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Toxic Debt and Protecting Our Tax Money

Obama's Toxic Debt Program
 
The toxic debt problem is a difficult situation made more difficult than it needs to be by the refusal to allow these companies to go into receivership or a chapter 11 pre-packaged bankruptcy. The failure to reform the onerous mark-to-market rules and/or to establish a new ratings system specifically for loans collateralized by real estate has exacerbated the problem exponentially. This new program is an interesting attempt but probably another swing and a miss for the Obama Treasury department. The FDIC guarantees are a major problem, and it seems odd that they will be directly guaranteeing debt in a way similar to that of the FHA. It’s called the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, not the Federal Debt Insurance Corporation. But hey, I'm just a regular citizen.  What do I know?  The stockholders and bondholders of troubled financial and other companies need to take a haircut through prepackaged bankruptcies. That includes the auto companies. When investors bought the equity and the debt, they knew there was a risk and bought it anyway. Now this new giveaway by the executive branch transfers the risk from these troubled companies to the citizens of this country and gives the purchasers of toxic assets a non-recourse loan to purchase those assets. The additional contingent liability will be enormous, but I guess the Fed can just print up, or electronically create more trillions of dollars out of nothing to cover their guarantees.
 
So what is the "bailout total" up to now? Bloomberg has published a chart that shows how much and to whom.  The grand total (and climbing) is now $11,623,630,000,000.00.  This doesn't include the stingy Obama budget projections that will run trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.  Link to Bloomberg:   http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aZchK__XUF84
 Here's a section of that page: 

                                  --- Amounts (Billions)---

                                   Limit          Current

===========================================================

Total                            $11,623.63     $3,800.18

-----------------------------------------------------------

 Federal Reserve Total            $7,565.63     $1,478.88

 Primary Credit Discount           $110.74        $65.14

 Secondary Credit                    $0.19         $0.00

 Primary dealer and others         $147.00        $25.27

 ABCP Liquidity                    $152.11        $12.72

 AIG Credit                         $60.00        $37.36

 Net Portfolio CP Funding        $1,800.00       $248.67

 Maiden Lane (Bear Stearns)         $29.50        $28.82

 Maiden Lane II (AIG)              $22.50        $18.82

 Maiden Lane III (AIG)              $30.00        $24.34

 Term Securities Lending           $250.00       $115.28

 Term Auction Facility             $900.00       $447.56

 Securities lending overnight       $10.00         $5.59

 Public-Private Investment Fund $1,000.00         $0.00

 Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility $1,000.00         $0.00

 Currency Swaps/Other Assets       $606.00       $417.86

 MMIFF                             $540.00         $0.00

 GSE Debt Purchases                $600.00        $33.58

 Citigroup Bailout Fed Portion     $220.40         $0.00

 Bank of America Bailout            $87.20         $0.00

-----------------------------------------------------------

 FDIC Total                      $1,551.50       $400.30

   FDIC Liquidity Guarantees      $1,400.00       $261.30

   GE                               $139.00       $139.00

   Citigroup Bailout FDIC            $10.00         $0.00

   Bank of America Bailout FDIC       $2.50         $0.00

-----------------------------------------------------------

 Treasury Total                   $2,206.50     $1,621.00

 TARP                              $700.00       $387.00

 Tax Break for Banks                $29.00        $29.00

 Stimulus Package                  $168.00       $168.00

 Stimulus II                       $787.00       $787.00

 Treasury Exchange Stabilization    $50.00        $50.00

 Student Loan Purchases             $60.00         $0.00

 Citigroup Bailout                   $5.00         $0.00

 Bank of America Bailout             $7.50         $0.00

 Support for Fannie/Freddie        $400.00       $200.00

-----------------------------------------------------------

HUD Total                           $300.00       $300.00

 Hope for Homeowners FHA           $300.00       $300.00

Last Updated: February 24, 2009 00:01 EST
 
UPDATE: April 1, 2009The projection is now up to 12.8 trillion dollars: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4&refer=home
And that's not an April fools joke.
  
 
Congress and Obama are Protecting Taxpayer's Money? 

You have to laugh out loud when you see our stellar congressional leadership claiming that they are saving taxpayer's money or protecting taxpayer’s money, as if they really care. First, the majority of the money they’re spending this year isn't taxpayer money. It's money borrowed on the credit account of citizens of this country. It's also money borrowed from the Social Security "Trust Fund" and the Medicare fund. The money being printed and electronically created by the Federal Reserve for bailout programs is not taxpayer money. It’s just more money created out of nothing against the value of the money held by U.S. citizens in their pockets or savings. Creation of money in this way debases the value of every dollar you have or will earn for the rest of your life.  It also debases the money your kids will earn and their kids will earn assuming there are any jobs for them.  I guess there should be some jobs shinning shoes for the Chinese folks who will own most everything in this country, if things keep going in the direction our leader is taking us.

It’s also a joke when the Democrats claim that they are protecting the taxes of their constituents. A large percentage of their constituents don’t pay any taxes at all. I guess if Obama is going to redistribute tax money from taxpayers to non-taxpayers, you could call it the non-taxpayers’ money but when can you correctly call it that? Would it be at the moment when the government sucks the taxes out of your paycheck each month, or is it during the micro-second that it sits in the U.S. Treasury? Perhaps it’s when the check is printed to the order of the non-taxpayer or maybe it’s when that non-taxpayer cashes the check.  So maybe Congressional leaders are protecting our non-taxpayer and taxpayer taxes.  Thank goodness for that.  Without their protection, we might get into serious economic trouble.  Rest easy and sleep tight.  Your future is in good hands.

 

 
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Say No to the Bailout and the "Car Czar"

No to The Auto Company Bailout

Politicians cannot say it but they know it's true.  A bailout of the "Big Three" (BT) will not really bail them out.  It will only extend the painful life of an outdated industrial bureaucracy that cannot continue to compete in the world marketplace.  What is needed in this case is a prepackaged bankruptcy with the government acting as debtor-in-posession.  This has been proposed by some in Congress and it is the only proposal that will enable the BT to shed their amazing array of cumbersome and oppressive contract liabilities.  There will be great pain involved just as there was in the airline industry, but it will be less painful than the liquidation that will likely occur in the future.  This option will also limit the hemorraging of money from the U. S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve to the cost of debtor-in-possession financing.   
 
No to the "Car Czar"
 
What is the purpose of a "Car Czar" when we already have the superior intellect and unrivaled leadership of Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and Obama to dictate, implement, mandate, oversee, and manage our economic problems?  One obvious purpose is to have a future scapegoat to which liberals can shift the blame for failure, since "W" will no longer be available for that role.    A "Car Czar" will require his own bureaucracy and all of the attendant expense and other nonsense.  If you have the mindset that government is the solution to all of our problems, it's a logical idea.  But isn't our government resourceful and large enough to find somone now on the payroll who can act in that capacity.  The most obvious and best choice for this situation would be to use a bankruptcy judge who would make the hard decisions that would occur in a prepackaged bankruptcy proceeding.   
 
Bottom line, if the liberals must have a "Car Czar", let them have him on their own watch, not ours.  
 
 
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