The David Copperfield School of Economic Recovery, Pt. II
Now what?
Last week, the Obama administration brought us a $1 trillion Federal Reserve magic trick hatched by the David Copperfield School of Economic Recovery — printing up a trillion bucks and “pumping it into the U.S. economy”…by buying up bonds and mortgage securities…sold and backed by the government.
Today, hapless, truth-challenged tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner officially unveils another $1 trillion magic trick. Instead of letting failed banks fail, we’ll have another desperately massive and massively desperate attempt to prop them up through a “public private partnership investment program.” Eager to get the still-unfolding Bonus-gate behind them (see “Geithner Aides Worked With AIG for Months on Bonuses” and “AIG paid over $218 million in bonus payments”), Team Obama leaked details of the plan over the weekend. World stock markets were up this morning, full of audaciously blind hope.
Geithner ‘s WSJ op-ed this morning lays out some of the details he failed to deliver when he first unveiled his non-plan plan a month ago:
Today, we are announcing another critical piece of our plan to increase the flow of credit and expand liquidity. Our new Public-Private Investment Program will set up funds to provide a market for the legacy loans and securities that currently burden the financial system.
The Public-Private Investment Program will purchase real-estate related loans from banks and securities from the broader markets. Banks will have the ability to sell pools of loans to dedicated funds, and investors will compete to have the ability to participate in those funds and take advantage of the financing provided by the government.
The funds established under this program will have three essential design features. First, they will use government resources in the form of capital from the Treasury, and financing from the FDIC and Federal Reserve, to mobilize capital from private investors. Second, the Public-Private Investment Program will ensure that private-sector participants share the risks alongside the taxpayer, and that the taxpayer shares in the profits from these investments. These funds will be open to investors of all types, such as pension funds, so that a broad range of Americans can participate.
Third, private-sector purchasers will establish the value of the loans and securities purchased under the program, which will protect the government from overpaying for these assets.
The new Public-Private Investment Program will initially provide financing for $500 billion with the potential to expand up to $1 trillion over time, which is a substantial share of real-estate related assets originated before the recession that are now clogging our financial system. Over time, by providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this program will help improve asset values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets. The ability to sell assets to this fund will make it easier for banks to raise private capital, which will accelerate their ability to replace the capital investments provided by the Treasury.
This program to address legacy loans and securities is part of an overall strategy to resolve the crisis as quickly and effectively as possible at least cost to the taxpayer. The Public-Private Investment Program is better for the taxpayer than having the government alone directly purchase the assets from banks that are still operating and assume a larger share of the losses. Our approach shares risk with the private sector, efficiently leverages taxpayer dollars, and deploys private-sector competition to determine market prices for currently illiquid assets.
The self-delusional hope, as the NYTimes put it over the weekend (see “Toxic Asset Plan Foresees Big Subsidies for Investors”), “is that such a generous taxpayer subsidy will attract private investors into the market and accelerate the recovery of the country’s banks.”
Because, you know, the trillions of generous taxpayer subsidies we’ve already poured down the hole have worked such wonders to “accelerate the recovery.”
And because, you know, healthy investment firms will be sooooo eager to accept government funding after watching what happened to AIG.
Mike Shedlock boils it down:
This is similar in nature to fraudulent schemes that promise “what’s inside the bag is worth $1 million, unless you open the bag”.
In this case there may be a few “good bags” similar in nature to salting the mine schemes, but for the most part everyone knows what’s in the bag is toxic garbage. What really makes no sense whatsoever is why the government would risk 97% with shared “upside” instead of just buying it all.
Somehow, Geithner (and Obama by implication) believes that igniting a bidding war between hedge funds and private equity over a bag of cow manure will inspire confidence that there’s gold in the bag. Such insanity cannot possibly work, which means it won’t.
To paraphrase Obama’s favorite president, Abe Lincoln: “You can fool all of the Kool-Aid drinkers some of the time, and some of the Kool-Aid drinkers all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the Kool-Aid drinkers all of the time.”
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Bait and switch.
They are led to believe that all of their investments will be taxpayer funded … which they will when it fails … but if they do slip up and earn anything despite this administration’s best efforts, their money will be taxed at ninety percent (due to recent changes in the “law”) selective enforcement, faux outrage or whatever the cause or law du jour is. (I think that is how it is spelled but I have never been big on French or fancy foo foo restaurants making a fancy name for yesterday’s leftovers)
I’d rather have BILLY MAYS!!
I think the important thing is that the late Mr. Jones offered his followers a diversity of brands. You could quite literally choose your poison. And choice is what matters after all…
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL THESE STUPID REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS THAT ARE GOING ALONG WITH OBAMA’S RAGE ABOUT SALARIES.
THEY ARE AIDING HIS TAKE FROM WHITES TO GIVE TO THE BLACKS CRAP.
Obama should be impeached as a threat to our financial security, & therefore our National Security.. He was on 60 Minutes yucking it up about our economy like it was a joke, which is why the interviewer asked him if he was “Punch Drunk”..
When the leftist media begins to question him, you know something is VERY, VERY wrong. I wrote both of my senators & my Rep. demanding his impeachment after it was announced that he will attempt to control the Salaries of Corporate execs next. That’s to be announced soon according to Fox News.
That would be Unconstitutional, & proves that Obama is a flat out Communist. He needs to be ousted, & sent back to Kenya, or wherever he really comes from…
And who is the all time favorite scapegoat in the world?!??
Yup, that’s why Jews should be preparing for the inevitable Neo-Nazi backlash. Anti-semitic attacks have gone up sharply all around the world – probably fueled by “The Religion of Pieces” minions.
Here is one way…
Well, technically, tomatoes ARE fruits….
Doubt she knows that, but it is true.
Hmmm… I would say that more a trick of the Robert Mugabe Institute of Economics and Banana Republicanry.
The man is in WAY over his head. I’m telling you, we’d have been better off with the Sham-Wow guy.
I am all for it – Vince can come in there day one, look at all the crap Little Boots is trying to foist on us and say,”Forget about it”.
tamarah–yes, I know that most of what we call vegetables are actually ‘fruit’ as well. And I agree–I don’t think the Ivy League prepared her for that distinction.
The Dims and Obi Juan are “Spending money they haven’t even stolen from my grandkids yet”….I previously said kids but it will probably be 10 yrs before we can get out of debt(if indeed we still can) so insert next generation….
How is this plan really any different than the original TARP plan passed under Bush/Paulson?…oh, except now Obama is taking credit for the idea… (and thus, he gets credit for the failure now, too…).
So is the Chairman of the House Banking Committee but I don’t want to get personal
Michell-O’s garden will probably produce Bitter Herbs anyway-perhaps some cat nip, hemlock.
GEICO’s new slogan…
“So easy, Tim Geithner could do it.”
interesting isn’t it? its been that way for a very long time…I have a little theory…they have a very old, and very powerful enemy
and he has a great deal of influence…
and those that are his always hate the jews..
off subject I know, but I keep asking
WHERE’S THE DAMNED PUPPY???
A promise is a promise!
It’s pretty mean to lie to your own kids.
The kids are waiting for the animatronic version from Disney. Has an integrated Teleprompter for remote hand signal recognition and a receive only circuit for push button activation of barking and whining.
and, to paraphrase Woody Allen in ‘Sleeper’, he leaves little batteries on the floor.
EcoFriendly I hope lolol
O/T ….sort of.
Did anyone read about Barney Frank calling Justice Scalia a homophobe?
Obama’s economic adviser. Fanny and Freddie need to “lend like crazy.”
Okay, Dow closes at almost 500 points higher, who buys into this crap??
I would not participate in anything the Gov. did right now.
But what does this mean when the DOW soars????
During this administration it means in 72 hours it will drop like a rock.
Time to march on D.C. with pitchforks and torches. That is the only way to stop all this crazy crap.
Yep – this is who some of you people are – the rest of you are just full of it.
I didn’t see people sending bags of tea to their local city councils when tax dollars were taken from the middle class and used to support athletic stadiums and tax shelters for athletic teams worth hundreds of millions–sometimes billions of dollars.
I haven’t read all the comments here but didn’t private lending institutions buying “toxic” assets get us into this mess in the first place? I’m probably being waaaayyyy tooo simplistic here.
Technically, I think Bwaney Fwank called “Juftwif Scawia” a “homofwob.”
and how come he can call people names, but we can’t call him names…huuummmmmm?????
More like lending institutions leveraging toxic assets was the trouble.
Well, then you just aren’t looking. Many principled conservatives objected to local governments giving tax dollars to professional sports team owners to build stadiums. In fact, on many forums, many conservatives objected when the largely black DC city council took tax money from predominatly poor black city residents and gave it to the rich white Washington Nationals’ team owner. We mostly oppose the government taking tax dollars from anyone and giving it to others. It is a conservative thing.
Yeah….Except that the stadium was financed by a tax on businesses, 71% of which are owned by non-Blacks in the District (even though they represent 2/3 of the population).
So I hope you didn’t waste too much breath on behalf of the poor blacks that weren’t actually being taxed.
The argument can be made that a new stadium will benefit the community through jobs for locals, increased tax revenues, parking fees, etc. Personally, I think the numbers are inflated a bit.
Hamas receiving $900 million is going to have what effect? Will they suddenly love us? Will they be by our side should we get attacked by extremists? How many Americans will be employed as a result?
I appreciate your attempt at equivalency and share your criticism of spending tax dollars on private stadiums. Plenty of owners built stadiums with their own money in the past, but owners today want to share the risk with the people they’re fleecing with high ticket prices.
As far as the racism angle, give it a rest. People can question methods and motives regardless of race.
This “crisis” is being used to further an agenda. They will end up taking the short path, inflation, to catch up on the debt, then blame the whole thing on Bush while begging for four more years to finish mopping up.
chap … #129 …
Basically correct … but the real problem is that their hands were tied on the leveraging rules of “Mark to Market” which has forced them to devalue things on the books while at the same time they had to increase their reserves resulting in a situation where many institutions actually have cash on hand but it is not available for lending because of the Federal Rules on Asset Reserves … (The following article on Forbes explains this) … Mark to Market …
A lot of the TARP money is going into those reserves that the government requires them to have …
Get rid of Mark to Market and much of the liquidity issue will go away overnight …
Lots of new weapons for the guys that hate anything and everything Western?
Or was that a rhetorical question?
And of course, in your leftist universe, taxes on businesses aren’t passed along to customers. Do you have any idea how the real world works?
Most principled conservatives, and even some leftists, don’t think taxing the poor to give to rich sports team owners makes sense. I guess Chappy is the exception again.
And I am fairly confident that most studies reveal staggering little long-term, positive economic growth from stadiums and the associated businesses. I expect Chappy will gainsay this as well.
Yeah. I am sure this is what you meant when you said “took tax money from predominantly poor black city residents”. That was just your clever shorthand for “took money indirectly from predominantly poor black city residents through a bump in business taxes for places where the predominantly poor black people may shop, which businesses raise their prices in relation to the tax increase.” Sure.
And in any case it is levied only against businesses with over $5 million in revenue, i.e., the downtown firms and businesses. Not the places where the poor folk in Anacostia usually do their shopping. This was taxing the relatively rich to give to the rich. Think of that what you will.
Well, Chappy DOES have NO IDEA how the real world works. $5 million in revenue breaks down to $416,000 a month or $13,888 a day or $1,157 an hour if you run your business for 12 hours a day.
Suppose you have 4 establishments. That means if you rack up a phenominal $289 of sales an hour per establishment on average you get to pay taxes to support the stadium. That represents 36 sales of $8/per sale per hour. $8 is a cheap sandwich on G Street in downtown DC. I don’t know ANY places downtown that sell 36 sandwiches an hour. Do the math if you can…
I guess in Chappy’s world there are no black entrepreneurs in DC. Or in his world, nobody should make a decent living. I guess we now have proof that leftists hate poor black urban residents and want to tax them to death.
Suppose that 2/3 of the people in DC are tax recipients and not taxpayers?
The same people who began the crash of the economy before the election, decided to puff it up a bit. But just for a while as they make thier exit plans and prepare their dissident control methods. It will have fits and starts until about June/July.
Then it will sink like Jimmy Hoffa wearing his concrete dancing shoes….
http://www.urbansurvival.com/blog/
One of the depressing things about being a conservative and looking at conservative sites is to see the negativity. Certainly I do not like to see the government manipulating the economy, but under the circumstances it is necessary. I firmly believe that the government got us to this point with both political parties joining in the effort. Without the moves that have been made we would be looking at a scenario that would make 1930 look like a minor market correction. The world, not the US is on the brink of economy decomposition. The moves by the government, other than the stupid “stimulus”, have been reasonable. Without them I can assure you that all of the people on this site would be in dire trouble with their incomes and pensions. So instead of blanket criticism why not suggestion for another plan. Not spending money is an acceptable plan. My thought is to get rid of mark to market accounting and the uptick rule. This would help. Stabilize housing by making it difficult to leave a house. Such as investigation for fraud and serious prison time for walking away from a mortgage.
Why the hell would you divide the revenue between 4 establishments. It’s a per business tax, genius.
And there are about 50,000 businesses in DC. Only about 2,000 of them end up being subject to the tax. You think many of the richest 2,000 businesses in DC are in Shaw or Anacostia, hmmm? You don’t think that the vast majority of these 2,000 richest firms are downtown law firms, consulting companies and the like?
Just admit you have no clue what you are talking about. DC’s poor black residents are NOT footing the bill for this stadium.
No, but based on that post we have proof positive you are a retard. Not that we needed any more.
Ah! So when you see a painted shed you think the shed’s made of the paint!
Or that taxes aren’t defrayed by raising the price… the same as all other cost-of-doing-busness that government foists off!
Folks, this “chap” doesn’t care that the increased taxes in those poor neighborhoods raised the cost-of-living for the poor!
He just wants the jollies of charging them the money through raising costs-by-taxation while claiming he has a concience!
How telling.
Please, please, please stop referring to it as “David Copperfield School Of Economic Recovery”. Frankly I have about as much respect for Copperfield as Penn & Teller do. In fact since the duo are self-admitted con artists, flim-flam men, etc. (but acknolwedge that it’s done strictly for entertainment {unlike folks who use magician’s tricks and techniques to rip people off like Uri Geller, Silvia Brown, Peter Popoff, etc.}) perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the “Penn & Teller School Of Economic Recovery” since P&T’s shows are far more entertaining and parallel much of the flim-flam going on in Congress.
I don’t see why: Former heads of state in most foreign nations are about as relevant as yesterday’s toast in affecting contemporary diplomacy – particularly Gorby in Russia, where there’s no evidence to suggest anyone has influence over money grubbing Putin.
Except I have already destroyed that argument in later posts. Try to keep up mike.
You mean that’s not a bwarney fwank snackfood?
Did you really?
Maybe in post #210, perhaps…
Ah! The secret hate in the Liberal Heart for the handicapped is thus exposed…
Keep affirming the Truth of Liberalism — from out your heart the pus of your hate fountains…
oh, wait! You’ve answered that one in post #347 — Sorry! I’ll try to keep up…
mike,
Maybe you need it spelled out a little more simply. The DC “ballpark fee” is only imposed on the 2,000 (top 4%) wealthiest businesses in DC. There is little chance that many, if any of these 2000 businesses, are serving the poorest communities. They are going to be the K Street type businesses. Hell, about 10% of them are taken up just by lobbying firms bringing in over $5 million, not to mention the law firms, consulting firms, financial advisors… Not too many folks in Anacostia are going to be going to Williams & Connelly for legal advice, nor Patton Boggs for lobbying representation.
So spare me your concern that the poor black folk in DC are in any way, either directly or indirectly, paying for the stadium.
No. But I do hate people that should know better and are disingenuous when presented with actual facts. Tell me, can you point to one FACT that wareagle has cited, or you for that matter, to support the idea that DC’s poorest residents are footing this stadium’s bill? One fact? Just one?
#150 & 151:
I answered those in later posts… they’re next to yours, #214 & #351 respectively…
Do try to keep up…
That is the sound of mike losing the argument.
Hahahahaha….
If wishes were fishes Chap wouldn’t steal…
Off to Prospector w/the wife!
And if silly rhymes were viable arguments mike wouldn’t look dumb.
(Sorry that wasn’t cute like mike’s)
Well here’s a conservative that’s been opposed to them.
No tea bags but she’s been railing against stadiums forever.
I finally figured out what that photo reminds me of…It looks like Kyle McLaughlin’s character in Dune.
Yes…definitely Dune.
Timorous Geithner makes mollusks appear vertebrate.
Obama doesn’t want this Countrywide II to succeed. He has Timmy announce it, let it fail, so that he can fire him and nationalize the banks. Over 400 banks are under the governments purvue now and very few are not. It’s only a matter of time.
Great write up Michelle, thank you. I agree totally with what you said. I wish they would leave this all alone but they won’t, they ( Obama ) wants to destroy our country.
You aren’t going to get any investors coming forward, when they all know inflation is on its way here. Who wants to invest in today’s dollars, only to receive tomorrow’s inflated dollars? My concern is how other countries who have invested in the U.S., especially China, are going to feel being paid back in inflationary dollars? “Thanks for your $1 investment. Here’s your return of 0.75 cents.” We’re going down the same old path again, this time, expecting different results. We used to call that insanity.
Gee – I’m sooooo surprised. NOT!
Mua’Dhib chap??
His name is a killing word!!
It was only a matter of time. The speed of it is breath taking however. Only lenin moved faster. It took hitler YEARS to get this far.
You stay classy, Andy.
Cuomo won a legal ruling last week that entitles him to publicly identify the bonus recipients. But he held off revealing the names after Liddy said some employees had received threats.
The attorney general said Monday that he wouldn’t release the names of people who returned their bonuses.
“If a person returns the money, I don’t believe there’s a public interest in releasing their name,” he said.
Here is exactly how Geithner is going to get investors to invest in his toxic asset investment program:I control all companies Note: it’s ALL businesses that Timmy decides threaten the economy. You don’t buy my toxic assets – you threaten the economy.
Interestingly enough Chappy’s version of the tax situation in DC had some elements of the truth. But, there are serious omissions in his reporting of the facts. And my analysis still stands. Ultimately the good people of DC will pay the the taxes. That is just the way it works.
All businesses over $3 million were then subject to the tax. (Chappy said $5 mill). There are (or were) about 2,000 such businesses in DC back in 2004. Chappy gave the correct number.
The price of the stadium was projected at 440 million back in 2004. It actually cost over $600 million. Some say $760 million. Nobody will ever know the true cost as the DC government will bury any costs is wants to hide.
The DC City Council promised no more taxes on businesses after they agreed to pay for the $440 million. That means any new taxes to make up the difference of $200 million and any new taxes for nearly anything else the city needed would get levied upon or passed on to the good people of DC.
Leftists like Chappy want to think taxes have no impact on people. That is why idiots like Obama can complain about unemployment one second and then turn around and cause unemployment by taxing businesses the next minute and never think about it twice.
Corporations don’t pay taxes. People do. Taxes “trickle down” to people in the form of higher costs and lost jobs.
Look here for details: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45647-2004Sep23.html
google “nationals stadium dc taxes” for more stories.
I said $5 million because it is $5 million. Here is the link for the instructions on the baseball fee tax form. Here is a link to the original legislation. See page 21.
Wrong again. The city has other revenue streams from the ball park, including the rent the Nats pay as well as parking fees and other fees collected from people actually going to the stadium.
No. I fully admit that the people that solicit the richest businesses may be affected, though if you look at how much revenue is being generated it is very small. For a company making $5 million in revenue, the fee amounts to 11 one hundredths of one percent. What I do not claim is that poor black people in the District will be footing the bill.
….