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Yeah, let's privative profits and socialize risk for irresponsible financial institutions. It worked for Charlie Keating and his friend John McCain, didn't it--while the taxpayers picked up the tab for that little experiment in deregulation. But the stupid conservatives, who never learn the lessons of history, decided to try deregulation some more and so, now, here we are.
This is a failure of conservatism. This is a failure of deregulation. Now, the Democrats are going to have to come in and fix it just like they did the last time--during the Great Depression. As a result of the Democrats' programs, this country saw unprecedented and widespread prosperity--until the Republicans--under the last 20 or so years of Republican majorities in Congress undid the regulations Dems had imposed. And now the whole system is on the brink of failure. Nice work, Republicans.
Republicans are all over the fantasy that Obama is going to get into the White House and, singlehandedly, lead us into Socialism. Well, Bush has taken care of that thank you very much. He's socialized finance and now insurance--for the sake of the big boys.
Hey, Republicans, how about getting out of the way and let the grownups come in and clean up the mess your failed policies have made?
This week sets a new precedent when the FED took over a private non-banking entity without shareholders' vote. Then it flooded the world market with billions of dollars, buy more bad debt, and banned short selling of financials. Is this a free or centralized market? I am not surprised if our foreign creditors are ganging up to dump US Treasuries in a controlled fashion. My faith in the U.S. currency is greatly disappointed this week.
This is nothing compared to what's to come after the election dust settles. People can bicker like women all they want about liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans- the fact is, regardless of party affiliation, most politicians are ignorant of economics and finance. The rest of the smart guys have been quietly diversifying out of U.S. denominated assets since 2006.
My, what a rational, level-headed discourse this forum has turned into!
These flaming hypocrites called Democrats are so warped and full of hate. I am truly waiting for the liberals, who want this country to fail so much just so they can pin it all on the President, to state with a straight face that the President is the cause of Hurricane Ivan, the subsequent rains that flooded the midwest and the fact that the sun is so hot. If the Government wouldn't have stepped in to stabilize the market, then the liberals would be screaming that the Government isn't doing anything. You people must go home and yell at yourself because you don't give yourself everything you want. Just like the irrelevant entertainment morons who think that people actually care about their opinions. What a bunch of spoiled little children. You better hope the empty suit O'Bummer doesn't get elected. You want to see Government bailouts after he runs every corporation into the ground with his tax plan which in turn will outsource every job just to maintain a profit which will lead to massive layoffs, etc. However, be like Bombastic Biden - be a true patriot by signing up to pay more taxes. I can't believe anyone listens to these guys.
jeff:
Kind of like how Bill Clinton had the opportunity to start a war on terrorism during the mid-90s as well when the terrorists bombed the basement of the World Trade Center. Oh, wait.
We were told that the savings and loan scandal of the 80s was going to cost $86 billion...it ended up costing $1.4 TRILLION dollars. If they are saying this will cost hundreds of billions, they are lying. It will be TRILLIONS.
BTW: McCain was one the "Keating Five" implicated in the S & L scandal after ridicluous dergulation took effect that allowed it to happen, and his entire campaign staff has or had ties to Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae now.
Thanks for your hard work and renewed attempts to 'throw the bums out,' John.
My oh my, how quickly we forget things. Those who don't learn (or remember) history are doomed to repeat it.
Also, a quick thanks to the Bush family for 'allowing' TWO financial catastrophes (S & L crisis and the current mortgage crisis) while as sitting Presidents, that will likely eventually cost taxpayers and future generations potentially tens of TRILLIONS of dollars. Great job! Great leadership! Go Republicans!
Kind of like Bush Sr. getting rid of Saddam Hussein the FIRST time we were in a war in Iraq...Oh, wait. He didn't finish the job the first time. Oh well, another TRILLION dollars, and thousands of lives lost, should get things right this time. Maybe.
The Savings and Loan Scandal is an interesting read for All Americans. We are witnessing history repeat itself. A 'Bush' and his cronies running the country, deregulation in full effect, the middle class getting screwed, and trillion dollar bailouts. Same story, different decade.
I say we let the market figure itself out, it will correct itself eventually. That's hoe a free-market system works.
Government bailouts just make it easier to happen down the road because there are no repercussions, except to generations taxpayers.
All of the Democrats should be fine with this plan. Obama wants to give out more government handouts than ever to those too lazy to get off their butt and get a job and is all for socialism.
Gotta love the hypocritical Democrats. Good thing McCain will win.
Funny, we oppose socialized/subsidized healthcare, but support subsidizing this artificial economy. Unfortunately, this subsidy is a quick fix to help rich get richer, bad investors riskier, corporate America reckless. The world needs our economy not to fail because we have now become their fat cash cow or more like the fat pig.
What happened to responsibility, accountability, corporate ethics....
It baffles me the government can just hand out public money to reckless entities w/o any public consent. Capitalism in its purest form surely has failed. What a scam. What’s even more disgusting is the republican outcry for little government and yet they hand out fat cash to criminals. Gotta love this country…
Man, what is Obuma gonna do now that the recovery is in progress?!? Help, he doesn't have a lot of negativity upon which to try and fluff himself up!!!
Dang! Tough to be a Demoncrat....
This week's (year's) events are an example where we thought we could manipulate the financial markets and mortgage industry for personal gains and our own advantage (consumers over borrowing, mortgage companies inflating values, businesses over charging, government over taxing, etc.). The market is trying to stabalizing.
Instead of being accountable, we try to socialize by having the governement bail out businesses. Some businesses, such as Lehman, failed due to poor management. Others, like Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, are sending off poor managers will MILLIONS in compensation (job well done farewell bonuses).
Instead, we the tax payers end up bailing everyone out. Over-government is not the solution. Accountability and Responsibility are.
Americans need to wake up. Forget about Republican or Democrat, our Constituion and the Founders set forth a government for the people, they are supposed to work for us, not the reverse. Government has become a big business and that leads to bad decisions based on profit for the few and eventually Socialism. Capitalism is about supply and demand. I feel it high time we the people demand that the Government supply honest representation for us, not special interest, not use our money in bad faith to bail out a business they were basically running. It is absurd, should be illegal and fully unacceptable.
This isn't a capitalistic system, this is socialism in the kind words. Why should I or my neighbor next door bail out these reckless speculators out? Since when is it the federal governments business to bail them out? Are you kidding me? The US government owns AIG, etc....? That's not capitalism -- and using the people's money to save them does not promote accountability but rather provides the alcoholic with another drink. We're not out of this yet folks. What they are doing is going to make it much worse.
While I fundamentally disagree with a government bailout, I support it for the sake of the individuals who will have jobs on Monday as a result. It is irresponsible for companies to get in over their heads and to lack fiduciary prudence and then get rescued by the government. However, if the financial markets fail catastrophically, our entire economy will suffer even more. This is the lesser of two evils.
WHY IS MY MONEY BEING USED TO BAIL OUT GREEDY COMPANIES?!?!?!!? WHO IS GOING TO BAIL ME OUT???!?!?!?!
Some good comments here - the system needs to be purged and fixed - both political sides are at fault for letting it happen.
But short term,right now - we need Fed intervention unless you are comfortable with the idea of a depression, growing your own food, and banding together with your neighbors (don't forget to get weapons) to fight off roving bands of marauders (I'm too old for that) as many many people lose their jobs.
Short term, we need the intervention, but it is only a band-aid; the system needs to be fixed.
Bailing out firms whose irresponsible actions have caused them to face bankruptcy is absurd. The market system involves risk! Failure ought to be in the cards for those who make stupid decisions. These companies and their greedy corporate bosses have made billions of dollars off our money, and now we're supposed to help them out even more when they lose it? Ah, let's spend our public money for private profit: that's America today, and that's disgusting.
If the government gets more involved, when will they get out again? Never?
And if it's the government - why are we using taxpayer funds? Ohhh - because
the government doesn't have its own money anyway.
Well most of the taxpayers I know say - let them fail. It will teach the financial institutions a lesson in being responsible lenders later, after recovery.
I guess George W needs to Frick it up as much as possible before leaving to make sure that Obama inherits something non recoverable.
Right after 9/11 Congress was buffaloed into passing the PATRIOT Act, act fast, don't read the fine print, trust us, this is an emergency, act now or we all die. Now, they're being buffaloed into this multi-billion (trillion?) dollar bailout of irresponsible billionaires. Once again, it's an emergency, we have to act fast, move RIGHT NOW or disaster will befall us.
I've bought enough used cars and paid enough for those lessons to recognize the patter of a con man. And this is a con. This will tie up enough money to make the real changes that we need to make impossible. Democrats will have to either raise taxes or cut programs that shouldn't be cut. Our infrastructure will not be rebuilt, education will not be restructured to look to the future, health care will still be unavailable to millions, while we bail out billionaires who took a risk.
Socialized risk, privatized gain? I think not!
Government bailout is a thin coat of paint over a system with deep cracks. Pressure from the same government to loan to the uncreditworthy (under the guise of eliminating 'redlining' and 'discrimination') seriously contributed to the mess in the first place. People who kept expecting to suck the equity out of their homes and spend it on appliances and vacations and cars, then refinance when the value of the houses went up helped cause the mess. Traders who expected the funds they manage to invest in real estate and reap the sky-high ARM interest rates also shaped it. Let everyone take their lumps, learn and change their behavior. Instead, the government seems determined to disguise the underlying issues at least until the election.
Capitalism is working. The very failure of the financial markets is PROOF that capitalism is doing its job. It took a bunch of companies using overly risky financial instruments which brought their debt ratios to 35 times their assets, and the bottom fell out. Capitalism stops working when the government takes the risk out of investing.
Markets don't provide soft landings. They provide hard landings. Without the hard landing, there's no incentive to avoid risky debt instruments.
I agree with Audrey. The package the government has on the table will not go to relieve the tens of millions of homeowners, it is going to the ten thousand or so Wall Street bankers. The homeowners are in the picture however because it is of course their tax dollars which are relieving the bankers. This is such a sham it makes me want to scream.
Looks like Ron Paul was right.
Any of these firms receiving taxpayers' money should be required to adjust their pay scales so that noone takes away more than $250,000 a year in salary, bonuses, and options a year. Firing a CEO is no good if the replacement starts grabbing millions.