Some of us worked all day today only to leave work in time to find out that the financial markets are imploding due to the complete incompetence of our political leadership. Sure, the finance geniuses who leveraged up to buy worthless debt paper merit come culpability for their years of malfeasance, but don't pay their salaries. I pay the salaries of elected officials who are charged with regulating the inherent greed that moves the markets.
This is a disaster. The final bill was fine, as far as anyone could tell, and those against it have no idea the depth to which the worldwide economy may fall with the freezing of capital. I totally empathize with the sentiment to allow the knuckleheads who engaged in alchemy and lost money to smolder, but the problem now is that the house is on fire and everything will be destroyed without a rescue. And the rescue failed.
Stunning. I heard Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, someone I don't regularly agree with, and he said point blank John McCain is hurt the most with this because he made the issue a presidential issue and he failed to deliver the necessary Republican votes. Secondly, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blame for putting such an important bill up for a vote, before the world's markets, without KNOWING it would pass. I could not agree more.
Sure there may have been a better way to fix the credit crisis, but right now is not necessarily the time to argue about the make of the fire truck we need, let's just start pumping water. This crisis can escalate rapidly as hedge funds and mutual funds need to sell more to cover redemptions over the next few days. The conflagration can explode, but even if it does not explode the risk is not worth taking.
Who the hell is running the show? WTF!!
Even those of us who have lightened our stock exposure these past several months know the importance of passing this bill to unlock the credit that lubricates the world's financial markets. The guy working at the corner muffler shop, or single mom slinging hash at the local eatery, may be sentimentally correct when they rail against the bill, but they will suffer too when their employers cannot clear enough capital to back their paychecks this week or next.
Kudos to the legislators who put politics aside to vote in favor of this bill, as flawed as it may be-- now go back to work and get soemthing passed this time!
7 comments:
ah.... Who wants to work in this country... It's over rated...
It is as Krugman says --
"So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch. As a friend (Krugman's wife) said last night, we've become a banana republic with nukes."
Question: how come when ordinary people ask for universal health care, good jobs and quality education, Fred Upton says "we're not ready for that yet." But when Wall Street asks for $700 billion, he says "YES!" in two days?
This is socialism for the rich, plain and simple. You should stop watching Kramer on CNN and his stupid rants, and start waking up. They're using YOUR MONEY to SAVE THEIR ASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
are you kidding me? the same republican leadership that got us into this mess is charged with fixing it? this bill did nothing to help the average, everyday person. it was merely a blank check to wall st.
Fred Upton (FU) is looking out for the wall st fat cats, evidenced by his voting for the bill.
Keep in mind this is $700billion of taxpayer money and the US government, Fred Upton included, is giving it over to private for profit companys. That should make the average person, struggling to find a decent wage job, fighting to keep from foreclosure, or choosing between perscriptions and food, sick to their stomach.
Kick Fred Upton out with the rest of the republicans!
You know, when you use rhetoric like "blank check" it is not terribly helpful.
The original three-page proposal from Paulson was bad and provided neither oversight nor potential upside for the tax payer. The amended version is somewhat more palatable as it includes --
an upside for the tax payers (banks accepting rescue funds would have to hand over equity in return, paving the way for tax payers to benefit from the banks' recovery);
accountability (if funds cannot be recovered, then the banking industry would have to finance the rescue plan expenses);
limited payment or "golden parachutes" for banking executives;
oversight in the form of monitoring agencies, an independent Inspector General, and a bipartisan oversight board.
Thus, it is not exactly a blank check anymore.
I suggest that people actually go online and read the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 before using drama and hyperbole to describe the elements of the bill. We've had enough drama in the form of McCain's shenanigans and Bush mismanagement for a lifetime.
Look -- the fact is that we are being presented with the ugly task of having to bail out the greed jerks on Wall Street. But since we exist in the global economy, we're all connected and what happens with the credit markets WILL have an effect on every one of us...
I want to note that market fundamentalism got us into this mess so "doing nothing and leaving it to the markets to be sorted out" seems like a ludicrous and failure-assured response...
I could not agree with Delilah more. The nuance on this issue is very important to grasp (or not.)
The original "plan" making Paulson "Worldwide Money Czar" was comical, counter-productive and (like all Cheney administration policies) destined for failure and ridicule.
The iteration from the House was more reasonable. Nobody *wants* to do this, but the ramifications of doing nothing are too grave to consider.
Dear Deliliah,
What's "not helpful" is a representative who votes to deregulate Wall Street causing the economy to collapse, then asks for $700 billion of your money to make himself look "reasonable." Worse yet, you're asking us to thank him for it.
Talk about rich.
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