Our Changing Globe » politics

Obama Will Err If He Tries To Prove A Nuclear Iran-Palestinian Linkage

Michael Redbourn — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:49:14 +0000

When President Obama welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House today, Obama will most likely propose that Israel be a test of Iran’s readiness to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

He won’t put it in such blunt terms of course, but will talk of the supposed linkage that exists between Israel making peace with the Palestinians, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Obama will unsuccessfully try to prove, that there is a connection between an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and Iran’s mullahs giving up their quest for nuclear weapons.

If Obama takes this tack, which is he expected to, he will fail miserably because there is no connection whatsoever between the two issues, and Netanyahu will correctly remain unconvinced.

Obama may then try gentle pressure, which is the most that he can use, but the facts are clear and Obama surely knows them and will respect Netanyahu’s rejection.

Did Iran set out to get nuclear weapons in order to help the Palestinians get a State? Of course not.

Has Iran even faintly suggested that it will halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons if the Palestinians get a State. Never.

Abbas controls nothing, and can hardly order a pizza.

He would lose the West Bank to Hamas in a matter of weeks if Israel were to hand it over to him, and Hamas stated as recently as yesterday that it will never recognize Israel.

So who is Israel supposed to hold peace talks with, and who is it supposed to concede land to?

Where would this new State be, and who would control it?

What is more, even under Abbas’s moderate guidance, Palestinian children are still raised on a diet of hatred in their schools, and specially made cartoons and videos that glorify dying a martyr’s death and others that show Jews drinking babies blood are common place.

There are presently fifty seven Islamic states, but Abbas is recently on record as saying that he will “never accept Israel as a Jewish state”.

Some in the U.S. would like to coerce Israel into some sort of two state deal, simply to see how Iran would respond, since there is not much appetite for either an Iran with nuclear bombs or launching an attack against it at the present time.

Netanyahu is a seasoned politician however, and knowing that Obama cannot force him, he will refuse to allow Israel to be used as a guinea pig.

Share|

Why Are Ki-Moon’s Priorities, what they are?

Michael Redbourn — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:11:30 +0000

Questions are now continually arising regarding Ki-moon, as to why such things such as Darfur and Afghanistan, interest him far less than the Middle East.

Does he see some lives as worth less than others, or is he subject to paymasters and overlords?

Dear UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, why are you silent? We hope that you are doing well, and that you are not overly disturbed by what is going on in the Middle East. We understand that the terrible injustices that are taking place around here are making you lose sleep. We are interested to know whether you perhaps heard something, somehow, maybe as a side-note, about the fact that coalition forces killed dozens of innocents in Afghanistan in one bombing?….

Afghans allege dozens of civilian deaths from coalition bombing runs

… opinions regarding the civilian casualties, search of Afghan homes and the arrest of Afghans and, therefore, there are tensions in our relations,’ Karzai told a joint press conference with visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. …

Headlines: Dozens of Afghan Civilians Killed in U.S. Bombings …

UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon: “I have no authority to edit or change or alter any recommendation and conclusions of this board of inquiry’s judgement. However, because it contains some very sensitive information, then I decided to …

Share|

The House of Representatives Backs Credit-Card Measures

Michael Redbourn — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:57:47 +0000

The U.S. House of Representatives passed by a vote of 357-70 today, a so-called ‘credit-card bill of rights’ bill, following the adding of a provision that will require banks to apply consumers’ payments to balances with the highest interest rates first.

Uncollected credit card debt rose to 8.82% in February, and that’s the highest amount registered by Moody’s Investors Service Inc. since it began keeping records twenty years ago.

The legislation will also require credit-card companies to give forty-five days notice before increasing rates, and require statements to be mailed at least twenty-one days before the payment due date, and the provision will take effect ninety days after the measure is signed into law.

The House bill imposes broader restrictions than those enacted by the Federal Reserve in December, leading House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say, “Very soon this will be the law of the land, and consumers will benefit. The House action today will give the legislation momentum heading into the Senate, and with a Democratic president who will sign final legislation there is little doubt it will get support needed in both chambers”.

The senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, Spencer Bachus, voiced concern however saying, “Too many restrictions will lead lenders, such as Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., to pull back on credit in the midst of a severe economic decline. Credit cards play a crucial role in the life of ordinary Americans. Any legislation affecting credit-card practices is going to have a profound effect. There are a great number of people whose rates will go up”.

Edward Yinglingm, who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Bankers Association said in a statement, “It is vitally important to maintain access to credit at this difficult economic time. This is especially true for credit cards, which serve as a driver of economic activity and are relied on by consumers and small businesses as way to bridge short-term financial gaps”.

Share|

Finance Ministers Pledge To Get Their Banks Lending Again

Michael Redbourn — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:10:38 +0000

Finance officials from some of the world’s top economic powers, which included, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada, have pledged to get their countries banks lending again, believing it to be the best way to end the world’s worst recession since the 1930s.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his counterparts from the world’s top seven industrialized democracies, acknowledged on Friday April 25, in a joint statement that their economies will need to be jump started in order for the global economy to rebound.

A joint statement read, “We are committed to act together to restore jobs and growth and to prevent a crisis of this magnitude from occurring again, and we will take whatever actions are necessary to bring that about. Recent data suggest that the pace of decline in our economies has slowed, and some signs of stabilization are emerging. Economic activity should begin to recover later this year amid a continued weak outlook and downside risks persist”.

A goal of raising $500 billion for an emergency lending facility was set by G-20 leaders at their London summit on April 2 and Obama has asked Congress to put up $100 billion, and Europe and Japan have pledged equivalent amounts.

Other major countries, which include China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, have not come yet honored their commitments however, because China and several other big developing countries like India want to link the support to having a bigger voice in the IMF which predicts that the global economy will shrink this year, something that’s never happened in the post World War II period.

Earlier this week the IMF called on world governments to boost stimulus spending, especially on infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges, in order to create jobs, but European nations are loathe to run up huge budget deficits and have so far resisted U.S. pleas to increase their spending.

France’s Lagarde noted, “We are in a bind, if you will. On the one hand we have to inject public money into the economy because we believe this is the strongest and best multiplier. At the same time, in the medium and long term, we need to restore the sustainability of public finance”.

Share|

Bailout recipients pay lobbyists almost $10 million.

Michael Redbourn — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:06:03 +0000

The top 10 recipients of the government’s $700 billion financial bailout plan (TALF) paid lobbyists around $9.5 million during the first three months of this year.

GM (General Motors Corp.) which just announced that it will most likely default on a $1 billion bond payment that’s due June 1, spent $2.8 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009.

GM has already received $13.4 billion in government loans and is pushing for an additional $5 billion.

Other bailout recipients that spent more than $1million in an attempt to influence future government decisions were;

A.I.G – which has already received $70 billion
Citigroup Inc. – 45 billion
JPMorgan Chase & Co. – $25 billion
Bank of America Corp., received $5 billion and spent $660,000 on lobbying which is 20% down from the last quarter of 2008.
Wells Fargo & Company, $25 billion in bailout money, and $700,000 on lobbying.
Goldman Sachs, received $10 billion and spent $670,000
Morgan Stanley got $10 billion and spent $540,000
U.S. Bancorp got $6.6 billion and paid out $170,000
PNC Financial Services Group, received $7.8 billion and spent $135,000 which is almost double its last quarter’s lobbying costs.

The companies in question deny using bailout money for lobbying, but seven of them spent more attempting to influence the government than they did in the last quarter of 2008, and Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said “It’s completely unjustifiable. They say they’re not using public money for these purposes, but in effect these companies are steering taxpayer funds to lobbying, and campaign contributions”, and added, “What AIG’s reporting is, in fact, influence peddling”.


Share|
Related posts:

Bill To Limit Credit Card Increases To Be Advanced
Several Banks Are Preparing To Repay Taxpayer Money
Will Life Insurance Companies Get $20 Billion Bailout Money?



As Stocks Advanced The Number Of Defaulting Homebuyers Rose By 50%
Michael Redbourn — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:24:33 +0000
Consumer confidence is important, but what should we believe when one headline tells us that, “The banks have enough cash”, whilst another screams, “Mortgage delinquencies among the most creditworthy homeowners rose by 50% last month”.
After Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, “the vast majority of the nation’s banks have enough capital”, U.S. stocks advanced the most in almost two weeks, and Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, who helps oversee $30 billion at Morgan Asset said, “Geithner’s comments that most banks are OK got money coming back into stocks because that pretty much allays yesterday’s fears about stress tests and banks having to raise more capital”.
Even General Motors Corp. rose 2.4 percent to $1.70 after a government auditor said the Treasury will supply the automaker with $5 billion in additional aid.
Meanwhile, David Heupel, who helps manage $60 billion at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans said, “There are still signs of a tough economic environment, but companies that have really cut down their expenses are starting to see a little glimmer of life”.





The “tough economic environment” part of his comment would appear to be something of an understatement however, because the number of so-called prime borrowers who are at least sixty days behind on mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rose to 743,686 in January, from 497,131 in December, and that’s almost double the October total.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who are the biggest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, either owning or guaranteeing 56% of all U.S. home loans, just announced that mortgage delinquencies among their “most creditworthy homeowners”, rose by 50% in just one month, and they blamed the fall on both drops in income and too much debt, with 34% of borrowers telling Fannie and Freddie that they were earning less money, and around 20% citing too much debt as their reason for missing their mortgage payments, with a further 8.1% blaming unemployment.






Share|
Related posts:

The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.
U.S. Fixed Mortgage Rates Continue To Drop
Two New Plans Announced To Help Homebuyers



Bill To Limit Credit Card Increases To Be Advanced
Michael Redbourn — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:46:05 +0000
Although the Federal Reserve finalized new regulations that will limit various credit-card rate increases last December, the rules won’t come into effect until July 2010, and there is now mounting pressure to implement the regulations at a much earlier date.
Not surprisingly, the banking industry says that both the White House and Congress should wait for the Fed’s new rules to take effect before taking any additional action, and Edward Yingling, who is president of the American Bankers Association, said last Sunday, “The banking industry understands the concerns about credit cards, but the administration should fully recognize the impact of the Federal Reserve Board regulation, which is one of the strongest consumer protection regulations ever adopted. As we go forward we need to be careful about piling on rules that very much may have the impact of restraining the availability of credit”.





Democratic lawmakers have already begun advancing legislation that would limit certain credit card fees and other practices and Larry  Summers, who is scheduled to meet with the heads of several of the largest U.S. credit card issuers at the White House on Thursday, recently said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, “The president is going to be very focused, in a very near term, on a whole set of issues having to do with credit-card abuses”, and then added, “their abuses include charging consumers extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn’t have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into”.
Summers’s comments were also underlined by White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki who said, “Addressing abuse in the credit card industry and standing up for consumers is a priority for the president and his economic team, and we look forward to working with Congress on these issues”.
Whereas banks claim that market conditions and changes in borrowers’ credit scores necessitated the increases, consumer advocates want new legislation that would not only limit rate increases on existing balances, but would also require credit card companies to provide more information on their rates, and they are particularly critical of banks that raised interest rates whilst receiving federal bailout funds.






Share|
Related posts:

The Average Interest On U.S. Credit Cards Is Now 14.2%
As Stocks Advanced The Number Of Defaulting Homebuyers Rose By 50%
Ten US Banks Needs A Total Of $75 Billion



Several Banks Are Preparing To Repay Taxpayer Money
Michael Redbourn — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:32:53 +0000
Rahm Emanuel, who is the White House chief of staff recently said on ABC’s, “This Week” program, that he believes, “we will be able to avoid the temporary nationalization of the nineteen weakest of the big banks”, and added that he didn’t envisage that it would be necessary for the administration to ask for any additional funding, since several banks are already preparing to repay loans that they recently received.
Emanuel’s remarks were reinforced by those of Lawrence Summers, who is National Economic Council director, who said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, “we won’t have to get more money because there’s the capacity to turn to the private market first for firms needing more capital. The government can also deploy if necessary additional taxpayer cash, which is likely be buttressed over time by lenders that are in the strongest position of paying back U.S. money”.
Financial regulators and The U.S. Treasury are presently clashing with each other as to how to disclose the results of stress tests that are scheduled to be released May 4, because several officials are concerned about the potential damage that could be caused to the weaker institutions if it’s not done correctly.





The intention of the tests, is to clarify which of nineteen companies that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., GMAC LLC and MetLife Inc., have enough capital to weather a deeper economic downturn, should it in fact occur, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and other regulators would prefer that less details about the assessments be publicized, whilst the Treasury would prefer more.
The first of two major dangers that is envisaged, is that if all the banks pass the tests with clean bills of health, then the credibility of the tests themselves will suspect, especially since the economy has worsened since the Treasury announced the tests in February, causing questions to be raised about whether the checks that regulators are presently applying to bank portfolios are exacting enough. The second danger is that if some banks fail the tests, then investors can be expected to punish them, by refusing to invest in them, thereby causing them even greater problems. 
The nineteen financial institutions are all expected to get the preliminary results of the tests as early as April 24, and any banks deemed to be weak, and in need of additional capital will be given six months to raise additional funds. 
President Barack Obama said at a news conference in Trinidad and Tobago on April 19, that “the tests will show that different banks are in different situations”, and he pledged that no new injections of government money would, “go into a black hole where you aren’t going to see results or some exit strategy so the taxpayers ultimately are relieved of these burdens”.






Share|
Related posts:

Ten US Banks Needs A Total Of $75 Billion
The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.
As Stocks Advanced The Number Of Defaulting Homebuyers Rose By 50%



The Fed’s Top Policy Makers Play Down The Risks Of Inflation
Michael Redbourn — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:57:53 +0000
The Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Donald Kohn,  said when Speaking in Nashville on April 18, that, “The Fed is only loaning to sound borrowers, and we are not taking significant credit risk that might end up being absorbed by the taxpayer. For almost all the loans made by the Federal Reserve, we look first to sound borrowers for repayment and then to underlying collateral”.
He was supported by New York Fed Bank President William Dudley, who spoke at the same conference, and said he’s “not worried at all that a doubling in the central bank’s balance sheet to $2.19 trillion will spur inflation”.
The above comments were made in response to recent warnings by several leading economists, who fear that the huge amounts of credit now being extended will soon cause serious inflation.





Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who is now head of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said recently at Vanderbilt University, “I don’t think the political system will tolerate the degree of activity that the Federal Reserve, in conjunction with the Treasury, has taken. I think for better or for worse we are at a point where the Federal Reserve Act, after all that has been happening in the last year or more, is going to be reviewed”.
Former St. Louis Fed President William Poole, who is now  a senior economic adviser to Merk Investments LLC also expressed concerns during the Nashville conference, saying, “Central bank officials are underestimating the political forces they’re going to face once the recovery starts and we are very vulnerable to an inflation explosion”.






Share|
Related posts:

Bill To Limit Credit Card Increases To Be Advanced
The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.
Is Inflation Beginning To Raise Its Ugly Head!



Consumer Confidence Increasing In April
Michael Redbourn — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:43:20 +0000
After reaching a three-decade low of 55.3 in November, the Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 58.5 from 57.3 in March, based on an average of sixty one estimates, and it is hoped than an improvement in confidence may help sustain a recovery in consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy. 
The Commerce Department said yesterday (April 16th) that builders broke ground at an annual rate of 358,000 on single-family homes in March, which although unchanged from the previous month, suggests that the housing market may have reached bottom, and The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index also rose this month to its highest level since October.
James O’Sullivan, who is a senior economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut said, “The economy has started to show signs of improvement. Given all the policy action and mortgage rates coming down, we are starting to see less pessimism”.





Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said just one day before the report was made public that, “the signs of stability make for a potential first step toward a recovery from the downturn that started in December 2007″. 
Other encouraging news is that reports by the Philadelphia Fed and New York Fed earlier this week showed manufacturing shrinking at a slower pace this month, and according to the Labor Department, the number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits unexpectedly dropped last week to the lowest level in almost three months.






Share|
Related posts:

U.S. Housing Starts Unexpectedly Fall To Record Low
As Stocks Advanced The Number Of Defaulting Homebuyers Rose By 50%
April Retail Sales Fell As Unemployment Rose