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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Barack Obama came into office preaching hope and promising change. Nine months later, hope is diminishing and change has yet to arrive. From the cratering economy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from warrantless wiretaps to a fatally compromised health care plan, from banker bailouts to ongoing rendition flights, this new administration governs a lot like the old. In spite of this, many progressive outlets have gone soft on Obama. We haven't. That's why so many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and are prepared for the fierce battles to come.
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Today's Stories October 29, 2009 Michael Neumann October 28, 2009 Moshe Adler Dave Lindorff Frank Joseph Smecker Alexandra Early M. Shahid Alam Vijay Prashad John Ross Franklin Lamb Gregory Travis Susan Galleymore Website of the Day October 27, 2009 Mike Whitney Patrick Cockburn Stewart J. Lawrence Alan Farago Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Bouthaina Shaaban Brian M. Downing Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around Iain Boal Carl Finamore Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day October 26, 2009 Bill Quigley / Paul Craig Roberts Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Michael Snedeker Shamus Cooke David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Patrick Bond Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 23-25, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Christopher Ketcham Jeff Gore Gareth Porter Jayne Lyn Stahl Saul Landau Mike Whitney Nikolas Kozloff Ron Jacobs Russell Mokhiber Missy Beattie Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman David Ker Thomson Rannie Amiri Ronnie Cummins Norm Kent Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 22, 2009 Dan Pearson / Jonathan Cook Paul Craig Roberts The US as Failed State Mark Engler Johann Hari Brian M. Downing Eric Toussaint Tom Mountain Israel Shamir Charles Thomson Website of the Day October 21, 2009 Pam Martens Linn Washington, Jr. Liaquat Ali Khan D. K. Wilson Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Stephen Fleischman Patrice Higonnet Binoy Kampmark Kevin Coval / Website of the Day October 20, 2009 Sharon Smith Tariq Ali Mark Brenner Bouthaina Shaaban Michael D. Yates Dean Baker Dave Lindorff John Ross Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Kevin Zeese Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day October 19, 2009 Mike Whitney Greg Moses John Ross Michael Donnelly Jayne Lyn Stahl Eric Walberg Russell Mokhiber Barbara Rose Johnston John V. Whitbeck Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day October 16-18, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Carl Ginsburg Ralph Nader Nikolas Kozloff Carlo Galli Dave Lindorff Catherine Rottenberg
/ Neve Gordon Marshall Auerback Nicola Nasser Windy Cooler James L. Secor Ron Jacobs Wes Jackson Jesse Lerner-Kinglake David Ker Thomson Against Leaders Missy Beattie Emily Ratner Stephen Martin Michael Snedeker Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Peter Stone Brown Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 15, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Brian M. Downing Ramzy Baroud Danny Weil M. Idrees Ahmad Margaret Kimberley Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Harvey Wasserman Nirmal Ghosh Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 14, 2009 Michael Neumann M. Reza Pirbhai Gareth Porter Paul Craig Roberts John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon Ralph Nader Dean Baker Charles Modiano Nadia Hijab Walter Brasch Website of the Day October 13, 2009 Peter Linebaugh Shamus Cooke John Ross Brendan Cooney Frida Berrigan Yves Engler David Macaray Dave Lindorff Mark Weisbrot Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 12, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg Jessica Arents Eamonn McCann Bill Hatch Sen. Russell Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Gideon Levy Iyad Burnat Alan Cabal Dan Bacher Website of the Day October 9-11, 2009 Alexander Cockburn James Bovard Kathleen and Bill Christison Andy Worthington Marc Levy Tariq Ali Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Alan Nasser Jack Z. Bratich Steve Breyman David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Paul Buchheit Jim Goodman Missy Beattie Michael Leonardi Nadia Hijab Mel Packer David Macaray James T. Phillips Charles R. Larson Michael Donnelly David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 8, 2009 Saul Landau Paul Fitzgerald / Linn Washington, Jr. Marshall Auerback Dave Lindorff David Rosen Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee John V. Walsh Stewart Lawrence Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 7, 2009 Brendan Cooney Paul Craig Roberts Dean Baker Jonathan Cook John Stanton Joanne Mariner Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman Sen. Russell Feingold Mary Lynn Cramer Website of the Day October 6, 2009 Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Jonathan Cook Boris Kagarlitsky Iain Boal Ron Jacobs John Ross Michael Dickinson Stephen Fleischman Ira Glunts Missy Beattie Website of the Day October 5, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Harry Browne Sara Mann Omar Barghouti Shamus Cooke Brenda Norrell Fred Gardner Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap Website of the Day October 2-4, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Diana Johnstone Greg Moses William Blum Brian Cloughley Russell Mokhiber John Ross Ellen Brown David Ker Thomson David Macaray Gary Engler Robert Fantina Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer Anthony Papa Joe Allen Harry Browne Ron Jacobs Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Plucking the TurkeysHousing Rebound? Not So FastBy MIKE WHITNEY Senate Democrats are a dogged bunch. And they're not easily deterred from their primary duty of kowtowing the big banks. Case in point, the first-time home-buyer tax credit, the controversial bill which provides an $8,000 tax credit (re: subsidy) for new home buyers. Changes in the bill, will provide a $6,500 credit to homeowners "earning up to $250,000 for couples" if they have lived in their home for five years. The Senate is pressing ahead with the bill despite overwhelming disapproval from liberal and conservative economists. Their main objection? It's a waste of money. The Brookings Institute estimates that the $8,000 credit costs taxpayers $43,000 per home. This is based on the fact that 85% of the nearly 2 million buyers were planning to buy a home anyway. The new add-ons to the bill mean that its final costs will be much greater than originally anticipated. The senate bill is nothing but a $6,500 bribe to keep people in their homes and out of foreclosure. It's another giveaway to the banks so they don't have to face the mountain of debt they generated through fraudulent loans. The banks aren't satisfied with merely blowing up the financial system and extracting trillions of dollars from taxpayers to fix the mess they left behind. Now they want to ensure that they're a constant drain on public resources, by diverting dollars earmarked for healthcare or state aid into broken institutions run by high-stakes gamblers. The Congress has played a critical role in this fiasco. The Senate has also shrugged off the many reports of fraud related to the home-buyer credit. Here's an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal which summarizes hundreds of similar stories:
Does it bother senators that the public is being plucked like a Thanksgiving turkey, once again? Everything that has been done to prop up the ailing housing market, has really been aimed at helping the banks. The Fed has launched the biggest government intervention in history-- purchasing more than $900 billion in mortgage-backed securities, $200 billion in agency debt, and another $300 billion in long-term US Treasuries--all to stabilize a market which was sabotaged by the Fed's low interest rates and the banks abyssal lending standards. Private label "securitized" mortgages have defaulted at 5-times the rate of conventional loans, clear proof of fraud. The Fed's capital injections will eventually add $2 trillion to the aggregate value of the residential real estate market. The Fed is doing its best to prevent the market from clearing by keeping home prices artificially high. That's the only way to avoid more bank failures. The Fed's intervention is a sign of desperation. In the long-run, the action is unlikely to have any bearing on prices which will be determined by incomes and supply. Housing inventory is still unusually high, which is putting downward pressure on prices. Distress sales (short sales, foreclosures etc) represent 45 percent of all home sales, which reduces the number of creditworthy buyers for organic sales. So, what has the Fed's multi-trillion dollar intervention achieved aside from creating a fake market with fake interest rates, fake financing, fake down-payment ($8,000 first-time home buyer giveaway) and fake media coverage of a fake rebound. Not much, really. The Wall Street Journal's James Hagerty sums it up like this in "Uncle Sam Adds 5% to Prices of Homes, Goldman Says":
Over $1 trillion has been committed so far, and prices have budged a mere 5%. Does Fed chair Ben Bernanke really believe this is an affordable plan? The Administration’s Making Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) will have only a marginal effect on the rate of foreclosures when the next wave of pay-option adjustable-rate mortgages and other oddball loans come due. And, when the loans reset, more banks will default pushing even more inventory onto the market at firesale prices. Foreclosures have exceeded 300,000 for the last 3 months and the inventory-backlog suggests the worst is still to come. This is from Diana Golobay at housingwire.com:
So, what can Bernanke do to head-off a bigger meltdown in housing? The Fed revealed its long-term strategy in the minutes of its September 22-23 FOMC meeting. Here's an except from the Fed's statement:
In other words, the Fed is planning to continue its quantitative easing (QE) program (monetisation) which pumps liquidity into the system and puts more downward pressure on the dollar. Bernanke is trying to inflate-away the problems in housing, but with little success. In fact, according to Robert Shiller, who created the index for measuring house prices in 20 major cities, the Fed may have generated another bubble. This is from the UK Telegraph:
Housing prices will continue to tumble through 2010 no matter what the Fed does. In fact, on Wednesday the Commerce Dept reported that sales of new one-family houses in September dropped to a rate of 402,000, down 3.8 percent from August. That's 7.8 percent below 2008, well below economists worst predictions. The news sent stocks plummeting. The sense that the economy is returning to normal, is an illusion nurtured by the financial media. This week's dismal consumer confidence data, shows that the public "isn't buying it". And, neither are investors, who continue to avoid equities despite a seven-month, 68 percent rally in global stocks. According to Bloomberg, "Almost 40 percent of investors and analysts in the latest quarterly survey... say they are still hunkering down. U.S. investors are even more cautious, with more than 50 percent saying they are in a defensive crouch." The mood is grim. The public has lost faith in the media, in the Fed, and in public institutions. The "cheery predictions" are no longer having any effect. No doubt, this will make it even harder to stabilize the teetering housing market. Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com
Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Obama and Black America Ten months into Obama-time, the plight of black Americans is terrible. Yet overwhelmingly they rally behind the president. In a powerful report from the Deep South Kevin Alexander Gray asks the question: what should the black political agenda be? Mark Rudd counterposes “organizing” with “activism” and describes what it will take to build a movement. H. Bruce Franklin gives a chronology of the march into Afghanistan. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
"Powerful and shocking ..
Waiting for
Lightning
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