Posts
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
Hank Paulson has a plan
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Treasury Department just released a fact sheet related to their plan to save the world. It involves the tidy sum of $700 billion to buy up anything and everything that smells bad now or might smell bad sometime in the future.
Oh yeah, the debt ceiling will have to be raised.
3 comments:
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Trickle Down Tax Cuts.
It has become obvious that this ridiculousness has left the realm of economics and is now a political problem. There is no question but that the Bush tax cut, spending increases and decreased regulations, all financed by borrowing, have allowed the Wall Street oligarchs to game the system in their favor and make an inordinate amount of money (who wouldn't want to pay 15% taxes on 100 million dollar bonus?). But we are well past the point where anybody thinks that this is either right or moral. The question is, what's next? What Mr. Paulson suggests is the largest tax cut for the rich in American history. 1 Trillion dollars of debt relief for the Wall Street oligarchs, financed either by tax increases or inflation, is what is on the table for us. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Democratic candidate for the US president, Mr. Obama, is favor of this solution. The Democratic party has always been the party of the working Joe, so how can Mr. Obama support one trillion dollars of debt relief for the Morgan Stanley's of this world. He is such a big critic of trickle down economics (rightly so), yet he is in favor of trickle down debt relief. Can you just imagine that you had one trillion dollars to play around with. You could give back to Wall Street, who created this mess, or you could spend it as your wish. How many factories, roads, power plants, schools, bridges, solar farms, etc.... could you build? How many jobs could you create with a trillion dollars. How many fiscal stimuli could one inject with a trillion dollars? But Mister Paulson believes the best utilization of our fiat currency is to fortify the Wall Street Oligarchs, "so credit could flow through our system!" This is bull shit!!!!! This is a false choice that is being presented to us!!!! I implore any and all who read my little blog to contact your congressman and senator and tell him/her that you do not want your money to go to Wall Street. Do you believe that is fair that the taxes paid by the brave men and women of our armed services, who put their lives on the line for us day in and day our, be sent to people vacationing on their yachts? If there is any debt relief to be had, let it be had by regular working people who were ensorcelled into taking excessive debt by the oligarchs' sales force. I propose that people have direct debt relief by sending any kind of debt that was incurred from 2003-2006 (or so) to a DRC (Debt Reduction Corporation), and thus 1 trillion dollars of debt relief can be had by the American consumer. Thus, they will have excess capital that can be used for spending, saving or investing. Much of this can be taxed by the government, so they will have a return on investment. I am shocked that Democrats have allowed Wall Street to flim flam them into their nonsense. Please, America, let us unite in this effort to end the Wall Street Debt Reduction plan. They don't deserve it!!!
While being a left-leaning liberal-weanie and otherwise in favor of Obama, I'm also a foreigner and thus have a different perspective.
And I know that if USA doesn't clean up, the rest of the world will clean up USA.
USA will have no functioning financial system left and almost zero banks left, unless it saves the banks/loans/derivatives in question, because the rest of the world does not want to go down with you.
So, of all the options on the table - the one chosen is probably the only one really usable: save the greedy bastards and make those who have the money pay for it (i.e. tax payers on the long haul).
I hate it just as much as anybody else. I pay almost double the taxes compared to an average American, so I know what I'm talking about.
But what other options are they?
Let all banks, insurers, hedge funds and other financial players in the USA go bankrupt?
Downgrade USA debt down to junk bond status?
Make the world stop lending to USA?
Force USA into a depression that makes 30's look like a cake picnic?
And thus, probably force USA to start going to war abroad in order not to fall a part internally (the classic trick from history, used in cases like this)?
Well, that's not an option I'd like to consider.
So I vote for socialization of the losses, knowing full well that it is also US (the foreigners) who will end up paying majority of YOUR debt that YOU made.
Because let's face it, you guys are already technically bankrupt or quite near that point.
So, with anger I accept this plan, unless somebody has a better solution than the total meltdown of the whole financial system and everybody who's dependent on it (including you and me).
Also, do remember, that Norwegians did a similar trick and so did Swedish in their respective banking crises.
They ended up earning money for the tax payers after 10+ years, when the economy recovered.
So maybe, it's not the worst option after all.
Time will tell.
Currently I hate you for what you have done: screwed up the world's financial system. But I'm no better myself - our bankers have screwed up just the same.
Earlier this year they called this sort of thing "Fraud" when Bear tried to IPO a company called "Everquest" as a dumping ground for it's toxic Junk.
Now with Tax Payer's money they are calling it a bail out.
I'd just assume we leave the market to develop these companies, letting private people manage it and inventors decide if we want to invest or not, instead of giving all us no choice in the matter.
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/12/20/barclays-vs-bear-stearns-fraud-or-poor-risk-assessment/
Post a Comment