Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

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  chris jablonski09/30/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

  Shut down Freddie Mac and Fannie May and let the banks in trouble go bankrupt. The financial market needs this enema. Top off with increased accountability and regulation. And convince the population to buy homes it can afford.

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  jdschip10/01/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

  The current 'adjustment' is a natural occurrence based upon imprudent investment. As Buffet says, don't buy something you can't read about - the mortgage backed securities were tens of thousands of pages long. The consolidation of numerous banks is the right thing for right now, even though it will leave fewer people able to get loans. Let the whole thing ride, don't waste my money bailing out foolish investors. Since when did Republicans become big government proponents - oh yeah, with Bush and Cheney.

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  Energy Independence10/01/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

  Boy... Chris... that's just completely ignorant. If the credit markets don't get unstuck the nation could collapse. Is that what you want?
  
  Part of this problem is that Sarbanes Oxley is requiring banks to report assets at fire sale values... this is what's putting things into a tail-spin right now and making banks collapse.
  
  Change the way banks have to report these assets to fair market value as opposed to fire sale value, and we'll be a lot closer to getting things moving again.
  
  I hear a lot of talk about a "bail-out"... true it is a bail-out, but it's also a chance for the US govt to make money, too... When the govt steps in and buys a 400,000 note for 200,000 on a house that has market value of 300,000.... hmmm... let's do the math... I think we're all smart enough to figure out pretty quickly that the US position is instantly positive... Banks aren't exactly the winners here are they?
  
  I'm confident something will get passed... I'm glad that they're taking the extra time to work out the glitches.

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  chris jablonski10/01/08 Report as spam
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  Completely ignorant, really?

  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/inde
  x.html
  Harvard economics lecturer Jeffrey Miron: Talk of Armageddon,
  however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. If financial institutions
  cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for
  someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will
  happen.
  Further, the current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street's
  hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20
  cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80
  cents.
  The costs of the bailout, moreover, are almost certainly being
  understated. The administration's claim is that many mortgage
  assets are merely illiquid, not truly worthless, implying
  taxpayers will recoup much of their $700 billion.
  If these assets are worth something, however, private parties
  should want to buy them, and they would do so if the owners
  would accept fair market value. Far more likely is that current
  owners have brushed under the rug how little their assets are
  worth.
  
  http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2008/cr092408h.
  htm
  Ron Paul: Mr. Chairman, I believe that our economy faces a
  bleak future, particularly if the latest $700 billion bailout plan
  ends up passing. We risk committing the same errors that
  prolonged the misery of the Great Depression, namely keeping
  prices from falling. Instead of allowing overvalued financial
  assets to take a hit and trade on the market at a more realistic
  value, the government seeks to purchase overvalued or
  worthless assets and hold them in the unrealistic hope that at
  some point in the next few decades, someone might be willing
  to purchase them... Unfortunately our leaders have failed to
  learn from the mistakes of previous generations and continue to
  lead us down the road toward economic ruin.
  
  http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023073.html
  The feds continue to follow the economic path that turned the
  1929 bust into the sixteen-year Great Depression: artificially
  keeping prices high, and bailing out failing businesses, when the
  excesses of the boom must be cleaned out before we can have
  prosperity. That is, prices must be free to fall to reflect reality,
  and there must be no more wealth destruction through
  subsidizing the losers. Yet it's hardly news, as they debate
  welfare for Goldman Sachs, that congressmen have voted to
  bailout the losers called GM, Ford, and Chrysler. It's just more
  confirmation, as if we needed it, and officials are willing to
  engage in hyperinflation rather than allow the market to take its
  moral and rational course. To all of you who do not see the state
  as essentially a criminal enterprise, a "gang of thieves writ
  large," as Murray Rothbard put it: time to take another look.
  
  http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2372439.htm
  STEPHEN LONG: What is the alternative to this huge bail-out,
  this huge rescue package; hundreds of billions of dollars thrown
  in to rescue Wall Street?
  PETER SCHIFF: The alternative is to let the free market sort this
  out.
  The government made this mess, they're sure as hell not going
  solve it.
  We need to let the market work.
  Now that doesn't mean that this is all going to be sunshine and
  lollipops here in the United States, we're going to have a
  tremendous recession if the government does nothing but we're
  going to have a worse one; we might have a hyper inflationary
  depression if the government goes through with this plan.
  
  http://article.nationalreview.com/?
  q=YmMxNTg0Mjk3MmM3YmExNTI3MzY0NDVjYWMxMDE2ODI=
  There actually are desirable alternatives to building socialism
  and saddling every American man, woman, and child with
  another $2,300 in unjustified federal spending. One option is to
  instruct the geniuses from Fannie Mae to Wall Street to deal with
  it. They made this mess; they should mop it up. Cut back, sell
  assets, develop fresh services, or get new jobs. Absent a federal
  bailout, Lehman Brothers sold parts of itself to Barclay?s Bank.
  Facing Uncle Sam?s cold shoulder, Merrill Lynch ran into the
  loving arms of Bank of America. Merrill?s customers will survive,
  and its employees will work for B of A or seek their fortunes
  elsewhere. Other options exist, of course ? and while they lack
  the bracing appeal of this sort of financial Darwinism, they
  remain far more attractive than our current policy of "survival of
  the fattest."
  
  http://mises.org/story/3117
  In a bubble, asset prices are by definition far above equilibrium
  values. The federal government is now committed to
  guaranteeing the difference between the real equilibrium values
  of all debt securities and their stated/nominal value, which was
  created during the greatest credit bubble in history.
  That difference between nominal and equilibrium/real value
  must by definition be a massive number because of the extent
  of the credit bubble, on the order of $5 trillion dollars in the
  United States alone...
  Well, that isn't good news for Wall Street and the wealth-
  generation process and, as the above scenarios cover all the
  possibilities, none of this is a good sign. It is a sign, rather, that
  we have allowed our monetary, fiscal, and regulatory authorities
  to lure us like lambs to the slaughter to the unwarranted
  socialization of the most important sector of the capitalist
  system.
  
  http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?
  p=episode&name=2008-09-
  24_055_the_bogus_financial_crisis.mp3
  Economist Robert Higgs: "It really isn't a crisis. It's in my
  judgement a bogus crisis... This kind of claim is preposterous. If
  the Fed evaporated overnight, if it just disappeared into thin air
  and people had to manage without it, we'd be enormously better
  off... The idea that the future is too horrible to contemplate,
  that's a term I've heard, unless the government undertakes the
  gigantic intervention is, I think, a completely bogus idea.
  Current conditions do not warrant this kind of panic. The
  authorities, aided by the media, are attempting to stampede the
  public into accepting what's been done... a gigantic robbery."
  
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/why-congress-
  should-oppos_b_128859.html
  Bond trader Hale Stewart: Below are the reasons Congress
  should reject the package unless there are major changes to the
  bill. Simply put, as it stands the bill will grant far too much
  power and authority to the Treasury and will screw the US
  taxpayer while rewarding companies for incredibly bad
  decisions.
  
  http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/sep/24/no-bailout/
  If anything, the $700 billion figure currently being quoted by the
  press significantly understates what this legislative monstrosity
  is going to cost taxpayers... over the weekend, Mr. Paulson's
  Treasury Department dramatically expanded the bailout plan to
  include buying car loans, student loans, credit-card debt and
  other "troubled" assets held by banks. The changes - which were
  included in draft language opening the bailout program to
  foreign banks with extensive loan operations in this country -
  have the potential to add tens of billions of dollars to the cost of
  the bailout program. In his Monday counterproposal, Senate
  Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd included such
  consumer loans in addition to mortgages.
  
  10 reasons to say no to a bailout:
  http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/stories
  /2008/09/25/pageed_0925.html

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  Lundeman10/01/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

  Forget the bailout -- the boat will still leak. Instead, send $2500 to every man, woman, and child who is a citizen. They'll spend it for the holidays and give a bigger shot in the arm to the ecomomy than the previous stimulus check.

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  topflite10/01/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

  It is sure we need to do somethign to save the real economy from oblivion as real people are suffering. As for the mob that created that situation, they have made enough money to survive without the taxpayer having to help them. Let's get rid of all that greed that has driven Wall Street and created that Casino economy.

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  mschwedhelm10/02/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: Improving the Wall Street Bailout Proposal

  Why do you presume anything must be done by Nanny? Why not just let the banks fail - like has happened with WaMu and Wachovia - and let the strong banks pick over the valuable pieces?
  
  It's called 'capitalism'. It works quite well when left alone to do its job.
  
  If Nanny wants to do something for 'the people', perhaps she could undo the Community Reinvestment Act and limit the size of banks that want to receive FDIC insurance. Limit the size of the potential loss to the taxpayer. I know that's a radical thought, but let it sink in for a bit.
  
  This bailout is nothing more than an attempt to socialize private debt. Buck up, comrade!