Posted on 07/18/2002 11:01:35 PM PDT by Uncle Bill
There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here
THE ECONOMIST
July 18th 2002 | WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print edition
Americans are losing confidence in the economy. Can George Bush stem the slide?
THESE are not happy times for the White House. Share prices are tumbling, consumer confidence has fallen sharply and George Bush's own approval ratings seem to be heading down. For an administration haunted by the ghost of George Bush senior, whose defeat in 1992 was blamed on a sluggish economy, the parallels are becoming painful, not least because the current president's efforts to reassure Americans are also falling flat.
Mr Bush's trip to Wall Street to preach about corporate ethics was widely derided as too little, too late. This week's follow-up, a hastily-arranged pep talk on the economy in Alabama, proved another embarrassment. “This economy is coming back,” boomed Mr Bush. “That's the fact.” Meanwhile, in one of Wall Street's more dramatic days, stockmarkets slumped (though they recovered somewhat after he finished). It was all too close to Herbert Hoover, who famously proclaimed America's economy to be on a “sound and prosperous basis” in October 1929.
Judging Mr Bush's words by short-term movements in share prices is, of course, neither fair nor useful. The real questions are whether the White House has correctly diagnosed what ails the American economy, and whether its policies are right.
Mr Bush's basic contention is that the fundamentals of the American economy are in good shape. This was also the message of Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, in congressional testimony the following day. At first blush, they have a point. Inflation is low and productivity growth remains surprisingly robust. Much of the excess investment that firms had built up during the boom has been worked off. Consumer spending remains surprisingly solid. Retail sales, for instance, rose 1.1% in June, far faster than analysts were expecting. The Fed has raised its forecast for economic growth in 2002 to 3.5-3.75%.
Yet despite these apparently good fundamentals, consumers are worried. The University of Michigan's consumer-confidence index fell sharply in July, to levels last seen in November. The main reason, of course, is the stockmarket slide (see article). Over the past two weeks alone the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by 6%. The S&P 500 has dropped to levels not seen since October 1997. The technology-laden Nasdaq index is 72% below its peak in March 2000.
In large measure, this slide is the deflation of the 1990s bubble, a point Mr Bush himself hinted at: “America must get rid of the hangover that we now have as a result of the binge...we just went through,” he said in Alabama. But it has clearly been aggravated by the slew of corporate scandals and the loss of investor confidence.
Sliding equity prices could begin to hurt those fundamentals, promoted so assiduously by Messrs Bush and Greenspan. Household saving, in particular, may be found wanting as Americans re-evaluate what they can expect from their retirement portfolios. That suggests a protracted spell of sluggish, rather than buoyant, consumer spending. Capital investment could also suffer, if firms become more cautious about borrowing.
Unfortunately, there are scant signs that the administration will help counter this. In his Alabama speech, Mr Bush promised an “agenda for long-term growth”. This encompassed: fiscal policy (he wants to make his tax cut permanent, whilst forcing Congress to hold the line on spending); trade policy (he urged Congress to grant him “fast-track” authority to negotiate trade agreements); corporate reform (he touted his new Corporate Fraud Task Force, promised more money for the Securities and Exchange Commission, and urged Congress to send him an accounting-reform bill before August); boosting accountability in schools; and terrorism-risk insurance.
This grab-bag of assorted policies hardly constitutes a post-bubble economic agenda. Even if you thought it did, once you start going through the individual bits, the progress is patchy. For instance, the Senate certainly passed a tough corporate-reform bill on July 15th, and Mr Bush welcomed it. The next day Republicans in the House of Representatives promised to dilute many of the measures in the Senate bill (though they did agree to stiffer sentences for corporate criminals).
Nor do the prospects for trade policy look good. The Bush team has been pushing Congress for fast-track authority for 18 months. Legislation squeaked past the House of Representatives last December and the Senate in May. But reconciling the two bills has been difficult. If Congress does not get round to voting on fast-track by the August recess, the proximity of the mid-term elections in November suggests that the politically sensitive trade bill has little hope.
The biggest and most intractable problems, however, concern fiscal policy. Nobody seems to have absorbed how a post-bubble environment might influence the budget. On July 12th, the Bush administration announced that the federal government would run a deficit of $165 billion this year, compared with an earlier forecast of $106 billion made in February 2002. Although the economy has grown faster than expected since February, tax revenues have plummeted. Much of this revenue drop is due to the stockmarket, as individuals' capital gains have turned into losses. If the bear market lasts, so too will those revenue shortfalls.
In these conditions, Mr Bush's main fiscal policy—that his 2001 tax cuts, ostensibly to be reversed in 2010, should be made permanent—is hard to justify. If demand weakens substantially, there may be a case for more tax cuts (or spending) today. But it is hard to see the fiscal wisdom in making future tax cuts permanent at a time when revenues are so uncertain.
On spending, blame needs to be divided between the White House and Congress. Mr Bush talks tough on spending. He has threatened to veto a $27 billion supplemental budget bill that Congress has larded up to $31 billion. However, by agreeing to far larger, and permanent, expenditures (such as the massive farm bill) Mr Bush has lost the moral high ground. Congress, in turn, is closely divided, and short on any procedural systems for fiscal discipline. Finger-pointing and partisan bickering are far more likely in Washington than the confidence-inspiring policies that America's economy needs.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
Repeal the 16th amendment and abolish the income tax. Abolish the IRS and take away the citizenship of senior IRS officials and send them to Russia where they'll feel at home. Obliterate federal spending, and start to pay off the national debt in large chunks. Abolish "static scoring" with regards to taxation of any kind. Reinstate and restore the Constitution and Bill of Rights and abolish all laws, treaties, emergency orders and executive orders that have rendered it useless and return to the Constitutional boundaries of our constitutional Republic our founding fathers gave us. Importantly, repeal the Emergency and War Powers Acts. Repeal all laws created by unconstitutional and extraconstitutional devices, such as Executive Order or Presidential Directive. Repeal and abolish all unconstitutional federal involvement in states issues such as: crime, health, education, welfare and the environment, and only God knows how many other intrusions. Social programs such as Social Security, welfare and Medicare must be repealed. So too, do most federal subsidies. Rescind all treaties and International Agreements which are not in perfect agreement with the Constitution. Tell the United Nations to stuff it! The U.S. should disassociate itself from the U.N. and the U.N. should be forced to leave the United States. Destroy all documentation that links the U.S. with the U.N. See Arthur Andersen for details. Alger Hiss, screw you. Furthermore, demand that the federal government refrain from meddling in the business and squabbles of foreign nations, unless there is an imminent threat to the people of the United States. PROTECT OUR BORDERS!! Elect a real small government candidate for President, and the same for Congress. Take memory loss drug to try to forget that most Americans love socialism in about every way and that politicans are simply a reflection of themselves, and, none of the above is going to happen. Now, returning back to reality. Terrorism, shadow government, Stock market crash, federal government crash, Police State, Martial Law, gun-confiscation, FEMA, FBI, CIA, Dictatorship, T.I.P.S., Carnivore, Operation Magic Lantern, Echelon, The Patriot Act, Executive orders too numerous to count, slavery, death, One World Government. It could never happen here. For those of you not just interested in Medicare Part B.
HOW BIG IS THE GOVERNMENT'S DEBT? - $33.1 TRILLION!
Larry Kudlow of CNBC Reporting of Emergency Federal Reserve Meeting TonightCitigroup, J.P. Morgan Marketed Enron-Type Deals to Other Firms
Citigroup Said to Mold Deal to Help Enron Skirt Rules
WALL STREET'S SLIDE CONTINUES
AT&T Posts $12.7 Billion Loss
Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill stated the following in the article below:
"If people don't like what I'm doing, I don't give a damn,"
Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill
"I could be sailing around on a yacht or driving around the country."
Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill
No Strong Voice Is Heard on Bush's Economic Team
The New York Times
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
July 20, 2002
Source
ASHINGTON, July 20 — With the stock market plunging the other day and surveys depicting Americans as increasingly worried about the way the Bush administration is dealing with the economy and corporate fraud, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, the administration's main voice on economic issues, was in Kyrgyzstan.
Mr. O'Neill's absence — after a trip to Africa in late May and before a trip to South America late this month — reinforced the view on Wall Street and in political circles here that President Bush's economic team was not responding sufficiently to growing economic and political pressures.
"I'm constantly amazed that anybody cares what I do," Mr. O'Neill declared on Thursday, according to a report from Bloomberg News.
Another top official on economic matters, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the budget director, has aroused such animosity in Congress among lawmakers from both parties that his utility as a budget negotiator has been compromised.
Political insiders say a third official, Lawrence Lindsey, the president's chief economic adviser, does not have the presence or the political skills needed to be the principal public spokesman on the economy.
As Americans see their life savings diminished daily by falling stock prices and an election approaches that will determine which party controls Congress and the Bush legislative agenda for the next two years, President Bush may have a hard time getting his message heard because no prominent member of his economic team is regularly reassuring the public that the government's policies are sound.
In a series of interviews, supporters and opponents of the president alike criticized administration officials' failure to deal deftly with economic policy. They contrasted that failure with the confident way Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have handled foreign and military policy and the aggressive stance Attorney General John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge, the president's adviser, have taken on domestic security issues.
"We desperately need someone the business community, the financial community, the press and the public can look to as the lead economic spokesman," said Robert D. Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
"We need someone who is out there day after day explaining the issues the economy is facing and explaining what the administration's policy is to address them," Mr. Hormats continued. "It's worked so well for Rumsfeld, they should have learned the lesson."
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a political action committee that supports conservative Republican candidates, said that if the stock market did not turn around and the administration seemed to be sitting on its hands, "Republicans will be wiped out in the House and the Senate" in the November elections.
On all Republicans' minds, Mr. Moore said, is the recollection that the first President George Bush lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton in part because of the public perception that he had not paid enough attention to the economy.
Mr. O'Neill takes issue with the notion that he is AWOL. In Bucharest, Romania, on Thursday, on his way home from his weeklong trip to Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, he told reporters his travels gave him a better perspective on the global economy.
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the end of his Africa trip in May, Mr. O'Neill bridled at questions about his effectiveness. "If people don't like what I'm doing, I don't give a damn," he asserted. "I could be sailing around on a yacht or driving around the country." He added that the president had praised him for his original way of thinking. "As long as he gives me that leash, I'm going to use it," Mr. O'Neill said.
A senior White House official who usually reflects the president's view said the criticism of Mr. O'Neill was "absolutely off base."
"He has everybody's strong confidence," the official said. "The fact that he's traveling in a difficult week in the markets is unexceptional. He needs to perform all the duties of the secretary of the treasury, not just sit at his desk focusing on the markets on his screen."
Mr. Daniels, the budget director, asserted that Washington was "in another of those periods of collective solipsism" and should not overestimate its importance in the financial markets. To deal with the economy, Mr. Daniels said, "This president assembled a tremendous team both in terms of their fitness for their jobs and the way they work together."
Mr. Daniels has been pilloried on Capitol Hill for the spending restrictions he has demanded. Representative C. W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Mr. Daniels was "only concerned about numbers" and "not concerned about what those numbers do for the country." Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Mr. Bush was "ill served" by his budget director.
Mr. Daniels says he sees himself as a lightning rod for criticism and his duty as protecting the president. Mr. Bush has nicknamed him Blade — possibly because of his wiry build or because of a sword hanging on his office wall, or perhaps because his job is to make cuts. Mr. Daniels suggested recently that his handle should probably be changed to Piñata, "because I think some folks think if they can knock my head off, all the goodies in town will fall out."
Mr. Lindsey, who briefs the president two or three times a week on economic matters, said the president's staff focused on long-term issues, not "one week or whatever."
"With the advice of his economics team," Mr. Lindsey said, "the president has been out in front leading consistently since he took office."
Republican lobbyists and consultants who are in close touch with the White House say Mr. Lindsey's influence has waned since the early days of the Bush presidency and the deputy chief of staff, Josh Bolten, a former investment banker who carefully stays in the background, has become a more important adviser on economic issues.
Mr. Bolten said that was not the case. Mr. Lindsey said, "The president continues to have confidence in me as far as I know."
At the outset of the Bush presidency, the economic team was strikingly successful. Barely four months after Mr. Bush moved into the White House, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, approved his highest priority, the largest tax cut in 20 years.
But since then, his economic agenda has stalled. With the Senate now under Democratic control, Congress has refused to make the tax cuts permanent, to give the president authority to negotiate trade agreements, to permit drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve or to allow private investment accounts under Social Security.
Within the administration, the economic advisers clearly lost out to the political staff this year on two important matters. In March, the administration decided to impose tariffs on imported steel. In May, the president signed a bill with vast new subsidies for farmers. Both steps violated cardinal conservative Republican free-market economic principles.
Mr. O'Neill even said publicly, in ostensibly off-the-record remarks to 200 members of the Council on Foreign Relations in March, that he opposed the tariffs on steel because the United States should be the world's leader in promoting free trade. It was an unusual indiscretion in an administration that prides itself on loyalty.
"When an administration is driven by politics, there's a sense in the markets you'll get bad policy out of it," said David Hale, chief global economist for Zurich Financial Services.
In every administration, said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who worked in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and first President Bush, there is competition between policy and politics. In this administration, Mr. Bartlett said, "the nonfunctioning economic operation is causing the political implications of decisions to have an undue amount of influence."
The problem, Mr. Bartlett and many others say, is that there is no dominant figure on government economic policy like Robert E. Rubin in the Clinton administration, Richard G. Darman in the first Bush administration and Donald T. Regan and James A. Baker III in the Reagan years.
Kevin A. Hassett, a Republican economist who worked for Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2000 presidential campaign, said: "There's an internal vacuum. People don't know who's in charge."
In part because of this, the economic officials have rarely appeared on the Sunday interview programs on network television, a prime platform for a president's message.
Adam Levine, an assistant White House press secretary who coordinates requests for those appearances, said the main reason was that the networks were more interested in foreign affairs than in economic policy. But last week, the networks asked for Mr. O'Neill and had to take Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans instead, because Mr. O'Neill was overseas.
In other circumstances, said a Republican lobbyist close to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney could become the top voice on the economy and offer assurances that the administration had matters firmly in hand. But Mr. Cheney must stay in the background on this issue, the lobbyist said, because he has been tarnished by the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of accounting practices at the Halliburton Company, the oil services giant where he was chief executive.
Republican lobbyists and consultants who are in close touch with the White House say they expect changes in the economic team after the elections this fall. "They can't make any changes before then," one Republican said, "because it would look as if they were accepting the blame for a bad economy."
Go figure.
And I want to add OWK's laundry list of GOP Congressional Accomplishments. Incremental Conservatism in Action !!5 Posted on 08/22/2000 10:58:05 PDT by DAnconia55
National ID Cards
Expanded (no warrant) wiretap authority for FBI
A national database for “employed people”
Asset seizure for Americans who establish foreign citizenship
The power to declare ANY group as “terrorist” without possibility of appeal (and subsequent monitoring of said groups)
Authorization of “secret trials” for “terrorists”
A national medical database with federal access
100 pages of new “health care crimes” and authorization of asset seizure for said crimes
Funding for the war in Kosovo without Constitutional authority
Continued funding for troops in Bosnia without Constitutional authority
Renewed funding for the NEA
Renewed funding for the NEH
Legislation harassing tobacco companies
Tobacco subsidies
Sugar subsidies
Ethanol subsidies
Agriculture subsidies
The largest Pork legislation in the history of the republic (highways)
IRS reform voted down
IMF bailout with taxpayer money
Russian bailout with taxpayer money
Forgiveness of debt of Billions in third world loans
Expanded federal involvement in education
Sham investigation of China money
Sham investigation of Waco
Restriction of Executive orders voted down
Mandatory restrictions on firearms transactions
Banning of high-capacity magazines
Fannie, Freddie and Uncle Sam - America’s government should get out of the mortgage business
If the bubble bursts - "These institutions will collapse."
White House Warns of Increase in Debt, Risk Threat at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
The Wall Street Journal
By JOHN CONNOR
February 5, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have funded their rapidly growing asset portfolios by increasing their debt outstanding and warned that the two companies may be taking on more risk with subprime loans.
In its fiscal 2003 budget document, the administration said debt outstanding for the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, "rose from $518 billion at September 1997 to $1.26 trillion at the end of September 2001, an annualized growth rate of nearly 25% a year."
The administration's budget said the two companies, created by Congress to assist in housing, have been growing faster than the mortgage market in recent years. From September 1997 to September 2001, the mortgage asset portfolios of the two companies "increased 150% in dollar volume, and their guarantees of MBS [mortgage-backed securities] increased 40%," the budget said. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have funded the increase in their portfolios with more debt.
The budget said the credit quality of the loans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold or guarantee "has benefited in recent years from strong housing markets that have improved collateral values." But it noted the companies are increasingly active purchasers of subprime loans that tend to be riskier than traditional mortgage purchases.
The Bush budget said increased guarantee volume and retained portfolios "imply increased credit and interest-rate exposure." It said the two firms have tried to limit their exposure using various risk-management techniques. But these tools, the administration said, "do not eliminate all the risk associated with funding long-term, mostly fixed-rate assets that have uncertain payment streams."
"Furthermore," the budget added, "the hedging transactions transform credit or interest-rate risk into counterparty risk [the risk that the counterparty of a hedging transaction fails to honor the contract]. Thus, the GSEs' management of counterparty risk is of increasing importance."
Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae seem more volatile as accounting rule highlights hedging risks
How Fannie Mae Beat Effort By Adversaries to Rein It In
HUD Mulls Action Against Fannie Mae
'Fannie and Freddie Were Lenders': U.S. Real Estate Bubble Nears Its End
Fannie & Freddie in the Hot Seat
Caveat Emptor With Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Probed
Fannie Mae launching $2 trillion campaign to finance home purchases by minorities, women, immigrants
HUD Huddles With Business To Build Housing In China
THE MOUNTING CASE FOR PRIVATIZING FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC - (Free Republic)
THE MOUNTING CASE FOR PRIVATIZING FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC - December 29, 1997
"A related danger of the duopoly regime of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is that their huge size and market concentration would cause a severe disruption to the housing market if one of them were to fail. As a result those entities, as they are currently constituted, are perceived to be "too big to fail."(55) That means that in the event of a financial collapse of either or both of the GSEs, Congress could be persuaded to ill-advisedly "bail them out," as in the case of Chrysler, requiring loan guarantees or costing federal taxpayers billions in outlays. Fragmenting the market by introducing competition would reduce the likelihood of such a bailout by ensuring that no one company's failure would be viewed as disastrous."
Derivatives Risk Casts Long Shadow Over Freddie, Fannie
If the bubble bursts - "These institutions will collapse."
How Big Is the Government's Debt?
"When these obligations are combined with the debt held by the public, the total burden equals $33.1 trillion, or 10 times the official debt measure. This "total debt" is more than three times the size of the nation's total output in 2001, and amounts to $116,381 for every man, woman and child in America."
The major pillars of America will have to be destroyed first. We're well on our way to that end. Fascism? You bet. Worldwide? You bet. One key will be the HUGE Crash that is coming.
The New World Order - NY Times - May 5, 1998 - ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL
Beware those ‘public-private partnerships’
Government and business in Monterrey {"Public Private Partnerships" for World Government}
Happy Dependence Day
"One of the most popular books of all time is "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," written in 1788 by Edward Gibbon. The book set forth five basic reasons why great civilizations wither and die:
The average age of the world's civilizations has been 200 years. Civilizations and empires tend to progress through this sequence, say historians:
World Government by Design
"As with so many of history's so-called trends, America's transformation into global policeman isn't accidental. Official admissions of this little-known truth aren't commonplace, but they do occur. Take journalist Michael Hirsh's stunning comments in a recent issue of Newsweek, for example. Buried more than four pages into an otherwise typical anti-isolationism screed entitled "Death of a Founding Myth," we find the following:
World Government Fanatics Are Destroying America
World War III - The global strategic threat
The Revealing Story of a Rancher and the National Debt
Traitor Bill Clinton's Mentor:
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one perhaps of the Right, and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.... [E]ither party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same policies". [1]
Professor Carroll Quigley
[1]Tragedy and Hope - The History of the World in Our Time - (New York : Macmillan, 1966) - pages 1247-1248.
Ann Coulter's "Slander"
"...the national news media maintain a rigid radio silence on Phyllis Schlafly, while endlessly celebrating mediocre feminist shrews. Her very name prompts derisive hoots from Hollywood starlets who couldn't approach Schlafly's IQ if they were having brains instead of silicone injected. To listen to the cool people, you could be forgiven for thinking Schlafly is one step above a cretin. In fact, Schlafly is one of the most accomplished and influential people in America.''
Coulter wants us to know that Schlafly's 1964 book, ''A Choice, Not an Echo,'' sold three million copies and helped hand the GOP presidential nomination to Barry Goldwater, thereby paving the way for the Reagan Revolution. She also was almost single-handedly responsible for stopping the speeding freight train known as the ERA dead in its tracks. A noted scholar, tireless campaigner and committed pro-life activist, she did it all while raising six children."
Laws To Make The Coming Dictator Comfortable In His New Position
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
George W. Bush - Aired December 18, 2000 - Congressional Meeting - Source.
"My vison of a New World Order foresees a U.N. with a revitalized peacekeeping fuction. It is the sacred principles enshrined in the UN Charter to which we will henceforth pledge our allegiance."
George Herbert Walker Bush - On February 1, 1992 - Addressing the world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
"The war in Iraq is a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times...a New World Order can emerge."
George Herbert Walker Bush - Before Congress on September 11, 1990.
"This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept."
Zbigniew Brzezinski - Nt'l. Security Advisor to Pres. Jimmy Carter.
"Nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority,"
Strobe Talbott - declared in the July 20, 1992 issue of TIME.
Hillary, Cronkite call for world government
"He goes even further to single out the "Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing" as the culprits who have kept the world in a state of sovereign anarchy and prevented the emergence of a "civilized force of law" administered by the United Nations."
WALTER CRONKITE - Flack For Global Elite
"He told those assembled, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, that the first step toward achieving a one-world government -- his personal dream -- is to strengthen the United Nations.
In a more recent interview with the BBC, Cronkite was not quite so delicate in his plea for world government. There was no call for an American-style tri-partite system. What Cronkite described sounded more like a militaristic world dictatorship. The BBC's Tim Sebastian asked Cronkite if the United Nations had lived up to his earlier dreams for a "Parliament of Nations." Here's what he said in response:
Note that Cronkite advocates having "an executive" make international law. That's the way it works, I guess, in Cuba, Iraq, Libya and a few other totalitarian hellholes around the world. Is that what Cronkite has in mind? And this executive -- presumably unelected and unaccountable, except, perhaps, to a handful of Cronkite's elitist friends -- would be backed by a global military monopoly that would hunt down rebels even before they armed themselves or committed any "international crime." So now the "newsman" is advocating the creation of global thought police. Hmmmm.
But it gets worse.
Walter Cronkite Wants One World Government
"If we are to avoid a nuclear World War II, a system of world order - preferably a system of world government - is mandatory," Walter Cronkite - in his recent book A Reporter's Life Pg. 128.
"The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty, just as America's thirteen colonies did two centuries ago. When we finally come to our senses and establish a world executive and parliament of nations, thanks to the Nuremberg precedent we will already have in place the fundamentals for the third branch of government, the judiciary."
Walter Cronkite - p. 128, A Reporter's Life, written by Walter Cronkite.
"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenarios, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."
Henry Kissinger - in an address to the Bilderberg organization meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates. From: Geoff Metcalf Significant Quote Series.
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."
David Rockefeller - speaking at the June 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden Baden, Germany.
"There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do."
Milton Friedman. Nobel laureate.
Always remember a good portion of the American people thought Bill Clinton was a great guy. That still gives me nightmares.
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"When people kill us, they should be killed in greater numbers. I believe in killing people who try to hurt you."
BILL CLINTON - George Stephanopoulos book All Too Human.
"I’d like to kill all of these sons of bitches and just be done with it!"
BILL CLINTON - White House staff meeting during impeachment.
"Write down the name of that motherfuc*er. When I’m back in office, he’s a dead man."
BILL CLINTON - Arkansas second campaign for governor to a campaign aide.
"I can do any Godda*ned thing I want. I’m President of the United States. I take care of my friends and I fu*k with my enemies. That’s the way it is. Anybody who doesn’t like it can take a hike." BILL CLINTON - White House staff meeting regarding the IRS going after Kenneth Starr.
Source For Above Quotes
Shadow Government of The United States and the Decline of America
The Something Undermining Our Nation
Executive Order 13083 And Our Freedom - Both Parties Were Going To Finish You Off
Al Haig says jail Joseph Farah
"The American people are going to begin to realize they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce world law, and I think that's going to come to other people as well, It's a fair distance to get there, but we are not ever going to get there unless we keep trying to push ourselves onto the road."
Walter Cronkite
One World Government Coming To Where You Live Soon
Stunning collection. Thanks for the Schlafley mention. She and her sister (Cardinal Mindzenty Foundation) are one of the reasons I've always followed you.
The Role of the Financial Institutions In Enron’s Collapse
Banks In All The Wrong Places
Over the course of these last two years others as well as myself have been sounding the alarm over the condition of the nation's credit system. It doesn’t matter which kind of debt we are talking about — mortgage debt, installment debt, credit card debt, corporate debt, municipal debt, or federal debt — we have become a nation of debtors. Taking on debt has its limitations. At some point you reach a limit where that debt is no longer sustainable. What we are now seeing is the unraveling of that debt at the corporate level from Enron, Global Crossing, Kmart and to WorldCom. The stock market decline has ushered in the first phase of a deflating credit bubble. Companies can no longer tap the credit markets to pay their bills. Bond defaults are up, delinquencies are rising, and many companies have been forced out of the commercial paper markets. So they now have to tap the long-term debt markets and pay higher rates of interest as credit spreads have widened. This means that their interest costs are going up. To help mitigate rising costs of borrowing long-term, many companies are using the swap markets, exchanging their long-term debt for short-term debt to help lower interest rate costs.
The problem is that interest rate swaps makes up the bulk of the derivative market. These swaps pose another risk if interest rates begin to rise later on this year. The rise in interest rates will be triggered by the dollar's decline. So in addition to the credit risks, we also have derivative risk. This poses an additional risk for many companies such as GE and others that have swapped out much of their debt in order to lower their costs of borrowing. It also raises counterparty risk for banks if many of these companies can’t honor their swap arrangements, having to pay the difference if rates begin to rise. So in addition to credit risks, we also have interest rate risks lurking in the form of these swap arrangements. Banks are the largest writers of these instruments.
Danger in Derivatives
The media attention has been on the companies that have defaulted on their loans or have filed for bankruptcy protection. To a lesser extent, the attention has been on the banks. A credit bubble has two sides to the equation: the borrower (Enron, Global Crossing, Kmart WorldCom) and the lender (J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank America). Banks have not only been the lender and underwriters on much of this debt, they have also been the writer of derivatives that go hand-in-hand with the expansion of credit. In fact, bank derivative growth has been growing at double-digit rates over the last decade. During the first quarter of this year the notional value of derivatives in bank portfolios increased by $946 billion. Interest rate contracts increased by $972 billion to $39.3 trillion. So in addition to the debt debacle, you also have the danger of another derivative debacle such as we had with LTCM back in 1998. Many of the top banks such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank America are also the nation's largest writers of derivatives. These three banks have derivative portfolios totaling close to $40 trillion in notional value or roughly 87 percent of the derivative portfolio of the nation's top 354 banks. This is a high concentration in just a few players in what is a very risky business.
On top of making bad loans, the banks also have exposure as the largest underwriters in the derivative business. J.P. Morgan Chase is leveraged over 700-1 when you look at the bank's exposure to derivatives. The net equity of JPM has to back those derivatives. If you look at J.P. Morgan Chase’s derivative book, the bank looks and acts more like a hedge fund then it does a pillar of stability of the financial establishment. The credit problems are only one side of the problem. No one knows what the bank's derivative risks are other than that they have $23.4 trillion in derivatives against equity of around $40 billion.
This isn’t the only problem the bank has at the moment. J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup made $5 billion in cash loans using complex transactions that were disguised as energy trades. This made the loans hidden from Enron’s balance sheet. Investigators found out that J.P. Morgan and Citigroup were Enron’s main source of prepay funding. The Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee is now looking into the extent to what these banks knew and the role they may have played in aiding Enron’s accounting deceptions. J.P. Morgan promoted prepay loans to customers in the 90’s because of their “balance sheet friendly” nature. In addition to the Senate, the Manhattan’ district attorney’s office is looking into the role J.P. Morgan Chase played in making offshore loans to companies in an effort to keep the debt off the balance sheet. Insurance companies, which issued surety bonds as guarantees that Enron would repay its offshore loans, are now suing the banks because they claim the banks kept knowledge of the company’s perilous financial condition from them.
Source
YOUR 401(K) IN 401 CHAOS
The New York Post
By Paul Tharp and Nathan Shike
July 23, 2002
More than $300 billion vanished from stock funds and 401(k) retirement nest eggs yesterday as the stock market continued to plunge. Gloom over corporate corruption and the bankruptcy of long-distance giant WorldCom, the biggest bust ever, pushed investors to unload even more shares into the two-week selling frenzy.
The benchmark Dow Jones industrial average closed in the 7,000s for the first time in four years, losing 234.68, or 2.9 percent, to finish the day at 7,784.58.
The Dow's slide in the past two weeks has been the steepest since the stock market crash of 1987. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index, which is a broader measure of market health than the Dow, declined 27.90, or 3.3 percent, to 819.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index, home of many high-tech stocks, shed 36.50, or 2.8 percent, to 1,282.65.
A total $2.7 trillion in stock value has evaporated since Sept. 11, a staggering average of $8.7 billion each and every day.
"It's a pitiful market. It's an emotional market that is selling on fear," said Brian Pears, head of equity trading at Victory Capital Management.
Another market watcher said the Dow could fall another 500 points this week.
"It's just going to be further deterioration, pain, malaise and lack of interest in the market," said William Schneider of UBS Warburg.
The only winners yesterday were big professional players and hedge funds that placed complicated bets that the market would fall, said analysts.
About 45 percent of the trading is from those "gloom and doom" players, said Larry Wachtel of Prudential Securities.
"They're going in and out fast with short plays, and causing all the volatility. But they're winning every day," Wachtel said.
Short sellers borrow stock for a small fee, then sell it. Once the stock price falls, they buy it back at a much cheaper price - and pocket the difference.
Small investors who don't have the savvy to make such complex moves say they feel more helpless than ever.
"My IRA is in the toilet. This market is affecting everything. And the economy has me laid off right now, so it's real bad," said Tom Valenti, 48, who lost his job at Boeing in Seattle.
Other small investors cling to hope, however.
"I'm still investing. I invested $90,000 last month, mainly on the indexes - the S&P and the Nasdaq. But I lost about $200,000 in retirement money, so that was pretty bad," said Stuart Rabinowitz, 50, a computer software programmer.
Mutual fund investors continue to withdraw money from stock holdings, with more than $23 billion pulled from stock funds in the two weeks ended last Tuesday. The record for an entire month was September's $27 billion.
"Psychology has taken over here," said Phil Orlando, chief investment officer of Value Line Asset Management.
Added Kevin Cohen, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan: "We need this flushing out to find the bottom. But people are thinking: ‘Why buy it today, when you can buy it cheaper tomorrow?' "
This statement's only about 75 years too late.
>The major pillars of America will have to be destroyed first. We're well on our way to that end. Fascism? You bet. Worldwide? You bet. One key will be the HUGE Crash that is coming.
These major pillars are in line for fiery destruction. What a sign!
Firefighters Battling Blaze in Sequoia National Forest Warn of '400-Foot Flames'Ex 34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: 14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:PINE FLAT, Calif. (AP) - A ferocious wildfire fed by underbrush and weeks of dry weather roared toward a treasured grove* of ancient sequoias, setting up potentially devastating scenario if flames reach the trees. The 48,200-acre blaze moved through the valleys of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and came within a few miles of the Freeman Creek Grove and Trail of 100 Giants.
"If fire does get in the Trail of 100 Giants, we won't be putting firefighters in there to try to stop it. It will be a climax of 300- or 400-foot flames," said Jim Paxon, spokesman for a national team of elite firefighters called in to manage the blaze.
The trail includes 125 giant sequoias over 10 feet in diameter, and more than 143 sequoias under 10 feet in diameter. The trees are between 500 and 1,500 years old. ...
*grove842. 'asherah
'asherah ash-ay-raw'or masheyrah {ash-ay-raw'}; from 833; happy; Asherah (or Astarte)
a Phoenician goddess; also an image of the same:-- grove.
"To the extent you get some key companies taking that kind of action, that could really give us a final bottom,"
'Stockalypse' Gives Sinking Feeling
Reuters
By Pierre Belec
Saturday July 27, 7:13 am Eastern Time
NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's a betting game that the entire world is watching, as Wall Street investors could determine the course of the economy in the United States and abroad. Do they have the nerve to drive stocks up?
The stock market's plunge has flushed out more than $7 trillion in wealth since the bubble burst in 2000 and people who got filthy rich during the Great Bull Market of the 1990s are suddenly feeling poor. Fair to wonder what impact this reverse wealth effect will have on consumer spending.
Back in the boom days, investing in stocks was such a huge money-making machine that the Street viewed the market as "The Economy."
Now that stocks are crumbling, how much longer before the market shock begins to hurt consumers who generate two-thirds of the nation's activity.
While the Dow Jones industrial average on Wednesday posted its biggest one-day gain of the year, veteran traders warn that one-day wonders do not signal a trend, and it's unclear that investors plan to come off the sidelines.
TIGHTEN PURSE STRINGS
If the rope around people's necks winds tighter and they see more of their wealth go up in smoke, the risk is that consumers may tighten their purse strings, thereby shutting down the main engine driving the world's biggest economy and adding to Wall Street's woes.
The risk cannot be ignored because of the public's massive participation in the market. Nearly half of the nation's households had a stake in stocks at the height of the bull market.
The damage is already being felt. U.S. consumer sentiment tumbled in early July as Americans agonized over their losses. The gloom probably got worst in the two weeks after the University of Michigan did the survey, with the Dow tumbling more than 1,000 points.
In the 1990s, mutual funds were the financial fashion and an unparalleled flood of cash poured into the wishing well of stock funds. But many investors are wondering if there will always be a pot of gold at the end of the Wall Street rainbow.
There's a big sucking sound in Manhattan's financial district. Investors are pulling money out of U.S. stock mutual funds. In June, investors yanked $13.8 billion out of stock funds, the third largest outflow on record, exceeded only by $15.4 billion in March 2001 and $30 billion in September following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to Lipper, the mutual fund tracking firm.
401(k) BASKET CASE
Indeed, people are getting tired of losing their shirts. Their 401(k) retirement plans have been turned into 911 emergency basket cases. The market is on course to post a third straight yearly decline. The last time that occurred was 1938 when investors were still reeling from the nasty memories of the Great Depression.
The numbers speak for themselves. The Dow is down about 32 percent from its peak, the technology-laced Nasdaq composite has fallen an eye-popping 75 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 is down 45 percent.
The loss of stock market wealth will wreak havoc on the long-term health of the economy, says John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an international outplacement firm.
A growing number of older Americans are postponing their retirement or have chosen to rein in spending because the crash has crushed their 401(k) plans.
The alternative to working more or cutting back on spending will have a big impact on the economy, says Challenger.
"The growing population of older Americans was expected to inject large sums of money into the economy through their mass consumption of goods and services," he says. "These seniors were among the wealthiest ever and were going to spend copious amounts of money in their 30-plus years of retirement."
BEARISH FOR AVERAGE INVESTOR
There's a lot of talk the market needed to go through a healthy cleansing after years of excesses. Analysts are preaching that the longer the bear market hangs on, the more appealing the investment environment will be after the fall. But the fact that stocks have kept on falling and the selling has been so severe since June is bearish for the average investor.
More importantly, people should not expect a socko ending to this summer's market crumble.
Stocks may bounce back but worth keeping in mind is that bear-market rallies are tricky. Dead-cat bounces or in this case, a dead-bull recovery, are much more dangerous than buying in a bull market because bear-market rallies can reverse course at the drop of a dime.
The market has been rocked by an unexpected stream of bad corporate earnings, economic uncertainty, terrorist attacks and stunning corporate scandals. The risk premium of owning stocks has gone up, and investors have been driven to safe havens such as bonds, money markets and gold.
The smart money is running to the bomb shelters because historically, years of super-normal stock returns -- 20 percent plus gains in the 1990s -- have usually been followed many years of sub-par returns.
STARVED FOR CAPITAL
As investors avoid stocks, the other risk is that companies will be starved of capital. Lacking cash to grow, businesses may be forced to make a new round of spending cuts that would slam the economy back into recession. A dramatic drop in business spending was the main reason the economy slipped into recession last year.
Business spending continues to be the wobbly wheel on a shopping cart. Second-quarter capital spending increased for the first time in eight quarters, but a closer look at the numbers showed the gain was caused by companies needing to replace inventories that had dropped to depressed levels in the past year.
The economy is still shaky and the barrage of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve last year failed to stimulate growth across a broad sector.
There are many reasons why the rate cuts did not work. One is that the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States happened just as the first couple of reductions were starting to filter through the economy. Since it takes six to nine months for the Fed's stimulative easy money to do its thing, the process was just beginning to ooze through as the airplanes hit.
Then, came the corporate scandals that drove a stake through the heart of the market.
For the week, Nasdaq fell 4.3 percent to 1,262, the S&P rose 0.6 percent to 853 and the Dow rose 3 percent to 8,264.
Looking For The Bottom
The Economist
From The Economist Global Agenda
July 26, 2002
Source
Stockmarkets have had another wild and terrible week. A slew of bad corporate news confused and alarmed investors. And there are fears of more bad news to come
INVESTORS had hoped for some respite. Share prices have been tumbling for weeks. Fear and exhaustion had gripped most markets. There were signs of panic. But, as it happened, this week brought another hair-raising ride, on both sides of the Atlantic. The Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading American companies plunged to levels last seen in October 1998, after the Russian bond default almost triggered the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund. The FTSE 100 index of Britain’s 100 biggest stocks hit levels that it last saw six years ago, and came perilously close to 50% of its 6930 peak of early 2000. In continental Europe, matters were even worse: European indices have fallen further from their peaks than either their British or American counterparts. Sudden surges in prices this week followed precipitous declines, only serving to show how unsettled investors have become. Fraying nerves have been a continuing stream of bad news from companies, and fears of worse to come.
It was almost inevitable that WorldCom, the giant telecoms firm that admitted to a $3.9 billion accounting fraud last month, would file for bankruptcy. Even so, the filing on Monday confirmed that it would be a tough battle for creditors to recoup their losses. And it also raised the spectre of a bankrupt WorldCom, protected by the courts from having to pay interest payments, undercutting healthier rivals. The firm’s bankruptcy announcement set the tone for the week. Also on Monday, BellSouth, one of the so-called Baby Bell regional telephone companies, admitted that its profits would be much lower. This spooked investors because Baby Bells, who had sat on their hands during the frantic telecom boom of the late 1990s, were thought to be financially sound.
Falls in the market also triggered worries about the solvency of life assurance companies, particularly in Europe where they often act as the primary investment vehicle for many individuals. They also typically invest more heavily in shares than American insurance firms. So the downturn in share prices has been especially bad news for European assurance firms. There have been persistent rumours that many have been forced to sell large amounts of shares to raise enough cash to meet solvency targets imposed by law.
Life assurers in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden all admitted that they were suffering from market conditions. Aegon, a giant Dutch insurer, warned that its profits could fall by 35% this year. Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch financial-services group said that earnings could be some euro900m lower on account of the decline in its share portfolio. Sweden’s Skandia said that lower share prices had caused a 28% fall in monthly sales in its mutual fund business in June. And British-based Aviva, formerly CGNU, said it would have to cut its payout to policyholders by 5%. Munich Re, a reinsurance company, also came under scrutiny. It said last week that it would have to inject more money into its American subsidiary, American Re, and that it would raise provisions relating to losses arising from the September 11th attacks last year to $500m. This prompted Moody’s, a credit rating agency, to review Munich’s prized AAA credit rating.
Elsewhere in the financial sector, banks have been punished by investors as further questions were raised about what JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, both longstanding advisers to Enron, knew about its complex financial structure. On Tuesday, July 23rd, it was alleged that both banks understood that the off-balance sheet financing vehicles which they helped Enron set up were used to mislead investors, according to evidence presented to a hearing held by a US Senate committee investigating the collapse of the Houston-based energy-trading company. The committee’s chief investigator also alleged that Citigroup tried to persuade other companies to adopt the same kind of schemes, succeeding with at least three. Investigators found e-mails that show that the banks understood that Enron was using these complex transactions to hide debt and artificially boost cashflow. The banks both denied any wrongdoing, relying on their assertion that the sort of transactions used were common practice on Wall Street. In any case, they claimed, banks should not be blamed for the failings of accountants.
Citi also faces investigation over the role the star analyst at its Salomon Smith Barney investment banking unit, Jack Grubman, played in Winstar, a company whose shares he strongly recommended to investors and whose board meetings he attended. The new telecoms firm, capitalised at $10 billion at the market’s peak, was sold for just $42.5m last December. That was around twice the $20m that Mr Grubman was paid by Salomon Smith Barney for his part in winning investment-banking mandates, one of them from Winstar, the firm about which he was supposed to be giving investors objective advice.
Share prices have fallen so sharply that there are rumours the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is considering an emergency meeting in order to counteract the resulting damages to financial liquidity. In the past few weeks, corporate-bond issuance has dwindled to a minimum. In trading in the money markets, yields on Treasury bills have fallen to 40-year lows as investors switch out of equities, seeking safer, if lower, returns. Other hopes may rest on the Fed in New York. Four years ago, the New York Fed stepped in to avert a liquidity crunch after the collapse in the assets held by Long Term Capital Management. However, as usual, both Feds declined to comment.
For the present, despite the mid-week rally, investors remain cautious. American stocks are still trading at price-earnings ratios well above their historic averages. The dollar looks set to weaken, which could trigger a mass sell-off of American securities by foreign investors. And markets tend to overshoot on the way down as well as on the way up. In the short term, there is nervousness about a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule that chief executives and chief financial officers have to swear to the accuracy of their companies’ accounts from the middle of next month. With the threat of jail sentences hanging over them, it is thought that at least some senior managers will rush to announce any bad news lurking in their firms' accounts before they have to put their own necks on the line. In any case, it looks as if there will be a few more rough weeks ahead before the markets settle down.
Dollar May Decline on U.S. Growth Doubts: Currency Outlook
Global Markets Face Tense Week
Anglican Church Loses Fortune On Stock Market
Debt Fuels US Gas And Power Bankruptcy Fears
S&P Revises AOL Time Warner Outlook to Negative
Scandals Shake Faith In Big Business - July 28, 2002
Most Asian Markets End Down Friday
Wall St. Woes Hitting Uncle Sam Too
US CREDIT OUTLOOK-Fear To Feed Treasuries' Flight Higher
Roll Your Dice - It's All Just "Luck"
Stocks' Fall Raises Q's About Fed's Role
Hedge Funds Stoke Volatility In Bear Market
After Scandals and Slump, Bank Shares Are On The Ropes
Bond Issuers Find Reluctant Investors
Deadline looms for CEOs to certify financial statement
Poll: Market Crash Threatens U.S. as Much as Terrorist Attack
lol ...
I'm guessing that was the reading list you're forwarding to Prairie Chapel in case he runs out of things to do?
LOL, clear, concise, and classic. What a country.
"God wouldn't have made sheep if he didn't expect them to be sheared." - J.P. Morgan
"We will see new records in the not-too-distant future."
Paul H. O'Neill - Treasury Secretary - Septmeber, 1991. Source.
"The country is on the edge of a golden age of prosperity... I think we're not doing badly for the kind of correction that we're in right now... It's easy to find gloom and doom, but consumers are hanging in there, their spending rates are still quite good... The contraction occurred ... in the investment sector, where we had an overexpansion."
Paul O'Neill - Treasury Secretary, on ABC's "This Week.", Sunday June 24, 2001.
"Despite the current slowdown, however, intermediate and longer-term prospects for the U.S. economy are still very bright"
Alfred Broaddus - President of Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, in a speech to the Virginia Housing Coalition, June 14, 2001.
Just like old times.
"I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress."
Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury December 31, 1929.
JPM Derivatives Monster Crashes
"There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity."
Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co. - January 12, 1928.
"I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool's paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future."
E. H. H. Simmons, President, New York Stock Exchange - January 12, 1928.
"This crash is not going to have much effect on business."
Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929.
"There will be no repetition of the break of yesterday... I have no fear of another comparable decline."
Arthur W. Loasby (President of the Equitable Trust Company), quoted in NYT, Friday, October 25, 1929.
"We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices."
Goodbody and Company - Market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929.
"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel that there will soon, if ever, be a fifty or sixty point break below present levels, such as Mr. Babson has predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months."
Irving Fisher, The Most Prestigious Economist of His Day. - October 16, 1929.
"I believe the breaks of the last few days have driven stocks down to hard rock. I believe that we will have a ragged market for a few weeks and then the beginning of a mild bull movement that will gain momentum next year."
Irving Fisher, The Most Prestigious Economist of His Day. - October 22, 1929. (October 22, 1929
"Probably the question most frequently heard around Wall Street is ‘How high can stocks go?’ To the unsophisticated observer there appears to be no maximum price."
New York Times, August 21, 1929.
"This is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan... that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years."
R. W. McNeel, market analyst, as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929.
"Buying of sound, seasoned issues now will not be regretted"
E. A. Pearce - Market letter quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929.
"Some pretty intelligent people are now buying stocks... Unless we are to have a panic -- which no one seriously believes, stocks have hit bottom."
R. W. McNeal, financial analyst in October 1929.
"The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services...America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin."
Stuart Chase (American economist and author), NY Herald Tribune, November 1, 1929.
"Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street."
The Times of London, November 2, 1929.
"The Wall Street crash doesn't mean that there will be any general or serious business depression... For six years American business has been diverting a substantial part of its attention, its energies and its resources on the speculative game... Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over. Business has come home again, back to its job, providentially unscathed, sound in wind and limb, financially stronger than ever before."
Business Week, November 2, 1929.
"...despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression such as would entail prolonged further liquidation..."
Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929.
"... a serious depression seems improbable; [we expect] recovery of business next spring, with further improvement in the fall."
Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 10, 1929.
"The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most."
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, November 14, 1929.
"In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect."
Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929.
"Financial storm definitely passed."
Bernard Baruch, cablegram to Winston Churchill, November 15, 1929.
"I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress."
Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury December 31, 1929.
"I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence."
Herbert Hoover, December 1929
"1930 will be a splendid employment year."
U.S. Dept. of Labor, New Year's Forecast, December 1929.
"For the immediate future, at least, the outlook (stocks) is bright."
Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in Economics, in early 1930.
"...there are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over..."
Harvard Economic Society (HES) Jan 18, 1930.
"There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about."
Andrew W. Mellon - Secretary of the Treasury, Feb 1930.
"The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity."
Julius Barnes, head of Hoover's National Business Survey Conference, Mar 16, 1930.
"While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst -- and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us."
Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, May 1, 1930.
"...by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent..."
Harvard Economic Society (HES) - May 17, 1930.
"Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over."
Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930.
"... irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery..."
Harvard Economic Society (HES) June 28, 1930.
"... the present depression has about spent its force..."
Harvard Economic Society (HES), Aug 30, 1930.
"We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression."
Harvard Economic Society (HES) Nov 15, 1930.
"All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S."
President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933. expiring currency.
"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23.
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816. FE 10:69.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
Thomas Jefferson - 1809, The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill.
"Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs."
Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:61.
"Paper is poverty,... it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself."
Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1788. ME 7:36.
"It is a cruel thought, that, when we feel ourselves standing on the firmest ground in every respect, the cursed arts of our secret enemies, combining with other causes, should effect, by depreciating our money, what the open arms of a powerful enemy could not."
Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 1779. ME 4:298, Papers 2:298.
"The maxim of buying nothing without the money in our pockets to pay for it would make of our country one of the happiest on earth."
Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald, 1787. ME 6:192.
"Every discouragement should be thrown in the way of men who undertake to trade without capital."
Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Tracy, 1785. Papers 8:399.
"The system of banking [I] have... ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens."
Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:18
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
Thomas Jefferson - Autobiography, 1821.
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