Nobel Laureate Joeseph Stiglitz Says Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue
He is correct on this point, the bailout has been targeted to Wall Street on the assumption that if we give them good money and purchase their bad assets off their balance-sheet, it will get them to start lending in the middle of a soft-depression. Not likely, in reality they are holding on to the cash until this passes then they will lend and make acquisitions are bargain basement prices which in the end will give them more wealth and power. My question is how long it will take for people to wake-up and see this situation for what it is and start holding our elected representatives accountable to the biggest corporate subsidy in the history of modern civilization??????? Get on the phone and let your opinion be heard and vote accordingly. That is the only way they will know that we are serious and paying attention.
News (Bloomberg):
The Obama administration’s bank- rescue efforts will probably fail because the programs have been designed to help Wall Street rather than create a viable financial system, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.
“All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing ingredients,” Stiglitz said in an interview yesterday. The people who designed the plans are “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent.”
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Wall Street slides as Dow close marks 6 year low
We are now at levels where techincal indicators could trigger and bring the market much lower. I see us breaking 7,000 on the Dow over the next 2 weeks. We should be lucky that with all the bad news coming out today that the Dow didn’t break much lower.
News:
U.S. stocks dropped, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a six-year low, as Hewlett-Packard Co. cut its profit forecast and concern about rising credit-card defaults dragged financial shares to the lowest level since 1995.
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Wall Street closes out 2008 as worst year since Great Depression
Interesting how during this year they kept pushing back the date to determine how bad this year was, 2000’s, early 1990s, early 1980’s, etc… until now we have reached the big enchilada. Either 2009 will be the year of recovery or they will say 2009 was the worst year…..Ever. I hope Obama comes in and shows real leadership and stops these bailouts and focuses on getting our market confidence back and getting jobs growing. No amount of credit will matter if someone can’t pay the monthly bill. Good luck and I am going to stay hopeful but realistic.
News:
Wall Street closed out its worst year since the Great Depression on Wednesday after an unstoppable credit crisis and a dreadful economic outlook left investors questioning their faith in stock markets.
A string of financial disasters culminating in the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the middle of the night in September precipitated the third biggest percentage loss ever for the Dow industrials and the broad S&P 500.
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The End of Wall Street’s Boom
If you have read Liar’s Poker then you know who author, Michael Lewis is. His original book was about the excesses of Wall Street in the 80’s and a insiders tale of what it was like in the investment firm, Salomon Brothers. This article is very intriguing and sucked me into Lewis’s tale that covers our current events and even revisits some of Liar’s Poker to give some context.
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Resentment growing over Wall Street bailout plan
I watched the C-Span hearings today and I was happy to see enough outrage against that very draft version of a bailout bill we don’t need at this point. The Senators really did their job today and grilled them on this plan. I wish I heard more comments about not doing it at all but I feel the atmosphere was more about seeing if this plan had merit and how it would be executed. I think this is a bad idea in so many ways, we don’t need to prop up this system that is leveraged to the hilt and made a bunch of bad bets that now are trying to be put on our burden when we already have enough other unfunded liabilities to worry about, naming social security and at least some basic free preventative health care so we don’t have emergency room visits pushing up premiums.
New Release:
Architects of the bailout urged Congress on Tuesday to act swiftly or face dire consequences, and it was unclear whether any concerns expressed by voters would hamper its progress.
But lawmakers are sensitive to constituents, particularly in an election year. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch from the conservative state of Utah said reaction to the plan from his constituents was “all negative.”
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“Wall St. got drunk” according to George W. Bush
Reuters posted that a cell phone camera recorded a conversation that our current president George W. Bush had during a fund raising event for Texas representative Pete Olson. This conversation was posted to the YouTube video-sharing website.
He was talking about the current “subprime” real estate crisis and how Wall Street got drunk during the extremely low interest rate we had after the bursting of the internet bubble and post 9/11. Bush was quoted saying “There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk,” “It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is, how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?”
Here is the Reuters Release about the comments
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