Most people with common sense clearly understand why the dishonestly and moral coruption by those in DC have ruined this country. Here's just another example of the deceit and dishonesty:
If anyone questions why the American people have lost faith in those who represent them in Washington, one need look no further than the front page of Thursday's (Apr. 23) Wall Street Journal. The above the fold headline reads "Lewis Says U.S. Ordered Silence on Deal" referring to Bank of America's purchase of Merrill Lynch which triggered the bail out of B of A. Who in the U.S.? None other than Hank Paulson, former Secretary of the Treasury and Ben Bernanke, current Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America. He testified under oath that he was told not to disclose to shareholders of Bank of America the full financial loss of Merrill Lynch Brokerage prior to shareholders voting to approve the purchase of the brokerage. In other words, he was ordered by the U.S. Government to not tell the truth to the shareholders of the company. And, unfortunately, he did what he was told to do.
This government ordered failure to disclose is precisely why we are in this financial mess. Not only is it absolutely wrong and unfair to the shareholders of Bank of America, this lack of disclosure is what contributed to the collapse of the credit markets. Markets cannot operate without credibility and trust. All financial information that is materially important to financial decision-making by the investor and shareholders must be disclosed or else that trust is violated and credibility is lost. If the public thinks that public companies are hiding information - guess what - they aren't going to invest in them.
As State Treasurer, I changed our investment policy in December of 2007, prohibiting investments in short term commercial paper issued by financial institutions because of my concerns about transparency and full disclosure. My job was to protect taxpayer investments and I no longer believed that the major financial institutions were disclosing the full amount of their toxic assets nor did I know which institutions were credible and which ones were not. Therefore we stopped investing in all of them.
However, what I did not realize was that those who were charged with regulating the securities industry would arguably break the law and order silence about information that was materially important to shareholders. This is absolutely outrageous and should not be tolerated.
The stock market and our economic system work because investors rely on financial information that is required by law to be disclosed allowing individual and institutional investors to draw their own conclusions about whether it is a profitable investment. It is this requirement that ensures that our markets our free. Freedom has never meant no laws or regulation - that would result in chaos. It also requires that there are consequences for not doing the right thing - that's called justice. Capitalism works because we require disclosure of accurate information to individuals about publicly traded companies. Efficient markets reflect information about the company in share price.
This kind of reckless behavior by Paulson and Bernanke undermines the very institutions that they are suppose to be regulating and they should be held accountable for their actions. But since, government officials cannot be sued in most instances because of sovereign or official immunity, retirees who have seen their pensions disappear will have to seek restitution by keeping their fingers crossed and hope that their Congressmen or Senators will correct this wrongdoing and provide a meaningful remedy for these losses. Americans must send the message to Washington that they cannot trample on shareholders rights, destroy credibility in the markets, and then demand more money from the American taxpayer to subsidize bad decisions and interference by regulators. It is not right - it is not fair - and it must be stopped.
Sincerely,
Sarah Steelman
www.SarahSteelman.com
Showing posts with label liars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liars. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
The CBO said:
So much for "Change". What a lying scumbag!
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, congressional auditors said Friday.
The new Congressional Budget Office figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama's budget than the new administration predicted just last month — a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It's a prospect even the president's own budget director called unsustainable.
In his White House run, Obama assailed the economic policies of his predecessor, but the eye-popping deficit numbers threaten to swamp his ambitious agenda of overhauling health care, exploring new energy sources and enacting scores of domestic programs.
The dismal deficit figures, if they prove to be accurate, inevitably raise the prospect that Obama and his Democratic allies controlling Congress would have to consider raising taxes after the recession ends or else pare back his agenda.
By CBO's calculation, Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year of red ink over 2010-2019.
Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.
White House budget chief Peter Orszag said that CBO's long-range economic projections are more pessimistic than those of the White House, private economists and the Federal Reserve and that he remained confident that Obama's budget, if enacted, would produce smaller deficits.
Even so, Orszag acknowledged that if the CBO projections prove accurate, Obama's budget would produce deficits that could not be sustained.
"Deficits in the, let's say, 5 percent of GDP range would lead to rising debt-to-GDP ratios that would ultimately not be sustainable," Orszag told reporters.
Deficits so big put upward pressure on interest rates as the government offers more attractive interest rates to attract borrowers.
"I think deficits of 5 percent (of GDP) are unsupportable," said economist Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "It will lead to higher interest rates to the point where it will force policymakers to make changes."
Republicans immediately piled on.
"This report should serve as the wake-up call this administration needs," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "We simply cannot continue to mortgage our children and grandchildren's future to pay for bigger and more costly government."
But Obama insisted on Friday that his agenda is still on track.
"What we will not cut are investments that will lead to real growth and prosperity over the long term," Obama said. "That's why our budget makes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform. That's why it enhances America's competitiveness by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and building a clean energy economy."
Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 contains ambitious programs to overhaul the U.S. health care system and initiate new "cap-and-trade" rules to combat global warming.
Both initiatives involve raising federal revenues sharply higher, but those dollars wouldn't be used to defray the burgeoning deficit and would instead help pay for Obama's health plan and implement Obama's $400 tax credit for most workers and $800 for couples.
Obama's budget promises to cut the deficit to $533 billion in five years. The CBO says the red ink for that year will total $672 billion.
Most disturbing to Obama allies like Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., are the longer term projections, which climb above $1 trillion again by the end of the next decade and approach 6 percent of GDP by 2019.
Among about a dozen major changes to Obama's budget, Conrad is looking to curb Obama's 9 percent increase for non-defense appropriations to show short-term progress and insists that the long-term deficit and debt crisis will have to be addressed via a special bipartisan commission.
"The budget that I'll submit will cut the deficit by more than two-thirds over these first five years," Conrad. "These imbalances are just absolutely unsustainable."
The worsening economy is responsible for the even deeper fiscal mess inherited by Obama. As an illustration, CBO says the deficit for the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, will top $1.8 trillion, $93 billion more than foreseen by the White House. That would equal 13 percent of GDP, a level not seen since World War II.
The 2009 deficit, fueled by the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and diving tax revenues stemming from the worsening recession, is four times the previous $459 billion record set just last year.
The CBO's estimate for 2010 is worse as well, with a deficit of almost $1.4 trillion expected under administration policies, about $200 billion more than predicted by Obama.
Long-term deficit predictions have proven notoriously fickle — George W. Bush inherited flawed projections of a 10-year, $5.6 trillion surplus and instead produced record deficits — and if the economy outperforms CBO's expectations, the deficits could prove significantly smaller.
Republicans say Obama's budget plan taxes, spends and borrows too much, and they've been sharply critical of his $787 billion economic stimulus measure and a just-passed $410 billion omnibus spending bill that awarded big increases to domestic agency budgets.
The administration says it inherited deficits totaling $9 trillion over the next decade and that its budget plan cuts $2 trillion from those deficits. But most of those spending reductions come from reducing costs for the war in Iraq.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, congressional auditors said Friday.
The new Congressional Budget Office figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama's budget than the new administration predicted just last month — a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It's a prospect even the president's own budget director called unsustainable.
In his White House run, Obama assailed the economic policies of his predecessor, but the eye-popping deficit numbers threaten to swamp his ambitious agenda of overhauling health care, exploring new energy sources and enacting scores of domestic programs.
The dismal deficit figures, if they prove to be accurate, inevitably raise the prospect that Obama and his Democratic allies controlling Congress would have to consider raising taxes after the recession ends or else pare back his agenda.
By CBO's calculation, Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year of red ink over 2010-2019.
Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.
White House budget chief Peter Orszag said that CBO's long-range economic projections are more pessimistic than those of the White House, private economists and the Federal Reserve and that he remained confident that Obama's budget, if enacted, would produce smaller deficits.
Even so, Orszag acknowledged that if the CBO projections prove accurate, Obama's budget would produce deficits that could not be sustained.
"Deficits in the, let's say, 5 percent of GDP range would lead to rising debt-to-GDP ratios that would ultimately not be sustainable," Orszag told reporters.
Deficits so big put upward pressure on interest rates as the government offers more attractive interest rates to attract borrowers.
"I think deficits of 5 percent (of GDP) are unsupportable," said economist Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "It will lead to higher interest rates to the point where it will force policymakers to make changes."
Republicans immediately piled on.
"This report should serve as the wake-up call this administration needs," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "We simply cannot continue to mortgage our children and grandchildren's future to pay for bigger and more costly government."
But Obama insisted on Friday that his agenda is still on track.
"What we will not cut are investments that will lead to real growth and prosperity over the long term," Obama said. "That's why our budget makes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform. That's why it enhances America's competitiveness by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and building a clean energy economy."
Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 contains ambitious programs to overhaul the U.S. health care system and initiate new "cap-and-trade" rules to combat global warming.
Both initiatives involve raising federal revenues sharply higher, but those dollars wouldn't be used to defray the burgeoning deficit and would instead help pay for Obama's health plan and implement Obama's $400 tax credit for most workers and $800 for couples.
Obama's budget promises to cut the deficit to $533 billion in five years. The CBO says the red ink for that year will total $672 billion.
Most disturbing to Obama allies like Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., are the longer term projections, which climb above $1 trillion again by the end of the next decade and approach 6 percent of GDP by 2019.
Among about a dozen major changes to Obama's budget, Conrad is looking to curb Obama's 9 percent increase for non-defense appropriations to show short-term progress and insists that the long-term deficit and debt crisis will have to be addressed via a special bipartisan commission.
"The budget that I'll submit will cut the deficit by more than two-thirds over these first five years," Conrad. "These imbalances are just absolutely unsustainable."
The worsening economy is responsible for the even deeper fiscal mess inherited by Obama. As an illustration, CBO says the deficit for the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, will top $1.8 trillion, $93 billion more than foreseen by the White House. That would equal 13 percent of GDP, a level not seen since World War II.
The 2009 deficit, fueled by the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and diving tax revenues stemming from the worsening recession, is four times the previous $459 billion record set just last year.
The CBO's estimate for 2010 is worse as well, with a deficit of almost $1.4 trillion expected under administration policies, about $200 billion more than predicted by Obama.
Long-term deficit predictions have proven notoriously fickle — George W. Bush inherited flawed projections of a 10-year, $5.6 trillion surplus and instead produced record deficits — and if the economy outperforms CBO's expectations, the deficits could prove significantly smaller.
Republicans say Obama's budget plan taxes, spends and borrows too much, and they've been sharply critical of his $787 billion economic stimulus measure and a just-passed $410 billion omnibus spending bill that awarded big increases to domestic agency budgets.
The administration says it inherited deficits totaling $9 trillion over the next decade and that its budget plan cuts $2 trillion from those deficits. But most of those spending reductions come from reducing costs for the war in Iraq.
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