California may need $7 billion federal loan (CA locked out of credit markets)

[tandot]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- California may need a $7 billion emergency loan from the federal government to pay for "teachers' salaries, nursing homes, law enforcement and every other state-funded service" this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warns.

Schwarzenegger gave the warning in a letter sent Thursday to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

<snip>

"The federal rescue package is not a bailout of Wall Street tycoons -- it is a lifeboat for millions of Americans whose life savings, businesses, retirement plans and jobs are at stake," Schwarzenegger said.

California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer issued a statement a day earlier saying because of the national financial crisis, California "has been locked out of credit markets for the past 10 days."

<snip>

More at link.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/03/california.loan/index.html

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. The credit market "freeze" is blackmail, pure and simple

Those who control the reins of credit in this country are engaging in extortion. "Give us billions and billions in public money, or else the economy gets it."

[tandot]

2. In your opinion, why is Obama and his team of economic advisers supporting a bailout?

:shrug:

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. Because the bank robbers have always been big campaign donors

All elections are bought and paid for. One of the biggest problems with this country is that the people get outbid each and every election. With regards to corporate charity, the Democrats have always been just as bad as the Republicans, and Obama is no different.

[tandot]

5. Sorry that you have such a low opinion about Obama and Democrats.

[Le Taz Hot]

8. And I'm sorry that Obama and the Democrats

choose to represent corporations over the electorate. Iirc, contributions from the financial sector went something like 1) H. Clinton, 2) B. Obama and 3) J. McCain. All three voted "yes" on the corporate welfare bill. What a coincidence. These are not opinions, these are facts. To refuse to hold your representatives and candidates accountable is to be enslaved to the same corporatocracy that they are.

[tandot]

9. Please post a link in regards to the contributions.

[EFerrari]

27. opensecrets.org is a great site where you can look up

who is giving to who and even, by sector.

[superconnected]

55. Look for it yourself. You may get more informed along the way.

Plus it will teach you to go find answers and not just believe the propaganda sent to the press. The bush admin spends over 1 million a year on that propaganda - also seek the articles on that yourself. It will help you to learn to start looking.

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. I have an even lower opinion of McCain and Republicans

Your point is...? :shrug:

[Peace Patriot]

17. So he doesn't get whacked, is my guess.

Literally, or by the Corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies.

Hard to say, as the Bush Cartel phase of this global corporate predator coup d'etat crashes to conclusion, what anybody in the national political establishment may really believe. It's so strange to me how many people talk and write about our political scene as if these were normal times. They aren't. The Constitution has been shredded. The entire voting system has been taken over by Bushwhack corporations, using 'TRADE SECRET' code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Government (Bushwhack) spying is endemic, which means that government blackmail and intimidation, dirty tricks and black ops are more than likely endemic as well. Lord knows how this has affected political leaders. Look at this Eliot Spitzer thing! He was threatening the banks with investigation and regulation--then, whack, he's gone, merely for using a prostitute--a really, really, really tiny crime--if a crime at all--compared to Bushwhack and other Corpo/fascist massive, unfrackingbelievable thievery and mass murder. In 'normal times,' a) the methods by which they spied on Spitzer would be illegal ("Watergate burglary" category), and b) the political/money establishment would be inclined to look away, and never to go there in the first place, because high class prostitution is common among the rich and the powerful, and always has been. You think they're not running prostitutes in and out of the White House and the Crawford Ranch and everywhere else there is this kind of money and power? Get real. It's commonplace. But some very bad and dangerous people now have total control of the reins of government, and are routinely serving and protecting themselves and punishing others with the powers of 'our' government. And even if they have been curtailed on their grand scheme of slaughtering millions of innocent Iranians and taking their oil--curtailed by some group of power brokers here, but not for moral or legal reasons, rather in response to certain realities (China, for instance)--they still hold the reins of government on behalf of multinational corporations and are doing their bidding, and whacking anybody who disagrees.

These fascists are still holding thousands of prisoners without trial, and have been for half a decade. No one has challenged Bush's invention of his own law that categorizes some people as "enemy combatants," and strips them of all redress, and permits them to be tortured or whacked at the whim of the president. It's the fucking Middle Ages! The problem is not so much that the president is doing things like this--any leader can go rogue, or go mad; it's that no one is doing anything about it. It's all being done with complete impunity. In fact, our political establishment has gone out of its way NOT to hold anyone accountable for enormous crimes and violations of national and international law. These "dark lords" have additionally been looting us blind, with no-bid, profit-guaranteed contracts, and billions of dollars simply gone missing, and secret budgets, and every other manner of looting, including deregulation and multiple tax cuts for the rich, for eight years! It's not just the current looting. It's all the other looting before it--serving not just our billionaires, but the billionaires in Saudi Arabia and China. Treason is hardly a big enough word to describe their crimes. Their crimes are without precedent.

And now our so-called 'Democratic' Congress has a worse approval rating than Bush--a TEN PERCENT APPROVAL RATING!--and literally jumps to his bidding like a bunch of slave scribes in a Medieval sultanate. 'You want more gold, Master? Yes, Master! Right away, Master! I'm on it, Master!'

It's disgusting.

So-o-o, I don't take much of what happens at face value, and I regard most of the 'news' from the Corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies, and 'news' events that play to them, as a charade. We need to take this charade for what it is worth, and learn to interpret it.

I think Obama is a pretty good guy, in a very, very, very, VERY dangerous game--bidding for Emperor of the World, in a tattered, possibly crumbling Empire. Some of his statements have seemed delusionary to me. He's going to take the Forever War to Afghanistan. With what money? With what troops? He thinks he can pick and choose among the "good leftists" and "bad leftists" in South America, when all are democratic and all clearly have strongly pulled together--they just formed a South American "Common Market," sans the U.S.--and have each other's backs, in their bid for independence from their only enemy, the U.S. IS he deluded? No, I don't think so. Are some of his advisers deluded? Possibly. This grand delusion, that the Corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies create--that seems so confusing on the surface (if you have any historical/political perspective at all)--sucks leaders, and would-be leaders, and their advisers, and their aides, and their political consultants, right into its monstrous maw, where they have to fight for survival in the putrid, toxic gastro-intestinal juices of the Beast. So if they gurgle and gag and thrash around, and come out with agonizingly strange and inept policy twists, that is why. It's because these are NOT normal times.

[Psyop Samurai]

24. Appreciate, as always, your ability to present an authentic narrative...

...or, at least, as authentic as may be presented in upside-down world.

Many of us know the score, but can barely even begin to verbalize it.

:hug:

[Zhade]

38. Own. Thread. NOW!

Your posts are always deserving of their own!

[flamingdem]

45. Ouch. Obama is a good guy.

Let's see how far that can get him. I'm guessing it will get him very far. Money/excessive power is not his goal.

[TroubleMan]

33. So true.

It's like protection money that the mob asks for.

[Zhade]

37. Absofuckinglutely. I've been expressing the same sentiment for a week now.

You are quite correct - and idiots here and in Congress responded by handing over their wallets.

[BearSquirrel2]

40. Agreed ...

When has this ever happened in the past besides 1928?

[TechBear_Seattle]

50. This "credit freeze" is entirely unprecedented

The Great Crash was an actual crash. What is happening now is robbery on a scale not seen since the Catholics sacked Byzantium during the Fourth Crusade.

[indio55555]

4. The more I see this bailout plan the more I don’t like it.

The senate passed the damn thing because some Puerto Rican rum makers and wooden arrows? There’s something wrong with this.

[SahaleArm]

6. Sorry CA the borrowing rate is 10% - Buffet set the floor

Just because you don't like the current rates doesn't mean the market is frozen. If CA floated bonds yielding 10% they would have no problem raising money. The cost of money just went up.

[depakid]

39. Unreasonably high rates is, for all intents and purposes the same as a freeze

[SahaleArm]

41. Then they should raise taxes or cut services

Just because CA is unwilling to rid of Prop-13 is not a reason to go running to the Feds.

[depakid]

44. Geting rid of prop 13 would cost EVEN MORE people to default on their mortagages

California needs to raise revenue alright, but at the presebt time, that exactly the wrong way to do it.

Id you want to do something positive, get rid of the supermajority requirements that the Republicans abuse year after year.

[SahaleArm]

67. LOL - Prop 13 helped create the damn property bubble.

Prop 13 should have been limited to Seniors, no inheritance and no commercial. This bubble is going to burst and property prices in CA will fall hard; so far we've just seen the tip of the iceberg.

[happygoluckytoyou]

7. MR FREEZE!!! Arnold... thought you had some "secret plan", it has been YEARS and .......... NOTHING!

[Joe Bacon]

71. Screw You, Arnold! You vetoed Single Payer again!

I can't wait for the Prison Guards Union to pass those Recall petition!

[Hugin]

11. Isn't that why Davis was recalled?

Budget problems.

[tandot]

14. This time they passed the budget 85 days late

and had to fire about 10,000 part-time employees and cancel contracts because they ran out of money. What I've read so far is that they won't be hired back.

Arnold is doing a piss-poor job as are the legislators. Some people are pushing for recall of him but it won't go through.

[Betsy Ross]

19. It was about money.

But Ahnold promised to repeal an increase in vehicle registration fees. Big f'ing deal. We saved $30 and lost local fire fighters' stations, library hours, teachers, school councilors, etc.

[pattmarty]

12. This IS NOT because of this so called crisis, this has been...........

.........building for quite some time now. The Federal govt has been cutting back funds to state governments for over 20 yrs now. It's just going to be worse now because the state governments have been doing exactly what the Federal Govt has been doing for so long, borrowing to stay afloat.

[endthewar]

20. It is because of the credit crisis. They can't borrow this money.

[SahaleArm]

25. Wrong - They just want their want their money cheap.

They are not willing to pay out a high yield so they want the Feds to give them free cash.

[endthewar]

26. Perhaps they can't afford the outrageous interest rates?

Didn't Buffett sign a 10% interest deal? If that's the going rate, some states won't be able to afford credit.

[SahaleArm]

42. Raise taxes or cut services n/t

[girl gone mad]

51. They've been fiscally irresponsible and are facing a significant decline..

in tax revenue.

The risk of default is higher, so the rate should be higher.

[EFerrari]

30. That's right AND this is because of the credit freeze.

People don't seem to understand this freeze is real and every day that nothing is done, there will be more stories like this, not only here but all over the world.

[flamingdem]

46. NPR did a long segment about the credit crisis in CA today Friday October 3

No big conspiracy.

[girl gone mad]

52. There were better options than this bill..

and it's not working.

Libor-OIS spread widened to record 270+ basis points; EUR 3m LIBOR-OIS spread is at record 130+bp. TED spread was at record 360bps (TED was 11bps one month ago) on Oct 2. Money and credit markets are dysfunctional also in emerging markets. Agency bond spreads are also at highs again.

[EFerrari]

60. There is no question that there were better options than this bill.

But, I don't think we could get them under this president.

[DeepModem Mom]

13. K&R

[Javaman]

15. This whole thing sounds very enron-esque. nt

[raccoon]

16. I was just thinking, couldn't they just confiscate all the assets of Tim Belden

and all those other shithead Enron traders who ripped off California's public?

[YvonneCa]

22. Doesn't it...

...now. ;) It's JUST like Enron...only at a national level.

[kimmylavin]

18. Nice job, Mr. Schwarzenegger.

Perhaps they should stop stealing - sorry, "borrowing" - money from all of these services.
Been doing it for years.

[Peace Patriot]

21. CA had something like an $80 billion SURPLUS under Davis. It was to complete

the ripping off of that surplus--mostly by Texas energy barracudas (Enron stole $10 billion of it) that the weird 03 Recall election was rigged by Diebold and brethren, in my opinion. A good Sec of State (Democrat Kevin Shelley) had just been elected, months before. By late 2003, early 2004, he had begun to smell a rat, and was investigating Diebold. He finally sued them, for lying about the security of their machines, and demanded to see their source code, in May 04, and took several other measures to secure CA's vote (for instance, giving Californians the option to request a paper ballot) six months before the 2004 (s)election. By the end of that year, he had been driven out of office on entirely bogus corruption charges. Schwartzenegger then appointed a Republican and Diebold shill to replace him (all with the direct complicity of the new Democratic leaders in the state legislator), and that operative immediately began to undo all of Shelley's reforms.

CA went for Kerry, but, in my opinion, by 10% less than it should have (votes all stolen in Republican counties, interestingly). (Know who's the county registrar in San Diego county? The former chief Diebold salesperson in CA, Deborah Seilor!) But I'm beginning to think that the shitcanning of Kevin Shelley had more to do with the 03 Recall than with the 04 charade of Bush-Cheney's re-(s)election. There were lots of weird and smelly things about that Recall coup, but the most relevant one is likely the fast-tracking of Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia touchscreens and other "TRADE SECRET" code (with virtually no audit) voting machines, all over the state, by the previous Sec of State, Republican Bill Jones, who then went to work for Sequoia! (One of Shelley's first acts in office was to ban "revolving door" employment.) Shelley had barely had time to put his name on the door, when the Recall occurred.

Next thing we know, the Davis administration lawsuits against Enron went away (also Shelley's lawsuit against Diebold).

So Schwatzenegger is crying slimebag crocodile tears about CA's budget. He was the "terminator" of every effort to save its surplus, and of everyone who had helped create that surplus in the first place (the Davis administration and the old Democratic leadership in the legislature). His job was to help erase our memories that it ever existed.

[tandot]

23. I bet some people now regret the recall of Davis.

I live in Northern CA (Placer County) and it isn't any better than San Diego. Too many Republicans here.

[melody]

31. Everybody regrets the recall of Davis n/t

[Trillo]

28. It seems corporations have more pull than states.

States must borrow money, but Wall Street gets sweetheart deals. hmmm

[Betty]

29. why not bypass these criminal banks altogether?

instead of giving money to the people who caused this mess and then hoping they lend it to businesses and local governments, why not take the money and loan it directly, and the interest charged goes right back to the taxpayers?

[xxqqqzme]

32. Hey steroid boy -

where's all that 'waste' you were going to eliminate? The 'audit that would reveal millions? That dastardly vehicle registration increase that you promised (and did) eliminate to the detriment of city and county governments. Imagine my surprise when it was announced last week that YOU had raised vehicle registration fees.

What a f*cking disaster. Are we finished w/ B movie actor governors yet California?

[wvbygod]

34. WHy do the other 49 states not need such a rescue?

What is so special about CA?

[truthisfreedom]

43. I believe Mass has the same problem, and it's spreading county by county across the nation.

It's not limited to CA.

[slackmaster]

49. New Mexico, Maine, and Massachusetts are having similar problems

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calif3-2008oct03,0,5726760.story

What is so special about CA?

If you don't live here, don't disrespect our specialness.

[bhikkhu]

53. It won't be long. State revenues are all down.

If it need be said, thanks again, *.

[MichiganVote]

35. What utter bullshit...get in line California, Michigan is near depression levels

and has been that way for 7 and a 1/2 years.

[melody]

56. Do you know how many states California supports?

We're the 6th largest economy in the world -- bigger than most countries. The problem is Arnold is a dishonest ass who cut vital services instead of raising taxes. Davis had us at a surplus.

You know, this hating on California comes from the right and the left ... and both sides are equally "rational".

[MichiganVote]

57. I don't hate any state and for the record, people were in love with Mi.

when it was making money with auto and manufacturing. So cry me a river. Time for Arnold to raise taxes on the wealthy---and you DO have plenty of those.

[melody]

58. We'll be just fine, is my point

And if it wasn't for California, Michigan wouldn't even be able to pay for its school system.

I would never applaud Michigan having problems.

[Zhade]

36. Man, isn't he going to be surprised when it's denied.

Arnold, you putz, this corporate giveaway isn't for US. It's for the crooks who fucked up the economy in the first place.

[flamingdem]

47. I hope he goes terminator on them! We deserve to see some fireworks

from AHNULD!

[Hannah Bell]

54. he's one of them - why would he be surprised? he WANTS to cut, this will give him the cover.

[roamer65]

48. Time for the Federal Reserve to open the discount window to state governments.

[melody]

59. It astounds me, the hatred toward my home state

Massachusetts has the same problem but I don't remember an entire thread suggesting that Massachusetts "deserves it" or "should rot".

California has very few truly rich people. The majority of us are working stiffs just like you. Even our rich tend to be the working rich -- performers and the like. And if you pay attention, you'll notice how many *Californians* come to the assistance of other states.

[lligrd]

61. I Think That Hatred Comes From The Right Wing

because we haven't supported them. I don't see any hatred in this thread.

[melody]

62. I do -- read through some of the remarks n/t

[lligrd]

63. I Think You Are Just Missing Implicit Sarcasm

and some who just wish their States would get equal attention.

[melody]

64. No, I'm not talking about Heather's post

I got into a whole thread with someone from Michigan who thinks we are "getting what we deserve".

[lligrd]

65. I Read That Thread And Didn't Take It That Way

I think it falls in to the category of States that think they deserve some attention too.

[melody]

66. I don't know what to call that kind of attitude but hateful

It wasn't merely suggesting that attention be paid but attacking us as Californians. It's only one of many such posts today.

[SahaleArm]

68. CA has serious Tax imbalances that need to be fixed.

Removing Prop-13 (or limiting it to Seniors with no inheritance) is a start but the 3rd rail will never be touched. The top tax bracket (9.3%) starts at 44k which is absurdly low.

[Blue_Tires]

69. i thought arnie was the self-described budget-balancing financial wizard?

he only said it a million times during the recall

[KakistocracyHater]

70. see, I told you he should have kept fed tax

money for CA & NOT paid "Pentagon taxes". First the telecoms get placed beyond the long arm of the law & now the Banksters are also above the law-I told you this would happen. The Country Club Class wants to be rid of democracies-period. No ifs, no &s, no buts, no exceptions.

Solution: damaging the markets of America is an act of terrorism so says the Patriot Act. Freeze & confiscate all assets of Banksters, since they have declared themselves immune to the laws of the United States rescind their citizenship status & jail them. This also applies to their European counterparts, since they too are pursuing the same course: putting themselves above the law of every Nation-State.

Next?