September 18, 2008

What Bush Hath Wrought...

Who could have imagined.... ?
World banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, are pumping an extra $US360 billion ($450 billion) into global markets in a coordinated effort to avert a lock-up of the financial system.

The Fed, along with the central banks of Canada, England, Europe, Japan, and Switzerland, are auctioning off billions of US dollars to European banks in a move to ease the liquidity constraints brought on by the global credit crisis. The Reserve Bank of Australia is not participating in the cash infusion.

The move is in response to a chronic shortage of US dollars in Europe over the past couple days, said a person familiar with the situation. European banks have found themselves short of the US dollars needed to service US-dollar denominated short term finance.

The Fed's announcement comes after global share markets plunged yet again today, rattled by the recent collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, the emergency rescue of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America and yesterday's $107 billion bailout of AIG by the US government.

The ECB and the Bank of England said they would each offer up to $US40 billion in overnight funds. The Fed said it would authorise $US180 billion expansion of temporary foreign currency swap arrangements and Bank of Japan announced it would launch dollar-supply operations as part of the worldwide effort to tackle the dollar shortage.
I just watched the evening news on Australia's ABC. It started off with the words:
Capitalism is in crisis tonight...
Bush's friends will tell you this is an example of media bias.

It is NOT an example of media bias!

This is how far we have come.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anyone familiar with US history could have seen this coming. Prior to the Great Depression we had THREE Republican administrations. They did away with regulation, made easy credit available, cut taxes for the rich and the corporations - supposedly to encourage "progress". The only thing it ended up encouraging was GREED. The rich and the corporations simply accumulated more and more wealth. The middle class and the poor started using more credit because their wages couldn't keep up. The lack of regulation created a lot of risky financial endeavours that eventually failed. Result - Great Depression. EVERYONE suffered. This is the single biggest problem I have with the financial philosophy of Republicans. They always want less government so that businesses can grow without regulation and tax cuts for the wealthy so that they'll reinvest their money. They maintain that this helps everyone but this has been proven untrue by history. Greed kicks in and the money going to the top simply does NOT trickle down to the masses. As a result, eventually the masses cannot be squeezed anymore and we end up with disastrous financial crashes. The rich are rich thanks to the middle and lower classes. If you decimate the middle and lower classes eventually even the rich will suffer as we're seeing now. Look history people - who pulled us out of the Great Depression? Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, who created a number of the major regulatory agencies we have now, who created Social Security to help the masses and the Federal Deposit Insurance to protect the bank accounts of everyone. Republicans aren't going to get us out of this mess - they'll just look into ways of fixing things so the rich and the corporations that are left make out ok even if they have to use tax dollars to do it. Look at these huge corporations that are failing. When the government bails them out the salaries of the CEOs and presidents and VPs doesn't go down but the common workers often end up loosing much of their pensions and benefits as the company cuts back. This coming election is going to decide the future of this country not just for four years but for a long time to come. REAL change is not keeping in power the political party that got us into this mess. Remember that for the first SIX years that Bush was in office, the Republicans pretty much controlled everything - the House, the Senate and the White House. There was no checks and balances. The Republicans passed law after law that benefited the rich and the corporations and that decimated regulations of our financial industries and no one could stop them. Two years ago the Democrats won Congress but everytime they try to do something the Republicans object to, Bush vetoes them. Change isn't MORE Republicans people. Vote INTELLIGENTLY.

MP

Bukko Boomeranger said...

WHEEEEEE! FREE MONEY FOR EVERYONE!!! As long as they're rich first...

Jaraparilla said...

So how is Switzerland anyway, Bukko, you rich bastard?

Did you locate Frank Lowy's safe deposit box in Liechtenstein yet? Remember, half the stash is mine if the key works!

LOL

:-)

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