Connecticut Man1's Blog

Connecticut Man1 Commented on Some Basic Info on CBO Scoring of Healthcare Bills by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-31T23:40:54Z

I appreciate the comments and the serious discussion provided within.

Connecticut Man1 recommended CBO: Public Option Premiums Higher than Private Plans by tonnyb

2009-10-30T14:40:08Z

Connecticut Man1 recommended The Final Hail Mary on the Kucinich Amendment by khin

2009-10-30T18:42:44Z

Connecticut Man1 recommended Some Basic Info on CBO Scoring of Healthcare Bills by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-30T20:48:27Z

Connecticut Man1 Commented on Some Basic Info on CBO Scoring of Healthcare Bills by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-31T01:07:04Z

The public option as originally proposed by Jacob Hacker was not a bad road to take. It was a reasonable compromise, IMHO.

But none of the bills currently in the House and the Senate even remotely resembles the original Public Option that they campaigned on.

And if none of them are good enough to solve the problems then even if they go the reconciliation route to get around the idiot Senators there still won't be much worth considering at the end of it.

Connecticut Man1 Commented on Some Basic Info on CBO Scoring of Healthcare Bills by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-30T23:16:44Z

There is no getting around the fact that it will not cover everyone. None of the bills proposed are "Universal Healthcare". And we will still be paying too much for too little.

Connecticut Man1 recommended Why Bankers Make So Much Money by ☠enghis

2009-10-23T16:20:16Z

Connecticut Man1 Commented on What happens when the banks own all the houses? This is not an ad. by erica

2009-10-24T02:58:08Z

Personally? I think it kind of sucks. Just the fact that we have to write about all of this thievery and nobody in a position to fix it all is doing a thing about it.

Connecticut Man1 Commented on What happens when the banks own all the houses? This is not an ad. by erica

2009-10-24T02:43:27Z

Those numbers were put together sometime before I wrote the post in March and I did not compile them. The AP did. Tengrain from Mock Paper Scissors just pointed to the AP's compilation of info at the time.

I am pretty sure I verified what he wrote about before I used it in my post. (I usually do) The numbers may have been changed since then?

Connecticut Man1 Commented on What happens when the banks own all the houses? This is not an ad. by erica

2009-10-24T00:51:41Z

Right now you have banks pretty much refusing to renegotiate rates with anyone. How many homes have you heard about that have been saved by refinancing? Near zero.

The beauty of the way it worked out for them?

They were given enough money to allow them to sit back and let even more go into foreclosure. Knowing they have pretty much unlimited bailout protection.

Now... What to do with all of those homes they now own?

Sell them at a loss, of course.

Makes for nice tax write-offs and they still have endless government siphons in place to get more money when they will need it.

Who do they sell them to?

Friends. Associates. Different branches of their own company. Doesn't matter.

No! They will not put them on the market where you and I might get a chance to buy a home at a great price. (Not the homes that are in good condition and have a lot of value, anyways) They won't do that even if they might get more money from you and I.

They would rather sell them to their friends/associates for less money so their friends/associates/different branches of the same company can soak up the profits on the resale.

Look at the former Countrywide guy that was buying homes up for pennies on the dollar. Even though those houses would have likely sold for more individually on an open market, banks are selling them in bulk for pennies on the dollar to their buddies, to themselves.

A post I wrote on this in March:

Everything you need to know about the bailouts...

in 2 short paragraphs. A relatively long post for Atrios. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

What's The Goal?
Others have made this point in various ways, but if the goal is to bail out the banksters and keep the existing too big to fail financial order in place with the same cast of characters in charge, then all of this sounds like a cunning plan.
If the goal was really to get banks lending again they'd be funneling large sums of money to healthy (mostly smaller) financial institutions who actually made sensible choices over the last few years.

Meanwhile a fire sale is going on:

Lenders have become so overwhelmed by the foreclosure crisis that they are starting to unload properties in bulk to investor groups at steep discounts.
Investors then flip the properties for a profit without necessarily improving the home.
For example, a unit of Citigroup, the troubled financial giant, sold a foreclosure in Temecula to an Arizona investment firm for $139,000 when comparable homes in the area were selling for $240,000 to $260,000.
The firm listed the home for $249,000, received multiple offers and the property has entered escrow, said Amber Schlieder, the real estate agent who handled the listing.

Citigroup left a 100 grand on the table. This looks like a great way to abuse the taxpayer even more.
I want to know who they are all selling in bulk to.
Remember who else was buying up the mortgages in bulk?

So it may come as a surprise that a dozen former top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess.
Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide's former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.
"It has been very successful - very strong," John Lawrence, the company's head of loan servicing, told Mr. Kurland one recent morning in a glass-walled boardroom here at PennyMac's spacious headquarters, opened last year in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide once flourished.

The Treasury has shown a willingness to recklessly toss all of our futures away to keep these "Too Big Failures" operating in their self-entitled comfort zone.
What incentive do the banks have to sell these properties for as much as they can when they can sell them in bulk at a loss to their buddies' companies (or even their own companies) so they can turn a profit on them and doing this knowing the failure bankers can ship off all of the bills for the losses to us? Think about it.
If Geithner were handing these trillions to the smaller more responsible bankers some of us little people would be able to buy these cheap houses...
But this way the elite get to keep all of the assets in their greedy hands and have us pay for their gambling addiction failures too. And then they will turn a profit on selling us these properties AGAIN.

“While some critics are distressed that Mr. Kurland and his team are back in business, the executives say that PennyMac’s operations serve as a model for how the government, working with banks, can help stabilize the housing market and lead the nation out of the recession. “It is very important to the entire team here to be part of a solution,” Mr. Kurland said

Important for Whom? You, maybe, but not me.
I am thinking predatory lenders should already be in jail and that this is a model for more financial disaster for taxpayers. I smell smoke and all I see is a fire and a bunch of greedy arsonists standing around with their gasoline soaked hands in our pockets...

And, so far, the elite are achieving their goal of bailing out themselves with our money. From buhdydharma at dKos, some extra food for thought:

Hard Not To Call It Evil According to people who should know, The Ruling Class is using our money....draining our money, the money we use to survive and feed our children and to actual produce things, to rescue the very structure...that allows them to BE The Ruling Class. The structures that enable them to Rule us by controlling credit, capital, and our pensions and IRA's and 401k's. And our regulatory agencies and politicians. And so by extension our military. Which is then used in the service and interests of The Ruling Class and their Party of Business, the GOP. These people, the Ruling Class, are the ones who got us into this financial armageddon. These are the same Ruling Class that took us to war in Iraq, after ignoring the warnings that an attack was coming. They are the same people who made America into a nation that tortures people they KNOW to be innocent. They are the same people...if they even deserve the name...who are stopping any serious efforts to mitigate a Climate Crisis of incomprehensible scope. They are the same people that so unprecedentedly had the Supreme Court decide Bush vs. Gore, so they could have Bush cut their taxes and deregulate the very same structures that we are now being called to give OUR money to prop up. Yes, the very same people who are directly responsible for everything that has gone wrong in our world, are the people who are now telling us....not asking us....telling us, that we have to bail them out. While as always, not telling us the whole story, not telling us what they are doing behind the scenes and behind our backs.

Read on... [update] Via Newsweek, Follow the Bailout Cash:

In recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Bank of America (which got $15 billion in bailout money) sent out $24,500 in the first two months of 2009, including $1,500 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and another $15,000 to members of the House and Senate banking panels. Citigroup ($25 billion) dished out $29,620, including $2,500 to House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, who also got $10,000 from UBS which, while not a TARP recipient, got $5 billion in bailout funds as an AIG "counterparty." "This certainly appears to be a case of TARP funds being recycled into campaign contributions," says Brett Kappell, a D.C. lawyer who tracks donations.

[update deux] Via Tengrain, a picture is worth trillions of dollars:

The Bailout Tracker
Hat tip to Scissorhead LiberalDemDave, he discovered a handy way to find out how much the freakin’ bloodsuckers are getting out of us.
What’s really interesting is that this program also tells you the company’s market value and the percentage of the funds it received in proportion to the market value.
So, for instance, the market value of AIG is $942 million, and the bailout that they have received is 4246% of their market value. And if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know…

Connecticut Man1 recommended What happens when the banks own all the houses? This is not an ad. by erica

2009-10-23T06:51:07Z

Connecticut Man1 Commented on Edmonds: Is she is or is she ain't? by San Fernando Curt

2009-10-23T03:45:02Z

May as well add the Israeli government companies name:

"I thought I was working for you already. I mean that's what I always thought, [Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd.] was just a front."

The media sucks. Can't even tell us the simple truth anymore.

Connecticut Man1 Commented on Is It Possible The Insurance Companies Stepped On Their Wangers? by stillidealistic

2009-10-23T02:44:31Z

Only 9 months?

Some of us have been working on reforming healthcare for years... Mind you, I did not expect much to happen during the Bush years. :)

Connecticut Man1 recommended Is It Possible The Insurance Companies Stepped On Their Wangers? by stillidealistic

2009-10-22T06:33:21Z

Connecticut Man1 Commented on If you are like most Single Payer supporters... by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-23T02:22:35Z

Just hoping that people will use those links in posts, etc., when they need to make a point about any of those topics. Get more eyes on the information at the other end.

I know that I always check PNHP and the California Nurses Association sites for corroborating information every chance I get just to drive traffic to them. If they don't have what I need I use other sources as a second option.

Connecticut Man1 Commented on If you are like most Single Payer supporters... by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-23T02:14:40Z

Ya know, I may not sound like I have a large vocabulary because I write a lot like I talk... But it is rare that I actually have to pull out the dictionary:

"Our pusillanimous DC Democrats fear the insurance companies more than they fear the people"

Dang! It sounds as bad as it should, especially in that context, even if you don't know the meaning.

Connecticut Man1 recommended HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND FLUMMOX THE PEOPLE; GEORGE W. BUSH THE MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER by dickday

2009-10-21T19:09:57Z

Connecticut Man1 Commented on If you are like most Single Payer supporters... by Connecticut Man1

2009-10-22T18:15:02Z

I am thinking that once they have "one bill" put together - after conference - it will take a concerted effort from EVERYONE ON THE NET (our vaunted left Blogistan think tank) to plow through it together. That way we can at least take some educated guesses at whether it will work or not before they even vote.