Free Republic

<p>The oratorical skills White House hopeful Barack Obama has shown on the stump -- and in his "There's not a black America and white America . . . there's the United States of America" speech -- would seem to make him a natural for wowing juries.</p>

The administration of President George W. Bush has put aside the idea of buying mortgage-related securities and now favors investing government money directly into US banks, The New York Times reported Sunday. The newspaper said that in effect that plan means a partial nationalization of the banking industry. The reported decision comes two weeks after the US Congress voted to allow the government to spend 700 billion dollars to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages. Bush said Saturday that the world's richest economies were united on a "serious global response" to the financial meltdown. "We will stand together in addressing...

WASHINGTON: As international leaders gathered here on Saturday to grapple with the global financial crisis, the Bush administration embarked on an overhaul of its own strategy for rescuing the foundering financial system. Two weeks after persuading Congress to let it spend $700 billion to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages, the Bush administration has put that idea aside in favour of a new approach that would have the government inject capital directly into the nations banks in effect, partially nationalizing the industry. The Treasury Department's surprising turnaround on the issue of buying stock in banks, which has now become its...

AIG's crucial role in the banking collapse Oct 09, 2008 Something very strange is happening in the financial markets. And I can show you what it is and what it means... If September didn't give you enough to worry about, consider what will happen to real estate prices as unemployment grows steadily over the next several months. As bad as things are now, they'll get much worse. They'll get worse for the obvious reason: because more people will default on their mortgages. But they'll also remain depressed for far longer than anyone expects, for a reason most people will never...

Need help in locating a great conservative article on what we could expect from a Nationalized Banking System under Obama and a majority Commicrat Congress. This article included the facts that a Nationalized Banking system would be able to regulate our lives by loaning money only if you were using it to live "Green". No home loans for homes over 1,500 sq ft . . . uses too much energy to heat and cool. No homes out in the country . . . use too much fuel to drive back and forth to work, much better living in a cramped...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryOctober 11, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       In Focus: EconomyTHE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Over the past few days, we have witnessed a startling drop in the stock market -- much of it driven by uncertainty and fear. Many Americans have serious concerns about their economic well-being. Here's what the American people need to know: The United States government is acting -- and will continue to act -- to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets. The Federal government has a comprehensive strategy and the tools necessary to...

Yes, the bailout passed. But Paulson announced that he is going to use the bailout powers to take a 10% stake in all banks- outright Socialism! WHY aren't there tens of thousands of calls to President Bush and Congress objecting and demanding the replacement of Paulson?

Financial crisis: World leaders pledge to part-nationalise swathes of global banking World leaders have pledged to part-nationalise swathes of the global banking system as part of a drastic international plan to halt the panic gripping financial markets and prevent the crisis from descending into a global depression. By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor, in Washington Last Updated: 2:10PM BST 11 Oct 2008 Finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading world economies, including the UK and US, said they stood ready to pump public money into banks in order to prevent them from collapse. The agreement came as Chancellor Alistair Darling...

CNBC.com Henry Paulson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I don't wish to spread alarm on the line people but the big issue confronting the market is I'm afraid the health and sustainability of Morgan Stanley [MS 9.68 -2.77 (-22.25%) ] and Goldman Sachs [GS 88.80 -12.55 (-12.38%) ]," Hugh Hendry, Partner and CIO at Eclectica, told CNBC early Friday. "It is unimaginable that they can be allowed to go, I suspect that they will be nationalized at some point today or over the weekend," he added.

Ask owners of real estate or brokerage and retirement accounts. As depressed a lot we shall rarely see. Add to this the jobs lost and homes foreclosed, while the elected class continues its chronic credit card binge. With the ship of state ablaze, the two-party monopoly...

SYDNEY, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. government is weighing guaranteeing billions of dollars in bank debt and temporarily insuring al U.S. bank deposits, in a bid to unfreeze bank lending and staunch massive losses in equity markets, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The New York Times reported that U.S. and British officials were converging on a similar blueprint to stem financial chaos involving injections of government money into banks in return for ownership stakes and guarantees of repayment for various types of loans. MORE http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSSYD37289020081010 U.S. Weighs Backing Bank Debt Removing Deposit Insurance Limits Also on the...

The federal government caused the economic carnage upon us, not by lack of regulation, as we are told, but by a fatally flawed system suffering cardiac ...

As the financial crisis continues, the Bush administration, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is moving ahead to enact the unconstitutional and socialistic measures contained in the recently passed and misleadingly nicknamed "bailout bill" — misleading not because it's not a bailout, but because it's much more than that. This bill — officially the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 — is, along with the Treasury Department's "Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure," about nationalizing the entire United States financial system, a truly radical act that will hasten the United States of America along the road to total socialism....

Thanks to the fantastic and timely recent IMF paper and database on historical financial crises by Luc Laeven and Fabian Valencia, we can identify other instances in which a government took equity stakes in major banks as part of a recapitalization program. This has happened five times since 1970, according to Laeven and Valencia: Finland Jamaica Japan Korea Norway Crisis date (year and month, respectively ) Sep-91 Dec-96 Nov-97 Aug-97 Oct-91 Recap cost to government (gross) (as % of GDP respectively) 8.63% 13.90% 6.61% 19.31% 2.61% Recovery proceeds (% of GDP respectively) 1.72% 4.95% 0.09% 3.50% 2.00% Recap cost to...

WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department is considering ways to inject capital directly into banks, possibly by taking equity stakes, as the financial crisis continues to worsen. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in a marked shift in rhetoric, played up Treasury's newfound authority to "to inject capital into financial institutions" in remarks Wednesday. Mr. Paulson, who won approval from Congress to buy $700 billion worth of distressed assets, had previously focused on Treasury's plan to buy mortgage-related securities from financial institutions that are having trouble getting the assets off their books. As the financial crisis continues to escalate, Treasury has begun fleshing out ways...

According to a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, National City Corp. (NYSE: NCC) is in talks with two banks to discuss a possible sale. The WSJ cites unnamed sources "familiar with the situation." It names Pittsburgh's largest bank, PNC Financial Services Group Inc., and Bank of Nova Scotia in Canada as among the potential buyers.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has admitted that he expects more American banks to fail despite the Bush administration's $700bn bailout plan. Mr Paulson is also warning that global financial markets remain severely strained and that the turmoil will not end quickly. Yesterday, Central Banks around the world cut interest rates by half of one percentage point in a co-ordinated move aimed at boosting the markets. Most European and Asian shares were up today as a result of the intervention.

Rep Shays Wrong is being done. It's getting worse. Socialism stabilizes nothing. It is just a power grab. So, it does not matter what is the best answer for dealing with this country's financial mess (Thank you, ACORN and the 5 million illegals who own homes). It is only about who has power, who is given power. In the best spirit of the Duma (Russian Parlianment in case you didn't know), you have voted astonishing centralization of financial power. What you don't realize is that increases the chances of catastrophically bad decisions based on wrong premises for how to "stabilize"...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is considering taking ownership stakes in a number of U.S. banks as one option it might use to deal with a serious credit crisis, an administration official said Wednesday. This official, who spoke to The Associated Press late Wednesday on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made, said the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress last week allows the Treasury Department to inject fresh capital into financial institutions and get ownership shares in return. This official said that all the new powers granted in the legislation were being considered as the administration...

While negative press coverage abounds for the John McCain ticket, there exists a mysterious lack of real investigative coverage concerning his rival, Barack Obama. Obama is an unknown quantity on almost every important issue, yet his activist background is invisible. All we hear is how his election is a foregone conclusion. Is the press afraid to question the qualifications and motives of a black candidate? I agree with Sarah Palin who said Obama's comments on the war "disqualify him to be commander-in-chief." And not one in 20 people can explain what a "community organizer" is. All that is publicly known,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many U.S. banks in a bid to restore confidence in the badly shaken financial system, the New York Times said. The moves would come after Treasury has had little success in unlocking frozen credit markets, The Times said on its website, quoting government officials. Treasury officials told the newspaper the $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash into banks that request it, a move that would quickly strengthen banks' balance sheets and hopefully persuade them to resume lending. In return, Treasury has the...

Remember that Goldman Sachs has been boosting a long position on oil prices for years.How much of the bank heartburn that we're being called upon to cure might be coming from big commodity bets in the last two years?Mortgage backed securities might be a smaller part of the picture than is being let on.Would appreciate any links or information that Freepers can supply.

Taxpayers will be committed today to providing more than £50 billion to bail out high street banks in an attempt to avert a cataclysmic failure of confidence. Alistair Darling was due to tell the City in an early morning announcement today that the sum will be available for “investment” in banks that have demanded help from the Government. The drastic rescue move is designed to help to reassure savers and to kickstart the paralysed credit markets by encouraging banks to lend to each other again. After meeting Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, Downing Street was forced...

Federal regulators today proposed doubling the amount banks pay to insure their deposits, reflecting the hit the government's insurance fund has taken by the failure of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank and 12 other institutions this year -- and projections of more failures to come. The board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. gave unanimous initial approval to a five-year plan to replenish the Deposit Insurance Fund, which has fallen below its mandated level. The fund had $45.2 billion as of June 30, representing 1.01% of insured domestic deposits. It is not supposed to fall below 1.15%, and the FDIC prefers it...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced a radical new plan on Tuesday to jump-start the engine of the financial system. The Fed said in a statement that it would begin to buy large amounts of short-term debt in an effort to stimulate the credit markets, which have all but dried up. Under the program, the Fed said that it would buy the unsecured short-term debt that companies rely on to finance their day-to-day activities. “This facility should encourage investors to once again engage in term lending in the commercial paper market,” the Fed said Tuesday in a statement. “An improved...

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve will provide as much as $900 billion in cash loans to squeezed banks in an urgent effort Monday to break through a dangerous credit clog that threatens the economy and has unhinged financial markets around the globe. The Fed's action is aimed at spurring spooked financial institutions, which are hoarding cash, to lend not only to each other but also to individuals and businesses. Even as the Fed pledged to take "additional measures as necessary" to battle the worst credit crisis in decades, Wall Street was in a nosedive. The Dow Jones industrials plunged more...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve announced Monday that it will make hundreds of billions more dollars available to the nation's banks in return for a wide range of troubled collateral. The central bank said that its so-called term auction facility, which accepts financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities as a collateral, will be doubled immediately to $300 billion. The total amount available to banks will rise to $600 billion under the moves announced Monday. In addition, the Fed signaled it could increase the amount available through those loans to $900 billion by the end of the year,...

We are being told loudly and repeatedly that the gargantuan mortgage bail-out package is necessary because illiquid mortgage-backed securities are clogging our financial arteries, threatening the economic equivalent of cardiac arrest. The idea of the plan is to transfer these supposedly valuable, but currently unmarketable, assets to the government so that private institutions can freely lend once more. The monumental flaw in this argument is that the mortgage backed securities are in fact highly liquid, just not at the prices the owners would like to receive. Mortgage bonds are just like houses. They won’t sell if the owners stubbornly refuse...

My wife's bank statement: Starting balance 9/8/2008: $2322.75 Debits between 9/8/2008 and 9/18/08: $1753.09 At no point does the balance dip below zero. This is fraudulent activity on the part of the bank itself - bank fraud in the truest sense. There is only ONE gas purchase in this list (possible $75.00 hold). Even assuming a $100.00 hold, that still does not bring the account balance below zero. I will submit to you that this - whatever creative balance shuffling formulae they are using to get to a below-zero balance from these numbers - is a key symptom of the...

A REVOLUTION BEFORE MORNING! 3 out of 4 Americans realize that the banks are raping America, they call and write and fax and threaten to vote against their representatives in our Government. Americans see bailout after bailout after bailout.... 25billion FORD GMC ..wasn’t enough, need more 30billion BEAR .....wasn’t enough, need more 85billion AIG .....wasn’t enough, need more 138billion LEHMAN...wasn’t enough, need more(they tried to hide that one) 200billion FANNIES...wasn’t enough, need more 300billion House RESCUE PLAN Bush signed set to take affect on October 1st. 850billion WHO ELSE? and no one will ask the question,” Will this be the...

From Times Online October 3, 2008 US banks borrow record amount from Fed Catherine Boyle US banks borrowed a record $367.8 billion (£208 billion) a day from the Federal Reserve in the week ended October 1. Data from the US central bank shows how much financial institutions are relying on the Fed in its role as lender of last resort as short-term funding becomes almost impossible to find elsewhere. Banks' discount window borrowings averaged $367.80 billion per day in the week ended October 1, nearly double the previous record daily average of $187.75 billion last week. With interbank lending and...

On Friday, with its stock plunging 27 percent, Wachovia experienced a “silent run” on deposits, but the bigger worry for regulators was that other banks wouldn't provide the Charlotte bank with necessary short-term funding when it opened for business Monday, sources familiar with the situation told the Observer.

MONROE, Wash. – In a move that could be right out of a Hollywood movie, a brazen crook apparently used a Craigslist ad to hire a dozen unsuspecting decoys to help him make his getaway following a robbery outside a bank on Tuesday. He then made his escape in an inner tube on the Skykomish River. The robbery happened about 11 a.m. on an armored truck guard at a Bank of America branch. "He was wearing a dust mask, a particle mask. At first I thought it might be a surgical mask. I still didn't think anything was wrong, just...

Soros floats alternative bailout plan with Dems By Alexander Bolton Posted: 09/30/08 11:19 PM [ET] The billionaire financier George Soros, a major Democratic financial backer, is floating his own rescue plan among Democratic lawmakers who are uncertain what to do in the wake of a surprise defeat of a proposed $700 billion rescue package proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Soros has outlined his plan in an opinion editorial in the Financial Times and circulated a concept paper among decision-makers. Specifically, the liberal philanthropist has proposed that government funds should be used to recapitalize the American banking system by purchasing...

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES HOLDS A HEARING ON TREASURY DEPARTMENT'S VIEWS ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES SEPTEMBER 10, 2003And I now will recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Frank. FRANK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate hearing from the two Cabinet secretaries, but I just say at the outset that before we move on any legislation, I would hope we would have some additional hearings. And in particular, I think it's important that the variety of groups in our country who care about housing be invited, because that's my major focus here, as it's...

Spiro Agnew's words of the Nixon era ring true today. The politicians, pundits and, yes, the press, are nattering nabobs of negativism. For example, in recent weeks, the broadcast and the print media have filed stories replete with scare words. You don't even have to look at the tabloids to see what I mean. The front page of the New York Times recently described what it called "chaos" in the financial markets. Not to be outdone, most of the first section of The Wall Street Journal one day last week was devoted to articles describing the "spreading crisis" in our...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement after the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives against the financial rescue plan. He said: “I have never been more disappointed in the Congress than I am today. I hope every member of the House of Representatives—Republican and Democrat—who voted against this legislation will work in the next twenty-four hours to improve the bill. Now is the time to put the national interest above the self interest. “Speaker Pelosi’s partisan comments before the vote obviously did not help matters. Now is not the time for extreme partisanship...

The UK Times says British banks can tap the rescue fund being set up by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve to the maximum, they could secure one quarter of the $700 billion being made available. Under the terms of an outline agreement that appeared to have been reached by US policymakers last night, Britain’s lenders will be able to use the facility. However, the prospect that the US Treasury could pay for UK banks’ bad assets is likely to infuriate some American politicians and taxpayers, who would foot the bill. As Congress edged closer to agreeing a plan...

Call it the birth of Citichovia. In another day of Wall Street’s epic saga, news came today that Citigroup will acquire Wachovia’s banking operations for $2.1 billion in stock and will assume another $53 billion in Wachovia debt. Which leaves Wachovia customers scratching their heads, as Washington Mutual customers were last week. But there’s a big difference between the Wachovia and WaMu dealings — time.

European central banks have cut their sales of gold to the lowest level in almost a decade, reversing the practice of recent years when hefty sales helped depress prices. Institutions bound by the Central Bank Gold Agreement – the banks of the eurozone plus Sweden and Switzerland – sold about 343 tonnes of gold in the year that expired on Friday, the lowest amount since the first CBGA was signed in 1999. This compares with 475.8 tonnes in the year to the end of September 2007. Under the agreement, the banks are allowed to sell up to 500 tonnes of...

John McCain's presidential campaign claimed credit as Congress readied Monday to vote on an emergency economic package, but Democrats said the Republican's last-ditch intervention had been no help. Mitt Romney, McCain's erstwhile rival for the Republican nomination, said the deal on a Wall Street bailout worth up to 700 billion dollars would never have happened without the Arizona senator. Speaking on NBC television, the former Massachusetts governor said "this bill would not have been agreed to had it not been for John McCain."...

An ACORN Falls from the Tree A congressional outrage. By Ken Blackwell As negotiations over Congress’s emergency rescue bill continued over the weekend, repeated rumors leaked out that the Democrats were trying to funnel money to a hyper-partisan organization involved in criminal voter fraud. I’m speaking of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — known by its acronym, ACORN. Although ACORN was cut from the final legislation, it’s important to understand this organization and its long history with, of all people, Barack Obama. And it’s important to see how partisan this emergency legislation has become. As the weekend...

Since this country seems to have largely abandoned the true use of the constitution and the looters are getting closer by the day, I thought I'd do a where's waldo kind of thing. If you had to start over in a country other than the USA, where would you think that it would be most likely that you could live the kind of life that the original intent of the constitution would have afforded you, and where do you think that John is hiding...? Also, if there does happen to be a crash, how are you preparing?

Stanley Kurtz takes a look at how the Community Reinvestment Act was used by activist groups to pressure banks into lending money to high-risk applicants, and how “community organizers” like ACORN played a front-line role. ACORN insinuated itself into the process by using CRA to block bank sales and mergers and force lending institutions to lower standards for applicants. They also championed the sale of these loans to Fannie Mae as a key program that would alleviate the lenders of any risk in lending: CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in...

Charles E. Allen Jr. took pride in leading the only independent bank based in Johnson City, a northeast Tennessee town with a rich history in railroads, mining and old-time music. Twelve years ago, Mr. Allen, a former state legislator whose roots in the region date to the nineteenth century, joined 100 families to raise money for State of Franklin Bancshares Inc. Shareholders include local business owners, doctors, schoolteachers and a firefighter. Now the bank, an unexpected victim of the mortgage meltdown, is being forced to sell out to an out-of-town rival. "I've never been so disappointed," says Mr. Allen, the...

FDIC: Citi to Buy Wachovia’s Banking Operations The FDIC made the following announcement this morning on Citi’s purchase of Wachovia’s banking operations. Citigroup Inc. to Acquire Banking Operations of Wachovia FDIC, Federal Reserve and Treasury Agree to Provide Open Bank Assistance to Protect Depositors Citigroup Inc. will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia Corporation; Charlotte, North Carolina, in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and concurred with by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the President. All depositors are fully protected and there is expected to...

(Article: May 23, 2005) In an attempt to make itself more attractive to Hispanic consumers, Wachovia Bank is offering some new services, including Spanish language bank statements and a different way to transfer funds to Latin America. A foreign remittance card that can be used at ATM machines across Latin America is one of the services in the bank's "Cuenta con Todo" or "account with everything" package of services. They are, for the most part, the same services offered to other customers, but with the addition of bank statements and information offered in Spanish, a spokeswoman for the bank...

The government has just extended it to $11,315,000,000,000 with their new bailout bill they have been feverishly working on. In written form, that is eleven trillion, three hundred fifteen billion dollars. With the population of the United States of America at 301,139,947, we are looking at each person owing $37, 573.90.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0 Explosive CEO calling Obama and Dems the "Family" "Conscience" of Fannie Mae The Banking Failures are because of the Housing Crisis, which was caused by mortgage lenders handing out bad loans and the biggest offenders: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac The Democrats have been taking PAYOFFS from Fannie and Freddie to look the other way FOR DECADES! NOW VIDEO FOUND of the CEO of Fannie Mae in 2005 explaining the "FAMILY" connection with Democrats And specifically Barack Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus

As I have followed recent events, particularly of the past three weeks, I am compelled to share some thoughts about what is going on in banking: Merrill Lynch. Lehman Brothers. Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac. It's a who's who of Wall Street giants - all in trouble. If these giants can't survive the country's economic woes, what chance can the smaller community banks have? The answer is most community banks did not participate in the subprime mess responsible for the upheaval across the country. We are going about business as usual, working hard for our communities and doing fine.