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A quick glance through the nation’s headlines shows The Washington Post is one of the few print or electronic media today to highlight President Bush’s assertion at a press conference yesterday that he’s “confident in the economy.” It’s good to see a sense of reality still exists outside the beltway, where coverage of Jamie Spears’s pregnancy, unlike Bush’s soundbite, at least offers news that’s not based in fiction.
Bush has repeated ”the fundamentals of the economy are strong” for so long, no one is listening. Once again, he mouthed this phrase on a day when more bad economic news poured cold water on his glib assertions: U.S. home foreclosures rose 68 percent from November 2006 to last month. That’s 202,000 foreclosure filings, compared with around 120,000 in November of last year.
Bush’s plan for a one-year freeze on subprime interest rates is barely a beginning, while the Federal Reserve’s response to more carefully regulate risky loans is too late to help America’s homeowners who need assistance now.
As Wall Street handed out $38 billion in holiday bonuses to top execs while literally millions of homeowners face foreclosure, the AFL-CIO union movement yesterday called for major mortgage lenders to impose a one-year moratorium on subprime mortgage foreclosures.
We’ve also detailed before Congress action lawmakers must take to address the housing loan crisis. Some of these include restructuring subprime loans for 30 years at the original low teaser rates and imposing an immediate moratorium on foreclosures on subprime mortgages—any mortgage with a teaser rate structure. (Find out the rest of our proposals here.)
Those who make their living in the world of economic analysis have a different take on the outlook for the nation than does Bush. Testifying before Congress, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com put it this way (hat tip to Matt Stoller):
First, the nation’s housing and mortgage markets are suffering a very severe recession. Housing activity peaked over two years ago, and since then, home sales have fallen nearly 20 percent, housing starts by 40 percent and house prices by 5 percent…It is reasonable to expect national house prices to fall by at least 10 percent from their peak to their eventual trough late next year. This assumes that the economy will avoid recession and the Federal Reserve will continue to ease monetary policy.
The result?
There is a substantial risk that the housing downturn and surging foreclosures will result in a national economic recession.
Much of the focus on the Bush administration’s failures has rightly emphasized his foreign policy debacles and attacks on our civil liberties. But as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in the current Vanity Fair:
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
Sobering.
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Tell the Truth: Rohatyn Is a Nazi
December 21, 2007 (LPAC) - Lyndon LaRouche responded yesterday to reports that Democrats continue to hide behind Nazi banker Felix Rohatyn, as an excuse for not backing LaRouche’s FDR-style solution ( The Homeowners and Bank Protection Act) to the financial collapse ripping apart the U.S. and world economy. LaRouche made several points:
1. Whenever Felix Rohatyn’s name comes up–as it did at a Brookings Institute event on Tuesday with Larry Summers and Senator Chuck Schumer, our answer has to be:
“Look, Rohatyn is a fascist, so cut it out. Why are you bringing up his name? He supported putting the fascist killer Pinochet in power in Chile, along with George Shultz. He’s pushing the Revolution in Military affairs, and killer mercenaries. What more do you want–the guy is a Nazi! Why is he involved in a discussion about the U.S. economy–he’s a fascist!”
This is the only approach that will work. This is exactly what the LaRouche movement and LPAC did in the fight to save social security in 2005, before the Democratic leadership lost their nerve. We did not hesitate to use the “F” word for “Fascism,” and it worked. If anybody says that Rohatyn is in because Nancy Pelosi supports him, then our answer should be, “Maybe she should resign; maybe she should be replaced.”
2. We must put the banking system into bankruptcy protection now–anything else is insane, and possibly criminal. This the only thing that will save the United States and world economy. Whether you are dealing with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers’ sexual stimulus plan; or CFR “eunuch” Benn Steil’s one world currency, and “RTC” plan to buy up discounted mortgages; or Henry Paulson’s plan to freeze interest rates and create super a “super-SIV”. These plans are all insane.
LaRouche said: “The point is, there should be no attempt to make a settlement of this financial system now. The question is sanity or insanity. The whole system is a failure, so don’t try to find ways to settle accounts. Anybody who tries to do that is a menace. The only solution that will work is the one that I proposed–the firewall as outlined in the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act. Freeze the obligations now. Don’t try to resolve a bankruptcy problem by settlements outside of bankruptcy.
“First declare bankruptcy–then impose the solution. Not the other way around. Don’t negotiate settlements on this paper–freeze it. Bankruptcy is the only solution, and then you negotiate within the framework of bankruptcy procedures.
“We’re trying to to save the United States. These guys who are trying to cut deals are insane–please pay attention, Charlie Schumer. You’re endangering the system with these deals. Put the system through bankruptcy reorganization. Some of these accounts will, and should, never be paid because they are the result of swindles. And, we don’t honor fraud. We will not be bribed into avoiding bankruptcy.
“To save the United States, we must move to put the banking system into bankruptcy protection now. Anything else is insane, and possibly criminal.”
For more background history to this fascist Felix Rohatyn, the reader must turn their attention to LPAC’s archives; take a look at the following:
1.Watch LaRouche’s June 9th, 2006 Webcast: Felix Rohatyn and The Nazis Here is the transcript from Lyndon LaRouche’s June 9 International Webcast: (HTML) (PDF)
2. Check out: Rohatyn: the French-Nazi Connection
June 8, 2006 (HTML) (PDF)
3. Also for the readers benefit, read: Stop the Shultz-Rohatyn Cabal Behind Halliburton’s War
April 13, 2006 (HTML) (PDF)
All this material is located in our ‘Webcast/Multimedia’ and the ‘Organizing Material’ sections above.
The reader must not be fooled by the schemes and fascist policies of the Synarchist International agent, Felix Rohatyn; any true citizen of this Republic must burn and torch the so-called leadership of the U.S. Congress for associating themselves with the enemy of the United States.