Three cheers for Paulson’s plan

How do we trust any member of this Bush Administration? Either way the taxpayers are %$#&ed!

Boooooooooo!

Does anyone really believe this transition wasn’t months in the making (likely years), that Bernacke and Paulson really buckled down, ordered in some dinner, pulled and all nighter and came up with this? This consolidation of power and consolidation of the banking industry and legislative cooperation between countries is why they allowed the bubble to happen in the first place – so it could be crushed at the right moment, the situation could be presented as a crisis in jargon even people in the financial industry are not savvy enough to question and then the normal checks and balances that protect us from tyrannical use of power to help private industry are thrown out the window. The CEOs of the institutions and their advisers are the same people you will see in the Treasury Department and Fed board in an ongoing game of musical chairs instated to keep control over the economy in the hands of the few and ensure the most profitable circumstances possible. This situation was created to enable them to get rid of policies in the way of profit under the guise of crisis. It sets a precedent so the government oversight and anti trust laws and the free market in general can be gotten around in the future. $200 billon is too much for a war, $100 billion is too much for a healthcare system out from under the HMOs but $600 billion is supported without discussion because it is put in terms that intimidate the average person and not questioned at all by the media that is supposed to be distilling the situation for the public so that they can have so say in what is done with their tax dollars, and to protect the value of their dollars down the road.

Booooooooooo!

No, Paulson is just talking up the market. Its t his interest – come Jan 2009, he will be back in Wall Street, all the banks clear out their subprimes, CDOs, Mono Liners, etc…, big writedowns ont eh balance sheet – all clean. Come Dec 2009, Paulson and gang is going to reward themselves at Wall Street – big gains and big performance payouts.
Folks, go to the website on “The Money Masters” and watch this compelling video report that Wall Street, The Fed, the Government will try to shut it down, if they already did not.

Congress created the Federal Reserve (back in 1913), I believe they still have the power to abolish it and the sooner they do the better off we will be. Please look at what is happening to America, (in my opinion because of the Federal Reserve), a devalued dollar, our currency used to be the envy of the world, not now that is for certain. With the Federal Reserve catering to Wall Street along with all the other special interests they are involved with, I can’t see a lot of hope for the middle class in America, which I believe is their goal in the first place, to totally eliminate the middle class in America, they have done a damn good job so far. I feel we need to eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank and also totally get away from the United Nations who totally want to see our Constitution destroyed, they also are doing a pretty good job at that as well. Wake Up America or we are not going to have an America to wake up to. One other note, where are our gold reserves these days, I don’t think they are in Fort Knox, I have heard they are stored at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, WOW that is really scary, anybody know for sure.

Booooooooooooo!!!

I second the Boo for Hank’s Blueprint for Financial Regulatory Reform – BluFiRR. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Papa Paulson uses terms like “millions of working Americans”, “America’s workers”, “investor protection”, etc. I doubt he ever came across these expressions at Goldman-Sachs. So we get the Market Stability Regulator (MarStaR), the Prudential Financial Regulator (PruFiR), and the Conduct of Business Regulator (CoBuR). And does NYSE:PRU needs its own individual regulator ?

And in the bad-news-is-good-news category, UBS shares go up 7% after announcing yet another $19 billion write-down. With a Q1 loss of only $12 billion, shouldn’t the board vote bonuses for the top execs ??

This talk back blog does nothing but prove how uneducated people are. Perhaps that’s the real underlying cause of America’s failing financial system.

I guess I have to say, Mortgage Brokers have long set the standard for good lending, Banks can do anything and hide under the cloke of FDIC…I guess someone had to go under the bus…Before America has no choice please explore all of pur options. Jim Turner Assured Financial Mortgage Inc,

I believe that it is a step in the right direction. Early in my career, I was a loan processor, loan officer and ultimately mortgage underwriter. (I left the industry 10 years ago for a job and set of skills that weren’t specifically tied to one industry.) As a underwriter, I approved loans for offices in 14 states including FHA and VA loans. At the time, all loans required a down payment with the exception of a VA loan and the FHA ARM could only increase 1% per year with a 5% lifetime cap. A traditional conventional ARM could increase 2% per year with a lifetime 6% cap. Underwriting was prudent. It was completed with full documentation and by a real person reviewing every document. I think FHA did a great job of preventing a buyer from toxic loans, unacceptable ARM resets, and purchasing more home than they could afford. I’m encouraged by the raising of FHA loan limits and know from experience that the buyers will be better off.
This entire problem was started by greed. From the loan officers who felt that they needed more than one origination point in commission for the time spent on each loan application to the mortgage brokers who created exotic mortgages with liberal underwriting standards to entice more business, and finally to the investment banks that packaged these portfolios as “secured by real estate” when in truth, very view properties had a down payment or equity.

In order to cheer for this you have to think that the Government can execute something effectively. Myself, I am a firm believer that a smaller government is better because more more government just means more taxes and cost and less efficiency. I think that the it is another example of misplaced intentions. Look how well it has gone so far; the impact on the dollar has wiped out any positive impact the tax stimulus package could have and the only good thing is that Uncle Ben’s Wall St. buddies got a get out of jail free card for their mismanagement. All in the sake of restoring confidence in the markets; here’s a news flash- what makes you think that the anyone will ever trust Wall St. firms with their money?? They have proven to be fraudulent and nothing more than high paid used car salesman who trade on the latest headline, not on any intelligent analysis. So I say BOOOO! to the government regulating and making it easier fot them to get cheap money because in the end it is the tax payer’s that foot the bill and they pat themselves on the back and have a scotch at the club.

Zero cheers for this plan. It might increase integration of financial decisionmaking, but it will do nothing for the quality of the decisions – nothing to represent those were victimized by the subprime meltdown – nothing to change the behaviors that led up to where we are. Lack of communication was at worst a small part of the problem. And one would like to see at least a preponderance of known, concrete advantages vs. unknown risks when implementing what one commenter termed “major surgery”.

Mr. Paulson’s proposal looks like a lot of action, but is not much cure. It’s like installing an electronic surveillance system around a home to reduce risk – except the problem is, the house is already on fire.

I’m throwing out the first “Boo” anyone else?

I’m sorry but this plan is a travesty! Are we, the American people, now going to hand over our entire financial system and economic well being to an organization that is the main cause of half of these so-called bubbles? The fed has shown it’s lack of concern for the average American more times than I care to recount.

This country (and some others) has got to wake up and realize we have been sold down the river to a pack of greedy bankers that care not about our well being, they only care about their profits and the security of their banker friends. We are being sold into servitude and some day society will look back at this mess as the point America was changed from a free nation to a socialist nation!

Has anyone kept track of http://www.mutualfundstockcondo.com?

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies…If the American people allow private banks to control the issue of currency…the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson

“A World Banking System was set up here, a superstate set up by international bankers, acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The Fed (Federal Reserve) has usurped the government.” – Senator Louis McFadden [on conception of the Federal Reserve acts passed without legislation]

“The real fact of the matter is that a financial element in the large centers that has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt (Former US President/1933)

And let me make this clear, the Federal Reserve is:
1. A Private Corporation
2. Makes it’s own policies
3. Our currency (dollar) is loaned to us at INTEREST

Sadly, we are playing right into the international bankers hands. And by the time we figure it out, it will be too late. The next President should fully federalize our currency and central bank, without such action is irresponsible.

If we had an independent Fed, insulated from manipulation by government or Wall Street interests, I would feel more comfortable allowing them more authority. However, in the past 6 months, uncle Benny has shown a willingness to wimp out when pressured by the big guys on Wall Street and Capitol Hill. He has compromised the dollar and literrally given honest, prudent money a kick in the *%&$s. His agenda does not include protecting the value of the dollar we work for. I didn’t hear a peep from the Fed when the “new economy” mantra was being spouted durning the past couple decades.

Keep the Fed away from Wall Street.

Three cheers? More like four hisses.

Paulson’s plan is another piece of propaganda fed to the media with hopes of further manipulating public sentiment and misrepresenting the underlying causes of this country’s DEBT DEBACLE. This plan, if it becomes law, will be used to justify further Wall Street bailouts by tax payers, further risk-free profiteering by Wall Street, and the further concentration of financial power in this debt-ridden country. The central bank should be cast out, the gold standard readopted, and the investment bank/hedge fund markets allowed to fail. I’ll trade short term pain for everyone vs. external pain for the less powerful!

I do not know what specific changes in financial rules/regulations would be best. But I do believe that we should be fearful of “financial socialism” as well as “libertarian free markets.”

Adam Smith did not argue for free markets, but rather for competitive markets – a big difference. He did not argue for the rule of individual self interest, but for harnessing the power individual self interest. Markets were not to be free for anyone: consumer, producer, or government, but they were suppose to be competitive. Markets function well (with some notable exceptions) when they control the power of self interest, not when they idealize human freedom as the only arbiter of value.

So my simplistic and not very helpful insight to any changes in financial rules/regulations is that they need to be mindful of the Smithian (not libertarian) goal of competition to limit the power of self interest in the hands of all market participants: borrower, lender and regulator.

This proposal speaks to the severity of the problems facing our nation – problems not seen since the Great Depression. As we have detailed for some time at our web site http://www.SubprimeCrunch.com this subprime and ensuing credit crunch is a monster that will likely overwhelm anything the the government tries to do after the fact. Now, they propose giving the Federal Reserve, a private organization that is not a part of the U.S. government, more control when there are real questions about how they were asleep at the switch when this problem was developing, i.e. “…we believe the subprime mortgage problem is contained…” per Fed Chairman Bernanke. Check our web site for regular updates on subprime, real estate, foreclosure, and delinquency developments.

No good can come from this. The Feds are, and always will be, closing the barn door after the cows get out. Though the FDIC and the FSLIC have regulated banks and S&Ls for a very long time, that did not prevent the S&L crisis and bank failures in the 1980s. The only thing this effort will accomplish will be to raise borrowing costs for all borrowers.

We are going the way of a bannana republic!
Ditch the Fed.

How about this? We give all our money to Wall Street and then they can just buy and buy their little stocks, houses on the beach, stand in line for Iphones, and purchase expensive cars. The rest of us will move on. Bottom line, (and I know how they love the bottom line), the economy is trashed and their doing everything they can to save their own butts. Cause they really believe who ever dies with the most toys win. Let’s start facing the facts and quit bowing down to all the Corporate Royalty!

The problem, as stated by the late, great Milton Friedman, has been one of too much government intrusion, not too little. The real issue is that the market has not been setting the interest rates as it should; rather the Fed has been continually intervening like a worried mother hen. The Fed caused the Great Depression and now they have caused the housing bubble which will lead to years of stagflation. These two episodes together make the panic of 1907 look like a hiccup. Shame on Bernanke. Shame on Greenspan post 1966.

Get the heck out of the way, Maestros, and let the invisible hand lead the orchestra for a change.

Socialism here we come…healthcare, bailouts for irresponsible banks and individuals, and now nationalized banking. Whatever happened to free markets, hands-off government, and accountability for your own actions?

How come none of this was seen back in 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007? Maybe because housing was going up and both state and federal governments along with investors were getting revenues and profits? Now, only do we introduce regulation which should’ve been there in the first place.

Unless the FED understands these financial products they call ‘innovations’, and how they affect the entire financial systems these regulations will not work. And where is the punishment for all the offenders? Seems like anyone can conjure up a toxic financial product, unload it at a hefty profit; and they are never liable for anything because they have sold it and the last guy standing takes the hit along with all the taxpayers.

It’s very hard to accept anything that comes from the Bush administration on its face. As a taxpayer, investor and small business owner, I personally will not trust anything that comes out of this. Any changes to regulation should wait for a new administration.

The Bush administration is the group of hooligans that has allowed the economy to become this mess, and now we’re supposed to listen to them on how to fix it? Fool me once, fool me twice…

a big part of the mortgage crisis is due to the Fed’s meddling in the ‘redline’ issue. Their record of solving problems hardly give one confidence.

Possibly, the Fed needs to look at the end product of major government intervention in an economy.

I am a bit dubious about that plan. It seems to me that it does not actually deal with any of the causes of the current situation. Only a few methods. It will help keep the situation in check. But only for a little while.

It does not change the fact that Fed Policy is made to help financial markets, not the economy as a whole.

It does not deal with easy money. Limits on leveraging were put in after the Great Depression I, but time allowed them to figure out ways to wiggle out. Perhaps causing the Great Depression II. Curbs on leveraging will not hold as long as easy money is there. The rewards for short term gambling are high.

It still allows those that set this up to get away without consequences. The money they made will still be theirs, the loses will still be ours. The system will still allow that in the future. Not only is the system still in place that means investors lose while decision makers profit, but the rules for corporate bankruptcy will still allow companies to re-make themselves, sluffing off debt but keeping assets and people.

It also still allows them to make interconnected and monstrously huge financial transactions and systems that so endanger the world at large that we will be forced, again, to bail them out when the inevitable consequences of their short term profits catch up with them.

There is still no, NO (that I see) punishment for the situation as it stands. They got rich, they will keep the money, we will bail them out and there will be no incentive for them to do anything but dive back into the same thing as soon as they can figure out how to get around the paltry rules that Paulson is setting up now.

And they will figure out how.