from the Associated Press, via NPR here:
Irked by the Federal Reserve’s bailout of Wall Street, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Wednesday that he will seek to block the Senate from confirming Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the nation’s central bank.
By placing a “hold” on Bernanke’s nomination, the Senator will force the full Senate to vote to overrule his decision. Perhaps, it will allow more voices to be heard in opposition to the nomination. Certainly, there ought to be a huge public outcry about the use of stimulus funds to support financial institutions who then failed to pass along even part of benefits they received at the expense of taxpayers. The FED has too long been able to hide all its actions and has clearly this time failed to protect the economy of this country from the sharks who would willingly tear the populace to shreds in order to pocket an extra billion or so. Were the government and the financial system not so tightly interwoven, it is likely that this crisis might not have played out as it did.
Failure is Not Success.
Financial institutions should be allowed to fail if they are not fiscally responsible; car companies should be allowed to fail if they can not build a car people want. Certainly, the richest 2% of this country should not have been able to increase size of their hoard as a result of the schemes the FED allowed to play out and the special treatment accorded their friends. Sanders says it in his statement to the Associated Press
“The American people are disgusted with the greed and recklessness of Wall Street …. People are asking why didn’t the Fed intervene at the appropriate time to stop the casino-type activities of large financial companies,”…
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Sanders said Bernanke should have done more to help struggling Americans, such as demanding that bailed-out banks cut interest rates on credit cards.
One of the biggest grievances of the public — and their representatives in Congress — is the government’s bailout of Wall Street. The multibillion-dollar bailouts of American International Group and other financial firms that continued to hand out huge bonuses sparked fury. They’ve also fueled worries that the Fed’s moves will encourage further reckless bets by companies in the future.
Bernanke, (as I mentioned in a recent previous post) will defend his actions and warn of the dangers of making the FED accountable. Why not, no one wants to be held accountable for his own actions or make them public – especially if it concerns money. No doubt Bernanke will receive the 60 votes necessary to confirm his nomination; there are enough Senators in the Capital who share the fear of public disclosure. But the delay may cause them to reconsider their options. Some of them, at least, will have to face their constituents this year.
The question is this: Can voters make their voices heard in the Senate and hold their Senators accountable for the actions of the past year?
Under pressure from Rupert Murdoch, Google has agreed to limit the number of times that users of their search engine can access subscription content on-line.
Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.
Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages. BBC here
Google is not the only company to come under fire for allowing free access to subscription material, but it is the first to agree to set limits. Publishers of newsprint and on-line news content been increasingly complaining about wide dissemination of their material on the internet, especially as they have seen their profits undercut as more people turn to the internet for the latest news, gossip, scores, and op-eds. The loss of subscription also affects revenue from advertisements, a major source of income for the traditional news industry.
[ Murdoch's] Newscorp, which owns the Times and the Sun newspapers in the UK, has also been affected by the downturn.
In June, it announced losses of $3.4bn (£2bn) for the previous 12 months, describing the year as “the most difficult in recent history”.
It has also revealed plans to begin charging for access to all its online content. The corporation currently charges for access to its US title the Wall Street Journal.
It remains to be seen whether readers will subscribe to news or simply look elsewhere for information. I spotted a poll the other day at blogworld which asked whether bloggers would pay to read favored blogs. The vote went to the Nays.
Perhaps the internet has opened a door to a new (and free) world for its users and they simply will not step back inside, Rupert Murdoch notwithstanding.
Reuters is carrying a story here in which Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, discusses the high rate of unemployment and the need to create more jobs. However, Summers warns that solving these problems will take a long time.
“Addressing 10.2 percent unemployment is a matter of very great urgency. It is not something that is going to be fixed in a week, or a month, or a year,”
(Perhaps Summers agrees with Rahm Emanuel that this is too good a crisis to let go to waste. After all, the transformation of this country is not going to happen in a week either. Three more years, maybe eight, might be needed to complete the job.) In any case the government does have a plan to help create more jobs – there will be a job forum this week at the White House during which firms would be encouraged to “boost hiring.” (I so wish I had thought of that, but, alas, my degree was not in economics.)
The ideas just kept coming though from this man who advises Obama on economic policy.
Summers said policies to foster science in schools, as well as research and development in the private sector, would be crucial to aiding long-term U.S. productivity growth.
Now that is a great idea; it worked when we discovered that the Soviets could get Sputnik into space and we could not. Suddenly, everyone learned science, math and research and years later we were able to send our own craft into space. Of course, there wasn’t the high rate of unemployment during those years we had to wait. In fact, the economy just hummed along as the space industry grew.
But times have changed and our latest policy-maker thinks that we will all be better off if learn our lesson from this financial downturn.
“One of the most damaging ideas in economics is … the doctrine of the cathartic recession. … Somehow it’s for the best if everyone suffers for a long time … (it) teaches everybody a very valuable lesson,” Summers said.
Needless to say, when Summers says everyone, he doesn’t mean the party-givers and party-goers at the White House, Congress, Wall Street, General Electric, etc, etc. He really just means the unemployed, the underemployed and the employed who are just barely getting by – which at this point in time is much larger than the minimum of 10% of the population (and more likely, closer to 17%) unemployed.
I have learned a lesson too – Wall Street, and the Global Corporations, with help from our government, have been sucking the life out of this country and now want to move on to do the same to the rest of the world. (Follow this link and see how far GE’s tentacles are reaching.)
The White House jobs forum will also focus on how to boost U.S. exports, and Summers reiterated the United States would no longer be the engine on which the rest of the world economy could fly.
Our consumer economy can not drive the global economy and another country will have to pick up the slack, according to Summers who suggests that China might be that country, because they import less.
Someone help me here. If our major corporations had no left the country in search of cheaper labor in order to drive their profits, would we have to import as much as we do? Did not the productivity of the U.S. provide more financial stability for the consumer in this country? Was the advertising field not the driving force to push up consumption in this country? Did we not export our products, technology, expertise and management staff to those very countries that are now being sought for their cheap labor and growing consumer market? Do not the citizens of the U.S. still possess creativity, ingenuity, skills, and ambition? Can this country not produce what others want and need if the government, the financiers, and the social engineers would only step out of the way?
The United States allowed my four grandparents to legally work and thrive in this country. Their labour allowed their heirs to acquire skills, experience, education, and, through hard work, a life style my grandparents could never have imagined. I don’t think Summers should be so easily writing the U.S. off. (Of course, I don’t think he should ever have been allowed to participate in this government either.) And I certainly don’t think he ought to be lecturing us about suffering.
Give up your wealth and influence, Mr. Summers; come down here and suffer with the rest of us and then tell me what the lesson is.
This is rich. Ben Bernanke, in today’s Washington Post writes that
our challenge is to design a system of financial oversight that will embody the lessons of the past two years and provide a robust framework for preventing future crises and the economic damage they cause. here
He admits that the FED didn’t really handle the financial crisis as it ought to have done and then adds the scare tactic, warning that any attempt to interfere with the FED at all will cause irreparable harm in the future.
These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States. [bold emphasis mine]
Finally there is this great promise from Bernanke (who is by the way soon to appear before the Senate Banking Committee which is considering his confirmation to another term at the FED).
Moreover, looking to the future, we strongly support measures — including the development of a special bankruptcy regime for financial firms whose disorderly failure would threaten the integrity of the financial system — to ensure that ad hoc interventions of the type we were forced to use last fall never happen again. Adopting such a resolution regime, together with tougher oversight of large, complex financial firms, would make clear that no institution is “too big to fail” – while ensuring that the costs of failure are borne by owners, managers, creditors and the financial services industry, not by taxpayers. [Bold emphasis mine]
He’s right, of course, the response to the behaviour of Bernanke, Paulson and Geithner during the “too big to fail” crisis has finally garnered public support for Ron Paul’s long campaign to remove the veil of secrecy from the FED. As we have recently learned, the hidden-from-view dealings with the BIG BANKS were not in the taxpayer’s interests. If the FED hasn’t learned, since its inception, how to handle economic crisis and oversee the banks why should we assume they will do any better now?
Read the rest of his plea for forgiveness in the Washington Post and then hope that the Senate Committee ignores it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Tim Geithner believes that “the economy is better by any measure” since Obama took Office.
Here’s how this works – you may be out of work, struggling to pay your bills and feed your family but as long as “Big Brother” tells us how lucky we are and what the “truth” is, we should all rejoice. Repeat often: The economy is recovering, The economy is recovering.”
Geithner’s assurance not withstanding, his optimism is not reflected by these headlines of the past few weeks at the BBC .
The “RECOVERY IS LOSS “new speak” of this administration
U.S. confidence is up, but not so much: US consumer confidence edges up but remains subdued
The economy failed to meet expected growth between April and September: US economic growth revised down
In September, the trade gap widened: US trade gap widens unexpectedly
In October, housing construction fell: Surprise fall in US home building
In November, home sales were up, but only because the government was giving tax credits to first-time, thereby increasing government debt: US home sales boosted by tax credits
I feel so much better now that I see how well we are doing; don’t you.
Thanks, Tim.
While our undermanned, under-served, and overwhelmed military are being killed or wounded, our president holds meeting about what to do in Afghanistan. His ninth meeting is scheduled for today – good thing for the troops that the “bow and scrape” Asian tour is over. Hopefully, Obama will be able to make some sort of decision before he has to run off with the family to “rest” from the strenuous activities involved with the presidency. [We should have elected a women who is good at multi-tasking.]
Obama defenders, like Maureen Dowd say that Obama should be praised for standing back and thinking about an exit strategy before giving his generals what they want.
But Afghanistan is a wrenching decision, and we do need the closest exit ramp. So the president should get credit for standing back and studying the issue, and for not rubber-stamping the generals’ predictable urge to surge. But the way he has handled the perception part has allowed critics — including generals — to cast him as indecisive. here
But Obama has had plenty of time to think about the Afghanistan War; he has been thinking about it since he started campaigning. Remember when candidate Obama continually slammed Bush and McCain for failing to act in Afghanistan where, he said, the real problem was/is.
Or, here in March of this year, when he said commanders in the field in Afghanistan would finally get the resources they need. No caveats here about the government in Afghanistan; no hint that we might give up, just a strong and determined leader doing what needed to be done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5nL1gj4p0o
Oops, that did not gonna last long. When General McCrystal asked for an increase in troops, the issue suddenly became complicated – as it always should be when you commit troops to war – but the man who campaigned for 8 years on the issue of Afghanistan couldn’t follow through with his earlier rhetoric.
Maybe Obama will make a decision to pull our troops back, something he ought to have done while he was making his other decision. If we are gonna give up on Afghanistan, it would have prevented the needless loss of lives.
According to a BBC story here
This has been the deadliest year for foreign troops since the 2001 invasion.
Since 2001- under Bush. Well, Obama, I guess you showed Bush how it should have been done, eh?
Maybe Obama should pass this decision on to someone else as he did with the KSM trial.
(Oh, for the record, I was not a supporter of Bush/Cheney nor the Iraq and Afghan invasions, so don’t go answering me on that basis again, please.)
If Obama studied Constitution Law, he either didn’t get it or he didn’t like it. As we have seen during his brief nine months in office, he’s perfectly willing to step around the Constitution whenever he likes – a fact that has a lot of citizens in this country so worried that his ratings continue to decline. Here is another example, which was called to my attention yesterday by the blog, Women State. According to Kris Kobach, a professor of constitutional law and a former counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft, in an opinion column at The Washington Post [here]:
The attorney general has no constitutional or statutory authority to unilaterally order the Defense Department to hand over military detainees so they can stand trial in civilian court.
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Former Attorney General John Ashcroft noted this problem in an interview on Wednesday: “The attorney general doesn’t have the authority to mandate that the secretary of defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have been done in a military setting is done in a civilian setting.” (bold emphasis mine)
Is there a constitutional authority by which Holder made this decision that surpasses The Constitution? Not many of us would have thought so, but Holder doesn’t seem concerned with that question or with those asked at his meeting with the Senate Judiciary Committee where he provided only the briefest of answer to Republican questions about the whether the verdict would be guilt, whether security secrets would be protected and even whether the “enemy” could claim asylum and rights under immigration law (see more questions in David Beamer’s The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece two days ago (here)
The attorney general seemed bewildered in the face of these inquiries. Recurring themes in his responses included “I think,” and “I can’t imagine,” and “I am not an expert in immigration.”
Has our attorney general not considered these issues, or imagined the possible unintended consequences that will arise from his historic decision? It certainly seemed that way. If he had, he would have had better answers.
Beamer then added
Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war. What are the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn’t make the cut? (bold emphasis mine)
The one question Beamer missed was the constitutional one. Can Holder make this decision? According to Ashcroft in the New York Post article ,
The only one who does have the authority is the superior of both the AG and the defense secretary: President Obama himself.
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For this to be done legally, it can’t be Holder’s decision alone. Either Obama must step up to the plate and personally order the transfer of the detainees or Defense Secretary Robert Gates must jointly agree with Holder to transfer custody of the detainees.
Did Gates agree? No response to that yet, but we do know from the president himself that he told Holder to make the decision. Decisions are hard for Obama as is assuming responsibility for a failed policy, so I’m not surprised that we can add another sidestep.
But the real question for me is whether the president knows that he is CIC as well as civilian chief or whether he just doesn’t really care much for The Constitution.
The Wall Street Journal thinks so according to its headline today. House Attacks Fed, Treasury According to the Journal,
The vote [by the House Financial Services Committee to audit the FED's activities] was the latest blow to the central bank, which has been become a lightning rod for politicians responding to popular anger that Wall Street was bailed out while the public wasn’t. The Fed faces a stinging backlash from legislators from both parties who argue that has too much power and too little oversight. On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee began debating legislation that would largely remove the Fed from bank supervision over the objections of the Fed and the Obama administration. (bold emphases mine)
Imagine that – politicians actually aware of what the “popular anger” is about and responding to it. Assuming that the Journal means people outside of Wall Street when it uses the word “popular” like that, (you know those ignorant “populace” who don’t know enough to be angry about the FED’s handling of the economy), assuming that’s the implication I say that it is about time Congress paid attention to what we think. Of course, elections are just around the corner for many members of Congress, so it’s possible that they are just listening for the sake of knowing what will be popular when they have to seek reelection.
But I digress.
After discussing the Joint Economic Committee, which I mentioned in an earlier post today, the Journal continues
The Paul provision, and the legislation to which it is attached, would have to clear the full House and Senate before becoming law. Though many lawmakers insist they won’t do anything to compromise the Fed’s independence on monetary policy, the provision’s momentum is substantial. It could be diluted before any bill reaches the president.
While it is true that the bill of financial regulation might be diluted, the Journal ignores the fact that Paul’s amendment has significant support this year.
And from here on it’s in good shape. The bill has massive support in the House—the majority of the chamber has signed on as co-sponsors—and 30 co-sponsors in the Senate. It’s an epochal development in the relationship between the government and the country’s quasi-governmental central bank. here
Paul has already indicated that he will vote to pass any regulation in order to finally bring transparency to the FED. Here is the full press release from his office:
For Immediate Release
November 19, 2009Paul-Grayson Amendment Passes Committee
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) is pleased to announce that his and Congressman Grayson’s amendment based on HR 1207 has passed in the Financial Services Committee by a vote of 43-26 and will be included in major banking reform legislation.
The Paul/Grayson amendment:
· Removes the blanket restrictions on GAO audits of the Fed
· Allows audit of every item on the Fed’s balance sheet, all credit facilities, all securities purchase programs, etc.
· Retains limited audit exemption on unreleased transcripts and minutes
· Sets 180-day time lag before details of Fed’s market actions may be released
· States that nothing in the amendment shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy by Congress or the GAO“While HR 3996, if passed, will grant sweeping new powers to the Federal Reserve, at least with this amendment attached, it won’t be acting in secret anymore. This is a major victory for Federal Reserve transparency and government accountability. I am very grateful to Congressman Bachus and all the other Members who were so supportive and helpful in this effort,” stated Congressman Paul.
Is this an attack? No, it’s a peaceful revolution. Spin it anyway you want; it just means that some of the populace have figured out that the government and the banks are so intertwined thGoldman Sachs may actually be running the country. Well, not all of it. J.P. Morgan Chase, CITI, Bank of America and certainly General Electric have a hand in it too, as do other financial institutions from around the world. We the people just want to know who and what our government is spending our money on. I suppose from a certain point of view that could be considered an attack. The Declaration of Independence certainly was seen as an attack by Great Britain wasn’t it?
New guidelines have been announced by the American College of obstetrician and Gynecologists: Report: Push Back Age of Cervical Cancer Tests
Following suggestions that women don’t really need mammograms every year comes this new set of guidelines that suggest that
women younger than 30 should undergo cervical cancer screening once every two years instead of an annual exam. And those age 30 and older can be screened once every three years.
But wait here is an interesting final sentence to the Reuters story:
In the past 30 years, cervical cancer rates in the United States have fallen by more than half, due in large part to widespread use of cervical cancer screening.
Maybe that’s the problem. Too many women living because of early cancer detection – breast or cervical. First we are told that we must have universal health care because too many people are not getting the service they need, including pregnant women and sexually active teenagers. Then we are told that the services that have cut breast and cervical cancer rates in the U.S. (and actually reduced deaths from all forms of cancer overall) are being conducted too often. Skip the test, take a chance, and – just maybe – die. Outrageous!
See the paranoia is getting to me, too. But I have a right to be paranoid; several members of my family survived because of early screening.
Maybe the release of all these stories within a few days is a way of diverting attention from the health care provisions being offered by our Congressional “leaders.” Maybe, it is the health industry’s way of scaring us, hoping that we can stop Congress.
I don’t know but tomorrow looks to be an important day for women’s rights.
