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POPSACORN foresaw the foreclosure crisis in 2001
More: Moreover, Oakland's law would have gone much farther than requiring that borrowers could afford loans. In 2001, ACORN officials already recognized that the driving force behind the subprime lending was the ability of brokers to chop up risky mortgages, repackage them with good loans as "securities," and sell them to other banks on a largely unregulated market. When homeowners who couldn't afford their loans later defaulted on them, these securities became widely known as "toxic assets" and were the primary cause of the world financial crisis… But if Oakland's law had been widely adopted, the bailout likely would have been unnecessary and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression probably averted. Why? Because the city's ordinance not only would have held mortgage brokers liable for making bad loans, but also every other bank that later bought pieces of those bad loans after they were securitized. In short, the market for subprime loans would have dried up.
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POPS It's the Spending, Stupid By John Stossel
But the income tax is big and visible, so it's a problem that a growing number of people don't pay, but get benefits from those who do. Frederic Bastiat, the great 19th-century French economist, defined the state as "that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." I don't know if he envisioned one half of the population living off the other half. It's important not to confuse the interests of the taxpayers with the interests of the politicians and other tax consumers. Yet that is done all the time. When the government bought toxic assets (of zero market value) from the banks, it said taxpayers would profit when the economy recovered and the assets once again commanded a positive price in the market. Even if we make the dubious assumption that the government is savvy enough to buy low and sell high, it's not the taxpayers who would benefit from any profits. The politicians will spend every penny, rather than cutting taxes.
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POPSCongressman Kucinich Asks ‘Is the Fed Paying Banks NOT to Loan Money?’ Domestic Policy Subcommittee Chair Announces New Probe of TARP If these reports are true, this raises significant questions about who the Fed is working for. There is record unemployment and businesses and consumers across American are starved for capital, if the Fed is paying higher interest rates on term deposits in order to induce banks to keep money at the Fed rather than lend, it would be an outrage,” Kucinich said. Kucinich recounted for Barofsky the policy path which TARP followed when it was first presented to Congress: “First Congress was told that TARP was for the purchase of toxic assets, to help keep people in their homes. Then the Bush Administration switched the program. “Next Congress was told that the TARP funds were instead needed to bail out the banks, in the form of a direct capital infusion, to keep credit markets alive. “If TARP isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for?
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POPSOur loss is BlackRock's gain Quoting federal banking officials, the Times reported, “They said it was important to do business with experienced mortgage operators like Mr. Kurland, who know how to creatively renegotiate delinquent loans.” Has our president never heard of recidivism?
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POPSour loss is black rock's gain more at source- you may wanna check out..... it did go on to say.....Confused? you're supposed to be- that's the point of a successful hedge fund, a totally unregulated activity in which very rich people pool theeir $ in order to more effectively rip off the rest of us- and black rock is at the top of that game- managing $1.3 trillion in assets...... yadayada..now if that doesn't make ya want to follow the link here- not sure what would....
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POPSThe Best and Worst Bailed-Out Banks If the "market-to-bailout ratio," as we call it, equals 1.0, for example, that means investors driving the stock price up or down have a dim view of the bank's inherent value. "The government injections basically amount to the common stockholders' entire value," says economist James Barth of the nonprofit Milken Institute, which provided some of the data. To pay back the government injections, such banks would probably have to sell assets, which could worsen the situation. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2009/05/05/banks-least-likely-to-pay-back-bailout-funds.html Banks with a market-to-bailout ratio of less than 1 are in even worse shape, since investors are signaling that the banks' value is heavily dependent upon government aid.
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POPSConcerned? Try some HOPE. Concerned that investors are catching on to this scam? Turn loose an official such as Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, who tried this week to give investors hope that steadier consumer spending and home sales, together with those dolled-up earnings results at banks, indicate the U.S. economy is poised to stage a gradual recovery later this year.
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POPSBanks Making Big Bucks Again. People Scammed. It seems to be the same old story of the SuperRich vs. the Middle and lower-classes. The Bush Business Scam, in the last fretful days of his nightmare administration, was to buy "toxic assets," from the banks (their bad loans and bad loan guarnatees) at full face-value and before the ink had dried on the deals the value of the "toxic assets," dropped by 30-40-or in somecases 50%. So, overnight, what the Bush Administration did in it's last days was to pay $100-billion to some favorite bankds for trash paper and we now have $50-billion of trash paper that nobody wants to buy. And they did this several times. Now the banks are making billions in profit per quarter again. All their trash paper was turned into gold and they are getting government loans at near zero interest rates. The excuse that this was necessary to "get credit flowing again," hasn't worked out, though, since credit and lending by banks still continues to drop.
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POPSBailed-out banks eye toxic asset buys The US government policy encourages banks to buy the dodgy securities which they are supposed to be selling by using tax payers money to cover the bad risks which the banks are supposed to remove from their balance sheets. Same toxic assets, except now the taxpayer has become liable for the losses, too. Is this all panned by some evil geniuses, or are people making it up as they go along?
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POPSBubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble Warns "Friends of The Earth" A cap-and-trade plan would create a huge new market in emissions permits at a time when Wall Street and Washington have their hands full figuring out how to police existing markets. One key element in all the climate proposals floated so far is the use of “offsets,” or the ability to purchase emissions reductions made somewhere else. As Friends of the Earth says in a new report, “Subprime Carbon”: Given the lack of proven mechanisms to govern commodities, it is imprudent to so hastily create the largest derivatives market in the world and foist it upon a new and untested regulatory regime. One possible side effect of the financial-market fallout and concerns about more toxic assets? Growing support for a straight carbon tax, rather than a complicated cap-and-trade plan.
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POPSRonald Reagan on Toxic Assets Funny that this cartoonist would invoke Reagan, considering that it was his insane deregulation of the financial industry that started this long ride to recession hell.
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POPSGet them outta there... All these economic advisors: they are the ones who got it WRONG 8-10 years ago ... We need a new perspective on the financial markets and how to get out of this mess...
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POPSChina Takes Aim at Dollar
See previous clip: Obama’s Toxic Advisors China’s proposal may not affect the dollar in the short term, but introducing this issue now is a means of alerting the world this could become a reality. From the article: “Central banks around the world hold more U.S. dollars and dollar securities than they do assets denominated in any other individual foreign currency”. So, we are almost at the point of one world currency already. International leaders are beginning to see an advantage of having one world currency so that fluctuations in one market would not disrupt the rest of the world, as is the current situation. Moving to a reserve currency that belongs to no individual nation would make it easier for all nations to manage their economies better, because it would give the reserve-currency nations more freedom to shift monetary policy and exchange rates. It could also be the basis for a more equitable way of financing the IMF. Russia made a similar proposal just this month
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POPSEU presidency: US economic plans 'a way to hell' To encourage banks to lend again, the government will also pump $1 trillion into the financial system by buying up treasury bonds and mortgage securities in an effort to clear some of the "toxic assets" — devalued and untradeable assets — from banks' balance sheets. Topolanek bluntly said that "the United States did not take the right path.".
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POPSKrugman slams Geithner plan mm I`m no financial whizz, but Krugman is. plus Paul Keating (my hero) and architect of Australias so far sound banking system, said in an article that Geithner is an idiot, based on his performance during the Asian financial crisis
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POPSAmerican Taxpayers To Guarantee Downside Risk On Geithner's Plan Others to criticise the plan include former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt, and Bill Gross, of bond manager PIMCO, who has said he does not believe the plan will be enough to solve the banking crisis. It is understood that the PPIP was only finalised after Treasury officials, led by Mr Geithner, spoke to a number of senior bankers on Wall Street, including JP Morgan Chase chairman Jamie Dimon, in the hope of getting a plan that was workable for the market, following the dismissal of Mr Geithner's earlier attempt to solve the financial crisis. As a result, a number of major banks and bond houses are understood to have already agreed to sign up to the programme, with PIMCO and BlackRock among two investors to have raised their hands. Others remain less convinced.
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POPSThe Geithner Asset Play Now all Mr. Geithner has to do is find private investors willing to "partner" with the feds (Congress!) to bid for those rotten assets Good Luck on that one!
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