AMERICAblog: Who killed the economy? Fill in your brackets.
Rab
· 1 year ago
It's the Shrub, fish rots from the head down, Greenspan is the gills of the fish.
tbhull
· 1 year ago
Everyone is to blame. A debt society has its debt called. Our economy has been kept alive by unsecured debt, secured debt, unsecured debt refinancing and secured debt refinancing for several years. State governments loved it because their tax base increased, the feds loved it because everyone was happy and markets loved because created from nowhere was flowing and sophisticated transactions kept Wall Street flush withh offerings and commissions leasing to leverage multiples at Lehman and the old Bear Stearns at ratios in excess of 30 to 1.
We are all to blame for believing the illusion of this house of cards. Most everyone participating is in peril, homeowners, those in in deep credit card debt, those banks that lent, those banks and companies that bought the bundled debt that is unraveling and state governments that see the their ability for future debt offerings going down the tubes as the ratings on their existing bonds in an alphabetical free fall, all while their sales tax and property tax substantially erodes with no real end in sight.
Barb_in_DC
· 1 year ago
That Affirmative-Action MBA from Harvard has no excuse whatsoever.
Ben Dover
· 1 year ago
The BushCo neo-cons will do everything in their power to wreak as much havoc and destruction to the economy as they can on their way to electoral exile. I once hoped there would be an incoming President who would chase them to the ends of the Earth to make them pay for their War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, but we all know that's not going to happen.
Better luck next time, I suppose.
Bubbles
· 1 year ago
Actually they are going to have to chase them to Paraguay. In 2006 Bush bought 100,000 acres in Paraguay. So you might not believe Bush is vulnerable, but I'm not so sure that Bush shares your belief. Right now the American army is down there guarding it. But I'm sure later it will be Black Water.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
I picked Bush, but I wouldn't disagree with Mr. Bubble.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
The wingnut bush voters killed the economy. Way to go. We're all going to be out on the street out of work.
mf_roe
· 1 year ago
This has been in the cards for a long time, the ruling class has long known that the middle class was just to dangerous. The only way the middle class could grow was at the expenses of those on top of the pyramid. The post WW2 boom brought real opposition to the rule of the rich and they have worked toward the current state of affairs since the late 60's.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
Perhaps, when adjusted for business acumen, wealth is actually evenly distributed; not counting the Bush's, Kennedy's, Hilton's and Rockefellers who have escaped the system through intricate trust arrangements and overseas shenanigans?
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
You voted for them, you stupid fool.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
Bush voters are the stupid fools.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
GG, if Bush were running again? I'd vote for him. McCain and Obama are pathetic. What's the 22 week abortion limit that Obama is talking about? Is that a trimester? Except for a slight blip in the gas price; things seem to be going swimmingly. Except, of course, for Clinton's NAFTA arrangement which is putting the union members out of work...
Busboy
· 1 year ago
O/T 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium were safely transferred from Iraq to Canada. Maybe Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame ought to be revisited for veracity?
Believe whatever you want, fool. It wasn't weapons grade and was known about and verified before the Iraq quagmire.
benb
· 1 year ago
You're wrong:
"U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."
GG, you're starting to sound like "Mr. T" of the "A Team".
Hangtown Danile
· 1 year ago
I pity the fool who would vote for Bush another time. If you keep saying it I will tie a bunch of my gold chains around your neck and throw you into Folsom Lake. And keep me out of that airplane! Ahhhhhhhh! Mr T. aka B.A. Barrackus.
Andrew
· 1 year ago
"You've got [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson saying 'Oh, you see the good news is it's over.'" The problem, according to Mr. Forstmann, is that it's far from over. "I think we're in about the second inning of this." And of course, the credit crisis wasn't even supposed to last this long. "This all started in August [of 2007], and it was going to get cleared up by October. It hasn't gotten cleared up at all.".. Theodore J. Forstmann The Credit Crisis Is Going to Get Worse
By BRIAN M. CARNEY July 5, 2008; Page A9 www.wsj.com What we are talking about here is a severe financial market crisis, like one we have not seen since the Great Depression. What many on Planet Wall Street seem to be missing is that it won’t come in the exact same format. Times are different … circumstances are different. What will be very similar will be the extent of lowering of the standard of living in America. It will shock most of Middle America … and those on the coasts too.
The Fed, and other central banks, in this scenario, will feel obliged to flood "the system" with money, even more than they are now, and this will lead more and more investors to flee into gold and silver for safe haven, inflation protection purposes. *This is already occurring to some extent when it comes to demand for gold…. LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - ETF Securities said on Monday the amount of bullion backing its Physical Gold exchange-traded fund PHAU.L rose 15 percent last week to a record 1.459 million ounces…. We are only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to NEW demand for physical gold and silver … meaning it will come from investors in the West who have shunned precious metals to-date. *Each time the dollar is about to break down, some government official makes a comment about the dollar, which is followed by central bank intervention. The Planet Wall Street pundits and reporters then cite these comments as the reason for short term dollar strength. Course, when nothing changes fundamentally, and nothing has, the dollar begins to tank again. Europe has a myriad of problems too. However, our structural financial market/economic problems are gargantuan in comparison, which is why the dollar ought to tank in the weeks and months ahead. This too will be gold/silver friendly. *The odds of crude oil going higher from here are still favorable. Thus far crude oil corrections are classic bull market ones … steep and short. During the correction this morning, Brent crude oil was trading at a 70 cent premium to WTI. We shall see if this anecdotal tool works again, in that it suggests the general oil market remains in strong hands. It won’t be long before we are going into the critical hurricane season in the US. Should any storm come close to threatening our refineries, crude oil will rise sharply in this environment of perilously tight supplies….
jr
· 1 year ago
Ralph Nader killed the economy with his constant swift boating of Democratic candidates
Bubbles
· 1 year ago
First place goes to Bush. He followed supply side economics to the greatest extent, and to its illogical conclussion.
Supply side is nothing but carbon fiber. Pure myth. No body does anything, invest anything, if there is no demand.
(We see this all the time from the auto industry. The left cries "build more gase efficient cars, the industry cries, "we won't build them because Americans won't buy them".)
If you concentrate wealth, striping purchasing power from the masses, demand collapses - (Donald Trump and Paris Hilton can only buy so many cars).
To back fill the demand void that his own supply-side policies created, Bush relied upon Chinese Central bank buying our dept at artificially low interest rates - allowing people to refinance their homes at low interest rates. When that string ran out, they pushed people into refinancing using floating point interest rates, when that string ran out they pushed people into pawning their homes with second mortgates, when that string ran out, they did the subprime loan thing (actually all of this happened in an overlapping fashion).
When all the strings ran out, the Fed lowered interest rates, the dollar crashed, oil and all commodities prices sky rocketed and American consumers took it in the keaster. What's left of the economy is being held together by inertia, rubber bands and chewing gum.
If anyone is to blame, other than Bush, it's the Chinese and several other east Asian central banks. Had they not bought American debt at deflated prices, the dollar would have crashed sooner and Greenspan would have had to raise interest rates, and the folly of Bush's economic policy would have been exposed.
For about 5 or 6 years, Bush had incredible luck. In essence he sold our feed corn and traded in our good will and international prestige for about a year and a half of semi-prosperity.
He had no problem doing this. He doesn't really care what comes after word - he's already purchased 100,000 acres in Paraguay as a hedge. The Republicans won't have to worry if they have bad policies, they can win elections by using voter ID laws, purging voters from rolls, manipulating the public with controlled media, using bias US attorneys to try democratic candidates for bogus charges, and scaring the shit out of people fearing socialism, gay marriage, and terrorism.
Its no coincidence that the national anthem ends in 'land of the free and the home of the brave'. You can't be the former without being the latter.
Hangtown Danile
· 1 year ago
What the hell is wrong with carbon fiber??? I love that stuff. My new bike is made from it mostly.
All Comments
We are all to blame for believing the illusion of this house of cards. Most everyone participating is in peril, homeowners, those in in deep credit card debt, those banks that lent, those banks and companies that bought the bundled debt that is unraveling and state governments that see the their ability for future debt offerings going down the tubes as the ratings on their existing bonds in an alphabetical free fall, all while their sales tax and property tax substantially erodes with no real end in sight.
I once hoped there would be an incoming President who would chase them to the ends of the Earth to make them pay for their War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, but we all know that's not going to happen.
Better luck next time, I suppose.
What's the 22 week abortion limit that Obama is talking about? Is that a trimester? Except for a slight blip in the gas price; things seem to be going swimmingly. Except, of course, for Clinton's NAFTA arrangement which is putting the union members out of work...
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080706/D91O8E...
"U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."
from
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080706/D91O8E...
If you keep saying it I will tie a bunch of my gold chains around your neck and throw you into Folsom Lake. And keep me out of that airplane! Ahhhhhhhh!
Mr T. aka B.A. Barrackus.
Theodore J. Forstmann
The Credit Crisis Is Going to Get Worse
By BRIAN M. CARNEY
July 5, 2008; Page A9
www.wsj.com
What we are talking about here is a severe financial market crisis, like one we have not seen since the Great Depression. What many on Planet Wall Street seem to be missing is that it won’t come in the exact same format. Times are different … circumstances are different. What will be very similar will be the extent of lowering of the standard of living in America. It will shock most of Middle America … and those on the coasts too.
The Fed, and other central banks, in this scenario, will feel obliged to flood "the system" with money, even more than they are now, and this will lead more and more investors to flee into gold and silver for safe haven, inflation protection purposes.
*This is already occurring to some extent when it comes to demand for gold….
LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - ETF Securities said on Monday the amount of bullion backing its Physical Gold exchange-traded fund PHAU.L rose 15 percent last week to a record 1.459 million ounces….
We are only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to NEW demand for physical gold and silver … meaning it will come from investors in the West who have shunned precious metals to-date.
*Each time the dollar is about to break down, some government official makes a comment about the dollar, which is followed by central bank intervention. The Planet Wall Street pundits and reporters then cite these comments as the reason for short term dollar strength. Course, when nothing changes fundamentally, and nothing has, the dollar begins to tank again.
Europe has a myriad of problems too. However, our structural financial market/economic problems are gargantuan in comparison, which is why the dollar ought to tank in the weeks and months ahead. This too will be gold/silver friendly.
*The odds of crude oil going higher from here are still favorable. Thus far crude oil corrections are classic bull market ones … steep and short. During the correction this morning, Brent crude oil was trading at a 70 cent premium to WTI. We shall see if this anecdotal tool works again, in that it suggests the general oil market remains in strong hands.
It won’t be long before we are going into the critical hurricane season in the US. Should any storm come close to threatening our refineries, crude oil will rise sharply in this environment of perilously tight supplies….
Supply side is nothing but carbon fiber. Pure myth. No body does anything, invest anything, if there is no demand.
(We see this all the time from the auto industry. The left cries "build more gase efficient cars, the industry cries, "we won't build them because Americans won't buy them".)
If you concentrate wealth, striping purchasing power from the masses, demand collapses - (Donald Trump and Paris Hilton can only buy so many cars).
To back fill the demand void that his own supply-side policies created, Bush relied upon Chinese Central bank buying our dept at artificially low interest rates - allowing people to refinance their homes at low interest rates. When that string ran out, they pushed people into refinancing using floating point interest rates, when that string ran out they pushed people into pawning their homes with second mortgates, when that string ran out, they did the subprime loan thing (actually all of this happened in an overlapping fashion).
When all the strings ran out, the Fed lowered interest rates, the dollar crashed, oil and all commodities prices sky rocketed and American consumers took it in the keaster. What's left of the economy is being held together by inertia, rubber bands and chewing gum.
If anyone is to blame, other than Bush, it's the Chinese and several other east Asian central banks. Had they not bought American debt at deflated prices, the dollar would have crashed sooner and Greenspan would have had to raise interest rates, and the folly of Bush's economic policy would have been exposed.
For about 5 or 6 years, Bush had incredible luck. In essence he sold our feed corn and traded in our good will and international prestige for about a year and a half of semi-prosperity.
He had no problem doing this. He doesn't really care what comes after word - he's already purchased 100,000 acres in Paraguay as a hedge. The Republicans won't have to worry if they have bad policies, they can win elections by using voter ID laws, purging voters from rolls, manipulating the public with controlled media, using bias US attorneys to try democratic candidates for bogus charges, and scaring the shit out of people fearing socialism, gay marriage, and terrorism.
Its no coincidence that the national anthem ends in 'land of the free and the home of the brave'. You can't be the former without being the latter.
I love that stuff. My new bike is made from it mostly.