Comments on: Bailouts to Banks

By: blackbox

blackbox — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:42:03 +0000

The Bailout chart (firefox only)

http://www.editgrid.com/tnc/dave/Bailout_Bucks_to_Banks

By: john haskell

john haskell — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:30:05 +0000

Pro Publica forgot to mention that Wells Fargo needed a $25 billion “bailout” because they bought Wachovia, which was destroyed by the founders of Pro Publica.

By: AGG

AGG — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:18:47 +0000

If the people rob a bank, it is a crime. If Paulson robs the people, it’s good banking. Sure, we’ll have a depression but think of all those mansions in Jupiter, Greenwich and the Hamptons that won’t suffer forclosure. We must, after all, take care of our betters. Who knows, they might get tired of rape and plunder and go back to noblese oblige. Whatever happens, old FDR knew how good banks are at “helping” the economy:
FDR: “…Our basic trouble was not an insufficiency of capital. It was an insufficient distribution of buying power coupled with an over-sufficient speculation in production. While wages rose in many of our industries, they did not as a whole rise proportionately to the reward to capital, and at the same time the purchasing power of other great groups of our population was permitted to shrink. We accumulated such a superabundance of capital that our great bankers were vying with each other, some of them employing questionable methods, in their efforts to lend this capital at home and abroad. I believe that we are at the threshold of a fundamental change in our popular economic thought, that in the future we are going to think less about the producer and more about the consumer. Do what we may have to do to inject life into our ailing economic order, we cannot make it endure for long unless we can bring about a wiser, more equitable distribution of the national income.” (Pam Martens, “FDR Explains the Crisis: Why it feels like 1932″ Counterpunch)
I marvel at the consistency of our leaders in finance.

By: Pat G.

Pat G. — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:55:46 +0000

Note to self: open bank. Mark, I commented on your Bretton Woods II post.

By: Winston Munn

Winston Munn — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:41:38 +0000

I am sorry but you simply must be misinformed – the U.S. is the last bastion of free, unfettered, non-regulated capitalism.

We do not use public funds to bailout losses of private investors. Try China – it sounds more like their style.

By: Mark E Hoffer

Mark E Hoffer — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:16:39 +0000

yeah DL, that was my thought, until I clicked thru: “Here’s our running tally of the banks that have announced preliminary approval by the Treasury Department for participation in the capital injection program.”

and, to clarify, the ‘unseen’ part of my first post, should illuminate how simpleit is to state one’s Financials, contra to the ‘Banks’ being reported on, and, to say nothing of, The FedRes and its duopolistic partner(-in-crime) the USGov’t..
~~

Thanks Frederic~
“In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

By: DL

DL — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:10:35 +0000

What’s the deal with those “cash for trash” facilities that Bernanke is running? My impression is that those are scheduled to terminate at the end of January. Probably what’ll happen is that Bernanke will just keep expanding that operation well beyond January, as long as Obama gives him the green light to do so. No doubt the politicians like this operation, as it “flies below the radar screen”. Assuming, of course that the assets aren’t worth far less than the cash the banks are getting.

By: Mark E Hoffer

Mark E Hoffer — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:10:56 +0000

BR,

these guys stated that they earned U$D 89. on cash balances of U$D 1 450 000. during ’07.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/docs/PROPUBLICA-990-2007.pdf

maybe you could give them a heads-up, and show them how they coud make those ‘dollars’ work a little harder, so they could go even farther(?)..