OT - Financial mess 101 ($700 billion bailout)

[RobVarak]

Believe it or not....There are still some morons out there who think there is no government waste..

Well you really shouldn't count people who collect government paychecks

[XXXIV]

Believe it or not....There are still some morons out there who think there is no government waste..

Well you really shouldn't count people who collect government paychecks

...Ahhh....Now I get it. They are covering their own asses. Makes sense...I just thought they were brain dead idiots..

[JackB1]

I just read that this $700B bill had an additional $1.7Billion attached to it.
Why is this stuff even allowed? It's disgraceful. But what's another $1.7 Billion amongst friends?

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/ar ... RE,XLF,SPY

These assholes do this s*** with every bill...They add and add and add to pass them.

BUT...

Believe it or not....There are still some morons out there who think there is no government waste..

Then in these debates they bring up who passed or rejected these bills and you never know what the true reason was. Why isn't there a law that you can't add on anything "unrelated" to an existing bill or that any bill over a certain amount must stand alone. This bs has got to stop!

[FatPitcher]

I just read that this $700B bill had an additional $1.7Billion attached to it.
Why is this stuff even allowed? It's disgraceful. But what's another $1.7 Billion amongst friends?

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/ar ... RE,XLF,SPY

These assholes do this s*** with every bill...They add and add and add to pass them.

BUT...

Believe it or not....There are still some morons out there who think there is no government waste..

Then in these debates they bring up who passed or rejected these bills and you never know what the true reason was. Why isn't there a law that you can't add on anything "unrelated" to an existing bill or that any bill over a certain amount must stand alone. This bs has got to stop!

Remember, these are the people who use the Constitution's grant of power over interstate commerce to regulate whatever they damn well please by drawing some ludicrously tenuous connection to interstate commerce.

No doubt they could overcome a germaneness restriction in the same fashion.

Definitely agree that the bribing using taxpayer money to get bills passed needs to stop.

[FatPitcher]

un-double-posted

[Rodster]

It looks like the US isn't the only one with a Banking crisis. You can add Europe to the list as well. Germany had to rescue one of it's Banks yesterday.

[FatPitcher]

It looks like the US isn't the only one with a Banking crisis. You can add Europe to the list as well. Germany had to rescue one of it's Banks yesterday.

The markets seem to think it's worse in Europe than in the U.S. That is why the dollar has been posting massive gains despite the ballooning U.S. budget deficit applying downward pressure.

[Rodster]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... abyss.html

We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.

Germany is now in the hot seat. The collapse of a rescue deal for Hypo Real Estate on Saturday threatens a €400bn (£311bn) bankruptcy that nearly matches the Lehman Brothers debacle for sheer scale.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to pull her head out of the sand, guaranteeing all German savings, a day after she rebuked Ireland for doing much the same thing. Reality intrudes.

During the past week, we have tipped over the edge, into the middle of the abyss. Systemic collapse is in full train. The Netherlands has just rushed through a second, more sweeping nationalisation of Fortis. Ireland and Greece have had to rescue all their banks. Iceland is facing an Argentine denouement.

[Rodster]

Well it looks like the $700 billion bailout is working real well. As of 10:30 the Dow is down almost 500 points and under 10,000 points.

[Jackdog]

Then in these debates they bring up who passed or rejected these bills and you never know what the true reason was. Why isn't there a law that you can't add on anything "unrelated" to an existing bill or that any bill over a certain amount must stand alone. This bs has got to stop!

One guy is trying.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01285.html

McCain also said that "if we don't stop the earmarking, we're not going to stop the abuses of power here in Washington." He suggested that his own party was largely responsible.

"In 1994, when the Congress was taken over by Republicans, there were 4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills," he told the committee. "Last year there were 15,000. It's disgraceful, this process."

[GameSeven]

Then in these debates they bring up who passed or rejected these bills and you never know what the true reason was. Why isn't there a law that you can't add on anything "unrelated" to an existing bill or that any bill over a certain amount must stand alone. This bs has got to stop!

One guy is trying.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01285.html

McCain also said that "if we don't stop the earmarking, we're not going to stop the abuses of power here in Washington." He suggested that his own party was largely responsible.

"In 1994, when the Congress was taken over by Republicans, there were 4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills," he told the committee. "Last year there were 15,000. It's disgraceful, this process."

Stop it JD, you know that the McCain running today isn't the same one from 2006

[pk500]

I wonder if Pelosi will take the floor of the Senate today and blame herself for the Dow dropping below 10,000 in a speech filled with partisan rancor.

And how do Hank Paulson's stock options look right now?

Take care,
PK

[RobVarak]

Quoting myself this early on a Monday is never good, but...

And it's particularly scary given the news that European super-bank Fortis may fail on Monday. We're potentially looking at a liquidity crisis that won't even be addressed by this bailout and which will require re-tooling the FDIC and other measures to prevent cascading bank failures.

These events are not unforseen and were never intended to be directly addressed by the bailout.

Warren Buffet had an excellent analogy on Charlie Rose the other day. For the first time in his life, the great sprinter of the US has had a heart attack and is down on the floor.

The bailout was defibriliation (and we quibbled for days over where to put the paddles). It's kept the heart pumping, but the systemic causes of the heart attack are still there. The sprinter is going to be laid up for some time, so we shouldn't expect him to just jump up and start sprinting again.

The good news is that it's still a world class sprinter and we can always go back and address the high blood pressure, cholesterol etc. and deal with the root causes of the probem.

I fully expect a blizzard of "told ya so's" from those who oppposed Paulson's plan, but the reality is that it was just one part of the treatment.

[Teal]

I wonder if Pelosi will take the floor of the Senate today and blame herself for the Dow dropping below 10,000 in a speech filled with partisan rancor.

And how do Hank Paulson's stock options look right now?

Take care,
PK

She doesn't have to. They rope-a-doped the republicans into going along with them, so now, like always, the finger of blame can be leveled elsewhere. I think she'll blame the house republicans for not doing it sooner. b*tch.

[Teal]

The cure for a headache is not throwing aspirin at the forehead. Unless the stuff is taken internally, the headache will continue.

And stuffing the mouth of a heart attack victim with worthless money isn't the way to fix the man...

And rob...I told ya so...

[pk500]

She doesn't have to. They rope-a-doped the republicans into going along with them, so now, like always, the finger of blame can be leveled elsewhere. I think she'll blame the house republicans for not doing it sooner. b*tch.

Easy, now. Don't forget that the King Cowboy of the GOP has pushed this bailout to the hilt from the start, and so has the GOP candidate for president.

This thing is a bi-partisan Band-Aid.

Take care,
PK

[Teal]

She doesn't have to. They rope-a-doped the republicans into going along with them, so now, like always, the finger of blame can be leveled elsewhere. I think she'll blame the house republicans for not doing it sooner. b*tch.

Easy, now. Don't forget that the King Cowboy of the GOP has pushed this bailout to the hilt from the start, and so has the GOP candidate for president.

This thing is a bi-partisan Band-Aid.

Take care,
PK

Oh, yeah, I'm well aware of that, and Bush isn't winning any support from me over this baloney. I was actually just referring to the house republicans who were smart enough note to vote for this thing the first time. Bohner will not get my vote to go back to Washington, either. I have only one represenative who didn't sign off on this mess, and he'll get my vote.

Truth is, the democrats didn't need a single republican to get that FUBAR of a bill through-they just wanted someone to cover their asses, and unfortunately, they got it.

It's still very much a rope-a-dope, which is in no way flattery toward the republicans. They are the dopes, after all...

[matthewk]

Does anyone have any links explaining why McCain voted for this? He keeps talking about eliminating wasteful spending, but he voted for a bill where they added another $100 billion in earmarks.

[RobVarak]

Does anyone have any links explaining why McCain voted for this? He keeps talking about eliminating wasteful spending, but he voted for a bill where they added another $100 billion in earmarks.

The explanation for why McCain and others supported the bill is available throughout this thread. I suggest checking out the Freakonomics links that I posted several pages back for analysis written mostly in English.

I also like Gary Becker's thumbnail at

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archi ... _of_g.html

There were no earmarks attached to the Paulson invstement plan. Those additional items are tax breaks, not appropriations, and in most cases are extensions of already-existing exemptions.

[pk500]

Dow drops another 500 points Tuesday in yet another resounding endorsement of the bailout.

Take care,
PK

[wco81]

Part of what's happening now is that the EU countries are trying to decide if they need to do a bailout.

Also the market seems to be clamoring for cuts in interest rates, not only from the Fed but coordinated with the ECB, the BOE and other central banks.

You could say the market is holding governments hostage around the world.

Oh and on another forum, I glanced at a thread title claiming that AIG execs. spent over $400k at some resort AFTER Uncle Sam said they'd give them money.

[dougb]

Part of what's happening now is that the EU countries are trying to decide if they need to do a bailout.

Also the market seems to be clamoring for cuts in interest rates, not only from the Fed but coordinated with the ECB, the BOE and other central banks.

You could say the market is holding governments hostage around the world.

Oh and on another forum, I glanced at a thread title claiming that AIG execs. spent over $400k at some resort AFTER Uncle Sam said they'd give them money.

The whole thing is coming apart at the seams. On one level it's a pretty fundamental failure involving lack of effective government regulation and financial industry incentives to deliberately distort the management of risk.

However, when the underpinnings of the economy for some time now have been ever increasing levels of consumer debt, there's a sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the economy is structured. Flat real wage growth combined with robust growth in spending doesn't seem like a scenario that generally ends well.

Best wishes,

Doug

[XXXIV]

However, when the underpinnings of the economy for some time now have been ever increasing levels of consumer debt, there's a sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the economy is structured. Flat real wage growth combined with robust growth in spending doesn't seem like a scenario that generally ends well.

Best wishes,

Doug

A little while back I went and visited a friends mother in a nursing home.

As I walked down the hall I came upon a woman rocking in her wheel chair...As she rocked she kept repeating the same two words over and over and over again.

Credit card... credit card credit card credit card....

[Rodster]

Damn I sure as hell thought the punchline was going to be redrum redrum redrum.

[XXXIV]

Damn I sure as hell thought the punchline was going to be redrum redrum redrum.

I wish it was a punchline...Great movie though!