Bailout 3
 

We've seen the defeat of the first bailout bill, and the DOW rose in points the next day. Congressionals are blaming each other for the failure when they should be looking to take responsibility for its defeat.

Since another bill is making the rounds and the politicians in Congress are adamant about giving up accountability and saving the rich with tax dollars, what are the odds the second bill will pass?

Kudos on the name.

Stop me if I'm wrong here, but if the DOW rose back up...isn't that a good reason to stop with the bailout plan? The economy should be coming back up, right? I'm not saying the economic problem is fixed yet, but still.

It looks like today the DOW has gone down by 100 points from its open. Senate is voting on the bailout bill today, but I'm guessing it's going to pass there again like it did last time.

Here is an interesting map.

Hopefully, it won't. Clearly, the market rising states that any change is minimal. I mean, our economy has been in the tank for a while, and the rebound is really nothing, but if it kept falling, THEN it would mean something.

Really, we're looking at very little actually happening in the immediate sense, all things considered. The people being hurt by this crash are the rich guys at the top of the pyramid. The poor people below them have been hurting from this already, and THEY didn't get any extra-special money. Best case scenario, the fat cats will have to fend for themselves and the majority of America won't get screwed into lining their pockets. Mass write-off of consumer debt. Worst case scenario, Socialism gets turned on its ear and the poor's funds get reallocated to the rich. AKA bill gets passed.

Really, I'm hoping that the debt just gets written off, because our economy shouldn't be measured by how rich the rich are. If things are "reset" we can start fixing what prompted this and most of America will see no real change, allowing the economy as a whole to recover as people actually get money to buy.

Even without the DOW going back up I doubt that a 700 billion bailout was the right course to fix this problem, and if it even required fixing in the first place.

I just read up on the reformats to the bill; they're including tax breaks for businesses and alternative energy this time.

Good lord, were they ever right about making it worse to try to get it to pass! And the article I was looking at said it looked more likely to pass, because the representatives aren't hearing as much from their local constituents!

Give me a good place to find representatives phone numbers and I'll let them know damn good and well how shitty their bill is.

Well, apparently I was a little misinformed on the nature of the $700 billion as well, but it will still cause inflation. They government is apparently trying to get permission to enter the stock market and buy up the trouble bonds, hopefully reselling them once we're out of trouble.

It's still equating to the government paying off the debt and then trying to collect on it, and avoiding having the "fat cats" take responsibility for the bad debt packages they bought.

Yeah, it looks like this is a moment to take action to prevent the bill from passing. Or heck, if you're on the other side of the fence, you could use that to write them too, just to be fair.

Edit: that form doesn't seem to work. Try typing "contact house of representatives" into google, click the second link, click representatives, and find your rep.

You can contact members of congress here!

The thing is with the new incarnation of this bailout it is

250 billion immediately
100 billion on presidents discretion
and 350 billion after another vote of congress.

Edit: they are in fact buying assets whose market value is dropping, with the plan to re-sell them once the market stabilizes.
This is truly a stopgap measure, and won't do anything to correct the bad business practices that caused it.

McCain seems to want the president to pass it w/o congressional approval, and so does the sec of treasury.
After they failed to pass it the dow lost 777 points, largest drop in history and there is talks of layoffs and the like, all related to de-regulation passed after the savings and loan scandal.

the gramm-lehey act if I am not mistaken.

Hi everyone.

Dropped off to do work on my site, but hopefully will be back periodically!

Yeah, the bailout is the typical American solution to everything: throw money at it. Don't bother addressing the factors that led to the problem, just spend enough money on it and the problem will remedy itself.

We NEED to let these "fat cats" tank. We MUST show the price of greed in the supposedly "greatest" country on Earth. All we are currently doing is proving Karl Marx's theory: the few really do control the means of production and have the "proletariat" at their mercy. Hell, even worse: the government is SANCTIONING the "bourgeiose", allowing them to do what they please with the economy.

Oh hey, it's SpacePope.

Hey Space Pope.

I'm in the process of e-mailing every damn senator I can. When does the bill go up again?

Honestly there is a sound economic reason for the bailout. It will help those that have sub-prime mortgages and those in foreclosure by easing the financial institutions pressure to collect on these debts.
However, I liken it to the airline bailout, nothing good came of that, the airlines kept going, sure, but service got worse overall, so they changed nothing in the practices that put them in the position in the first place.

Edit:
Hey Mrai

They b working on one today I believe.

I still think they should tank it unless it has provisions that executives get no portion and stricter regulations occur. However, since a majority of these officials were elected with money from Pac's that ARE the banking industry....well....

FUCK

Google is your friend. I just added another email to the likely flood in Obey's inbox. There should be sites that list all the representatives in every state.

I just wrote good 'ol Mel Martinez:
I suggest everybody write their senators. Even if it's just one or two sentences, the sheer volume of e-mail will be evidence enough to convince them.

I love the additions to the new bailout bill.

"Hey Republicans! Look what we've added! tax breaks! You love tax breaks right? Every Republican loves tax breaks! You want to vote for the bailout bill now, right? Cause it has tax breaks! They make everything better. You really need to abandon your economic principles and ignore the voice of you constituents and vote for this bill, because it has tax breaks!...And Democrats! We haven't forgotten you, we've added Green initiatives! What could be better than Green initiatives? You have to vote for the bailout now! Never mind that neither addition is in any way related to solving the problem at hand, you love 'em, we've got 'em! Vote for the bailout!"

The sad part is that it'll probably work.

'Bout time you came back to these parts, stranger.

Anyway, I have an idea regarding the bailout plan: we should pass it, on one condition: no member of Congress, the President, the Vice-President, anyone in the Cabinet, or any CEO of any of the companies which would be bailed out by this plan will get paid until this "loan" is paid off. Instead, their salaries will be applied towards the "loan" (interest first, then principal) until it is paid off. Neither Congress nor the companies will be allowed to vote themselves raises in order to pay back the loan sooner. All of them can easily live off of the taxpayer and company-funded perquisites that they already have until the debt is paid off.

If they feel really hard up for cash, they can get themselves corporate sponsors; however, they will have to change their names to reflect their sponsorship--there will be no more of this hidden special-interest funding.

Once upon a time, people in Congress and the Presidency were there to be servants of the common people; instead, they are lords of the manor, helping themselves and anyone who fattens their wallet, only deigning to serve the people when it serves their own purposes. I've long been of the opinion that positions of that much power shouldn't get a paycheck; my rationale behind that opinion is that only someone who truly wants the position and to serve others would take on that much responsibility for free....but I could be wrong.

I think the reason they want such fat paychecks in the first place is, at least on paper, that they want to have high bribing price tags. The theory is, if they were paid poorly, their political position would lend them to more corruption because the lure of money would be stronger.

Well, excuse me, but aren't you basically enacting a policy that forces you to take a bribe legally to, you know, do your job?

A serious solution to this would be to shift everything more towards a free market where other companies could invest in these failing banks and whatnot, not haul ass towards socialism like we're doing now. As crazyinyourface as he is, Glenn Beck made a good point. The government should look all of these people in the eye, banks that got greedy, people who took out loans that they knew they would never be able to pay back, and lawmakers who made all of this possible, and say "sucks to be you."

Or yeah, basically anything other than this bill could be an answer.

[Edit] Also <3 at the title.

The bailout, as of last report is now 451 pages long. That's up from the 3 it was supposed to be this past weekend.

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Oh, and Glenn Beck makes a lot of good points. It's just that he tends to put his foot in his mouth with stupid statements ("prove to me you're not my enemy," "I never thought I could hate anyone as fast as I hated the 9/11 families," "What if we killed Michael Moore?" etc.) that if you look into the context often make sense, and aren't the examples of a horrible person they sound like, but were badly chosen phrases that make people think "OMG crazy wingnut!"

And he's been predicting this whole mess since at least last year. Scarily accurately.

Obviously, you don't have a 401k. Unfortunately, my parents do & were looking to it to cover their retirements.

I'm not saying the bailout is the best thing, and in fact it could be the worst thing (I certainly don't like how Congress is being rushed into it, ala the Patriot Act). However, something needs to be done soon. I heard that Circuit City was trading at something like .73 a share, & I wouldn't be shocked if other companies hit similar dire straits.

Then if they go under, there will be massive unemployment, mostly based on panic, but it'll still be bad times.

Again, maybe the bailout is bad, but I do think something needs to be done & done soon. So if there's a better alternative to the bailout, I'd like to see the opponents start crafting something & at least showing it to the American people. I don't care if Pelosi & Reid aren't ready to give up on the bailout just yet, but I'd like to see some progress towards some sort of working resolution, not just opposition to the only suggested solution.

SWB

So, we give them more money, and they take bribes anyway? Because that's what happening now. Congress keeps on voting itself raises, and they still take money from special interest groups.

The idea behind making officials unpaid is that only someone who had a true interest in doing the job rather than making a fat paycheck would volunteer for it.

But don't worry--it'll never happen. Congress isn't interested in anything other than earning a fat paycheck, getting tons of perquisites on the taxpayers' dimes, and doing whatever it takes to get big, fat, juicy bribes on top of everything else.

ETA: I still think it would be great for members of Congress to have to change their names to reflect corporate sponsorship, Ala U.S. Cellular Field.

Can you imagine it?

Chair: Senator British Petroleum has the floor.
Senator British Petroleum: Please, Chair, call me BP.

It would be like the ultimate in sunshine laws!

They are voting now
Roll call in progress
Updates following

They voted on financial regulation bill
raised fdic limits
salary caps for executives.

etc.

more updates later

Of course this is just stage 1, and it's likely to make it out of the Senate again. The real news is when it hits the House, which won't be until next week most likely.

It was a given to go through the Senate, I'm just concerned about the spread. I was expecting the Senate to be almost unanymous considering. I'm wondering if it can even make it through the House.

[Edit] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14161.html

Okay...if there was ever a time to say it. WHAT THE FUCK?!

...

The fact that it ballooned to 450 pages just tells me this has disaster written all over it...

Sounds like they wanna take us all with em...

....

I might want this to pass now...

More like have us line their pockets via increased taxes for the poor shmucks off the street and huge tax breaks to corporations. Basically, same old, only bigger. :shifty:

But this really is not the time or piece of legislation to do it in. It's actually fairly popular in Congress, but has been held up due to debates over how to fund it. Pushing it through with this bill to get a few more votes for it is irresponsible.

It's really true that the "decorate it with christmas lights." Seriously, these things should pass on their own, not stapled to something ugly like this.

That's exactly why it's there.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think I'll sit back and watch, taking some sick pleasure in seeing the government suffer because of their incompetence...

Only problem with that is, the gov't tends to make everyone else suffer along with it.

The Government won't suffer at all; it's those of us who actually live in the real world who will have to suffer for the sins of the financial world. We and our children will be the ones paying for this bailout, quite possibly for the rest of our lives.

Well this IS politics. So long as we pass SOMETHING, their constituents won't make them lose office...

And the fact that our Senators make $165,000 a year only helps to say they have a hard time listening to what is best for everyone.

Or you could bounce them e-mails relentlessly telling them exactly what right and wrong ideas are. It certainly is what I'm doing, complete with "If you already rejected it, then I can't thank you enough."

I just find it Schadenfreudeariffically hilarious that the only way we can get medical care like mentioned is by completely assraping homeowners and the US economy.

As an Accounting and Finance major, two fields that are partially responsible for this mess in corporate finance (in that they didn't tell their CEO's and whatnot that this is gonna fuck up hard core on them when they knew it would), I am taking solace in the fact that I can live in Canada or Poland whenever I please due to my citizenships in each of those countries. I'm probably gonna join the Polish military soon as I get done with college for roughly 6 mths to a year because I got drafted in their military (they have compulsory service for all males 18-22 not enrolled in college, which I am currently enrolled in, in the U.S.)

But anyways, I just love how we use credit scores to determine whether or not we give people loans and is one of the best ways for us to measure people's monetary responsibility accurately predicted the rates at which all these loans would be terminated at. And they put so much emphasis on them too, only to ignore them after they've been so good to these companies on whether or not they should give loans to people. And the Credit Score prediction of whether they would get paid back on the loans by certain ranges of scores...was completely true.

Whats even sadder is that even though they knew the people with lower credit scores would have difficulty paying back the loans, because they had "sub-prime" credit scores, below 650, they RAISED thier interest rates making it that much harder on them to pay it back.

So really, they just shot themselves in the foot and the bullet put a hole in the hull of the ship thier on. So I'm pretty sure the government should just let this ship sink and build a different ship to run the financial system of america.

It's not so much that they didn't tell them as it is that they most likely DID tell the CEOs...and, like most leaders who want to do something, the CEOs blatantly IGNORED them and went ahead with plan "Gouge people with lousy credit who really, really, really want to buy a house/start a business/take a vacation/buy useless stuff/catch up on other bills."

I can see where loan issuers would want to put in ENORMOUS finance charges on people with poor credit. They probably figure, "Hell, they won't pay me back the whole thing anyway, so I might as well squeeze as much money out of them as possible before they file for bankruptcy or default on the loan."

Oh, and it seems that CEOs are looking to "cut payrolls" (read: fire more low-paid workers while they themselves keep their salaries, benefits, and perquisites at the same levels). Way to help stabilize the economy, jerks!

And all of this in spite of the fact that the Senate approved that convoluted bailout plan. Beautiful!

DID YOU KNOW? Technically, appropriations bills cannot originate in the Senate. The bill that just passed originally had nothing to do with the Bailout - in fact, it passed the house in 2002.

AND NOW YOU KNOW.

PS. It's totally Hank Paulson's fault.

jesus christ. this has gone beyond the point of an e-mail campaign, someone needs to organize a fucking protest march. 450 fucking pages of pork? burn it down and fire every single one of the motherfuckers in congress right the fuck now, this kind of shit cannot be tolerated.

That actually was bothering me, but now it makes sense. However, because of all the additions, it will now have to be passed back to the House for re-approval. Any changes made in the House, should it pass, will subsequently have to passed back to the Senate for THEIR re-approval, and so on and so forth until the Senate approves of the bill without any additional changes. The House gets to start the motion on any topic dealing with money, but the Senate needs to give final approval on the finished product.

Has it actually passed yet, or when is it going up for approval?

Seems like it passed Senate last night.

Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like if Ron Paul actually (somehow) won the Republican nomination. Given this particular bailout issue one could feasibly imagine him having a field day against Obama. I'm honestly surprised we haven't heard more from him in recent days, he must be angry about this.

and Russia claims victory for our government's mistake...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/...ope/russia.php

It passed last night as a rider on a bill that gives expanded health care for the mentally ill, thus giving you the 450 pages. Not all of it is pork, the only bit of it that was was the business tax breaks, which in turn makes it harder to pay the bailout back.

I like how our debt ceiling has now officially doubled over the last 8 years.

There are particular reasons why this bill should be passed, but I'd honestly wish they'd just recapitalize the banking system instead of throwing money at Wall Street and leaving them to their business. It already seems a bit late, considering the already in progress credit crunch.

It's also dubiously ridiculous the way congress played 700 Billion Dollar football with this bill, attaching it to all the fluff and nonsense they could to swing stubborn ass reps.

Just passed 100% this morning, I believe. I almost got excited that it would fail, but as the democrats said they basically had a gun to their heads.

Wow, just keeps getting worse and worse. On top of the major economics issues, major insurance companies have taken a huge hit in stock value because people panicked over Sen. Harry Reid making a boneheaded statement before the senate passed the bill. Is there some way we can replace all our legislators with cats and dogs? They'd be so much more effective at running this country.

What gun? The only metaphorical gun on anyone that I can see is the massive public outcry against the bailout. All the claims that anyone would pay a political price for blocking it are wishful thinking on the part of pro-bailout pundits.

As I understand it the gun was basically "Pass it now, pass it later, either way our economy is dying and we aren't giving up on the bailout."

There's also the extra addendums to the bailout like the health care provision for mental treatment.

Heard this far too many times from the Democratic Party to find it at all credible at this point. People who always have some ready excuse for why they just can't help but do the thing they are nevertheless doing, are in fact doing exactly what they want to do and lying about it.

Dunno that anyone recalls the thread a while back in which I argued that it was in fact a lack of partisanship that was the problem in our political system, but this is the exact sort of thing that I was talking about.

Also

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/bu...I5KE7QxHg4AI8g

Further illustration of the role deregulation played in leading to this situation.

What amazes me is that even following the Enron debacle, these people nevertheless continued to feign that 'voluntary regulation' was anything other than an official sanctioning of thievery.

That article is a great read. I don't know how, but I feel I gained even more understanding about the situation than I had before.

Now that we've pointed the blame at someone/something, can we get around to solving the problem?

Ya know what? Ironically, the stock market dropped a fair deal today after the legislation was passed... Now I'm not a rocket scientist but maybe a bail out wasn't the best thing...

Well it hasn't actually done anything yet. It's just been made official, being given Congress and the President's okay. I don't think any money has actually changed hands yet. The drop today I think mainly stemmed from pessimistic investors wondering whether or not this will really work. And "pessimistic" can be interchanged with "inquisitive".

Now I understand how we got into this mess in the first place thanks to that article.

Also
YES.

I'm not familiar with that, but I'll trust your judgment on this matter. I've only recently gotten into politics (what with now being able to vote on a presidential election and the economy and etc etc).

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/05...iref=hpmostpop

This is interesting. Citigroup has money from our federal government but no portfolio since they were heavily into the sub prime market...

Wells Fargo has portfolio and didn't rely on the sub prime market. In fact, they really stayed out of it.

Now Citigroup wants only one part of Wachovia. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo wants to keep the company intact.

If the law wasn't passed, I believe Citigroup would have canceled their bid.

"Hey guys, the economy's going to fall apart on us, unless you all give us $700 billion of your precious taxpayer's money to rescue those of us who fucked up in the first place!"

(We bail them out.)
(The stock market falls below 10,000 points anyway.)

I think my general disdain for Congress has now been replaced with a seething ire and rancor. As in, if I was still living in DC (I was just six months ago) and I ran into a male senator or representative (I don't hit women), I think I'd actually have to restrain myself from punching him. It'd be a strong urge to resist.

Edit: Okay maybe I'm not literally that angry, but I'm angry enough to contemplate the possibility in the safety of an internet message board.
Dammit Congress. Your approval ratings will soon be so low you'll make Bush look popular. Hell, I'm pretty sure Congress' approval rating percentage will soon dip below the percentage of votes Ralph Nader will get in this election.

We can only hope that the taxpayers vote the incumbents out of office and replace them with people who haven't fucked up this badly so far.

And, thank christ for this, so far they only have so much money, and subsequent votes are necessary to release further billions to these atrocious companies. Flip side, the votes will largely be symbolic I am sure, as they will likely pass without much dissent to speak of.

I wrote to Barbara Boxer, my Senate representative, about the bill a while ago. This is what she said.

The $700 billion still hasn't reached the companies yet. Heard a report today about it on the radio. The drop today stemmed mostly from pessimism by stockholders who still doubt the bailout will do anything.

That letter from the representative...

It seems so... correct... as in, it makes me think politicians really get a bad rep...

*long, drawn out sigh*

She's got her head on her shoulders, but it seems like she's still pandering to lobbyists that are making possibly empty threats.

Hey, everyone who thinks the Bailout was such a fine and dandy idea!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/liv...l?hpid=topnews

You know how I hate politicans enough to want to smack them upside their heads?
THAT is why I hate politicans.

This Bailout deal was the epitome of idiocy. You can not expect me to sing and dance the Bailout's praises while our taxpayer's money is going to AIG's executive resort party bash. $23,000 for goddamned spa treatments!!! Yet they need our damn money to bail their failing industry out!!!

They just don't want to help the american people, that's all there is to it.

I wonder if there's a kind of anti-corporate, anti-politican lawyer who explicitly goes around and sues the pants off these greedy multimillionaire corporations and senators for their high crimes and misdemeanors with the express purpose of smacking their lousy, inhumane asses with a thick dose of the peoples' justice.

Because if there is, that is exactly the kind of law I want to practice when I get out of law school.

That's also the Washington Post, a decidedly liberal publication. It does nothing to prove that this was not an event planned months in advance, before the meltdown began. And in the big picture, even if the actual bailout funds reached them and were used for this purpose, 400 thousand is just a drop in the bucket next to 700 billion.

I believe there's a law or Amendment in place for this... Congressmen and Senators can't get sued for legislation passed... >_<

Also, I believe the bail out won't be in true effect until ~30 days from now.

Hey Bob the Mercenary, check this out:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,434223,00.html

Is Fox News also a "decidedly liberal publication?" As they've come out rather strongly against AIG's recent misbehavior, too.
"It does nothing to prove that this was not an event planned months in advance..."

I don't see the relevancy of how long ago it was planned? Given the fact that AIG just asked for a bailout from the federal government, whenever they planned their little retreat into paradise doesn't matter -- they should have canceled the event regardless and put that money to better use, so our taxpayer's money wasn't used to prop up a company offering free massages to its executives.

And wait, are you seriously advocating that what AIG did was okay because "400 thousand dollars is nothing compared to 700 billion?" So if I embezzle 400 thousand dollars from a 700 billion dollar company it isn't against the law? What AIG did was unethical even if their executive vacation was "only 400 thousand dollars" as that was $400,000 that could have gone into actual meaningful business transactions, and $400,000 less they would have needed of our money. The bottom line is that if your company is essentially going goddamn bankrupt, you have no right to offer your executives free spa visits and high priced hotel rooms at some fancy retreat a week after the federal government gives your company taxpayer's money to help save you from the mess you created. This isn't goddamn rocket science, people.

My bigger problem with that letter is that it basically snowblows the issue at hand. Yes they made the bailout suck less, but wouldn't it be a better idea to not pass it at all and implement something that will be more effective?

However, she does acknowledge the fact that this is just one minor fix in the grand scheme of the economy problem. The fact that she doesn't turn a blind eye to that makes me feel a bit better.

It's all politics by the rich for the rich. A lot of politicians are wealthy too. They do not understand nor often care about what happens to everyone who doesn't make the same amount of money. It does not concern them. Simple.

I am glad that the EU explicitly announced, after the yesterdays meeting between all the heads of state, that there will be no money going to companies who are atleast partly responsible for the current crisis. That doesn't mean that all the costs that are caused wont be paid by tax payers.

EDIT: Simply put, there will be no multibillion baillout package for anyone.

Cancel it. It's not only an economical decision. It should also be an ethical decision. And besides, we all know that every little bit we save ammounts to something bigger later.

Who the hell needs to spend 150,000$ on food, anyway?!

AIG has already been given about 85 billion dollars in bailout money by the federal government. Today they announced that they need another 37 point something billion more.

Am I the only one who feels that any cent of that money not spent on actual bailouts is little more than theft? We already know that a lot of federal money handed out earlier last month was used for CEOs to take vacations and visit spas. Every time I hear about that I just wish somebody could walk in and demand our money back.

I feel extremely uneasy because I just wonder how much of this almost 850 billion dollars total in bailout money will end up in the hands of a five-star restaurant next to a world class executive retreat. I continue to oppose the idea of the bailout saving our economy. It might help, but it won't be the cure.

was this before or after it came out that AIG spent a few hundred thousand dollars of the bailout money sending their execsto a spa?

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/08/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

There is the link to what I was mentioning.
This just happened today, so it would be after.

It's hard work robbing us! They clearly deserved a break to relax and recharge, so they can provide you the taxpayer with the kind of high-quality shameless theft you've come to expect.

EDIT: page limit