A little quote from Frank Rich's column today about those derivatives that are all Bush's fault:
Quote:
An even dirtier secret is that a prime mover in keeping that stuff legal was Summers, who helped torpedo the regulation of derivatives while in the Clinton administration.
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John
Ontario 32 - Aria
Free, is the heart, that lives not, in fear.
Full, is the spirit, that thinks not, of falling.
True, is the soul, that hesitates not, to give.
Alive, is the one, that believes, in love. JCP
Quote: "This sounds very bad but I'm not knowledgeable enough to evaluate how accurate it is.".
Erps, To understand the implications of printing all this money to bail out banks and now buy up toxic assets you might want to read some of the articles on this site. It is pretty hard to imagine the US dollar surviving this intact (especially as countries abandon it as the reserve currency). I also can't see how this won't lead to hyper inflation as it did in Weimar Germany.
Here is the link. Go back over some of the older posts on the link about the dollar, inflation and the role of the Fed in all this:
Sounds like the government is having a little trouble with GM bond holders. The government is demanding that GM reduce it's debt by 2/3rds which means bond holders would have to accept stock or other paper for the paper they already have, but bond holders seem to have decided they'd rather GM go bankrupt because the companies assets are worth more than what they are being offered for their debt paper.
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What are you pretending not to know ?
"Despite jumping on -- and in some cases advancing -- false Republican claims that congressional Democrats are responsible for AIG executive bonuses, major media outlets have yet to report that Neil Barofsky, a Bush-appointed special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), confirmed in March 19 congressional testimony that the Bush administration Treasury Department knew about the AIG bonus contracts and did not insist on their abrogation as a condition of AIG's receiving bailout money through a stock purchase agreement signed by AIG and the Bush Treasury Department.
In prepared testimony for a March 19 House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Barofsky stated, "Preliminary information we have seen indicates that the TARP contract between AIG and Treasury that was entered into back in November specifically contemplated the payment of bonuses and retention payments to AIG employees, including AIG's Senior Partners."
Paulson did it, not Obama.... now let's see a little outrage sans Obama...
The point is Rick, Congress went out of it's way to make those bonuses payable in the stimulus bill (which was written and passed by the Democrats). Dodd, (supposedly, but who really knows, at the behest of the administration) took out his language that would have prevented the bonuses and inserted language that would make them payable. Whatever deal Paulson worked out with AIG didn't have to stand. Renegotiation could have been part of the stimulus, but it wasn't.
The bottom line is, Obama could have done something about it, and didn't. You can spin it 15 ways from Sunday, but it's on Bambi's doorstep, not Bush's.
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John
Ontario 32 - Aria
Free, is the heart, that lives not, in fear.
Full, is the spirit, that thinks not, of falling.
True, is the soul, that hesitates not, to give.
Alive, is the one, that believes, in love. JCP
The bottom line is, Obama could have done something about it, and didn't. You can spin it 15 ways from Sunday, but it's on Bambi's doorstep, not Bush's.
John, I'll admit it.. I'm lost here. You're asking a guy who was running for President at the time, to take responsibility for a bailout bill which was negotiated before he took office or even won the election.
Have you been listening to Boss Limbaugh again? This doesn't make any sense, and the only one spinning here are those of you who suddenly posses Time Machines. It's one thing to be a Bush apologist, it's another to attempt to bend time to win an argument.
Having said that, someone give Senator Dodd a sword to fall on, and toss in some speed reading classes for everyone else in Congress.
Have any of you purchased some of the equities I told you to purchase during the course of the last 2 weeks? If you haven't taken the advice you have lost an opportunity to make a ton of money.
Today, alone I'm way, way up.
We hit bottom a few weeks ago, but still buy your equities by averaging you share price.
Have any of you purchased some of the equities I told you to purchase during the course of the last 2 weeks? If you haven't taken the advice you have lost an opportunity to make a ton of money.
Today, alone I'm way, way up.
We hit bottom a few weeks ago, but still buy your equities by averaging you share price.
"A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, 'At my age, I don't even buy green bananas.'" - Claude D. Pepper 1900-1989, U.S. senator, politician and attorney.
SailorGregS, I am still holding some calls from a few weeks ago, but I have to admit it wasn't your counsel that prompted me to buy them.
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What are you pretending not to know ?
John, I'll admit it.. I'm lost here. You're asking a guy who was running for President at the time, to take responsibility for a bailout bill which was negotiated before he took office or even won the election.
Tropicat,
Bush didn't write the bailout. The House and Senate put that fiasco together and O'Bama was in the Senate at the time the bailout was negotiated. He knew (or certainly should have known) what was in it. I'm getting sick and tired of our illustrious leaders trying to blame others for the problems they created.
