Wanna Get Depressed?
Read the last 15 or so posts at Eschaton about the Obama administration’s new plan to throw ever more money in the money furnace.
They are short.
Krugman:
This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.
What an awful mess.
Bottom Line: Obama must think that rich people are the economy. Geither certainly does.
Tags: Obama
Yes, I am depressed about it, but I’m also hopeful. Geithner has been floating and withdrawing versions of the same plan for a while now. So he is hearing the criticism. Now is not the time to give up. We MUST make our voice heard. I know Geithner thinks that he must save the banking system, but he must understand that he is to save the economy, not the banking system.
This FDL post does a good job getting inside Geithner’s head.
In other words, they’re trying to create a secondary bubble. If they can do so they figure they can pay back enough of the money due to improved asset prices. If they fail, the US will be as close to bankrupt as a sovereign country can get, though since everyone else will be bankrupt, too (everyone’s throwing money at the problem) we can all just pretend that no one’s bankrupt, I suppose.
But one way or the other, the rich will have had much or most of their bad debts taken off of them and put onto the backs of taxpayers. Mission accomplished, I suppose. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
Bottom Line: We are screwed. I can’t believe Obama has bought into this utter bullshit. Or..I suppose I can and that is the depressing part.
I’v been trying to keep up. Got through the Dean Baker piece, Krugman and the NYTimes links.
http://www.correntewire.com/ has been hard on the subject too. I recommend ‘Liquidity and risk’ by Mandos
That post points out that there is one…one! mention of this on kos,
We are intent on paying our visa bill with cash advance checks from master card, I `ve done that myself and long term it just makes things worse.
Unfortunately, I’ve been depressed since September. We should have been seriously addressing this problem for the last 6 months. We wasted a lot of time.
Actually there is a solution. It is obvious from comments on this thread that most of you have slid on your homework assignments as assigned by your own lovely Pandora…
You can find the silver bullet here..
http://kavips.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/chapter-10-the-silver-bullet-a-3-month-mortgage-holiday/
It just takes balls to attempt it.. Similar to nuclear fission, the theoretics are in place. Mathematically they make sense; yes it will take an ounce of courage to be the first one to split the atom of the financial world, but the difference it will make in all our lives…. fantastic.
There is code in place. We can stop and rebuild America if we act faster before more businesses close, before more people are out of work, before more pain and suffering continues…
We can fix this.. As always, more supporters pushing it along, cannot hurt…. So, if you truly care about the state of the American economy… duh… start screaming.
lol.
“President Barack Obama says his embattled treasury chief, Timothy Geithner, is doing an “outstanding job.”
hopeychange!
Not sure why people are all bent out of shape about this alleged poor economy. My gun collection has doubled in value and my ammo chache has quadrupled in value in 6 months!!!
Sure my 401 has taken a hit, but the key is to diversify your investments.
Gold, silver, guns, ammo.
Like it or not, if Obama doesn’t wise up about the actions of his cabinet picks, this will be the new economy. Paper money will be worth so little that we’ll have to start importing our currency from Chinese sweat shops because it will be too expensive to print here.
Sound far fetched? We just printed 1 trillion dollars out of thin air. The National debt clock in NY just ran out of space. They first dropped the dollar slot so the total could read up to 99 trillion. The new clock, planned for installation in early 2009 will have the ability to display 1 quadrillion dollars in debt.
Think about that for a sec and see if that cheers ya up any…
While some may bitch and moan while curled up in the fetal position, I’ll be searching out the unemployed who want to sell their gold, silver, guns and ammo so they can pay the mortgage.
Bad investments got us in this mess on a societal level. Wise investments will see people through on an individual level.
At least the Geithner plan is working for someone.
Obama officially sucks now, for me anyway. If he screws this up, he destroys the future possibilities for disparately needed changes in environmental and healthcare.
Depressed? You bet. Obama could do for liberalism what Bush did for conservativism.
Sadly, I agree.
Everybody needs to take a breath. There is no silver bullet solution to this crisis. It’s going to be messy and it’s going to take time. There will be successes and failures.
As far as Geithner… my jury is still out. What I do know is that I don’t want him focusing on these AIG bonuses. That’s a complete waste of his time. And speaking of time, I’m willing to give him some before slitting my wrists.
As far as Krugman… I really like Krugman, although sometimes his approach seems to be “disagree with me and everyone will die.”
And while I agree that fixing the economy and fixing health care go together like chocolate and peanut butter I disagree that they will live or die by the same sword.
No one seems to agree on the core problem with the economy. And without agreement on the problem, there’s not going to be one solution that’ll make everyone happy.
From my viewpoint, the biggest problem is unemployment + health care. Without us middle-class and low-income people at the bottom putting a few pennies into our checking accounts, the banks are going to fail. Without us peons buying groceries at Wal-Mart and Shop-Rite, the food chains are going to fail. Without us buying clothes at Goodwill, the thrift stores are going to fail. Etc…
There simply aren’t enough people at the top to make the economy go – let alone grow. Any Big Fix has to start with getting people to work with the assurance of health coverage. That will start a trickle-up effect.
I like kavips’ mortgage holiday idea, but it doesn’t address the third (!) of Americans who rent. Not everyone is a homeowner.
In the mean time, pandora’s absolutely right. It’s going to be messy. So stock up on Ramen, folks.
One more thought. No matter what Republicans claim, this crisis is not political. We really need to stop playing that game. Labeling Obama as a failure two months in is really pissing me off. Liberals and progressives need to stop being so fickle – nobody said this was going to be easy.
Anon,
The only people who don’t agree that bank illiquidity due to ‘effed up balance sheets containing WORTHLESS assests are the bankers and their enablers, Barack Obama and Tim Geithner.
While Barack Obama and Tim Geithner realize that there is bank illiquidity, they chalk it up to them not having enough tax payer money to gamble with.
Pandora,
Fickle? This policy is madness right out of the GOP playbook and we are all supposed to make like kos and clap harder? Isn’t that what we trashed Republicans for while Bush was making calamitous decision after calamitous decision.
“The only people who don’t agree that bank illiquidity due to ‘effed up balance sheets containing WORTHLESS assests are the bankers and their enablers, Barack Obama and Tim Geithner.”
No offense, but if that sentence had a subject, I might be able to comprehend it and agree or disagree with you.
No offense? Really?
The only people who don’t agree that bank illiquidity is due to the bank’s ‘effed up balance sheets, which contain WORTHLESS assets, are the bankers and their enablers, Barack Obama and Tim Geithner.
Does that help?
… or a verb. Or transition. Or whatever it is. Are you trying to say that the only people who beleive that illiquidity IS due to blah blah blah are abcd?
anon, how about you try arguing the point and not the sentence structure of.
Too, I just have a bad feeling that in their attempt to “do something” (as opposed to repukes who just want to let it fix itself) they are buying into the Beckian theory of “believe in something! even if it’s wrong, believe in it” with. (good enough format anon?)
a. price,
If I can’t understand what jason’s argument is, I can’t argue with it. I’m not trying to nitpick, but dropping words or using the wrong ones can greatly hurt communication.
i understand. he is saying that Obama and Timmy G agree with bankers that illiquidity has nothing to do with the bad assets on the balance sheets. i.e bad assets aren’t a bad thing. It seems he disagrees with that sentiment in that the bad assets have everything to do with the bank being insolvent, and that president Barry and Timmy should change their tunes.
Shorter Geithner: reinflate the bubble
Or as Krugman said “there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets.”
I’m not advocating clapping like kos. What I think is that’s it’s too soon to clap or boo.
Sometimes I have to comment on the fly and the sentences fall short of the normal insightful ninja poetry everyone has come to except from DelawareLiberal.
I think anon gets that but wants to be an PIA anyway.
Oh yeah. “Asshole” is my middle name.
Getting back to the topic at hand – are you saying that a lack of liquidity at banks is the main problem facing the economy??
Just read the Brad DeLong piece via Matt Yglesias. Could this be any more complicated? Thoughts?
I’m not a banker and I don’t even play one on the internet, but I do know one thing.
If I pay my Mastercard bill with my Visa card, I’m rightfully called a moron.
When the government does the exact same thing, it’s called stimulus.
H/T to Tam for the quote.
I just gave myself an idea.
Instead of paying my mortgage, I’m just going to put it on my credit card and then make the minimum monthly payment.
That way, my mortgage is only $40 per month.
I just love being all smart and stuff.
If I pay my Mastercard bill with my Visa card, I’m rightfully called a moron.
When the government does the exact same thing, it’s called stimulus.”
I understand the sentiment, but the govt’s ability to re-coup through taxes certainly beats Discover’s cash-back program. 😉
Howdy Von,
My main beef is that those who made wise decisions and didn’t spend more than they could afford(house, car, vacation, etc) are the very ones who will be taxed to bailout those who were irresponsible in managing their budget.
The whole concept of punishing those with some financial discipline in order to “rescue” those who don’t just rubs me the wrong way on many different levels.
Matt Taibi, Rolling Stone: “So it’s time to admit it: We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we’re still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream.”
And we’re still allowing them.
I guess we are asking for it. Otherwise why would we let the American Dream go out looking like a $20.00 whore?
The american workers pay has not keep pace with inflation for the past decade, the economys been living off of home equity lines of credit for the past 8 years, now that that source of spending power has dried up we are done for. Consumers on average have to many bills and not enough disposible income left to support capitilism, toxic debt is a bill a consumer cannot pay, it`s that simple, we may lose 6 million more jobs this year, as a byproduct of that there will be more toxic assets for the bank to deal with.
In the end it`s the average american consumer balance sheet that will determaine or economic future not the banks.
Jason wrote:
“I guess we are asking for it. Otherwise why would we let the American Dream go out looking like a $20.00 whore?”
Anybody who voted for a repub in the last 20 years was asking for it. Anybody who celebrated the stolen election in 2000 was asking for it. Anybody who supported the Iraq war was asking for it.
Anybody who did any of those things was suckered by the equivalent of a $20 whore. And more than half of America is still in denial, including Obama.
Meanwhile the crooks are stashing our cash making their getaway.
Reports from London, England are that loud rantings can be heard coming from the grave site of Karl Mark. He seems to be shouting over and over, I told you people greed would destroy capitilism.
“Anybody who voted for a repub in the last 20 years was asking for it. ”
Well, now that hopeychange is in the White House and dems control the House and Senate, everything will be rainbow colors and magical unicorn farts now, huh?
Damn, i’m running out of duct tape.
Buy gold dudes.
You have been warned.
I love repubs like kkkaveman who behave like the drunk driver who causes a fatal accident and then laughs at everybody who are trying to clean up his mess.
It`s getting more and more difficult to debate people like kaveman because the demovcrates seem to be following the same policys. I agree with Ralph Nader we have one party the REPUBLICRATES.
Shoey,
Yes. But just on this one issue. Let’s not get crazy. On every other issue there are clear differences between “D’s” and “R’s.”
I,m not so sure of your blanket syatement every other issue Jason, it`s been more like let`s throw them a bone so we can act like republicans on healthcare and the economy. The two most important issues out there.
Don’t lump all Democrats in with Tom Carper and his DLC crew that wants the GOP’s healthcare plan.
Truth is there are more Carper democrates now so our fate is still determained by corporate lobbiests. Who tell the politicians how to make us bend over and grab or ankles and not notice the pain.
Having a ‘D’ or ‘R’ after your name doesn’t say squat about a politician’s stance on any issue. Its only purpose is to create the illusion of information to those voters who don’t bother to look at the actual voting record of the politicians in question.
I mean, Lincoln was a republican, right? That means he hated fags don’t it?
The republicans had only recently broken away from the Democrats when Lincoln won the parties nomination.
It didn’t turn into the party of racism and blind greed for a decade or two after that.
As the quote below shows, Abe Lincoln, unfortunately, like many in his day was a racist:
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
Unfortunately, many in the repub party, including their leader Limbaugh, are still racists.
“I love repubs like kkkaveman”
Sorry, I’m not a republican or a democrat. I’m registered as an independent.
I actually do my homework and look at the voting records of all my reps and those running against them so I can make an informed choice which I feel will reflect my values.
And if you would like to inform everyone here what a huge racist I am, please also inform them of my racial background.
Thanks.