First and most interestingly, it indicates that US accounting standards are lax enough for an entity like Fannie to move "off book" mortgages to "on book" mortgages in a single day and purely for the purposes of gaining government protection.
If they could legitimately do this, then US accounting standards are shot to hell and gone. You literally cannot trust the books of any US corporation because they can hide and revive liabilities at will.
Second, the actual numbers are staggering. If the US Treasury thought they were guaranteeing $200 billion when they gave unlimited guarantees, but in fact were covering at least $600 billion or even more, how can they seriously have any faith in your budget?
Finally, what are the macro effects of this sort of blow out on the US economy? And what does it say about the condition of the housing market?
Do you know how many jobs were created in the U.S. in the last decade? A net zero.
What do you think Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are? You also didn't bother to look up a modern reference to see that those are Democratic Socialist States. They are Democracies.
Yes, they have high taxes but Americans pay way more in health insurance premiums and that's what is missing, you are missing the costs Americans pay for the same service. Just because someone is labeled a tax instead of private, doesn't mean it is not a required cost, out of that person's pocket. Overall, they pay way less than Americans do and I'm not talking those with cancer or serious illness, I'm referring to basic health costs.
Yes you should visit those countries and see if for your own eyes. In my opinion they have a much higher quality of life, standard of living.
I also don't know where you are getting those stats, but I do not think they are accurate. The CIA Factbook has a lot of these at a glance.
Now I see that I was reading incorrectly. I've been trying to get over my February month long Pneumonia and sometimes I am medicated.
So if it is peoples' moment, that would include all people of differing ideologies. That would include the downtrodden an like me, those self employed, overwhelmed people, from Local, State and Federal government regulations. To the point that I am sure, each day there is an obscure broken law that gets broken. Ever read the Patriot Act? I have and was amazed at all the things we are to do so that we may be in compliance. Maybe it is just the little 80,000 page IRS code that I could miss dotting an "i".
I mean Senator Chris Dodd, this is one of the problems, you get a lame committee chair who blocks anything real, he's running around claiming he needs "bipartisanship" and he "has to get it out of committee" and that's why he is doing a real absurdity and claiming to support a Consumer Financial Protection Agency yet magically put it under the Federal Reserve's authority.
What crap. The Fed already has authority for consumer protection and we see how well they have done!
A lot of focus is on the CFPA, it's been under attack by the Banksters since day one, they do not want any consumer protections for any financial products.
That said, to me the real bomb, the real threat is derivatives. I do believe this market has grown, not shrank since 2008 and they are still trying fictional mathematical models with fictional pricing and not way to even validate a CDO (with it's derivatives). I think because it's such gobblygook, few understand them and eyeballs glaze over on how to reform them. There's also a hell of a lot of real money being made on these new virtual casino chips.
But, it's really clear from the House Bill, financial sector lobbyists are still running this show.
This is a crime. It's kind of appropriate too that a think tank or whatever they are is called the Roosevelt Institute. Think about how fast FDR and Congress moved on financial reform and it's only because their great work was torn to shreds that we're in this mess in the first place.
if I remember some Wiki's are editable. So I pulled out my old World book Dictionary. Socialism: "A theory or system of social organization by which the major means of production and distribution are owned, managed, or controlled by the Government (State Socialism), by associations of workers (guild socialism) or by the community as a whole, SYN collectivism. Political advocating or associated with this system, the practice of such a system."
To me there isn't a bell that rings once you reach full Socialism but it is a matter of degrees. So if the government ran the distribution of the health care system it would be ownership or just managed by the State? Even though there may not be direct management in a system, it can be managed through bylaws. So the use of law to manage distribution of banking, insurance, etc. is an indirect management by the State. I think a good argument could be made that either through ownership or management the USA has moved closer to Socialism than moving further from it.
I am a blond blue eyed guy and have genealogy to Sweden and Germany. I wouldn't mid visiting them.
This is an interesting article about the Ireland model vs Scandanavian model. The graphs show Ireland was kicking some butt. Just another point of view from across the pond.
"While a poorly performing economy such as Belgium’s was able to create 8% new jobs between 1981 and 2003, Sweden and Finland were unable to create any jobs at all in over two decades. Denmark did a little better because it “activated” its labour market by making it more “flexible.” It became easier for employers to fire people. For workers in the construction industry the term of notice was reduced to five days. Unemployment benefits were restricted in time, while those who had been unemployed for a long time, and young people could lose benefits if they refuse to accept jobs, including low-productivity jobs below their level of training or education. The result is that productivity growth in Denmark is lower than in Sweden and Finland.
These draconian measures reduced the unemployment rate, but did not eliminate the cause of unemployment, namely the total lack of motivation on the part of employees and employers resulting from the extremely high taxation level. Despite the painful measures, the growth of Danish productivity and prosperity has been substandard. Disappointment in Danish politicians is one of the reasons for the rise of the far right.
Why are the Scandinavian countries doing such a bad job, despite their Protestant work ethic and devotion to duty? The main cause is the essence of the nanny state: its very high tax level. Between 1990 and 2005 the average overall tax burden was 55% in Finland, 58% in Denmark and 61% in Sweden. This is almost one and a half times the OECD average."
They've also got the FHA and the Federal Reserve involved in this backdoor bailout of the Wall Street banks. Every government institution is saturated with this toxic waste. Even the TARP was designed to soak it up, but was instead used to buy bank stocks directly.
Yeah, we'll probably devolve into some third world style quasi-fascist dictatorship nightmare, OR cut most of our military budget, start taxing the shit out of rich people and become a more just society with a bit less material comforts for a while but with education and healthcare for all, OR muddle along somewhere in the middle as a former super power with declining living standards for most of us.
At some point in 2008 I remember hearing something about Fannie and Freddie being bailed out by tax payers at the same time that they were knowingly buying up toxic assets from the rest of the market. A light bulb went off in my head at the time: "Ah, they're going to use Fannie and Freddie to soak up all the garbage in the system, absorb Wall Streets losses, leave the bill with the taxpayers and leave the blame with the Republicans' favorite scapegoat and probably reward Fannie and Freddie execs handsomely for going along with it." I don't understand many of the details, but did I get the big picture basically right?
I stumbled on it two days ago, and have not had time to actually sit and read any of the presentations yet. From skimming the site, looks like there's lots of important and useful material there!
And, next month there is the Levy Institute's Hyman Minsky conference!
If this complaint is coming from a "liberal" senator forget about it. He only listens to compromises with or caves to repuglican/conservative senators.
Look at yesterday, "progressives" were pushing hard for the public option on health care reform. President, said 'thanks but no thanks'.
Hi im 18 and my dad hired a lawyer to file the paperwork for the HAMP program and i kinda have a bad feeling about this? Does my dad really need a lawyer? and from what i understand is that the HAMP program offers a misleading "trial payment plan" based upon 31% of my dads income? What I did not get was the negative interest rate that you mentioned? please help me out here...
from where I sit. And not only on the part of Mr. Oak, but also on the part of some others. I have been jumped on big time for saying things I did not actually say - certain key words seem to just set people off and they go apoplectic. Let me admit right away to being a little weak in Econ - I am here at this site to try to remedy that. But I am not weak in my precise use of language, and when I ask a genuine question seeking more information, and when that question is then twisted into a position of some sort, I know there must be a certain amount of baggage (or chip on the shoulder) at work. But I'm still here and I know I should beware of being too thin-skinned. This is not a site for the faint of heart!
Obama put one of the most notorious offshore outsourcers, Diana Farrell in his cabinet almost immediately. He also just appointed another from Honeywell. So, if he was serious about this, I strongly doubt these people would be given such power.
He may end up getting back to what he ran on after the Scott Brown Senate reversal.
He said he would work to stop tax breaks for companies such as Whirlpool getting tax breaks and sending jobs overseas.
This is happening on his watch. Obama could and should be using this as an example to shame Congress into getting this changed. Unfortunately healthcare is using close to 100% of the 'yes we can' resources it seems. Financial reform which in the long run may be more important is getting short changed.
Your post here is an example fo something that would never make the one way street that exists on Kos if it was linked to Obamas election promises. If this was linked to a Republican Senator it would be rec'd to the top.
Thanks for letting me know. I did already correct the major mistakes (which were the numbers, not the graphs) when I came back and saw what I had done, but at least people are reading these. I'm trying to put some insight, past or different from what others amplify or just the reports themselves say, so that's good to know.
I try not to make mistakes, but if I do, I hope someone will alert me to numbers that don't add up or conclusions they disagree with (legitimately).
with the government purchasing trillions in MBS and these two with unlimited bail outs and the government pretty much has the entire residential real estate market on their books.
Just completely unreal and frankly if we do not have Financial Armageddon 2.0 by 2012 I will be very surprised.
I hope I'm wrong but it's so bad, the numbers so massive and now the deficit and debt so beyond belief....
well, it makes me think survival gear and heading up to those remote mountains to live off of the land!
People throw around words these days without any obvious understanding of them. This is especially true of people on the right.
The other day I had a discussion with someone about socialism and he pointed me towards a web site about totalitarianism, as if they were one and the same.
Sweden is socialist. Does it look like a communist state to you? Does it look totalitarian?
The roots of socialism are democratic.
As for "people's movement" that could mean all sorts of things, including Mussolini fascism - the opposite of democratic socialism.
First and most interestingly, it indicates that US accounting standards are lax enough for an entity like Fannie to move "off book" mortgages to "on book" mortgages in a single day and purely for the purposes of gaining government protection.
If they could legitimately do this, then US accounting standards are shot to hell and gone. You literally cannot trust the books of any US corporation because they can hide and revive liabilities at will.
Second, the actual numbers are staggering. If the US Treasury thought they were guaranteeing $200 billion when they gave unlimited guarantees, but in fact were covering at least $600 billion or even more, how can they seriously have any faith in your budget?
Finally, what are the macro effects of this sort of blow out on the US economy? And what does it say about the condition of the housing market?
Much of the market is already underwater.
Seems like a hard rain is gonna fall.
Do you know how many jobs were created in the U.S. in the last decade? A net zero.
What do you think Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are? You also didn't bother to look up a modern reference to see that those are Democratic Socialist States. They are Democracies.
Yes, they have high taxes but Americans pay way more in health insurance premiums and that's what is missing, you are missing the costs Americans pay for the same service. Just because someone is labeled a tax instead of private, doesn't mean it is not a required cost, out of that person's pocket. Overall, they pay way less than Americans do and I'm not talking those with cancer or serious illness, I'm referring to basic health costs.
Yes you should visit those countries and see if for your own eyes. In my opinion they have a much higher quality of life, standard of living.
I also don't know where you are getting those stats, but I do not think they are accurate. The CIA Factbook has a lot of these at a glance.
Now I see that I was reading incorrectly. I've been trying to get over my February month long Pneumonia and sometimes I am medicated.
So if it is peoples' moment, that would include all people of differing ideologies. That would include the downtrodden an like me, those self employed, overwhelmed people, from Local, State and Federal government regulations. To the point that I am sure, each day there is an obscure broken law that gets broken. Ever read the Patriot Act? I have and was amazed at all the things we are to do so that we may be in compliance. Maybe it is just the little 80,000 page IRS code that I could miss dotting an "i".
So I am all for a peoples moment.
I mean Senator Chris Dodd, this is one of the problems, you get a lame committee chair who blocks anything real, he's running around claiming he needs "bipartisanship" and he "has to get it out of committee" and that's why he is doing a real absurdity and claiming to support a Consumer Financial Protection Agency yet magically put it under the Federal Reserve's authority.
What crap. The Fed already has authority for consumer protection and we see how well they have done!
A lot of focus is on the CFPA, it's been under attack by the Banksters since day one, they do not want any consumer protections for any financial products.
That said, to me the real bomb, the real threat is derivatives. I do believe this market has grown, not shrank since 2008 and they are still trying fictional mathematical models with fictional pricing and not way to even validate a CDO (with it's derivatives). I think because it's such gobblygook, few understand them and eyeballs glaze over on how to reform them. There's also a hell of a lot of real money being made on these new virtual casino chips.
But, it's really clear from the House Bill, financial sector lobbyists are still running this show.
This is a crime. It's kind of appropriate too that a think tank or whatever they are is called the Roosevelt Institute. Think about how fast FDR and Congress moved on financial reform and it's only because their great work was torn to shreds that we're in this mess in the first place.
if I remember some Wiki's are editable. So I pulled out my old World book Dictionary. Socialism: "A theory or system of social organization by which the major means of production and distribution are owned, managed, or controlled by the Government (State Socialism), by associations of workers (guild socialism) or by the community as a whole, SYN collectivism. Political advocating or associated with this system, the practice of such a system."
To me there isn't a bell that rings once you reach full Socialism but it is a matter of degrees. So if the government ran the distribution of the health care system it would be ownership or just managed by the State? Even though there may not be direct management in a system, it can be managed through bylaws. So the use of law to manage distribution of banking, insurance, etc. is an indirect management by the State. I think a good argument could be made that either through ownership or management the USA has moved closer to Socialism than moving further from it.
I am a blond blue eyed guy and have genealogy to Sweden and Germany. I wouldn't mid visiting them.
This is an interesting article about the Ireland model vs Scandanavian model. The graphs show Ireland was kicking some butt. Just another point of view from across the pond.
The Myth of the Scandinavian Model
"While a poorly performing economy such as Belgium’s was able to create 8% new jobs between 1981 and 2003, Sweden and Finland were unable to create any jobs at all in over two decades. Denmark did a little better because it “activated” its labour market by making it more “flexible.” It became easier for employers to fire people. For workers in the construction industry the term of notice was reduced to five days. Unemployment benefits were restricted in time, while those who had been unemployed for a long time, and young people could lose benefits if they refuse to accept jobs, including low-productivity jobs below their level of training or education. The result is that productivity growth in Denmark is lower than in Sweden and Finland.
These draconian measures reduced the unemployment rate, but did not eliminate the cause of unemployment, namely the total lack of motivation on the part of employees and employers resulting from the extremely high taxation level. Despite the painful measures, the growth of Danish productivity and prosperity has been substandard. Disappointment in Danish politicians is one of the reasons for the rise of the far right.
Why are the Scandinavian countries doing such a bad job, despite their Protestant work ethic and devotion to duty? The main cause is the essence of the nanny state: its very high tax level. Between 1990 and 2005 the average overall tax burden was 55% in Finland, 58% in Denmark and 61% in Sweden. This is almost one and a half times the OECD average."
They've also got the FHA and the Federal Reserve involved in this backdoor bailout of the Wall Street banks. Every government institution is saturated with this toxic waste. Even the TARP was designed to soak it up, but was instead used to buy bank stocks directly.
Basically, yes, you are right.
Yeah, we'll probably devolve into some third world style quasi-fascist dictatorship nightmare, OR cut most of our military budget, start taxing the shit out of rich people and become a more just society with a bit less material comforts for a while but with education and healthcare for all, OR muddle along somewhere in the middle as a former super power with declining living standards for most of us.
At some point in 2008 I remember hearing something about Fannie and Freddie being bailed out by tax payers at the same time that they were knowingly buying up toxic assets from the rest of the market. A light bulb went off in my head at the time: "Ah, they're going to use Fannie and Freddie to soak up all the garbage in the system, absorb Wall Streets losses, leave the bill with the taxpayers and leave the blame with the Republicans' favorite scapegoat and probably reward Fannie and Freddie execs handsomely for going along with it." I don't understand many of the details, but did I get the big picture basically right?
I stumbled on it two days ago, and have not had time to actually sit and read any of the presentations yet. From skimming the site, looks like there's lots of important and useful material there!
And, next month there is the Levy Institute's Hyman Minsky conference!
If this complaint is coming from a "liberal" senator forget about it. He only listens to compromises with or caves to repuglican/conservative senators.
Look at yesterday, "progressives" were pushing hard for the public option on health care reform. President, said 'thanks but no thanks'.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Hi im 18 and my dad hired a lawyer to file the paperwork for the HAMP program and i kinda have a bad feeling about this? Does my dad really need a lawyer? and from what i understand is that the HAMP program offers a misleading "trial payment plan" based upon 31% of my dads income? What I did not get was the negative interest rate that you mentioned? please help me out here...
I'm not surprised though. No different than placing Larry Summers in there in another sense since Summers and Rubin pushed Clinton on the CFMA etc.
from where I sit. And not only on the part of Mr. Oak, but also on the part of some others. I have been jumped on big time for saying things I did not actually say - certain key words seem to just set people off and they go apoplectic. Let me admit right away to being a little weak in Econ - I am here at this site to try to remedy that. But I am not weak in my precise use of language, and when I ask a genuine question seeking more information, and when that question is then twisted into a position of some sort, I know there must be a certain amount of baggage (or chip on the shoulder) at work. But I'm still here and I know I should beware of being too thin-skinned. This is not a site for the faint of heart!
Obama put one of the most notorious offshore outsourcers, Diana Farrell in his cabinet almost immediately. He also just appointed another from Honeywell. So, if he was serious about this, I strongly doubt these people would be given such power.
He may end up getting back to what he ran on after the Scott Brown Senate reversal.
He said he would work to stop tax breaks for companies such as Whirlpool getting tax breaks and sending jobs overseas.
This is happening on his watch. Obama could and should be using this as an example to shame Congress into getting this changed. Unfortunately healthcare is using close to 100% of the 'yes we can' resources it seems. Financial reform which in the long run may be more important is getting short changed.
Your post here is an example fo something that would never make the one way street that exists on Kos if it was linked to Obamas election promises. If this was linked to a Republican Senator it would be rec'd to the top.
Seriously! Why go after the big fish, with mountains of evidence when you can go chase after psychics!
Just a scream, if only they would go after the 101 pundits out there and as Zerohedge notes, CNBC in terms of stock advice would be a prime target....
Anyone graph out CNBC picks against psychics predictions?
Thanks for letting me know. I did already correct the major mistakes (which were the numbers, not the graphs) when I came back and saw what I had done, but at least people are reading these. I'm trying to put some insight, past or different from what others amplify or just the reports themselves say, so that's good to know.
I try not to make mistakes, but if I do, I hope someone will alert me to numbers that don't add up or conclusions they disagree with (legitimately).
with the government purchasing trillions in MBS and these two with unlimited bail outs and the government pretty much has the entire residential real estate market on their books.
Just completely unreal and frankly if we do not have Financial Armageddon 2.0 by 2012 I will be very surprised.
I hope I'm wrong but it's so bad, the numbers so massive and now the deficit and debt so beyond belief....
well, it makes me think survival gear and heading up to those remote mountains to live off of the land!
"People's Movement" != "Socialism" != "Communism"
People throw around words these days without any obvious understanding of them. This is especially true of people on the right.
The other day I had a discussion with someone about socialism and he pointed me towards a web site about totalitarianism, as if they were one and the same.
Sweden is socialist. Does it look like a communist state to you? Does it look totalitarian?
The roots of socialism are democratic.
As for "people's movement" that could mean all sorts of things, including Mussolini fascism - the opposite of democratic socialism.
i'm reading it - didn't catch your error though
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