Corporate Bail-Out? / National Sell-Out !

Whether the Great Depression, Britain’s nationalization policies of the past, The Keynesian stimulus has never failed to, well, fail. Public or consumer confidence, if you will, has never gone for the falsity of dollars used to paper over a structurally broken economy. Clearly the Obama Administration, bereft of any real understanding and with no clear solution is running scared. The flight to economics of failure whether of the right or the left underscores the utter poverty of leadership today.

The scale of the bail-outs turns a new page in history. Does anyone really understand the magnitude of it all. Firstly, how many are even aware of the total commitment so far. The tally at this point is an incomprehensible 11.5 trillion. (Detailed in appended table) What does 11.5 trillion dollars of borrowed money actually mean? How about $35,500 per capita or $142,000 for every American family of four? This does not even include further appropriations that will seem necessary as this supposed “stimulus” flounders, as history has shown, as it must. It is well to remember that such astounding debt does not include cumulative interest nor the political price to be paid the chief debt-holder, the government of China.

How bad might it get in America. The Chicago Tribune pointed out (Jan.29) that you can buy a house with a credit card in Detroit these days, the median price of a home in the depressed economy of Detroit having fallen to just $7500! (No, that is not a misprint).

The only event in American history which relates to this boondoggle is the cost of WWII.
The cost of the war in the US was only $288 billion. It’s inflation-adjusted cost, just 3.2 trillion, a relative bargain compared to the unimaginable credit crisis. Of course, the silver lining of the greatest of wars in human history was that those dollars were used to stimulate American production and effectively ended the Great Depression.

If this comparison doesn’t expose the mistaken policy for what it is consider these historic expenditures which combined still only account for about 1/3 of the stimulus.

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• Savings& Loan Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion (Bianco Research)

Lacking prudence and experience, Obama has indentured Americans for many generations to come --ironic, considering his origins.

Although taboo topics, Rampant inflation on a scale never before seen in America and the eventual possiblility of war with China as US seeks to escape impossible debt seem necessary outcomes of a

Prudence and common sense should have prevailed.

TABLE OF US "STIMULUS" DOLLARS
Total: Allocated $11.5 trillion Spent $2.2 trillion
Date----------------------------Allocation---Spent
December 2007 Bank BailOut $2.9 trillion $447.6 billion
February 2008 Tax Stimulus $168 billion $168 billion
March 2008 Bear Stearns Bail $29 billion $25.9 billion
March 2008 Commercial LendBanks n/a $90.4 billion1
May 2008 Student Loan Guar.$130 billion $9 billion
Sept. 2008 Fannie & Freddie $400 billion2 $13.8 billion
Sept. 2008 Foreign Liquidity "Unlimited"$375 billion
Oct. 2008 At Risk Mortgages$320 billion $20 billion
Oct. 2008 AutoIndustryFuel Eff $25 billion $0
Oct. 2008 Liquidity Relief $700 billion $296.9 billion
Oct. 2008 Bank Capital Inv $250 billion $196 billion
November 2008 AIG Bailout $40 billion $40 billion
Nov. 2008 Citigroup Bailout $20 billion $20 billion
November 2008 Citigroup II $5 billion $0
Nov.'08 MortgageBackedLoans$100 billion $0
Dec. 2008 Auto Industry Gen'l $24.9 billion $20.9 billion
December 2008 GM Bailout$13.4 billion $9.4 billion
Dec. 2008 CryslerLtd Bailout $4 billion $4 billion
December 2008 GMAC Finance $6 billion $6 billion
January 2009 Chryser Financial $1.5 billion $1.5 billion
January 2009 Bank of America $20 billion $20 billion
Feb. 2009 ForeclosurePrevention $50 billion $0
Feb. '09 Public-PrivateInvestment Unknown $0
Feb. 2009 Unallocated Funds $190.1 billion n/a
Oct. 2008 $ Market Guarantees$659 billion $15 billion
Oct. 2008 Commercial Paper $1.4 trillion $248.7 billion
Nov. '08 Unemployment Benefits $8 billion $8 billion
Nov. 2008 AIG Bailouts $152.5 billion $123.7 billion
Nov. 2008 Defunct Lenders $40 billion $40 billion
Nov. 2008 Bridge Loans $60 billion $37.4 billion
November 2008 AIG Bailouts $30 billion $27.7 billion
Nov.08 Mortgage-Backed Bailout$22.5 billion $18.6 billion
Nov. 2008 Commercial Paper Guar. $20.9 billion $4 billion
November 2008 Citigroup MB's $301 billion $245 billion
November 2008 Asset-Backed Loans $1 trillion $0
November 2008 Fannie&Freddie MB's $500 billion $65.1 billion
November 2008 Fannie&Freddie GSE $100 billion $33.6 billion
November 2008 FDIC Guarantees $1.5 trillion $258 billion
November 2008 FDIC Bank Takeovers n/a $16.7 billion
January 2009 Bank of America $118 billion $97 billion
January 2009 Credit Union Guar. $80 billion $0
January 2009 Fed.Credit Union 1 billion $1 billion
February 2009 State Tax Cuts $787.2 billion $0
February 2009 Tax Cuts Gen'l 212 billion n/a
February 2009 Direct Spending $267 billion n/a
Feb. '09 Appropriations Spending $308.3 billion n/a
Feb. 2009 FDIC Bank Takeovers n/a $1.7 billion

Canada's "Obalma"

Canada’s Seen an Obama Before
Entire Article By PETER WORTHINGTON From the Toronto Sun (Feb., 2009)

It’s fashionable for Americans to say they’ve never before seen such public adulation as there is for Barack Obama. But we Canadians have: Pierre Trudeau.
While it’s true that Obama can do no wrong at the moment (a concern for him and his people who fear expectations are too high), it was similar in Canada when Trudeau became PM in 1968.
There are curious similarities in the two — both charismatic personalities, both achieved the highest office in the respective countries without much public examination or accountability, both were suspect (by some) of far left leanings, both virtually immune from criticism, led by an adoring media which groveled to have its belly scratched.
After a succession of minority governments, Canadians welcomed Trudeau’s majority government — dazzled by his oft-irreverent style, his somersaults off diving boards, his barely concealed contempt for the media, which kept coming back for more.
Obama is half white but is viewed as a black; Trudeau was half English and was viewed as French.
Despite seemingly interminable primaries and the U.S. election campaign, we really didn’t learn much about Obama that he didn’t want us to know. By his mid-40s he’d written two books about himself that were critically acclaimed. When concern emerged about the company he kept, and his associations with a racist pastor, friendship with a middle-aged ex-Weatherman bomber (who was lucky to escape jail), and college Marxists and radicals, most Americans shrugged and moved on.
Trudeau facts
We in Canada knew even less about Trudeau — and didn’t care. Inconvenient evidence was ignored. Heck, our intrepid media were unable to even discover Trudeau’s correct age before he became PM.
When it emerged that he had led a delegation of Canadian Communist Party members to an economic conference in Moscow shortly after the Second World War, staged by Soviet propaganda, people didn’t believe it was sinister. When questioned, Trudeau explained he was scolded in Moscow because he “threw snowballs at Stalin’s stature.” This proved to the Canadian public that Trudeau was a straight arrow.
I was a reporter with the Toronto Telegram, recently returned from living in Moscow, when Trudeau gave this explanation in 1968, and checked meteorological records. The conference took place in April when there was no snow in Moscow. Trudeau had fudged the truth. No one cared.
Obama was excused by Americans for claiming Pastor Jeremy Wright was his religious mentor, despite Wright’s anti-American outbursts (” … I say God damn America”). Ignored was Obama’s deal with an unsavoury real estate figure.
Trudeau’s writings about visiting China and his empathy with Mao Zedong, of whom he said his eyes had seen too much misery, raised few eyebrows, considering the untold millions killed by Mao.
Today, few recall Obama saying that only government could create the jobs needed to restore the American economy, followed by telling Republicans that only the private sector could create jobs to thwart the recession. Contrasting views that raised barely a murmur.
New messiah
Canada, in 1968, hoped Trudeau was the new messiah; Americans in 2009 believe Obama will lead them to a better future.
Forgotten is that in the next election following Trudeau’s majority 1968 victory, his Liberals won the 1972 election by two seats over the Tories. Canada was back to minority government status.
The bloom was off Trudeau, and a lacklustre Tory opposition preserved him until he fell to Joe Clark’s temporary charisma, which faded when Clark couldn’t count and called a vote of confidence election.
Right now, U.S. Republicans are in some disarray, which may be the best thing Obama has going for him, when his various declarations of intent and shifts in U.S. policy fail to materialize or live up to hopes — as eventually they must.