Elizabeth Warren On TARP

This post was also orignally put on Smart Girl Politics a few days ago



First, one has to wonder if she doesn't have a degree in diplomacy for spinning her panel's review of the TARP program. In spite of this, a few problems seem too big to ignore.

First is that it's basic "stress assumptions" were a joke. The worst case scenario for employment assumed for this year was blown through in four months and we are now within easy striking distance of the worst case test for next year of I think 10.3% unemployment, which is projected as the recession low. (A note here. One needs to understand just how much faulty inputs like the Birth/Death model are already understating the real unemployment rate.)

Second, she notes that the entire stress time frame is only two years long, even
with a long pipeline of suspect mortgages and debts out there.

Third, She points out that the raw data that goes into the tests about just what assets and bad loans banks hold has been kept from the public, making it impossible to cross check the results.

What comes across is that the Treasury, FDIC and FED are in no way instruments of real transparency but are obstacles to it.

This fits with the "shut up, elitist, experts know best' attitude of this administration. She does, correctly point out just how against the FED's grain any level of transparency is.

Her last comment about the very ambiguous way the TARP law was written means that it is in fact a blank check for the executive to do as it wishes.

Independent Media In A Fascist State

I want to do a more detailed post on this subject, but here are a few thoughts.

Our founders had a very clear opinion that all rights and liberties were interconnected and that attacks one right one would cause the collapse of all others. For example, they didn't think a person, company or group could keep their independence from the state without an absolute right to their private property and contract rights. How could a newspaper, or any person be fully free from government coercion in a place where, the state controlled media licenses which they could pull at will, or provided subsidies and hand outs.

Th Fascist state goes to great extremes to make sure that nothing and nobody can be fully independent but it doesn't always do this by directly seizing all private property. Instead it uses a process of subsidies, licenses and other state powers to threaten and control the flow of ideas, much like the king did only on a bigger scale.

Please keep this in mind when looking at current media reporting. The three major networks are always under the threat of having their licenses revoked if they don't act in whatever the current leader or gang considers "the public interest".

Of course, we know on top of this, there is now "public TV" and "public radio" which get a large chunk of their money directly from the government which should, for any sane person exclude them as a possibly objective source of news about the state.

However, the ever increasing bailouts have added a new ingredient to the mix.

Can GE, which owns NBC and MSNBC and other media assets, really be considered an independent company anymore? Remember, that GE has taken billions of dollars in TARP money to shore up it's troubled and huge GE Capital unit. It's also almost surely on the "too big to fail list" of companies that administration has said will never be allowed to go down. How many of their toxic assets have been bought by the FED is a secret as are those of many huge banks that owe it money in some way.

Add to this the fact that GE is also a huge defense contractor and has a host of units hoping to cash in on "stimulus spending" and you have to question if it can have any independence at all.