Posted on 09/28/2009 7:04:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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The record seems to show that capitalism cannot function without state help, and the State cannot function without private enterprise. So perhaps we can have a satisfying synthesis of the two.
I am told that, via the state holding, I am an investor in certain banks. Apparently I have accidentally stumbled into ownership of one of the great global cartels. So now I say, if capitalism is such a piece of cake, then I will have a slice myself.
I will turn myself into a professional asset manager. The State will be my fund manager. I give it my funds to manage, ie, my taxes. It has no funds apart from mine. It has no clients apart from me. I expect above average performance and above average returns.
We, the people, are the institutional investor, through our fund manager, the Government. We assess the fund manager’s performance every quarter. If he performs well, we give him/her more funds to invest for us. If badly, we seek redemption, ie, the return of our money, and the repayment of our investment. This threat has an excellent affect on the asset manager, who fears that “redemption” will leave him humiliated or ruined.
For example, if my fund manager makes a profit on the sale of my banking portfolio, I expect the profit to be paid to me, in the form of a tax refund. Lord Myners, the City minister, has assured us: “We will sell our shares at a profit ... The total proceeds received from our involvement with the banks will exceed the investments made ... The taxpayer will enjoy the benefits of the actions we took.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
bump
That is what Kennedy-Reagan and Bush 2 did to jump start the economy. Works every time it is tried but instead we got a bunch of FDR worshiping Keynesian clones trying to make the failed National Socialist economic model from the 1930s work.
If Al Gore’s green car company in Finland makes millions after getting a 600 million dollars of tarp money to get the car company going in Finland then all the tax payers should share in the profits. That’s the Communist/Socialist Obama Way, Right?
Naw, just like the war money spent in Iraq, the people now in power will want to apply any money derived from bank profits to “economic and social justice”. Got to keep it out of the wrong peoples’ hands, i.e., non-government dependent folks participating in the real economy and creating private sector jobs.
Now get back to work!
The government owns stock in these banks, these car companies, right?
Why don’t they just send the stock, the stock that we own, to us?
Yeah, we could’ve gotten a check like Bush gave out, but we didn’t get that. Why not give us the stock that the taxpayers unwillingly bought?
Instead of the socialism that we have with the government ownership of these companies, we have something less unpleasant.
Capitalism can indeed function without the state but will somebody please show me at least ONE self-sustaining government? The govt is populated with tax feeders.
The writer of this article is embracing his inner-fascist!
Now, where the f*ck do you think that cash comes from?
Also, has anyone noticed the constant GM commercials on FOX?
Government subsidies funded by THE TAXPAYER.
GM can go to hell and take Hussien with them.
TARP money is not a gift, unless it is used to try and bail out a bank or company that fails(Chrysler or GM). There is a hefty interest rate attached to it that the borrower has to pay back along with the principle. Since our government is broke, TARP money is created out of thin air, and when it’s paid back, it should be removed from circulation except for the interest it earns. This is not happening. Barney Frank and Tim Geithner are treating it all as revenue to shore up their failing economic experiments.
Yeah, I hate those commercials too.
GM, takes my money and spends it on telling me how good they are. Hey, we know you exist. Hey, take all our money and run non-stop commercials.
This seems to be a broad Obama tactic.
Obama pays a third party with our money to send spam to us telling us how good a job he’s doing.
Obama corrals the NEA, gets artists to hype Obama programs. (No proof yet that NEA funds are used to pay off artists for their pro Obama hype)
Our money is going to schools where children sing songs in praise of Obama.
Highway construction is going on apparently all over the place. Most if not all of this new construction has mandatory signs on which “paid for by Obama’s stimulus bill”
(or some such) is printed. Judd Gregg of NH thought the pointless Obama hype signs were a waste of money and he was told the signs were mandatory.
On and on, the government is taking our money to tell us how great they are.
Glenn Beck should do something along those lines if he already hasn’t. He seems to like to find common threads.
The true purpose of the bank bailout was to give breathing room to banks so that they could make enough money to become solvent and not be forced into foreclosure.
The dem party block captain down the street seems to think the the TARP money was paid to the banks so people like her could get away with not paying her mortgage. And now she is not happy she did not get her little slice of the pie.
God I am so sick of this populist drivel!
The banks have already paid back half the TARP allocated to them and the treasury earned about 15% on it directly. It earned far more in avoided costs it was on the hook for if there were additional failures.
None of that has cost you or the taxpayer one dime, so why are you horrified by it? Because you live in terror that somewhere, a man richer than yourself might not be crucified?
I am so sick of this ignorant smearing twaddle! It isn't conservatism.
Below is the link to the article, and the part of it I based my post on. I realize that it is the opinion of someone who writes for a living and if they don't write, they won't make a living. That being said...
http://www.businessinsider.com/sorry-taxpayers-you-arent-getting-paid-back-by-goldman-sachs-2009-4
We're pretty sure that many Americans probably assume that returned TARP funds will go to repay debt taken on by the government to create the financial bailout.
Sadly, they're wrong.
Instead, returned TARP funds will essentially get double counted by the government in a way that will allow it to spend more money on government programs while also increasing the amount available to bailout other financial disasters, such as insurance companies.
You see, returned TARP funds become part of the general revenue of the federal government. The money is treated just like money paid by taxpayers. It simply becomes part of the income of the government that will be spent by politicians and bureaucrats. There's no lockbox or segregated fund. It works just like Social Security taxes: the income just gets spent for whatever the government decides to spent money on.
In this case, however, the returned money actually has the potential to result in more spending. That's because the $700 billion budgeted by Congress for TARP is the maximum amount that can be outstanding at any one time. When TARP funds are repaid, the amount available goes up.
One more thing to keep in mind is that although the TARP part of the TARP Bill was $700 billion, it took another $150 billion in earmarks to get it to pass the House and Senate.
I understand that the $700 billion in TARP funds is intended to be an investment with interest paid back by any institution that receives it. The extra $150 billion I'm talking about was earmarks to buy votes in the House and Senate so the TARP Bill would pass(pre stimulus, stimulus money). As far as the total $850 billion, we didn't have it, so it had to be borrowed or created out of thin air which in turn either adds to the National Debt or devalues the dollar. As the $700 billion in TARP funds are paid back with interest, the money goes into the General Fund so Congress can spend it on anything it wants to spend it on. From what I understand, none of this money has been used to pay down the debt incurred or taken out of circulation which would help in raising the value of the dollar.
The banks received $250 billion of the initial TARP, not $700 billion. $400 billion was set aside for the mortgage agencies, of which they have only drawn $75 billion and they won't draw more than $100 billion all told, if that. The banks have repaid half of the $250 allocated to them, with interest, and with capital gains from the attached warrants amounting to 15% annual returns.
Anyone presenting any of it as a ruinous expense is lying.
It saved the treasury probably $2 trillion in direct and indirect costs, and was wildly successful, and everyone screaming against it anyway doesn't give a damn about the economics of any of it, they are peddling pure class war resentment.
Did the congress then also insist on burning bankers in oil and giving away boatloads to union goons and whatever they heck else? Sure. Is any of your fire directed at the socialist boon-doggle add ons, in *defense* of the Bush, Treasury, and Fed supported aid specifically to the banking system, which worked and was and is "money good"? Noooo. Not you, not anyone railing against it. Why?
Because the underlying objection is that money left the US treasury in ways that benefitted rich people somewhere, and that is a populist outrage. To ungrateful grasping unjust slopeheads who rob financiers at gunpoint to the tune of $400 billion a year to fund middle class handouts they do not need, while stiffing them with $2 trillion in bad debts in their private capacities as deadbeat borrowers.
Do you have anything to say in defense of American capitalists and financiers, or the professionalism and expertise of the treasury and Fed officials who saved the banking system last fall? Nooo. Nor is this partisan anything, you are railing against policies of the Bush administration and responsible republican officials.
This has been the whole luddite economic know-nothing pose on the right since the election, and it is utter crap from start to finish.
TARP for the banks worked great. I'll take the men who planned and executed it, and the bankers it helped who have paid it as contracted, over every populist doom monger and mainstreet deadbeat you can drum together. Twice on Sundays.
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