Posted by WARREN MOSLER on 25th September 2009
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Appreciate it if anyone can get me a meeting with him.
This policy is a major threat to our standard of living, and he apparently doesn’t know it:
By Rebecca Christie
September 25 (Bloomberg) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he sees a “strong consensus†among Group of 20 nations to reduce reliance on exports for growth and defended the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.
“A strong dollar is very important in the United States,†Geithner said in response to a question at a press conference yesterday in Pittsburgh, where G-20 leaders began two days of talks.
Geithner predicted agreement on an Obama administration proposal to foster a global recovery that avoids lopsided flows of trade and investment. He said a higher U.S. savings rate this year is an “encouraging sign,†and he indicated that government support for markets will be withdrawn gradually.
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Posted in Currencies | 7 Comments »
Posted by WARREN MOSLER on 25th September 2009
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By: JeeYeon Park
Spetember 24 (News Associate) – The US is too dependent on Japan and China buying up the country’s debt and could face severe economic problems if that stops, Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson told CNBC.
“It’s almost Armageddon if the Japanese and Chinese don’t buy our debt,†Robertson said in an interview. “I don’t know where we could get the money. I think we’ve let ourselves get in a terrible situation and I think we ought to try and get out of it.”
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Posted in Deficit, Government Spending | 2 Comments »
Posted by WARREN MOSLER on 25th September 2009
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The Greatest Wealth Transfer…
Citigroup to scale back U.S. footprint; limit lending to wealthy
There is perhaps no greater trend emerging from the Obama Administration than the trend of wealth flowing to the top.
For a president that promised change and more equity for working people, this development is truly astonishing.
From Tarp to the forced bankruptcy of U.S. automakers to tariffs on tire imports from China to the Public Private Partnership initiative and above all…the complete absence of any middle class tax cut, this Administration has, either deliberately or unwittingly, engineered one of the greatest wealth transfers from the lower classes to the most wealthy.
This Citigroup story is just another example. The beleagured bank is being forced to pare back its mighty U.S. presence, where it served tens of millions of everyday Americans, including many small businesses, and now focus on lending money to the only ones who have any left: the wealthy.
Because the Administration, including the Federal Reserve, failed to understand the very nature of our own banking system–that commerical banks are already public/private partnerships and quasi-agents of the goverment–they were given support with huge strings attached when there shouldn’t have been any. Moreover, because the government has failed in its obligation to sustain employment and output (yes…OBLIGATION!) banks have no choice but to go where the money is.
This is a terrible, terrible, abrogation of government’s responsibility and worse, a weak and cowardly act by the president by going back on his promise to help working people.
There is plenty of history to show that large doses of government spending–broad and actual spending–are necessary to avoid economic collapse and, indeed, to sow the seeds for future long-term economic growth. A real leader would have overridden the wrong-headed advice of his political advisors and done what was necessary to restore jobs, incomes and a decent standard of living for all Americans, as promised, and not just the 1% at the top.
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Posted in Fed, Obama | 1 Comment »