The Big Bailout sammenlignet med månelandingen og Vietnamkrigen
Posted on June 18, 2009
Barry Ritholz ville gerne formidle, hvor mange penge, der egentlig er brugt på bailouts og økonomisk stimulus de sidste 12 måneder. Så han lavede en grafisk sammenligning med alle andre store udgifter i hele USAs historie.
Resultatet er slående. Nogen må nødvendigvis gøre et eller andet galt her.
Ritholz uddyber:
It is exceedingly difficult to convey exactly how much we are spending on all these bailouts. Whenever I start talking trillions (versus mere billions), I get puzzled looks from people. Humans have a hard time conceptualizing any number that large. I wanted a graphic way to clearly show how astonishingly ginormous the amounts involved were.
So I once again went to Jess Bachman at Wallstats. This Bailout Nation graphic shows the the total costs to the taxpayer of all the monies spent, lent, consumed, borrowed, printed, guaranteed, assumed or otherwise committed. It is nothing short of astonishing.
It includes the total outlay for all the bailouts to date. In just about one short year (march 2008 - March 2009), the bailouts managed to spend far in excess nearly every major one time expenditure of the USA, including WW2, the moon shot, the New Deal, Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean wars — COMBINED.
Link: Bailout Costs vs Big Historical Events
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Økonomi: Hvorfor brød det hele sammen?
Posted on June 13, 2009
I USA, altså - her er finansverdenen vist ikke ligefrem brudt sammen endnu.
Økonomen Peter Schiff, der foreslog sammenbruddet i USA allerede før 2007, forklarer Jon Stewart, hvad der i hans øjne gik galt. Han advokerer noget så enkelt men i vore dage kættersk som at nøjes med at bruge de penge, man har …
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Vestens hykleri om økonomiske kriser
Posted on June 12, 2009
Nobelpristager og økonom Joseph Stiglitz skriver om de fattige landes vrede og vantro over forskellen mellem den reaktion på økonomiske kriser, IMF og den amerikanske regering prædiker for andre, bygget over princippet om “lad falde hvad ikke kan stå” og “markedet redder alt”, og så den måde, de håndterer deres egen krise på:
Among critics of American-style capitalism in the Third World, the way that America has responded to the current economic crisis has been the last straw. During the East Asia crisis, just a decade ago, America and the I.M.F. demanded that the affected countries cut their deficits by cutting back expenditures–even if, as in Thailand, this contributed to a resurgence of the aids epidemic, or even if, as in Indonesia, this meant curtailing food subsidies for the starving. America and the I.M.F. forced countries to raise interest rates, in some cases to more than 50 percent. They lectured Indonesia about being tough on its banks–and demanded that the government not bail them out. What a terrible precedent this would set, they said, and what a terrible intervention in the Swiss-clock mechanisms of the free market.
The contrast between the handling of the East Asia crisis and the American crisis is stark and has not gone unnoticed. To pull America out of the hole, we are now witnessing massive increases in spending and massive deficits, even as interest rates have been brought down to zero. Banks are being bailed out right and left. Some of the same officials in Washington who dealt with the East Asia crisis are now managing the response to the American crisis. Why, people in the Third World ask, is the United States administering different medicine to itself?
Many in the developing world still smart from the hectoring they received for so many years: they should adopt American institutions, follow our policies, engage in deregulation, open up their markets to American banks so they could learn “good” banking practices, and (not coincidentally) sell their firms and banks to Americans, especially at fire-sale prices during crises. Yes, Washington said, it will be painful, but in the end you will be better for it. America sent its Treasury secretaries (from both parties) around the planet to spread the word. In the eyes of many throughout the developing world, the revolving door, which allows American financial leaders to move seamlessly from Wall Street to Washington and back to Wall Street, gave them even more credibility; these men seemed to combine the power of money and the power of politics. American financial leaders were correct in believing that what was good for America or the world was good for financial markets, but they were incorrect in thinking the converse, that what was good for Wall Street was good for America and the world.
Link: Wall Street’s Toxic Message (via Boing Boing)
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‘… and the walls came tumblin’ down’
Posted on October 7, 2008
Dagens overskrift på BTs spiseseddel: Er din pension i fare?
Wall Street bløder, vores egen redningsplan redder spekulanterne og rammer de fattige, de britiske finansmarkeder er i frit fald.
Hvad betyder det alt sammen? Én konsekvens kan være, at der ryger nogle hoveder, når 300.000 danskere skal have genforhandlet deres flexlån til vinter. Folk, der har sat sig for hårdt eller har belånt friværdien i flexlån for at få til lidt forbrug, kan gå hen og få en meget grim overraskelse. I værste fald bliver der tvangsauktioner, tomme parcelhuskvarterer og bolignød i den almene sektor.
Hvad der egentlig stadig slår mig er den skræmmende enkelhed i BTs spiseseddel. Er din pension i fare? Hvis folk for alvor begynder at miste deres pensioner … kan den sidste rest af optimisme på markedets vegne vist snart lægges på hylden.
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Den amerikanske middelklasses død
Posted on October 5, 2008
Et andet syn på “sunny California”: Husenes værdi rasler ned, tvangsauktioner florerer, og et firma lever af at male de tomme huses forsømte græsplæner grønne, så det er mindre oplagt, at halvdelen af kvarteret huse røg på tvangsauktion eller er overtaget af banken.
Via Lenin’s Tomb.
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The Big Bailout: Det er da godt, nogen tænker på almindelige mennesker også
Posted on October 1, 2008
Joseph Stiglitz i The Guardian:
We are told the patient needs a massive transfusion; but everyone can see that the patient is suffering from internal bleeding - in California, the number of foreclosures may already be outpacing voluntary sales. Yet nothing is being done to stem the haemorrhaging.
While the president says the economy faces the risk of economic meltdown, he threatens to veto a stimulus package that would create jobs - and he seems particularly adamant about a stimulus package that includes improved unemployment benefits. Traditionally, this is done when there is a threat of an economic downturn; if the downturn doesn’t materialise, it doesn’t cost anything. And while the administration and Wall Street promise this is just a temporary loan, not a bail-out, there was strong opposition to making the financial industry pay for any losses. Why would that be, if they are so sure that there won’t be losses?
Lad os redde Wall Street - men bedre sikring af de arbejdsløse, så vi ikke får så mange tvangsauktioner? The horror!
Link: Good day for democracy
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Bailout eller ej: Krisen kradser i Middle America
Posted on October 1, 2008
Det er endnu for tidligt at sige, om Bushs kriseplan går igennem.
Men hvordan er effekten af boblen krisen og ophedningen i Main Street, det Middle America, alle politikerne bejler til og alle er klar til at røvrende, så snart det får chancen? Hvad siger manden på gaden i Chattanooga, Tennessee, eller Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania?
Tjah. I dagens Guardian rapporter Paul Harris fra Yonkers, New York:
Yonkers residents are preparing grimly for hard times ahead. The effects of the credit crunch, the failed bail-out plan and the seemingly endless news about collapsing banks, has people on Yonkers’ Main Street deeply fearful for the future.
“I am really, really worried,” said Ellen Mittman, a retiree. She feared for her credit cards and her savings and was already cutting back on her spending. “I have been stopping doing things. I don’t go out to dinner anymore. I don’t spend any more money on buying clothes. I am cutting back. Everyone is cutting back,” she said. “They have to pass something. I know they have to. But I blame Bush. I blame the deregulation. All they cared about was the fat cats.”
With the cable news channels blaring out doom and gloom and newspaper headlines detailing the latest predictions of collapse, many ordinary Americans are simply tightening their belts. That might be a prudent step, but it will hurt small businesses as consumer spending falls. Those businesses will need even more credit to survive. Yet with bank lending virtually frozen, that credit will be much harder to find. Businesses will start to close, jobs will be lost and consumer spending will tighten further. The cycle will begin again.
Link: ‘I blame Bush … all they cared about was the fat cats’
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Hvorfor lige 700 milliarder?
Posted on September 25, 2008
Mange af os har hørt det - den amerikanske regering skal bruge 700 milliarder dollars til at redde finansverdenen og den vestlige verdens økonomi fra kollaps. Selv Jyllands-Posten er begyndt at lyde skeptisk.
Men … hvor kommer de 700 milliarder fra? Hvorfor lige præcis 700 milliarder, hvorfor ikke kun 500 milliarder, eller hvorfor ikke en hel billion, nu hvor vi er ved det?
I Forbes Magazine forklarer en medarbejder ved finansministeriet, hvilke beregninger hvilken beregning, der ligger til grund:
Some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
Det er godt at se, at de tager det lovforberende arbejde alvorligt, derovre. Bwahaha, som Citizen ville have sagt.
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The Big Bailout - et godt tilbud til dig
Posted on September 23, 2008
Apropos big shit pile - se, hvad der (ikke) lå i min mailbox i morges:
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson
Tror I, det er for real? Det minder meget om alle de andre venlige forretningstilbud, jeg altid reagerer på.
Læs også:
- The big bailout - verdenshistoriens største tyveri?
- Krakkede investeringsfirmaer blev fritaget for kontrol
- Krisen skyldes grådighed og inkompetence
- Det går rigtig godt med økonomien
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The big bailout - moderne tids største tyveri?
Posted on September 22, 2008
Det kan godt være, der er nogen, der er glade for amerikanernes store økonomiske “redningsaktion“, og det kan også godt være, den er nødvendig, men… er det virkelig godt at lade finansverdenen køre friløb i årevis, ophobe hidtil usete profitter, pumpe penge ud til dårlige lån baseret på en “boble” i form af boligprisernes himmelflugt, og så simpelt hen friholde dem, der har forårsaget miseren - på alle andres bekostning?
Glenn Greenwald er ikke tilfreds:
Whatever else is true, the events of the last week are the most momentous events of the Bush era in terms of defining what kind of country we are and how we function — and before this week, the last eight years have been quite momentous, so that is saying a lot. Again, regardless of whether this nationalization/bailout scheme is “necessary” or makes utilitarian sense, it is a crime of the highest order — not a “crime” in the legal sense but in a more meaningful sense.
What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We’ve retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.
Måske det simpelt hen er Bush-regeringens grande finale: Efter en inkompetent ført krig i Irak, baseret på en løgn, efter at have gjort USA til krigsforbrydelsernes og torturens internationale bannerfører, efter skamløst at have gennemførst ulovlige aflytninger af tusinder af amerikanere, efter Guantanamo og Abu Ghraib, skulle der jo ligesom noget til, som de for alvor kan huskes for.
Mange havde frygtet, at det ville blive en krig mod Iran - en ulykke, som Bush-regeringen dog ikke har fundet for godt at påføre verden, og som den amerikanske hær næppe er klædt på til heller. Men … verdenshistoriens største tyveri, 700 milliarder dollars (ca. 4 trillioner kroner) hældt direkte fra skatteydernes lommer over til Bushs venner på Wall Street - det er vel et lige så godt bud?
