great article on the disconnect between wall street and main street (Representatives, Congress)

[floridasandy]

My Budget 360

U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve are suddenly neo-Keynesians but only when it comes to saving themselves, which is convenient. If you think of the stimulus plan for example, it was passed in February and had a price tag of $789 billion. This may seem gigantic but compared to the $13.5 trillion banking and Wall Street bail out it is relatively small.

The road to financial serfdom is paved with bad intentions here. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve are operating under the premise of “what is good for Wall Street is good for America.” It is not. When are we going to investigate Wall Street with a strong arm? And don’t you think it would make sense to investigate why things failed before committing $13.5 TRILLION to the cause? Interesting how they already know how much money they need right? That is why you shouldn’t be surprised when you get reamed with another trillion for commercial real estate, more trillions in bad toxic mortgage debt, and the government running to bail out Wall Street for bad bets.
You cannot be dogmatic in these cases but it is incredible what is happening. Looks like the financial overlords on Wall Street want to make Americans into their financial serfs.

[floridasandy]

what we have is a government that promised 789 billion to facilitate the recovery of the american economy, yet 13.5 trillion to bail out wall street bad investments.

where are the government priorities????? does anyone think that this will end well for main street?

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by floridasandy

what we have is a government that promised 789 billion to facilitate the recovery of the american economy, yet 13.5 trillion to bail out wall street bad investments.

where are the government priorities????? does anyone think that this will end well for main street?

No I do not. Main street will crash and burn.
But Obama can sway the masses with his speeches. He is a good orator and can motivate people. I am amazed how he is able to do it so easily.

Consensus is powerful..say it enough times and people take it as fact without proof. I see that happening today. The smokers are bad, health insurers are bad, now obesity is bad. Throw a few promises in there to equalize the masses (robin hood) and the majority, seeing no other alternative, will blindly follow.

I'm too much of a realist. I dig for facts to back up statements.
TPTB are covering up a depression IMHO.

[floridasandy]

the bank bonus report was released. in part:
For three other firms - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP. Morgan Chase - 2008 bonus payments were substantially greater than the banks' net income.

Goldman earned $2.3 billion, paid out $4.8 billion in bonuses, and received $10 billion in TARP funding.

Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion, paid $4.475 billion in bonuses, and received $10 billion in TARP funding.

JP. Morgan Chase earned $5.6 billion, paid $8.69 billion in bonuses, and received $25 billion in TARP funding.

Combined, these three firms earned $9.6 billion, paid bonuses of nearly $18 billion, and received TARP taxpayer funds worth $45 billion.

are people really going to stand by and not demand that the federal reserve be audited?

full report of bank bonuses here:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/july/pdfs/Bonus%20Report%20Final%207.30.09.pdf (broken link)

[Sunny-Days-in-Florida]

Originally Posted by floridasandy

the bank bonus report was released. in part:
For three other firms - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP. Morgan Chase - 2008 bonus payments were substantially greater than the banks' net income.

Goldman earned $2.3 billion, paid out $4.8 billion in bonuses, and received $10 billion in TARP funding.

Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion, paid $4.475 billion in bonuses, and received $10 billion in TARP funding.

JP. Morgan Chase earned $5.6 billion, paid $8.69 billion in bonuses, and received $25 billion in TARP funding.

Combined, these three firms earned $9.6 billion, paid bonuses of nearly $18 billion, and received TARP taxpayer funds worth $45 billion.

are people really going to stand by and not demand that the federal reserve be audited?

full report of bank bonuses here:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/july/pdfs/Bonus%20Report%20Final%207.30.09.pdf (broken link)

No, they wont, you will be a racist or hateful if you ask for any audit of Obamas government.
Obama has put this fear into peoples minds and some have fell for it and some have not.
Anything you do against him or ask him to do anything that may uncover an issue you will be a racist or hateful.

Transparency is what Obama was all about. Notice I said was.

Obama will do nothing about this, his hands are in the till of these folks.

[plannine]

Originally Posted by Sunny-Days90

No, they wont, you will be a racist or hateful if you ask for any audit of Obamas government.
Obama has put this fear into peoples minds and some have fell for it and some have not.
Anything you do against him or ask him to do anything that may uncover an issue you will be a racist or hateful.

Transparency is what Obama was all about. Notice I said was.

Obama will do nothing about this, his hands are in the till of these folks.

The Federal Reserve was around before Obama, and will be around after Obama.
(and it wasn't audited yesterday, and most likely won't be audited today, and it may not get audited tomorrow.)
It might be Obama's government to you, but to most Americans, it's our government, good, bad or otherwise.

[KRAMERCAT]

Originally Posted by Sunny-Days90

No, they wont, you will be a racist or hateful if you ask for any audit of Obamas government.
Obama has put this fear into peoples minds and some have fell for it and some have not.
Anything you do against him or ask him to do anything that may uncover an issue you will be a racist or hateful.

Transparency is what Obama was all about. Notice I said was.

Obama will do nothing about this, his hands are in the till of these folks.

The big bank bailouts were precipitated by, and intiated under Bush, Obama didn't know what to do, so he went with Goldman alums - Geithner, and Paulsen. Goldman runs the American economy, but it isn't an Obama play.

[floridasandy]

Originally Posted by KRAMERCAT

The big bank bailouts were precipitated by, and intiated under Bush, Obama didn't know what to do, so he went with Goldman alums - Geithner, and Paulsen. Goldman runs the American economy, but it isn't an Obama play.

presidents don't write bills, they sign bills. obama appointed geithner the same way that bush appointed paulsen.
why aren't they equally responsible for this mess and, more importantly, what is obama doing about it now that he is in charge?????
what happened to transparency?
why no federal audit, when a large number of bipartisan representatives and the american public supports it?

[KRAMERCAT]

Originally Posted by floridasandy

presidents don't write bills, they sign bills. obama appointed geithner the same way that bush appointed paulsen.
why aren't they equally responsible for this mess and, more importantly, what is obama doing about it now that he is in charge?????
what happened to transparency?
why no federal audit, when a large number of bipartisan representatives and the american public supports it?

Obama had a fricking 200 lb turkey dropped on his plate, and he is just now learning the convoluted inner workings of this economic system. He is not going to 'change' anything, at least not in one term - the established system is much more powerful than he is.

[floridasandy]

obama did not have this dropped on him! look at his appointees! look at his treasury secretary coming from goldman sachs just like the treasury secretary before him, paulsen, came from goldman sachs. obama was a congressional representative who voted for all of these bailouts. i posted before the election on "obama's money cartel" written by a former wall street reporter, pam martens.

these deals were structured to bail out investors.

(wsj)
“You’re really bailing out the shareholders and the bondholders,” he said. “Some of the people likely to be involved in this, like Pimco, are big bondholders,” he said, referring to Pacific Investment Management Co., a bond investment firm in Newport Beach, California.

Stiglitz said taxpayer losses are likely to be much larger than bank profits from the PPIP program even though Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair has said the agency expects no losses.

“The statement from Sheila Bair that there’s no risk is absurd,” he said, because losses from the PPIP will be borne by the FDIC, which is funded by member banks.

Andrew Gray, an FDIC spokesman, said Bair never said there would be no risk, only that the agency had “zero expected cost” from the program.

this is wealth redistribution, not from the top down, but from the BOTTOM UP!

“We’re going to be asking all the banks, including presumably some healthy banks, to pay for the losses of the bad banks,” Stiglitz said. “It’s a real redistribution and a tax on all American savers.”

if obama had any interest in the welfare of the american people, he would be demanding an audit of the federal reserve.