Gosh he has only been President for a little while.
Give him time! /snark
Posted by daniel at March 9, 2009 08:54 PMHow about our revolutionaries, against the British? Those teabaggers are the example being held up not La Duce. Figures, you'd want to make this linkage. Shame it doesn't fit. Krugman also said our president was dithering the other day.
***
"The basic story line so far is that we are all to blame, including homeowners who bit off more than they could chew, lenders who wrote absurd adjustable-rate mortgages, and greedy investment bankers."
Funny, this is what Krugman believes too. He stated the same on ABC's Sunday morning show a few weeks ago. In fact he stated there were 600 million of us guilty of causing this mess, wanting to include Europe.
And Turkana, your James Lieber piece won't go over too well, these people want to blame former President Bush for this. Obviously James places that blame well before George W. Bush became president.
"In the mid-'90s, though, the credit-derivatives industry was hitting its stride and argued vehemently for exclusion from all state and federal anti-bucket-shop regulations. On the side of the industry were Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and his deputy, Lawrence Summers."
Not Bush folks!!!
"The heart of darkness was the AIG Financial Products (AIGFP) office in London, where a large proportion of the derivatives were written. AIG had placed this unit outside American borders, which meant that it would not have to abide by American insurance reserve requirements. In other words, the derivatives clerks in London could sell as many products as they could write—even if it would bankrupt the company."
Not Bush folks!!!
" While Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Rubin led us into the derivatives maelstrom, deported jobs with NAFTA, and championed bank deregulation so that companies like Citi could mimic Wall Street speculators. After he joined Citi's leadership in 1999, the bank went long on mortgages and other risks du jour, enmeshed itself in Enron's web, tanked in value, and suffered haphazard management, while Rubin made more than $100 million.
Rubin remained a director and "senior counselor" at Citi until January 9, 2009, and is an economic adviser to Obama. In truth, he probably shouldn't be a senior counselor anywhere except possibly at Camp Granada."
Thanks Turkana for confirming once and for all that blame for "inheriting this" lies elsewhere. This James Lieber piece is interesting...Thanks for the exposure. We're in trouble since several of the 'villains' now have the president's ear again. Look what Summers did at that university, they're laying off people after he left. $320 billion in endowments when he arrived...not any more.
Posted by peter at March 9, 2009 09:00 PMPants pissin petey how does one survive with their head so far up their ass? You are an anatomical "wonder", not to mention a plain old asshole..
Posted by headxray at March 9, 2009 09:47 PMPetie, Don't forget to include "The High Priest of Deregulation", Phil Gramm!
You remember the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act. It allowed banks, securities companies and insurance companies to regulate themselves.
Or how about his pushing the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. You know, the one that allowed derivatives transactions, including those involving credit default swaps, free of government regulation.
Which also included the Enron Loophole... damn if Gramm's wife wasn't on the Board of Directors of Enron when if flamed out... yes, Phil Gramm republi-con Senator from your state of Texas... in fact you probably voted for him.
Gramm's ideas on deregulation allowed for the most corrupt Wall St. in History! Be proud fellow conservative Texan!
Posted by Seven of Six at March 9, 2009 09:52 PMHere petie, we never want this economic crisis to happen again... in order to do so we have to understand what happened.
There's plenty of blame to go around for everyone.
peter,
you do realize that obama is trying to clean up bush's disaster, right? he's not being aggressive enough, but your party would be going in a completely different direction. which is sort of the point...
Posted by Turkana at March 9, 2009 10:50 PMFrom the looks of what he calls "a tracking poll" that is the DOW, the markets, he certainly doesn't have the approval of the investing class, some 100 million investors, pensioners, endowments, unions. They are seeing their responsible planning for their kids college, their retirement go down the drain making them more dependent on that safety 'catch' that is Social Security.
Aggressive enough? Their was this rush to judgment to get something done in January, early February. This "Recovery Act", we just had to have it, and now. Now you're telling us it wasn't good enough. Just like that 'rush' to get The Patriot Act, the AUMF. Congress fails again, this time a Democratically led Congress. Democrats just had to top Bush's Iraq war cost on a bunch of crappy supposed 'stimulus'. Do you think the American people are going to bite off on another installment? This one larger than the first.
From the looks of this, we needed a consumer driven stimulus to raise all boats in the world. Not another 'New Deal'. Give everybody a mortgage/rent holiday of a year/two years/three years to spend their mortgage/rent money into the economy. Government can pay their rent/mortgage for that time...even those mortgages in foreclosure. Property values stabilize, banking gets taken care of. People can save up or spend into the economy driving employment up. Now, I have no idea what this would cost, but everybody gets taken care of and no one is rewarded over the others. Limits could be placed at levels, say up to $1500.00 a month in rent/mortgage, we wouldn't want to pay for too many mcmansions now.
Posted by peter at March 10, 2009 04:22 AMJust like that 'rush' to get The Patriot Act, the AUMF. Congress fails again...
After all these years petie finally admits his precious republi-cons (including bu$h) were wrong on these acts of legislation!
Posted by Seven of Six at March 10, 2009 08:53 AMOne of the most infuriating things for a Brit, following the Presidential campaign, was the continual burbling about "socialism", generally from people who didn't have the least idea what the word means. There are, even now, jibes at the British for electing a "socialist government", when Gordon Brown, and Tony Blair before him, are about as socialist as Margaret Thatcher. Then there was that wonderful news item about Palin (remember her?)taking money from the oil companies and distributing it to the Alaskans. Apparently that's not socialist.
All that said, it does seem that something in the American psyche makes it political suicide to pay the least respect to any ideas with a whiff of socialism, so we really can't expect the image-conscious Obama to say "yes" to that interviewer's question. What the USA may eventually learn, the hard way, is that the current economic meltdown came about through blind adherence to an avowedly NON-socialist philosophy.
7: I've been telling people about the Phil Gramm and Enron connection for years.
I noticed the GOP talking points poster troll did not answer you.
Posted by TIKI AL at March 10, 2009 01:56 PMOkay Tiki and Seven, Who signed those Acts into law? What president accepted those Acts? What president could have prevented what has occurred by using a veto pen? "Talking points", Turkana's article, quotes from Turkana's link, yeah, sure...
"The report by a group of economists including Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, says the recently enacted $787 billion stimulus package will fall far short of the Obama administration’s goal of saving or creating 3.5-million jobs.
Zandi said only 2.5 million jobs will be saved or created over the next two years, and told House Democrats that a second stimulus is needed as well as more money for banking stabilization and housing." ABC
And now President Obama said though and aid that conditions have changed since his last statement. Shouldn't he have anticipated conditions changing? This explanation sounds so much like a Bushism. That's not 'change', those aren't grownups.
Posted by peter at March 10, 2009 04:13 PMPants pisser please remove your head from your ass before the lack of air causes you more brain damage..you obviously can't endure much more loss..
Posted by headxray at March 10, 2009 08:28 PM