TigerSoft
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9/28/2008
www.tigersoft.com OBAMA HAS THE SPINE OF A JELLYFISH.
Despite Public Opposition Outnumbering Supporters
20 to 1, Obama Fully Supports $700 Billion Bailout for
Bankers for Their Worthless "Toxic" Mortgages
Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum:
Predatory Plutocracy Is Safe No Matter Who Wins.
Bank Stocks Are Up Enormously In The Last Month.
What Financial Crisis? Clearly Paulson Is Fear-Mongering..
Amazingly, there Is No Requirement in New Bill
That Banks Must Use This Money To Increase Lending.
Why Should Progressives Vote for Obama?
by William Schmidt, Ph.D.
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Research on Individual Stocks upon Request: Composite Seasonality Graph
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OBAMA HAS THE SPINE OF A JELLYFISH. Despite Public Opposition Outnumbering Supporters 20 to 1, Obama Fully Supports The $700 Billion Bailout for Bankers for Their Worthless "Toxic" Mortgages Why Should Progressives Vote for Obama? by William Schmidt, Ph.D.  (Source: http://citizenchris.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/14/pic. ) Obama Apparently Has No Guiding Principles Even before the financial crisis stole the headlines last week, Obama was showing a startling duplicitousness and willingness to move to the right, at the slightest challenge. On June 19, he reversed himself and chose to depend upon private contributions rather than public financing. Now he is saying that the financial circumstances will prevent his raising taxes on the most wealthy. He has back-pedaled about the speed with which he would bring troops home from Iraq. He now does not support restoring normal diplomatic relations with Cuba or the de-criminalization of ownership of less than an ounce of marijuana. The death penalty, he now says, should sometimes be applied to non-capital crimes. He supports gun ownership in cities. Bush's use of domestic wire-tapping is now fine with him. He has moved away from condemning NAFTA and the loss of American manufacturing jobs overseas. In August he shifted to supporting off shore drilling. What does he still stand for? He's backed away from everything he once stood for. How is he really different than McCain or Bush? He's for more regulations, he says. But where? How? There are no details. When John McCain correctly said SEC Chairman Cox should be fired for allowing short sales on down-ticks and without first borrowing the stock, Obama accused McCain of creating more panic in the stock market, instead of recognizing that McCain was exactly right. Cox should be fired. His policies have made a bad situation much worse. (Sources: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7579 http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/29/record-of-reversals-is-source-of-ammunition-for-mccain-obama-backers/ http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/08/off-shore-drilling-obamas-reversal-and.html ) Behind Closed Doors, Obama, Pelosi and, Paulson Give Bankers Nearly A Trillion Dollars Obama has now decided to back the bailout of the very bankers that have created the financial debacle of 2007-2008. Obama also opposed using the occasion of the bailout to get Bush to accept a massive public works program or accept a change in the bankruptcy law to allow mortgage terms to be renegotiated on primary homes, as are so generously allowed rich people on their second or third homes. There is no practical difference between the Democrats, Obama and Pelosi and the Republicans, George Bush or Henry Paulson. Obama has agreed with the White House, against the shouted protests of millions of Americans, that all Americans must now give $700,000,000,000 to these bankers, never mind that most Americans do not work for banks, own stocks in any banks or bear any of the responsibility for bad mortgages, the housing boom or the housing bust. Never mind, that this bailout amounts to $2333 for every man, woman and child in the country! Never mind, that this bailout means there will be no money for national health insurance for all Americans. Never mind, that there will be no money left to repair America's crumbling schools, bridges, water systems and streets. Never mind, that there is absolutely no guarantee that the $700 billion will ever trickle down to Main Street. Never mind, that there is no assurance whatsoever that such a fix was truly needed or that it will magically make any difference, except that it will allow corrupt, over-paid bankers to go unpunished and continue their rich lifestyle at the expense of millions who have no political clout and must work very hard for very modest wages? If there was ever any doubt about how Wall Street controls both politcal parties, it is now removed. In particular, despite his fancy words and perfect syntax, it is now crystal clear that Obama stands for nothing solid. Everything is for sale to the highest bidder. He is as quickly disloyal to his constituents who want to curb the role of special interests, as Nancy Pelosi has been since 2007, as she has backed each and every Iraq War appropriations bill, despite the clear will of her voters that wanted the Iraq war ended and George Bush to be impeached. Obama is, for all practical purposes, every bit as much a puppet for Wall Street plutocrats as John McCain or George Bush, But he is worse. They straightforwardly stand for "trickle down" and the rule of the rich and powerful. Obama shamelessly cultivated the support of the powerless. He has deliberately mislead them. At every opportunity, he has fooled them into hoping he represented them and that he stood for change. He does not. When faced with any challenge from entrenched s[ecial interests, he has repeatedly caved in and yielded to the powers that be and their perverted priorities. He is a backbone-less jellyfish. Why should we trust him or vote for him? One of Obama’s chief economic advisers is Robert Rubin, former chairman of Goldman Sachs (where Bush's Treasury Secretary Paulson hails from). Rubin was head of the U.S. Treasury Department under Clinton. He was the one in Clinton's cabinet entourage which sold that President on the deregulation of banks and the desirability of allowing commercial banks to become investment banks. This fateful change led directly to the banks packaging mortgages and selling them to investors and then taking that money and making riskier and riskier loans. In this way, they built a highly leveraged houses of cards and had no incentive to admit the dangers of defaults or ask questions about the safety of making riskier and riskier home loans as housing prices rose higher and higher in true bubble fashion. "Gramm and the Republicans couldn't have done it without the support of leading Democrats. The most egregious of Gramm's legislative favors to the financiers took the form of legislation named in part after him -- the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (pof 1999), which became law only after then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin prevailed upon President Clinton to sign the bill. The bill's immediate major effect was to legitimize the long-sought merger between Citibank and insurance giant Travelers. Rubin's critical support for the bill was rewarded with an appointment, within days of its passage, to a top job at Citibank (later Citigroup) paying more than $15 million a year. That is the same Rubin with whom Democratic candidate Barack Obama met, along with other influential advisers, on Tuesday to figure out what to do about the sorry state of our economy. But what in the world did he expect to learn from Rubin? ... "After all, Goldman Sachs, where Rubin spent 25 years of his business career before entering the Clinton administration, has been one of the prime corporate villains in the financial shenanigans that led to the subprime mortgage scandal. As co-chairman of the firm, surely he had knowledge of the financial hanky-panky that would prove so disastrous down the road. Indeed, as Treasury secretary, he favored an extension of the deregulation that enabled this explosion of banking avarice. Not surprisingly, the current Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, also previously headed Goldman. "When Rubin assumed a top position at Citibank after his stint at the Treasury, he was not above influencing his former employees in the government. In one notorious instance during the fall of 2001, when Enron was going down the tubes Rubin telephoned a Treasury undersecretary and asked him to consider intervening with credit-rating agencies to hold off downgrading Enron's ratings. When the story was leaked, some media accounts noted the possibility of a conflict of interest because Enron owed Citibank $750 million, which it could not pay if bankrupt." (Source: http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/93318/obama_and_mccain_suck_up_to_the_bankers/ Additonal Source ) ============================================================================ "This is scare tactics to try to do something that’s in the private but not the public interest. It's terrible." -- Allan Meltzer, Carnegie Mellon School of Business "It's a straight subsidy to financial institutions. You're essentially giving them money. -- Martin Baily, former Clinton Administration Council of Economic Advisers "This administration is asking for a $700 billion blank check to be put in the hands of Henry Paulson, a guy who totally missed this, and has been wrong about almost everything." -- Dean Baker Center for Economic and Policy Research "If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public -- all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims." --William Greider, The Nation Angry? Go to http://www.nowallstreetbailout.com/ and protest. ============================================================================ Bank Stocks Are Up Enormously In The Last Month. What Financial Crisis? What's The Great Hurry? Amazingly, there Is No Requirement in New Bill That Banks Must Use This Money To Increase Lending. Paulson Is Fear Mongering... Just as Bush Did before Starting The Iraq War. That Blunder Will Cost America $3 Trillion/ This Is Another Terrible Blunder. Stock Performance for The Last Month ZION Bankcorp +73% Wintrust Financial + 44% Centura Banks +43% Associated Banc Corp +38% Private Bancorp +36% JP Morgan +29% Wells Fargo +29% Capital One +28% MB Financial +25% 1st Source Corp +25% First Midwest Bankcorp +24% Bank of America +23% Great Southern Bancorp +23% Barclays +23% Tell me again, Mr Paulson, What's the hurry? Bank of America is not in financial trouble!  JP Morgan is not in financial trouble!  Consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Nader calls Democratic claims of White House concessions to the Paulson Plan “wish fulfillment” and says the bailout might not be needed in the first place. The Paulson Plan is a "historic swindle". Read Nader's insights. They are refreshing. "A serious intervention in which Washington takes charge would, first, require a new central authority to supervise the financial institutions and compel them to support the government's actions to stabilize the system. Government can apply killer leverage to the financial players: accept our objectives and follow our instructions or you are left on your own--cut off from government lending spigots and ineligible for any direct assistance. If they decline to cooperate, the money guys are stuck with their own mess. If they resist the government's orders to keep lending to the real economy of producers and consumers, banks and brokers will be effectively isolated, therefore doomed. " ================================================================================== Obama and The New Bailout Law In his campaigning, he set forth "several principles that he said should be included in the bailout to ensure that troubled financial firms and their executives don't take advantage of taxpayers. Companies that take financial aid from the government must slash their executives' salaries, he said. Taxpayers must be treated like investors who can share in any Wall Street recovery, perhaps with an ownership stake in the companies that are bailed out, and a new fee on financial services should be created to repay the government aid." Source. Unfortunately, this was more empty Obama campaign rhetoric. The final bill will likely offer little protection to tax payers and give mere lip service to public ownership of the banks that get all this money or place loose and hollow limitations on their executive pay. National protests have erupted over the Bailout Plan.  Protesters want the Congress to protect millions of U.S. citizens who are on the verge of losing their homes due to bad lending practices of creditors instead of doling out public money to big investment firms responsible for ruining the economy. "People are up in arms about this," Matt Holland of the TrueMajority.org, an advocacy group comprising 700,000 members that played a major role in organising the protests in 170 cities in the US. "Our members are livid. They're hitting the streets." Source. Of more than 400 NY Times Blog comments, those opposing the bail out ran 20 to 1.
"Public outrage over bailout
I can understand the outrage. I sympathize with it, because as I have pointed out, it
is bailing out some capital-suppliers who should not be bailed out and supporting managers
and executives who should not be rewarded for their speculative errors....The outrage
should be directed
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