The financial system established in England after 1688, based on usurious lending to the state by private bankers, is reaching its final blowout in the form of a series of devastating bubbles and a massive bailout of the financiers with public money. But the issuance of money doesn’t have to be in the hands of a private consortium: another credit system is possible.
Posted by smeddum on September 25, 2008
Labor unions protest in New York against bailout
Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:32pm EDT
By Christian Wiessner
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hard hats, transit workers, machinists, teachers and other labor unionists railed against the U.S. government’s proposed bailout of Wall Street on Thursday in a protest steps from the New York Stock Exchange. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bailout protest, New York, no bailout, Paulson | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 25, 2008
Citizens Dumping Personal Junk on Wall Street to Protest Bailout
By Sarah Lai Stirland, Wired.com
Posted on September 25, 2008, Printed on September 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/100230/
An e-mail that began as a rallying cry from a lone journalist to an influential circle of friends to protest the U.S. government bailout of Wall Street has ignited a national day of street protests. Some demonstrators plan to dump their rubbish in front of the bronze bull sculpture near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bail out, bailout protest, no bailout, Paulson | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 25, 2008
25th September, 2008
“Wall Street and the world will never again be the way they were before the crisis,” said Steinbrueck in a speech to the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday, Sept. 25. Write-downs and write-offs of bad credit spawned by “a blind drive for double-digit profits” have so far totaled $550 billion and no end to the crisis is in sight, he added.
The world financial system will consequently become more “multi-polar,” he predicted.
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse, multipolartiy, new financial architecture | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 25, 2008
London Turns Against Hedge Funds in Hunt for Culprit (Update1)
By Caroline Binham and Elisa Martinuzzi
Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) — London is turning against the $450 billion hedge-fund industry that helped make the city a contender for the title of world financial capital. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse, hedge funds, short-selling | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 24, 2008
The great bailout: U of M expert on mortgage crisis says Paulson plan is ‘reverse criminal action’
By MOLLY PRIESMEYER 9/23/08 12:27 PM Minesota independent
For some consumer-rights advocates, the great Wall Street bailout is starting to look like a heist for the ages. Prentiss Cox, a professor of law at the U of M and former assistant attorney general, calls Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s bill “outrageous.” Wall Street was the cause of the problem, he says. “And now they want a bailout completely on their terms? It serves the very wealthy and completely ignores the homeowners victimized by this. It is appalling.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, financial fraud, mortgage crisis, Paulson | 3 Comments »
Posted by smeddum on September 24, 2008
Good ideas and lies New York Times
Daniel Davies, in one of the great blog posts of this era, laid down a key principle:
Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.
He was talking about the selling of the Iraq war, but it applies more generally.
So, this morning Hank Paulson told a whopper: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bailout, economy, failing banks, financial fraud, Paulson, wall street | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 24, 2008
Short-seller with a £1bn bet that British banks will fall
Tom Teodorczuk in New York Evening Standard
24.09.08
A hedge fund named as a major short seller in a string of British banks was defiant today, saying: “These companies are not strong.”
Paulson & Co, run by US billionaire John Paulson, was identified by the Financial Services Authority as gambling that four British banks would see their share prices plunge.
Its identity was revealed after a temporary ban on short selling in 32 financial firms, the practice in which investors borrow shares, sell them and gamble that they will be able to buy them back for a lower price at a profit. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, short-selling | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 23, 2008
U.S. Stocks Fall in Market’s Worst Two-Day Drop Since 2002
By Elizabeth Stanton
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell in the market’s worst two-day slump in six years on concern Congress will hold up a $700 billion bank bailout that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said is critical to preventing a recession.
General Motors Corp., Dillard’s Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. tumbled more than 7 percent after members of the Senate Banking Committee expressed skepticism about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan. General Electric Co., the world’s third- biggest company, retreated 4.6 percent as Merrill Lynch & Co. downgraded the stock on “growing fundamental pressures.” ConocoPhillips and Newmont Mining Co. lost more than 3 percent as oil retreated following a record advance and gold and copper prices decreased. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 23, 2008
Let’s Stop the Greatest Theft in the History of Humankind
By Otto Spengler, Asia Times
Posted on September 23, 2008, Printed on September 23, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/99895/
Why should American taxpayers give US Treasury Secretary “Hank” Paulson a blank check to bail out the shareholders of busted banks? Why should the Treasury turn itself into a toxic waste dump for their bad loans? Why not let other banks join the unlamented Brothers Lehman in bankruptcy court, and start a new bank with taxpayers’ money? Or have the Treasury pay interest on delinquent mortgages, and make them whole? Even better, why not let the Chinese, or the Saudis or other foreign investors take control of failed American banks? They’ve got the money, and they gladly would pay a premium for an inside seat at the American table. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, financial fraud, Paulson | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on September 23, 2008
Paulson Plan May Push National Debt to Post-World War II Levels
By Matthew Benjamin
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Hmmm! What is wrong with this picture?
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion proposal to stabilize the banking system may push the national debt to the highest level since 1954, threatening an erosion of foreign appetite for U.S. bonds.
The plan, which asks Congress for funds to buy devalued securities from financial institutions, would drive the debt above 70 percent of gross domestic product and the annual budget gap to an all-time high, possibly exceeding $1 trillion next year, economists estimated.
“This is sobering, absolutely sobering, even to someone who doesn’t drink,” said Stan Collender, a former analyst for the House and Senate budget committees, now at Qorvis Communications in Washington. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, Paulson, US debt | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 23, 2008
Bail pout the American People, Not Wall Street!
An Economic Recovery Strategy for Protectionists, Dirigists, Mercantilists and Populists.
Webster G. Tarpley
WASHINGTON DC — The grand theft bailout now being rammed through Congress by Treasury Secretary Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and other officials of the Bush regime with the help of accomplices Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and other parliamentarians is a monstrosity for the ages, combining every hideous feature of monetarism, elitism, oligarchism, and sheer feckless incompetence. It is to all intents and purposes a national suicide note of the United States of America, a contract with the devil that absolutely guarantees irrevocable national decline. For any person of goodwill there can be only one impulse at the present moment, and that is to stop this bailout — to block it, to sabotage it, to bottle it up, to load it with killer amendments, and to do everything legally possible to stop this insane design from
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse | 1 Comment »
In These New Times 