A big thank you to house republicans (especially) and democrats running in contested elections for not passing a bad bailout. I appreciate you voting for the country’s well being rather than losing your shit over the declining value of your stock. I will also do the credit of assuming that it was the good of the country rather than your electoral prospects in a few weeks that drove the decision.
If credit is so terribly important to have for the economy to go, why are we restoring it to the companies that fucked up? (well, and those that got caught holding the hot potato, some in ignorance, no doubt.)
Regardless, if we start running short on credit, don’t specifically select the screwups to save. If we need you to provide more credit, please give it to those that have proven themselves responsible enough to handle it. Let the irresponsible stewards go the way they ought.
Thanks.
Yes, thank you.
This smelled like highway robbery from the beginning. Kinda tells you who Congress listens to.
“My tuition is going up 15% every year!”
– Ya that’s terrible. We’ll look into that.
“I broke my leg and had to sell my house to pay for it!”
– *yawn*
“Trouble with the banks!”
– zomg special session, we have 24 hours to pass something!
8 years ago, we might have seen $700B as the absurd sum it is, but the war made us numb.
And to think, they’re going to stick nasty amendments on it and try to get it passed again soon, if not today, and it will be that much worse. Somehow, though, I imagine it will be more likely to pass…
I don’t like the bailout–whoa, way to many dollars! like 600 billion too many!–but I want to see alternate plans from the naysayers. You know, besides trying to blame everything on Nancy Pelosi.
I’m probably going to sound amazingly ignorant by typing this, but rather than purchasing bad loans, wouldn’t it be a better idea for the government to use the money to pay off the loans of the loan-holders?
That would remove debt from obviously-economically-overwhelmed people and put capital back into those financial institutions. What’m I missing?
I expect they’ll bring that up after the election. If it’s a separate bill, then $700B bailout + $700B mortgage assistance = $1.4T for the banks!
I think you have the politics wrong…
First things first.. I think that some government intervention at some point in some manner is probably going to be necessary… mainly because things like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/business/01muni.html?hp=&pagewanted=all are beginning to affect a larger segment of economic and civic activities that rely upon bond markets and other credit instruments that might just go “poof!” if things aren’t put back in order…
That said.. I’m not actually to disappointed that the 700billion bailout failed. To me, it was too much money (heck, they were only planning on spending up to 50 billion a month–why do they need 700 up front), and it was too lenient and/or with too little oversight.
However, in your claim above, you have the politics wrong. Politicians in contested elections were under pressure NOT to vote for the bailout–seeing that most of the public is against it at the moment–rather than under pressure to vote FOR it. Thus, they only did what came easy to them.
As it stands, we will have to see what the next plan to come out is.. and also how the public feels as the stock market starts to implode a bit as various other banks start to fail and city and state governments begin to either lay off people or freeze payments to others. Then, you will probably see a shift by the public for “PLEASE SAVE US NOW, SPEND 1 TRILLION IF YOU NEED TO!” and that won’t be all that much better… and you can also bet that the politicians in contested elections will all be for that bailout…
ps–I hope I’m wrong.. Robert Reich had a pretty good idea about the situation and I hope he’s right.. see http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/09/stalled-deal.html
Re: I think you have the politics wrong…
Also, auto sales down 30% in some part because loans are much harder to get.
It’s not unlikely that loans *should* be harder to get than they were, but in the fuck-the-guilty, kill-them-all, Adam Smith shall know his own mentality, the assembly line worker gets kind of forgotten.
Re: I think you have the politics wrong…
I may not have conveyed the point clearly, but I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that they were doing it for the right reasons, instead of for political advantage. Clearly, in at least some cases, I was wrong on that point.
You do realize that the Fed and other world central banks are *currently* loaning out gigantic amounts of money — tens of billions daily — just to keep the economy from collapsing, right?
Central bankers aren’t losing their shit over stock prices. They’re losing their shit over a LIBOR that occasionally spikes up like an Enron-era electricity spot price, until they declare that actually, if the market can’t give out overnight loans anymore, perhaps it would be best for the central bank to do so.
Also broken short-term bond markets that will have cities, states, local governments, and corporations missing payroll, cutting back on infrastructure maintenance and development, and cutting back on essential services. NYT article.
I wish we were following the Swedish model, but we seem to be able to sign up for only so much nationalization before we get the socialism heebie-jeebies. It’s the second order effects (speculated on in a bunch of http://www.nakedcapitalism.com posts) of what we _are_ doing that worry me, more than the moral lesson.
Aaaaaaaaaa——men sister!
I feel back for saying fuck you to all the dunce heads but duh!
Unfortunately we can not leave ourselves in that much turmoil and I think they will have to do something, but wow.
I would rather see that money put into programs to address the fundamental financial instability — the unknowable risk involved in the leveraged borrowing based upon personal home mortgages.
That is, straighten out the home mortgages and this stuff can be sorted out. Throw money at bad debt and you may only exacerbate the problem as the fundamental risks are still not known, errors may continue to be made, and the tax load on those who are failing to make their payments on 20, 30 year loans rise.
Sure, it will take longer, and will involve compromises and inefficiency but it is more likely to WORK.
It also will earn brownie points from voters.
Get to work, congresscritters.