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Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
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Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-a-london/unemployment-and-the-defi_b_856987.html
Quiethawk- Elite Poster
- Posts : 707
Join date : 2011-02-12
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
That author Paul A. London uses the words 'Tea Party' 11 times & the word 'unemployment' 11 times in his article that came out yesterday evening.....yet there's only 1 comment posted??
I'm curious about his contention that the financial crisis caused the mass layoffs. I thought it was the other way around.....the mass layoffs caused people not to be able to afford to pay their mortgages which led to the financial crisis. Spiralling into more layoffs & more foreclosures.
Does anyone have a link to an article that talks about which came first--the mass layoffs or the mass foreclosures?? Thanx.
I'm curious about his contention that the financial crisis caused the mass layoffs. I thought it was the other way around.....the mass layoffs caused people not to be able to afford to pay their mortgages which led to the financial crisis. Spiralling into more layoffs & more foreclosures.
Does anyone have a link to an article that talks about which came first--the mass layoffs or the mass foreclosures?? Thanx.
Phillymg- Super Poster
- Posts : 1435
Join date : 2011-02-13
Age : 65
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
by Phillymg
""Does anyone have a link to an article that talks about which came first--the mass layoffs or the mass foreclosures?? Thanx.""
He is reffering to the market fueled speculation, not nesacarial "foreclosures" per se....and all the speculation diverited money from everybody to the few who always benefit from such abuse...
""Does anyone have a link to an article that talks about which came first--the mass layoffs or the mass foreclosures?? Thanx.""
He is reffering to the market fueled speculation, not nesacarial "foreclosures" per se....and all the speculation diverited money from everybody to the few who always benefit from such abuse...
elvis44102- Elite Poster
- Posts : 574
Join date : 2011-02-12
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
Paul A. London - Unemployment & the Defict--The Disconnect
May 6, 2011 - Huffington Post
Elvis--It doesn't make sense. Massive numbers of people didn't start having their homes foreclosed upon when they still had jobs. Didn't the layoffs come first & then the massive foreclosures after that??
May 6, 2011 - Huffington Post
A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans view unemployment as the biggest economic problem facing the country. So why are Republicans letting Tea Party zealots put out in their name a draconian plan to cut the deficit that would do nothing to bring joblessness down?
Today's painfully high unemployment -- over 14 million jobless and millions more forced to work part time -- has nothing to do with budget deficits. The surge in unemployment at the end of the Bush Administration had nothing to do with the budget deficits he ran every year of his administration.
Spending on Medicare, Social Security and aging Baby Boomers that the Tea Party deficit plan in its sights has nothing to do with joblessness.
The "war of choice" that George W. Bush opted for in Iraq has nothing to do with unemployment, although it is adding trillions to the deficit.
The Tea Party's focus on deficits is not about jobs. To the contrary, it is a way to shift attention from the real cause of joblessness -- egregiously greedy behavior by the American financial community and anti-regulation regulators -- to the government.
It burns me that the Tea Party invokes the history of patriots who threw British tea into Boston Harbor and ignores the history of a dozen American financial speculations that led to mass unemployment when they collapsed.
In the late 1980s, a speculation in housing on President Reagan's watch led to the collapse of almost a quarter of U.S. Savings and Loan institutions and required a $90 billion government bailout. The recession and unemployment that followed probably cost George H.W. Bush the presidential election of 1992.
President George W. Bush learned nothing from his father's experience. He and Alan Greenspan, the overrated chairman of the Federal Reserve, stood by and cheered a much larger financial speculation in housing from 2002 to 2007. The Great Recession that followed is the reason the U.S. has 8.8 percent unemployed today.
Tea Party Republicans act as though the 2002-2007 housing speculation and the unemployment that followed had nothing to do with them. They refuse to accept responsibility for cheering on the hucksters, the erstwhile "masters of the universe," whose wealth they would not touch. Like Huck Finn's drunken father, the Tea Party blames the "govment" when the problem is the culture of quick enrichment that they continue to encourage.
It is not the deficit that is causing unemployment. What happened is that private lenders loosened credit standards so that they could make more money. Taking advantage of peoples' trust, they made loans to millions to buy houses knowing that many of them would not be able to pay back the loans. These lenders then packaged the dicey loans into mortgage-backed securities and got rid of them. CEO's at the nation's leading banks, who should have known better or been better supervised had their institutions buy the risky securities because they paid high interest rates.
Many bankers only pretended that they knew what was in the packaged securities they were buying. They did not want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Wiser ones knew what was in the securities but hoped to sell them before others found out. They minimized in their minds, no doubt, the outsized risks they were taking to "earn" returns that would justify bloated compensation. Real students of American history -- although clearly not the Tea Party -- know the same thing happened in almost identical fashion in the late 1920s.
In 2007 and 2008 the gravy train stopped. The ordinary Americans who had been suckered into borrowing at high rates were unable to pay the lenders back. The mortgage-backed securities the banks had bought became unsalable and lost much of their value. The value of the capital in bank vaults, therefore, fell drastically reducing their ability to make loans to solid non-speculative businesses. The government had to step in to keep essential credit flowing to non-speculators.
Unemployment soared in the housing industry, spread to raw materials linked to building, and then to manufacturing and the service sector.
Did this soaring joblessness have anything to do with government deficits? Absolutely not!
Alexander Hamilton was the American Founder who understood best what makes an economy work. He built the foundations of America's modern free enterprise system while serving as George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton had a friend, William Duer, who was speculating in government bonds in the early 1790s, and borrowing heavily to do so.
Hamilton had nurtured a market for government bonds because he understood that it would help the young country grow. He knew the difference, however between prudent investment and speculation. He warned his friend Duer repeatedly not to go too far.
Duer, like the "masters of the universe" the Tea Party is hiding behind the deficit smokescreen, did not listen. Duer lost everything when the speculation collapsed: He was not protected by corporate law that today limits liability, allowing modern speculators to stash gains away where the people they fleece can not get them. Duer was sent to debtor's prison where he was almost lynched by other New Yorkers whose money he had lost.
Hamilton, unlike the Tea Party zealots, took care of the country and did not pretend his businessman friend was innocent. He made sure that the banks that the speculators could not repay had enough money in their vaults to continue making worthwhile loans to others. He put customs and other government revenues in their vaults to tide them over until they had made up for the speculative loses. Lending for worthwhile projects continued and no depression followed. As for William Duer, he died in the debtor's prison 7 years later. Hamilton remained his friend but despite Duer's entreaties he would not get him out of jail or absolve him of responsibility.
There are lessons in this history that are lost on today's Tea Party-led Republican Party. They have not learned from Hamilton's behavior toward Duer 220 years ago that belief in free enterprise does not require us to believe that financial markets don't need to be supervised.
Hamilton also could teach them that government debt for real investments --- public works, education --- is worthwhile and is not, as they so foolishly say, just another word for "spending."
Hamilton led American troops in a dangerous assault on British trenches at the climactic Battle of Yorktown when he could have stayed out of harm's way. He had matching political courage that he displayed in building a tax system to fund the government, something a majority of Republicans have not had the political guts to vote for in three decades.
Most important, Hamilton understood that job creation depends on releasing the energies of all the people not on get-rich-quick speculations that benefit only a few sharpies. Sadly in the Tea Party distortion of American history real causes of unemployment --- the sins of financial wheeler-dealers like Duer left unsupervised --- are covered up by rhetoric about government spending, and the government whose vital role Hamilton understood gets smeared.
Elvis--It doesn't make sense. Massive numbers of people didn't start having their homes foreclosed upon when they still had jobs. Didn't the layoffs come first & then the massive foreclosures after that??
Phillymg- Super Poster
- Posts : 1435
Join date : 2011-02-13
Age : 65
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
Even setting aside the question of massive unemployment causing massive foreclosures.....
Let's say there were 'dicey' loans packaged & sold to banksters at inflated prices under fake AAA ratings. THAT MONEY DIDN'T JUST DISAPPEAR. Somebody got the money from the banksters.
Who got the money?? Somebody has the money.
Let's say there were 'dicey' loans packaged & sold to banksters at inflated prices under fake AAA ratings. THAT MONEY DIDN'T JUST DISAPPEAR. Somebody got the money from the banksters.
Who got the money?? Somebody has the money.
Phillymg- Super Poster
- Posts : 1435
Join date : 2011-02-13
Age : 65
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
I heard the top 1% have 90% of the wealth but I found this data
http://afgen.com/feudal2.html
Dan Rather got fired by CBS after 40 years for negative things he said about Bush,so did some other CBS people!
http://www.alternet.org/economy/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_america's_wealth_--_what's_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back
http://www.osjspm.org/101_wealth.aspx
http://stevendiebold.com/90-of-the-worlds-wealth-is-held-by-1-of-the-population/
I heard the top 1% have 90% of the wealth but I found this data
http://afgen.com/feudal2.html
Dan Rather got fired by CBS after 40 years for negative things he said about Bush,so did some other CBS people!
http://www.alternet.org/economy/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_america's_wealth_--_what's_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back
http://www.osjspm.org/101_wealth.aspx
http://stevendiebold.com/90-of-the-worlds-wealth-is-held-by-1-of-the-population/
theend- Premium Poster
- Posts : 140
Join date : 2011-04-21
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
I guess what I'm saying is that back in 2007 & 2008 when bank executives were buying up packages of loans that had been illegally labeled AAA.....they *paid* other people for those packages. Every bank has a *list* of every package it bought. For every package it PAID SOMEONE--SOMEONE'S NAME WAS ON THE CHECK OR CASH TRANSFER.
Doesn't the SEC have these lists?? Doesn't the SEC know who committed the criminal acts of falsely labeling packages as AAA?? Surely the SEC knows where the money went.
I think TARP under Bush was the way the crimes were covered up. The banks got the bailout loans (at really low interest rates) to help them make investments that would compensate for what they'd lost when purchasing worthless packages. There were NO STRINGS attached meaning that the banks didn't have to release the lists of people who had sold them the illegal packages or the names of the banks executives who bought the packages (& may have been in collusion with the sellers & getting kickbacks). The result is that NO ONE HAS EVEN BEEN CHARGED WITH THE CRIMES & NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN FORCED TO GIVE BACK THE MONEY.
I agree that it's probably people in the top 1% of the population who are involved.....but they shouldn't be above the law. That's why our Founders gave us a Constitution.
Doesn't the SEC have these lists?? Doesn't the SEC know who committed the criminal acts of falsely labeling packages as AAA?? Surely the SEC knows where the money went.
I think TARP under Bush was the way the crimes were covered up. The banks got the bailout loans (at really low interest rates) to help them make investments that would compensate for what they'd lost when purchasing worthless packages. There were NO STRINGS attached meaning that the banks didn't have to release the lists of people who had sold them the illegal packages or the names of the banks executives who bought the packages (& may have been in collusion with the sellers & getting kickbacks). The result is that NO ONE HAS EVEN BEEN CHARGED WITH THE CRIMES & NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN FORCED TO GIVE BACK THE MONEY.
I agree that it's probably people in the top 1% of the population who are involved.....but they shouldn't be above the law. That's why our Founders gave us a Constitution.
Phillymg- Super Poster
- Posts : 1435
Join date : 2011-02-13
Age : 65
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
by Phillymg Today at 20:05
Even setting aside the question of massive unemployment causing massive foreclosures.....
Let's say there were 'dicey' loans packaged & sold to banksters at inflated prices under fake AAA ratings. THAT MONEY DIDN'T JUST DISAPPEAR. Somebody got the money from the banksters.
Who got the money?? Somebody has the money.
You raise an interesting point... The value of absolutly everything in the world is 167 trillion dollars, yet the "derivatives" market is worth 567 TRILLION dollars, how can that be...
People who trade in these things can and do make money on total catastropies, depending on when and how they "BET" the market, the usual suspects got away with practilly outright thievery AGAIN...
I am going to look further into this as I write, but supose a companys value is set at one billion dollars (through a multitude of ways)
now the market revalues this company as worthless...
The money has "DISAPPEARED" hasn't it????
I think its the nature of the "bubbles" in the market....
the very first bubble market was for tulips in Holland
the price of tulips went to millions of dollars then the price dropped to nothing....your million dollars worth of tulipd is now worth nothing...
There was "trouble" with foreclosures in the market before there was an unemployment crisis, the trouble in the financial sector caused overall market forces to get the jitters and hiccups....
Did a little more research...seems REAL value cannot disappear, however "inflated" value would seem can disappear...the case for the Tulips as well as Americas "financial flim flam men"
interesting though try seaching for disappearing money....
http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2008/10/15/Credit-Derivatives-Role-in-Crash
http://www.slate.com/id/2202263/
Even setting aside the question of massive unemployment causing massive foreclosures.....
Let's say there were 'dicey' loans packaged & sold to banksters at inflated prices under fake AAA ratings. THAT MONEY DIDN'T JUST DISAPPEAR. Somebody got the money from the banksters.
Who got the money?? Somebody has the money.
You raise an interesting point... The value of absolutly everything in the world is 167 trillion dollars, yet the "derivatives" market is worth 567 TRILLION dollars, how can that be...
People who trade in these things can and do make money on total catastropies, depending on when and how they "BET" the market, the usual suspects got away with practilly outright thievery AGAIN...
I am going to look further into this as I write, but supose a companys value is set at one billion dollars (through a multitude of ways)
now the market revalues this company as worthless...
The money has "DISAPPEARED" hasn't it????
I think its the nature of the "bubbles" in the market....
the very first bubble market was for tulips in Holland
the price of tulips went to millions of dollars then the price dropped to nothing....your million dollars worth of tulipd is now worth nothing...
There was "trouble" with foreclosures in the market before there was an unemployment crisis, the trouble in the financial sector caused overall market forces to get the jitters and hiccups....
Did a little more research...seems REAL value cannot disappear, however "inflated" value would seem can disappear...the case for the Tulips as well as Americas "financial flim flam men"
interesting though try seaching for disappearing money....
http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2008/10/15/Credit-Derivatives-Role-in-Crash
http://www.slate.com/id/2202263/
elvis44102- Elite Poster
- Posts : 574
Join date : 2011-02-12
Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
Philly it's the FED that's why they will not open their books, they know where all the bodies are buried.... They know who did what and they know where the money went. It's on a global scale not just the US. That's why the are putting up such a fight to Bernie Sander's demand to open the books.
Quiethawk- Elite Poster
- Posts : 707
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Re: Unemployment and the Deficit: The Disconnect Great History Lesson
Vintage Bernie Sanders at the CA Democratic Convention 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLsaldICH94
Patriot- Premium Poster
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Location : Earth
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