My take on the bailout bill:
I think dems took advantage of this mess - the timing of the “crisis” was suspect to say the least. The financial problems have been building for a long time and easily could have been triggered a month ago, or 6 months ago. Paulson’s trip to Bush to get Bush to scream “fire” in a crowded theater pulled that trigger now. (not to mix metaphores or anything...) I suspect that if Obama wins, Paulson will be brought into his administration.
Paulson’s smart enough to know what’s going on - and he’s smart enough to know the effect this would have on the election. He also could have alerted Bush to this a year ago. It’s that old a situation.
I live in Florida - one of the places where toxic loans were made with abandon. Most of us here knew something bad was happening. People were being put into homes with “interest only” loans who would not be able to make payments past the first few months. It was a set up. But when you keep seeing the same pattern, there’s an incentive behind it. And that’s where Obama, Frannie and Freddie and congressional banking regulations come into play.
In short, like you - this does not have the feel of being an accident.
If the bailout is passed, it will benefit the people and agencies who got us into this mess. The only way it would work is if they are lying to us about the severity of the “crisis” I think that’s a possibility. If that’s NOT one of their lies, the bailout will postpone the problem. Postpone it to a time when we will have less money to do a real “bailout”.
Dem regulation insistence on making banks loans to people who never had a chance of making the payments was close to evil, but very effective in bringing down the financial system. Some people at the top understood the consequences of these choices. We’ll probably never know who they were...
America is a representative republic. Following that definition, the citizenry is supposed to elect leadership that will lead in a way that reflects its wishes.
The ‘leadership’ of America has not been doing that for decades.
How can this be?
'This can be' simply because the voters (1) vote based on soundbite promises that are rarely kept, (2) don’t anymore have a genuine grasp of our history and our roots (and therefore our Constitution, (3) have put up with a public education system that, for fifty years, has focused more on teaching children what to think rather than how to think, and (4) are too ‘otherwise occupied’ to be well-informed about the state of the world and the goings-on in Washington.
As a result, the wishes of the ‘average American’ have become meaningless in Washington, and our 'leadership' embarked, several decades ago, on their own single-minded crusade to redistribute wealth (in the form of money and power).
That redistribution is being funneled from the ‘average American’ (the working/middle class) in two directions: (1) to the burgeoning ‘entitlement class’ (ably represented by special interest groups such as ACORN, which the House is still attempting to enrich in the fine print of any ‘bailout’ bill), and (2) to the political/financial ruling elite (who have already profited from the borderline, and outright, criminal behavior that ushered in this ‘economic crisis’).
Sadly, any ‘bailout’ bill that is finally passed will not alter any of the above. The entitlement class will continue to grow, since the implementation of socialist doctrine will have been provided a major shot in the arm, and the ruling elite will amass even more wealth and power as a result of the increased oversight regulations they will be accorded.
And who will be the primary loser once all the dust has settled?
The average/middle class American.
How can we put a stop to this un-American, unconstitutional steam roller? Simply by giving a damn. By teaching our children about their hard-won inheritance, instilling in them the sense of civic duty required to retain that priceless possession, and setting an example by being an informed citizen, looking beyond media-fabricated soundbites for our information, and taking a stand against the edicts handing down by a ruling elite who believe that they know better than we do what is best for us, who see no crime in benefiting from the sacrifices of others, and who believe they have a right to take what is ours at the point of a gun and give it to those they deem 'more deserving'.
~ joanie