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Ben Bernanke: Socialist »

Posted by: populist 1 month, 3 weeks ago

8.7

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Comments: 31

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So, Ben, what is the exact definition of "unusual and exigent circumstances"? When exactly are these over and who decides? Again -- we are now getting into a really gray area for which there is no answer. But, again, I can tell you what this looks like: Privatize the profits and socialize the losses.

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Comments So Far: 31

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GHOSTWHOWALKS1 month, 3 weeks ago

Bernanke couldn't find his own arse unless someone told him where it was. Typical Fed Bull crap.
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jimdoze1 month, 3 weeks ago

"This run was surprising, however, in that Bear Stearns's borrowings were largely secured--that is, its lenders held collateral to ensure repayment even if the company itself failed."
Anyone care to venture the nature of the collateral of a CMO?
Private homes. Duh!
I'll grant you... those greedy mortgage bankers should have been a lot stricter about the level (if any) of domicile that all those greedy homeowners bought BOTH knowing they were not affordable.
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Truzseeker1 month, 3 weeks ago

socialist ? no corporate fascist
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  jimdoze1 month, 3 weeks ago
  
  "corporate fascist"
  LOL. How typical!
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moneyminds1 month, 3 weeks ago

You are right on point with your last statement. Private companies bend, shall we just say Break Laws, Rob, Steal, Cheat, etc... and then we as tax payers are forced to bail them out and pick up the tab.
This is insanity at its best.
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Jaydee401 month, 3 weeks ago

Haven't you figured it out yet populist? Only people who make over six figures deserve a bail out. Free market economy, what a joke.
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  CHAM1 month, 3 weeks ago
  
  Good analogy Jaydee40. I really liked the way the article was summed up. It was dead on right.
  Privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
  Everybody out there, listen up, we are heading toward an Oligharcy, may be there already.
  It can be solved. Don't just vote the criminals out, vote them out get new Justice people in, then prosecute those criminals.
  That will send a message.
  By the way did anyone see what the top bananna from BEar S left town with. You don't have enough fingers and toes to count the millions.
  As he was heard to say as he was leaving town - "Let them eat cake".
  And Jimdoze, we have already pardoned you for being a Republican. Why not let us thank you for becoming an American First citizen?
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    jimdoze1 month, 3 weeks ago
    
    Thanks for the special mention, CHAM. It warms my heart!
    :-)
    
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  jimdoze1 month, 3 weeks ago
  
  Jaydee, I am curious as to the predominant demographic of those individuals who are now walking away from their mortgages in droves? Care to venture a guess? What do we call that, free rent? It is certainly their right, by terms of the mortgage. But, let's not get carried away with the class warfare rhetoric. It doesn't hold water.
  
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    Jaydee401 month, 3 weeks ago
    
    Walking away is hardly the proper term Jimdoze, pushed out at gun point is more like it for most. But some how the rich escape with their summer homes and limos intact, I say take everything they have to pay their debt just like they do the common person. I for one am not here to provide the lazy rich with a lifestyle they mistakenly think they deserve, it's time they start actually adding to society for a change instead of sucking the very blood out of it like the leeches they are.
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      TonyByron1 month, 3 weeks ago
      
      "I for one am not here to provide the lazy rich with a lifestyle they mistakenly think they deserve, it's time they start actually adding to society for a change instead of sucking the very blood out of it like the leeches they are."
      Some information for you. The top 50% of wage earners pay about 97% of income taxes and the top 5% (the "rich")alone pay about 65% of income taxes.
      
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        Jaydee401 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        Fact is the wealthy pay very little personal income tax, Corporate taxes don't count. The numbers you gave distort the truth because any decent accountant can make it so you don't need to pay dime in to the government, sure you give to charities but to rewards help to offset to cost. I ran my own business for over ten years and never paid a cent in in personal taxes and it was all legal.
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        TonyByron1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        "Fact is the wealthy pay very little personal income tax,..."
        Fact is, your parsing is silly. Income tax is income tax.
        The top 50% of wage earners pay about 97% of income taxes and the top 5% (the "rich")alone pay about 65% of income taxes.
        Deal with it.
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        flyonthewallzz1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        I have looked at those numbers and they are true.
        BUTT! they miss because they do not include Social Insurance contributions which add up to about 40 percent of government receipts.
        The percentage value of contributions by the top income level to Government receipts drops way down if that is taken into account.
        So if Social Insurance is not a tax, it could only mean that it is fair to spend 40 percent of the budget on Social programs, because it does not come from tax revenue. (Payment cuts off dramatically after $100 grand)
        A dude making a Billion bucks a year pays exactly the same amount of tax on the first bit of money he makes in a year. (Assuming it is earned income, if not then it is less)
        The numbers for Tax contribution on Earned income from the top income bracket is pretty low and that is the highest tax rate.
        Can anybody explain to me how 40 percent of government receipts come from the first $100 grand of earned income?
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        flyonthewallzz1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        Hello Mccarpentry:
        I just wanted to say that it always make me think when I See you name as a vote for one of my comments. Be it good or bad.
        It seems we feed our families by doing the same thing, and truth be told I would rather drink a beer with another carpenter no matter what his politics are.
        I am guessing that you are in business for yourself, as I used to be, and that you have to pay the whole nut of Social Security as Self employment tax before you can make deductions on your income tax. When I was self employed I paid a great deal more into Social Security than I did for income. It struck me as unfair that I could not deduct the cost of health insurance. When my kids got old enough for my wife to go back to work her wages where lower than what I had been paying out for the insurance but we where covered, so we made out in a strange kind of way.
        
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        flyonthewallzz1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        I do pretty well as an employee now, I do miss being my own boss and working for homeowners. My wife has stopped working to care for her father.
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        amazed1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        I agree that ALL earned income should be subject to te Social Security and Medicaid taxes, but I believe that we're now up to about $150 or 160K per year before you're done with social security.
        Also, don't forget that for every dollar that comes out of your pay for social security and medicaid, your employer also pays a dollar -- making the true rate of those taxes, not 7.65%, but 15.3%. If you are self-employed, you get a bit of a break -- I believe the rate is about 13%.
        I'm a bit skeptical of your 40% figure, but when you figure that social security starts at the first dollar of EVERYBODY's earned income, and there are no deductions for anything -- no dependents, no earned income credits, etc. it kind of makes sense. Remember -- the first 12 --15K of a person's income is not taxed -- higher amounts if you have extra dependents. If you have bunches of people in lower income jobs, there's a whole lot of income going untaxed --but still yielding SS dollars.
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        flyonthewallzz1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        Hi Amazed:
        Always glad to hear from you:
        The 40 percent number was from 2006 and is real (Social insurance contributions).
        I admit the other years where lower (moonbat numbers).
        I am well aware that a worker only sees 1/2 of the amount of FICA payments removed from thier check.
        Oh: and the cap is about $100 G
        http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/cbb.html
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        Jaydee401 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        Income tax is just that, a tax on your personal income, corporate tax is one of the costs for the privilege of doing business within that country, two very different things. So the wealthy contribute very little from their income unlike the working poor, so again the numbers you quote are not true.
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        Amazing11 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        And the top 5% of wage earners garner about 98% of the wages and should be paying 98% of the taxes, not just 65%.
        Just two percent of the population controls 98% of the wealth. And they should damn well be paying 98% of the cost of the wars they are using to profit themselves. And they should damn well supply 98% of the troops as well.
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        amazed1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        why don't corporate taxes count???????
        as a small business owner, I am personally liable for the taxes my business ownes -- corp. income, payroll, fuel taxes, road use taxes. In addition, my salary is ADDED BACK IN to my bottom line -- so I pay corporate income tax on my "personal" income as well as personal income tax ON THE SAME DAMN DOLLARS!!!
        If I should shirk, or just not be able to afford my taxes, and my business does not have enough assets to cover them, the gov't will be more than happy to seize my personal assets to pay them.
        And, besides, don't you live in Canada?
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TonyByron1 month, 3 weeks ago

"Privatize the profits and socialize the losses."
I may be wrong but I have heard of no loss to the government for its help with Bear Stearns.
Action was taken to avoid a panic run that would have spread throughout the economy in a domino effect.
That panic did not happen so it appears to have been a wise move.
I would add that someone from the huffpo throwing "socialist" stones is laughable at best.
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  GHOSTWHOWALKS1 month, 3 weeks ago
  
  Just where in all heck do you think the 10 Billion dollars for the buy out came from? They printed it and drove down the dollar. You need to take an economic course, or have an accountant tell you what fiat money does to the value of the dollar.
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    jimdoze1 month, 3 weeks ago
    
    Perhaps you do need an economics course to understand what the Fed did. They did not "give" JPM the money for the buyout of BSC. The buyout was a stock swap transaction. "As a result of the merger, each outstanding share of Bear Stearns common stock was converted into the right to receive 0.21753 shares of JPMorgan Chase common stock."
    What the Fed did do was guarantee loans of $30 Billion to JPM to provide liquidity, should it have been necessary, in exchange for JPM taking on the obligations of BSC. These were loans, not gifts. The gift that JPM got was the assets for which there will eventually be a huge market value... well beyond what they paid for BSC in their stock swap. The guarantee was an incentive for JPM to take on the assets when no one else would touch them. It said, in effect, that if there never is a market for those assets, we will forgive the loan. The simple act of doing that resurrected the market for those assets.
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      CHAM1 month, 3 weeks ago
      
      jimdoze, thanks for the heartwarming, we try to be nice. Jim did the Fed ( A private Organization and a "For Profit" company get any special "Tax Breaks" for guaranteing that $30 Billion loan?
      Normally a Bond Company such as Stephens, Inc. would issue the risk insurance - for a fee.
      So the guys that did bad got bailed out and the guys that tried to do good - well they got kicked out, and as taxpayers they are at risk to repay the loan guarantee if it becomes a loss for the Fed so they get an extra chance to become bailoutees again, maybe. Seems like a good deal for somebody. Is that somebody the "Not so Rich"?
      Think that would be simple enough english to described the deal?
      
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        jimdoze1 month, 3 weeks ago
        
        "the Fed ( A private Organization and a "For Profit" company get any special "Tax Breaks" for guaranteing that $30 Billion loan?"
        WHAT????
        "So the guys that did bad got bailed out and the guys that tried to do good - well they got kicked out"
        HUH????
        Methinks that this country is in dire need of basic economics and civics education.
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    TonyByron1 month, 3 weeks ago
    
    JP Morgan purchased Bear Stearns by giving stock in the amount of about $250 *million* to the stockholders of Bear Stearns. I suggest you get some *correct* info before calling me ignorant.
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jmopinion1 month, 3 weeks ago

Congress s ucks!
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flyonthewallzz1 month, 3 weeks ago

This is a link to a site that many conservatives would find great empathy with.
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/piechart.htm
I agree with much of what is said here.
Please take a nano-second and pretend you are a moonbat.
The Most people that are paid by our Government work for DOD, In fact DOD has more employees than Wal-mart, GM, Ford, Exxon combined. The pensions paid out are more than the wages.
Another thing that makes it so difficult to support my arguments is that so much spending is hidden in the budget. For instance all the numbers for the NSA have recently turned to Zero. There is stuff tucked into the dept of HSS like Project Bio-Shield. How the hell can I make a decent counter balanced argument with so many secrets?
On the surface it seems we pay out equivalent amounts for servicing our Dept, Social Security, DOD, and the dept. of HSS.

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  flyonthewallzz1 month, 3 weeks ago
  
  It seems to me that a lot of spending is hidden in the types of things I would choose to rail against.
  I would prefer to be objective, but please take a nano-second and consider my argument.
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THOMNH621 month, 3 weeks ago

then he will fit right in if Barack is elected, the peoples republic of the us
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