I am going to choose to be cautiously optimistic about today’s news. I am not a big fan of the “Public Private Investment Plan” (I’d much rather see some people going to prison for the mess they have deliberately created), but if it works I’ll quickly become its number one booster. The Wall Street types seem to like it…
A last-minute surge sent stock markets up about 7 percent today following the Treasury Department’s announcement of a new plan to help banks cleanse their balance sheets of toxic assets.
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average was up 6.8 percent, or 497 points, to 7776, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 7.1 percent, or 54 points, to 823. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 6.8 percent, or 99 points, to 1556.
The gains amount to a vote of confidence by investors in the program to purchase toxic assets, known as the Public Private Investment Plan. It calls for the government to partner with private investors to buy between $500 billion and $1 trillion in troubled real estate-related loans and securities that have poisoned financial institutions and destroyed investor confidence. Those assets will then be auctioned to the highest bidder, removing them from banks’ balance sheets…
Investors also got an unexpected boost from news this morning that existing home rose sales 5.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.72 million in February compared to the previous month. Many analysts had expected the rate would fall. Still, home sales are still down about 5 percent from a year ago as prices continue to tumble throughout the country, but particularly in the west.
I have to wonder if some of the conservatives who were so quick to assign the blame to President Obama and Secretary Geithner when the markets were falling are going to be as quick to give them credit if the markets continue to rise. I have not seen nor heard many congratulatory messages from the right side of the aisle thus far today. Perhaps they, like me, are choosing to be cautiously optimistic. You think?
Posted by Len on Saturday, March 21st, 2009 at 11:17 am CT in Politics
The President reflects on lessons from his time spent outside Washington recently, which only reinforced the core principles in his budget. The budget will be his central focus throughout this week:
“These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air – they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit.”
Watch the video of the President’s address below or read the full text, as prepared for delivery, after the break.
Click below to listen to the audio only:
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Just in case you somehow missed it and have not yet seen it elsewhere, here is last night’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno on which the guest was the President of the United States, The Honorable Barack Obama…
(The actual interview starts at about 13 minutes and 30 seconds into the video, at the second little dot.)
Posted by Len on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 8:57 pm CT in economy,Politics
President Barack Obama held his second town hall meeting in as many days in California today. This one was in Los Angeles. During his remarks prior to the question and answer period, he addressed the criticisms of some on the right that he and his administration are trying to address too many problems at the same time…
I do not understand why the concept of a President who is capable of working on more than one issue at a time is such a difficult one for our Republicans to grasp. Could it be that eight years of George W. Bush blinded them to the idea?
President Obama will be the guest on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno later tonight. This coming Sunday he will be interviewed by Steve Kroft on CBS’s 60 Minutes. He will hold his second prime-time news conference next Tuesday evening.
Read the full text of the President’s remarks today, as prepared for delivery, after the break.
President Barack Obama is in California. Yesterday, he held a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa. Here’s video of part of his remarks to the good people of that city. He starts out by talking about the AIG bonus fiasco and then goes on to talk about his budget proposal and the economy in general…
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives today passed legislation aimed at recovering the AIG bonuses…
The House today passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent income tax on $165 million in bonuses distributed to employees of the troubled insurance giant American International Group, the first of multiple steps that lawmakers are expected to take to quell public furor and tighten government control over AIG and other financial sector recipients of federal bailout aid.
The bill was approved on a vote of 328 to 93.
The Senate Finance Committee also is preparing legislation aimed at capturing over 90 percent of the bonus money through a combination of excise and income taxes, and although a vote is not yet scheduled, action is possible this week. And Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that the Justice and Treasury departments are jointly exploring “tools” to recover the money.
Some Democratic lawmakers said the unprecedented tax measures are aimed in part at persuading bonus recipients to voluntarily return the money they have received.
Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate criticized the measures and accused both the White House and congressional Democrats of trying to shift attention from what the GOP considers to be lax oversight of bailout efforts.
I love that last paragraph, especially after listening to what the President had to say about finger pointing. It seems that even Republicans are starting to ignore the Republican leaders these days. Here is how the vote in the House broke down: Yea: 243 Democrats, 85 Republicans; Nay: 6 Democrats, 87 Republicans. You would expect the Republicans to criticize any action proposed by the Democrats. That is, they believe, their job. It is what Boss Limbaugh has told them to do. It’s kind of surprising to see that a full 50% of the House Republicans went against their leadership on this issue.
Perhaps there is a little hope for some of them after all. (Don’t bet on it.)
P.S. Don’t forget that President Obama will be the guest tonight on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Don’t worry about missing Letterman. His show will run at least an hour late due to the CBS broadcast of NCAA basketball and, besides, it’s a rerun.
Are you as tired as I am of hearing about the bonuses paid some of the executives and employees of AIG Financial Services? Granted, we should be upset that these folks, who failed at their jobs and drove their company into the ground, are paid million dollar and higher “bonuses.” Bonuses? For what? Failure? Why are we rewarding failure, especially in this economy?
Especially in this economy. That’s another phrase that I’m growing weary of hearing. It is almost getting to the point where I automatically tune out whenever a newscaster (or whoever) begins a sentence with “in this economy.” Not that we shouldn’t be concerned about the mess the Republicans left us, but is talking about it all the time really going to make it better?
Back on track… Everybody is up in arms over $165 million paid to the bozos who work (or used to work) at AIG. In this day and age, in this economy, when we talk daily about amounts in the billions and trillions of dollars, $165 million hardly seems like a drop in the bucket. I mean, come on, we’re paying $2 billion per week on George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. That’s more than 12 times $165 million. Where’s the anger about that?
Still, though, we shouldn’t be paying multi-million dollar bonuses to employees of a failed company that had to be bailed out by the American taxpayer. Those bonuses did not come from company profits; they came right of our pockets… yours and mine. We should be angry about it. We have every right to be.
But, if you stop and think for a moment, there is so much more we have to be angry about, so many other problems that need our attention. People in our country and around the world are losing their jobs, their homes, their families, their self-respect, their very lives. Perhaps we need to learn to ration our anger.
Just saying.
UPDATE: Now Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are paying huge “retention bonuses.” Both firms have been forced to accept aid from the federal government. Why are these companies so determined to retain failed employees? Wouldn’t this money be better spent on hiring somebody who can actually, you know, do the job?
Posted by Len on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 10:12 pm CT in General
Do you have a burning desire to waste a minute and a half of your life? Well then… never let it be said that we here at First Door on the Left are not accommodating. The water in the fountains on the north and south lawns of the White House was dyed green today in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Watch…
Now that, my friends, was video journalism at its best. Go ahead and watch it again. You know you want to.
Posted by Len on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 2:42 pm CT in economy,Politics
President Barack Obama met privately with the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees this morning, after which he made a public statement about the budget his administration has prepared. Watch a video of the President’s statement below.
He concluded his remarks by saying:
With the magnitude of the challenges we face right now, what we need in Washington are not more political tactics — we need more good ideas. We don’t need more point-scoring — we need more problem-solving. So if there are members of Congress who object to specific policies and proposals in this budget, then I ask them to be ready and willing to propose constructive, alternative solutions. If certain aspects of this budget people don’t think work, provide us some ideas in terms of what you do. “Just say no” is the right advice to give your teenagers about drugs. It is not an acceptable response to whatever economic policy is proposed by the other party.
The American people sent us here to get things done. And in this moment of enormous challenge, they are watching and waiting for us to lead. Let’s show them that we’re equal to this task before us. Let’s pass a budget that puts this nation on the road to lasting prosperity.
I hope there were at least a few Republicans who did not have their fingers in their ears.
The full text of the president’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, may be read after the break.
