That is what we are doing with this financial crisis. The Obama Administration, Fed and Congress are just fighting to get back to status quo. The same securitization model that got us into this mess is still there but with huge government subsidies. It looks like the financial oligarchy won.
“The system will look more like what preceded the current environment than many people seem to believe,” Cohen said yesterday at a panel discussion on the future of Wall Street sponsored by Bloomberg News in New York. “I am far from convinced there was something inherently wrong with the system.”
This note by Ezra Klein on the political implications of false beliefs about income/class mobility is particularly on point:
It turns out that there's a bit of a paradoxical relationship between believing your country has a lot of economic mobility and your country actually having a lot of economic mobility. If you believe that your country is extremely mobile, you're likely to believe the results of the economic competition are relatively fair. As such, you won't want to slap the rich with particularly high tax rates and you won't be terribly concerned about spreading economic opportunity. After all, anyone can make it!
Last Friday the ISM Manufacturing Index for April was released. It was all but ignored in the economic blogosphere. It shouldn't have been.
Along with auto sales, it is one of the very first economic releases for the month of April. Also crucially, it is a leading economic indicator. The ISM Manufacturing index has typically bottomed a median 2.5 months (a mean of 4) before the end of post WW2 recessions. The latest it bottomed was the month of the end of the recession, the earliest 9 months.
In other words, this is an early indicator with a long and successful track record.
So, why does the NAPM's Manufacturing Index suggest the bottom of the recession is near ...?
As usual, The Onion cuts through the reality of the situation and goes straight into the bullsh*t.
Tired of hearing the grim truth about their economic future, Americans demanded that the bald-faced lies resume immediately, particularly whenever politicians feel the need to divulge another terrifying problem with Wall Street, the housing market, or any one of a hundred other ticking time bombs everyone was better off not knowing about.
In addition, citizens are requesting that the phrase, "It will only get worse before it gets better," be permanently replaced with, "Things are going great. Enjoy yourselves."
It's only taken about $200 Billion, give or take a few, but AIG is reporting they don't need anymore bail out money.
American International Group Inc., the insurer rescued four times by the U.S., may post first-quarter results this week that don’t trigger a new capital injection from the government, said three people familiar with the matter.
The insurer will report that results in the first three months of 2009 improved from the record $61.7 billion fourth- quarter loss that New York-based AIG posted in March, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the firm scheduled its earnings announcement for May 7.
CNN money has a bail out tracker on all of the money doled out, which may or may not be accurate.
I am an economic populist. What does that mean? According to Wiki that means
a member of a United States political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies.
a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people
The year 1891 was a long time ago are there really any Populist party members still around? Most likely no, and any politician who espouses populist rhetoric is instantly shouted down in the media by the opposition and even their own political party.
As I mentioned in the pub, I was going to start posting some information about National Health plans of other countries.
As we hear more and more about the credit a National Plan will bring to the US economy, I eventually plan to find the debit side of the ledger. One example of a debit to the States is the Premium Tax. I believe every State in the Nation has a 1 to 2 percent tax on Gross Premiums collected. National Health will bring the loss of the premium tax that should be used in the balance sheet. There is more but that is not what will be part of this diary.
My information is in MS WORD format, footnoted and I've edited it down to about 34 pages. I'll be copying and pasting my info (footnotes included). I'll post anywhere from one to several countries each day; countries are presented in alphabetical order.. Finally when I reach the last day, I will post a bit of information on the US Medicare plan.
General Motors Corp. may be more likely to end up in bankruptcy based on the Obama administration’s willingness to place Chrysler LLC into court protection to safeguard union health-care benefits.
With GM and its biggest bondholders at odds over resolving $27 billion in unsecured claims by a June 1 deadline, the Chrysler model indicates that President Barack Obama may resort to bankruptcy to end any impasse over that debt, said Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of New York-based credit investment firm Fridson Investment Advisors.
Well, well, the SEC actually starts a case. Been so long one forgets they have this authority.
Federal prosecutors charged former Citigroup banker Maher Kara with securities fraud for tipping his brother about upcoming mergers, in an insider trading scheme that reaped more than $6 million in illegal profits.
Federal regulators also filed civil charges Thursday against the brothers and six other friends and relatives for allegedly participating in the scheme which spanned from New York to California and the Midwest for three years or more.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said that Maher Kara, a former director in Citigroup Global Markets' investment banking division in New York, repeatedly told his brother Michael about upcoming healthcare industry deals from at least April 2004 through April 2007.
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