INCREASE YOUR GENERAL KNOWLEDGE!Part 4

It's 11.40am as I type out my post due for tomorrow! yayiee. For once, I'm on time! haha. :P

Now I'm sure that's a good start sweethearts! So please appreciate my punctuality!!!Today's speciality about the post will be that it will NOT BE speaking about an article FROM The Economist! 

This one's from International Herald Tribune. And this time,the topic's my favouriteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Yep, you guessed it right indeed! - POLITICS! 

however, like I mentioned earlier, you will realise that the range of subject matters that I will cover tend to be interlinked most of the times.

So this one too, won't be any different. It has finance,welfare of society concerned as always and what the government intends to do about it.

I will stop commenting about it and dive right into the post for today! (:

____________________________________________________________

Bush's Idea Of Coping With The Crisis!

When George Bush was declared as a president, one of his goals for the U.SA was to ensure homeownership for all americans. He encouraged loans and other developments on the housing sector.He did not,in any sense, predicted that he would be facing such a deadly global financial crisis. He did not, in his wildest dreams, would have thought of bailing out on American International Group.

Yes, he did manage to successfully achieve his target. The homeownership in U.S.A did increase. However, he neglected the opportunity cost in doing so. Many people, who could not afford, took prime/sub-prime loans and they are the ones who are MOST affected by this crisis. The very rich are completely unaffected. The rich but unstable ones,mainly those who rely too much on stock market and their businesses have crashed.  Now I don't have to talk about the middle and lower income level groups. You should get the idea.

However, on a whole, the Bush Team focused mostly on making big talks about "terrorism and war" , they also cut taxes and privatised social security. Yet, the only reason they had their economy rising was due to their rising values for housing. 

Since this issue is very prevalent,especially in our current context,  I won't rephrase or summarise the article I came across from IHT much. I shall "ctrl+c and ctrl+v" some relevant excerpts from it instead.

So here you go :

"

WASHINGTON : "We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home." — President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

The global financial system was teetering on the edge of collapse when President George W. Bush and his economics team huddled in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a briefing that, in the words of one participant, "scared the hell out of everybody."

It was Sept. 18. Lehman Brothers had just gone belly-up, overwhelmed by toxic mortgages. Bank of America had swallowed Merrill Lynch in a hastily arranged sale. Two days earlier, Bush had agreed to pump $85 billion into the failing insurance giant American International Group.

"

"

Bush, according to several people in the room, paused for a single, stunned moment to take it all in.

"How," he wondered aloud, "did we get here?"

Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, "faced with the prospect of a global meltdown" with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.

"

"

"The Bush administration took a lot of pride that homeownership had reached historic highs," Snow said in an interview. "But what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost."

For much of the Bush presidency, the White House was preoccupied by terrorism and war; on the economic front, its pressing concerns were cutting taxes and privatizing Social Security. The housing market was a bright spot: ever-rising home values kept the economy humming, as owners drew down on their equity to buy consumer goods and pack their children off to college.

"

"

Today, millions of Americans are facing foreclosure, homeownership rates are virtually no higher than when Bush took office, Fannie and Freddie are in a government conservatorship, and the bailout cost to taxpayers could run in the trillions.

As the economy has shed jobs — 533,000 last month alone — and his party has been punished by irate voters, the weakened president has granted his Treasury secretary extraordinary leeway in managing the crisis.

Never once, Paulson said in a recent interview, has Bush overruled him. "I've got a boss," he explained, who "understands that when you're dealing with something as unprecedented and fast-moving as this we need to have a different operating style."

Paulson and other senior advisers to Bush say the administration has responded well to the turmoil, demonstrating flexibility under difficult circumstances. "There is not any playbook," Paulson said.

"

"

Last week, Fox News asked Bush if he was worried about being the Herbert Hoover of the 21st century.

"No," Bush replied. "I will be known as somebody who saw a problem and put the chips on the table to prevent the economy from collapsing."

But in private moments, aides say, the president is looking inward. During a recent ride aboard Marine One, the presidential helicopter, Bush sounded a reflective note.

"We absolutely wanted to increase homeownership," Tony Fratto, his deputy press secretary, recalled him saying. "But we never wanted lenders to make bad decisions."

"

_______________________________________________________________________________

If you're tempted to read more on the article,

here's the link : http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/21/business/21admin.php?page=1

What I've provided is only few excerpts from the first 2 pages. This article is thoroughly well-discussed over 7pages. I would recommend this one. If not reading it all, do a quick scan through the whole article and catch the striking bits.

Hope I have allowed deeper understanding of what's going on in U.S.A and what's the root problem causing the crisis.

Have a great day ahead darlls! 

lovee

insaneintelligence.(:

-333-