Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mises]

Lower taxes on the rich, then lower them some more. Send young men to die in a war that makes rich people more rich. Then use the government to create and blow up a shadow banking system that makes rich people more rich at the direct expense of the poor and middle class. Then when it all blows up, raid whatever is left of the Treasury and print as much as the dollar can handle. Frame it as a "Crises" and use images of the depression to scare the shit out of people. Just like the lead up to the war in Iraq. Imminent threat, must act now. etc. Forgive me for being cynical, but where is the above wrong?

[arjuna]

Please don't despair.

The demolition, controlled or not, will bring down the mofos.

Their days are numbered.

[mises]

I doubt it.

Anyways, the comedian's got it, why didn't most others?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC31Oudc5Bg&eurl

And isn't it strange, that outside of the nether regions of the internet and academic outcasts from the Austrian School, that the best reporting on this subject came from This American Life?

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

The financial press is useless and cannot be trusted.

[ontheway]

Peter Schiff, August 28, 2006 explains what is happening and predicts the crisis we are having now.

Arthur Laffer, bonehead, supports the Fed and bets a penny that he's right.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU6PamCQ6zw

[Gatsby]

This is a very interesting, informative column.

[Gatsby]

The Republicans are not only utterly incompetent, at the presidential level, the presidential candidate level, and the Congressional level, they are suicidal. The bailout deal was a Republican bill to help out their fatcat contributors. They not only said F--- you! to their own Republican President's pleas, they said Up yours! to their Republican Presidential candidate who pretended to negotiate the bailout bill. Is there something somewhere inside of them that knows the truth and is trying to destroy themselves? A conscience, perhaps?

Or is it simply that they want to destroy the world to make it safe for corporate greed?

Sadly, the American people have no long term memory, and seem incapable of learning from history, even within their own lifetimes. Even if the Republicans lose this time, Americans will fall for the same old lies they have been peddling for more than 50 years soon enough.

[mises]

Auto sales fell off a cliff today:

� Ford Motor posted a 34% drop. Their truck and van sales fell 39%, SUV sales plummeted 57% and F-series truck sales dropped 42%.

� Honda reported a 24% decline in sales;

� Volkswagen sales for September fell 9.4%;

� Hyundai Motor's U.S. sales fell 25%;

� Toyota U.S. Sept. sales drop 32.3%

[bacasper]

[mises]

Forced? I thought they continued to make it in the DF for many years and only recently stopped.

[Gatsby]

This story will curdle your blood. Not only will the bailout probably not avoid a recession, the government will have to do a lot more borrowing just at the point when foreigners are going to be more reluctant to lend. And so interest rates are going to go up.

[Gatsby]

Declining consumer spending, an increasing government deficit and increasing debt payments, inflation, $3 and $4 a gallon gas, balance of trade deficit, layoffs, bank failures, a roller coaster stock market, increasing animosity toward America abroad, and there are people who are going to keep the Republicans in the White House.

Go figure.

[Gatsby]

This will really bring home what's happening in the American economy.

[bacasper]

[Gatsby]

From the New York Times, an article that provides a vital key to understanding how the credit meltdown occurred. Must reading.

Quote:

Agency�s �04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk By STEPHEN LABATON Published: October 2, 2008 �We have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms at the moment.� � Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, March 11, 2008. .... Many events in Washington, on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country have led to what has been called the most serious financial crisis since the 1930s. But decisions made at a brief meeting on April 28, 2004, explain why the problems could spin out of control. The agency�s failure to follow through on those decisions also explains why Washington regulators did not see what was coming. On that bright spring afternoon, the five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission met in a basement hearing room to consider an urgent plea by the big investment banks. They wanted an exemption for their brokerage units from an old regulation that limited the amount of debt they could take on. The exemption would unshackle billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses on their investments. Those funds could then flow up to the parent company, enabling it to invest in the fast-growing but opaque world of mortgage-backed securities; credit derivatives, a form of insurance for bond holders; and other exotic instruments. The five investment banks led the charge, including Goldman Sachs, which was headed by Henry M. Paulson Jr. Two years later, he left to become Treasury secretary. A lone dissenter � a software consultant and expert on risk management � weighed in from Indiana with a two-page letter to warn the commission that the move was a grave mistake. He never heard back from Washington. One commissioner, Harvey J. Goldschmid, questioned the staff about the consequences of the proposed exemption. It would only be available for the largest firms, he was reassuringly told � those with assets greater than $5 billion. �We�ve said these are the big guys,� Mr. Goldschmid said, provoking nervous laughter, �but that means if anything goes wrong, it�s going to be an awfully big mess.�.... Last Friday, the commission formally ended the 2004 program, acknowledging that it had failed to anticipate the problems at Bear Stearns and the four other major investment banks. �The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,� Mr. Cox said.....

http://tinyurl.com/47pmla

In 2004, the Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

But that won't stop them from trying to blame this on the Democrats, of course.

Let's see now....

Ah, I've got it: It's all Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fault because he created the SEC.

[Gatsby]

If it were a choice between a $700 trillion bailout package and a depression -- as Bush, Paulson, and others say -- and non-masochist would pick the former.

But there are BUTS.

Are we sure there would be a depression? Theoretically, the markets should be able to right themselves, IF we had a free market system, and IF we didn't have the earlier example of the Great Depression where that didn't seem to work.

A more likely BUT is will the bailout work? This, in part, depends on how you define success. No one has clearly defined success or failure with regard to what the bailout hopes to achieve. It is not a stimulus package. It will not prevent a recession. It is just intended to revive the credit markets, thus preventing a national or worldwide depression.

Will it? Todd Benjamin thinks it won't. And if it doesn't work, if more problems surface, what then? How many more trillions can we summon?