RollingStone.com: Matt Taibbi | Taibblog Sat 2010-08-07 21:06 EDT

Are We In a Recession or Not? [Summers versus Romer]

Matt Taibbi

...Obama's economic team...has seen two fairly major resignations...[Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christina Romer] and budget director Pete Orszag...neither of them got along with Larry Summers...Most of the DC chatter class seems to have interpreted the dual resignations as a sign of the ascendant power of the Summers-Geithner axis within the Obama White House...Romer was the Obama administration official who was loudest in her advocacy of a much bigger stimulus, with the idea that the administration's economic strategy should have been based around creating jobs and shaving unemployment as quickly as possible...she was really the only person close to Obama's economic inner circle who isn't a former Clintonite or Rubinite and isn't either a former Wall Street banker or, like Geithner, a public-sector tool of Wall Street...Not that Christina Romer was a savior...but she was at least not completely a Wall Street pod job -- she was pretty much the last inner-circle adviser who wasn't, and now she's gone...

com; Matt Taibbi; Recession; rollingstone; Summers versus Romer; Taibblog.

New Deal 2.0 Sun 2010-07-25 16:20 EDT

Will Criminals Exploit Cap and Trade?

Marshall Auerback

...the carbon trading proposals embodied in the Obama Administration's cap and trade proposals are misguided. Money laundering is very easy when you have an opaque pricing structure with little in the way of regulatory protections. It's the environmental equivalent of credit default swaps. Worse, the cap and trade system doesn't work...Carbon Trading Schemes amount to nothing more than a privatization of the atmosphere...the criminals can have a field day...

0; Criminals Exploit Cap; new dealing 2; trading.

Fri 2010-03-19 20:28 EDT

The Empire Continues to Strike Back: Team Obama Propaganda Campaign Reaches Fever Pitch >> naked capitalism

Yves Smith

I've seldom seen so much rubbish written by people who ought to know better in a single day...The campaign to defend Geithner and Emanuel, both architects of the administration's finance friendly policies has gone beyond what most people would see as spin into such an aggressive effort to manipulate popular perceptions that it is not a stretch to call it propaganda. This strategy, of relying on propaganda to mask their true intent, has become inevitable, given the strategic corner the Obama Adminstration has painted itself in. And this campaign has become increasingly desperate as the inconsistency between the Adminsitration's ``product positioning'' and observable reality become increasingly evident...

Empire Continues; naked capitalism; striking; Team Obama Propaganda Campaign Reaches Fever Pitch.

naked capitalism Fri 2010-03-19 19:57 EDT

NY Fed Under Geithner Implicated in Lehman Accounting Fraud Allegation

Quite a few observers, including this blogger, have been stunned and frustrated at the refusal to investigate what was almost certain accounting fraud at Lehman. Despite the bankruptcy administrator's effort to blame the gaping hole in Lehman's balance sheet on its disorderly collapse, the idea that the firm, which was by its own accounts solvent, would suddenly spring a roughly $130+ billion hole in its $660 balance sheet, is simply implausible on its face. Indeed, it was such common knowledge in the Lehman flailing about period that Lehman's accounts were sus that Hank Paulson's recent book mentions repeatedly that Lehman's valuations were phony as if it were no big deal. Well, it is folks, as a newly-released examiner's report by Anton Valukas in connection with the Lehman bankruptcy makes clear. The unraveling isn't merely implicating Fuld and his recent succession of CFOs, or its accounting firm, Ernst & Young, as might be expected. It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations...

Geithner Implicated; Lehman Accounting Fraud Allegation; naked capitalism; NY Fed.

The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Sat 2009-10-10 13:01 EDT

Elizabeth Warren: Serious Questions Remain About Obama's Loan Relief Plan

The Huffington Post News Editors

The Obama administration's effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure may not achieve its goal of helping 3 million to 4 million borrowers and may simply delay mortgage defaults for many, a government watchdog group says. The Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with making regular assessments of the $700 billion financial rescue fund enacted last year, said the Treasury Department should consider whether to improve the current $50 billion program or adopt new programs to meet an expected rise in foreclosures fed by increased unemployment...

com; Elizabeth Warren; full Feeds; HuffingtonPost; Obama's Loan Relief Plan; Serious questions remain.

Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Bailoutspotting (or The Search For The Great Financial Methadone Clinic)

``Using pretexts, subterfuge and lies, the administration's charade triage will only end once there are no more gullible taxpayers to provide their cash, no more demagogue senators and congressmen who will bend reality to make it seem that their actions benefiting a select few are for the benefit of all, and no more naive investors who buy into the promises that U.S. debt is the "safest investment."''

Bailoutspotting; Great Financial Methadone Clinic; Guest Post; naked capitalism; search.

Fri 2005-10-21 00:00 EDT

NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION

Lawrence Wilkerson transcript, New America Foundation: Weighing the uniqueness of the Bush administration's national security decision-making process

New America Foundation.