Take that! 

Here’s the transcript – no video yet:

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who just finished testifying before Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) Senate Banking committee, said that “it’s not fair” that AIG counter-parties are getting paid 100 cents on the dollar by government bailout money but “if I felt there was a better way…I would support it.”

Geithner was responding to tart questioning by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) asking why, when others owed money by the troubled insurance giant are taking “haircuts,” the counter-parties (such as Goldman Sachs) are getting all the money owed to them.

“It is an incredibly difficult balance and it is very hard to know if we’re going to get the balance right,” Geithner said. AIG has received or been promised more than $150 billion in bailout money.

Geither got his anger up at one point, saying that, “I would not give a penny to AIG to protect counter-parties” if he didn’t have pay them to reduce the risk to pensions and other taxpayer-related funds that have done business with AIG and that are owed money by the company.

GOP Senator Hammers Geithner

11:29 A.M.: Geithner was hammered by a Republican senator decrying Treasury’s growing power over the American economy.

“This is not mission-creep,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “This is a stampede of any traditional understanding of constitutional boundaries.”

DeMint called Geithner the chief executive of the American economy. And he didn’t mean it in a good way.

DeMint complained that “we hear very little talk about exit strategies.” He asked Geithner how much of the $700 billion government bailout will be returned to Treasury’s general fund within five to six years.

“That’s hard to say right now,” Geithner said, deflecting: “If we are successful, that money will come back with substantial interest.”

Geithner added that the way the bailout was designed, for each $1 that is paid back, $1 can be lent back out.

“So it’s your understanding that you have $700 billion to use permanently as you see fit?” DeMint asked incredulously.

Geithner wouldn’t take the bait. “I’m not quite sure ‘permanently’ is right,” he said.

Rest of the questioning from other Republicans can be found here. 

Later Geithner pulled a Clinton and asked what the definition of permanently is… j/k!

Share on Facebook

If there was one thing you could always say about President Bush, it is that he always stood on his principles and values.  He had an enormous amount of integrity and did not compromise any of those things for political expediency.   He firmly believed every move and decision he made was based on what was best for the American people.  He did not rely on polling data or popularity statistics.  President Bush’s firmly held beliefs in a post 9/11 world are what guided him.

Now President Obama, on the other hand, stands on his teleprompter.  As he has “navigated” his way through the first 100 days in the Oval Office, we have yet to really see the characteristics of integrity or doing what is right by the American People.   At least two of his cabinet members should have been tossed; Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Secretary Napolitano, both of whom have embarrassed the Oval Office and outraged the American people.  If he really stood on principle and integrity they would have been gone.

President Obama showed signs of this early in the election cycle when he said he would accept public financing of the campaign, but when the primary season was over and he was the nominee, he opted out of the system and continued to collect just shy of 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of which is untraceable.  That in itself goes against the Open Government Act by fully disclosing all donors.

President Bush walked his talk after the campaign.  He worked with the Democratic leadership, showing bipartisanship on the budget, FISA, immigration and other issues.  The only thing he would not compromise on (thank goodness) was a troop withdrawal time table.  Democrats tried in vain to force his hand as the Obama backing MSM flooded the evening news night after night with each road side bomb image they could find.  Very little attention was paid to the success we were having, only the carnage.  This unwavering stance against a timed withdrawal was significant because he did not want give the emboldened insurgency a window in which to “wait it out”, and to prevent these politicians from micromanaging commanders in the field.  True, there was pressures to change strategies in order to combat this issue, and the administration did just that; they initiated the “surge”.  And guess what, it worked!  Now Mr. Obama on the other hand has shown about as much bipartisanship as Iran has shown cooperation with the UN….Uh that would be none!  The GOP has been completely shut out of the administration, being told to basically shut up and sit down because “we” (the Dems) won.  So much for a new era of cooperation and open government.

What people fail to realize in Iraq, is that not only did we rid the world of a very evil dictator, who’s atrocities are well documented (so in fact there is you weapon of mass destruction), shut down Dr. Germ Rihab Taha (who was identified by UN weapon inspectors specifically), the mission also brought stability to the region as a whole.

If you look back, Moamar Kadafi quickly and quietly ended their rebellious ways and cracked down on terrorists in Libya.  Syria also became much more user friendly, and cooperative.  So there were broader positive effects.

Mr. Obama who was not a Senator when the Congress initially authorized action in Iraq, on the campaign trail he waved the “No More War” flag like the checker flag at the end of a car race.  The election was soundly anti-Bush, and all the rhetoric that goes with that.  ‘When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that’.

Well as you all know, the mission (and I am not complaining about this) remains on target and is, in fact, in a winding down phase.  We have consolidated much of our operations to specific areas in Iraq, handed over control and security operations to the Iraqi Army and Police force in many areas, continue to train and equip those forces so when we do leave, there will be stability and peace inside the borders.  Mr. Obama’s rhetoric got him into the White House, but the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq dictated his actions.  And if the people who were so hell bent on completely ditching the quote “Bush Doctrine” (as Charlie Gibson tried to nail Sarah Palin with) they would have realized that this notion of up and run out of Iraq was not plausible in the least.

President Bush was thrust into a situation that day in September, unbeknown to America or our intelligence agencies.  We went from a 20 plus year time of relative peace and suddenly thrust into war, against an enemy that does not belong to a nation or state, but operates in the shadows among innocent people whom they will sacrifice without any hesitation.  Yes, mistakes were made.  But this nation was kept safe, and still is, by those policies President Bush put into place.

Now we have a floppy fish in the White House.  Yes he was thrust into an economic situation that has not been pretty.  However, Mr. Teleprompter as not shown us anything except he is bent on a socialistic agenda and that he changes his word like we change underwear.

Now Mr. Obama wants to openly (yes there is that word open again) and without preconditions, have talks with these nations that simply hate the United States.  Iran, who is pursuing nuclear weapons and calling for the destruction of Israel,  North Korea, who has nuclear material but can not build a delivery vehicle,  Venezuela, who just yesterday seized American Owned and Operated energy sites and equipment, and Cuba, where money can now flow freely without using a 3rd and 4th party intermediary.  Oh yes lets not forget Mexico.  Yet, another apology from Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton for causing the drug war along the boarder.

Mr. Obama and his economic team have showered the coffers with billions and billions of dollars in order to prop up the economy.  Thus far, nothing.  New jobless filings hover around 600K and overall, 6.5 million people are out of work, and counting.  Now that Chrysler and GM are making significant cuts, that is going to go up more this year. Not only does that effect line workers in the auto plants, but spills out to the suppliers and peripheral businesses that support them.

Mr. Obama, first week in office broke the most basic of his campaign pledges, saying that the practice of earmarks and pork spending would immediately come to and end.  Say what?  The first two things he signs into law are pork laden wasteful bills that did nothing.  The Stimulus package, which failed to stimulate the American people, was shoved through the congress by the new Dem Majority in the middle of the night in which no one was even able to read.  And what was in there (Mr.  Dodd)?  Bonuses for the executives at AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac!!!  Next he signed an Omnibus bill that contained over 9000 earmarks, again pushed through on a Dem freight train in the middle of the night.

Now the administration continues to politicize national security doctrine as the administration stammers on what our evil interrogators did to terror suspects.  This emboldens the enemy, teaches them our techniques so now they can prepare for what little we actually do.   The September 10th mentality of the administration puts us in jeopardy. Many of the policies that Mr. Obama so vehemently touted against remain in effect. The naval prison at Guantanamo Bay was ordered closed yet remains open as Obama plans where to send its inmates; the president has yet to establish a coherent policy on Iran — following in the Bush administration’s footsteps and while American troops are being removed from Iraq, most will stay in place until 2010.

It is important to note that all the enhanced interrogation tactics that we used actually yielded crucially important intelligence that helped keep this country safe,”  with the eight years of safety on the home front since Sept. 11, 2001.  Even though congressional leaders claimed to be left out of the loop on these techniques, it was revealed that the same Dem leaders, who bewitched President Bush, were duly informed of those methods.  But as Dems, true to color, they pretended to take the moral high road, and were thus outed as hypocrites using this issue for political expediency.
Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote an internal memo last week citing the “high value” information about Al Qaeda’s operations yielded by tactics such as water boarding, but its morality has been called into question by human rights monitors and many others both in and out of the Obama administration.

So therein lays the conflict with this administration. Integrity, direction, political expediency, governing by polling data, and letting Nancy Pelosi write its budget a mere 3 Trillion and some change.
So we as Americans have to wonder, where the transparency, openness, and new era of cooperation is.  Yeah, that is right, so sorry, we lost.

Share on Facebook

Oh the irony, I am seriously trying to laugh these days but it is becoming more difficult to do as these things that one would never think were possible are all coming to pass…   If we want to root out the tax cheats why don’t we take a look and investigate Obama’s cabinet first?

President Obama announced Monday a plan to prevent U.S. companies using offshore banks to deferr tax payments, saying that the effort to “shelter” money creates an unfair advantage to U.S. companies and amounts to evasion.

There is a legitimate reason that corporations use tax shelters/tax havens and this has everything to do with the economic policies that have been implemented by government officials who have never worked in a corporation or taken business or economics classes.  The United States is the only country that requires double taxation on profits.  Not only do you have to pay taxes from overseas operations you also get taxed again if you bring those profits back to the States.  Tax shelters have been legal for a very long time and for that very reason.  The company can use that money to reinvest in their overseas operations without losing additional money from the double taxation policies.

The president also called for more transparency in bank accounts held by Americans in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.

“The way to make American businesses competitive is not to let some citizens and businesses dodge their responsibility, while ordinary Americans pick up the slack. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Obama said.

There is no responsibility dodging which is the amusing part about this statement.  Technically speaking, they are responsible by paying their international taxes.  This is just another power grab and a way in which their administration can use another avenue to pay off the massive amount of debt will be incurring over the years.

“If financial institutions won’t cooperate with us, we will assume that they are sheltering money in tax havens and act accordingly,” he continued.

Sounds like the beginning of another witch hunt.  I feel like we may see a resurrgence of McCarthyism but this time on the other side of the aisle against all of us nasty Capitalists!

Under the plan, companies would not be able to write off domestic expenses for generating profits abroad. The goal is to reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to base all or part of their operations in other countries.

The reason that companies go overseas in the first place has everything to do with taxes that are already in place in the United States.  Our corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world after Japan.  Most companies like to diversify and have other means of income and more leniency with tax policy.  It also gives the company an opportunity to market their products and services abroad.  Companies don’t keep all of their money overseas and in tax havens – some of it is brought back over to the Stats to reinvest in home operations but much of it is kept outside the border if they plan on reinvesting that money back into it’s overseas locations.  Maybe if Democrats could put their ideology aside due to economic or outside situations, they could actually do what is best for the country ~ cut corporate tax rates to bring more investment from overseas into the United States – this would resolve much of the problems and would help create jobs.

The current law, Obama said, “says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York. ”

Obama said that his plan would generate $210 billion in new taxes over 10 years and “make it easier” for companies to create jobs at home. Over a decade, $210 billion would make a modest dent in the federal deficit, expected to be $1.2 trillion in 2010.

Exactly, due to his ridiculous spend thrift policies, this is just a drop in the bucket and will wind up having more negative effects than positive.

He said the government also is hiring nearly 800 new tax agents “to detect and pursue American tax evaders abroad.”

Oh goody – more jobs that actually produce nothing but will cost those who do produce more money due to all the red tape just like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a statement saying that changing the provisions would hurt job prospects.

But why listen to the non-partisan group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, let’s just do whatever my socialist agenda tells me to…

This is a nightmare!

Don’t be surprised if the DOW remains up today – this is most likely those lovely limousine liberals on Wall Street who love to sucker regular people into fake rallies.  Check out the trade volume before you get any ideas.

Share on Facebook

Are you getting scared yet America?

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s job security is increasingly in jeopardy as momentum grows in Washington to oust him.

With the bank stress tests wrapping up, sources tell The Post that regulators think they might have to make the bold move of removing Pandit to signal Washington is taking as hard a line with the banks as it did with General Motors when it effectively ousted GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

The talk of Pandit being dismissed comes amid speculation that a visit to Citi’s offices by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner a week and a half ago might have been to discuss a change at the bank’s helm. However, people familiar with the meeting said the visit was simply to conduct a checkup on the bank.

Pandit, who took over in December 2007 from the deposed Charles Prince, has voiced his commitment to breathing life into the troubled bank, and is widely seen as not being part of Citi’s problem.

However, amid criticism that Citi hasn’t moved fast enough to clean up its balance sheet and speculation that Citi may need to raise more cash amid rising writedowns from consumer debt, sources said there’s a growing sense Pandit might have to be sacrificed.

Pandit inherited the mess of Citigroup at the end of 2007 and has done a fairly decent job at getting it back on track or at least moving in the right direction.  Obama should know all about inheriting messes, since that’s all he can say when he speaks about the economy – does that mean we can oust him since the economy hasn’t turned around since his election?  They run a big risk by doing this of completely demolishing Citigroup and the financial system.  Pandit’s strides over the past year and his business strategy going forward have helped the company, but it will take time.  If they oust him before real results can be seen, we may see the collapse of this company.  But then again, that may be what the government wants in order to force these institutions into nationalization.

This is so completely anti-capitalist it isn’t funny!  The government should not be allowed to go over the heads of the board of directors or scare a company into making a decision that befits the government’s agenda.  Who in their right mind would ever want to become the CEO of a floundering company, when the MSM has put their entire focus and scrutiny on your job performance without giving you a chance to actually enact the appropriate changes?  The government and the MSM turn this into a public side show and a witch hunt – something that the Obama Administration is incredibly good at.  They turn the focus off of those who really caused this mess, namely the government and some prominent democrats, and spin it into another AIG debacle.  This is shameful.

Credit Suisse has caught onto this game and they’re not happy.  They are in fact warning about the over-involvement of the government in private business affairs.

The chairman of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Friday warned against excessive government intervention in the lending policies of banks that have been bailed out by the state.

“In view of the growing number of banks relying on government support, however, I have concerns that excessive state intervention regarding the lending policies of banks or the realignment of their structures could have negative implications for the entire sector,” said Walter Kielholz.

Many of Credit Suisse’s competitors, including local rival UBS, US banks Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, have received state funding to weather the financial crisis.

Credit Suisse has turned to private investors, but has not taken government funds.

Kielholz acknowledged during the bank’s annual general meeting that state intervention had been necessary to prevent a meltdown of the entire financial sector.

However, he said the action by governments to inject funds into banks was already giving rise to a “two-tiered banking system.”

“This has led to a distortion of competition, particularly in the refinancing market or in terms of client guarantees,” he explained.

“There is also uncertainty about how and when governments will be able to exit their stakes in these companies,” he added.

In addition, he cautioned against over-regulation of the sector, saying that while stricter supervision has been prescribed for the sector, the “benefits of additional regulation have yet to be demonstrated.”

“In particular, I believe there is a risk that these changes could be exploited as a means of ushering in protectionist measures,” he warned.

Share on Facebook

www.redstate.com

Share on Facebook

Volcker was just another political pawn in Obama’s game to get to the highest office.  By name dropping during his debates or letting the press know some of his “advisers” he won over some of the more gullible voters that may have believed this old technique. 

No offense, but name-dropping is an extreme turn-off to me.  You most definitely should surround yourself with solid people, but the person running for office or applying for a job should be competent and experienced enough in the first place.

As an early supporter of Barack Obama, Paul Volcker gave the young presidential candidate gravitas and advice. He frequently sat by Mr. Obama’s side at key economic events, and started carrying a cellphone for the first time, just to be able to brainstorm with the candidate from the campaign trail.

In the Obama White House, the role of the 81-year-old former chairman of the Federal Reserve has been more limited.

The one-time central banker has been put in charge of a presidential advisory board that hasn’t yet had a formal meeting. It has been nearly a month since he has seen Mr. Obama. Mr. Volcker hasn’t been a main player in key decisions handling the global financial crisis.

He hasn’t even had one formal meeting!? Well, I guess his involvement in being part of an Anti-Stimulus campaign (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget) for the betterment of the economy may have something to do with it – mind you it was February of 2009 (not that long ago) that he joined.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the administration’s plans for handling troubled financial institutions and the housing crisis without seeking input from Mr. Volcker, associates say. “Paul was surprised” at the failure to consult him, particularly on issues of financial rescue after his dominant role in resolving financial crises in the 1980s, says one person who has spoken to Mr. Volcker recently.

On the eve of one announcement, a Wall Street executive ran into Mr. Volcker at a cocktail party and asked what he expected from the Treasury secretary’s imminent announcement. “I have no idea what Tim’s going to say,” he responded, according to somebody there.

Seems like Paul Volcker’s fiscal restraint and tighter monetary policy was not part of the Obama agenda… So, no need to consult the man.

When Mr. Obama announced the blue-ribbon advisory group on Feb. 6, he praised Mr. Volcker as “one of the world’s foremost economic policy experts.” With big names like General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt, the group, Mr. Obama said, would provide “voices to come from beyond the Washington echo chamber….” At a ceremony in the White House’s East Room, the president added that the group would “meet regularly” with him.

So far, the full group hasn’t met. “The whole organizational side of this has been a nightmare,” Mr. Volcker says. A White House spokeswoman says it will hold its first quarterly meeting in mid-May.

First of all, Immelt is an incompetent hack pretending to be a CEO.  General Electric has bombed since he took over, so to expect that he would have anything of value to add is hilarious.  The other bit of hilarity in this is that they did not plan to have a “meeting of the minds” until mid May with all of the economic turmoil currently going on?  That’s insane and should give us insight into the poor management/governing abilities and practices of this administration.

Mr. Volcker’s advice hasn’t always been heeded. The former Fed chairman urged the administration to “slow down” its push for regulatory changes. “Paul thought it was important to take enough time to fill holes in the regulatory framework and not get caught up in the current atmosphere,” says former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, who’s on the Volcker panel.

When a former Fed official, attorney John Walker, recently met Mr. Volcker, Mr. Walker told him the administration “isn’t getting the best use of you.” Mr. Volcker shrugged it off, saying he’s comfortable with his role. Mr. Walker says Mr. Volcker added: “I’m 81 years old.”

Paul, you are making too much sense for these guys even at the age of 81 – please stop!… Heh

Share on Facebook

What are we all supposed to make of this?  Why is calling something socialist such a bad thing nowadays?  It’s not like Europe isn’t “out of the closet” socialist.  Stop with the denial already and let’s call a spade a spade.  I will write more on this blatant denial this week in an op-ed piece.

As many of us, who are on top of the news cycles, are aware, TARP funds from when President Bush was in office during the first bailout of late September, have been given back to the government.  At least that’s what many are attempting to do. 

The issue at play is the media is making a huge deal about all the “big guns” in the financial industry like Bank of America, Wachovia, Citibank, AIG etc. but they do not disclose that many of the smaller banks, those that are local or regional to specific states), were safe from the economic crisis because they did not get involved with hybrid securities, mortgage-backed loans or the sub-prime market. 

These small banks don’t want the TARP money, they never did want it.  The main reason they didn’t want the hand-out was knowing there would be strings attached from the government.  We have seen what taking government/taxpayer funds has done to the likes of GM, Chrysler and AIG.  I’m sure we will see more from Citibank and Bank of America in the coming months as well.  The government can control what you do and how you do it.  No need for a board of directors – the government will pressure the CEO to leave.  No need for bankruptcy court, the government will make sure you meet its plan to restructure and then produce things that it deems acceptable – like green cars. 

It’s no surprise that small banks that don’t make that much to begin with, just want to be left to their own devices and do what they do best – run their bank in their locality.  These banks are from several different states, Indiana, California, New York, Louisiana, and the list goes on.  They are trying to give back over $340 million to the government.  Any taxpayer, I don’t care which side of the aisle you are on, should want that money back if the banks don’t need it.  The government, if they were acting on the interest of the people and not themselves and their own ideology would accept that money and would give it back to us.

The prime example of all of this is Geithner who has recently stated that he wants more control and will get rid of executive management if he deems it necessary. 

“If in the future, banks need exceptional assistance in order to get through this, then we will make sure that assistance comes,” while ensuring taxpayers are protected, Geithner said yesterday in an interview on the CBS “Face the Nation” program. “Where that requires a change in management and the board, then we will do that.”

This just seems like another pay-to-play scheme to get his cronies on the board of directors or in upper management.  This is going to be detrimental to the free market and the private sector. 

I recently purchased and read the Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes and it is incredibly uncanny how the REAL history of the Great Depression and FDR’s policies parallel what Barack Obama, Geithner and his cabinet are doing at this very moment – which is why the cliche “History repeats itself,” still exists.

Roosevelt didn’t do any one thing that protracted the Depression. Instead, with his bold and oft-changing ideas, he created an air of economic uncertainty that was deadly to private-sector recovery. Investors had no idea what might come next, so they were afraid to move on.

Roosevelt also scared investors by creating government bodies that competed with once-thriving private industries. FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, forced the power industry to compete with heavily subsidized electricity – much like the government involvement in the Auto and Financial Industry, today.  (We may see this with the Health Insurance Industry soon enough – if the liberals get their way).

Here’s a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can’t a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can’t special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit — until now.

Which brings me to the Pay for Performance Act, just passed by the House. This is an outstanding example of class warfare. I’m an Englishman. We invented class warfare, and I know it when I see it. This legislation allows the administration to dictate pay for anyone working in any company that takes a dime of TARP money. This is a whip with which to thrash the unpopular bankers, a tool to advance the Obama administration’s goal of controlling the financial system.

After 35 years in America, I never thought I would see this. I still can’t quite believe we will sit by as this crisis is used to hand control of our economy over to government. But here we are, on the brink. Clearly, I have been naive. 

I’m not sure why so many are unwilling to see what is really going on here and the true nature of this power grab?  This is all political – this is not for the betterment of the country.  I really do worry about the future of this nation as a Democratic Republic.

Share on Facebook

Above is the full Katie Couric interview with Geithner. 

Days after GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner was forced out by the Obama administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner left open the possibility that such moves could happen again.

This is very similiar to other countries living behind an iron curtain or our most progressive president FDR, who scared the private sector and then wondered why it took so long to come out of the depression.  What talented person wants to work their way up in a company, always mindful, looking of their shoulder for the government’s action and intervention to cap their salaries, demonize them in the public eye or just kick them out of their position?  Would you want to work in a society that allows that to occur?  Does that create incentives for those who are the most talented and have the most potential to want to move up in a company or just stay at a position that is just right, never going beyond just being mediocre?  Maybe some of the best talent will also choose to move abroad and leave the United States in a weaker position economically and in turn less powerful militarily.  This is utterly insane!

When asked if he would leave open the option to pressure a bank CEO to resign, Geithner replied: “Of course.”

In a separate interview with ABC News, Geithner said there was no difference in the way the administration has handled the auto and finance industries.

So far I have seen things occur differently, each one horrible in its own right.  Whether that’s the retro-active taxation on bonuses, the precedent set that the White House could fire and pressure a CEO of a private company to step down, whether they received taxpayer dollars or not… The additional Bailouts to AIG and the superfluous spending habits of D.C. within their stimulus, omnibus, Toxic Asset Program, Budget etc.  Bailouts have occurred before, we even bailed out Lockheed Martin in the late 70’s early 80’s, but I do not recall a President asking a CEO to step down and then obviously ignoring the other factors that lead to the company’s collapse like unions.  Why not ask for the head of the UAW to step down then as well?  Democrats are really in the stranglehold of denial – the likes of which I have never seen, even being in recovery, myself, I can say that denial is cruel punishment for yourself and others around you.  They continue to say this isn’t socialism or it’s only scare tactics by those “neocons,” who are just angry they lost.  Well, most independents are also waking up and realizing that the long-term repercussions from all of this could be disastrous and this should scare most people who are thinking logically and pragmatically… but we are talking about liberals here and they use emotion, not thought.

As world leaders convene in London to address the global economic crisis, an increasingly confident Geithner predicted the “strongest coordinated global response” in generations would help revive the world’s fractured economy.

Citing initial commitments given by other countries, he said he was confident that broken financial systems would be fixed by growing trade and ensuring markets are expanding.

“You’re gonna see the strongest consensus on coordinated global stimulus you’ve seen in generations,” he said. “A very powerful consensus on the kind of 21st century rules of the road for our financial systems.”

New World Order here we come – the United States will answer to the United Nations, while the growing threat of Jihad grows just like the Nazi’s in Germany went under the radar in the 30’s so too will the islamofascists and maybe until it’s too late if we keep pretending like the real problems abroad do not exist. 

Geithner continued:

“Interest rates are now at historic lows … for mortgages,” he said. “Millions of Americans are now able to refinance and take advantage of those interest rates. That’s gonna reduce monthly payments very materially for millions of Americans.”

Most Americans are refinancing but they are not buying new homes.  I believe that interest rates were this low during the Carter years as well until we experienced inflation the likes of which we haven’t seen since but probably will in the next four years!  You will see interest rates over 14% guaranteed.

Share on Facebook

We may never know…

The massive programs designed to rescue the nation’s financial sector are operating without adequate oversight, with vague goals and limited disclosure of their details to the taxpayers who are paying for them, government watchdogs told a Senate panel Tuesday.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was launched in the midst of last fall’s collapse of the nation’s banking system and is designed to get loans flowing to businesses and individuals.

But “without a clearer explanation” about parts of the program, “it is not possible to exercise meaningful oversight over Treasury’s actions,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who leads a special congressional oversight panel monitoring the TARP program. Her comments came in a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the bailout program.

Noting that TARP passed Congress six months ago, Warren said that her group has repeatedly called on the Treasury Department to provide a clear strategy for the program — and that “the absence of such a vision hampers effective oversight.”

Although she has asked Treasury to explain its strategy, “Congress and the American public have no clear answer to that question.”

I have been harping on this for a long time now, and even my friends and family thought I was nuts… However, as I suspected and figured would happen upon the election of Barack Obama, we are now creeping closer and closer to having a Debt to Equity Ratio of 1 meaning that our Debt is almost equal to our GDP.

Debt today based on the new proposals, stimulus, TARP II, Toxic Asset Program, Omnibus, and the Original TARP is nearing $12.8T, whilst the GDP in 2008 was $14.2T – with Obama’s budget increasing by nearly $1T every year, barring no other emergency bailouts and stimulus, which I cannot be sure of at this point in time, would put us over the GDP threshold within 2 years.

This is why I think hyper-inflation is inevitable – the dollar is fairly worthless – would I qualify for a loan if I had a bad beacon or credit score?  If I was carrying too much debt on my books?  That may have been the case in the past, but no longer.  And with all the turmoil internationally, and the concern for other countries and their own nationalism, preservation, and economy it makes sense that countries are calling to dump the dollar and are concerned about our growing debt.  Why would anyone want to invest in an entity that may not be able to call upon cash right away or is becoming a riskier investment with a higher likelihood of default?  Granted I know things are a little more complicated and gray in comparison to regular financial concepts and theories for basic investment in the business world but, much of it remains the same.

This is why Gold is so enticing to so many people because many speculate there is much more to come… “We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The more the economy is controlled by the government the less it grows.  In my first ever post I had two studies which I linked to that gave proof to this fact – there is also a great website that goes into detail on the history of our debt levels and government control called the grandfather economic report.

Bloomberg also has a report of this today:

“The president and Treasury Secretary Geithner have said they will do what it takes,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said after the meeting. “If it is enough, that will be great. If it is not enough, they will have to do more.”

Commitments include a $500 billion line of credit to the FDIC from the government’s coffers that will enable the agency to guarantee as much as $2 trillion worth of debt for participants in the Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility and the Public-Private Investment Program. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair warned that the insurance fund to protect customer deposits at U.S. banks could dry up because of bank failures.

‘Within an Eyelash’

The combined commitment has increased by 73 percent since November, when Bloomberg first estimated the funding, loans and guarantees at $7.4 trillion.

“Gird Your Loins!”

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook