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Wall Street Meltdown May Affect Barbados West Coast Real Estate Out Of Control Development

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There is the saying that when America catches a cold, countries like Barbados are likely to catch a cold. While some Barbadians may feel insulated from what is happening in the US financial market, they are others who know better. Last weekend the world received the news that security firm Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy, and that Bank of America had bailed the respected Merrill Lynch for approximately 50 billion dollars. Now that Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch have joined Bear Stearns on the financial dump, just two of the big five security firms are left standing in Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

As if the collapse of leading security firms on Wall Street is not bad enough, American International Group (AIG) is currently reported to be waiting on the Federal Reserve Bank to inject much need 40 billion in cash to offset massive credit losses. Barbadians maybe interested to know that AIG is the parent of ALICO which is an insurance subsidiary based in Barbados.

After watching the US networks and reading the many reports about the financial mess on Wall Street, it raises the question how could modern America with all of its smarts allow this to happen? It is being reported that the DOW dropped 500 points today. What this means is that many blue collar and middleclass Americans have seen their 401K, IRA, pension and other investments instruments drastically depreciate in value. Some financial analysts have put the positive spin on the meltdown by saying that it is a purging which is necessary to get rid of those institutions that have built their success on feather credit.

Barbadians should note that the stock markets around the world are inter-connected. Reports that the Asian stock markets have suffered a drop in points is instructive. The BU family would be aware that at the heart of the meltdown on Wall Street is the dumbing down of risks by large financial companies through the use of mortgage backed securities. It is all so complicated, BU family members should use google search to become educated on these matters. We are prepared to say that the financial wizards on Wall Street outsmarted themselves, and it was compounded by the regulators who nodded on the job.

There is concern in some quarters that the multi-million dollar real estate properties on the West Coast will be touched by the meltdown on Wall Street. Many of the investors who have been purchasing properties on the West Coast fit the profile of the Wall Street investor. The overnight reduction in the value of their personal fortunes held in stocks and shares will demand more financial prudence going forward.

BU thanks Bu family member x for the source material: New York Times

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104 responses to “Wall Street Meltdown May Affect Barbados West Coast Real Estate Out Of Control Development”

  1. Sir Bentwood Dick Avatar
    Sir Bentwood Dick

    The reality is that markets and properties around the world, Barbados being no exception, are WAY overvalued.

    As such, Barbados properties will also follow.

    The retail bank lenders must be getting really nervous at the thought of repossessed half-finished or unsold-finished condo developments that CANNOT be sold.

    The markets i.e. North America and England, to which these developments were aimed have both collapsed and so someone is going to be quite out of pocket.

    White elephants.

    As for those that ask for huge maintenance charges, the ‘mid-wealthy’ in USA and England who bought these may very well not be able to pay such charges any longer.

    Hence, the run to ruin will begin.

    Not a pretty picture.

    As for other properties catering to ‘locals’, the hundreds of thousands asking price is over.

    After the impact of recession and high operating costs half-kills our tourism sector and ancillary services, locals simply cannot afford such prices.

    Banks will attempt foreclosure, but only a fool forecloses if he can have the owner refinance instead. Unless of course, some wealthy bajans pick up houses at rock bottom during this disaster.

    We will survive, albeit in a tough way.

  2. Chris Halsall Avatar
    Chris Halsall

    @Sir Bentwood Dick et al…

    I do hope you’ll forgive me for this…

    But…

    You have your head so far up your ass it’s amazing you haven’t spontaneously collapsed into a singularity…

    (IMHO)

  3. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    The political class can’t face up to the scale of this crisis

    Seumas Milne (The Guardian)

    The scale of the crisis engulfing the global financial system can no longer be in doubt. The events of the past few days have confirmed that we are living through the greatest meltdown since the Wall Street crash of 1929. For the second time in barely a week, an avowedly free market government in the citadel of laissez-faire capitalism has been forced to nationalise a linchpin of American finance – this time the world’s biggest insurance company, AIG – in an effort to prevent the toxin of collapse spreading further through the US economy.

    That followed hard on the heels of the nationalisation of the mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; the bankruptcy of the country’s fourth largest investment bank, Lehman Brothers – corroded by bad debt and bonus-fuelled speculation – and the forced takeover of Merrill Lynch. And a year after the credit crunch triggered the fatal run on Northern Rock, British high street retail banks are being sucked into the crisis: at one point yesterday the country’s largest mortgage lender, HBOS, had lost almost 70% of its share value since the start of the week.

    Meanwhile, the impact on the real economy is becoming stronger: output in Britain is falling and official unemployment is likely to rise above 2 million next year – the real figure will be significantly higher. More than 100,000 jobs are expected to go in finance alone. The only question is how deep and prolonged the recession will now be.

    What is certain is that the dominance of the free-market model of capitalism, which has held sway across the world for more than two decades, is rapidly coming to an end. When its high priests in Washington are forced to carry out the largest nationalisations ever undertaken outside the communist world, while intervening on an unprecedented scale across markets that were supposed to be self-regulating in order to keep the system afloat, the neoliberal order is transparently falling apart.

    Naturally, market fundamentalists and ideologues will continue to preach the old religion. The Times argued yesterday that the unfolding of the banking crisis showed that capitalism and markets were working, however “brutal and unforgiving” that might sound. Such otherworldly dogma is not a luxury candidates standing for election can afford – and even John McCain felt obliged this week to attack Wall Street’s “casino [of] greed, corruption of excess”, while Barack Obama blamed McCain’s economic philosophy of deregulation and called for wide-ranging reform.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/18/economy.creditcrunch1

  4. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Chris
    Could you kindly clarify the anatomy in your post? I’m befuddled.

  5. Micro Mock Engineer Avatar
    Micro Mock Engineer

    SKF up 19.24% since purchased Monday morning. Make hay while the sun shines… if you can anticipate the swings (reflexivity), you can make hay even when the sun sets 🙂

  6. Micro Mock Engineer Avatar
    Micro Mock Engineer

    …by the way, new short rules kick in from tomorrow (http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-204.htm), so it would NOT be wise to play around with SKF tomorrow.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    Kudos to Voice of Barbados for recanting when they broadcast a quote from Richard Francis of Standards and Poors. What would they expect an employee of an international rating agency to say?

    Yesterday we heard from an economist from Republic Bank and Dr. Don Marshall gave his comment on the talk show yesterday. Why do we always feels that international comment is required on these matters. Is this an indictment on our indigenous trained scholars?

  8. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    The American Tapeworm
    It consumes its host’s energy, with the host doing most of the work

    By Catherine Austin-Fitts
    (Assistant Secretary of Housing, Federal Housing Commission in the first Bush administration).

    A Tapeworm’s Triumph

    The other day, a natural healing practitioner explained the strategy used by a tapeworm to prosper. A tapeworm, she said, injected a chemical into its host that triggered a craving by the host for what the tapeworm wished for its dinner. By managing it’s hosts desire, a tapeworm manipulated its host to set aside self-interest and please its parasite. And so the tapeworm proceeded to consume its host’s energy and health, with the host doing most of the work.

    The story of how a tapeworm parasitically eats away at its ecosystem came at a moment when the math lover in me was having an adverse reaction to the description of America as the new Roman Empire that seems to be inspired by the recent occupation of Iraq. The investment economics of American imperial conquest work more along the lines of the tapeworm than of the Romans.

    SNIP

    One of the things that is most disturbing about the American tapeworm is that it has organized its leadership around private banks and defense contractors and its governance and intellectual air cover around think tanks and private universities and their tax-exempt endowments.

    In so doing it has done a marvelous job of getting the intellectual resources of the nation disengaged from dealing with what is happening and engaged –if not financially dependent on— producing chemicals for injection into the body politic through a highly centralized corporate media that will feed the tapeworm’s desire.

    The Harvard Watch reports description of Harvard academics creating the public policy justifications for Enron’s frauds while the Harvard endowment fed at the trough illuminated a perfect example of how the tapeworm gets the host to act against its own self-interest.

    The Giant Sucking Sound as the Tapeworm Consumes Global Capital

    Another way of saying this is that the banking and corporate model as currently constituted does not work. Banks and corporations are entirely dependent on rigged government budgets, government contracts, federal credit arbitrage and corrupt regulation in way that generates a negative return on investment for taxpayers. In addition, as corporations and banks become dependent on such government intervention they become progressively less able to function in a free market. Their culture becomes progressively soviet.

    The combination of negative returns to taxpayers and increasingly non-market worthy private organizations is steadily lowering productivity. Add to this the increasingly power of organized crime as a % of GNP and a determinant of who sits in power on Wall Street and Washington, and fundamental productivity does not have a chance.

    This state of affairs can go on as long as it can be financed. Hence, as long as America can continue to export dollars, export Treasury bills and mortgage backed and other federally supported credit, and lead in global organized crime and warfare, a negative return economy can continue.

    Another way to say this is that rather than let markets adjust in a manner that would hold banks and corporations accountable, the central banks and military and enforcement machinery will guarantee markets by offsetting ever less productivity with ever greater amounts of debt and the liquidation of planetary assets – people, places, and all living things.

    Which leads us to Iraq.

    The Tapeworm Ransacking of Iraq

    The economic desperation that lead up to the invasion of Iraq has been eloquently described by Chris Sanders of Sanders Research Associates and fits the patterns that SRA colleague, John Laughland and his colleagues at the British Helskinki Human Rights Group, have documented in Eastern Europe. Assuming the patterns that we have seen throughout the world apply, that tapeworm’s economic desperation will feed on Iraq as follows:

    Continued here:
    http://solari.com/archive/the-american-tapeworm/

    More interesting links to videos and articles here:

    Trillions of dollars are missing from the US government. What’s going on? Where is the money? How could this happen? Where are the checks and balances? How much more has gone missing? What would happen if a corporation failed to pass an audit like this? Or a taxpayer? Who is responsible for this? Would your banks continue to handle your bank account if you behaved like this? Would your investors continue to buy your securities if you behaved like this? Learn more in the articles below.

    http://solari.com/archive/missing_money

  9. David Avatar
    David

    @Micro Mock Engineer

    Is this not a case of closing the barn door long after the horses have bolted? The SEC has stood by and allowed speculators to overwhelm the market and now that the financial system in America is in deep dodo we are hearing about them stopping investors selling shares they don’t have? They have created such a bogus system where speculators can make money as a stock slide, who pays?

    The investor in the BU household he has a small portfolio in US stock, which has taken a beating tells us that it is a zero sum game and nobody loses. MME or anybody please explain for the BU family!

  10. Sir Bentwood Dick Avatar
    Sir Bentwood Dick

    Green Monkey, excellent post.

    It is with some chagrin that I read of Condi Rice criticising Russian policy as being ‘irrelevant’.

    This, at a time when the US and indeed world financial markets are in a state of effective collapse, only supported by firstly the US Government and then the British Government in the case of HBOS.

    It appears that some are still of the view that BS Flies.

    Nevertheless, even THAT runs out of energy after a while.

    It is apparent that many are in denial of where this is going and as rightly pointed out above, our tourism industry , our main money earner, is in direct line of sight of the barrel of a cannon.

    Not pretty at all.

    Needless to say, greed and gluttony makes sick and then kills in the end and that is exactly what is happening now.

    Aside from agrictural produce, which is essential, the other product that must be high on sales right now is brandy.

    Lots of it.

  11. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    [b]AN AMERICA THAT CAN SAY NO[/b]

    There is no freedom without the freedom to say “no”. Free people can say “no”. Slaves cannot.

    If we are free, or at least free enough that the terrorists hate us for it, then we have the right and ability and often the moral duty to say “no”. We have the right to say “no” to being lied to. We have the right to say “no” to being lied into war. Certainly we have a right to say “no” when the government demands that we make do with less, so that the government and its favored cronies may have more.

    Right now, the government is preparing to “fix” the economic mess by setting up a new Resolution Trust Corporation. For those too young to remember, this is a repeat of the same scam used to “fix” the S&L Debacle (remember the Keating Five?) back in the 1980s. And in short it was simply going around with a checkbook filled with taxpayer dollars and cleaning up the mess made by reckless deal making (and a little CIA drug money laundering) in a climate of relaxed regulation.

    So, here we are, 20 years later, yet another Bush in the White House and a repeat of the same fiscal debacle stares us in the face. More than coincidence? Many think so.

    The mere rumor of a new RTC sent the stock market soaring. Why not? The US Government is telling the investors that they can keep the profits from any trades, but any further losses will get transferred to the taxpayers. It’s like being in Las Vegas at the Blackjack table, and every time you get 21 or beat the dealer, you get to keep the winnings, but if you bust, or the dealer wins, they take the money from the bus boy cleaning the table behind you. Such a deal! What’s not to like?

    Unless you are that bus boy, of course.

    Wall Street executives are running around and saying that the taxpayer has to pick up the tab. “Has to”? Why? Why should we be on the hook for other peoples’ bad judgments, especially when those people walked away form their bad judgments with $20 and $40 million dollar severance packages? Why is it our mess to clean up?

    Continued here:
    http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/sayno.php

  12. The People's Democratic Congress Avatar
    The People’s Democratic Congress

    As great turmoil and uncertainty continue to affect the so-called US economy at this juncture, the so-called Barbados economy continues to wobble downwards, with no clear end in sight to this motion.

    But, as the US Congress, the federal government and some other relevant federal agencies continue to actively come up with so many plans and initiatives ( so-called Tax rebates, Emergency lending by the Federal Reserve to certain financial institutions, etc. ) to halt the vicious slide in the world’s biggest economy – but which, admittedly, is a slide that the same Bush Administration has really helped to create ( esp. through the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) , we in PDC are realizing that this joke Thompson led Aministration remains committed to doing PRACTICALLY NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to halt the awful slide in this puny economy. But, rather, to the disdain of ourselves and so many tens of thousands of people in Barbados, it has committed itself to putting draconian measures ( massive increases in fuel costs in April of this year and savage increases in TAXATION thefts ) to further cause the damn economy to spiral downwards. What a disgrace, indeed!!

    And, what must also be truly remarkable to us -PDC – is that whilst the Bush Administration itself is preparing to leave office in 2009, and is still doing much to help stabilize the so-called US economy – and thus at the same time is succeeding in throwing out the notion that it is in a lame duck situation, this recently elected Thompson Administration, which has a whole lot of time to go before it terms ends – about less than 4 years to go – yet continues to disturb us by so grossly and recklessly allowing in Barbados more and more of our local businesses to become bankrupt, more and more of our citizens to become unemployed, allows and, in some cases, causes the COST OF LIVING AND THE COSTS OF DOING BUSINESS TO SKYROCKET, the National Debt to balloon to stratospheric levels, our import bill to continue to help choke the money supply, and the EU to dictate much of our trading affairs.

    Also, too, whereas, it is clear that the Bush Administration has helped to SEVERELY MISMANAGE the US economy and has done much wickedness and evil to many millions of people in the US and across the world, it is also clear that the last BLP Government did help to SEVERELY MISMANAGE the economic affairs of this country, and did perpetrate much wickedness and evil on the majority of the masses and middle clases of people of Barbados and their interests. But, what is funny at this stage is that this INTELLECTUALLY BANKRUPT BLP would want the broad citizenry of Barbados to believe that with enough time it could be cleansed and purified of the same wickedness and evil that it did to the majority of the masses and middle classes people – sufficient that it could really present itself a serious party at the next polls. What a pathetic type of thinking, indeed!!

    Finally, as the US prepares for presidential, congressional and other elections on November 4, we in PDC must continue to ask Barbadian citizens and voters to do the right thing and stop ELECTING DLP and BLP Governments in this country. Come join the PDC, or go join or form other serious people-centered developmentalist parties in this country, in the interest of our greatest and mightiest people working toward the betterment and progress of the masses and middle classes of people of this country and the country itself.

    PDC

  13. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Wow people using strong language like “nationalization” “system collapse” etc. I asked myself,why did the feds allow Lehman brothers to failed and offered AIG 85 Billion dollars? What would 85 Billion do for a company that has trillions of dollars in insurance policies (financial protection) assets? How could 85 billion dollars save such a huge company? Well it’s because AIG isn’t being saved, but is on life support so that it’s assets, those policies can be dealt with in an orderly fashioned. It seems that the Feds did not save AIG and that the US government has not nationalize it, but that it has allowed AIG to die a control death.

  14. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    am excuse me please! here is yet another analysis that i have found comfort in. 🙂

    ===========================

    A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN ECONOMIES.

    socialism vs. Capitalism perhaps?????? 🙂
    http://www.stratfor.com
    Dealing With Financial Crisis: The United States vs. Russia
    Stratfor Today » September 19, 2008 | 1058 GMT
    Summary
    Stock markets the world over have experienced a crush of losses and all-around volatility in recent days. Here we look at two of the most dramatic markets — those in the United States and Russia — where views of business and government could not be more different. While the U.S. Federal Reserve doesn’t even pretend to think it could manage the entire economy by itself, the Russian system is predicated on government control born out of political and economic necessity.

    Analysis
    Related Special Topic Page
    Putin’s Consolidation of Power
    Gazprom’s Ascent
    The economic systems of both the United States and Russia are rooted in geography. The United States boasts a large number of interconnecting navigable rivers draining massive tracts of arable land and a variety of coastal regions blessed with multiple harbors ideal for trade and city-building. A long series of barrier islands on the East Coast greatly simplifies local ocean shipping, while a series of geographic features on the West Coast — California’s Central Valley, for example — encourages development on that coast even without any linkages to the rest of the country.

    All that was necessary to make the United States a well-developed country were a few transport links — road and rail — crossing the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. Transporting goods around the country is pretty simple, especially for Midwestern farmers who just need to get to a river. Wealth begets wealth, and private enterprise faces very few barriers to growth. In short, economic advancement is a breeze in the United States, and that has shaped how the economy — even the financial system — has developed. Americans tend to prefer a laissez-faire system, with the government keeping fairly well out of business simply because government is not needed very much. Americans debate what to do with their wealth after it is earned — not how to generate it in the first place.

    Related Link
    The Coming Era of Russia’s Dark Rider
    In contrast, Russia’s rivers for the most part neither interconnect nor flow to places where it is logical to site cities. Most drain to the Arctic Ocean, while the largest that does not — the Volga — drains into the landlocked Caspian Sea. Russia’s useful coastline is also very small, and where it does have some coastline (the Black and White sea regions), it is not situated near major population centers. Because Russia’s growing season is so short, foodstuffs are produced in seasonal surges rather than year-round, making transport of produce a once-a-year nightmare that cannot be ameliorated by the use of rivers or maritime shipping. Russians are dependent on shipping everything along whatever road and rail network the government has been able to build.

    The result is an economic culture that is almost a perfect inverse of the United States. Whereas economic development in America is child’s play, mass starvation in Russia can be avoided only with strict and careful central planning. Transport infrastructure is a convenient unifying factor in the United States — according to some perspectives almost a luxury — but it is a life-and-death issue in Russia. So while Americans expect their government to stay out of their business, Russians fully expect the government to play an active role in anything that involves the economy.

    This backdrop does much to explain how market events of the past few days have turned out.

    In the United States, the two big events were the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the government intervention to salvage American International Group (AIG), both of which found themselves on the financial rocks after gorging on subprime mortgage assets. Questionable lending practices created a massive amount of mortgages being granted to people who in truth could not afford to make payments. But since the conventional wisdom in investment is — make that was — that mortgages are the safest, most reliable category of securities, many investment houses bought up such subprime mortgages in bulk and developed their own lending arms to create more subprime mortgages directly.

    Eventually, the housing bubble popped and the combination of a recession in housing and all these subprime mortgages going bust — some 20 percent are in delinquency — forced an industry-wide write-down of assets. For Lehman Brothers and AIG both, the process of rationalizing their books proved too expensive, threatening their ability to operate. In the case of Lehman, the government attempted to matchmake them with a healthier firm to allow an orderly transition; but, in the end, the government was willing to step aside and simply let the firm die by its own mistakes.

    The AIG situation is a touch more complicated. Here the Federal Reserve granted an $85 billion loan to take control of 80 percent of the group’s stock. Many saw this as a bailout and heckled the decision, but the reality could not be further from the truth. The Fed’s conditions were simple: We will grant you this loan so that you do not need to worry about stockholders’ demands (there will be no dividends) or liquidity ($85 billion should be plenty to keep AIG’s internal operations running no matter what happens in the wider market). In exchange, you will sell off the entire company within two years. The Fed intervened only to ensure that AIG’s massive insurance policies would not be abandoned (the group controls a half-trillion dollars’ worth of financial protection that it provides Wall Street firms and the biggest companies of Europe and Asia). The price for its assistance was the group’s utter liquidation. AIG, in effect, ceased to exist the day the “bailout” was announced. The Fed action simply keeps the body on life support until all of the body’s organs can be harvested.

    The markets are still roiled, and it is unclear whether Wall Street has fully absorbed the fact that AIG was not saved but was put down like a horse with a broken leg. The point remains that this sort of intervention is done reluctantly, with only two thoughts in mind: Intervene only when the stability of the system itself may be in danger and not simply to save any particular private enterprise; and get the government out of the business of business as quickly as possible.

    Now contrast this with what is going on in Russia.

    Troubles in the Russian markets are not new. Earlier this year, the government began taking a much more interventionist tack in dealing with foreign investors; and in May, foreign money began to flee. Many things contributed to the change, but the biggest would have to be a growing feeling within the Russian government that rule of law and property rights — never very strong in Russia in the first place — could be interpreted creatively by officials to serve the government’s tactical needs. The biggest example of this was the government encouraging the fleecing of the BP half of oil firm TNK-BP.

    In August, Russia invaded Georgia, adding a layer of political risk and making investors with longer memories think back to the geopolitical hostility and financial volatility of the Cold War era. The outflow increased. Finally, the Western credit crunch that claimed Lehman Brothers and AIG has triggered a global flight to quality assets. Considering the Russian view of property and the Georgia war, Russian assets are no longer considered a safe bet. Add the fact that oil prices have dropped by a third in the past three months, and energy-exporting Russia suddenly looks like the place not to be.

    So, on Sept. 16, the Russian markets plunged, forcing the government to suspend trading in its final hour. Overnight strategy sessions to prevent a repeat failed, and trading was suspended in the first hour Sept. 17 for the entire day. It remained suspended Sept. 18, and the system was switched back on Sept. 19 but halted again after a couple of hours. The rout is so uncompromising that Surgutneftegaz, one of Russia’s oil majors, now suffers from a market capitalization that is only slightly more than the amount of cash it holds in the bank.

    The Russian government held a series of crisis meetings in which it was decided that it would directly recapitalize the three largest state banks — Sberbank, VTB and Gazprombank — to the tune of $44 billion. Additionally, the government will sink 500 billion rubles ($19.6 billion) directly into the stock markets and another 60 billion rubles indirectly via those same state banks.

    Direct intervention in a stock market is generally frowned upon for the inefficiencies it creates — investors never know whether they will find themselves on the wrong side of government action — but announcing that you are going to do it ahead of time allows speculators time to line up bets against the government action. If the plan goes ahead as announced, the Kremlin will in effect be burning over $20 billion to achieve very little except perhaps the perception of getting things back on track.

    Neither of these are major concerns for the government. Unlike the Americans, its goal is not to protect the economic system; the Kremlin’s goal is to control the system as one would control a domesticated animal. The difference in mindset from the U.S. Federal Reserve could not be more stark. The Fed does not even pretend to think that it could manage the entire system by itself — and it wouldn’t want to even if it could.

    The Russian system, however, is predicated on government control born out of political and economic necessity. There is no allergic response to the idea of centralization. In fact, many in the top ranks see centralization as a good in and of itself. But even the most laissez-faire among them realize that, at times, a firm guiding hand is necessary — especially in Russia. The argument is not over whether to intervene but how deeply and for how long.

    The Kremlin knows it needs more money in the system, plain and simple. It also knows that, despite its $750 billion in reserve funds, it does not have the managerial skills or even the cash necessary to manage the entire economy itself. It has to get hold of more resources.

    As a stopgap measure, the Kremlin is in the process of drawing up a short list of critical firms that cannot be allowed to go under. These firms will be given some sort of access to government funding. Those not on the list are left to fend for themselves. One result is that the firms that can gain access to financing will gobble up many who cannot — massive consolidation is definitely looming on the near horizon in Russia. Since the government is far more likely to grant lifelines to government companies, this consolidation will also be a centralization of economic power under the Kremlin.

    The government’s next step will be to address the funds shortage. Its goal is to prevent more money from fleeing — the trading suspensions are only the start of that; capital controls and perhaps even limits on the ruble’s convertibility will follow. After that, the government will rustle up additional resources to augment its reserves. Since the first step will make foreign money avoid Russia like a plague, the Kremlin will need to look to another source. And it looks as if the Kremlin has already found one: Russia’s oligarchs.

    The oligarchs were originally a group of men who robbed the Russian state blind in the early days of the Soviet collapse. Using everything from fraud to theft to armed seizure, they amassed massive, if somewhat Frankensteined, corporate empires that ruled Russian economic — and even political — life for years. Their membership would change as new oligarchs would rise (sometimes violently) to replace the old, but they seemed to be a permanent feature of the Russian system until the rise of Vladimir Putin. He laid out new ground rules to lash their economic power to the Kremlin’s goals, and punished those who did not obey.

    Yet not all of the oligarchs are private citizens anymore. The assets of many of the oligarchs who fell have since been transferred to the state and placed under the aegis of Putin’s allies. So now the oligarchs can be split into four neat groups: the nominally subservient yet still independent, those with government offices, the exiled or imprisoned, and the dead.

    This second group warrants some exposition, since its existence is woven tightly into the Russian predilection for centralization. It is not merely that these “state oligarchs” happen to control major firms for the state, but also that they are government ministers who directly control the firms. They include such august personages as Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (also president of Rosneft) and First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov (chairman of Gazprom). New President Dmitri Medvedev previously held both of Zubkov’s offices. The point is that Russia’s economic centralization is already deeply under way.

    One of the strategy sessions held Sept. 16-17 was not simply a gathering of government economic personnel. Putin ordered that the major oligarchs — all of them — fly to Moscow. The attendance list was so thorough that it even included Roman Abramovich, an oligarch who not only has divested himself of many of his Russian assets but who is now living in London — he flew in late the night of Sept. 16. The Russian oligarchs represent the greatest pool of capital — foreign or otherwise — in Russia, and all have a reputation for putting their own financial interests first. The fact that the markets crashed in the first hour of opening after this meeting indicates that if there was a plan for the oligarchs to provide ballast, that plan was not very enthusiastically implemented. That will not be forgotten.

    The oligarchs — especially the private oligarchs — have the money. The Kremlin needs the money. Centralization is the word of the day. Connecting those dots is ultimately what Stratfor sees as the main event in the Russian economy in the weeks ahead. In the American system, the emphasis is on system preservation; whereas in the Kremlin, the emphasis is on power preservation. In the United States, the events of the past week — while certainly noteworthy — do not represent any fundamental breach of the existing economic system. In Russia, it appears we are entering the final stage of struggle between the oligarchs and the state for control over the economy itself.

    http://www.stratfor.com

  15. Chris Halsall Avatar
    Chris Halsall

    @Sir Bentwood Dick et al…

    Please forgive me…

    On 2008.09.17 I was in a particularly bad mood, for reasons I won’t bore you all with. This is, however, no excuse for the language I rendered.

    Sincerely, my deepest apologies to you personally, and the entire BU household in general.

  16. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Chris you are hereby sentenced to 50 fish cakes from a reputable source for quality, size and taste. LOL

  17. Straight talk Avatar
    Straight talk

    AH:

    Can you explain the difference between “System” in the US sense as against Russian “power”.

    Personally I think you and Stratfor are splitting hairs.

  18. David Avatar
    David

    @Adrian H

    This is a mess which the US is dealing with and we are not sure of your argument.

    The AIG bailout was only a piece of the puzzle. We have read of the billions which the US has to pump into the financial markets around the world to shore-up the USD. The propose clean-up by pulling the debt in some kind of unit trust means that the US government will have to issue bonds. This means that the USA becomes even more of a debtor nation. What are the implications and don’t tell us that this financial mess is not as bad as when the stock market crashed the triggered the Great Depression.

    The USA has to print trillions of paper dollars to clean this mess up, our layman interpretation is that this will have the continuing affect of lowering the value of the USD. It means those 401ks, IRAs and other savings instruments are being devalued as we write.

    Tell us where our argument is flawed Adrian H.

  19. Straight talk Avatar
    Straight talk

    Reading the AIG stitch-up more closely I see it as a government buy-out rather than a bail-out.

    For a loan of $170 billion (that’s Bajan Mia) @ 11% interest, demanding an 80% stake in the company and declaring there will be no dividends, sounds to me more like a takeover than a bail-out.

    If it was not so scary for our own futures, it would be amusing watching Bush and his shadowy PPT chasing their tails with a ball of string and a roll of duck tape trying desperately to hold the whole thing together.

    It’s too late the genie is out of the bottle,
    and until common sense returns to asset valuation, stocks will fall to their true value, no matter what temporary relief is provided by government interference in the financial markets.

    I expect more shocks to be announced this weekend ( it always seems to happen when the markets are closed ) as this is only the beginning.

    If Bush can manage to keep this manipulated feelgood factor going until November’s election, I will have to revise my opinion of the whole rotten system.

  20. Micro Mock Engineer Avatar
    Micro Mock Engineer

    You are right ST… it is more of a Government buy-out (unless AIG can somehow raise the capital to payoff Government). I also agree with you that stocks will fall to their true value despite the intervention… but I do believe that the interventions have prevented the market from falling below its true value, and avoided what could have been a catastrophic collapse. It has helped to calm the nerves of panicked investors and dampened the fall. Despite the criticism of ‘government interference in the financial markets’, I think they have acted prudently in the current circumstances. Any bigger a reversal in capital flow would have meant disaster… as it stands, their actions may have averted what could have otherwise been an all out depression.

  21. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Straight talk // September 19, 2008 at 9:02 pm

    AH:

    Can you explain the difference between “System” in the US sense as against Russian “power”.

    Personally I think you and Stratfor are splitting hairs
    ===========================
    Of course we are splitting hairs. Any argument that seems to give America an edge is splitting hairs. 🙂

    The core concern in both countries is the economy. In America the current concern is the system, how to preserve the current financial system. The article suggest that America becuase of it’s unique geographic location can survive, without Government control of the economy . The same when applied to Russia is not the case therefore control is essential. Control is power. The Russian government need this control but the US government does not.

    Post in a haste and i gottuh run. A buddy of mine is returning from Iraq today.

  22. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    • David // September 19, 2008 at 11:12 pm
    @Adrian H
    This is a mess which the US is dealing with and we are not sure of your argument.
    The AIG bailout was only a piece of the puzzle. We have read of the billions which the US has to pump into the financial markets around the world to shore-up the USD. The propose clean-up by pulling the debt in some kind of unit trust means that the US government will have to issue bonds. This means that the USA becomes even more of a debtor nation. What are the implications and don’t tell us that this financial mess is not as bad as when the stock market crashed the triggered the Great Depression.
    The USA has to print trillions of paper dollars to clean this mess up, our layman interpretation is that this will have the continuing affect of lowering the value of the USD. It means those 401ks, IRAs and other savings instruments are being devalued as we write.
    Tell us where our argument is flawed Adrian H.

    Yes there is a mess to dealt with. Yes AIG is just part of the puzzle, yes to the other things you mentioned, but this is not anywhere as bad as the great depression. It is true to say that the foreclosure rate is the worst since the Great Depression, but it does not equal that of the great depression such would be akin to equating a sore throat with stomach cancer. About 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent to some extent, and 2.75 percent are in foreclosure. During the Great Depression, more than 50 percent of home loans were in default.

    The stock market was down by 400+ one day and 500+ another it has rebound 300+ since and 400+ after that, with a total down of 200+ we have seen this gyration before.
    Donald Luskin Tells about the economy
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202415_pf.html

    The Wall Street Journal details the actual problem:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122152615163440191.html#printMode

    Eeconomist Brian Wesbury opinionate that blaming the overall economy for the problems on Wall Street is backwards:
    http://www.ftportfolios.com/Commentary/EconomicResearch/2008/9/15/gales_of_punitive_destruction

    But if we must blame someone or something:
    http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/16/whose-policies-led-to-the-credit-crisis/

  23. Chris Halsall Avatar
    Chris Halsall

    @BU Family…

    Have you been following the hearings in the USA?

    There those who are being asked to sign a cheque for USD $700,000,000,000 as asking exactly what they’re buying.

    They’re being told that they buying “bad debt” at close to 100 cents on the dollar…

    Humm… The modern business plan of the rich…

    Let’s all bet on the lottery… When we lose, let’s sell our (losing) tickets to the Government for the purchase price, because it’s our God given right to win…

    Yeah, right. That scales…

    May we live in interesting times…

  24. David Avatar
    David

    What we found scary was the fact that a three pager was submitted to the US Congress to justify the request.

    We are speechless!

  25. The scout Avatar
    The scout

    The position of USA president is one that I wouldn’t want to hold. These money mongrels on Wall Street has sent the whole US economy in a whirlwind bordering on tornado capacity . I agree with Obama, you can’t bail out Wall Street and left the house owners in trouble, so Main Street must be part of the equation. What was alarming is that one of McCain’s advisors who was a CEO of one of these bought out companies received US $45million in severence and McCain said it was justified.

  26. Chris Halsall Avatar
    Chris Halsall

    If I May… I laugh…

    And while I am very comfortable laughing alone, I don’t think I am alone in this particular situation…

    If I May… We are watching the end of an Empire… Observe. Learn. Benefit…

  27. David Avatar
    David

    Thought the BU family might be interested to read what the Treasury Secretary had to say to the Senate.What do you think?

    The following is testimony by Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. before the Senate Banking Committee on turmoil in US credit markets, recent actions regarding Government Sponsored Entities, Investment Banks and other financial institutions.


    Chairman Dodd, Senator Shelby, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I appreciate that this is a difficult period for the American people. I also appreciate that Congressional leaders and the Administration are working closely together so that we can help the American people by quickly enacting a program to stabilize our financial system.
    We must do so in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families’ financial well-being, the viability of businesses both small and large, and the very health of our economy.
    The events leading us here began many years ago, starting with bad lending practices by banks and financial institutions, and by borrowers taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford. We’ve seen the results on homeowners – higher foreclosure rates affecting individuals and neighborhoods. And now we are seeing the impact on financial institutions. These bad loans have created a chain reaction and last week our credit markets froze – even some Main Street non-financial companies had trouble financing their normal business operations. If that situation were to persist, it would threaten all parts of our economy.
    As we’ve worked through this period of market turmoil, we have acted on a case-by-case basis — addressing problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, working with market participants to prepare for the failure of Lehman Brothers, and lending to AIG so it can sell some of its assets in an orderly manner. We have also taken a number of powerful tactical steps to increase confidence in the system, including a temporary guaranty program for the U.S. money market mutual fund industry. These steps have been necessary but not sufficient.
    More is needed. We saw market turmoil reach a new level last week, and spill over into the rest of the economy. We must now take further, decisive action to fundamentally and comprehensively address the root cause of this turmoil.
    And that root cause is the housing correction which has resulted in illiquid mortgage-related assets that are choking off the flow of credit which is so vitally important to our economy. We must address this underlying problem, and restore confidence in our financial markets and financial institutions so they can perform their mission of supporting future prosperity and growth.
    We have proposed a program to remove troubled assets from the system. This troubled asset relief program has to be properly designed for immediate implementation and be sufficiently large to have maximum impact and restore market confidence. It must also protect the taxpayer to the maximum extent possible, and include provisions that ensure transparency and oversight while also ensuring the program can be implemented quickly and run effectively.
    The market turmoil we are experiencing today poses great risk to US taxpayers. When the financial system doesn’t work as it should, Americans’ personal savings, and the ability of consumers and businesses to finance spending, investment and job creation are threatened.
    The ultimate taxpayer protection will be the market stability provided as we remove the troubled assets from our financial system. I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative – a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund everyday needs and economic expansion.
    Over these past days, it has become clear that there is bipartisan consensus for an urgent legislative solution. We need to build upon this spirit to enact this bill quickly and cleanly, and avoid slowing it down with other provisions that are unrelated or don’t have broad support. This troubled asset purchase program on its own is the single most effective thing we can do to help homeowners, the American people and stimulate our economy.
    Earlier this year, Congress and the Administration came together quickly and effectively to enact a stimulus package that has helped hard-working Americans and boosted our economy. We acted cooperatively and faster than anyone thought possible. Today we face a much more challenging situation that requires bipartisan discipline and urgency.
    When we get through this difficult period, which we will, our next task must be to address the problems in our financial system through a reform program that fixes our outdated financial regulatory structure, and provides strong measures to address other flaws and excesses. I have already put forward my recommendations on this subject. Many of you also have strong views, based on your expertise. We must have that critical debate, but we must get through this period first.
    Right now, all of us are focused on the immediate need to stabilize our financial system, and I believe we share the conviction that this is in the best interest of all Americans.
    Thank you.

  28. Hopi Avatar
    Hopi

    Imagine a world without hardworking poor and “middle class people”, a world without idiots who buy into the lies of these criminal gangsters. What a world that would be. I see a world without the “rich” filthy, stinking predator class, a world without war, a world on the path to peace and harmony.
    Yes the spineless, gutless congress will give these gangsters exactly what they want and pass the empty safe onto the taxpayers to fill up again for the same gangsters to return. This was a heist and the gangsters got away with the loot because they are protected by the government. George Bush referred to them as his “base.” Its so easy to blame the “poor” people who wanted to house their families not unlike these gangsters who have 3 & 4 mansions on every continent.

  29. Straight talk Avatar
    Straight talk

    We are witnessing the biggest theft in history.

    George Bush’s swansong to his buddies.

    The wholesale transferral of lower and middle class America’s wealth to the power brokers, who caused the disaster in the first place.

    They parcelled up high risk debts, slicing and dicing them into complex derivative packages, which for some illogical reason they assumed the more they circulated around the finance houses they would gain in value and in credit rating.

    The merry-go-round has stopped and the man, Hanky Panky, who was CEO of Goldman Sachs until he took over as Bush’s treasurer, wants congress to give him a loan of US$750,000,000,000 to pay off his friends so they can carry on unscathed.

    Not only that, he alone gets to choose who benefits and who goes to the wall, with no oversight and total immunity from any legal challenge.

    The audacity and scale of this scheme is mind boggling.

    Any person who does not recognise this as a massive confidence trick being played on the US public had better shake their heads and remember the last to know are the victims.

    And to anyone who believes this will solve the matter once and for all, I say consider the total derivative market is US$516 trillion ( yes twelve zeros ), and there’s an awful lot more revaluing to be done.

  30. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Indeed ST. Um is the biggest theft of private capital, brought on by socialist policies of the democrats in congress. It will not stand, and this is not or will not lead to economic stagnation, or the downfall of the US, neither is it comprapable to the Depression as Obama likes to say.

    ….Meanwhile i am hearing that the supurmarkets in Barbados are empty of foot traffic. Wuh gine on pun de rock? wunnuh aint know or wunnuh can’t say? 🙂

  31. Inkwell Avatar
    Inkwell

    My bet is that Congress will approve the bail out bill with a few cosmetic changes because Paulson and Bernanke are scaring the shit out out of them that it will be financial Armageddon if they don’t pass it NOW, don’t waste time asking questions…in the same way that Bush and Cheney made them see mushroom clouds over the US if they didn’t authorize the attack on Iraq.

    You see, Americans are basically stupid.

  32. Hopi Avatar
    Hopi

    ADRIAN HINDS…..Don’t expect a response from you.

    You are just another brown-tongue, amoebic weasel, blaming socialist policies of democrats for this heist in broad daylight. Those same people that you so dearly hold in high esteem won’t even piss on you if your arse was ablaze. Can’t you see that there is neither democrat, nor republican, neither right wing nor left wing, its just US vs THEM stupid. The policies of your lovely president have been the most socialist in the history of the USA, the only difference is that its socialism for the RICH. This is not theft of private capital dum, dum, you have to pay for it. Ever heard of taxes? The country is already in a depression and you better check the supermarket in your neck of the woods. Oh the bleating expletive sheeps.!!

  33. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Inkwell // September 24, 2008 at 8:51 am

    My bet is that Congress will approve the bail out bill with a few cosmetic changes because Paulson and Bernanke are scaring the shit out out of them that it will be financial Armageddon if they don’t pass it NOW, don’t waste time asking questions…in the same way that Bush and Cheney made them see mushroom clouds over the US if they didn’t authorize the attack on Iraq.

    You see, Americans are basically stupid
    ===========================
    As the world continues to devalue the “foresight” and opinions of Island inhabitants as “Island mentality” 🙂

    America’s overwhelming economic power comes from it’s geographic location more than anything else, and as such it will be a long time before it comes to an end. Those of you who are waiting and hoping with glee to witness it’s fall, will have to wait from the confines of hell or the pearly gates for that day. 🙂

  34. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Hopi // September 24, 2008 at 9:24 am

    ADRIAN HINDS…..Don’t expect a response from you.

    You are just another brown-tongue, amoebic weasel, blaming socialist policies of democrats for this heist in broad daylight.
    ===========================

    Sir Hopi i can prove it.

    ===========================
    Those same people that you so dearly hold in high esteem won’t even piss on you if your arse was ablaze. Can’t you see that there is neither democrat, nor republican, neither right wing nor left wing, its just US vs THEM stupid. The policies of your lovely president have been the most socialist in the history of the USA, the only difference is that its socialism for the RICH. This is not theft of private capital dum, dum, you have to pay for it. Ever heard of taxes? The country is already in a depression and you better check the supermarket in your neck of the woods. Oh the bleating expletive sheeps.!
    ===========================

    Why you are attaking me is undestandable. You would refuse to call Straight Talk on his willingness to berate only a McCain staff for profiting from Fannie Mae when there is evidence that the CEO’s of both fannie and freddie who are Barack supporters, staff and advisors have done the same. Make no mistake about my opinion, when i say that this is theft of private wealth, that i am placing blame on the Whitehouse as well. What i sought to do which any curios person should do is to find the source of this problem. You cannot deny that this all started with subprime mortgages. How did a lending industry go from demanding proof from potential borrowers that they could repay the loan that they were seeking to issuing “liers loans” why would they do this? greed? hardly somebody had agreed to back these loans, and that is where this democratic congress comes in. I am not backing any politician, You don’t have to tell me that Bush was more socialist than most Democratic presidents, I have said as much on many occasions. I am backing America.

  35. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    So if i am backing America that means i am not backing Barack, as i think he is running for the World leader position whatever that is. 🙂

    But i just saw this nonsense that you wrote hopi:

    Hopi says:
    ” This is not theft of private capital dum, dum, you have to pay for it. ”

    You see a difference between the two? wow? you must be a UWI graduate. 🙂 money is capital and if i have to pay for it isn’t that private.

    Hopi says:
    “Ever heard of taxes? ”

    ….and taxes are not paid by private capital?

    Hopi says:
    The country is already in a depression and you better check the supermarket in your neck of the woods. Oh the bleating expletive sheeps.!”

    The supermarkets in my neck of the woods are fully stock and well traveled. In fact a new dicount one (Aldi) just open a week ago. The US as a whole is not any way near a depression or even in a recession.

    Until the US becomes a socialist country Americans cannot be concidered as sheep. Honestly that is! 🙂

  36. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    “I want [Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae] to help with affordable housing, to help low-income families get loans and to help clean up this subprime mess. Otherwise, why should they exist?”
    – Rep. Barney Frank, earlier this month.

    As Winston Churchill might have put it, never before has one man done so much that was so wrong, or shafted so many on behalf of so few.

    Freddie and Fannie were supposed to be safe suppliers of mortgage money for relatively low-risk loans. If you could qualify for a loan, F&F would make sure the banks had access to the money to make that loan, cheap money because it was backed by the American taxpayers.
    But liberals like Barney Frank wanted more. They wanted the low cost of low-risk loans to be extended to higher-risk borrowers with lower incomes, fewer assets or less-solid credit. Barney and friends used the regulations of the Community Reinvestment Act to threaten lenders into making these loans. And banks, trying to meet Frank’s demands, expanded riskier lending schemes like subprime mortgages.
    That’s when Freddie and Fannie stepped in. As Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute put it: “They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools.”
    Lenders asked themselves, why should I care how shaky these borrowers are or risky the loans if a government-backed body is going to buy them up anyway?
    The loans were made, the housing market bubbled, contributions from F&F flowed to Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, and everyone was happy. Until they weren’t.
    Without Freddie and Fannie’s reckless expansion, the housing bubble doesn’t happen. Without the implied promise behind F&F’s money, investment banks don’t dive into the derivatives market.

    …..“There is no federal liability whatsoever,” Frank said in 2000.

  37. Bush tea Avatar
    Bush tea

    Adrian Hinds,

    How did a born and bred Holders Hill man, who grew up on Holme’s hamcutters, become so much a believer in America?

    … something smells….

    As man, ….you checking Condoleezza or something so????

  38. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Greenspan’s Warning :

    The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”
    What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

    Different World :

    If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.
    But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.
    That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: “It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.”

    Mounds of Materials :

    Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.
    But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.
    Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.
    Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.
    There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.
    Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that’s worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.
    (Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)
    To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org
    Last Updated: September 22, 2008 00:04 EDT

  39. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Bush tea // September 24, 2008 at 11:01 am

    Adrian Hinds,

    How did a born and bred Holders Hill man, who grew up on Holme’s hamcutters, become so much a believer in America?

    … something smells….

    As man, ….you checking Condoleezza or something so????
    ===========================
    Simple:

    Living in Barbados for 27 unbroken years never leaving once for any reason or lenght of time during those years, I came to realize that I could only progress base on who i knew.

    On coming to America at age 27 I immediately realize that no one that i came into contact with care much who i was or who i knew, but wanted to know What I could do. Since then i have traveled the world making money for business owners and for myself as a result of what i can do.

    …Now i credit my Bajan upbringing for developing a love for hard work…..but the difference wasn’t lost on me, for where i had to work hard in Barbados out of neccessity to meet my basic needs, In America i could work hard to make a lot of money. Yuh see i may be somewhat conservative but i love progress. 🙂

    This is my story and should not be use to define the live of any other or to define live in Barbados in general.

    Condi look to stiff fuh me. 🙂

  40. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    This is my story and should not be use to define the life of any other or to define life in Barbados in general.

  41. Tell me Why Avatar
    Tell me Why

    Condi look to stiff fuh me.
    ………………………………………………………
    define where you see the stiffness (laugh to ease the stress)

  42. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Look man i am 42 my wife is 39, and i don’t have any reason to look outside de house, and if i had tuh it would be wid Sarah Palin. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

  43. Tell me Why Avatar
    Tell me Why

    Wow. No wonder we are hearing ground swell of Obama making it to the White House because of colour. To me, both look like grandmothers children. A tint of old fashioned hair styles with glasses.

  44. Tell me Why Avatar
    Tell me Why

    BTW David.

    Karen Dear the fearless reporter on Health issues passed away a few moments ago. Karen had the Health Ministry hopping with unearthed stories about the happenings within that ministry. May she rest in peace.

  45. Hopi Avatar
    Hopi

    ADRIAN HINDS……
    Shoczocked that you found the balls to respond to my post, not that I needed a response. However, you still seem to be all over the place with your scatter brain arguments, cutting and pasting here, there and everywhere. Leave other peoples’ opinion and give us some frank analysis of this load of crap that has been heaped upon us, the taxpayers. You quoted Winston Churchill but you seem to wrongfully accuse Barney Frank of such actions. Right now the only being to whom Churchill’s quote can be and will be correctly attributed is to your current president George dubya. Your quoting Alan Greenspan, that big traitorous liar.
    What is going on right now is a controlled demolition. Remember 9/11? Another controlled demolition. This was the forerunner. Ever heard of the New World Order? Can someone say EXTORTION? All simpletons will blame “sub-prime,” that’s so easy, that’s the set-up right there “oh those little people who could’nt afford a mortgage.” Barack Obama, John McCain, different arms of the same body, makes no difference to me. This is a big set up. Stop drinking that damn koolaid man and get youself some pure, spring water and stay from the fluoridated toothpaste, kills the brain cells hence the capacity to reason. If you value your worth in terms of money and you were worth $100k yesterday, today you are only worth half that. Not all of us are interested in your private life, keep it in the bedroom. Analyse the subject matter.
    Adieu!

  46. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Hopi // September 24, 2008 at 1:10 pm

    ADRIAN HINDS……
    Shoczocked that you found the balls to respond to my post, not that I needed a response.
    ===========================

    My balls where not missing in the first place. 🙂

    ….Was there an argument or position is your latest response???????
    …….

  47. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Tell me Why // September 24, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    BTW David.

    Karen Dear the fearless reporter on Health issues passed away a few moments ago. Karen had the Health Ministry hopping with unearthed stories about the happenings within that ministry. May she rest in peace.
    ===========================
    The conspiracy theorist could use this info to suggest malfeasance on someones part. Yet another person could view this information via the saying, “Don’t argue with the hand that feeds you.”

    Don’t know of the person but may she rest in peace.

  48. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    Adrian Hinds
    • Look man i am 42 my wife is 39, and i don’t have any reason to look outside de house, and if i had tuh it would be wid Sarah Palin. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    ***********************************
    Your infatuation for white people knows no bounds but I can see why Sarah Palin would appeal to you rather than Condi Rice. Condi is an intellectual and any intelligent woman would intimidate the hell out of you.

  49. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Sargeant // September 24, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    Adrian Hinds
    • Look man i am 42 my wife is 39, and i don’t have any reason to look outside de house, and if i had tuh it would be wid Sarah Palin. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    ***********************************
    Your infatuation for white people knows no bounds but I can see why Sarah Palin would appeal to you rather than Condi Rice. Condi is an intellectual and any intelligent woman would intimidate the hell out of you.
    ===========================
    right on que ha ha ha ha ha. You sure that you “SEE” why???? 🙂 🙂 🙂

  50. broker_dealer Avatar
    broker_dealer

    While the foregoing analysis was not terribly insightful, it does raise some important issues that many of us seem not to appreciate. First and foremost it underscores the interconnectivity of the world’s securities markets and secondly it reminds us that countries far more developed and with far better regulated markets than us are still vunerable.

    What the US financial sector meltdown has taught us is that close, regular and competent regulatory supervision is critical. The financial markets are much too important to the economy of any country for those charged with its regulation to be incompetent, asleep at the wheel or plain careless. Hence the early call for the head of Chris Cox Chairman of the US SEC in the wake of the US meltdown. I have no doubt at least on paper of the competence of Mr. Cox, but what about that of our regulators?

    The Barbados Securities Commision is Chaired by Sir Neville Nicholls a man of considerable though antiquated financial experience. With due respect to Sir Neville, my view is that with the complicated securities products like derivatives now common place, the chairmanship of the SC needs to be put in the hands of someone with mordern and specific securities experience. Enough said on that.

    What about the GM of the SC? I too think that she has outlived her usefulness in a modern securities regulatory environment. Perhaps with her Canadian banking experience she was suitable to a new securities market back in 1987 when the Securities Exchange was established. However, the question needs to be asked whether she has the knowledge and competence necessary to oversee a market characterised by more and more complex securities products? One of the brightest financial and business minds Warren Buffet, has admitted that he does not understand derivatives and consequently has stayed away from them. I think this is sage advice for the new David Thompson administration when it comes to selecting persons to head securities regulatory bodies. existing persons should be inviteto demonstrate their competence and if lacking those who have little or no knowledge of mordern securities products and regulation should be encouraged to “stay away from them”. Persisting with people simply because they have been around for a long time is tantamount to playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette with our critical securities market. What is the particular academic qualification of the present GM of the SC anyway? The latest annual report of the SC indicates that she is a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers (FCIB). My question, based on sound research and due enquiry is, how does one achieve this designation and has anyone in authority confirmed this? A word to the wise….

    Let me end by saying that it is a wise man that learns from his own mistakes, but it is the wiser man that learns from the mistakes of others. There are lessons in the US crisis somewhere if we only take the time to look.

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