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Why Obama Is Low-Balling the Banking Crisis

By Robert Kuttner, Huffington Post. Posted May 11, 2009.


It's been suggested that Obama is focusing on Republican self-destruction and that he'll get around to reforming Wall Street next year.

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I recently spoke at a Federal Reserve conference in Chicago, on financial regulation. The keynote speaker was Ben Bernanke. Chairman Bernanke was unable to leave Washington, so he spoke live, via a giant TV screen, giving his speech a fittingly Orwellian cast.

This was the day that the results of the so called stress tests were released. Not surprisingly, Bernanke was upbeat, since restoring confidence was the whole political point of the stress-test exercise. No major bank was insolvent, and the 19 largest banks collectively needed to raise only about $75 billion in additional capital, although their losses might total as much as $599 billion. Citigroup, queen of the Zombie Banks, remarkably enough, was said to need only $5.5 billion in additional private capital. You could almost make up that paltry sum with executive bonuses.

At one point in his remarks, Bernanke, recounting just how rigorous the stress tests were, explained that "More than 150 examiners, supervisors, and economists" had conducted several weeks of examinations of the banks. That kind of let the cat out of the bag. If you do the arithmetic, that is about seven supervisors per bank, and all of the stress-tested 19 banks were hundred-billion and up outfits. When an ordinary commercial bank, say a $10 billion outfit, undergoes a far less complex routine examination of its commercial loan portfolio, it involves dozens of examiners.

So the stress test was not a set of rigorous examinations at all, but a modeling exercise using the banks' own valuations of their assets. The most serious outside observers think the hole in the banks' balance sheets is much larger than $75 billion or even the Fed's worst-case estimate of $599 billion in losses. The International Monetary Fund estimates the hole as more like 2.7 trillion dollars, and informed economists like Nouriel Roubini put the number at as much as 3.6 trillion.

Why is the Fed low-balling the problem? The hope is that by keeping the banks afloat for a few more months, and trying to entice private capital back to the table, the recovery in other parts of the economy will spill over onto the banks. But the greater likelihood is that weakened banks will continue dragging down the rest of the economy.

Despite talk of "green shoots," - economic indicators not being quite as bad as expected, and the stock market up - most of the news is still pretty grim. Unemployment was up in April by "only" 539,000 jobs. Home foreclosures keep rising, with a total of eight million projected this year. Manufacturing is dead in the water. The administration's voluntary (to the banks) mortgage relief program will address only a fraction of the problem; and 12 Senate Democrats voted with the banking industry to deny bankruptcy judges the ability to modify the terms of a mortgage as a last resort - thus killing the one proposed stick in a program that is all carrots.

I also recently spoke at a convention of industrial construction companies. These are the people who build and maintain factories, power plants, and do other heavy industrial construction. I asked a room full of hundreds of executives how many saw signs of improvement in their order books. Not a single hand went up. Then I asked how many had had projects deferred because of difficulty getting financing. About two thirds of the people in the room raised their hands.


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Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect.

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View:
OF... BAILOUTS & EXTINCTION & BAD DECISIONS
Posted by: SassyFrassy on May 11, 2009 8:54 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
STRESS TESTS ARE A SCAM....ONE MORE way to attempt to bamboozle the public to pooling more money into these toxic companies...it is BACKDOOR NATIONALISM/FACISM.

When the GOV takes over a bank then it becomes corrupted AND companies existence becomes POLITICALIZED.. because it's becomes whomever kisses up to the government is allowed to received funding and stays open and whom DOESN'T is KEPT OUT of the marketplace & goes under because if they don't do WHAT THE GOV WANTS they are simply PUT OUT OF BUSINESS.

ONCE AGAIN this is AGAINST FREE ENTERPRISE the marketplace must remain FREE ENTERPRISE. NO GOV BAILOUT FUNDS and NO STIMULUS.

ALL the money the GOV forced THE USA to waste on these toxic companies the news said that USA could have opened up more than a 'few" CLEAN private banks and businesses WITHOUT NATIONALIZATION, WITHOUT CENTRALIZATION and WITHOUT BAILOUT AND WITHOUT STIMULUS. PUBLIC MUST FORCE these toxic businesses into bankruptcy/re-organization and put them out to public sector WITHOUT BAILOUT otherwise they will bankrupt this NATION and it will be impossible for any regular person to ever open up a small/med business.

GEIGHTNERS fix it??? the 'temporary' relief is that it's creating a RE-INFLATION bubble & in 7 years when it bursts it will be WORSE than the one we are in. why is THIS relavant??? A YEAR LATER the bill for bailout is due and if we cannot pay it we will be owned by foreigners whom subscribe to sharia law.

kick bailout and stimulus out. see American Center for law and Justice and stoptheaclu.com

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DEMS & UTOPIA'S ..THE ART OF SELECTIVE BLINDSIGHTEDNESS
Posted by: SassyFrassy on May 11, 2009 8:57 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
THE LATEST?? on the DEMS propaganda?? they had michael moore make a movie claiming that CUBA'S healthcare system is 'better' than USA system and that USA should seek the CUBAN MODEL...

what they are HIDING??? IN CUBA public has to BEG from TOURISTS for allergy/astham inhalers and aspirin.

the new stimulus says USA SPENDS more MONEY on a MORE EXPENSIVE HEALTHCARE and the PUBLIC gets NO HEALTHCARE. LONG AND SHORT OF IT.

did you know an UNTREATED EAR INFECTION will cause permanent handicapping in child/adults. Only children it's QUICKER because children have little to no immune system when born that's science not opinion.

did you know that UNTREADED allergys/asthma results in UNEXPLAINED DEATHS and permanent handicapping as well??

well, YOU can bet the DEMS know and STILL WERE willing to create an UNCONSTITUTIONAL BAILOUT & WERE WILLING TO PASS unconstitutional stimulus without even reading it & ARE willing to SHAFT THE PUBLIC by DC SLUGS dragging their feet on kicking out the stimulus and bailout.

why?? BECAUSE dems know the longer they drag feet
1. the higher taxes must go in order to offset the expense and this will overload the middle class sector while they gravy train poor/large bus on PUBLIC FUNDS
2. the quicker the USA PUBLIC is bankrupted and the SOCIALIST STIMULUS says GOV can deprive PUBLIC of medicines if PUBLIC don't vote the WAY GOV SAYS.

3. geightners bailout?? it's creating a re-inflation bubble that in 7 YEARS that will burst harder than the one we just had. why is this relavent??? ONE YEAR LATER the bill for the BAILOUT becomes DUE AND PAYABLE by public and if public doesn't have the money... we will be owned by foreigners whom subscribe to sharia law.

WHEN you are left with a death or permanently handicapped loved one as a result of being DEPRIVED MEDICINE FROM THIS NEW STIMULUS isn't the TIME to go seeking to do something about it.

DEMS have been ignoring the public while DEMS ACT as they please feeling they are ABOVE THE LAW and can act without impunity while the PUBLIC is deemed to only be able to ACT UPON PERMISSION BEING GRANTED TO DO SO....

Thomas Jefferson pretty well covered much about our situation today in two quotes made by him over 200 years ago. Our founders fathers feared what we are living today:

1. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

2. “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”*

seek legislative and LEGAL action to get stimulus and bailout kicked out
see Amer Ctr for law and justice and focus on the family and stoptheaclu.com & familysecuritymatters.org

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» RE: ACLU?? Posted by: Shehova
» This is a real laugher Posted by: ReallyBearish
lanerd
Posted by: lanerdion on May 11, 2009 9:14 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The key here is the people responsible for this collapse are the same people who are trying to fix it . The public is being taken for a ride,and its pretty obvious, by the people and for the people no longer has any meaning when talking about the government of the United States .

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Obama: 'Healthcare overhaul could save trillions'
Posted by: flymulla on May 11, 2009 10:36 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama: 'Healthcare overhaul could save trillions'
The opportunity cost states, “If you have one ticket to go to theatre and one dinner with your mother in law, what would be your choice? If you go to the theatre, your opportunity cost is the dinner with your mother in law. The thing that cost you is the alternative. Where are we now?
Homeowners need a short foreclosure ban and bankruptcy mortgage revisions, not more bank stock.
Country’s 19 largest banks had a bit of trouble with their stress tests. This is what happens when you put bloated people on a treadmill: They gasp, sweat and hit the red "stop" button. When you put bloated banks on the treadmill, they act the same way--but somehow manage to pick your pocket.
HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan has joined Stephen Hester, his equivalent at Royal Bank of Scotland, in pouring cold water on hopes of an early economic recovery despite reporting better-than-expected trading in the first three months of the year.
General Motors chief Fritz Henderson ready to ‘resort to bankruptcy’ as global sell-off talks continue
General Motors (GM) will probably fall into bankruptcy, its chief executive warned again yesterday, as the clock ticks down to the June 1 deadline set by the US Government for the ailing carmaker to convince it that it can restructure successfully.
I agree that we are in a state of suspense, but there is no way of knowing where we heeded.
This year has gotten off to a bad start, with the S&P 500 (as of Jan. 20) down 10.7% to 805. This just makes me more determined in my bullishness. I like stocks for 2009 precisely because they did so badly in 2008. Now read on what other papers say.
Here is a nightmare for you: Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your employer is bankrupt and the money you have set aside in your deferred compensation plan belongs to the company’s creditors.
I have left thinking about the employment and any income that comes from rescue plan if there is any. Since the banks started collapsing in 2008, I dream of the Hawaii and the pretty ladies instead. It is fruitless in crying over the spilt mill and cows for that matter that are already slaughtered.
"You can't build up a reputation on what you are going to do."
-Henry Ford
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla

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Neocon Lite, anyone?
Posted by: Perry Logan on May 12, 2009 3:30 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How strange that the progressives mistook Obama for their big shot at the big time.

So much for the theory that progressives are smart. ;)

If you'll recall, most of the progressives were scared sh*tless that the voters' preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, would win. So they pulled out the stops and fought dirty. (God help a woman who stands in a progressive's way!)

Thanks to America's disgust with Republicans--and to the nastiest, most crooked campaign primary ever--the progs managed to get their weakling into the Presidency. It was a tribute to the self-deception of the left.

Now, just a few months in, a child can see that Obama has futzed things up far worse than any DLC Democrat could ever have done.

Obama is Neocon Lite--which five minutes on the web would have revealed before it was too late.

Instead of fixing it, Obama is breaking the bank trying to keep the old system working. He is doing the opposite of what the voters elected him to do. He has ignored every major economist in the world and openly defied the wishes of the very people who fought dirty to get him in.

We should remember who did this to us. Progessives are screw-ups.


Xe Technology

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» Obama is a DLC Democrat, doofus Posted by: leafsong1
» Can you spell CFR? How about TLC? Posted by: we_need_Abe
you can do two things at once if...
Posted by: ellie on May 12, 2009 4:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the main point is making the banks responsible for their own actions... force them to do what they are told, not by regulation, but what would happen if everyone pulled out of the banks that were tested and put their bucks into small community banks and credit unions???

if they can shuffle $$, we can do the same thing with what we have left... or... the coffee can in the yard sounds good!!!

this would really make the gop come unraveled, if we refused to play on any terms...

back to coffee....

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» RE: you can do two things at once if... Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
So what?
Posted by: bonapartist on May 12, 2009 4:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the best case scenario Republican implode and are replaced by another conservative / right wing organization. The ruling oligarchy stays in power, only this time moderate oligarchs (Democrats) have an upper hand over fundamental oligarchs (Republicans, soon RIP?). Reminds me what former slave in American South wrote about how slaves classified good master from a bad amster. The former whipped less than the later, point being that both used the lash.

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» RE: So what? Posted by: willymack
gasp is the koolaid wearing off finality
Posted by: SeattlePackedSnowandCollidedCars on May 12, 2009 4:57 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm glad you decided to join the party comrade. Does anyone know that we are just printing money like mad men (stagflation anyone)? The Sugar daddy ChiComs is cutting America off. Stimuli money is only going to the "well connected" (I could name off tons of very necessary infrastructure projects this nation needs) however will the MSn-13 say anything about this:

NO SIR NO

After the glow I seen a NerdProm on Saturday (via YouTube because I got better things to do like plant a veggy garden and figure out how to gut a chicken), we better set up for a fall of the Middle Class as we know it. Its been holding on for dear life for a while but I see the flat line. Oh yea the "Privilege Coast" will be fine, they have Ivy League degrees and slave immigrant cheep labor to mop there floors and clean there toilets while the sheeple-bots are told from the MSn-13 "it is Bushes and the GOP fault" even if they are currently powerless in Washington (and most major state houses).

I think it is time for a Great Mother Depression, this is so we can purge out the Spoiled Brat Marxist (you know the ones with the Che shirts while mommy and daddy pay for college), really wake up and find our who we are w/o The Nation, New York Time ect telling us as American's "we suck" because we an't Europe. In America's Ghettos it is a lost world however that is where many of YOU will be also so you better wise up however it is already too late

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» I hate Great Depressions but Posted by: maxpayne
Why is corruption so mysterious?
Posted by: leafsong1 on May 12, 2009 6:01 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Call a spade a spade; the man is obviously a crook. You don't accidentally give away a couple trillion dollars.

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Our sorry reality
Posted by: popsicle67 on May 12, 2009 6:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He doesn't have any choice in the matter. He can fiddle with the numbers and make a few speeches but in the end , Wall Street will do what it wants. There is no hope of any meaningful reform because the system won't stand any. There will be starvation and death along with anarchy and the law of the gun will assert itself. I know this is true because this same scenario has played itself out in any number of African and Central American countries for all to see. George Carlin told us, and now were finding the real joke is on us.

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» RE: Our sorry reality Posted by: Frugalvoter
the old will suffocate itself
Posted by: alturn on May 12, 2009 8:04 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
By putting band-aids on the old system, Obama is letting capitalism twist in the wind. There is still too much support in America for capitalism as the ultimate pagan idol for any other approach.

Ultimately people will realize government and our resources should be used to improve the quality of everyone's life and that capitalism and its inherent competitiveness do not deliver for the broad public. Gradually sharing to meet everyone's basic needs will seem reasonable. After all, we are not on this earth to be money making machines. Instead, we are here to learn the Art of Living and Being.

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» RE: the old will suffocate itself Posted by: Frugalvoter
It's so simple.
Posted by: pawheel on May 12, 2009 8:58 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama, Hillary, Gore, Ron Paul... It doesn't make 2 cents worth of difference who got in. The Repubs and Dems are the same thing.
The real power is above them all.
Who is the only group that Obama is ASKING to do things instead of telling them? THE BANKS.

1. Read Naomi Kleins "The Shock Doctrine".
2. Apply it to what's happening to the United States this year. Unions busted, wages lowered, people losing things that have been promised to them for the last 50 years.

3. Do something about it (or don't). I joined the Green Party to try to change things in politics. We don't accept corporate money, which is part of what keeps the politicians allowing the Shock Doctrine to be applied to the middle and working classes in this country. Wake up!
WWW.GP.ORG. Look it up, the party of REAL CHANGE, not the spare change the Repubs and Dems are leaving our children and grandchildren.

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» RE: It's so simple. Posted by: abstractedaway
» RE: It's so simple. Posted by: robbrian
Citizen's future labor is the collateral of the debt fraud scheme...
Posted by: chance garden on May 12, 2009 10:28 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I read this (inreference to birth certicicates) at the website:
http://vinyasi-public-records.info


"Congress still convening strictly under Executive Order authority confirmed the bankruptcy through the Joint Resolution to Suspend the Gold Standard and Abrogate the Gold


Clause, June 5, 1933, House Joint Resolution (HJR) 192, June 5, 1933, 73rd Congress, 1st Session, Public Law 73-10. This 1933 public law states, in part:
"... every provision contained in or made with respect to any obligation which purports to give the oblige a right to require payment in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency, or in an amount in money of the United States measured thereby, is declared to be against public policy."

The corporate U.S. declared bankruptcy a second time, whereby the Secretary of Treasury was appointed Receiver for the bankrupt U.S. in Reorganization Plan No. 26, Title 5 USC 903, Public Law 94-564, "Legislative History," page 5967.

Since 1933, the only assets used by the UNITED STATES to pay its debt to the Fed have been the blood, sweat, and tears of every American unfortunate to be saddled with a Birth Certificate and a Social Security Account Number (the U.S. Government must conceal this fact from the American people at all cost).

Their future labor and tax revenues have been legally pledged via the new all-caps, juristic-person names appearing on the Birth Certificates, i.e. the securities used as collateral for loans of credit (thin-air belief) to pay daily operational costs, re-organization expenses in bankruptcy, insurance policy premiums required to float the bankrupt government, and interest on the ever-increasing, wholly fraudulent, debt. END."

It SEEMS like the BANKING regime is counting on the people of the US to continue slaving away voluntarily in their interests.
...I hope you all enjoy your servitude, really now, even if you didn't---IT'S THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN! You are EXPECTED to pull your share of the debt burden. THIS is what it now MEANS to be a GOOD CITIZEN...AKA COMMUNITARIAN, LOL!

Any comments from those who have degrees in economics on this subject?

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Something in the wind?
Posted by: willymack on May 12, 2009 10:30 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Maybe, maybe not. President Obama has hinted he'll resume federal regulation and enforce existing anti-trust laws. Let's face it; he has a lot on his mind. Increasing demands for investigation of the bush crime family almost certainly haven't fallen on deaf ears. Calls for single-payer universal health care, and the disgraceful refusal of the Senate to even hear a case for it can't have gone unnoticed, either. Let's hope that the something in the wind isn't meaningless flatulence.

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When even executives of industrial companies have to defer projects desperately,
Posted by: maxpayne on May 12, 2009 2:40 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
then you know that another economic meltdown isn't far off. As far as Obama is concerned, Mccain and Hillary would have done the same so we were doomed no matter which of those 3 won. I guess that there are some executives Obama chooses not to listen to after all.

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Shock Doctrine
Posted by: ClassAct on May 12, 2009 3:10 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It has occurred to me that this banking crisis might be the elite way of deploying a “nuclear option” against Social Security and Medicare, the only remaining vestiges of a public safety net. If that should turn out to be the case, Obama may be biding his time, awaiting the day (as we all are) when the American public finally comes to its senses and storms Wall Street like the French people stormed the Bastille.

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» RE: Shock Doctrine Posted by: robbrian
the con continues
Posted by: gold_tracker on May 13, 2009 9:06 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thank you so much for posting this article. Since the talk began about the stress tests I've had an itch that something didn't seem right and you finally scratched it for me. The whole thing about a few people investigating in mere weeks the balance sheets of billion dollar industries is absurd to me.

We're in a world of hurt I think. Foreign countries know it. That's why one of Japan's political parties is calling for the cessation of purchasing of US debt. Not to mention the fact that China has been secretly stock piling gold and is looking to buy more, hopefully from the IMF. It all is starting to look like the other countries are recognizing a dollar on it's way out. Which probably explains why gold is tracking up this week as I watch it with the widget ExactPrice. It's at $928.50 right now. I expect it to move a lot more before the day is out. Doesn't bode well for the dollar, a currency a number are now saying is a dead man walking.

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» RE: the con continues Posted by: robbrian
BA
Posted by: mnstra on May 14, 2009 2:48 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good article. Isn't it amazing that no matter what color the man in the White House is he does the same old thing
ripping off the American taxpayer. The voters picked their poison again after the bankers started the heist, We need a grass roots revolution in the world or we are all going down.......

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» RE: BA Posted by: robbrian
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