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President Barack Obama, whose economic acumen was shaped by left-wing, Big Government ideologues, wants to fix the housing market mess that government, in large part, is responsible for creating. His plan to tax big banks to raise money to guarantee refinanced loans for existing homeowners to lower their monthly payments is fundamentally flawed, almost certainly won't pass Congress, but it is political pandering of the first order. In an election year, is anyone surprised he would push something he knows won't happen while positioning himself as Rescuer-in-Chief? He can always blame Congress when it doesn't come to pass. The rest...

Ex-President George W. Bush tells auto dealers he'd bail out automakers again

Refinancing mortgages... a plan pushed by Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia business school, also a top economic advisor to GOP hopeful Mitt Romney.

Detroit - Factory workers at Chrysler are getting $1,500 profit-sharing checks next month, a sign the automaker’s turnaround is succeeding. About 26,000 union-represented workers in the U.S. should get the payments, according to Chrysler’s contract with the United Auto Workers union. The profit-sharing figure is based on an Associated Press analysis of company earnings, and the labor contract formula for profit-sharing. Chrysler would not say how much the workers will get. But the formula in its new four-year contract with the UAW shows that the checks will be about $1,500. The checks are based on Chrysler’s $2 billion operating profit

Washington - Lest anyone doubt his solidarity with the American blue-collar worker, President Obama left the office Tuesday afternoon and spent some quality time with a Camaro. He never cranked up the stereo and took it for a spin, of course, but rather admired it on the showroom floor of the Washington Auto Show. But the photo op with the classic American muscle car gave Obama the chance to brag that the 2009 bailout he pushed through Congress ended up saving the big automakers. “The U.S. auto industry is back!” Obama declared. Cars are becoming a regular talking point for...

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, President Obama today acknowledged that he has made mistakes during his presidency but defended the steps his administration has taken to create jobs and improve the economy. "I second-guess constantly… I make a mistake, you know, every hour, every day," he told ABC News' Diane Sawyer, laughing. "There're always things that you're learning in the job. And I have no doubt that I'm a better president now than the day I took office just because you get more experience. But when you look at the broad outlines of what we did, had it...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A government watchdog says U.S. taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion that companies haven't repaid from the financial bailout, and some of that will never be recovered. The bailout launched at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 will continue to exist for years, says a report issued Thursday by Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout. Some bailout programs, such as the effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, will last as late as 2017, costing the government an additional $51 billion or so. The gyrating...

Rumor has it that in a matter of days, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

Less than two years after emerging from bankruptcy,General Motors Co.has regained the title of the world's largest automaker. GM's worldwide sales rose 7.6% to 9 million vehicles in 2011. The Detroit manufacturer last held the top spot in 2007 before it was surpassed byToyota Motor Corp.the next year. Chevrolet, GM's flagship brand, set a record by selling nearly 4.8 million vehicles. That was more than what many entire auto companies posted in sales last year, including Nissan and Honda. "It is an accomplishment that GM has been able to reverse the tide in the U.S. and Asia, and they are...

Mitt Romney told CNBC Wednesday that he’s happy to have a debate about private equity alleged role in killing American jobs — because President Obama also forced companies to shed jobs at car dealerships during the auto bailout. So it is somewhat ironic that Romney’s former firm, Bain & Company, was among the private consulting firms that advised the Obama auto bailout team. And what did Bain recommend? Cutting dealerships. Romney’s ties to Bain Capital and its predecessor firm Bain & Company have come under scrutiny in recent days as his GOP rivals accuse him of “vulture capitalism” that made...

Romney has said that Obama is putting free-enterprise on trial and that some in the GOP are joining him? What? This is according to the un-aired ad "Bain & Co: The 1994 Ad By Sen. Ted Kennedy Which Will Floor Mitt RomBOT In 2012": The day Romney took over at Bain, "he had his predecessor fire hundreds of employees." The company was rescued with "a federal bailout of $10 million dollars." "According to the Globe, Romney's company failed to repay at least $10 million to a failed bank and the rest of us had to absorb the loss. Romney abd...

On the heels of his decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary, Mitt Romney took the attacks on his private sector record used by GOP rivals and turned them against President Obama. Romney’s critics have accused him of destroying jobs in order to increase profits for his investment firm, Bain Capital, but speaking Wednesday on CBS, Romney said that what he did was no different from the Obama administration’s auto industry bailouts. “In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and...

I'm just curious - which of the Candidates will pledge that they will not allow ANY bailouts ? No bailouts of private equity, hedge funds, pension funds. Private equity has, according to Zerohedge today, enormous amounts of debt coming due in the next few years, debt that funded buyouts of businessness that are floundering. European sovereign debt and banking bubbles look like they will cause bankruptcy of some kind in the American financial industry. Mr. "frontrunner" Romney; will he pledge no bailouts ? Mr. Ron Paul probably will - but he apparently is intent on knocking out all other Republican...

It wasn't really a TARP style bailout -- worse -- Romney's Bain placed a $10 million dollar liability with the taxpayers. All this while he benefited $4 million dollars directly. “The way the company was rescued was with a federal bailout of $10 million,” the ad says. “The rest of us had to absorb the loss … Romney? He and others made $4 million in this deal. … Mitt Romney: Maybe he’s just against government when it helps working men and women.” The facts of the Bain & Co. turnaround are a little more complicated, but a Boston Globe report...

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

We know two things with certainty: In the week ended December 13 (14th excluded), one or more banks, most likely European, borrowed up to $2.5 billion from the Fed's Primary Credit Discount Window. And since US banks are drowning in dollar-based liquidity, any need to approach the Discount Window now, in the context of trillions of Excess Reserves, carries with its exponentially greater stigmata than it ever did during Lehman days. Also, in the week ended December 14, the Fed did a mid-month settlement of $31 billion in MBS purchases—a transaction which allowed a Primary Dealer to source critical liquidity,...

One hates to disagree with accomplished professionals. And yet it’s obvious that the experts of this great Age of the Accredited Professional (AAP) have really blown it. They assured us that they could manage the economy — indeed, micro-manage the economy — and that things were all right. And yet, the bust happened, and they’ve been scurrying to prevent an utter debacle. It looks to me that, for all their trillions in bailouts, they haven’t succeeded. Government policies of deficit spending and ever-increasing debt are self-destructing, right on top of a bubble’s bursting, a bubble created by experts (mostly government,...

Vice President Joe Biden, now best known for being the man who relies primarily on Jon Corzine for financial advice, continued his recent roll of epic linguistic blunders this morning. As Reuters reports, the VP, "joked during a visit to debt-choked Athens on Monday about bringing money to help Greece out of its deepest financial crisis in decades. Introducing a member of his delegation during a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias, Biden said: "This man represents the Treasury department. He's brought hundreds of millions of dollars." His comments drew laughs from both the Greek and U.S. delegations." It...

As the news came out on Friday morning, the headline reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6% from 9%–at first glance, the rate looked like 98.6 on the economic thermometer. The analysts are still arguing over the meaning of this data, but for traders and investors the real outcome is meaningless. It may lead to foreign investors purchasing U.S. equities as America is seen to be a relatively stronger economy, especially when compared with the EUROPEAN CREDIT-STRESSED environment. The headline number is fraught with all types of data pollution as the bean counters strive to figure out how many...

Pressed in the interview about how that was not "a point of view one normally associates with conservatives," Mr. Gingrich replied that there are times "when you need government to help spur private enterprise and economic development." He cited electricity and telephone network expansion as similarly effective private-public purposes. "It's not a point of view libertarians would embrace, but I am more in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservatism," he said. He added, "I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today."

In 2008, the United States government and Federal Reserve helped bailout European banks to the tune of trillions of dollars.  The reactions to this by Congress and the public ensured that any future bailouts would have to be performed through the use of a proxy institution. It appears that this proxy institution has been found, as the IMF on November 22nd just opened a new credit facility with the primary purpose of providing liquidity to sovereign nations, especially those currently in the Euro Zone. IMF talking points on new credit facility * IMF APPROVES CREDIT LINE PROGRAM CHANGES TO PROVIDE...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement on today’s news regarding the Federal Reserve’s undisclosed bank loans: “These outrageous secret federal loans to bailout big banks are why Americans are disgusted with business-as-usual Washington, the Federal Reserve and taxpayer-funded bailouts. The actions of Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Geithner have again proven that Washington insiders cannot be trusted to stop bailouts, protect taxpayers, or create jobs. “My economic reform plans seriously overhaul Washington, end federal bailouts and cut government spending, regulations and taxes to put American job creation and our economy on the right track.”

In one of the best Marx Brothers scenes is from A Night at the Opera, where Groucho and Chico are ripping up a contract and they finally come to the SANITY CLAUSE, in which Chico proclaims there is no SANITY CLAUSE. In tomorrow’s Financial Times, there is a story about France pushing for a Christmas gift from the ECB. The gift that the French are hoping for is a backstop for the European banks that are under severe stress because of the huge amount of EURO sovereign bonds on the banks’ balance sheets. In order for the ECB to act,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries in General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Volt have prompted an investigation to assess the risk of fire in the electric car after a serious crash, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday. One Volt battery pack that was being closely monitored following a government crash test caught fire Thursday, the safety administration said in a statement. Another recently crash-tested battery emitted smoke and sparks, the statement said. GM, which was informed of the investigation on Friday, said in a statement that the Volt "is safe and does not present undue risk...

12/31/2010 9,390,476,088,043.35 4,634,739,130,665.17 14,025,215,218,708.52

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

The collapse of MF Global Holdings gives Americans yet another reason not to trust Wall Street. The firm filed for bankruptcy as federal regulators were looking for $600 million missing from customer accounts. Its CEO, former Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, had bet that European leaders would bail out smallish countries that were too big to fail. His bet did not pay off. The only good news out of this story is that Washington won't be bailing out MF Global. Corzine said he won't take a reported $12 million in severance. If he truly wants to atone, then Corzine...

Occasionally the Washington Post does some real reporting. Yesterday Zachery Goldfarb did an analysis of the aggregate profits over the past three years for the major banks and financial institutions as compared to the eight years of the Bush administration. The finding: these firms have accumulated more profit in the three years of the Obama administration than they did in the two terms of George W. Bush. In an interview with Mr. Goldfarb on NPR when asked what kind of companies and how this happened, replied: We're talking about banks, the big ones you've heard of, Citigroup, Bank of America....

As California solar panel maker Solyndra teetered on the brink of financial collapse, Obama administration officials weighed and rejected a last-ditch plan to keep the ccompany afloat. Under the August plan, which was outlined in nearly 1,200 pages of documents the Obama administration released Wednesday evening, private investors would have put about $100 million into Solyndra, the company that received a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009. Meanwhile, the Energy Department would have agreed to convert some of Solyndra’s debt to the federal government into a partial stake in the company. The agreement would have also authorized the Energy Department...

Freedom Radio, November 2, 2011 Wednesday morning at 10 AM EST has the distinct honor and pleasure to welcome Colonel Frank Ryan, USMC, retired. Col. Ryan has more military, business and professional experience than any or all of the current Presidential candidates. Col Ryan is a retired Marine and CPA who served on General Tommy Franks staff in Iraq, as an expert in economic warfare. When forming his staff, Gen. Franks said, "Get me Ryan". His decades of public service have not ended with his retirement from the military. For nearly twenty years, Frank Ryan has been president of the...

Italian deputies exchanged blows in parliament on Wednesday as tensions over a tough economic reform program came to a head. At least two deputies from the Northern League, a member of the ruling center-right coalition, fought with members from the opposition FLI party of speaker Gianfranco Fini. Two deputies grabbed each other by the throat as other parliamentarians rushed to separate them.

Another Sentelli hammer-nail rant of truth .. Rick Santelli Highest Wage Earners in DC, What Does That Tell US?

Some fascinating survey data from Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen: On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion. Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they...

Rick Perry's campaign is pointing to Mitt Romney's defense of the Wall St. bailouts as the latest sign that he's President Obama's Republican twin. "This is just one more example about how Mitt Romney has more in common with Obama and the Democrats than with the Republicans," the Texas governor's spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told the Daily News. Romney defended parts of the bank bailout program during the Republican presidential debate on Tuesday, arguing it was necessary to "keep the entire currency of the country worth something." The former Massachusetts governor added, "We could have had a complete meltdown of our...

When a man like Steve Keen says the trillions spent on refinancing the banks has truly stuffed us, we really should listen I stumbled out into the autumn sunshine, figures ricocheting around my head, still trying to absorb what I had heard. I felt as if I had just attended a funeral: a funeral at which all of us got buried. I cannot claim to have understood everything in the lecture: Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu theory and the 41-line differential equation were approximately 15.8 metres over my head. But the points I grasped were clear enough. We're stuffed: stuffed to a degree that...

Here in the U.S. we have an SEC rule... Rule 10b-5 -- Employment of Manipulative and Deceptive Devices "It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange, 1. To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud, 2. To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not...

The desperate search for an acceptable Republican Party presidential candidate continues. Republican leaders apparently are pushing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who previously said no, to jump into the race. The GOP's frustration is palpable. Mitt Romney has been running for four years but generates little enthusiasm. Rick Perry was an instant front-runner before losing much of his support after unimpressive debate performances. Michelle Bachmann briefly streaked across the political firmament but now barely registers in the polls. Newt Gingrich committed political seppuku shortly after announcing his candidacy. Ron Paul's support is fervent but limited. However, the real Republican problem...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Angry and frustrated, Greek civil servants walked off the job Wednesday, paralyzing the government and public transport to protest ever-deeper austerity measures and seemingly ineffectual financial policies. As Greece struggles to avoid a catastrophic default, demonstrators in Athens expressed outrage over their misfortune and bewilderment at a crisis that shows no signs of easing. "Nobody knows what's going on. Every day they say something different. It's all so unclear," said Irini Sypsomou-Arapogianni, a 57-year-old Finance Ministry employee. "I don't know where all this will lead."

Deputy Education Minister Evi Christofilopoulou suggested that police might be mobilized to break up hundreds of sit-ins at schools on Monday a few hours after hundreds of pupils protesting cutbacks clashed with riot officers in central Athens ----------------------------------------------------Christofilopoulou added that a controversial scheme, finalized by the government on Monday, to put 30,000 civil servants on labor standby status, which would see them receiving a heavily docked wage for 12 months before early retirement or dismissal, would also apply to schoolteachers. Unionists accused the ministry of “artificially inflating teacher numbers.”

Bank of America Corp plans to charge customers who use their debit cards to make purchases a $5 monthly fee beginning early next year, joining other banks scrambling for new sources of revenue. U.S. banks have been looking for ways to increase revenue as regulations introduced since the financial crisis limited the use of overdraft and other fees.

GOP House Oversight and Government Reform chair Rep. Darryl Issa has questions for Ford CEO Alan Mulally about the White House Ford fiasco. In a new letter Mulally received today, Rep. Issa requests more information and notes that he is “deeply concerned about undue political pressure exerted by the White House on public companies. Issa asks Mulally the same question I asked White House press flack Dan Pfeiffer yesterday (and which Pfeiffer refused to answer): Did any White House officials — or any other current or former administration officials — contact any Ford officials/employees to discuss the anti-bailout ad? He...

What was designed as a “man-on-the-street” style commercial for Ford Motor Co. turned into a potent political statement when F-150 owner Chris McDaniel, asked about the importance of buying American, explained why Ford was the company for him: “I wasn’t going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government,” McDaniel explained. “I was going to buy from a manufacturer that’s standing on their own, win, lose or draw.” The TV spot was so popular, the video went viral on YouTube. But it was not until the ad was pulled off the air that people really started talking...

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford's turnaround over the last five years has resulted in big profits and won its CEO a reputation for brilliant management. But those same achievements are stirring resentment among many of its factory workers. And that is complicating contract talks between the company and its union employees. GM and Chrysler needed government bailouts and bankruptcy protection to stay in business, but Ford took billions in private loans and endured on its own. As a result, Ford became a consumer favorite and the company prospered. It paid Mulally for engineering the turnaround and restored merit pay and some...

Ford Motor Company has shelved a television commercial indirectly criticizing its competitors for accepting government bailouts to avoid bankruptcy in the wake of media criticism and, reportedly, a call from the White House. The ad, first uploaded to YouTube months ago, was part of a series featuring real-life customers who were thrust into press conferences where actor/reporters asked them to explain their decisions to buy a Ford. "I wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government," the customer, Chris, said in the ad. "I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their...

Is this just a business seeing a competitive edge against two of its rivals — or a political statement meant for wider purposes? Ford has a new ad series called “Press Conference,” in which sales staff escort a Ford buyer into a room supposedly to finalize paperwork but finds “reporters” and cameras on hand to ask why he or she bought a Ford. The responses are unscripted, according to US News and World Report, but the decision to publish this response while the nation still debates the auto bailouts might have some Obama supporters questioning the timing: It’s brilliant in...

Voters, warns Democrat pollster Stanley Greenberg, “feel ever more estranged from government.” ... Greenberg essentially boils down Americans’ complaints with government to two: (1) “Government works for the irresponsible, not the responsible.” (2) a new class, in and out of government, uses government to enrich themselves. On the first point, Greenberg’s voters tell him they disapprove of bailouts large and small, whether the beneficiary is a Wall Street firm whose speculations have gone south, a homeowner who bought too much house for his income, or an immigrant who entered the country illegally. On the second point, Greenberg quotes a voter...

According to this report the odds that Greece defaults on its obligations to the EuroZone is now at 98% which only proves, once again, that bailouts works....works to grind the economy to a halt and ensure that any recovery is impossible. Greece has a 98 percent chance of defaulting on its debt in the next five years as Prime Minister George Papandreou fails to reassure investors his country can survive the euro-region crisis. “Everyone’s pricing in a pretty near-term default and I think it’ll be a hard event,” said Peter Tchir, founder of hedge fund TF Market Advisors in...

FOR the last three years we have been told repeatedly by government officials that funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to large and teetering banks during the credit crisis was necessary to save the financial system, and beneficial to Main Street... --snip-- Bloomberg reported that the Fed had provided a stunning $1.2 trillion to large global financial institutions at the peak of its crisis lending in December 2008. --snip-- In 2008, the Royal Bank of Scotland received $84.5 billion, and Dexia, a Belgian lender, borrowed $58.5 billion from the Fed at... --snip-- Mr. Todd also questioned the Fed’s decision to...

<p>FOR the last three years we have been told repeatedly by government officials that funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to large and teetering banks during the credit crisis was necessary to save the financial system, and beneficial to Main Street.</p>

I might have missed it, but I don’t think anyone has noticed this simple truism: The structural causes that led to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 are identical to the structural causes that are leading us to another systemic financial crisis in 2011. The only difference is the kind of debt at the core of the looming crisis: Mortgage-backed securities in 2008, as opposed to European sovereign debt in 2011. And of course, the debt hole in 2011 is bigger than in 2008—a lot bigger. That’s why I am confident in predicting we are about to have another Global...