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US Job Market Loses Steam

How is greed to blame? People were trying too hard to make money?

Through loopholes, yes. Tell me, after the dismantling of Glass - Steagal, how much of that increase in profits was the result of actually providing goods and services, instead of speculating and creating artificial bubbles which eventually burst?
 
Through loopholes, yes. Tell me, after the dismantling of Glass - Steagal, how much of that increase in profits was the result of actually providing goods and services, instead of speculating and creating artificial bubbles which eventually burst?


Loopholes like the CRA for example? Maybe?


j-mac
 
loopholes:

Meanwhile, no less an authority than Volcker himself, the president’s poster boy for financial reform, just acknowledged what others have been saying for months. Which is that the banking reform bill leaves the discredited too-big-to-fail policy intact — alive and well.

In particular, Volcker says he does not believe that the administration is going to be able to apply its too-big-to-fail policy to what he calls “megabanks.”

Ironically, Volcker may have tried to be supportive of the new legislative efforts when he said on CNBC that the proposed resolution authority appears to be a “workable proposition for anything short of the biggest banks.” He then acknowledged that the legislation is not “workable” for the country’s largest banks.

Of course, the whole reason for the policy is to use it against the biggest banks. That’s why it’s called a too-big-to-fail policy.

and:

Perhaps the most outrageous thing about the legislative package that has emerged is that there is not one provision aimed at reforming Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the government-backed enterprises that buy mortgages from lenders and “securitize them” — meaning that they package them into bonds to sell to investors.

During the financial crisis, the government had to take over these companies because they were too big to fail.

So the lack of reform here only further tarnishes the government’s credibility.

In fact, when it comes to financial reform, the basic problem the government faces is that it lacks credibility in so many areas.

Opinion: Slouching toward financial reform - Jonathan Macey - POLITICO.com
 
in his by now completely-forgotten-as-if-it-had-never-been-made state of the union, obama promised to double exports in 5 years

indeed, it was one of his prime planks (for a few minutes)

he's off to a bad start

US suffers widest trade gap in 20 months - Yahoo! News

he promised to cut the deficit in half in 4 years

Deficit in July Totals $165.04 Billion - WSJ.com

his home mortgage program is a "dismal failure," half those he's hamp'ed have already redefaulted (link above---bloomberg)

now we learn this morning:

My Way News - Homes lost to foreclosure up 6 pct from last year

(note that "homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures," which is terrifying)

the too-big's are sitting on 1.8T and just won't play, i wonder why

Stocks plunge, hopes wane - The Boston Globe

the president's staff, described above as "exhausted," we learn this sunny thursday is so much so it's "almost traumatized"

(we need a new team, expect significant turnover after november)

Tired aide 'was losing friendships' | POLITICO 44

these largely speak for themselves:

Q2 GDP Growth Could Be Revised To Just 1% After Trade Data

Jobs picture dims as unemployment claims rise - Yahoo! Finance

sources: ap, ibd, wsj, boston globe, politico, august 11 and 12
 
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Through loopholes, yes. Tell me, after the dismantling of Glass - Steagal, how much of that increase in profits was the result of actually providing goods and services, instead of speculating and creating artificial bubbles which eventually burst?

Are you trying to say that investing doesn't provide goods and services?
 
ap this am:

My Way News - Watchdog panel cites global impact of US bailout

The $700 billion U.S. bailout program launched in response to the global economic meltdown had a far greater impact overseas than other countries' financial rescue plans did on the U.S., according to a new report from a congressional watchdog.

Billions of dollars in U.S. rescue funds wound up in big banks in France, Germany and other nations. That was probably inevitable because of the structure of the Treasury Department's program, the Congressional Oversight Panel says in a new report issued Thursday.

The U.S. program aimed to stabilize the financial system by injecting money into as many banks as possible, including those with substantial operations overseas. Most other countries, by contrast, focused their efforts more narrowly on banks in their nations that usually lacked major U.S. operations.

But the report says that if the U.S. had gotten more data on which foreign banks would benefit the most, the government might have been able to ask those countries to share some of the cost.

"There were no data about where this money was going," panel chair Elizabeth Warren said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "The American people have a right to know where the money went."

do you know who ms warren is?

An example: Major French and German banks were among the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. rescue of American International Group Inc., yet the American government shouldered the entire $70 billion risk of pumping capital into the crippled insurance titan. The report compares that with the $35 billion that France spent on its overall financial rescue program and the $133 billion that Germany spent.

Much of the $182 billion in federal aid to AIG - the biggest of the government rescues - went to meet the company's obligations to its Wall Street trading partners on credit default swaps, a form of insurance against default of securities. The partners included French banks Societe Generale, which received $11.9 billion in AIG money, and BNP Paribas, which got $4.9 billion, and Germany's Deutsche Bank, $11.8 billion.

Of the 87 banks and financial entities that indirectly benefited from the U.S. aid to AIG, 43 are foreign, according to the report. In addition to France and Germany, they include banks based in Canada, Britain and Switzerland.

In addition to AIG, many of the U.S. banks and automakers that received billions in bailout aid derive a large proportion of their revenue from operations outside the U.S., the report noted.

The watchdog panel was created by Congress to oversee the Treasury Department rescue program that came in at the peak of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008. It has said it's unclear whether U.S. taxpayers will ever fully recoup the cost of the AIG bailout. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that taxpayers will lose $36 billion.

Although the law creating the U.S. rescue program called for Treasury to coordinate its actions with similar efforts by foreign governments, "the global response to the financial crisis unfolded on an ... informal, country-by-country basis," the new report says. "Each individual government made its own decisions based on its evaluation of what was best for its own banking sector and for its own domestic economy."

The U.S. program wound up injecting capital into around 700 banks, while all other governments combined aided fewer than 50, according to the oversight panel.
 
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the worst of the recession is over:

the trade gap is at a 20 month hi

jobless claims are UP, net employment DOWN

Q2 gdp is revised down to ONE PERCENT

foreclosures are UP over ominous 09

consumer confidence is near an all time low

the favored f's need 3B MORE

the deficit's pushing TWO TRIL per year

and the perplexed prez proclaims: the worst is behind us

the 64% know better, they're LIVING it

obama's obstinately obtuse, and he's not alone
 
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