Bailout

Americans Unwilling to Face Reality

It's not as though no one saw it coming. Here's the economist Michael Hudson, writing in the May 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine: "The reality is that, although home ownership may be a wise choice for many people, this particular real-estate bubble has been carefully engineered to lure home buyers into circumstances detrimental to their own best interests. . . . The bubble will burst, and when it does, the people who thought they would be living the easy life of a landlord will soon find that what they really signed up for was the hard servitude of debt serfdom."

Posted in Economy/Trade, Bailout

Morning in America: Buying Bank Stock Ends Reagan Era

WASHINGTON - When the sun set on the nation's capital Tuesday, it marked the end of one era in the nation's political economy and the beginning of another. American taxpayers, the proverbial Joe Six-Pack and Jane Wine-Box of campaign lore, had become partial owners of the nation's nine leading banks, with more to come.

Posted in Bailout

The Hoover-Palin Ticket

And the winner is ... Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Remember him-the great Democratic president who saved capitalism from the capitalists by reining in their exorbitant greed? Forget the Reagan Revolution heralding a new era of small government, which turned out to be nothing more than a fig leaf for legalized corporate crime. The hero of the hour is FDR, as the essential wisdom of his New Deal is now embraced by most Republicans as well as Democrats.

Posted in Economy/Trade, Politics, Bailout, Election 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 14, 2008
4:20 PM

CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020;
or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Priorities of the Financial System

WASHINGTON - October 14 -

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Posted in Economy/Trade, Bailout, Inequality

Bush: Bank Buyout Needed 'To Preserve Free Market'

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday took the wraps off a historic and reworked financial-rescue plan, confirming that the United States will take equity stakes in nine banks, backstop virtually all non-interest-bearing bank accounts and guarantee most new loans between banks.

The White House plan marks the first such deep government intervention in markets since the Great Depression. Bush noted that he didn't take the aggressive and unusual steps lightly, stressing that "these measures are not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it."

Posted in Bailout

Requiem for the Bailout Storyline

It's mid-October, and the Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop.

Only two weeks ago, the media hype behind the $700 billion bailout was so intense that it sometimes verged on hysteria. More recent events should not be allowed to obscure the reality that the news media played a pivotal role in stampeding the country into a bailout that was unwise and unjust.

Posted in Economy/Trade, Media, Politics, Bailout

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 10, 2008
11:12 AM

CONTACT: Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)
Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115; Dan Beeton, (202) 239-1460

Statement on the Need for Coordinated Stimulus

Dean Baker & Mark Weisbrot

WASHINGTON - October 10 - The current economic crisis is the result of an extraordinary period of extreme economic mismanagement. The world's central banks, most importantly the Federal Reserve Board in the United States, made the decision to ignore, if not actively cultivate, the growth of asset bubbles. This was the case with stock market bubbles in the 90s and housing bubbles in the current decade.

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The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

Posted in Bailout

The End Of American Capitalism?

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.

Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.

Posted in Bailout

Should Henry 'The Fox' Paulson Guard the Henhouse?

On Tuesday, October 7, a group of CODEPINK pranksters pranced in front of the New York Stock Exchange. One, wearing an oversized papier maché head of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, grabbed at the purses of the "chickens." "Give me your money; give me your money," he cried. "You might need a new house, but my buddies and I need new yachts." Passersby, reading the sign "Henry ‘The Fox' Paulson' in the People's Henhouse," heartily agreed.

Posted in Activism, Economy/Trade, Politics, protest, Bailout

US May Take Ownership Stake in Banks

WASHINGTON - Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

Posted in Bailout