Democrats now accept the right-wing mantra that government is the problem, not the solution.

Not even close to true. Stick to the facts instead starting with such outrageous nonsense. When the Dems had sufficient control they reigned-in the crash and did many good things. It has only been since the ‘individual mandate’ and the elections of 2010 that things have stagnated.

The Obama Administration has refused to take direct action on the financial crisis, and has instead tried to find some way to use private business to solve it. The results are piling in now, and we see the miserable results you’d expect from pushing on a string.

They did what they thought could possibly work and get through Congress. We’ve seen some success because it got through Congress. The typical Liberal approach is to assume your ideas, good as they may be, could actually become law. Well, Libs don’t rule Congress and don’t get many laws passed. Obama has.

The housing crisis provides a good example. …

There are direct solutions. The government could give homeowners the right to cram down the mortgages in Chapter 13 cases, … But no. The President backed down from his campaign promises on cramdown, and the Democrats in Congress refused to consider any solutions that would require lenders to share in the losses they helped to create. Homeowners were left powerless to negotiate with lenders. We got HAMP and HARP and the foreclosure fraud settlement, all designed to encourage predator lenders to solve the problems they created. Pushing on a string doesn’t work.

Tell Congress. It wasn’t as if any of this could have become law, so why say “The President” when you mean to say “The Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats blocking the President”? Besides, a cramdown would have been very messy because it allowed judges in a zillion courts to handle cases in ways even Liberals say they do lousy. How would they consistently manage a new law like that? It would have been disastrous to spring that in the middle of a crisis.

The money directly spent by government to create demand for labor worked exactly as predicted, and gave a push towards recovery. But conservatives in both parties hate that idea, because it shows that government is valuable. There won’t be more direct spending.

We wouldn’t have even had that much without the tax cuts (ineffective as they have been). And, if the corporations hadn’t unexpectedly tied up $2 Trillion things would have gone much better. And, if banks had accepted some losses on toxic assets and divested themselves of those earlier, then they could have lent more and we could have avoided so many small business bankruptcies. In a crisis there are many unexpected events and outcomes. Criticizing after the fact is pathetic.

With fiscal policy sidelined by a two-party consensus, the Federal Reserve Board tried quantitative easing, flooding the economy with cash, buying financial assets at a ferocious pace. The idea is that banks will lend all that money to corporations which will spend money and hire more people. More string pushing. We got a staggering increase in the amount of money sloshing around in banks and in the stock market. Gillian Tett reports in the Financial Times:

At a meeting of corporate treasurers Thursday, those wails were echoed again: US groups are now stuffed with cash (more than $2tn at last count), but are finding it harder than ever to find anywhere to invest it.

That $1.6 trillion [banks are keeping] at the Fed includes $126 billion in excess of required reserves at those banks. That’s $126 billion more dollars that isn’t in the economy in the form of loans. Banks can’t lend it out, because there isn’t any demand for loans, and why would there be when corporations have $2 trillion in loose money?

It’s good to know banks are able to lend what’s needed. If there’s some excess, then the Fed might want to sell some assets to reduce that.

Anyway, how do you force those corporate CEOs to invest when it’s not in their corporation’s interest?

We have so much of the country’s wealth tied up by the rich and institutions representing the rich that all they want is security and no risk, but huge profits. It’s insanity on a stick. When the fever breaks there will inevitably be losses, despite what gov’t does to avoid problems.
If money isn’t put to use it’s just paper and loses value. They think it’s safe to sit idle, but what they’re doing is failing to feed the body which produces, they’re failing to let the blood flow, so what naturally follows.

This is a clear indicator gov’t needs to raise taxes and move that money — make it work. But, we’ve got to convince the public or Republicans? Electing Democratic governors who will rehire state employees would also help.

The idea behind quantitative easing, and indeed, behind the entire program of salvaging the banks, was that they are this wonderful engine of allocating capital to its highest and best uses. So we flood them with money, and they’ll lend it out and the economy will get going. Pushing on a string. It doesn’t work..

Easy to say now. In 2009 it wasn’t known the corporations would sit on the sidelines with trillions idle.

We need direct government action: direct spending, and direct rejection of economic policies that have never worked anywhere at any time.

Sure sure, get some Republican votes and it’s a deal.

I hate that the professional liberals make the Repubilcan policy arguments even better than the Romney campaign. But, it’s unfair to tell people this is all the fault of Pres. Obama and stupid Democrats. Dems have tried to do a lot of things even Liberals want and Republicans say “No” every time.

People have to accept some kind of compromise or the government can’t work. I say that primarily to Republicans, but some Liberals in the public need to know it too. Libs in gov’t tend to be there because they do know and work in that system for the best they can hope to get. Republicans see political gain by saying “No”, so they keep doing that. They’ll try to convince people Romney and a Republican Congress can get things done. But, their own words tell us they’ll only worsen things. No, some pragmatism and consensus building among people who will compromise is the only way. Obama has done that.

Two points:

On the losses: The people suing JPMorganChase must be willing to also give up any profits from the methods JPMC used that incurred some losses. The hypocrisy of taking the profits while decrying the losses isn’t ethical. But, of course, the rich and anyone in America fighting for money doesn’t worry about cognitive dissonance, ethics or anything. They’ll bite the hand that’s feeding them (JPMC) and not even blink.

On banking: What is a bank’s risk hedge and what is a hedge fund inside a bank? I think when a traditional bank asks for collateral they were hedging losses. Modern banking can’t be so different. But, if there are far larger profits to be made gambling, then that’s what they will want to do and they will be pushed to do by their competitors and greedy shareholders. I saw Jamie Dimon’s interview with David Gregory and he said banks lend money and that’s risky, so they need to hedge the risk. Isn’t that what collateral is for? What kind of lending are they doing which requires market gambling/hedging? I trust Dimon knows what he’s doing and he’s very very good at it. But, making markets and hedging are not traditional banking. We need to separate the two and ensure sufficient money goes to traditional banking, so our economy can be properly funded.

Maybe the big reason the economy has remained flat is insufficient lending because banks just aren’t ‘sexy’ profit makers. That’s an indication the risk-taking ‘investment’ world has gotten out of control. The markets should always be an abstraction of the real world economy and a tool to assist the real world economy. Now that’s turned upside down and it needs righted.

I can’t imagine Mitt Romney and the Congressional Republicans doing anything to fix it, so we had better elect Pres. Obama and more Congressional Democrats.

Any system which simply dismisses so many individual economic or health failures is simply unsustainable. Imagine a country with a population as large as China with that percentage of the people falling apart. It wouldn’t be acceptable.

That’s why America will still do health care reform if the SCOTUS overturns the current PPACA/Obamacare. It’s an economic necessity.

I was in the CNN green room one time with some conservative pundits who were saying they were embarrassed because the “base” kept saying Obama was a Socialist and clearly didn’t understand what the word meant

It means Obama isn’t the person the Republican leaders have chosen and therefore he’s all things evil. ‘Socialism’ or ‘Socialist’ doesn’t really have any more meaning than an advertisement on television or a bumper sticker. It’s plastic with stickum on the back.

If the Republicans jerk spastically over a mere suggestion of ending some tax breaks for oil & gas, then can you imagine how they would respond if the president proposed major tax break elimination on agriculture and major education cost reform and an increase in the minimum wage and and and. They freak out over something small and America is not able to progress. The real changes we need are a distant image the Republicans claim is only a mirage.

The American people need to realize we can change things in some big ways to improve our future and then vote for that.

As long as the American people are willing to settle for his and the other fantasy/nightmares the Conservatives inflict on us then they will retain sufficient power in Congress to impede progress.

The solution is to let the people know there are still things gov’t can do to push us along a virtuous cycle to better growth and better incomes and more savings with stable prices.

Republicans are against that. In fact, they promise to turn the economy back toward the Great Depression’s worst days (before Pres. Obama took office), so Mitt can finish off the economy while spending double on ‘defense’. It isn’t a secret or my interpretation of his speeches. It’s what he literally calls for. Mitt thinks Bush was ‘fantastic’.

DeMarco does in fact want specific Congressional authorization

a slow walk to purgatory!

The banks which sold mortgages to F&F have been saved great losses in that step. I think it’s time to solve the problem to enable the economy to move forward. If DeMarco has no answer to the ‘no second lein’ issue then he should be kicked in the ass until he gets on with principal write-downs. The second leins should be upheld for simplicity sake. The main thing is to write down the main loan and let’s see how much effect that has to solving this problem. Besides, a better plan is to convert a lot of these underwater mortgages to rental properties where they leave the ‘toxic assets’ category forever and immediately.

All this talk about this and that reason is just slow-walking the thing for political purposes. Mitch McConnell and the filibustering Republicans should also be kicked out of office for preventing Pres. Obama from getting his own appointee in this important position after 3 years in office.

Methinks this is another example of “If the president does it it’s NOT illegal.”

You do realize these actions are to execute a law Congress passed: the AUMF.

It’s great you agree the administration doesn’t want to see this in federal court, but what does the admistration actually think.

I’d love to see it in court, so there can be a clarification of the whole thing. To say Sandra Day O’Connor wrote about it in a decision really doesn’t impress me. I’d like to see it handled more clearly and for the al Awlaki case, for example. After all treatment of a prisoner is hardly the same as how war is waged in the field.

Which has precedence, our civil right to Life (free from being blown up by terrorists) or our right to Due Process when the person in question isn’t even in custody yet?

I’d also love to see a clarification of what our leaders can or must do to protect our Constitutional Rights when internationally the U.N. Security Council does not agree. What’s the precedence?

Bush raised a lot of questions and many linger on, especially for the public.

It’s time for all Democrats who have access to the bull-horn to begin pounding on DeMarco about his personal Republican effort to keep the economy from rebounding. He needs to feel the heat for his personal responsibility to America.

If there were the proper ‘position’ regulations the CFTC couldn’t be a playground for speculators.

Any idea what legal position might lead the judge to rule against Congress having the authority to regulate commerce?