[Southwest Fisher]

I've been reading a lot lately about Treasury Sec Paulson's proposal for a $700 Billion federal bail-out. I would like to know the opinions on the subject among the users of this fine forum, as even though I may feel different politically with many of the most comon respondents, I feel that this is one place that a reader can oftentimes find some good old "common sense" and also because this really is in no way a partisan issue.

I recently heard a conservative commentator (didn't catch his name, he was a British ex-pat) speak eloquently about the fact that this is the closest to socialism that our government has gotten since the days of the Great Depression, days which according to Sec Paulsen could be imminently approaching our nation. The commentator also thankfully declined to use the "slippery-slope" fallacy that this could lead to other socialistic programs completely taking over our style of governing, he was just making an often overlooked point.

Sec Paulsen is highly respected my members of both parties and seems very credible - but the same was once said of Alan Greenspan, who's shining affirmation of Adjustable Rate Mortages (the infamous ARM!) has helped put our nation into the current plight. Do you guys feel that such extreme measures are justified, and if so, what caps do we put on this? And how do we justify putting this on the backs of the already over-taxed (pun intended) American taxpayer? While it would never happen, I would propose that the CEO's and Boards of these companies which require bailing-out show some faith and gratitude by forgoing their salaries (and ridiculous "performance" bonuses ) for at least the next fiscal year. If they had controlled things properly their companies wouldn't be in this precarious situation in the first place. Of course, it may have been inevitable, as never before has this nation incorporated massive tax cuts with an ongoing war, much less one on two fronts.

Another factor is the fact that many in Congress (unsure of the Administration's stance on this) would like to include banruptcy protection for homeowners suffering the effects of the aforementioned ARMs. Do we continue to be laissez-faire and tell those about to lose their homes that you are going to have to live with your bad decision, no matter who told you it was safe? The point has been brought up that no one forced them into purchasing a home that they would inevitably be unable to afford. However, how can you cover the a** of these major corporations yet tell the average citizen to basically "go pound sand?" And will our economy be able to bounce back if so many people are out in the street with crappy credit ratings?

Neither candidate seems completely sure of how to tackle this immediate situation, and this is also occuring when both the President and Congress have ridiculously low approval ratings. Will the people trust them with this important decision? Do we have a choice?

Hope to hear some good discussion about this - while it may not have any bearing on the issue, its good to hear what other's think about the subject.

Thanks,

-Mike.

 

[Southwest Fisher]

I found this in an article by Gregg easterbrook, who writes for espn.com of all places, yet is full of useful information regarding current events. What he writes about Paulsen made me a bit angry, but I took solace in the fact that he concurred with my idea in regards to CEO salary:

"Last week, TMQ asked why no one was paying attention to the fact that the national debt ceiling was quietly raised by $800 billion during the summer. Well, toss that column: The White House just asked the national debt ceiling be raised another $700 billion, for the proposed financial-sector bailout. If that happens, in 2008 alone, $1.5 trillion will have been added to the national debt: every penny borrowed from your children and their children. Stated in today's dollars, in 1979 the entire national debt was $1.5 trillion. George W. Bush and Congress have in a single year added an amount equal to the entire national debt one generation ago. And the year's not over!
It took the United States 209 years, from the founding of the republic till 1998, to compile the first $5 trillion in national debt. In the decade since, $6 trillion in debt has been added. This means the United States has borrowed more money in the past decade than in all our previous history combined. Almost all the borrowing has been under the direction of George W. Bush -- at this point Bush makes Kenneth Lay seem like a paragon of fiscal caution. Democrats deserve ample blame, too. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, have never met a bailout they didn't like: Harry and Nancy just can't wait to spend your children's money. Six trillion dollars borrowed in a single decade and $1.5 trillion borrowed in 2008 alone. Charles Ponzi would be embarrassed.
If you borrowed, borrowed, borrowed, you could afford to live high for a while -- then there would be a reckoning. Hmmm … that sounds a little like what many Americans did with gimmick mortgages in 2005 and 2006. They were only imitating their political leadership! Why is it both parties in Washington think the United States can borrow, borrow, borrow without a reckoning ever coming? Bush, Reid and Pelosi seem poised to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowed public money to political insiders on Wall Street and in banking, whose bonuses will now be tax-subsidized. The capitalist maxim is, "She who reaps the gains also bears the losses." Now Washington wants those who reaped the gains to shift the losses to those who lived humbly. The young will pay and pay for these cynical ploys to insure the luxury of the powerful old. Why aren't the young outraged?
TMQ's pal Isabel Sawhill, among the leading public-policy economists of our day, says Washington does indeed need to intervene in the financial system -- the harm to the average person of letting credit markets freeze would be greater, she thinks, than the harm caused by more public debt. Fair enough. But it doesn't inspire confidence that on Sept. 12, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the financial system had been fixed and "under no circumstances" would there be further bailouts; on Friday, Paulson said the system was collapsing and another $700 billion was needed. Suddenly Paulson is insisting the country has no choice other than immediately to hand over $700 billion to Wall Street fat cats, with barely any debate or even explanation of the plan. Why should anyone believe this guy, when just one week previously he said no further bailouts would occur? It seems clear Paulson had no idea what he was talking about then, while if the problem is really as bad as Paulson says now, his past delay in facing the problem has made the cost far higher. With such a poor track record, why is the treasury secretary suddenly viewed as a superbrilliant genius whose marching orders must be followed?
It is not public intervention that is objectionable. University of Chicago Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker, among the top conservative economists, just said, "I have reluctantly concluded that substantial intervention was justified." Rather it is size of the bailout, and the hurry-up-give-the-money-don't-stop-to-think aspect, that are troubling. Much of the $700 billion will flow to investment-community friends of Paulson, Bush and other administration figures. Average Americans who behaved irresponsibly by signing gimmick mortgages may get some taxpayer aid from the Paulson proposal, and maybe they should get none. But in the end, average Americans will still be liable for most of what they owe -- that is, will still be held responsible for their actions. Wealthy, politically connected insiders who run banks and companies such as American International Group will be exempt for responsibility for their actions, and will stuff taxpayer-subsidized millions into their pockets.
On Sunday, Paulson called the self-serving actions of top Wall Street figures "inexcusable" -- yet the plan is not only to excuse them, but to shower them with free money. Paulson said Wall Street pay levels were "excessive," but should be discussed later, after the bailout is done. Now is the moment of maximum leverage! Once they are holding the public's money and laughing about how easily they got it, financial executives will have no incentive to compromise on pay. Here's an idea: Any company that participates in the bailout agrees to limit its top-tier executives to the federal minimum wage. That is, after all, the amount Washington says is enough to live on. Meanwhile, of the two jokers who drove Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the ground, one was paid $19.8 million in 2007, the other $14 million; each will get nearly $5 million in taxpayer-funded "retirement" bennies.
Yet there's scant outrage. Maybe this is because in an era of fiscal irresponsibility by both parties, everybody wants a bailout. Wall Street, bankers, homeowners who lied on their mortgage applications, Detroit automakers, farmers -- gimme, gimme, gimme! Rather than asking whether the $700 billion giveaway is too large or being structured in a way that benefits the rich, numerous members of Congress are instead demanding more bailouts be appended: for seniors (see below), cities, states, more "stimulus" checks, you name it. Give money to whoever will fund my re-election! The money is being forcibly extracted from the pockets of our children and their children. Every dollar borrowed today by the irresponsible old of Washington will subtract two dollars from future economic growth, leaving our children and their children a legacy of stagnation.
The 1980 Chrysler bailout, which was nationally debated for months before happening, cost $3.2 billion, in present-value dollars, and was financed by revenue rather than by borrowing. Here is the borrowing that's happened in 2008 alone, with precious little public debate:
• $29 billion to bail out Bear Stearns.
• $40 billion in the first mortgage-holder bailout.
• $80 billion for an additional year of Iraq war operations. (Another $150-$200 billion in war costs such as future veterans' disability benefits were incurred but not funded.)
• Up to $85 billion to bail out AIG.
• $153 billion to households for "economic stimulus."
• $200 billion, and possibly more, to bail out Fannie and Freddie.
• $290 billion in farm subsidies, despite agricultural prices and grains profits being at record highs.
• $700 billion general bailout of securities backed by bad debt. (The International Monetary Fund estimates this figure will rise to at least $1 trillion.)
That comes to $1.6 trillion, explaining the debt-ceiling rise, and does not include roughly $300 billion in essentially interest-free cash issued to banks by the Federal Reserve on an emergency basis, which may or may not be repaid, but which in any case make all existing money somewhat less valuable. Why is the debt aspect of the splurge barely being remarked on by the mainstream media and by politicians? Why are the young not furious? And about that $700 billion about to the shoveled to the Wall Street elite -- in 2007, George W. Bush vetoed an increase of $7 billion per year in health care spending for the poor, saying the country couldn't afford it." :******:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ook/080923

 

[Bobm]

Its a complicated issue so I think they should slow down there seems to be arush to fix it by the end of this week and I would prefer they really consider what they are about to do and spend atleast another week making the decision.

 

[Bobm]

and two more things

1)the stupid comment about health care at the end of that article takes all credibility away from that article IMO its got nothing to do with the topic and shows his true ajenda

2) George Bush has warned and argued with congress against the situation with Freddie mac and Fannie may publicly 17 times.

Its a situation he inherited from the Clinton adminstration that was started in 1999 by congress both sides of the aisle and signed by clinton so as you correctly stated theres lots of blame to go around and its not a partisan issue although I could make a very good argument that its mostly a democratic issue, because the biggest part of the problem is the default of all these loans to people that should never of got them. The Dems pushed that and if that didn't happen we wouldn't even be discussiing the topic.

It most certainly is not a George Bushs issue, its one of the very few things he was right on.

 

[Bob Kellam]

Our Federal Economy

By George F. Will
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; A23

Members of Congress are being exhorted to stampede, like lemmings in reverse, away from a postulated cliff. But some of the economic geographers who say they know that the cliff is there, and that the economy will plunge over it if Congress stops to think before empowering the secretary of the Treasury to control the flow of capital through the veins of American capitalism, are some of those experts who said in March that prophylactic federal intervention in the matter of Bear Stearns was necessary to contain the crisis.

Everything that has been done for the past six months has been done to cope with what previous actions were supposed to prevent. A perhaps pertinent axiom: There is no education in the second kick of a mule.

The essence of this crisis is lack of knowledge, including the inability to know who owes what to whom, and where risk resides. In such a moment, government's speed should not vary inversely with its information. With government's prestige, measured by approval ratings of the president and Congress, at a historic low, government is taking on unprecedented responsibilities. Henry Paulson, a.k.a. the Fourth Branch of Government, is intelligent and indefatigable and has as much pertinent experience as could be hoped for. But no one has ever had much experience that is pertinent to the tasks that would be assigned to him by the three-page legislation that would give him almost complete discretion over at least $700 billion.

Before Congress codifies this, it should consult Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." But since the federal government was transformed into a regulatory state in the 20th century, Congress has routinely delegated essentially legislative powers to the executive branch and independent agencies. This is one reason conservatives regret the growth of government: It entails supplanting the rule of law -- laws written by elected representatives -- by the rule of rules written in the executive branch.

Rep. Barney Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, says: "No one in a democracy, unelected, should have $800 billion to spend as he sees fit. . . . That's not the way to run a democracy." Frank is properly punctilious about a fundamental principle of American governance -- legislative control of public funds. But a fundamental principle of American political economy is that no elected person should exercise virtually unfettered discretion with such sums of taxpayers' money.

In 1922, Lenin, attacked from the left because he was allowing some small-scale private enterprise and agriculture, promised that the state would control the Soviet economy's "commanding heights." In 1945, Britain's Labor Party explained its nationalization policies by saying that socialism should include government "control of the commanding heights of the economy."

In 1945 Britain, this meant the stuff of industrialism -- iron, steel, coal, railroads, etc. In 1945, Aneurin Bevan, a leading Labor politician, said: "Britain is an island bedded on coal and surrounded by fish; only an organizing genius could produce a coal shortage and a fish shortage simultaneously." Socialism soon produced that.

Today, the commanding heights of America's economy are financial services, and regarding them, the line between the public and private sectors is being blurred to indistinctness. What is the American equivalent of coal and fish? We might find out.

An enormous range of complex judgments will have to be made about who will decide -- and by what criteria -- to whom money will be directed, and how to value and price the financial instruments, and the assets behind them, that the government might soon own. But these micro problems, although quite huge, pale next to the macro problem, which is:

This crisis has arrived during the ninth month of a vast demographic deluge -- the retirement of 78 million baby boomers. As the population ages, the welfare state -- primarily, a transfer-payments pump providing pensions and medical care for the elderly -- requires more rapid economic growth to generate increasing revenue. To the extent that today's crisis results in large amounts of capital being allocated by considerations other than those of economic efficiency, the nation will be consigned to less-than-optimal economic growth.

The next administration, but especially an Obama administration, will chafe under severely narrowed economic restrictions. But subsequent generations will pay the radiating costs of the rising role of the state in allocating financial resources.

[email protected]

 

[Bobm]

According to a poll conducted by CNN, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis by a 2-to-1 margin. That means that twice as many people out there are playing this "blame the current administration" game. Ahhhh ... the brilliance of the American voters.

It is really no surprise if you consider where most people get their information- Entertainment Tonight. It is easy to sit back and just blame the Republicans, rather than trying to understand how we have gotten to this point. Look, folks, I'm not saying that the Republicans didn't have a hand in this ... but Barack Obama has crept back up in the polls to take the lead over John McCain, and you don't think this has anything to do with the economy?

And just who was it that killed a Freddie and Fannie reform bill a few years ago? Why, that would be Democrats. And who was it that was saying everything was cool with Freddie and Fannie? Barney Frank; who is not, by the way, a Republican. And who has been pushing lenders to make loans to unqualified borrowers for two decades? Democrats again.

Still, the message doesn't get out. Could that possibly be because of the media love affair with The Chosen One?

Just yesterday, Hillary Clinton said that Barack Obama "is best suited to straighten out the country's economic problems." Question ... what in the wide wide world of balance sheets is she basing this on? What makes Hillary so sure that Barack Obama is the best candidate to handle the economy? What has he ever handled in his entire life? (Wait, don't answer that!) :lol:

This is coming from a woman who said that "once we get through this immediate crisis," the country should look at some Great Depression-era type of governmental entity to deal with it. I'll tell you what came out of Great Depression politics ... big government. Lots of government. Government dependency. :sniper: :eyeroll:

This is exactly what the Democrats want. They are viewing this entire debacle as a golden opportunity to increase the size of government and expand dependency. Now is the time for you to rely on their party - and their savior, Barack Obama - to lead you out of this crisis and right onto the path of greater government dependency.

And it all comes down to one thing, and that is power.

 

[water_swater]

I think the bottom line is the American people need to take responsibility. If I get my truck stuck in the mud I don't call my buddy and get a ride home while the next morning my truck is in the garage washed up looking like new. I have to go dig it out myself and live with the mess I made.

If you were to arrogant and worried about how nice your house was instead of saving some money thats your own damn fault. If as a company you were too greedy and thought your were going to make a bunch of money lending to people spending more than 30% of their monthly income on 30 plus year mortgages thats your own damn fault. Common sense could have avoided this whole problem.

I think people have a right to own a home, thats the American dream. Americans expectations are so ridiculous its unbelievable. Our economy price was is many times better than a solid nation to our north Canada, yet we still complain. Homes in MB are smaller and the prices are crazy compared to ND.

I do think that there is a fine line, the Great Depression started with over borrowing, and Europe defaulting on those loans. Bailout is bad terminology, damage control, would be better. If your son is our screwing around and smashes up his car do you say "hey buddy don't worry all you need is more practice on those donuts and you'll be able to avoid that pole." No you don't get him another car you make him start over and get his own. Someone else who knows how to fix that car takes it and makes it like new, maybe with some money borrowed from the government.

 

[PSDC]

Here is a quote from AIG CEO Edward Libby;

"AIG has been an engine for product innovation, and was sometimes seemingly fearless in its willingness to assume risk. If AIG's insurance operations were acquired by more conservative companies, insurance buyers would stand to lose the far-reaching benefits of the company's innovations in the management and financing of risk, as well as the integrated delivery of global insurance solutions," he wrote.

Hello you moron, you corporation almost went belly up with the
past risk management....

He also stated they will not sell any of their flag ship assets, which
in turn means the profitable lines of insurance markets.

So, that means they probably plan on selling the worst return
assets or ones that have potential of poor returns.

I sure hope that $85 billion loan works out for the govt.

 

[Southwest Fisher]

Bob, for once can you just knock it off? I asked for common sense about THE BAILOUT itself, not a rant about a statement by Hillary supporting her parties chosen candidate. What the hell does that have to do with our situation? Was it the Dems fault for the inconceivable increase in the federal deficit during 6 years of complete Republican control? Did the Dems instigate major tax increases along with a war at the same time? In fact, just this week Hannity asked Palin if it was right for Obama to tell America that we are on the brink of economic crisis because it looks bad for the rest of the world and to investors (she agreed) yet today McCain would like to postpone campaigns (which I agree with) because the situation is so dire. Yet I didn't include any of that in the original body because I wasn't looking for PARTISAN FINGER POINTING! If you have some insight on what you feel should be done with this issue, please elaborate. If all you can do is play Attack-a-Clinton, do it elsewhere, please.

 

[Bob Kellam]

I asked for common sense about THE BAILOUT itself

from the other "Bob" IMO there was/is no room for common sense and it sure as he!! had nothing to do with how we got to this point. Reversing the greed that created this is not going to work either because the hypocrisy of the situation is glaring. We live and breath a "Capitalist" mantra in this country free enterprise and capitalism rule the day. Isn't it a little humorous that now that capitalism based on greed is being called out on the carpet with statements like These corporate CEO's should not be making that kind of salary or how can anyone justify that kind of bonus.

The American public in general is a pretty apathetic bunch even in major election cycles only a percentage of those that are eligible to vote actually vote.

I am not defending some of the process's that got us to where we are today, frankly it stinks. The only way I can ever see any meaningful change to prevent this from happening is for the public to demand TERM LIMITS, the President has a term limit for a reason, congress should be held to the same standard. Career politicos are easy targets for the lobbyists and power brokers, for them it is as simple as looking at the record for the last 4 to 8 years they find what they want and they have their "Mark"

Sorry for the rant but this whole bailout has my blood pressure up and I feel they should just let these firms get themselves out of the mess they got themselves into. That may be an over simplistic or even ignorance of the intricacies of the situation, bailouts are the easy way out at our expense. We had to put our boots on pull our pants up and get to work until we saw a light at the end of the tunnel. So far the only work I have seen of these players is to find their favorite shoulder to cry on and holler the sky is falling. Many who are supposedly in the know have no idea what will happen if the bailout does not happen

Congress had better grow a pair real quick and make sure this cannot happen again. If they pull their heads out of each others arses maybe thay can see a clear picture of what needs to be done to protect the public they are supposd to be serving.

 

[Bob Kellam]

YA! What he said!!!!.............

A Bailout We Don't Need

By James K. Galbraith
Thursday, September 25, 2008; A19

Now that all five big investment banks -- Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- have disappeared or morphed into regular banks, a question arises.

Is this bailout still necessary?

The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time. They're called "loans."

With banks, runs occur only when depositors panic, because they fear the loan book is bad. Deposit insurance takes care of that. So why not eliminate the pointless $100,000 cap on federal deposit insurance and go take inventory? If a bank is solvent, money market funds would flow in, eliminating the need to insure those separately. If it isn't, the FDIC has the bridge bank facility to take care of that.

Next, put half a trillion dollars into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund -- a cosmetic gesture -- and as much money into that agency and the FBI as is needed for examiners, auditors and investigators. Keep $200 billion or more in reserve, so the Treasury can recapitalize banks by buying preferred shares if necessary -- as Warren Buffett did this week with Goldman Sachs. Review the situation in three months, when Congress comes back. Hedge funds should be left on their own. You can't save everyone, and those investors aren't poor.

With this solution, the systemic financial threat should go away. Does that mean the economy would quickly recover? No. Sadly, it does not. Two vast economic problems will confront the next president immediately. First, the underlying housing crisis: There are too many houses out there, too many vacant or unsold, too many homeowners underwater. Credit will not start to flow, as some suggest, simply because the crisis is contained. There have to be borrowers, and there has to be collateral. There won't be enough.

In Texas, recovery from the 1980s oil bust took seven years and the pull of strong national economic growth. The present slump is national, and it can't be cured that way. But it could be resolved in three years, rather than 10, by a new Home Owners Loan Corp., which would rewrite mortgages, manage rental conversions and decide when vacant, degraded properties should be demolished. Set it up like a draft board in each community, under federal guidelines, and get to work.

The second great crisis is in state and local government. Just Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced $1.5 billion in public spending cuts. The scenario is playing out everywhere: Schools, fire departments, police stations, parks, libraries and water projects are getting the ax, while essential maintenance gets deferred and important capital projects don't get built. This is pernicious when unemployment is rising and when we have all the real resources we need to preserve services and expand public investment. It's also unnecessary.

What to do? Reenact Richard Nixon's great idea: federal revenue sharing. States and localities should get the funds to plug their revenue gaps and maintain real public spending, per capita, for the next three to five years. Also, enact the National Infrastructure Bank, making bond revenue available in a revolving fund for capital improvements. There is work to do. There are people to do it. Bring them together. What could be easier or more sensible?

Here's another problem: the wealth loss to near-retirees and the elderly from a declining stock market as things shake out. How about taking care of this, with rough justice, through a supplement to Social Security? If you need a revenue source, impose a turnover tax on stocks.

Next, let's think about what the next upswing should try to achieve and how it should be powered. If the 1960s were about raising baby boomers and the '90s about technology, what should the '10s and '20s be about? It's obvious: energy and climate change. That's where the present great unmet needs are.

So, let's use the next few years to plan, mapping out a program of energy conservation, reconstruction and renewable power. Let's get the public sector and the universities working on it. And let's prepare the private sector so that when the credit crunch finally ends, we'll have the firms, the labs, the standards and the talent in place, ready to go.

Some will ask if we can afford it. To see the answer, don't look at budget projections. Just look at interest rates. Last week, in the panic, the federal government could fund itself, short term, for free. It could have raised money for 30 years and paid less than 4 percent. That's far less than it cost back in 2000.

No country in this situation is broke, or insolvent, or even in much trouble. For once, Wall Street's own markets speak the truth. The financially challenged customer isn't Uncle Sam. He's up on Wall Street, where deregulation, greed and fraud ran wild.

James K. Galbraith is the author of "The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too."

 

[Bobm]

Bob, for once can you just knock it off? I asked for common sense about THE BAILOUT itself, not a rant about a statement by Hillary supporting her parties chosen candidate. What the hell does that have to do with our situation? Was it the Dems fault for the inconceivable increase in the federal deficit during 6 years of complete Republican control? Did the Dems instigate major tax increases along with a war at the same time? In fact, just this week Hannity asked Palin if it was right for Obama to tell America that we are on the brink of economic crisis because it looks bad for the rest of the world and to investors (she agreed) yet today McCain would like to postpone campaigns (which I agree with) because the situation is so dire. Yet I didn't include any of that in the original body because I wasn't looking for PARTISAN FINGER POINTING! If you have some insight on what you feel should be done with this issue, please elaborate. If all you can do is play Attack-a-Clinton, do it elsewhere, please.

Nope not as long as you post topic unrelated biased crap like this I wont

George W. Bush vetoed an increase of $7 billion per year in health care spending for the poor, saying the country couldn't afford it."

The Democrats want to control our heath care and run it into the ground just like they have our banking system. Seeing how well they did that should make every american understand what amistake that would be.

Bush has spoken against this banking situation for the last 8 years McCain has for the lst 3 years thats historical record.

Chris Dodd (dem)and Barney Frank( dem) are both up to there necks in this.

Lastly no one on this site has enough info to have a solution and neither do the SOBs in congress YET . But they seemingly want to run as fast as they can to Washington and do something whether its wrong or right just to "appear" like they are solving this.

My original point was they should slow down and consider the consequences of what they do before they F it up further and cause a world wide banking collapse

 

[dakotashooter2]

Since the CEO's of these companies have grossly failed in their job performance a refund of their multi million dollar salaries is in order.

Since the Congress has failed to monitor and control this mess and many of them are multi milionairs they can chip in a large chunk of cash too.

 

[HUNTNFISHND]

Since the CEO's of these companies have grossly failed in their job performance a refund of their multi million dollar salaries is in order.

Since the Congress has failed to monitor and control this mess and many of them are multi milionairs they can chip in a large chunk of cash too.

Amen brother! :wink:

 

[Turner]

I got this as an email today, makes sense to me.

The "We Deserve It Dividend"
I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend!
I'm no math genius, so to make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens that are 18+ years of age. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair estimate of adults 18 and up. So divide 200,000,000 adults that are 18+ into $85 billon. That equals $425,000.00. Here's where we all get excited.
My plan is to give $425,000 to every person that is 18+ years of age as a "We Deserve It Dividend". Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax20rate of 30%. So...... Every US Citizen that is 18+ years of age would have to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000.00 right back to Uncle Sam. It also means that every adult 18+ years of age has $297,500.00 in their pocket.
A husband and wife have $595,000.00 free and clear.!!
What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
Again, back to basics here;
Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else
Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ years of age including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. Most importantly, really paying those serving in our Armed Forces! If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ("vote buy" ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.
If we're going to do an $85 billion dollar bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!
As for the problem companies;
AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts
Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate and let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up. Here's my rationale, we deserve it and AIG doesn't.
Sure it's a crazy idea that of course can "never work", but can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion "We Deserve It Dividend" more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC. And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.
Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

 

[bowhunter04]

If you do the math, 85,000,000,000 divided by 200,000,000 comes out to be actually $425.00 per person not $425,000.00.

 

[Turner]

I'm no math genius

I guess when the guy started off with that, I should have automatically checked his math. My bad.

 

[omegax]

It's not just about bailing out the Wall Street golf-buddies of our elected officials. The liquidity crunch means that banks are unwilling to lend each other money because they aren't sure about the other guy's ability to re-pay. Then, the banks are much less willing to lend to businesses and individuals, when they're strapped for cash. Businesses need to be able to borrow to grow. People need to borrow to be able to afford durable goods like cars. If this gets bad enough we could pretty much kiss at least 2 of the big-3 auto makers, and tens of thousands of jobs, goodbye. If we don't do something, we're looking at a long stalemate of banks refusing to lend money, which would kill economic growth and cost jobs. It might not be another Great Depression, but it could very easily be a serious, protracted recession a la what Japan had in the 90s.

There's no one right solution to the problem. What we need to do is make sure that the solution is well thought-through. I will say that just giving Henry Paulson (or anyone) carte blanche, with no oversight, is scary. I really hope that our elected representatives don't just shoot from the hip.

There's plenty of blame to go around. The thing is that you don't start pointing fingers about how a fire got started before you start putting it out.

 

[goodkarmarising]

x

 

[Gooseguy10]

If you do the math, 85,000,000,000 divided by 200,000,000 comes out to be actually $425.00 per person not $425,000.00.

I guess the author of the article should use his "we deserve it" refund on obtaining a quality education that focuses on the following books: Calculator Usage: The pluses and minuses of things.........Taxes: Government money has to come from somewhere.......... Inflation: How everyone can pay $32.50 for a loaf of bread.

Maybe this guy should run for Congress......it might be an improvement