NOTE: This began as an open thread, but has become a discussion of the House of Representatives failing to pass the Wall Street Bailout, and the Dow Jones dropping 777 points as a result.
There is no Prince William County Board of Supervisors meeting scheduled for tomorrow. The next meeting is scheduled for October 7, 2008.
Whoever gets elected to the presidency will go down in history as the worst president we ever had, simply because the economy is going to collapse and they can do nothing about it for the next 10 years. Read history if you what an idea of how it can happen, even while people are telling you it won’t (they will be lying to you).
If you must blame someone for your financial misery, blame EVERY INDIVIDUAL who took out a loan using falsified income and debt reporting documents, unethical loan application and home purchasing processes, and falsified claims that they were qualified for loans of low risk, when they were in fact high risk individuals. Blame the congress and the public housing executive branch (HUD, 8A, etc) for pressuring loan officers to make billions of dollars in high risk loans to people who could not qualify under normal circumstances and looked the other way on who they were actually giving loans to, why smiling all the way to the bank.
None of you who participated in this, or had sympathy for these people have my sympathy for “illegal” people and “legal” people who accepted these high risk loans without sufficient income or too much debt to afford them in the first place.
It is self-corrective justice.
We will all go down the toilet together like rats on a sinking ship in the next 2 years (that’s about how long it takes a depression to be fully felt as people lose their jobs). The good thing that will come out of it, and in a sarcastic “I told you so”, is that 12-25 million “illegal” aliens will stop crossing the border over the next 10 years as the jobless rate goes higher and the economy heads south for the next 10 years. Maybe by then we will had gained some sense, and put our priorities in our own self interests rather than the interests of ethnic groups, and “individual” people who are breaking the law.
Politics cannot fix greed, contempt for law and “illegal” alien avarice. Only “individual” personal accountability can.
Mackie,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX54sVwU3iY
IGNORANCE is BLISS. The curse/BLESSING is knowing the TRUTH.
TRUTH HURTS.
I am not falling, just hurt in the process of SHARING.
We got an in-effective congress the day we started voting as an ethnic, gender, religious and racial “group” and not as “indivuduals” in a “non-ethnic group” nation. Some day people will figure it out and make the execution of law and politics “colorless”.
Micheal,
I am sure you have heard about Molly :)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnGXgATONxY
The last truly great president was FDR. He would have never put up with the politcal crap we see people advocating as “rights” today. His ethics were based on law and personal accountability and he was defined by hos own assessment of what it took to have impeccable character. His only failure was his marriage, a personal ball and chained he carried around and kept hidden from the public, in the same way the media hid his wheel chair.
We need another FDR.
Michael,
REALLY? When there is a gain someone always looses. I (with an open mind) do not buy into that bullshit. There is a market for EVERYTHING that involves a sacrifice. or LUCK!
It IS hindsight that becomes CLEAR
Yes, she has been over dramatized in the movies. I read her original account in the Titanic book I was given by my grandmother (a much more realistic book than the movie and typical (through the eyes of the time, not modern screenwriters) of the true facts portrayed about ordinary people who react in the face of enormous danger and personal challenge. There were even more “nobler and un-sung” molly browns on that ship. Every one of the men and young adults who stepped aside and accepted a cold and watery death as a result of an unjust and undeserved gender biased social pressure . Nothing she did can compare to self-sacrafice for a social lie, that somehow the lives of men are less worthy than the lives of women and children.
I have said it before, my daughter will fight every war my son fights, as her life is worth no more and no less than his. I hope we fix that permanently someday and the next “titanic” will do it the right way (by equally random straws).
Sometimes Red Dawn, I disagree with you. Sometimes everyone loses and their are no gains.
Obama will not change anything, neither will McCain. The real power is in the congress (those who are not idiots), and the people, if we can ever get on the same national sheet of music, instead of all “playing” our own gender, racial, ethnic and religious tune.
The heart of this financial collapse is a loss of ethics and accountability in our nation, and an emergence of political criminals and lawbreakers, and an emergence of social sympathzers for criminals and “illegal” aliens who vote in racial, gender, religious and ethnic blocks rather than as individuals in a non-ethnic nation. FDR would have never put up with it.
“former” illegal aliens still vote in ethnic centric blocks, they always have and always will.
The problem will be solved as soon as people start thinking as “indiviudals” and members of a unified national society, rather than as members of a gender, racial, ethnic and religious political group.
Michael,
I will get back with you tomorrow and not due to a lack of words…got a job, I hope to keep and it is late 🙂
I admire that you did not distinguish between your son or daughter but I already got that vibe from you ( reminded me of my daddy..I can kick ass and take names later-he taught me with NO shame and the WISDOM to know when…, LOL. Peace 🙂
Okay, I think we can safely ignore Michael this time. If he can’t get his head around the immigration issue and how it fits into our national and local economies, I don’t expect any pearls of wisdom from him about our national economy as a whole.
Is there anyone on this blog who can better explain the consequences for the everyday American who doesn’t own a house to sell, doesn’t plan to buy a house any times soon, can’t afford a new car, and doesn’t own shares in the stock market?
I’m pretty clear on the fact that the we aren’t going to hurt the fat cats who ripped us off by denying this bailout. They’ve already taken the money and run. Fine. But who can convince me that the ones who WILL get hurt are the every day people who don’t ordinarily make sales or purchases large enough to require financing or loans?
“I think we can safely ignore Michael this time’
Seriously, STILL ? WOW, watch out for what can be said behind your back ( just like the ocean can seem calm, there is always the undertow)
“But who can convince me that the ones who WILL get hurt are the every day people who don’t ordinarily make sales or purchases large enough to require financing or loans?”
There are NUMEROUS examples of of CREATIVE financing for a 20 inch tv- all the way up to the plasma,- NOT what YOU ( or I ) would consider a LARGE purchase….
Tell you what, I May have mis RED and need to go to bed but this shit about ignoring Michael online and in public show a BIAS
Sleep tight, get me out of here……buy my house, I don’t care about PW anymore…..I don’t want the commute either…F&Xed
Michael, you stated:
No, instead FDR sent thousands of Americans of ethnic Japanese heritage into internment camps during WWII simply because of their ethnic background (see Executive Order 9066, February 25, 1942). Yeah, “FDR would never put up with it.” Why, because he didn’t perceive racial or ethnic distinctions? Of course not. No. Never.
Michael, you need to seriously brush up on your history.
Furthermore, America isn’t a “non-ethnic” nation. It is a multi-ethnic nation.
Red Dawn, I would certainly ignore Michael in public. Wouldn’t you? But if there’s anyone to blame for many of us ignoring him HERE, it’s the man himself. He has two faults, and both of them are major ones: he’s redundant, and he’s long-winded.
His primary beef is that many Americans don’t think the way he thinks, and he blames this on our various ethnic backgrounds, various religions, and the basic pluralism that makes this country great. He thinks that the only way to protect democracy is to enforce uniformity. How boring. Okay, it wasn’t boring the first few times. But he’s been writing the same thesis over and over for six months now!
So today we have an economic crisis and what’s his answer: get those darn ethnic people to think like me. What????
So now look what you’ve done. You’ve made me go and NOT ignore the guy I tend to ignore. Now others will go up and read all the posts they scrolled through and he’ll have succeeded in derailing another interesting dialogue.
Darn it.
Red Dawn,
Let me now respond to the RELEVANT part of our discussion. To be honest, I don’t have the money to buy a plasma TV either. But your example did point out something. I have two friends who work at Best Buy. If this melt down of loans for financing means that less TV’s get bought and sold, then who knows, maybe Best Buy goes out of business and my friends lose their jobs. Then they’ll be always hitting me up for money and I’ll be affected after all!
Classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vwxAVZ6fJ4
Lucky Duck,
I have been screaming the same thing on this blog for several days. If we do nothing, we aren’t punishing Wall Street, we are punishing ourselves.
I am glad you are picking up the battle cry. Lets hope congress grows some courage on Thursday and does the right thing. On the other hand, I would like it a lot better if they just got their butts back in there tomorrow and did the right thing.
MIchael, by the time your daughter is old enough to join the military, she will be old enough to not be under your domain. She will be an adult woman. This sounds like a control issue. Additionally, you really sound like a bitter man. Am I reading you correctly that the chivalry shown on the Titanic was wrong? You sound resentful. Hell, you didn’t give up your place in the row boat.
The bailout is essentially a coverup. They tried to bs us into immediate huge action so that the facts of how we got top this point would not be examined. It’s a financial Amnesty. Pitched by the same coalition that tried to give Amnesty to illegal aliens, rather than examining and attacking THAT problem.
“We lost $1 trillion in equities today and that isn’t good, under any circumstances, ever.” When that money was based on air rather than tangible things – wealth is supposed to correspond to real things – it will probably be healthy in the long run for most Americans.
If the Dow falls to what it was 10 years ago – okay. It probably belongs right about there.
If we worry about unemployment and lack of capital, we should modify the tax code to promote employment and promote investment. Until we have that set up properly, we shouldn’t put one dime in the hands of overexposed banks and lenders or people who took out mortgages they can’t afford. Only a moron would think that throwing 700 billion into Treasury and Wall Street’s hands makes things better. We have 300+ morons in Congress.
The crisis centers around home values and the insane game that was played with those. We need homes to return to what they are really worth. The market will do that. This bailout would be an attempt to artificially prop up phony home prices and too-high mortgages.
Michael has a daughter?
I bet she will grow up to be a raving feminist! 🙂
Michael has a daughter?
I bet she will grow up to be a raving feminist! 🙂
Sorry for the double posting. Don’t know how that happened.
We DO have to do something, MH, but a blank check isn’t it. First, the people who did this MUST be held accountable. I maintain, the first step is to take everything they have until they are reduced to….HORROR!…MIDDLE CLASS. Then we see where these billions should go. Then perhaps we do give them something to help all of us (the economists would know what that something is better than I) with the stipulation that profits would be channeled back into what they owe us, not put into the CEO’s pockets or Congress’s pockets or presidential campaigns or anyone’s campaigns. Enough is enough.
“financial amnesty.” LOL! Rick, I like that term. At least you’re consistent.
Michael, yes we need to think as individuals but wisdom and knowledge are collective. We must take the best that we have collectively gathered and find a wise solution. The problem come when everyone thinks they hold the market (so to speak) on wisdom. No one does. Besides greed, hubris and arrogance in our leaders have lead to this downfall.
I, for one, am absolutely against the bailout and am glad the bill in the House failed yesterday
Much of the reason why many lawmakers (including my own Congressman, thank goodness) voted against the bailout is because they knew that throwing money at the problem wasn’t the answer, irregardless of how many “safeguards” were written into the bill and irregardless of the level of the crisis.
Even Congressmen who voted for the bill, like Frank, Boehner, Bachus, etc., admitted at the podium that it was a far cry from the best solution. Bohner called it “a mud sandwich.” Yet he voted for it. Unreal.
In my opinion, any Congressman who knows he’s voting for a bad bill only because he thinks “something” has to be done doesn’t deserve to be in office. You simply cannot vote under the duress of panic, especially not when it comes to $700 billion of taxpayers’ very hard earned money (which comes to about $4,500 per person out of about 155 million who make up the American workforce).
We have to address the root cause and solve that, not throw a bandaid on the symptom.
kgot,
It isn’t a blank check. What the EESA will basically do is allow mortage back security packets to be held in repsoitory by the government. It takes these packets off the banks books so they can relax credit.
Banks have to keep a certain capital ratio. With the mortgage backed security packets (mbs or cdo-either works) off their books and owned by the government, banks can not horde thier cash. The mbs packets are not all bad debts. Most people pay their mortgages and the government will eventually make money off of these mortgages because of the interest.
It is critical that congress pass the EESA bill. When credit dries up, banks cannot operate. It will effect all of us in the very near future. It is very complex and Congress is playing politics.
Over a trillion dollars was lost yesterday. The EESA is not a bail out. It is recovery to a very critical situation. Think of it as a heart transplant or something like that. Today’s market rally should not be taken as a sign of anything. People are taking advantage of a fire sale.
Congress needs to go in, in the middle of the night if necessary, quit stepping on their lips, shut up and listen, and do the right thing.
lastly, Michael, this situation doesn’t have one G-D thing to do with ethnicity, gender or any of the other stuff you spew. It has to do with money and banking practices and liquidity of assets. I honestly cannot read any more erroneous social crap.
“Financial amnesty” is a good one. I had the same thought. That Rick is good at what he does.
Katherine, you and Rick seem to agree that we should punish the fat cats who ripped us off so badly, but I think to do that we’d be breaking with a long-standing tradition that you can’t throw a law at someone if the law didn’t exist when they broke it.
The Bush/McCain/Graham plan of deregulation allowed rampant swindling to go unchecked, and the fat cats have run to the bank, thus necessitating the “financial amnesty” Rick is talking about. But that’s just the price we pay for electing them. There’s nothing to do about it now except pass laws to stop the next generation of wealthy aristocrats from ripping us off all over again.
If you have any trust at all in our nation’s leaders and their having at least some regard for the nation they are sworn to serve, then we have to take into account the fact that everyone in the Republican leadership AND everyone in the Democratic leadership says we need financial amnesty. I was probably one of the first people to rant on this blog about how pissed off I am that the taxpayer got swindled. I’m not happy about it. But we also have to move forward, and we can’t do that with a second Great Depression crippling our ability to defend ourselves as a nation.
To ALL,
The bill people who understand finance are trying to get through congress IS NOT A BAILOUT.
If it is bailing out anyone, it is bailing out the american public. It is not bailing out Wall Street. Wachovia is located in Charlotte NC. WaMu is a Seattle bank.
Listen to Warren Buffett, Bill Gross, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernake. All these people know and understand money. You have internet access. Read what these guys are saying. These men have nothing to gain or lose.
Moon-Howler wrote:
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Mooooooooon Hoooooooooooowler!
NGL,
People need to stop worrying about punishing others and worry about saving their own financial ass.
The FBI is involved. Leave it up to them.
Save your own hide. For instance, what will you do if you go to use your atm and you get the notice to come back later? what if you have a wreck and need a new car? What if you have a financial emergency and need lots of cash? If you are keeping your money under the mattress and you have amassed big bucks, maybe you will be ok.
Robb, I see you are against the bailout. What about this as a solution: they pass a short-term version of the bill that allots $150 billion just to steady the market for the next few months until we get Bush out of office. Then with a new President and a new Congress, we hash out something more long-term and in the mean time Congressional leaders spend time getting input from their constituents.
M-H, I was told that FDIC insures any money you put into a bank up to $100,000. This was something put in place by Franklin Roosevelt for precisely this situation.
But I can understand why people who had Washington Mutual and Watch-over-ya accounts are freaking out right now. I almost banked with Watch-over-ya, walked right into the one on Sudley about six months ago. But the line was too long so I got a Citibank account. Now Citibank bought Washington Mutual!
I’m a renter, I drive a lemon, and I have lots of student loans. I’m accustomed to being in debt and betting on tomorrow. This doesn’t affect me as much as someone with a lot of money in stocks, or someone with a 401K. But I can understand that if our economy shuts down, it’s bad for everyone. I don’t want to see the unemployment rate jump to 25 percent.
Moon-Howler, I totally agree that people have to stop worrying about punishing others. That is the answer to Rick’s “Financial Amnesty” quip. In both cases, he wants to punish those who he feels has wronged him. But in both cases, in so doing he cuts of his nose to spite his face, and in both cases, it’s all about the grand scheme of things and how our lives are interconnected economically.
Any pain you might inflict on Wall Street will end up hurting the every day person most. Any pain you can inflict on undocumented people ends up hurting us all. If any community knows about that, it’s PWC.
“People need to stop worrying about punishing others and worry about saving their own financial ass. ” Okay well – I bought my home at reasonable value, my job’s secure, and I have no delusion I’ll retire young. So what I wouldn’t want to do is enable this government to increase my tax burden taking bad securities off the hands of those who speculated on them.
It’s Fiancial Amnesty. All debts forgiven! Brand new start for anyone who took a risk and lost! The people who followed the rules and common sense will bail out those who didn’t! Hip hip hooray!
I say screw that. If we’re worried about unemployment, increase job training and unemployment benefits. If we’re worried about the rich holding onto their capital, change the tax code to reward investment. What we DON’T do is bail out Wall Street and once again pretend that it’s our place in life to wait for the trickle down.
Anyone who voted yes on this bailout is unfor for office. We the people need to hold these crooks and idiots accountable.
By the way I hear lobbyists in America spent 500 Billion – nearly the amount these crooks told their crony Paulson to ask for now – last year lobbying Congress and everyone else to enable this fianancial fiasco. If that doesn’t show you that America is broken and needs fixing, I don’t know what would.
Rick is making some sense here. But I trust Frank Wolfe. He wouldn’t sell us out unless it was truly necessary. Nothing’s fair in this world. And there are some things worse than knowing your neighbor got a break on his mortgage. Better that than an abandoned house next door where kids break in and experiment with drugs.
The 777 points that the DOW dropped yesterday represented more than THREE times the amount of the Bail Out bill (700 billion $$). Take a look at your 401k today. If this doesn’t show you that this crisis just affects Wall Street, then you better look again. Let the Free Market work this out? The same people that brought this situation apon us are supposed to get us out of this? I don’t think so. BTW, the same Reps. that voted against this bill wanted to privatize Social Security a few years ago. What would your or your parents retirement look like today if their social security money were in the Stock Market today. We can’t let these people continue to do business as usual without more oversight and regulation so that accountablity comes to the market.
Rick, How about Warren Buffett? Bill Gross? Do you trust them?
It isn’t a bail out. No bad debts are being given. The mortgage packets are being bought by the government and held until their are either paid off or sold.
Your house situation will not get a bit better until this banking situation is fixed. The mortgage packets will be taken off their books and will not be counted as empty credit. Let’s try this. Lets say my house was bought for $500k. It is now worth $200k. The mortgage the bank is holding is for $500 but it is $300k in the hole, in the red. It is counting against the bank, even though I am paying my mortgage on time. My mortgage, for all practical purposes is like an unsecured loan because if I stop paying it, they can’t get jack crap out of it.
No one has done anything wrong. I pay my mortgage. The bank lent me money and I have good credit. All of these things are interdependent.
Should your home continue to devalue and your 401k get eaten up? This govt plan is the fix for you, not the fat cats. I don’t care who says what. I dont care who talks about lobbying. I read what idiot say all day long. Dont believe them.
People who know money (and I am not one of those people) who have nothing to gain or lose say this is what we must do. If we don’t, we are toast.
Rick,
One of the most knowledgeable regular people out there is Ali Velshi on CNN. He is pretty knowledgeable speaks clearly.
The 777 that the DOW dropped yesterday was three times the amount of the so called BAIL OUT bill (700 billion $$$). How does your 401k look today? If you don’t think this affects each and every one of us then you better look again. Let the Free Market work through this crisis? Do you trust the same people who got us into this mess to get us out of it? BTW, the same Reps. who voted against this package also wanted to privatize Sacial Security a few years ago. How would your or your parents retirement look today if their ss retirement money were in the stock market? There has to be accountabilty, transparency, and regulatory oversight in order to get the banking industry to perform the way it was designed to.
Sorry for the double post. I just realized that my retirement account is on the critical list.
Ivan, I totally agree with you. Those same people who got their feelings hurt? Oh PUH-Leez. What a bunch of cry babies. They are now hiding because they don’t want the public to know their names. Posturing fools. They are just worried about getting re-elected.
The fun has been listening to all the news (sic) folks on fox admonishing people for calling it the bail out bill. Hell, they were saying it louder and prouder than anyone else yesterday.
Your comments just saved my sanity.
“That’s the irony about “trickle down” economics.”
What exactly are YOU calling “trickle down” economics? I realize that Wikipedia’s simplification defines it as it “is the economic-political argument that the increases in the wealth of the rich are good for the poor,” and has been laid at Reagan’s door when, in fact, it can be laid at Pappy Bush’s door!
The Reagan tax reorganization program, as laid out by the Reagan Transition Team, was far more complex. It involved, initially, a reset of the economy (remember when prime interest jumped to somewhere around 25%?) along with drastic cuts in government spending, particularly in the Executive, over which they figured they’d have more control (remember when the Community Services Department of HHS was abolished, and then recreated in another agency with only 1/3 the personnel and double the efficiency?). The short-term hardship was specifically designed to reset the economy to normal levels and it was intended to be accompanied by a 10% ACROSS THE BOARD FEDERAL INCOME TAX (yes, you heard that right…even the RICH would have to pay for a change…because the loopholes were to be closed!). It was determined that this would bring in FAR more than the current system because EVERYONE would be paying their fair share. The 0-tax level income figure was to be increased to realistic levels (working poor) and, ultimately, the effect of increased capital at every income level was expected to eventually be invested in debt reduction, savings, and investment, once more stirring up the economy because our national debt figured into all this too (it was anticipated that, despite the initial surge in debt, the increased funds provided by that element of the population unaccustomed to paying ANY taxes on their sheltered income would get that debt retired by the end of Reagan’s second term). Dan Regan (original Secretary of the Treasure under Reagan) was charged with implementation…Bush couldn’t allow it. An exchange of jobs was orchestrated at a critical moment: Jim Baker (Bush’s boy) took over at Treasury; Regan got Chief of Staff…and the rest is history. We were left with the “Bush Plan” which took advantage of the economy reset without radically affecting those tax shelters which affected him and his buddies and we got his tax cut, theoretically creating the “trickle down” effect…which was a FAR cry from creating the kind of surplus we needed to retire the Federal Debt. Actually, it far more DID resemble business stimulus package, which has since led to this “Corporate Welfare System” which we are thoroughly enjoying today.
I was there…I know what happened…and I’ve NEVER been a fan of the Bush family, as a consequence, despite being a Republican. He and his son have made the Republican Party what they are today.
Correction: “The 0-tax level income figure was to be increased to realistic levels (working poor) and, ultimately, the effect of increased capital at every income level…,” should be “at every income level but the top 5-10%…”
Lack of proofreading=lots of mistakes: He and his son have made the Republican Party what IT IS today.