Devils in the Details

Jake,
Is there a saying:
Fool me once, same on YOU
Fool me twice, SAME ON ME.
ARE AMERICANS JUST A GROUP OF FOOLS TO LET THIS HAPPEN.
PAULSON IS A LIAR,
13 BILLION IN CASH SIGN OFF BY HIM THAT DISAPPEARED IN IRAQ
NOW WE SHOULD TRUST HIM, WHEN HE SAYS THE
“THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING”
LIAR, LIAR.
WE ARE STRONG AMERICANS, WITH THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS NOT INVOLVED IN THE MARKET.. SO THE WHEELS WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE.
AND THE FAILURE OF THE ELITE, WHO JUST WANT WELFARE PACKAGE..
I SAY F.. THEM

WHAT A FRIEND SAID:
LET THE ARABS DRINK THEIR OIL:
BECAUSE WE DON’T NEED IT.

MIguy
YOU ARE RIGHT.
THE BIG DECISION MAKERS SAY THAT SOCIAL SECURITY IS IN TROUBLE AND THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT.
NOW THE BANKERS ARE IN A FAIRY TALE PROBLEM..
THEY KNOW HOW TO FIX IT.
THIS IS A JOKE.

Should I say, the American people are holding 4 aces.

Belle Starr
Yep,
I don’t want to commit a sin against God or Jesus, but if you drop 13 billion in cash dollars in front of Jesus,
He would more than likely take it and give it to the mass of his people.
Not going where it was suppose to go.

If Paulson is worried that the fat cats will not take 700 billion unless we beg then too, then I say let them eat cake. I do not buy his baloney it is all the more reason not trust him.
Congress do your job!

Underdog,
You are correct, but it is a game of chicken and I will use an old reference to make my point.
G.Gordon Liddy of the Nixon days, notable tough guy would hold his hand over the flame from a lighter for an extended period.
When asked what the trick was his response was “The trick is that there is no trick”
When playing a game of chicken, the one who doesn’t care wins.

Sorry, my post previous wandered a bit… I think we cant afford to allow the institutions to fail, but we had better build in a “reality check” mechanism into whatever is done.Methinks that this situation just might be the last big ripoff by this crowd, and whatever is decided had better include some hefty controls by people who really represent the middle class, since we are the ones who bear the burden most. We been mugged !

Curtis,
If the Right can sell the “Bush-Pelosi” idea and win the election on the claim that the deregulating-reformer is our new Answer, then you will have lost your last shred of freedom to the ruling class anyway.
This, like the cold war, becomes a game of Mutually Assured Destruction. Unless you are willing to loose everything, you will in fact loose everything.

The ad I see on the right panel of this page says “A good credit score is 700+”.
Do you suppose THAT’s how Paulson et al. settled on asking for $700 BILLION at a time??

SOLVE THE PROBLEM FOR THE BOTTTOM UP:
Correct me if I am wrong,
But would it not solve the problem if the Feds would absorb the working class debt, and pay off the bad loans to the banks,, which in turn will solve this mystery ROCKET SCIENCE PROBLEM.
JUST MY THOUGHTS.

If only the dems had a leader. Somebody who could layout what happned and how to fix it. No mucking around just layout what happened and what to do now. If only the dems had a leader that could do that.
Here is Hillary laying out. No mucking around in terms everybody can understand:
Clinton Calls for Immediate Action to Halt Market Crisis
Of course Hillary isn’t the leader of the dem party now is she. If only the dems had somebody who wasn’t busy hosting $28,000 a head fundraisers while wall street burns.

the old Republican/Conservative mantra of ‘trusting business’, de-regulation and large tax breaks for business has finally died a miserable death…. ‘trickle down’ economics .. morte!
now, almost a TRILLION dollar bailout with no controls or accountability?… given to the folks who are directly responsible…and when the government looks to sell the assets, they will go back to the same people who are directly responsible….
and all this bailout money is coming from where?
where’s Alice when she’s needed?
Mission Accomplished!

saw this and it sounds about right-
The Republican/McCain plan is to get the Democrats to bail out the GOP’s Wall Street friends and then run against them for doing it.

Underdog,
You caps lock is on.

Here is their plan.
Republican incumbents in close races have the easiest vote of their lives coming up this week: No on the Bush-Pelosi Wall Street bailout.
God Himself couldn’t have given rank-and-file Republicans a better opportunity to create political space between themselves and the Administration. That’s why I want to see 40 Republican No votes in the Senate, and 150+ in the House. If a bailout is to pass, let it be with Democratic votes. Let this be the political establishment (Bush Republicans in the White House + Democrats in Congress) saddling the taxpayers with hundreds of billions in debt (more than the Iraq War, conjured up in a single weekend, and enabled by Pelosi, btw), while principled Republicans say “No” and go to the country with a stinging indictment of the majority in Congress….
In an ideal world, McCain opposes this because of all the Democratic add-ons and shows up to vote Nay while Obama punts.

Underdog,
This is a game the Republicans are considering. They can distance themselves from THEIR White House and the Democratically controlled congress by opposing the bailout and assuming that the Democrats will do the responsible thing, then take the fall for giving away a trillion dollars of tax money.
I say call their bluff and let the economy fail rather than another 4 years of liars and incompetents.

I’m sure Sarah and Todd Palin has the answers to all our problems. Psych.

McCains Oil Tycoon Advisors, are playing scare tactics with oil prices, and the Americans dollars. Vote Independant

Leonard Peltier problem is that if they let the house fall as you suggest-as usual it would be the little people, the elderly, the poor who will suffer the most. you can bet that social program cuts are coming and none of obamas promised change will come to fruition either, sorry folks the house is broke they will tell us.
like you my first inclination was ‘let it crash’ but the effects globally especially on the poor will be horrific if we do not feed the beast. at least for now leonard appease the beast we must while we gather strength and stop fighting each other. we can never defeat the beast as long as we are divided.
undecided purple person

Let McCains Advisors, buy your lives at a cheap price, if you want. But I say no to Corporate-Country Take-Overs. Their Oil Prices are dependant upon, all out of touch businesses. Those people at McCains side, is controling the ‘VALUE’ of the dollar. So ‘NO’, to McCains advisors.
ASK THEM TO GIVE OUR LIVES BACK!!!
Vote ‘NO’, to McCain.

colorado,
You are a thoughtful person and I know that we are basically on opposite sides of the ideological fence.
What has me going is the idea that this will be turned into a political football and used as a campaign item. The scenario for this has already been set by some on the right.
I agree with you completely about the need for cooler heads to prevail and I can only hope that a non-partisan approach to this can yield positive results for all Americans. At the same time I think the possibility of political leverage here has to be considered by my less-than-brilliant party leaders in both houses.
If in fact, it ends up being allowed to determine the election I will regret that that the entire economic system wasn’t put in jeopardy to prevent it.
But that’s just me.

if you make 30 thousand a year,you cannot afford a 300 thousand dollar home.
let the market settle its own problems–and get back to realistic lending—might be a good lesson for all

What I’d like to know is how much of this “toxic” bad debt is mortgages used by greedy speculators to buy 2nd homes, investment properties to “flip”, or risky term 80/20 interest only refi’s of a primary residence where they pulled out ALL their overinflated “equity” to remodel kitchens with new stainless appliances and granite counters, put a pool in the yard, and a Hummer in the driveway! The people who made these decisions and the lender’s and secondary market players that were willing to make the loans to these irresponsible people and purchase these loans should be stuck with them. This bailout is going to REWARD the greedy and penalize the thrifty, financially responsible folks who have not leveraged their homes to the hilt, or who held off and rented while they were saving for a home to buy under traditional, conventional guidelines. This is like having the neighbor who stayed home and took care of the family X’s dog, being asked to hand over their hard earned dollars to family X when they got home from a bad trip to Vegas!

Deregulation was not the problem. The main problem was too much government interference and greed.
There is an interesting article from Investor’s Business Daily, posted Sept 15, 2008 (“The Real Culprits In This Meltdown”) that lays much of the blame on the Clinton Administration. Another interesting article is by Kevin Hassett of Bloomgerg.com posted yesterday, Sept 22, 2008 (“How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett”). Google these and read for yourself.
Capitalism and the free market work best when government interference is held to a minimum (i.e. enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws and safety regulations). The IBD article states: “Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.”
The lowering of the lending standards, and the pushing of the flexible interest rates onto the consumers are what made a cyclical inconvenience (the housing market downturn) into a crisis. Once prices of homes got too high, people stopped buying. It’s simple Economics 101 folks. Under normal circumstances eventually the prices reach a point where buyers would jump in and begin purchasing again.
But this was not a normal circumstance. That’s because so many mortgages had flexible interest rates. As the value of the property dropped below the amount of the mortgage the banks raised the interest rates on the mortgages. Eventually the property values became half and in some cases one third the value of the balance on the mortgage. The original collateral no longer covered the mortgage. So as the interest rates increased, the mortgage payments increased greatly. In some cases doubling and even tripling. The speculators who borrowed to purchase multiple homes stopped making their payments and just walked away. Those living in their homes could no longer make their payments and were forced to default on the loans.
Now these banks and the investment firms (who purchased many of these mortgages) are stuck with the defaulted mortgages with no buyers.
As a conservative, I really hate it when government bails out, or worse yet takes over, private companies. Under normal circumstances I prefer that the free market is left alone and allowed to correct itself . But as I said before, this is not a normal circumstance. One of the main obligations of the federal government is to “provide the general welfare.” If the federal government just sat back in this situation and allowed the free market to correct itself, it wouldn’t be long before millions of individuals will not be just losing their homes but also their jobs. That could mean tens of millions of children starving–and dying. We just cannot allow that to happen.
Whether this proposed solution is the “correct” solution, I don’t know. But I do know that waiting too long for a “correct” solution will make the recovery even more challenging.

james danley:
re: “”provide the general welfare.” …. it wouldn’t be long before millions of individuals will not be just losing their homes but also their jobs. That could mean tens of millions of children starving–and dying. We just cannot allow that to happen. ”
—————————————————
“provide the general welfare.”
an overlooked and forgotten legacy of the ‘founding fathers’
it is indeed unfortunate that it takes a national crisis for the rest of America to begin to have concern for “millions of individuals ” who are not making big dollars a year in salary.
If the government ever took the time to really invest in America and it’s people, instead of all the fraud B.S. that goes on, America might actually be the envy of the world.