Even with the bailout, Main street will still crash.

[Blarch]

Thats why I am against the bailout.

The crash will still happen, the people will get crushed even if the bill passes.

Some DUers here can't understand why some are against the bailout. This is why...the bill does nothing.

[1corona4u]

1. THERE IS NO BAILOUT.

Perhaps you missed that.

[Blarch]

3. Don't fool yourself.

there will be a bailout. Even if the repubs have to blackmail their own party.

[1corona4u]

8. You're a little late to the party.

The republicans want to CRAFT the bill themselves. Mark my words. I will NOT support a republican crafted bill, and that's what's coming. They had several days to get what they wanted changed, and they didn't do it. There was nothing wrong with this bill, they just didn't control it.

Now, they will come up with one, and they will EXPECT democrats to vote for it, and if they don't WE will be blamed again. This is nothing but a GAME for the republicans, and if you think like them, then you get what you deserve.

I have never in my life seen SO MANY so called democrats SIDING with the republicans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. Is this what is commonly referred to as "Politics"?? n/t

[1corona4u]

17. Yep.

[msallied]

20. Republicans lack the leverage and the credibility to craft their own bill now.

They're fucked. This was their one chance to appear bipartisan. They screwed themselves and the country by voting no on this.

[1corona4u]

29. I hope you're right, but somehow, I think they will try.

[msallied]

21. Republicans lack the leverage and the credibility to craft their own bill now.

They're fucked. This was their one chance to appear bipartisan. They screwed themselves and the country by voting no on this.

[lapfog_1]

2. Another one of those

it's inevitable therefore we shouldn't bother trying to avoid it.

[Blarch]

4. We are standing in a hole of debt.

Your plan is to keep digging, only with a bigger shovel.

Not a good idea.

[lapfog_1]

13. In the long run, the bailout would most likely made money

for the treasury, much as they have in the past.

But whatever... I remember the same (types) people making the same arguments that we shouldn't bail out Chrysler or the S&Ls. For many of the same reasons being stated here.

[Blarch]

16. Made money ?

So in ten years when we take stock and count the dollars ...there will be more than what ?

Whats the interest on 700 billion over 10 years ? ..start with that, probably pushes the number well over a trillion.

[lapfog_1]

19. Yes, probably well over a trillion

you are assuming inflation, of course. Otherwise the interest rate paid would be very low. Inflation always props up real estate (the primary asset purchased with that $700B). Yes, I rather imagine that 10 or 15 years down the line, those assets purchased (at the now discounted value) will be worth quite a bit.

Go back 15 years and buy up a bunch of homes for $.65 on the dollar (asking price in 1993). Now, even with the bubble burst, how much money did you make? Even adjusting for inflation.

Or are you going to tell me that you would have lost money?

[Just Visiting]

27. You think they're buying real estate???

That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.

I hate to break it to you, but the minute those barons get the 700B they are going to transfer that money to a hard-currency country, bury it in hard tangible assets, and tell you and everyone else who gilded the lily for them to fuck off.

[lapfog_1]

30. Jesus. People here are dumb.

Read the bill.

There was to be a TARP. An agency of the federal government. It got the money. It would buy assets (mortgages) from anyone that wanted to sell them mortgages. Mortgages are real estate.

TARP is the new name for the RTC, which bought REAL ESTATE from the troubled S&Ls.

This is pretty much the same idea, writ large.

What Wall Street did with the money after we purchased their bad mortgages was pretty much up to them. Having positive balance sheets again, I would imagine that they might invest in hard currency or gold or banana plantations. Hopefully they make money. Hopefully, come next February, we pass some new regulations to oversee their activities. After we have President Obama in office. Hopefully when we buy those assets from them, we also get shares of stock... because it's going to double or triple. And we get to make some money that way as well.

[DJ13]

6. No, he's saying the bill voted down did nothing for MAIN ST

Which was why it was unpopular with the average Americans.

[lapfog_1]

9. It would have done the ONE thing that main street needs

more than anything.

Allow banks to lend to other banks. Which allows them to make short term loans at low interest to small and medium businesses.

[Just Visiting]

23. Here you go

I found this snippet of an article by Mike Whitney on another website:



"Besides, there was no guarantee that the banks would use the money in the way that Paulson imagines. As one Wall Street veteran explained to me, "I don't see one penny of that $700 billion ending up helping the broader economy. I see it being used to prop up share prices so the insiders can salvage as much as possible when dumping their shares".

Indeed, the $700 billion is just part of a massive "pump and dump" scheme engineered with the tacit approval of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Once the banksters have offloaded their fraudulent securities and crappy paper on Uncle Sam, they will do whatever they need to do pad the bottom line and drive their stocks up. That means they will shovel capital into hard assets, foreign currencies, gold, interest rate swaps, carry trade swindles, and Swiss bank accounts. The notion that they will recapitalize so they can provide loans to US consumers and businesses in a slumping economy is a pipedream.

The US is headed into its worst recession in 60 years. The housing market is crashing, securitzation is kaput, and the broader economy is drifting towards the reef. The banks are not going to waste their time trying to revive a moribund US market where consumers and businesses are already tapped out. No way; it's on to greener pastures. They'll move their capital wherever they think they can maximize their profits. In fact, a sizable portion of the $700 billion will likely be invested in commodities, which means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into the stratosphere. Ironically, the taxpayers’ largesse will be used against them, making a bad situation even worse."

[lapfog_1]

28. Bullshit.

The bailout was not "giving" Wall Street anything.

It was to buy their bad debts... which really isn't even THEIR bad debt, but their investors. And we weren't going to pay full price for the bad debt. The investors were going to be a haircut, probably a pretty good one. The Wall Street "banks" were going to get clean balance sheets, which would make them profitable again (and hopefully, the taxpayers were going to get some shares in those banks). Being profitable again (especially considering where their share prices are right now) would be a huge springboard to attracting MORE money... even from those investors that lost some money in the haircut. That money (a leveraged amount of the $700B... maybe $2T or $3T, would be the grease needed to allow all of our banks to start loaning again.

We have a crisis of confidence... a confidence of banks in other banks.

[FreeState]

5. It will hurt mainstreet a lot more if nothing is done n/t

[martymar64]

25. Oh yeah, hyperinflation never hurt anybody

Tell us that after the bailout when the dollar is worth less than the peso and to a loaf of bread costs $500.

[crazy_vanilla]

7. it will crash even worse without the bailout

As I had been repeating here - the bailout is the lesser of two evils.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. That's a super-stupid reason to oppose it.

If this doom scenario is inevitable why not get another $700B from China while we still have a triple-A rating?

[BrainStorm]

15. Maybe China won't extend the credit?

Maybe that's why they came to the taxpayer?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

24. We do not HAVE $700B. Almost the whole damn budget is borrowed.

The "taxpayer" doesn't begin to cover our expenditures. That's what the federal deficit is all about.

Nobody is asking the taxpayer for a thing. A request is made to citizens (whether they pay federal taxes or not) to extend to credit of the US to borrow money from China or Japan to do something important with that money that will, in all likelihood, roughly break even in the long run.

The taxpayer is almost incidental to this whole deal except in a long-term hypothetical way. Nobody is talking about raising taxes to cover this.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lapfog_1]

22. Really, lots more options? Really?

Pray tell, what options do you think the House Repukes are going to vote in favor of?

Lots more regulation of the financial markets?

Maybe they will vote to give away $700B to the poor.

Or maybe a seizure of assets from Wall Street executives. Yeah, they will vote for that one.

[Blarch]

31. You have a point.

And with our spinless leaders, I really can't expect much.

[lapfog_1]

32. Let's see.

A 50-49 majority in the Senate that DEPENDS on Joe Lieberman.

A 30 person or so "majority" in the House where at least 40 members are Yellow Dog or Reagan Democrats.

A repuke President.

And we had this commanding position to dictate our progressive agenda for all of two years.

Yup, must be the spineless leadership.

:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Speck Tater]

11. The bailout is the airbag on the Wall Street side of the car.

The car is already crashing into the wall at 90 MPH. Nothing can stop that. Wall Street, and Main Street too, MUST eventually face the natural consequences of their combined mixture of greed, dogmatism, indifference and inattention. It will hurt like hell, but there is NO OTHER WAY that Wall Street will learn to act responsibly, and to accept prudent regulation, and there is NO OTHER WAY that Main Street will learn to pay attention to what's going on around them and stop gobbling up the mindless shit the media and the corporate-owned politicians keep feeding them.

For years I've been saying that NOTHING is going to change until Joe Sixpack gets hit smack in HIS wallet with the consequences of his belief in a failed ideology. And if the economy has to fall to pieces around his ears to make him see the light, well that's too bad, but how the hell else can we EVER get the attention of these apathetic, short attention span morons we call American citizens?

They can only be coddled and protected from the natural consequences of their own ignorance for so long. The time has come to stop trying to shield them from their own stupidity and/or apathy.

[oldmant]

14. Bailout

I agree that this bill will only prolong the agony. What will happen is going to happen no matter how much of our money the fed pumps into wall street.