Unemployment almost 10% nationally

[can you hear me now?]

Signed and sent. I was recently out of work and my current job not paying enough so I am still claiming the meager benefits I.can get with a part time job.

 

[ivan3]

Q9 wrote: I ask this every time it's brought up - what deregulation?! Every time I ask, nobody answers. Don't disappoint me this time. I would also like the text and summary of the bill, thank you.

Well, technically, FINRA never did have control over the Over The Counter Derivatives market (thanks in large measure to Larry Summers and Al Greenspan). Ratings Agencies had no real regulation to speak of (I pay you to rate my paper and your fancy algorithms will cause the cherries to line up `triple A' every time). Fannie and Freddie? Pretty much a slush fund for various politicians with no real control whatsoever.

They are still trying to work out a fix for the OTC, in the meantime, hedge your hedges, boys!: http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/publications/r_101025.pdf
One example of how the game was played (SEC fine of 500mill. is small potatoes): http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm

A couple of quotes on the real deal: The first is from Kyle Bass’ testimony before the FCIC (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission) in January of this year. Bass was a former trader with Bear Stearns and tried to warn his former colleagues of what was coming, they gave his advice a pass. Bass subsequently made over a billion during the collapse. The second is a quote from a speech given by the CEO of the Dallas Fed at the ht. of the crisis 9/25/08.

With $5.5 trillion of outstanding debt and Mortgage Backed Securities Guarantees, the quasi‐public or now in‐conservatorship Fannie and Freddie have obligations that approach the total amount of government‐issued bonds the US currently has outstanding. There are so many things that went wrong or are wrong at these so‐called GSEs that I am not sure where to start. First, why were two for‐profit companies with boards, shareholders, charitable foundations, and lobbying arms ever given the "implicit" backing of the US Government? The Chinese won't buy them anymore only because our government won't give them the explicit backing. The US government cannot give them the explicit backing because the resulting federal debt burden will crash though the Congressionally‐mandated debt ceiling (which was recently raised to accommodate more deficit spending). These organizations have been some of the single largest political contributors in the world over the past decade with $200 million being given to 354 lawmakers in the last 10 years or so. Yes, the United States needs low cost mortgages, but why should organizations created by Congress have to lobby Congress? Fannie and Freddie used the most leverage of any institution that issued mortgages or held mortgage backed bonds. At one point in 2007, Fannie was over 95X levered to its statutory minimum capital with just 18 basis points set aside for losses. That's right, 18 one hundredths of one percent set aside for potential losses. They must not be able to put humpty dumpty back together again. If they are to exist going forward, Fannie and Freddie should be 100% government‐owned, and the government should simply issue mortgages to the population of the United States directly since this is essentially what is already happening today, with the added burden of supporting a privately‐funded, and arguably insolvent, capital structure.

http://www.fcic.gov/hearings/pdfs/2010-0113-Bass.pdf

“Even before tackling the task of cementing capital adequacy, we need to bear in mind that the TARP places one more straw on the back of the frightfully encumbered camel that is the federal government ledger. Other off-balance-sheet liabilities were already in place before Washington took on additional burdens from the reorganization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and whatever we realize-which may, after all is said and done, be a positive return-from the liquidation of collateralized loans made through the Fed to Bear Stearns and AIG, and now the Treasury’s discharging of “x” dollars of mortgage-related securities for which there is presently no palpable market. (I say “x” because under the proposal made, the taxpayers’ outlay is not $700 billion; it is the difference between $700 billion and the return earned on that $700 billion investment.)Foremost among the existing liabilities are some $13 trillion in unfunded Social Security benefits and Medicare obligations already promised to the people but as yet unfunded, an obligation that the Dallas Fed staff estimates at a present value of over $80 trillion. The former comptroller general of the United States, David Walker, estimates the Medicare deficit to be less, only $34 trillion, so let’s work with his less-excitable numbers. With everything including Social Security and Medicare properly accounted for, Mr. Walker estimates that “as of September 30, 2007, the federal government was in a $53 trillion fiscal hole, equal to $455,000 per household and $175,000 per person.”

http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080925.cfm
(by the way, TARP, has, for the most part, kept the dollar in the dike)

No amount of deregulation and lowered taxes will dig us out of this hole and it is getting deeper (fewer employed - less revenue - how to pay off that debt?). Those who cannot find employment over an extended period, with no retraining, become unemployable (as happened in Europe in the `80's).

I'll be waiting for another couple of election cycles until the ideological foam gets blown from the kool-aid we're all going to have to drink (pragmatists and nothing more, i.e., Socialist? Capitalist? No, Survivalist). Of course, while the Fed's quantitative easing might make it easier for the banks to retire debt, keep in mind the price of oil is pegged to the dollar (could be looking to expensive gas within the near future and more `change' sooner than later).

Those folks who want to get started on accumulating college credits on the cheap, look into CLEP testing (can usually get those credits validated by taking a `12hr.' semester at a local community college).​

 

[knjinnm]

Quote:
The party of NO says "Hell No!"
Nothing for hard working Americans!
Go belly up on your home and the party of Hell NO! will give the banks another GWB TARP bail out.

 

[knjinnm]

Quote:
Or NOT extend benefits but cut taxes AND spending across the board, thereby allowing the economy to function and repair itself properly.

Of course, that's WAY too easy. Gotta fix it with tax money!

Sooo ... cut where?

Military industrial complex?
Close 99% of the 900+ foreign military bases?

Hell No!

 

[knjinnm]

Sooo ... Do you believe the new congress will give up their Gold Plated Life Time Health and Pension Benefits "We the Small People" PAY FOR?

HELL NO!

 

[deerman]

How about the trip plan for our president to go to India .....cost only 200 million a DAY...that trip will cost the taxpayers 1.8 BILLION . Yes I know both party spend money like crazy....This is what I mean about Tax and spend.....Does he really need to go.....NOOOOOOO

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

I would really like to know how doing more for the small businesses in our country is going to put an end to unemployment. Instead of trying new ways to bring back our industries and jput americans back to work they would rather bolster the small business man who only hires a few people and can not pay what larger industries do. I have nothing against small business I just dont believe that that is the answer to our unemployment issues If they would get their heads out of wall street and into the main stream maybe they could see clearer./

 

[deerman]

Quote:
The Small Businesses of today become the big businesses of tomorrow. Steel Co. I work for start with 800.00 and loan on his car. Employ more than 8,000 people now. Great Co to work for , also share the profits.

One of the biggest trucking co. here . He started with a moving van.....now known as R&L Truck lines. Thats how....

 

[ivan3]

Looks like the election might have done little beyond keeping the pigs at the trough (Goldman Sachs for example): http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A403220101105

(not that there is anything wrong with being a pig, but squealing about the ring in one's snout should be sufficient cause to process said pig into bacon) imho

 

[Dunkopf]

Quote:
200 million per day for a trip to India? Give yourself more credit than that. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Wherever you got that info from. Delete the sight or don't ever listen to them again.