Daily Financial CAPSULE: Community Banks Will Start To Fail, Causes Of The Crisis, Clean Energy Now! Obamatalk
February 28th, 2010 - by: danny
• This Just in: NY Times-Prudential of Britain to Buy A.I.G. Unit in Asia for $35 Billion.
The British insurance company Prudential said Monday it had agreed to buy American International Group’s big life insurance business in Asia in a deal valued at $35.5 billion. The sale of American International Assurance would allow A.I.G. to make the biggest repayment yet toward the more than $180 billion it received as part of a U.S. government bailout.
•WSJ: Soros Criticizes Obama On Bailouts
WASHINGTON – Billionaire investor George Soros, who helped U.S. President Barack Obama raise money for his presidential campaign in 2008, said Sunday he wasn’t happy with Mr. Obama’s handling of the financial crisis.
Mr. Soros said the government should have taken over U.S. banks instead of bailing them out, a move he suggested would have been more popular with Americans.
“The solution that he found to the financial crisis, which was to effectively bail out the banks and allow them to earn their way out of the hole, was, in my opinion, not the right solution,” Mr. Soros said in an interview with CNN. “He should have compulsorily replaced the capital that was lost.”
•Paul Krugman’s Latest Column On Financial Reform
• Tavis Smiley Interviews Van Jones, former White House Green Jobs Czar On The Jobs of Tomorrow Today
“Here’s what I know – we need jobs in America, and right now if you want the jobs of tomorrow you have to make the products of tomorrow. That’s the only way you’re going to get those jobs.
While we’re having this kind of back-and-forth and arguing about whether the science is real, blah, blah, blah, our sisters and brothers in China, God bless them, have now leapfrogged us in the past year on now they are the number one producer of the wind turbines we’re going to need, the smart batteries we’re going to need for advanced cars, the solar panels we’re going to need.
We’ve got tremendous wind and solar resources here, but I’m not talking about green jobs of just somebody putting up Chinese technology and going home. I want us to have the factories producing that stuff here so
I do not want to see this country go from importing dirty energy from the Middle East to importing clean energy technology from China and skip all the jobs in the middle.” [Watch the full interview here → with transcript ]
• The White House: Recovery Act – Year One
One year in, the evidence is clear — and growing by the day — that the Recovery Act is working to cushion the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and lay a new foundation for economic growth. Public and private forecasters ranging from the Council of Economic Advisors to Moody’s Economy and IHS Global now say the Recovery Act is responsible for 2 million jobs or even more nationwide. These jobs have also laid the groundwork for a new clean energy economy, revitalized infrastructure and transportation, helped transform health information technology, and helped make America more competitive for generations to come.
And while the President will not be satisfied until he sees strong job growth, job losses one year in were a fraction of what they were before the Recovery Act was signed. Learn about the progress made through the Vice President’s report, through video from mayors representing towns and cities in every part of the country, and through a map highlighting just a tiny sample of the projects underway. Read the Vice President’s First Annual Report to the President on Progress Implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Recovery Snapshots: Learn About Some of the Diverse Recovery Projects Across the Country. View the full interactive map.
Progress Report: The Transformation to a Clean Energy Economy
[snip]
By 2011 — Nuclear Power: By the end of the President’s first two years in office, we will have provided conditional commitments for loan guarantees for two nuclear power operators to add three to four new nuclear reactors. [More here →]
• Rory O’Connor: Stop The Nukespeak: Tell Us The Truth About Nuclear Power!
Nearly twenty years ago I co-wrote Nukespeak, a cultural history of the selling of nuclear technology for both peaceful and military purposes.
My co-authors and I dedicated the book to George Orwell, whose literary creation of ‘newspeak’ in the classic novel 1984 illustrated the power to control reality through the adroit manipulation of language. The euphemisms, obfuscations and omissions employed by nuclear boosters throughout both industry and government — what one writer has called the “linguistic cosmetics” used “to avoid communicating uncomfortable or threatening thoughts so that the nuclear industry can control the images and perceptions of nuclear power” – were so clearly reminiscent of Orwellian thought control that the homage seemed, if anything, perhaps a little too obvious. [More here →]
• Hip Hop Tour Rolls into Washington: We are the Light, Clean Energy Now!
“Give light and people will find the way.” This quote by Ella Baker, civil rights leader and youth activist, sums up the last day of the Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour. Baker mentored young civil rights stalwarts like Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, Rosa Parks and Bob Moses. Today, she would be proud as the new generation of activists rallied behind the need for clean energy jobs and their right to economic equality in our nation’s capital.
Imagine it. After touring the nation and meeting with young people in urban communities all along the way, the Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour brought its message of clean energy solutions to the steps of the Capitol Building for a closing rally. The event began with music from DJ Biz Markie. His classic beats were heard around the Capitol while hip hop echoed off of our nation’s government buildings. As Biz began, a bus full of Howard University students marched up to the rally with Clean Energy Now! signs and took their place on the stage. [More here →]
• RepowerAmerica.com: Support a clean energy jobs bill: Call your Senator today
The Senate recently introduced their version of landmark clean energy legislation we’ve been working on for years. We need this bill to create jobs and to end the destructive cycle that hurts our planet and our economy by sending millions of dollars overseas that could support clean energy produced by American workers.
Call your Senator: 1-877-9-REPOWER (1-877-9-737-6937)
When you use our hotline, you will be given talking points and simple instructions on how to leave a message with your Senator. After the call, report it to the right so we can coordinate our campaign.
HEADLINES:
• The Great American Bank Robbery – How did the big banks nearly take down the entire economy and still continue to profit? Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains.
Bankruptcy is a key feature of capitalism. Firms sometimes are unable to repay what they owe creditors. Financial reorganization has become a fact of life in many industries. The United States is lucky in having a particularly effective way of giving firms a fresh start – Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code, which has been used repeatedly, for example, by the airlines. Airplanes keep flying; jobs and assets are preserved. Shareholders typically lose everything, and bondholders become the new shareholders. Under new management, and without the burden of debt, the airline can go on. The government plays a limited role in these restructurings: bankruptcy courts make sure that all creditors are treated fairly and that management doesn’t steal the assets of the firm for its own benefits. [More here →]
• THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO AVOID THE FINAL COLLAPSE
• INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND WANTS MORE POWER AND A NEW GLOBAL CURRENCY
• THE AXIS OF GREED: THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE ECONOMIC ELITE
• THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: THE REAL TRUTH
FLASHBACK:
• MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis: Elizabeth Warren On Crash of More Banks
Please consider In D.C., more evidence that commercial real estate headed for foreclosure crisis.
A mortgage crisis like the one that has devastated homeowners is enveloping the nation’s office and retail buildings, and few places are likely to be hit as hard as Washington.
The foreclosure wave is likely to swamp many smaller community banks across the country, and many well-known properties, including Washington’s Mayflower Hotel and the Boulevard at the Capital Centre in Largo, are at risk, industry analysts say.
“There’s been an enormous bubble in commercial real estate, and it has to come down,” said Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, the watchdog created by Congress to monitor the financial bailout. “There will be significant bankruptcies among developers and significant failures among community banks.”
Nearly 3,000 community banks — 40 percent of the banking system — have a high proportion of commercial real estate loans relative to their capital, said Warren, whose committee issued a report on commercial real estate last week. “Every dollar they lose in commercial real estate is a dollar they can’t use for small businesses,” she said. Individuals — who saw their home values drop in the residential mortgage crisis — would not feel that kind of loss, but, Warren said, a large-scale failure would “throw sand into the gears of economic recovery.” [More here →]
WSJ: Academics on Causes of Financial Crisis
Naked Capitalism: EXAMINE AND CRITIQUE THE PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE
Before Barack Obama’s next televised speech, prepare your “Bullshit Bingo” card by drawing a square. I find that 5″ x 5″ is a good size – and dividing it into columns —five across and five down. That will give you 25 1-inch blocks.
2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block:
• Restored our reputation • Strategic fit • Let me be clear • Make no mistake • Back from the brink • Signs of recovery • Out of the loop • Benchmark • Job creation • Fiscal restraint • Win-win • Affordable health care • Previous Administration • At the end of the day • Empower (or empowerment) • Touch base • Mindset • Bipartisan • Trust • Inherited as in “I inherited this mess” • Relief for working families • Unprecedented • Accountable (or held to account) • Free market • Reform
Players can make substitutions to this list, but only one phrase can be used in any one block. Alternatives include:
• Change (as in “change you can believe in) • Universal health care • Brought the economy back from the brink
3. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.
4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout “BULLSHIT!”
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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