Economy

TARP Shortchanged Taxpayers by $78 Billion, Watchdog Panel Says
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry | Bloomberg

U.S. taxpayers are being shortchanged by about $78 billion through the Treasury Department’s bank bailout, the panel overseeing the program said.

The Treasury, when it was headed by Secretary Henry Paulson, received bank assets worth about $176 billion in exchange for capital purchases of $254 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Congressional Oversight Panel said in a report today.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Calls for Criminal Investigation into Bailout Crisis

7:47 mins. - Senator Sanders starts at 3:00 mins.

Kucinich: We Should Be Going From Golden Parachutes To Golden Handcuffs!
In this video, Rep. Kucinich calls the bailouts what they are: frauds on the American taxpayers.

7:27 mins.

By Mimi Kennedy, PDA Advisory Board Chair

Thank you, Tom Daschle, for being part of the change we wish to see.

That took courage. I know you will serve this Administration in some capacity that better suits you, President Obama, and us, than the obstacle-ridden position of Health and Human Services Secretary.

Donna Smith, Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, tells PDA that she's shed tears seeing the turn of events of the past twenty-four hours. She remembers the compassion and generosity you showed to her in the course of her work for single-payer health care, work that has consumed her since Michael Moore featured the story of her bankruptcy by her health insurance plan in his movie SICKO. Let's hope the two of you meet again at the health-care reform table.

It is too rare that we see a public figure step up and do the right--and difficult--thing. Today you inspire us.

Let's congratulate Tom Daschle for doing the right thing; click here.

By ZP Heller, OPEN LEFT

CNN has the gory details.

UPDATE: By "Fascist" I refer to Mussolini's definition of fascism. You can use corporatism if you prefer. I do not necessarily mean to include anything and everything that Mussolini ever did, but it would be very shortsighted not to understand the deaths directly caused by funding bankers rather than homeowners, as well as wars rather than homeowners and renters and homeless.

Now we need to get someone appointed who's open to offending the health insurance companies.

TomGram: The Looming Crisis at the Pentagon: How Taxpayers Finance Fantasy Wars
By Chalmers Johnson | TomDispatch.com

Like much of the rest of the world, Americans know that the U.S. automotive industry is in the grips of what may be a fatal decline. Unless it receives emergency financing and undergoes significant reform, it is undoubtedly headed for the graveyard in which many American industries are already buried, including those that made televisions and other consumer electronics, many types of scientific and medical equipment, machine tools, textiles, and much earth-moving equipment -- and that's to name only the most obvious candidates. They all lost their competitiveness to newly emerging economies that were able to outpace them in innovative design, price, quality, service, and fuel economy, among other things.

Competing Ideologies: Davos v. Belem
by Stephen Lendman

Founded in 1971, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) meets annually in Davos, Switzerland to bring together top business and political leaders as well as mostly neoliberal minded intellectuals, economists, journalists, and others.

WEF calls itself "an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas." It aims for "world-class governance (read dominance)." Its motto is "entrepreneurship in the global public interest (read for the top 1%)." This year's theme - "Shaping the Post-Crisis World" - a tall order addressing what they caused that's heading the world for a calamitous depression.

Obama's "New" Economic Strategy

6:31 mins.

Guns and Butter (Again)
Ivan Eland | Independent Institute

When you stop to think about it, people measure how well their lives are going not by their absolute state of being but by their situation relative to their expectations. For example, a poor person in a developing country may be ecstatic about getting a pair of shoes for the first time; in contrast, a billionaire may commit suicide after he loses $100 million in a down market.

The same is true for nations. The American elite has enjoyed the United States’ dominant status in the world since World War II and became thoroughly drunk with U.S. superiority in the last two decades after the demise of the Soviet Union left the country as the only superpower. This elite is resistant to accepting the reality that a multipolar world will soon be at hand.

BY BEN SCHMITT, Detroit Free Press

Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans announced today that his office is refusing to enforce sales of foreclosed homes as the real estate crisis continues to drain the region.

Evans made the announcement this morning at a press conference, several days after he urged Gov. Jennifer Granholm to impose a moratorium on home foreclosures.

"Today I will be stopping all mortgage foreclosure sales in Wayne County beginning with the sale that was scheduled for this Wednesday," Evans said. "I am doing so because it's my opinion that recently enacted federal laws provide protections for homeowners facing foreclosure."

Evans said the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, approved by Congress last fall requires the Secretary of the Treasury to implement a plan to mitigate foreclosures and to encourage services of mortgagers to modify loans to enable homeowners to stay in their homes.

TomGram: The Human Costs of the Economic Crisis
By Nick Turse

The body count is still rising. For months on end, marked by bankruptcies, foreclosures, evictions, and layoffs, the economic meltdown has taken a heavy toll on Americans. In response, a range of extreme acts including suicide, self-inflicted injury, murder, and arson have hit the local news. By October 2008, an analysis of press reports nationwide indicated that an epidemic of tragedies spurred by the financial crisis had already spread from Pasadena, California, to Taunton, Massachusetts, from Roseville, Minnesota, to Ocala, Florida.

Obama supporters held house parties on healthcare in December, and nobody has seen the results, the decisions as to what sort of actions were most favored. Let's ask:

Dr. Jeanne Lambrew
Office of Health Care Reform
By fax to 202 690 7203
By email to Jeanne.lambrew@hhs.gov

Questions Must Be Asked, New Demands Raised, More Needs Put On Agenda
By Danny Schechter

It is time for a euphoria check or maybe a check on euphoria, a time to start raising our own questions about government plans rather than reflexively rallying behind the Democrats just because the Republicans are so obstinate and revolting.

It is important to recognize that behind the GOP’s JUST SAY NO rejectionism is an calculated reaction. If they back and it succeeds, they look stupid. If it fails as many expect it will, they can say, “see we told you so” as part of a plan to stage a political comeback in two years. Rush Limbaugh may have the moxie to call for its failure but many of his party mates are more cagey.

They know that time may be on their side, and can read sentences like this from financial writer David Leonhardt in the New York Times magazine:

And... Obama proposes 10% cut to military waste.

(NOTE: This article appears in the current issue of the magazine Treasury & Risk)

By Dave Lindorff

Key members of Congress were stunned to hear Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson say on Sept. 18 in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill that the country was “days away” from a complete financial meltdown—one that could lead to Depression-like runs on banks, widespread violence and ultimately even to a possible declaration of martial law. It was a vision of Armageddon, but, of course, 10 days later, the House rejected a Wall Street bailout package sent over by Paulson, only to pass one in a more limited form—the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act—a week later that gave Paulson less power and only half the money he wanted.

By Nick Egnatz

Unchecked capitalism and the two-party Democratic/Republican political system are both responsible for our financial disaster and completely incapable of correcting the mess they have created. The Democratic Party celebrated giving workers a minimum wage increase to $6.55/hour when a livable wage for basic needs would range from $11.41 (two adults, no kids, both working) to $25.49 (two adults, one staying home with 2 kids). These figures compiled by the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign are again for basic needs and assume employer paid healthcare. The livable wage for a single person living alone with no children is $14.86, again with paid company healthcare.

We now have a president who uses arguably unconstitutional powers that have been universally accepted to do GOOD things. Is this good or bad?

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex | Seeking Alpha

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children."

These must be the words of some liberal Democratic Senator running for President in 2008. But no, these are the words of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, five decades ago.

The United States, the only superpower remaining on earth, currently spends more on military than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world combined. The U.S. accounts for 48% of the world’s total military spending. Where did the peace dividend from winning the Cold War go?

By David Swanson

While a Democratic polling firm has just found, as pollsters always do, dramatic public support for public health coverage, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill appear divided, as they have always been, over whether to take a comprehensive approach to health care.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said on C-Span on Sunday that incrementalism would suit him better "than to go out and just bite something you can't chew." Clyburn said he opposes any comprehensive approach in 2009. Meanwhile House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) made a long speech about healthcare at a conference in D.C. on Thursday in which he said "I am committed to helping bring comprehensive reform to the floor of the 111th Congress."

Dennis Kucinich States His Intention To Put The Federal Reserve Under Government Control

1:27 mins. - Click "Read more" for more informative video links.

Wikileaks has released a secret hour long telephone recording between US heads of industry discussing efforts to prevent the emancipation of unions under an Obama administration. Yesterday the Huffington Post ran a story by Sam Stein titled "Bailout Recipients Hosted Call To Defeat Key Labor Bill". The story inclded around five minutes of an hour long recording between federal bailout funds recipiets. Wikileaks has released the full hour long recording. The call shows the firms to be involved in lobbying, effectively with public money.

The summary below is excerpted from Mr. Stein's story:

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

By Dave Lindorff

President Barack Obama and his economic team are being careful to couch all their talk about economic stimulus programs and bank bailout programs in warnings that the economic downturn is serious and that it will take considerable time to bounce back.

I’m reminded of an experience I had with Chinese medicine when I was living in Shanghai back in 1992. I had come down with a nasty case of the flu while teaching journalism at Fudan University on a Fulbright Scholar program.

Corporate Lobbyists Move to Crush "Buy American" Provisions In the Stimulus Bill
By David Sirota | Open Left

A few weeks ago, I noted Businessweek's cover story which asked a simple question: "How much of Obama's mammoth fiscal stimulus will leak' abroad, creating jobs in China, Germany, or Mexico rather than the U.S?" In the age of corporate written trade policies that incentivize outsourcing, this is a key question, as U.S. tax dollars could end up simply heading offshore unless Congress takes action.

CNN: Where does your state rank?

Check your state's ranking on the categories of unemployment, state budget deficits, and foreclosures here. To flip among the categories, click on the category above the map. To see state details, mouse over the state.

The Risk Maverick: Present Economy Worse than Depression

9:56 mins.

Expect the World Economy to Suffer Through 2009
Political risk is a bigger factor than ever.
By Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini | WSJ

Some optimistic experts are now saying that though this will be a turbulent year for global markets, the worst of the financial crisis is now behind us. Would it were so. We believe that 2009 will be tougher than many anticipate.