It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama’s high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama’s approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama’s net presidential approval rating — which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve — is just six, his lowest rating to date.
SOLUTION:
1) Media needs to report the facts as facts rather than continuing the leftist pipedream of a Dem President w a halo around his head as some sort of savior
2) After recognizing the low polls, Pres Obama needs to first address them
3) President Obama needs to be seen as reigning in the far left leaders of his party who control Congress; to be seen reigning in the people who are spending millions of dollars to study shit (“human waste study earmark put forth by Dems from Wisconsin).
4) actually STOP spending instead of just talking about it
Failure to recognize, address, and correct the factors that are lowing his poll numbers must be done asap.
Author of “Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War
Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War: Malensek, Scott: 9798864028674: Amazon.com: Books
I think you and the other Scott may be shooting your load too early…
We’ve been hearing about Obama’s plummeting poll numbers since June of last year.
It’s not my opinion.
Rasmussen, Gallup, and others
A more true claim would be that we’ve been hearing how HIGH his poll numbers are when in fact they’re lower than Bush’s at the same time, and rather than winning the election in a landslide, he won w barely over 50% of the vote (despite having the benefit of an unpopular President, a recession blamed on the opposing party, two unpopular wars, Osama Bin Laden still at large, no end in sight for war on terror, Iran, and North Korea still threats, and a last minute economic collapse). Given all the factors of the campaign and election, Obama should have crushed.
Instead, barely over 50%.
Fitfit, again, please don’t mistake the article as if it were an unsubstantiated statement of my opinion. I only offered solutions.
🙂
Poor Fit.
His arms have to be getting reaaallly tired by now.
Wow. I said earlier this week it would take two weeks to get here. People are really waking up. Hallelujah!
The media will need to address this soon or the citizens will revolt more over the disgust of the dishonesty. The media and Obama are blaming with fire and the People always win.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
Polls go up. polls go down. Let’s see where his numbers are Monday morning after four days of stock gains…
@Fit fit:
After four straight days of gains, are you confident enough to put your money back in yet?
I’m not.
I can see what’s coming, and I can tell you we’re not done yet.
Oh, this ought to help in that little up and down polling issue:
Eleven of the most prominent veterans organizations, aka, voters, the most important poll:
Sneaky cowards.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/veterans.health.insurance/index.html
Aye:
you said McCain was going to beat Obama….
you said you could see that coming too
Then CRAP, put your money back in the market if you trust your
messiah so much.
@Real American Patriot:
I made the mistake of underestimating the stupidity of the American voter.
Unfortunately, the Hopey Changey hypnosis was successful.
But Bruce, if you want to believe that the Wall Street bloodbath is over, then do please, by all means put your money back in.
We’ll see who is right very shortly.
Scott,
Solution #2 is no solution; I think it’s as far from a solution as possible.
I, for one, don’t give half a plug nickle to the value of polls, especially media polls. Even seemingly simple opinion polls (such as just contrasting “strongly for” and “strongly against” numbers) are relatively poor indicators of the complex nature of human opinion. And unless tremendous pains are taken to ensure adequate sample size and eliminate the typical biases, the polls are valuable mostly as propaganda tools (which is how they tend to be used).
But that’s not even my objection. I do NOT want a president who forms his policy around popular opinion! Sometimes a president has to do very unpopular things, and in this day and age where the media is capable of swaying popular opinion grossly to the left (Fox News excepted), playing to the polls has a good chance of moving the country much farther from center than most people will want – once they snap out of their fawning spell.
Addressing the polls first puts the cart waaaay in front of the horse, and it’s likely to cause major trouble .
President Obama: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Jeff V
Remember this?
ruaqtpi2, I agree, but the fact is that recognizing and addressing what Americans are feeling proved itself worthy under Bill Clinton, necessary under George W Bush, and the sentiment people are having is directly correlated to the state of the economy. That’s why Obama changed his tune today from the woe-is-me-in-chief to the it’s-not-so-bad-in-chief.
Having just endured 15 weeks of my wife being out of work, I can say from first hand experience that while Obama and Democrats give out $1000000000 an HOUR to banks, corporations, etc., while raising taxes on everything…yeah, I think the 20000 people who will lose their job today would like it explained how it’s more important to help failed big money corps than to help the unemployed. I can say with absolute certainty that every time Obama and Dems say,”____that we inherited” there are 4500000 jobless workers and another 15000000 family members who don’t care one bit-not one bit….because pointing fingers at scapegoats doesn’t get them new jobs. And those 10000 houses that will be foreclosed on today with the 40-50000 people made homeless….yeah, I’m pretty sure that finger-pointing and scapegoating takes a backseat to the question of “why don’t I get any bailout money?”
The polls cited in the article explain why Obama’s overall approval rating is lower than Bush’s at the same time in his presidency. Bush had 911 to boost his approval for a while. Obama’s had a simlar (or arguably worse) crisis, and his approval has not gone up because he has not inspired, united, stirred, and led a nation toward recovery from tragedy.
Should Obama go to the trading floor w a megaphone and say, “I hear you, and pretty soon the bastards that didn’t do oversight, and who let this happen are gonna hear from all of us!” I doubt it.
However, this week here in Akron, Ohio we had a job fair. 200 people registered. 5000+ turned up before the fire marshall had to shut the doors. Similar things are happening all over the nation. Just a few days earlier (perhaps even 100hrs), President Obama was a bit to the south in Columbus, Ohio. He stood in front of two dozen police academy grads and thumped his chest that these 23 or so people had jobs because of him and his $900000000 stimulus plan. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest it might have been more inspiring (and more courageous) to go to the job fair, put his arm around someone who has no hope of finding a new job, who WILL lose their home, and has lost their life savings, their retirement, and cannot afford healthcare now.
Hmmmm,
23 cops for $900000000
or
5000 people who needed leadership
Obama chose the cops and politicking rather than the job fair and leadership
@Real American Patriot:
One has to think positively. If carefully you read a lot of what some of us wrote, then see that you will.
The claim that it’s not so bad will not go over well. Bush Sr.
tried that and we saw where that got him.
Yodaspeak?
@Scott:
first half was typo, so I just went with it in the second half of the sentence
All do it from time to time we do
@Scott:
🙂
@Scott Malensek:
Went to a similar job fair for BAE Systems-Sterling Heights, MI back in January. Was to be from 9am-8pm. I got there at 8:15am and the line was already to the door and winding all over the lobby and the first floor conference rooms. I eventually left around 11:15am I think it was, after having all of 3 minutes to talk to the hiring manager. The recruiter I went through said that BAE was overwhelmed with the turnout and wasn’t expecting so many people. There were at least 5,000 that showed up.
The recruiter mentioned to those of us she recruited that BAE told them they would probably be calling back people the next day for interviews. That never happened. Then they were supposed to start interviewing in February for starting the positions in March. Never happened. The recruiters have been put on hold and they don’t know why.
I have a feeling that it is because of the economy and the bumbling of Obama and his band of merry Marxists in Congress.
BAE may end up doing what CATerpillar was forced to do: go lean in 2009 and not be able to hire anyone until the start of 2010, if then.
Obama and the Democrats either (1) have not one damn clue how what they are doing affects hiring or (2) they know exactly what they are doing and want this to happen so as to convince people that more socialism is the only solution to this mess that THEY deliberately created.
I have heard warnings about a “bear rally”, where investors who have decided that “enough is enough” try to temporarily drive up the price of stocks they want to dump. By creating a temporary spike, they attempt to get as much cash as they can before their holdings become completely worthless. Before anyone starts declaring that Obama has solved the crisis, they might want several months of gains, not several days.
Solution #1: Impeach SOBama
@Michael in MI:
I’ll take door #2, Pat…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
Most of the eoconomists I know say that the rally is people buying up the low stocks because they are cheap the then sell them to make a profit. So the so-called rally is not going to last. It is basically Hedge Funds buying up the cheap stock and then selling the profits when the stock rises, so there are going to be little blips upward in the market from time to time, but in the long run the market is still shaky and not at the bottom yet.
The stimulus package that extends unemployment benefits, and providing laid off workers health care. And a new program for housing.
The 9/11 attacks are nothing like the present crisis. After 9/11 nearly everyone stood behind the president, regardless of party. Since Obama has taken office, the right wing has taken every opportunity to call for his ‘failure’ because they differ over political philosophy. You have taken every negative quote President Obama has made about the problems in the economy without using any of the positive comments he has made, or about how “we will get through this” etc. So I don’t buy your comparison nor criticism.
I am sorry you or your wife have lost work, or if your financial conditions have suffered. But if you are blaming that on Obama’s policies, I think you are wrong. 50 days in office is nothing… all of the policies adopted so far take time to implement. I am not 100% satisfied with all of the policies coming out of Washington (pork etc), but if you think any new president taking office was going to flip a switch and reverse the MASSIVE problems that were systemic in the system, then go ahead and blame.
“But if you are blaming that on Obama’s policies, I think you are wrong. 50 days in office is nothing…”
The current collapse began with Carter’s CRA, and was virtually a done deal when Clinton put it on steroids. Bush tried to head it off, but not forcefully enough as he was blocked by Barfy Frank, and his cohorts in crime. Obama did what he could for years with Acorn. So to say we can only look at “50 days” is a smokescreen to obscure the fact that the Dems are THE primary culprits in the disaster that hit us, and that what they are doing to “fix” it is only more of the same by several orders of magnitude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N2s11jwQKs
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/09/how-the-democra.html
THE DEMS OWN THE DISASTER, PERIOD!
It will go back down. And back up again. So will Obama’s poll numbers, just like they have for months now…
LOL… if you truly believe it, then Reagan and GHW Bush are equally culpable (was well as W). Out of the past 28 years, 8 have been with a Democrat President.
Ummmmmm blast, who controlled the congress all those years? How long
did the Reps control congress?
@blast:
AGAIN WITH THE SMOKE SCREEN
You want to divert our attention away from facts in order to hoodwink us by appearances.
I said that the seed was planted by Carter, while it was Clinton who made the disaster inevitable, AND there’s only been ONE Republican president since, and he did try to fix Clinton’s screw-up. Your attempt to cover those facts with all the time between Carter the malfeasant and Clinton the reprobate is just another attempt at obfuscation.
Before Clinton, it was still containable, so no one did anything. It was a doorway to disaster, but as long as it remained shut, there didn’t seem to be any urgency about it. But, Clinton opened that door, and when it became obvious that it needed to be fixed, Bush and McCain and other Republicans tried on numerous occasions to fix it, but were always stymied by the Dems (it’s in the videos I linked to which you obviously didn’t watch or understand).
Sure, the corruption should have been obvious, all that money going to crooked pols to keep the gravy train rolling, and Reps SHOULD have done more. But Republican guilt is more of a passive one, while the Dems were and are the active subverters of the economy, and ultimately the nation.
We don’t need Bin Ladin to attack us. We have the Democrats, who are much more effective than the Islamofascits even know how to be.
@Hard Right:
A better question to ask is how many years did *conservatives* have any influence in Congress. Because “Republican” is no longer synonymous with “conservative” (ie Snowe, Specter, Collins, etc).
Just saying “Republicans ‘controlled’ Congress in years X, Y, Z” really has meant nothing since 1994. Back in 1994, Republican and conservative went together, but that has not been the case since. In addition, unless there is a 60-seat majority in the Senate for one party or the other, then no Party actually “controls” the Senate. There is a big difference nowadays from having a Party in the *majority* than having a Party in *control*. Not only that, but even when a *Party* has a majority, does not necessarily mean that *conservatism* has a majority.
Yeah, I expect many might say this is all “nuance”, but it is the sad reality.
It’s still too early to take anything from these polls. We’re better off waiting a few more months and seeing how the polls look over that time. They could go up, stay pretty much the same or fall.
Then a week later, it was back to business as usual with the Democrats leading the charge.
Had it not been for a friend in need at his place of work, my wife would still have not had a single job offer in 15wks. People don’t want to live on unemployment and govt healthcare. She has MS. The meds alone are in the $20-30k range. You think govt healthcare’s gonna cover that? No way. I speak from experience: it does not. People want jobs.
Blast, please re-read my post where I say repeatedly it doesn’t matter who caused problems. I don’t care one bit. I want em fixed. If Clinton and Bush and Republicans out of power in Congress were the problem, then removing them is the solution, and I do EXPECT Barack Obama to be ready to lead on DAY FREAKING ONE. He had two years of promising that he had a plan to revitalize the economy. He had 3 months after being elected to prepare to implement it. He’s had 2 months to implement it. He’s had enough time to spend over $2 TRILLION dollars, but no plan. No action, and not even the start of a solution. We were told he was ready on day one, and on day 52 the absent-minded lawyer and rabble rouser from Chi town is still meandering about.
Those people in the streets tonight (after being foreclosed on), do they sleep in their care bitching about who caused this, or do they worry about sleeping in their car and their want for a new home?
Those people who lost their jobs today, or the millions who already have, do they get the mail, listen to the phone ring from bill collectors and bitch about who caused the economic meltdown, or do they wish they could pay their bills with some bailout money or even better…with money from a new job?
Once tragedy strikes, people want solutions more than finger pointing ESPECIALLY if the finger-pointing contributes ZERO to the solution.
So, on this thread we’ve got people saying Obama’s poll numbers are good. We’ve got msm saying he’s a savior and has fantastic poll numbers, and then we’ve also got people on this thread saying that Obama has NOT united the nation-that the “hard right” is against him (as if the hard left wasn’t against Bush after 911-think Howard Dean).
No, it’s simple, millions of Americans are in serious danger. Entire zip codes (ironically, Dennis Kucinich’s leads the pack) are becoming vacant from foreclosures. Entire industries are dying. Obama himself says it’s an economic Pearl Harbor.
Why does he boast about creating 23 jobs w $900BILLION rather than go, comfort the affected, unite, and lead? Bush did it-even at his worst approval ratings and highest personal danger, he did it. He did it publicly, and privately.
Obama has parties to go to.
Uh… Scott? Better re’heck your calendar, guy. Obama is 50 some odd days into his reign… er… term. At the same time for Bush, Sept 11th was still six months away. There was no 911 shock support behind him at that comparable time.
“Just talk: is cheap, blast. Problem is Obama’s first 50 days have been fraught with spending that will do nothing to help the problem. And that includes extending the unemployment benefits (why work when you can have the taxpayer and bank buy down your rate with discount points, lower your mortgage and live off the unemployment?)
And the housing program? Totally ignores the problem of toxic assets. Instead it preserves the toxic assets wtih a stay of execution with a five year arm for *some*, courtesy of the banks and the taxpayers. That latter is especially dangerous since it’s a desperate attempt to either reinflate the bubble, or prevent it from falling further… as it needs to do as a market correction.
While Obama may… finally… be saying “positive” things, he is not doing them.
Just a comment on your “solutions”, Scott. Congress and Obama are in complete agreement on the spending. Why would he rein them in when he is the cheerleader for running them at a gallop?
Even the political strategists say that Obama choose not to veto the omnibus because it would rile his own party, and make it harder for him to get thru his budget, his energy spending, his healthcare, etc etc. Quid pro quo. Business as usual.
But very happy to hear the good news from the Malenski household.
Sorry, guy… pretty much a steady decline so far, combined with a steady increase in the strongly disapproves. But that aside, agreed that polls… worthless as they are… will fluctuate throughout the POTUS term.
Actually Scott, that is not true. The President did set in motion before he took office the framework of the stimulus package which was passed on Feb 17th. Not only was it a huge bill, it was passed in record time, less than 30 days from when he took office. Although you might disagree with his approach, does not mean he did not begin with a plan.
There is no question this present economic problem is deep, going to be deep and long. The massive losses in housing values, equities and commodities have been unprecedented and the loss of jobs as well. If you thought that Obama or McCain was going to be able to fix the economy on day one, well… you are mistaken.
I think the people of the United States and through their representatives have been very generous to offer extended benefits to those unemployed. If you don’t want to avail yourself to these benefits, that is your choice, but it is only a temporary measure meant to mitigate the suffering of those who lost jobs. Many jobs won’t be coming back anytime soon given the nature of the economic crisis we are going through.
Mata, no doubt some of the spending might not help, but if you think extending unemployment benefits to people without jobs does not help, you are wrong. Should we just do nothing? Lets give the unemployed tax breaks… on no income. Maybe that will be stimulative. /sarcasm.
Blast,
Clarification is in order. The “people of the United States and through their representatives have been very generous to offer extended benefits to those unemployed” is patently false. Congress represents itself and special interest groups. The majority of “the people” disapproved of the stimulus bill when the House was voting on it, but the House passed it anyway. This was clearly taxation without representation. The House is supposed to represent the will of the people – nothing more, and nothing less.
Jeff V
I thought the problem was Bush and the Republicans who controlled Congress=remove them, no more problem (especially given time to plan, prepare, and implement it. As you said, if they can spend $700, 800, 1.1Trillion on stimulus, then they could have spent that money on job creation. Instead, the so-called stimulus was nothing more than a government spending proposal. I think the money would have been better spent being given to the people rather than the banks. People’d have gotten debt relief, and the so-called toxic bank assets would have been made less or no more toxic by people getting caught up on their bills. It would have added liquidity to the banks too from those people who had no bills to pay, but rather saved their bailout. No, that’s right, Dems had to spend a trillion (after interest) on paying off their donors and racking up faux accomplishments to run on in 2010…rather than give the people’s money to the people.
I agree, but that wasn’t my point. My point is that people prefer job creation to welfare. People prefer to work rather than survive on govt aid that can be stopped at anytime without their input. People wanted and expected job creation, and instead Obama and Dems take office, spend TRILLIONS, and tell us those trillions of dollars might (MIGHT!!!) create some jobs IN A FEW YEARS! C’mon, if Bush and Republicans had done that they’d have been ripped.
Obama said he was ready to lead on day1. Since then he has neither managed (how’s that banking plan coming along) nor led (he only campaigns in rust belt towns like Youngstown, Akron, Cleveland, and only does so if there’s money and electoral votes in it for him, but George Bush came here often in his second term; not for polls, campaign money, or electoral votes, but to lead.)
Where is our leader?
Where is our manager?
Do we even have a President, or just a guy who looked good on the cover of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair?
Is Michelle Obama’s sleeveless in January scandal really more important than the 50000 people who lost their jobs since this thread started? Do we care more about Barack’s thermostat setting in the White House than the 80-100,000 people made homeless because their banks got bailed out but they didn’t?
Ya know, when Barack was elected, I was happy. I actually was. I didn’t vote for him, but I was happy. I was happy for all those tens of millions of people who felt that all their woes were the result of Republicans, of a lack of representation, and all those people who had hope that we’d have a leader who could unite the nation in times of crisis like Bush did on 911. Those people were misled. Obama’s no leader. He’s certainly not a manager (that stimulus bill isn’t stimulating anything till halfway through his term-MAYBE, and Congress did that, not him).
How many private trips to Walter Reed do you think he’s made? Ya think he’s doing one every few days like Bush did? No, that’s right, no cameras=not worth it.
Obamatons, you’ve been had. The big-eared moron in the White House got your vote through empty promises that played on your hopes while feeding your fears with lies and more empty promises.
FDR told us we have nothing to fear, but fear itself. He used the tools available to him to calm a nation rather than panic it further. Kennedy inspired. Bush rallied. Obama….spent trillions.
I’m sorry, but I have a real tough time understanding how a person can spend TRILLIONS of dollars without having a plan, and how can they manage to spend that kind of money and actually have NO EFFECT AT ALL other than making things worse?
You got to be kidding. Ok, let the banks all fail and people can stuff the worthless dollars we do give them in mattresses. The repercussions worldwide from the failure of just one bank, Lehman Brothers, caused much damage to the system as it is. So odious I as find giving any of those clowns bailouts, (recapitalize), it had to be done. The so called toxic bank assets were not going to go away by giving the money back to the people… who should get the checks? Everyone? Or just the ones who bought too much of a house, or bought too many houses, or just those unemployed? If you answered everyone, there is not enough money to go around to everyone… and if you just give it to a few, you have the same problem we have now, except we would no longer have banks and our economy would be in ruin.
I could give a crap what Michelle Obama wears. Who really gives a f—!
Of course people do, but until the economy stabilizes and job creation begins, at least unemployment benefits help. and that money has a stimulative effect on the economy as it goes right back into the economy. As to people wanted and expected job creation, of course again… did you think it would be magic. Presto!!! Obama waves a magic wand and we have new enterprises popping up all over and new jobs! Yippee……. Sorry it does not work that way, not in 50 days or a 100 days. We have not seen the bottom of the job loss Scott. Predictions going into this year was we could drop nationally to 10%. That means in some areas it will be worse and others it won’t suck totally.
blast, pre-ARRA, there is 20-33 extra weeks. This now adds another 13-20 weeks. This means that someone can collect anywhere from 33 to 53 weeks of unemployment … *after* their state funds run out.
Pray tell us how subsidizing the unemployed for up to (or more) than a year on federal funds after their state employment funds are gone is incentive to look for work? Why work at McDonalds when you can make more by walking to the mailbox and picking up your unemployment check? Look for work? Why? Naw… sit back… put your feet up. No sweat until the free money deadline starts looming.
Not only is it a disincentive, it also does nothing to create jobs and provide opportunities for the unemployed to find work.
Stimulus, my ass.
Secondly, last I looked, taxes ran by fiscal year. Until Obama/Reid/Pelosi made it possible to loiter around on state and federal funds for over a year, you couldn’t go a year on unemployment. Therefore the majority have worked in the past tax year. So yes… giving them a tax break on the amount they earned that year would most certainly be a huge help.
I see… so spending ourselves into massive borrowing, and major dollar devaluation doesn’t make the dollar just as worthless, but indebt the nation for generations??
Some banks most certainly *should* fail. Because the bailing out isn’t going to help do a thing but postpone the inevitable. The toxic assets are going to remain toxic assets until the real estate (the foundation of the toxic assets) regains that value. I doubt it will be in my lifetime. The prices need to fall. The over value should be written off, then see where the banks stand when selling off the “toxic assets”… less the toxicity… I believe the real world calls this bankruptcy and restructuring. The auto manuf should do the same. A shorter “world of hurt”.
Perhaps you’ll tell us how the trillions being spent will translate to jobs? Even the ARRA funds don’t start getting piecemealed out until next year, and the bulk of it a couple years downline. You want to extend unemployment benefits for three years? Where do I sign up?
Actually, private sector job creation could happen much faster than what O/P/R have in mind. The largest employers are the small and medium enterprises. (SMEs) There is no aid for these employers. Only promises of higher taxes. Add the O’energy program, and they are promised higher overhead. Add the O’no-more-secret ballot, and you add higher overhead with potential union contracts. Add the O’health plan and you have higher overhead for the group insurance.
Robert Blum had an interesting article out that I caught on SeekingAlpha late February. (ah, the things I read that I never had a chance to post on….)
The point is not that the government shouldn’t infuse cash. But Obama’s snorting it up the nation’s nose instead of injecting it into the nation’s veins.
For those who believe the bank bailouts were necessary and worth the pain, guess again. The money didn’t help the banks unload toxic assets, pay creditors, or meet payroll obligations. No, the money was used to fund executive bonuses, pay dividends, and obtain smaller banks that threatened to compete against the big banks once they recovered.
Now that the government has bulked up FannieMae to absorb more bad mortgages (funded, of course, with taxpayer money), there’s no such thing as risk. The scent of easy money is bringing back some of the worst of the sharks who preyed upon the weakest during the last round of predatory loans and falsified paperwork that resulted in so many mortgage defaults. The most ridiculous thing about this is that the Treasury is encouraging this action. You have to read it to believe it!
Move over Fannie and Freddy; make room for Jenny Mac (excerpted from a March 12th CounterPunch article by Sharon Smith):
——-
The Federal Reserve and Treasury Departments have not merely rewarded the system of reckless betting with other people’s money that caused the banking crisis; they have also resuscitated the careers of some of the same executives who lost the biggest bets. A dozen former executives from mortgage lender Countrywide (which is also now owned by BofA), whose predatory lending practices played a key role in precipitating the subprime mortgage crisis, have launched a new corporate entity, the Private National Mortgage Acceptance Company — with a strategy to make exorbitant profits from individuals unable to keep up with their monthly mortgage payments.
Known as PennyMac, the company buys overdue mortgages at steep discounts from the federal government, which took them over from distressed banks. PennyMac then contacts the homeowners to negotiate new terms — and either pushes them into foreclosure or negotiates lower interest rates. It’s a win-win equation for PennyMac.
One of PennyMac’s leaders, Stanley L. Kurland is a former president at Countrywide and an architect of the classic sub-prime mortgage formula — mortgages with low “teaser” interest rates that later rose sharply. During the six years before Kurland left Countrywide in late 2006, Countrywide’s portfolio increased from $62 billion to $463 billion. Kurland sold $200 million in stocks shortly before leaving Countrywide. Now he stands to make many millions more reaping profits from the same category of people whose lives he helped to destroy. Federal banking officials nevertheless defend recruiting executives like Kurland to rebuild the financial system. As the New York Times explained: “[Federal officials] said that it was important to do business with experienced mortgage operators like Mr. Kurland, who know how to creatively renegotiate delinquent loans.”
Now the Federal Reserve and Treasury Departments are seeking to forge “an alliance with the very outfits that most benefited from the bonanza preceding the collapse of the credit markets: hedge funds and private-equity firms,” as the Washington Post reported on March 6th. The government’s new program, Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) states as its primary aim to resurrect the “shadow banking system” — the entirely unregulated investment-banking sector that proved responsible for much of the banking crisis.
Nevertheless, the government hopes to lure these same wealthy investors to start lending money again by offering the promise of easy profits without the risk of major losses. In what it is calling a “public-private partnership,” hedge funds would keep all profits, but the government would use taxpayer dollars to pick up the entire tab except for the investors’ initial down payments, in the case of a loss.
——-
Jeff V
Sharon Smith’s entire CounterPunch article can be found here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/sharon03122009.html
The numbers are still cratering. Down from 61.2 to 60.8 this week alone…
Another rough week for the Obama team. Down from 62.8 to 61.6. How low will his approval numbers go before he starts listening to the American people?