Let’s face it; the homeowners going into foreclosure are toast. They have pretty much exhausted their finances and ruined their credit ratings. Landlords will refrain from renting to them on top of all of their other problems. Congress mentions a 300 million dollar bailout, and that wouldn’t even cover the fraud stuff in Northern San Diego County. It also wouldn’t cover what they spent getting re-elected either.
How is Bernanke going to save the economy? Is this going to be some sort of religious experience??? Altering the interest rates doesn’t change the amount of debt in the country. If you were to mentally ask the question, “Why did he wait till now?” You have already made an improper assumption, in assuming that he can fix the problem. The Fed is just too small to move the world markets.
What we are dealing with is group psychology (i.e. everybody). It revolves around the group’s consensus of the general economy. It’s party time, enjoy yourself. The stock market seems to be the place to be and everyone is there. It's a little like the housing fiasco, 90% of the people in the market, have no idea of what they are doing—yet! Bernanke and Bush will hold your hand. Doesn't it just give you that warm and fuzzy feeling?
Confidence in the economy, that’s the name of the game, without it the game is over. The real game that is being played right now is a political one. Bush is a lame duck; the Democrats don’t want a solution to this mess right now. This is their ticket to getting elected; they will ride to the rescue. FDR gave us Social Security; I guess this time around we get Hillary and free health care.
Here is a cute little ditty from the Great Depression about then Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon and President Hoover:
Mellon pulled the whistle,
Hoover rang the bell,
Wall Street gave the signal,
And the country went to hell
As for last month’s parties, The Jim Jones Kool Aid Party for Lenders was a real knockout. I wonder if Bernanke is going to wear a sorcerer’s costume to the Hedge Fund Halloween Meltdown Party that is underway? He’s going to have to pull more than a Greenspan out of his hat.
7 comments:
In downtown LA on top of one of the buildings either on Broadway or Grand ISTR had a 20-ft high sign proclaiming "Jesus Saves."
Some wag with a column in one of the free weeklies way-back in the 1980's photographed this and superimposed underneath it:
"At K-Mart"
If this were ancient Rome I can easily visualize in my mind's eye Bernanke and Cheney et al examining the entrails of some poor animal ritually slaughtered as sacrife, providing Rome's defender's, via access to the latest in heathen technology, keen insight into the prosperous future of that city-state.
I don't want risk having the image of Cheney wearing a toga burn-in so I am going to move on from this fantasy and point out had the "leadership" of our modern state had been circumspect, perhaps they might not have engineered such a wobbly bridge to the future.
Jim, I`m sure you`ve ran across the hoopla concerning the US or Israel possibly striking Iran before W leaves office. IF this were to happen, do you think this would have an effect on pump prices, and if so, would it be possible for the US population to digest such an increase in price considering the state of the nation as it is? I realize that this is a lot of conjecture on my part, but do you think that they would pursue such an agenda with the current housing slump and overextended consumer? (well, I`m assuming that there are overextended consumers, maybe we are not in as bad as shape as I think we are)
Hi Anon
If you take Iran's' 70 million Muslims that want to wipe out a Jewish state of 6 million, I think this leaves the Israelis with some valid paranoia. If you calculate that Israel has been making one nuclear weapon per year that would be about 35 goodies in their arsenal at minimum. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Israelis nailed that nuclear complex. The US won't get involved. It would be too much good press for the Muslim world if they did.
As the price of oil increases, more marginal production comes on line. The crap they pump out of the ocean over by Santa Barbara was only worth $8 a barrel when Light Sweet was selling for $35.
The last time the price of oil doubled, the Arabs didn't double their income, they ended up with less, and inflation killed them.
The real problem to deal with in the US with the rise in the price of oil commodity's such as gasoline, is that it is a tax. Taxes hurt the economy.
This commodity is transported thousands of miles and then refined and delivered to a station that you buy it from for $2.80 a gallon. That appears expensive, but at my son's high school all the kids were buying 12 oz bottles of water for $1.25. Thats over $5 a gallon for drinking water.
I guess the moral here is, "Be glad your car doesn't run on bottled water."
Here in Boston there once was a bumper sticker that read, Jesus Saves and Esposito scores on the rebound.
If you take a nation of 6 million armed with nuclear weapons made with technology it stole from it's ally, the USA, and arm them with control of the media in said USA, and the most influetial lobby in D.C.,and stand by while this made-out-of-whole-cloth "nation" of 50 years Genocides the existing population, then I would state Israel DESERVES to "be paranoid", they ask for it.
Geez, and economic blog, and I get some propaganda about justifiably paranoid Israelis???
Sure, that's why the Jews in Iran awarded their PM, becuase he "wants to wipe them out." These Jews refuse to leave Iran, and turned Tel Aviv down cold.
Say, ever hear the phrase "regime change", Jim in San Marcos"
THAT is what the Iranian leader stated. And, the world outside San Marcos agrees: Israel and the US NEED REGIME CHANGE.
Hi Farang
The Israelis stole Nuclear technology from the US???? Maybe you ought to re-examine history. Teller and Einstein fled Nazi Germany---and then there is Oppenheimer. They built the bomb. They're all Jewish.
I agree that this is an economic blog, but we are dealing with a region of the world that has a religious crisis, an oil crisis and a water crisis. The next country to build a dam over there could start a world war.
My wife is from Iran and we follow that area of the world and sadly it doesn't look good.
Your comments about a regime change sounds like you have been smoking too much rope. Put another way, spend a little more for your drugs.
Those who built the bomb were Jewish, not Israeli. Also, they were working for the US. Israel didn't exist yet. Thus, Jim in San Marcos, your comments are completely illogical.
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