Dodd Joins Bank Nazis | Russians Remember 1998
 

[url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aK13N8OxMigc&refer=news]Dodd Says Short-Term Bank Nationalization Might Be Needed as Shares Slide[/url]: [i]Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said banks may have to be nationalized for “a short time” to help lenders including Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. survive the worst economic slump in 75 years.[/i]


[url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=azObP8_4deuI&refer=news]Fannie Mae Rescue Hindered as Mitsubishi UFJ, Daiwa Call for U.S. Backing[/url]: [i]Asian investors won’t buy debt and mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until they carry explicit U.S. guarantees, similar to those given on bonds issued by Bank of America Corp. or Citigroup Inc.[/i]
[quote]Even after President Barack Obama vowed on Feb. 18 to sink as much as $400 billion of capital into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, double the original commitment, “there is still a concern that there is no guarantee” from the government, said Shimomura, who oversees $4 billion in non-yen bonds for the arm of Japan’s largest bank.

“Looking at the risk, they’re not so attractive,” he said. “We need a guarantee before we’ll buy.”

Foreign investors sold $170 billion of agency debt and securities in the second half of 2008, the largest amount since the Treasury began tracking sales in 1977, according to the most recent data. Asians, the biggest non-U.S. block of owners in the category, unloaded $70 billion worth from July through December, after scooping up $55 billion in the second quarter and being net buyers during much of the last decade.

Lack of Confidence

The sell-off and calls for a guarantee reflect a continuing lack of confidence among foreign investors five months after the U.S. seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The takeovers followed the biggest surge in mortgage defaults in three decades.

Without restoring foreign demand, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will find it more difficult to cut rates on housing loans, which depend on the ability of the finance companies to attract investors for their securities at the lowest possible yield. Fannie and Freddie sell debt to fund their purchases of mortgage assets and also guarantee home-loan bonds sold by lenders.

The Fed, which promised to buy as much as $100 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Home Loan Bank corporate debt, may need to spend more, according to Margaret Kerins, an agency-debt strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut. [/quote]
[i]My Comment:[/i] Dontcha just love all the doublespeak from Washington and the financial experts? They`ve gotten so used to massive federal deficits being the norm that they have their language all mixed up. Futile exercise though it is, let`s try to correct that: Things should read

- "...sink as much as $400 billion of [strike]capital[/strike] [u]newly-borrowed money[/u]..."

- "...Ben S. Bernanke will find it more difficult to cut rates on housing loans, which depend on the ability of the finance companies to attract investors for their [strike]securities[/strike] [u]newly-bundled US consumer mortgage debt[/u]..."

- "The Fed, which promised to buy as much as $100 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Home Loan Bank corporate debt, may need to [strike]spend[/strike] [u]borrow[/u] more..."


[url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aB6fW1.R07_o&refer=news]Russian Spenders Guard Money as Crisis Evokes Memories of 1998 `Nightmare'[/url]: [i]It took Marina Zaporozhtseva a decade to save for a new car after Russia’s last economic crisis. Scared of living through a repeat, she’s hanging on to her money.[/i]
[quote]Back in 1998, when the country let the ruble plunge, defaulted on debt and millions of people’s savings were wiped out, the Moscow accountant couldn’t find a job and had to work as a cook to make ends meet.

“Now, once again, there are nightmares at work,” said Zaporozhtseva, 46. “I have to think over every little purchase because I’m not sure if I’ll have a job tomorrow.”

Russia has lurched into reverse after 10 years of uninterrupted growth driven by revenue from oil, gas, metals and consumer spending. While almost half of all Russians still have no savings, people with spare cash like Zaporozhtseva say they are guarding it to pay bills and survive as wages decline and the number of jobless rises beyond 6 million.

The government expects the economy to shrink 2.2 percent this year after expanding about 7 percent a year since 1999.

Already, household incomes have sunk with the 35 percent plunge in the ruble against the dollar since Aug. 1 and inflation surged to 13.4 percent in January because of the cost of imported goods. The Russian central bank has raised its benchmark repurchase rate four times since November, to 12 percent.

“Consumers everywhere have been hit, but they’ve been hit twice as hard in Russia,” said Roland Nash, head of research at Moscow-based investment bank Renaissance Capital. “Russia has been hit twice: first through the tremendous drop in commodity prices, and second by the global financial crisis.” [/quote]
[i]My Comment:[/i] Frugality ... now opening in Russia.

[quote=ewmayer;163406]If folks who posted video links would at least do the rest of us the small courtesy of adding a few words what the video is about, the click-bait skeptics among us might be , well, less click-bait-skeptical.

Posting links with zero contextual information is only one short step removed from spam - at least that's the way I treat 'em.[/quote]
Sorry. But there is some merit in allowing them
to speak for themselves.

Here is a clip of a pre-Beatles (and therefore Beachboys etc)
combo strutting their stuff on a childrens TV program circa 1961.
I'll freely admit it has got very little to do with this thread
(unless the FBI are involved). But if my previous link was
Sin City, then shame onyou for not putting 2+2 together.

David

[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-OgRpH7o3s[/URL]

Dear Ernst,

You are a moderator who can remember Buddy Holly (even
if not James Burton) so just move my supposedly irrelevant posts
to the music thread and I'll argue with you there till the 'king cows come home.

David

I assume you remember Duane Eddy

[quote=davieddy;163424]Sorry. But there is some merit in allowing them
to speak for themselves.

Here is a clip of a pre-Beatles (and therefore Beachboys etc)
combo strutting their stuff on a childrens TV program circa 1961.
I'll freely admit it has got very little to do with this thread
(unless the FBI are involved). But if my previous link was
Sin City, then shame onyou for not putting 2+2 together.

David

And it was indeed the late great Gram Parsons

[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-OgRpH7o3s[/URL][/quote]

As regards this link, Buddy Holly has quite a lot to answer for.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;163400]Can someone provide a summary, for those of us who've not yet converted from dialup to broadband?[/QUOTE]My employer has a block on Youtube and many other sites (with a rather nasty message. )And at home, I won't click on the link like that either. No context or description, no click.

see. we have liberals and conservatives here too.

For the record, the video link is marginally connected to the thread. I agree that it should have had some description added.

The spin doctors are busy again today. Obama is not going to nationalize the banks. Unfortunately, the market is rapidly forcing his hand. I predict that at least 2 of the major banks will fail within 60 days because of plunging consumer confidence.

The next major shoe to drop is when this 800 billion is spent and the politicians come back and say they need another 500 billion. Watch and see if I am correct.

DarJones

[QUOTE=cheesehead;163396]I've posted many times in other threads that what we need is a proper balance between the extremes of the Strict Father worldview of conservatives and the Nuturing Parent worldview of liberals. For achieving that, it would help to educate those near the extremes that people at the other end of the spectrum are fully human, too, and deserve to have their views thoughtfully considered without distortion, in order to achieve best results.[/QUOTE]

I'm an adult.

I don't need a Strict Father or a Nuturing Parent anymore. If you are unable to lead a fulfilling life without a linear combination between a Strict Father and a Nuturing Parent, that is fine with me.

The problem is that because you don't want to live without a Strict Father and a Nuturing Parent making descisions for you, you assume that I shouldn't.

To make matters worse, you have the audacity to demand that I pay for the Strict Father preventing me from having consentual sexual intercourse with other adults. You also expect me to pay the Nuturing Parent for taking away my property, and giving it back to me, if I 'deserve' it.

I think you're an adult too, fully capable of leading your own life, so you can stop posting such nonsense.

HRB, When I read cheeseheads's post stating that "[I]what we need is a proper balance between the extremes of the Strict Father worldview of conservatives and the Nuturing Parent worldview of liberals..."[/I], I believe he's opposed to both extremes.

What is your argument with this? Are you saying that anarchism is the solution to our problems?

[QUOTE=AES;163465]HRB, When I read cheeseheads's post stating that "[I]what we need is a proper balance between the extremes of the Strict Father worldview of conservatives and the Nuturing Parent worldview of liberals..."[/I], I believe he's opposed to both extremes.

What is your argument with this? Are you saying that anarchism is the solution to our problems?[/QUOTE]

He isn't opposed to both extremes. He says he wants half of both. So basically he's satisfied the way things are, because Socialists & Conservatives happily take take turns in making life for the rest of us more difficult.

Like every other good economist, I'm a minarchist. We're located in between the moderate classical liberals (like the Old Whig faction) and the anarcho-capitalists.

The basic argument is that a government is required to provide the right amount of non-rivaled and non-excludable goods and a government is NOT required to provide rived or excludable goods that aren't otherwise available.

A minarchist argues, that if a market fails to provide a private good, then it is a bad idea for the government to provide it. If it costs $10 to make good X, but you are only willing to pay $5 for X, then the government will have to tax you $5, and subsidize X, so you'd buy it. You end up paying $10 which you value at $5. There are no exceptions to this.

The opposite to private goods, namely non-rivaled and non-excludable goods are also called public goods, which is confusing because most non-economists will think that a public library is a public good (it isn't).

A typical example of a public good (in the economic sense) is the Police. It's the Police' job to catch bad guys and put them in prison. All the bad guys in prison cannot hurt you, so whether you are paying the police or not, they are doing you a service.

But, if you can get this service without paying for it, why pay for it? If nobody pays there can be no Police, so that's where the government can & should step in by forcing its citizens to pay for the Police.

Problems already start with the definition of 'bad guys'. Murderers, robbers, thieves etc. - we agree on those. But what when the police starts throwing people into prison, who are NOT a threat to you. Michael Phelps & everybody else who likes to get stoned does not threaten your life & liberty, so why should you pay people to have them locked up?

The government is obviously providing too much police, because they're policing things that don't need policing, so they are already catching as many muderers, thieves and robbers as they can. If we need 50 more policemen to catch one person from stealing newspapers...we're being wateful.

Public libraries, are NOT non-rivaled and non-excludable. If you have borrowed a book, someone else can't borrow it. If you shut the door you are outside and the books are inside. So, if you can't figure out how to run a library with a profit, the government shouldn't either.

When you look at things as an economist, there are very few public goods at all, so there is a real chance of getting the amount of funds we set aside for them right.

I wouldn't be surprised, if you could cover the cost of all public goods with a 3% universal sales tax to be collected monthly. This is much more efficient than taxing 300 million individuals once a year.

At 3% the incentive to commit tax fraud is very low, so you would only need a fraction of what we are currently spending to prevent tax-evasion.

[QUOTE=__HRB__;163474]He isn't opposed to both extremes. He says he wants half of both. So basically he's satisfied the way things are, because Socialists & Conservatives happily take take turns in making life for the rest of us more difficult.

Like every other good economist, I'm a minarchist. We're located in between the moderate classical liberals (like the Old Whig faction) and the anarcho-capitalists.

The basic argument is that a government is required to provide the right amount of non-rivaled and non-excludable goods and a government is NOT required to provide rived or excludable goods that aren't otherwise available.

A minarchist argues, that if a market fails to provide a private good, then it is a bad idea for the government to provide it. If it costs $10 to make good X, but you are only willing to pay $5 for X, then the government will have to tax you $5, and subsidize X, so you'd buy it. You end up paying $10 which you value at $5. There are no exceptions to this.

The opposite to private goods, namely non-rivaled and non-excludable goods are also called public goods, which is confusing because most non-economists will think that a public library is a public good (it isn't).

A typical example of a public good (in the economic sense) is the Police. It's the Police' job to catch bad guys and put them in prison. All the bad guys in prison cannot hurt you, so whether you are paying the police or not, they are doing you a service.

But, if you can get this service without paying for it, why pay for it? If nobody pays there can be no Police, so that's where the government can & should step in by forcing its citizens to pay for the Police.

Problems already start with the definition of 'bad guys'. Murderers, robbers, thieves etc. - we agree on those. But what when the police starts throwing people into prison, who are NOT a threat to you. Michael Phelps & everybody else who likes to get stoned does not threaten your life & liberty, so why should you pay people to have them locked up?

The government is obviously providing too much police, because they're policing things that don't need policing, so they are already catching as many muderers, thieves and robbers as they can. If we need 50 more policemen to catch one person from stealing newspapers...we're being wateful.

Public libraries, are NOT non-rivaled and non-excludable. If you have borrowed a book, someone else can't borrow it. If you shut the door you are outside and the books are inside. So, if you can't figure out how to run a library with a profit, the government shouldn't either.

When you look at things as an economist, there are very few public goods at all, so there is a real chance of getting the amount of funds we set aside for them right.

I wouldn't be surprised, if you could cover the cost of all public goods with a 3% universal sales tax to be collected monthly. This is much more efficient than taxing 300 million individuals once a year.

At 3% the incentive to commit tax fraud is very low, so you would only need a fraction of what we are currently spending to prevent tax-evasion.[/QUOTE]

OK, the state is a necessary evil. I agree.

However, Cheesehead is not advocating socialism or conservatism. He suggests a balanced approach to governing.

[QUOTE=AES;163478]However, Cheesehead is not advocating socialism or conservatism. He suggests a balanced approach to governing.[/QUOTE]

[B]My comment:[/B]

[I]On an edge of a large hypercube
There was one who thought: "Hyperdude!"
"I have in the means - "
"Of balancing extremes!"
And lived content with hyperboob.
[/I]