Forums: Intervention Stocks

Who could have imagined that the bailout of the auto industry, one of the single most unpopular moves by the Obama administration, would become one of its best talking points? But don't for an instant imagine that the comeback of the nation's rescued car companies, particularly General Motors, will change the way we debate government's role in the economy. When it comes to almost anything the government does, ideology trumps facts, slogans trump reality, and loaded words ("socialism") trump data. Let there be no mistake: Rescuing GM and Chrysler took political courage, and I want to put in a good...

Like a mantra, officials from both the Bush and Obama administrations have trumpeted how the government’s sweeping interventions to prop up the economy since 2008 helped avert a second Depression. Now, two leading economists wielding complex quantitative models say that assertion can be empirically proved. In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year. In addition, there would be about 8.5 million...

In what was beginning to feel like a previous life, Israel Valle had earned $18 an hour as an executive assistant to a designer at a prominent fashion label. Now, he was jobless and struggling to find work. He decided to invest in upgrading his skills. It was February 2009, and the city work force center in Downtown Brooklyn was jammed with hundreds of people hungry for paychecks. His caseworker urged him to take advantage of classes financed by the federal government, which had increased money for job training. Upgrade your skills, she counseled. Then she could arrange job interviews....

Via The Right Scoop, Barney Frank offers Charlie Rose both a blizzard of buffalo dung and the hair of the dog in attempting to defend the Democrats’ economic policies. Frank tells Rose that the recovery was going great until the European crisis this spring — but notably avoids mentioning the nature of that crisis, which was skyrocketing debt. He also claims that private-sector employment has been growing, but that banks aren’t lending, which is choking off the recovery. Frank blames this on over-eager regulators, which he sees as a big problem that can only be solved by a massive purchase...

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic. America isn't the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

Banks only saved themselves not the economy, Greece singled out in the credit default crisis, the plan for a deflationary depression, every nation is in trouble, Greece now in a situation to default, banks continue to mislead, the floodgates open for lobbyists and special interests, lending costs climb, net neutrality suffers by a court ruling, Internet downgraded by court ruling We have seen the Fed and the US Treasury execute policy that has served to bail out the financial industry that created the conditions that have persisted for more than 2-1/2 years. During that period Wall Street, banking and insurance...

The expression "Failure is not an option" may be a motivator for very high-risk situations, but failure must always be an option for players in a properly functioning market economy. If you had a choice between buying a bond issued by a company considered "too big to fail" - which is an implicit government guarantee of its debt - would you buy that bond or one issued by a company without a government guarantee? Companies with government guarantees will be able to borrow at less cost, and, ultimately, their unfair competitive advantage will drive the companies without guarantees out of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted a U.S. ban on a planned visit by a leading European Muslim critic of the Iraq war, in a move rights groups hailed as a victory for civil liberties. Clinton signed orders which ended the ban on Professor Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University, who was barred due to alleged terrorism ties which he denies, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Wednesday.

With data on November's unemployment rate and payroll jobs creation due to be released Friday by the Labor Department, President Obama convenes a meeting today at the White House to discuss what many Americans worry about more than health care, Afghanistan, or anything else-jobs. Mr. Obama's challenge is that his legislative and regulatory agenda dampens overall job creation. Mr. Obama's priorities, namely health reform, green jobs, high speed rail, climate change legislation, and increased unionization discourage employers from hiring. Until he abandons this interventionist agenda, the economy won't produce the jobs needed to reduce unemployment significantly. Naturally, these projects' supporters...

As if we needed more proof that the mortgage market is currently a totally manipulated market. Mortgage applications to purchase homes in the U.S. plunged last week to the lowest level in almost nine years as Americans waited for the outcome of deliberations to extend a government tax credit, reports Bob Willis at Bloomberg. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of applications to buy a house dropped 12 percent in the week ended Nov. 6 to 220.9, the lowest level since Dec. 2000. The group’s refinancing gauge rose 11 percent as interest rates decreased, pushing the overall index up 3.2 percent....