U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

The silliest thing is the continuous argument that 'they' got us into this mess so we're justified in doing what 'they' did, and if we do what 'they' did, that will get us out of the mess. The gods surely must be laughing.

That's a straw man if I ever heard one

Cycloptichorn

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@rosborne979,

We had the Bitch Queen of the House, Deborah Pryce ("sucking reactionary Republican dicks R us") until this last election, but now we have Mary Jo Kilroy. I haven't contacted her, because, so far, i have no complaint with her.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Is it too much to ask you people to finally recognize that...

YOU LOST!

Big time, as a matter of fact.

Your theories got us into this mess.

Now we, the American people, are asking someone else to pull us out.

Please excuse us if we are not anxious to embrace the ideas of the agenda that got us into it.

Frank is absolutely right...the repubs lost.

And, since this stimulus bill received little/no republicans support, then we will see if the liberal plan will change things. Frankly, I would appreciate some sort of improvement even if it does come from Obama.

I heard it described by someone on TV as being analogous to Texas Holdem. By not having bipartisan support, Obama has gone "All In" on this stimulus bill with his administration and his party.

If it works, he will be as famous as FDR.
If it fails, he will be ridiculed more than Jimmy Carter.

Geithner just spoke and the market crashed 300 points...the Politics of Hope and Change gets scarier by the minute...

1 Reply

@BigTexN,

It's a good thing that the financial stocks dropped. It means there's a good chance that the investors in the bank are going to still lose everything, which is appropriate to the situation - I would have been more upset if the market had shot up 300 points.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

1 Reply

@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

I don't like the bailout plan as it stands.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

That is not what you said.

You said you were hoping the "investors" would lose everything.

Guess how many simple people have their 401K's or whatever invested in Bank Stocks of Funds?

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@Woiyo9,

Quote:

Guess how many simple people have their 401K's or whatever invested in Bank Stocks of Funds?

Don't leave out government employee and union employee pension plans...

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Did I use the word catastrophe?

Foxfyre wrote:
what our Congress is about to do to us is unprecedented, it is irresponsible, it is destructive, and every responsible American patriot regardless of their political affiliation or ideology should be saying NO.

Close enough.

No it is not close enough.

Your statement speaks for itself. We can all see what you are saying.

Foxfyre wrote:

What the President and his surrogates are saying is that doing more irresponsible spending on top of what has already been done will produce different results.

No, that's not what the president is saying, it's what you are saying. And it's not irresponsible just because you say it is. You don't have the expertise necessary to determine what is irresponsible and what isn't. I don't either.

Foxfyre wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
Who do we trust to build the correct solution?

You and I--the American people--are the only ones who CAN fix it.

I didn't ask who could FIX it, I asked who we can trust to design a proper solution. One thing I know for certain is that economic strategy is not something which should be decided by consensus vote, it requires real expertise which neither you or I have.

Only the productivity of the country can ultimately FIX anything, but that's obvious, and it's not what congress is debating.

1 Reply

Interesting that Fox and BigTexN are the only ones so far who have actually contacted their reps to state their case. Makes me wonder if more of the rest of us should be making ourselves heard also. Balance of perspective and all that Smile

I don't actually like a lot of what I see in the stimulus package either (I prefer a bill which is heavily weighted onto pure infrastructure projects, but I also recognize the complexities of getting things shovel ready fast enough for the bill to make a difference), but I also don't have any more productive (and proven) alternate strategies than what is being put forth.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne, just an aside...I took my 12 year daughter to one of these breakfasts with our congressmen, Kevin Brady, back when the offshore drilling debate was at its hieght.

She was fascinated to meet him and just as fascinated to hear me debate and disagree with him on his approach to offshore drilling. I hope that she realized that these people are just that... people...and not untouchables.

We as voters have a duty to stay in touch with our employees in Washington.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

Your statement speaks for itself. We can all see what you are saying.

No, you apparently cannot see what I am saying and I doubt you can speak for what anybody else sees either. What I am saying is exactly what I said. Nothing more. Nothing less. Our various Presidents and Congresses have done many unprecedented, irresponsible, destructive things in the past that were not catastrophic or a death blow to the country or our system of government but which had far reaching negative consequences. In my point of view this is one of those times unless they get smart in big hurry. Like now.

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
What the President and his surrogates are saying is that doing more irresponsible spending on top of what has already been done will produce different results.

No, that's not what the president is saying, it's what you are saying. And it's not irresponsible just because you say it is. You don't have the expertise necessary to determine what is irresponsible and what isn't. I don't either.

Saying in so many words, I agree. They aren't advertising it that way. But unless you think the first big rescue package did what it was supposed to do, and unless you think that this current one will do what it is advertised that it will do, then you have to agree that in effect, they are saying that throwing more money irresponsibly after bad will produce a different result.

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
rosborne979 wrote:
Who do we trust to build the correct solution?

You and I--the American people--are the only ones who CAN fix it.

I didn't ask who could FIX it, I asked who we can trust to design a proper solution. One thing I know for certain is that economic strategy is not something which should be decided by consensus vote, it requires real expertise which neither you or I have.

Only the productivity of the country can ultimately FIX anything, but that's obvious, and it's not what congress is debating.

Of course it is what Congress is debating. I haven't heard the President or his surrogates get up there and say anything even remotely like "the government can't fix this. You have to fix it. So the government is going to do this and this and this to make it easier for you to do that."

No, what they are saying in effect and by action is that the government is going to saddle us and our children and our grandchildren with more than a trillion dollars in debt that isn't going to accomplish what is advertised, but if they don't do it we will experience disaster and complete ruin.

That, my friend, in my opinion is highly ignorant and/or incompetent or it is thoroughly dishonest. You pick.

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@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

That is not what you said.

You said you were hoping the "investors" would lose everything.

Guess how many simple people have their 401K's or whatever invested in Bank Stocks of Funds?

Yes! The investors should lose everything!

When you invest in a company, you do so knowing that your investment may go up, may go down, or may disappear completely.

Each and every person, pension, or fund which invested money in one of the banks in America knew that they could lose that money.

While we cannot allow our banking system to go kaput, there is no reason to bailout the share and bond holders at these institutions. In fact, there are a great many good reasons not to do so.

Keep in mind that most people who were heavily invested in these stocks have already seen the vast majority of their investments vanish. We're not talking about taking people who's holdings are worth 150 a share and wiping them out.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cyclo, I don't disagree with you that maybe the investors should lose everything.

My concern is that it seems that the major "investors" in a number of these companies are actually pension plans. I give as examples the Texas Teacher Retirement System's loss of $125 million in Lehman bonds and Florida's State Board of Administration which held more than $8 billion of investments in "troubled" companies.

If you can accept that investors should lose everything and that a number of the larger investors are pension plans, can you also accept cutting, or possibly eliminating all together, benefits to the retired workers of these pension plans?

1 Reply

I doubt many with any business sense think that the economy will recover without the business class and investor class being very healthy. Our new treasury secretary seems as much in the dark as any of the other numbnuts presuming to spend a trillion dollars of our money with very few having any clue of how it might help. It seems very few members of Congress have even read the bill. So when Geithner confirmed that, the market started tanking today, and when Bernanke chimed in to say that any benefits of the stimulus package would not produce any measurable results for some time, it went into free fall.

Quote:

Stocks plunge as government unveils bailout plan
02/10/09 16:41 EST
By TIM PARADIS

NEW YORK (AP) - Investors are frustrated with the government's latest bank bailout plan - and showing it by unloading stocks. The major stock indexes fell more than 4 percent Tuesday, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which tumbled 382 points. Financial stocks led the market lower, a sign of how concerned Wall Street is about the government's ability to restore the health of the banking industry.

Traders and investors said the lack of specifics from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on how the government will direct more than $1 trillion in public and private support was troubling.

The plan is aimed at restoring proper functioning to credit markets, which seized up over worries about bad debt after the September bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The latest plan calls for a government-private sector partnership to help remove banks' soured assets from their books. It would also boost an effort to unclog the credit markets that govern loans to consumers and businesses.

"The good news is they are going to spend a trillion dollars, the bad news is they don't know how," said James Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.

"They built this up as being a panacea," he said. "There was so much hope pinned on them to do a good job. The expectations have been so high. It's hard to live up to."

Investors also questioned whether this plan, which followed previous efforts in the final months of 2008, would work. Some selling was to be expected, however, as stocks rose sharply last week ahead of the announcement.

Geithner's speech "basically puts a spotlight on the fact that the government has no idea how to fix the problem," said Jeff Buetow, senior portfolio manager at Portfolio Management Consultants. "People bought on rumor and hope, and now they're selling on reality."

Investors focused on the financial rescue showed little reaction to the Senate's approval of its $838 billion economic stimulus package. The bill must now be reconciled with an $819 billion version passed by the House. Congressional leaders hope to have the bill on President Barack Obama's desk before a recess next week.

"The economy is in deep trouble. The stimulus plan is not very stimulative. It's not addressing the real problem," Buetow said. "We have an insolvent financial system. The government is trying to find a comprehensive way to save it. They can't afford to just throw money at it. That's what they tried to do in the fall and that clearly did not work."

Stocks extended their slide after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't elaborate on the plan in testimony at a House Financial Services Committee hearing. Instead, Bernanke said the programs designed to revive the credit markets are showing promise and that any fix to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s would take time to work.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow industrials fell 381.99, or 4.62 percent, to 7,888.88. It was the lowest close since Nov. 20, when the blue chips finished at their lowest level since March 2003.

Broader stock indicators also tumbled. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 42.73, or 4.91 percent, to 827.16, and the Nasdaq fell 66.83, or 4.20 percent, to 1,524.73.
http://money.aol.com/marketnews/article

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@BigTexN,

BigTexN wrote:

We as voters have a duty to stay in touch with our employees in Washington.

I agree.

0 Replies

@BigTexN,

BigTexN wrote:

Cyclo, I don't disagree with you that maybe the investors should lose everything.

My concern is that it seems that the major "investors" in a number of these companies are actually pension plans. I give as examples the Texas Teacher Retirement System's loss of $125 million in Lehman bonds and Florida's State Board of Administration which held more than $8 billion of investments in "troubled" companies.

If you can accept that investors should lose everything and that a number of the larger investors are pension plans, can you also accept cutting, or possibly eliminating all together, benefits to the retired workers of these pension plans?

Seeing as I have somewhere between 8 and 10 grand invested with the Teacher Retirement system of Texas, I feel confident to say: yes, I'm okay with my funds being wiped out. I knew the risks when I left my money with them. I don't deserve to have my investments propped up at your expense.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I have about 30 grand in my 401k (it used to be twice that Sad

)....and I'll agree that I don't think my funds should be propped up at other's expense.

I'm not OK with it, I realize that it sucks, but the alternative (massive government spending) is worse.

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@maporsche,

It isn't a matter of 'propping up your funds' at anybody's expense. The idea is for the funds to grow because the businesses/municipalities/utilities or whatever they are invested in are healthy and growing. You young ones have years to recoup whatever paper losses you are taking now so, unless whatever entity you are invested in collapses entirely and the stocks/bonds become worthless, you likely haven't lost anything for the long term. That's assuming that we don't allow our leaders to lead us away from the values and principles that made us the world's strongest economy in the first place.

Those who are retired and/or are retiring or want/need to retire, however, are hurting in a major way as they see their investments shrink 50% or more but most of them too will probably recover some or most of their paper losses once the economy becomes healthy again.

The chain reaction that led to the 'crisis' however was needless and the government never should have allowed it to happen--in fact the government actually was the catalyst that caused nost of it to happen. I haven't seen much from our elected leaders that suggests that they have any intention of correcting those policies that created the problem and we have no assurance that they won't be repeated. (Watch for ACORN to go after billions of the neighborhood grant monies and likely get the lion's share if not all of that.)

Unfortunately this ungodly monstrosity of a spending bill Congress is about to foist upon us might address a few roads and bridges that actually could have waited, but it will saddle us and our progeny with a huge new debt and do very little to help commerce, industry, and the financial markets regain their health which is what we needed from Congress so that we would be in a better position to pay off that debt.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Quote:

The chain reaction that led to the 'crisis' however was needless and the government never should have allowed it to happen--in fact the government actually was the catalyst that caused nost of it to happen.

Incorrect. How many times do you need this explained to you? The government was not responsible for the irresponsible investments made by major financial companies.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes

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