Count on Sequels to TARP (The New York Times)

By Gretchen Morgenson
The New York Times
10/2/10

THE government is pulling a sheet over TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program created during the panic of 2008 to bail out the nation’s financial institutions. With the program’s expiration on Sunday, we can expect to hear lots of claims from the folks at the Treasury that it was a great success.

Such assertions would be no surprise from a political class justifiably concerned about possible taxpayer unhappiness, the continuing economic turmoil and the midterm elections. But if we have learned anything during this crisis, it is that the proclamations emanating from the Washington spin machine must be taken with an extra-hefty grain of salt.

Consider the claims made last summer that the Dodd-Frank financial reform act reduces the threats that large, interconnected banks pose to taxpayers and the economy when the banks are deemed too big to fail. Indeed, as regulators hammer out the rules governing derivatives transactions, it’s evident that the law has created a new set of institutions that will almost certainly be deemed too important to fail if they ever get into trouble. And that means there won’t really be an effective way to keep those firms from taking big, profitable, short-term risks that are dumped on the taxpayers when the bets fail.

Our roster of bailout candidates includes the clearinghouses, created under Dodd-Frank, that are meant to increase the oversight of derivatives trading. Because most derivatives transactions are expected to go through these clearinghouses, they will be “systemically important” under the law. As such, Dodd-Frank specifically provides that “in unusual or exigent circumstances,” the Federal Reserve may provide such entities with a financial backstop, including borrowing privileges.

Remember this: Financial backstop is just another term for a taxpayer bailout. And the major banks and brokerage firms are the members of the clearinghouses, so a backstop would essentially be for them.

According to the Bank for International Settlements, the entire derivatives market had a gross credit exposure of $3.5 trillion at the end of 2009. Obviously, even a small fraction of that amount could represent a sizable call on the taxpayers if a clearinghouse hit the skids.

So much for eradicating too-big-to-fail. Link to complete article

In a Nutshell: Our economy is really an insane asylum run by lunatics (D Sherman Okst)

The Economic Insane Asylum

Submitted by D Sherman Okst on Wed, 25 Aug 2010

In a Nutshell: Our economy is really

an insane asylum run by lunatics.

Common Sense: No problem can be fixed before a solution is formed. No solution can be formed until the underlying problems are clearly identified.

The officials in charge of fixing the economy have not articulated the underlying problems. Worse, many of these officials - directly or indirectly - created or contributed the underlying problems.

It is shear lunacy to expect that the people who screwed up the economy have any chance at fixing what they destroyed.

Identification of the Underlying Problems

Income: Average Real Weekly Earnings, (read: incomes adjusted for inflation), are below what what what they were in 1973. Income wise the average American family is worse off now than they were 37 years (4 decades) ago.

The Dollar’s Value: And it isn’t like we have a stronger dollar now. If we did perhaps we could get buy with less money. No, Uncle Buck is worth 95% less than he was 84 years ago when the “Creature From Jeckyll Island” (read: the “Fed”) came into existence.

Money is supposed to be a store of value. When you boil economics down to it’s core you are left with one law: Supply and demand. Increase the supply of anything and it’s value goes down. Our monetary system is flawed because if it isn’t expanded it collapses and when it is expanded the store of value is obliterated. The Fractional Reserve System is another example of a moronic idea created by greedy lunatics, It was doomed to failure upon inception. Debasing a currency only creates an addiction to debt.

Employment: In 2008 there were about 150 million workers. Today (U3-U6) unemployment is at 22%. The largest problem plaguing unemployment is the fact that most of the jobs lost were jobs that were created because of consumers binging on credit. For instance, in 2008 Americans tapped their home equity for stupid purchases. The best example of this is from Jim Quinn's 2008 article: Consumers borrowed $9,000,000,000.00 (9 billion) dollars (from home equity loans) JUST to blow it on 4 dollar coffees at Starbucks, which has since closed 900 stores. Debt to expand a business or debt to purchase a home is sound debt for an economy. Debt to buy expensive coffees at “Fourbucks” won’t be economically sustainable (as proved by 900 closed stores).

We had a booming economy that was built on a foundation of sand.

Drof/Globalization: (Read: packaging up factories and off-shoring them and the manufacturing jobs that went with them) equated to workers here competing against some poor individuals who make $2 bucks a day in some emerging country that has no work rules or standards). Globalization was an asinine idea. A blueprint for lowering standards here and raising standards there. We can capitalize the “a” in asinine if we consider the ramifications of high oil prices caused by Peak Oil (read: 80 - 150+ dollar a barrel oil).

Backwards: In 1914 Henry Ford helped spur the middle class by paying Ford workers $5 bucks a day (double what the average wage was then). Ford increased the demand for what he was manufacturing by creating a class of workers (read: the middle class) who could afford his product.

Drof: Ford’s plan spelled backwards. Drof is globalization. Removing manufacturing jobs. Borrowing from China et al to replace the lost manufacturing surplus and sticking the tab (read: tax bill for the deficit) on the class you are screwing all while blasting wages backwards by four decades and expecting to have any semblance of a strong economy is an entirely moronic idea dreamed up by lunes.

It is absolutely insane to think you take the blueprint for what created prosperity turn it upside down and expect prosperity. If these lunes were architects they would have built buildings upside down butting roofs underground and basements at the peak of the structure.

Lunatics and we are paying for their insanity now.Link to the complete fix ...GREAT article

Massive Government: The government doesn’t produce anything. Government, while necessary, has an associated cost. The larger it is the greater it’s cost. Our government is now the largest that it has ever been. In no way, shape or form is this efficient.

Corporatocracy: In a nutshell: Corporatocracy has replaced capitalism. I wrote about this in my last article “Why We Are Totally Finished”. Corporatocracy has permitted corporations to influence (bribe and control) the government which then rewarded select sectors for criminal activity. Fraud that led to our economy blowing up. The sectors which literally blew up the economy in 2008 was saved when they should been left to fail. TBTF translates to not regulated correctly to begin with. Nothing holds a gun to our head. Too big means too unregulated to be permitted to grow too big.

Resource Scarcity: As we approach a population of seven billion every resource from water to oil will be taxed to it’s maximum. The driving thrust of www.ChrisMartenson.com‘s "Crash Course" is how economies mine the earth for resources and sell them. Growth of 2-4% per year compounds exponentially proving the economic model of the world unsustainable.

Enron Accounting: Really that isn’t fair, the accounting our government uses would actually make an Enron accountant blush. Our off balance sheet liabilities dwarf our federal debt. All together we have: 13 trillion in public debt, 18-19 trillion if you count the GSE debt (and you should), another 109 trillion in off balance sheet liabilities. 128 trillion between the two.

In Short: Retro wages four decades, rob the currency of 95% of it’s value, take thirty three million jobs away removing as many consumers, do the exact opposite of what built this nation’s economy, make workers work eight months to pay for a bloated government, allow lobbyists to remove voters rights and replace capitalism with corporatocracy, collapse the debt that people had access to use as a bridge between what two incomes bought in and what they need and you can forget about any economic recovery.

Fugetaboutit.

The Fix

The fix is amazingly simple: In a nutshell our elected officials must wake up to the fact that fudging unemployment numbers with bogus Birth Death Models, not counting U6ers or hiring temporary enumerators doesn’t inject money into the economy through consumer spending. Lying about GDP or keeping off balance sheet debt doesn’t fix anything either. And relying on the lunes that created the mess to fix the mess is even more insane.

They need to fire those who created the mess. Pigs will fly before Larry Summers, Ben Bernanke, or Turbo Tax Cheating Timmy Geithner fix anything and everything they broke or failed to regulate.

Then admit we are broke: Everyone but the nitwits on CNBS know this. We spend more than we take in and can borrow put together. Devalue the currency with an official bring us 10,000 old dollars and get one new dollar. All foreign, domestic, public and private would be wiped clean.



KUDOS to D Sherman Okst for a great article and to Zero Hedge for calling the article to my attention! Grandpa encourages all to visit both sites for tremendous insight on the issues facing everyone on the planet and absolutely no CNBC cheerleading!

Financial Sense Site

Zero Hedge Site

Big banks blackmailing the country Simon Johnson

Tech Ticker:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says "it's not fair. It's deeply unfair," that Wall Street has recovered so strongly from the financial crisis while millions of Americans are still struggling.

As we all know, when America’s banking system nearly imploded in 2008, our entire economy was nearly destroyed. Eight million jobs were lost, trillions of dollars in personal wealth evaporated, and bailouts turned our growing deficit into a black hole we may never be able to escape.

Simon Johnson, professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Business and author of 13 Bankers, says it's not only unfair, but that the bailouts Geithner and others engineered for the nation's biggest banks are dangerous. "They (the banks) really feel they're completely invulnerable," he tells Aaron and Henry in the accompanying clip. The prevailing thought on Wall Street is, "if things go badly it’s not your problem," he says.

Geithner, interviewed on the Today Show, went on to say that "what happened in our country should never happen again … people were paid for taking enormous risks. It was a crazy way to run a financial system."

What's even crazier is those conditions have gotten even worse thanks to the Too Big to Fail policy, which Johnson says bankers use as "a form of blackmail" on the nation; any mention of reform, and you'll hear the banks respond, "'oh my goodness, there maybe a double-dip recession.'"

But, isn't Geithner right that the economy would be in a depression if it were not for the bailouts? Plus, isn't the government actually going to make money on TARP?

To that, Johnson says nonsense. The cost of the bailouts are far greater than TARP.

Johnson, who is also a member of the CBO’s Panel of Economic Advisers, estimates the debt-to-GDP levels have gone from 40% pre-crisis to 80% post-crisis. "We've doubled our government debt for what?,” he asks. “Because the financial sector screwed up in such a massive, enormous and stupid way."


NOTE: Grandpa does not endorse Henry Blodget as in my opinion, he remains the slippery little amphibian he was back during the dot.bomb era. Simon Johnson however is worthy of a listen.