Archive for the ‘Financial crisis’ Category
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 seumasach on February 2, 2009
January 28, 2009 “Information Clearinghouse“ — California State Controller John Chiang announced on January 26 that California’s bills exceed its tax revenues and credit line and that the state is going to print its own money known as IOUs. The template is already designed.
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Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Counterpunch
30th January, 2009
Using the “too big to fail” scare tactic, the U.S. government has kept a number of terminally ill Wall Street gamblers on an expensive life-support system that is estimated to cost taxpayers $8.5 trillion [1]. In light of the fact that (according to IRS Data Book) there were 138 million taxpayers in 2007, this figure represents a burden of $61,594.20 per tax payer. Or, to put it differently, it represents a burden of $28,333.33 per man, woman and child for the entire U.S. population.
This massive giveaway of public money has been devoted to a wide range of fraudulent programs, including asset purchases of insolvent institutions, loans and loan guarantees, equity purchases in troubled financial companies, tax breaks for banks, assistance to a relatively small number of struggling homeowners, and a currency stabilization fund.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, financial collapse, stop the bailout | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
Counterpunch
30th January, 2009
First, here’s the silhouette of the giveaway, as outlined Thursday in the New York Times:
“Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Wednesday the administration is working on a comprehensive plan to “repair the financial system.” … bank stocks surged on hopes the government was moving toward creating a “bad bank” to purge toxic assets from balance sheets that are rapidly deteriorating as the economy worsens… administration officials believe that trillions of dollars more may be needed to buy the majority of bad assets from banks. …
“The concept of a bad bank has gained momentum in the financial industry as the economy deteriorates, slashing the value of risky assets on banks’ books and increasing the need for banks to hold capital against those losses. Shares in Citigroup and Bank of America, which both recently received a second taxpayer lifeline, surged 19 percent and 14 percent respectively as the stock market rose on optimism that the administration would relieve banks of money-losing assets.”
“Geithner Says Plan for Banks Is in the Works”, By Stephen Labaton and Edmund L. Andrews, The New York Times, January 29, 2009.
After (1) threatening for eight years that the prospect of a trillion-dollar deficit spread over a generation or so is sufficient reason to stiff Social Security recipients and abolish debts to the nation’s retirees, and (2) after the Bush administration provided $8 trillion over the past three months in cash-for-trash swaps of good Treasury bonds for Wall Street junk derivatives, the Obama Administration is now speaking of (3) some $2 to $4 trillion more to be given in just the next week or so.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse, Obama agenda, stop the bailout | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
“The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.”
“In our opinion, the economy of the future must become an economy of real values. How to achieve this is not so clear-cut. Let us think about it together.’
“Excessive dependence on a single reserve currency is dangerous for the global economy. Consequently, it would be sensible to encourage the objective process of creating several strong reserve currencies in the future. It is high time we launched a detailed discussion of methods to facilitate a smooth and irreversible switchover to the new model”.
Putin’s speech represents a clear counter-blast to Brown madness and the continuing Anglo-saxon drive for global hegemony. This globalism without hegemonism makes perfect sense for the Russians, just as it does for the Chinese, the Indians and the South Americans, none of whom have the remotest chance of becoming hegemons themselves, yet will not submit to Anglo-american power and have all to gain from an equitable, cooperative international system.
Global Research
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland January 28, 2009
Good afternoon, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank the forum’s organisers for this opportunity to share my thoughts on global economic developments and to share our plans and proposals.
The world is now facing the first truly global economic crisis, which is continuing to develop at an unprecedented pace.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: alternative globalisation, World Economic Forum | 2 Comments »
Posted by smeddum on January 31, 2009
These two articles are sending mixed signals. It was a strange introduction in that I read both of them just before
I came across this New York times article: that set the tone
retrospectively.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16951
http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/long-slump-in-aust-because-marx-ignored-2457506
The Socialist Worker says
“Banks were among the institutions that bought the debts but they were also involved in speculating on the value of them.
As it became clear that the debts were a riskier investment than previously believed, fear gripped the financial sector.”
Professor Steve Keen quotes Marx.
“The credit system, which has its focus in the so-called national banks and the big-money lenders and usurers surrounding them, constitutes enormous centralisation, and gives this class of parasites the fabulous power, not only to periodically despoil industrial capitalists, but also to interfere in actual production in a most dangerous manner – and this gang knows nothing about production and has nothing to do with it,” Marx’s words published 11 years after his death said.”
This “fear gripped financial sector” versus “this class of parasites with fabulous power”.
Is this a shift of emphasis or is it that the SWP have decriminalized institutions? And is this mistake born in the aftermath of 9/11. An event that said more about “fabulous power” than the luck of a one off terrorist cell.
Published: January 30, 2009
There was none of the old swagger at Citigroup headquarters on Friday. The bonus checks had landed — and some of the bankers were grumbling.
Illustration by The New York Times
Many of those walking to work on Wall Street in Manhattan are walking away with less bonus pay because of outside pressure.
After a year of yawning losses at the company, employees lamented that times were getting lean. The giant bank, the recipient of two multibillion-dollar rescues from Washington, had paid out only about $4 billion in bonuses. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by smeddum on January 29, 2009
REYKJAVIK, Jan 28 (
Reuters) – Senior members of Icelandic political parties trying to form a new coalition said on Wednesday they were making progress and one of their first tasks would be to overhaul the central bank board of governors.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt iceland, Revolution in Iceland | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on January 29, 2009
date: 27 January 2009
Thursday 29 January 2009
TUC
The TUC is today (Thursday) calling on the Government to make the banks in which it has shares or who are receiving assistance from the Bank of England fully reveal their tax haven activities. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by smeddum on January 28, 2009
Over the months I have told my colleagues at Channel 4 and the Royal Society of Arts that this is not just a financial hiccup, or something happening to the City and Wall Street. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by seumasach on January 28, 2009
Andrew Hughes
Global Research
27th January, 2009
Idiocy is usually described as “endlessly repeating the same process, hoping for a different result”. Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden et al are straining at the leash to get the Bailout Ball rolling once again. The stabilization of the financial sector, as elusive as it has been so far, has become the Holy Grail of Economic salvation. That makes $8.5 Trillion worth of trying and $0 of result. The Knights of the Oval Table are gathered to plan their mission as their beleaguered subjects are trying to batter down the castle gates. It’s no small wonder that Geithner wants to get the money out the door as soon as the end of this week.
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Posted by smeddum on January 27, 2009
“The deeply held view that Britain’s economy is a cut above Europe’s is about to take a terrible battering.”
Monday, 26 January 2009
Independent
The confirmation last week that Britain has now officially entered a recession came as no surprise. But we have to recognise that the current economic crisis is not just another phase in the economic cycle. The depth of the turmoil in our financial system marks the end of an economic model maintained under both Conservative and Labour governments since the early 1980s: light regulation, dependence on debt, and over-reliance on financial services. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: join the euro! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 27, 2009
“Our only hope now is a peaceful transition from a corrupt plutocracy to the responsible liberal democracy we had fooled ourselves into believing we already had.”
Concealed within the forms and norms of Western democracy lurk “a small group of megalomaniacs” ,”a corrupt plutocracy” who subvert its workings. The revolution in the West consists in large part of the removal of these miscreants from all proximity to the reins of power.
Iris Erlingsdottir
Huffingdon Post
23rd January, 2009
Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde, leader of the Independence Party, announced at a press conference today that he was stepping down for health reasons and called for parliamentary elections on May 9th. Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, leader of the Social Democratic Alliance, which formed the other faction in the ruling coalition government, also stated that she favored spring elections.
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Posted in Financial crisis, Revolution in Iceland | Tagged: bankrupt iceland, Iceland, Revolution in Iceland | 1 Comment »
In These New Times 