Shadegg nows says bailout bill acceptable

fromthetop

Speaker Pelosi is blaming the GOP for failure to pass the bailout for the robber baron Democrats. She gave the ?OK? for 5 committee chairs and allowed a dozen or more Democrats up for reelection to vote against the bill to scam their constituents back home into believing they voted against a stinking bailout that harms the hardworking taxpayers.

The Congressional Black, Progressive and Hispanic Caucus? plus 94 other Democrats voted against the robber baron bailout because $500 million to ACORN and $200 million to La Raza was stripped from the bill and the Progressives wanted to nationalize the failed institutions. The Speaker conveniently leaves these turncoats out of the equation.

I believe the Speaker is speaking in forked tongues. We know John McCain co-sponsored the Reform Act S-190 in 2005 that would have prevented this very situation from happening. Barney Frank, chair of finance, Chris Dodd, chair of banking, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Senator Nancy Pelosi and the other Democrats receiving political donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blocked it.

?We the People?? have well known experts in business, economics, taxes, banking, finance and law who could be selected to form a committee. The committee should be comprised of an equal number of members from each political discipline with no political or investment connections who can save the economy and the taxpayers.

This is the link to ?Directive 51? that gives authority to the President to declare ?Martial Law? to recover from a national emergency. It should stop the hemorrhaging on Wall Street and Main Street until the correct formula is applied by experts and not by politicians.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

nivlem

I do not understand why we should be sold
on the $250,000 increased FDIC limit.
First, last week I thought there were
several articles that the FDIC could survive if there was a run on the banks.
How can we rationalize a more comfortable
sitution when they increase it to $250,000.
Most of mainstreet America doesn’t have
$100,000 in the bank. They can only dream about. They are worried about making their bills for six months if they lose their jobs. The difference betweeen $100,000 and $250,000 doesn’t mean squat to these people. And this is
the majority of Americans out there.
And an “accounting adjustment”? – Someone help me understand why this would make someone vote for this bill.

Leon_H_Wolf

-nt

Dave_in_Fla

Though I suspect some folks are looking for a reason to change their vote.

If I was the house Republican leadership though, I would tell Pelosi that she better deploy her Whip this time, and the banking committee needs to either vote yes, or be stripped of their committee chairs.

I would tell her she better be able to deliver 101 Democrats, or not bother holding the vote.

Dave_in_Fla

I meant less than the 95 Dem “no”s, like no more than 89 of them.

Charles_Beauchamp

In my job, I study financial institutions in great depth. I can tell you that there are many more people than you can imagine that have $100,000+ in banks (especially small rural blanks). Therefore, this increase serves 3 purposes and all have to do with Credit Confidence.

Relieve the anxiety of those with $100,000+ hoping they will leave their deposits in the bank. Basically, preventing a massive number of bank runs.
We could get to a point where the larger banks begin borrowing in the short-term from the smaller banks. Therefore, we can’t have panic in the smaller institutions where they would refuse to loan to other banks and their normal clientele.
It is important for the government to give the appearance that they are taking steps other than just throwing money at the situation.

I have read through this bill as fast as I can (the legal language slows the process), but I think this bill is much better than the other. It is like the late hockey coach Herb Brooks once told his players: Not Good, but Better.

kyle8

than anything else in this bailout to help matters. It was sheer idiocy to begin with.

Charles_Beauchamp

(especially small rural blanks)

Sorry, I meant “small rural banks”

aaronbg

You are better than that.

BigGator5

(n/t)

Leon_H_Wolf

I’m just getting a little frustrated at the reticence some people have to re-examining their opinion in light of the support of some very bright people who have been staunch defenders of the free markets for a very long time. It’s not like men like Coburn and Shadegg wake up one day and forget everything they’ve ever said about Government being the problem rather than the solution to the problem. The circumstances on the ground have changed and this situation demands action by the one entity that can amortize the risk presented by these toxic assets: the government.

I’d have to dig out confidential emails to prove it, but I was dead set against this bailout when it was first announced. Pissed, even. I’ve since been forced to readjust my assessment of the situation in a big way.

The problem we have right now is that we don’t have a lot of time for everyone to settle down and get comfortable with this. Every day the credit markets remain frozen is another day that companies are forced to take creative measures to avoid folding up, which exacerbates the problem in the long term. This is very much like a nuclear reaction, and there will come a point where the reaction can’t be SCRAMed. I hope something can be done before this reaches critical mass, if (and here’s a horrifying thought) it hasn’t already.

mbecker908

to be “enlightening”, to say the least.

Especially for a guy who’s gotten his panties in a wad and stomped out in a huff on a number of occasions when “moderates” have been criticized.

Dave_in_Fla

The mark to market rule is one of the prime culprits in this fiasco from the beginning.

So I guess in the end we really can blame Enron, can’t we?

conservative_right21

Isn’t this bill completely unconstitutional as it originates in the Senate and involves changes to the tax law? Doesn’t Article 1 section 7 of the constitution grant the House the sole prerogative to originate revenue legislation?

simpson316

I never would have guessed that BG5 would be arguing from a principled conservative stance.

mbecker908

And frankly, when John Shadegg signs on I feel better about it. He’s no pushover and his vote one way or the other won’t effect his reelection.

Leon_H_Wolf

-nt

aaronbg

This is how this should go down. Issue is brought to attention. Issue is debated to achieve clarity of purpose. Proposals are offered to achieve purpose. Proposals are negotiated to achieve bipartisanship while maintaining the free market.

My problem is that I see fear truncating that process, and the end result could be worse than the original issue. If we could tone down the fear and acknowledge our starting positions and work from there we would be fine. Unfortunately, the Dems are counting on the Republicans to capitulate all of there starting positions, and many are. This willful capitulation leads to further concessions than are actually needed.

I am not on the side of “do nothing”….I am on the side of “make it as free market as possible”. I understand the Congress is hostile territory for the R’s right now but it will only get worse if we continue to capitulate as expect.

Also I am not on the side of the bomb throwers. And I believe you know this as well. Ignore them. They interfere with the good debate that must be had. We need to, as a party, define our starting point for negotiation, which apparently is beginning to happen. I for one don’t believe we are there yet and therefore I don’t think this will pass tonight. But then again I don’t have super-secret GL-G20 email access, so I could be wrong.

Anyhow to paraphrase Reagan (I think, can’t remember) never negotiate from a position of weakness or in this case fear.

Dave_in_Fla

I had forgotten that a lot of small businesses would almost have to maintain more than $100K in deposits as an operating cushion.

I should have known this, I have a friend who just opened a small business in June, and he has cash flow in and out in the 10s of thousands every week (sometimes daily).

aaronbg

n/t

Dave_in_Fla

It is a modification of an existing bill that has been waiting for the Senate to take up. Completely within the rules and consitutional.

The House must approve the modification though.

mbecker908

I really don’t think that would be one.

Leon_H_Wolf

behavior that is shockingly out of character for someone, to examine whether you are properly interpreting the surrounding circumstances.

BigGator5

Why would you say that Wolf’s comment is below him?

First, he calls for Thad McCotter to be fired. Then he belittles your intelligence by saying people like Tom Coburn and Steve Forbes know more about what is going on than we do.

virgil

PatHMV

If they cave, I’m going to give serious thought to voting Democrat in Congressional elections. What’s the point of voting for Republicans who don’t have the backbone to stand up for principle in a crisis?

They could at least demand a delay for a week to allow the public to come to understand the bill.

If I believed Shadegg had really changed his mind because his position because the new bill really was good, then fine. But it’s looking to me like he’s becoming worried about his folks taking the blame for killing the deal, so he’s looking for fig leaves.

The $250,000 FDIC increase helps almost nobody. Anybody with any sense with that much money in plain old bank accounts long ago learned how to break up their deposits into smaller, sub-$100,000 chunks. It’s probably not a bad thing (given how easy it is to get around), but it has little actual impact on any of the things causing the current liquidity crisis. If he’s relying on that to change his mind, he’s just looking for a fig leave.

derechista

are used to this sort of thing. But, socialism still sucks and I don’t believe that the sky is falling.

nivlem

I appreciate your insight. Much of this
I understand, however, I did not think
of the small, rural banks where my family
is. You are right about them. However,
they can devide their accounts and still
qualify for easily $600,000 insurance and with some additional effort $1,000,000. Anymore than that should be
in a place other than the bank.

It seems like window dressing. If
they cannot cover $100,000 per account,
they certainly cannot cover $250,000.

I think if I were going to put a finger
on my real concern, it would be this -
Is this the best John McCain and some
of these Senators come up with to get
Americans on board? My guess is, with all the knowledge on RedState we could
have come up with this a long time ago
and stopped all of this foolishness.

BigGator5

Debating would start along the lines, “I believe…”

Telling me I don’t know any better, that is belittling my inteligence. Gave him a link to an article and he blew it off. I gave an example of how a guy who works in Time Share who said Time Shares would be hurt by the bailout and tells me that guy doesn’t know any better.

That’s not debating. He needs to get a better line over: “Tom Coburn and Steve Forbes knows better than you!”

Leon_H_Wolf

Nor have I belittled your intelligence, because that’s not something I need to actually spend time doing when you’re doing such a fine job yourself. Okay, whoops, I belittled your intelligence just a little bit there, but no more than was necessary to make my point.

I’m trying to make people understand that there is a crisis out there and that the solution is highly time sensitive. I’m pointing out that Coburn and Forbes also understand this threat, and shouting in every way possible that the financial consequences of no bailout are simply unacceptable. Sorry if you dislike my tone while I’m warning people to get out of the way of a financial nuclear bomb. I’m more concerned with making sure the blast doesn’t happen than being thought well of by BigGator5.

aaronbg

n/t

nivlem

Businesses do need more protection. We
employee 50+ people. If there is a run
on the bank, we need to meet payroll. Many of our employees have families and
run week to week. They will be looking
to us to save them each week.
I can understand and support and increase
in this area. Business don’t have many
options and would be severely damaged if
they have to have a delay in cash flow.

Dave_in_Fla

The $250,000 issue is a valid one, since it provides protection to a large number of small businesses that operate from accounts capitalized above $100,000. Since the FDIC insurance was never adjusted for inflation, this is a prudent step allowing small businesses to not worry about keeping these accounts under $100K. This provides a liquidity boost to the banks, allowing them to lend the funds in the overnight rates.

As for delaying a week, the longer we delay, the greater the liquidity crisis. At some point the credit market freeze brings serious pain. Let me give two examples, one big, one personal:

1) The auto industry just suffered an 11% drop in sales because of difficulty in securing auto loans.

2) I have a personal friend who can not secure a loan to complete construction on two restaurants. He has to continue to pay rent on property that produces no income, while he also doesn’t hire workers. This has secondary impact on the employment rate.

Finally, voting Democrat in protest is your right. It won’t help you acheive your stated goals, but it is your right.

birdmojo

“If they make both of those changes, I’d be inclined to vote for the bill, assuming there have not been any bad things added to it,” he said.

That is Odyssian in its “I have been faithful to you, after my fashion” hedginess.

PatHMV

I’m willing to be convinced that the increase from $100,000 to $250,000 is meaningful, though I’d rather our leaders be fighting against bank runs by calling for calm, cool thinking in the crisis, rather than fanning the flames of panic.

But the Senate bill appears to me to be loaded with all sorts of monstrosities that have NOTHING to do with this crisis. If the Republicans I’ve helped elect are going to vote the same way the Democrats vote, what’s the point?

BigGator5

Oh, now you are apologizing for your tune. Don’t apologize to me, apologize to Thad McCotter for calling him out to be fired (when clearly many others in the House voted against the Bailout as well) and apologize for throwing Tom Coburn and Steve Forbes in everyone’s face.

First off, I don’t trust anyone who is apart of WallStreet because they are the ones benefitting. This includes Steve Forbes.

I have yet to see why Tom Coburn knows any better than me. He’s a medical doctor for cring out load! How does that make him more qualify on what WallStreet than me?

On top of everything, I am out to protect MainStreet and not WallStreet. I work for a living. I don’t have a credit card and so I have to live within my means. Maybe the government needs to start living within their means instead of bailingout WallStreet every 20 years!!

Charles_Beauchamp

Small businesses should keep the level of funds you are mentioning in other short-term investments (e.g. Money Markets). But don’t forget, we have major issues develop in money markets last week that probably (I don’t have data to support this) pushed some of this money back into the banks.

On your major point about the quality of the bill. Hell No, this is not the best they can do. Overall, this entire situation and the bill could be much stronger. I agree totally with Francis (Blackhedd) that an infusion of liquidity needs to occur sooner rather than later. However, they could have also attempted to correct other issues dealing with the crisis.

The Senate Version gives the SEC the power to suspend Mark to Market accounting. I think the bill should simply do it (eliminate FAS 157 & 159).
They could also take measures to increase capital flow. Specifically for 2008 & 2009 let those that have a strong personal financial decision contribute above the maximums of their retirement plans and get the tax benefit on the additional contributions. This would accomplish two things: provide much needed capital to the markets & allow those that may be behind in their retirement planning partially make-up some lost ground.

They could also reduce or eliminate the capital gains tax (2008 & 2009) to encourage that capital that is frozen to begin moving again.

Again, no this is not the best they can do. The Republicans could have made some great proposals and looked like the saviors in this thing, but like we do so often we dropped the ball.

Charles_Beauchamp

Sorry another mistake:

strong personal financial decision

strong personal financial position

I need to learn how to do that strike-through thing in my original posts

jbarntt

FDIC 100,000 to 250,000 ? Who cares ? It means someone with 4,000,000 can consolidate a few accounts.

Is this what the current crisis is about ? If so it it really a crisis ?

Also why would someone with this amount of money keep it in passbook accounts ? Some I understand, but millions makes no sense.

General_Confusion

Emergency NO, Socialist Christmas tree YES.

Gee, we have a real emergency here, we need to FORCE insurance companies to give mental health insurance, oh and some sorta financial save the economy thinge. I’m sure forcing additional coverage won’t drive premiums up any higher.

Oh, what the hell, we’ve ditched most of our principles why bother holding on to what little remains.

(snip, bolding mine)

Senate bailout bill keeps growing

Really a bill onto itself, the mental health parity measure has been a bipartisan priority for top lawmakers in both chambers but has stalled because of disagreements again over how to pay for its estimated $3.8 billion five-year cost. In the current climate, that seems to be no longer a stumbling block, and if the Treasury plan becomes law, it will also.

jbarntt

That wool research tax cut in the senate bill looks good, maybe it will survive the joint committee that decides what further pork needs to be added to the bill so that the gov’t. can take over the financial sector.

In an economic crisis, when the sky is falling, let us not forget the sheep.

jbarntt

Shadegg, a Republican who voted against the bailout bill that was defeated by the House on Monday, said it appears a new bill will include raising the cap on FDIC insurance to $250,000 and changing an accounting rule.

Yeah that FDIC thing, that’s the ticket, that was the whole problem all along.

Sure, get the bean counters to change how they count the beans, that’s important too.

I’m now 100% behind the gov’t. taking control of the financial market at the small cost of $700 billion. I will sleep well at night knowing that Barney, Nancy, Chris, Barack, John, George, and Jimmy all agree that it is for the best.

They’ve all done a great job up till now, why get off a winning horse in mid stream ?

I’m totally with the program. At least the bill gives me a tax break for being a sheep.

Dave_in_Fla

To insure $4M, you better have 160 SSNs.

Dave_in_Fla

Make that 40 SSNs.

PaRep

You want to talk cooked pollhttp://tinyurl.com/4k3n6y

Dave_in_Fla

Then the extra items, including the $105B in unfunded tax cuts, wouldn’t have had to be added. This is the price we pay for our hubris, because to meet constitutional requirements the Senate had to modify an existing bill already passed by the House (in this case it was the AMT patch).

How much are you willing to risk your paycheck and employment on idealogical purity? If you are comfortable taking that risk, then you are better person than me. I’m scared crapless, enough that at this point I don’t give a damn who wins the election.

This is the price we pay for losing elections. If we were the majority party, this bill would look different. We might have even avoided the problem in the first place by getting timely and proper regulation of Fannie and Freddie.

Leon_H_Wolf

Clearly, reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

Neither will I be apologizing to McCotter – now or ever.

If there are people here who have been arguing in good faith that I have offended, I will apologize to them.

alchemist17

And we should all just go home and cry in our drinks and not bother to vote in November.

Just because you have 37% Democrats to 30% Republicans (with ~32% independents) is certainly no reason to question the results. How dare you pay attention to the man behind the curtain!

Dave_in_Fla

The likely voter distribution is pretty close to Rasmussen’s 39D/35R/26I. Looks like they undersampled Democrats and oversampled Independents.

Was there something else you were noticing?

PaRep

They Must be REALLY, REALLY SCARED !!!

Dave_in_Fla

That item, and many others wouldn’t be in there.

PaRep

Your in Love with Rasmussen & it blinds you to the Fact he isn’t that good this Cycle, Again the did it over the Weekend & how many “Reps” were Blue Blood Reps. Who Hate Palin like NRO online

Dave_in_Fla

If you would actually read up on the issues before you toss of such snide commentary, you might be able to help the discussion.

FDIC insurance is limited by social security number. If you raise it to 250K, then small businesses will be willing to keep more capital in their operating accounts. This increases bank liquidity, allowing more private capital to enter the system.

Or am I to assume that you object to injection of private capital, and prefer this to be handled completely by public funds?

JSobieski

I have never been one to say, if X agrees with it, it must be ok UNLESS I don’t have the time to look at it myself. I consider myself a Reagan Republican, but that doesn’t mean I think things a right because Reagan thought them, I think Reagan thought things that were generally right.

I have had the time to look at this and think about it, and I think the core of the Paulson plan is flawed. Moreover, the use of tax payer money to purchase the distressed assets is opening the door to things that I don’t want to see happen.

Frankly, given some of the other steps, I don’t think we need the $700B. I don’t see how or why government purchasing the distreeesed assets is better than government setting up a system in which the private sector can insure those same assets.

Paulson still after the past 2 weeks has not addressed that point.

Nobody in support of the Paulson plan has addressed that point.

Nope, we just need to do it . . because Paulson says so, Bush says so, and no Shadegg says so?

Well guess what, before I support the largest line item in the federal budget, I would like to hear a reasoned answer as to why the proposed insurance alternative is less effective than the Paulson plan.

The role-out of the Paulson plan is a case study in how arrogance, not addressing questions, precluding the possibility of alternatives, etc. is a recipe for failure. “Just do it” is not a reason. “Its better than nothing” is not an explanation of why alternatives are precluded from discussion.

alchemist17

Assume the 39D/35R/26I from Rasmussen is correct.

Looking at their weighted numbers for registered voters:

312 (R)
380 (D)
328 (I)

Summing these gives 1020 total registered voters in their weighted sample.

312/1020 = 30.58% (R)
380/1020 = 37.25% (D)
328/1020 = 32.15% (I)

So they’re 6% oversampled on independents. Assume that we correct for this, and keep the same D/R Ratio as this poll.

R+D = 37.25 + 30.58 = 67.83
R(1-0.26)/(R+D)= 0.33
D(1-0.26)/(R+D)= 0.41

So instead of the 39D/35R/26I from Rassmussen, they’d be seeing something closer to 41D/33R/26I. So they’re seeing ~4% more Dems proportionally.

General_Confusion

I believe the Senate would have ?improved? it when it arrived anyway. This ceased to be an emergency bill and became a free for all spending bill once it left Paulson?s hands. For the record I cannot support this bill on principle (yea, I know, I?m one of those principle ?rubes? you?ve been reading about) and because so many other VERY good ideas where not even discussed.

MrSandman

Now this piece of garbage bill is even more laden with pork. The whole stinks like hell.

When the Dems come back with their hat in hand for more of our money don’t be crying in your beers. You buncha dummies really think this will be the last bailout bill?? LOL

We Want Free Markets!!
HA!!

We Want Free Markets Until They Bite Back From Our Stupid Risk Taking!! MOMMY PLEASE SAVE ME!!

It’s pathetic.
And it’s even more pathetic its being shilled like its okay on sites like RS.

MrSandman

C’mon. That’s simply ridiculous.

The bill was a $700B turd.

Now it is a $700B turd in a lexite box.

And that’s “our” fault??

We…as in us….as in “our” …..called our Congressmen and women and DEFEATED that POS on Monday.

And now that it’s been shined up with $100+B in pork….that’s our fault?

No. Way.
No. How.

There are plenty at fault here sir. But it sure as hell isn’t the honest taxpayer who’s getting shafted on this whole deal.
No. Sir.

gamecock

and the accounting rule can be changed by executive order, since it was originated after Enron by Bush.

Dave_in_Fla

n/t

Dave_in_Fla

If everyone hadn’t had a hissy fit on Monday the price tag would be $700B.

If this new version passes, the price tag is $805B.

Interpret that as you like.

Samsara

One thing is clear, Congressional leadership will not dismiss class until something is passed. The Senate bill will not pass the House. Democrats won’t even bring the bill to a vote if they are not sure it will pass, and Hoyer was on the tube tonight saying he expected 100 Republican votes this time around.

The real problem now is NOT that Paulson’s Plan has been labeled as a bailout, or the specter of “creeping socialism”. The problem NOW is that the Senate added “sweeteners”. Now every clique in the House will expect the same. I would not be shocked to see the final bill cost 700 billion for the “bailout” and 500 billion in pork. We now must bribe our politicians to do their duty in a time of crisis.

This is what brought down the Roman Republic.

MrSandman

I’m sorry that any person would lose their job due to this.

The reality is that thousands more….tens of thousands more….people will be losing jobs. Hundreds of thousands…perhaps millions isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Those are the facts.

A $700B bailout package ain’t gonna cut it my friend. It’s like peeing in the ocean and looking for the color to change.

You may think it worked for awhile…but it won’t work. The system is broken.

Example.

http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/lying-bank-accounting/

In a Dow Jones column, Michael Rapoport points out the obvious: Wachovia went out with a book value of $75 billion. Citi paid $2 billion. Could it be that asset values are overstated, not understated?

I’m not sure what is more frightening. The fact that book value of Wachovia was $75B when it bellied up….or that there are STILL lots of fools out there who actually want to get rid of mtm acctg.

My point. The bill won’t work. While it might possibly buy a bit of time it won’t save anyone’s job. This thing is going down.
Hard times are coming.

olsmithie

this week….

Regards

MrSandman

not sure what happened there…

BigGator5

I don’t know of a single person who hasn’t argue in good or bad faith over the bailout.

I still don’t understand why you signle out Thad McCotter as the case for your hatered! The guy made great points that this bailout is bad, bad, bad!

All I am asking, and I have yet to get a striaght answer, is what has happen to our fiscal conservative values? Are they truely for sale at the going price of $777.68?

BigGator5

Correction: “I don’t know of a single person who has argue in bad faith over the bailout.”

I type something different and then changed it, but that one part. This is what I ment to say.

Xraxnd_Caracarn

senate and WH in 05 so the posturing while fun is pointless. If they had really carred they could have done something then, but noooooo to busy getting paid and laid.

Xraxnd_Caracarn

That is a personal account isnt it?

I would have thought a ‘small’ buisness with 250k opperating capital would have different protection set up. I do know that all of the ‘small’ buisnesses i have worked for some with multi million dollar grosses never had that much in the bank. Heck they would call me up to make early deposits and paying the taxes and workmans comp insurance always came on the last day possible.

mbecker908

The fed is not “purchasing $700B of distressed assets”. It is effectively purchasing assets, a small portion of which are truly “distressed” which is driving the market to dramatically undervalue the whole portfolio.

In all likelihood, assuming $700B is the number, no more than 5-7% of that number is really “distressed”.

historystudent

I would have to object to the panic that is being thrown around with regards to both the crisis on wall street and the bailout bill that just past the Senate. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. While Mortgage-Backed-Securities (MBSs) that are at the heart of this problem are bad paper, that is primarily because they are based on mortgages that were, in turn, based on inflated housing values. As those values dropped, combined with the economic slowdown we’ve experienced, variable interest rates rose and people couldn’t pay the bills. Some of the mortgages that were bundled together and securitized defaulted and the derivative securities dropped in worth. They did not and cannot become worthless because the underlying assets (albiet two to three tiers away from the actual securities) cannot become valueless – land and homes do not become worthless. The banks will own the homes if not the mortgage. The problem is, owning a home is not what the banks want nor what the government wants banks doing. So, the government buys up the MBSs, allows the values to drop to levels that no one else could allow them to drop to (esp. banks because they have to maintain certain levels of assets), banks foreclose on the underlying mortgages and the values eventually rise. Now, I don’t like it, but if our goal is to avoid even temporary credit restriction and high interest rates, then the bailout is necessary. On the other hand, if you think like I do that the only way to allow the credit markets to return to normal is to allow some banks to fail and credit to temporarily restrict, then the bailout is a stopgap measure that (1) doesn’t really deal with the underlying mortgage problem and (2) simply holds off or slightly mitigates an impending credit restriction. Make no mistake, however, the likelihood that this will produce another “great depression” either way is fairly low.

nivlem

From listening to Richard Burr this afternoon, if I heard him right, this is
a combination of the bailout bill with
some other budget bill. I was in and out of phone calls, so I did not get the
whole thing, but apparently, there is more going on than what we see.

Even so, why are funding these idiotic things???

And if so, can we please fund research into why my black pug and fawn pug only
reproduce black and fawn pugs and not
some wierd gray/tan thing?? What happened to evolution? If it is a scientific fact, after all these years,
I still should get something other just black and fawn pugs. I think…..$2,325,648.00 should help me figure this out..

Please put this in the budget right next to…what is it… wooden arrows or whatever???

MrSandman

What is not open to interpretation is the sheer incompetence on display by WS and their boot licking congress critters.

MrSandman

What is not open to interpretation is the sheer incompetence on display by WS and their boot licking congress critters.

JSobieski

I didn’t say valueless or bad, I said distressed.

Treasury is not going to buy assets that are selling close to their par values. For the plan to work, Paulson has to become a bond-picker and will try to identify undervalued assets (which is another word for distressed assets my book)

RS

EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Shadegg nows says bailout bill acceptable

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In a Dow Jones column, Michael Rapoport points out the obvious: Wachovia went out with a book value of $75 billion. Citi paid $2 billion. Could it be that asset values are overstated, not understated?

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