Chat Progressives

Greed is killing America

chatprogressives — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:47:45 +0000

oh my god, this man summarizes the entire 80′s ethos of “greed is good” in less than a 200 page book. A great read, and a mirror of the tough financial times we live in. As someone who has seen the ethical debate about money for decades, Mr. Gallagher can definitely assist us in understanding WHY these men/women do this.

http://chuckgallagher.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/the-ethics-of-change-a-letter-to-president-elect-barack-obama/

President Obama needs to tackle this (world financial) crisis on only one front, and that is regulation & oversight of industries.

The ‘bailout’ & why you can’t give a rich man enough money to waste

chatprogressives — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:04:41 +0000

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/19/113447/400/541/685952

Although i don’t like the idea of nationalizing the banking system, does anyone else see that you can never give a rich man enough money? The whole idea of the ‘bailout’ is to keep fluid & businesses afloat. The economy is in a dire situation; this is not the time for profit taking & cutting jobs. Which seems to be the mindset behind some of the banks that received funds.

Full article is below, in case this story get pulled.

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Oh boy – TARP was not necessary and it’s a trillion dollar robbery

by Jerome a Paris

Mon Jan 19, 2009 at 09:00:37 AM PST

Never have I disagreed so much with bonddad than in the case of his last diary on why TARP was supposedly necessary.

His point is that the banking system is collapsing under losses and need help to survive. The problem is that the first part is true, but not the second. The reality is that the banking system is fucked up beyond help, and the only solution is to nationalize it wholesale in order to put it back on a sound footing.

I wrote in October that wholesale nationalisation of the banking sector was necessary to get lending re-started. Today, the NYT notes, seemingly with surprise and some righteous anger, that banks are not using bailout money to make new lending (which was, remember, the reason why we had to urgently – URGENTLY! – give the banks hundreds of billions of dollars or euros):

Jerome a Paris’s diary :: ::

A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority. An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future.

The above is about the US, but the same is happening in the UK, where the government is having to unveil a second bank bailout because – doh! – “ the worsening global financial crisis has caused banks to cut lending” (no mention of the fact that the first bailout did not impose lending requirements, of course – that would be governments dictating policy rather than the markets, and we can’t have that, even when markets have absolutely failed).

The only result of the ideological blinders that prevent an outright nationalisation – and governments, as owners, setting lending policies – from happening right away is that we’ll lose several hundred billion euros more before it eventually happens (part of it as a windfall to bankers, their shareholders and creditors, and part as lost activity in the meantime), as it has to.

Krugman is saying essentially the same:

policy makers — possibly without realizing it — are gearing up to attempt a bait-and-switch: a policy that looks like the cleanup of the savings and loans, but in practice amounts to making huge gifts to bank shareholders at taxpayer expense, disguised as “fair value” purchases of toxic assets.

Why go through these contortions? The answer seems to be that Washington remains deathly afraid of the N-word — nationalization.

Nationalisation is the solution

The current banking system is terminally bankrupt. Banks today will not lend, even to sound businesses, even if you give them the money to do so. So you have to compel them to lend. Banks (or more precisely, their shareholders, management and creditors) should not be saved: they should be repsectively wiped out, fired and made to take their losses. The banking infrastructure (including most employees, which had little or no responsibility in the crisis) can be diverted from its prior uses towards those now determined by government as part of the mopping up exercise of the hole that the very banking system created.

Financiers are part of the problem, not part of the solution, right now. Don’t save them. But save the boring, utility bits of banks. Banks will not do that on their own. Government has to force them. Urgently.

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Pray she runs against Obama/Biden in 2012

chatprogressives — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:55:41 +0000

http://sarahpalintruthsquad.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/sarah-palin-whines-about-bloggers-caroline-kennedy-and-the-media/

no comment! (something you’ll never hear Sarah say in a lifetime)

Obama’s Asia team announced

chatprogressives — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:33:00 +0000

To our readers interested in Asia policy matters, you’ll find this worth a read.

http://eastasiatoday.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/obamas-asia-team

Thanks to Mr. Fedman for taking some time to research the players on Obama’s team. North Korea, formerly called out as part of W.’s “Axis of Evil”, is a country we should engage to move toward democracy. A more democratic world is indeed a SAFER and MORE HAPPY world.

Can’t say we don’t have atleast one comedian in the Congress now

chatprogressives — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:15:06 +0000

Now that Al has won, we can say that atleast one straight-faced member of Congress will have fun pointing out the foibles of other members.

access DATE:09JN09
story DATE: 06JN09
site SOURCE: Smh.com.au

URL: http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/excomedian-al-franken-win-last-us-senate-seat/2009/01/06/1231003986499.html
AUTHOR, original: AFP

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Democrat and former Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken won the recount of ballots for a Minnesota senate seat – the last seat to be decided in the US elections – but the contentious battle is set to drag on for weeks or months as his Republican rival vowed to contest the results.

The legal battle will leave the seat empty and weaken the Democratic majority as president-elect Barack Obama works to implement a massive economic stimulus package.

Election officials certified the recount results which handed Franken victory with a margin of 225 votes out of nearly three million ballots cast in the November 4 election.

But Franken will not officially win the election until the legal battle is over and the governor and secretary of state issue an election certificate.
<>
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Al is a winner for the Progressive movement

W. says he saved us all from another 9/11. Well…what about the FIRST one?

chatprogressives — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:50:28 +0000

Reading this will give you some insight into the twisted view that W. seems to have on his place in history. Let’s hope whoever writes the history books reads this story first.

access DATE: 09JN09
story DATE: 09JN09
site SOURCE: Multiply.com

URL: http://robustdebate.multiply.com/journal/item/3088
AUTHOR, original: Cody

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Not Karl Rove’s Best Day For History Revision Jan 9, ’09 1:51 AM
by Cody for everyone
Clarke Blows Up the Legacy Project
This is a beautiful piece of take-down by Richard Clarke. I usually don’t like to quote large chunks of a column, but this is worth it:

Bush stopped terrorist attacks? Yes, some of the many alleged plots cited by the White House probably would have matured into attacks had not the U.S. intelligence community acted. Many were more aspirational than operational, and others were the pure inventions of FBI informants. [...]
But even if taken on its face as true, should having stopped terrorist attacks earn this President a Harry Truman-like reassessment down the road? I can attest from firsthand knowledge that the Clinton administration stopped numerous terrorist operations that would have resulted in American deaths. Yet I don’t hear Bill Clinton running around boasting about that. [...]

If you don’t think the Clinton administration stopped a major terrorist attack in New York City, you might want to talk with the blind sheik, who was involved in a plot to blow up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and a federal building housing the FBI. But that would be tough to do because Omar Abdel-Rahman is in solitary in a federal prison in Colorado.

It’s also worth noting that all of the terrorists behind the first WTC bombing were captured and convicted. Bin Laden, on the other hand, is still at large. And this:

There wasn’t a second 9/11? That’s obviously true, but it misses the point. First, we must remember that Al Qaeda terrorists are patient, deliberate planners who often wait years between strikes. Second, there was the first 9/11 – and it happened on Bush’s watch. Without rehashing the entire 9/11 Commission Report, the historical record is pretty clear by now that Bush did virtually nothing about the repeated warnings to him that those cataclysmic attacks were coming. Unfortunately, I can personally attest to that as well.
This all leads back around to the No Attacks Mythology (see my book). There weren’t any other 9/11-style attacks on American soil since 9/11, but there weren’t any other WTC bombings during Clinton’s administration either. That’s a fact. February 26, 1993 through Janurary 20, 2001. No additional WTC-style attacks by Islamic terrorists. And that’s without illegal invasions, torturing, renditions, eavesdropping on American citizens, and on and on.

http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/01/clarke_blows_up.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/01/08/2009-01-08_president_bush_saved_us_lives_thats_only.html

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Richard Clarke is my new hero. He is America’s hero.

The hunt for bin Laden continues, under every rock and in every cave across the Earth.

We are now on youtube

chatprogressives — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:43:51 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChatProgressives

Although the semester has not even started, we are gearing up to make the CP a powerful force here in Tennessee politics. Yehh us!

Suggestions for tracked blogs

chatprogressives — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:35:55 +0000

As we build the CP here in town, i’m taking suggestions for some blogs we should track. Throw your comments in (including those invited to comment from outside the area) & we’ll evaluate them once the team begins the new semester.

Hello world!

chatprogressives — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:33:37 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!