So McCain is making it up as he goes along?
And so are all of the rest of the Republicans and their appointees....maybe that has been the problem all along?
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight
By JON HILSENRATH, SERENA NG and DAMIAN PALETTA
The financial crisis that began 13 months ago has entered a new, far more serious phase.
Lingering hopes that the damage could be contained to a handful of financial institutions that made bad bets on mortgages have evaporated.
New fault lines are emerging beyond the original problem -- troubled subprime mortgages -- in areas like credit-default swaps, the credit insurance contracts sold by American International Group Inc. and others.
There's also a growing sense of wariness about the health of trading partners.
The consequences for companies and chief executives who tarry -- hoping for better times in which to raise capital, sell assets or acknowledge losses -- are now clear and brutal, as falling share prices and fearful lenders send troubled companies into ever-deeper holes.
This weekend, such a realization led John Thain to sell the century-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. Each episode seems to bring government intervention that is more extensive and expensive than the previous one, and carries greater risk of unintended consequences.
Expectations for a quick end to the crisis are fading fast. "I think it's going to last a lot longer than perhaps we would have anticipated," Anne Mulcahy, chief executive of Xerox Corp., said Wednesday.
"This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist who worked with fellow academic Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman,
to explain how financial turmoil can infect the overall economy. "But at the same time we have the policy mechanisms in place fighting it, which is something we didn't have during the Great Depression."...
Today, Mr. Bernanke is taking out his playbook, said NYU economist Mr. Gertler, "and rewriting it as we go."
Merrill Lynch & Co.'s emergency sale to Bank of America Corp. last weekend was an example of the perniciousness and unpredictability of deleveraging...
Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday. Expectations for a quick end to the crisis are fading fast.
This crisis is complicated by innovative financial instruments that Wall Street created and distributed. They're making it harder for officials and Wall Street executives to know where the next set of risks is hiding and also contributing to the crisis's spreading impact.
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Swaps Game
The latest trouble spot is an area called credit-default swaps, which are private contracts that let firms trade bets on whether a borrower is going to default.
When a default occurs, one party pays off the other. The value of the swaps rise and fall as the market reassesses the risk that a company won't be able to honor its obligations.
Firms use these instruments both as insurance -- to hedge their exposures to risk -- and to wager on the health of other companies. There are now credit-default swaps on more than $62 trillion in debt, up from about $144 billion a decade ago...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169431617549947.html
I won't post any more of this article. When I saw the subtitle, "Swaps Game," I knew that the Republicans were completely out of their minds to have allowed this to happen and not step in when they saw where it was heading....13 months ago!
"This crisis is complicated by innovative financial instruments that Wall Street created and distributed." Innovative? How about entirely ridiculous?
Where is the creation of capital? Where are our once vast American assets...in China and other overseas markets along with our jobs? Where is the respect for building equity and rewards for working hard? Where is the reward for being fiscally sound? Where is the American Work Ethic?
Where are the Republicans' morals, family values, and Judeo-Christian beliefs against usury?
It's all a game to these fabulously irresponsible rich people who are no longer taxed on their vast wealth by Republican politicians who played the game, too. They were actually given more money by the GOP to speculate with instead of re-investing it in our economy and infrastructure.
They even got down to betting on who would default first.
"How very droll. Let the little people absorb all the losses. I'm bored with it all."
"We top 2% can't be bothered dealing with this mess. Let Bush's boys clean it up. Now where did I shelter MY wealth? Ah, yes. In all those off source bank accounts in the Caymens that are my GOP God-given tax havens."
McCain doesn't know how many mansions his wife owns or how she invested her Republican-given tax cuts from the past eight years...and neither do we because she won't release his tax returns.
And neither will Sarah Palin.
Isn't it clever how Republicans won't reveal what they've been doing but the NSA knows everything we do?
They have acted as radical financial terrorists but are given a benefit of a doubt...and get away with golden parachutes and the chance to take the White House yet again?
