S
Sean
Guest
Why are we going to let this happen? Why does not the American people
care?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58726
The Crash of 2008?
Posted: November 15, 2007
7:55 p.m. Eastern
In March 1929, the Harding-Coolidge era came to an end. The eight
years had witnessed the greatest peacetime prosperity of any nation in
history: America in the Roaring 20s. Early that March, Calvin Coolidge
handed the presidency over to Herbert Hoover, who had just pulled off
a third straight Republican landslide.
"I do not choose to run," said Coolidge, who could easily have won a
second full term. Silent Cal went home. Hoover, whom he privately
derided as "Wonder Boy," presided over the Crash of '29 and the first
three years of the Great Depression.
History holds Harding, Coolidge and Hoover responsible for the
Depression, with Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, and Reed Smoot and
Willis Hawley of Smoot-Hawley fame, as accessories. As Voltaire
observed, history is a pack of lies agreed upon.
Two men debunked the myth that the low-tax, high-tariff policy of the
1920s brought on the Depression. The more famous is Milton Friedman,
who proved to the satisfaction of a Nobel Prize committee that the
Depression was a monetary phenomenon. The Fed had opened the sluices,
and the money had swamped the stock market.
When Wall Street crashed, there came a run on the banks by men who had
bought on margin, a depositors' stampede, a bank collapse, a wipeout
of uninsured savings and the loss of a third of the money supply,
lifeblood of the economy. The Fed never gave the nation the needed
transfusions. Hoover and FDR misdiagnosing the crisis, raised taxes
and wrote up new regulations, which was like putting a body cast on a
patient in shock from the loss of a third of his blood.
The Smoot-Hawley myth, repeated by John McCain in the Detroit debate,
was demolished by Alfred Eckes of Ohio University, Reagan's man at the
FTC and America's foremost authority on the history of trade and
tariffs, in his 1995 "Opening America's Markets."
The point of this brief history: The recent hand-off from Alan
Greenspan, the maestro of the Global Economy, to Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke may turn out to have been a lateral far behind the line of
scrimmage, leaving Bernanke holding the bag for a recession for which
he is no more responsible than was the hapless Hoover.
Last week, the stock market saw 4 percent of its value wiped out. Oil
reached nearly $100 a barrel. The dollar fell to record lows against
the Canadian dollar and the euro. The price of gold was $850 an ounce,
signaling inflation and a worldwide lack of confidence in the Fed's
ability or determination to defend the world's reserve currency.
The Chinese, with $1.4 trillion in reserves, perhaps 80 percent in
dollar assets, indicated they may dump dollars and move into euros.
Merrill-Lynch took an $8 billion hit. Citibank is signaling massive
losses from its subprime mortgage debt. General Motors reported an
operating loss of $1.6 billion for the quarter and a whopping $39
billion charge that is among the biggest profit hits ever reported.
Where does this leave Bernanke? On the horns of a dilemma.
Exposure of all that subprime debt going rotten on the books of our
biggest banks, the staggering losses being reported, the inability of
homeowners to refinance or borrow any further against their equity,
the credit crunch - all argue for an easy money policy to get capital
back into the economic bloodstream.
Thus the Fed has cut interest rates from 5.25 percent to 4.5 percent.
Thus the howls for deeper cuts, thus the market anticipation of
another cut, though the Fed has said no more.
But the Fed is responsible not only for the national economy. It is
responsible for defending the dollar, which represents the real
savings and wealth of the nation. And that dollar has lost more value
in seven years than in any similar period in modern history. A euro,
worth 83 cents the year Bush was elected, has risen in value to $1.47.
As the dollar sinks, exporters may cheer rising sales, but at home we
will soon find that the prices of all those imported goods from Europe
and Asia down at the mall are starting to rise. U.S. soldiers,
diplomats, tourists and businessmen overseas are already feeling the
pain of a falling dollar.
If a recession is generally a sign the Fed should loosen up, a run on
the dollar is a sign the Fed should tighten by raising interest rates
to make dollars and dollar-denominated assets more attractive.
But the Fed's raising of interest rates would push up the rates on
mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, and push millions of marginal
folks into bankruptcy and the country into recession, a disaster for
the Republicans.
But, given their free-trade fanaticism and free-spending ways, that
fate would not be undeserved. Say a prayer for Ben Bernanke. He may
have to eat the football that scrambling quarterback Greenspan tossed
to him far behind the line of scrimmage.
care?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58726
The Crash of 2008?
Posted: November 15, 2007
7:55 p.m. Eastern
In March 1929, the Harding-Coolidge era came to an end. The eight
years had witnessed the greatest peacetime prosperity of any nation in
history: America in the Roaring 20s. Early that March, Calvin Coolidge
handed the presidency over to Herbert Hoover, who had just pulled off
a third straight Republican landslide.
"I do not choose to run," said Coolidge, who could easily have won a
second full term. Silent Cal went home. Hoover, whom he privately
derided as "Wonder Boy," presided over the Crash of '29 and the first
three years of the Great Depression.
History holds Harding, Coolidge and Hoover responsible for the
Depression, with Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, and Reed Smoot and
Willis Hawley of Smoot-Hawley fame, as accessories. As Voltaire
observed, history is a pack of lies agreed upon.
Two men debunked the myth that the low-tax, high-tariff policy of the
1920s brought on the Depression. The more famous is Milton Friedman,
who proved to the satisfaction of a Nobel Prize committee that the
Depression was a monetary phenomenon. The Fed had opened the sluices,
and the money had swamped the stock market.
When Wall Street crashed, there came a run on the banks by men who had
bought on margin, a depositors' stampede, a bank collapse, a wipeout
of uninsured savings and the loss of a third of the money supply,
lifeblood of the economy. The Fed never gave the nation the needed
transfusions. Hoover and FDR misdiagnosing the crisis, raised taxes
and wrote up new regulations, which was like putting a body cast on a
patient in shock from the loss of a third of his blood.
The Smoot-Hawley myth, repeated by John McCain in the Detroit debate,
was demolished by Alfred Eckes of Ohio University, Reagan's man at the
FTC and America's foremost authority on the history of trade and
tariffs, in his 1995 "Opening America's Markets."
The point of this brief history: The recent hand-off from Alan
Greenspan, the maestro of the Global Economy, to Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke may turn out to have been a lateral far behind the line of
scrimmage, leaving Bernanke holding the bag for a recession for which
he is no more responsible than was the hapless Hoover.
Last week, the stock market saw 4 percent of its value wiped out. Oil
reached nearly $100 a barrel. The dollar fell to record lows against
the Canadian dollar and the euro. The price of gold was $850 an ounce,
signaling inflation and a worldwide lack of confidence in the Fed's
ability or determination to defend the world's reserve currency.
The Chinese, with $1.4 trillion in reserves, perhaps 80 percent in
dollar assets, indicated they may dump dollars and move into euros.
Merrill-Lynch took an $8 billion hit. Citibank is signaling massive
losses from its subprime mortgage debt. General Motors reported an
operating loss of $1.6 billion for the quarter and a whopping $39
billion charge that is among the biggest profit hits ever reported.
Where does this leave Bernanke? On the horns of a dilemma.
Exposure of all that subprime debt going rotten on the books of our
biggest banks, the staggering losses being reported, the inability of
homeowners to refinance or borrow any further against their equity,
the credit crunch - all argue for an easy money policy to get capital
back into the economic bloodstream.
Thus the Fed has cut interest rates from 5.25 percent to 4.5 percent.
Thus the howls for deeper cuts, thus the market anticipation of
another cut, though the Fed has said no more.
But the Fed is responsible not only for the national economy. It is
responsible for defending the dollar, which represents the real
savings and wealth of the nation. And that dollar has lost more value
in seven years than in any similar period in modern history. A euro,
worth 83 cents the year Bush was elected, has risen in value to $1.47.
As the dollar sinks, exporters may cheer rising sales, but at home we
will soon find that the prices of all those imported goods from Europe
and Asia down at the mall are starting to rise. U.S. soldiers,
diplomats, tourists and businessmen overseas are already feeling the
pain of a falling dollar.
If a recession is generally a sign the Fed should loosen up, a run on
the dollar is a sign the Fed should tighten by raising interest rates
to make dollars and dollar-denominated assets more attractive.
But the Fed's raising of interest rates would push up the rates on
mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, and push millions of marginal
folks into bankruptcy and the country into recession, a disaster for
the Republicans.
But, given their free-trade fanaticism and free-spending ways, that
fate would not be undeserved. Say a prayer for Ben Bernanke. He may
have to eat the football that scrambling quarterback Greenspan tossed
to him far behind the line of scrimmage.
