Monday
Feb232009
Bailout Comedy Videos The Colbert Report: Two Economy Comedy Videos Including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz On The Bailouts
I will have more later on the developments at AIG and Citigroup, but until then here's some comedy to ease your mind. Both videos run approximately 5 minutes. The above clip features twice-awarded Nobel Economics Laureate Dr. Joseph Stiglitz discussing the bank bailouts and the economy on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. After the jump, is a clip from last week discussing the Obama stimulus as well as a few republicans and their failed strategies. Senators Judd Gregg and Mitch McConnell are discussed along with several others. If you are unfamiliar with the show, it's safe viewing for readers from both sides of the political spectrum.
Feb 23, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Reader Comments (11)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aQYMYvlz.Lkw&refer=home
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin labeled the world’s reliance on the dollar “dangerous” and called for an “irreversible switchover” to a system of multiple reserve currencies.
Dream on, Mr. Putin.
To end the dollar’s reserve currency role, you need a replacement. There is none. The euro is a multinational creation, belonging to no specific country and adopted by 16 nations, several of which are economic basket cases. The yen and the pound aren’t used enough in international trade and financial transactions. China’s yuan isn’t freely traded or exchangeable.
What’s more, bulging budget deficits, massive borrowing programs, runaway spending, a crippled economy, a dysfunctional banking system, and rock-bottom central-bank interest rates would ordinarily sound the death knell for a currency.
THERE is one consolation for the depressing instability of finance. History offers a rich array of banking crises from which policymakers can draw lessons—and against which today’s rescue plans can be judged. According to an IMF database, there have been 124 “systemic” banking crises since 1970—episodes in which bad debts soared across the economy and much of the banking sector was insolvent.
Most of those were in the developing world. But the list also includes half a dozen rich-country crashes, from Japan’s slump after its property bubble burst in the late 1980s, to the Nordic bank crises in the early 1990s. All involved deep recessions, required massive government intervention to clean up bust banks, and led to big increases in public debt as economies shrank while government spending soared. But the speed of recovery differed dramatically; Japan endured a decade of economic stagnation, whereas South Korea returned to growth within two years of its 1997 banking disaster.
http://dailybail.com/home/2009/2/11/bailout-news-video-gentle-jim-rogers-brings-the-asian-pain-i.html
Bailout News Video: Gentle Jim Rogers Brings The Asian Pain in Bloomberg Public Beatdown of Treasury Knob Geithner. Rogers Goes Old-School with Texas Pile Driver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbPZAMked0&NR=1&
Congressman Pete Stark Blows Up Over National Debt.
Social Security and Medicare are what I worry about most:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/us/politics/23social.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1235624400&en=d91c9404f8aa4341&ei=5087%0A
WASHINGTON — President Obama is eager to seek a bipartisan solution to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, people who have spoken with him say, but he is running into opposition from his party’s left and from Democratic Congressional leaders who contend that his political capital would be better spent on health care and other priorities.
By WILLIAM M. ISAAC
People who should know better have been speculating publicly that the government might need to nationalize our largest banks. This irresponsible chatter is causing tremendous turmoil in financial markets. The Obama administration needs to make clear immediately that nationalization -- government seizing control of ownership and operations of a company -- is not a viable option.
Unlike the talking heads, I have actually nationalized a large bank. When I headed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) during the banking crisis of the 1980s, the FDIC recapitalized and took control of Continental Illinois Bank, which was then the country's seventh largest bank.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123543631794154467.html