How's That Working Out?
"I feel reasonably confident that we'll be able to recover all the principal and indeed some interest, and there is some chance of even upside beyond that."
-Ben Bernanke, Congressional testimony, 4/2/08
A Bear Stearns mortgage portfolio backed by the U.S. government racked up $2.7 billion of losses in the third quarter, amounting to a 9 percent decline on about $30 billion of assets, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Roughly $2 billion of those losses will be borne by the U.S. taxpayer. As of the end of September, the portfolio, originally worth about $30 billion, was worth $26.8 billion.
-Reuters 10/23/08
-Ben Bernanke, Congressional testimony, 4/2/08
A Bear Stearns mortgage portfolio backed by the U.S. government racked up $2.7 billion of losses in the third quarter, amounting to a 9 percent decline on about $30 billion of assets, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Roughly $2 billion of those losses will be borne by the U.S. taxpayer. As of the end of September, the portfolio, originally worth about $30 billion, was worth $26.8 billion.
-Reuters 10/23/08
posted by The Cunning Realist at Friday, October 24, 2008
7 Comments:
The good old days, when $30 billion for a bailout seemed like a lot.
"I feel reasonably confident that my malodorous emminations will create a cloud of rainbows that I will thence climb to the moon on, thereby allowing me to dine on the cheese said moon is crafted from and there is even some chance of delicious chocolate spacerock milk to be found and upsides beyond that..."
Fixed that for ya, Ben.
I was watching the Charlie Rose show. The guest started talking about a piece that SEC Christopher Cox wrote.
The most concerning thing today seems to be, no one can say "how much". For all the talk about "great accounting" and "transparency", the CD derivative's were done over the counter with no transparency. No one can identify the buyers or sellers! One thinks of American corporations with all this technology as being efficient and run well. How well run can they be, if they do accounting like this and they don't know what the heck they have. And how much do their executives get paid?
Is the problem $55 trillion? And AIG only represented 0.8% of that! Where's the rest? If the problem is this bad, we've only just begun the cleanup and fix. Very depressing.
"Swapping secrecy for transparency"
snippet:
"As large as AIG's swaps exposure was, it represented only 0.8 percent of the $55 trillion in credit-default swaps outstanding - this total market is more than the gross domestic product of all nations on earth combined."
Can we stop referring to Greenspan as the maestro, and refer to him as the man blinded by ideology. He kindled the match that started the fire, ignoring the firemen and the external conditions that were ripe for disaster. I suppose these people are always surprised and shocked because they are in a ideology bubble, and they either ignore or attack views different than their own.
People give praise to Paulson and Bernanke and provide excuses why they didn't know more sooner, but I think it's all CYA. There were a lot of people yelling, but it fell to deaf ears.
If the 9/11 planes hitting the building was an economic attack, then this Republican Administration accomplished what Bin Ladin tried. Kind of ironic, isn't it? :-(
Just add the United States of America to the long list of things George W. Bush has touched and had go straight down the crapper.
Wow. Maybe the government should buy the assets but for pennies on the dollar. No way should taxpayers bear all the burden. Let the banks finally take the billions of dollars of loss and be done with it, instead of prolonging this madness quarter after quarter.
Actually you are wrong...This was Bin Laden's plan. We was entirely correct about us. What was it Sun Tzu warned. Know your enemy. Bin Laden knew our politicians and how they would react. Our arrogant leaders considered Bin Laden no threat and simply used 9/11 as a propaganda tool to further their greed and power...with absolutely no regard for the long term consequences. This is our leadership in modern America. We deserve everything coming to us for becoming a nation of baahhhing sheep. Everything.
In November 2004, CNN reported that Bin Laden released a video monologue to Al-Jazeera where the terror-savvy, extreme fundamentalist announced plans to continue a “policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy” using similar tactics to those used when fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 80s, “guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers.”
CNN.com - Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S. - Nov 1, 2004
“Easy to Provoke and Bait this Administration.”
Bin Laden bragged at the time that al Qaeda has found it “easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations.”
“And it all shows that the real loser is you,” Bin Laden said. “It is the American people and their economy.”
Bin Laden said of President Bush that “the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.”
I gonna tell you a secret to keep a country with a good economic level, DON'T INVADE OTHERS COUNTRIES AND STAY FOR SOO LONG TIME!!!
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