$700 BILLION bailout?

[SaGa]

its even more sad how little power anyone has

and i doupt the amount payed for all of this is going to come back.

hell the goverment is technically not allowed to buy up these assets in the first place. if you look at the law in full

like i said our currency is going down WAY to fast. and there wont be a return investment, no one wants to play hot potato with our debt. no one wants the risk

[Guest GodfallenPromos]

McCain, in a speech this morning, said he wants legislation that limits corporate exec salaries and bonuses if the company is loosing money or filing bankruptcy.

lemme mark that up with the rest of the list of "things that will never fly"

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

For those that don't understand the WHY behind this bail out. It's not something so simple as people covering their asses. It's not greed at this point.

If these companies are not bailed out. Wall street goes with it. That 401k you have, will be worthless. That retirement package you Mom and Dad have, wont be worth the paper it's written on.

A good portion of the REAL tax base.. the people that pay 90% of the Federal income tax... will suddenly have no money to pay it.

Beyond that, If wall street falls... the Russian stock market crashes too... and the dominoes start to fall...

[Msterbeau]

For those that don't understand the WHY behind this bail out. It's not something so simple as people covering their asses. It's not greed at this point.

If these companies are not bailed out. Wall street goes with it. That 401k you have, will be worthless. That retirement package you Mom and Dad have, wont be worth the paper it's written on.

A good portion of the REAL tax base.. the people that pay 90% of the Federal income tax... will suddenly have no money to pay it.

Beyond that, If wall street falls... the Russian stock market crashes too... and the dominoes start to fall...

I understand that... At what point do the rich assholes who run the banks and continue to play these high stakes financial games suffer personal losses, though? Oh... they're only worth 10 million now instead of 50 million. Boo hoo... I get that this may be a bitter pill we have to swallow, but I want pounds of flesh to be coming out of the people who got us into this mess, too.

[Enishi]

The thing is, even if this bailout does avert the initial disastor, how will the economy turn out in the future when we, the taxpayers, can barely get by?

Bear Stearns Rescue

$29 billion

Tax rebates to Americans

$168 billion

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac nationalization

$300 billion

AIG nationalization

$58 billion

Government taking bad debt off the books

$700 billion

U.S. banks

FUTURE GENERATION’S BILL

$1,255,000,000,000

The $700 billion bailout alone will cost each family something in the area of $32,000.

[Guest GodfallenPromos]

I understand that... At what point do the rich assholes who run the banks and continue to play these high stakes financial games suffer personal losses, though? Oh... they're only worth 10 million now instead of 50 million. Boo hoo... I get that this may be a bitter pill we have to swallow, but I want pounds of flesh to be coming out of the people who got us into this mess, too.

you want flesh out of the U.S. Government of WWI and WWII??

[peelingchrome]

...the biggest upheaval on Wall Street since the Great Depression.

In the past two weeks, the government has taken over the country’s two biggest mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and its biggest insurance company, American International Group Inc...

...the “mother of all bailouts” that could well cost $1 trillion when the cost of the government takeovers of Fannie, Freddie and AIG were included.

...the administration had no choice.

A later version expands the definition of the financial firms that would qualify to sell their bad debt to the government to include ... foreign firms doing business in the United States...

Schumer said that he was pushing to get a provision where the government would receive stock warrants in return for the bailout relief...

WHAT THE FUCK.

Is anyone else terribly, terribly frightened by this? I know that we are taxed on real estate because the government still believes they own the land (this use of the word real is decended from the spanish "real", which translates to royal). But now they think they can own the companies (and therefore the assets of the companies, which includes our debt to them) that own our houses and businesses? And with that debt comes the collateral... now they want to own your LIFE if you can't pay your mortgage! Most people are not as financailly savvy as they should be, and many end up in contracts that are just plain crappy. I believe that people should have to learn from their mistakes, but not to the extent that the government basically owns them. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

Tinfoil hat time: I wouldn't be surprised to see oil, natural gas, and electricity slide further in the near future. I wonder who'll buy them out? I give it two years, at most. Really, what else is left for the government to own? McDonald's? /tinfoilhat

[Rev.Reverence]

The thing is, even if this bailout does avert the initial disastor, how will the economy turn out in the future when we, the taxpayers, can barely get by?

Bear Stearns Rescue

$29 billion

Tax rebates to Americans

$168 billion

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac nationalization

$300 billion

AIG nationalization

$58 billion

Government taking bad debt off the books

$700 billion

U.S. banks

FUTURE GENERATION’S BILL

$1,255,000,000,000

The $700 billion bailout alone will cost each family something in the area of $32,000.

HAHAHAHA...thet's more than a fuckin' years cash for allot of peoples... FUCK THEM...I AIN'T PAYIN' SHIT!

THEY can 'bail' this out...

*grabs package*

[Troy Spiral (13)]

There is a book called The Creature From Jeykll Island which is a good primer on the subject as a whole and how financial institutions in particular are so intertwined with government that they always get special treatment 'bailouts'. They are definitely not what most would consider "private businesses".

Focuses mainly on the US and how the so-called "Federal Reserve" system (which isn't Federal and has no Reserve to speak of) crock was created. The book is fascinating. Should be required reading for high schools / college students.

[freydis]

Imo...those people that fucked up should be homeless because of this.

Oh wait...maybe that statement should go into the "Tent Cities" thread.

Hopefully, you dont mean the people who took out mortgages to buy/keep their home, then lost their jobs and couldnt pay for it?

That's more people than you might think.

[freydis]

I thought this was interesting:

(CNN) -- Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.

For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.

Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention.

Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership.

Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.

Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.

These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.

When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable.

Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.

In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.

This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners -- in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers -- builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.

The government doesn't like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.

I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay.

Additionally, the government's actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.

The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.

It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.

The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.

Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.

[Hellion]

What pisses me off is these asshole CEOs get a big ass bonus when the damn company is bankrupt.Remember what happened with Delphi,alot of the CEOs got bonus checks,Collins and Aikman went the same way as Delphi.

[Msterbeau]

you want flesh out of the U.S. Government of WWI and WWII??

Are you offering it?

[peelingchrome]

Found this:

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

[Hellion]

Found this:

Excellent quote,Ron Paul rocks!!

and on another note

F$#k the media!!

And they say there is nothing wrong and nothing to worry about,only the sheeple will believe everything is OK.

[freydis]

Excellent quote,Ron Paul rocks!!

and on another note

F$#k the media!!

And they say there is nothing wrong and nothing to worry about,only the sheeple will believe everything is OK.

Yup.

The one I posted was from him, too.

It's too bad he never made it far enough to get on the ballot. Dude's been accused of some poor personal choices, but his politics are definately no bullshit.

[Msterbeau]

Yup.

The one I posted was from him, too.

It's too bad he never made it far enough to get on the ballot. Dude's been accused of some poor personal choices, but his politics are definately no bullshit.

Being a racist is "a poor personal choice"?

[SaGa]

Yup.

The one I posted was from him, too.

It's too bad he never made it far enough to get on the ballot. Dude's been accused of some poor personal choices, but his politics are definately no bullshit.

ron paul. hell he had a Huge backing by younger folks. i whould vote for him if he was on the ballot

perhaps his biggest fault with running for nomination was the fed system. people saw that as to much change. he was being honest and sadly its hard playing politics when being honest, people dont want to hear stuff like that, even if we eventually need it.

but hes a smart man. his speeches always seem to have some wisdom to it and reverence to the founding fathers, the constitution. and he cares about the economy like it was his first-born.

also he finds the war on drugs stupid and wasteful.

a lot of speeches on his website. and him addressing congress. look them up he warned congress about the deficit and the impact it whould have if they abused the fed like this

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

After reading everything I have on this plan.. I really hope it fails to pass as proposed. I agree with the hold out Republican's. Handing one man $700billion and not putting some over sight in place is stupid. I also agree that some protections/help to home owners needs to be in place.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Unfortunately its not turned into a "yes or no" debate now. Its just about who gets the pork barrels and where the pork should go.

I could use a nice $700 billion. Could afford new DGN cards.