Obligatory: Tell us how you really feel. I’m actually not sure how this’ll play. I know what it means for student and future housing loans, but politically, I’m not sure how McCain can spin this to his advantage — whereas I can think of a couple hundred ways Obama can. (He says, holding his breath, trying not to panic.)
Republicans are saying they didn’t vote for the bill because Nancy Pelosi was too mean in her floor speech. I couldn’t make shit up like that if I tried. The bailout bill sucked. Hopefully, (although I’m not holding my breath) we will get a better bill. McCain suspended his campaign and then did nothing on the bailout bill. This was his 3:00 AM moment he flunked. John Boehner couldn’t keep his caucus together. Which surprises no one. Did the Republicans ever think that Boehner is the best thing to happen to Pelosi’s political career? The Minority Leader is not suppose to make the House Speaker look good.
Mr. Boehner, who said he could not remember a time when the muscle of both parties and the White House failed to produce a victory. Is it bad to be sort of giddy to be witnessing history?
Quixotess, you just summed up my mood on September 11th. (Y’know, that September 11th.) I remember a few months ago musing that Barack Obama could be not the next Kennedy, but the next Roosevelt. So…… Yeah, Roosevelt.
Do you get the feeling it’s just one disaster after another? Wild fires, hurricanes, mass shootings, financial debacles . . . ? Two books I’ve been told to read: Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine Limits of Power: the End of American Exceptionalism
So the Republicans voted against it b/c they were miffed at the Democrats? What is this, high school?
Radfem, that’s exactly what happened. Also, my new favourite website suggests that a lot of ass-covering was going on by congresspeople in contested districts. Though I’m shocked, shocked, that politicians, even Republicans would play politics on such an important issue. Isn’t it a good thing John McCain has the leadership and experience to broker a bipartisan deal at a time like this? How is it, I ask you, that Barack Obama, who has never seen a Presidential campaign as a sitting Senator that he wasn’t a part of, knew better than John McCain that injecting Presidential politics into delicate negotiations can do more harm than good? Also, how the FUCK do house Republicans mean to paint Democrats as the ones who fucked it up when far more Democrats than Republicans vote for the bill (despite reservations)?
The Repubs in my region mostly voted for it, despite getting thousands of emails and calls apiece (in large part b/c it doesn’t really help foreclosures and this is a region with a high rate of them)and then the most corrupted one of the bunch went home. The Dems voted against it and one Repub did b/c he might have an alternative proposal. So these folks weren’t intimidated by the allegedly evil Pelosi. Bono Mack had some speech she gave to defend her vote. I’m not sure many people were listening.
Please – we were fucked way before this who bailout mess. The writing was on the wall when Bear Sterns folded. The White House has been preparing this “deal” for MONTHS. They admitted it themselves. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/23/15463/3802/393/607783 Our economy has been in a freefall for quite some time now – this is just the sound of everyone waking up and seeing the whole thing fall about to hit the ground. The Rethugs who didn’t vote for it – let’s not pat them on the back yet for being such good guys – the bill they drafted was FULL of earmarks and pork spending. They’re ALL trying to suck some cash outta this for themselves – same for the dems. Did you know Giuliani’s firm is trying to “consult” with fellow republican senators on drafting the bill…as well as the “new and improved one” they’re supposed to vot on on Thursday? Seems as if there are plenty of vampires about – and not a one gives a shit about the people. The bill NOT going through was a GOOD thing. It helped stabilize our ever falling dollar, and it sent a message that this kind of BULLSHIT won’t fly. All trhe mroe reason to call your representatives and tell them AGAIN not to vote for this thing.
ETA: Why am I in moderation? I have been posting here for a LONG time. Seems as if every post I submit lately is moderated… This was not the case a few months back.
We aren’t fucked. People who work in the financial sector might be fucked, contractors might be fucked, but we aren’t fundamentally fucked. The majority of mortgages in the US are still good paper, the farms are still producing more than enough food, and the tax base is still generating tax dollars. We’re probably headed for a recession, but thats not really surprising after a period of massive growth and irrational speculation. This bailout plan was a bad idea. It was PATRIOT all over again: an attempt by the Bush administration to push through destructive, expensive, poorly crafted, ill thought out legislation without challenge by appealing to artificial panic. The bottom line is that several institutions took bad risks and are being punished for it. Other, more conservative, institutions are buying them out. If the government wants to try to mitigate the damage caused by a market correction it can offer to guarantee some portion of the debts left over after bankruptcy and liquidation of some of these failed corporations, or it do something to make sure the damage doesn’t spread, but theres no reason it should be bailing out corporations that made poor decisions. Its also worth remembering that the proposed bailout would have mostly focused on corporate aid, with a price tag exceeding Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Does anyone really think its a prudent (or fair) idea to take two thirds of a trillion dollars from taxpayers (which, really, means taking out a loan in our name) and hand it to a handful of corporations so they don’t have to deal with the consequences of their poor judgment? There aren’t many times when hard line fiscal conservatives and progressives can agree, but taking out enormous loans to be shouldered by working people in order to insulate irresponsible corporations from risk really ought to be one of them.
William, I agree that it’s unfair for working people to shoulder the burden that irresponsible corporations have put on them. But this doesn’t just affect corporations. Do you really think that the stock market falling 777 points only impacts Wall Street? Do you have a 401k? Investments for retirement? A lot of working people lost their life savings; a lot lost their houses; and a lot more are going to face those problems in the future if our market doesn’t pick back up. I wish this was as simple as punishing corporations, but if something isn’t done, a lot of people on “Main Street” are in big trouble, too.
“A lot of working people lost their life savings; a lot lost their houses; and a lot more are going to face those problems in the future if our market doesn’t pick back up. I wish this was as simple as punishing corporations, but if something isn’t done, a lot of people on “Main Street” are in big trouble, too.” The people on Main Street have been getting cornholed for years. And if this bill passes, this country is going to be looking at some serious inflation and stagnation (Stagflation). So, while you may keep your precious 401K, it may not amount to dick because the dollar will have tanked so much and lost so much value. I am amazed so many people are willing to go along with the Bush plan…their perverse form of a rescue…when we know what their solutions have gotten us into these past few years. Let’s not forget it was continual assault on regulatory practices by Bushco and their rethug cronies that got us to this point – and now we’re going to entrust them with FIXING this clusterphuck? These were the same asshats under greenspan’s abyssmal leadership who PROMOTED the Arm’s and MBS’…jesus christ in a tree… Let them FALL. If we have anything of a free market system they will FALL and take their losses. Anyone ponder how much 700B could BUY??? National healthcare costs (estimated) 6Billion…Infrastructure improvements 10-12 Billion, Social Security 10-15 billion….and yet those mother******* should get 700B of TAXPAYER money because they gambled and lost?
Stocks seem to be doing quite well on their own today…up more than two percent in less than an hour of trading. I would agree that if something isn’t done then everyone’s pretty screwed, but that something doesn’t have to be the POS bill they had up yesterday. I really wish the Democrats would cut Republicans out on this round of talks and come up with a bill that might actually help everyone like *gasp* nationalizing the corporations that are in trouble, but of course that would go down in flames as well. This whole thing makes me want to vomit.
here’s the thing, all partisan politics aside: the government was about to take on $700B of bad loans, loans that could potentially be worth costing us trillions of dollars. this thing would’ve been a nightmare. there really isn’t a solution to this mess, the entire economy is built on bad debt and interest rates and it’s finally come back to haunt us, but that doesn’t mean we should run into even more problems. last august, ben bernanke panicked: he was so obsessed with preventing a recession, that he killed the dollar to try to save wall st. that failed. and ever since then, everything that the fed and the treasury has done hasn’t worked. at this point, i think ben steil of the council of foreign relations has the best option: “Steil says the “basic idea” of establishing an institution along the lines of the Resolution Trust Corporation (which was created in 1989 to liquidate assets, including distressed mortgage loans, from troubled U.S. savings and loan institutions) is a good one. But he also points to several potential problems. First, he says, the bailout that’s currently being proposed is “utterly enormous” and will add “very, very significantly to the U.S. national debt.” He says the fact that the Treasury is considering buying up all sorts of distressed assets is “quite dangerous,” and the plan should be limited to debt from mortgages. “A lot of these assets [that the U.S. government might buy under the current plan] are very complicated and exceptionally difficult to value,” he says, adding the plan “could wind up leaving very bad assets on taxpayers’ balance sheet for a considerable period.” This, he says, stands to have a broad impact on the valuation of the U.S. dollar, with potential ripple effects throughout the global economy. Steil proposes a different plan. Under his plan, financial institutions that wanted to sell mortgages would come to the Treasury, ask for their mortgage-backed assets to be evaluated, and pay a fee to have them evaluated. The Treasury would then classify the assets based on the evaluation and would offer to buy the assets at prices based on what tier they are in. The firms holding the assets would then be able to choose whether to sell them to the federal government, or could attempt to sell them to other investors through the open market.”
I think we might have been fucked if the bill HAD been passed. 1) It included no commitment to future regulation. Lack of regulation — and ENFORCEMENT of regulation under the Bush administration — helped make this mess. Lack of regulation keeps the funny accounting funny. 2) There was no guarantee that it would work. I believe Paulson when he says the sky is falling. It definitely is. But it’s falling so hard that we could have passed this measure and still not have saved anything. And yet still have permanently deranged the nature of the US government. Which we’ll probably still have to do. Just not this week. The silver lining? My parents — who long ago gave up on having any retirement savings after medical expenses put them hopelessly in debt — have not lost any of their non-existent 401K. The bigger problem — how to cultivate an economically literate populace capable of making informed decisions about this stuff — preferably before it reaches 9/11 proportions. I certainly couldn’t call my congressman at this point and tell him what I think he should do.
To be clear, I don’t have a 401k or any savings; I do have $200,000 in debt. And I think the bailout plan was really fucked, and had some major problems. I’m not saying that it should have been passed. But we are in huge economic trouble, and it’s really scary. I just hope that the Bush administration and Congress are about to get it together and do something about this, because it is going to have far-reaching effects. I realize people on Main Street have been getting screwed for years, but when the whole economy tanks, it’s another ball game. It’s going to mean new levels of joblessness, people having their savings and retirement accounts wiped out, a massive burden on already under-funded and stretched-thin social welfare programs…
“do have $200,000 in debt.” well that’s good news then, because chances are they’re never going to be able to collect now.
@prefer: I think another side effect will be that the people who’ve never saved money and never considered investing because they think it’s risky will only believe that more now that this has happened. When people start really losing their retirement savings, then it sure as heck doesn’t encourage anyone else to run out and begin investing for retirement. When that happens, we will have to rethink social welfare in this country – which, overall, could be a good thing.
Dude, I am so glad I’m getting out of this country. We’re in a lose-lose situation. The bailout bill was atrocious, I’m glad it got turned down, but honest, I’m not confident anything’s gonna help us now. Like ElleBeMe says, we’ve been sinking into deeper and deeper shit for years now, thanks to the rich-loving GOP. We need another F.D.R. I wanna think Obama could do that for us, but as much as I support him, I’m feeling pretty damn hopeless lately. But I guess all we can do is vote and pray/cross our fingers…
@morningstar I WISH you were right about student loans becoming uncollectable, but in a system collapsing because of scarce capital, you’d better believe lenders are going to make sure they collect every penny they can. If you can’t meet a mortgage, you lose your house and that’s the end of the story (a horrible end, but an end). If you can’t meet a student loan, then the lender has the power to garnish money directly from your earnings every month for the rest of your life, because you can’t give back your brain. Take a look at your student loan paper work. One dire side-effect of a crashing economy will be that student loans will stop being available altogether. Without a credit economy, there’s not much opportunity for social mobility.
I agree with Jill on this one – it was a flawed bill and I’d like a better one, but a bailout of sorts is a necessary evil. This situation affects all companies and workers as lines of credit are used to make payroll as well as other legitimate business expenses. The best description I heard of what’s going right now and why we do need a bailout was on last night’s Rachel Maddow show – sadly, this is the one segment for which a clip doesn’t yet exist on youtube but hopefully it will be posted soon. I’m glad that the only debt I have right now is my mortgage (and I had the sense to buy less than what I could afford because I was raised living hand-to-mouth) but I work in an industry that is very unstable right now (it’s their own fault) and if I lose my job I am screwed – especially if I need to help support my elderly and recently widowed father.
i know prefer, i was just messing around. but in a funny/sick way, if the entire system collapses, what are they going to do? and with interest rates sooo low, you might as well just get yourself in massive debt and watch the government try to cover for you if/when you have to pay up.
Well Jill, I don’t mean to sound snarky, but you can hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets full first. Government got us into this, and believe me – they aren’t looking out for you, me or our neighbors. The fact that they can pony up a bill for 700BILLION dollars to socialize (good lord – did our socialist-paranoid government actually suggest that???) the investment banking industry – allthewhile bemoaning the fact that nationalize healthcare will “cost too much”…if that doesn’t tell you where their priorities are (and it isn’t with us) then nothing will. And furthermore – that 700 billion dollar figure is just a STARTING point from which they wish to use taxpayer funds to handout monies to those corrupt SOB’s who lobbied to have regulatory stopholds removed! I’ve read we’re looking at closer to 3 TRILLION to “get out” of this mess. Since when is it ever a good idea to hand over authority to one person (Paulson) to “save” us all? Remember what happened in 1933 when another person was given full authority? Furthermore, the Bill even cites Paulson as being the “overseer” of the committee for finance reform! If that isn’t the fox watching the henhouse, I don’t know what is. It’s just so typical of the current misadministration to RUSH into this deal. we were pushed into Iraq, the Patriot Act – and where has that gotten us now. “HOPING” isn’t going to do shit. And if many Americans who have lived beyond their means for many years now have to cut back on tehir credit-infused lives so be it. And that goes for student loans as well. Leveraging your life away for a piece of paper that you may NEVER pay off – for the hope it’ll get you a better job, is pure insanity. I shudder at thinking how much a payment that would be per month! I don’t envy your bill, Jill. But since you graduated from a good school, chances are you’ll do better than the law grad who paid 200k and graduated from podunk U of nowhere. We’ve all been duped – led into a passive lull for so long. Back in the 1970’s credit cards were given to those who had proven credit worthiness. Mortgages given to people who could afford the payments. College available for those who could afford it, who got scholarships and who could afford the school payments without selling their lives over to a lender for life. Then things changed. It became more profitable to sell credit to anyone and everyone because it was MORE profitable in the long run to have them self-bonded into your servitude. Coinncidentally at this time, our education system started to weaken as well. Kids graduating were taught less and less of real life skills – and personal finance was one of them. Shit, I could go on all day about this. Watch “Maxed Out” to see how far down the rabbit hole it goes. These people who have led us into the current crisis have purposely targetted the poor and less-than-able to pay, and it’s been coming for years. Americans love a freebie, our national motto should be “MORE”…well, we’ve got a lot MORE coming our way…more than we ever could have wished for or dreamt of getting. Those truly destitute are going to stay that way because the system had it in to fuck them over since the beginning. Hopefully this crisis will get teh average joe six pack american off his fat ass and do something about it. Both parties are complicit in this mess and there isn’t a savior on the horizon to fix a damn thing. But since the majority of Americans only give a damn when the gas pumps don’t run, Mc Donalds is out of apple pie, and American idol will be on for an umpteenth time – they’ll sit back and hope their government fixes it all for them. Afterall, they’ve done SO MUCH to “help.” End Rant.
On the whole, the Times doesn’t get a lot of credence from me on major finance issues right now. Let me put it this way: my father worked for them for ten years and got a Pulitzer doing it, and this is exactly his area. And the stories he’s writing right now? They wouldn’t have let him publish. The Times deserves approximately the same trust as the WSJ does right now, sad to say; business interests have taken over their newsroom. So—don’t worry on their word. Indeed, I’d focus instead on the role protests had on killing the bailout. Now that’s something we can be proud of! Actual change in Washington as a result of voter action?! When did that last happen?
I should clarify: they wouldn’t have let him publish those stories because the publisher, advertisors, and businesses that otherwise own the newsroom wouldn’t like it, and no amount of citations and proof will win them over.
Jill We were fucked from the beginning. This plan was put together by the head of Goldman Sachs, until he came on to Treasury two years ago. There are other plans out there, lots of people have ideas, Dennis Kucinich has a plan, Robert Reich has a plan. Newt Gingrich has suggestions for a plan. Ron Paul has been absolutely clear about his feelings on the plan. There are variations in Time Magazine, The American Spectator has a plan and even 80 year old grandmas have ideas for a plan so let’s expect them all to sit down and figure out a way that we can do this without fucking both my parents and my kids at the same time. More plans at my blog http://www.aftercancernowwhat.wordpress.com
Stocks seem to be doing quite well on their own today…up more than two percent in less than an hour of trading. After every fall, there’s bargain hunters. When I worked finance, these were always interesting days. Well, my republican (and very corrupt) congressman ignored the thousands of emails and calls to vote against it. The sentiment here in one of the foreclosure capitols of the country is that nothing was done to help the thousands who lost their homes but they’re going to bail out the crooks? Good luck, erasing that but my congressman doesn’t have to worry b/c he pretty much runs unopposed by Democrats in his elections no matter how abysmal he is his performance (and even being with his pants unzipped with a prostitute didn’t hurt his reelection bid). Mary Bono Mack got lots of upset people calling her office, I heard. The Dems and one repub. voted against it.
I really don’t understand all this doom and gloom. Talking about the credit market failing and going away is delusional. We live in a credit economy and there is still LOTS of good credit out there. At worst what we’re looking at is a bad recession. Not good, but not exactly Mad Max either. The bottom line is that some people are going to get fucked. People who work in finance are going to see themselves get fleeced, people who put their 401K dollars into investment companies are going to lose money, people who have engaged in Real Estate prospecting in questionable markets are going to see trouble, investment will slow (but not stop, people with money will always look for ways to make it grow, and people who took out loans they couldn’t afford will lose the homes they shouldn’t have been able to buy in the first place. Meanwhile, the banking institutions that made good decisions will buy out the valuable assets of the ones who didn’t, the weak parts of the market will die, and the strong ones will be absorbed by other strong entities. People keep talking about economic collapse, but we just aren’t seeing that. My bank folded and my money is still available. The worst I’m going to see is a drop in customer service quality. A property comparable to the one I own was sold less than a month ago in my building for more than I paid. My mother works in real estate and, while its lean times at the moment and foreclosures are happening, shes managed to sell every single property in danger of foreclosure thats been brought to her. I’m not saying things aren’t bad, I’m just saying that what we’re being fed now is the same horseshit we were fed after 9/11. Bush and Wall Street are trying to take advantage of the panic to push a specific policy that no one would even imagine agreeing to under normal, rational circumstances. This is a time for sober, conservative (in the technical sense) movement. We shouldn’t be shooting from the hip, signing on to a big number because it sounds good, or throwing disgusting amounts of money at a problem because people with significant amounts of political power have demanded it. We should be thinking about what to do and responding in a way that helps taxpayers and the economy first and reckless banking institutions not at all. The people who made bad choices should lose everything. They should lose their jobs, their homes, their savings. We don’t bail out gamblers when they put $1000 on 00 in roulette and the ball lands on red 1, we say “tough luck, next time don’t be an idiot, if you can’t feed yourself we’ll give you food stamps.” Why on earth do these people deserve any different?
Do I agree that people who think that credit is just free money and are irresponsible and that those who bought way more house that they could reasonably afford and/or thought their ARMs would go down or go up – but never up significantly deserve to face the consequences of their irresponsibility? You bet. Sorry, I worked hard, saved and used some common sense when finally buying my house – I didn’t buy the house I salivated over as my dream house, I didn’t buy a McMansion and I didn’t buy in my preferred location because doing so would have stretched my budget too much. Do I think the Wall Street fat-cats, people/banks who knowingly plunked money in risky investments, etc. need to feel the brunt of the current crisis. Yes I do. But I also know that the one part of “trickle down” economics that actually trickles down is the loss of jobs/income/homes. This country needs to take a conservative fiscally responsible approach. Free Market does not equal financial anarchy. There are still rules and regulation is required to make sure that people play by those rules and that the entire country doesn’t face the consequences of the collusion of lobbyists and the ultra-rich/senior management. FYI – here’s the transcript of Laura Tyson on Monday night’s Rachel Maddow show that I referenced yesterday. This explains why we need a rescue plan (one with regulations and oversight) MADDOW: Let’s play political analogy for a second. Is this global warming where it’s really bad but there are some people saying, don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s all fine or is this the Iraq war where there’s widespread panic, but it’s ginned-up and we shouldn’t be falling prey to the hysteria? TYSON: You know, this is not ginned up. I think, if you listen to voices from the economic community, you can hear sounds of great, great concern. You know, all along, this has been called a bailout bill. It’s such a misnomer. We are in the midst of a massive credit contraction. It’s strangling the economy. It’s making it impossible for businesses to borrow, to keep their businesses going. It’s making it impossible for students to borrow, to keep their loans going, and homeowners to stay in their homes. And what we saw today on the stock market, that shows what the market is anticipating. The economy is being strangled by a credit contraction. The stock market is telling us we are going to have lost incomes, lost revenues, lost stubs (ph), lost production, a real severe slowdown, if we don’t do something. MADDOW: Should regular, non-Wall Street-employed folks be concerned right now about our retirement funds, about mutual funds, even our cash in the bank? TYSON: You know, what people should be concerned about is their income and their jobs, because the credit contraction means that employers, companies, cannot continue operations at their current levels. They cannot get the credit they need to keep their operations moving. The greatest danger now is a real economy recession. Stock markets can go up and down over time, retirement accounts can go up and down over time. The key thing is to get the economy safe from what looks like to be a bit of a serious recession. MADDOW: I feel like listening to you talk about this as a credit contraction, listening to you put at it in those kinds of terms, I feel like I’m hearing more easy to understand sense about how big the problem is than I have been hearing out of all the talk on Washington and particularly out of the White House.I wonder, if this is, in part, a communication problem on the part of people who are supposedly addressing the problem in Washington. Polls show that Americans really hate the idea of this bailout. Maybe it just hasn’t been sold right? TYSON: You know, I always thought of leadership as being partly educational, partly explaining to people. Now, I actually think if you look at what happened this week, the Democratic leaders did a very good job of talking about jobs, talking about mortgages, talking about employers, talking about investments, talking about recession. I heard silence on the Republican side. I heard arguments that the markets should be free of government intervention. The market is broken right now. This policy is meant to restore the market to some normal functioning. So, yes, we have to communicate this to the American people so the American people understand this is not about Wall Street. It’s not about a bailout. It is about Main Street and jobs. And we see, you know, I go back to the Great Depression here. Great credit contractions in U.S. history if left unaddressed caused great slowdowns and great damage to American workers and factories. We need to make sure that a bill passes to address the credit contraction. MADDOW: I will say, this is one area in which I feel like Democrats in Washington have not been good at communicating. And that is about, I guess, connecting with people’s resentment towards Wall Street. For the past eight years, and even longer, I think, a lot of Americans feel like we’ve been mugged while Wall Street guys are hiring the Rolling Stones to play at their birthday parties.And so, while the Democrats did communicate that there’s been a problem with regulation, with Wall Street being able to get away with non-commonsensical stuff, they never should have been able to get away with it. A lot of them made a mint doing it. The Democrats haven’t followed through by saying, we are going to re-regulate Wall Street right now as part of this. And that’s going to be the condition of them getting any of the money. They’re trying to do that later on. Maybe they should be doing it first. TYSON: Well, I honestly think, first of all, I think it’s very important for people to recognize that this period of deregulation was a period of Republican control-Republican control of the presidency and Republican control of the Congress. And their position has been very clear. We deregulate, we let markets roar, and we don’t worry about the consequences. We, now, see the consequences. The Democrats have said very clearly that we need 21st century regulations. Senator Obama has said that again and again. But, you know? Right now, we have an emergency on our hands. We need to do something directly on the credit contraction. Yes, we need to change regulation. But if we sat down tomorrow and changed regulation, we wouldn’t solve the credit contraction we are currently facing. So, we need to do both. Now, the other thing I would say to the American people, which is really very important, is, the Democrats work extremely hard all week. Senator Obama, a week ago, had a meeting where he enunciated some principles. He said, look, what we need in this bill is protection for taxpayers. What we need is to control executive compensation on CEOs. What we need in this bill is to help homeowners from foreclosure. We need a variety of things. You know, by the end, the bill that was presented for vote was a bill which has met all of those conditions. It protected the taxpayer, it controlled CEO compensation, it dealt with homeowners and foreclosures, and it did all of this in a way which would directly address the credit crisis. So, we missed an opportunity. What I hope sincerely, is because the danger to the U.S. economy is so great, that we will see a bipartisan effort to get something done.
yay – no bailout (yet)! (especially this Paulson Plan) – Fire Paulson. good to see the Dems cuddling up to Bush one last time to line the coffers of Bush’s cronies
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/authors/2-Karl-Denninger/P1.html “You have heard that its all “American Gambles” You have been told repeatedly by George Bush and Henry Paulson that this bill is about a “rescue” of Main Street, not Wall Street. You have been lied to repeatedly. The bill The Senate intends to try to ramrod down your throat is neither about Main Street or really even about Wall Street. You are going to get VERY angry. Sit down before you read further.” … I suggest everyone click on that link and read further of why the bailout is a clusterphuck and get active and call again to tell them FU*K NO on voting FOR it.
You have been lied to repeatedly. It shocks, appalls, and depresses me that anyone who has been reasonably aware (and by “reasonably aware” I mean not in a persistent vegetative state) at any point in the last 40 years would even need to be told that. You’d think that after the Gulf of Tonkin/Vietnam, Watergate, Iran/Contra, Waco and Ruby Ridge, and this ridiculous “war on terror” people would have figured out that its generally prudent to actually verify the endless tide of bullshit that falls out of the mouths of politicians (regardless of which circle jerk team they play for). If we get a bailout we deserve it just as much as we deserved PATRIOT and a second Bush term…