FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE

March 23, 2008

Dear ,

Thanks for the assessment and for confirming the reading of the transit influences.

As a side note, Alan Blinder, a former Fed governor, gives Greenspan high marks for his monetary policy decisions (interest rate setting) but low marks on conducting bank surveillance. It appears the US Fed is also charged with monitoring lending practices to prevent abuses or risky lending. In many countries, a separate authority, a financial surveillance authority, is charged with this responsbility.

Best wishes,

Thor

SIHA <vkchoudhrySAMVA Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 8:59:31 PMRe: Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE

Hello my dear Thor, Mr. Greenspan is right in saying that the problem arose due to bad lending practices to employ the available funds at the command of lending institutions. The transit influence indicators in US SAMVA charts are relevant.

Best wishes.

-

Cosmologer

SAMVA

Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:54 PM

Re: Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE

Dear friends,

There is some controversy going on in the USA and around the world concerning the reasons for the crisis in credit markets that erupted last year and has recently claimed a large bank. Many prominent economists are criticising former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, for presiding over decisions to keep interest rates too low in recent years. In turn, Greenspan has written articles and appeared in interviews defending his record. He states the credit crisis was inevitable due to surplus of savings in the world in recent years and that low central bank interest rates did not affect that situation. Ultimately, it was bad lending practices that created the problems not surplus money. This debate is appearing in the world media this weekend when Mercury and Venus are transit conjunct in the 8th house of the SAMVA USA chart

under the exact aspect of natal Ketu in the 4th house.

Best wishes,

Thor

Alan Greenspan says market crisis 'inevitable'By Catherine Boyle

Last Updated: 12:24am GMT 23/03/2008

Alan Greenspan has claimed that the current market crisis afflicting the US was inevitable and defended his record as chairman of the Federal Reserve yesterday.The financial crisis in full Comment: Spectre of 1930s haunts Fed's actions

Economists believe that Alan Greenspan kept interest rates too low for too long

Mr Greenspan's record has been criticised by other economists in recent months as his successor at the Fed, Ben Bernanke, struggles with problems which began during Mr Greenspan's tenure. Many economists believe that he kept interest rates too low for too long, fuelling the US housing bubble, and that he should have kept a closer eye on banks. The once seemingly unassailable Mr Greenspan hit back at his critics in an interview with the Washington Post, and claimed there was little he could have done to prevent the current market crisis. He said: "Those who argue that you can incrementally increase interest rates to defuse bubbles ought to try it some time. "I don't know of a single example of when interest rate policy has been successful in suppressing gains in asset price." Mr Greenspan admitted that the Fed "lost control" of long-term interest rates "as did the Bank of England and

all the central banks. As a consequence, we had very little ability to put a brake on the rise in home prices."

Some economists argue that if the Fed had been able to exert some control over house prices, less people would have been unable to pay back their sub-prime mortgages in the US. Sub-prime mortgages are at the root of the market turmoil.

However, the Fed was more concerned about "corrosive deflation" in the crucial 2003-04 period, according to Greenspan.

The Fed has intervened dramatically in the market in the past week, slashing interest rates by 0.75 percentage points on Tuesday and lending directly to securities firms for the first time since the Great Depression.

Mr Greenspan maintained that the ongoing credit crisis was always going to happen and said: "If it weren't the sub-prime crisis, it would have been something else."

He said that the current crisis was caused by the end of a "protracted period" of "underpricing of risk" and blames financial institutions for deciding that sub-prime mortgage loans were "a steal".

Greenspan Stands His Ground

Ex-Chairman Says Fed Policies Didn't Cause Current Woes

SLIDESHOW

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Alan Greenspan says global forces, not the Fed, were to blame for fueling the housing bubble. He also said that a market crisis was inevitable. (By Frank Franklin Ii -- Associated Press)

Greenspan said in his book released last year, ''The Age of Turbulence,' ' that the subprime boom would boost home ownership and was "worth the risk." (By Chip East -- Bloomberg News)

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By Steven MufsonWashington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 21, 2008; Page D01

Perhaps the Maestro composed some discordant notes after all.

This Story

Greenspan Stands His Ground

Inflation Hits the Poor Hardest

Excerpts of an Interview With Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan

SEC Probes Shorting of Bear's Stock

Inflation in Staples and Luxuries, and Whom It Affects

Price Comparisons

View All Items in This Story

View Only Top Items in This Story

The record of longtime Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan -- worshipped by business leaders and dubbed "Maestro" in a 2000 biography by The Post's Bob Woodward -- is getting a critical look as his successor Ben S. Bernanke wrestles with problems that began on the Maestro's watch.

Many economists blame Greenspan for lax bank supervision and for keeping interest rates too low, too long from mid-2003 to mid-2004. That, the theory goes, fueled the housing bubble and spawned subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages for low-income people, vast numbers of whom can't make their payments now. Banks bought those mortgages in bundles that are worth far less than they originally were. That has led to big write-offs, shaking the entire financial system.

In an interview yesterday, Greenspan said the Fed wasn't to blame. He said that global forces beyond the control of the Federal Reserve had kept long-term interest rates low, fueling the housing bubble earlier this decade. "Those who argue that you can incrementally increase interest rates to defuse bubbles ought to try it some time," he said. "I don't know of a single example of when interest rate policy has been successful in suppressing gains in asset prices."

Regarding the current turmoil, Greenspan said that a market crisis was inevitable. "If it weren't the subprime crisis it would have been something else," he said. That is because an era was ending that had seen "disinflationary forces" from developing countries such as China and a "protracted period" in which there was an "underpricing of risk."

Not all economists are ready to let the former Fed chairman off so easily.

Lee Hoskins, former president of the Cleveland Fed and Fed chairman from 1987 to 1991, says that to find "partial causes" of the credit turmoil, "you have to go back to the Fed's decision to push the federal funds rate down to 1 percent and leave it there for over a year." Hoskins says the Fed "made money very cheap, and we began to see the whole leveraging process we see today. The Fed has to take responsibility for some of that excessive growth."

Greenspan says that the Fed was worried about "corrosive deflation" at the time and that he saw that as a greater threat to the U.S. economy than a housing bubble. "There was a real serious concern about deflation," he said yesterday. "If you look at the notes of the Open Market Committee, the pressures were to go lower than 1 percent. There were no dissents." Bernanke, a member of the Fed board at the time, was also concerned about deflation.

Greenspan also argues that while the Fed has a lot of power over short-term rates, it has less influence over long-term rates, which he asserted were more important to housing prices. Even after the Fed starting raising short-term rates, long-term rates did not rise. He said that at the time "it became apparent that we lost control" of long-term interest rates "as did the Bank of England and all the central banks. As a consequence, we had very little ability to put a brake on the rise in home prices."

But other economists say that the very low short-term rates made adjustable-rate subprime mortgages, those with the worst default rates, more attractive than they otherwise would have been. Hoskins also argues that low short-term rates fed excesses at investment banks, which relied heavily on overnight financing while lending long term. "I don't know what Bear Stearns was banking on. I guess that nothing bad would happen -- ever," Hoskins says.

Others reviewing the Greenspan era at the Fed say there is a difference between the way Greenspan reacted during sharp sell-offs of stocks and the way he reacted to the technology and housing bubbles.

Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economics professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, says that "the important point . . . is the philosophy of monetary policy that says 'you don't pay attention to asset prices when they are rising, only when they are falling.' " In reality, Rogoff adds, "if you cut interest rates when asset prices are in free fall, then when asset prices are rising while indebtedness is rising all over country, you need to raise rates. He actively chose not to do that."

Other economists fault Greenspan for his failure to closely regulate big banks. Alan Blinder, a Princeton University economics professor who was vice chairman of the Fed under Greenspan in the mid-1990s, says that the delay in raising rates in 2003-04 was a "minor blemish" on Greenspan's "stellar" record managing monetary policy. But Blinder says that he would give the former chairman "poor marks" for bank supervision, another key role of the Fed.

This Story

Greenspan Stands His Ground

Inflation Hits the Poor Hardest

Excerpts of an Interview With Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan

SEC Probes Shorting of Bear's Stock

Inflation in Staples and Luxuries, and Whom It Affects

Price Comparisons

View All Items in This Story

View Only Top Items in This Story

Blinder said that Greenspan "brushed off" warnings -- most notably from fellow Fed governor Ned Gramlich -- about mortgage abuses and dangers.

"Lending standards were being horribly relaxed, and the Fed should have done something about that, not to mention about deceptive and in some cases fraudulent practices," Blinder said. "This was a corner of the credit markets that was allowed to go crazy. It was populated by a lot of people with minimal financial literacy who were being sold bills of goods by mortgage salesmen."

Gramlich, who died last fall, proposed that the Fed send examiners into the consumer lending offices of Fed-regulated bank holding companies, which he said originated about 30 percent of subprime loans. In a speech last Aug. 31, Gramlich said "this whole subprime experience has demonstrated that taking rates down could have some real costs, in terms of encouraging excessive subprime borrowing." Moreover, he added, there was "a giant hole in the supervisory safety net. . . . It is like a city with a murder law but no cops on the beat."

Greenspan said that most of the subprime mortgages were originated by firms regulated by other agencies, but he adds, "In retrospect it was clearly a mistake" not to examine bank lending more closely. He said it was "very late in the game [that] we realized the size of the problem." He said that Gramlich had written him a note shortly before he died saying that if he had been more convinced, he would have pressed harder for action after Greenspan expressed doubts.

Greenspan has also been widely criticized for comments he made on Feb. 23, 2004, in which he encouraged homeowners to take out adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs. In a speech to the Credit Union National Association, Greenspan said that a Fed study showed that many homeowners would have saved tens of thousands of dollars over the previous decade if they had taken ARMs.

In fact, if homeowners had converted from ARMs to 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at that time, they might have avoided the repayment problems some people are now experiencing.

Greenspan said yesterday that he tried to correct those comments on March 2, 2004, less than a month later, in a New York speech praising 30-year fixed mortgages. "If I am guilty of encouraging people to take out adjustable-rate mortgages, I am guilty for 30 days," he said.

In his memoir, "The Age of Turbulence," published last year, Greenspan made scant mention of the time bombs that were planted when he was still chairman.

"I was aware that the loosening of mortgage credit terms for subprime borrowers increased financial risk, and that subsidized home ownership initiatives distort market outcomes," Greenspan wrote.

But the former Fed chairman said that the subprime boom would boost home ownership and was "worth the risk." Greenspan said that "protection of property rights, so critical to a market economy, requires a critical mass of owners to sustain political support."

Although home ownership rose from about 64 percent to 69 percent from the early 1990s through the middle of this decade, many analysts say that they doubt that had much effect on U.S. popular support for a market economy.

Regarding the mounting levels of debt, encouraged in part by the low cost of borrowing, Greenspan said that he was "reluctant to underestimate the ability of most households and companies to manage their financial affairs."

Greenspan compared bankers immediately after the Civil War, who he said sought to back two-fifths of their assets with equity, to today's bankers, who "are comfortable with a tenth." Yet, he said, bankruptcy is less prevalent today than it was 140 years ago.

"Rising leverage appears to be the result of massive improvements in technology and infrastructure, not significantly more risk-inclined humans," he wrote. Quoting two 1956 articles in Fortune magazine, alarmed by rising consumer short-term debt and mortgages, Greenspan noted that the magazine's grim forecasts did not come true. Economists worried that the ratio of household debt to household income was so high that it threatened families with delinquency and default, but, Greenspan said, assets and household net worth were rising faster than they knew.

"I do not recall a decade free of surges in angst about the mounting debt of households and businesses," he wrote. "Such fears ignore a fundamental fact of modern life: in a market economy, rising debt goes hand in hand with progress."

Blinder says: "It was not that Americans have too much credit card debt, which they do, or . . . that corporations are overleveraged, which they're probably not. It's not even that the typical American householder has a mortgage that's too big. But in that corner of the [mortgage] market, which turned out to be not such a small corner, a lot of bad practices were going on."

http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/ 03/20/AR20080320 03708_2.html? sid=ST2008032003 800

cosmologer <cosmologer >SAMVA Saturday, March 22, 2008 12:54:28 PM Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLEDear friends,Another major concern in the USA is the rise in home mortgage foreclosures. These developments have saddled financial institutions with big losses. Former Secretary of the US Treasury and leading banker in New York, Robert Rubin, has been advocating that the funds of tax payers be used to help stave off further loan losses, which he argues otherwise risks a melt-down of the financial system. So far the government has agreed to infuse $150 billion to the financial system and offered limitless loans to cash strapped banks. However, that is not enough, suggests Rubin. Others disagree. Indeed, the loan losses were

based on foolhardy actions and those responsible should bear the consequences. The further use of public funds risks only that "good money follow bad." In other words, it is not an easy situation in the USA today. That said, some respite is predicted for the financial markets in May and June based on the SAMVA USA chart.Best wishes,ThorRubin Calls for Urgent Government Action to Stem Foreclosures By Rich MillerMarch 21 (Bloomberg) -- Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin called for quick government action to tackle the rising level of home foreclosures and he indicated taxpayer money will have to be used. ``There is a strong need for urgent action,'' Rubin, who is chairman of Citigroup Inc.'s executive committee, said. ``I would be very, very seriously considering the possibility of using public funds in one form or another.'' The Federal Housing

Administration should be involved in any stepped-up government effort to help homeowners facing the loss of their houses, Rubin said an interview on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' to be aired today. ``The piece that's missing now, at least in my judgment, is addressing all of these mortgages that face foreclosure. '' U.S. home-foreclosure filings jumped 60 percent and bank seizures more than doubled in February as rates on adjustable mortgages rose and property owners were unable to sell or refinance amid falling prices. The biggest housing slump in a generation, compounded by tighter credit and mounting financial losses, is spilling over to other industries and pushing the broader economy toward a recession. Democratic lawmakers, including House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd

of Connecticut, have put forward a plan to have the FHA insure refinanced mortgages after lenders reduce principal to help struggling borrowers. The Bush administration is resisting the proposal. Rising Foreclosures Rubin, 69, said the rising level of foreclosures is at the heart of the credit crunch. The world's biggest banks and securities firms have reported $195 billion in asset writedowns and credit losses since 2007 stemming from the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market. ``The credit markets themselves are really in uncharted waters,'' Rubin said. ``A lot of trouble could lie ahead.'' He praised the Federal Reserve for the steps it has taken to help the economy and to ease strains in the financial markets. ``The Fed has done a very good job,'' he said. ``The Treasury, working with the Fed, did the right thing conceptually in rescuing Bear Stearns.''

The Fed is providing $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help finance the purchase of Bear Stearns Cos. after a run on Wall Street's fifth-largest securities company. It has also expanded its lending program to include big Wall Street securities firms as well as banks in a bid to stop the crisis. Rubin said that securities companies should be subject to the same regulation as banks now that it's become clear that they will get the same government support. Frank on March 20 called for creation of a super agency to monitor risk across markets. Rubin shied away from saying that the U.S. has already entered into a recession. He saw, though, a 1-in-3 chance that the economy could be in for a deep, prolonged contraction. ``As a policy maker, those risks are high enough so that you would be highly proactive in seeking ways to reduce the risk,'' he said. SAMVA , Cosmologer <cosmologer@. ..> wrote:>> Dear friends,> > The conditions in financial markets continue to be a lead story in the world. In relation to this, I recall the prediction by on SAMVA on January 28, 2008> > "While the volatility continues the US markets are not coming out of the recession fears early due to the continued impact of transit Jupiter and transit Saturn. It is likely to give continued volatility and stress to other financial and commodity markets accross the world in the year 2008."> > This prediction, which is based on the SAMVA USA chart, has come true so far and is still being realised. > > We could note, that in addition to the information in the following news story,

the price of gold and other precious metals prices have dropped sharply in recent days from new highs as stock markets have surged after the most recent bout of panic. Hence, the volatility and stress is indeed affecting "other financial and commodity markets across the world."> > There are presently two major aspects still being felt> - transit Jupiter as 6th lord afflicting natal 4th lord Venus (separating)> - transit Saturn as 8th lord afflicting natal 1st lord Moon (applying)> > Moreover, during the Easter weekend, transit 3rd lord Mercury and 4th lord Venus are moving under the aspect of natal Ketu in the 4th house. This aspect would be adding to the worries this weekend.> > Congratulations, dear on the prescient insights and accurate prediction so far.> > Best wishes,> > Thor> > updated 4 hours,

54 minutes ago> Worries grow of deeper U.S. recession> Story Highlights > * Economist Martin Feldstein believes U.S. is in recession, possibly a severe one> > * Severe credit crisis is raising doubts about mild forecasts> > * Bear Stearns went from a stock market value of $3.5B to being sold for $236M> > * Wall Street had a wild week> > > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- It has been almost an article of faith: Any recession this year will be mild and brief. > > A growing number of economists have a U.S. downturn already figured into their forecasts.> > But now the stunning meltdown of a top Wall Street investment bank and stubbornly persistent financial market turbulence has called that into question, raising fears that severe problems in housing and the nation's bedrock financial system could cripple the

economy and wallop many millions of Americans.> No less an authority than former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote this week that "the current financial crisis in the U.S. is likely to be judged as the most wrenching" since the end of World War II.> Other noted economists are also sounding alarms. Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, the former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said recently he believes the country is now in a recession and it could be a severe one.> While it will be many months before the bureau's cycle dating committee, the unofficial arbiter of when recessions begin and end, makes its own ruling, a growing number of private economists already have a downturn figured into their forecasts. They are generally calling for a mild recession that will end this summer when the economic stimulus checks going to 130 million households start

getting spent.> But the severe credit crisis that erupted last August -- and claimed its biggest victim this past weekend with the forced sale of Bear Stearns Co. -- is raising doubts about those mild forecasts.> "Bear Stearns was a clear wake-up call. It resonates with everybody and highlights the severity of the stresses in the financial system," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.> Don't Miss> Companies scale back on travel expenses > Arab leaders unfazed about investing > OECD cuts world growth outlook > What got people's attention was how quickly Bear Stearns, the nation's fifth largest investment bank, could go from a stock market value of about $3.5 billion when the market closed on March 14 to being sold at the bargain-basement price of about $236 million two days later.> The Federal Reserve rushed in to take unprecedented actions. It

provided a $30 billion line of credit to facilitate the sale and is employing Depression-era provisions that for the first time are providing direct Fed loans to investment banks. Most analysts said the Fed was justified and that its efforts highlighted the severity of the dangers facing the financial system.> The turmoil produced wild swings on Wall Street this week with the Dow Jones industrial average surging on Tuesday after the Fed aggressively cut a key interest rate only to plunge on Wednesday on renewed worries about the economy and then to stage a 262-point gain on Thursday. Markets were closed Friday.> More turbulence is expected in coming weeks because there remains a great deal of uncertainty about how many more victims the credit crisis will claim.> The problems began last year with rising defaults on mortgages as a housing slump intensified, but they have now spread to

other parts of the credit markets with institutions growing fearful about making other types of loans.> It is the ability to get credit that makes the financial system and the economy it supports function. When banks stop lending to other institutions that, like Bear Stearns, depend on credit to conduct their day-to-day operations, the results can be catastrophic.> "We can't afford to stagger from one day to the next without knowing what large financial institution might be the next to go down the tubes because of a lack of liquidity. That is way too dangerous a game," said Lyle Gramley, a former Fed board member who is now an economist with the Stanford Financial Group. "It is possible that we could be entering the worst recession of the post World War II period. The threat is certainly there."> Because of Bear Stearns, many analysts are raising the odds that a 2008 recession could be

worse than expected.> "The potential freezing up of the financial system could have pretty negative ramifications on bank lending which would have negative ramifications on consumer and business spending," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, a Lexington, Mass., forecasting firm. He said he had upped the chances of a worse-than-expected recession to 40 percent, up from 25 percent odds before Bear Stearns.> David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York, said he now has a worst-case-scenario in which the country could endure a double-dip recession in which the economy would briefly recover this summer, helped by the $168 billion in tax relief, only to quickly slip back into a downturn. Under this scenario, the economy's total output, as measured by the gross domestic product, would drop by 2.2 percentage points, making it the third worst recession in the

post World War II period.> The worst recession in recent decades, in terms of lost output, occurred in the 1973-75 period of oil shocks, when GDP fell by 3.1 percent, followed by the 1981-82 recession, when GDP dropped by 2.9 percent.> By contrast, in the last two recessions output fell by 1.3 percent in the 1990-91 downturn, and a tiny 0.3 percent in the 2001 recession, making that slump the mildest in the post-war period in terms of lost output. The 2001 downturn lasted just eight months.> Wyss' baseline forecast calls for the 2008 downturn to trim GDP by just 0.5 percent and last for nine months, from last November until August.> Under that forecast, unemployment, which hit a low in this expansion of 4.4 percent and now stands at 4.8 percent, will rise to around 6 percent, meaning 1.5 million people will lose their jobs. Under the worst-case forecast, unemployment jumps to

7.5 percent, meaning 3 million people would be tossed out of work.> "There would be bigger drops in the stock market and in home prices than we are now anticipating and more people out of work," Wyss said. "There would be a lot of pain all the way around."> While they are developing worst-case-scenario s, Wyss and other economists said they still believe the balance has not tipped from their more benign main forecasts. One thing that gives them hope is the expectation that Congress and the Bush administration, having acted so quickly to pass the first stimulus package, will move quickly, especially in an election year, to pass a second package if needed.> Also, analysts said the Bear Stearns crisis, which has already prompted the Fed to move more aggressively, will also probably trigger a bigger response on the part of Congress and the administration in offering help to homeowners to

keep them from losing their homes because of mortgage defaults.> "Historically, when policymakers have acted in a concerted and aggressive way, that signals that we are nearing the end of the crisis," said Zandi. "If that occurs this time and the financial markets stabilize in the next few months, then the economy will suffer, but it won't be a prolonged and severe recession." > > > siha <siha> SAMVA > Monday, January 28, 2008 3:42:47 AM> Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE> > > Hello my dear Thor,> > While the volatility continues the US markets are not coming out of the recession fears early due to the continued impact of transit Jupiter and transit

Saturn. It is likely to give continued volatility and stress to other financial and commodity markets accross the world in the year 2008.> > Best wishes.> > > > > > > - > Cosmologer > SAMVA > Saturday, January 26, 2008 4:44 AM> Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE> > > Dear friends> > The prediction by for a "serious setbacks across financial markets across the world" has been realised. > > After several days of declines in the US financial market, the downtrend was halted yesterday, only to resume today, when the losses were again

pronounced.> > NASDAQ 2326.2 -34.72 -1.47%> > DJIA 12207.17 -171.44 1.38%> S & P 1330.61 -21.46 -1.59%> > Congratulations on another spot on prediction.> > Best wishes,> > Thor> > > > siha <siha@airtelbroadban d.in>> SAMVA > Cc: @ s.com> Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:33:25 AM> FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE> > > > Hello dear list members,> > The exact aspect of Jupiter to Saturn in transit is causing serious setbacks to financial markets accross the world including to US and India as the

charts of both of these countries have Jupiter as a functional malefic. > > Indian markets had the biggest ever fall. In intraday trading this touched the figure of even 10 per cent.> > The maximum impact period of this exact aspect started on 18th January and is to last upto 25th January. > > This transit influence has been aided by other transit influences brought out earlier in the form of persisting affliction to weak transit Mars by transit Rahu. > > In Indian chart transit Ketu afflicted transit Venus and transit Venus caused affliction to natal Mars and MEP of the eighth and second houses. > > Due to planetary afflictions even the relief measures announced by US President, Mr. Bush, were shrugged off by the market forces. > > Indian markets sccumbed to international cues -

apprehensions to slowing down of US economy and setbacks in other global markets.> > Best wishes.> > > > > > > > ____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ________________ __> Looking for last minute shopping deals? > Find them fast with Search. http://tools. search.. com/newsearch/ category. php?category= shopping>------------ --------- --------- ------

March 24, 2008

Hello my dear Thor, Mr. Greenspan appears to be right for identifying the reason. Whether he fulfilled his other responsibilities like conducting bank surveillance, etc., is a different matter.

Best wishes.

-

Cosmologer

SAMVA

Monday, March 24, 2008 2:39 AM

Re: Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE

Dear ,

Thanks for the assessment and for confirming the reading of the transit influences.

As a side note, Alan Blinder, a former Fed governor, gives Greenspan high marks for his monetary policy decisions (interest rate setting) but low marks on conducting bank surveillance. It appears the US Fed is also charged with monitoring lending practices to prevent abuses or risky lending. In many countries, a separate authority, a financial surveillance authority, is charged with this responsbility.

Best wishes,

Thor

SIHA <vkchoudhry >SAMVA Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 8:59:31 PMRe: Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE

Hello my dear Thor, Mr. Greenspan is right in saying that the problem arose due to bad lending practices to employ the available funds at the command of lending institutions. The transit influence indicators in US SAMVA charts are relevant.

Best wishes.

-

Cosmologer

SAMVA

Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:54 PM

Re: Re: FINANCIAL MARKETS TUMBLE

Dear friends,

There is some controversy going on in the USA and around the world concerning the reasons for the crisis in credit markets that erupted last year and has recently claimed a large bank. Many prominent economists are criticising former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, for presiding over decisions to keep interest rates too low in recent years. In turn, Greenspan has written articles and appeared in interviews defending his record. He states the credit crisis was inevitable due to surplus of savings in the world in recent years and that low central bank interest rates did not affect that situation. Ultimately, it was bad lending practices that created the problems not surplus money. This debate is appearing in the world media this weekend when Mercury and Venus are transit conjunct in the 8th house of the SAMVA USA chart under the exact aspect of natal Ketu in the 4th house.

Best wishes,

Thor

Alan Greenspan says market crisis 'inevitable'By Catherine Boyle

Last Updated: 12:24am GMT 23/03/2008

Alan Greenspan has claimed that the current market crisis afflicting the US was inevitable and defended his record as chairman of the Federal Reserve yesterday.The financial crisis in full Comment: Spectre of 1930s haunts Fed's actions

Economists believe that Alan Greenspan kept interest rates too low for too long

Mr Greenspan's record has been criticised by other economists in recent months as his successor at the Fed, Ben Bernanke, struggles with problems which began during Mr Greenspan's tenure. Many economists believe that he kept interest rates too low for too long, fuelling the US housing bubble, and that he should have kept a closer eye on banks. The once seemingly unassailable Mr Greenspan hit back at his critics in an interview with the Washington Post, and claimed there was little he could have done to prevent the current market crisis. He said: "Those who argue that you can incrementally increase interest rates to defuse bubbles ought to try it some time. "I don't know of a single example of when interest rate policy has been successful in suppressing gains in asset price." Mr Greenspan admitted that the Fed "lost control" of long-term interest rates "as did the Bank of England and all the central banks. As a consequence, we had very little ability to put a brake on the rise in home prices."