Asia Times raises a good point
Mar. 16th, 2009 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdGood afternoon! I've been busy working all day on my recording "studio," but I did want to throw you a couple of stories.
First, Joseph Stroupe at Asia Times has an article about a pending dollar crisis. It takes a long time to go anywhere, but it finally lays out one good point about halfway in; either the US treasury market gambit will fail, and there will be a treasuries crisis and a resulting spike in the rates the US must pay to finance its massive debt (the currency crisis I've been talking about), or it will succeed, and, by virtue of its sheer projected scale, will freeze out most other forms of credit, hurting US business in particular, and exacerbating the imbalances that set the stage for the current financial turmoil.
Secondly, Glenn Greenwald - who remember, is a lawyer - mocks the AIG defence of its taxpayer-bailout-funded bonuses as a matter of contract law. And lo and behold, Marketwatch reports on the "sword of Damocles" hanging over the heads of Congress, saying that "a misstep by one party could see them in the minority for a generation." This comes from a Pew Research survey, which Marketwatch reports found that an "overwhelming 87% majority of Americans are bothered by the bailout policy, while 48% describe themselves as downright angry." And to my mind, I don't see this as an improvement:
First, Joseph Stroupe at Asia Times has an article about a pending dollar crisis. It takes a long time to go anywhere, but it finally lays out one good point about halfway in; either the US treasury market gambit will fail, and there will be a treasuries crisis and a resulting spike in the rates the US must pay to finance its massive debt (the currency crisis I've been talking about), or it will succeed, and, by virtue of its sheer projected scale, will freeze out most other forms of credit, hurting US business in particular, and exacerbating the imbalances that set the stage for the current financial turmoil.
Secondly, Glenn Greenwald - who remember, is a lawyer - mocks the AIG defence of its taxpayer-bailout-funded bonuses as a matter of contract law. And lo and behold, Marketwatch reports on the "sword of Damocles" hanging over the heads of Congress, saying that "a misstep by one party could see them in the minority for a generation." This comes from a Pew Research survey, which Marketwatch reports found that an "overwhelming 87% majority of Americans are bothered by the bailout policy, while 48% describe themselves as downright angry." And to my mind, I don't see this as an improvement:
Vincent Reinhart, a former Fed official and now banking expert, thinks that politicians should start calling the bailout "ransom."Meanwhile, back in the real economy, the New York Manufacturing Index fell sharply to yet another record low. I can't imagine how to look more like the Hoover administration than to keep nattering on to people about how the recession is probably going to end this year. STOP MAKING FORECASTS, MR. BERNANKE. You aren't very good at them.
"They would have been much better off not calling it a bailout but calling it ransom," Reinhart said.
"We have to give resources to the financial sector because the financial sector is holding the American economy hostage," Reinhart said.
