Hedge Funds Next?
| Sun Sep. 21, 2008 11:27 AM PDT
HEDGE FUNDS NEXT?....Henry Paulson announced today that the Great Wall Street Bailout will also be a City bailout and a Bankenviertel bailout and a Ginza bailout:
"The American people don't care who owns the financial institution," he told ABC's "This Week." "If the financial institution in this country has problems, it'll have the same impact whether it's U.S.- or foreign-owned." The United States is also working with foreign governments to take actions of their own.
That's not too surprising. Unfortunately, he went on to say this:
Paulson made clear that he did not expect to use the program to purchase assets from hedge funds.
That's what they usually say right before they're finally forced to admit that some particular corner of the financial industry is actually in big trouble, right? So I assume this means that a bailout of a few big hedge funds is right around the corner. After all, some of them are almost certain to be hanging on by their eye teeth right now, and at least a few of those hangers-on are Too Big To Fail. So cue up the money machine.
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Comments
Submitted by SocraticGadfly (not verified) on Sun Sep. 21, 2008 11:55 AM PDT.
Passive Pelosi? and Land-Swap Harry Reid will bit a bit, then roll over and play dead.
Andy, you know what?
So will about 98 percent of you posting here in these comment sections.
Even where you have Green (or Socialist/Social Democratic) alternatives on the ballot for president, or even local Congressional races, you'll listen to Democrats' fear-mongering.
"What's the Matter with Kansas" has nothing on this.
Submitted by SocraticGadfly (not verified) on Sun Sep. 21, 2008 11:55 AM PDT.
Passive Pelosi? and Land-Swap Harry Reid will bit a bit, then roll over and play dead.
Andy, you know what?
So will about 98 percent of you posting here in these comment sections.
Even where you have Green (or Socialist/Social Democratic) alternatives on the ballot for president, or even local Congressional races, you'll listen to Democrats' fear-mongering.
"What's the Matter with Kansas" has nothing on this.
Did Paulson use the word "expect" or "wouldn't?"... because what Paulson expected not to have happen has happened. In addition, "expect" seems to mean "guess" in Paulsonise. And it has become increasingly problematical to believe in Paulson's guesses.
Submitted by Carsten Agger (not verified) on Sun Sep. 21, 2008 11:44 AM PDT.
Maybe after giving all these tax cuts, these bailouts are Bush's grande finale:
After overseeing an allegedly neoliberal economic politics, lavish the collective savings of the next couple of generations of Americans on Wall Street, including, I'm sure, quite a number of large portfolios in the vicinity of the Bush family. And whoever gets to sweep up afterwards, hey! - it won't be Bush.
How long from Bush's demise till the trials start, I wonder?
Have you read Kevin Philips "Bad Money?" What is happening to us tends to happen to empires as the bloom comes off. As long as the money people are allowed to call the shots they will call the shots for themselves. America needs to move away from the idea that the financial sector can support the entire economy. We need to start doing something again.
Submitted by Alex F (not verified) on Sun Sep. 21, 2008 11:46 AM PDT.
I certainly saw it the way Kevin did. Paulson was asked this question a few times, and consistently responded by saying he didn't expect to be using his authority to bail out hedge funds. But he absolutely stayed away from any flat statement that he wouldn't do it.
Submitted by SocraticGadfly (not verified) on Sun Sep. 21, 2008 11:55 AM PDT.
Passive Pelosi and Land-Swap Harry Reid will bit a bit, then roll over and play dead.
Andy, you know what?
So will about 98 percent of you posting here in these comment sections.
Even where you have Green (or Socialist/Social Democratic) alternatives on the ballot for president, or even local Congressional races, you'll listen to Democrats' fear-mongering.
"What's the Matter with Kansas" has nothing on this.
A bit off topic here, but since Carsten brought it up, the trials won't start until all the Bush hacks get run out of Justice. While they don't have the resources to investigate contractor fraud or rape, they will make a federal case of it if you pour Coke on a counter. Check out Scott Horton's article on "Unexpected Consequences" at Harper's today
Paulson has lied every step of the way. First he said that contagion was "contained" to the subprime sector and that it would never affect banks,. Then he told Congress that it was unlikely that the Fed would need the line of funding that they okayed from the Treasury. Now he claims that it is unlikely that we will be losing much tax payer on this neo-RTC, even though we have evidence that he is going to pay above market price for these securities and that many of these securities may be worthless. He has lied, lied, lied every step of the way.
Either that or he is incompetent, which is even more scary. Either way, we should stop believing the words coming out of his mouth.
If you use the same numbers to extrapolate this current Bush legacy ploy from his Iraq debacle (50B to 1 T)
you get 14 trillion.
On Monday from 7-9 AM I will hold a NO BAILOUTS sign over the inbound Interstate 5 Corbett overpass in Portland, OR.
Please stop this madness for the worlds sake. Yes, the people directly involved in the ponzi schemes of the Naughties and bad mortgage debt will need to be processed but it is nothing the system can't handle. Our pain under NO BAILOUTS will be much less than the global pain that will be felt if we allow the crime of adding these BAILOUTS to continue. We need to not turn the rest of the world into economic terrorists against the US. This sort of voodoo economic America is not what they teach in school, is it?
Stand up America! Stop the Madness!!
"The American people don't care who owns the financial institution,"...
Yeah, the American people don't really care anything do they? A lied about war in Iraq, the FISA bill, wiretapping or torture.
It all sounds exactly like when Chuck Schumer told us that "the US Constitution doesn't poll well", which is another excuse for the government to do whatever they want, because we really are not a government of the people, by the people are for the people. Democracy is so "passé de mode" and don't we all know for sure that Obama is going do exactly whatever Paulson says, just like the way he did with that FISA Bill.
You get Bush know matter who you vote for.
Declaring existing CDS's void might just work. The ever-brilliant "b" at Moon of Alabama explains.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/09/solution-declar.html#more
Hanging a few oldish, well connected, gentlemen from lamp posts, while TV cameras looked on, would probably set the tone for less greed in the financial sector for a couple of generations.
Worshiping greed has not been a good movement for our country.
