I mean I had to learn about derivatives and in some cases, I would have been royally screwed without a mathematics background on top of it. What is disgusting, to this day, is we cannot get reforms on these things which...Jesus, if they can put Madoff in jail forever, one would think these empty gambling quatloos where the newcomers fighting to the death are the U.S. taxpayer, middle class...
could be criminalized.
What bothers me most about Bernanke is his fighting the CFPA and his refusal to disclose who got the $2 trillion dollars in loans.
I still am not in any way convinced the original TARP was even necessary, I still believe it was a glorified disaster capitalism fear tactic to rip off the American people and keep these few financial institutions little quatloos betting game alive.
He was part of that and then he endorsed Greenspan's policies for years, which did so much harm to the U.S. economy...to me the entire housing bubble was a huge cover up while they destroyed the real economy, i.e. offshore outsourced manufacturing, trade deficit ballooned, tech workers arbitraged and so on.
I want Bernanke gone. I was on the fence but the more I see this most interesting public relations campaign to claim he's in, the powers behind that massive propaganda machine....are our quatloo players and thus I want him gone. He's clearly their boy.
Obama administration is now working on "deficit reduction"?
The real reasons the U.S. economy is going down (this is the long slow decline to 3rd world status, not the Economic Armageddon cliff from Q4 2008/Q1 2009) are completely ignored or enabled further...
and we literally have complete economic fiction bullshit out there trying to claim the obvious that is destroying the U.S. middle class somehow "helps the economy".
Great points! Sometime back, I forget now where, unfortunately, I read an article detailing how Bernanke had to call in a bunch of people to brief him on derivatives (evidently he's not too aware of them, nor any in-depth knowledge of securitization --- and certainly not any historical knowledge of it) prior to going before congress to give testimony after the meltdown awhile back.
Yeah, sure, we really need someone like him at the helm....
I've done quite a bit of volunteer political-type stuff over the years (which has all been rendered useless by the present and previous administrations, BTW), so I should be used to this garbage by now, but it truly reaches colossal levls of nauseation when reading about endless types of "legal" and "legitimate" tax evasion by the ultra-rich bandits who are simply not paying their fair share, and certainly don't "earn" their money by doing anything constructive, simply peddling debt on top of debt on top of debt, then proclaiming themselves "doing God's work."
Michael Hudson has laid out a basis for judging our Prevaricator In Chief's State Of The Union Address on Wednesday. It's in two parts, the first of which appeared today both at Counterpunch and Economic Perspectives. Here's the link:
Right Senate, that's right, forget about the massive unemployment, the overall state of the economy, yuppers, just give bankers their personal Fed Chair because OMG the markets might tank for a few days if you don't.
(ignore the fact many are predicting a major market correction since their "green shoots" beliefs are not materializing on the overall state of the economy).
My favorite comment is we do not need Kucinich to run for Pres. we need about 40 Kucinich's in the Senate.
This is really true, although the House leadership has their own corporate/special interest agenda, it sure seems nothing that isn't explicitly written by a lobbyist can get through the Senate, not one little damn amendment.
I think that the elephant in the room is the US military empire. 700+ military bases outside of the US, and us paying the tab for every single soldier and employee. Why not bring these people home and keep them on the payroll but have them do work like rebuilding neighborhoods and helping organize the huge jobs programs we need.
Also the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not cost effective for the lives they save. Every year 40k folks die in car accidents in the US, and 20k people die from lack of medical insurance. Spending a small fraction of what we spend on wars could cut these deaths in half without making a single enemy.
Spending even half of what the wars cost in a year could build enough windmills and solar farms to significantly cut our dependency on fossil fuels(and hostile oil suppliers), while creating millions of long lasting jobs and boosting an industry that is sure to be supremely important in the next few decades.
Well, well, isn't this nice. He banks classify loans by purpose, more than terms, yet.....it's a grey zone he thinks. Your 5+ units is a safe bet to be classified as CRE but below that it's not so clear. If the landlord is living in a unit, odds are it will be classified as residential, but even 1,2 units can be classified as CRE.
Looks like we stumbled into a very interesting definition..
how can one really know the rental market if one doesn't know the actual real tally of rental properties?
This isn't a blog post more of a overview research article.
I'm so glad you're mentioning the "O" word. Ya know, even our trade data refuses to break down "services" so figuring out exactly how many jobs were directly outsourced and then the probably much larger number, how many jobs were created offshore instead of the U.S. is pretty much impossible to determine.
Nice huh? So glad we can look the statistics in the eye and deal with economic reality.
Something else I noticed on CNN today was an announcement of helping with the payment of student loans, which is a great thing! Obama wants to cap student loan payments at 10% of discretionary income and FORGIVE student loans after 10 ten years of public service or 20 years otherwise! Wow! Now that truly is a great deal.
Only problem with this new plan is, I'm already on it! Bush signed that into law more than a year ago, and it came into being in July. I have EXACTLY that deal for all my federal loans. It's called Income Based Repayment or IBR. Now, maybe, he means to include private loans and parent plus loans, which aren't included, but still, that's not a new idea.
I guess part of the middle class assistance program is taking credit for little known loan repayment plans that are already out there? Not a bad idea for someone who can't get his agenda through congress.
This is a superb and sad commentary. Obama is showing yet again he truly doesn't get it. This should not surprise anyone although some of us had some high hopes. As joblessness increases month after bloody month, this or extending unemployment benefits is all he can come up with for the average American worker? Looking at the Republicans we find nothing better. The US is imploding economically and the two party system gave us McCain and Obama as choices.
In Finland, the entire damn country is part of a union. Any legal worker can join (of course those entering the country are not informed of this!). That includes management. This is one of the big problems and maybe a post which compares labor organization of say Finland, Sweden, France, UK, Germany and so on (and btw, anyone aware Mexican Drug Cartels cost over 1% GDP decline due to violence and now they are predicting a larger war....yet the drug trade is over 10% of Mexico GDP AND they have a 50% unemployment rate.....so, bottom line, pointing out what no labor organization does to a nation, including it's GDP ain't too bad of a comparison contrast either)
Anyway, this is what we need I think, every one in the country to be a member of an "American worker" union, everyone. We're not only getting screwed domestically, the U.S., as a workforce is getting screwed globally too.
Ya know all econ data is tied to NAICS classifications and these are well defined, so all economists refer to them for research. i.e. if you do not all work with the same data set, well, analysis will end up being skewed as a result. Gotta do Apples, to Apples (unless of course you're the BLS and dealing with worker data ;))
So, I'm just looking for those equivalents. I mean housing data is a massive part of the economy, so getting a clear cut definition from some gov. stat organization, one would think I could find it! I emailed CR to see if he knows. Just trying to nail this down because ya know, we're trying to understand how come the West is still so damn expensive when nobody has a damn job and of those working, overall wealth, income has dropped dramatically.
I mean I had to learn about derivatives and in some cases, I would have been royally screwed without a mathematics background on top of it. What is disgusting, to this day, is we cannot get reforms on these things which...Jesus, if they can put Madoff in jail forever, one would think these empty gambling quatloos where the newcomers fighting to the death are the U.S. taxpayer, middle class...
could be criminalized.
What bothers me most about Bernanke is his fighting the CFPA and his refusal to disclose who got the $2 trillion dollars in loans.
I still am not in any way convinced the original TARP was even necessary, I still believe it was a glorified disaster capitalism fear tactic to rip off the American people and keep these few financial institutions little quatloos betting game alive.
He was part of that and then he endorsed Greenspan's policies for years, which did so much harm to the U.S. economy...to me the entire housing bubble was a huge cover up while they destroyed the real economy, i.e. offshore outsourced manufacturing, trade deficit ballooned, tech workers arbitraged and so on.
I want Bernanke gone. I was on the fence but the more I see this most interesting public relations campaign to claim he's in, the powers behind that massive propaganda machine....are our quatloo players and thus I want him gone. He's clearly their boy.
fought harder for Wall Street favorite Ben Bernanke than they did for REAL health care reform.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Obama administration is now working on "deficit reduction"?
The real reasons the U.S. economy is going down (this is the long slow decline to 3rd world status, not the Economic Armageddon cliff from Q4 2008/Q1 2009) are completely ignored or enabled further...
and we literally have complete economic fiction bullshit out there trying to claim the obvious that is destroying the U.S. middle class somehow "helps the economy".
Yeah, I'm sure Rat poison cures cancer too.
Ryan Grimm from Huffpost is reporting that Democratic leadership is allowing a 50 vote threshold for Bernanke nomination.
So there you have it a double standard:
Wall Street gets 50 vote threshold for Bernanke.
We get 60 vote threshold for even the weakest of health care reform.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Great points! Sometime back, I forget now where, unfortunately, I read an article detailing how Bernanke had to call in a bunch of people to brief him on derivatives (evidently he's not too aware of them, nor any in-depth knowledge of securitization --- and certainly not any historical knowledge of it) prior to going before congress to give testimony after the meltdown awhile back.
Yeah, sure, we really need someone like him at the helm....
I've done quite a bit of volunteer political-type stuff over the years (which has all been rendered useless by the present and previous administrations, BTW), so I should be used to this garbage by now, but it truly reaches colossal levls of nauseation when reading about endless types of "legal" and "legitimate" tax evasion by the ultra-rich bandits who are simply not paying their fair share, and certainly don't "earn" their money by doing anything constructive, simply peddling debt on top of debt on top of debt, then proclaiming themselves "doing God's work."
Truly stomach-turning.
Mike Lukovich does it again.
Michael Hudson has laid out a basis for judging our Prevaricator In Chief's State Of The Union Address on Wednesday. It's in two parts, the first of which appeared today both at Counterpunch and Economic Perspectives. Here's the link:
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2010/01/state-of-union-junk-...
Hudson is simply outstanding. I look forward to his second part tomorrow.
Geithner is claiming they have to confirm Bernanke otherwise the markets will tank
Right Senate, that's right, forget about the massive unemployment, the overall state of the economy, yuppers, just give bankers their personal Fed Chair because OMG the markets might tank for a few days if you don't.
(ignore the fact many are predicting a major market correction since their "green shoots" beliefs are not materializing on the overall state of the economy).
Long interview on raw story and who can disagree?
My favorite comment is we do not need Kucinich to run for Pres. we need about 40 Kucinich's in the Senate.
This is really true, although the House leadership has their own corporate/special interest agenda, it sure seems nothing that isn't explicitly written by a lobbyist can get through the Senate, not one little damn amendment.
...now if only union members would start paying extra attention to President Obama's anti-union, anti-worker appointments.
Outstanding blog.
oh something that is NEVER mentioned.
Folks, this is a classic post, I'm submitting it to reddit and I suggest you rate it up so others can find it.
Taxes, esp. corporate taxes are so not understood it's the best way for thievery.
I think that the elephant in the room is the US military empire. 700+ military bases outside of the US, and us paying the tab for every single soldier and employee. Why not bring these people home and keep them on the payroll but have them do work like rebuilding neighborhoods and helping organize the huge jobs programs we need.
Also the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not cost effective for the lives they save. Every year 40k folks die in car accidents in the US, and 20k people die from lack of medical insurance. Spending a small fraction of what we spend on wars could cut these deaths in half without making a single enemy.
Spending even half of what the wars cost in a year could build enough windmills and solar farms to significantly cut our dependency on fossil fuels(and hostile oil suppliers), while creating millions of long lasting jobs and boosting an industry that is sure to be supremely important in the next few decades.
Well, well, isn't this nice. He banks classify loans by purpose, more than terms, yet.....it's a grey zone he thinks. Your 5+ units is a safe bet to be classified as CRE but below that it's not so clear. If the landlord is living in a unit, odds are it will be classified as residential, but even 1,2 units can be classified as CRE.
Looks like we stumbled into a very interesting definition..
how can one really know the rental market if one doesn't know the actual real tally of rental properties?
This isn't a blog post more of a overview research article.
I'm so glad you're mentioning the "O" word. Ya know, even our trade data refuses to break down "services" so figuring out exactly how many jobs were directly outsourced and then the probably much larger number, how many jobs were created offshore instead of the U.S. is pretty much impossible to determine.
Nice huh? So glad we can look the statistics in the eye and deal with economic reality.
I have to digest this and write another comment.
Something else I noticed on CNN today was an announcement of helping with the payment of student loans, which is a great thing! Obama wants to cap student loan payments at 10% of discretionary income and FORGIVE student loans after 10 ten years of public service or 20 years otherwise! Wow! Now that truly is a great deal.
Only problem with this new plan is, I'm already on it! Bush signed that into law more than a year ago, and it came into being in July. I have EXACTLY that deal for all my federal loans. It's called Income Based Repayment or IBR. Now, maybe, he means to include private loans and parent plus loans, which aren't included, but still, that's not a new idea.
I guess part of the middle class assistance program is taking credit for little known loan repayment plans that are already out there? Not a bad idea for someone who can't get his agenda through congress.
This is a superb and sad commentary. Obama is showing yet again he truly doesn't get it. This should not surprise anyone although some of us had some high hopes. As joblessness increases month after bloody month, this or extending unemployment benefits is all he can come up with for the average American worker? Looking at the Republicans we find nothing better. The US is imploding economically and the two party system gave us McCain and Obama as choices.
In Finland, the entire damn country is part of a union. Any legal worker can join (of course those entering the country are not informed of this!). That includes management. This is one of the big problems and maybe a post which compares labor organization of say Finland, Sweden, France, UK, Germany and so on (and btw, anyone aware Mexican Drug Cartels cost over 1% GDP decline due to violence and now they are predicting a larger war....yet the drug trade is over 10% of Mexico GDP AND they have a 50% unemployment rate.....so, bottom line, pointing out what no labor organization does to a nation, including it's GDP ain't too bad of a comparison contrast either)
Anyway, this is what we need I think, every one in the country to be a member of an "American worker" union, everyone. We're not only getting screwed domestically, the U.S., as a workforce is getting screwed globally too.
Ya know all econ data is tied to NAICS classifications and these are well defined, so all economists refer to them for research. i.e. if you do not all work with the same data set, well, analysis will end up being skewed as a result. Gotta do Apples, to Apples (unless of course you're the BLS and dealing with worker data ;))
So, I'm just looking for those equivalents. I mean housing data is a massive part of the economy, so getting a clear cut definition from some gov. stat organization, one would think I could find it! I emailed CR to see if he knows. Just trying to nail this down because ya know, we're trying to understand how come the West is still so damn expensive when nobody has a damn job and of those working, overall wealth, income has dropped dramatically.
We should be questioning definitions. Definition of multi-family dwelling as it relates to CRE is not very clear.
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