During campaign season, when the political microscope is turned to high
power, anything mildly outrageous can be a theme for a day. Could CNBC's Rick Santelli be one of those themes for the GOP?
Two websites and a petition have sprung up since Santelli's now widely
publicized on-air rant yesterday, in a pit of traders on the floor at
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, against President Obama's $75 billion
plan to help struggling homeowners refinance, all in favor of
Santelli's proposal for a Chicago Tea Party in July.
"We're thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that wanna show up to Lake Michigan, I'm organizing," Santelli fumed yesterday. "We're gonna be dumping in some derivative securities, what do you think about that?"
Turns out Santelli may not be the one organizing after all: the conservative American Free Market Fund's American Future Fund's petition, launched yesterday afternoon, invites signers to attend such a party in Chicago in July. 3,500 people have pledged to attend, the group says, and the idea of busing people in has been floated. That's on top of two smaller sites dedicated to promoting Santelli's suggestion.
"The Chicago Tea Party of 2009 will reinvigorate that American and Patriotic spirit; one that demands respect for individual rights and property," one of the sites, www.reteaparty.com, promises.
Conservative outcry over Obama's economic policies appears to be real. Prominent blogger Michelle Malkin has promoted several small protests against the stimulus, drawing 500 protesters (by her estimate) in Denver on the day Obama signed it. Only 28 percent of Republicans supported Obama's stimulus according to Gallup, and 61 percent oppose his mortgage plan according to Rasmussen. The tops of all three network newscasts last night made mention of Santelli or related objections, and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) -- one of three Republicans in Congress to vote for the stimulus -- was jeered by protesters for the vote yesterday at a press conference in his home state.
Santelli's complaint has several built-in elements of a marketing plan: a catch phrase, an upcoming event, and an easily distributable video. If this were October, politicians would be all over the Chicago Tea Party already. Depending on how the mortgage plan continues to be received by the public (45 percent oppose the idea while 38 percent support it, according to Rasmussen), the political world may not have heard the last of Rick Santelli.
Santelli's rant is going to be just another in a long line of talking points that reverberate around the GOP/media echo chamber and gain absolutely no traction whatsoever with average Americans.
A personal anecdote: I watched the video with a few friends. We all had the same reaction: "what a dumbass." It takes a special degree of cluelessness to point to a bunch of stock traders and say, "this is America".
As for the polling data, I would point out the Rasmussen's polling traditionally skews conservative. For example, they showed a majority opposing the stimulus package at the same time Gallup, CBS, CNN, and Pew all showed a majority supporting the stimulus package. So take those numbers with a large grain of salt.
This is funny. The wealthy ranting once again about losers in the middle class. Wages for the middle class haven't gone up in 20 years. Health costs have tripled. That is if you are lucky enough to get health insurance. Credit card interest rates have sky rocketed as well as the late fees and various fees associated with them. All the while Bush told us to keep shopping. Santelli better watch out, because there may just be a populist revolt, and not the kind he's looking for. I'm sick to death of the hearing from rich people and so are a lot of other people.
Enough of Santelli's rant. Its all theatrics. Anyone can come up with a rant about anything when they have a platform like TV. But that does not mean it is valid and credible. If you ask a simple question like "is Obama's mortgage plan good? is it needed to address the problem to come out of economic diaster that America is going through?" to top 100 economists/experts in the country I can bet you that vast majority will give asswer as Yes and Yes.
Sheila C. Bair, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) likes this plan and she is a republican! She said that the plan could make a difference as early as next month. "I believe you'll start seeing a real impact in March, with meaningful, long term, sustainable modifications," Bair told ABC.
Many editorial boards like this plan. So do bankers and economists. So who cares about what Santelli has to say. He is a hardcore ideologue and when times are tough ideologues are doomed to take one to failed policies. What one needs is pragmatism. Santelli is simply exploiting his position as a TV personality.. that's all.
This Santelli thing is just total B.S.
He's a self-promoting blow-hard. Before his made-for-TV rant, who'd ever heard of the guy, other than his mom and next-door neighbor?
Anyone can gain a smidgeon of fame by saying outrageous things on cable TV. He's just following the mold of Jim Cramer and Ann Coulter. The problem is that the media echo chamber can't help themselves when it comes to these fame-seeking blowhards. It's better for ratings to put on a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic like Cramer, Coulter or Santelli, than it is to put on someone who talks in full paragraphs, like a Robert Reich, or a thousand other economists you've never heard of.
I bet you a vast majority of economists will answer NO! and NO!
Here's a good list of just a couple of economists that TEACH economists and believe that the outrageous government spending is not what our economy needs: http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/alternate_version.html
Every hard working middle class person I've talked to, both democrat and republican, is in agreement as well - this spending will only burden the middle class tax payer and their children's future and freedoms.
How does a person in congress even vote on this 1000+ page bill, not even read it, and believe it's going to work (wait, many, including VP Biden, only give it a 70% chance)! Santelli is right, our founding fathers are rolling around in their graves watching their country and its founding principles and values be destroyed by our government (and trust me, it just didn't start with Obama).
Read: the vast majority of economists at the Cato institute.
By the way, can I assume that you are commenting on the current legislation because you ave read it?
Listen Obamamorons, Santelli is hitting on a chord of total disillusionment with President Obama. He has shown a nasty anti-capitalist streak, and he is, singlehandedly talking the markets down and causing a collapse in confidence.
This is a President? No, this is a total phony inaugurated as President who does not have any idea what he is doing, and he is not about to save Capitalism, he is out to destroy it.
He is a dirty rotten scoundrel and we will lose America's pride, America's success in the economy and our prosperity because Obama is a destructive force. He has nothing to contribute, he is totally dishonest and, very unfortunately -- as long as he is President our problems will get worse, much worse.
He needs to be impeached for the high crime and misdemeanor of attempting to destroy the Constitution, take away our Bill of Rights, and he will spare no effort to subvert America.
His attitude about Israel is showing an anti-Israel bias and may cause a major war in the Middle East. I hope those of you Jews who voted for Obama (84%) will realize you made a fatal mistake.
Hey Artie, how about, instead of being part of the problem (with the namecalling, badmouthing), you get on board and be part of the solution. Impeached? Not likely. Knock of the Santorellian rants.. and roll up your sleeves and jump in and help make things better. And don't blame President Obama for the mess capitalism is in.. put it right where it belongs.. at the feet of greedy capitalists. We ALL helped MAKE this mess, now simmer down and help CLEAN it up. Do you talk just to hear your head rattle?
Seriously, the conservatives have put the US of A in the toilet for the last eight years. Thrown money at Iraq for NADA, done NADA about Israel and Palestine and kept passing regulations that allowed bankers to borrow money at 30x what any homeowner borrowed WITHOUT underlying assets! They have taken the economy to the brink! yet, Santelli choses to rant about $75B out of $700B of the TARP money to forestall foreclosures - what a bunch of hypocritical BULL!
Paris needs you!
Rick Santelli is one of the greedy Wall Street pimps that created this economic meltdown. Why doesn't he just take join Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, Goldman-Sachs, another one of the other bordellos that he made money off of while the investors got screwed?
AMEN!
marc, stop fanning the flames. this santelli business is meaningless tabloid rubbish. you can dress it up as a campaign meme all you want, but the average american isn't going to give a damn about it (as some of the comments have pointed out). there's too much talk about gop opposition to anything at all. they're out. we're in. they have to live with the consequences of the mess they created.
let's adjust our commentaries to the new reality. the GOP have virtually no power at all. And that is very, very good.
DOUBLE AMEN!
The issue for many of us who did "the right thing" is that we are continuing to be harmed directly by our own home values plummeting and indirectly by the resulting instability in the economy that is causing massive layoffs, shrinking retirement funds, and tight credit. We should not think of the Housing Stabilization Plan so much as a reward for folks who made poor choices, but as a plan to protect the rest of us from the results of those poor choices.
What Santelli ignores is that the mortgage brokers told many buyers that they could afford it. He ignores that some “educated” homeowners used the same logic the bankers and Wall Street used when they packaged together the mortgage-backed securities and CDOs – that home prices will only go up. Many other homeowners were snookered by brokers who steered them into subprime, high interest mortgages when they would have qualified for a low fixed-rate mortgage. Why on Earth is the average, fiscally uneducated person held responsible for a contract that an educated professional wrote up ... and sold to him ... to make a quick, fat profit? Why does Santelli think that mortgage brokers and bankers should get a free pass on any sort of ethical responsibility to their clients? When will it be obvious to people like Santelli that great harm was done by peddling very dangerous mortgages by very greedy investment firms.
Rick Santelli loves deregulation. He has made his career off of it. It made him wealthy! He joined CNBC from the Institutional Financial Futures and Options at Sanwa Futures, L.L.C. where he was a vice president handling institutional trading and hedge accounts for a variety of futures related products. Prior to that, Santelli worked as vice president of Institutional Futures and Options at Rand Financial Services, Inc. where he was managing director at the Derivative Products Group of Geldermann, Inc. He was vice president in charge of Interest Rate Futures and Options at the Chicago Board of Trade for Drexel, Burnham, and Lambert. Santelli began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a variety of markets including gold, lumber, CD's, T-bills, foreign currencies and livestock.
Santelli is definitely NOT the poster boy for Main Street. He could be the poster boy for the very rich who are unhappy because their party may be over.
People who think like Santelli always blame the person who was duped – why else would he call them "losers" - and despise Obama for "wasting" money borrowed from China on helping out the stupid peasants.
Anther DOUBLE AMEN. Santelli and his ilk are SICK over their loses on Wall Street. They want to blame ANYONE but their own greedy asses. Where was Santelli when $400B went into the financial market black hole?
Let the Obama censorship begin!
Having the White House comment on this is unreal.
The common people of the USA do not want to pay for all this crap. We did nothing wrong, we get up everyday, go to work, and take care of our problems.
No one bails me out for my mistakes, I suffer thru them and start over. That way I learn not to make them again.
This is stuff you should of learn while you was growing up. No one force you to buy a bigger house, many just did it for the ego trip. To bad so many need a baby sitter ( the government) to live now days. A Great Depression will kill off the weak and unintelligent and make the USA strong again, bring it on Obama.
I'm sure you have at least 17 years of mistakes you have suffered "thru".
Maybe you should read about the Great Depression (and how we got out of it) before you go hoping for another.
Have you ever heard of Banking 101? Do NOT LEND MONEY to People who CANNOT PAY YOU BACK!
Do you seriously think this about helping homeowners? This is still about the criminal bankers!
I wonder if Rick is a member of www.turnovercongress.com, this grass roots movement has already started.
The Modern Day Boston Tea Party is moving forward.
Dream On! The revolution that has started is that we are starting to take back financial markets from the greedy and corrupt - stand aside.
Santelli isn't just speaking for the wealthy alhtough liberals can't debate without using a good dose of envy.
I am middle class and have always appreciated the fact that I can compete in this country to win or lose with nothing holding me back from an opportunity but my own desire, or lack of it. So why should hard working, accountable people who made sacrifices & good choices to keep themselves solvent and out of debt, have to pay for these "morons" that Santelli refers to? When I have failed (often) I couldn't do anything but look in the mirror and learn from it.
Bankers are only partly to blame for this debacle because congress greased their skids in the form of fannie/freddie and were then forced (Obama sued Citibank) to make bad loans to poor credit risks - all in the name of "affordable housing".
WE the voters are to blame for allowing our politicians, all of them, to get away with this.
So when are we going to see an inquisition of Barney, Dodd & the rest of those miserable, spineless liberals in Washington?
Obama sued Citibank on behalf of plaintiffs who "...alleged that the Defendant-bank rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories."
He didn't force Citibank to make bad loans. He forced them to make the same loans to white people and to black people who had the same credit scores and income.
Another flash in the pan. Will soo run out of steam .
Santelli's rant yesterday, one of the bright spots in the media of the last many years is a nice unintended strike-back at the populism that will continue to reign for a couple years. I have detailed how the media since Obama/recession came into play last year around February or March have become THEMSELVES the slave-ish President to WHATEVER ENTERTAINS us. i.e. whatever entertains us is now setting policy. Anyway, read my full-scale multitudinous ideas here: http://pascalsdog.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-media-driving-recessiondepression.html
Petualant liberal whining is a festering cankersore on the ass of humanity. Santelli has absolutely struck a chord among the 92% who have sacrificed like everyone else while managing their finances in a responsible manner. Mae, I am growing nauseous at the incessant victimization rant of those who think the answer to our current housing mess is as simple as wall street greed or a cadre of unscrupulous mortgage brokers. Homeownership comes with responsibility and the hordes of mongols who have treated their home like an ATM machine while prices increased while leveraging their personal finances to the hilt should face consequences for their decisions. Safety nets are for people who face extreme dislocation via extreme circumstances. Borrowing 110% of home value when you can't afford the interest only payment in an area where prices increased markedly in a short period of time is simply stupid beyond explanation. The American consumer is swimming in debt and that debt must be unwound. To simply say credit was irresponsibly offered as if that explains the phenomenon is horrifically flimsy logic. Here's a novel idea: don't buy what you can't afford. Those paying the price are the ones who didn't think their home would rise 20% annually...who tried to make some extra payments toward principal...who didn't pull cash out of the home every six months with a refinance....who threw away the 10 credit card offers arriving daily and who contribute to a retirement plan vigilantly b/c they find offensive the notion they might prove burdensome to a later generation if they don't save during their productive working years. Now we have people purposefully fallng behind (if not outright mailing their keys into their lender b/c upside down) in hopes of a loan modification.
From which sphincter did you pull that 92% figure? Yep, I'm sure there are some people out there who you have accurately described (although you have made quite a few assumptions if you want to apply it to a majority). Now answer this: How is it going to help the responsible home owner to have a few more houses go into foreclosure on his/her street?
A rising tide lifts all boats.
it may not help the responsible homeowner, Elder William, but there is a thing called moral hazard. If you insulate risk taking and backstop poor decisions, you encourage further poor decisions. Our market functions when each side of a trade has a winner and a loser. Decoupling consequences from risk taking isn't a free market. Here is what you better get used to: the US residential home market is b/t 12 and 20 trillion, depending upon where you care to try and target median home prices. Taking a 75B subsidy to address the issue is equally nonsensical as injecting Citi or GM with cash that could otherwise be spent unwinding our national addition to credit. Home prices will readjust irrespective of how much $ is wasted in an effort to avoid said readjustment.
Oh yeah Rush Limbaugh that fat douche-bag calls it (rightly so) the drive-by media. It is now our president.
I didn't hear such a rant when CitiBank got $45,000,000,000.00 (45 billion) of our taxpayer dollars to 'bail them out', or in other words, to keep its shareholders from losing money.
And, Bank of America, please. Any supposedly savy bank that would purchase Countrywide and Merrill Lynch after the mountains of KNOWN problems they had with bad mortgages and "toxic assests" deserves to go under. Yet, BofA also received BILLIONS of OUR taxpayer dollars. Did Mr. Santelli have a problem with that? Taxpayer money given for stupid decisions.
If some of those billions would have been used to assist "deserving" homeowners, more would have been done to curtail this crisis than what has occured with the WASTED BILLIONS given to BANKS that WILL NOT EVEN SAY what they did with OUR money.
I won't go into the hugh amounts of lobbying money spent by the big banks to ensure policies that ended up hurting everyone, including themselves. (See Business Week magazine - Feb. 23, 2009)
Rick Santelli's rant was ridiculous. It would have been comical if he wasn't trying to be serious.
Typo: Should be "huge" not "hugh".
Bill, you are right on re: Citi and B of A. They are sinkholes for capital and if you didn't hear the outrage, you weren't listening. And there are plenty of pundits on CNBC appalled at govt injections into companies who should reserve a chair at the Chapter 11 table. And Santelli would be the last one to champion saving shareholders of Citi or B of A. Capitalism involves risk taking and if you are a common stockholder in a company functionally insolvent, your position should go to zero. If you are a homeowner who made a fiscally imprudent decision and you are upside down and cannot pay your mortgage, you should lose your home. That's not cruel....that's a free market and what separates us from the Euro apes.
Yes, but, I'm with Bill B. WHERE is the RANT?????????? stunning silence when it comes to the financial "wizards" (NOT) of Wall Street!
on YouTube for starters. Since we're talking about rick santelli here....use that for keyword and I'm sure you'll see ample evidence of his castigating propping up zombie banks like they are Weekend at Bernie cadavers. This isn't a partisan view...the market loathed Paulson and Bernanke plans just like it loathes present administration actions. Global debt will be unwound now or later, but it will be unwound. We can choose to saddle generations to come with additional debt if we try to delay that inevitable unwinding. Take that $ and use it in part to help those who will become helpless. But to try and manipulate a behemoth like the US residential home market is foolhardy at best, fiscally and nightmarishly wasteful at worst.
John, it's true; I wasn't listening. Thus, I was unaware of his outrage with the bank bailouts. Your statement regarding a holder of common stock in a functionally insolvent company was the most succinct statement on this point that I've heard. Well said.
My position is this: Once big banks were given massive amounts of taxpayer money, it seems extreme to slam the little guy. I say this because foreclosures are affecting many more than just those who bought a big house with 100% financing and 1% interest for the first two years.
I know because I have a fixed rate mortgage (now with Citi - they took over the loan) at 6.15%, I put 20% down, the value of my house was $335K, the mortgage loan was 80% of the value, $268K (this was about two years ago); now, the value of the house is maybe $115K. That's a loss in value of over $200K. Why? Partially because of the flood of foreclosures, and, of course because of the market in general (Palmdale, CA - outside of Los Angeles).
I finished law school and passed the bar; however, I cannot move to other locations to take advantage of job opportunities because the value of my house has dropped well below the amount owed. So, I'm stuck. This is so even after significant improvements were made to the house. And, now I'm paying on student loans of $80K.
I wasn't complaining ... until Citi received bailout money. Then, my outlook changed. While Citi says it has a program for homeowners who are upside down in target areas like mine, no response has been received from Citi after submitting all requested docs. They said they'd call within seven days; it's been five weeks. - Yes, I've followed-up (several times), still nothing.
It doesn't make sense (to me) for Citi (or BofA, or Chase) to hold on to the myth that a mortgage balance of $261K is adaquately secured by a house worth maybe $115K (less if it were to go to forclosure). However, I've read that there are accounting and reporting reasons for big banks to maintain this fallacy.
Of course, Citi wouldn't want to lock in a loss by reducing the principal of the loan to the current value of the house since it's a logical assumption that the value of the house will increase - maybe in five years or so. But, it seems like some sort of modification could be done.
And yes, when NOTHING is done, some people, including those who could afford the monthly payments, are walking away. Maybe people are adopting the mind set the big banks and credit card companies have towards their customers, ... "Screw you". People may be saying in effect, "Have fun getting (for example) $120K at foreclosure for a house with a loan amount of $300K when you could have worked with [homeowner] and modified the loan to $225K". Such a modification would seem reasonable, particularly if the bank is getting TARP money. There would be no foreclosure; no negative ripple effect; the bank's assets would be more inline with the real value; thus, investors would be more protected.
It is a tremendous hit on one's credit to stop paying the mortgage, but some people can rationalize it by saying they are just cutting their losses, something the big banks should consider.
I understand it's upsetting to see people get assistance when the assistance, is for something that was forseeable and preventable, like buying too much house. However, not all homeowners affected by this foreclosure situation were irresponsible. And, I'd prefer assisting 'deserving' homeowners over upset investors who purchased stock in poorly managed banks.