Profile: Muirin
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• • 'Yes' votes came from reps who took more from Wall St.

  • On average, representatives that voted for the Wall Street bailout package received more campaign contributions from financial firms by a 2-to-1 margin than members who voted against the bailout, according to a Maplight.org study of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

    
    While the study doesn't exonerate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from charges she riled up opponents, it does suggest there may have been more at play than angry constituents.

    
    The study examined financial donations from 2003 to August 2008. Donors included commercial banks, savings and loans, and investment banks, credit unions, finance companies, stock exchanges, venture capital and private equity firms, hedge funds, and securities and commodities brokers and firms.
    The breakdown went something like this:

     

    • House members who voted yes received an average $231,877. Those who voted no received only $150,982.
    • Democrats who voted yes received $212,700. Republican supporters received $273,181.
    • No-vote Democrats received only $107,993. Republicans who voted no received $181,688.
    • "Profit-driven companies wouldn't be making campaign contributions if it didn't buy them influence or access," Daniel Newman, MAPLight.org's executive director said in a statement. "Votes in Congress align with the river of money that flows through our political system."
    • Should a revamped H.R. 3997 come through the U.S. House again this week, it may be revealing to count the money as well as the votes.
       

    "Profit-driven companies wouldn't be making campaign contributions if it didn't buy them influence or access," Daniel Newman, MAPLight.org's executive director said in a statement. "Votes in Congress align with the river of money that flows through our political system."

    
    Should a revamped H.R. 3997 come through the U.S. House again this week, it may be revealing to count the money as well as the votes.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wall-street-backed-bailout-yes/story.aspx?guid=%7B2FDA203D-92AB-46B9-B5C4-42822062D1C0%7D

     

  • Posted: 10/01/08 10:34 PM
    General Discussion
• • Chris "Conflict of Interest" Dodd Must Go!

  • Senator Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and lead negotiator in the Senate of the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, took over $5 million dollars from the securities and investment industries that he is now hoping to bail out.

    The following data is from Open Secrets.org.

    Chris Dodd: Top 5 Contributors, 2003-2008
    Citigroup Inc - $314,694
    SAC Capital Partners - $282,000
    United Technologies - $263,400
    Royal Bank of Scotland - $229,950
    American International Group - $224,678

    Chris Dodd: Top 5 Industry Contributions, 2003-2008
    Securities & Investment - $4,267,896
    Lawyers/Law Firms - $1,990,713
    Insurance - $1,439,672
    Real Estate - $1,262,691
    Commercial Banks - $861,944

    When it comes to these negotiations, who do you think he's with - the taxpayers or the bankers? Dodd has been riding the Congressional gravy train since 1980. The Democrats have controlled both Houses of Congress since 2006. What has Dodd been doing all this time?
     

     

  • Posted: 10/01/08 10:03 PM
    General Discussion
• • Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System

  • Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

    The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

    The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone.

    ``Today's blast of term liquidity will settle the funding markets down, and allow trust to slowly be restored between borrowers and lenders,'' said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. On the other hand, ``the Fed's balance sheet is about to explode.''

    The MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed markets sank 6 percent, the most since its creation in 1970. Credit markets deteriorated further as authorities tried to save more financial institutions from collapse.

    European Rescue

    European governments have rescued four banks in two days and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today it helped Citigroup Inc. buy the banking operations of Wachovia Corp. after its shares collapsed. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 3.8 percent and the cost of borrowing dollars for three months rose to the highest since January. The rate for euros hit a record.

    ``If people think the authorities may give in to fears, they are wrong,'' Financial Stability Forum Chairman Mario Draghi said today in Amsterdam, where the international group of regulators and finance officials is meeting. ``There is willingness and determination on winning the battle to restore confidence and stability.''

    Banks and brokers have slowed lending as they struggle to restore their capital after $586 billion in credit losses and writedowns since the mortgage crisis began a year ago. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. also sparked fears among banks they wouldn't be repaid by counterparties, driving up the cost of short-term loans between banks.

    Funding Risk

    ``By committing to provide a very large quantity of term funding, the Federal Reserve actions should reassure financial market participants that financing will be available against good collateral, lessening concerns about funding and rollover risk,'' the central bank said.

    The Bank of England and the ECB will each double the size of their dollar swap facilities with the Fed to as much as $80 billion and $240 billion, respectively. The Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan will also double their dollar swap lines, while the central banks in Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Canada tripled theirs.

    All the banks extended their facilities until the end of April 2009.

    The Fed is also increasing the size of its three 84-day TAF sales to $75 billion apiece, from $25 billion. That means the Fed will make a total of $225 billion available in 84-day loans. The central bank will keep the sales of 28-day credit at $75 billion.

    Special Sales

    In addition, the Fed will hold two special TAF sales in November totaling $150 billion so banks can have funding available for one or two weeks over year-end. The exact timing and terms will be determined later, the Fed said. The TAF program began in December, totaling $40 billion.

    The bank-rescue plan being debated by Congress today would give the Fed more power over short-term interest rates by providing authority as of Oct. 1 to pay interest on reserves held at the central bank by financial institutions. That would make it easier for the Fed to pump funds into the banking system.

    Paying interest on reserves puts a ``floor'' under the traded overnight rate, which would allow a central bank ``to provide liquidity during times of stress'' without affecting the rate, New York Fed economists said in a paper last month.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahwz_k5JvuB8&refer=home

     

  • Posted: 9/29/08 8:38 PM
    General Discussion
• • Banking crash hits Europe as ECB loses traction

  • The Dutch-Belgian bank Fortis, Britain's Bradford and Bingley, and Iceland's Glitnir, were all partially or fully nationalized after failing to roll-over debts in the short-term money markets, while the French state pledged support for the Franco-Belgian lender Dexia after the share price collapsed on reports of a capital shortage.

    "The European financial sector is on trial: we have to support our banks." said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He has reportedly ordered the state investment arm Caisse Des Depots to shore up Dexia, even though the bank is based in Belgium.

    Germany's Hypo Real Estate, a commercial property lender, was rescued with a €35bn lifeline from a consortium of local banks. The lender has $560bn in liabilities, almost as much as Lehman Brothers.

    Hypo Real's share price crashed 74pc, setting off a masse exodus from financial stocks in Frankfurt. Commerzbank fell 23pc and Aareal Bank was off 43pc.

    Anglo Irish Bank was down 44pc in Dublin on wholesale funding fears.

    Europe's credit markets have come close to seizing up as three-month Euribor jumped to a record 5.22pc and OIS spreads rocketed to 113 basis points.

    "The interbank market has collapsed," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.

    "We're now seeing a domino effect as the credit multiplier goes into reverse and forces banks to cut back lending to clients," he said.

    Mr Redeker said the latest alarming twist is a move by banks to deposit €28bn in funds at the European Central Bank in a panic flight to safety. This has jammed the mechanism used by the authorities to shore up the financial system in a crisis.

    "The ECB is no longer able to inject liquidity because the money is just coming back to them again. This is extremely serious. If monetary policy is no longer working, there is a risk that the whole system will blow up in days," he said.

    The euro plunged on Monday as the wave of bank failures hit the newswires, dropping 2pc to $1.43 against the dollar. It recovered slightly as the US Federal Reserve flooded the markets with $630bn of dollar funding with fellow central banks in the biggest liquidity blitz in history.

    Analysts say German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck may have spoken too soon when he crowed last week that the US would lose its status as a superpower as a result of this crisis. He told Der Spiegel yesterday that we are "all staring into the abyss".

    Germany - over-leveraged to Asian demand for machine tools, and Mid-East and Russian demand for luxury cars - is perhaps in equally deep trouble, though of a different kind.

    The combined crises at both Fortis and Dexia have sent tremors through Belgium, which is already traumatized by political civil war between the Flemings and Walloons. Fortis is Belgium's the biggest private employer.

    It is unclear whether the country has the resources to bail out two banks with liabilities that dwarf the economy if the crisis deepens, although a joint intervention by The Netherlands and Luxembourg to rescue Fortis has helped Belgium share the risk. Together the three states put €11.2bn to buy Fortis stock.

    This tripartite model is unlikely to work so well in others parts of Europe, since Benelux already operates as a closely linked team. The EU lacks a single treasury to take charge in a fast-moving crisis, leaving a patchwork of regulators and conflicting agendas.

    Carsten Brzenski, chief economist at ING in Brussels, said the global crisis was now engulfing Europe with devastating speed.

    "We are at imminent risk of a credit crunch. Key markets are not functioning properly. The Europeans thought the sub-prime crisis was just American rubbish that the US should clean up itself, but now they are finding out that it is their rubbish too," he said.

    Data from the IMF shows that European banks hold 75pc as much exposure to toxic US housing debt as US banks themselves. Moreover they have mounting bad debts from the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Scandinavian, and East European housing markets, where property bubbles reached even more extreme levels that in the US.

    The interest spread between Italian 10-year bonds and German Bunds have ballooned to 92 basis points, the highest since the launch of the euro. Bond traders warn that the spreads are starting to reflect a serious risk of EMU break-up and could spiral out of control in a self-feeding effect.

    As the eurozone slides into recession, the ECB is coming under intense criticism for keeping monetary policy too tight. The decision to raise rates into the teeth of the crisis in July has been slammed as overkill by the political leaders in France, Spain, and Italy.

    Mr Sarkozy has called an emergency meeting of the EU's big five powers next week to fashion a response to the crisis.

    Half of the ECB's shadow council have called for a rate cut this week, insisting that the German-led bloc of ECB governors have overstated the inflation risk caused by the oil spike earlier this year.

    Jacques Cailloux, Europe economist at RBS, said the hawks had won a Pyrrhic victory by imposing their hardline monetary edicts on Europe. "They have won a battle but lost the war. The July decision will hardly go down in history books as a great policy decision," he said.
     

     

     

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3104666/Banking-crash-hits-Europe-as-ECB-loses-traction.html

     

  • Posted: 9/29/08 8:37 PM
    General Discussion
• • Why I respect fallen Earth as a acual "New" MMO and not some copied crap

  • Ya i have to agree with you.  One reason im not likeing WAR that much right now is because of the lack of community.  The people are their, but no one talks.  The most i can ever get ouf of them is a "Hi" and then they run off.  I might go back to Ryzom becuase of how great the community was, but i only did the noob island in that game.

     

  • Posted: 9/28/08 2:47 AM
    Fallen Earth