What is Digg?169 Comments
- pjr12345, on 09/25/2008, -6/+44Has anyone heard any solid information about the impact of not bailing out these private companies? As far as I can tell, the impact will be that those companies will go into bankruptcy, and perhaps fail. As far as the broader economy, and the average person, the only impact will be that credit will become tighter. People who have shoddy credit won't likely get loans. Seems reasonable to me; especially since the leveraging of bad debt is a major cause to the current situation.
NO BAILOUT!!! - inactive, on 09/26/2008, -3/+30The republicans and democrats are both totally ***** up and it's ***** unpatriotic to be either!
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -4/+26This mess was foreseen. It was not foreseen by Chris Dodd or Barney Frank. Nor was it foreseen by Hank Paulson or Ben Bernanke. Warren Buffet's comments about artificially low interest rates from the Fed and his comments that the derivatives could kill the market indicate that he had an inkling that this train was coming down the track.
But the people that KNEW and predicted that this was coming were those who realized that monetary policy drives the modern economy. Those people, such as Representative Ron Paul saw this coming and were very vocal about it. No one listened. Those of you that are impressed by the mutual admiration society that takes place between certain members of Congress and the Major Media did not listen to Dr. Paul.
And now that he has been shown to have predicted this debacle point for point, are you going to listen to him? Nope
You are going to continue to repeat the lines that the major media have taught you, such as "Barney Frank is a ***** genius and Chris Dodd is one of the true, authentic patriots in the senate." They are both completely compromised to the financial industry lobbyists and they have never advocated sound monetary policy.
They ask the Fed to keep interest low and therefore they are complicit in the bubble that just wiped out a couple of trillion dollars worth of wealth like the mirage that disappears when you get close.
You want to help the Incumbents Party reinflate the bubble. Swell.
ma6ic4l try to think outside of the box for once in your life. - pjr12345, on 09/25/2008, -2/+18I hear you, but that's not "solid information". That's the same scare tactics that we've been hearing.
Besides, if we bailout the mortgage giants at this level, all our savings will be heavily devalued. So if this scandal is to result in "soup lines", it will do so one way or the other. Why not take the pain all at once, and avoid the nationalization of our financial sector? - lolupissed, on 09/26/2008, -4/+17The bailouts need to stop, this is ***** socialism. We are on our way to becoming the United Socialists of Inflation. Not sure what is going to happen when the dollar becomes worthless, I just know that it is gonna happen.
- mcm297, on 09/26/2008, -8/+21Wow this made front page, holy crap. Send in the Digg Obama Bury Brigade (queue 70s Batman theme.)
Yeah McCain made efforts back in 2005 to reform Fannie (bill S.190)... Democrats like Clinton, Dodd and Obama shot down the bill, since they're in the pockets of those two companies. Seriously, Obama got over 125K from them. Yeah, real change my ass. He's more of the same... the same garbage that comes from Washington. - XenoSNK, on 09/26/2008, -6/+17Paulson... Rob?
Rob... Paulson?
Robert Paulson?
His name was Robert Paulson. - justinx0r, on 09/26/2008, -3/+14Actually, the only ones opposed to this are the House Republicans.
- ProKid, on 09/26/2008, -1/+12If Dems lay down again idk what I'm gonna do
- klooper, on 09/25/2008, -1/+12So far, the credit crunch hasn't affected business, except in the percentage rates that are being required on loans, which has gone up. Consumer credit is still available. If capital markets do freeze, however, then there will be significant trouble.
- samblam, on 09/26/2008, -0/+10I'm livid that many republicans are supporting this. They were suppose to be the free market liberals (in the European sense)! What happened?
- growler1, on 09/26/2008, -0/+10I think the first step is the realize that there are actually conscientious Republicans (and those looking to save their seats) who are against writing Paulson a blank check and abdicating oversight, too.
- 2600dblzero, on 09/26/2008, -2/+11The result of having a 2 party system has come home to screw us all. This is like flipping a 2 headed coin to make a decision.
- iloveobama, on 09/26/2008, -5/+14Democrats are a joke too. They won't change America.
http://placeforpolitics.com/?=article746219 - pjr12345, on 09/25/2008, -2/+10First, it was the Dems that created both Fannie and Freddie, the Community Re-development Act and its subsequent expansion, and ran the oversight of both Fannie and Freddie for years. In fact, the key execs for both those "companies" were Dem operatives. The Dems created this mess.
Second, the Bush administration isn't off the hook because it's proposing this insane bailout, and urging the nationalization of our credit industry.
Finally, both Dems and GOP in Congress will share the blood for this reduction in our liberty if they pass this crappy piece of legislation.
There's plenty of blame to go around. The main thing is for everyone to contact their Congressmen and tell them to vote, "NO!" on this bailout. - wiseman08, on 09/26/2008, -1/+9Umm, you do know Obama supports the bailout more than McCain does?
- openhope, on 09/25/2008, -4/+12Please, Most Important Congressmen Citizens, may we have more porridge?
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+8I've heard the D's agree with the bailout but a number of House R's are against it. Even though there's not enough R's to stop it the D's don't want to go through with it because if it fails they want the R's to take equal blame. So it might not get passed because of a handful of R's. That's just the scuttlebutt.
- angryfirelord, on 09/26/2008, -2/+9Unfortunately, what is happening is going exactly according to plan. The Federal Reserve has always been created for the purpose of bailouts. They just finally saw the chance to destroy the US economy with inflation and reckless borrowing. Now the media is going crazy saying, "If we don't bailout these companies, things are going to be very bad!" Of course, you never hear Ron Paul's argument that bailing out would make thing worse in the long run.
The best thing to do for now is to see when this bill is passed in the house & senate. Any congressman/woman who voted for it should be removed from office. We need to put the fear of "death" back into our lazy and incompetent politicians. - klooper, on 09/25/2008, -5/+12What a bunch of crap. You want to blame this mess on the Democrats? Just who is calling for this bailout? The Democrats? Or George Bush and Hank Paulson? Is it the Dems fault that Wall Street got drunk on $30 billion in bonuses in the last eight years while taking more and more risk (and enjoying record low taxation)?
Sorry, dude, but you can't just hand Bush over to the Democrats when he becomes inconvenient. Republicans are praying that the Dems will vote this into law, so that they can vote against it and avoid responsibility for the bailout that Wall Street and Paulson say is necessary to avoid the second Great Depression.
If Republicans have a better idea, then I say let them put it forward. But they won't. They're just trying to hide from responsibility. - nalen33, on 09/26/2008, -2/+9Oh, so Bush was the one who passed legislation in 1999 that made low interest mortgage loans available to a plethora of people who couldn't afford them and didn't have anywhere near the required credit rating to obtain them. No, wait, he wasn't in office then.
He must have also kept the Fed Funds rate artificially low after 2001 on the tail end of the dot.com bubble and 9-11 occurring to keep the economy from imploding. Oh, he can't affect money policy, only the fed chairman can.
Bush must have made Lehman, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Stearns go to the SEC and plead to be able to leverage up to 40 times their holdings as opposed to the generally accepted 10-15% at the time....oh, no?
Well then.
You should really get your facts straight before you blame this on Bush, and if you do, blame every single one of these ***** who's standing in front of the cameras and chatting with CNBC every day about how they are going to handle this. They all did nothing and are now scrambling to do something, anything in order to save face and make it seem like you should vote for them and their party on November 4th. - inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+7D's ***** D's Rosie Perez.
- mdmcgee, on 09/26/2008, -2/+9Except McCain took 169,000 and his campaign of lobbyists took many times more.
If you are going to bash Obama for being guilty you sure as hell can't hold Mr. Keating 5 up as any token of righteousness. Bash them both but don't be a disingenuous moron trying to claim the high road. - inactive, on 09/25/2008, -6/+12Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg have both said in the last 24 hours that inaction would be catastrophic for the economy. The financial industry ***** up, but if the banks go under, get ready to get in line for soup.
- JHB800, on 09/26/2008, -2/+8If there is no bailout, the negative impact of these mortgages will completely freeze the credit markets. Business and individuals will be unable to borrow money, jobs will be lost, and even people with immaculate credit will be unable to borrow money. (because these companies will have no money to lend)
But its more than that though. What Bernanke and Paulson are worried about (and they actually know what they're talking about, regardless of what you think of them) is a ripple effect. They're worried that if the banks go under (which many will without these bad loans being taken off of their hands), they'll take other major business with them. Some that immediately come to mind are the Detroit automakers, which employ something like 100,000 people (at least), and hundreds and thousands of smaller businesses.
I was originally for the bailout, but now I'm not so sure. I think what they need is essentially a more nuanced approach. If a bank is so far gone that the bailout money would only put a small bandaid on it, I think the government should let them fail. If there is a business that is not in immediate danger, but would be most at risk if the other larger institutions fail, the government should help them in other ways. (not necessarily buying their bad loans, but perhaps through other means) I also think that the government should prevent these institutions from being purchased by non-american companies, though that shouldn't be a result of government financial intervention.
There are more nuanced ways of dealing with this, but I don't think the Government is willing to see if they'll work. (which, like this bailout, they may not) - DiggCommando, on 09/26/2008, -0/+6Calm down people there is still no deal... But in any case prepare to bend over cause you're about to get screwed anyway.
“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”
President Bush, Sept 25, 2008 - DD2CC2U, on 09/25/2008, -10/+15This Bail Out is fishy. McCain and Bush are getting ready to do it to you one more time. Think of the Bail out as actually Bush and McCain has just raised your taxes .
- PrismoFillusion, on 09/26/2008, -0/+5This was written a day ago...no compromise has been reached.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26884523/
"Bailout talks break down" - sathias, on 09/26/2008, -0/+5What I would like to know is if the situation is as dire as Paulson and co are saying, why have they rejected any of the conditions discussed by Congress? Why won't they limit executive pay? Why won't they allow equity in the bailed out firms? Obviously the situation is dire, but not dire enough to warrant the Wall St bozos taking a pay cut.
- mfc5200, on 09/26/2008, -2/+7What do you mean have the Dem's agreed? The Dems are big spenders. They think you can solve any problem by raising taxes and throwing more money at it.
Of course, most people don't want this bill passed. So the Dems are adding ***** provisions like "Foreclosure assistance" to buy votes.
Essentially, the poor and the uber wealthy are both getting bailed out, at the expense of everyone in the middle, the responsible taxpayers. It's *****.
I'm not a Republican, those guys piss me off most of the time as well, but at least a decent amount of them are against this (I'm actually surprised, they didn't stand on principle when they had the majority, so they are probably trying to come back to their fiscal roots now to stay elected) - snotrokit, on 09/26/2008, -0/+5The American economy bled them together loooong ago.
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -1/+6Michael Bloomberg is an interested party. His business depends on the New York Financial sector. He is also the mayor of New York. He is more interested in Goldman @ma6ic4l
Sachs and Morgan Stanley than he is in the American taxpayer.
Buffet has not been as strident as Bloomberg, and he is also an interested party. He just invested 5 billion in Goldman Sachs in anticipation of the bailout. If there is no bailout he will very possible lose his 5 billion. He is an interested party
Don't listen to people who are personally involved if you want the truth.
And don't try to sound so smart if you don't know what you're talking about. - wiseman08, on 09/26/2008, -3/+8Dear Friends:
The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.
We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.
Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.
Still, at least a few observations are necessary.
The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?
We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.
Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).
Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk."
Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct?
Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.
It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.
The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.
F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:
Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.
To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.
The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.
The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?
Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people.
The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them.
I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn.
H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.
In liberty, Ron Paul - inhaler, on 09/26/2008, -0/+5We are all Robert Paulson
- 2600dblzero, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4Mark my words if Paulson does not get the $700 billion there will be an event that allows the president to make the move without Congress.
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4So what does that tell you?
It indicates that the adjustment that the markets are going to have to make is going to hurt the super rich
Tough ***** - GTPilot, on 09/26/2008, -2/+6aren't buffet and bloomberg Bilderberg buddies?
- badqat, on 09/26/2008, -1/+5Thank you Madame Pelosi, may I have another...
Sound about right? - 13373h4X0r, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4From Wikipedia:
Fannie Mae was founded as a government agency in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal to provide liquidity to the mortgage market. For the next 30 years, Fannie Mae held a virtual monopoly on the secondary mortgage market in the United States.
In 1968, to remove the activity of Fannie Mae from the annual balance sheet of the federal budget, it was converted into a private corporation.[6] Fannie Mae ceased to be the guarantor of government-issued mortgages, and that responsibility was transferred to the new Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae).
In the late 1990's, the then CEO Franklin Raines relaxed lending standards at Fannie Mae to allow subprime borrowers to obtain loans. This was done under the direction of the Clinton Administration.
===============================
Some people want to blame the current crisis on the Democrats. First, for having created Fannie Mae. Second, for allegedly "letting" CEO Franklin Raines "relax lending standards" at Fannie Mae.
However, the *Republicans* controlled the Congress when Franklin Raines returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, and the Republicans controlled congress until late 2006. If the problem was as obvious a few years ago as people would now have us believe, then the Congress had ample time and ability to stop the problem. If anyone "let" Fannie Mae "relax lending standards" it was the Republican-controlled Congress.
Also, Franklin Raines was a private citizen at the time he was the CEO of Fannie Mae. His political leanings were irrelevant. The laws enabled him to "relax lending standards", and there was no significant opposition. If anyone had any idea that this problem would mushroom to its current size, you can be sure they would go to the national news and proclaim the upcoming disaster. This did not happen suddenly! People had some hints this would happen, but blaming political parties at this point is silly. No Democrats or Republicans are retarded enough to see something like this approaching and then try to hide it. There's no hiding this. The fact is, nobody REALLY predicted the complex financial dynamics that let to this crisis. To say that Warren Buffet or Ron Paul knew, with confidence, that the disaster would happen with the current magnitude is crazy -- because if they had the concrete evidence to prove the disaster, you can bet they would have fought VIGOROUSLY every single day to stop it. - inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4Yes, it is their fault, because they are a very ***** opposition party. If you want to keep telling yourself that they oppose the republicans then by all means-- whatever makes you feel better; whatever you have to say to yourself to feel safer, since you clearly are too stupid to not see out of ***** scare tactics.
- badqat, on 09/26/2008, -4/+8Uh, hate to tell you, but it's Bush+Obama that are getting ready to do it to you.
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -1/+5he belongs in jail with dodd
- sponeil, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4klooper's right. It's not the oversight of the Dems that ran them into the ground, but the deregulation spear-headed by the GOP. pjr doesn't seem to have a clue as to why regulation is necessary. It's because hot-shot CEO's can't seem to understand that ultra-rapid growth is unsustainable (especially when they're already at the top). The Great Depression was caused by a decade of deregulation, and this is a repeat of that. The GOP ALWAYS trashes the economy when they get in power, the Dems ALWAYS try to fix it when they get in power, and once it's running smoothly again, the GOP comes back and claims that the Dems regulations are "restricting" companies from making the runaway profits they want to make, and thus are slowing the economy down. You're damn right they're slowing it down, but it's to avoid major crashes like this. This is even more basic than college economics 101. It's so basic we learned it in high school.
What really ticks me off is that there will always be dumb-asses who believe the GOP, and there will always be greedy ***** who profit from it. It doesn't matter which group you're in because either way, you're an ass. If you're in the former group, don't listen to the rhetoric, read the damn history. If you're in the latter, I hope you're one of the first robbed and killed so people can eat when the next Great Depression comes. Hell, if it came to that, I'd kill you if my kids were starving. Most liberals are not as bleeding-heart as you'd like to think, and we resent the hell out of people like you for forcing a dumb-as-a-post greedy used-car salesman president on us for 8 years (and now you're trying to force another one on us).
You say that the key execs for these companies used to be Dems? Well, as individuals running a for-profit company, they're just as greedy as anyone else, and they'll take advantage of the de-regulation to try to make a quick buck just like anyone else. That doesn't come anywhere close to proving that Democratic law-makers caused this mess. Want to argue that Dems have been "in power" for the past few years in Congress? Ever hear of a veto? Do the Dems have a 2/3rds majority? No? Sorry then, that argument doesn't cut it. None of your arguments stand up to even simple logic. - harlan582, on 09/26/2008, -1/+5No to the bailout. Politician's are just the flunkies for the rich who run this country. It doesn't matter what party the politician is on. They're all going to do like the rich want and the rich want the bailout. If you think for one minute that you will benefit from the bailout your living in a dream world. You'll end up paying the increase in taxes for the bailout. Don't be fooled by false reasons for this bailout. It's to help the rich from losing to much. Us middle class citizens who don't have money to risk have our savings insured by FDIC. Let the risk takers swallow their pill for once. Congress is also responsible for this mess. Passing legislation allowing the risk takers to take risks they weren't allowed to take before. Now it's blown up in their faces and want us the middle class tax payer to bail them out. The hell I will. I'll march on Washington for this cause. Beware a revolution is coming soon.
Vote out those politicians who voted for the bailout. - wiseman08, on 09/26/2008, -3/+7The House Republicans are the ones opposed to this measure. Obama and Bush are both for the bailout.
- CatoTheCensor, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4But you, mighty tekkitan, oh great thinker that you are, you see with clarity and walk free, unencumbered with the worries of the lowly......
- mecharabbit, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4He is sounding more and more like he's the the only sane (or uncorrupt) person in Congress.
- grapheads, on 09/26/2008, -2/+6The powers that be also said the war in Iraq would pay for itself. It hasn't, and this won't either. This is a sham, this is a Patriot Act, AUMF, Iraq war resolution, and FISA type bill. It is a complete ***** snowjob rushed through Congress.
- cordtripper, on 09/26/2008, -2/+6yeah ***** em all lets terminate all those large investment banks that need a bailout and for what to keep half a million people employed ***** them too they should have gotten jobs in a different industry. maybe after we don't support the bailout and the institutions fail and half of the US banks fail and the unemployment rate jumps to historic level we can kick those ***** dems out of the house and privatize social security, and remove any free health insurance program hey its not the governments job to keep an eye out for you.
The bailout proposal already asks for bipartisan oversight, wage caps for CEO's and no golden parachutes, and the tax payers get an equity share on the revenue from any company that receives the bailout the company can them buy out the tax payers share with interest. Clinton (which I never Liked) has been saying lately that the bailout might not be such a bad idea because it could actually cause a influx of money into the taxpayers coffers. so how about we wait to see what the proposal really is before we all start talking out of our asses and put millions of people out on the street. remember if big institutions fail its not only the bankers that loose their jobs but all the support staff as well (cafeteria employees, maintenance, custodians, mailroms etc) -
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