectively in America and Britain (equivalent to annual declines of 13.8% and 16.4%). Some locals blame that on Wall Street and the City. But the collapse is much worse in countries more dependent on manufacturing exports, which have come to rely on consumers in debtor countries. Germany’s industrial production in the fourth quarter fell by 6.8%; Taiwan’s by 21.7%; Japan’s by 12%—which helps to explain why GDP is falling even faster there than it did in the early 1990s (see article). Industrial production is volatile, but the world has not seen a contraction like this since the first oil shock in the 1970s—and even that was not so widespread. Industry is collapsing in eastern Europe, as it is in Brazil, Malaysia and Turkey. Thousands of factories in southern China are now abandoned. Their workers went home to the countryside for the new year in January. Millions never came back (see article).
This is what happens when you create an economic bubble, by loosening up regulations to sell mortgages to those who cannot afford them. The whole world suffers. Our American companies suffer, the World manufacturing sector suffers. It is a domino effect. The problem is, that the United States is going about this all wrong. Instead of changing the way our economic system works. They are simply trying to reinflate the broken bubble. It is like trying to tape up a busted air ballon and trying to put air back into it again. It works for a while, but ends up breaking again.
The US government may have to nationalize some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has told the Financial Times.
In an interview, Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers.
”It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”
Mr Greenspan’s comments capped a frenetic day in which policymakers across the political spectrum appeared to be moving towards accepting some form of bank nationalisation.
“We should be focusing on what works,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told the FT. “We cannot keep pouring good money after bad.” He added, “If nationalisation is what works, then we should do it.”
Speaking to the FT ahead of a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday, Mr Greenspan said that “in some cases, the least bad solution is for the government to take temporary control” of troubled banks either through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or some other mechanism.
The former Fed chairman said temporary government ownership would ”allow the government to transfer toxic assets to a bad bank without the problem of how to price them.”
But he cautioned that holders of senior debt – bonds that would be paid off before other claims – might have to be protected even in the event of nationalisation.
”You would have to be very careful about imposing any loss on senior creditors of any bank taken under government control because it could impact the senior debt of all other banks,” he said. “This is a credit crisis and it is essential to preserve an anchor for the financing of the system. That anchor is the senior debt.”
Let me get this straight, one of the main douche bags that was responsible for the meltdown of the bank industry and the economic collapse is now telling us what we should do with our banks?
A former FBI special agent told law enforcement and Homeland Security personnel that a network of Islamic organizations are working to incrementally implement Islamic law in the United States.
During a presentation at the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency, former FBI agent John Guandolo briefed members about groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which he claims is working with other Islamic groups to slowly implement Shariah, also known as Islamic law, which encompasses all areas of life.
Guandolo worked in the FBI since 1996, including nine years as a member of its SWAT team. After 9/11, he worked in the Bureau’s Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division, developing expertise concerning Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood organizations and the Islamic movement in the U.S.
He now works with Stephen Coughlin, former Islamic Expert for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to advise leaders at the federal level and also brief local law enforcement about the Islamic threat at home.
Coughlin was fired from his position with the Joint Chiefs following a report revealing opposition to his work by officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, according to a Washington Times report dated Jan. 4, 2008.
Coughlin had run afoul of a key aide to England, Hasham Islam, who accused him of being a Christian zealot or extremist “with a pen,” according to defense officials, the report states.
I think this one warrants a full read. Please go read now.
This is why Ammo sales are going through the roof, because our Government cannot be trusted. The Radical Muslims have figured it out, they did not destroy us on September 11, 2001; so, they are going to do it from within, and now with a Liberal President, they just might succeed.
It looks like the party of Freedom is selling the American people up the river:
Nationalization, long regarded in Washington as a folly of Europeans, is gaining rapid ground among US opinion-formers. Stranger still, many of those talking about federal ownership of banks are Republicans.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for North Carolina, said that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agreed with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.
Mr Graham said that people across the US accepted his argument that it was untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.
“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”
Barack Obama, the president, who has tried to avoid panicking lawmakers and markets by entertaining the idea, has recently moved more towards what he calls the “Swedish model” – an approach backed strongly by Mr Graham.
President Obama has not ruled out a second stimulus package, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said on Tuesday, just before Mr. Obama signed his $787 billion recovery package into law with a statement that it would “set our economy on a firmer foundation.”
The president said he would not pretend “that today marks the end of our economic problems.”
“Nor does it constitute all of what we have to do to turn our economy around,” Mr. Obama said at the signing ceremony in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the way of playoffs.”
Mr. Gibbs, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Denver, said, “I think the president is going to do what’s necessary to grow this economy.” While “there are no particular plans at this point for a second stimulus package,” he added, “I wouldn’t foreclose it.”
Mr. Obama began the first leg of a two-day trip, using the museum ceremony to spotlight the bill’s clean-energy provisions. The president will also visit Phoenix, where he will unveil his new housing plan on Wednesday.
After a bruising legislative battle on the stimulus bill, which drew only three supporting votes from Republicans in the Senate and none in the House, the White House is trying to recapture the debate over the economy. Mr. Obama’s message is that the bill will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.
While the bill has been criticized by conservatives as bloated with pork-barrel spending, it has also been criticized by the left as too tepid and not bold enough to jumpstart the economy. Mr. Gibbs’s remarks on the plane seemed to echo that concern.
In describing the package, the press secretary called it “a strong start towards economic viability” and “the beginning of getting our economy back on track.”
I figured Obama would do this, sign one porkus bill into law and say, “This is not the end, but just the beginning of the pork!”
Meanwhile, the markets basically tanked, even more so than last week: (Via the New York Times)
From Hong Kong to eastern Europe to Wall Street, financial gloom was everywhere on Tuesday.
Stock markets around the world staggered lower. In New York, the Dow fell more than 3 percent, coming within sight of its worst levels since the credit crisiserupted. Financial shares were battered. And rattled investors clamored to buy rainy-day investments like gold and Treasury debt.
It was a global wave of selling spurred by rising worries about how banks, automakers — entire countries — would fare in a deepening global downturn.
“Nobody believes it’s going get better yet,” said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Do you see that light at the end of the tunnel? Any kind of light? Right now, it’s not there yet.”
At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 297.81 points or 3.7 percent to 7,552.29 points as losses in General Motors, Bank of America and American Express dragged the blue chips lower. The only Dow stock in positive territory was Wal-Mart, which rose after reporting better-than-expected profits.
“If we get substantially below 800 then look out below,” said Marc Groz, chief investment officer at Topos, a risk-advisory firm in Greenwich, Conn.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index slid 3.7 percent to drop below 800, which analysts said was an important trading threshold.
Investors know what this is, it is basically nationalization of our Economy, our banks, everything. They are just not going to invest money in a Government owned banking system. I believe this drop is just the beginning. Wait till it totally collapses and the world is thrust into chaos. It will be an interesting time, indeed.
Stopping what it called a “massive ongoing fraud,” the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday accused Robert Allen Stanford, the chief of the Stanford Financial Group, of fraud in the sale of about $8 billion of high-yielding certificates of deposit held in the firm’s bank in Antigua. Also named in the suit were two other executives and some affiliates of the financial group.
In the complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Dallas, the S.E.C. accused Mr. Stanford and two associates — James M. Davis, a director and chief financial officer of Stanford Group and the Antigua-based bank affiliate, and Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of both organizations — with misrepresenting the safety and liquidity of the uninsured CDs.
The CDs were sold by Stanford International Bank through the firm’s registered broker-dealer and investment adviser, which are in Houston. Both the bank, which claims $8.5 billion in assets and 30,000 clients in 131 countries, and the brokerage unit, which operates about 30 offices in the United States, were named in the S.E.C. suit. Stanford Financial asserts that it advises about $50 billion in assets.
Shortly after 10 a.m. Central time, about 40 police officers and other law enforcement officials simultaneously entered Stanford Group’s two office buildings in Houston. Many of the law enforcement personnel carried large black briefcases. Stanford group’s headquarters are in two offices in Houston, one within a tower of the Houston Galleria shopping mall, and the other across the street.
A spokesman for Stanford Group declined to comment.
What, there was something fishy about high-yield Antiguan CDs? Really? What will shock us next, the discovery that the import/export firm with the branch office in Medellin is selling coke?
Heh.
While I think it is alright to have a sense of humor about it. One must realize that there most likely some people “taking a bath” right about now. So, I shall keep the giggles to a minimum. Who I feel mot sorry for, are the peole who trusted these companies to invest thier money properly, and have gotten horribly screwed over. Those are the one’s I feel for.
He is known as a successful entrepreneur to the millions who watch him on the US version of The Apprentice but Donald Trump on Tuesday suffered the indignity of watching a company that bears his name file for bankruptcy protection.
Trump Entertainment Resorts, of which Mr Trump owns 28 per cent, filed for Chapter 11 protection at a court in New Jersey on Tuesday after bondholders who control the debt-laden casino operator rejected Mr Trump’s attempt to take the company private.
The filing came as the group missed its last deadline on a $53m interest payment. It is not the first time the group has filed for Chapter 11: four years ago, an earlier incarnation of Trump Entertainment also sought bankruptcy protection from its creditors.
The filing reveals that the company has assets of $2bn and total debts of $1.7bn. Its biggest creditor is US Bank, which is acting as agent for the bondholders in the group. The group of bondholders could not be reached for comment but they are owed $1.3bn, according to the filing.
Other creditors include Bally Gaming, a Las Vegas-based group, and Bovis Lend Lease, the property developer, which is owed $7.5m.
Like other casino operators, Trump Entertainment, which owns three resort properties in Atlantic City, has been hit by the economic downturn and a severe slump in visitor attendance and gaming revenues.
But of course “The Donald” did not feel like take responsibility for his failure. He did what most rich executives do and what some politicians do; He blamed someone else:
In a stinging statement released last week following his resignation from the board, Mr Trump laid the blame for the group’s demise squarely on the bondholders. He accused their representatives of making “a series of bad decisions” and said they had “encouraged wasteful spending, which has led to severe problems with the company”.
Mr Trump pointed to the contrast between Trump Entertainment and The Trump Organisation, which he controls. “While The Trump Organisation grows and flourishes, Trump Entertainment …has languished. The Trump Organisation’s portfolio of residential, commercial, hotel, and golf properties has expanded all over the world, while Trump Entertainment has yet to diversify outside of Atlantic City.”
Mr Trump could not be reached for comment but his statement of last week suggests he opposed the bankruptcy route. “Now I will study and watch as the horrible and outrageous fees being paid to lawyers and consultants will suck the blood from the company,” he said.
“This internal turmoil will be compounded by dramatically deteriorating revenues across the board for casino companies in Atlantic City as the market tanks and competition from local markets grows.”
Ah yes, put the blame on someone else for the failure of a company that bears your name. Instead of being a man and admitting the failure. Trump could have went down there an fired all the idiots, took over ownership of the company and steered it to prosperity, but instead, he continued to lease his name to a failing enterprise and now that it’s bombed, he’s casting blame elsewhere. Typical of people of his ilk.
colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agreed with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.