|
Wamu will soon be called JP MORGAN
|
View this Thread in Original format
| TommyfromLA |
| Yup they are being bought out!! |
|
|
| 72hrpartyanimal |
'nnnn crazzzyyyyy!!!!
largest bank failure in US history |
|
|
| djjoshuaallen |
We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.
Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.
Still, at least a few observations are necessary.
The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?
We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.
Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).
Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk."
Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct?
Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.
It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.
The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.
F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:
Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.
To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.
The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.
The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?
Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people.
The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them. |
|
|
| djGT |
| There's no recession, things are good. :wtf: |
|
|
| mar46017 |
Wtf is this $700 billion bailout?
Can't they just give each U.S. resident their share of the 800 billion? |
|
|
| Direct |
| Give me your credit card number and your home address. |
|
|
| groovedaddy21 |
| It's incredible how this announcement couldn't wait till Fri night or the weekend like all other bank failure. This is probably timed to coincide with the "Bailout" stalling by congress. Hanky Panky Paulson will come out Fri morning and say "See what we mean. If you don't approve this bailout, there will be more bank failure, the market will crash and the economy will fall into a deep recession and will never recover. I urge you to approve the plan NOW!" Brilliant! |
|
|
| djjoshuaallen |
could it all just be made up to transfer 700 billion of public taxpayer dollars into private corporate hands?
one last haraahhh for the bush administration...
A reporter for the left leaning alternative news website The Huffington Post has been attacked by neo-con bloggers and phony right-wing patriots after pointing out that the current financial crisis is part of an intentional coup to transfer unprecedented power to the Executive Branch and place public funds in the hands of the global corporate elite.
Writer Larisa Alexandrovna, makes a number of salient points in an article entitled "Welcome to the final stages of the coup…".
Referring to the Bush administration's "Wall Street bailout bill", Alexandrovna warns that a fascist coup is in it's closing stages, describing the proposed legislation as "treachery being conducted in the light of day."
She writes:
"Now, if you do not yet understand that the Wall Street crisis is a man-made disaster done through intentional deregulation and corruption, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell to you (or Sara Palin does anyway). This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands.
[...] we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?"
Alexandrovna points out that the Treasury's bailout proposal to Congress would provide the Treasury Secretary the power to buy up any assets he sees fit, hire anyone he wants to do it, appoint private companies as financial deputies and write whatever regulations he thinks are needed.
Furthermore, she points out that the bill states:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Alexandrovna is echoing the comments of historian John Steele Gordon who told reporters "It sounds like Paulson is asking to be a financial dictator, for a limited period of time." She is also repeating a stark warning provided by Frank Razzano, a former assistant chief trial attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission now at Pepper Hamilton LLP in Washington, who stated that the Bush administration is seeking "dictatorial power unreviewable by the third branch of government, the courts, to try to resolve the crisis."
As we have also reported, the $700 billion bailout legislation would provide billions to foreign central banks in addition to private foreign banks.
The proposed move represents a total shift of U.S. taxpayers' funds into the hands of powerful private interests, some of which do not even represent American companies.
Alexandrovna compares the current manufactured crisis to the now infamous "Business Plot" of 1933, a previous attempt at an outright coup in order to install fascism in America. This treasonous plot was so called because the high-level plotters, including Prescott Bush, the current president's grandfather, were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.
The coup attempt came to light one year later in 1934, when General Smedley Butler informed the Congress that a group of wealthy industrialists had attempted to get on side high ranking military figures in order to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"It seems this time around, the Bush family is trying the more subtle approach to open bloodshed: first create a crisis, then under the guise of addressing that crisis, overthrow democracy. Yes, it does sound terribly conspiracy-theory-esque when explained just this way. But what else does one call a criminal conspiracy to destroy Congressional powers permanently, alter Judicial powers permanently, and steal public funds?" Alexandrovna writes.
In a passionate conclusion the writer demands that Impeachment be brought against those members of the government involved in the "New Business Plot". She then voices fears that failing this, people will have to take to the streets to prevent the usurpation of their freedoms and the total dissolution of America:
"You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot."
Despite pointing out concrete facts, urging readers to see through the false left/right paradigm and come together to do something about such an unprecedented power grab, a number of phony patriots and neo-con bloggers have poured scorn on Alexandrovna, accusing the writer of calling for an armed insurrection, expressing hope that the government is "monitoring such enticements" and threatening to report her to the "lawful authorities" in order that she be locked in a "nice, well-lit and cheery cell".
In a remarkable example of the Orwellian society that has continued to grow around us like a cancer, none of Alexandrovna's detractors care to focus on the fascist treachery she describes but instead accuse her of being the traitor and the one that should be locked away.
Today finance ministers from the G7 countries roundly applauded the bailout proposal as Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary called for other countries to follow America's example. |
|
|
| diskodave |
JPMorgan is taking on $176 billion in mortgage-related assets and writing down the value of it and other portfolios by about $31 billion, the company said. The bank will make a one- time payment of $1.9 billion to the FDIC as part of the deal.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...RfOk&refer=home
JPMorgan expects its acquisition to add 50 cents per share to earnings in 2009, the company said in a statement today. JPMorgan said it will save $1.5 billion in pretax costs by 2010, offsetting the $1.5 billion it will take in merger-related charges. JPMorgan will close less than 10 percent of the combined retail shops. |
|
|
| sweetcandy girl |
Great!!! I have my accounts at WAMU (checking and savings) Now I am at a loss to what to do..
I left B of A years ago b/c of the fees for everything and for them wanting to hold school loan checks all the time. :whip: :whip: Not sure if I want to go back....
Was thinking of joining a credit union.
I have direct deposit that goes in tomorrow am....:nervous: |
|
|
| revitalizedbeat |
| great i have a cd @ wamu. i tried to take my money out, they wouldnt let me. i have to wait six months =( |
|
|
|
|
