Posted on 09/23/2008 3:45:15 PM PDT by cotton1706
But even before Paulson could speak, lawmakers expressed unhappiness, criticism of the plan and - in the case of some conservative Republicans - outright opposition.
"This massive bailout is not a solution. It is financial socialism and it's un-American," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
The problem is: here we are.
If we don’t do some kind of intervention-—a big one and fast-—the world is going to see a whole more financial hurting going on, and it’s a lot easier (though still painful) to apply the nasty medicine at the beginning of the disease rather than after it has become full-blown.
Central banks are designed for situations such as these to serve as lenders of last resort. While termed a “bail-out,” the central banks do try to recoup as much of the money as possible by various ways of selling the bad paper over time and so on.
A reactionary response to this crisis is absurdly irresponsible.
As in warfare, there needs to be a plan and discipline for maximizing success, minimizing risk — and a sound exit strategy.
This must be a short-term effort. It must not cost more than necessary, while those who performed badly should be punished. And, it should generate a return on investment.
As long as we’re using such “overwhelming force....”
Simple question -- why is it that the very mention of preventing unqualified people from getting home loans sends the Congresscritters scampering like rats. Shouldn't this be line one of any legislation that addresses this, as a fix or other wise?
I think Newt has the answer nailed. Zero capital gains tax, drill baby drill, and dump Sarnaes-Oxley, the IPO killer. After that, just sit and watch capitalism fix the problem and them hang on ... Forgot, no more unqualified borrowers.
Oh yeah, can we get the Democrat creeps who did this to resign???
Yea Kentucky!
We need to let the contraction happen, and not prolong the pain with this gawd awful bailout plan.
THANK you! Someone with a brain.
Weirdly, this seems to be one issue on which left and right are in agreement. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not...
Good detailed explanation. Out here on the streets of the real world we call it Throwing Good Money After Bad. That should probably be the motto of large governments world wide. In other words, they are wasting our good assets on their bad policies.
If we are actually lending the money to corporations (Supposedly 2 years) then we should get something in return and it should be the same thing a bank or corporations have been asking us for, its a little thing called interest.
Yet now we are coerced into using Paulson Plan, the plan if you can call it that is demanding no accountability to anyone. No reviews by congress. No review by judges. Paulson will have 700$ billion to dole out as he sees fit, buying crap debt from his buddies and pawning it off on the American people. He will have total pricing authority on the 700B.
No accountability
Conflict of internist
No proof the plan will actually work
There certainly are arguments for and against “doing something.”
What I am reacting against, however, is any knee-jerk reaction that Joe Sixpack understands the global economy better than Paulson et al., grasps the complexities of the problem facing our economy better than Paulson et al., and is better able than Paulson et al. to conceive the best course of action.
This is not like second-guessing an onside kick on Monday Night Football. The entire world economy could be at stake here, and for our nation’s response to this situation to be subjected to grand pronouncements by people whose own mortgage paperwork seems unbelievably convoluted-—much less having some grasp of international securities-—gets somewhat ridiculous under all the circumstances.
I agree.
My main point is that it is not appropriate to leap from “I really hate seeing this bail-out happen” to “we should do nothing.”
IOW, emotional reactions to the place at which we find ourselves is no justification for not doing what we have to do because of the place at which we find ourselves.
And talk about “overwhelming force”:
While perusing the business channels today, several analysts talked about this vaunted $700B “price tag.” The bottom line, as I understood it, was that Paulson is asking for $700B in *spending authority.* This does not mean that this amount will be spent or will be spent in a short timeframe.
Several analysts referred to a comment by ? that the $700B spending authority was designed to serve as a “bazooka”-—one said, no, it’s an ICBM!-—to show the world that the U.S. is “armed and ready” to fix this problem. IOW, it is designed to be enough to *inspire confidence* in the markets that the U.S. is committed to stabilizing liquidity in the market.
So, in essence, the size of the “bail-out” (the *spending authority*) is a “show of overwhelming force.”
It’s important to understand that, just as in warfare, there’s a psychological dynamic to the use of force (power) as well.
Paulsen is not qualified to do anything about the economy.He is a Keynesian Political economist. Read Keynes. First of all his Theory of Money and Credit does not make sense even within paragraphs. It is full of non-sequiturs and unrelated conjunctions Second it is a treatise for giving politicians the power in the economy. It’s sole justification is political, an excuse for politicians who want control.He is a Wise Man.He went to the Right School. He is dangerous and destructive.
Are you willing to risk a world-wide meltdown?
Another problem:
When countries go into financial crashes, one predictable result is big-time WARS, wars all over the place.
Let’s not go there.
That can only mean that most people don’t understand the devil in the details.
It is an axiom of politics that laws enacted in haste will be counterproductive and will adversely affect things far beyond the scope of the original law. This has to be passed quickly before those with Econimic understanding and freemarket ideals have time to convincingly deconstruct it.
I saw him on Greta and he was 100% right. And SOXS is not proven utterly worthless. Repeal it and help companies save millions in accounting and oversight costs.
If you’re a condo owner and you have a bunch of owners default and their units become trash, you have two choices:
Bail them out (by somehow intervening and taking over the properties over their properties) or let the units fail and wait for the “market” to rescue them.
If you choose the latter, and don’t bail out the failing units, the value of every owner’s property goes down until the units are otherwise “rescued.”
Same situation here. Just the way it is.
We have had real estate crashes before. California’s last crash began to occur right after the recent Los Angeles Riots. Nobody got bailed out then. In fact, my parents were driving toward California to move into their recently purchased house as the riots broke out. They lost their equity over the next few months. No one bailed them out. Supposedly the Magnitude of the problem is the difference now. The real question is does the government blow its wad on $250,000 defaulting home owners and the brokers who oversold the property or do we use what little good money future generations can still possibly produce for when the real crab hits the fan. What happens if we bail out the fat cats (private and corporate) and we still have an economic collapse. We will be in Great Depression 2 with a debt load over 10 Trillion. In other words, up the creek without a paddle.
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