I have had a completely crappy week. It seems as though the “macro” world and my “micro” world are in complete collapse. I tend to personalize and worry more than I probably should about the state of the nation and the world around us. But this week has been a collision of bad news all around it seems.
My first reaction to the news of the bailout last weekend was — “No way should responsible, honest and timely mortgage owners and taxpayers shoulder the burden of those institutions and Americans who bit off more than they could chew.”  Sure, tough love — but $700 BILLION dollars?!?
Over the past week, I have listened to all sides of the issue — and paid special attention to folks like Jack Welch and Larry Kudlow. And I have to say that I can’t stray away from my initial default decision on this: “NO WAY.”
I understand the issue, I understand the need to unfreeze the credit markets. But what I think most pundits are missing is that I do not trust our government and business institutions any more. Not one bit. I don’t trust them to do anything anymore. I certainly don’t trust them to responsibly handle $700 BILLION dollars.
Our national government cannot even control our own border, manage its own spending, and execute a worldwide war on Islamism without major mistakes.  For the most part, our public school systems are turning out politically-correct, self-absorbed kids that don’t know the first thing about our government and why the USA was born 200 years ago.
This is not confined to the Bush Administration. Simply put, the US Federal Government has demonstrated sheer and continued incompetence from the Oval Office to Capitol Hill to every dumb-ass mediocre bureaucrat throughout every agency of the Federal Government for the past two decades.
I fear our nation and perhaps what we think of “normal” is on the verge of changing radically.Â
For now, I am calling my US Senators and Congresswoman and urging them (for now) to VOTE NO on the bailout — without major changes to satisfy We, The People.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Here’s the problem, if you’re a company who made billions in bad loans to people who had no business getting mortgages (Barney Frank be damned), Uncle Sugar is there to bail you out.
If you’re one of those people who bought a house you couldn’t afford, than financed 150% of its inflated value, and treated your phantom equity like an ATM, and now you’re in trouble… Uncle Sugar is there to bail you out.
But, if you live within your means, only buy what you can afford, deny yourself vacations, luxury cars, designer kitchens… so you can make the mortgage and save for your future… sorry, pal… you’re a sucker as far as this bailout is concerned.
There is also the issue of the reserves of cash corporations have on hand that they are refusing to help banks with. This “crisis” stems from this reluctance to inject money into the economy. It is a free market so long as profit is being taken out, but when the system needs to be financially lubricated, the corporations think it is the governement’s responsibility to come up with the funds. These businessmen are waiting for the governement to pick up a tab that they were intrumental in running up.
Agreed, V the K….but the problem is, as we’ve been tartly talking about over on AoSHQ, is that Barney Frank and his boy toy over at Fannie Mae created this problem by not only mandating that banks extend mortgage loans to people with hideous credit, but then buying these bad loans using the implicit guarantee of government support under the guise of “affordable housing”.
We have no choice but to honor that guarantee, which is exactly what this bailout is. In essence, the government bet hilariously long on housing market — and the banks are making a margin call.
One conservative critic calls it “a perverse form of socialism.”
you go get’em brucie.
Even those of us who pay bills on time are screwed.
I wouldn’t trust the government with 7 dollars, never mind 700,000,000,000. I wonder how many Zimbabwean dollars this would be worth?
Enough is enough. Throw the bums out. No more borrow-and-spend “compassionate conservatism” (i.e. fiscal liberalism + mealy-mouthed Christian socialism). No more tax-and-spend leftists who equate wealth and success with evil. No more bailouts for deadbeats.
If government was a business it would have gone bankrupt decades ago.
Outlaw the “outcome-based education” in our schools that is cranking out a generation of self-hating Americans who can’t read, write, or add but feel good about themselves.
Dismantle all government programs that do more harm than good and drain our economy and culture. Charity begins at home, and wealth redistribution is not charity.
Outlaw pork barrel spending.
Throw everyone involved with the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac debacle in maximum security prison for the rest of their unnatural lives.
Simplify the tax system.
Back up our currency with something tangible.
Pay off the national debt.
If our country is to continue to survive in anything resembling a free country, we must repair the system.
Banks must stop giving loans to people who won’t pay it back. It is not bigotry to expect someone to pay back a loan.
Parents must teach their children to put money away for a rainy day, work hard, and live within their means.
These businessmen are waiting for the governement to pick up a tab that they were intrumental in running up.
Wrong, Brian.
It is the government that was passing laws that demanded that banks loan to people simply because of their skin color and ignore creditworthiness, and it is the government that mandated that Fannie and Freddie buy these lousy loans and guaranteed them. Meanwhile gay leftist liberals like yourself and Barney Frank were whining that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren’t doing anything wrong, that their behaviors weren’t risky, and that there was no problem.
Of course you’re going to blame business. Gay and lesbian liberals like yourself never take accountability for your behavior; you just blame others.
I’m in the “No” category and have already made my calls. Throwing good money after bad is stupid, and anyone that thinks the gubbement is at all capable of doing anything well is just nuts. I like Paulson, and this he is probably correct that we need to do something. The problem is that Dodd and Frank are running the show and those are the two that got us started toward this train wreck in the first place.
michael – go play in traffic
hang the corporate fascists by their dingleberries.
After spending a lot of time reading the financial-repsonsible news outlets and the left- and right-wing blogs I now less a;armed by the prospects of this bailout…especially taken as a whole with the Fannie/Freddie nationalization and the AIG loans. Based on the raw numbers, the Federal Government is PURCHASING approx. 5.4 trillion dollars in mortgages and mortgage-guarentees for aprrox. 1.5 to 2-billion dollars…plus getting equity and warrents potentially worth several hundreds of billions. If they are held and prudently released back into the mortgage and equities markets over the long-term thats a 3 or 4-times ROI. It’s unconventional for the US government, but a credit=stall like this hasn’t happened since JP Morgan locked the heads of the Wall Street banks in his library 100-years ago…and that lead to the creation of the previously-unheard-of Federal Reserve System.
And this may provide the leverage to reforme the out-of-wack compensation and governance issues on Wall Street. I am though worried about what Newt Gingrich refered to as a future 20-years of unprecidented government corruption as investors and banks widdle and “contribute” money to their pet Senators and Congressmen for access and special deals from our new Federal Soveriegn Wealth Fund.
Let’s hope that someone realises that all or part of this unexpected widfall should be placed in a true, legally-defined trust-fund for Social Security. Lets’ not use it just to balance the budget with this, let’s hope they show some imagination….
Ted: I sorta agree with you. I dont know what to think really.
I do one thing.. if the Govt didn’t allow Fannie Mae to become a phantom ATM for bad loans this would never have happened
This is a disaster caused by the Dems
GayPatriot: I sorta agree with you too.. This govt.. all of it, all branches, all levels… is just abysmally incompetent.
ya, ya,ya. it’s all the democrats fault. america isn’t buying that kwrap. can you say: president obama????
hey ted, kinda like a sovereign wealth fund.
Some Republicans in the House have some good ideas for solving this problem without sticking taxpayers with it.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTEyMTc4YmI4Y2FkZGY1YzIwMjYwOTEwNWRmOGNlZTM=
One problem I have with the gummint “making money” from this deal is that it won’t be returned to those of us who paid it… it will be used to inflate already bloated spending and we know that spending NEVER goes back down.
I agree with Bruce – too much incompetence and corruption.
One reform I’d like to see (won’t ever happen) is this: Congress-critters will have to abide by the same ethics rules observed by government employees and people who work for companies that get government contracts. I work for a company with sizable gummint contracts and the rules are quite strict – I would be reluctant to buy a Coke for a government employee.
The incompetence of it all is staggering. I am fed up with these bums in the congress not doing their assigned work yet becoming millionaires in the process. If I could throw 435 of the bums out in November I would. I can’t stand the corruption, the scandal, the “oh what happened?, it’s not my fault, I wasn’t looking”. How many damn committees do you need to do proper oversight? The past 3-5 years there were warning signs and warning bells sounded. Our representatives looked the other way because they were getting kickbacks and campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. Disgusting. Now we are threatened with the siezing up of our entire economy because of these incompetent boobs. Time for term limits and to throw the bumms out. Time to starve the government of funds so future pissing away of our money stops. If private companies make poor business decisions, they are suppose to fail. Poorly run airlines, poorly run automotive companies, financial institutions, who the hell is next. How about a bail out of poorly run fast food companies? Disgusting.
“This is not confined to the Bush Administration.” Why not? He ran on “personal accountability,” no?
#4. Socialism for the affluent.
Agreed,
Things are tight, I paid a higher rate to avoid the ARM. While it gets easier now that my partner’s paying the utilities and the condo fee, at no time have I been behind. It’s tight, but in my means. Why should I be forced to bail out people who bet the farm and lost.
And now we find out the bailout includes a nine-figure payout to Obama’s vote-fraud buddies at ACORN. Seems our initial skepticism of the deal was justified.
My dear ignorant michael.
Corporations cannot be fascistic. Fascism is a form of government, it is when government controls the corporations, not when corporations control the government. do try to get that through your empty little head.
Sorry michael, even Bill Clinton admits Democrats are responsible for blocking Republican attempts to reform Fannie and Freddie. (about halfway through the video)
No one will need to. Obama is barely tied in a race he was supposed to be winning in a landslide. Americans are seeing all the problems we face and saying to themselves, um, this unqualified, unaccomplished hack cant cut it. And as he showed in his race with Hillary, he isnt a closer.
Zogby says the race may well end up a landslide for John McCain And I think it just might too.
AE, why bother talking to michael. If a two year old comes up to you and proclaims, “I pooped my pants,” it’s kind of pointless to try and explain the intricacies of the digestive system to him. So it is with michael. He’s. Just. Not. Smart.
ya, just like all the denials spewwed forth when you all couldn’t utter, madame pelosi.
While it goes against ALL of my instincts, I’m sorrly tempted to vote Obama if McCain and the damn-fools in the House GOP caucus screw this up. At this point it’s not about bad mortages in the bank’s books…it’s metastised into the overall credit markets and trading-floor confidence. Cash money is being drained out of the banks, money-markets, commodities exhanges AND the banks….short-term and 30-day credit pool has dried-up.
THis is not good……
Ted, I’m a Mormon and I know that makes me worse than Hitler in your book, but I gotta ask… why take your hate out on House Republicans? I don’t know if you noticed, but the Pelosicrats are the majority party, and they don’t need any Republicans votes to pass this. And if you want to railroad through a plan that gives La Raza and ACORN a 140 Billion dollar cut of the proceeds, I would have to disagree with you there. But I’m just a dumb Mormon, what do I know?
V,
Right as usual, but I enjoy smacking him down.
Michaelpoopypants,
I never denied Pelosi would become speaker. Indeed, I was very uprfront that I feared she would.
GP,
yay!
madame pelosi
A madame is a woman who runs a whorehouse, an adequate description for what the Democrat Congress has become.
Re #26; If the House Republicans didn’t like the deal, then the House Republicans should have been in-there-slugging to PREVENT La Raza and ACORN and half-a-dozen special-interest groups from GETTING a slice….not sitting on their arses complaining that they don’t want to play.
And McCain’s silence was damning. If he had said, “…hey, I’ve got to live with whatever deal you guys make, so here’s my position”; that would have been leadership. But to first make a big deal out of stopping the campaign, then to sit silent like a stone at the “great meeting” just looks bad.
And what does being a Mormon have to do with the credit crisis?
If the House Republicans didn’t like the deal, then the House Republicans should have been in-there-slugging to PREVENT La Raza and ACORN and half-a-dozen special-interest groups from GETTING a slice….not sitting on their arses complaining that they don’t want to play.
Actually, Ted, what they’re doing is forcing Nancy Pelosi and her hordes to take full responsibility for whatever dimbulb plan she tries to force through.
Which, as they know, means she won’t do anything. Pelosi is a twit, but even she knows that, if she pushes through this plan to nationalize mortgage debt and then leaves taxpayers on the hook for every bit of it, there won’t BE a Democrat Party when the dust clears. Hence, she won’t do anything until the House Republicans wil give her cover — and they’re not budging until she gives them what they want.
I am a good conservative and all but if we can pull $700 Billion dollars out of the government’s ass to bailout these financial institutions (who no one will name outright) then one has to wonder why the government cannot help find health insurance for the 30m without or why the levees along the entire Mississippi River surrounding New Orleans are in such poor shape? Our roads, bridges air and seaports could use a $700 billion shot in the arm too.