Senate Passes Stimulus, Will It Work?
This is it, the Obama stimulus plan is passed in the Senate. Obama’s chief financial advisor Larry Summers was on Bloomberg being interviewed about the financial cleanup where the interviewer asked if there would be a possibility of using the Swedish Plan and nationalize the worst of the banks. Summers hedged on that question. Same as when he was asked about firing CEO’s that would not cooperate. He said that was up to the stockholders but that there would be times that when they would have to act. On the housing crisis Summers said the administration would focus on helping people pay their mortgages. He mentioned the $50 billion dollars in the stimulus package.
This morning on Democracy Now “Robert Kuttner and Michael Hudson on the Obama Administration’s $789 Billion Economic Stimulus Package and $2.5 Trillion Bank Recovery Plans” to quote their website.
Hudson claimed that the government is spending $15 trillion bailing out the financial industry and that it is a parasite and should be allowed to fail. Kuttner claims that the plan needs to be even bigger and we should nationalize the banks like what FDR did. He also pointed out that Obama needs to take on the housing crisis and help home owners.
Today on CSPAN Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski spoke of the government spending over $7 trillion since the beginning of 2008 on this financial crisis, during the senate vote. She was opposed to the stimulus because it is too much. She mentioned how the Department of Energy had a budget of $28 billion last year and now was getting $45 billion in the stimulus package, they simply did not have the ability to spend the money intelligently in a short period of time. It made me think of the billions air freighted in cash to Iraq that was delivered in wheel barrows to people who simply made it all disappear under the Bush administration. We certainly don’t want that.
On Bloomberg TV show Taking Stock, Dan Greenhaus of Miller Tabak said that there were lots of ways to give out the money and he mentioned giving everyone $100 in cash as one method. He thinks Geitner needs to come up with specific proposals. The market is not impressed according to John Murphy of Stockscharts.com. He said that in the great depression only Gold stocks and T-bills did well in the stock market, and gold is going to do the same now.
Dan Greenhaus said the banks are too busy dealing with the problem debt to make moves and there may need to be a nationalization of the banks to get rid of the bad debt.
Earlier on Bloomberg Wilbur Ross of W.L. Ross & Co, a Private Equity investor who specializes in distressed company acquisition said that there were so many opportunities now that there are almost too many. He noted that Americans had lost $5.5 Trillion in value in their homes in the last year. That is huge, He noted that the top 10 banks had to write off $500 Billion in debt in the last year. He blamed the Bush administration for dealing with symptoms and not the cause of the problem which was the housing market for him. This guy plays with the big boys and he seems to know his stuff, he is sitting pretty in this market and he said the second mistake of the Bush administration was letting Lehman Brothers go down, that was what put the focus on the financial industry instead of where it should have been. I am assuming he means the housing market.
Well back to the senate where CSPAN had Chris Dodd democrat senator of Connecticut who railed against the stock brokers who were complaining about not getting their bonuses under the Obama plan. He said they were really out of touch with the average American and he noted that the stimulus package had removed the requirement that the $50 Billion be spent on helping people with their mortgages. So that means we have to trust the government to do the right thing. Great.
Tags: Gold good investment, Stimulus passes, We have to Trust Government will spent money on housing
February 15th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Will it work?
I haven’t looked at the stimulus bill in its entirety but the idea is a good one. Especially if it helps the national healthcare movement and adds Green (my fav color) to the list of collar jobs. I think the workforce would be better if people were healthy enough to get to work. And, try as we all may, access to affordable healthcare is a problem for a lot of people. If they are too scared to go see a doctor when they get sick because of how much the bill is going to be, then they end up spreading their sickness to other people without treatment. Im bias, because im usually sick anyways and nobody is really hiring so I can’t afford to go to the doctor over every bout of the flu or broken bone… so I self medicate.
Obama often mentions giving Americans the chance to invent and create but I think the craftmanship of a lot of American made products suck and looks awful compared to what you can get from China (America’s sugarmama). So maybe if good ideas were allowed to grow with a Made In America stamp on it, that would also help things a bit.
Lastly, Republicans (michael steele for starters) should drop that whole “Drill, Baby Drill” baloney. Jobs, Baby, Jobs= people being too busy to complain about the government. Plus middle class americans put more money into the american economy. Think about it.
Anyway, im rambling. Its late. Good night.
Hopefully the stimulus package will work as expected, I like Obama and I want him to serve a full 2 terms. Its kind of nice having an intelligent person in charge for a CHANGE.
February 15th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
We need to keep the politicians honest. It is essential that we let them know they work for us not big business. That means we need to insist on things that really help Americans.