21 Responses to “Opposing The Bailout?”

1. Citizen Tom
   September 27th, 2008 @ 7:12 am

   We are trusting the same people who created this mess to fix it. They want to spend 700 billion dollars BEFORE they tell us how they are going to fix the problems that led to the financial mess in the first place.

   The Democrats still will not admit that they socialized the lending industry and insisted upon giving people with bad credit virtually unsecured loans. The Republican leadership still will not admit that they did squawk loud enough to draw attention to the problem. Even now when the Democrats are blaming them, the Republican leadership will not call the Democrats to account. They seem to be too afraid they will not get their precious 700 billion.

   When what they want to do is not even Constitutional, what is the point of giving these people more money and power? Is that how you cure a hangover — by getting drunk again?

   The long run fix is to put the lending industry back in the free market. That is what Congress should be debating NOW. That is the fix we need to demand, and the faster we get that fix implemented the sooner we will solve this crisis.

2. Cathymac
   September 27th, 2008 @ 7:38 am

   Citizen Tom, I concur. The calls for a quick resolution by the very people that created this mess should be an alarm signal to every citizen.

   I understand the credit crunch and what could happen as a result of lack of it, but to implement a blundering, mindless package to assuage the alarmists is, in my opinion, extremely dangerous.

   I have to disagree with you Joe, Dobbs is right on this as well. The dark alleyways of congress have passed more than their share of expensive and bogus bills, shedding sunlight on this process has revealed some interesting information.

   Thankfully the House Republicans have fought the good fight, and it is very telling that the Democrats won’t pass a bill with out their help. The Dem’s have mnajorities in both the House and Senate, they have Paulson on board and President Bush. If the package being proposed on Wednesday was so damned good, why not just pass it? Because they know it was a sham and they want political cover, the Dems don’t want to take the blame and need political cover if the bailout fails.

   We will get a “deal” but it will not be the complete liberal inspired social welfare tripe that was proposed. Keep your fingers crossed that our House Rep stand firm, they are the only people standing between us and a Socialist takeover of the highest magnitude.

   I’m not scared, no one else should be.

3. Linda B
   September 27th, 2008 @ 7:53 am

   I totally agree with Joe on this. Have been following this closely and they need to do SOMETHING. If they listen to their constituents (who are rightly ticked) on this one, they are doing them a disservice.

   Bush and his staff proposed a bailout with basically no conditions on it. Ridiculous, but, hey, why not ask for the moon and see what you get?

   The Ds and Rs worked together amazingly well this week to come up with conditions so they could live with it (oversight; a plan to make sure taxpayers get reimbursed with whatever money might come back from it; provisions to protect against execs just giving themselves raises and bonuses with the $; and provisions to help homeowners, which I don’t entirely agree with but hey, that’s how these things work).

   Our energy would be better spent making sure we hold them to that list … especially the part about reimbursement.

   The potential cost of doing nothing now is too high.

4. jacob
   September 27th, 2008 @ 8:27 am

   The bailout as it was originally formulated is another step into socialism. There are several things that can be done WITHOUT the government taking over (buying) the banking industry. The change in accounting rules due to Enron is one start. The other is we should provide loans to the financial industry, not buy it. If these two steps are taken the public will see a program with an outlay of 150B not 700-1000B

5. Joe Budzinski
   September 27th, 2008 @ 8:50 am

   Did you all even read the links? You are not addressing the issue, you are talking about how we got here. The house is on fire, folks. It does not matter right now who started it – it needs to be put out.

6. Cathymac
   September 27th, 2008 @ 9:21 am

   Interesting comments from the CEO of BB&T, touching on the current state of the market and the ability of the bailout to address a mortgage crisis:

   http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=20241

   Joe, I don’t know the Ace of Spades website, the links seem to be all anonymous posts on this site so I have no way of assessing them. There is plenty of additional information out there, I have seen dozens of excellent articles on the current state of the market.

   Neil Cavuto has a panel discussion on this right now with a varity of people, not on how we got here but the market as it stands. Watch the repeat later if you can’t catch it now.

7. Tom James
   September 27th, 2008 @ 11:00 am

   English philosopher Herbert Spencer said, “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

   http://www.nowallstreetbailout.com/

   If you don’t know how to survive better start learning where your food and shelter come from.

   America and the world need to weed out the incompetent dependent fools. And I don’t mean the sick and elderly.

   Hunger and necessity are the mother of invention.

8. dans
   September 27th, 2008 @ 11:25 am

   Joe, I concur we need a plan, but history has taught me that when politicians get on TV and say there is a crisis and we need to do something quick, my reaction is as jack has so eloquently put it, BOHICA.

   Getting the House Repubs involved in the discussion was not just a smart thing to do, but a Constitutional necessity. As I said earlier, this was the focus of McCain’s intervention. I have read/seen several comments that anyone who claims McCain stopped a deal is lying through his teeth, and not just from Repubs. The Paulsen/Bush/Dem plan appeared to be DOA from the get-go as far as the House GOP was concerned. That is why Paulsen requested that McCain come to DC.

   Can we really trust Paulsen, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Bush, and Franks to fix this? Can we trust them to do more than to just give $700M to Wall Street, like fixing the core of the problem, such as repealing amendments to CRA that helped to cause this ? No and no.
   Does the plan need to have oversight for Frannie and Freddie such as layed out in S.190 ? Absolutely. If Bush were to pen a few executive orders to close some of these loopholes during these discussions, this would certainly give him more cred with me. But he isn’t..

   We will have a plan, and a plan that is not just CYA for Paulsen, Bush and the Dems who got us into this mess. We will have a plan that will not be an open checkbook, a plan that will be insurance against loss, rather than a transfer of loss. A summary rush, is just that, a summary rush. As one speaker on TV said, we can’t afford to fix a headache by creating a cancer.

   It’s gonna take a little more than a few blog entries by Ace and Mr. Frankypants for me to call Frank Wolf to tell him I want us to give away the store. But in closing joe, I do share your concern.

   cmac, yes I was watching that also. Cavuto seems rather skeptical of the bailout.

9. G. Stone
   September 27th, 2008 @ 11:30 am

   This thing will get done within the next two days.
   It was a good thing the train slowed down. Thank you, Mike Pence, thank you house Republicans. In the Senate thank, Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint. Thank you to Sen McCain for realizing that without support from House Republicans this was going to end up a massive cluster fox trot designed solely by a President on his way out and a handful of leftist Democrat lawmakers who were the architects of the original goat screw.

   This thing will ultimately be smaller, more market and less government( note I said less)not enough but better than Paulson’s original plan.

   Now house republicans should strike while the Iron is hot. Spin off both Freddie and Fannie to the market. Get Uncle Sam out of the mortgage business altogether. This should be step number one after the dust settles on this bailout or massive bridge loan.

   This is one of those times in our nations history where we are forced to accept half of a stupid idea with a smile.

   I am not at all optimistic any real lessons will be learned. Fifty some % of Americans are opining for a candidate in Barrack Obama who not only is complicate in this mess but is getting advice and counsel from those who are truly designed and advocated for the legislation and public policy that got us here to begin with.

   The origins of this mess are there for everyone to see.

10. Joe Budzinski
    September 27th, 2008 @ 11:52 am

    Read what Tom James just wrote and read it carefully. Tom and I are, I suspect, on the opposite side of this issue, but I think we have the same understanding of what is about to take place if nothing gets done early next week.

    You all need to decide what YOU are willing to give up if this turns into a full blown credit lockdown. Unless your family, the company you work for, and all of the entities that your company relies on such as suppliers and customers are operating on a complete cash basis, you are going to feel the effects.

11. Cathymac
    September 27th, 2008 @ 12:58 pm

    I think every shares Joe’s concern, it is the emphasis on speedy that concerns me more.

12. Citizen Tom
    September 27th, 2008 @ 2:00 pm

    Joe – You used the example of a house on fire. The problem any analogy is its imperfection. If our house is on fire, it is because of pyromaniacs tossing Molotov cocktails at it. Any solution that does not involving disarming and confining the pyromaniacs is no solution at all.

13. joe
    September 28th, 2008 @ 12:16 am

    I think the reason this crisis has not been more fully explained is there would be a run on the banks. Anyone want to speak up in favor of that scenario?

14. dans
    September 28th, 2008 @ 12:29 am

    Joe, maybe, maybe not. Only those banks like WaMu that played heavily in the sub-prime lending market.

15. REST ASSURED WE CAN ALWAYS PRINT MORE MONEY « Citizen Tom
    September 28th, 2008 @ 8:49 am

    [...] some of Virginia’s conservative blogs are telling us the bailout is necessary (see here and here and please take note of my comments).  If we don’t spend the money they say, the credit [...]

16. dans
    September 28th, 2008 @ 10:14 am

    FYI.. preliminary news on the plan..

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429343,00.html

17. Wolverine
    September 28th, 2008 @ 7:46 pm

    Whether anyone is for or against Joe B’s recommendation, one thing is very clear to me: after watching Chris Dodd, Charles Schumer, and Barney Frank in front of the TV cameras during the last week or so, you feel like vomiting all over the place. Those three buzzards ought to be made to sweat under a hot lamp and then sentenced to South Chicago to work as “community organizers.” Where is Thomas Nast when you really need him?

18. G. Stone
    September 29th, 2008 @ 9:57 am

    Wolverine;
    I share your disgust. These three as well as a handful of other liberal Democrats are in large part why we are in this mess. This is a 70 % / 30 % issue and these Dems own the 70% of the blame.

    We are now forced to watch the architects of this crisis lecture us on the failure of markets and corporate greed.

    Where are the investigations ? If there are none after the dust settles, it will be then that you know we were had.

    Maybe if we blame this on Scooter Libby we can get a congressional investigation.

19. Cathymac
    September 29th, 2008 @ 1:12 pm

    The bailout is failing in the house as I type, it could be dead.

20. Sterling Resident
    September 29th, 2008 @ 1:19 pm

    What a difference nine years makes…

    query.
    nytimes.
    com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260

    Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

    By STEVEN A. HOLMES
    Published: September 30, 1999
    In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

    The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

    Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

    In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers…

21. Cathymac
    September 29th, 2008 @ 1:59 pm

    Count me in as 3rd in wanting to regurgitate everytime I see Dodd, Frank and Schmucky Schumer. Pelosi on the House Floor this afternoon made me want to hurl as well.

    As for bank runs, I am reminded of a scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” where George Bailey has an angry mob in the lobby of the Bailey Brother’s Saving and Loan. The customers are demanding their money because Old Mr Potter has started a bank run by calling the S&L’s loan and they handed over all their cash. George Bailey is pleading with his customers and uses the line, and I am paraphrasing here “Do you know why Potter is bargaining, because we are panicking and he is not.”

    Who panicked in today’s situation? It was not the people, it was members of congress telling the citizens – in a loud and panicked voice “THERE IS NO REASON TO PANIC!!” George Bailey got an infusion of cash from his honeymoon fund, what we needed were a couple more Warren Buffets to pile into the economy, unfortunately the cat and mouse game had investors on the sideline for 3-4 days.

    For you entertainment, please view the attached:

    http://chatteringteeth.blogspot.com/2008/07/bank-bailout-its-wonderful-life-ii.html

    BTW, all lessons in life can be found in “It’s a Wonderful Life” or a Seinfeld episode

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