Comments Posted By Travis Monitor
Displaying 151 To 160 Of 175 Comments
NOT A MISPRINT: OBAMA SEEKS CUTS OF 100 <em>MILLION</em> TO CURB DEFICIT
"If AIG had failed, we would have had a national and worldwide catastrophe. Millions of Americans would have lost their retirement and savings that were wrapped up in the CDS’s that were gambled on and insured by AIG and others."
ROFLMAO. First, AIG was saved prior to TARP. Second, AIG *has* failed in the sense that stockholders are practically wiped out and the company is now a ward of the state. Third, the whole Paulson "You must do X or the world will collapse" missed the BIGGEST OBJECTION: There were a number of alternatives that in the end were superior to the TARP bill; the conservative Republicans pointed out how to add insurance backing for assets at much lower cost; liberals and FDIC chair piped up about expanding FDIC insurance. Wrt to AIG, there too it is false to assume a bailout is the only way to save the global CDS market: You neglect the difference between Ch11 and Ch7. CDS counterparty protection could have been given protection in a pre-pack BK with the Fed backing that up.
"I was flat out against TARP at first, but have taken the time to learn more about what is going on. "
Well, I went the other way. Ultimately the claim that TARP was vitally needed is simply refuted by the track record: It didnt do what it was sold as being needed for, and it didnt solve the problem at hand. the Congress voted for a TARP that would buy up toxic assets. Remember? Guess what? The week after TARP was passed the stock market fell 18% in one week. A vote of no confidence. Two weeks later Paulson changed course ... Stock market cheered the change as it was clear there was a 10to1 advantage to shoring up bank balance sheets through direct investment. Only now we find out that half the banks given the money felt they didnt need/want it anyway! And the claim that this would expand lending has not borne out (not unexpectedly, since the banks just used it to pad extended balance sheets). Strangely, we are back to buying the toxic assets in Geitner's TARP III.
So TARP didnt do what it billed as being needed for up front and has not solved the so-called credit market squeeze. The commercial BBB to AAA spreads are as high as in November. And we have 2 million less jobs now than in November to boot. All of this shift of financial risk from the financial sector investors to taxpayers has not in the end changed the economic trajectory much at all. We are going through a recession to clear out the defaulted and devalued over-investment in certain sectors and any TARP, stimulus or bailout will just be pumping air into a busted deflating balloon.
TARP and Geitner's TARP III has been the big-Gubmint-solution to a problem: Throw enough money at the problem and hope some of it sticks.
The most effective lever we have is monetary policy, not bailouts. for example, the LIBOR-Fed rate issue was and is solvable via direct Fed action. The Fed's zero interest rate policy and their direct purchases of commercial paper has had a lot more to do with helping LIBOR and overall situation right now than anything else. (Albeit another short-term gain we will pay for down the road).
You can at best argue that bailouts like TARP are mitigating someone's economic pain, but you have to ask to what extent should taxpayer money be going to bail out, say the Abu Dubai sovereign investment funds' insurance backed investments in US financial assets? Their Citigroup bonds? Their commercial RE loans in CMOs? Somehow when you are FOR it, all the billions are going to widows and orphans; when you are against it, its 'greedy wall st bankers'. Same pot o' money in both cases.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 21.04.2009 @ 21:18
"All in all, the Democrat-Obama budget plans are adding massively to US debt while doing nothing to help the economy. On the contrary, they are hurting the economy and are making us poorer in the short and long run."
"A little early to declare failure, I think."
The Obama/Pelosi/Reid Democrat economic plans are to:
1. Add taxes in a recession (cap-and-trade, hike in top rates, smokers taxed, etc.) - something Hoover did, plus
2. Embark on massive keynesian-style deficits, combined with Govt propping up the banking sector; the same failed keynesians formula Japan tried in the 1990s. They had near 0% net growth for 10 years.Those who dont learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 21.04.2009 @ 20:44
"Pelosi/Reid Democratic Majority Congress and Obama created this years deficit and are 100% behind everything in the budget that they wrote and they support. They ‘inherited’ nothing but their own creation."
"You can parse all day who is more responsible for spending, the president or congress."
Nothing to parse, just stating obvious facts. Congress writes budgets and Presidents sign them. Within his first two weeks in office, Obama signed off on a huge spending increase, expanding S-CHIP to people who make more than median income, that will add over $80 billion to spending. Bush vetoed that spending as too high. Bush also didnt want to spend over $390 billion in appropriations, so Pelosi and crew waited until Obama was in office to pass the rest of 2009 approriations. Obama signed off on $800 billion in new stimulus/porkulus spending.
"The 800 billion Of TARP was proposed by Bush with the caveat that if you don’t pass this by tomorrow, the economy will die."
Actually it was Paulson. Was he right or wrong?"It wasn’t a dem idea"
The bill was written by Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and it was passed by a Democrat Congress with more Democrat votes than Republican votes. Obama supported it. What a statement of political cowardice for the Democrats to not stand behind something they wrote and passed into law!"and they like the rest of us didn’t even know things were that bad."
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank misled the Congress?!?
You might not be to blame for ignorance in thiese bill, but any Congress-critter who voted AYE yet claims werent aware of the 'bad stuff' should be booted out of office. That's pure incompetence! Of course, the House acted disgracefully on the Stimulus Bill when they brought it out of committee and forced a vote on it in less than 24 hours, so NO member of Congress could even read that monster bill. But pleading ignorance on a bill you say yes to is another act of political cowardice." So yea, I lay that 800 bill on Bush"
Nitpick: Obama asked for the second $350 billion. So it should be only $350b on Bush.That still leaves: TARP III for $1,000 billion, $800 billion pork-barrel spending 'stimulus', $430 billion in appropriations, and SCHIP expansion ... AND ... Obama's plan to add $10 TRILLION to our debt in the next 8 years, effectively tripling the public debt burden as scored by CBO.
You'd think if he really cared a whit about controlling spending, he wouldnt have signed off on the biggest spending bills in US history in his first months in office.
" along with the already circa 500 bill deficit = 1.3 Trillion."
Not to get Bush off the hook, but 100% of this has been budgetted and appropriated by Democrat-majority Congress. You can co-blame Bush, but you cant say Democrats 'inherited' something *they* created as well ... Reality check: It's a Bush/Pelosi/Reid/Obama creation." And I also agree that has likely save us from a crushing depression. You don’t agree, so be it."
Claims that Govt action were needed to save off 'crushing depression' were fearmongering claims designed to scare people like you into accepting unacceptable govt action. I am sorry you were bamboozled. I was for a time too. We were told in October the TARP was needed to save the stock market and fend off a recession. What woke me up was the fall in the stock market after the passage of TARP, then the change of plans, then the rocking of the market every time Paulson or Obama flapped their gums. We have a much lower stock market and recession to boot, anyway. The fact is that most of this deficit has nothing to do with AIG and more to do with generally out-of-control spending.
Deficit govt spending to pump the economy is a shell game to massively borrow from credit markets on the false assumption that the issue is lack of money. It isnt and thus it doesnt really work (see Rational expectations economics). The issue is lack of confidence and strong credit-worthy investment opptys. Confidence is shaken not helped by the uncertainties of govt interventions into markets. It's expensive and often counterproductive.
Meanwhile CBO scored the Obama 'stimulus' as causing LOWER ECONOMIC GROWTH in the overall 10-year period. Its not a long-term stimulus, but a short-term pick-me-up with a hangover later. It will work as well as Japan's failed keynesian experiments in the 1990s.
All in all, the Democrat-Obama budget plans are adding massively to US debt while doing nothing to help the economy. On the contrary, they are hurting the economy and are making us poorer in the short and long run.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 20.04.2009 @ 22:58
"Republicans are the party of smaller government and fiscal responsibility, while Democrats grow the size of government (to increase their power and enslave us) while ballooning the deficit."
I wasn't talking about Republicans and didnt state that at all. Nice mind-reading trick that. Knock that strawman outta the park.
Last I checked the Republicans have near zero power in DC right now, havent had the power to write budgets since 2006, and are outvoted by near filibuster-proof Senate, so are irrelevent in any case. The Democrats own the whole ball of wax right now.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 20.04.2009 @ 22:03
"To put it into perspective (Thanks G. Mankiw), would anyone here be willing to accept 1oo MILLION dollars were it offered?"
Of course we would... but let's put it in perspective this way.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 20.04.2009 @ 21:52
If your boss pulled you aside and said "Great News! You've Got a Raise!" and he shows you the raise amount - a whopping 100 cents per year... will you pleased or ready to punch out the boss for yanking your chain?
"They note that amount is about equal to the DAILY interest we are paying for Obama’s bloated stimulus bill. Better yet, they get 90 days to make there recommendations, so by that time I have no doubt whatsoever that some new spending boondaggle will have been proposed and passed"
Right. by the time they act on it, the fiscal year is gone.
Pelosi and Company just ADDED $40 billion on top of what they needed to spend in the discretionary spending account. And what's worse? Senator Hutchison (R-TX) noticed that there were billions in *double-spending*, where the appropriations were in both the stimulus bill and the 2nd-half-year appropriations. So she made a very reasonable amendment to the appropriations bill to gut the double-counting and save billions. What did the Democrat majority do? Vote it down!
So Mr President, there's your billions in waste and duplication right there! Billions of it!
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 20.04.2009 @ 21:49
"When you consider he was left with a 1.3 trillion deficit for 09 from Bush."
This is FALSE.
The Democrats have been running the Congress since January 2007. Democrats have written the budgets for 2 years now. The Democrat budget for 2009 was never completed on time because Bush refused to sign on to the high level of spending that that Pelosi Democrat Congress wanted. So the Democrats passed only half a year of appropriations, then waited until Obama became President to get a bulked up, porked up, super-duper earmarked big-spending bill which added to the spending and deficit.Which Obama signed.
Obama also demanded a Trillion dollar spending boondoggle bill, that was stuffed with pork, as a so-called 'stimulus' bill. Obama also demanded another $350 billion in TARP money, the bailout bill the Democrat Congress passed and which Obama supported throughout. These Democrat Congress-Obama bills have added hundreds of billions to the 2009 duget deficit... Actually about $1 trillion.
The Pelosi/Reid Democratic Majority Congress and Obama created this years deficit and are 100% behind everything in the budget that they wrote and they support. They 'inherited' nothing but their own creation.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 20.04.2009 @ 21:43
"A hundred million wasted is bad. Obama ended it. That’s good."
Obama has wasted HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS. That's BAD.
THEY JUST ADDED $800 BILLION in STIMULUS in Feb, $1,000 BILLION IN TARP III in March, $80 BILLION in S-CHIP EXPANSION in January AND $430 BILLION FOR THIS YEAR'S DISCRETIONARY SPENDING in March ($40 billion above what Bush was willing to spend). Oh, and an Obama budget that is almost $3 TRILLION ABOVE BASELINE, with almost a trillion for socializing medicine, and hundreds of billions in added energy taxes.
Lets do the numbers: $800 billion + $1,000 billion + $80 billion + $430 billion = $2,330 billion
So he added $2,330 billion in the last 80 days - $25 BILLION A DAY!!!
The .1 billion is a chump-change drop in the bucket. Obama could have saves 1,0000 TIMES this amount by simply not signing the wasteful extravagant bills he did. He could have controlled the earmarks that ran into the billions. He did not. He could have said 'no' to jacking up discretionary spending by double digits. He did not. He did the binge spending thing to pass his Big Govt expansion and now he does the token BS PR thing to create some useless talking points from his moron-robot followers.
Obama is peeing down our backs and telling us its raining and now he makes it up with a desultory insulting savings of less than a $1 a person - IN A BUDGET THAT WILL ADD $40,000 IN DEBT FOR EACH FAMILY IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS!
it's like an obese binge dieter announcing, between scarfing down BBQ ribs and an entire fried chicken, that they are now on a diet, where every third softdrink they consume will be a diet one.
And yes, the skeptic asking if it just so happens to be programs added under Bush, yep, that's the plan exactly .... The Democrats in Congress saved a whopping $10 million ($10 million!!) killing off the DC Scholarship program; school choice is a No-No for Obama, who sends his own kids to private schools but has now condemned hundreds of kids who were benefitting from this small program, to substandard overly expensive public schooling in DC. It will save zero dollars net, since charter and private schools are cheaper (yet more effective) than DC public schools. But the NEA and liberal special interests must be obeyed!
This PR stunt fools nobody who can count - $100 million is pitiful. $100 BILLION could be saved from the $3,600 billion budget with ease. Or just look at Rep Paul Ryan's budget that goes trillions below Obama's baseline. Obama benefits from the adoring morons who can count and have no sense of proportion. And they willingly lap up garbage, crap and lies. I really pity their small minds and innumeracy, but its a hell of a stupid way to run a country.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 20.04.2009 @ 21:37
THE MASSACHUSETTS HEALTH INSURANCE BOONDOGGLE
"In the state I’m in (I assume it’s typical) they can’t be refused emergency treatment in a hospital."
The obvious corrective would be to change this law.
We could also then pass a law to lower the regulations/mandates on health insurance and allow bare-bones catastrophic heath insurance coverage.
Then maybe the young folks wont go around without coverage."Yet, we’re at or near the top in costs. So, essentially, the status quo is very high price, so-so quality. Odd that this is the system you choose to defend."
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 12.01.2009 @ 00:02
Odd that you are accussing someone else of defending the 'status quo' when in fact the status quo is one of mandages, rules, etc. that drives costs up. The Mass plan is now the 'status quo'.
24 UNTIL <EM>24</EM> -- OPEN THREAD
24? What about the opening season for "44"?
Here's the scoop on episode one. Obama's Secret revealed: Claim credit for the turnaround with a plan that wont work but will 'save jobs' by sandbagging the jobs numbers!
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2009/01/obamas-team-sandbags-jobs-numbers.html
What they are claiming is that with Obama's plan, the total employment numbers will be no higher than they were in Q3 2008. This is not 'creating' any net new jobs, this is merely treading water. They are further making the very dubious claim that the economy, if left to its own devices without huge Government deficits, would in 2010 have 4 million fewer jobs than in 2008. When in the last 60 years did that happen? Never! Obama is sandbagging the numbers, concocting an alternative scenario that is nothing more than a fearful spectre, so that zero net job creation will still be 'saving jobs'.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 11.01.2009 @ 02:51
