President Issues Warning to Americans

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! “We were told that markets knew best, and that we were entering a new world of global growth and prosperity,” Mr. Schumer said as the committee greeted Mr. Bernanke, who is testifying on Capitol Hill for a second consecutive day. “We now have to pay for the greed and recklessness of those who should have known better.” It is time, Mr. Schumer said, for the American economy to be revived as the “engine of prosperity,” rather than as a “casino” for high-rollers in the realm of finance.
What factors changed Market Supply & Demand Fundamentals to Freakohnomics gone berserk? From cheaper goods and services available to all through continual advances in science, technology and mass production, to 'Whatever The Market Will Bear' depending on how great the need for sustaining Life? The answers lie in Power, Greed, and Stagnant Energy Science. In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




NYT September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON — President Bush urged the American people and their lawmakers on Wednesday night to support his administration’s vast economic-recovery package, saying that a failure to do so could plunge the United States into “a long and painful recession.”
“Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen,” the president said in a speech from the White House.
Mr. Bush sought to rally the country in the kind of bipartisan effort he said was needed, not just to preserve American investment firms and big businesses but the savings and aspirations of millions of citizens in cities and on farms across the country.
“This rescue effort is not aimed at preserving any individual company or industry,” Mr. Bush said. “It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.”
The $700 billion plan his administration has put forth would normally be anathema to him, Mr. Bush said, because he typically would adhere to his philosophy that “companies that make bad decisions ought to be allowed to go out of business.”
But these are not normal times, he said, warning that without quick action, “America could slip into a financial panic.”
The president’s address, about 15 minutes long, was at once a plea for political action, an appeal to ordinary Americans that he understands their frustration and anger and a reaffirmation of his basic faith in capitalism.
One cause of the current problems, he said, is that for years foreign money poured into the United States because it is such a good place to do business. But he conceded what has become obvious in recent months: that confidence led to excessive optimism about the prices of houses, excesses by borrowers and lenders alike and, ultimately, far too much faith in complex mortgage-backed securities.
“We cannot risk an economic catastrophe,” the president said at the outset. Later, he said that “the irresponsible actions of some” should not undermine the financial security of all. There will be time enough later, he said, to reassess the creaky regulatory structure that led to the financial crisis.
The president said he was optimistic that, once the government starts buying troubled mortgage-backed securities that “money will flow into the Treasury,” recovering “most if not all” of the taxpayer money used to purchase them. When that happens, he said, a signal will be send “around the world” that America’s financial system is “back on track.”
Mr. Bush’s speech included conciliatory language toward Congress, in recognition of what he called “a tough vote for many members,” who have heard from their angry constituents. He emphasized that the bailout was “not aimed at preserving any individual company or industry,” but rather America’s overall long-range economic foundation.
Should the recovery plan not gain the support it needs, it will not just be Wall Streeters who suffer, the president said, but people who have worked hard to build good credit ratings so they can take advantage of their prudence when they need loans for buying homes, sending children to college and starting businesses.
Shortly before Mr. Bush’s speech — possibly the last prime-time address of his presidency to the nation — the White House announced that the president had invited the men who want to succeed him, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, and Congressional leaders to a meeting on Thursday in the hope of securing an accord.
The two presidential candidates released a joint statement calling on members of Congress to work together. “This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country,” the statement said. “We cannot risk an economic catastrophe.”
The program’s basic premise calls for the Treasury Department to oversee the purchase of distressed mortgage-backed securities, and hopefully resell them to recoup at least some of the taxpayers’ money used to buy them.
Mr. Bush’s speech loomed as perhaps the most important of his presidency since the days immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Moreover, the president and his speech-writers faced a delicate problem of tone: How to convey a sense of concern so as to muster support for the bailout program, yet not sound so pessimistic as to overly alarm millions of Americans and, perhaps, affect the markets.
A few hours before Mr. Bush’s speech, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. agreed to demands from lawmakers in both parties to limit the pay of executives whose companies benefit from the bailout. The sizable pay packages of some Wall Street executives, coupled with the realization among nonwealthy Americans that the crisis could affect their financial foundations, have created an incendiary issue on Capitol Hill.
“The American people are angry about executive compensation, and rightfully so,” Mr. Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee. “Many of you cite this as a serious problem, and I agree. We must find a way to address this in legislation without undermining the effectiveness of the program.”
As for the president’s television appearance, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said beforehand that the president should use it to explain things to the American people.
“Today we face what economists call the gravest economic danger since the Great Depression,” Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. “We’ve come to this point after eight years of President Bush waging a war on fiscal responsibility. His Republican philosophy of removing all accountability from big business — and expecting no responsibility from them in return — has created this crisis that now threatens to devastate America’s working families.”
“It is time for him to explain how eight years of deregulation policies have brought us to this dangerous ground,” Mr. Reid said. “And most importantly, it is time for him to explain how his plan — drafted literally under cover of darkness — will help America weather this storm.”
Earlier Wednesday, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, urged Congress to take quick action on the proposed $700 billion economic recovery plan, and warned that delays threatened not only financial stability in the United States but also, by implication at least, prosperity overseas.
“Despite the efforts of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other agencies, global financial markets remain under extraordinary stress,” Mr. Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee. “Action by the Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation and avert what otherwise could be very serious consequences for our financial markets and our economy.”
The chairman of the committee, Senator Charles E. Schumer, said that all but “a few outliers” among lawmakers agreed that some version of the plan to rescue the American financial system must be approved, and soon. But he said it would not be passed without adequate safeguards.
“We will not be dilatory, we will not add extra amendments, we will not Christmas-tree this bill,” Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said, a reference to the lawmakers’ occasional propensity to tack special-interest items onto legislation.
Mr. Bernanke said that international trade “provided considerable support for the U.S. economy over the first half of the year,” but that this stimulus could not be counted on in the long run.
“Economic activity has been buoyed by strong foreign demand for a wide range of United States exports, including agricultural products, capital goods and industrial supplies, even as imports declined,” he said.
“However,” Mr. Bernanke went on, “in recent months, the outlook for foreign economic activity has deteriorated amid unsettled conditions in financial markets, troubling housing sectors and softening sentiment. As a consequence, in coming quarters, the contribution of net exports to United States production is not likely to be as sizable as it was in the first half of the year.”
Mr. Bernanke’s remarks added to the continuing sense of urgency, as he alluded to extraordinarily levels of uncertainty and risk, well beyond the sagging housing market whose troubles are at the core of the problems.
“Given the extraordinary circumstances, greater-than-normal uncertainty surrounds any forecast of the pace of activity,” Mr. Bernanke said. Overall growth will probably continue “below its potential rate,” he said, and “the inflation outlook remains highly uncertain.”
The session offered a blend of concerns over financial markets, both on Wall Street and abroad, and intensely political worries for the lawmakers as Election Day draws near.
Mr. Schumer said he and other lawmakers were listening to their constituents, who were reacting with “amazement, astonishment and intense anger” to the original outlines of the $700 billion plan, as laid out by the Bush administration, and to the high-risk behavior that spawned the crisis.
“We were told that markets knew best, and that we were entering a new world of global growth and prosperity,” Mr. Schumer said as the committee greeted Mr. Bernanke, who is testifying on Capitol Hill for a second consecutive day. “We now have to pay for the greed and recklessness of those who should have known better.”
It is time, Mr. Schumer said, for the American economy to be revived as the “engine of prosperity,” rather than as a “casino” for high-rollers in the realm of finance.
“With the exception of a few outliers on either side, there is clear recognition among members of both parties that we must act and act soon,” Mr. Schumer said. But without adequate safeguards, he said, “then we risk the plan failing.”
Mr. Bernanke, who reminded lawmakers on Tuesday that his background was in academe, not Wall Street, told Mr. Schumer’s panel that the Federal Reserve believes in general that “private sector arrangements” were best in straightening out problems in the financial markets.
“Government assistance should be given with the greatest of reluctance and only when the stability of the financial system and, consequently, the health of the broader economy is at risk,” Mr. Bernanke said. And now is such a time, he said.
Meanwhile, doubts were raised about the ultimate cost of the bailout, assuming it was approved in some form. Until more details emerge about what the government will buy, and how, the director of the Congressional Budget Office said it could not provide “a meaningful estimate of the ultimate cost” to taxpayers.
Over time, Peter R. Orszag of the nonpartisan budget office told the House Budget Committee, the cost could be less than $700 billion.
The challenge, he said, was for the Treasury to avoid taking the riskiest assets off Wall Street’s hands unless it can get them at fire-sale prices.