 |
Treasury Pulled the Number Out of Thin Air
George Washington’s Blog
Thursday, Sept 25, 2008
You know the $700 billion price tag of the proposed bailout? Treasury pulled that number out of thin air.
As Forbes writes:
In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
Prison
Planet.tv Members Can Watch
Fall Of The Republic
Right Now Online -
Don't Miss Out! Get
Your Subscription Today!
CANCER CONSPIRACY? Are
"they" suppressing the cure? Will YOU
be the next victim? Learn
the Secret Truth! - READ FULL STORY
-
- Social bookmarks
- Email this article
-
- Print this page
14 Responses to “Treasury Pulled the Number Out of Thin Air”
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |||||||
| By N2H | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
September 25th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I’m going to pull a number out of thin air as well. Hmmmmmmmmmm….
Zero.
September 25th, 2008 at 5:41 am
That’s because they are dealing with QUADRILLIONS of dollars. The system is a joke.
They say, “700 billion” because it sounds large and they are trying to get the point across that this situation is a big deal. They will need a lot more than 700 billion dollars of course. Obviously they will simply print however much they feel like when “necessary”.
“Necessary” has no meaning because they will literally ALWAYS need the money YESTERDAY.
In another week they will might need 3 trillion the week after that 20 trillion, the week after that 150 trillion. You see, that’s why this system has been referred to as a “house of cards”.
Its coming down and they’re either too stupid or too corrupt to put the government into bankruptcy reorganization.
You know what’s truly collapsing? Not the economy. We can save that if we really wanted to. What’s truly collapsing is the “free” trade MONETARIST theory of economics. THAT’S what is collapsing.
And all of these monetarists Ph.D’s with their “economics” degree’s have too much pride to face reality. Their pride won’t let them admit that their monetarist theory is bunk.
http://www.larouchepac.com/
September 25th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Remember a few months ago when congress had their secret closed door session? Ron Paul warned us that “something BIG” was being cooked up by the criminals who have overtaken the USA from the inside. Well Ron Paul was right. Alex Jones was right. They cooked it up at the Bilderburg meeting in Virginia, then they passed the orders down to congress,now they are positioning regular Army combat brigades on the streets of the USA because the people are going to be hungry,and hungry people dont stay in front of the television where the government wants them to be. They are increasing flu shots this year to 150 MILLION people here in the USA. Everything Alex has warned us about is comming to pass. We have to try again to get people to watch ENDGAME. I have successfully shared ENDGAME with 5 people who actually watched it,and another 6-7 people who i know did not watch it because when i asked them what they thought they just said “it was pretty good” and that was it. You dont watch ENDGAME and then think: “ughh…that was pretty good…,uh..,dughh..Darrr…” so i know which ones watched it and tried to understand through the fluoride haze. Come on Pats,lets try again to get AJ’s films out there. I love you guys.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am
they should know all about the thin air stuff, that’s where they print the currency from !!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm_xX1Ur43I
September 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
For his next trick – Hanky Panky Paulson will pull a number out of Bush’s Ass……sure, that number will be shaped like a turd, butt Paulson will pass it off to BernLacky who will mold it and shape it into a bunch of cookies, bake @ 350 for 20 minutes, take them out of the oven, let them cool for five seconds and then serve them to the American people. They will tell us we are eating some delicious chocolate chip cookies….butt really, we will be eating shit.
Bush Shit.
September 25th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Write in Ron Paul. It’s just the right thing to do.
September 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Revolution Calling !!!!!! WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!
September 25th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
How about a $700 Billion dollar TAX CUT to foot that bill? Congress and el presidente can take a pay cut!
September 26th, 2008 at 1:01 am
http://www.donaldtrumphair.com http://www.thepentacon.com alex jones april gallop dave von kleist willy rodriguez go viral
September 26th, 2008 at 1:02 am
they pulled the number out of their ass e s http://www.donaldtrumphair.com http://www.thepentacon.com http://www.prisonplanet.com go viral
September 26th, 2008 at 8:11 am
If those who where in debt paid their debts to the banks, we would not be in this mess. WANNA SOLVE THIS CRISIS… then those who are in debt pay their debts immediately so the rest of us financial responsible Americans don’t get hit with the bill!!!!!
September 26th, 2008 at 9:23 am
and why do you think they took out loans in the first place…
they obviously don’t have the money to pay their debts back.
as for the $700 billion being pulled out of thin air – i’d give a little more time before they can come up with an accurate figure. the banks were never obliged to tell the government how much bad debt they owned… and why they don’t tell them i don’t know…
September 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am
They want a fascist planet with the superwealthy ruling it all
Since we’re too independent, America must be led to fall
When our credit’s been exhausted to subdue the Middle East,
They’ll install our debtor nation in the body of The Beast
Traitor…Dare call it treason
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw5dP5gy2Vs
September 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Paulson cannot be allowed a blank cheque
By George Soros
Published: September 24 2008 20:28 | Last updated: September 24 2008 20:28
Hank Paulson’s $700bn rescue package has run into difficulty on Capitol Hill. Rightly so: it was ill-conceived. Congress would be abdicating its responsibility if it gave the Treasury secretary a blank cheque. The bill submitted to Congress even had language in it that would exempt the secretary’s decisions from review by any court or administrative agency – the ultimate fulfillment of the Bush administration’s dream of a unitary executive.
Mr Paulson’s record does not inspire the confidence necessary to give him discretion over $700bn. His actions last week brought on the crisis that makes rescue necessary. On Monday he allowed Lehman Brothers to fail and refused to make government funds available to save AIG. By Tuesday he had to reverse himself and provide an $85bn loan to AIG on punitive terms. The demise of Lehman disrupted the commercial paper market. A large money market fund “broke the buck” and investment banks that relied on the commercial paper market had difficulty financing their operations. By Thursday a run on money market funds was in full swing and we came as close to a meltdown as at any time since the 1930s. Mr Paulson reversed again and proposed a systemic rescue.
Mr Paulson had got a blank cheque from Congress once before. That was to deal with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His solution landed the housing market in the worst of all worlds: their managements knew that if the blank cheques were filled out they would lose their jobs, so they retrenched and made mortgages more expensive and less available. Within a few weeks the market forced Mr Paulson’s hand and he had to take them over.
Economists’ Forum
Top economists critique US Treasury’s $700bn plan to bail out the banking sector and offer their solutions to the crisis
Mr Paulson’s proposal to purchase distressed mortgage-related securities poses a classic problem of asymmetric information. The securities are hard to value but the sellers know more about them than the buyer: in any auction process the Treasury would end up with the dregs. The proposal is also rife with latent conflict of interest issues. Unless the Treasury overpays for the securities, the scheme would not bring relief. But if the scheme is used to bail out insolvent banks, what will the taxpayers get in return?
Barack Obama has outlined four conditions that ought to be imposed: an upside for the taxpayers as well as a downside; a bipartisan board to oversee the process; help for the homeowners as well as the holders of the mortgages; and some limits on the compensation of those who benefit from taxpayers’ money. These are the right principles. They could be applied more effectively by capitalising the institutions that are burdened by distressed securities directly rather than by relieving them of the distressed securities.
The injection of government funds would be much less problematic if it were applied to the equity rather than the balance sheet. $700bn in preferred stock with warrants may be sufficient to make up the hole created by the bursting of the housing bubble. By contrast, the addition of $700bn on the demand side of an $11,000bn market may not be sufficient to arrest the decline of housing prices.
Something also needs to be done on the supply side. To prevent housing prices from overshooting on the downside, the number of foreclosures has to be kept to a minimum. The terms of mortgages need to be adjusted to the homeowners’ ability to pay.
The rescue package leaves this task undone. Making the necessary modifications is a delicate task rendered more difficult by the fact that many mortgages have been sliced up and repackaged in the form of collateralised debt obligations. The holders of the various slices have conflicting interests. It would take too long to work out the conflicts to include a mortgage modification scheme in the rescue package. The package can, however, prepare the ground by modifying bankruptcy law as it relates to principal residences.
Now that the crisis has been unleashed a large-scale rescue package is probably indispensable to bring it under control. Rebuilding the depleted balance sheets of the banking system is the right way to go. Not every bank deserves to be saved, but the experts at the Federal Reserve, with proper supervision, can be counted on to make the right judgments. Managements that are reluctant to accept the consequences of past mistakes could be penalised by depriving them of the Fed’s credit facilities. Making government funds available should also encourage the private sector to participate in recapitalising the banking sector and bringing the financial crisis to a close.
The writer is chairman of Soros Fund Management