$700 Billion Bailout Signed Into Law 857
Many readers reminded us of what no-one can have failed to hear: that the Congress passed and the President signed a $700B bailout bill in an attempt to avert the meltdown of the US economy. The bill allocates $700 billion to the Treasury Department for the purchase of so-called "toxic assets" that have been weighing down Wall Street balance sheets. This isn't particularly a tech story, though tech will be affected as will virtually all parts of the economy, and not just in the US. Among the $110B in so-called pork added to the bill to sway reluctant legislators are extensions of popular tax benefits for business R&D and alternative energy, relief for the growing pool of people subject to the alternative minimum tax, and a provision raising the FDIC's ceiling of guaranteed deposits to $250,000. Some limits were also imposed on executive compensation, though it's unclear whether they will be effective.
Friday (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it that really bad legislation always seems to pass on a Friday?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
According to one of the bosses in "Office Space," they try to fire people on a Friday, so that they have the weekend to cool off, in case they were thinking of coming into work the next day with a machine gun.
Maybe it's kind of like that? Maybe they pass unpopular bills on a Friday so that angry protesters have the weekend to cool off before coming into Congress with a machine gun?
Re:Friday (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, they have the whole weekend off to plan for it.
Re:Friday (Score:5, Funny)
Our attention span is to short to allow for planning
Re:Friday (Score:4, Interesting)
Which ultimately is a sad reflection on the media and Joe Sixpack, rather than on the Government.
Re:Friday (Score:5, Interesting)
It has more to do with the stock market opening on Sunday night in Asia. Everything revolves around Asia now, you just haven't digested the fact. The government printed all that money so they can give it to the Chinese, because it's easier than saying "Give us back half your money, we are selling half the country in exchange for another 10 years of comfort to die in." Printing money and devaluing what exists is less work and has the same effect.
You people keep wanting to make this an aberration. It's not. It's not a matter of "The system works, but someone didn't follow the system, we just need to sort them out and things will be ok." It's not like that at all. The fact of the matter is, the things that you hold most dear, your most treasured cultural values, they are what have done this to you. It's not the lawbreakers among you that did this to you. It's the laws and the people that follow them.
That's why people don't want your "Freedom" and "Democracy" in their own nations. It's because they see what you have done to yourselves, and they don't want any part of it.
I hope it happens quickly. The sooner you all fall to pieces, the sooner we can start clearing your poisonous influence out of our nations.
Re:Friday (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with you on most of your writing. There are things fundamentally flawed in our western culture. However, I don't agree with the last sentence:
The sooner you all fall to pieces, the sooner we can start clearing your poisonous influence out of our nations.
You cannot hold America or Americans responsible for this influence. What the people in Europe choose to do is *their* responsibility, not any American's. People in Europe can refuse to participate, but they don't. Not because any American forces them, but simply because they're tempted by greed in much the same way.
Re:Friday (Score:4, Insightful)
That might be the sentiment of some. But the reality is that despite our failures, despite our "decadence" or "immorality", despite the current crisis, people living in free democracies are still much, much better off that people who do not. And I don't just mean better off financially. I mean better off socially, culturally, and yes morally.
Many people around the world live in simple poverty. But not living in a democracy will typically mean you live in subjugated poverty. Even if you are better off, you still live in subjugation. Ask the women who live in just about any third world or developing undemocratic country. Ask the ethnic or religious minorities. Ask the homosexuals. Ask the academics. Ask the journalists. Ask them if they're willing to risk western "corruption" for freedom and democracy? Better yet, ask yourself, and hope that you are not found wanting.
You may disagree with many things in western society. Hell, I disagree with quite a few of them myself. But freedom and democracy are not and never have been a negative or poisonous influence on any society that has accepted them. Whatever may have failed the west in the last few months, our basic values have not.
The four steps to making a bad idea law. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all just part of the template for putting bad ideas into law.
Step 1: A bad idea is formed.
Someone has a bad idea for a bill. This could be a special interest group looking to get Congress to pass some horrible bill to have the government fleece the people for cash to enrich a select few. Sometimes it's the executive branch looking to grab some "emergency" powers by predicting doom and death if Congress doesn't just GIVE unchecked power to fight the terrorists allowed to flourish under their watch, t
Re:The four steps to making a bad idea law. (Score:5, Interesting)
He said there were actually a number of alternate measures put forth, that would have solved the problem without the massive bailout price tag to taxpayers, but, that sadly none of them were even considered. Only the big bailout check bill was to be considered.
I wish I'd have time to get the details on the other proposals, but, no time at that time to talk further.
Re:Friday (Score:4, Insightful)
Biggest Con Ever (Score:5, Interesting)
The DOW plummeted to 10,365 on Monday September 29th when the bailout bill failed to pass. Every proponent of the bailout screamed, "I told you so!" Then on Tuesday September 30th, even without the bailout bill the DOW rocketed up to 10,850. Then on Friday October 3rd when the bailout bill passed and was signed into law, the DOW dropped yet again to 10,325 (even lower than Monday when the bailout bill failed).
This bill will not help the credit markets, the debt markets, the equity markets or anyone reading this comment. It will help Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the rest of the former investment banks de-leverage from 60:1 leverage down to traditional 12:1 leverage on your dime while the economy goes down the tubes.
They pulled out all the steps - even threatening martial law:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8 [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you even read a summary of the bill, or are you just handing on opinions?
Re:Oh I get it. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, I don't think we've met. Yes, I don't like Vista. But it's not a religious stance against Microsoft. In fact, I hold 4 Microsoft certifications (MCSE, MCSD VB6, MCSD C#.Net, MCDBA) and work on Microsoft products all day every day. In fact, I did a 6 month contract programming job for Microsoft themselves as a side job.
Certainly a very busy man.
I'm a Vice President in IT. (Score:3, Informative)
I work on programming and enhancing strategic investment platforms for both fixed income securities and equities.
So yes, you can be both a Vice President and a member of IT. I've even been a Vice President and Chief Technology Officer in the past.
Re:I'm a Vice President in IT. (Score:5, Funny)
Certainly a very busy man.
I work on programming and enhancing strategic investment platforms for both fixed income securities and equities.
So yes, you can be both a Vice President and a member of IT. I've even been a Vice President and Chief Technology Officer in the past.
Did you by chance happen to stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?
Dec 2009 limit on the raised FDIC insurance limit (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep
I read it too.
If you're in banking, you must have noticed the fact that the increased cap of FDIC insurance from $100k to $250k will only apply until December of 2009, after which it reverts back to the limit of $100k per named account holder per financial institution.
How many people might get suckered into longer term CD's (Certificates of Deposits, not the ISO-9660 type) that might go over the boundary of the TEMPORARILY raised FDIC insurance caps and end up either inadequately covered or stuck with early-withdrawal fees?
Either way, NONE of the articles I have read make any statement about the fact that the so-called increase in the FDIC insurance from $100-thousand to $250-thousand is only going to last the length of calendar year 2009. That's a sham and a disgrace.
Kris
It happens every year (Score:5, Insightful)
Between 1 and 1.3 trillion dollars has been spent on military projects and war for the last few years, depending on how you look at old debt. The money is not clearly accounted for, against constitutional principles, and it only goes to serve large corporations.
Where is the public outcry? Where are the Republican talking heads when the budget is being discussed?
The bailout plan may be awful, but it's by no means the biggest con ever. The biggest con ever has been going on since the end of WWII, and it has cost American money and lives, and in no small number. Any of these transparently partisan personalities are just squawking for advertising dollars and votes, same as always.
Re:It happens every year (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Biggest Con Ever (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, this article [nytimes.com] (sorry, NYTimes reg required) details how Henry Paulson, back in 2004, asked the SEC to deregulate Goldman Sachs and other banks to allow them to take on this toxic mortgage debt in the first place.
We have just been ripped off by the most elaborate con in the history of the world. We let a banker tell us "let us break the rules so we can make more money", then when he did and the bottom fell out, we gave him even more money to keep him from going out of business.
My only hope is that the voters check for who is voting for this and get rid of them next election.
Re:Biggest Con Ever (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not dumb, they're just evil. They have learned that they can get away with anything, and we'll allow it. No interest in principles, no interest in truth. This is the product of modern political and social pragmatism - a free-for-all, every man for himself. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to maintain your grasp on the teat of the American public tax pool. The alternative is to make it on your own, using your rational mind to survive and fulfill your goals; but, reason is outdated, obsolete.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but you're an idiot. I consider myself more conservative than any Republican in the last 50 years. Both parties have become a joke - they're both pushing for a welfare-state. The words "Liberal" and "Conservative" have become syn
Re:Biggest Con Ever (Score:5, Informative)
I find this statement unfathomably ironic in the light that the majority of Republicans voted against it while the majority of Democrats voted for it.
That was the 110 page version. The 451 page version pretty much got the whole Republican tax plan shoved into it. http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=985597&cid=25257489 [slashdot.org]
still a lot of Rs voted against it (Score:3, Informative)
link to house roll call vote on the "billionaire's socialism bill of 2008" [myway.com]
Personally, I don't want to hear a peep out of any congress weasel who voted for it, or business goon who wanted it (or takes the cash), about "free markets" and "capitalism", because this bill is neither. Those people are big fat hypocritical liars.
Voting yes were 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans.
Voting no were 63 Democrats and 108 Republicans.
anyway, here is my state vote record
GEORGIA
Democrats - Barrow, N; Bishop, Y; Johnson, N; Le
Re:Biggest Con Ever (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, I've heard those and one other rumour.
(Disclaimer: I work for a highly secret govt. agency with unlimited resources).
Basically, a race of aliens threatened to build a new hyperspace-expressway through our solar system unless we provided the capital to bail out the luxury planet building markets. Apparently, the galactic economy recently collapsed and most of the universe is in a pretty bad recession.
Personally, I'm not sure how much of this is true but I agree, it's probably a combination of all three.
Sweet? (Score:5, Funny)
How big of a check should I expect to get?
--
Blackshot [blackshotfps.com]
Re:Sweet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
The major effect of this bill is that it is causing fiscal conservatives to blow gaskets. They can't accept the fact that the free market is what caused this mess.
It is funny to hear them complain about how people on Wall Street became "greedy." I'm not a financial expert but I think that is part of the design. Everyone on Wall Street works for their own self interest. That is how the invisible hand is supposed to work. But conservatives complaining about the essential 'feature' of the free market is sort of twisted.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven'
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
The invisible hand of free markets probably works as long as everyone does act in their own self-interest AND everyone has the same access to reasonably accurate and complete information.
If anything, this current crisis should deeply underscore that institutions cannot be trusted to:
Of course, if we would let everything and everyone fail outright in a horrific manner, maybe just maybe everyone would learn deep lessons. Nobody would deposit anything in any bank that wasn't bending over backwards to do all of the above.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if we would let everything and everyone fail outright in a horrific manner, maybe just maybe everyone would learn deep lessons.
Unfortunately the stakes are too big now to allow everything to fall outright. The last time just about everything failed was the 1930s. As badly as the U.S. was hit by the Great Depression, many other countries that relied on trade with the U.S. got hit even worse. Two of those countries were Germany and Italy. Economic turmoil played a large role in allowing Hilter and Mussolini to assume power and wage a war to restore what they considered their rightful role as a world economic and political power.
Re:Free market (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, fiscal conservatism and liberalism are like any other kind of conservative/liberal dichotomy: simplistic.
You can be a fiscal conservative because you believe in balanced budgets. You can be a fiscal conservative because you believe in minimum spending. You can be fiscal conservative because you believe in minimizing government involvement in the economy, other than setting the money supply. You can even be a fiscal conservative who doesn't even believe the government should get involved with the money supply (like Ron Paul, who favors a return to the gold standard).
What's clear here is that most of the people talking about Wall Street being "greedy" don't have believable credentials to any kind of fiscal conservatism. There isn't really a name for them: they're socially conservative, politically authoritarian, and fiscally opportunistic. Mixing them up with "fiscal conservatives" is what makes what they say sound confusing.
Personally, I don't fit any of these definitions of "fiscal conservatism". I think that the budget should be balanced with respect to current expenses, but that capital items that either have real value (like buildings) or clear potential for increasing future revenues (like education and some road projects) can reasonably be funded by borrowing. I don't believe that accumulating debt in the taxpayer's name and giving him a break on this year's tax payment is a tax cut.
From my perspective, Wall Street is supposed to be greedy, and Washington is supposed to draw boundaries which limit greedy acts when they become anti-social. That makes me a liberal in many people's eyes, I guess, because I think the government is supposed to safeguard the common good. But there are plenty of paleoconservatives who agree with me on this, but weigh risks and benefits differently than I do.
Re:Free market (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL, free market? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, what? What a stunning display of ignorance of how the whole subprime lending system worked. In a "free market" the government does not intervene. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government sponsored enterprises (AKA, "ATMs"), are no more "free market" than the post office. In this "free market," both FMs artificially inflated both credit and housing markets (just as government student loan programs have done to tuition) by pouring money into the system, and representing to the banks "don't worry, we are backed by Uncle Sam, what could go wrong?". In a "free market", government regulations like mark-to-market [wikipedia.org], which caused massive bank paper losses, don't exist. In a "free market," you don't have a CRA [wikipedia.org] telling lenders how they have to loan their money. In a "free market" you don't have corrupt senators like Chris Dodd [latimes.com] and Barney Frank [foxnews.com], who are on important congressional banking oversight committees (which themselves wouldn't exist in a "free market"), leaning on lenders to make subprime loans, and fighting attempts to reign in these out-of-control Government-Sponsored Monstrosities. [wsj.com].
Here's what Chuck Schumer said back in 2003, when Republicans wanted more oversight of said Government-Sponsored Monstrosities:
Senate Banking Committee, Oct. 16, 2003:
Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.): And my worry is that we're using the recent safety and soundness concerns, particularly with Freddie, and with a poor regulator, as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie's mission. And I don't think there is any doubt that there are some in the administration who don't believe in Fannie and Freddie altogether, say let the private sector do it. That would be sort of an ideological position.
Source [wsj.com].
So Schumer himself opposed reform on the grounds that the "free market" is the wrong approach. Massive government intervention and regulation was the status quo. But now it is the "free market's" fault? WTF?
Yeah, sounds like a "free market" alright. Just like public housing is a free market.
You're the weakest link, Goodbye! (Score:5, Interesting)
I seem to remember reading the BBC and noting that countries overseas wanted this bill as much as some in the US.
Ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Economist: Why Bankruptcy is better than bailout [cnn.com]
The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities [city-journal.org] ( written EIGHT YEARS before this crisis, predicting everything down to the dollar amount)
Now, check out the $150 Billion in pork-barrel projects that were added by the Senate to the original 100-page bailout that failed in the House, turning it into a 450-page bailout:
- "Wooden arrows designed for use by children" (Sec 503)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Litigants in the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill (Sec. 504)
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
This is the bill that senators are screaming about, saying "IT MUST BE PASSED OR DOOMSDAY!" Who believes them? And yet the bill easily breezed through Congress.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Good links, here's the deal...
The US has a mixed economy. Our currency is based on a perception of value (no more gold standard). We like for a market to be as unregulated as possible, but for any number of reasons sectors of the economy will have regulations (from health codes, to OSHA, to Sarbanes/Oxley).
Perception drives our economy just as much as facts and reality. I don't like it, but it's just a flat fact. If people *think* our economy is good, they buy things and make investments. If they *think* it's bad, they don't buy, don't invest, etc... These are the basics, I'm building to a point.
My point is, if we had a respected President, one who could come on TV and calm everyone down, this 'bailout' would be unnecessary. The market would recover. But because the general public has the *perception* that this is "the worst economic crisis since the depression" then something had to be done.
I don't like what they did, but I agree they had to do something. I would have liked for it to be better, but it's not.
Yes, there is obviously problems in the housing market and banking system right now, but (all suffering aside) it's just the market leveling itself out. Housing prices were inflated...they were going to come down. People took on loans they couldn't pay...they were bound to get foreclosed.
In a perfect world, we could let AIG, etc. fail, give some emergecy economic help to people who lost their homes, and wait for the market to recover, but because of how *perception* plays a part in our economy, this "bailout"...though in theory the wrong move, in practice was needed...almost like a commercial for how good our economy will be...
I hate that this is how it works (and I know I'm oversimplifying), but it's true.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't disagree with your statements (I recall a phrase like "If it is believed, it will be"), but I don't think that's what happened here.
A few days ago, as reported by Slashdot [slashdot.org], the White-house had to stymie the flow of e-mail from constituents due to the first bill. I would bet my bank account (all $20 of it) that the majority of those were negative about the b
Unless gas prices are affected... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lower my income tax
Regulate fuel prices to a reasonable level
Give me free health care
Give me free college just like the African Americans and Latinos and Single Moms and Sudanese and pretty much everyone who isn't a white male/female with no kids
Other than that, big deal. 700 billion dollars that I basically receive no real benefit from, while people who are already rich just get richer. Yay America.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
2/3 of your oil is imported from other countries. How do you imagine the government could regulate your fuel prices to a "reasonable" level?
Quit your bitching. (Score:3)
If you live your life the way you post on Slashdot, it's no wonder you don't have anything. How about instead of expecting the government to hand everything to you you get off your ass, study, get good grades, earn a free ride through college (or take some loans), work hard, get a good job, and then buy the shit you want?
Yeah, it does suck that certain special interests are able to use the government to make themselves richer. And we should definitely be spending our tax dollars helping out those on the b
Re:Unless gas prices are affected... (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulate fuel prices to a reasonable level
How would increasing fuel prices help you? Unless it forced you to other forms of transport...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"If they did nothing and the economy completely crumbled leading to the Great Depression Part 2, you'd sure as hell feel it when you lost your job."
'Doing something' was the cause of the Great Depression; the government tried to prop up the economy rather than let the bad business go bankrupt and be bought up for a few cents on the dollar, and that was why it took so long to recover. Sure, they'd have had a recession if the government hadn't 'done something', but it wouldn't have been so bad and it would ha
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"so why are so many American dumb enough to think that the government magically finds money and that the hundreds of billions or even trillions a year needed for "free" health care won't be paid for with tax dollars?"
Not so dumb. The government magically found $810 billons just now ...
Something everyone seems to miss (Score:4, Insightful)
There is also a provision extending IRS powers extending its immunity from a variety of laws.
Read more here: http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/10/03/bailout-bill-invades-your-wallet-and-your-privacy/ [bobbarr2008.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/ites/0904/ijee/realuyo.htm [state.gov]
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/121605summ.pdf [senate.gov]
The first connects the IRS with anti-terrorist investigations. I doubt great detail is needed to show how that can and likely has been abused. The not-so-recent news about the clear and abundant abuses of national security letters and other such Patriot Act devices show an obvious tendency in this regard. Somehow, the IRS had its mission expanded to include anti-terrorism.
The second shows abun
Paulson's speech (Score:4, Funny)
"We owe it all to the bedrock of our economy: the ordinary hard-working taxpayer [today.com]. You resisted the siren call of credit cards, lived within your means to save for a rainy day, never took out an interest-only mortgage, credit score to make Jesus cry. Without taking every penny you saved over the $100,000 guarantee, we'd never have made it. And the best bit is, we know you'll still vote Republican! God bless you all!"
By the way, your house is still worthless. [today.com]
Video on details of the plan (Score:3, Informative)
Another Option: (Score:5, Interesting)
I have had the chance to speak with other business owners and some executives of, let's just say, large, corporations. The general feeling is that while action was necessary there was a much better approach:
- ~500 billion USD given to the Fed
- Allow the Fed to disperse the money through the discount window with loans at 1% fixed for 18 months then reset to Prime-0.5%
- All mortgages that are currently in MBS tranches have their rates reset to Prime+1 for 24 months.
- Have the US AG seek felony charges for lenders that committed fraud.
The current bill is like trying to get fuel into a car through the tailpipe instead of filling up the gas tank.
Read the Bill For Yourself (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to check out all of details directly it's only 724 KB to get the PDF of HR1424, the full bill [senate.gov].
You can find an index to most of the tax break provisions starting around page 261.
Looks like they got the Republican tax agenda in there.
Some may also like to check out the wikipedia entry for HR1424 [wikipedia.org].
This proves how much Americans will sit and take! (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find MOST incredible about this whole bailout, is the fact that nationwide polls of the general populace indicated between 70% and 75% were AGAINST the legislation, yet the Senate passed it through with FLYING COLORS, and House of "Representatives" were swayed to voting for it in a matter of only a few days. All it really took was throwing in a few key financial incentives and bonuses to the appropriate special interests, and some empty promises by potential presidents to be.
The whole time, these "Representatives" were being flooded with demands from the American people NOT to vote for the bailout - but they turned a deaf ear to everyone, and made bold claims like "I may not be re-elected because of this, but I'm confident I did the right thing for America's future anyway." One moron said he changed his vote from NO to YES, simply because "I talked with potential president to be, Obama, and he personally assured me he would enact legislation after his election that's in alignment with what I want to see." (WHAT?!? You were VERBALLY promised some B.S. by a guy who MAY or MAY NOT become president, so that's more important to you than listening to the people who elected you and trusted you to represent their wishes?!)
When HUGE taxpayer expenditures like this are voted through and signed into law in less than a week, despite 3 out of 4 Americans being strongly against them - it's clear we no longer live in a Democracy at all! This seems like as good a reason for an overthrow of our government as what we dealt with back around 1776! Yet people will not only sit back and accept it, but probably not even vote in protest for a 3rd. party like the Libertarians. (Incidentally, Bob Barr has been speaking out against this bailout the whole time, unlike our Democratic or Republican contenders. The man gets MY vote for that reason alone. At least he's in support of the will of the PEOPLE still!)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they come back and basically vote on the same bill again, but this time a few house members take the bait [wikipedia.org] and it passes. Some of the amendments being totally weird and not really having anything to do with "bailing out" Wallstreet, such as subsidizing rum, wool research and wooden arrows for children?!? I'm not making this shit up! [google.com]
Then we have McCain [youtube.com] sitting in a interview riling against the pork barreling and at the same time taking credit for convincing his Republican buddies to back this "sweetened" bailout plan.
And the really ironic thing is that we have old-school (i.e. fiscally conservative) Republicans opposing the bill as well as far left dudes like Kucinich [youtube.com]. Not to mention Paulson's conflict of interest [wikipedia.org] in this whole mess.
The big risk = the great move to Ireland (Score:3, Informative)
So what is their strategy to deal with it? They have created a class of company (unlimited liability) which basically has to file almost no public accounts. A similar wheeze was used in Germany some years back in the KG & Co. in which one member of a partnership was a limited company. The object is to get US and other corporations to make their corporate HQs in Ireland, and so hide their profits in this offshore bank scheme. Look it up.
By getting US corporations to relocate to Ireland they hope to avoid recession in the economy and ensure the bank guarantees will never be called in. But clearly that will reduce the tax income from corporations in the US, and worsen the crisis there.
I am only just joking when I suggest that some of the pork should have been invested in invading Ireland. Saddam may not have had WMDs, but Ireland seems to be trying to develop WMEDs (weapons of mass economic destruction). Perhaps Osama Bin Laden hasn't been caught because he's actually been in a Dublin pub, plotting the downfall of the US.
It's not going to work. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have real doubts about the bailout "working". The underlying problems with the financial system are more fundamental. We have a sizable chunk of the financial system based on the assumption that real interest rates (after inflation) will remain negative.
Currently, US dollar inflation is around 5.4%. (9% to 11% if you use classical numbers, [shadowstats.com] computed the way inflation was calculated prior to the 1980s.) Normally, the Fed funds rate is just above inflation, LIBOR and the prime rate run around 2% above inflation, and mortgages run about 6% above it. For the past year, the Fed has been flooding the financial system with cheap money, at 2%, in a failing attempt to avoid a recession. LIBOR is 3.88%. So we're currently in a situation where key real interest rates are well below inflation. LIBOR, in real terms, is about -1.5%. This is very unusual historically.
The problem is that 1) negative real interest rates can't last for long without producing runaway inflation; the money has to come from somewhere, and 2) there are sectors of the financial system that are addicted to those low, low rates. Last week, LIBOR briefly hit 6.88%, businesses were screaming "credit crunch", and AT&T and GE were having difficulties rolling over their commercial paper. (GE Credit borrowed short and lent long, which is a bet on low interest rates.)
The mortgage portion of the economy is heavily dependent on those low interest rates. A mortgage really should cost a good borrower about 11.5% right now; 6% as the cost of the mortgage, and 5.4% for inflation. The "bailout" is all about keeping those interest rates artificially low. For a while longer.
Probably not that much longer. Expect a "credit crunch" in 2009 as financial reality reasserts itself.
There's nothing wrong with a credit crunch. It just means that businesses have to finance more with equity and less with debt. (Because interest on debt is deductible by business borrowers, there's a systemic bias towards financing with debt.) Consumer credit rates, other than for autos, are already at credit-crunch levels. (Stop in at your local "payday loan" outlet and ask them what their APR is.) And besides, we might see worthwhile interest rates on savings accounts.
What's "normal?" 3% real interest on savings accounts, 6% on loans, and the median house costs 2.5 years median income. That multiplier got up to over 4 in the US nationally, and over 10 in some markets. That was two years ago; now those numbers are lower, but not low enough.
When bubbles burst, they burst all the way. Tokyo residential real estate dropped over 90% when their bubble burst in 1989, and never went that high again.
We told you this would happen. You didn't listen. Now suffer the consequences. [downside.com]
I speak for many when I say.. (Score:3, Informative)
At last! Hallelujah! I'm European so this isn't my money that's involved, therefore a bailout is better for me and the world's economy than no bailout, and it doesn't cost me a thing anyways. Sorry you guys have to pay the cost, but look at the good side of things. Thanks to this whole thing happening at the right time it only makes you more likely to get a decent administration this time.
Seriously, I look at this chart [uiowa.edu] as if it was the temperature curve of this election, and if you rely on it then this whole crisis made Obama's estimated odds of being elected skyrocket. All the Diebolds in the world couldn't save the day for John "I was a P.O.W. for 5.5 years" McCain and Sarah "I'll make you keep your foetus even if the father is your uncle" Palin.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Zeitgeist: Addendum (Score:3, Informative)
another point of view (Score:5, Interesting)
One myth about the current financial crises is that it is the fault of ordinary Americans, who imprudently took out loans they could to afford. This is simply not true.
The current crises is not the fault of ordinary Americans.
It is true that many Americans took out loans they could not afford. I don't know why people did this - some, with credit cards maxed out on vacations, took out a home loans , and instead of paying off the credit card, took another vacation. Others were optimistic, egged on by the relentless propaganda that home ownership is good. Others were, perhaps , elderly and confused, or lost their jobs, or had medical bills. I don't know how many people acted in different ways, but i do know this: every single solitary mortgage had to be approved. Every single mortgage had to be approved by underwriters and bankers. Now, if someone, asks for a loan they cannot possibly pay, who bears more responsibility: the person asking, or the banker who approves it.
I further know that many ordinary Americans are suffering as a result of their actions, and of the actions of their neighbors.
Another myth about the current crisis is that rather then resulting from too little govt regulation, ti was the result of liberals messing with the free market, by forcing banks, with a law known as CRA, to make loans to poor or minority applicants. This question has been studied again and again by the Federal Reserve; suffice it to say, CRA loans were not the problem.
However, the question of who or why these loans were made is a red herring; it was not the approval of imprudent loans that has made the current crisis so severe. All the bankers who approved these loans are not actually the main culprits.
The people who bear direct responsibility for the current crises are people like Paulson; as CEO of Goldman Sachs, he and people like him are directly responsible for the current problems; that he is sending our tax dollars to his buddies to fix the problem is only icing on the cake of gall. Not only are people like pauslon responsible for our current problems, they acted from the basest of motives - greed. It was the desire on the part of people like Henry Paulson for larger paychecks that led to reckless behavior on the part of wall street; this reckless behavior generated large profits, justifying large salary's, but this same reckless behavior has gotten us to where we are today.
Another myth about the financial crisis is that it is incredibly complicate. While the technical details of loans may be complicated, the behavior and actions that led to this state are not at all complicated, and are similar to what we do every day.
As an example, this week, the wall street journal examined why AIG, one of the largest and most respected financial institutions in the world, suddenly collapsed. Turns out, they had a unit in london writing insurance; while it sounds complicated its just insurance - someone pays you some money, the premium, and you promise to pay back a lot more if they have a problem. And what did AIG do with the huge premiums they recieved ? they did not put any money aside for a reserve.
LET me repeat that: they spent all the money on salarys. So when the mortgage market went south, all of sudden people said, hey, AIG owes, in theory, a gazillion dollars of insurance, and they don't have any money set aside to pay it.
When people heard this, you had the famed loss of confidence, and AIG went bankrupt.
Problem: Incomprehensible unregulated derivatives (Score:5, Informative)
There was an article in last Sunday's Washington Post that described one house on the market after a foreclosure. The article was very instructive about what was really going on. The entire financial mess is a result of the gambling casino mentality of the derivatives market moving over into housing and mortgages. The mentality of the derivatives market was allowed to exist and continue as a result of financial market deregulation.
Many financial experts, most notably Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha, have for years warned that there are derivatives nobody understands and that they will cause trouble. Based on the article, it is clear that we now have mortgages nobody understands and derivatives on those mortgages that nobody understands, either. Derivatives in the form of "portfolio insurance" caused the stock market crash of 1987. Since then there have been several occasions (such as Long Term Capital Management) in which derivatives threatened to collapse the world financial system. Well, they've done it again.
The article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/27/AR2008092702587.html [washingtonpost.com]
describes how the homeowner was solicited to refinance her home and took the bait. The interest rate was a teaser. Over a year into the
mortgage she discovered that it was a "negative amortization loan" where the principal increases every month. The transaction probably came nowhere near compliance with Truth in Lending laws. It is shocking that such a piece of financial garbage exists. However, Wall Street wanted mortgages to feed the highly profitable derivatives market and there was a lot of pressure to produce the mortgages, no matter how.
The article doesn't cover what happened next, but the mortgage was likely bundled into a collateralized mortgage obligation that likely had
credit default swaps written on it. Here are some relevant Wikipedia links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_mortgage_obligation [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance) [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_amortization [wikipedia.org]
It turns out that many of the derivatives are really side bets on prices of financial securities, and that the total outstanding value of the derivatives often exceeds by huge factors the total outstanding value of the securities. Furthermore, the derivatives are highly leveraged.
According to a recent program on NPR's This American Life there are about 4 Trillion in bonds and about 60 Trillion in derivatives betting on whether the bonds will pay off.
In the absence of strict regulation, the "free market" becomes the Fraud Market. This mess can be laid squarely at the feet of financial deregulation and Fraud Market Conservatism. Adam Smith's "unseen hand" doesn't work. The financial markets are much more in keeping with Charles MacKay's book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". This has been proven over and over, and is now being proven once again.
One part of the eventual cleanup will need to be a shutdown of the derivatives casino. Some of these financial instruments are valuable to
producers and users of real commodities, but most of them need to be eliminated. Whatever remain need to be understandable and should not be
side bets. Eventually, the tails will stop wagging the dogs.
I know you're scared, but please think. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know it's an amazing coincidence. You're saying the exact same thing that Henry Paulson and his cronies say. I'm sure that it is just that - a coincidence - and that you independently came up with the identical position completely on your own.
I also suppose that if Henry Paulson said you needed to come to his house and blow him or the economy would go under you'd think, "No time to think!" and head right over to do it. If that's not the case, then why did you fall for his, "Sure, I'll give you a life preserver - throw me your wallet first!" scheme? There is time to think. Henry Paulson has said he has no plans to spend any of the $700B for FOUR WEEKS. Why the rush to pass it into within days?
Re:bailout / rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bailout / rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
There is plenty of blame to go around. Yes, the CEOs, but everyone else too.
First, all the people that thought houses were investments whose price could never go down. Wrong.
Second, all those people bought houses they couldn't afford at ludicrous interest rates, based on the idea that a bank would never give them a loan they couldn't afford. Wrong.
Third, the banks that gave these ludicrous loans in the first place. Stupid.
Fourth, the unscrupulous assholes who raced to find people to give these loans so they could sell the loans as investments.
Fifth, the federal reserve for keeping the interest rates so low that the global pool of money had to find themselves an investment other than government bonds.
Sixth, the global pool of money for investing in these loans without carefully looking at what they were buying.
Seventh, all the wall street banks that also invested in all these things heavily and not seeing that they weren't worth their price, and their CEOs.
Eighth, the government for not seeing this happening earlier and stopping it before it was too late.
Ninth, the previous government (Clinton, sorry) for trying to let every American own a home. Heart was in the right place, should have asked an economist first though.
How many times did you hear in the last ten years that property was a great investment that couldn't fail and that everyone should buy some as soon as possible? That was bad advice, every one of those people were wrong.
Basically we all did this for not looking more skeptically at what we were investing in, and living beyond our means. But the economy is not the financial industry, the financial industry is just the fiendishly complicated mechanism that loans the rest of the economy money so it can function. Letting the entire economy fail to teach Wall Street a lesson sounds stupid to me.
I lived within my means, I don't have any debt, and I'm pissed at everyone for screwing this all up so badly. But I want the economy keep going so that the means which I am capable of living within can continue coming, and here we are. Put me down for my share of the bailout, and do me a favor, keep wall street on a tighter leash. I lost a lot of faith in the free market over the last year, it was the market's mindless lemming me-too-ism that completely screwed the pooch here.
Re:bailout / rescue (Score:5, Interesting)
You need some serious perspective change.
Let me ask you this:
If you were to ask for, let's say a $10,000 loan with no plan on how to use it, would you expect to get the loan?
These people stated in no uncertain terms that they had no plan in dealing with the problem. The "problem" has been discussed and investigated for months... even years if you want to go back that far. "Experts" have been claiming everything is fine. And now these same "experts" want control of $700 billion and put the US tax payers on the hook for it. And they have NO PLAN on how to go about making things right and no plan on how to prevent it from happening again. NO PLAN.
Which should come first? The money or the plan?
The "panic" is unjustified. Banks have failed. We call that Darwinism. Let it be. Other institutions are restricting their lending practices... adding a little more sanity to their risk calculations. That is a good thing and what they should have been doing all this time! People seem to think this is a sign of the apocalypse. It's not. We should expect some trouble before things turn around again.
But if one thing can be clearly said about this is that these "experts" have caused this problem. These same "experts" claim they need $700 billion to fix it and they don't have a plan.
If this sounds eerily like the story of an addicted gambler, you'd be right to see it that way.
Re:bailout / rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, I hate this kind of argument by analogy, although the analogy happens in this case to point in the right direction.
Secondly, not all "carping" is bad. We should be skeptical. This isn't the first time we've heard "wolf" called by this administration.
What is going on is that credit markets are breaking down. Credit hasn't "dried up". It doesn't work that way. Credit can't disappear, any more than the world can run out of oil. What happens to these commodities is that they become too expensive to be useful. That's what is happening now to credit, and upshot is that the Fed is losing control of the money supply, and that is very, very bad because controlling the money supply is the main way we have avoided having economic downturns spiral out of control ever since the Great Depression.
It is a very serious situation, and we need to start fixing it fast, but in any case the fix doesn't have to be accomplished overnight. It can't be. We have a situation that grows graver every day, but not say grave that at bad move today is better than a mediocre one tomorrow. It's all about balancing less than perfect action against diminishing returns.
I think there are better ideas out there than this bill, but getting enough support to put them into action runs up against diminishing returns. On the other hand, the bill sent to us last week was dangerous.
"Carping" improved the TARP component of the bill considerably, putting in place a mechanism by which distressed assets are secured by stock warrants to control taxpayer risk, aligning taxpayer and shareholder interests. I originally though the CEO payout provisions were Democratic red meat, but in this context it is good for shareholders too because it keeps CEOs from stabbing the shareholders and taxpayers alike in the back.
So "carping" got us a much better bill than we had a week ago last Friday. The pork incentives to get those last dozen votes, frankly, sucks, but as Barney Frank pointed out: if you don't want politics in this process, you shouldn't hand it over to 535 politicians.
Re:its not a BAILOUT !!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then let private firms buy it up and make that money... why the panic?
Re:its not a BAILOUT !!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then let private firms buy it up and make that money... why the panic?
Because private firms are under pressure to make money NOW, and always turn a profit. No private enterprise would ever go for this type of long term investment with zero profits in the foreseeable future. Government, however, can wait. It really doesn't matter if it takes ten years for the money to return.
It is in the general interest of the public to resolve these type of situations as fast as possible, because in the end, it's (as usual) Joe Sixpack that's going to suffer if a larger chunk of Wall Street goes belly up.
Re:its not a BAILOUT !!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
My biggest issue is that this bailout let's the people responsible for that mess get away with impunity. That's just not right, IMHO.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My point was not that the market did not need some adjustment... only that there are many better ways to do it. This was fiscally irresponsible, will end up costing you A LOT in the long run, and helps those who do not need help while abandoning many of those who genuinely do.
Remember, too, that the people who made the loans are AT LEAST as responsible as those who took them... and probably a lot more, since they were supposed to be THE EXPERTS
Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush and collegues came into office promising to implement Grover Norquists ideas for contracting govenrment. The graphic phrase most often used was they would have to "strangle it in the bathtub" which was Norquist's shorthand for meaning that to reduce spending they had to basically remove govenement agencies and kill off revenue.
Fast forward we have years of the biggest govenement expansion ever. Some bandy the word "socialist" over the bailout. But actually that misses the big picture.
Suppose your goal was to move the governement more towards a corporatist outlook and to really strangle spending how could you do this.
You do it with debt. This 700 billion will be paralytic both in crippling elective goverment spending as well as it's ability to raise future debt. Oddly It does not actually go on the books as debt even but it is a liability.
And even if some day the loans and options they are buying pay off, it's accomplished the tow key goals.
1) strangling it in the bathtub. There cannot be any socialist expansion during Obama because there simply is no way to finance it either with direct revenue or borrowing.
2) a movement towards corporatism. The Government will rise and fall with the value of the companies it holds options in. What's good for the US really is what's good for AIG and JPmorgan, and the rest. Even the people admisistering the hen house in both the SEC and Treasury came from Goldmann Sachs.
The 1930's was when Corporatism was invented and the country practicing it, italy, was consider a miracle. the rest of the world was reeling in the depression. Senators and congressmen hailed the Moussilini miracle and went on fact finding missions to figure out how to import this here. Adolf Hitler was swept into power in part by nationalism that awoke in the aftermath of WWI but also because he too offered the fascist miracle for germany.
THe trains did run on time. THe auobahns emerged. It was spring time for hitler and germany too.
SO we now have an odd time in the US. We are backing our way into fascism. We have all the ingredient. Cheney and his patriot acts have created police powers that are unprecendented in our history of civil liberties. Even our allies like britain have gone to a surveliance society and now ponder 2 days detenciton with charges.
THe second fork of facism is corporatism where the state manages for the good of the corporations and vica versa. (the reason corproatism was such a miracle was precisely because of the vica versa. The people were really better off in the rising economy of italy).
So while hitler managed to once and for all kill the term "facism" at one time, it's potential for being an ecomomic engine was admired.
I note I'm not triggering Godwins law here because I'm not comparing my oponent to Hitler. Instead I'm saying that we are indeed backing into something that is facism in everything but name only, both the good and the bad.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Interesting)
What if the government starts to print lots of money to fund that stuff, creating a large invisible tax on everyone through inflation?
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, and the dollar will probably collapse as a world currency.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they'll have to introduce the Rentenmark a few years later.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with this is it drives up interest rates. A bunch. If I'm losing 12% a year due to inflation, and I want 3% interest for my risk and profit, I will not loan out money for less than 15%, as it's a losing proposition.
We are in defect spending right now, and cutting services is political suicide. Here's the options:
1) Continue deficit spending. Eventually, that compound interest catches up, and we default. At that point, the US can't get debt as easily, and spending is cut to meet income. What a novel concept.
2) Inflation. Do it too much, and it gets too expensive for us to borrow. If we can't borrow, we're in the same boat as #1. This is effectively a tax on people with money.
3) Cut spending. This is a good thing. Running a house with a vicious cycle of debt never works. Why would it work for a government?
4) Taxes. Lots and lots of taxes. This leads to tax evasion, businesses (and people) leaving the country, etc. Excessive taxation is horrible for business, and places an unnecessary burden on small businesses and the poor (no matter how "progressive" it is.)
Sadly, it looks like #4 is the way we're largely going to go. With all the liabilities we have, we're in for some real pain [youtube.com] in the not-so-distant future. This will not work as they think, either.
Here's a quick example:
I run a software company. We are a US corporation, hiring US workers, with US taxes. All of our sales are done in-person, or over the internet. Corporate income tax can be avoided to a large extent through business expenses, leading to an effective tax rate not too much more than the income tax. Company pays employees, employees pay taxes, done. It works out to something like 40%, all said and done.
Now, suppose the tax climate gets really nasty. A company like mine doesn't have to be located in the United States - most of our customers aren't anyway.
So, it is possible to:
1) Set up shop in Panama (who doesn't tax corporations on income derived outside the country).
2) Move to another country (for example, Japan). Japan doesn't tax foreign-derived income for people who aren't "permanent residents". The US exempts the first $80,000 [businesstaxrecovery.com]. So, the first $80,000 are tax-free.
3) If you can live off $80,000 for a while, you can get paid in options [efmoody.com]. Provided you meet the criteria, this can end up capital gains. So, your taxes on this ends up at 15%.
So, for a hypothetical person making $150,000 - the taxes would be approx $10,500, or a 7% tax rate.
Large companies can do similar things, like "license" a bunch of technology from a company they own, located in a jurisdiction that doesn't tax them (like Ireland [finfacts.com]). This lets them reduce their taxable income and funnel the profits to something taxed at a much lower rate. Invest in Irish corp, license _from_ Irish corp, pay 15% taxes.
Yes, closing the capital gains "loophole" would even things out a bit; however, it has a lot of collateral damage; including people renouncing citizenship, reduced investment, etc. Given the credit crunch we're having, it really doesn't make a lot of sense.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Interesting)
It's starting to look more and more like all those ideals were just a relatively short-lived fluke as we barter away our true freedoms for freedom from responsibility.
Both the bill that was shot down and the bill that passed were disapproved by the majority of the citizenry. The People had no say so in the matter, the whole thing was rammed twice through the House in three days. If the House had shot it down again, the fucking bill with ever increasing pork and tax breaks would probably have been rammed three, four, five times in the course of the next week.
Why did the bill return to the House just after being rejected? And considering that the Fed quietly pumped around $600 billion into the casino known as Wall Street on Tuesday, even as the House was voting "nay" on the bill, are there any doubts that The People have absolutely no say so in the matter?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well said. Perhaps I should have been more clear, however. I didn't mean the people bartered away our freedoms, I meant as a nation (politicians, leaders, all) we have given away the things that made this nation great. Freedom doesn't require electing the right people. Freedom requires electing the right people and then hounding them to do the right thing.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw a lot of people saying no to this bill. A lot of people against it. But no one have come forward with any plans that, after analysis, would be any better.
This bill is far from a good thing. However, it was a stopgag measure to refrain thing from getting worst. No serious analyst ever say this would make thing all right.
Coming from a country that spends trillions on military, I actually see this bill as something positive. Yes, it was far from being a good thing, but it was a necessary thing. I'm pretty sure all those thousands that lost their jobs on September wish this bill was passed earlier. Not to mention all the people that lost a good part of their life savings.
Trying to separate Wall Street from the rest of USA, a country where something like 40% to 50% of the people have money invested in stocks (directly or indirectly) is just plain stupid.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Insightful)
There were plenty of alternatives proposed that were less intrusive, safer, and better targeted to unfreeze liquidity to buy us time to fix the real problem of reckless, unregulated trading in fraudulently valued housing derivatives.
All were all rounded rejected by Paulson and taken off the table without further debate. If you doubt this, do some research. The rush to pass this via fear-mongering is typical administration bullying at its worst.
The Paulson plan is a naked power grab. Stop trying to sugar-coat it. It's a last ditch effort to save investment bank cronies from getting crushed from the upcoming recession by buying their junk at prices way above market value.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:4, Informative)
What I object to was the inclusion of so much unrelated crap in the bill. Relief for a racetrack? For a maker of kids' toy arrows? For PR Rum distillers? What kind of nonsense is this? Try visiting "dealbreaker.com", and reading some of the stories there. People withdrawing all their money from their savings/chequing accounts, and hiding it in their safe deposit boxes (or burying it in the backyard, for all we know). The run on physical gold (try buying some gold coins or bars today - good luck finding any). Then, go rent a copy of "It's A Wonderful Life", and try to understand what Jimmy Stewart's saying when he's trying to prevent a run on the building and loan. If a bank has no capital, it can't lend. If everyone tries to withdraw all their cash from the bank, it breaks the bank because it lends out all that cash to others. Without access to capital, the economy freezes up.
For example, with the busy Christmas retail season coming up, many smaller retailers are unable to get the short term loans they need to finance their inventory. Other industries need short term loans to cover the inevitable lag between the time they purchase raw materials, and sell finished goods. They're having trouble finding loans as well. Something had to be done.
Was this bill the best way to do it? I, and many others, think not. It was too diffuse, too laden with pork, and most of all, too rushed. And to me, the worst culprits in the whole mess (the ratings agencies Moody's and S&P) got off scot free. If they had done their job, and not rated the crappiest tranche of CDO's as "AAA", none of the pension funds, smaller banks, and many other mutual funds would not have been allowed to buy them, and much of this mess could have either been prevented, or contained to much smaller amounts. But the ratings agencies didn't do their due diligence, and everyone else has been so conditioned that the ratings were always correct, they didn't bother to do their due diligence either.
I'm Canadian, and our big banks have avoided most of this mess simply because those banks write most of the mortgages here, and they do put people through wringers before they OK a mortgage. The banks ensure you have a steady job, some money to put down, etc., before forking over the cash. DUE DILIGENCE. Remember those two words, apply them to your own investments, and you'll never go broke. It's when you get lazy, and think others are going to look after you, that you get burned.
Meyer Mishkin... (Score:4, Insightful)
There were plenty of alternatives proposed that were less intrusive, safer, and better targeted to unfreeze liquidity to buy us time to fix the real problem of reckless, unregulated trading in fraudulently valued housing derivatives.
All were all rounded rejected by Paulson and taken off the table without further debate. If you doubt this, do some research. The rush to pass this via fear-mongering is typical administration bullying at its worst.
The Paulson plan is a naked power grab. Stop trying to sugar-coat it. It's a last ditch effort to save investment bank cronies from getting crushed from the upcoming recession by buying their junk at prices way above market value.
Ooook... time for some ranting:
This has long since become much more than an attempt to save Investment bankers and corrupt mortgage banks. This crisis is now threatening banks that are quite solid, never behaved irresponsibly, were not exposed to the sub-prime mess and that are essential to the proper functioning of the USA's, Europe's, Asia's and generally the rest of the worlds economies. The banks this 'bail out' is meant to help are the ones that provide the capital for small and medium size businesses on Main Street America to function, the ones that pay people's salaries. One can only hope that it succeeds in protecting them, and the rest of us, fro what m the screw-ups of the Investment banks, the mortgage industry, the risk assessment companies and politicians (both Dems. and Reps.) who made some very poor decisions, failed to properly monitor the investment banks and the mortgage industry and didn't pull the emergency brake in time. The reason that people like you can make comments like the one above is that you yourself haven't felt the effects of is happening... YET! It will take a while for the this infection to eat it's way through the rest of the banking community, through the businesses and eventually to you yourself (think layoffs on a hitherto unknown scale) and by the time it finally does and you finally start to get it it will be to late to stop it. I think Frederic Mishkin (via NYT reporter David Leonhardt) summed this up rather nicely with his Meyer Mishkin story. [nytimes.com] Do I think it sucks that the profits of players on Wall Street always get privatized while their mistakes always get Nationalized? Yes! Do I think it sucks that these bozos get a golden... no, these days it's more like a jewel encrusted, gold engraved, platinum parachute even if they have totally screwed up? Yes! Do I want a rerun of 1929? NO! If this is the price to pay to prevent a rerun of 1929 then I'll pay it, very, very, grudgingly. One thing is for sure, I will do my best to support anybody willing to see to it that the people responsible for this mess pay for it. That being said I have no high hopes that more than a few of them will ever be punished.
And that concludes my rant...
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Interesting)
Reposted: originally by Greyfox:
Early on in this administration they changed the bankruptcy rules to make it harder to declare bankruptcy, stating that individual Americans need to be more responsible with their borrowing. At the same time they've driven this country into historic levels of debt and are now debating a bail out package for their friends on wall street with $700+ billion of taxpayer dollars. Time and again they vote to support their friends in big business, but if you're an individual facing possible homelessness they'll treat you to some weasel words and turn their back on you.
This November we should all vote with one voice, Democrat and Republican, against the current corrupt congress. We should vote across the board, not Democrat or Republican but against anyone sitting in office. We should kick every single one of those bastards out, and we should keep kicking them out after just one term until they once more represent the people and not the businesses that contribute millions of dollars a year to their campaign funds. We should keep kicking them out until they spend more time doing the jobs we elected them to do instead of gallivanting around and campaigning for most of their terms. We should keep kicking them out until we find some people who actually take the responsibility to fix the major problems in thus country.
It is time to put aside our petty differences and root out this corruption that infects our very core, before it destroys this country.
I know at least 20 people including myself that are planning to do just this. I wonder how many others are going to vote against the incumbent?
OOPS, BAD MATH, sorry (Score:3)
I was off by a couple orders of magnitude.
That's more like two thousand dollars per person.
So never mind.
Well the bit about distributing the funds directly to the mortgage holders rather than buying the mortgages so the government now owns the toxic debts still makes sense.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:4, Interesting)
"When fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross."
-- It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, 1935
As Americans we have the freedom not to participate in our governments affairs. We have the freedom to consume from a vast array of versatile solutions for modern life. We have the freedom to waste our education and cling to superstitions and xenophobia. We have the freedom to believe we are the greatest country that has ever existed without knowing anything about the world around us.
We'd like to believe that people would choose to live up to a higher ideal, but we can't force them because that wouldn't be freedom. It's a sad truth that freedom and prosperity tend to lead to opulence and complacency. Once the ability to reason is reduced the person selling the easiest answers wins the prize instead of someone pointing out that things are going to be difficult.
The turning point for me was several days after 9-11, I was watching a baseball game which was preempted by the president. I was looking for some leadership, something the nation could get behind. It was the first time I heard him use the "evil-doers" rhetoric and he urged Americans to go shopping. That was our solution, the entire populous of our nation was useless to the president in a time of crises, except as feeder pigs suckling at the tits of the "free market" terrified of the heathen "evil-doers" that "hate us for our freedom."
With Russia rising back up from the ashes and China charging forward at a time the United States finds itself weakened, the Chinese proverb/curse, "may you live in interesting times" seems to be staring up at us from a melamine tainted fortune cookie.
--
I'm a glass half full kind of guy
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:4, Informative)
Even our allies like britain have gone to a surveliance society and now ponder 2 days detenciton with charges.
For the record, Britain is pondering 22 days detention without charges.
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously it is quite an achievement (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the real concerns is, how successful would a Fascist state be if it carefully avoided scapegoating whole races or ethnicities? What happens if the government bends over backwards to avoid specifically profiling Muslems as terrorists, but still keeps people constantly worried about those unspecified but presumably swarthy terrorists still lurking out there in some not too carefully specified cells. Does Fascism have to simplify everything into racial or ethnic lines, or can it survive by creating more nuanced pools of enemies.
At this late date, most people have lost sight of the fact that the Nazis didn't really start putting Jews in the camps, in large numbers, until late 1941 or early 42. Before that, the camps programs had focused on minor criminals and mental defectives with the claim that they would be rehabilitated and not simply destroyed.
Smaller religious groups had already been classed as enemies of the state, i.e. most of the estimated 45,000 Seventh Day Adventists in Germany were rounded up or forced to leave for refusing to swear loyalty oaths before 41, but people didn't react to such numbers. A lot of Romany and Jews entered the programs at this time (with a lot being tens or hundreds of thousands respectively by 1941, not the millions later), but most of the Romany were the ones classed as petty criminals, and most of the Jews as Bolsheviks, Wobblies, or other political problems, not for their race, per se. It was after that time that they were reclassified as just part of the larger Jewish problem.
If something similar happened in America, it would probably involve (as just one example) a transition where the black population currently in prison for mostly drug offenses became just part of a larger 'Black problem', and was used to justify mass interments there. So long as the government can argue that they aren't targeting blacks, just treating crack cocaine as a special crisis that's worse than the other kind of cocaine sold to white neighborhoods, and similar claims, they can get the effect without appearing, to many, overtly racist at all.
Another possibility is to fictionalize and fractionalize problem groups in a way any opposition party would tolerate, and allow some opposition - i.e. a government saying "we have nothing against gays, just those bad, promiscuous gays who are spreading HIV by refusing to give up their promiscuity. We have to inter them, for public safety, but it's not like we are targeting all those other gays." Then the government doesn't accuse the political thorns in its side of being homosexuals, but of being secret members of the bad subtype of homosexual, when it rounds them up.
Or create a new term. Everyone's tired of the red scare era, and won't believe a government who sees commies under every bed, So call them "Unmutualists", like in The Prisoner TV show. Want to lock up those commies, or union organizers, or anyone who gets in the way of profits? Just insist that the way they sound, they are obviously secret unmutualists, using special code words that reveal their conspiracy, and not just typical protestors or unionizers or whatever. Change the new out group every few months, before a real oposition can get organized under that name, and you have a Fascism that can target problem individuals without ever having to pick on a natural group.
You realize, of course, that you've left a lot out (Score:5, Interesting)
You realize, of course, that you've left a lot out?
You realize, of course, that the CRA did not force banks to make loans to individuals who couldn't afford them? What it did do was say that you could not refuse credit based on location or area (redlining) and instead had to base your loan evaluation on the INDIVIDUAL, and upon the individual's ability to pay. (Try reading the bill and not the Wiki.)
You realize, of course, that the vast majority of the subprime loans that are going belly-up were made by financial institutions like CountryWide... which are not banks, and as such, WERE NOT COVERED BY THE CRA IN THE FIRST PLACE.
You realize, of course, that in early 2005, the Office of Thrift Supervision (under GW Bush) implemented new rules that substantially weakened the CRA, and as such, its impact on credit markets?
You realize, of course, that a good portion of our current crisis [wikipedia.org] is caused by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, introduced by Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), which in 1999 repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act, opening up "competition" among banks, securities companies and insurance companies. Which in turn lead to our current set of mega-institutions that are so large and intertwined they can't be allowed to fail?
The same Phil Gramm, BTW, that was John McCain's presidential campaign co-chair and his most senior economic adviser. The same Gramm that in July explained the nation was not in a recession, stating, "We have sort of become a nation of whiners."
I could continue, but suffice to say that there's a lot of information that your oh-so-insightful post left out.
Do you work for the Republican campaign? I only ask because such blatant cherry-picking of the facts to suit your own position is a party trademark.
Re:You've left a lot out (Score:4, Informative)
Who created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the true "merger of state and corporate power" in this crisis? Democrats.
Bzzzt, thank you for playing. Freddie Mac was creating in 1970 under Nixon.
Of course, neither of them caused this problem at all. They did not fail, they were not mismanaged, they did not purchase loans that failed, almost all their loans are just fine.
Ihey were created to purchase and securitize home loans, and that is what they did. The fact that housing prices dropped and resulted in them not having enough assets to cover the loses was an intended point of them existing. If it hadn't been them, it would have been the banks.
The actual problem was the drop in housing prices, which was actually caused by the current Administration. No banking system that operates primarily on mortgaged houses can survived a sudden drop in housing prices, which is why you don't let housing bubbles get that big.
Who further extended this by creating the CRA [wikipedia.org]? Democrats. Who expanded its mission [wikipedia.org] into accusing bankers of racism ("redlining") and extorting them to make more bad loans, or else be investigated? Democrats
The CRA only covers banks, not independent mortgage companies, the people who made 75% of subprime loans. That is, only 25% of all subprime loans were given out by institutions that were governed at all by the CRA. And, on top of that, the CRA doesn't actually demand that many are in bad areas, so of that 25%, less than 10% of them were actually requirements of the CRA.
So you're talking about 2.5% of all subprimes loans being mandated by the CRA, and, ironically for you, those loans are failing at slightly less than other subprime loans. (Probably because they're loans given out in bad neighborhoods so are actually examined more. Duh.)
And your 'lawsuit' comment is bullshit. Even the banks covered by the CRA do not get sued for not making enough CRA loans. They cannot be sued for that, at least not via the CRA. In fact, there's almost no enforcement at all of the CRA.
(Of course, anyone can sue anyone for any reason, but people who cannot get bank loans are unlikely to be able to launch a lawsuit.)
And if you actually knew anything about loans, you'd see Obama got a perfectly normal loan. Of course he got better than an 'average rate'. No one gets the 'average rate' unless they have 'average credit'. He, OTOH, has excellent credit, a lot of savings, and no debt at all, and three points below average is a completely normal interest for that. (And 'jumbo loan' just means it's a non-conforming-because-it's-too-large loan that Fannie and Freddie won't buy.)
Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Where are you getting all this from? It's like you're from some alternate reality. The government way "proactive" during the Great Depression, right from the start. That's why it lasted as long as it did. If you want to know what really happened, here's a full analysis of the contributing factors: America's Great Depression [mises.org]. You don't have to agree with the economics, but at least pay attention to the historical aspects, which are fully cited.
Re:first post (Score:5, Insightful)
No, free market capitalism is when private companies reap all the benefits and ordinary tax payers take all the risks.
Atleast that is what always seem to happen.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks for the link. It's always entertaining to read the work of a grade A nutjob:
Shadowy figures in conspiracy behind the government.... Check.
Upcoming world war III and new world order.... Check.
One world government.... Check.
The only thing missing was that it forgets to blame the Jews. There are certain standards to keep up when writing this kind of trash.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I repeatedly emailed, faxed, and phoned both my House and Senate reps about my vehement opposition and that I'd vote them out if they supported the Paulson plan. Their staff dutifully took down my position and both of them approved the bailout, voting against the 100-to-1 opposition of their constituents to the plan.
They've both been notified that I'll be spending my time and money to remove them from office as soon as possible by any means necessary.
Vote them out of office. Every single Congressional membe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Liberal policies that attempted to move everyone (read: the renting lower and lower-middle class) into homeownership en masse resulted in huge unsustainable upswings in real estate prices.
I'd call bullshit on this except that is far too mild a term. NOBODY was forcing banks to make interest only loans to speculators, or to give out loans to people without any sort of documentation whatsoever, or to buy bundles of loans from mortgage brokers who were originating loans from any breathing life form. Quite a
On the duty of paying taxes... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have paid zero in income tax through various legitimate and less-than-legitimate methods over the last 4 years. .
I'll remember that while my neighbors are trying to survive an upstate New York Winter on HEAP, Food Stamps, a Medicaid HMO and SSI.
Perhaps you and Joe Biden need to read something...
""Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the
treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister
in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone
does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any
public duty to pay more than the law demands." "
Re:It's only a matter of time. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
We HAD a perfectly good solution to that, but the anti-smokers ruined it.