Free Republic

"For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows." -- Epictetus In a little-known book entitled Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance written in 2007 a year before the global financial meltdown, Harvard professor Rawi Abdelal tells how it was French socialists, not Wall Street or the U.S. Treasury or credit rating firms (S&P, Moody’s, etc.), that liberalized global finance. The only problem with this book is that it is not one of the many books on the financial meltdown that follows the successful pop journalistic formula of demonizing greedy financial...

Given the source, I was skeptical. I expected 55 straight minutes of Republican-bashing. I was wrong. Much to my surprise this video placed the blame exactly where it belongs...on the merry band running the Clinton financial team. And for good measure, they hit Obama with a few whacks as well (since he has some of the culprits in his cabinet NOW!)

Here is a look at the key components of GDP, showing how much each one contributed or subtracted from growth in the third quarter, along with forecasts for how they will perform going forward. CONSUMER SPENDING HOW MUCH IT GREW: 3.4 percent rate in third quarter, best showing since early 2007. CONTRIBUTION TO OVERALL GDP: 2.36 percentage points of the 3.5 percent third-quarter growth in GDP came from consumer spending. Car sales alone represented 1 percentage point of total growth, reflecting the success of the government’s Cash for Clunkers program. PROSPECTS: This is the biggest question facing the fledgling recovery,...

Over 5 million YouTube views. Dems will call it "old news." Conservatives will call it "a history lesson from which we need to learn." Who's more the more responsible group of folks here?

I always wondered how the people survived in Argentina's currency melt down. Here is a video with the answer. It is very interesting and inspiring.

WASHINGTON – The chairman of a new congressionally appointed panel has promised a no-holds barred investigation into last year's devastating economic collapse. The inquiry will look into whether any of the nation's biggest financial firms and the regulators in charge of monitoring them were guilty of criminal misconduct. Phil Angelides, appointed this year by Democrats to lead the 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, said the group will examine the conduct of top officials at such firms as Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, AIG and Bear Stearns, as well as mortgage buyers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

A year ago this week, Lehman Brothers blew up, dramatically advancing one of the worst financial disasters in history. The reckless behavior of greedy Wall Street bankers had come home to roost, making life a lot tougher for the rest of us. Since then, what have President Barack Obama and Congress done to prevent them from doing it again? Pretty much what Obama did when he spoke to Wall Street earlier this week. Talk. "They really haven't done anything that could prevent another meltdown," says Joseph Mason, financial-sector expert who used to work for one of the main national banking...

WASHINGTON (AP) _ PUBLIC DISAPPROVAL OF OBAMA'S HANDLING OF HEALTH CARE RISES TO 52 PERCENT IN AP-GFK POLL.

One of the goals of proposed regulatory changes of the financial industry is — as President Obama has argued — to create "a 21st century regulatory framework to ensure that a crisis like this can never happen again": Yet can a government — whether run by Republicans or Democrats — really anticipate future bubbles or meltdowns? And if it could, would the government have the political will (or political power) to prevent future meltdowns? The last time that we had a recession as deep as the current one was in 1980-82 when a Federal Reserve induced credit crunch caused short...

Here is video of Fox News' Major Garrett getting into a heated exchange with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today about why people who have never signed up to receive emails from the White House are getting emails from White House adviser David Axelrod pushing Obama's Government Health Care Plan. Garrett pushed Gibbs on how these people got emails when they never asked for emails. Gibbs was totally unprofessional towards Garrett, trying to tell Garrett how he should ask his questions and finally cutting him off by saying, "Let's go somewhere else that might be constructive," as he called...

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Something's in the air. You can feel it. A new bull. Hype? Maybe, but also a roaring new bull -- and eventually another meltdown. [...] Yes, folks, a new bubble cycle is already in motion. You can feel the energy building, the kind that fueled the meltdowns of 1998, 2000 and 2007. We never resolved the problems fueling the dot-com insanity. We made matters worse feeding the subprime credit-derivatives disaster with cheap money, Reaganomics ideology and two costly wars. Lessons were never learned, nothing was resolved. Today matters continue deteriorating. Behind the hoopla, the Wall...

http://www.wxiatv.com/video/default.aspx?aid=110764&storyid=133599

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - - FBI agents from the Washington, D.C. field office have raided a building in downtown Orlando. The building raided is the Colonial Bank building on Pine Street. The FBI is working with the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program which was established by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. FOX 35 has a crew at the scene. Check back for updates.

Recent events in the New York State Senate have focused unprecedented public attention on state government. Unfortunately this attention, almost entirely negative, has centered on the standoff for control between Democrats and Republicans. Too little attention has been paid to the continued meltdown of the New York State economy. While virtually every state has experienced significant fiscal distress, large, liberal states like New York—dependent on income taxes paid by the affluent—have been most adversely affected by the recession. New York has been committing slow-motion economic suicide for decades. Population growth has been anemic, state and local taxes are 50% higher...

Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiascoBy Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist / September 28, 2008 "THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it." That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. **SNIP** "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" I asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . . . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which...

US Democrats name financial crisis investigatorsWed Jul 15, 2009 1:57pm EDT (Adds Republican appointees) WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - Brooksley Born, a former head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission who also warned about unwarranted risks in the U.S. financial system, was appointed on Wednesday to help investigate the causes of the U.S. and global financial crisis. Democratic leaders also named former California state treasurer Phil Angelides to chair the inquiry. But Born's appointment attracted more immediate attention because of her prominence in warning about financial risks before the crisis struck. **SNIP** The other four commission members named by House...

Graham: Sotomayor OK 'barring meltdown' 'And I don't think you will have a meltdown,' says S.C. Republican senator WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats praised Sonia Sotomayor as a judicial pioneer, but Republicans questioned her impartiality and President Barack Obama's views as well Monday at the start of confirmation hearings for the nation's first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court. Even so, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Sotomayor, "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to get confirmed. "And I don't think you will" have a meltdown, he added quickly as Sotomayor sat listening, her face in a half-smile.

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) – California lawmakers were poised to miss their constitutional deadline on Monday for a state budget, bringing the state's government closer to running out of cash. Democrats and Republicans in the legislature's budget conference committee worked through Monday afternoon on a variety of proposals addressing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to close a $24.3 billion budget shortfall, but they failed to find common ground on its most dramatic proposal: eliminating the state's welfare system. "This meeting is not headed in that direction," Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello said. California's revenues are plunging amid recession, rising unemployment and the prolonged...

How could Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of generally excellent columns in the New York Times, get it so wrong? His column last Sunday--"Reagan Did It"--which stated that "the prime villains behind the mess we're in were Reagan and his circle of advisers," is perverse in shifting blame from the obvious villains closer at hand. It is disingenuous to ignore the fact that the derivatives scams at the heart of the economic meltdown didn't exist in President Reagan's time. The huge expansion in collateralized mortgage and other debt, the bubble that burst, was the...

LETTER: Frank pushed for loans that caused the meltdownMay 29, 2009 6:00 AM Frank pushed for loans that caused the meltdown On Wednesday night, April 13, I watched Sean Hannity's show featuring Thomas Sowell, the black journalist who ironically has a steady column in your cousin paper, The Cape Cod Times. I love diversity! For some odd (or is it?) reason, The Standard-Times refuses to carry his column, or any other conservative columnist, whether black or white! Hmm. Anyway, Sowell points out on the news program that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took on mortgages that poor people couldn't afford...

Meltdown 101: Why is the dollar weakening?By MADLEN READ, The Associated Press 1:00 p.m. May 27, 2009 NEW YORK — The U.S. dollar spiked when the economic crisis was peaking, and it's falling now that a recovery's in sight. What gives? The relationship between the country's economy and its currency, it turns out, is more complicated now than ever as the government assumes a larger role in propping up the financial system and encouraging economic growth. Here are some questions and answers about why the dollar has weakened, how much farther it could fall, and what it means for the...

Link only - Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget

Rep. Barney Frank to visit LibraryBy Staff reports Fri May 08, 2009, 05:48 PM EDT Lakeville - Congressman Barney Frank will be visiting the Lakeville Library on Saturday, May 16 at 10 a.m. for a meet-and-greet/coffee hour.

The people who promote the so-called “Tea Party”, and who made a lot of money doing it, at least help to undermine Obama’s credibility, deflate his messianic pretensions, sow widespread public discontent with his socialist economic program, and perhaps even limit, on an ad hoc basis, the amount of damage he can cause. But just about all of their grievances relate to the pocketbook. They do not address hardly at all the greatest causes and FUNDAMENTAL ROOTS of the destruction of America. For example, among so many great evils indicated in this article, they do not address the evil of...

Why complain about the financial crisis? By liberalism’s standards, it has been a swift sword of economic justice, working to equalize wealth more rapidly than any policy short of summary execution of the rich. Why settle for raising tax rates on capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent, when capital gains can be eliminated entirely? Why trifle with the tax treatment of compensation at hedge funds, when funds themselves can disappear into oblivion? Why increase the estate tax, when people’s fortunes can be reduced by half in a matter of months — without the inconvenience of waiting for anyone...

David Goldman Demographics and Depression - First Things Magazine http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6564 The number of two-parent families with children, the kind of household that requires and can afford a large home, has remained essentially stagnant since 1963, according to the Census Bureau. Between 1963 and 2005, to be sure, the total number of what the Census Bureau categorizes as families grew from 47 million to 77 million. In place of traditional two-parent families with children, America has seen enormous growth in one-parent families and childless families. The number of one-parent families with children has tripled. If capital markets derive from the cycle...

Bill Haling: Where’s the outrage? President Obama has been in office just 60 days and we have tripled the nation’s debt. Wow! All those that voted for change certainly got it — along with the rest of the taxpayers. Everyone knows this depression is Bush’s fault. “Give the stimulus time!” is the response. The Bush depression will take time for the Democrats to rescue this country. How long will it take for our children and grandchildren to pay for the excesses? Any outrage? The news of AIG paying $165 million in executive bonuses has certainly created a lot of media...

Meltdown 101: Why some banks returned rescue moneyBy DANIEL WAGNER AP Business Writer 1 hour, 11 minutes ago Four small banks this week repaid millions of dollars they received from the Treasury Department under the $700 billion financial system bailout. They were the first in a long line of banks hoping to escape the increasingly tough restrictions the government has placed on the program known as TARP. It's a sign of how far we've come since last fall, when frozen credit markets led Treasury to give the banks billions of dollars in an effort to get lending moving again. Banks...

The advertising downturn will worsen in the US next year, according to the latest forecasts from Group M, defying more optimistic forecasts that the media sector could recover next year. Group M, the world’s largest media agency, on Tuesday cut its forecast for global advertising spending to $425bn this year. This would mark a 4.4 per cent decline from the previous year, against its original forecast of a 0.2 per cent decline. The market grew 3 per cent last year. The US, the world’s largest advertising market worth $172bn last year, faces a 4.3 per cent fall this year and...

I’m tired of hearing about subprime mortgages. It’s as if these things were living entities that had spawned an epidemic of economic pornography. Subprime mortgages are as much a cause of the current financial chaos as bullets were for the death of JFK.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen reads word for word a speech that Obama had just read from a teleprompter, while the president apparently thanked himself for the invitation. WASHINGTON -- Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick's Day celebration at the White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just given. Cowen was set to speak twice at the White House on Tuesday night because there were two different parties going on at the executive mansion. No...

Spending Bill Tests Obama’s CredibilityPosted by Mark Knoller March 4, 2009 2:11 PM (CBS)At an event this morning, President Obama again demanded that the government he now heads “turn the tide on an era of fiscal irresponsibility.” But his credibility on the issue is at risk if he goes ahead with plans to sign the $410 billion spending bill now making its way to final passage in Congress. The measure is rife with earmarks – special spending provisions attached by members of Congress, usually to benefit a home district project. There are 8,570 earmarks on this bill that if enacted...

Well folks Britney Spears, the queen of comebacks has done it again. After the previous years' meltdown which lead to her being hospitalized twice at UCLA as well as her being placed under emergency guardianship, Britney Spears is back again like a boomerang. Already there is talks of a movie deal and perhaps another sleazy album. But the road back up has been long and hard and although she is now seeking treatment for "Bipolar" disorder, psychiatrists in charge of her care may be doing more to undermine her mental health than promote it. Britney Spears was incarcerated in UCLA's...

Wells Fargo has its named removed from golf tournamentAssociated Press Published: Thursday, March 5, 2009 CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- One by one, the three men in charge of Charlotte's PGA Tour event came to the podium Thursday and referred to the bank that's on the hook for roughly $3 million a year only as the "title sponsor." They then unveiled the new logo for the new name of the tournament, the Quail Hollow Championship. No mention of any bank. "I'm not sure that anybody's been in this position before," tournament director Kym Hougham said after the news conference. "The bank has...

Apologizing, Northern Trust to Pay Back Bailout FundsBy Tim State in News on February 28, 2009 12:27 PM Northern Trust, after receiving $1.5 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, has apologized for sponsoring the PGA Northern Trust Open golf tournament in Los Angeles last weekend, and has pledged to repay the bailout funds it has received. Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell wrote in a letter to U.S. Rep Barney Frank, D-Mass.: We understand this is a time of great anxiety and financial distress, and your question regarding our support of an event such as the Northern Trust Open is...

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

As Banking Woes Grow, Debate Over Nationalization IntensifiesOriginally Aired: February 24, 2009 As turmoil continues in the U.S. banking industry, speculation is intensifying over whether the government should take larger ownership stakes in banks. Columnist Paul Krugman and former FDIC chief William Isaac weigh the pros and cons. **SNIP** WILLIAM ISAAC: Well, the federal government has a lot of say in how banks operate. All these big banks have scores of resident examiners who live there. I mean, they're there every day. They go to all the committee meetings and the board meetings. The government has a huge say in...

RUSH: This is from September 30th, 1999. Headline: "'Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending' -- In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials...

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

Is there anything more heartless than foreclosing on a home and throwing a family out on the street? How about taxing the family next door into penury to pay for the reckless borrowing of its neighbors? Welcome to the Obama Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan — a complicated wealth redistribution scheme dressed up as a cure for the nation’s housing woes. It is almost certainly bound to fail. Now, there is no doubting that Obama’s heart is in the right place. With foreclosures at record highs, the American white picket fence dream is crumbling. And the impulse of any caring...

From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market's "greed." That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down. It was precisely government intervention that turned a thriving industry into a basket case. An economist specializing in financial markets gave a glimpse of the history of housing markets when he said: "Lending money to American homebuyers had been one of the least...

A Reluctant Challenger To Chris Dodd?By DANIELA ALTIMARI | The Hartford Courant February 21, 2009 Anthony Astolfi is a 24-year-old Republican from San Diego; Peter Schiff is a broker and financial pundit who lives in Fairfield County. Astolfi believes that together they can topple U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. Astolfi is part of a loose group of libertarians scattered across the nation who embrace Schiff's message of free markets and small government. They believe that Schiff can beat the Democratic incumbent in 2010 and have launched an Internet-based effort to draft him. "Peter Schiff was on YouTube constantly, predicting the...

U.S. Stimulus Package Passed! Salvation for Everyone! It’s true. I know, hard to believe, but it is true – believe it! This is truth, change and hope for all Americans, for all world citizens, for all to believe in! While the entire U.S. economy, and by default, the world’s economic condition, balanced on the very precipice of falling into the abyss of depression, catastrophe and collapse, the U.S. government passed the greatest increase in government spending and powers in the history of…well, history. On the night of its passage, in the last minutes before total financial Armageddon, on the very...

On Thursday [the 18th], at about 11 o’clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to a tune of $550 billion being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks.

Frank pressing for new rules for Wall StreetBy Reid Wilson Posted: 02/12/09 12:55 PM [ET] House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is reiterating his desire to quickly impose new rules on Wall Street. “There's a whole lot of new financial activity that’s going on that’s caused some damage and done some good. But it’s gone on without rules," Frank said Wednesday evening on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show.” “And the one thing I am most confident about is we know how to stop this from happening again, banning the bad subprime loans, restricting the excessive kinds of leverage they’ve...

The Obama administration is hammering out a program to subsidize mortgages in a new front to fight the credit crisis, sources familiar with the plan told Reuters Thursday, firing financial markets. In a major break from existing aid programs, the plan under consideration would seek to help homeowners before they fall into arrears on their loans. Current programs only assist borrowers that are already delinquent. Under the evolving plan, homes would undergo a standardized reappraisal and homeowners would face a uniform eligibility test, sources said. Bank regulators have used 38 percent of gross income as a benchmark for one mortgage...

Peter Schiff The intense scrutiny recently paid to my investment strategy in the immediate wake of the financial crisis of the last six months has unfortunately obscured the central element of my larger economic forecast. The standard line has been that although I was able to predict the crash, in the form of the housing collapse and the credit crunch, my expected fallout of a weaker dollar and global decoupling has been proven false. However, this assumes that the crash has fully played out. In reality, all we have heard thus far is the overture. In 2008, the bubble...

Freddie and Fannie still brokeAn Editorial February 03, 2009 Freddie Mac, the quasi-federal outfit that Cong. Barney Frank guaranteed us was solvent, needs $35 billion more in taxpayer aid, according to Bloomberg News. The company got $13.8 billion from taxpayers in November. So far Treasury officials have pledged as much as $100 billion each to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae since Frank's indignant guarantee that both were financially healthy. Frank's emotional endorsement of the two mortgage giants came after officials of the George W. Bush Administration questioned their viability two years ago. The companies have posted five consecutive quarters of...

To understand how the recent meltdown and bailout came about, you have to know what brought them on. According to some, there are PhDs who have problems grasping what happened. I don't know if that's true, but I don't think it has to be made that difficult. If you're unfamiliar with some of the terms and the entities that are spoken of when discussing the issue, let's start here: subprime — This refers to borrowers with income levels that are too low, or who made extremely small down payments when buying a home (or no down payments at all), or...