The clip above shows Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigning for the US presidency in 1933, using eerily familiar rhetoric. The clip opened the second portion of last week’s episode of The Explainer (which you can watch on YouTube), which focused on the Great Depression (in it, I asked my guest to expound on his blog post, Smartly protectionist). The Great Depression has provided a lot of grist for the mill in recent years, for example see A history lesson from the Great Depression – How the World Works – Salon.com
Today, I was going to focus on what’s going on in America but I’m down with the flu so it will have to be for next week.
For the past couple of weeks watching Bloomberg’s been a riveting experience as experts try to grapple with the goings-on in markets in the US and elsewhere. Non-experts, too: Question for a Management Class makes for quite interesting reading.
On the eve of the US House of Representatives voting on the bailout, a group of American economists released an open letter calling on representatives to reject the bailout plan. Columnist Will Hutton in The Guardian pointed out the argument at the heart of the economists’ opposition (and, by all accounts, among US voters who had House Republicans spooked about a popular backlash if they voted for the White House-proposed bailout plan):
And although some conservatives in Britain and America continue to make the ideological case against any government action as a response to the recent turmoil – governments necessarily do everything worse than the market – they have no alternative proposal about how to restore trust once it has gone. Trust is a reciprocal relationship, dependent upon a desire to be considered decent and honourable. Even in the dog-eat-dog financial markets, trust and integrity are matters of self-interest. However amoral you may be, it is in your interest to care about your reputation, because if you behave badly you will not do business with me – or others – on favourable terms again.
But the scale of the personal rewards now available in London and Wall Street – £15m-£20m at the top is the norm – along with the greed-is-good doctrine associated with extreme laissez-faire economics, has trashed the need for individuals to worry about integrity. They don’t need to be concerned about their reputations; they just need one deal or one year at the top and they need never work again. The incentive structure has so departed from one of the principal norms of fairness – proportionality between value added and reward – that it has eviscerated trust relationships and integrity.
Everybody tries to ‘game’ the system on their route to vast personal fortunes – whether short-selling, packaging up dud mortgages as prime mortgages or telling lies about their financial viability – and the result is that the system is getting wise. The best course today in any financial transaction is to presume zero integrity. Credit is drying up and with it the very lifeblood of the economy.
Worse, now that the system is in trouble, financiers are turning to taxpayers in the US and Britain for help without understanding the other key principal of fairness – that we will consider helping those who for no fault of their own get into trouble, but not those who freely created their own bad circumstances.
Hank Paulson certainly acted decisively in launching his plan, but the former Goldman Sachs CEO, who negotiated a special exemption from tax when he took the job, like his former Wall Street colleagues is not well endowed with the fairness gene. It polluted the very design of the scheme.
He knows that unless the US government does something comprehensive, the entire financial system is at stake, but his original plan was designed to bail out the system intact. It made no demands that any financial executives sacrifice pay or bonuses despite having driven their firms and wider economy to the point of bankruptcy. He does not want the government to provide new bank capital to help recapitalise a bust banking system. Instead, he wants the government to buy their toxic debt and so leave the banks unreformed. On top he wanted complete discretion to act as he chose without any oversight.
American economists of every persuasion signed a joint letter complaining not at the aim of the bail out, which is plainly vital, but for its lack of fairness. Conservative papers and politicians echoed the complaint. Suddenly, Wall Street is coming back to earth. The transactions from which it skims such riches are built on the savings of ordinary Americans to whom it has obligations, as it has to other Wall Street firms. What we know now about the yet to be agreed compromise is that Paulson has accepted Congressional oversight, will offer direct help to distressed US homeowners as well as banks, and will accept some constraints on the worst excesses of executive pay.
But the core proposal remains. The government will buy toxic debt rather than inject government funds into the banks’ capital base, in other words, reject even partially nationalising the entire US banking system as the Swedes had to in 1992. I don’t know – nobody does – whether the Paulson plan would be sufficient or whether ultimately the Americans will have to go for nationalisation. What I do know is that unless there is a radical and government-led change in ownership, structure, regulation and incentives so that the principles of fairness are put at the heart of the Anglo American financial system – proportionality of reward and fair distribution of risk – there is no chance of the return of trust and integrity upon which long-term recovery depends.
In the end the House of Representatives rejected the White House plan. FT.com / In depth – House rejects US bail-out bill, stitched the news together with failures and rescues in the UK, Benelux and Germany; and in House to Wall Street: Drop dead – MarketWatch says the Republicans were the ones who blinked:
Republicans voted against the bill by a two-to-one ratio, and in the process rejected their own leadership, who had worked for nearly a week to craft a bill that could gain a majority. Nearly 100 Democrats also voted against the bill, spurning their leadership.Many Republicans in the House were never persuaded that the credit crunch in the financial system is an impending disaster deserving of taxpayer aid. Politicians who had cut their teeth on free-market principles couldn’t accept the idea that the federal government should back up the banks who had foolishly bet everything on the housing bubble.Or they didn’t want to face the voters in six weeks and explain why a Republican would vote for the biggest government bailout ever.
In his blog, Howard Lindzom put it bluntly:
The market has been demanding a large scope bailout plan for weeks. The market has been chewing through financials one by one until it gets what it wants.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the markets are rigged. The bailout is a wimpy ass way to deal with the problem for sure, but a $1.2 trillion loss in market cap was just TODAY’s tradeoff. The market wants some extra rigging short-term and a meltdown is/was the trade-off.
The people in Washington know very little about a lot of things. That is their specialty, their claime to fame. They know shit ass less than nothing about the stock market and the MOOD of America that matters (money). Today, you saw what a bad mood can bring from traders. Tomorrow and for the next week you will see what panic brings as the selling accelerates.
This crisis though is not about the stock market, it is about THE CREDIT MARKETS. There is NO access to capital. We are shut down for business. Way worse than after 9/11 when the markets were closed. At least than, we were out shopping at the request of our President. Now we are just deer in the headlights at the whim of the House of Reps and Congress and Senate who just seem out to punish the rich. Bullshit politics. Everybody has a chance to be famous. They are really punishing everybody else.
The FED is out of bullets and we have absolutely zero leadership or hopes of any leadership soon.
On that sobering note, as the New York exchange plunged (777 points), and then Asia, too (biggest drop since 1987), An analyst on Bloomberg dryly said, “Cash seems to be the safest place to put your money now.” Commodity prices had their biggest drop in 52 years (since the index began). The Australian Prime Minister issued a statement appealing to the US Congress to pass the emergency measure, a sentiment echoed by the Japanese Finance Minister.George W. Bush will address his countrymen shortly before the markets open on Tuesday.
This seems a colossal game of “chicken,” with political leaders answerable to voters pitted on a collision course with financiers normally dismissive of nations, sovereignty, etc., demanding a bailout from the political leaders, otherwise everything comes crashing down. It’s interesting that as today wore on, the analysist began to speak rather confidently of the bailout being passed by the end of the week.
The Republican nightmare is obviously straight out of the Hollywood version of populist Huey Long’s barely fictionalized movie biopic, All the King’s Men:
Here at home, people have been nervous ever since insurance giant AIG ended up being taken over by the US government to prevent its collapse. See Business – Are my Philam investments safe? in INQUIRER.net
There are also concerns, now, over the possibility of bank runs and to head off potential panic, the Central Bank has tried to make soothing noises. See Business – How safe is my money in the bank? also in INQUIRER.net
Salve Duplito, who authored the two articles above, then goes on to point out that instead of hand-wringing, some sober planning is in order for ordinary people: Money Smarts » How are you dealing with the crisis?
As for the economists, Nouriel Roubini takes a kind of grim satisfaction in not turning out to be a Cassandra (see The Worst Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression and the subsequent The Shadow Banking System is Unravelling:Such demise confirmed by Morgan and Goldman now being converted into banks) while Roubini then looks at the proposed 700 billion dollar bailout plan and compares it to other bailouts in the past: Is Purchasing $700 billion of Toxic Assets the Best Way to Recapitalize the Financial System? No! It is Rather a Disgrace and Rip-Off Benefitting only the Shareholders and Unsecured Creditors of Banks
Whenever there is a systemic banking crisis there is a need to recapitalize the banking/financial system to avoid an excessive and destructive credit contraction. But purchasing toxic/illiquid assets of the financial system is not the most effective and efficient way to recapitalize the banking system. Such recapitalization — via the use of public resources — can occur in a number of alternative ways: purchase of bad assets/loans; government injection of preferred shares; government injection of common shares; government purchase of subordinated debt; government issuance of government bonds to be placed on the banks’ balance sheet; government injection of cash; government credit lines extended to the banks; government assumption of government liabilities.
A recent IMF study of 42 systemic banking crises across the world provides evidence on how different crises were resolved. First of all only in 32 of the 42 cases there was government financial intervention of any sort; in 10 cases systemic banking crises were resolved without any government financial intervention. Of the 32 cases where the government recapitalized the banking system only seven included a program of purchase of bad assets/loans (like the one proposed by the US Treasury). In 25 other cases there was no government purchase of such toxic assets. In 6 cases the government purchased preferred shares; in 4 cases the government purchased common shares; in 11 cases the government purchased subordinated debt; in 12 cases the government injected cash in the banks; in 2 cases credit was extended to the banks; and in 3 cases the government assumed bank liabilities. Even in cases where bad assets were purchased — as in Chile — dividends were suspended and all profits and recoveries had to be used to repurchase the bad assets. Of course in most cases multiple forms of government recapitalization of banks were used.
But government purchase of bad assets was the exception rather than the rule. It was used only in Mexico, Japan, Bolivia, Czech Republic, Jamaica, Malaysia, and Paraguay. Even in six of these seven cases where the recapitalization of banks occurred via the government purchase of bad assets such recapitalization was a combination of purchase of bad assets together with other forms of recapitalization (such as government purchase of preferred shares or subordinated debt).
In the Scandinavian banking crises (Sweden, Norway, Finland) that are a model of how a banking crisis should be resolved there was not government purchase of bad assets; most of the recapitalization occurred through various injections of public capital in the banking system. Purchase of toxic assets instead — in most cases in which it was used — made the fiscal cost of the crisis much higher and expensive (as in Japan and Mexico).
Thus the claim by the Fed and Treasury that spending $700 billion of public money is the best way to recapitalize banks has absolutely no factual basis or justification. This way of recapitalizing financial institutions is a total rip-off that will mostly benefit — at a huge expense for the US taxpayer – the common and preferred shareholders and even unsecured creditors of the banks. Even the late addition of some warrants that the government will get in exchange of this massive injection of public money is only a cosmetic fig leaf of dubious value as the form and size of such warrants is totally vague and fuzzy.
Others have tried to translate the amount in human terms:CJR: What Can You Buy For $700 Billion?
It would reimburse banks, home owners, and local governments for nearly 9 million foreclosures – It could prevent over 200 million foreclosures – It could buy 8.6 billion monthly Metrocards – The government could rebuild Katrina-ravished New Orleans and Gulf Coast… three and a half times – Roughly 538 Yankee Stadiums could be built – 5.4 million students could be sent to a public university – It equals nearly 520 times the amount of Amtrak’s current operating budget – It is $14 billion more than the U.S. spent during the Vietnam War
Another economist, Carsten Hermann Pillath, offers up an approach based on evolutionary economics and cultural science, bringing up game theory and the prisoners’ dilemma (see The financial crisis: a humble evolutionary economist’s perspective).
Over at Left Flank, you can find links to scientists weighing in with their efforts to relate the financial news with Chaos Theory! See Black Swans and Charlatans.
Jeff Jarvis, in Stewardship v. ownership of our news, money, and society took a cue from the unfolding crisis and criticizes mainstream media and it’s efforts to control how their content is processed, used, and redistributed on the World Wide Web.
The political fallout, if any, is something else, altogether. I’ve been silent for some weeks because I’ve been trying to get beyond simply reacting to the news, and instead, trying to make sense of where we are and where we ought to go; I’ll attempt to start piecing my thoughts together when I’ve recovered from the flu.
“this andrew guy is so patriotic to the Philippines. He understand the consequences of an OSAMA presidency. leytenianâ€Â
to you he’s patriotic, to others he’s pathetic.
Side-topic : to those intrigued, there indeed is money in blogging. Technorati just released its report and one of the chapters has the dollars and cents. :
http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/blogging-for-profit/
Average Annual Revenue is more than $6,000
The average annual blogger revenue is more than $6,000. However, this is skewed by the top 1% of bloggers who earn $200k+. Among active bloggers that we surveyed, the average income was $75,000 for those who had 100,000 or more unique visitors per month (some of whom had more than one million visitors each month). The median annual income for this group is significantly lower  $22,000.
Bloggers with advertising invest an average of $1,800 annually in their blogs. U.S. bloggers earn an average of $5,000, though bloggers in Asia earn 50% more on average and European bloggers earn an average of 75% more than U.S. bloggers.
“You can also expect that when times are tight, those who will survive will have to cut cost.”
Precisely!!!!!!!
Hello Ms. leyetenian’s head,anybody home?????
to istambay sa kalye: Brazil probably has a much stronger economy than the Philippines. And while China, not US, is Brazil’s largest trading partner, Brazil economists still expect that Brazil’s economic growth will be reduced from 5% to 2% or 2-1/2% because of the US forthcoming lethargy (worse recession as “payback” for financial crisis).
“Whoever picks Obama doesn’t understand the essence of balance of power. The free world cannot have a WEAK AMERICA both in terms of economy and military.”
— america cannot afford to go to another war and the world knows it. this explains the change in bush administration’s tact in dealing with iran and n.korea. bush is now willing to sit at the table and talk. america just don’t have the money and manpower to wage another war.
mccain having a war mentality is not what americans need. they need somebody who can bring leaders to the table and talk instead of the cowboy and gunslinger attitude bush had after 9/11. mccain could not even get his fellow republican in the lower house to support the bail out package. now that’s strong leadership.
who do you think is better at that job?
and brazil is 100% energy self-sufficient….(high inequality though)
rego,
‘ live with my cousin who is a US citizen and just see Obama as a black man who doesn’t deserve the presidency.’
So it runs in the family. No one is stopping you from ‘voicing your opinion.’ Just don’t impose your bigotry on other people.
Geezzz Isupremo , you are veering so far away from the original discourse and just embarassing your self even more.
You maneuvered very well to shift the discourse to my attitude towards racism but you did nothing but twist it by baselessly accusing me the racist one. I willn ot be defensive the way you don on this matter
And again I will just say, believe what you want to believe.
But yous still have to answer my unanswered question;. how would you describe Mc Cain behaviour during the bail-out drama last week? I have enumerated the reasons why believed i consider him overtalking and grandstanding last week.
And supremo, I know you really wanted me to engaged in a discourse with you. Sorry to tell you but I really believe now that you are not worth it. I have better things to do…
supremo :
“I did NOT say all. It is wrong for GFIs to invest abroad if capital is badly needed in the Philippines.”
no it is not wrong, especially if offshore investments are small compared to those onshore
“Income tax credit up to 5% of the PERA account contribution is small.”
maybe for you it small, but for the OFW, its big enough
“PDIC only insures bank deposits up to 100,000 pesos. I’m sure PERA accounts are not insured”
it is an investment product, not a savings deposit, so its not insured.
“You are comparing several billion dollars of investment backed by the Federal Reserve Bank with several hundred thousand pesos of investments. Dimon is not using his own money”
our issue is the relation, if any, between patriotism and investing. for you, there’s no ‘connect’
Dimon claims to have been prompted by patriotism when he agreed to take over Bear Stearns. a good example of investing with patriotism.
Dimon may not have used his own money, but indirectly, his own stake in JP Morgan is tied to the performance of an integrated Bear Stearns.
Blimey and Blarney, Leytenian!
The way you promote MaCain’s strong suit is just amazing. In case you haven’t noticed, we already live in a multi-polar world with several power : China, EU, BRIC, etc.
As we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, its not just hard power (military intervention, etc) that will win the day. Soft power (goodwill, faith, ) are what’s severely lacking with America. You don’t want cowboy Bush to be replaced by GI MaCain.
I believe to regain that trust, the U.S. must be able to provide a soft landing for everybody in this mess that America created.
It’s deja vu: its the economy, stupendous!
“and brazil is 100% energy self-sufficient….(high inequality though)”
Because Brazil is ruled by an elite minority mestizo just like us.
rego or is it Racist EGO,
‘And supremo, I know you really wanted me to engaged in a discourse with you. Sorry to tell you but I really believe now that you are not worth it. I have better things to do…’
You were the one who started the discourse in the first place. Although I find it hard to understand what you were saying because of the jumbled words. It seems to me that you cannot really handle anyone here who oppose you anyway. You even resort to name calling when you cannot get your way. If you can’t handle the discussion that you started then get out by all means.
OK Supremo, I cut and paste what I wrote above..
take your time to read it . There seem to be no jumbled word this three paragraphs. I ‘ll leave it to you to answer it or not. Alibis is also accepetable;)
——————————————————————–
Most recently, McCain dramatically suspended his campaign to ride into Washington to save the country from economic disaster – only to ride out of town without obvious success.
He called for the SEC chairman’s head on a platter. He threatened to skip the presidential debate – which many saw as a transparent attempt to use a crisis for political benefit. It seemed even more erratic when he turned around and debated anyway, even though no deal had been reached.
He took credit for the bailout deal before it was final – and then it spectacularly failed. Nor did his “Country First†slogan seem very credible as he amplified the House GOP leader John Boehner’s line that several Republicans had voted against the rescue bill because Speaker Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings with her speech before the vote.
Now, if that is not overtalking and grand standing on the part of Mc Cain , please tell me how would you describe that kind of political behavior..
———————————————————————-
Jim Carrey (comedian – “The Mask”, “The Grinch”) is quoted to have said : “I am feeling really good about this Sarah Palin,” Carrey said, “because I used to live in Canada and you could to see Alaska from there. So I know everything there is to know about her.” 😛
hahaha, sounds like we need to have some sanity with US election and its financial crisis. If McCain will win , Philippines can be better off. If Obama will win, Democrats pinoy will be happy in the US but will send more money to Philippines and will probably feel guilty of agreeing to democrats international policy that will hurt Philippine economy. It would be smart to remain patriotic to Philippines.
PSI on EU and Brit… consider OIL and pipeline. Obama did not even have a clue on Russia’s aggression to Georgia. It’s still about oil. Obama will spend more money
by sending more troops in Afganistan to find Bin Laden. How naive of him to say that. Try Reading pipeline thru Afganistan…
KG , on
“You can also expect that when times are tight, those who will survive will have to cut cost.â€Â
i’m talking about the BPO companies that will survive but will cut cost. anyway, i don’t want to be negative here but what i’m trying to point out is to prepare for the worst.
Why the empire will have to expand the war of agression in the M. East and Central Asia.
The dollar hegemony is under severe stress from decades of pump priming to save the American economy from severe recessions.
Monetary measures are getting almost totally useless. For the U.S. economy to survive it has to be allowed to penetrate addtional markets and continue to control startegic resources together with Europe.
The war based industrial sector is expanding with increasing demand for military hardware.
The piracy in the Gulf of Somalia is a prime example where Russia had been selling military hardware to Kenya.
When economic conditions deteriorate governments revert to the gun. Hungry stomachs become blind, deaf and dumb.
The situation is no different in the Philippines. Since the Argentinina crisis in early 2000 everyone knew that it was just a matter of time when the dollar crisis would revert back to the source. For students of historical materialism, history is on the march.
“We are getting closer to a tipping-point,†said Benn Steil, an economist. “People are asking: can we really trust the dollar as a store of value?â€Â
“The Bretton Woods system of monetary management collapsed in 1971, under Nixon. Since then the dollar’s been the primary reserve currency. Now, we’re reaching another point where a rethink of the foundations for a global economy is needed.”
“Global trade and capital flows are essential to prosperity. But it’s illogical to have a global system with no global reserve as insurance. Perhaps the trillions of Gulf and Chinese surpluses could be used to finance that. Or perhaps it’s time for a return to the gold standard.”
Roger Cohen NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/opinion/02Cohen.html?em
Among Sarah Palin’s understanding of president-to-be-McCain (if she gets her wish):
He’s also known as the maverick, that is what America needs today finding a solution and taking action.
for more of her thoughts, click here:
http://palinquotes.sillycloud.com/
Even Joe Biden does not believe in Barack Obama!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDVUPqoowf8
Democrats Versus Obama
ouch. No one likes him in the WHITE house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Re0Z5xOC6w
did someone just call the spin doctor to flypost us with her youtube selections?
I really wanted Hillary to win.
Leytenian,
BPO companies can loose clients,and may lose business,
But It all depends on who their clients are.
For example if their lifeblood star client suddenly got absorbed by a company who also happens to have a presence here,to bad for them but good for the other BPO company who services the client who absorbs the bakrupt company.
Case in point Chase which is served by a BPO company somewhere in Makati, and the other BPO company has Wamu for its client (at least two BPO companies hold Wamu (one for banking and one for card services).
The worst case scenario is for the BPO company(ies) who holds WAMU loses its client because chase does not want to have to deal with them or they could court chase to retain their services.
JP Morgan Chase may remove redundant banks located in the same town,city or state but they also have new banks where they never had a presence and they just almost doubled their depositors/borrowers/credit card holders, so they will still need customer services and if ever their incentive to locate overseas got hurdled by a removal of their tax incentives, they may no longer have the incentive to move,but no one can stop them to locate overseas.
Citigroup which absorbed Wachovia suddenly had a banking presence in many states,most likely they will expand their customer services abroad.
Obama admits that if he can’t stop companies from moving,but at least he will remove their incentives for moving.
Compare taxes, and low cost of labor.
leytenian:
“are you sure? what about international trade policy in DC? a corporation cannot just open business overseas without following trade policies, qoutas, sanctions and many more. The board room decision is only about making profit and tax consequences. Once the board room feel the tax burden , lowering their margins plus credit crunching… i’m not sure if you are right.”
You can bet your 401K if you like. The boardrooms also decide when it’s time to close its unprofitable business.
How do you stop businesses from outsourcing? By raising taxes? Regulate the outflow of capital? Announce a trade embargo against the Philippines? For what, to increase labor cost eight-fold, (never mind executive payroll)? It will hurt these businesses they will have to move outside of the system. What’s the use of rescuing the financial services sector now, if you will only punish them later? Banks and credit companies are the biggest clients of the Phil. call center industry. Are you saying Washington under Obama will be anti-business?
The other Phil. BPO major clents – software vendors, manufacturers, and telecoms – will all suffer as a consequence of this crisis, forcing them back to the more expensive mode of operations will definitely hurt these industries, ergo, the whole US economy even more. Obama may be inexperienced but, I presume, definitely not that stupid.
So, you must instead provide incentives to those who don’t outsource, right? How, by lowering taxes for them? That will surely contradict Obama’s policy, according to your earlier posts, of raising new taxes. And there goes your “levelling the playing field” and ” not changing the rules in the middle of the game” which American businesses have been teaching us for ages.
For example, Sprint/Nextel contracts its CS ops with about 4 or 5 call centers here, each allocating 400 to 600 seats per shift. Mulliply that with their other providers from South America, India, and SE Asia. Imagine the savings that would be lost.
Question to MLQ3? When you had two individuals from KPMG in your show about the depression did these two gentleman represent themselves or their company?
Did they disclose beforehand to the best of their knowledge if their company has any clients or clients here with any interest with AIG or Philam Life directly here in the country that operates primarily like a hedge fund with tremendous leverage.
Would they also be aware of any of their clients benefiting directly from any proposed change in the constitution in reference to the economic provisions?
KG,
I would not have wasted time typing if I knew you were posting that one, heheh.
But since you mentioned it, WaMu’s call center is still operational (as of 2 weeks ago) but it will be taken over by JPM Chase soon. Aside from other Chase contractors like ICT, Chase has also one in Makati it operates by itself.
KG and Tongue,
you both are optimistic about the BPO market and you both have good points on low cost labor …
But you have to understand that people in the US are not using their credit cards. their attitudes have changed. most of them are cutting off personal expenses. financial crisis moves from wall street to the Malls of America.
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/nation/story/710901.html
so my question, who are the end consumers of BPO services?
Obama is an anti free trade and anti globalization.Obama will end tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and give breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages here in America. Check Obama’s website on free trade and his limited exposure on policy making on NAFTA , CAFTA and whatever. I’m sure he will prefer to ship these jobs to Kenya.
🙂
^ but what you have just mentioned will benefit the Philippines
anyone watching the usa VP debate? sarah palin is so out of league! unable to answer moderators questions directly and instead time and time again goes back to energy and unable to directly refute joe biden.
is there any doubt that mccain just set up poor sarah to pander to republican’s conservative base and women voters? this after conservative republicans rejected his two choices for VP, turn coat lieberman and the other pro choice guy. now talking about sticking to his principles!
Philippines is a Consumption and a Services country, we dont export a significant amount of products, rather we import labor, then the money we get from it we use to consume (imported & exported)products here in the Philippines..
an obama who will give free universal health care to the millions of Filipinos in the US will mean more savings to send to the Philippines.
its impossible for obama to stop influx of foreign workers into the US, especially health workers, since the americans are soo ‘maarte’ to take nursing or physical therapy or occupational therapy or caregiving, which will be a plus on our side.
better health care and social welfare benefits from an obama presidency will also increase the demand for health workers as US medical institutions have to step up as more people use free health care.
the only benefit i will see on a mccain presidency is around $20 million surplus military hardware for the Philippines
^ (imported & domestic) products
haste is such a drag
Depression pushes us back to basics. Food, mainly. We are an agricultural country but we depend on food imports. Why? Talk of insulation.
hrds they were invited in their capacity as teachers and in jemy’s case, a blogger. they disclosed their affiliation with kpmg on their own volition. as for the rest, you’d have to ask them.
Those living in the US should oppose the bailout. Please write and call your representatives to derail this measure. The series of bandaid patches implemented by the fed will not work and will only delay the bottoming out of the US economy and the whole world for that matter. Why helped this greedy charlatans in wall street who earned billions of dollars in commissions in the last 5 years.
While the credit market has seized up in the US. Its not yet dire as one would be percieved if you lived in another country. 95% of people are still paying their mortgages, you can still get 0% unsecured credit card loans with good credit, and unemployment rate is at a respectable 7%.
Let the market untangle this mess. Dont let Paulson backstop his friends in Manhattan.
” unable to answer moderators questions directly…..”-istambay said of sarah palin
agree.
of course she won’t, that’s prior strategy, i’ve read it couple of days ago she won’t, the moderator being considered by some camps as a bias moderator.
i think she did well.
well…. the VP biden-vs-palin debate again show…. politicians will lie. Asked what promises made they will have to cut in light of the $700Billion-bailout :
“The one thing we might have to slow down is a commitment we made to double foreign assistance. We’ll probably have to slow that down,” Biden said during a debate with his Republican vice-presidential rival, Sarah Palin.
Palin, who is running with John McCain on the Republican ticket for the November 4 election, said the financial crisis had not affected her campaign’s policy agenda.
“. . . .there hasn’t been a whole lot that I’ve promised, except to do what is right for the American people,” said Palin, the governor of Alaska.
“I don’t believe that John McCain has made any promise that he would not be able to keep, either,” she added.
Mlq3 Thank you.
In the interest of full disclosure we are researching the role of KPMG in respect to their client/clients who have set up highly leveraged vehicles domestically who have placed bets in the Philippines recently with financing directly from AIG overseas and Phil Am Life.
Those highly leveraged bets will come under close watch as the credit crisis will most definitely affect these vehicles.
Maybe it was simply a coincidence that your two guests were from KPMG.
Liam ,
“better health care and social welfare benefits from an obama presidency will also increase the demand for health workers as US medical institutions have to step up as more people use free health care.”
I have to disagree with you on Obama’s presidency but I will agree with you on demand. The demand for healthcare professionals is the real problem in the US. Healthcare demand has never been addressed due to immigration qoutas. who among the two favors free trade and free market?
“an obama who will give free universal health care to the millions of Filipinos in the US will mean more savings to send to the Philippines.”
i have to disagree with you on this also. Pinoys who are in america are paying healthcare and they deserve quality healthcare. Quality healthcare means balancing supply and demand of healthcare professionals. How can a pinoy who will eventually get sick and not getting quality healthcare due to lack of professionals send money to Philippines if that pinoy ends up going back and forth to the hospital?
Obama’s healthcare policy only addresses the symptoms but not the underlying disease. He is too inexperienced. 🙂
“Even Joe Biden does not believe in Barack Obama!”
Bu do you know that Sarah Palin’s mother -in law is inclined to vote for Obama?Raed it on the the very first week that Palin by Mc Cain.
My impression is that MC Cain is such a big gambler, well he term it as maverick . But I feel that he gambled so much on Palin. It did give some boast to his campaign in the first few weeks , But after two media interviews and now this vice presidential debate. I dont she is helping in his campaign that much. Feeling ko nga pabigat pa sa kanya.
The Obama campaign is getting better and better in handling Palin as the campaign progesses. I be;ieve they mishandled it in the first few weeks.
Still I am not sure yet on who would be a make a better president. Obama ssem to be leading now but its not really a big margin. MC Cain can still bounce back.
So far this presidential campaign has not really impressed me much. It even lessen my regards for US elections.
It is simply amazing as a certain pundit called it the United States of Stupid but in the 30’s FDR effectively nationalized the banking system by making it illegal for anyone but the Federal government to own gold.
This time around the Federal government through the FED and the FDIC has effectively again nationalized the entire banking system without calling it as such and are moving the process quietly and effectively.
Banks that are in trouble will be asked to merge with stronger ones with either the Fed of FDIC taking over bad debts and replacing it with U.S. bonds.
The Treasury can produce as much bonds as it wants to produce in exchange for bad debts and warrants for equity in the banks it is helping.
With the surge in liquidity looking for safe havens yields are going down anyway.
They are also going to go into the mortgage business to stem the fall in housing by propping up demand.
The only problem is the time it will take for these measures to be felt in the midst of all the noise being generated by the political contest and the so called minority of ideologues on both sides.
Thank God the election is only a few more weeks away.
It will be interesting to see if the name the United States of Stupid will hold.. Vote Republican – Burn Baby Burn.
Nail that ‘Nigra’…
Liam,
please understand that most pinoy in the US belong to the middle income class. we pay medicare and medicaid every paycheck. We also have a company sponsored plan currently with preferred provider services. We deserve quality healthcare. I don’t like Universal healthcare propose by Obama. it’s like an HMO plan that limits doctor’s visits, limits rehabilitation services, limits hospital stay, limits testings, limits dialysis visits and many more. The whole process limits business profits which will result to lower salaries. It is healthcare for quantity sacrificing quality.
rego and leytenian: Is it true that some Fil-Am republicans are now in Indonesia looking for someone who will kind-of-swear that he and Obama were classmates in a madrassa?
The time for the “October-surprise!!!!” is now.
In fact, even better if they can show that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism.
Oh, wait…. they’ve already done this.
http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Obama_2.htm
[I guess the October-surprise is if they can show that Obama already has two children in Indonesia. 😈
]
My goodness, calling the most powerful country in the world ‘United States of Stupid’ just because of party affiliation of the sitting president.
I wonder what they’ll call the Philippines for tolerating for so long a president who is not love by the people.
Any suggestion guys?
Speaking of “October Surprise” I think that the McCain camp is saving the best for last.
Btw, JCC’s calling RP as PI, I hope that’s not people idiots.
“Obama will end tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and give breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages here in America.”
Decent wages in america??
Here is my naive and uninformed advice
To stem the flow of jobs overseas, stop asking and buying for CHEAP goods then. Don’t buy at Walmart.
If you see that $10 jeans, tell yourself “This can’t be right! At this price everyone in the supply chain cannot be paid a decent wage. I’m not going to buy it. I’m going to buy the locally produced $80 jeans and keep industries at home”
And stop calling those FREE helplines. Calls to technical support /customer service should cost $5.99 a minute to keep callcentres at home.
😀
The Melamine-scare and the lead-paint-in-toys scare reinforce the wisdom of the “colonial mentality” that “Made-in-USA” (or “Made-in-France”, or “Made-in-England”, “made-in-canada”) merits the aura of superiority given to these products.
Ikaw naman UP n, totoo namang may melamine at lead at mercury yung mga products na iyon.
It’s not colonial mentality when one product is clearly superior because of better quality control.
But yes, qc comes at a price and you get what you pay for…
leytenian, I believe Liam is assuming that Universal Health Care he believes Obama is trying to propose is Tax Funded thereby Filipino workers don’t have to worry paying for Health Insurance Premium and not to worry dipping into their savings in case of getting sick for long time or permanently..because the scheme that was proposed by “Hillary” during the Clinton Era was patterned as close to the Canadian Model which as per Capita is cheaper than the U.S. because it got rid of the Hospital Profits, the insurance profit and even the substantial Drug profits. Although most services are privately provided, like the labs they are still has to be under the government agreed pay schedules and thereby can be monitored and controlled…
During the Clinton Administration, it failed because of the strong resistance from the Medical Businesses, from Insurance to Hospitals and even Medical Practitioners, but with the Mess of the unmoderated Capitalism now, maybe the American Taxpayers will be agreeable to a little mix of Socialism in the world’s great Capitalist Society..
Leyetenian, it should be noted that most workers in a Universal Health Care system that we had are also have some kind of Extended Insurance Coverage provided by Employers, in most instances Free, to cover other medical needs not listed under the Health Care Coverage.. most employers will assume the premiums since it won’t be as high since the Basic is covered by the Government Own.
So even our lifestyle medication, like the one that sometimes “seniors male” don’t want to mention are covered by our extended insurance and even orthotics that most Pinoys will exchange for very expensive pairs of Sport Nikes..imagine a $1000 annually for orthotics..that is a lot of nikes.