Posted on 09/21/2008 4:57:31 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, chair of the American Red Cross.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Paulson; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Paulson; Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Paulson; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.
LATE EDITION (CNN) : Douglas Holtz Eakin, adviser to John McCain; Austan Goolsbee, adviser to Barack Obama; former Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.; Gene Sperling, former Clinton administration economic adviser; Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
LOL
For goodness sake the mods are now watching cool it
Essentially, the financial system is a gambling house in most every respect. If the bank breaks, it all falls down, and is very difficult to sort out, much less restart. It will take tears and years.
the value of the dollar will be the first major casualty that hits the Main streets of the country, and that real value will fall, not just in relative terms, but in real terms, which will raise the price of a gallon of milk by half at first and more when the panic ensues. Fifteen bucks for a gallon of milk assuming it is even on the shelf would not be a exxageration, and then comes the foreclosures, the tent cities, the soup lines......It can't be stopped at this point and has to work it's way through. Thirty percent unemployment is likely, and hungry people will be the norm and not the exception. Most everyone alive today in this country have never, ever gone hungry. It is quite a experience.
I hope you get the picture.
Off to chech on and dish dinner see you all around
Is that what you believe would happen without the bailout- or what you believe will happen anyway?
It depends on sentiment as the prime factor, and it's damn hard to predict.
If Congress delays this with political squabbling, the sentiment will immediately go negative and it may be impossible to get a second Chance before the entire system goes over the cliff.
700B is only a fractional amount of the whole, and well placed it could do wonders, but without sentiment backing it up, it will do nothing.
ALL the more reason to boot the Dems OUT of Congress!
>If AIG was such a gosh-darned bargain, why didn’t some
>other private entity make a deal for it? Why did Uncle
>Sap have to pick up that garbage company?
Because AIG, like Lehman, were very arrogant in thinking they could dictate terms - ie they thought they still had chips on the table. When Uncle Sam let Lehman die, both Merrill and AIG collectively gulped and took the deals that were on the table. In the case of AIG the only player that could come up with the money they needed fast enough was the government.
AIG is not garbage and theoretically if the housing market stabilizes by early 09 due to the stopping of sub-prime loans and the bailout, Uncle Sam stands to make a tidy profit from the breakup of the company. AIG has a value of around 150 billion. We paid 80 billion to own 80% of the company. The loan AIG was given is at 11% interest which is loan shark rates. The exorbitant rate of the loan pretty much forces AIG to sell itself quickly.
Not that we’ll ever see any of the profit since it will probably get plowed back in to the bailout plan.
The bailout plan is basically a place for companies to dump all the garbage loans that they were forced to make by the Dems stupid idea of ‘fairness’. In theory, once you clean the crap out, things return back to normal since the the stuff in everyone’s portfolio is valued properly and all the complex leveraging formulas that these guys are operating on make starts to make sense again.
From the banks point of view, since the government forced them to make these stupid loans, the government should clean up the mess.
Not sure where you got that number?
The estimated assets of AIG are in the 1 trillion range.
And, I might add, if the Fed plan works, AIG, which is solvent, will return to normal operations as soon as it gets it's credit ratings back and this may take weeks, months, or years. we just can't predict, but I bought a little of it last week.
Thank you for answering. I have mixed thoughts about this staggering bailout proposal - and am trying to learn as much as I can from various points of view.
I’m extremely concerned right off the bat by the language I read in the first draft of the proposal - practically speaking, Paulson is being given more power than we’ve ever ceded to an un-elected individual. Regardless of his true intent, that is disturbing.
Clearly- we’re in an extreme situation. What I’ve listened for in vain since Thursday is a conservative view on an alternative solution, or if not a solution, an honest appraisal of here’s what happens if we do- if we don’t.
This morning all I was able to glean from the talking heads in both parties is- it’s awful- we hate it- but it must be done. The only variance was hearing the liberal desire to do even more and go further and the Repulican desire to keep the bill clean.
I understand Mike Pence isn’t thrilled with the idea- but I don’t know if he’s offering an alternative. I was struck by Boehner- he said this is bigger than ideology and must be done, NOW. Not too reassuring, from a constitutional point of view.
Thank you so much, snugs and CDB. I appreciate it.
Don't know. But I think they must come under some kind of regulation, or potential regulation, which makes them hold back from stepping on too many toes.
Unfortunately by January we might all be on street corners selling apples.
That would be great - but if anyone suggested it, I think we would see lots of race talk, threats of violence and riots, etc. We are already getting that kind of talk from Governor Patterson and some Black columnists, just on the supposition that Obama gets defeated.
The 1968 riots really put a scare into the Establishment.
We are all wrestling with this. Federal bailouts are not in the conservative playbook, but that does not mean to me that they are unnecessary or unwise.
For most people, the financial sector of the economy is boring, esoteric and most people see it as a rich man's play toy.
It's all of that, plus it's the pumping heart of any capitalist system. It plays such a vital roll that if it is damaged, the pain is felt everywhere. if it dies, the economy dies with it as so goes the lifestyles of everyone associated with the capitalist society. Nobody is spared. Nobody!
That's the crux of it, and why this is so very critical. it's a once in a 100 or more year event, and it's very complicated in it's causes yet simplistic in the effects.
Best to plug the hole in the sinking ship, bail the water out, and after it's all over we can analyze it, point fingers and determine a way to avoid this particular event again, but there are always other ways to sink a boat and with a free society, people will always make mistakes both intended and accidental.
if 11% is loanshark rates, what are the 33% credit card rates?
The congressional solution was to mandate a doubling of the monthly minimum that has to be paid...
the credit card companies know a drowning man will grab even the point of a sword.
Damn formatting problems ...
-AIG has a value of around 150 billion.
-Not sure where you got that number?
-The estimated assets of AIG are in the 1 trillion range.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080917/business/aig_bailout
key para ... For the company, that might mean putting some of its profitable, non-core assets, such as its aircraft leasing business, on the block. AIG’s breakup value could top $150 billion, according to a preliminary estimate from FBR Capital Markets.
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