Posted on 09/19/2008 5:52:08 PM PDT by politicket
When government officials surveyed the flailing American financial system this week, they didn't see only a collapsed investment bank or the surrender of a giant insurance firm. They saw the circulatory system of the U.S. economy -- credit markets -- starting to fail.
Huddled in his office Wednesday with top advisers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson watched his financial-data terminal with alarm as one market after another began go haywire. Investors were fleeing money-market mutual funds, long considered ultra-safe. The market froze for the short-term loans that banks rely on to fund their day-to-day business. Without such mechanisms, the economy would grind to a halt. Companies would be unable to fund their daily operations. Soon, consumers would panic.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
If you want banks to fail and 10-12% unemployment for years, then you are correct to hope the Gov't does nothing to save financial institutions.
bm for later
You got that right. Wall Street whore.
Let's look at fairly recent history:
In 1980, the U.S. was the largest creditor nation on the planet - by far. We also had a tremendous manufacturing base and very healthy exports. We provided things of "value" to the rest of the world.
In 2008, the U.S. is the largest debtor nation on the planet - by far. Our manufacturing base that produces things of "value" has largely been sent overseas. We have turned into a consumer nation that mainly employs "service-based" industries. Therefore, our exports have become worthless for the most part and our imports have skyrocketed as we consume more and more trinkets produced by areas of the world with extremely cheap labor.
In return, we send other countries our Treasury Bills as IOU's for the junk that they send to us. They (China for instance) have used this money to build their infrastructure and to slowly increase the standard of living for their population.
Now, here's where it gets really bad. What happens when China discovers that its population has a high enough standard of living to buy the things that China produces for us?
America will go into economical meltdown.
No. Not "simply".
Along with speculators (which there always are and always will be...this is still America, isn't it?) there were many who like the plan and see it as the only answer other than a severe downturn. Is anyone else proposing anything to avoid a downturn? There's nothing else out there. Including here on Free Republic.
Many of those buyers you saw the last couple days now have hope that the plan might be the instrument to help the economy get back on its feet.
I say, it’s time to take a stand.
We need to become b*stards about American trade policy.
Immediately.
No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more putz.
Open your markets 100% immediately. Or you’re shut out of the American market, completely.
There can be no middle ground. We must take a stand.
And it is being targeted now.
It will interesting to say the least to see what the NY AG investigation turns up regarding the short selling lately.
I understand how serious Thursday was. I've been watching it for many, many months. If you cared to look at my posts from 4 months ago you would see that I warned about Lehman going bankrupt. It's not that hard to piece this puzzle together if you quit looking at it from just the mortgage perspective.
I don't want bank failures, and I don't want 10-12% unemployment. But, that is what this country is going to experience before it can get healthy again. Do we do it now? Or do we sit on our hands whistling Dixie and face it later in an even worse way?
You’re absolutely right. The Fed is blowing a trillion dollars of paper “money” into circulation, but where is the corresponding trillion dollars’ worth of real-world value? Did we capture an asteroid made out of rhodium or something?
I’m with you. Re-inflating the bubble with worthless “money” only delays the inevitable. We need to reconcile ourselves to reality and let the chips fall where they may.
The same ones that made a killing in the five years preceeding 1929 - while convincing the American public that to not invest their savings into the market was foolish.
Not to be mean...but if this is the case then those buyers were fools. The plan hasn't even been presented to Congress yet.
I disagree that this is inevitable.
Oh...that should be good! It's not like he's a political hack...</sarcasm>
Excellent point - and needs to be repeated.
Then we agree to disagree. My sincerest good luck to your financial health.
You've heard the term "buy on rumor". Well, the people who bought the last 2 days trust all the reports that say there is fairly good bi-partisan support behind the plan.
They may not be fools. If the plan is announced it may then be too late to get into stocks at such a low price.
FYI: In Marxian terms, the working class (aka the proletariat) is that class that owns no property and has no means of support other than trading their labor-power for wages. The bourgeoisie is the property-owning middle class — those who own their own businesses (shopkeepers, family businesses, etc.) and live off the investments they have made in them rather than wages. The capitalist class is the class that obtains wealth by exploiting the labor-power of the proletariat acting upon the productive capital (aka the “means of production”) that they own rather than by their own productive activity.
you work all you life?....you're no better off than Johnny the lazy arse drunk down the street financially...
I guess the govt workers will keep their rewards....
but crime is going to increase eventually, as 99%of us become one huddled mass of humanity....its not going to be pretty....
but keep saying to yourselves....the Demoncrats are for the "little" people...the ultimate deceit....
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