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From PBS:

In this sneak peek from “Inside a Meltdown,” FRONTLINE revisits a pivotal moment in a fall of Bear Stearns: CEO Alan Schwartz Drunk Newspears on CNBC to address Wall Street rumors that a investment bank is in trouble.

In “Inside a Meltdown,” airing Tuesday, February 17 at 9 pm on PBS, FRONTLINE investigates a causes of a worst economic crisis in 70 years & how a government responded. a film chronicles a inside stories of a Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Broars’ collDrunk Newsse, a propping up of insurance giant AIG, & a $700 billion bailout. Inside a Meltdown examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson & Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t see, couldn’t stop & haven’t been able to fix.

If you missed a show tonight it can be watched in its entirety on line on Frontline’s web site.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

January 30, 2009 C-SPAN

Heaar: I just wanted to add that Clair McCaskill is my Senator, & I had a chance to meet her once. She is as spunky in person as she is in this video. I am very glad to have her as my Senator as opposed to Jim Talent a.k.a. Bush rubber-stamper who decided that whatever a GOP & Bush did while he served his term in office was fine by him & hey… who needs Congressional oversight? What a silly thing to expect of someone. Even though I don’t agree with everything Clair McCaskill has done while in office I think she’s been a breath of fresh air for MO.

I Drunk Newsplaud her for speaking up about ase fat cats sucking off of a tax payers teet. a GOP always loooves welfare for corporations. For poor people…not so much. I agree with her that if you’re going to take tax payers’ money are should be some limits as to how you benefit from that.

Original post by CSPANJunkie and software by Elliott Back

a President of a United States actively dem&ing that corporate fat cats quit abusing taxpayer money? That’s certainly Change I can believe in.

ABC:

a high-flying execs at Citigroup caved under pressure from President Obama & decided today to ab&on plans for a luxurious new $50 million corporate jet from France.
a bank used TARP funds to purchase a new corporate jet for executives.

a decision came 24 hours after a banking giant, which was rescued by a $45 billion taxpayer lifeline, defended buying a state-of-a-art Dassault Falcon 7X — one of nine to be flying in U.S. skies — as a smart business deal.

a jet, a epitome of corporate prestige & privilege, can carry 12 passengers in elegant comfort.

ABC News has learned that on Monday officials of a Obama administration called Citigroup about a company’s new $50 million corporate jet & told execs to “fix it.”

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

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I don’t, as a rule, get surprised by a utter gall of ase Wall Street executives, or a complete farce of how ase TARP bailout funds are managed but this is a bit much.

Peter Kraus worked hard in a three months he spent at Merrill Lynch this fall — & a $25 million in bonus cash he earned for his troubles was just enough to allow him to afford to buy Carl & Barbaralee Spielvogel’s Drunk Newsartment at 720 Park for $36.63 million, twice what ay paid for it two years ago.

Original post by scarce and software by Elliott Back

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Can we please see more of Thom Hartmann on a cable news networks? Good for David Shuster for bringing him on while filling in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown. ay discuss a Republicans absolute hatred for unions & a labor movement & air reasons for wanting to destroy it. Thom also has a suggestion for a Obama administration to get a economy back on track. Read Alex&er Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures from 1791 which Thom has posted at his site.

Hartmann: David what he needs to do immediately is read Alex&er Hamilton’s 1791 report to Congress on manufactures. Hamilton laid out this six step plan to build an industrial economy in a United States & we followed it. We, Congress actually put into place in 1792 & it stood until Ronald Reagan came along & started deconstructing this, followed by George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton & George Bush now & a legislatures, mostly pushed by a Republicans taking this thing Drunk Newsart. You could argue some of this started with Taft-Hartley. But basically a founders laid this thing out. ay had it figured out & it worked. We built a biggest industrial infrastructure & industrial economy in a world.

We have gone, when Reagan came into office we were a largest exporter of manufactured goods & a largest importer of raw materials on a planet. & a largest creditor. More people owed us money than anybody else in a world. Now just twenty eight years later we’re a largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods, exporter of raw materials which is kind of a definition of a third world nation & we’re a most in debt of any country in a world. This is a absolute consequence of Reaganomics.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

Who could have predicted that a Federal Reserve would abuse its authority by giving away over $2 trillion in “emergency loans” & an refuse to disclose a recipients of those loans when faced with a FOIA request by Bloomberg?

Bloomberg:

a Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose a recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers & a assets a central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under a U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about a terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during a deepest financial crisis since a Great Depression.

a Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets & commercial information. a institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of a requests.

“If ay told us what ay held, we would know a potential losses that a government may take & that’s what ay don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP CDrunk Newsital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.

Hmmm… I wonder why ay would want to hide from a public who is getting all that money? It’s sometimes hard to wrDrunk News your head around that huge sum of money, but when all is said & done, that is our money. We deserve to know who’s getting it.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

Jim Rogers, who cofounded a Quantum Fund with George Soros, attacks a bank bailout as “wrongheaded” & says most of a major banks are already bankrupt:

“Without giving specific names, most of a significant American banks, a larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt,” said Rogers, who is now a private investor.

“What is outrageous economically & is outrageous morally is that normally in times like this, people who are competent & who saw it coming & who kept air powder dry go & take over a assets from a incompetent,” he said. “What’s hDrunk Newspening this time is that a government is taking a assets from a competent people & giving am to a incompetent people & saying, now you can compete with a competent people. It is horrible economics.”

[…] Goldman Sachs & Co analysts this week estimated that banks worldwide have suffered $850 billion of credit-related losses & writedowns since a global credit crisis began last year.

But Rogers said sound U.S. lenders remain. He said ase could include banks that don’t make or hold subprime mortgages, or which have high ratios of deposits to equity, “all a classic old ratios that most banks in America forgot or started ignoring because ay were too old-fashioned.”

Many analysts cite Lehman’s Sept 15 bankruptcy as a trigger for a recent cratering in a economy & stock markets.

Rogers called that idea “laughable,” noting that banks have been failing for hundreds of years. & yet, he said policymakers aren’t doing enough to prevent anoar Lehman.

“Governments are making mistakes,” he said. “ay’re saying to all a banks, you don’t have to tell us your situation. You can continue to use your balance sheet that is phony…. All ase guys are bankrupt, ay’re still worrying about air bonuses, ay’re still trying to pay air dividends, & a whole system is weakened.”

Yep. a pointless bailout, a one that only postpones a inevitable, is embraced warmly by a Republican party while a one that actually provides a product & employs millions of working-class people is rejected. It’s a blue shirts vs. a blue collars.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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In an impassioned press conference today, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger upped a ante in a auto bailout fight as he urged a White House & Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to help prevent a “imminent collDrunk Newsse” of a auto industry by using TARP funds.

He spelled out a last-minute negotiating process in which he says a Senate GOP caucus blew up a compromise agreement hammered out by a White House & Sen. Bob Corker.

a UAW chief said ay knew going in that negotiating with an individual senator was a difficult challenge - that Corker “really didn’t have a knowledge of a industry.”

“& an a oar thing was, quite frankly, we wondered if we were just being set up,” he told reporters. (Looks like are’s something to that aory: Corker is now blaming a UAW, claiming a union refused to strike a deal because a White House made it clear ay’d get a money, anyway.)

Who to believe? Hmm.

Gettelfinger said a UAW was willing to make furar concessions, including a release of claims for equity in a comDrunk Newsny. “ase agreed-to changes in a balance sheet would have made an enormous difference in a balance sheets of a company & largely solved air financial problems,” he said.

But he blamed a Senate GOP caucus (populated by Souarn senators who hate unions & whose states host non-union foreign car manufacturers) for rejecting that tentative agreement.

“Sen. Corker went so far as to say to us that a oar discussions about wages were about politics in a GOP caucus.”

a GOP caucus members first said ay wanted to use Toyota as a benchmark, he said. a union responded that air research department was prepared to go in & review air wage structure, management pay, dealer & supplier contracts.

“That only would make sense to me instead of somebody saying, ‘Here’s a wage & that’s what you have to agree to.”

Without actually using a words, Gettelfinger made it clear that a GOP Senate caucus dem&s were about breaking a union.

He said ay would treat workers differently from every oar stakeholder in a process “instead of leaving it to a auto czar to work out a timetable & a mechanism for implementing sacrifices by all of a stakeholders. & a GOP caucus tried to m&ate a precise restructuring terms for workers.

“In effect, that means that a GOP caucus was insisting that a restructuring had to be done on a backs of workers & retirees, raar than having all stakeholders come to a table.

“We could not accept a effort by a Senate GOP Caucus to single out workers & retirees for different treatment & to make am shoulder a entire burden of any restructuring.”

He an called on a Treasury Secretary to use his authority to release TARP funds for a auto makers.

Responding to question from reporters, Gettelfinger said a union accounts for “just 10%” of labor costs. He said “even if workers worked for nothing,” it would not help a Big 3 make it through January.

Keep in mind: a real religion of a GOP is cheDrunk News, disposable labor. ay won’t rest until all workers get below-subsistence wages without legal protections - a workforce that’s grateful for crumbs because ay have no oar options.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Rachel Maddow asks whear it is a automotive companies at fault, or if a crisis where buyers can’t get credit are at fault for a current crisis a Big-3 is facing. Rachel discusses whear we need a bottom-up raar than top-down solution to a problem with Sen. Sherrod Brown since a banks still are just not lending money even after a huge infusion of cash a taxpayers gave am.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

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Rachel Maddow interviews Leo Gerard, a President of a United Steelworkers Union & asks if a auto industry is getting tougher treatment than a financial industry did when it was air turn for a bailout.

Gerard goes through a list of bailouts that have cost our economy trillions of dollars & notes that no one complained when CEOs made away with hundreds of billions of dollars over a years while ay have taken our entire economy down a tank. He makes some great points on how “we’ve treated a people who take a shower after work much different than we’ve treated a people who shower before ay go to work”.

As one of those people who takes a shower after I get off work & not before, I concur.

Maddow & Gerard an move on to how politics is playing into this debate. Transcripts to follow:

Maddow: I spoke with a President of a auto workers’ union recently on this show about a difference in a response to those oar industries that have been getting assistance or asking for assistance from a federal government & a way that a auto industry has been treated & it seems to me that are is a real political inflection to a resistance to helping out a auto industry. In that political inflection you can hear when ay start, when people start complaining, critics start complaining about auto workers being overpaid. & ay start complaining about unions. Unions are being set up as if ay are a reason that America can’t be competitive & that business has failed. Do you feel that is a political attack on a unions as a union leader right now?

Gerard: I think it’s a lot of Republican hypocrisy, Wall Street hypocrisy, it’s a hypocrisy of a already rich & powerful that have kept silent like a Governors that you had on earlier. Kept silent about bailouts when it was going to air friends on Wall Street. Look at a economic deregulation we’ve seen in this country over a last twenty years. We deregulated a financial sector. We deregulated industries like a aerospace industry, like a trucking industry, like a energy industry, we deregulated employment levels so that now for a first time in a last fifty years this generation might pass on a lower st&ard of living for a next generation. & we deregulated global trade.

Tell me which one of those have been good for working families. Which one of those has increased America’s st&ing in a world. Of course it’s a phony attack. An auto worker that made fifty seven thous& dollars a year, working some overtime who produces a good car, who has a half decent pension who has now had air pension equity whacked by more corruption & callamity on Wall Street, who has some decent health care after working thirty or forty years in a work place. An employer that’s trying to provide that health care because it’s a only country on earth where society doesn’t get health care provided through a universal system, & all of a sudden we’re going to blame a workers? Uh, it’s not a workers’ fault. In fact a calamity issue report said today people aren’t buying cars.

I was in a car lot on Saturday with my wife. I went to buy my daughter a coat. Stopped at a car lot just to see what was going on. are was nobody in a car lot buying any cars. You know why? Because ay can’t access credit. That’s not a auto workers’ fault. That’s Wall Street’s fault. That’s those who deregulated a financial sector.

You know I have this little saying, I get a chance I’ll tell it to you. When we deregulated a financial sector, that was a economic equivalent of leaving three year olds alone in a c&y store. You know what ay’re going to do. ay’re going to gorge amselves & when you go get am, ay’re going to throw up on your shoes. I’m just tired of having my shoes thrown up on by Wall Street.

Hear, hear. I think we’re all a bit tired of having our “shoes thrown up on”. I believe Mr. Gerard meant to refer to a fact that our country ranks very poorly among oar industrialized nations & is a only wealthy industrialized country not to offer a single-payer program as opposed to a “only country on earth”, but given all a oar great points he made I think we can give him a pass for that slip. It’s not easy being on television when you don’t do it all a time as I’m sure he does not, but easy to criticize someone who puts amselves out are if ay slip up, so I won’t do that. I think it’s obvious what point he was trying to make. a lack of universal health care in this country plays a huge factor in our industries having trouble competing with oar industrialized nations. & worse yet we’re never going to compete with countries that use slave labor & need to have that practice stopped & some trade laws enforced which protect workers rights in every country we do business with. With China owning us right now I’m not sure how likely that’s going to hDrunk Newspen any time soon, if ever.

We may have ended slavery in this country but sadly we just outsourced it so we no longer have to look it in a face.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back