Rick Santelli is not the man

[Thailandnotes]

I get on the internet and go to the Washington Post. Beneath four stories on finance and politics I read the caption, “Does God Intend for Women to Work?” It’s an online discussion started by Sally Quinn, but I don’t click. I know it is bait for bottom feeders, carp in polluted ditches eyeing Vienna sausages on rusty hooks. I move on and get redirected to CNBC which I have never watched. (mai mee T.V.) A commentator is “coming live” from some trading floor. He is ranting, “Everyone who has lost their house is a loser! Get it? And now Obama wants taxpayers to help these losers pay their mortgages.” The traders gathered behind him whistle and boo on cue. I delete him mid-sentence and go to the New York Times. I read David Brooks. I never read David Brooks. In his column he calls the people around Obama “Propeller heads.” No wonder I can’t do crossword puzzles. And then almost at the end there is this breathtakingly sloppy sentence: “The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen.” I skim the headlines at Bloomberg. “Thailand May Urge Banks to Lend Money to GM.” The prime minister says he will “nudge” Thailand’s banks to lend. I’d love to see how Thais translate “nudge.” “Mandate” or “blackmail?” On to video clips of Antigua where Texas billionaire Sir Robert Allen Stanford was knighted. People are lined up around the block at Stanford International Banks. Those not lined up, are throwing bricks. Stanford was arrested in Fredericksburg after a brief run from the law. He is heavily involved in international cricket. “Everyone who follows cricket knew he was a scum ball,” says my Kiwi friend Linden who actually watches cricket on T.V. Finally the sun comes up. I go out in the driveway where I do most of the cooking and start making some crusty olive and sage bread.

"ST. JOHN’S, Antigua — When Robert Allen Stanford arrived here in the early 1990s, few locals had ever heard of the Texas financier. Today, he dominates so many aspects of life on this sun-drenched Caribbean island that some have taken to calling it “Stanford Land."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/bu...d.html?_r=1&hp

[Guest]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

Awesome rant Thailandnotes.

I get on the internet and go to the Washington Post. Beneath four stories on finance and politics I read the caption, “Does God Intend for Women to Work?” It’s an online discussion started by Sally Quinn, but I don’t click. I know it is bait for bottom feeders, carp in polluted ditches eyeing Vienna sausages on rusty hooks. I move on and get redirected to CNBC which I have never watched. (mai mee T.V.) A commentator is “coming live” from some trading floor. He is ranting, “Everyone who has lost their house is a loser! Get it? And now Obama wants taxpayers to help these losers pay their mortgages.” The traders gathered behind him whistle and boo on cue. I delete him mid-sentence and go to the New York Times. I read David Brooks. I never read David Brooks. In his column he calls the people around Obama “Propeller heads.” No wonder I can’t do crossword puzzles. And then almost at the end there is this breathtakingly sloppy sentence: “The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen.” I skim the headlines at Bloomberg. “Thailand May Urge Banks to Lend Money to GM.” The prime minister says he will “nudge” Thailand’s banks to lend. I’d love to see how Thais translate “nudge.” “Mandate” or “blackmail?” On to video clips of Antigua where Texas billionaire Sir Robert Allen Stanford was knighted. People are lined up around the block at Stanford International Banks. Those not lined up, are throwing bricks. Stanford was arrested in Fredricksburg after a brief run from the law. He is heavily involved in international cricket. “Everyone who follows cricket knew he was a scum ball,” says my Kiwi friend Linden who actually watches cricket on T.V. Finally the sun comes up. I go out in the driveway where I do most of the cooking and start making some crusty olive and sage bread.

[metalman]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

high five. well said. now watch what happens.

[Mega]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

Not sure this has been posted:-
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1041856849&play=1
Mike

[xtronics]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

This mortgage bill has caused the sound banks stocks to go down. Santelli is playing for ratings, but part of what he said is dead on. Why would banks lend if the the contract is amendable? This bill is going to have huge unintended consequences.

[Uno]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

The only way out for America is wage inflation. The banks are fighting Obama tooth and nail to keep the top-down financial ponzi scheme afloat.

Rick Santelli is scum. CNBC and Fox News are scum. Giving $7.3 trillion to rich bankers is "saving capitalism" while helping American's directly is "socialism".

Read some Henry C.K. Liu if you'd like some fresh air from the US corporate media crap. It will help reduce the cabbage in you head. I've seen nothing like CNBC & Fox since U.S.S.R communist propaganda as a child.

http://henryckliu.com/page175.html

If you don't like Obama helping the middle class then read this passage below from Henry Liu. If you still don't get it, then vote Jeb Bush in 2012. LOL.

"If just $2 trillion of the $7 trillion the government has so far committed for the financial sector were to be channeled directly to the unemployed, each worker would receive $200,000 (the equivalent of 4 years at average wages) to tie them over their jobless phase to kick start the economy."

From the Federal Reserve:
(TAF) Term Auction Credit - $900 billion allocated; $415.3 billion expended.
Discount Window Lending - $140 billion
Banks (other loans primary credit) - $93 billion
Investment Banks (other loans primary dealer and other broker-dealer credit) - $47 billion
Loans to buy ABCP (other loans asset-backed commercial paper money market mutual fund liquidity facility) - $66 billion
AIG (allocated minus Treasury’s $40 billion) - $112.5 billion; $87.4 billion expended
Bear Stearns (initial loan to support JPMorgan takeover) - $29.5 billion; $27 billion expended
(TSLF) Term Securities Lending Facility - $225 billion; $200.5 billion expended
Swap Lines (dollars provided by Federal Reserve to foreign central banks) - $602 billion
(MMIFF) Money Market Investor Funding Facility - $540 billion
(CPFF) Commercial Paper Funding Facility *upper limit from Reuters - $1.8 trillion; $271 billion expended
(TALF) Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility - $200 billion
(GSE) Government Sponsored Enterprises and
(MBS) mortgage-backed securities Program - $600 billion
From the Treasury:
(TARP) Treasury Asset Relief Program - $700 billion; $330 billion expended
Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee principal in money market mutual funds - $50 billion
Treasury direct purchases of MBS since September - $26.5 billion
Citigroup (Treasury+FDIC guarantees) - $238.5 billion
From the FDIC:
Guarantees for Banks - $1.9 trillion
From Other Sources:
Automakers - $25 billion; $25 billion more pending
Consumer credit - $50 billion (out of TARP)
(FHA) Federal Housing Administration - $300 billion
Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Nationalization - $350 billion
Grand Total: $7.362 trillion

A government plan to sop up hundreds of billions of mortgage securities spurred a bond rally that yanked 30-year home loan rates down half a percentage point to about 5.5 percent in the final week of November. The supply of unsold homes is near record highs. Buyers fearing job loss, or betting on even greater bargains, are unlikely to commit now to one of their biggest investments. Private sector employers cut 250,000 jobs in November, the most in seven years and the latest sign of recession fallout. US unemployment rate is expected to rise to 6.8% in November after setting a 14-year high of 6.5% the prior month.

Government Help Not Going to People in Need

After committing over $7 trillion into the finance sector, the market continued to fail and the economy heading downward. If just $2 trillion of the $7 trillion the government has so far committed for the financial sector were to be channeled directly to the unemployed, each worker would receive $200,000 (the equivalent of 4 years at average wages) to tie them over their jobless phase to kick start the economy. The same amount would support for one whole year 40 million middle-income families with an annual income of $50,000. If government funds were directed towards people rather than institutions, consumer demand will revive immediately and companies will sell again to make profits. The recession will end within 18 months.

But alas, the measures taken by the US government thus far were all designed to save the financial system and its institutions from the penalty of excessive risk rather than to help the economy and its people from the pains of recession. The net result of this top-down approach would be to punish the economy with a lost decade while feeding the cancer of a dysfunction financial system held together by unsustainable debt.

Still, the market-oriented US leader felt the need to adhere ideologically only to a top-down solution. The priority must be to save the dysfunctional financial system and its wayward institutions, while the public must wait for the presumed trickling down benefits, if any. And a decade-long depression will be the result. The 2010s may well be the lost decade for the US economy and its trading partners as the 1990s were for Japan. The leaders of the G20 have a collective responsibility to face the reality of the crisis to save the world economy from total collapse instead of meekly following misguided US rescue measures of adding more liquidity to a crisis created by excess liquidity.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/op...gewanted=print

“If a CNBC commentator can stir up a populist dust storm by ranting that Obama’s new mortgage program (priced at $75 billion to $275 billion) is “promoting bad behavior,” imagine the tornado that would greet an even bigger bank bailout on top of the $700 billion already down the TARP drain.”

And the Atlantic article referenced within…
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/20090...down-geography

“The solution begins with the removal of homeownership from its long-privileged place at the center of the U.S. economy.”

“Banks that take back homes, for instance, could be required to offer to rent each home to the previous homeowner, at market rates—which are typically lower than mortgage payments—for some number of years. (At the end of that period, the former homeowner could be given the option to repurchase the home at the prevailing market price.) A bigger, healthier rental market, with more choices, would make renting a more attractive option for many people; it would also make the economy as a whole more flexible and responsive.”

“When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave. With the hegemony of the investment banker over, New York now stands a better chance of avoiding that sterile fate.”

[Rajiv]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

See also the thread here - A Bailout for the People: Dividend Economics and the Basic Income Guarantee

[sunskyfan]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

“Everyone who has lost their house is a loser! Get it?

What Orwellean universe are you in? If you lost your house you are a loser, at least of your house.

Santelli has been consistent. He was clearly against TARP and any other government interference. While CNBC is Wall Street heavy Santelli comming from Chicago as well as others have been clearly pointing out the moral hazard issues FROM THE BEGINNING.

What has all this FED and Treasury meddling gained us? We have a collapsed world economy. We have a disfunctional stock market. Buying a house or anything else for that matter is a crap shoot not because of the uncertainty of market forces but of an inability to read the tea leaves of what Obama (who I voted for and have long term confidence in) will do next.

We have only made it worse by trying to "save" everything. Economic failure is not moral or ethical failure just as much as economic success is not a measure or morality or ethics.

It is SO amazing to me that all the free market zealots cower at the feet of government when the market calls THEM out. The "experts" on Wall Street were wrong. They should be shown the door. The free market evidently made that judgement. This "talent" argument makes me want to puke. I have never heard such BS in all my life. Most of these guys just sold a forth degree polynomial burried in a power point briefing characterizing the pink warm glow they saw because their heads were up their ass. Those who bought it are losers by definition.

IT IS GUT CHECK TIME FOLKS. WHAT ARE YOUR BASIC PRINCIPLES?

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

What Orwellean universe are you in?

"They have convinced themselves that the real problem is once again people at the absolute bottom of the economic scale. If they'd only used appropriate "judgment" and lived within their means, we'd all be fine."

http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/20/ri...white-male-20/

[karim0028]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

Honestly, i dont quite understand this whole bank bailout at all..... Weve commited several trillion thus far... Yet, i believe if you took half of that and gave it to the banks on the assumption that they would wipe out half of the debt on most houses under 800K you could practically bring the debt on 95% of the houses down by about 50% or more and the people would be helped and would continue to spend, the banks balance sheets would be restored and the US could probably come out in a half way decent position and this mess could be dealt with...

But, the fact that no one high up is thinking in any of these terms is frightening, they simply think of the banks and their interests.... This Obama housing bill is total and utter crap.... Moral hazard seems to only apply to poor J6P and the banks are messaihs.. Bull shit.

I voted for obama and hope he comes up with something better... Not too confident though....

[sunskyfan]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

It took me a while to read through and figure out that the "quote" you noted is NOT attributed to Santelli.

Again, what world are you living in where a person with a $700k (that is the limit) loan is "the poor"? A $700k loan here in Albuquerque would put you in the top 1% of expensive homes.

[yernamehear]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

Emphasis mine:

"We have only made it worse by trying to "save" everything. Economic failure is not moral or ethical failure just as much as economic success is not a measure or morality or ethics.

It is SO amazing to me that all the free market zealots cower at the feet of government when the market calls THEM out. The "experts" on Wall Street were wrong. They should be shown the door. The free market evidently made that judgement. This "talent" argument makes me want to puke. I have never heard such BS in all my life. Most of these guys just sold a fourth degree polynomial burried in a power point briefing characterizing the pink warm glow they saw because their heads were up their ass. Those who bought it are losers by definition. "

Perhaps the succinct and colorful (including pink) summary I have ever read. Trust me, as a scientific modeler, that these guys were either incompetent losers or unethical losers and knew their models weren't all that good. The complete chain of idiocy is still breathtaking to me.

I got out of a certain field of science in the '80's because the drill was to make all kinds of mathematical fits and there was no experimental method to verify the computational results. It wasn't scientifically sound or even ethical to pursue at that point, although many did.

I am still under the impression that "destruction" is still the only way to put a bottom in. It can be attenuated, but only modestly. Those who bought over priced assets will be hurt. As far as the politics; both sides are dirty. You can be sure of that. There is no significant "small government" party.

[Rajiv]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

I got out of a certain field of science in the '80's because the drill was to make all kinds of mathematical fits and there was no experimental method to verify the computational results. It wasn't scientifically sound or even ethical to pursue at that point, although many did.

I did the same -- after having invested a significant proportion of my life (till then) in the mill.

I do not believe that the radical changes that are needed will happen until the system really comes crashing down. And I do not believe that incrementalism wil suffice to bring us out of the morass. I do believe that it may happen sooner rather than later -- if the item posted by JacobDCoates is correct - Credit Crunch may only have begun says S&P

[Rajiv]

Re: Rick Santelli is not the man

In this tone, there is a good article - Models and Pseudo-models: Economists' Artifice

Models can be built by using data gathered from the real world or by using imaginary data. But the distinction between mathematics and reality lies in interpretation. Equations and their solutions are just mathematics; their interpretation in terms of everyday experiences is what makes them useful. Yet economists emphasize the mathematics and ignore the interpretation.
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When Johannes Kepler sought to mathematically model planetary motion, he sought out Tycho Brahe who had assembled the most extensive and most accurate data on planetary motion available at the time. Using Brahe's data, Kepler discovered that the planets traveled around the sun in elliptical orbits and devised formulas which could not only be verified by further observation but could be used to predict the position of planets on future dates. Kepler created a model.

Of course, and analysis of economic models is hampered by numerous obstacles. Any model is object, event, or problem specific. Not much can be learned about an F4U Corsair from a model of an F4F Wildcat. What economists consider a model is also unclear. For instance, is Ricardo's discussion of comparative advantage a model? What about Schumpeter's principle of creative destruction? If not, what are they? For discussions of these, see my papers Creative Destruction and More Economic Nonsense and Specious Econo-Think. Without any firm criteria that define an economic model or how models are to be constructed, a critic is unable to know that an analysis of this or that "model" provides results that are general enough to be probative. Someone can always say, "Oh well, the results you have gotten only apply to that specific model." Since there is no authentic list of economic models, no one can possible know that all the models have been analyzed, so any generic criticism can always be dismissed.

Yet it does appear that many economic models share a common design. First, read any history of economic thought. Purely imaginary data are used to either support or illustrate the theories. (Often which of these two purposes the data serves is unclear.) Ricardo's discussion of comparative advantage is an excellent example of this practice. Second, the models appear to be little more than an elucidation of a "favorite idea" even when counterexamples are prevalent. Favorite ideas, however, are dangerous things. Michael Faraday noted that “By adherence to a favorite theory, many errors have at times been introduced into general science which have required much labour for their removal.” And Clausius, discovering the second law of thermodynamics, noted that the caloric theory “has become more like a religion than a science.” Third, the models appear to be entirely deductive, examples of what philosophy professors call a priory reasoning which experimental sciences discarded long ago. A very good example of such model building is to be found in Krugman's Increasing Returns, Monopolistic Competition, And International Trade, one of the papers for which he received the Nobel Prize.

Krugman's paper consists entirely of deriving theorems from postulates which he labels "assumptions." It looks and reads much more like Euclid's Elements than Kepler's model of planetary motion. Krugman's reasoning is purely deductive. No empirical data are to be found in the paper; the "assumptions," often written in mathematical formulas, seem to be taken as obviously true, since no justification for even a single one is provided, and Krugman even qualifies the paper's results with sentences such as. "This is a view of trade which appears [emphasis mine] to be useful in understanding trade among the industrial countries." He even draws conclusions from some of the formulas about how human beings will act. Krugman writes, "consider the behavior of a representative individual. He will maximize his utility (1) subject to a budget constraint," and "this will lead entrepreneurs to start new firms." But no mathematical formula can constrain either "representative individuals," (whatever they are) or "entrepreneurs" to do anything, unless, of course, Mr. Krugman has a voodooish ability that can be likened to sticking a pin in a doll and causing the person the doll represents to feel pain. This kind of model building gives new meaning to George H.W. Bush's term "voodoo economics"
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