|
|
Calling All CounterPunchers!
|
home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
Calling All CounterPunchers!
Heading Into the Home StretchWe are now entering our third week of fundraising. As you can see from the donation gauge there on
the right, some of you have given us a great start. Some of you, but not enough of you! To those who have not yet given, CounterPunch needs your financial support!
It’s as true as it was at the start of Week One. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $75,000 over the next week or we'll be forced to seriously cut back the operation of our website.
CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. Yes, the continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. We get thousands of emails from you every day. Our website receives millions of hits and nearly 100,000 readers each day-and those numbers grow by the month.
Unlike many other outfits, we don't hit you up for money every month ... or even every quarter, like our friends at Antiwar.com. We only ask for your support once a year. But when we ask, we mean it. Please, use our secure server make a tax-deductible donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a subscription and a gift sub for someone or one of our award-winning books (or a crate of books!) as holiday presents. (We won't call you to shake you down or sell your name to any lists--even Dick Cheney's.)
To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683
Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky, Alya, Deva and Kimberly
CounterPunch
PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558
|
Today's Stories November 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Kim Nicolini Cpt. Paul Watson November 7 / 9, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Vijay Prashad Tariq Ali Jean Bricmont John V. Whitbeck Saul Landau Peter Morici Lawrence Velvel Karyn Strickler Nativo V. Lopez Christopher Fons Alan Farago David Yearsley Christopher Brauchli Samah Sabawi Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi Beth Sherouse Patrick Irelan Stephen Martin Richard Rhames J. Murray Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
|
November 10, 2008 Throwing Good Money After Bad at AIGPaulson's FollyBy PETER MORICI The Treasury is injecting another $27 billion into AIG and raising the taxpayers’ investment to $150 billon. Secretary Paulson appears more intent on helping his pals on Wall Street than protecting taxpayer interests. AIG has solid businesses in industrial, commercial and life insurance, but like a lot of financial firms, was attracted to easy profits writing credit default swaps on mortgage backed bonds—so called collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). AIG received fees to guarantee repayment of those mortgages, or the funds obtained through foreclosures when homeowners defaulted. Like most on Wall Street, AIG executives believed home prices would rise faster than household incomes forever, so these CDOs really bore little risk. This credit default swap business was outside AIG’s highly-regulated, solid insurance businesses but was backed by the value of those businesses. Essentially, if the CDOs fell too much in value, AIG pledged the value of those businesses. If an abnormal number of the mortgages failed, the held to maturity value of the CDOs would fall, and obligations would trigger for AIG to post collateral. When that happened in 2007, AIG deposited cash or other liquid assets with the investors holding the CDOs. With the housing market so depressed by the summer of 2007, AIG could not raise enough cash to meet all its obligations. On September 16, the Federal Reserve provided $85 billion in loans to AIG in exchange for warrants—the right to buy common stock—equal to 79.9 percent of the company. AIG was to pay 8.5 percent above Libor for the first $85 billion. AIG was to use the loans to honor obligations to holders of the credit default swaps, and AIG was to sell parts of its insurance businesses to repay the loans to the Federal Reserve. That loan proved inadequate, and the Fed advanced another $38 billion on October 9. The $123 billon was not enough to finance AIG’s short-term credit default swap obligations, and it cannot sell enough pieces of its good insurance businesses to pay back the Federal Reserve in the current environment. The interest rates on the loans were lowered, in part, because large shareholders complained about heavy handed government action. The monies will be used to set up two special funds. The first will seek to buy up some of the CDOs that have declined in value for about 50 cents on the dollar, permitting AIG to recoup its collateral paid in cash. This fund will not buy up the most troubled CDOs, whose values are even lower than 50 cents on the dollar. The second fund will be used to solve liquidity problems at AIG’s securities lending business. It rents securities to short sellers in the stock markets. This is all folly. The government assumes greater risks without getting benefits for the taxpayer. Many firms who purchased the original credit default swaps from AIG have used the collateral posted by AIG on the less risky CDOs for other purposes and may not want to sell AIG their CDOs. Also, many of the swaps have been resold to firms that don’t hold the CDOs, as part of complex derivatives transactions. The short selling business is a whole new headache, and it should make taxpayers ask, what else is lying around at AIG. If the deal works out, AIG executives get to keep their jobs; but if the plan fails, the U.S. government may get stuck holding the bag on billions of dollars of false promises to pay from AIG. Its warrants may prove not worth very much as AIG’s obligations overwhelm the value of its businesses. If AIG can’t make it on the money the taxpayers have already apparently squandered, then the Treasury should simply exercise its warrants, take control of AIG, and sell off AIG’s solid insurance businesses for what they are worth. The Treasury can buy back the CDOs for common shares in the company and reorganize the new AIG with more responsible management. The executives at AIG certainly have not behaved well since the first bailout. They have enjoyed lavish golf retreats in California and luxurious hunting trips in Britain. While the American taxpayer make monthly tax payment to Washington, AIG executives bang away at birds on the English countryside. Peter Morici is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy 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 gear make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
|
New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
|
