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$700 Billion Bailout Signed Into Law
Many readers reminded us of what no-one can have failed to hear: that the Congress passed and the President signed a $700B bailout bill in an attempt to avert the meltdown of the US economy. The bill allocates $700 billion to the Treasury Department for the purchase of so-called "toxic assets" that have been weighing down Wall Street balance sheets. This isn't particularly a tech story, though tech will be affected as will virtually all parts of the economy, and not just in the US. Among the $110B in so-called pork added to the bill to sway reluctant legislators are extensions of popular tax benefits for business R&D and alternative energy, relief for the growing pool of people subject to the alternative minimum tax, and a provision raising the FDIC's ceiling of guaranteed deposits to $250,000. Some limits were also imposed on executive compensation, though it's unclear whether they will be effective.
The major effect of this bill is that it is causing fiscal conservatives to blow gaskets. They can't accept the fact that the free market is what caused this mess.
It is funny to hear them complain about how people on Wall Street became "greedy." I'm not a financial expert but I think that is part of the design. Everyone on Wall Street works for their own self interest. That is how the invisible hand is supposed to work. But conservatives complaining about the essential 'feature' of the free market is sort of twisted.
Carping right now, when the boat is sinking, is just plain stupid
You know it's an amazing coincidence. You're saying the exact same thing that Henry Paulson and his cronies say. I'm sure that it is just that - a coincidence - and that you independently came up with the identical position completely on your own.
I also suppose that if Henry Paulson said you needed to come to his house and blow him or the economy would go under you'd think, "No time to think!" and head right over to do it. If that's not the case, then why did you fall for his, "Sure, I'll give you a life preserver - throw me your wallet first!" scheme? There is time to think. Henry Paulson has said he has no plans to spend any of the $700B for FOUR WEEKS. Why the rush to pass it into within days?
I'm a big tall mofo.
"Bushtards, every single one of them."
They're not dumb, they're just evil. They have learned that they can get away with anything, and we'll allow it. No interest in principles, no interest in truth. This is the product of modern political and social pragmatism - a free-for-all, every man for himself. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to maintain your grasp on the teat of the American public tax pool. The alternative is to make it on your own, using your rational mind to survive and fulfill your goals; but, reason is outdated, obsolete.
Between 1 and 1.3 trillion dollars has been spent on military projects and war for the last few years, depending on how you look at old debt. The money is not clearly accounted for, against constitutional principles, and it only goes to serve large corporations.
Where is the public outcry? Where are the Republican talking heads when the budget is being discussed?
The bailout plan may be awful, but it's by no means the biggest con ever. The biggest con ever has been going on since the end of WWII, and it has cost American money and lives, and in no small number. Any of these transparently partisan personalities are just squawking for advertising dollars and votes, same as always.
What I find MOST incredible about this whole bailout, is the fact that nationwide polls of the general populace indicated between 70% and 75% were AGAINST the legislation, yet the Senate passed it through with FLYING COLORS, and House of "Representatives" were swayed to voting for it in a matter of only a few days. All it really took was throwing in a few key financial incentives and bonuses to the appropriate special interests, and some empty promises by potential presidents to be.
The whole time, these "Representatives" were being flooded with demands from the American people NOT to vote for the bailout - but they turned a deaf ear to everyone, and made bold claims like "I may not be re-elected because of this, but I'm confident I did the right thing for America's future anyway." One moron said he changed his vote from NO to YES, simply because "I talked with potential president to be, Obama, and he personally assured me he would enact legislation after his election that's in alignment with what I want to see." (WHAT?!? You were VERBALLY promised some B.S. by a guy who MAY or MAY NOT become president, so that's more important to you than listening to the people who elected you and trusted you to represent their wishes?!)
When HUGE taxpayer expenditures like this are voted through and signed into law in less than a week, despite 3 out of 4 Americans being strongly against them - it's clear we no longer live in a Democracy at all! This seems like as good a reason for an overthrow of our government as what we dealt with back around 1776! Yet people will not only sit back and accept it, but probably not even vote in protest for a 3rd. party like the Libertarians. (Incidentally, Bob Barr has been speaking out against this bailout the whole time, unlike our Democratic or Republican contenders. The man gets MY vote for that reason alone. At least he's in support of the will of the PEOPLE still!)
Bush and collegues came into office promising to implement Grover Norquists ideas for contracting govenrment. The graphic phrase most often used was they would have to "strangle it in the bathtub" which was Norquist's shorthand for meaning that to reduce spending they had to basically remove govenement agencies and kill off revenue.
Fast forward we have years of the biggest govenement expansion ever. Some bandy the word "socialist" over the bailout. But actually that misses the big picture.
Suppose your goal was to move the governement more towards a corporatist outlook and to really strangle spending how could you do this.
You do it with debt. This 700 billion will be paralytic both in crippling elective goverment spending as well as it's ability to raise future debt. Oddly It does not actually go on the books as debt even but it is a liability.
And even if some day the loans and options they are buying pay off, it's accomplished the tow key goals.
1) strangling it in the bathtub. There cannot be any socialist expansion during Obama because there simply is no way to finance it either with direct revenue or borrowing.
2) a movement towards corporatism. The Government will rise and fall with the value of the companies it holds options in. What's good for the US really is what's good for AIG and JPmorgan, and the rest. Even the people admisistering the hen house in both the SEC and Treasury came from Goldmann Sachs.
The 1930's was when Corporatism was invented and the country practicing it, italy, was consider a miracle. the rest of the world was reeling in the depression. Senators and congressmen hailed the Moussilini miracle and went on fact finding missions to figure out how to import this here. Adolf Hitler was swept into power in part by nationalism that awoke in the aftermath of WWI but also because he too offered the fascist miracle for germany.
THe trains did run on time. THe auobahns emerged. It was spring time for hitler and germany too.
SO we now have an odd time in the US. We are backing our way into fascism. We have all the ingredient. Cheney and his patriot acts have created police powers that are unprecendented in our history of civil liberties. Even our allies like britain have gone to a surveliance society and now ponder 2 days detenciton with charges.
THe second fork of facism is corporatism where the state manages for the good of the corporations and vica versa. (the reason corproatism was such a miracle was precisely because of the vica versa. The people were really better off in the rising economy of italy).
So while hitler managed to once and for all kill the term "facism" at one time, it's potential for being an ecomomic engine was admired.
I note I'm not triggering Godwins law here because I'm not comparing my oponent to Hitler. Instead I'm saying that we are indeed backing into something that is facism in everything but name only, both the good and the bad.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Yes, the CEOs, but everyone else too.
First, all the people that thought houses were investments whose price could never go down. Wrong.
Second, all those people bought houses they couldn't afford at ludicrous interest rates, based on the idea that a bank would never give them a loan they couldn't afford. Wrong.
Third, the banks that gave these ludicrous loans in the first place. Stupid.
Fourth, the unscrupulous assholes who raced to find people to give these loans so they could sell the loans as investments.
Fifth, the federal reserve for keeping the interest rates so low that the global pool of money had to find themselves an investment other than government bonds.
Sixth, the global pool of money for investing in these loans without carefully looking at what they were buying.
Seventh, all the wall street banks that also invested in all these things heavily and not seeing that they weren't worth their price, and their CEOs.
Eighth, the government for not seeing this happening earlier and stopping it before it was too late.
Ninth, the previous government (Clinton, sorry) for trying to let every American own a home. Heart was in the right place, should have asked an economist first though.
How many times did you hear in the last ten years that property was a great investment that couldn't fail and that everyone should buy some as soon as possible? That was bad advice, every one of those people were wrong.
Basically we all did this for not looking more skeptically at what we were investing in, and living beyond our means. But the economy is not the financial industry, the financial industry is just the fiendishly complicated mechanism that loans the rest of the economy money so it can function. Letting the entire economy fail to teach Wall Street a lesson sounds stupid to me.
I lived within my means, I don't have any debt, and I'm pissed at everyone for screwing this all up so badly. But I want the economy keep going so that the means which I am capable of living within can continue coming, and here we are. Put me down for my share of the bailout, and do me a favor, keep wall street on a tighter leash. I lost a lot of faith in the free market over the last year, it was the market's mindless lemming me-too-ism that completely screwed the pooch here.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice