The Fed and the Treasury bailed out the large banks last year to the tune of several Trillion dollars. The banks and their minions went from zeros to heros in about 6 months time. Strangely, the banks haven’t increased their lending. In fact, they’ve done the exact opposite by squeezing borrowers with new and improved credit card rates up to 29.99%.
So where did all that bailout money go? Judging by some of the banks’ quarterly reports, mostly prop trading and speculation since that’s the only place they can make a buck.
Want to know why oil is pushing $80+ with no end-user demand in sight and storage facilities at max capacity? Taxpayer-backed Speculators masquerading as Investment Banks.
Bernanke says that we need to save more to fix the global imbalance.
‘Admittedly, just as increasing private saving in the United States is challenging, promoting consumption in a high-saving country is not necessarily straightforward,’ Bernanke said.
If everything is so flippin’ hunky-dory, suck some liquidity out of the system and start paying savers SOMETHING instead of ripping them off to bail-out the losers!
Paying 1.2% and Charging 29.99% ???
Remind me again why they got bailed out? Was it so they could run around and gouge their customers? Or maybe so they could threaten and extort more cheap capital from the captured Washington geniuses?
Sometimes I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone and I’ve woken up to find the world has gone mad, but everyone is treating me like I’m the crazy one. I guess it’s ok because in the end, Washington will reap what its sown when they realize they’ve gone and re-empowered the psychopaths on Wall St. Basically guarantees we get a W-shaped recession.
Uncategorized
Bailout, Banks, Fed, GS, lending
People always say that the Fed or other Central Banks can’t control where the liquidity flows when they cut rates.
I think we can safely say that when you cut rates to bail out the Banking industry, you inevitably blow a bubble in GS Executive Bonuses. Too bad the Fed can’t call such a surgical strike on the unemployment rate…
Or did I miss something?
(nod to DMB)
Uncategorized
Bailout, Banks, Fed, GS
1. This guy should have been axed months if not years ago. He represents the very worst of the old paradigm.
2. It’s a vaguely encouraging step by someone in charge, somewhere.
3. Most importantly, 1 down, about 5000 more to go.
Uncategorized
Bailout, GM
Another 3pm’ish announcement from the government today. Timed as always for maximum effect against anyone bold enough to short the stock market. This isn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I could rant here about this, but I’m going to leave that to another post.
In the meantime, I’m going to go out on a limb and call this plan DOA not an hour after it was announced. Why? Because there’s no fix for what ails us other than time and pain. The government can ill afford to prop up the housing market with subsidies. It’s mortgage stabilization writ large with the taxpayers eating the loss.
Despite all the protestations to the contrary – the bad debt has to be written off by someone. Either it’ll be the debt holders or the US taxpayer through some messed up government intervention program that will only further impoverish the American people. Plain and simple. There is no other way out of this.
Expect at the least the bond market will call their bluff starting tomorrow.
Uncategorized
Bailout, Housing
