His understanding of the financial markets which is enough to give him the impression that "financial markets don't work anymore" came up with that crap.
That's not quite what I said... if these Repubs had not been in charge, it would have been prevented.
Dems were in charge in congress, and they couldn't get their own bill passed. i guess 40% of the house dems are "unpatriotic" as well?
The whole thing has been a failure since the fairness in lending acts, creation of the Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae, predatory lending, dems and republicans alike. Let's vote them ALL out and start over.
you want to fix the economy!? How about instead of giving all these lenders 700 billion dollars, why don't we just give each house hold in America 1 million dollars... problem solved. I'm glad this **** didn't pass... they're all a bunch of criminals.
Ugh. That's a loser. This is not the Civil Rights bill, where it was understood that the South would be ceded to the Repubs for a generation. That was for the good of the country and even though it hurt the Dems for over a generation, I wouldn't have it any other way. This is not only a bad bill, but it is politically toxic as well. I'm not willing to sacrifice the 2006 gains and the 2008/2010/2012 possible gains by handing the Repubs a ready-made issue. Calls to Cong offices are 200 or 300-1 against this thing. Anyone who votes for this will be tagged with it for several elections. If the Repubs won't own their mistakes, the Dems shouldn't take the hit because the future damage would be much greater.
Well, the problem is that they aren't just giving away $700 Billion. The government was purchasing assets and granting loans to businesses, getting returns in the long run, getting ownership stakes. In the best case scenario, it actually nets a a couple trillion dollars for the US, in the worst case scenario, the assets are worth less than they paid and in the long run it costs $250 billion or so. Its NOT good that we need to do this, but not doing it is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Who ultimately loses? The average American who sees his 401K in the toilet, is layed off from his job, and who loses his house, further contributing to the problem. Yes, there is lot of stupidity that is getting fixed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Like the Exxon Valdez crashing was caused by drunken stupidity, but we still cleaned it up. Also, giving each American household $1 million each would result in costs into the several trillions and drive the dollar down so low that your $1 million would be worthless anyways.
No offense. I apologize if I'm a little over the top on this... I think it is a bit of a shock to me that you and Sam are taking the positions you are. Anyway, as I said, this bill in no way prevents a depression. We're already there. I don't care what the numbers say, we're there. And I don't see any "solution" other than to deal with it as best we can. In the meantime, we can change the culture of wall street, look at ways to reduce the emphasis of short term profit over long term good, rid ourselves of this consumer binge we've been on for the last 25 years, do away with exotic mortgages and financial products that aren't stable and that nobody really understands, and get a government that governs. Our current mindset is completely unsustainable.
consumer spending has driven our economy for the last ten years at least. we don't make anything anymore is our biggest problem. (except houses)
One thing I'm trying to understand is why is this bill so urgently needed? Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until after the election and then vote on it when the politicians aren't so skittish or even wait until the next Congress?
This is what I don't get. You say the numbers don't matter and we're already in a depression. Sure, we are having a bad economy right now, but we haven't had a quarter of negative GNP yet (maybe this quarter, but who knows). You keep throwing around the word depression and that we're in it, but unemployment is still not bad, most people still have jobs, there are no bread lines, consumer spending is still decently stable, etc. My grandfather would laugh at you for calling this a depression. I don't think things are rosy by any means, and will probably get worse before they get better, but I'm not sure we're going to have a depression, and I'm still pretty sure that the 2 hour waits at Pappasito's on Friday and Saturday night are better than bread lines.
Agreed. The problem is we don't know how to fix this. Also, Exxon fought like dogs to not build safer ships and to not pay for the cleanup or any of the consequences.
Sorry, but if you think the bill was going to cost anywhere close to $700 billion, you still don't understand the basic economics of how it works.
