INSIDE JOB – Understanding the Collapse of the Economy -REMOVED

I’d like to think my blog was enough of a threat to Wall Street to pull YouTube clips off the Internet – but this afternoon INSIDE JOB was gone.  SONY PICTURES pulled the clips off of the Internet.

It’s a great documentary – if you can find a copy buy it, rent it share it with your friends.  Everyone should know what happened to our economy.  We cannot ignore it because it’s not going away or getting better any time soon.

‘Inside Job’ is the first film to provide a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $140 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Continue reading

Understanding the Cause of the Economic Collapse

The average person is wondering why America can’t get out of this Depression and while we are not in bread lines like the 1930s – we’re getting awfully close.  Families are being displaced by foreclosures.  More tents are popping up around the cities and jobs are still hard to find.

To help understand what happened and what we can do about it let’s start with DERIVATIVES. These are unregulated investment vehicles that gambled away pension and retirement funds from around the world – so Wall Street could get rich… quick! This small clip, from the excellent documentary INSIDE JOB, explains in easy-to-understand terms how Collateralized Debt Obligations, or CDO derivatives, were instrumental to the global financial meltdown.

I highly recommend this documentary. INSIDE JOB sheds light on what really happened in 2008. Here’s a clip with the whole movie to follow.  Continue reading

Cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and not raise taxes on the wealthy?

CALL CONGRESSWOMAN HIRONO AND TELL HER “NO”!
Why would we agree to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and not raise taxes on the wealthy?  They’ve had tax cuts since Bush and has the economy gotten any better?  It’s time for Real Change.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Last night, President Obama agreed to a deal with top Republicans that is widely seen as a big victory for the Tea Party.

It has trillions in spending cuts that will hurt poor and middle-class families and no taxes on the rich. It also lines up Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits for future cuts.

Nancy Pelosi said “none of us may be able to support it” — but many Democrats are making up their minds in the next few hours.

Your Representative, Mazie Hirono, signed a letter pledging not to vote for any deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Can you call her right now?

Tell Rep. Hirono to keep her promise and vote NO on this bad deal — click here for the number and a script. Here’s what folks are saying about this deal: Continue reading

Bloomberg Profiles “The Big Short’s” Michael Burry

“Bloomberg Risk Takers” profiles Michael Burry, the former hedge-fund manager who predicted the housing market’s plunge. He forecast that the bubble would burst as early as 2007, and he acted on his conviction by betting against subprime mortgages. The former head of Scion Capital LLC was profiled in Bloomberg columnist and bestselling author Michael Lewis’ book “The Big Short”.  http://www.bloomberg.com/video/72756316/

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/72756316/
“Ironically, I’m in this book, ‘The Big Short,’ but I’m not a big short. I don’t go out looking for good shorts. I’m spending my time looking for good longs. I shorted mortgages because I had to. Every bit of logic I had led me to this trade and I had to do it. And I had to pull back on equities, because I saw what was coming I thought would affect everything.” Continue reading

Wondering Where the Money Went?

By DEADLY CLEAR

Like many Americans I have wondered what the actual spending habits of the government look like.  Here’s a pretty good chart the New York Times posted on the economy.
Looks like President Bush’s spending habits were about as bad as Wall Street’s securitization Ponzi scheme – the timing of the rip-offs are about the same.  The unanswered question is how much of the debt that is held by “THE PUBLIC” in state and local government pension funds is still holding value? For that matter – how much of all of that debt has actual Continue reading

NY Times – Q. and A. on the Debt Ceiling

Q. and A. on the Debt Ceiling
By  and Published: July 27, 2011

For a time it seemed safe for many people going about their summers to try to ignore the debt ceiling drama playing out in Washington. If Wall Street had not seemed overly concerned that the United States was headed toward default, why should anyone else worry? And there is the long history of crying wolf in Washington: in April everyone finally got up to speed on the threatened shutdown of the federal government just in time to see it averted by an 11th-hour deal.

But now, palms in Washington are beginning to get sweaty, the stock market is sliding and President Obama is breaking into “The Bachelorette” to address the nation about the debt crisis. Perhaps the time has finally come for a crash course in all things debt ceiling. Continue reading

Bernie Sanders tells it like it is – The American People Are Angry

The American People Are Angry
By Sen. Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
28 July 11

s House and Senate leaders fine-tuned rival deficit reduction plans on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke on the Senate floor about the public’s strong belief that additional revenue from the wealthy should be part of any package to reduce red ink. He cited a new Washington Post poll that found 72 percent favor raising taxes on those who make more than $250,000 year. Despite those overwhelming numbers, he said, “We are marching down a path which will do exactly opposite of what the American people want.” He called Republican opposition to more revenue “fanatical.” He also faulted President Obama for a bargaining strategy that sugars down to this: “Retreat after retreat after retreat.” Of the competing House and Senate proposals Sanders bluntly concluded that one is bad and the other is much worse. He shared his assessment with Continue reading

Idiot of the Week – Ben Bernanke

By DEADLY CLEAR

This week’s IDIOT focus is on Chairman Ben S. Bernanke – Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress Before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives and Committee on Banking, HOusing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. ON July 13, 2011 and July 14, 2011, respectively.

Chairman Bernanke presented his overview of a weak economy, suffering because investors just don’t want to come back to Wall Street like they had earlier this decade.

Mr. Bernanke, do you think it might be due to the numerous investor lawsuits for securitization fraud and deception caused by [your pals] Wall Street’s greed and Congress’ failure to regulate derivatives?… Maybe, yeah?  You ask Congress for an incentive to bring investors back – regulation might be a good start to stabilization…’cause it sure didn’t work the other way! Continue reading

WSJ Posts: Government Weighs Turning Foreclosures Into Rentals – Lame, very lame!

By Nick Timiraos

There’s an 800-pound gorilla in the nation’s hardest-hit housing markets: hundreds of thousands of foreclosed properties are selling, and there’s four times as many potential foreclosures behind them.

The Journal writes today that one idea gaining support in Washington is an effort to pull some of those properties off the market and rent them out, either on homes owned by federal agencies or loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Continue reading

CBS NEWS: John Boehner walks away from debt talks

CBS NEWS – POLITICAL HOTSHEET JUST POSTED:

John Boehner walks away from debt talks

By Brian Montopoli
Updated 6:05 p.m. Eastern Time
House Speaker John Boehner has walked away from negotiations with President Obama over a deal to raise the debt limit.“In the end, we couldn’t connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country,” Boehner said in a letter to colleagues. He said Mr. Obama ” is emphatic that taxes have to be raised” and “adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs.””For these reasons, I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leaders of the Senate in an effort to find a path forward,” he said.House Republican leadership aides told CBS News that Boehner will work with the Senate leadership in an attempt to reach a deal that meets the GOP’s two central requirements: That spending cuts are equal to or greater than debt limit increase and that there are no new taxes.Without action, the debt limit will be breached on August 2 – 11 days from now –
potentially plunging the U.S. economy into chaos. Continue reading