Posted by admin on November 24, 2008 under Economy, Politics, news | 
Today President Elect Barack Obama selected Timothy Geithner, 47, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as his Treasury Secretary. Geithner, who speaks Chinese and Japanese, as well as finance, is widely lauded as the right man for the job.
As president of the New York Federal Reserve Geithner has been dealing with Wall Street’s major players on a daily basis for the past 5 years, and they with him. Wall Street knows what they are getting with Geithner and they like what they see. Following the announcement of Geithner the Dow Jones Industrials went on a prolonged rally up approximately 300 points.
Geithner also has been working with current Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on administering the bailout and has been involved at least tangentially in every major decision to date. This provides a level of consistency that the market is looking for.
Widely regarded as an economic centrist, Geithner will take over during the worst economic climate the US has seen since the 1930’s.
Obama also announced that Larry Summers will be leading the National Economic Council. Speculation is that Summers is in line to replace Ben Bernanke when his term expires at the Fed in 2010. (Source)
President-Elect Obama also pressed his plan for a major economic stimulus package to kick-start the economy, saying “I want to see it enacted right away. It is going to be of a size and scope that is necessary to get this economy back on track.” (Source)
Posted by admin on November 17, 2008 under Environment, Humor, Internet, news |
With 64 days remaining until Barack Obama takes office, and no significant announcements coming from the transition team today, here are 5 stories we’re NOT covering, but apparently everyone else is.
# 5 – The vetting of Bill Clinton’s finances, regarding his foundation and international business dealings. Yes Hillary is a top contender for Secretary of State, and it’s routine that someone’s family finances etc. are scrutinized before taking such a top job but seriously, could this story be any more boring?
# 4 – The proposed bailout of GM etc., should $25B of the $700B the government is allowing AIG to blow on keggers go to Detroit so they can tap a keg too? Yeah, probably, but President Bush isn’t going to approve it, so nothing’s going to happen here for at least 65 days.
# 3 – Pirates seize control of Saudi supertanker; this is clearly an act of war, and just as soon as W figures out where Somalia is they are in for some shock and awe. Big time.
# 2 – Mark Cuban accused of insider trading, the world is shocked, shocked, to learn that billionaire douche Mark Cuban has been accused of trading on inside information. He dumped a ton of stock in Mama.com before it lost almost all value saving him $750,000 or something like that; I may have dozed off during the report.
# 1 – The U.S. economy sucks, and Japan’s is worse. Is this really a newsflash anymore? Haven’t we entered the self-fulfilling prophecy phase of reporting on bad economic times? We get it already. Now get out on the streets and start selling apples.
Posted by admin on September 29, 2008 under Economy, Politics, news |
McCain said he was personally going to deliver the votes, accused Barack Obama of “phoning it in.”
What really happened? Republican leaders worked hard and twisted arms, to support the President’s plan. Meanwhile McCain went to dinner with Joe Lieberman, at a 5 Star Washington DC restaurant. He didn’t work the phones, twist arms, and in fact did nothing to support the bill. (Source)
Remember, McCain blew up the Republicans original bailout, then ignored the new plan. When he thought the revised plan was going to pass McCain claimed earlier today that it was “he” who got the votes from Republicans in Congress.
Then the vote happened, and as we all know, failed. McCain’s surrogates were caught off guard, but tried to recover by blaming the failure to pass on Nancy Pelosi’s speech, calling it “partisan,” and blaming that for losing 12 Republican votes they thought they had.
Barney Frank replied:
“I’ll make an offer, give me those 12 people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”
(Source)
McCain read a statement to reporters later in the afternoon, where he again tried to pass the blame on to Barack Obama, and the Democrats.
Interestingly he took no questions from reporters at that press conference.
Posted by admin on September 27, 2008 under Economy, Politics, news |
Remember how John McCain said he was going to “suspend” his campaign, go to Washington and hammer out a deal to rescue the economy? Well he did the exact opposite.
40 Republican Senators had already agreed to a re-worked deal, but according to GOP Senator Graham, McCain came in and blew it up, sending the GOP caucus into turmoil.
“I appreciate what you’ve done here, but I’m not going to sign on to a deal just to sign the deal. Just like Iraq, I’m not afraid to go it alone if I need to.” – John McCain to Robert F. Bennett (Utah) and Judd Gregg (N.H.) architects of the revised bailout plan
(Source)
Why would John McCain do the exact opposite of what he said he was going to Washington to do? It’s because of who got stuck with the check in the revised bailout.
Under the Bennett-Gregg compromise plan the money would come from a new program of mortgage insurance paid by the banking industry. I guess John McCain couldn’t stomach the idea of the bailout being funded by some of the same people that caused the mess.
He’d apparently only be happy if the taxpayers picked up the check.
