Another Bailout Looming on the Horizon?

[Steve_A]

Hi peaceandlove,

In the UK there is a saying, "What goes around, comes around".

Do you think that we could be coming to the age of the 'Pony Express' again.

It would be great to see this as a cost cutting measure. I'm also sure the carbon gasses will be greatly reduced, however horse kak would become somewhat of a problem, especially with the larger parcel carriers.

Best regards,

Steve

Originally Posted by peaceandlove

Post #4 Mainstream Media Bailout Bill Introduced 3/28/2009


Postal Chief Says Post Office Running Out of Money

Last week, the post office said it planned to offer early retirement to 150,000 workers and is eliminating 1,400 management positions and closing six of its 80 district offices in cost-cutting efforts. Potter said he expects 10,000 to 15,000 workers to accept the early retirement offer.

Mar 25 02:09 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) - The post office will run out of money this year unless it gets help, Postmaster General John Potter told Congress on Wednesday as he sought permission to cut delivery to five days a week.

"We are facing losses of historic proportion. Our situation is critical," Potter told a House panel.

The agency lost $2.8 billion last year and is looking at much larger losses this year. Reducing mail delivery from six days to five days a week could save $3.5 billion annually, Potter said.

Potter also urged changes in how the post office pre-pays for retiree health care to cut its annual costs by $2 billion.

If the Postal Service does run out of money, the lingering question, Potter told the House Oversight post office subcommittee, is which bills will be paid and which will not. Ensuring the payment of workers' salaries comes first, he said, but other bills may have to wait.

Article continues: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

[peaceandlove]

Originally Posted by Steve_A

Hi peaceandlove,

In the UK there is a saying, "What goes around, comes around".

Do you think that we could be coming to the age of the 'Pony Express' again.

It would be great to see this as a cost cutting measure. I'm also sure the carbon gasses will be greatly reduced, however horse kak would become somewhat of a problem, especially with the larger parcel carriers.

Best regards,

Steve

Blessings Steve,

Hard to say where this is going to go.

Perhaps, a 'ROBOT EXPRESS' with robot ponies and robot riders!

Obviously not everyone can receive their mail via the internet, so instead of delivering mail door to door are we going to see some sort of mailbox centers where the individual would have to travel to pick up their mail?

Unless they expand the current post offices to allow enough boxes to accommodate all addresses, I see locked postal boxes in centralized locations for regular mail, and limited delivery and pick-up of parcels.

Perhaps a fee would be charged semi-annually for delivery direct to homes and offices?

Just another potential looming tax and blooming burden on the US citizen, struggling already.

RON PAUL 2012, or maybe his son RAND PAUL?

"The sooner the government gets out of the way, the better." Ron Paul

Best Regards to You,

PaL

Just had another thought, is it against the Constitution to have relatives in The White House? Ron Paul for President and Rand Paul for Vice President!

[peaceandlove]

THE 'UNINTENDED' BAILOUT

Pulp Nonfiction
100 Days

by CHRISTOPHER HAYES

April 2, 2009
This article appeared in the April 20, (appears to be a typo on date or month) 2009 edition of The Nation.

Excerpt:

Thanks to an obscure tax provision, the United States government stands to pay out as much as $8 billion this year to the ten largest paper companies. And get this: even though the money comes from a transportation bill whose manifest intent was to reduce dependence on fossil fuel, paper mills are adding diesel fuel to a process that requires none in order to qualify for the tax credit. In other words, we are paying the industry--handsomely--to use more fossil fuel. "Which is," as a Goldman Sachs report archly noted, the "opposite of what lawmakers likely had in mind when the tax credit was established."

The massive tax subsidy has barely been reported in the press, but it's caused a stir in the paper industry, which is struggling to stay profitable in the teeth of the recession. "Everybody's talking about it," paper industry analyst Brian McClay told me. "In the US and elsewhere in the world--in Canada and Brazil and Chile and Europe."

On March 24 International Paper (IP) announced it had received its first check from the IRS for a one-month period this past fall. The total? A whopping $71.6 million. "It's probably close to a billion a year of cash," McClay said. "If you look at the economics of this business, to make that kind of money today you'd have to be on another planet." IP's stock rose 12 per-
cent on the news.

Complete article: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090420/hayes

[peaceandlove]

U.S. to Offer Aid to Life Insurers

APRIL 8, 2009
By SCOTT PATTERSON, DEBORAH SOLOMON AND LESLIE SCISM

The Treasury Department has decided to extend bailout funds to a number of struggling life-insurance companies, helping an industry that is a linchpin of the U.S. financial system, people familiar with the matter said.

The department is expected to announce the expansion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program to aid the ailing industry within the next several days, these people said.

The news will come as a relief to a number of iconic American companies that have suffered big losses made worse by generous promises to buyers of some investment products. Shares of life insurers have fallen more than 40% this year. Their troubles led to a string of rating-agency downgrades that, in a vicious cycle, made it more difficult for some insurers to raise funds.

The life-insurance industry is an important piece of the U.S. financial system. Millions of Americans have entrusted their families' financial safety to these companies, so keeping them on solid footing is crucial to maintaining confidence. If massive numbers of customers sought to redeem their policies, it could cause a cash crunch for some companies. And because insurers invest the premiums they receive from customers into bonds, real estate and other investments, they are major holders of securities. If they needed to sell off holdings to raise cash, it could cause markets to tumble.

Article and video continues: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1239...ml#mod=testMod

Source: http://solari.com/blog/

[peaceandlove]

This sounds eerily like a bailout to me!
U.S. government to buy 17,600 American-made autos

Friday, April 10, 2009

Washington Business Journal

President Barack Obama said the U.S. government will buy 17,600 new, fuel-efficient (I wonder what that means, sometimes it's wiser to drive the car you have instead of paying an outrageous price for a new vehicle) vehicles from ailing American automakers by June 1.

Obama made the announcement Thursday in a statement issued by the White House, saying the General Services Administration will spend $285 million of Recovery Act Funds to purchase the vehicles for the government fleet.

Article continues: http://www.bizjournals.com/washingto...6/daily84.html

[alyscat]

Sounds to me like they might be buying more fuel efficient cars. I wish they'd hold off and buy REAL fuel efficient cars - The gov (at all levels, down to local) buys cars every year, so this might not be such a big thing, other than the fact that it's the feds, but think of all the vehicles you see around military bases, etc. This may not be much more than what they are already doing. I don't have the figures in front of me, and don't have time to go look.
alys

Originally Posted by peaceandlove

This sounds eerily like a bailout to me!
U.S. government to buy 17,600 American-made autos

Friday, April 10, 2009

Washington Business Journal

President Barack Obama said the U.S. government will buy 17,600 new, fuel-efficient (I wonder what that means, sometimes it's wiser to drive the car you have instead of paying an outrageous price for a new vehicle) vehicles from ailing American automakers by June 1.

Obama made the announcement Thursday in a statement issued by the White House, saying the General Services Administration will spend $285 million of Recovery Act Funds to purchase the vehicles for the government fleet.

Article continues: http://www.bizjournals.com/washingto...6/daily84.html

[seekntruth]

The bailouts are a smoke-screen.. they are nothing more than a robbery of the American taxpayer by Wall Street and the biggest banks. The same banks that get the bailout money are the banks that are loaning the bailout money to the government. The banks have been getting the money from China, Saudi Arabia and Japan mainly.

But, recently the Chinese have begun to secure their collateral within the U.S. They will ultimately be the actual owners of much of the real estate that goes into foreclosure, especially in the western part of the country. They in essence are peacefully making a beachhead on the North American continent.

They also have a further plan that is fully explained here -

http://www.kickthemallout.com/article.php/Video-Bird_Flu_Hoax_Exposed

Are you getting the picture yet?

[peaceandlove]

Six Insurers Named to Get U.S. Taxpayer Aid

(I posted the whole article since this is a subscription site, although it is free.)

By ERIC DASH and DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Published: May 15, 2009

The insurers getting bailout money have suffered, but not to the same extent as American International Group.

Six major insurance companies have received preliminary approval to get billions of dollars in fresh capital as part of the government’s financial rescue program, a Treasury Department spokesman confirmed on Thursday.

The department said the Hartford Financial Services Group, Prudential Financial, Lincoln National, Allstate, Ameriprise and Principal Financial Group have all received approval for capital infusions, subject to terms still to be negotiated.

The Hartford, in a statement released late Thursday, said it was told it could receive $3.4 billion under the program.

Applying for the additional capital “was a prudent step for the Hartford, particularly given the continued economic uncertainty,” said Ramani Ayer, the company’s chairman and chief executive.

“These funds would further fortify our capital resources and provide us with additional financial flexibility during one of the most volatile market climates in our nation’s history,” Mr. Ayer continued. The other companies did not immediately provide details about the status of their application.

Under the program, each company is eligible to receive investments worth up to 3 percent of its total assets. Based on the Treasury formula, the amount of capital available to the other companies would be at least several billion dollars each.

While the extension of additional capital to insurers had been widely expected, these are the first companies that have been identified to receive aid after the near-collapse of American International Group. According to the Treasury spokesman, Andrew Williams, these insurers qualified for capital infusions under the department’s Capital Purchase Program because each had restructured itself as a bank holding company and met the November deadline for the program.

Hundreds of other financial institutions are still in the pipeline for review and will be approved on a rolling basis, the Treasury Department said.

As the financial crisis erupted last fall, A.I.G. became the first insurer to receive substantial government aid before a broad-based program to help financial firms was established. Its problems stemmed from complex derivatives that greatly increased its obligations to its trading partners.

This recent group of insurers is far less troubled than A.I.G., but they still have been hurt by the collapse in real estate prices. Amid the housing boom, many insurers invested in complex mortgage-related securities that have since turned sour, weakening their balance sheets.

Indeed, several insurance companies took extraordinary steps to qualify for taxpayer money, which has become even more attractive as the economic environment has worsened.

For example, Lincoln National and the Hartford both bought up smaller banks to qualify as savings banks, which made them eligible for government support.

The insurers followed investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which received emergency waivers from the Federal Reserve to become bank holding companies last fall.

GMAC, the auto lender, and American Express, the credit card company, also have transformed themselves into banks to qualify for government support.

“You want the regulatory program to be as broad as possible,” said Scott E. Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Roundtable, a group of the nation’s biggest financial services companies. “If all it took was regulatory gymnastics, that expands the program.”

The Capital Purchase Program is part of the sweeping bailout of financial institutions that grew out of the panic that hit in mid-September.

At that time, the Treasury Department, with the backing of the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, asked Congress for $700 billion to buy up mortgage-backed securities whose value had dropped sharply or had become impossible to sell, in what he called the Troubled Asset Rescue Plan, or TARP.

As the financial crisis worsened, the TARP plan was modified and expanded to include various support programs set up by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, ranging from an ad hoc temporary guarantee program for money market funds to the purchase of preferred shares in various financial institutions.

Subscription site: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/bu...er=rss&emc=rss

[Northern Boy]

Originally Posted by peaceandlove

U.S. to Offer Aid to Life Insurers

APRIL 8, 2009
By SCOTT PATTERSON, DEBORAH SOLOMON AND LESLIE SCISM

The Treasury Department has decided to extend bailout funds to a number of struggling life-insurance companies, helping an industry that is a linchpin of the U.S. financial system, people familiar with the matter said.

The department is expected to announce the expansion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program to aid the ailing industry within the next several days, these people said.

The news will come as a relief to a number of iconic American companies that have suffered big losses made worse by generous promises to buyers of some investment products. Shares of life insurers have fallen more than 40% this year. Their troubles led to a string of rating-agency downgrades that, in a vicious cycle, made it more difficult for some insurers to raise funds.

The life-insurance industry is an important piece of the U.S. financial system. Millions of Americans have entrusted their families' financial safety to these companies, so keeping them on solid footing is crucial to maintaining confidence. If massive numbers of customers sought to redeem their policies, it could cause a cash crunch for some companies. And because insurers invest the premiums they receive from customers into bonds, real estate and other investments, they are major holders of securities. If they needed to sell off holdings to raise cash, it could cause markets to tumble.

Article and video continues: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1239...ml#mod=testMod

Source: http://solari.com/blog/

I read somewhere yesterday that now that the G20 summit is done they are going to let the big banks go bust as we all know they did not address the derivatives problem and as you say the Insurance industry is now lining up for there hand out . Can you Imagine getting in an auto accident and finding out your insurance coverage is now no good because your company has very quietly gone out of business because of lack of funds