We keep hearing the BS that the only way to get the jobs back in the good old US of A is with education…..do you believe this snow job?  The bad news, people is that the jobs that have gone overseas are NOT coming back!  It is that simple……

With that said…..the pundits that speak in the media about the necessity for education if the country is to remain in the 21st century is a need that we can meet and in doing so the country will regain its place as a world leading in industry…..

May I please see a show of hands of those out there that believe this?  (pause here for the vote)…..yes….I doubt the validity of such statements…not that the US cannot do it but rather that they, meaning those in governance, do not want it to be so….why?…if education is the absolute key, then why is it not an important part of the so called recovery?

A Public Agenda report, entitled “With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them,” notes that only about 20 percent of US students who start a two-year college program finish within three years, and only about forty percent of those who start at a four-year university finish within six years.

To explain its results, the study notes that the price of a college diploma has more than quadrupled in the past 25 years, while the median family income has increased only 150 percent during that time.

Only 10 percent of students who drop out report that boredom or lack of interest in the classes were significant influencing factors. Most students who left their classes would have liked to stay, but could not balance their curriculum and their financial obligations.

Nearly half of students at four-year universities work 20 or more hours a week. For community colleges, the figure jumps to sixty percent, while more than a quarter work 25 hours or more. These numbers point to the large proportion of students trying to earn degrees without significant help from parents, social services, or the government.

The study observes that the “traditional college experience” is nonexistent for most students. Only a quarter of students live on campus and “attend the sort of residential college we often envision.” Twenty-three percent of college students have dependent children.

Seventy percent of dropouts said they had no scholarships or student loan assistance. By contrast, only 40 percent of graduates reported getting no such aid. The odds of graduating are stacked most heavily against students who do not have parental support and, seeking to avoid a lifetime of indebtedness, are unwilling to take on student loans.

If education is truly the answer to our lack of industry and is truly the only way to revive the sector…then why is education in this country so sad?…..then why do Americans NOT get the best education in the world?….Then why has every president and his groups of criminals done NOTHING to make education more accessible to the people….ALL the people?

Sorry, dudes….but it is more profitable to have an uneducated workforce….why?….they will work cheap….and there is the answer to the question……when Americans work cheaper than their counterparts in Indonesia then the jobs will come home to roost…..but NOT before!

To buy into the concept of education will make the jobs return is delusional, at best….

Once again I bow to the wisdom of the AP….they do it so much better than the rest of us…..I will post the entire report:

Q. Who does it affect?

A. Financial institutions, both banks and nonbanks; homeowners, borrowers and credit card holders; insurance companies; hedge funds; traders in complex derivatives; and securities rating companies.

Q. How would it avoid another Wall Street crisis?

A. It creates a Financial Services Oversight Council made up of the Treasury secretary, the Federal Reserve chairman and heads of regulatory agencies. The council would monitor the financial markets to watch for potential threats to financial system. It would identify firms and activities that should be subject to heightened standards, including requirements that they place more money in their reserves. Companies would have to plan for their own demise, detailing how they would be dismantled if they fail. The government could dismantle even healthy firms if they are considered a grave risk to the economy.

Q. Who would pay for a failing firm?

A. Failing banks are dissolved now by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The legislation proposes that the costs of large nonbank institutions that fail first be paid for by shareholders and creditors. Even secured creditors would have to take a hit, losing up to 10 percent of their security. If the failure still has damaging financial repercussions, the FDIC would tap a special $150 billion fund paid for by large institutions with $50 billion in assets or more, or hedge funds with at least $10 billion in assets.

Q. What are consumers likely to see?

A. The legislation creates a Consumer Finance Protection Agency that would oversee consumer lending — mortgages, credit cards, payday loans and terms on savings accounts. It would take consumer regulation and enforcement powers away from bank regulators. Under current law, states cannot supersede federal consumer laws, but the legislation would permit states in some instances to impose tougher consumer laws on financial institutions. Banks could escape state laws by claiming they “materially” impair the business of banking. Several industries would be exempt from CFPA oversight, including retailers, auto dealers, lawyers and accountants.

Q. What else does it do?

A. It brings the unregulated $600 trillion derivatives market under government oversight. Derivatives are complex financial instruments, such as credit default swaps, blamed for accelerating the Wall Street panic last year. Some companies that use them to hedge against risk from new requirements in the overhaul legislation would get exceptions. Hedge funds, which operated in shadow financial markets, would have to be registered with the government.

Q. What about those executive salaries?

A. Company shareholders would get a nonbinding vote on the pay of top executives. Federal banking regulators would have to approve compensation practices, though not actual pay, at banks and bank holding companies.

Once again the AP did a masterful job of explaining the bill as simply as possible making it understandable to anyone willing to read and learn…..

Oh Please!

Jobs…..Jobs….Jobs!

Are you kidding me?  After a year of losing jobs and economic clout, the White House wants a jobs summit?  Let me see….for a year now it has been important to make sure that the banks get their backing for the gambling …..than to make sure that John Q. Public fed his family…and NOW it is important……excuse me if I feel that this is a bit late in coming….or is it just a response to the political attacks from the Right?

As written by Jerry White wrote for wsws.org:

Indeed, the administration has provided unlimited resources to stabilize “the financial system,” i.e., the bankers who are responsible for the financial collapse. But this has had nothing to do with a revival of lending, let alone slowing the wave of foreclosures and personal bankruptcies. On the contrary, the big banks have used the public funds to extend their grip over the financial system, hand out billions in bonuses and resume the same type of reckless speculation that produced the economic catastrophe.

Obama then declared that the Recovery Act had “created and saved more than a million jobs”—a claim that has been exposed as a wild exaggeration. And even if it were the case, the number pales in comparison with the more than 3.5 million jobs that have been lost since the stimulus package was approved last February.

In reality, the administration is pursuing a deliberate policy of high unemployment and reducing workers to a state of perpetual insecurity. The constant threat of job losses is being used to force workers to accept a drastic and permanent reduction in their living standards and a sharp increase in exploitation. US corporations have already seen a nearly 10 percent increase in productivity this year, as they force fewer and fewer workers to produce more and more.

In other words, American workers must accept a harsh reduction in consumption as credit is reduced, homes are lost, social programs slashed and they are forced to live on much less. At the same time, the labor cost gap with Third World countries must be closed so the US can be transformed into a cheap labor platform to send US exports around the world.

If you believe that the admin is concerned about Main Street then I suggest to take another hit of the bong….you are delusional.  This should have been issue ONE from the very beginning…not some lame promises of a jobs creation that has not materialized….But a jobs summit?  A bunch of gamblers from Wall Street will get together and decide which direction the government will…all the while children go to bed hungry….what a country!

If Americans are not working, then Americans are not spending and it Americans are not spending then consumption sucks…..If we want a good consumer price index and want Americans spending, then JOBS should have been the answer 12 months ago…..not a second thought after throwing billions maybe trillions at Wall Street so that they could continue their evil ways……

It boils down to the truth…….banks had a feeding frenzy at the banquet provided by the taxpayer…..and in return they, the taxpayer, gets the scraps that was left by the banks..is that about it?  What a great thing for the country to do for its revenue base…..

Daily Agitator

Or as I like to call it…the Federal Agitator……

I have heard all the slang….corporate welfare….vampire capitalism….generational theft……you have heard them all also….maybe my memory is a little longer than yours….but it has all been out there for months or longer.  But what are they talking about?  These are all so cute little slogans that mean nothing.  Instead of trying to explain stuff to the public, politicians, economists and others resort to lame labels to daze and confuse….so far they have been very successful.

Let us take it from the top……corporate welfare…..thanx to wiki for the definition:

a pejorative term describing a government’s bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations. The term compares corporate subsidies and welfare payments to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less needy of such treatment than the poor.

Then there is the term “vampire capitalism”….originally it was a Marxists term for the way they saw capitalism working…draining the life blood out of the worker and the economy.  It has been resurrected recently as a defining term for the TARP and TALF.

Then we come to the phrase “generational theft”….one that the conservatives love when attacking Obama and his policies…..The Republican response to President Obama’s stimulus package and budget proposals have been nothing but predictable. They warn us that we are about to “saddle our children and grandchildren with debt,” debt so profound that it amounts to “generational theft.”

But in this case it can be used to describe the money that the government has thrown at the banks….somewhere the grand total will be about $23+ trillion and that would be a huge chunk of generational theft…it stole savings…it stole retirement…it stole school accounts…it lessened the amount of money that family’s have on hand for those important issues…

All this claptrap is leading up to my point…..we should decide onced and for all….when it comes to the economy….we need to be ALL IN or ALL OUT…this teetering between a little here,  a lot there……there is a time, but beyond that we need to be clear on this situation.  Alan Fein writing in the Huffington Post back in March:

First, right now, debt is required. There seems to be a breathtaking consensus among economists that government debt is necessary now, because only government can create the kind of demand that will open the spigots clogged with cash hoarded by nervous banks and investors. A bank is afraid to make a loan to a steel company that would like to modernize and fire up a steel mill, if there are no orders for steel. If the steel company comes to the bank with a government contract for girders for overpasses on the interstate, the bank will loan the money, the mill will light up, workers will get paychecks, and they will spend at the local stores and groceries. Those stores and groceries will hire workers, buy goods from suppliers, who in turn will hire workers and buy goods. All this will flow from building things we actually need.

This economy and society needs for the government to be ALL IN…we either make the necessary adjustment in the economy or we do nothing and let the disastrous decisions of the companies that cause the downturn,  work their magic….

As far as generational theft goes…it is a piece of crap to even hint at such a thing….Fein made a good point:

But there is another reason that this kind of debt is not “generational theft”: Unlike the run-up of government debt over the last eight years, the Obama plan is to spend money on things that will actually benefit the next generation. If we borrow money like the Bush Administration did, and in the end you have nothing to pass on to the next generation except for new bridges and schools in Baghdad badly built by a Halliburton subsidiary, that’s generational theft. If, on the other hand, we build schools, bridges, power grids and infrastructure here in the United States, we are creating wealth and the means of more production that our children and grandchildren will actually use. If we borrow money to repair parts of the federal interstate system so that bridges don’t fall down when our children and grandchildren drive over them, that’s not generational theft. If we borrow money to shore up the levees and wetlands that would protect the next generations of New Orleans-ers, that’s not generational theft.

If the government cannot go ALL IN then their best action would be ALL OUT and we can sit back and watch the recession become a depression and the US become not much more than a 3rd world nation…with all the trappings of the 3rd world….low education, bad health, hunger, no industrial output, etc…..

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-fein/generational-theft_b_172314.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-fein/generational-theft_b_172314.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-fein/generational-theft_b_172314.html

Markets are a yo-yo……foreclosures are rising quicker than the dead in a zombie movie….jobs are flying out of the economy….and manufacturing is at a stand still….so….could things get worse?

The quick answer is ….you bet your ass it can!

Remember all the urgency of the TARP, TALF and ARRA?  If we did not do something we would be in a sad place in the economy…….would the government, the Treasury to be exact, ever lie to the people to get their way or their money, as it were?

Want another quick answer?  Oh, you betcha ass they would!

Now I know someone somewhere, most likely in “Stumpville, Arkansas will dispute that….but I hate to be a buzz kill, but the WSJ is reporting …they did just that….

The US Treasury misled the public over the health of struggling Wall Street banks receiving emergency funds at the height of the financial crisis, creating unrealistic expectations and undermining popular trust in bailout efforts, according to an official audit.

An inspector general appointed to oversee the US government’s banking bailout has singled out president Bush’s treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, for painting an excessively rosy picture of the condition of institutions such as Bank of America, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch when the government pumped $125bn (£70bn) into America’s ten top banks in September last year.

At the time, Paulson described the banks as “healthy institutions” and said that an injection of government cash would kick-start lending in the economy. But officials in both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve had private concerns that some of them were teetering close to a financial collapse.

“The Treasury may have created unrealistic expectations about the institutions’ condition and their ability to increase lending,” says a report today by the inspector general, Neil Barofsky, who adds that the Treasury and the bail-out program “lost credibility when lending at those institutions did not in fact increase”.

He continues: “Accuracy and transparency will enhance the credibility of government programs like TARP [the troubled asset repurchase plan] and restore taxpayer confidence in the policy makers who manage them; inaccurate statements, on the other hand, could have unintended long-term consequences that could damage the trust that the American people have in their government.”

The Federal Reserve’s chairman, Ben Bernanke, and the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair, are criticised for similarly optimistic remarks in the findings, which will add to a vigorous debate about the handling of the credit crunch in the final months of Bush administration.

Paulson and Bernanke opted to pump funds into all ten of the country’s top banks to avoid creating “haves” and “have nots” that would highlight those considered to be in a more perilous state. In doing so, they tried to talk up the condition of every big institution.

Even though a couple of the big banks have repaid, at least some, of the money….they are still NOT stable and the lies of the past could very well come back to bite them in the ass.

I really hate to pee on the parade….but all the “good” news, economic good news, is made up…nothing is making Main Street feel optimistic about the chances of the economy recovering.

The final word is that the banks have done NOTHING to change the way they do business….so the conditions that caused the crash, as it were, are still in place and surviving well.

YES…things could still get worse……….

Politicians have used patriotism for everything from going to war to selling stupid little magnets…..maybe they should try it to sell the recovery of the economy…….China is!

China’s securities watchdog has resorted to investors’ patriotism to help stabilise volatile markets, urging firms not to let diving stocks tarnish the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party’s rule.Brokerages and fund managers have been told their “top duty” was to protect social stability by helping the market keep an even keel, a memo distributed by the Shanghai branch of the China Securities Regulatory Commission said.

“A stable and safe capital market is related to vital interests of investors, stability of the economy and financial market and the overall situation of social harmony and stability,” it said in the memo seen by AFP and dated Thursday. National Day takes place on October 1.

The notice was issued after the benchmark index slumped 6.74 percent on Monday, the biggest single fall in 14 months as concerns mount over slowing lending growth and a new share supply glut.

Analysts have said policy decisions, rather than economic fundamentals or company balance sheets, are often the main drivers in the nation’s stock markets.

If  it works for China will the politicians try and repackage a Communist policy to fit the capitalism of the US?  Interesting question huh?

a paper by the Inkwell Institute

Note:  We at the Institute are a think tank, but unlike other think tanks we try to take a complex issue and boil down to simple understandable words.  Others try to give the average person too much information and then tries to dazzle them with bullsh!t….we try to be a source of education and knowledge…….

There has been a bunch of lip service to the budget deficit….most of it coming from the Right….many Americans are upset with the rising deficit and are concerned with leaving massive debt to their children and their children’s children…..which is an honest concern, but we ask where that concern was when the deficit was swollen with two wars and a massive bureaucracy that was to become the Department Of Homeland Security?  We digress……onward to the deficit……

In a recent report on the approaching deficit:

For 2009, the deficit is now projected at $1.58 trillion. There will be a $5 trillion increase in red ink over the next five years and a total of $9 trillion over 10 years. The long-term numbers are worse than previously forecast.

There will be debate after debate on what needs to be done to bring the deficit down and make it more manageable, at least that will be debate.  But will anything be done and if it is, by whom?

First of all, what is a budget deficit?

Simply put, a budget deficit occurs when a government spends more than it acquires from tax revenues in any given period of time.  See how simple that is?  Why are we going to experience such a large deficit?

The US economy is in the grips of a recession and from the right comes the call for restraint in spending, because they say that the federal deficit is getting out of hand.  But is it?

At a time like we are experiencing, should the government spending be reduced in order to control the deficit and balance the budget?  The best answer is no….to do so in the grip of a recession would be counterproductive.  It would reduce demand and employment and in turn this would extend the recession.

But the calls keep coming for a control of spending, not only from the conservatives but from within the Democratic party as well.  But what would the attempt at a balanced budget do?

First, countercyclical fiscal policy would not recommend that the budget be balanced….why?…you ask…..a planned budget deficit is called for during times of an economical slowdown, like we are experiencing now; it helps create demand the fuel for the economy.  A proper usage of a budget deficit can act as a stabilizing force for the ailing economy.

The Obama Admin is acting in a proper way to help the country and the economy come out of a recession….however they are trying to create demand the wrong way…they are trying to make credit strong again and that is what put the country in this perilous path.  They are trying to create consumer demand by making credit more readily available…not the smartest way to create demand.

Bad timing on fiscal policy and a planned deficit can make matters worse; it can create a destabilizing influence in the economy.  The emphasis on the markets could create that destabilization.  If the consumer is not spending then there will be no recovery.  Easy credit is not the answer we are all looking for to end the economic crisis.

We have all heard the argument that the deficit and the spending being done by Obama and the Dems will make our children’s children suffer and have to be taxed to pay off the deficit that is slowing creeping upward.  Conservatives like to call it “generational theft”.

In an article written for tom paine.common sense:

Nancy Folbre, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, makes the point in an April 2009 article for The New York Times: “Borrowing creates assets as well as liabilities—and future generations will inherit both. It’s the relationship between assets and liabilities that matters most.”

Conservatives often argue from a “generational accounting” frame that says what we spend today our kids and grandkids will pay for tomorrow, but does not argue that the public works projects, health care reforms, education investments, clean energy research and development, and community development initiatives we do today are inherited as well. “Generational accounting typically ignores the value of the government services children will receive as well as the important non-market assets they will inherit,” Folbre writes. “The president’s proposed budget features investments in health, education and environmental sustainability that promise important future benefits.”

Generational accounting is a method of national accounting for measuring redistribution of lifetime tax burdens across generations from social insurance, including social security and social health insurance.

It goes beyond conventional government budget measures, such the national debt and budget deficits, by accounting for projected lifetime taxes per capita net of transfers, which may not be reflected in a pay-as-you-go system of social-insurance accounting.

The latter includes only current taxes for retirees less current outlays. Uses include projecting future taxes and outlays from different prospective current policies. For example, if a fall in labor-force growth from an earlier fall in the birth rate is projected to increase the proportion of retirees to the labor force, generational accounting might examine different projected changes in taxes or program benefits to finance the change. (thanx to Wiki)

Everybody is , especially on the Right, saying that the grown deficit is a form of theft, generational theft.  But is it?  There are deficit neutral ways of spending that are NOT a form of theft.

the deficit might be cut in equal amounts by decreasing transfer payments across-the-board or by imposing an income tax surcharge. The surcharge would be paid disproportionately by younger generations earning income, whereas the decrease in transfer payments would be borne primarily (in present value terms) by older people receiving social security, medicare, and medicaid. This illustrates how the budget can redistribute income among generations without changing the deficit or the government’s capital expenditures.

My point is that the whole idea of generational whatever is a political tool….there is NO way to really judge the effects of the deficit because it will change yearly, if not monthly.  I pass this on to my readers so when they hear the crap being spread about the future generations and the concern….they caqn look at the debate and think of what it really is….CRAP!

Why do I say this?  An easy one to answer!

• Generational accounting is difficult to understand.

• The estimates of taxes and transfer by age depend on limited data and theoretical assumptions on which there is no consensus.

• The future budget projections depend on economic, demographic, and policy assumptions that are uncertain and controversial.

• Generational accounting does not consider general equilibrium feedback effects. In particular, it does not include the effect of current deficits on capital accumulation and therefore on future income.

• The right discount rate to calculate present values is uncertain and controversial.

• Generational accounts have only been constructed for the consolidated Federal, state, and local sectors, so responsibility for the fiscal outcome is diffuse.

• Generational accounting does not assign any benefits to the public from the government purchasing goods and services in order to provide education, highways, national defense, and other services. This is due to the difficulty in making imputations. However, government purchases comprise one-quarter of Federal spending and three-quarters of state and local spending. Because the benefits of this spending are important, the “net tax” is not a true fiscal burden. These benefits can have a major effect on the distribution of economic well-being by generation. Different programs affect different generations differently (e.g, education compared to veterans medical care); and some government expenditures are investments whose benefits occur over many years (e.g., office buildings, aircraft carriers, highway grants, R&D, and education).

Hopefully I need not go any further with the lesson for today.

Speaking of artists’ collections, here’s what started me onto my long love/hate relationship with product packaging. I’ve had it for years so forgive it’s appearance, but honestly, who thought the general public needed to be told how to get the plastic off a slice of processed cheese? In so many ways this little bit of ephemera confirms my long held belief that so much junk we must endure in our lives is utterly useless, and that it clogs up so much of our time sifting through it that it conspires to push the important, tangible stuff to the fringes.

Sometimes I just like to point this stuff out by simply reproducing it before it heads for the garbage heap, but lately in my work I’ve been subjugating it to my will. I encourage everyone to do the same, because therein lies a tangible economic asset many have forgotten about: the will to transform meaningless junk into meaningful solutions.

The first step: Recognizing the junk for what it is.

Professor’s Classroom

Daily Agitation

Subject:  Economics

I attempt to help the reader understand what is what in economics and in politics…I try to make it as simple as possible because others keep it difficult and confusing, that way they keep the American people ignorant of what is being done.

Since the current economic crisis began the American people has been saving rather than spending.  According to many pundits in 2006 the savings rate among Americans was a bout 0% and since the crisis that has risen to about 5+%.  They, whoever they are, say this is a good thing that Americans are scaling back the consuming and have restarted the savings that they had in the recent past.

Any savings in the past was done by those with higher incomes; the poor did very little savings if any.  But if you believe what the pundits are saying then that has changed.  Everyone in the media is proud of the American consumer for its change in ways.

Personally, I think that they are dead wrong.  Why?  The economic theory of the propensity to save is that savings will go up as incomes rise.  Look at today’s economic situation–is anyone’s pay rising?  Yes it is, but it is those that already make the higher wages.  The working poor are not saving, they are doing what they have always done…spend in the pursuit of a life.  So the only good news, if you want to call it that, is that Wall Street is recovering, Main Street still SUCKS!

Bloomberg is reporting on mortgages:

Almost one-quarter of U.S. mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth in the second quarter and that figure may rise to as much as 30 percent by mid-2010 as job losses and foreclosures climb.

I had heard a report recently stating that by 2011 one half of all mortgages would be considered underwater.  The news and predictions continue to be dismal and the government is looking the other way as the American people sink further and further into the muck of the economic crisis.

The plans and hopes of the Obama admin for the people living on Main Street are falling far short of any substantial help.  In an article written by David Walsh:

According to a US Treasury report August 4, mortgage servicers, under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), have offered to change 406,500 loans and have actually modified, on a three-month trial basis, only some 235,000, just 9 percent of delinquent borrowers.

A number of banks that have received billions in taxpayers’ money, such as Wells Fargo, Wachovia and Bank of America, have modified even a smaller percentage of mortgages (6 percent or less).

These derisory figures come in the face of what a representative of the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), in testimony before a Senate committee July 23, called “a foreclosure tsunami, which threatens to destabilize our entire economy, devastate entire communities, and destroy millions of families.”

A July 30 New York Times article suggested that lenders “have little incentive to help homeowners.” It notes that the main impediments to a greater number of loan modifications are not staff shortages and logistical issues, as the mortgage firms claim, but their reluctance “to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans. Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue—fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.

The Times observes that mortgage companies are paid to manage pools of loans owned by investors and typically collect a percentage of the value of the loans they service. “They extract their share regardless of whether borrowers are current on their payments. Indeed, their percentage often increases on delinquent loans.”

A recent paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston concluded, “The rules by which servicers are reimbursed for expenses may provide a perverse incentive to foreclose rather than modify.”

As usual, Banks and Wall Street are the ONLY ones making out in the econbomic crisis.  Homeowners face a dismal future……and as usual, Wall Street is getting richer at their expense.

On another sour note, Reuters is reporting:

The U.S. Treasury Department should consider expanding programs to cleanse troubled assets from bank balance sheets if current efforts fail to restart markets or if economic conditions worsen, a U.S. bailout watchdog panel said on Tuesday.The Congressional Oversight Panel said in its latest monthly report that toxic loans and securities continue to pose a threat to the financial system, particularly for smaller banks that face mounting losses on commercial real estate loans.

Last October, the entire $700 billion U.S. bailout program was aimed at buying up the toxic assets that threatened to bring down the financial system. But due to the plan’s complexity and with market confidence rapidly deteriorating, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson quickly shifted gears to use the money for direct capital injections into banks.

Since then, Paulson’s successor, Timothy Geithner, announced plans to entice private investors to buy “legacy” securities and whole loans from banks. But accounting forbearance that allowed banks to avoid recognizing losses on these assets combined with large institutions’ ability to raise capital after regulator “stress tests” in May reduced investor angst over toxic assets.

Do not look now but it is sounding like Wall Street will get more of your money and you will get the same song and dance that you got last year.  If money is being shoved at someone it should be Main Street for they will most likely spend it and in doing so create demand for goods and services.  The pursuit of liquidity is not doing much to solve the economic problems that Main Street is facing.  It ius however, making those on Wall Street very happy and a lot richer.

Since the economic collapse I have been saying that demand needs to be created not liquidity–for without demand nothing will move in the economy. I even have a page on the subject. We have pumped billions into banks and still not much is happening in the demand arena. We have tried to pump dollars into the infrastructure and again not much demand has been created. Then what shall the admin do to create the demand that is needed to jump start the economy?

Well they had a good start….with the cash for clunkers program. The WaPo is reporting:

Passed by Congress in late June to help the flagging U.S. auto industry and launched just a week ago, the $1 billion program gives vouchers worth up to $4,500 to consumers who trade in gas-guzzling cars for more fuel-efficient models. The highly publicized effort was scheduled to run until Nov. 1, or until money ran out. It was not expected to run out of cash so quickly.

The effort, formally known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS, appeared headed for a temporary shutdown at midnight Thursday. Federal transportation officials became increasingly concerned that the program’s popularity with consumers could drain its budget by week’s end, according to sources familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The government’s “cash for clunkers” program, aimed at boosting stagnant auto sales, is almost out of money, putting its future in question, according to sources familiar with the effort.

Gee, sounds like they created demand…..you think that this could be an answer to the economic crisis? Some of us have been harping on that for a long time and it looks like we were correct in our premise.

Now that is what I am talking about…..create demand and the economy will start working again.  Go figure!

From CNN Money:

The government on Wednesday tapped nine financial firms to manage a scaled-down program aimed at helping the nation’s banks and said it would invest up to $30 billion to get it started.Among those selected to serve as asset managers of the so-called Public-Private Investment Program were BlackRock (BLK, Fortune 500), AllianceBernstein (AB), Oaktree Capital Management, Invesco (IVZ), Angelo, Gordon & Co., Marathon Asset Management, RLJ Western Asset Management, The TCW Group and Wellington Management Company.

Under the program, the government will run auctions between the banks selling assets and investors buying them. The aim is to effectively create a market. The goal is to help cleanse the balance sheets of many of the nation’s largest banks and help get credit flowing again.

The program will start with a government investment of up to $30 billion with the fund managers, who will use the money to buy the toxic securities that have plagued banks for more than a year.

At the time PPIP was first announced, regulators said the program would start with $500 billion of existing assets with the potential to expand to $1 trillion.

But is this the best way to handle the toxic assets?

Barry Grey writing for wsws.org:

The Obama administration is expected to provide more details today of its plan to enable Wall Street banks to offload up to $1 trillion of their bad mortgage loans and other “toxic” assets at public expense.

According to the reports, the plan will have three major components, all of which involve the use of taxpayer money to guarantee large profits for hedge funds, private equity firms and insurance companies who agree to use low-cost government loans to purchase virtually worthless mortgage loans and securities that are weighing down the balance sheets of the banks.

The government will put up as much as 97 percent of the cash to carry out the purchases and agree to absorb 75 percent or more of any losses that might result from the deals. At the same time, the government will expand a Federal Reserve program launched last week to revive the dormant market in asset-backed securities, otherwise known as the “shadow banking system,” to enable the Wall Street billionaires who participate in the scheme to eventually repackage and resell the assets they take off of the hands of the banks at a substantial profit.

As for the banks, the plan will enable them to not only offload their failed investments at public expense, but profit handsomely from a resulting rise in the price of their stock.

Finally, the government will establish a so-called “public-private partnership,” in which the Treasury Department hires a number of investment management firms to buy mortgage-backed and other securities from the banks. The Treasury will match, dollar-for-dollar, money from private investors who participate and will also loan funds to increase the investment funds’ purchasing power.

In all, the plan amounts to a racket in which the federal treasury is placed at the disposal of Wall Street. One question that arises is why the Obama administration chooses not to directly purchase the bad assets from the banks? There are two basic reasons.

All in all, this move sounds like the public is on the hook for the toxic assets and the banks will profit and the people will be left in the dust….yet again.

As I have said in the past…millionaires policing millionaires……

The plan outlined by Obama calls for enhanced powers for the Federal Reserve to oversee big financial firms, both bank and non-bank companies; higher capital reserve and liquidity requirements; minimal government oversight of some hedge funds; a privately-run clearinghouse for some forms of derivative trading; and a requirement that lenders retain a small stake in loans they sell to the banks to be turned into securities.

All of these requirements can be easily circumvented by the banks. Moreover, the political forces responsible for enforcing them are bound hand and foot to Wall Street.

The panoply of existing federal regulatory agencies is for the most part to remain in place. Obama made much of the creation of a new body, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which he said would protect consumers against predatory practices by mortgage lenders and credit card companies. However, this agency will have no new powers beyond those previously spread out among other agencies.

The centerpiece of the plan is a proposal to allow the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to seize and wind down big banks and non-bank financial firms whose failure would pose a “systemic threat.” This is considered necessary precisely because none of the other proposals challenge the ability of banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and other financial firms to engage in speculative practices that are certain, at some future point, to threaten another financial collapse. It amounts to the institutionalization of taxpayer bailouts of the financial system, in place of the ad hoc methods employed in the present crisis.

The comparison of Obama’s plan to the regulatory reforms of the 1930s is specious. In the depths of the Depression, Roosevelt imposed significant structural reforms to rein in the banks and save American capitalism from the threat of social revolution. A cornerstone of these reforms was the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which erected a barrier between commercial banks and investment banks.

Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, during the Clinton administration. That was a milestone in the deregulation of the banks. It was part of a process, stretching back to the early 1980s, in which the US ruling elite has turned increasingly to financial manipulation to generate profit and personal wealth, while dismantling huge sections of industry and waging relentless war against the jobs and wages of the working class.

The result has been a colossal growth of social inequality and the emergence of a financial oligarchy that dominates the political life of the country. Both parties are at the beck and call of Wall Street, and are incapable of enacting any measures to rein in its plundering of the social wealth.

Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have ruled out a return to Glass-Steagall. They have rejected capping executive pay. Nor is there any suggestion of closing down the casino for credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, structured investment vehicles and other exotic forms of speculation that played a major role in the financial crash.

I have been saying the same thing for months and it is good to see that I am not a lone voice out there calling a turd a turd.

Also, let me see if I have this right……a former head of the NY fed has given more and sweeping power to the Federal Reserve?  Is that about right?  The Fed is far from a rational organization and to give them more power than they have now may be a disasterous move.  Everyone in the media is so concerned with the raising deficits, but few are focusing on what is being done behind the scene and that a repeat of the crap we are now in is not that far fetched.

Senior Obama administration officials on Monday said in a newspaper op-ed piece that a landmark financial regulation reform plan to be released this week will target capital requirements, securitization and other problem areas blamed for the global financial crisis.

One proposal, said Geithner and Summers, will be “raising capital and liquidity requirements for all institutions, with more stringent requirements for the largest and most interconnected firms.”

In addition, large and interconnected firms whose failure could threaten the stability of the system “will be subject to consolidated supervision by the Federal Reserve, and we will establish a council of regulators with broader coordinating responsibility across the financial system.”

New reporting requirements will be urged for issuers of asset-backed securities, as well as a rule saying securitizers must “retain a financial interest” in the performance of the asset-backed securities they issue, they said.

Reduced reliance on credit-rating agencies will also be proposed, said the piece.

Addressing another market implicated in the crisis, the plan will urge “oversight of ‘over the counter’ derivatives,” an unspecified “harmonizing” of futures and securities regulation, and stronger payment and settlement systems.

“All derivative contracts will be subject to regulation, all derivatives dealers subject to supervision, and regulators will be empowered to enforce rules against manipulation and abuse,” according to the op-ed piece.

It said the proposals will call for “a resolution mechanism that allows for the orderly resolution of any financial holding company whose failure might threaten the stability of the financial system.”

New rules……same game…different rules……not much will change.

As usual the commentators on the right and the left are throwing accusations around about the final product of the massive spending bills that have been passed.  Yes, it is a personal agenda.  Those on the Right say the media is in love with the Obamas and for that reason they will not report on the down side of the spending programs.  They say there is NO substantial debate on the spending.

The part I love is that, for now, it is that they are concerned with the effects that all this spending will have on future generations…….smile…….as I remember back to the day, future generations were not important when spending was for wars or massive satellite systems or other defensive programs.  I remember being called naive and stupid when I brought this up 20 or 30 years ago.

It is all so much horsesh!t!  These commentators are doing nothing more than justifying their existence.  These dipsticks do not want a conversation…they want an argument.  Again, so much crap in a can.

These people, and I use the term loosely, do NOT, I repeat do NOT, look at what John Q. Public wants.  John is worried about feeding his kids or their health or if they will continue to have a home….he is worried about today the next generation is just a TV show….2025 is too far away for worry and today at 0800 hrs is the most pressing of problems.

Politicians and commentators can piss and moan and sell their little books and boring interviews, but not one has a plan to solve any of the problems of today.  All they have is their egotistical rants and average person suffers and worries while the analysts listen and love the sounds of their own voices.

John Q. Public wants a liveable wage, his home,  health care, education for his children and beyond that is of NO concern.

Thursday, after the markets closed, the government released its “bank stress tests” results.  I have poured over as much info as I could to try and get a grip on just what the hell is going on.

The government’s report states that while ten of the 19 biggest US banks, all of which have received taxpayer funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), require a combined $74.6 billion in additional capital to withstand a deeper recession, all of the banks are at present adequately capitalized and the financial system as a whole is sound.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a statement, “The results released today should provide considerable comfort to investors and the public.” The only basis for such “comfort” is the assurance given by the Obama administration that it will not allow any of the banks to fail and will provide whatever public funds are necessary to keep them afloat.  But with the “good” news the markets still tumbled….so there seems to be some investor that are not convinced that all this test stuff is on the up and up.

The report lays out provisions for the “healthy” banks—such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs—to pay back their TARP money so they can escape the minimal restrictions on executive pay and curbs on dividends and stock repurchases attached to the government handouts. This amounts to a blank check to fully resume the speculative practices that precipitated the crash in the first place.

The basic aim of the stress tests was, from the start, to present a picture that understates the critical state of the banks’ finances in order to justify keeping them in private hands while facilitating the continued transfer of government funds to their coffers.

The entire exercise was devised to conceal more than it revealed.

It allowed the banks to provide their own estimates of their losses, based on the scenario presented by federal regulators.

At the insistence of the banks, it based its loss projections not on the banks’ dismal 2008 earnings, as originally planned, but instead on the banks’ earnings reports for the first quarter of 2009. Most of the big banks jigged up their first-quarter reports—already bolstered by government cash, virtually interest-free government loans and government guarantees on their debt—by means of deceptive accounting gimmicks in order to show healthy profits. They did this knowing that their reported results would skew the stress test results in their favor.

The government held intensive closed-door negotiations with the banks over the parameters and results of the tests prior to their public release. Federal Reserve and Treasury officials agreed to put off release of the test results from Monday to Thursday because, they said, some of the banks continued to disagree with the government’s initial conclusions.

What is being obscured is the insolvency of much of the banking system and the fact that the government intends to expend trillions of dollars more in public funds to prop it up. The banks are hoarding billions in bad loans and securities, refusing to sell them at market prices or write them down, and the government is underwriting their actions by placing the Treasury at their disposal.

Other than concealing this reality from the public and propping up the financial markets, the stress tests are aimed at effecting a further consolidation of the banking system, in which the “healthy” banks absorb the rest, placing workers and small businesses more firmly in their vice.

And still all this concern over the credit and when it will loosen up is just so much camoflage.  But yet with all the cash that has been thrown at banks…credit is still tight and almost non existent.  I ask, just what is all this tap dance about?  It appears to me that it is to save the banks and to hell with the middle class.

Banks are still tightening credit standards for small businesses, but not to the degree they did at the end of last year. That’s according to the Fed’s quarterly survey of senior bank loan officers is just out. More than 40% of banks surveyed said they had raised credit standards for commercial and industrial loans to small firms (under $50M in revenue) in the last three months, but that’s down from 69% in the last survey released in January. This is the 10th straight quarter that a net percentage of banks has reported tightening credit to small firms.

Also worth noting: loan demand is still dropping. More than 60% of banks said demand for C&I loans from small firms was down over the last three months. Banks attributed this in particular to decreased investment in equipment, as well as less need for financing inventory, accounts receivable, and acquisitions.

I am still working on just who will benefit from these “stress tests”, other than the banks and Wall Street.

Here it comes–someone’s 19th nervous breakdown.

Today is the day!  The much anticipated results of the Treasury’s bank stress tests.  Have you been holding your breath until this moment in history?

First of all, just what is a bank stress test?  If you have been watch the tube religiously and trying to figure out just what is meant by the term–you are probably really confused at about this point, right?  We will try to help.

What is a bank stress test?

The stress test demands that banks imagine the worst possible economic news, a so-called “stress scenario,” and then calculate if they’ve got the capital reserves to cover losses.  The results will reveal how much more money the banks really need, probably from taxpayers, to stay solvent and keep lending.

Banks are formulating plans for filling their capital requirements, much of which would likely come from conversions of preferred shares.   While banks are trying to avoid the taint of taking federal funds — and the potential pay restrictions and executive firings that come with it — the government will also benefit by handing out less cash. Not including repayments, the Treasury has about $110 billion left in the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that Congress passed last October.

Any of the 19 banks taking new bailout funds must agree to lend more than before, “to meet the credit needs of their customers, even in a stressed scenario,” said Bernanke in a Capitol Hill hearing.

But there are two big things treasury officials don’t know for certain.   They don’t know whether, instead of instilling confidence, they might actually undermine confidence in banks that fail the test.  And they don’t know if the remaining $350 billion in bailout funds will cover what the 19 banks really need.

Are you still confused and dazed?  Good!  That is what the government is shooting for in this exercise.  The admin is being transparent in this, but the problem is that they obfiscate the definition to the point that no one on Main Street has nay idea what the guys in the ivory tower are talking about.

And then there is a Part 2 to this whole bank thing.  And it will be called a “Debt Test”.

Looks like the Treasury Dept. is planning to offer up a new plan for banks.  The  plan is  to require banks seeking to free themselves from the government’s grip to show that they can survive without the taxpayer aid that has helped them through the recent economic turmoil.  The banks also must demonstrate that they will be able to sell stock to private investors and pass a government stress test to show that they are healthy enough to survive without the taxpayer aid.

Banks have grown eager to repay TARP money as quickly as possible, to rid themselves of compensation caps and other restrictions that they complain has hurt their competitiveness.  Actually it has hampered their greed.

May I see a show of hands of the people that have heard the term “mark to market” and have no idea what it means? (a moment for thought)

What is mark to market pricing?

Loans and securities make up the bulk of a bank’s assets. Thus, the method you use to establish values for these securities when preparing your financial statements affects shareholders’ equity. (Shareholders’ equity = assets – liabilities, remember?) That, in turn, has an effect on a bank’s profit and loss statement.

Mark-to-market accounting sets the value of (or “marks”) the assets on your balance sheet to reflect their market sale prices. In theory, that all sounds nice and clean. In practice, things get a little messier.

When the housing bubble burst, the market for all those mortgage-backed securities vanished, leaving bank balance sheets larded with assets that no one wanted. So at the end of each quarter, banks had to write down billions of dollars of “toxic assets”—even though their value might’ve been artificially, and only temporarily, depressed. But if banks never intended to sell an asset in the current market, they reasoned, why should they be forced to value it as if they did?

Banks are currently required to calculate their earnings, under so-called “mark to market” accounting rules, according to the current market value of the securities they hold, but the new measure would allow them to value assets using their own internal models where the assets would otherwise be sold into a “distressed” market. Banks have argued that markets are not pricing financial assets fairly, causing credit to dry up and exacerbating the crisis.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) voted to let US banks set their own prices for assets in earnings reports, regardless of current prices.

The move, which was heavily lobbied for by Wall Street, is expected to increase bank earnings by 20 percent in the next quarter. Richard Dietrich, an accounting professor at Ohio State University, told Bloomberg News that the decision would allow Citigroup to reduce its reported losses by 50 to 70 percent.

This is what the bankers and Wall Street have wanted.

The announcement sparked a rally on the stock market, led by financial companies. Citigroup stock rose 8.6 percent, Bank of America soared 9.6 percent and Wells Fargo rose 10.5 percent. The rally subsided later in the day, but financial stocks retained significant gains and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a gain of more than 216 points.

According to the proponents of the measure, the crisis is to be resolved by “fairly” valuing the securities held by banks, allowing the financial system to return to normality. By allowing the banks to claim their assets as fundamentally sound, they argue, the panic will subside, banks will start lending, and the economy will gradually recover.

Now, the banks are to be allowed to use the same obscure and discredited financial models to inflate their balance sheets, based on the claim that markets have ceased to “fairly” reflect the real value of their illiquid assets. This is little more than an excuse to line the pockets of CEOs, hedge fund managers and big investors.

Anytime we see the banks post a profit it is not anything but an accounting trick to make it appear that all is well. They are creating profits out of thin air.

So says the Obama Administration.

Really?  This will just have to be an Anal-Ocity soon.

The White House said today that the government does not want to run General Motors Corp., despite GM’s restructuring plan that would give the Treasury 51% of the company.

President Obama has said the administration did not want to manage an automaker, but the deal at GM and what’s expected to be a similar proposal at Chrysler would give the U.S. government great say in both firms.

“This administration and this government have no desire to run an auto company on a day-to-day basis,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. “It is not our desire to own or run one of the auto companies.”

But yet they can fire a CEO, or dictate bankruptcies or choose what direction the company must take.  But they do not want to run the companies….thinking…sounds like it is too late they already are running the companies.

“What the government has told us is that they want us to develop a plan, to execute the plan, to run the business, to be successful, to be viable, and to take care of the taxpayer so the taxpayer gets a return on their funds,” GM CEO Henderson told analysts.

Sorry guys, but I believe it is too late….you already are the boss.

We have all seen the ads on the tube where local business leaders stand around and tell you that it is your duty to help the local economy during this time of crisis by shopping and buying locally.

But where is the incentive for the consumer to do so?  They will go where they save a buck, not because some overpaid spokesperson is saying to to so.

Recently I read an article about the use of BerkShares, a currency printed by some local people in the Massachusetts area.

BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region. Dubbed a “great economic experiment” by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities. Launched in the fall of 2006, BerkShares had a robust initiation, with over one million BerkShares having been circulated in the first nine months and over two million to date. Currently, more than three hundred and fifty businesses have signed up to accept the currency. Five different banks have partnered with BerkShares, with a total of twelve branch offices now serving as exchange stations. For BerkShares, this is only the beginning. Future plans could involve BerkShare checking accounts, electronic transfer of funds, ATM machines, and even a loan program to facilitate the creation of new, local businesses manufacturing more of the goods that are used locally.
Click here for more information about BerkShares.

This is a better idea that needs exploring  if these people are serious about shoppinmg and spending locally.  This concept fulfills all the criteria of shopping locally and helping the establishments.

The problem is that Mississippi is never serious about the local thing….local business do not pay the political bills and buy few friends, real friends.  Coastians need to give with their local reps and force these people to do something for the Coast and its  people and businesses.

I am afraid that my writing is falling on blind eyes….but that is not unusual.

Wells Fargo posted a profit in the 1st quarter of 2009…….same with Goldman-Sachs, the AIG company…….it looks like the economy is beginning to turn around…..Stop!…think again!

A month-long upturn in the stock market has sparked a round of optimistic media commentaries and statements by Obama administration officials suggesting that the US economy is on the road to recovery. But any serious examination of the state of both the financial system and the broader economy suggests that such celebrations are unwarranted.

The surge in the stock market shows that the American ruling elite is confident that the Obama administration will do everything in its power to protect the interests of the banks and finance capital.

But for all the joy on Wall Street, the market remains extremely volatile. Despite the bailout plan, none of the underlying problems caused by billions of dollars of “toxic”, that is, worthless, financial assets, has been resolved either in the US or internationally. Consequently, the market remains highly vulnerable to adverse developments which could see a reversal as dramatic as the present rise.

The latest rise was likewise sparked by a positive Wall Street response to an Obama intervention on its behalf, as the vast dimensions of the next round of the Treasury bailout of the financial system became known. The market rise could well give way to a new market plunge, however, particularly in the event of new financial shocks, like the failure or federal takeover of another large banking institution, such as Citibank or Bank of America, or a major assault on the overvalued US dollar.

All the “profits” being posted by banks that were a month ago failing miserably is a bit suspect….at least in my opinion….it also helps that the accounting of “toxic” assets has changed in the company’s favor.  So it is with a stroke of a pen that there is profit, not the health of the company.  This is just using the new accounting techniques.  These games allow these companies to make something out of nothing.

Wall Street is celebrating the fact that it has, in the Obama administration, a completely reliable and docile instrument of its interests.  And the working class will continue to suffer.  With all the favors that has been done for the banks, there is still NO loosening of credit, as a matter of fact, banks are making it more difficult for consumers to get the credit they need to help the demand curve…..and without that recovery is further away.

Class dismissed.

Ron Paul was question on CNN about the bank bailouts and he had some interesting responses:

“If a gangster steals money and he’s successful, you don’t celebrate. Yeah they might be. This is just going to make the people angrier. They ripped us off, took all of this money, and now they’re making bundles? It’s just an unfair system to penalize average people, inflate the currency and bring on another crisis and undermine the whole system.

So I would say a bank’s success here and there is not necessarily something to celebrate. It’s still pretty early. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet to celebrate banks’ successes. What we have to realize is a lot of people stashed away a lot of money and took care of their bonuses and what not. You’re not going to erase the anger that’s come from that just because the bank made a profit. Like I say, it might make things worse.”

Paul has his rabid supporters and maybe they should go after the leadership of the GOP….at least they have some pretty solid ideas, even if I do not agree wioth them, they are ideas.   A lot more than the present leadership can say.

The tools for your success that are found in the “Yes I Can With A Plan!” systems help you to better grasp your duties and free time. For many entrepreneurs, their lives seem daunting as they try to plan all the necessary steps to be productive. Let’s face it, today’s economic climate demands a workload if you are going to compete. Many people skip important free time that could be spent building their relationships with their loved ones and friends.

The tools in “Yes I Can With A Plan!” can help you enjoy small, tasty bites so that you can enjoy the meal. Imagine getting through all courses and still having room for desert! My plan insures that you also take hold of ever important “me time.” Ahhhhh

Recently in the NY Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin raised some concerns about the role the FDIC will now play in the whole bailout scheme.

The article begins by noting that the FDIC was established 76 years ago, in the depths of the Great Depression, to provide a government guarantee, initially up to $5,000 and now up to $250,000, on the bank deposits of small savers. It describes the transformation of the FDIC, under the toxic asset disposal plan of the Obama administration, as follows:

“It’s going to be insuring 85 percent of the debt, provided by the Treasury, that private investors will use to subsidize their acquisition of toxic assets.”

In other words, the function of the FDIC is being transformed from guaranteeing the bank deposits of small savers to guaranteeing the investments of multimillionaire investment fund managers. And, as the article notes, this is occurring without a vote by Congress.

The FDIC will be insuring more than $1 trillion in new obligations incurred as the government covers the bad debts of the banks. However, the FDIC’s charter limits the obligations it can take on to $30 billion. The Times article quotes one “prominent securities lawyers” as saying, “They may not be breaking the letter of the law, but they’re sure disregarding its spirit.”

The Obama administration, in order to protect the wealth and power of the financial elite, is facilitating and directly perpetrating on a colossal scale the same type of accounting fraud and reckless leveraging that led to the economic catastrophe in the first place.

Who is to pay the price for this looting operation? The answer can be seen in the Obama Auto Task Force’s demands for the liquidation of much of the US auto industry and the brutal downsizing of what remains, combined with the imposition of poverty-level wages on those workers who remain in the surviving plants and the gutting of the pensions and health benefits of retirees. It can be further seen in the administration’s pledge to slash social programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The administration’s “recovery” plan is a barely disguised scheme to preserve the fortunes of the financial aristocracy, whose interests it represents, by imposing poverty and social misery on the working class.

I am truly sorry, but I am having more and more concern with the bailout and just who is to benefit from it.  So far I see NO jobs being saved, few being created, few homes being saved, but yet new home starts is up.

I have given you all you need to know on what is happening, please pay attention and adjust yourself accordingly, if you can.  That tells me that developers are getting the money they need, but the people are getting foreclosure notices.  Is this what the Recovery plan is all about?

To answer the original question, yes…your savings are safe….for now, but for how long will be anyone’s guess.

Class dismissed.