Three From the Inbox
Sep. 25th, 2008 01:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
webfarmer$3.6 billion as a bailout seems like peanuts today, don't it. More public "Cash for Trash" coming up folks!
Remember the grand bourgeois rule: "Privatize profits and socialize losses". And the beat goes on.
Capitalism's Suicide
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted July 18, 2006.
"Back in 1998, there was this little-bitty old hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management. Because hedge funds make high-risk bets, Long Term Capital got itself in so much trouble its collapse actually threatened to wreck world markets, and regulators had to step in to negotiate a $3.6 billion bailout. A similar fiasco at this point probably would break world markets."
"So what we have here is yet another case of ideological decision-making ('all government regulation is bad') being applied despite the most obvious promptings of common sense. Come to think of it, that's exactly the same pattern this administration has followed with war in the Middle East, nuclear showdowns, global warming and Apocalypse Now."
---
Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle
By William Greider, The Nation, Friday 19 September 2008
"Paulson and the Federal Reserve are trying to replay the bailout approach used in the 1980s for the savings and loan crisis, but this situation is utterly different. The failed S&Ls held real assets - property, houses, shopping centers - that could be readily resold by the Resolution Trust Corporation at bargain prices.
This crisis involves ethereal financial instruments of unknowable value - not just the notorious mortgage securities but various derivative contracts and other esoteric deals that may be virtually worthless.
Despite what the pols in Washington think, the RTC bailout was also a Wall Street scandal. Many of the financial firms that had financed the S&L industry's reckless lending got to buy back the same properties for pennies from the RTC - profiting on the upside, then again on the downside.
Guess who picked up the tab?
I suspect Wall Street is envisioning a similar bonanza - the chance to harvest new profit from their own fraud and criminal irresponsibility."
Now Is The Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine
By Naomi Klein, Democracy Now!, 24 September 2008
"I'm also arguing that this is only stage one of the shock doctrine.
They're getting this - they're lobbying for this huge bailout, obviously, but this bailout is a kind of a time bomb, because it's all these bad debts, and they are going to explode on the next administration. I mean, we know that the Bush administration has already left the next administration with huge debt and deficit problems."
Remember the grand bourgeois rule: "Privatize profits and socialize losses". And the beat goes on.
Capitalism's Suicide
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted July 18, 2006.
"Back in 1998, there was this little-bitty old hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management. Because hedge funds make high-risk bets, Long Term Capital got itself in so much trouble its collapse actually threatened to wreck world markets, and regulators had to step in to negotiate a $3.6 billion bailout. A similar fiasco at this point probably would break world markets."
"So what we have here is yet another case of ideological decision-making ('all government regulation is bad') being applied despite the most obvious promptings of common sense. Come to think of it, that's exactly the same pattern this administration has followed with war in the Middle East, nuclear showdowns, global warming and Apocalypse Now."
---
Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle
By William Greider, The Nation, Friday 19 September 2008
"Paulson and the Federal Reserve are trying to replay the bailout approach used in the 1980s for the savings and loan crisis, but this situation is utterly different. The failed S&Ls held real assets - property, houses, shopping centers - that could be readily resold by the Resolution Trust Corporation at bargain prices.
This crisis involves ethereal financial instruments of unknowable value - not just the notorious mortgage securities but various derivative contracts and other esoteric deals that may be virtually worthless.
Despite what the pols in Washington think, the RTC bailout was also a Wall Street scandal. Many of the financial firms that had financed the S&L industry's reckless lending got to buy back the same properties for pennies from the RTC - profiting on the upside, then again on the downside.
Guess who picked up the tab?
I suspect Wall Street is envisioning a similar bonanza - the chance to harvest new profit from their own fraud and criminal irresponsibility."
Now Is The Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine
By Naomi Klein, Democracy Now!, 24 September 2008
"I'm also arguing that this is only stage one of the shock doctrine.
They're getting this - they're lobbying for this huge bailout, obviously, but this bailout is a kind of a time bomb, because it's all these bad debts, and they are going to explode on the next administration. I mean, we know that the Bush administration has already left the next administration with huge debt and deficit problems."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 07:29 am (UTC)I sincerely hope the FBI investigators can comb through the maze and find criminal culpability. I strongly suspect that the rot is so deep that the authorities may be afraid to take appropriate action. Sort of like a Republican sex scandal. They'll look the other way.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 01:59 pm (UTC)I find it HILARIOUS that the Republicans are falling all over themselves complaining about executive pay for failing companies. What a bunch of hypocrites.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 05:38 pm (UTC)It seems like a complicated mess that is almost, by design, impossible to figure out. Providing transparency hasn't recently been high on the list of things to do in this area. One pundit had that problem as being a major reason that Lehman tanked without a private buyout.
If it's the mortgages that are the fundamental problem, seems like spending $700 billion working on those issues directly might be the better route. It would certainly be more politically acceptable.
Then again, the very real fear of a tanking stock market should be enough to get something passed soon. My guess is that it will be more like what Paulson has proposed than not. But we'll see.