Posts Tagged ‘financial collapse’
Posted by seumasach on February 3, 2009
“John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, told the same audience that governments are getting “close to straining the patience of the public and voters” by repeatedly extending lifelines to banks.”
That rare phenomena, the British dissident, emboldened, no doubt, by his exile in Europe and his remoteness from the heart of darkness.
effedieffe.com
3rd February
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said any decision by President Barack Obama to establish a so-called bad bank to rid financial companies of toxic assets risks swelling the national debt.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, financial collapse, stop the bailout | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 3, 2009
Kevin Martinez
Global Research
2nd February, 2009
The two largest pension funds in California, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), have lost billions of dollars in value. Hundreds of thousands of retiring state employees and teachers now face the stark choice of accepting much reduced pension checks or working past their retirement age.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse, pension funds go broke, the states are bankrupt | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 2, 2009
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph
2nd February, 2009
Professor Stiglitz, the former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told The Daily Telegraph that Britain should let the banks default on their vast foreign operations and start afresh with new set of healthy banks.
“The UK has been hit hard because the banks took on enormously large liabilities in foreign currencies. Should the British taxpayers have to lower their standard of living for 20 years to pay off mistakes that benefited a small elite?” he said.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, financial collapse, stop the bailout | 1 Comment »
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 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 in Financial crisis | Tagged: bailout, financial collapse, no bailout, stop the bailout | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2009
The popular lie that the falling pound is increasing UK exports is now exposed before anyone who might actually have believed it.
The UK trade deficit unexpectedly widened to a record in November as the global economic slump hurt demand for British products abroad.
Telegraph
13th January, 2009
The goods-trade gap was £8.3bn, compared with £7.6bn in October, the Office for National Statistics said today. Economists predicted £7.5bn, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 12, 2009
Peter Schiff
Asia Times
13th January, 2009
A few weeks ago when the US Federal Reserve announced a strategy designed to bring down long-term interest and home mortgage rates
through unlimited Treasury bond purchases, government debt staged a spectacular rally.
To the unschooled market observer, the spike may be difficult to understand. After all, why would the value of Treasury bonds rise while their underlying credit quality is deteriorating faster than Bernie Madoff’s social schedule? The move is actually a perfect illustration of the tried and true Wall Street strategy of “buy the rumor and sell the fact”.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bond bubble, dollar collapse, financial collapse | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 7, 2009
Cailean Bochanan
28th September, 2007
The present financial crisis has only just started and promises to be profound and far reaching. It’s resolution can be one that favours the few who habitually monopolise political and economic power or one that favours the many who habitually strive to create some kind of life for themselves. In short, it’s resolution can be oligarchical or democratic.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: ccd, disappearing bees, EM radiation, End of empire, financial collapse, riders of the apocalypse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 5, 2009
Telegraph
4th January, 2009
What did the great radio inquisitor want me to do? Insist that if the Government keeps borrowing and listeners merrily load-up their credit cards during the post-Christmas sales, then everything will be fine?
Well it won’t be. The UK – like most Western economies – is in a grave situation. Our money markets are frozen, denying vital liquidity to millions of credit-worthy firms. Unless the inter-bank market reboots, then even hastily revised 2009 Western growth forecasts – down from 2-3pc a year ago to a 1-2pc contraction now – could turn out to be too optimistic. We face the very real danger of chronic unemployment across the so-called “advanced economies” and widespread social unrest.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse, financial fraud, Glass-Steagal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2009
Sunday Herald
4th January, 2009
GORDON BROWN’S “DECISIVE” strategy to recapitalise Britain’s banks and get them lending again with a £37 billion bail-out, which he claimed has been copied all over the world, has not worked – and the Treasury has no plan B yet.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bailout, bankrupt Britain, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 