FUN FACTS - Part III- Who/What is responsible for our Current Financial Mess?

[FrenchieCat]

As Stated in Part I and Part II of this series of OPs,
I was looking into exactly what happened to the economy?
How did we get there, and who was to blame?

There's been a lot of talk about Larry Summers,
and Tim Geithner as being two main responsible parties,
which has prompted me to look further into the question
of what exactly happened.

According to what I have read,
there were two laws that were passed,
one in late 1999 and one in 2000,
both which set up the current legal conditions,
to make legal what we now consider weaknesses in our financial foundation.
The changes in the law accomplished by these two bills,
Coupled with a reign of deregulation
and laxed regulatory enforcements suffered
during George W. Bush's 2 terms in office,
are responsible for creating the climate that
allowed our current Financial Condition.

The Third factor to contribute to our current financial woes was

The George W. Bush Presidency Jan 2001-Jan 2008

George Bush captured the presidency in 2000, and when Republican majorities reigned in both houses of Congress.

Bush's "compassionate conservatism" translated into compassionate tax giveaways to the plutocrats, along with new deregulating of corporate accounting.

Cynics in Wall Street called it the new age of Harvey Pitt. Pitt was appointed to be chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission precisely because he had been legal counsel to the Big Four accounting firms.

Pitt's first speech proclaimed the new day of a "kinder SEC."

Loopholes
Lawyers, accountants and CEO's caught Pitt's innuendo: Reach for that dubious tax-avoidance loophole, and the IRS will not mind. Conceal losses and exaggerate profits by various off-balance-sheet devices that violate strict accounting rules legislated in the years before Bush.

Why rehash this somewhat old hat history? For one good reason.
Today's global bankruptcies and macroeconomic quagmires trace directly to the financial engineering shenanigans that the Bush era officialdom both countenanced and encouraged. Young George Bush did not only make a mess of Mideast politics. In addition, the Bush-Rove version of plutocratic democracy accomplished the singular alchemy of converting a usual plain-vanilla boom-and-bust in housing into an old-fashioned, hard-to-manage, worldwide financial panic.

This time America was the Eve in Eden who tempted Swiss, German and U.K. bankers into eating the evil apple of non-transparency and unconscious gross over-leveraging.

Did Ayn Rand or libertarian Milton Friedman ever anticipate that Adam Smith's marketplace Eden would come to the present disorder? Where were Bank of England Gov. Mervyn King and the heads of the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan while the disasters were unfolding?
Just like the usual mediocre CEOs, world leaders never focused on the dangerous winds that were beginning to blow.
http://www.worldfinance.com/news/contributors/samuelson/article356.html

FUN FACTS: Bush held town hall-style public meetings across the U.S. in 2001 to increase public support for his plan for a $1.35 trillion tax cut program—one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history.

Bush argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers, saying "the surplus is not the government’s money. The surplus is the people’s money."

With reports of the threat of recession from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Bush argued that such a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs. Others, including the Treasury Secretary at the time Paul O'Neill, were opposed to some of the tax cuts on the basis that they would contribute to budget deficits and undermine Social Security. By 2003, the economy showed signs of improvement, though job growth remained stagnant.

Under the Bush Administration, real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.5 percent, considerably below the average for business cycles from 1949 to 2000. Bush entered office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 10,587, and the average peaked in October 2007 at over 14,000. When Bush left office, the average was at 7,949, one of the lowest levels of his presidency.

In December 2007, the United States entered the second-longest post-World War II recession, which included a housing market correction, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices and a declining dollar value. In February, 63,000 jobs were lost, a 5-year record.

The Bush administration pushed for significantly increased regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003, and after two years, the regulations passed the House but died in the Senate. Many Republican senators, as well as influential members of the Bush Administration, feared that the agency created by these regulations would merely be mimicking the private sector’s risky practices.

It should be noted that neither Larry Summers nor Tim Geithner ever worked for the Bush White house, nor sent Bills to Congress.

Larry Summers was President of Harvard University (2001-2006) during a majority of the time George Bush was in office, and Tim Geithner was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is located in Manhattan's Financial District and has been the place where monetary policy in the United States is implemented, although policy is decided in Washington, D.C. by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

The New York Fed is also responsible for carrying out exchange rate policy by buying and selling dollars at the direction of the United States Treasury Department.

Tim Geithner was not on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and therefore was not a member that sat in the Federal Reserve Bank meetings in Washington D.C.
n. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank_of_New_York


Part IV to follow:

Part I - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8278459&mesg_id=8278459

Part II - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8278475&mesg_id=8278475

[Political Heretic]

1. Whos resposible? 1) 1999 Congress 2) George w. Bush and "ownership society"

Now who is making it worse now is a different story altogether.

Sorry I know I'm responding to everything right now, but I'm on a graveyard that is completely dull.

[FrenchieCat]

2. You are not even providing any facts, citations or anything.

You are just making smug pronouncements, which leads me to believe that perhaps you don't have any facts, simply opinions to offer. Opinions are like "you know what", get to have, but doesn't really make your case.

[Political Heretic]

3. No I just don't have the time.

1999 Congress is the The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

George Bush is his speech on home ownership in 2002 in which he talked about how he would be specifically instructing Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to be offering loans to low-income persons who would not otherwise qualify. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to blame the individuals for the mess. I'm saying that the Bush administration created this sub-prime scheme and sold it under the guise of his great "ownership society" and then allowed lending firms to run ridiculous rackets making themselves multi-billions until the house of cards collapsed.

I don't know why you wouldn't believe me about Bush and his speech... I think you can look it up with a simple google. But if you're SO sure that I'm just making shit up, then when I get back from my rounds I'll go find it for you.

[FrenchieCat]

5. When you talking about the Obama admin making it worse

those are the pronouncements that I speak of that are not backed with anything.

You talk about the future like you talk about the past....like you know.

You are downing Obama's plans, but won't say what is wrong with them specifically.

Please provide more detail, if you are going to bother to state that what the President is doing isn't working. How do you know this? Because the economy isn't fixed yet? So please provide those facts. In reality it is actually too early to tell if what they are going to do (they still are in the process) will or will not work. In othewords, you are ahead of yourself.

[Political Heretic]

9. Actually, Frenchie, about all I have done is counter your idea that we shouldn't question our leader

I believe that's been the thrust of every one of my posts, and I don't recall saying much specifically about the details of anything else. Though I'll go review what I've written and clarify where I can. If you find something you can highlight it for me.

[elleng]

7. Got it. VERY INTERESTING!

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON HOMEOWNERSHIP
at the Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, D.C.
June 18, 2002, 10:30 A.M. EDT


"The goal is, everybody who wants to own a home has got a shot at doing so. The problem is we have what we call a homeownership gap in America. Three-quarters of Anglos own their homes, and yet less than 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanics own homes. That ownership gap signals that something might be wrong in the land of plenty. And we need to do something about it.

We are here in Washington, D.C. to address problems. So I've set this goal for the country. We want 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010 -- million more minority homeowners by 2010. (Applause.) Five-and-a-half million families by 2010 will own a home. That is our goal. It is a realistic goal. But it's going to mean we're going to have to work hard to achieve the goal, all of us. And by all of us, I mean not only the federal government, but the private sector, as well.

And so I want to, one, encourage you to do everything you can to work in a realistic, smart way to get this done. I repeat, we're here for a reason. And part of the reason is to make this dream extend everywhere.

I'm going to do my part by setting the goal, by reminding people of the goal, by heralding the goal, and by calling people into action, both the federal level, state level, local level, and in the private sector. (Applause.)

And so what are the barriers that we can deal with here in Washington? Well, probably the single barrier to first-time homeownership is high down payments. People take a look at the down payment, they say that's too high, I'm not buying. They may have the desire to buy, but they don't have the wherewithal to handle the down payment. We can deal with that. And so I've asked Congress to fully fund an American Dream down payment fund which will help a low-income family to qualify to buy, to buy. (Applause.)

We believe when this fund is fully funded and properly administered, which it will be under the Bush administration, that over 40,000 families a year -- 40,000 families a year -- will be able to realize the dream we want them to be able to realize, and that's owning their own home. (Applause.)

The second barrier to ownership is the lack of affordable housing. There are neighborhoods in America where you just can't find a house that's affordable to purchase, and we need to deal with that problem. The best way to do so, I think, is to set up a single family affordable housing tax credit to the tune of $2.4 billion over the next five years to encourage affordable single family housing in inner-city America. (Applause.)

The third problem is the fact that the rules are too complex. People get discouraged by the fine print on the contracts. They take a look and say, well, I'm not so sure I want to sign this. There's too many words. (Laughter.) There's too many pitfalls. So one of the things that the Secretary is going to do is he's going to simplify the closing documents and all the documents that have to deal with homeownership.

It is essential that we make it easier for people to buy a home, not harder. And in order to do so, we've got to educate folks. Some of us take homeownership for granted, but there are people -- obviously, the home purchase is a significant, significant decision by our fellow Americans. We've got people who have newly arrived to our country, don't know the customs. We've got people in certain neighborhoods that just aren't really sure what it means to buy a home. And it seems like to us that it makes sense to have a outreach program, an education program that explains the whys and wherefores of buying a house, to make it easier for people to not only understand the legal implications and ramifications, but to make it easier to understand how to get a good loan.

There's some people out there that can fall prey to unscrupulous lenders, and we have an obligation to educate and to use our resource base to help people understand how to purchase a home and what -- where the good opportunities might exist for home purchasing.

Finally, we want to make sure the Section 8 homeownership program is fully implemented. This is a program that provides vouchers for first-time home buyers which they can use for down payments and/or mortgage payments. (Applause.)

So this is an ambitious start here at the federal level. And, again, I repeat, you all need to help us every way you can. But the private sector needs to help, too. They need to help, too. Of course, it's in their interest. If you're a realtor, it's in your interest that somebody be interested in buying a home. If you're a homebuilder, it's in your interest that somebody be interested in buying a home.

And so, therefore, I've called -- yesterday, I called upon the private sector to help us and help the home buyers. We need more capital in the private markets for first-time, low-income buyers. And I'm proud to report that Fannie Mae has heard the call and, as I understand, it's about $440 billion over a period of time. They've used their influence to create that much capital available for the type of home buyer we're talking about here. It's in their charter; it now needs to be implemented. Freddie Mac is interested in helping. I appreciate both of those agencies providing the underpinnings of good capital."

http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm

[Political Heretic]

8. Yup that's it.

[newfie11]

12. Rachael was talking about the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act last night

Interesting.

[stillcool]

20. What about the 80's?

In the early 1980s, under Reagan, regulatory changes took place that gave the S&L industry new powers and for the first time in history measures were taken to increase the profitability of S&Ls at the expense of promoting home ownership.

What is important to note about the S&L scandal is that it was the largest theft in the history of the world and US tax payers are who was robbed.

The problems occurred in the Savings and Loan industry as they relate to theft because the industry was deregulated under the Reagan/Bush administration and restrictions were eased on the industry so much that abuse and misuse of funds became easy, rampant, and went unchecked.

Savings and Loan Scandal
Here are some facts on the infamous S&L scandal of the eighties which we are still paying for.

* The Savings and Loan scandal is the largest theft in the history of the world.
* Deregulation eased restrictions so much that S&L owners could lend themselves money.
* The Garn Institute of Finance, named after Senator Jake Garn, co-authored the deregulation of the industry and received $2.2 million from industry executives.
* Neil Bush, George Bush's son, never servered time in jail for his part in running an S&L into the ground.
* Represenative Fernard St. Germain, who was head of the House of Representatives banking, co-authored the deregulation and was voted out of office after other questionable dealings and was sent back to D.C. as an S&L lobbiest.
* Charles Keating, when asked if massive lobbying efforts had influenced the government officials, he replies "I certainly hope so."
* The rip-off began in 1980 when the government raised the federal insurance on S&L's from $40,000 to $100,000 even though the typical savings account was only around $6000.
* Some of the seized assets were a buffalo sperm bank, a racehorse with syphilis, and a kitty litter mine.
* James Fail invested $1000 of his own money to purchase 15 failing S&L's. The government reimbursed him $1.85 billion in federal subsidies.
* It sometimes took over 7 years to close failing S&L's by the government.
* When S&L owners who stole millions went to jail, their sentances were typically one-fifth that of the average bank robber.
* The goverment bail out will cost the taxpayers around $1.4 trillion dollars when it is over.
* If the White House had stepped in and bailed out the S&L's in 1986 instead of delaying until after the 1988 elections, the cost might have been only $20 billion.
* With the money lost from the S&L scandals, the government could have provided prenatal care for every American child for the next 2,300 years.
* With the money lost from the S&L scandals, the government could have purchased 5 million average homes.
* The authors of "Inside Job", a book about the S&L scandal, found criminal activity at every S&L they investigated.
http://www.inthe80s.com/sandl.shtml

In the 1970s and 1980s, many of the industrial giants in the United States, Europe, and Japan became global companies; they no longer wanted to claim allegiance to any country in the world. By becoming global companies they could force nations to compete with each other to attract their companies to build factories in their countries. By the 1980s, these global companies, now often called Transnational corporations (TNCs) were aggressively using this strategy of globalization to blackmail countries into reducing their costs and increasing their profits. I believe that President Reagan's economic program, which Phillips and others have called Reaganomics, reflect the increasing reality of the global industrial economy and the power of TNCs to blackmail even the biggest and strongest countries and force them to create economic, political, and social conditions that will reduce their companies' costs and increase their profits. Let's now look at some of the major demands these TNCs imposed on industrial countries in the 1980s and 1990s:

Demands Made by Transnational Corporations to do Business in a
Country under the Global Economy

1. Greatly reduce Corporate taxes and taxes on the rich.

2. Greatly reduce government spending in order to cut taxes.

3. Increase taxes on the middle-class and poor to pay for the necessary government services, such as support for TNCs.

4. Reduce environmental, work-safety, and product-safety regulations.

5. Provide millions and millions of dollars in tax incentives and subsidies to TNCs in order to convince them to locate in your country.

6. Build and support modern industrial factories for TNCs to use rent-free.

7. Create tax-free export processing zones so that TNCs can produce products without paying any taxes at all.

8. Reduce and lower worker's wages by keeping the minimum wage low or eliminating the minimum wage altogether.

9. Reduce the costs of hiring workers by reducing or eliminating workers' compensation taxes, social security taxes,and health insurance taxes.

10. Allow child-labor at almost any age and under any conditions.

11. Do not enforce maximum work-day hours, such as the eight hour day or the 40 hour week.

12. Use government power to crush and weaken labor unions. Allow companies to hire security firms to harass and intimidate workers and unions.

13. Allow TNCs to freely take their money and profits out of your country.

14. Reduce government support for health-care, education, and anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs, forcing workers to work for any wage just to take care of and feed their families.

15. Support global free trade and work to prevent countries from denying companies the right to sell their products despite the brutal conditions, environmental destruction, and exploitation of their workers.

16. Don't restrict or limit immigration and encourage high levels of unemployment in order to force workers to compete by working for lower and lower wages.

17. Limit and restrict local and national government control over their economies. Encourage global bodies to set economic standards that will benefit TNCs.

18. Limit the ability of workers and citizens to challenge the TNCs and their own government's economic programs which help the TNCs at their expense.

19. Create massive national debts in order to bankrupt governments and force them to be even more at the mercy of the TNCs. Governments can thus say they have no choice but to accept these conditions.

20. Force your citizens to accept lower standards of living and quality of life in order to guarantee higher profits for TNCs.
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/decline.htm

[fasttense]

4. Now that we know what the problem is, let's do something about it.

What is different today then in FDR's and JFK's times is that We the People ar NOT out in mass protesting. Neither of those 2 great Presidents would have succeeded if liberal activists had NOT been out in the streets protesting almost every day.

Obama is just a politician like FDR and JFK were politicians. If he hadn't been a very good politician, he would never have won the election. FDR and JFK were politicians too. But they listened to the protests of We the People. They took the protesters' ideals to heart, acted on those ideals and they improved America. (Well, JFK had plans to act on those ideals before organized crime bosses murdered him, and Johnson did follow through on the plans.)

You want the bankers, Goldman Sachs and Wall Street to quit destroying America? Then we have got to ACT. We have to get out in the streets almost every day and show Obama what we want him to do.

Without protesters, there is no movement to change. Obama can't do it alone. Make him do what you know he wants to do.

[FrenchieCat]

6. What will you be protesting?

What do you want the banks to do?
What do you want Barack Obama to do about the banks and Wall street, specifically?

[greenbird]

10. Thanks for this, Frenchie Cat

I am learning so much.

[FrenchieCat]

11. me too! LOL!

That's what we need to do.

There are too many of us who don't truly understand what happened
and it is hard to debate the issues, if we don't have the info.

I've placed all three part onto my journal....but you can also bookmark them!

:hi:

[cooolandrew]

13. Well it's the banks firstly as if they had done correct checks before loaning AIG might not>

be in half as much mess, but still a mess.

[stillcool]

22. yeah but who allowed them to do it?

Our representatives is who..but nobody cares about that. After all, the people will vote them out of office...next time.

[cooolandrew]

14. I love the idea of state run banks well at least in honest states. People put there money into>

state run banks, these banks are held to strict checks before loaning and can afford to make affordalbe loans non profit. It's the way to go it sounds to me. But this idea needs to start like yesterday. Obviously these banks wouldn't work in corrupt states as no-one would put money in them but it can work in states that are organized. The patriotic thing would be to open a state run bank account it's hassle free investment in the future.

[Phx_Dem]

15. Ultimately Congress. Presidents can't sign bills unless Congress

passes them. But Presidents who sign bad bills are responsible as well -- Reagun, Clinton, Bush.

[slipslidingaway]

16. The New York Fed: Who We Are and What We Do

http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed13.html

"At the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the top monetary policy-making group of the Federal Reserve System, the New York Fed conducts open market operations on behalf of the Federal Reserve System. The president of the New York Bank is a permanent voting member of the FOMC.

The New York Fed and the 11 other Federal Reserve Banks supervise depository institutions by issuing regulations and examining member banks to check their financial soundness.

The 12 Federal Reserve Banks provide depository institutions with various payment services, including collecting checks, electronically transferring funds, and distributing and receiving currency and coin.

The New York Fed engages in foreign exchange operations on behalf of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System, as well as for some foreign central banks and international organizations. As part of its services for foreign and international institutions, the New York Reserve Bank stores monetary gold for dozens of countries.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks which, together with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Advisory Council, the Consumer Advisory Council, and the member banks, compose the Federal Reserve System. As the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve is responsible for formulating and executing monetary policy, supervising and regulating depository institutions, ensuring the smooth flow of payments, and providing banking services to the U.S. government and depository institutions.

Each of the 12 Reserve Banks supervises and regulates bank holding companies and state chartered banks in its District that are members of the Federal Reserve System. Each Reserve Bank also provides services to depository institutions in its District and functions as a fiscal agent of the U.S. government. The services the Banks perform include putting coin and currency into circulation; electronically transferring funds; selling Treasury notes, bills, and bonds; processing savings bonds, and redeeming food stamps.

The New York Fed serves the Second Federal Reserve District, which encompasses New York State; the 12 northern counties of New Jersey; Fairfield County, Connecticut., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Though it serves a geographically small area compared with those of most other Federal Reserve Banks, the New York Fed is the largest Reserve Bank in terms of assets and volume of activity.

The New York Fed has a branch office in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Fed's state-of-the-art operations center in East Rutherford, which opened in 1992, processes cash for the metropolitan New York and New Jersey area.

Unique Domestic Policy Functions

While the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has largely the same responsibilities as the 11 other Reserve Banks, it also has several unique responsibilities associated with its presence in the financial capital of the United States.

At the direction of the FOMC, the Federal Reserve's top monetary policy-making group, the New York Fed executes domestic open market operations on behalf of the System. Open market operations—the buying and selling of U.S. government securities in the secondary market—are the principal means through which the System implements monetary policy. Although the FOMC decides what policy to follow, the System's portfolio is directed, on a daily basis, by the Manager of the System Open Market Account at the New York Fed. The Manager, along with the rest of the Open Market Department, constantly monitors bank reserves and acts to ensure that the FOMC's directive is being fulfilled.

The FOMC is composed of the seven Board governors and five of the 12 Reserve Bank presidents, and meets eight times a year in Washington, D.C. The president of the New York Fed is a permanent voting member of the FOMC and traditionally is selected as its vice chairman. The other presidents serve one-year terms on a rotating basis. All of the presidents participate in FOMC discussions, but only the five who are members of the Committee vote on policy decisions.

Unique International Functions

In addition to its domestic trading desk responsibilities, the New York Fed, at the direction of the FOMC and U.S. Treasury, conducts all foreign exchange trading for the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System. In this role, the New York Fed intervenes in foreign exchange markets to achieve dollar exchange rate policy objectives and to counter disorderly conditions in foreign exchange markets.

The New York Fed also is responsible for maintaining relations with, and providing financial services for, foreign central banks and international organizations. One of these services is the New York Reserve Bank's unique custodial responsibility for the gold reserves of about five dozens countries, central banks, and international organizations. The New York Fed's gold vault stores approximately $194 billion of monetary gold (valued at $900 per troy), or one-quarter of the world's official gold supply—the largest concentration of monetary gold in the world.

Foreign official gold reserves have been held at the New York Fed since 1924 for numerous reasons, including the stability of the U.S. political system, the concentration of international trade and finance in New York City, and the convenience of centralizing gold holdings in a place where international payments can be made quickly.

July 2008"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Open_Market_Committee

"The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a component of the Federal Reserve System, is charged under United States law with overseeing the nation's open market operations.<1> It is the Federal Reserve Committee that makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the United States money supply.<2> It is the principal organ of United States national monetary policy. (Open market operations are the buying and selling of government securities.) The Committee sets monetary policy by specifying the short-term objective for those operations, which is currently a target level for the federal funds rate (the rate that commercial banks charge between themselves for overnight loans). The FOMC also directs operations undertaken by the Federal Reserve System in foreign exchange markets, although any intervention in foreign exchange markets is coordinated with the U.S. Treasury, which has responsibility for formulating U.S. policies regarding the exchange value of the dollar.


The Federal Open Market Committee was formed by the Banking Act of 1933 (codified at 12 U.S.C. § 263), and did not include voting rights for the Board of Governors. The Banking Act of 1935 revised these protocols to include the Board of Governors and to closely resemble the present-day FOMC, and was amended in 1942 to give us the current structure of twelve voting members<3>: the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board and five of the twelve Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York president always sits on the Committee, and the other presidents serve one-year terms on a rotating basis. The rotating seats are filled from the following four groups of banks, one bank president from each group: Boston, Philadelphia, and Richmond; Cleveland and Chicago; Atlanta, St. Louis, and Dallas; and Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco.

All of the Reserve Bank presidents, even those who are not currently voting members of the FOMC, attend Committee meetings, participate in discussions, and contribute to the Committee's assessment of the economy and policy options. The Committee meets eight times a year, approximately once every six weeks..."

[slipslidingaway]

17. What meetings are you referring to....

"Tim Geithner was not on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and therefore was not a member that sat in the Federal Reserve Bank meetings in Washington D.C."

Well he skipped the September 2008 FOMC meeting in Washington D.C. to work on the AIG bailout.

[Jennicut]

18. Frenchie you are awesome! I am also learning a lot from your posts.

I think the thing is no one really knows what will work. We can try many different ways to fix the economy and it all might fail. What scares me is the damage Bush and the 1999 Congress did as well as Reagan's ideas of deregulation and supply side voodoo economics did might be so great that the economy is damaged beyond repair. We may never be the same but that might not be a bad thing. We have to learn to live within our means and live with less and rely on "Fast Money" to tell us how to play the stock market.

[BlooInBloo]

19. Phil Graham.

This has been another episode of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.


EDIT: Example backgrounder: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/foreclosure-phil .

Also, google up something like "krugman shadow banking system". He's got a really good videotaped talk on this subject somewhere. Probably on youtube.


EDITEDIT: hahahahaah! Turns out I posted it on DU awhile back. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=245743

[Lasher]

21. Dammit, too late to help vote this up to the greatest page!

You deserved that cup of STFU from that other thread but I know you are foremost a mighty fine Democrat. Hope we can be buds.

Thanks for an excellent contribution. Part III is particularly useful. Gonna bookmark that. :thumbsup:

Lasher

[mix]

23. I admire your passion and tenacity.

I just wish you'd make better arguments in support of Obama and not obscure facts about Summers, Geithner, and Rubin. Deregulating the financial markets was clearly a bipartisan endeavor since 1980.

My best to you, as always.