03-16-2009, 03:30 PM | #361 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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basically, what dippin said is a good response to you, ace.
i don't think you understand what's going on. if you remember--and i expect you don't---the bush people's move relative to a.i.g. was forced on it because of the magnitude of the asset pool it insured, the fact that national governments stood to loose enormous amounts if it went under--a.i.g. was a danger to the financial system as a system. talking about allowing institutions to fail as if they're in any meaningful way a collection of buildings separated from other collections of buildings and not nodes within very complex, very high=speed capital flows is absurd. the obama administration probably should have already nationalized a significant portion of the banking sector, including aig. i think paul krugman's been consistently on this topic and has been consistently correct about it. part of the explanation for these half-assed half-way gestures appears to be political--obama seems to think it important to keep the republicans on the same basic page, when the situation militates for leaving them in the ash-heap of the past, where their economic ideology is already burning. i don't think you understand what the situation is, ace, and i think that you've also drunk the koolaid (an expression i detest, but there's no better on this point that is anywhere near as polite) concerning what regulation is, what it can do and cannot do. regulation is a means to an end. what's required to use it effectively is a set of political goals. what obama's been stuck doing is trying to control the many many fires that the lunacy of free marketeer ideology have left burning. you advocate that ideology still, ace, so i don't see what you have to say that's of any interest. your way of thinking is what enabled this mess, what set it on fire, what paralyzed attempts to deal with it, and is what stays in the way of a coherent approach to this transformation in capitalist ideology that's under way. and i dont recognize your attempts to shape what is and is not a correct way to approach afghanistan as a question.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-16-2009, 06:46 PM | #362 (permalink) | ||||
Her Jay
Location: Ontario for now....
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Even got a video Psssst ace, even your buddy dubya said he was wrong to say that in front of the banner, it's alright, you don't need to aegue semantics. Mission, war whatever the fuck you want to call it, it was far from over when shrub made that 'great speech'. Here I'll even show you he regretted it, just so you don't feel bad that the mission was never actually accomplished. Quote:
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder Last edited by silent_jay; 03-16-2009 at 07:05 PM.. |
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03-17-2009, 07:32 AM | #364 (permalink) |
Easy Rider
Location: Moscow on the Ohio
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Those of us who buy our own health insurance are not allowed to deduct the cost from our income so why shouldn't those with employer furnished benefits be treated the same? Also those of us who buy our own must pay more for the same coverage. I think all health insurance premiums should be deductible but that is not the way it is now.
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03-17-2009, 07:36 AM | #365 (permalink) | ||
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Location: Ventura County
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And, why can't we have government officials to take some time and study an issue before committing billions? Why didn't they know about the bonuses on day one? Why didn't they make rescinding the bonus agreements as a condition of getting the money on day one? They did that for the top auto execs. Most of the folks in Washington are simply in over their heads, and guys like Paulson may have had an agenda. We needed people to probe, study the issue, ask questions and do all the things we were told they did. Just admit that Obama's rhetoric during his campaign and as a Senator about controls and conditions was bullshit. why is that o.k. with you?
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
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03-17-2009, 07:39 AM | #366 (permalink) |
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From what I've read your statement is very misleading. Obama is not wanting to charge veterans. He wants to charge their insurers. In fact they have specifically said the veterans themselves will not pay at all. I'm not defending this plan as I haven't looked into it enough but a little truth once in a while would be nice.
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03-17-2009, 07:43 AM | #367 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Ventura County
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Earmarks are McCain's pet issue. His campaign to a large degree centered on that issue. Obama wanted in on the issue and made some bullshit comments and promises regarding earmarks. Most Republicans were not behind McCain on the earmarks issue. And, now the point is about Obama's empty campaign rhetoric more than it is about earmarks.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
03-17-2009, 07:44 AM | #368 (permalink) | |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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the reason it's ridiculous is that in order to make this silly analysis happen, you have to pretend that aig is just another insurance firm. so we're back in that tiny, blinkered world of econ 101 modelling applied in a diletante manner to real-world situations--conservative economic theory in other words. you can't get to the premise of an actual conversation about aig, but you talk anyway. same problem obtains for your pseudo-analysis of the aig bailout. and a big reason that people like paulsen were in over their heads is because they're conservatives appointed by a conservative administration BECAUSE they do not and seemingly can not think in other than neoliberal terms. so when neoliberalism crumbled OF COURSE they're in over their heads.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-17-2009 at 07:47 AM.. Reason: removed some inflammatory bits |
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03-17-2009, 08:02 AM | #369 (permalink) | |||
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Location: Ventura County
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---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ---------- The Iraq war included several different phases. The first phase included invading the country and neutralizing Saddam's military. The occupation phase of the war proved to be the most difficult. But all these phases are under the "umbrella" of the war. Before you can go into a rebuilding phase you have to succeed in the phases that precede it. ---------- Post added at 04:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ---------- Quote:
If probing into that is ridiculous, I am guilty. I need someone to explain why AIG was too big for bankruptcy. Seems to me, that people like you actually could have used a few people like me in Washington before committing billions into a failed corporation.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
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03-17-2009, 08:41 AM | #370 (permalink) | |
Who You Crappin?
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
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yeah, I just came back to update that. He wants to move the veterans' primary insurers to their private companies, with the government picking up the rest (while it's currently the other way around). still, seems like something that doesn't need to be messed with, especially since the critics can spin it into a very anti-veteran move on the infotainment channels |
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03-17-2009, 08:47 AM | #371 (permalink) |
Darth Papa
Location: Yonder
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In order for any of this "dented halo" attack to work, Obama has to have been viewed as perfect and infallible. This "See? He's letting down your idealized image of him!" thing only holds water if there WAS an idealized image of him.
Problem is, the only place that image EVER existed was in the minds of the right-wingers, accusing Obama supporters of feeling that way. So now they're pointing one fiction at another fiction, and they think they're scoring points. Fortunately, the rest of the world got sick of fictions when it was the White House peddling them, and isn't buying... |
03-17-2009, 09:12 AM | #372 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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ace--the case for aig being "too big to fail" came in part from the fact that its activities were intertwined with investements held by european and asian governments---this point was made from the outset---typically, when people not blinded by conservative economic mythologies rehearse the sequence of steps of the devolution of the neoliberal order, they point to aig as the point at which it became clear, even to the blind, that this was a crisis of the global financial system and not of the american financial system--which you might have been able to pretend was the case through the bear-stearns and lehmann phase of things. and in fact, your brilliant idea about letting firms fail was tried out on those first two, remember? what it produced was an acceleration into a more generalized crisis. so it wasn't a functional idea.
the problem here really, ace, is that you're not looking into anything. you do no research, you bring no data to speak of--what you're interested in doing is maintaining a sense of coherence for your own economic a priori at the expense of data about the world---when you're challenged on it, you compound the disengenousness of the way you handle information with disengenuousness about what you're doing and why.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-17-2009, 09:37 AM | #373 (permalink) | |
Crazy, indeed
Location: the ether
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They underwrite insurance, do "corporate insurance," and actually insure financial instruments used by other banks and funds. If they go broke, not only will everyone who's invested in AIG lose money, but insurance companies, banks and funds will go under as well. If they go under, not only will the "zombie" banks lose money, but also many other healthy banks. That would make the current situation seem like nothing. |
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03-17-2009, 09:56 AM | #374 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Ventura County
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However, your premise is false. AIG bet big in the area of credit default swaps and they started having problems in 2005. After Greenberg was forced out by NY AG, Sptizer, AIG lost its AAA rating. During this process there was political pressures to adjust and restate earnings, which further added to the growing lack of confidence in the company. This lead to the need to post more collateral in a environment where their bets on real estate assets was declining. The spiral started and then began to accelerate. The management team, instead of managing the new environment bet bigger on real estate causing the collapse of the company. They bet big. They bet wrong. They bet bigger. And they were still wrong. The only people at risk, were those who went along for the ride. If AIG's bets had paid off this would not be an issue and you can bet they would have done everything possible to minimize the taxes due on the profits. So, you can believe that they had to be bailed-out and buy into the superficial garbage being fed to the public, I don't. If you want to describe me as ridiculous, blind, etc., for my view feel free - but that won't change reality. ---------- Post added at 05:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:49 PM ---------- AIG has many subsidiary companies. The insurance companies are regulated by state agencies. Insurance company regulation is pretty tightly controlled with clearly defined reserve requirements and each state has insurance guarantee programs to protect insureds from failed insurance companies. AIG is in virtually every line of insurance. The insurance companies are healthy, and have value. The "investment banking" portion of the company is the problem. Here is a link to their latest 10K filing with the SEC: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...74794e10vk.htm
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." Last edited by aceventura3; 03-17-2009 at 10:03 AM.. |
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03-17-2009, 10:01 AM | #375 (permalink) | |
Crazy, indeed
Location: the ether
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03-17-2009, 10:26 AM | #376 (permalink) | |
Tone.
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Additionally, if it's so very vital to our economy that AIG survive, why were they just handed money without any requirements as to how they spend it. Personally I think it's more important to keep a company afloat than to pay a boatload of executives millions of dollars each in bonuses, but apparently Vital Financial Backbone AIG doesn't see it that way. |
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03-17-2009, 10:29 AM | #377 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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that you wouldn't be concerned about endangering other national governments by allowing aig to fail because of their role in backing mortgage securities is a good bit of evidence for the proposition that it's a good thing you're far from power, ace.
you could say "well you governments went into that market at your peril, so fuck you" but the political consequences of that would have far outweighed any fleeting sense of vindication that you could have derived from the action. i have a pretty good idea of how aig got into trouble, ace. the problem is that you have only the segment of the story repeated above that enables your interpretation to operate. you leave out the parts that triggered the bush people to act. since that's what is at play here, it hardly makes sense for you to claim some superior insight when you can't even keep your data organized so it speaks to the question you're responding to. and it was the bush administration that acted. remember? your boys in the bush administration pulled the trigger. ======== edit: you'd think that anti-trust would still matter, wouldn't you? not in republican land, apparently. concentration is proof of their social-darwinist ideological worldview. until it screws up, in which case other criteria arbitrarily enter the evaluation process.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-17-2009, 10:38 AM | #378 (permalink) | |
Crazy, indeed
Location: the ether
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The problem is that right now is not exactly the time to let a company like that fail. I would be too hard a landing. I disagree with how the Obama team is handling it. I think a short term nationalization is actually in the tax payer's best interest, as we would not simply be spending the money, but actually buying equity. Unfortunately, that is not how things are going. But letting it fail is not an option, in my opinion. Specially since the taxpayer would end up picking up the tab anyways, through the FDIC. |
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03-17-2009, 10:45 AM | #379 (permalink) | ||
Easy Rider
Location: Moscow on the Ohio
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03-17-2009, 10:49 AM | #380 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d55351a-0...077b07658.html
have a look at this from the future of capitalism series in the financial times. it explains quite a bit about the rise of derivatives, what they were, how they were possible, what they meant. the article "looting" from 1993, which i referenced in the thread in economic (based on an ny times summary that appeared last week) is more detailed in it;s analysis, but shows very similar types of thinking, bureaucratic rationalization and consequences coming out of the savings & loan farce of the late 1980s... i had posted something earlier about ace's revisionist pseudo-history of aig and the bush administration's actions with respect to it--but i'm bored by that. so this instead.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-17-2009 at 11:00 AM.. |
03-17-2009, 12:07 PM | #381 (permalink) | |
Her Jay
Location: Ontario for now....
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Seems comical though you just can't admit that nothing was accomplished after just 3 weeks, and shrub fucked up with that banner, hell even dubya admitted that. Must be tough though to be trying to make your point by just arguing semantics, tomato, tomatoe, mission, war, conflict, it's all the same, the mission nor the was was accomplished by that time 3 weeks in.
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder |
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03-17-2009, 12:45 PM | #382 (permalink) |
Tone.
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The mission could not have been accomplished because the mission was not defined, and the only mentioned part of the mission at the outset (go get the WMD's) was impossible to accomplish because the WMD's weren't there, and they knew it.
However, this thread is about Obama. Bush was a horrid president, and probably will go down as the worst in history, but his idiotic butt is finally out of the oval office. We can't change what he did. We can only look at how Obama is trying to fix the mess he made. |
03-17-2009, 02:53 PM | #384 (permalink) | ||
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club Last edited by Tully Mars; 03-18-2009 at 10:20 AM.. |
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03-17-2009, 04:18 PM | #385 (permalink) |
Eat your vegetables
Super Moderator
Location: Arabidopsis-ville
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A bear market rally means there are a few big firms that are trying to drive up the market just enough to make a token profit. Don't get excited until there's at least 4 weeks of consistent positive movement.
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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq "violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy |
03-17-2009, 04:34 PM | #386 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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sooner or later you'd think that the nightly televisual infotainment would stop treating the stock market as if its activities reflected the general state of the economy. that started under nixon--around 1972---which is strange because it was about the same time that the series of moves were being implemented that severed the movements of capital from that of the real economy--the ideological component came in the early 1980s--it wasn't inevitable--but by that point, the separation was pretty radical.
it are deep dysfunctions that have to be addressed--people keep acting as though this transition or crisis is a blip in the normal run of things--but they're wrong. in saner parts of the world, there's a pretty broad recognition of the fact that the collapse of the neoliberal order has opened onto a need for very basic changes, basic reorientations not only in what folk do and how they do about it but also in the ways they think about them and their relation to the broader systems they're part of and relations between or amongst systems. there is no option but to deal with these basic issues. it's strange reading the intellectual paralysis that seems to be abroad in this microcosm, which repeats in a way some of the intellectual paralysis that's out there in 3-d america. i think it's a function of living in an authoritarian ideological context. that is not changing. if anything prevents a collective change of direction, it'll be that the ideological relay system is now entirely out of phase with what is required. there's nothing inevitable about a positive outcome to any of this....
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-17-2009, 05:15 PM | #387 (permalink) |
Friend
Location: New Mexico
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I think he was being facetious.
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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly "This is my United States of Whateva!" |
03-18-2009, 06:33 AM | #389 (permalink) | |
Her Jay
Location: Ontario for now....
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Actually about the best way to define the mission was when shrub said ‘Remember, this man tried to kill my dad’, that's what it was all about shrubs revenge......hell good name for a comic book. I know this thread is about Obama, but ace brought up the Iraq war winding down in its own time, just wanted to show him the last person to say that was so wrong.
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder |
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03-18-2009, 06:49 AM | #390 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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there are many reasons the bush people won't quite go away...partly they condition so much about what the obama administration is up against (both directly and as a kind of fucked up culmination of longer-term processes) that to invoke the latter is also to invoke the former---and partly because the bush people are a gift that keeps on giving on other, even more foul grounds. read the following--it's not pleasant, but it's better to know:
US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites - The New York Review of Books
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-18-2009, 07:19 AM | #391 (permalink) | |||||||||
Junkie
Location: Ventura County
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The Bush people, Paulson, was not concerned about the bonuses. The Obama people are. The Bush people were concerned about the big dollars. It seems the Obama people are concerned about the trivial dollars. ---------- Post added at 03:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:04 PM ---------- Quote:
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Funny, but I was ridiculed to no end when I suggested that the economy was fundamentally sound. I guess a lot has changed in the past few months.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
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03-18-2009, 07:19 AM | #392 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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ace, your memory is faulty. either that or you're resorting to simply making stuff up. there was extensive international pressure for the united states to act to salvage aig. at this point, i am so tired to going through your misrepresentations and flights into fantasy that i'm not wasting my time researching this. it happened, and for the reasons i noted. there is no debate about it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-18-2009, 07:37 AM | #393 (permalink) | |||
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Location: Ventura County
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Before ground troops went into Iraq, the Air Force had the responsibility to make strategic military strikes to disrupt communications, Iraq command and control, and Iraq's ability to wage war. They did that without loss of life or the loss of aircraft. These men performed exceptionally well as did their support teams. These men made the ground invasion 100% easier. These men earned recognition from their Commander in Chief, the President. These men deserve the recognition of the American people. These men deserve the recognition of freedom loving Iraqi people and freedom loving people all over the world. They did their job, they did it well. "Mission Accomplished"! ---------- Post added at 03:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:32 PM ---------- Quote:
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
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03-18-2009, 07:57 AM | #394 (permalink) |
You had me at hello
Location: DC/Coastal VA
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I must have missed a memo, aren't carriers host to Navy pilots, not Air Force?
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I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet |
03-18-2009, 08:05 AM | #395 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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against my better judgment. if you look at the list of the latest institutions which got payouts from aig, it'll become obvious where the pressure came from any why:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/aig-details-105-billion-payouts/story.aspx?guid={74DD6FC0-D2D8-4925-8B84-F8E4BEBEEADB}&dist=morenews_ts
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-18-2009, 09:56 AM | #397 (permalink) | |||
Junkie
Location: Ventura County
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Here is how to handle the bonuses. Tell the CEO to meet with all the people contractually entitled to a bonus. Have the CEO tell them, they can either be fired or we can re-negotiate the agreement so that no bonus will be paid until after the bailout money is returned. Obama, needs to act like he owns AIG and controls the check book. And, regarding the checkbook, he should tell the CEO about this new thing called an Excel Spreadsheet. Mr. CEO, in one column put the money we give you and in another list all outgoing payments - and send me a copy every day - and make sure it balances to what you have in your accounts. We don't need hearings. We don't need legislation. We just need someone with business sense.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
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03-18-2009, 09:58 AM | #398 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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ace---i directed you at the list of banks that were paid by AIG in this last round in order to put to bed your silly claim that there was no pressure from other governments on the united states to act to salvage the firm. please try to stay on point. moving to an entirely different section of the article, biting a couple sentences and then launching into a repeat of the sort of nonsense you can hear any weeknight coming from the talking heads on cnbc really is not of any interest. sorry to break it to you.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
03-18-2009, 10:19 AM | #399 (permalink) | |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
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I've edited my post to remove the "shrub" reference. I stand by my shit sandwich remark.
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
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