Posted on 02/01/2010 2:30:52 PM PST by blam
Are You 100% Sure They Saved the Financial System?
Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
Feb 01, 2010 - 10:38 AM
By: Mac Slavo
Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousands points the first day, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.
House Representative Brad Sherman (D-California) Debate on the House Floor, October 2, 2008
Consider this: If the system was about to meltdown in 2008 when Henry Paulson et. al. told then President Bush and Congressional leaders that we would have soldiers and tanks in the streets if they didn’t get the $700 Billion in bailout funds, then how serious of a problem was this to begin with?
Try to envision this scenario.
The only reason for declaring martial law and for why tanks and soldiers would need to be deployed on our streets is because the entire system as we know it today collapses and a state of emergency through martial law has to be implemented.
We’re talking economic, political and social meltdown on a massive, unprecedented scale. Basically, America as you know it to be today would no longer exist. This is how serious it would have to be if tanks and soldiers were dispatched throughout America.
Assuming the financial and economic systems were, in fact, on the brink of complete and total systemic meltdown, how confident can we really be that we have avoided disaster?
Did the TARP bailout and obscene stimulus spending programs really save us from going under?
What if - and we’re just hypothesizing here - what if they didn’t save the system and the worst is yet to come? What if the bailouts and stimulus don’t work?
Yes, our officials would have all of us believe there is nothing to worry about. But for the sake of argument, let’s say they overestimated their abilities to control the quadrillion dollar derivative bubble. Obviously, the bubble is still there, and as Dylan Ratigan pointed out on MSNBC recently, nothing has been done to fix it.
Since it is obvious that what our leaders say and what is actually happening are two different things, we must seriously consider the possibility that we are in the eye of the storm and the worst is yet to come.
Some may argue that this perspective is alarmist, and this author would not deny that sirens are blaring. Considering that Congress was threatened with martial law fewer than 18 months ago, we should find it necessary to question whether or not the same possibility still exists today.
If martial law is a possibility foreseen by those in charge of our political and financial systems at the onset of this crisis, then we should be very concerned about our future if the underlying problems within our economy have not yet been resolved.
Can any American honestly say for certain that they believe the financial and economic systems have been saved from catastrophe?
In a recent CBS interview, former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, who was responsible for engineering the bailout of financial institutions, says he thinks we “came very, very close,” to meltdown in the fall of 2008.
Empirical evidence indicates that credit markets are essentially frozen, the jobless rate is rising, home delinquencies and foreclosures continue to mount, and consumer confidence is deteriorating. It seems that we are still, as the title of Mr. Paulson’s new book suggests, on the brink.
The implications of failure are truly terrifying.
Uh, no
Our government was/is THREATENING US with our own money.
Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Feb 01, 2010 - 07:57 AM
By: Martin D Weiss
The next contagion is beginning to spread around the globe.
It is unexpected on Wall Street, misunderstood in Washington — and very dangerous.
It could sabotage the plans of the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and many of their counterparts overseas.
It is …
The Collapse of Sovereign Government Bonds
This is certainly not the first financial contagion of recent memory:
Back in 1997, we witnessed a currency contagion —hatched in Thailand, spreading quickly to the rest of Southeast Asia … smacking Russia in the gut … and sinking a major player in the U.S. derivatives market.
Then, 10 years later, came the debt contagion —incubated in a subsector of America’s mortgage market … soon infecting nearly all credit instruments … striking Wall Street like a sledgehammer … and mortally wounding the global financial system.
Those contagions were bad enough. Now, however, the contagion is beginning at a much higher level, in the most important financial instruments on Earth — long-term bonds issued by sovereign governments.
The Saga Begins in Greece
Just 116 days ago, on October 8, Greece’s benchmark 10-year bond was selling for 112.295. Today, it has collapsed to 92.13.
And the drama of its yield surge is even more striking — from only 4.41 percent to 7.14 percent, a jump of more than 60 percent in less than four months.
Coincidentally, I was in Greece not long ago, visiting the origins of Western democracy.
If a local soothsayer had told me that the next global debt contagion would begin there, blocks away from the Pantheon, I would have been incredulous. Yet that is precisely what has just happened in recent weeks.
Already, this contagion is spreading to other countries …
Portugal’s 10-year government bond reached a peak on December 1, 2009, just 62 days ago. And now it has also started to plunge virtually nonstop, with its biggest declines registered late last week.
British government bonds (gilts) are equally vulnerable.
Sovereign bonds in Spain, Japan, and other major deficit nations are also starting to get hit.
Next Victim: U.S. Government Bonds
[snip]
They just kicked the can down the road.
Any lie was worth telling to save their control of the USA.
There is no legal mechanism that allows martial law to be declared simultaneously in the entire USA in any case. It would essentially be a coup d'etat.
I think it was just talk. If five or ten big banks in New York had failed we would probably be better off.
Obviously there is still a bubble in Dylan's head and nothing can be done to fit it.
Excuse me, but the doom-mongers are those who insist/insisted we were going over a precipice unless the American taxpayer backstopped every risk made by banks and insurance companies and quasi-government lending institutuions.
And they’re still at it. We’re not done being threatened yet. Just a few days ago they sent out the nice mild-mannered. sweet lady, Elizabeth Warren to subtley threaten us that we need to spend MORE to ‘stimulate’ the economy or we’ll go off another cliff. When, after a few days that didn’t mollify those of us paying attention, they sent out the tougher Neil Barofsky to more directly threaten us.
They spiked it.
I’m 100% sure they did NOT.
One Hundred Percent.
If they hadn’t guaranteed money market deposits... there would of been a run on the market, which would of collapsed the system.
>>...the doom-mongers are those who insist/insisted we were going over a precipice unless the American taxpayer backstopped every risk made by banks and insurance companies and quasi-government lending institutuions.<<
I’m one of those “doom-mongers”. I think we’re going over the precipice no matter what anyone attempts to do. I said it to those who thought McCain could pull us out if only I voted for him - I didn’t. I voted for Palin.
This bus has a concrete wall 50 feet in front of it. The stopping distance is 200 feet, and the drivers (our government) foot slipped off the brake onto the gas pedal on November 4th, 2008.
Brace yourself.
So?
We shouldn’t have system that is so easily collapsed.
Even the system we do have would have worked IF they had been run responsibly and not like giant Ponzi schemes.
Bottom line, you can’t have all your risks backstopped by the taxpayers ... it is the mother of all moral hazards.
I’m with you.
But I’m tired of being called a doom-monger by those who sanction the threats of collapse that preceeded the largest heist in world history, TARP.
OOPS, sorry for the double post.
For a select few. For the rest, disaster.
Very much related:
Roubini: A Greek Bailout Solves Nothing Since Spain Is The Real Time Bomb That Will Destroy The Euro
http://www.businessinsider.com/spain-is-the-real-problem-roubini-29-1-2010
Rent “Rollover” via NetFlix when you get a chance. All the “end of the world” numbers they used there “the Dow is down eight percent! Gold is up five percent!” paled in comparison to our actual numbers during the 2009 controlled market collapse.
Hey look at gold today, huh! Six days of jacking around got a big “never mind” in about three hours. The $1100 battleground is back.
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