The Treasury secretary has made 174 purchases of banks’ preferred shares that include certificates to buy stock at a later date. He invested $10 billion in Goldman Sachs in October, twice as much as Buffett did the month before, yet gained warrants worth one-fourth as much as the billionaire, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Goldman Sachs terms were repeated in most of the other bank bailouts.
So you only have one President at a time, and clearly, right now, the President is Barack Obama who is standing up and attempting to do something about the economic situation here in the United States, a situation which is worsening by the day.
As such, the world online and off is exploding with opinion, new ideas, some old ones rehashed and many of the usual talking points being thrown around with increasing speed. Clearly, there is some great commentary being written about the Stimulus Plan, what it means and what might happen over the next days and weeks as the plan is debated.
For example, at TruthDig, it is pointed out that "Now Is No Time For Phony Thrift" lampooning Mitch McConnell who presided over hundreds of billions of dollars in government overspending, now suddenly worried about waste.
Last week, Dick Cheney gave an interview in which he pronounced the Bush regime's economic policy to have done a decent job, and asserted that the financial. banking, and economic crises had only begun in the middle of 2008. In his latest article, Henry C K Liu demolishes Cheney's spin, discussing in detail the onset of the crises in July 2007.
In Part I of this series, Bonddad and I looked at the years 1929 - 1933. These years saw a decline of 25% in the chained GDP figures; a failure of 20% of commercial banks, a drop in personal income from $90 billion to $50 billion and a drop in the level of industrial production from 60 to 30. In
part II we looked at the years 1934 - 1940, where we saw that growth returned to 1929 levels in 1937, although this was lowered by the recession of 1938. By 1939 GDP was again increasing. In Part III, we looked at what happened statistically and practically during the years of 1934 - 1938.
In this, our 4th and final installment, we expose and rebut the lies and distortions of the RW noise machine New Deal denialists.
There are some very disturbing sounds coming from the President-Elect. Even more disturbing is that only a small number of people in the progressive blogsphere have picked up on what’s been said.
Stirling Newberry warned yesterday that Obama Puts New Bank Bailout in Stimulus Bill - allowing financial companies to use losses in this crisis to “recover” taxes paid on profits going back five years! As Newberry notes, “The Wall Street Journal calls it a bonanza.”
But even worse, is what Obama had to say about what he is considering now:
“We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part” of efforts to curb federal spending, Mr. Obama said at a news conference. By February, he said, “we will have more to say about how we’re going to approach entitlement spending.”
In Part I of this series, Bonddad and I looked at the years 1929 - 1933. These years saw a decline of 25% in the chained GDP figures; a failure of 20% of commercial banks, a drop in personal income from $90 billion to $50 billion and a drop in the level of industrial production from 60 to 30. In
part II we looked at the years 1934 - 1940, where we saw that growth returned to 1929 levels in 1937, although this was lowered by the recession of 1938. By 1939 GDP was again increasing. In this article, we will look at what happened statistically and practically during the years of 1934 - 1938.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.
“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”
The total value of the bailouts undertaken by the federal government in 2008 now exceeds the combined cost of every major war the United States has ever engaged in, according to a comparison of war costs calculated by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the value of the bailouts as calculated by Bloomberg News or Bianco Research.
According to CRS, all major U.S. wars (including such events as the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but not the invasion of Panama or the Kosovo War), cost a total of $7.2 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars.
Changes in Social Security and Medicare will be central to efforts to bring federal spending in line, President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday, as the Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.2 trillion budget deficit for the fiscal year.
“We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part” of efforts to curb federal spending, Mr. Obama said at a news conference. By February, he said, “we will have more to say about how we’re going to approach entitlement spending.
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