AlexS

Washington's Lack of Focus Puts Recovery at Risk

Ah, come on, it's not like Obama's ever done this before. Or anything like it, really. If you wanted someone experienced in business matters you should have voted for Romney like I did.

Barron's Calls a Bottom

It's not an Obama bear market. It's a Pelosi/Reid bear market. They've been in charge since 2007, coincident with the market starting to fall. It's their bills that have passed Congress. Obama is just a front man, a PR guy.

But Obama's getting his stuff in place. In a year or two it will be an Obama bear market.

The Shallowest Generation

Something tells me they weren't singing "We Won't Get Fooled Again" at the Obama rallies. They should have been. And they should have listened to the lyrics.

Can the Fed Really Just Print Money?

So if the Treasury bails out banks by giving them credit and the banks turn around and buy Treasury bonds that have been used to generate the credit (in order to build up their capital), has anything been created or destroyed? I would say no but people are upset that the Treasury is "creating" all this money. Really we would need to be concerned about the inflationary aspect of this when the banks actually started lending the money, providing some velocity as we break out of the circle between the banks and the Treasury. By the same token, as the markets perhaps has realized, what the banks and the Treasury have been doing doesn't amount to anything except to create a circle of isolated "money". Even the government seems to recognize this as they repeatedly state that the real goal is to bring private investors into this loop.

Why Lending Standards Did Not Fall

My sixth grade teacher, Daniel E. Rile used to say, "Figures never lie, but liars figure." I always keep that in mind when I read a report based on statistics.

Decades of Negative Returns: A Long-Term Look at the Dow

Well if we discount the FDR years (with a Democratic Congress) and we discount the Jimmy Carter years (with a Democratic Congress) and we see coming up the Barack Obama years (with a Democratic Congress) then the market has been a pretty good place for investments. Oh. Obama and a Democratic Congress. Excuse me, I have to go sell some stocks.

Seeking the Fix That Will Finally Work

Banks aren't going to use new money for lending. If you're in a cash crisis now, the last thing you want to think about is how you're going to loan out cash and get it back over a 30 year house period, or a 5 year car period. If you give a troubled bank cash they'll keep it, and then they'll try to figure out some creative way for it to register to their capital base. Gresham's Law. Cash is the good money. Derivatives are the bad money.

Seeking the Fix That Will Finally Work

If they give me a tax cut I promise I'll buy stocks. Just give me my share of the 700 billion.

Today Was a Buyer's Strike

Why do people always blame free markets for crashes? How about, thank you Jimmy Carter for making a rule that banks have to give mortgage money to people who can't afford it? Thank you Bill Clinton for clamping down on banks attempting to get around such a stupid rule. Thank you Fannie Mae executives for taking in all those junk mortgages and reselling them so you could get your volumes and your bonuses up. Thank you Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for keeping Congress from reforming Fannie Mae. Keep on blaming those free markets. Congratulations on your assured re-election.

Bailout Bill: Second Verse, Same as the First

Might as well be me if I was a good buddy of Barney Frank or Chris Dodd. That's the problem with this stuff - it's not for the good of the general public and the public has no good way of profiting. It's for the politicians and their so-called banking friends.

The Presidential Speech, in Context

Hoover tried this after the 1932 election and before FDR was installed. FDR responded by saying he was on a boat cruise around Florida, thereby forestalling any blame from any concerted action. The economy couldn't stand the suspense and the banks tanked. FDR, what a guy. Never let a little thing like human misery interfere with your drive for more political power. Part of the fallout for this was to move the inauguration from March up to January. Later, of course, FDR was to be President until he died, at the start of his fourth term. Part of the fallout from that was to limit the President to two terms.

Curing the Credit Crisis: A Better Alternative Plan

I agree with dbjn. We have yet to decide who is going to pay for all those subprime walk aways. I'll give you a hint. We don't have debtor's prison any more. I'm sure it was worth it (sarcasm) for Dodd et al to win re-election with their votes.

Depressionary Tales

Well said, Steven. Let's see, then we had increased taxes, tariffs on trade, and more control by the unions. Over the next couple of years we will have the Bush tax cuts expire and Obama wants even higher taxes, Obama wants to renegotiate Nafta, etc., and Obama promises more control by the unions. I'd say that's a pretty good parallel. Hopefully we won't need World War III to pull us out of the next Depression.

Fearfully Fascinating Financials: Is the U.S. Financial System Leaving the Building?

You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Obama Is Bad for the Economy - Barron's

The Great Depression: a time in the history of the United States when the regulatory and tax burden on businesses and wealthy individuals was so great that they essentially went on strike (or stayed on the sidelines, if you prefer), with the result that the economy did not come out of the downturn started in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The economy was run by FDR and his extensive staff of academics who proceeded to run some very creative and usually ineffective and often disastrous experiments on the American economy. Centralized planning was all the rage, the idea that a few brilliant people with all the control could govern everything if they were just given enough power and taxpayer money. Benito Mussolini's Italy and Stalin's Russia were widely seen within the government of the way things could be, and the popular Walter Winchell said that FDR should assume dictatorial powers (only temporarily of course) in order to get the country out of its problems. Politically the Democratic Party had solid control of the executive and Congress. The only thing in their way was the Supreme Court, and this was remedied by FDR's proposal to pack the court, to allow him to add several more justices, on the clearly false grounds that the older justices were having trouble functioning (the Michigan Democratic Party is trying something similar here in 2008). The Depression went on, and was not remedied until the start of World War II, when Roosevelt had the choice of continuing to fight business and the wealthy or to fight the Germans. He chose to fight the Germans. Business came back to the fold, the experimental academics were sent packing, and the country, though ill-prepared for war, was able to gear up and eventually defeat the axis powers.