New York Times:
One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the surprise is not how much has changed in the financial industry, but how little.
Robert Kuttner: A Virtuous Tax
A little bit of populist retribution is overdue against the people who brought down the system -- and will bring it down again if the hegemony of the traders is not constrained.
Les Leopold: One Year After Lehman: Another Crash Coming?
Given the failure to enact serious reforms, it wouldn't take much to push the economy off the cliff again: a severe pandemic flu, a terrorist attack or a major weather event could set off a major economic relapse.
Perhaps one of the most telling statistics is the number of stand-alone pieces of financial reform legislation passed, one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers: zero.
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Fear not, Wall Street will crash out again, and sooner than they think. Let it crash for good this time.
We need a national investment bank, tied to the Federal reserve, that will finance jobs, industry, technology, education and research in THIS country, and create jobs for Americans.
Wall Street is just a big Monopoly game based on short-term thinking, and is not meeting the needs of the United States.
From what I read from former OCC chiefs, there is no one on Capital Hill that understands or wants to learn the intracacies of the Financial District.
As long as unemployment remains high, then wages will remain low. Consumers will barely be scraping by so fewer houses, cars, etc., will be purchased and the economy will remain in the toilet for the indefinite future.
wall street ,banksters know what they can get away with.they wrote the laws.were in checkmate thanks to the repugs and bush crooks.
The fundamental problem with capitalism is that profit is motive-it is our purpose! It is the collective reality behind Richard Bach's metaphor-"living to eat". (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) Despite those individuals who seek to do otherwise, it is our national "how" and "why" we exist. We are the macro-organisms that "look down" at micro-organisms on a petri dish as they are "mindlessly" driven to multiply, strive, and survive, without the slightest notion that we are seeing ourselves in miniature! This all may seems remote to some people. But truth exist in a remote location relative our to consciousness, but never too far from our will to cultivate it. This is our "cross"! This is our battlefield of battlefields-to collectively strive beyond the necessities of the material. But until we are conscious of this condition, this opportunity, we will continue to operate at crossed purposes. We will continue to be ignorant of the fact that wealth and poverty are only illusions of the human mind, perpetuated by the "lesser lights of apparency", the survivalists who can only quantify their gain by the lack of others.
Children going to bed hungry in this country is just "only an illusion of the human mind"? If it is only an "illusion", I choose wealth.
Perhaps their parents should have considered whether they could afford to feed them or not before having them. I wanted 3 children, but stopped at 2 because that is what I could afford in terms of money, time, energy, emotion.
It is always easier to jump to a conclusion than to come to an understanding. And one of the things that we must always keep in mind is that there's a difference between "reality" and "actuality".
The markets are still down almost 50% from the highs of 2007. I don't understand what you mean by sizzle. I guess to the lame brains, falling 50% from the top and then only gaining back half of that loss back is sizzling.
example to the masses.
your house is worth 100K in 2007.
The house drops in value by 50%. So now the house is worth 50K.
now the housing prices rebound and goback up 50% from the top.
Final house price. 75K. would you as a homeowner feel like we are sizzling again?
Doubtful....Nothing is sizzleling, unless you got into the markets early this year. And we all know..that would be nobody.
That's why bubbles are very bad.
People bought houses for $100,000 that were only worth $75,000. For many of these houses, these prices just aren't coming back.
Instead of "sizzling" I would say that the gears of the economy are turning again. There is a real recovery under way, but it's going to take some time.
Nothing will change.
No serious reform or regulation will occur.
A huge financial collapse will occur again.
The real crooks are in DC.
Not to worry NP is going to drain the swamp any day now?
Wall street, corporations, rich people it's just not fair. We want them to fail so we can have a new order. When little minds have thoughts like that it doesn't bode well for this country.
Candidates Obama and McCain, leaders of both Parties in Congress rushed to send taxpayer monies to the Wall Street banksters. The American people were sold out at the beginning. The selection of Geithner and Summers assured us the fix was in. Obama continues to underwhelm us with the continuation of Bush’s policies and half measures in place of reforms. Very few true conservatives with any integrity are left in the Republican Party. Progressive Democrats are a minority that keeps being beaten down by the corporatists.
Americans on the right are being led by the nose to fight a false set “dangers”. Socialism and Government spending have replaced Gays and Women’s rights as their new windmills to joust. All the while corporate America is robbing them blind, keeping them in the dark and feeding them $hit.
Americans on the left are being marginalized by what is supposed to be their own Party. Corporate America has simply bought a majority of Democrats. Obama had a shot at greatness and became an also ran corporate stooge.
They aren't sizzlin' with my money and they never will again.
thats your loss.
Yeah right. Wall Street is rigged, we all know that. Heads they win, tails we lose. It's too bad Wall Street even exists. Most folks would be better off investing in a Vegas roulette table.
If you're investing your savings in Wall Street, you obviously do not want it to be reformed.
What about reform is fizzling? Did anyone think we were gonna totally reinventte wheel here?
It's probably the massive Wall Street bonuses, the fact that the DOW is over 9500, and because it seems nobody has learned anything from the past 12 months.
Obama cannot change things as they are. The best thing that we can say about him
is that he will welcome any changes that progressives can push through and will not veto them.
What is the problem?
The public is misinformed and divided by the corporate MSM.
Otherwise, the wisdom of democracy would be working just fine here.
Obama is now, and has been from the beginning, a proponent of voodoo economics (unbridled deregulation, unbridled free trade, privatization, tax cuts for the wealthy, huge expenditures on defense, insufficient spending on social programs). That's why his economic team are reknowned voodooistas (Geithner, Summers and the rest). And that's why we're only going to get fig leaf proposals for reregulation, fair trade, limiting contractors in Afghanistan, etc. and never-ending wars against US interests that simply bankrupt the United States.
It was obvious during the bailout battle under Bush. Progressive Democrats were calling for reregulation to be tied to the bailout money. As the financial institutions and banks were in need of that money in order to continue bonuses and absurd salaries, they had no alternative but to accept some serious reregulation. But it was Obama, then leader of the Democratic Party as its Presidential candidate who opposed tying reregulation (or even transparency) to the bailout money. Lying Obama said to pass reregulation later, fully understanding that there would be no leverage on the banks and financial institutions to accept reregulation once they received the bailout money. So the Dems did not push reregulation and simply voted for the bailout and the only chance there was for serious reregulation died -- all due to Candidate Obama.
Now, as the Dems, Repubs and Obama are simply lobbyists for the financial institutions masked as politicians and Wall Street has rebounded while unemployment continues to soar, there will be no reversal of voodoo.
Do you see any grey in your outlook?
Look, this guy's the smartest politician I've seen in my life. I don't believe he doesn't know what he's doing. He's a voodooista and believes the lies that unemployment is a "lagging indicator" so he's willing to see huge unemployment numbers so long as Wall Street rebounds. Geithner (a tax cheat he appointed to head the Department that includes the IRS) and Summers are both long-standing voodooistas. There's not much grey there -- both voodooistas who enriched themselves (as did all voodooistas in his Administration) by being proponents of steal-from-the-middle-class-and-give-to-the-wealthy voodoo economics policies.
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Posted: 09-11-09 10:16 PM