We were warned when Sec Poulsen proclaimed our only export was financial services here in America!
We don't make anything anymore.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031103218.html
"Manufacturing has become too global to permit the United States to revert to the level of manufacturing it had in the good old days of Keynes and Ike, but it would be a positive development if we had a capitalism that once again focused on making things rather than deals. In Germany, manufacturing still dominates finance, which is why Germany has been the world's leader in exports. German capitalism didn't succumb to the financialization that swept the United States and Britain in the 1980s, in part because its companies raise their capital, as ours used to, from retained earnings and banks rather than the markets. Company managers set long-term policies while market pressures for short-term profits are held in check. The focus on long-term performance over short-term gain is reinforced by Germany's stakeholder, rather than shareholder, model of capitalism: Worker representatives sit on boards of directors, unionization remains high, income distribution is more equitable, social benefits are generous. Nonetheless, German companies are among the world's most competitive in their financial viability and the quality of their products. Yes, Germany's export-fueled economy is imperiled by the global collapse in consumption, but its form of capitalism has proved more sustainable than Wall Street's.
So does Germany offer a model for the United States? Yes -- up to a point. Certainly, U.S. ratios of production to consumption and wealth creation to debt creation have gotten dangerously out of whack. Certainly, the one driver and beneficiary of this epochal change -- our financial sector -- has to be scaled back and regulated (if not taken out and shot). Similarly, to create a business culture attuned more to investment than speculation, and with a preferential option for the United States, corporations should be made legally answerable not just to shareholders but also to stakeholders -- their employees and community. That would require, among other things, changing the laws governing the composition of corporate boards."
Showing posts with label FEDERAL RESERVE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FEDERAL RESERVE. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Iceland First?
"...Japan is ready to take leadership in contributing to support countries by providing funds."
"...died a quick death in the face of U.S. opposition..."
"The loans would be funded by 200 billion yen ($2 billion) contributed by IMF member countries plus loans from the foreign currency reserves of Middle Eastern oil exporters as well as the likes of Japan and China, the paper said.
China, which has pledged to cooperate with other countries to tackle the current crisis, has been repeatedly urged by Washington to play a greater role in international financial policy-making commensurate with its economic power..."
Japan stands ready to help the International Monetary Fund ride to the rescue of countries struck down by the global credit crisis, Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said "If there's something the IMF can do, I want them to do it flexibly. Japan will cooperate with that, including providing funds for it," Nakagawa told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
He was speaking on the eve of a meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations, whose support will be crucial if the plan is to work.
"The impact of the credit crisis is spreading to the world. To minimize the chain-reaction, Japan is ready to take leadership in contributing to support countries by providing funds. And I will call for other countries' cooperation at the G7 meeting tomorrow," Nakagawa said.
"Japan alone has $995 billion in official foreign currency reserves. China has $2 trillion, the world's largest stockpile."
The Nikkei newspaper reported that Japan would propose making trillions of dollars in currency reserves held by Asian and Middle Eastern governments available to support IMF-led bailouts.
Japan alone has $995 billion in official foreign currency reserves. China has $2 trillion, the world's largest stockpile. The Nikkei said the IMF program would be available to smaller emerging countries but not to members of the G7 -- the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Italy -- or to other large nations.
"What the IMF should think about is not G7 or G8 countries, but about contingencies that may arise in newly emerging economies and other areas at this time of financial crisis, credit crunch and the dollar's exchange rate," Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano said in Tokyo.
The G8 is made up of the Group of Seven plus Russia.
Japan also took the diplomatic initiative during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, proposing the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund to help the region recover from a meltdown that plunged several countries into a deep recession.
The plan died a quick death in the face of U.S. opposition.
Iceland First?
Prime Minister Taro Aso, speaking in Tokyo, said Japan would propose at Friday's G7 meeting that Iceland be helped via the IMF -- an idea that the north Atlantic island has so far resisted.
However, Prime Minister Geir Haarde warned this week that Iceland faced the risk of national bankruptcy because of the crisis, which has forced the government to seize control of the country's three biggest banks.
Under the Japanese plan, the IMF would ask the borrowing country to draw up a plan to revitalise its financial sector including writing off its bad assets, the Nikkei said.
It was not clear how -- or if -- this would differ from the conditions the IMF usually sets in return for an emergency loan.
The loans would be funded by 200 billion yen ($2 billion) contributed by IMF member countries plus loans from the foreign currency reserves of Middle Eastern oil exporters as well as the likes of Japan and China, the paper said.
China, which has pledged to cooperate with other countries to tackle the current crisis, has been repeatedly urged by Washington to play a greater role in international financial policy-making commensurate with its economic power.
But Beijing has given no indication that it is willing to mobilize its reserves in the way that Japan -- its big regional political rival -- is suggesting.
The Group of 20 countries, which brings together key rich and developing economies, will meet in Washington on Saturday during the IMF/World Bank annual meetings and could provide a forum to air the Japanese proposal.
The IMF said it was ready to lend to countries hit by the global credit crunch and had activated an emergency financing mechanism first during the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a news conference it would provide financial assistance not only to emerging and developing nations, but also to Western countries.
"Nobody knows if some ... advanced economies will not also be in need of some help by the IMF," he said, adding that funds would be made available quickly to countries in need. "Very quickly means two weeks at most," he added.
The Fund already sent a mission to Iceland.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions
"...died a quick death in the face of U.S. opposition..."
"The loans would be funded by 200 billion yen ($2 billion) contributed by IMF member countries plus loans from the foreign currency reserves of Middle Eastern oil exporters as well as the likes of Japan and China, the paper said.
China, which has pledged to cooperate with other countries to tackle the current crisis, has been repeatedly urged by Washington to play a greater role in international financial policy-making commensurate with its economic power..."
Japan stands ready to help the International Monetary Fund ride to the rescue of countries struck down by the global credit crisis, Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said "If there's something the IMF can do, I want them to do it flexibly. Japan will cooperate with that, including providing funds for it," Nakagawa told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
He was speaking on the eve of a meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations, whose support will be crucial if the plan is to work.
"The impact of the credit crisis is spreading to the world. To minimize the chain-reaction, Japan is ready to take leadership in contributing to support countries by providing funds. And I will call for other countries' cooperation at the G7 meeting tomorrow," Nakagawa said.
"Japan alone has $995 billion in official foreign currency reserves. China has $2 trillion, the world's largest stockpile."
The Nikkei newspaper reported that Japan would propose making trillions of dollars in currency reserves held by Asian and Middle Eastern governments available to support IMF-led bailouts.
Japan alone has $995 billion in official foreign currency reserves. China has $2 trillion, the world's largest stockpile. The Nikkei said the IMF program would be available to smaller emerging countries but not to members of the G7 -- the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Italy -- or to other large nations.
"What the IMF should think about is not G7 or G8 countries, but about contingencies that may arise in newly emerging economies and other areas at this time of financial crisis, credit crunch and the dollar's exchange rate," Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano said in Tokyo.
The G8 is made up of the Group of Seven plus Russia.
Japan also took the diplomatic initiative during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, proposing the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund to help the region recover from a meltdown that plunged several countries into a deep recession.
The plan died a quick death in the face of U.S. opposition.
Iceland First?
Prime Minister Taro Aso, speaking in Tokyo, said Japan would propose at Friday's G7 meeting that Iceland be helped via the IMF -- an idea that the north Atlantic island has so far resisted.
However, Prime Minister Geir Haarde warned this week that Iceland faced the risk of national bankruptcy because of the crisis, which has forced the government to seize control of the country's three biggest banks.
Under the Japanese plan, the IMF would ask the borrowing country to draw up a plan to revitalise its financial sector including writing off its bad assets, the Nikkei said.
It was not clear how -- or if -- this would differ from the conditions the IMF usually sets in return for an emergency loan.
The loans would be funded by 200 billion yen ($2 billion) contributed by IMF member countries plus loans from the foreign currency reserves of Middle Eastern oil exporters as well as the likes of Japan and China, the paper said.
China, which has pledged to cooperate with other countries to tackle the current crisis, has been repeatedly urged by Washington to play a greater role in international financial policy-making commensurate with its economic power.
But Beijing has given no indication that it is willing to mobilize its reserves in the way that Japan -- its big regional political rival -- is suggesting.
The Group of 20 countries, which brings together key rich and developing economies, will meet in Washington on Saturday during the IMF/World Bank annual meetings and could provide a forum to air the Japanese proposal.
The IMF said it was ready to lend to countries hit by the global credit crunch and had activated an emergency financing mechanism first during the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a news conference it would provide financial assistance not only to emerging and developing nations, but also to Western countries.
"Nobody knows if some ... advanced economies will not also be in need of some help by the IMF," he said, adding that funds would be made available quickly to countries in need. "Very quickly means two weeks at most," he added.
The Fund already sent a mission to Iceland.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Lou Dobbs is a PHONY!
Lou Dobbs-
HE LIKES Bush McCain PALIN! Don;tlet himfool you!
Apparently Lou Dobbs does not know how to explain his MISSING IN ACTION mouth while the INVESTMENT BANKS ROBBED the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS! Remember,he was suppose to be the ECONOMIC GURU!!
LOU DOBBS is more interested in INCITING HATE while ignoring the REAL PROBLEMS!
Such as prosecuting (REGULATING) EMPLOYERS who HIRE illegals and PRIVATE INVESTMENT BANKS while Robbing the AMERICAN PEOPLE BLIND!
The war in IRAQ and his belief that the SURGE was a SUCCESS as John McCain boasts failed to mention the fact the Bob Woodward revealed had very little to do with the decrease in Violence in Iraq. Once again,as he mouthed off about Russia Georgia conflict, proved he knew NOTHING about the ploy behind the Real Agenda for that backfired plot by this administration and the GEORGIA LOBBYIST!
ONCE AGAIN, LOU DOBBS is spending too much time on the radio and not EDUCATING himself on what he clains to be such a KNOW IT ALL on, EVERYTHING!
Lou Dobbs main concern ws the CASUALTIES, NOTHING more. yesterday, September 15, 2008, over 30 people died in Iraq, more bombs!
Meanwhile, this "ECONOMIC GURU" willnow attempt to act as though he is not as IGNORANT as he really is.
I want to know, what this man's agenda is on CNN?
I want a Brilliant Leader. I do not care if I ever have a beer or an ORANGE soda with my President! But Lou Dobbs, he likes you stupid!
Forget about "...Five different schools in six years. What was that about?" for the VICE presidential Nominee for the Republicans. Forget the fact that the Presidential Nominee does not even KNOW HOW To send an EMAIL! And this leader talks about the FUTURE?
I have to agree with Roger Ebert :
Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate
September 11, 2008
BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic
I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!
My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to "study" global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. The returns are convincing enough that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in agreement.
I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when referring to "people who go to the Ivy League." When I was a teen I dreamed of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me, "Boy, we don't have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in Urbana and can go to the University of Illinois right here in town." So I did, very happily. Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions the "elite" Ivy League, she sure did attend the heck out of college.
Five different schools in six years. What was that about?
And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My dad had died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at the local newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter flight to Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm, started in London, even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of Rome. A few years later, I was able to send my mom, along with the $15 a Day book.
You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You need curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person (who has the money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of the country once, on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal with global issues.
But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa, South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She didn't go to Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who haven't seen London, but most of them would probably love to, if they had the dough. And they'd be proud if one of their kids won a scholarship to Harvard.I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic in November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.
HE LIKES Bush McCain PALIN! Don;tlet himfool you!
Apparently Lou Dobbs does not know how to explain his MISSING IN ACTION mouth while the INVESTMENT BANKS ROBBED the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS! Remember,he was suppose to be the ECONOMIC GURU!!
LOU DOBBS is more interested in INCITING HATE while ignoring the REAL PROBLEMS!
Such as prosecuting (REGULATING) EMPLOYERS who HIRE illegals and PRIVATE INVESTMENT BANKS while Robbing the AMERICAN PEOPLE BLIND!
The war in IRAQ and his belief that the SURGE was a SUCCESS as John McCain boasts failed to mention the fact the Bob Woodward revealed had very little to do with the decrease in Violence in Iraq. Once again,as he mouthed off about Russia Georgia conflict, proved he knew NOTHING about the ploy behind the Real Agenda for that backfired plot by this administration and the GEORGIA LOBBYIST!
ONCE AGAIN, LOU DOBBS is spending too much time on the radio and not EDUCATING himself on what he clains to be such a KNOW IT ALL on, EVERYTHING!
Lou Dobbs main concern ws the CASUALTIES, NOTHING more. yesterday, September 15, 2008, over 30 people died in Iraq, more bombs!
Meanwhile, this "ECONOMIC GURU" willnow attempt to act as though he is not as IGNORANT as he really is.
I want to know, what this man's agenda is on CNN?
I want a Brilliant Leader. I do not care if I ever have a beer or an ORANGE soda with my President! But Lou Dobbs, he likes you stupid!
Forget about "...Five different schools in six years. What was that about?" for the VICE presidential Nominee for the Republicans. Forget the fact that the Presidential Nominee does not even KNOW HOW To send an EMAIL! And this leader talks about the FUTURE?
I have to agree with Roger Ebert :
Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate
September 11, 2008
BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic
I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!
My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to "study" global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. The returns are convincing enough that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in agreement.
I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when referring to "people who go to the Ivy League." When I was a teen I dreamed of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me, "Boy, we don't have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in Urbana and can go to the University of Illinois right here in town." So I did, very happily. Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions the "elite" Ivy League, she sure did attend the heck out of college.
Five different schools in six years. What was that about?
And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My dad had died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at the local newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter flight to Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm, started in London, even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of Rome. A few years later, I was able to send my mom, along with the $15 a Day book.
You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You need curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person (who has the money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of the country once, on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal with global issues.
But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa, South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She didn't go to Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who haven't seen London, but most of them would probably love to, if they had the dough. And they'd be proud if one of their kids won a scholarship to Harvard.I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic in November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Letter toLou Dobbs....9-15-08
Just what the hell are you talking about. Where the hell have you been?
Obama has been talking to the press for 19+MONTHS …STRAIGHT
IDIOT
LIKE I ASK U ALL THE TIME…MOUTH…WHERE WERE YOU??????
MR MIA for ECONOMICS!
Oh, and we are in the MIDDLE of a RECESSION!
MR ECONOMIC KNOW NOTHING! HOW IS RUSH? HOWS THE RADIO?
Obviously, your expertise is just not CUTTING THE MUSTARD, MR ECONOMIC GURU!! Where were you? While the PRIVATE INVESTMENT CRONIES ROBBED US BLIND?? WHERE WERE YOU? This just happened? YOU MORON!
Regarding the immigrants, ALL YOU HAD TO PROMOTE WAS EMPLOYER REGULATION! REMEMBER THAT WORD,,,,REGULATION!
YOU MR ANTI-REGULATION!
But no, instead, you create HATE towards the immigrant and IGNORE the employers.
Who are you kidding? Make sure you take care of those employers, and then,,,JUST SHUT UP!
You have a real hate show! CNN Should KICK YOU OFF THEIR NETWORK!
AGAIN!
Obama has been talking to the press for 19+MONTHS …STRAIGHT
IDIOT
LIKE I ASK U ALL THE TIME…MOUTH…WHERE WERE YOU??????
MR MIA for ECONOMICS!
Oh, and we are in the MIDDLE of a RECESSION!
MR ECONOMIC KNOW NOTHING! HOW IS RUSH? HOWS THE RADIO?
Obviously, your expertise is just not CUTTING THE MUSTARD, MR ECONOMIC GURU!! Where were you? While the PRIVATE INVESTMENT CRONIES ROBBED US BLIND?? WHERE WERE YOU? This just happened? YOU MORON!
Regarding the immigrants, ALL YOU HAD TO PROMOTE WAS EMPLOYER REGULATION! REMEMBER THAT WORD,,,,REGULATION!
YOU MR ANTI-REGULATION!
But no, instead, you create HATE towards the immigrant and IGNORE the employers.
Who are you kidding? Make sure you take care of those employers, and then,,,JUST SHUT UP!
You have a real hate show! CNN Should KICK YOU OFF THEIR NETWORK!
AGAIN!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Lou Dobbs, HAS FAILED his viewers
Lou Dobbs: If I recall, Gen Petreaus advised Congress and GW Bush that there would be a small window of opportunity! This profound success is exactly what? Have we stopped paying the Sunnis and Shias? Is the window closing or when did that window close? So we know this success is REAL, like you proclaim to be. Exactly what is the success here Lou Dobbs?
You are doing a great job keeping the AMERICANS as IGNORANT as your opinions. Just a tip: opinions are like buttocks, we all have one!
Lou, I thought your expertise was money ? Yet, your devotion to attack Obama throughout your show is quire blatant. But that is ok.
I am curious Mr. Dobbs, when and where was your last trip out of this country? You really need to inform your audience of your passport history. Just so we can verify your expertise when the knowledge we are seeking, from the MEDIA, (which includes you, RADIO and CNN) for information regarding foreign policy or international relations? Please educate us of all your WORLDLY experience. Please Mr. Dobbs, show us!
One last thing, for now, you, Lou Dobbs, HAS FAILED your viewers with incorrect, TRUE information regarding our country’s Financial Institutes in this country! You are an ECONOMIST, or at least PROCLAIM to be. Where have you been Mr. Dobbs? This has not happened over night. Just where have you been? You are a complete FRAUD. And have failed to expose this fraud that is now just sprouting. How long have you known about this fraudulent economy?
You have an agenda. But maybe you can try some real TRUTH and let us know what you REALLY WANT? By the way, I never hear you propose any real answers to all your WHINING!
You are doing a great job keeping the AMERICANS as IGNORANT as your opinions. Just a tip: opinions are like buttocks, we all have one!
Lou, I thought your expertise was money ? Yet, your devotion to attack Obama throughout your show is quire blatant. But that is ok.
I am curious Mr. Dobbs, when and where was your last trip out of this country? You really need to inform your audience of your passport history. Just so we can verify your expertise when the knowledge we are seeking, from the MEDIA, (which includes you, RADIO and CNN) for information regarding foreign policy or international relations? Please educate us of all your WORLDLY experience. Please Mr. Dobbs, show us!
One last thing, for now, you, Lou Dobbs, HAS FAILED your viewers with incorrect, TRUE information regarding our country’s Financial Institutes in this country! You are an ECONOMIST, or at least PROCLAIM to be. Where have you been Mr. Dobbs? This has not happened over night. Just where have you been? You are a complete FRAUD. And have failed to expose this fraud that is now just sprouting. How long have you known about this fraudulent economy?
You have an agenda. But maybe you can try some real TRUTH and let us know what you REALLY WANT? By the way, I never hear you propose any real answers to all your WHINING!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Free Market! Isn't that the American Way?
BUSH PROMOTES DRILLING!!! JEBB IS OUT OF OFFICE!!!
NOW WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD LISTEN TO ANYTHING BUSH HAS TO SAY? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!! THE ROOSTERS ARE COMING HOME!!
NO REGULATION! KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT! NO OVERSIGHT!
Remember, 2000, BUSH GAVE TAX CUTS TO SUV PURCHASES AND VEHICLES OVER A SPECIFIC TONAGE! BUSH PROMOTES DRILLING!!!
For the last 20 years, we have heard how the FREE MARKET, is the way to prosperity with little or no oversight of government involvemnet.
This is also the approach to the Health Care system in America. The reason the Finanacial Industry is so CRITICAL, is becuase this has effected the GLOBAL MARKET, not isolating or subjecting to just the effect to AMERICANS as the Health Care System does.
NOW WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD LISTEN TO ANYTHING BUSH HAS TO SAY? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!! THE ROOSTERS ARE COMING HOME!!
NO REGULATION! KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT! NO OVERSIGHT!
Remember, 2000, BUSH GAVE TAX CUTS TO SUV PURCHASES AND VEHICLES OVER A SPECIFIC TONAGE! BUSH PROMOTES DRILLING!!!
For the last 20 years, we have heard how the FREE MARKET, is the way to prosperity with little or no oversight of government involvemnet.
This is also the approach to the Health Care system in America. The reason the Finanacial Industry is so CRITICAL, is becuase this has effected the GLOBAL MARKET, not isolating or subjecting to just the effect to AMERICANS as the Health Care System does.
Drill! Drill! Dril!!! Is that all you can do?
Is there anything else this half - Educated , LOW INFORMED Nation can think of,t hen to continually live and breath for the FINITE, (Get your Webster out) Resource of OIL!!
Does anyone value EDUCATION or KNOWLEDGE from EXPERIENCE that will HELP US?
Such as T Boone!!!
By Dan Reed, USA TODAY
SWEETWATER, Texas — Get ready, America, T. Boone Pickens is coming to your living room.
The legendary Texas oilman, corporate raider, shareholder-rights crusader, philanthropist and deep-pocketed moneyman for conservative politicians and causes, wants to drive the USA's political and economic agenda.
"We're paying $700 billion a year for foreign oil. It's breaking us as a nation, and I want to elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No. 1 issue of the campaign this year," Pickens says.
Today, Pickens will take the wraps off what he's calling the Pickens Plan for cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade. To promote it, he is bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever. The website, pickensplan.com, goes live today.
Jay Rosser, Pickens' ever-present public relations man, promises that Pickens' face will be seen on Americans' televisions this fall almost as frequently as John McCain's and Barack Obama's.
"Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.
"Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn't happen," Pickens says. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil?"
Finding solutions to other major issues, including health care, are important, he concedes. But "If you don't solve the energy problem, it's going to break us before we even get to solving health care and some of these other important issues." And it has to be done with the same sense of urgency that President Eisenhower had when he pushed the rapid development of the interstate highway system during the Cold War.
Of course, Pickens also has a particular solution in mind.
Wind. And natural gas.
Last week, Pickens loaded up his $60 million, top-of-the-line Gulfstream G550 corporate jet with reporters and a few associates from his Dallas-based BP Capital energy hedge fund and related companies and flew here to illustrate just how big — and achievable — his vision is.
There's not much to Sweetwater except for wild grasses, scraggy mesquite trees and rattlesnakes (Sweetwater hosts its famous Rattlesnake Roundup each spring). The gently rolling terrain and vegetation make it ideal for raising cattle, which is what its first settlers did in the 19th century, and what their descendants do today. A regional oil boom in the 1950s and 1960s poured money into the area's economy, as have two oil revivals since: one in the 1980s and one now.
But the exciting new industry in town is wind energy. You can drive for 150 miles along Interstate 20 and never be out of sight of a giant wind turbine, claims Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham, who does double duty as executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium.
Were it a country all by itself, Nolan County, Texas, would rank sixth on the list of wind-energy-producing nations, says Wortham. Year-round wind conditions, the terrain, low land prices and a small population make it an ideal location for wind farms. It already produces more wind-generated electricity in a year than all of California. And the business is growing so fast that he struggles to define it by numbers. By year's end, there'll be more than 1,500 turbines in Nolan County, representing a $5 billion investment. In the multicounty Rolling Plains region, there are already 2,000 operating turbines.
Add those operating further west, the Permian Basin region around Midland and Odessa, and the entire area has more than 3,000 turbines operating, producing about 6,000 megawatts of electricity — about equal to the power produced by two to three nuclear power plants.
Growth potential
The growth potential is, well, electrifying.
New turbine towers are going up at a rate of three to four a day in the Sweetwater area, Wortham says. "It depends on the (Texas) Public Utility Commission, but the number could be 20,000 ultimately," Wortham says.
Pickens, who over the past two years has become the USA's biggest wind-power booster, is quick to note that "there could be lots of Sweetwaters out there," especially in the nation's midsection, where winds are ideal for power generation.
Indeed, though Sweetwater is a windy place, plenty of locations farther north in the Great Plains are even better suited to wind farming. One is about 250 miles north of Sweetwater, near Pampa, northeast of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. That's where Pickens is building what would be the world's largest wind farm, four times larger than the current titleholder near here. So far, he has spent $2 billion on the project, including a record purchase of nearly 700 wind turbines this year from General Electric. He expects to spend up to $10 billion on the project and to begin generating electricity in 2011.
Though Pickens doesn't own a single wind turbine in the Sweetwater area, Wortham was eager to play host to the oil baron and the reporters traveling with him. Sweetwater, he says, is proof that wind power has much more potential than its many skeptics believe.
"People hear about the 8-foot-tall wind turbines at Logan airport in Boston or the five turbines at Atlantic City and think 'interesting,' " Wortham says. "But they don't see how we can get to the 300,000-megawatt-production level" established by the Bush administration as a national goal for 2030. "Once you come to Sweetwater, you see that it can be done, and be done pretty easily, not only here, but … anywhere there are prime wind conditions. None of this existed seven years ago. Now, we produce enough electricity in this one county to power a large city, and we do it cheaply and cleanly."
Getting lots more electricity with wind is only half of the Pickens Plan. Increasing wind-power production by itself won't reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil because most of that oil is consumed as gasoline.
The key, Pickens says, is that wind energy can be used as a substitute for natural gas now burned to generate electricity. That, in turn, will make far more natural gas available for use as a transportation fuel. Pickens' plan is to produce enough wind power within 10 years to divert 20% of the natural gas now used to fuel power plants for use in cars and trucks. That's much more aggressive a growth plan for the development of wind energy than envisioned by the Department of Energy, which doesn't expect the USA to be getting 20% of its total energy needs from wind until at least 2030.
Pickens foresees as many as a third of the vehicles running on natural gas within only a few years. Julius Pretterebner, director of the Global Oil Group at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, says getting 15% to 20% of the USA's cars to run on natural gas — in some cases, in mixtures with other fuels in dual-fuel vehicles — by 2020 would be an outstanding achievement, and doing that will require federal support to expand the necessary infrastructure.
Powering vehicles with compressed or liquefied natural gas, CNG or LNG, has been Pickens' pet project since the late 1980s.Yet the concept has been very slow to catch on.
Distribution is a major problem. CNG drivers can, like Pickens, install inexpensive equipment to fill up at their homes. But with fewer than 800 natural gas filling stations around the USA, drivers can't count on being able to fill up wherever they go. So, for the most part, CNG, or LNG, has remained limited to fleet operators, such as local bus companies or big-city police departments.
And that's where David Friedman, research director in the vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says most natural-gas-powered vehicles will continue to be operated because of the distribution problem, the lack of vehicles made specifically to run on CNG, and the cost of converting conventional vehicles to run on CNG.
"I honestly think (natural gas') role will be in medium- to heavy-duty vehicles and fleets — and as a stepping stone to hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicles in the future," Friedman says. Only one car, a version of the Honda Civic, is available from the factory ready for CNG fuel, he says, and only at a significant premium over the price of a conventionally fueled version.
If you build it …
Pickens aims to shout down the skeptics by taking his case to the people via his TV ad campaign. If the nation is to break its addiction to foreign oil, a network of CNG stations could be built along interstates and in major cities for a relatively small investment, he says. Some gasoline retailers have told him they would add CNG pumps to their stations once they're certain there'll be enough vehicles capable of running on natural gas to justify costs.
Washington, Pickens adds, can encourage the move to natural-gas-powered vehicles by providing modest economic incentives for fuel retailers to invest in CNG pumps at their stations, for automakers to build CNG-powered cars and for individuals to convert their existing vehicles to CNG use. And it should continue to provide tax incentives for another 10 years to encourage wind energy's rapid development as part of an overall plan to wean the nation from foreign oil, he says.
"It certainly would be cheaper than what they're doing already for nuclear," Pickens adds. But he's also in favor of developing more nuclear energy, and every form of alternative energy to reduce oil imports. "Try everything. Do everything. Nuclear. Biomass. Coal. Solar. You name it. I support them all," he says. "But there's only one energy source that can dramatically reduce the amount of oil we have to import each year, and that's (natural) gas."
Pickens is an outspoken believer in the so-called peak oil theory that holds that maximum world production has peaked at about 85 million barrels a day — vs. current demand of about 86 million barrels a day — and will never rise much above that even with lots of new drilling and production.
"Even people who continue driving gasoline-powered cars and trucks will benefit" from his plan, he says.
Critics could easily accuse Pickens of advocating a major new public policy initiative that will line his own pockets. He is, after all, a big player in both the wind power and natural gas businesses. Pickens says while his hedge fund will earn money for its investors, earning more money personally is meaningless: "I'm 80 years old and have $4 billion. I don't need any more money."
He's more concerned that his efforts to make reducing foreign oil dependency the No. 1 issue on the national agenda will be dismissed by the public and, therefore, by Washington. So he says he's carefully steering his plan clear of partisan bickering.
He's already enlisted an unlikely supporter: the Sierra Club. "I will be in the front row of the chorus cheering" him on, says Carl Pope, its executive director, who flew with Pickens to Sweetwater.
Pope sees wind and solar energy as inexpensive sources of power that, along with other non-carbon forms, can be pooled to greatly reduce the need for oil- and coal-fired electric-generating plants.
"When it's cloudy in Dallas and the wind's not blowing in Sweetwater, but the sun's blazing in the (Western) deserts, solar energy can run all those air conditioners in Dallas. When it's windy in Sweetwater and cloudy in the desert, wind energy from Sweetwater can heat homes in Chicago.
"Mr. Pickens and I probably don't see eye-to-eye on some other matters," Pope concedes. "But he's right on this one."
Setting goals, clearing roadblocks
Washington's role, Pope said, should be in setting the goal and clearing roadblocks such as the patchwork of state, regional and federal regulations that block the creation of a true national grid that can shift electricity from anywhere in the country to anywhere that it's needed.
Getting support from groups and people not ordinarily aligned with his conservative political views is important to Pickens. A lifelong Republican, he'll vote for McCain. But he's not involved with McCain's campaign, largely to keep his plan from being dismissed as mere campaign rhetoric.
"This has to be a bipartisan effort," says the man who four years ago offered $1 million to anyone who could disprove the charges made against Democrat nomine Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
"This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats," Pickens says. "This is about saving our country from the ruination of spending $700 billion a year on oil imports. Ninety days after the oil hits our shores, it's all burned up, and we've got nothing to show for it. But they (foreign oil producers) still have our money. It's killing our economy."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-08-t-boone-pickens-plan-wind-energy_N.htm
Does anyone value EDUCATION or KNOWLEDGE from EXPERIENCE that will HELP US?
Such as T Boone!!!
By Dan Reed, USA TODAY
SWEETWATER, Texas — Get ready, America, T. Boone Pickens is coming to your living room.
The legendary Texas oilman, corporate raider, shareholder-rights crusader, philanthropist and deep-pocketed moneyman for conservative politicians and causes, wants to drive the USA's political and economic agenda.
"We're paying $700 billion a year for foreign oil. It's breaking us as a nation, and I want to elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No. 1 issue of the campaign this year," Pickens says.
Today, Pickens will take the wraps off what he's calling the Pickens Plan for cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade. To promote it, he is bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever. The website, pickensplan.com, goes live today.
Jay Rosser, Pickens' ever-present public relations man, promises that Pickens' face will be seen on Americans' televisions this fall almost as frequently as John McCain's and Barack Obama's.
"Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.
"Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn't happen," Pickens says. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil?"
Finding solutions to other major issues, including health care, are important, he concedes. But "If you don't solve the energy problem, it's going to break us before we even get to solving health care and some of these other important issues." And it has to be done with the same sense of urgency that President Eisenhower had when he pushed the rapid development of the interstate highway system during the Cold War.
Of course, Pickens also has a particular solution in mind.
Wind. And natural gas.
Last week, Pickens loaded up his $60 million, top-of-the-line Gulfstream G550 corporate jet with reporters and a few associates from his Dallas-based BP Capital energy hedge fund and related companies and flew here to illustrate just how big — and achievable — his vision is.
There's not much to Sweetwater except for wild grasses, scraggy mesquite trees and rattlesnakes (Sweetwater hosts its famous Rattlesnake Roundup each spring). The gently rolling terrain and vegetation make it ideal for raising cattle, which is what its first settlers did in the 19th century, and what their descendants do today. A regional oil boom in the 1950s and 1960s poured money into the area's economy, as have two oil revivals since: one in the 1980s and one now.
But the exciting new industry in town is wind energy. You can drive for 150 miles along Interstate 20 and never be out of sight of a giant wind turbine, claims Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham, who does double duty as executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium.
Were it a country all by itself, Nolan County, Texas, would rank sixth on the list of wind-energy-producing nations, says Wortham. Year-round wind conditions, the terrain, low land prices and a small population make it an ideal location for wind farms. It already produces more wind-generated electricity in a year than all of California. And the business is growing so fast that he struggles to define it by numbers. By year's end, there'll be more than 1,500 turbines in Nolan County, representing a $5 billion investment. In the multicounty Rolling Plains region, there are already 2,000 operating turbines.
Add those operating further west, the Permian Basin region around Midland and Odessa, and the entire area has more than 3,000 turbines operating, producing about 6,000 megawatts of electricity — about equal to the power produced by two to three nuclear power plants.
Growth potential
The growth potential is, well, electrifying.
New turbine towers are going up at a rate of three to four a day in the Sweetwater area, Wortham says. "It depends on the (Texas) Public Utility Commission, but the number could be 20,000 ultimately," Wortham says.
Pickens, who over the past two years has become the USA's biggest wind-power booster, is quick to note that "there could be lots of Sweetwaters out there," especially in the nation's midsection, where winds are ideal for power generation.
Indeed, though Sweetwater is a windy place, plenty of locations farther north in the Great Plains are even better suited to wind farming. One is about 250 miles north of Sweetwater, near Pampa, northeast of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. That's where Pickens is building what would be the world's largest wind farm, four times larger than the current titleholder near here. So far, he has spent $2 billion on the project, including a record purchase of nearly 700 wind turbines this year from General Electric. He expects to spend up to $10 billion on the project and to begin generating electricity in 2011.
Though Pickens doesn't own a single wind turbine in the Sweetwater area, Wortham was eager to play host to the oil baron and the reporters traveling with him. Sweetwater, he says, is proof that wind power has much more potential than its many skeptics believe.
"People hear about the 8-foot-tall wind turbines at Logan airport in Boston or the five turbines at Atlantic City and think 'interesting,' " Wortham says. "But they don't see how we can get to the 300,000-megawatt-production level" established by the Bush administration as a national goal for 2030. "Once you come to Sweetwater, you see that it can be done, and be done pretty easily, not only here, but … anywhere there are prime wind conditions. None of this existed seven years ago. Now, we produce enough electricity in this one county to power a large city, and we do it cheaply and cleanly."
Getting lots more electricity with wind is only half of the Pickens Plan. Increasing wind-power production by itself won't reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil because most of that oil is consumed as gasoline.
The key, Pickens says, is that wind energy can be used as a substitute for natural gas now burned to generate electricity. That, in turn, will make far more natural gas available for use as a transportation fuel. Pickens' plan is to produce enough wind power within 10 years to divert 20% of the natural gas now used to fuel power plants for use in cars and trucks. That's much more aggressive a growth plan for the development of wind energy than envisioned by the Department of Energy, which doesn't expect the USA to be getting 20% of its total energy needs from wind until at least 2030.
Pickens foresees as many as a third of the vehicles running on natural gas within only a few years. Julius Pretterebner, director of the Global Oil Group at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, says getting 15% to 20% of the USA's cars to run on natural gas — in some cases, in mixtures with other fuels in dual-fuel vehicles — by 2020 would be an outstanding achievement, and doing that will require federal support to expand the necessary infrastructure.
Powering vehicles with compressed or liquefied natural gas, CNG or LNG, has been Pickens' pet project since the late 1980s.Yet the concept has been very slow to catch on.
Distribution is a major problem. CNG drivers can, like Pickens, install inexpensive equipment to fill up at their homes. But with fewer than 800 natural gas filling stations around the USA, drivers can't count on being able to fill up wherever they go. So, for the most part, CNG, or LNG, has remained limited to fleet operators, such as local bus companies or big-city police departments.
And that's where David Friedman, research director in the vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says most natural-gas-powered vehicles will continue to be operated because of the distribution problem, the lack of vehicles made specifically to run on CNG, and the cost of converting conventional vehicles to run on CNG.
"I honestly think (natural gas') role will be in medium- to heavy-duty vehicles and fleets — and as a stepping stone to hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicles in the future," Friedman says. Only one car, a version of the Honda Civic, is available from the factory ready for CNG fuel, he says, and only at a significant premium over the price of a conventionally fueled version.
If you build it …
Pickens aims to shout down the skeptics by taking his case to the people via his TV ad campaign. If the nation is to break its addiction to foreign oil, a network of CNG stations could be built along interstates and in major cities for a relatively small investment, he says. Some gasoline retailers have told him they would add CNG pumps to their stations once they're certain there'll be enough vehicles capable of running on natural gas to justify costs.
Washington, Pickens adds, can encourage the move to natural-gas-powered vehicles by providing modest economic incentives for fuel retailers to invest in CNG pumps at their stations, for automakers to build CNG-powered cars and for individuals to convert their existing vehicles to CNG use. And it should continue to provide tax incentives for another 10 years to encourage wind energy's rapid development as part of an overall plan to wean the nation from foreign oil, he says.
"It certainly would be cheaper than what they're doing already for nuclear," Pickens adds. But he's also in favor of developing more nuclear energy, and every form of alternative energy to reduce oil imports. "Try everything. Do everything. Nuclear. Biomass. Coal. Solar. You name it. I support them all," he says. "But there's only one energy source that can dramatically reduce the amount of oil we have to import each year, and that's (natural) gas."
Pickens is an outspoken believer in the so-called peak oil theory that holds that maximum world production has peaked at about 85 million barrels a day — vs. current demand of about 86 million barrels a day — and will never rise much above that even with lots of new drilling and production.
"Even people who continue driving gasoline-powered cars and trucks will benefit" from his plan, he says.
Critics could easily accuse Pickens of advocating a major new public policy initiative that will line his own pockets. He is, after all, a big player in both the wind power and natural gas businesses. Pickens says while his hedge fund will earn money for its investors, earning more money personally is meaningless: "I'm 80 years old and have $4 billion. I don't need any more money."
He's more concerned that his efforts to make reducing foreign oil dependency the No. 1 issue on the national agenda will be dismissed by the public and, therefore, by Washington. So he says he's carefully steering his plan clear of partisan bickering.
He's already enlisted an unlikely supporter: the Sierra Club. "I will be in the front row of the chorus cheering" him on, says Carl Pope, its executive director, who flew with Pickens to Sweetwater.
Pope sees wind and solar energy as inexpensive sources of power that, along with other non-carbon forms, can be pooled to greatly reduce the need for oil- and coal-fired electric-generating plants.
"When it's cloudy in Dallas and the wind's not blowing in Sweetwater, but the sun's blazing in the (Western) deserts, solar energy can run all those air conditioners in Dallas. When it's windy in Sweetwater and cloudy in the desert, wind energy from Sweetwater can heat homes in Chicago.
"Mr. Pickens and I probably don't see eye-to-eye on some other matters," Pope concedes. "But he's right on this one."
Setting goals, clearing roadblocks
Washington's role, Pope said, should be in setting the goal and clearing roadblocks such as the patchwork of state, regional and federal regulations that block the creation of a true national grid that can shift electricity from anywhere in the country to anywhere that it's needed.
Getting support from groups and people not ordinarily aligned with his conservative political views is important to Pickens. A lifelong Republican, he'll vote for McCain. But he's not involved with McCain's campaign, largely to keep his plan from being dismissed as mere campaign rhetoric.
"This has to be a bipartisan effort," says the man who four years ago offered $1 million to anyone who could disprove the charges made against Democrat nomine Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
"This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats," Pickens says. "This is about saving our country from the ruination of spending $700 billion a year on oil imports. Ninety days after the oil hits our shores, it's all burned up, and we've got nothing to show for it. But they (foreign oil producers) still have our money. It's killing our economy."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-08-t-boone-pickens-plan-wind-energy_N.htm
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
It is so much more than a "credit crisis"
People need to pay attention to the ROOT of the problem.....far beyobd HOUSING Market!!!
The current credit crisis recently claimed another victim:
super prime mortgage lender Thornburg Mortgage.
Shareholder saw nearly 90% of their capital disappear over night when
the company was slammed by margin calls.
Among the losers: billionaire Richard Rainwater,
investing legend Bill Miller, and founder of the company Garrett Thornburg himself.
http://oneloanquote.com/?p=1751
The current credit crisis recently claimed another victim:
super prime mortgage lender Thornburg Mortgage.
Shareholder saw nearly 90% of their capital disappear over night when
the company was slammed by margin calls.
Among the losers: billionaire Richard Rainwater,
investing legend Bill Miller, and founder of the company Garrett Thornburg himself.
http://oneloanquote.com/?p=1751
Friday, February 29, 2008
Hmmm......who is going to help who with the Prez's Hope Plan? Really!!
Thornburg May Sell Securities to Meet Margin Calls (Update5)
By David Mildenberg and Sal Giangrasso
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Thornburg Mortgage Inc., the finance company that sold $21.9 billion of assets in August because of a cash shortage, said it may have to sell more securities to meet lenders' demands for increased collateral.
The company declined the most in six months in New York trading after Thornburg said it met $300 million of margin calls since Feb. 14. The move depleted available cash and reduced its ability to meet future demands for more collateral, the lender said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.
Thornburg, a specialist in adjustable-rate loans too big to be sold to government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was one of more than 100 mortgage companies that halted lending or left the business in 2007. The company sold assets in August as U.S. foreclosures climbed to a record and investors shunned home loans. Thornburg resumed lending in September and issued $500 million in preferred shares to bolster its finances.
``The market has been in a deep freeze for anything other than Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae conforming loans,'' said David Olson, president of Wholesale Access Mortgage Research in Columbia, Maryland. ``Home prices are falling more and more rapidly, and consumer sentiment is terrible.''
Thornburg expects to be profitable this quarter and throughout this year, Chief Executive Officer Larry Goldstone said in a Bloomberg Radio interview.
The company dropped $1.78, or 15 percent, to $9.76 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has declined 61 percent in the past year.
Alt-A Declines
Bonds backed by Alt-A loans have lost 10 percent to 15 percent of their value since the end of January, leading to the margin calls on such securities, Thornburg said. Alt-A mortgages are typically made to homeowners with credit scores that are above subprime and below prime. Alt-A borrowers often have weaker documentation of their income levels than prime borrowers or have taken so-called option ARMs, with minimum payments that create growing loan balances.
``It's just a sign of the credit lockup,'' Goldstone said. ``Across the entire board, mortgage prices are lower today than they even reached last August.''
The problem worsened Feb. 14 when UBS AG, Europe's largest bank by assets, reported a record fourth-quarter loss on $13.7 billion in writedowns on assets infected by subprime mortgages. Many investors assumed UBS would sell its holdings, prompting a sharp fall in the prices of the securities, he said.
`Market Uncertainty'
Standard & Poor's analyst Jason Willey cut his rating on Thornburg to ``hold'' from ``buy'' and reduced his price target to $10 from $14.
``We expect market uncertainty and poor demand will limit the liquidity of mortgage securities,'' Willey said in a note to investors.
Thornburg may need to cut its dividend, UBS analyst Omotayo Okusanya said in a report today. He rates the stock at ``neutral.'' Thornburg gave a 25-cent-a-share quarterly dividend on Jan. 30 after making no payment in the prior quarter.
The company previously reported a $64.8 million fourth- quarter profit, following a $1.1 billion third-quarter loss. Goldstone, in a Bloomberg TV interview on Jan. 28, called the company's shares ``a great investment market opportunity, probably the best I've seen.''
About 0.44 percent of Thornburg's loans were more than 60 days late as of Dec. 31, below the industry's average ratio of 4.2 percent on adjustable rate loans, Thornburg's filing said.
Credit Quality
Credit quality remains solid in both Thornburg's purchased securities and the loans it originates, Goldstone said. ``We haven't seen a material change in the credit quality of our portfolio,'' he said.
Thornburg raised $212 million through two stock offerings in January, including 7 million shares of common stock sold at $8 each. Texas real estate and energy investor Richard Rainwater bought a 5.5 percent stake in January.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the second-biggest independent U.S. mortgage company, lost 73 cents, or 10 percent, to $6.35. No. 1 Countrywide Financial Corp. fell 34 cents, or 4.9 percent, to $6.64.
To contact the reporters on this story: David Mildenberg in Charlotte at dmildenberg@bloomberg.net ; Sal Giangrasso New York at sgiangrasso@bloomberg.net ;
Last Updated: February 28, 2008 16:59 EST
By David Mildenberg and Sal Giangrasso
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Thornburg Mortgage Inc., the finance company that sold $21.9 billion of assets in August because of a cash shortage, said it may have to sell more securities to meet lenders' demands for increased collateral.
The company declined the most in six months in New York trading after Thornburg said it met $300 million of margin calls since Feb. 14. The move depleted available cash and reduced its ability to meet future demands for more collateral, the lender said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.
Thornburg, a specialist in adjustable-rate loans too big to be sold to government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was one of more than 100 mortgage companies that halted lending or left the business in 2007. The company sold assets in August as U.S. foreclosures climbed to a record and investors shunned home loans. Thornburg resumed lending in September and issued $500 million in preferred shares to bolster its finances.
``The market has been in a deep freeze for anything other than Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae conforming loans,'' said David Olson, president of Wholesale Access Mortgage Research in Columbia, Maryland. ``Home prices are falling more and more rapidly, and consumer sentiment is terrible.''
Thornburg expects to be profitable this quarter and throughout this year, Chief Executive Officer Larry Goldstone said in a Bloomberg Radio interview.
The company dropped $1.78, or 15 percent, to $9.76 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has declined 61 percent in the past year.
Alt-A Declines
Bonds backed by Alt-A loans have lost 10 percent to 15 percent of their value since the end of January, leading to the margin calls on such securities, Thornburg said. Alt-A mortgages are typically made to homeowners with credit scores that are above subprime and below prime. Alt-A borrowers often have weaker documentation of their income levels than prime borrowers or have taken so-called option ARMs, with minimum payments that create growing loan balances.
``It's just a sign of the credit lockup,'' Goldstone said. ``Across the entire board, mortgage prices are lower today than they even reached last August.''
The problem worsened Feb. 14 when UBS AG, Europe's largest bank by assets, reported a record fourth-quarter loss on $13.7 billion in writedowns on assets infected by subprime mortgages. Many investors assumed UBS would sell its holdings, prompting a sharp fall in the prices of the securities, he said.
`Market Uncertainty'
Standard & Poor's analyst Jason Willey cut his rating on Thornburg to ``hold'' from ``buy'' and reduced his price target to $10 from $14.
``We expect market uncertainty and poor demand will limit the liquidity of mortgage securities,'' Willey said in a note to investors.
Thornburg may need to cut its dividend, UBS analyst Omotayo Okusanya said in a report today. He rates the stock at ``neutral.'' Thornburg gave a 25-cent-a-share quarterly dividend on Jan. 30 after making no payment in the prior quarter.
The company previously reported a $64.8 million fourth- quarter profit, following a $1.1 billion third-quarter loss. Goldstone, in a Bloomberg TV interview on Jan. 28, called the company's shares ``a great investment market opportunity, probably the best I've seen.''
About 0.44 percent of Thornburg's loans were more than 60 days late as of Dec. 31, below the industry's average ratio of 4.2 percent on adjustable rate loans, Thornburg's filing said.
Credit Quality
Credit quality remains solid in both Thornburg's purchased securities and the loans it originates, Goldstone said. ``We haven't seen a material change in the credit quality of our portfolio,'' he said.
Thornburg raised $212 million through two stock offerings in January, including 7 million shares of common stock sold at $8 each. Texas real estate and energy investor Richard Rainwater bought a 5.5 percent stake in January.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the second-biggest independent U.S. mortgage company, lost 73 cents, or 10 percent, to $6.35. No. 1 Countrywide Financial Corp. fell 34 cents, or 4.9 percent, to $6.64.
To contact the reporters on this story: David Mildenberg in Charlotte at dmildenberg@bloomberg.net ; Sal Giangrasso New York at sgiangrasso@bloomberg.net ;
Last Updated: February 28, 2008 16:59 EST
Thursday, January 17, 2008
America for Sale
Sovereign-wealth funds
The world's most expensive club
May 24th 2007 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition
China's investment in Blackstone shows how government investors are flourishing at the heart of the financial system
Satoshi Kambayashi
WITH $1.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves and the pool growing by more than $1 billion every day, China casts a giant's shadow over the global financial markets, even if it has mostly used the money to pile up American Treasury bonds. The announcement on May 21st that it would invest $3 billion of its reserves in Blackstone, a New York-based private-equity firm soon to issue shares, shows that it is prepared to barge into murky private markets as well as liquid public ones. It is not the only inscrutable country to be cosying up to the inscrutable private-equity industry. Around the world, a secretive society is emerging of governments flush with foreign assets, some of them petrodollars, that are increasingly calling the shots in international finance. The Blackstone deal is likely to stir others to invest their money even farther away from prying eyes than they do already.
Like China, whose proposed Blackstone stake is part of $300 billion that the government plans to set aside this year for investment purposes, dozens of countries have set up what are now commonly referred to as sovereign-wealth funds. They manage money drawn from reserves, natural-resource payments and the like. China is chiefly concerned to diversify its foreign reserves, but other sovereign-wealth funds own national, as well as international, assets.
The top 12 each have anything from $20 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars to invest (see table). Recently, Japan, Russia and India have reportedly been considering setting up funds along similar lines. Some estimates put the size of the funds at $2.5 trillion by the end of this year (in contrast, hedge funds are thought to have a mere $1.6 trillion), with another $450 billion in transfers from reserves being added annually. Including capital appreciation, the amount could swell to $12 trillion by 2015.
To the extent governments have traditionally held investment assets, it was to protect domestic currencies and banks from crisis. Since the funds were for emergencies, they were of a type that could be liquidated easily—initially the holdings were in precious metals, lately they have been in dollars. The idea of building up an endowment to replace shrinking natural resources did not exist.
That process may have started inadvertently in 1956 when the British administration of the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia put a levy on the export of phosphates—bird manure—used in fertiliser. The manure has long since been depleted. However, a once-tiny set-aside of money has become the Kiribati Revenue Equalisation Reserve Fund, a $520m investment portfolio that has grown to about nine times the tiny atoll's GDP.
A similar approach is now common among oil-producing countries, which, it is estimated, account for two-thirds of the assets in these sovereign-wealth funds, and are keen to diversify their national revenues, aware that their wealth is being pumped away. They have typically invested along similar lines to central banks, holding bonds, dollars and bank deposits. Temasek, a Singaporean entity created in 1974 to pool state-owned investments, started to change the mindset. It subsequently evolved into an even more complex investment vehicle. The heady combination of state-control, success and secrecy, entranced other governments.
Recently, central bankers have also begun wondering whether they have a fiduciary duty to make higher returns from the public wealth under their supervision, which could mean placing at least some part of foreign-exchange reserves in high-yielding, if less liquid, investments. In Asia this question has become increasingly pertinent in the past two years, as reserves have mushroomed.
The result has been a torrent of money into a finite pool of assets. There is no precedent for such fortunes suddenly to find their way into global financial markets, and they help explain the waterfall of liquidity that has driven up the value of risky (and less risky) assets of all descriptions around the world. The world's entire supply of shares is $55 trillion, and bonds account for a similar amount. Sovereign-wealth funds could soon become the most important buyers of such assets, and many others besides. If so, the world will witness the intriguing spectacle of its largest private companies being owned by governments whose belief in capitalism is often partial.
The last time governments were this involved in sinking money into private assets, the process tended to be called nationalisation. Now the funds are invested both abroad and domestically. A new term will have to be coined: internationalisation, perhaps.
Northern light
Of the biggest sovereign funds, only Norway's provides anything close to transparency. Each year it discloses its investment portfolios and returns. Without such a window on their investments, it is hard to fathom the interests of other funds—how they vote on shareholder motions, for example. There are likely to be questions about strategic objectives, too. What will they care about most? Economic returns, political objectives, securing strategic resources? It will be hard to tell.
Andrew Rozanov, of State Street Bank, argues that the lack of well-defined obligations and the ability to retain funds indefinitely while not having to reveal results is an investment advantage. The funds can harvest the benefits of volatility and illiquidity unavailable to the risk averse. It would not be surprising if some did particularly well. On the other hand, the same factors that could lead to higher returns could also lead to corruption and untoward political intervention.
But the kind of assets the funds invest in—big ones—can generate frictions even when run properly. Temasek has been embroiled in controversy in Thailand after it bought Shin Corp, one of the country's telecoms companies, from Thaksin Shinawatra, the country's deposed prime minister. China is no stranger to such tensions. In an event that still rankles, CNOOC, the state-controlled oil company, was blocked in America, supposedly on national-security grounds from acquiring Unocal, an oil company. It is quite possible that by purchasing a non-voting interest in Blackstone, China will be able to bypass the restrictions that might prevent it doing Unocal-style deals in Europe and America.
By choosing a private-equity firm, China will also be able to invest directly in a partner that, notwithstanding its forthcoming share offering, can keep many of its operations out of the public eye. But this is where the ironies of the deal are most apparent. “Crony capitalism? It is a marriage made in heaven—a partnership that does not want investors to ask questions with a country whose firms do not want investors to ask questions. I worry about the serious conflicts of interest this generates. More generally, government entities shouldn't be in the business of investing in private firms,” opines Raghuram Rajan, of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.
Moreover, it is widely believed that by having China as a partner, Blackstone will receive preferential access to China's market (as well as providing China with experience it clearly covets on how to set up its own domestic private-equity industry). This is an advantage for Blackstone, and for its shareholders, China included, particularly so when other private-equity firms complain that the impediments to operating in China are growing.
However, providing an economic incentive to a lucky few, even if that includes the government itself, impedes China's broader need to create a fair and transparent financial market for all participants. That is what would produce the most efficient market for capital.
China still has vast holdings of state assets, and its embryonic stockmarket is bubbling over—if anything it needs more publicly traded companies. Like other countries with sovereign-wealth funds, it would appear to need more expertise in selling companies that it owns, rather than learning how to buy the ones it does not.
The world's most expensive club
May 24th 2007 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition
China's investment in Blackstone shows how government investors are flourishing at the heart of the financial system
Satoshi Kambayashi
WITH $1.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves and the pool growing by more than $1 billion every day, China casts a giant's shadow over the global financial markets, even if it has mostly used the money to pile up American Treasury bonds. The announcement on May 21st that it would invest $3 billion of its reserves in Blackstone, a New York-based private-equity firm soon to issue shares, shows that it is prepared to barge into murky private markets as well as liquid public ones. It is not the only inscrutable country to be cosying up to the inscrutable private-equity industry. Around the world, a secretive society is emerging of governments flush with foreign assets, some of them petrodollars, that are increasingly calling the shots in international finance. The Blackstone deal is likely to stir others to invest their money even farther away from prying eyes than they do already.
Like China, whose proposed Blackstone stake is part of $300 billion that the government plans to set aside this year for investment purposes, dozens of countries have set up what are now commonly referred to as sovereign-wealth funds. They manage money drawn from reserves, natural-resource payments and the like. China is chiefly concerned to diversify its foreign reserves, but other sovereign-wealth funds own national, as well as international, assets.
The top 12 each have anything from $20 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars to invest (see table). Recently, Japan, Russia and India have reportedly been considering setting up funds along similar lines. Some estimates put the size of the funds at $2.5 trillion by the end of this year (in contrast, hedge funds are thought to have a mere $1.6 trillion), with another $450 billion in transfers from reserves being added annually. Including capital appreciation, the amount could swell to $12 trillion by 2015.
To the extent governments have traditionally held investment assets, it was to protect domestic currencies and banks from crisis. Since the funds were for emergencies, they were of a type that could be liquidated easily—initially the holdings were in precious metals, lately they have been in dollars. The idea of building up an endowment to replace shrinking natural resources did not exist.
That process may have started inadvertently in 1956 when the British administration of the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia put a levy on the export of phosphates—bird manure—used in fertiliser. The manure has long since been depleted. However, a once-tiny set-aside of money has become the Kiribati Revenue Equalisation Reserve Fund, a $520m investment portfolio that has grown to about nine times the tiny atoll's GDP.
A similar approach is now common among oil-producing countries, which, it is estimated, account for two-thirds of the assets in these sovereign-wealth funds, and are keen to diversify their national revenues, aware that their wealth is being pumped away. They have typically invested along similar lines to central banks, holding bonds, dollars and bank deposits. Temasek, a Singaporean entity created in 1974 to pool state-owned investments, started to change the mindset. It subsequently evolved into an even more complex investment vehicle. The heady combination of state-control, success and secrecy, entranced other governments.
Recently, central bankers have also begun wondering whether they have a fiduciary duty to make higher returns from the public wealth under their supervision, which could mean placing at least some part of foreign-exchange reserves in high-yielding, if less liquid, investments. In Asia this question has become increasingly pertinent in the past two years, as reserves have mushroomed.
The result has been a torrent of money into a finite pool of assets. There is no precedent for such fortunes suddenly to find their way into global financial markets, and they help explain the waterfall of liquidity that has driven up the value of risky (and less risky) assets of all descriptions around the world. The world's entire supply of shares is $55 trillion, and bonds account for a similar amount. Sovereign-wealth funds could soon become the most important buyers of such assets, and many others besides. If so, the world will witness the intriguing spectacle of its largest private companies being owned by governments whose belief in capitalism is often partial.
The last time governments were this involved in sinking money into private assets, the process tended to be called nationalisation. Now the funds are invested both abroad and domestically. A new term will have to be coined: internationalisation, perhaps.
Northern light
Of the biggest sovereign funds, only Norway's provides anything close to transparency. Each year it discloses its investment portfolios and returns. Without such a window on their investments, it is hard to fathom the interests of other funds—how they vote on shareholder motions, for example. There are likely to be questions about strategic objectives, too. What will they care about most? Economic returns, political objectives, securing strategic resources? It will be hard to tell.
Andrew Rozanov, of State Street Bank, argues that the lack of well-defined obligations and the ability to retain funds indefinitely while not having to reveal results is an investment advantage. The funds can harvest the benefits of volatility and illiquidity unavailable to the risk averse. It would not be surprising if some did particularly well. On the other hand, the same factors that could lead to higher returns could also lead to corruption and untoward political intervention.
But the kind of assets the funds invest in—big ones—can generate frictions even when run properly. Temasek has been embroiled in controversy in Thailand after it bought Shin Corp, one of the country's telecoms companies, from Thaksin Shinawatra, the country's deposed prime minister. China is no stranger to such tensions. In an event that still rankles, CNOOC, the state-controlled oil company, was blocked in America, supposedly on national-security grounds from acquiring Unocal, an oil company. It is quite possible that by purchasing a non-voting interest in Blackstone, China will be able to bypass the restrictions that might prevent it doing Unocal-style deals in Europe and America.
By choosing a private-equity firm, China will also be able to invest directly in a partner that, notwithstanding its forthcoming share offering, can keep many of its operations out of the public eye. But this is where the ironies of the deal are most apparent. “Crony capitalism? It is a marriage made in heaven—a partnership that does not want investors to ask questions with a country whose firms do not want investors to ask questions. I worry about the serious conflicts of interest this generates. More generally, government entities shouldn't be in the business of investing in private firms,” opines Raghuram Rajan, of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.
Moreover, it is widely believed that by having China as a partner, Blackstone will receive preferential access to China's market (as well as providing China with experience it clearly covets on how to set up its own domestic private-equity industry). This is an advantage for Blackstone, and for its shareholders, China included, particularly so when other private-equity firms complain that the impediments to operating in China are growing.
However, providing an economic incentive to a lucky few, even if that includes the government itself, impedes China's broader need to create a fair and transparent financial market for all participants. That is what would produce the most efficient market for capital.
China still has vast holdings of state assets, and its embryonic stockmarket is bubbling over—if anything it needs more publicly traded companies. Like other countries with sovereign-wealth funds, it would appear to need more expertise in selling companies that it owns, rather than learning how to buy the ones it does not.
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