February 10 2009 show notes


Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.


Tuesday 10 February '09 show




  • Quote: "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  • L. William Seidman at Grand Valley State University in Michigan 9 October 2008 (there are 7 videos on YouTube).
  • Guest: Ravi Batra, professor of economics at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Author of "Greenspan's Fraud: How Two Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy" and "The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos".

    The unregulated derivatives are still out there, unregulated. William Seidman invented them, but Greenspan would not regulate them. The problem is not in banking so much as at the bottom of the economy, people have no purchasing power and cannot repay their loans. Why would banks risk lending more money? People do not have collateral, jobs are being lost. Banks have failed. When the government talks about pumping money into banks, the market jumps. Today they are talking about the market getting involved, and it dropped. These people are leeches. Axelrod wants to punish banks, Geithner wants to make nice with them.

    Cut the trade deficit sharply. We are losing manufacturing jobs, but not talking about this. Tim Geithner on TV, gave speech,
    - new program jointly run by Fed and Treasury, bring in private investors to buy toxic assets.
    - will directly inject money in banks
    - massive expansion of TARP, including consumer and student loans.
    How will any of this help? The savings rate is back into positive territory. Tax credits to business is crazy. He predicted a revolution. 5-6 years before old ideas die. Obama can't try new ideas because whatever he does, things are so bad that the economy will go down, so if he tried something new, it would get the blame. The Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930.
  • Bumper Music: Rollin With The Flow, Mark Chesnutt (video).
  • Bumper Music: Political World, Bob Dylan.
  • Clip: Monty Python - Dead Parrot Sketch.
  • Michael Steele thinks government never created a job. But he was a lieutenant governor.
  • When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. 7 deadly debts.
  • "Rich man's panic". Geithner not addressing real problem. Rant. As debt is paid down the money supply contracts, deflation.
  • Bumper Music: City Of Blinding Lights, U2 (video).
  • Bumper Music: King of the Road, Roger Miller (video).
  • Upcoming Event: February 26-27th

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