Bankrupt Economics

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  • Posted By: ward_peterson @ 09/29/2008 5:55:29 PM

    Problem solved...
    The government giveth to big brother, big brother taketh from tax payer that SUPPOSEDLY big brother is to protect...
    Government gave BIG OIL BIG BREAKS< BIG OIL made BUCU BUCKS, dam near killing the Taxpayer.
    Govenment and Big Brother royally screwed up, taxpayer is soon to get a ream job again.
    SO heres the solution, Governments screw up AGAIN!
    Oill came off clean and extremely profitable, so let Governments misscarriage to the tax payer cover the screw up.
    Then I bet if it does go South, Oil takes the hit, if it doesnt the taxpayer saves a bundle.
    Its called giving back. BUSH...
    Not to your friends but to the citizenry who mistakenly gave you the White House.
    Pass this on o John McCain and Obama also.

  • Posted By: rgarrett @ 09/29/2008 5:40:37 PM

    Look, I am not a big fan of George Bush. But lets stop blaming Bush . Blame the real culprit. CONGRESS, which happens to be the opposite of PROGRESS.

    • Posted By: independentmomof3 @ 09/29/2008 5:50:14 PM

      Sorry, Bush is a large part of this problem. He and his Republican pals have spent the better part of the past 8 years pushing deregulation. They even patted themselves on the back during the RNC about how well deregulation works.

      They did the same thing during the S&L crisis, (Keating 5 - McCain0, and again during Enron. Have they learned anything? NO.

      This ideology of deregulation has to stop.

  • Posted By: LynnRMiller @ 09/29/2008 5:42:08 PM

    Are you saying that multiple companies are holding the same asset?

  • Posted By: CTurk3 @ 09/29/2008 5:00:34 PM

    My grandfather always told me, ???If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn???t true!??? So when people like Barney Frank state: ???We want to make it so all people can buy a home.??? That???s something that is too good to be true.

    Bank loans based on ???stated income???, ???interest only loans???, or ???move in with no money down???. This is what we get for allowing politicians to pressure the banks to loan money to people who could never pay back the loans. Let???s not forget Janet Reno who threatened lawsuits against banks who wouldn???t loan money to deserving, whether they had the ability to pay or not, individuals.

    My wife and I purchased our first home in 1975 for $14,500, we had saved since 1972 for the down payment, and over the years bought and sold seven houses. We have never over extended ourselves, always had the money for the down payment and the ability to make our monthly payment. We now live in a gated community in a 4350 sq foot home with a pool.

    So, my comment to all of those individuals, banks, finance companies and Wall Street firms who caused this to come upon yourselves.

    TO HELL WITH YOU!!!

    • Posted By: Iconoblaster @ 09/29/2008 5:40:06 PM

      Nobody PRESSURED the banks to loan anything to anyone. The government screws up well and frequently, but they aren't responsible for EVERY screw-up... credit corporations made buckets of money, with virtually no risk to themselves, by making shakey loans, and then selling the mortgages off to others. Nobody was twisting their arms to do this. Some of the ordinary people who succumbed to the temptation to accept loans they couldn't afford are also at fault (those who knew, or should have known, they couldn't afford what they were agreeing to)...but many did NOT know, and were taken advantage of by smarter and/or better educated loan officers (who knew they'd make THEIR money no matter what). The financial corps that were stupid enough to buy the "complex securities" these shakey mortgages had been bundled into and sold should fall where they failed. Taxpayers shouldn't be compelled to bail them out. People who were basically defrauded (often by professionals with express fiduciary responsibilities) should not be penalized any further, but the big money pros (who DID know better) who made the bad loans, and sold the bogus "securities" to others, should be tracked down, divested of their ill-gotten gains, and tossed into jail.

  • Posted By: OnlyCure=Truth @ 09/29/2008 12:34:58 PM

    The bankers in the monoply game keep changing the rules to benefit themselves leaving everyone else bankrupt there winning stop playing with there monopoly money. They printed another Billion dollars today just so you would play with it.

    • Posted By: independentmomof3 @ 09/29/2008 5:38:56 PM

      At least start useing the proper "there/their" in your sentences. Using the wrong version does nothing but make you look less than intelligent.

  • Posted By: wmaughan @ 09/29/2008 5:35:40 PM

    The issue that I have not seen discussed in sufficient detail is that of Credit Default Swaps (CDS). The total value of failed mortgages themselves does not seem to be a major problem. The total value of CDSs outstanding against the mortgages or their related CDOs appears to be staggering. Someone needs to quantify the total value of mortgage related CDSs outstanding. The total amount of capital invested in the CDS market is $54 TRILLION ... with a T ... down from $66 trillion a few months ago. The total capital invested in mortgages is approximately $5.2 trillion and ONLY 10% or $500 billion is expected to default. The nation can probably afford $500 or $700 billion ... but it certainly cannot afford $5.0 to $10 trillion ... when it gets nothing back. CDS products have no intrensic value ... they are a piece of paper. This was and is a Ponzi scam of the highest magnitude. We may be better off saving the $700 billion to clean up the mess AFTER the crash. There will most likely be a crash.

  • Posted By: LynnRMiller @ 09/29/2008 5:34:46 PM

    Oops. I mean 700B!

  • Posted By: Blue Heron @ 09/29/2008 5:32:20 PM

    Now I know why Alan Greenspan retired. Things were starting to fail under his watch and he didn't want to be blamed for his lax stewardship and what was going to happen to the economy. Bush has failed and destroyed everything he has touched. What a country!

  • Posted By: KeyserSozeRulz @ 09/29/2008 5:21:50 PM

    A crysis under GOP's watch, Another one for the book of Bush's failed legacies. Is anyone seriously considering ever naming a school or library after this guy ?

  • Posted By: KeyserSozeRulz @ 09/29/2008 5:20:13 PM

    A mess created during and under GOP's watch. If they are not accountabel who is ? Another one for Bush's disastrous legacy of lies and failed policies. Good job.

  • Posted By: csd44 @ 09/29/2008 4:55:40 PM

    How much more disaster has to occur on Republican watches before America wakes up? Seriously...check yourselves. Turn off Hannity and turn on reality. You are brainwashed.

    • Posted By: csd44 @ 09/29/2008 5:16:41 PM

      Nevermind the fact that Wall Street is comprised of rock-solid republicans. Ooops inconvenient fact. Sorry.

  • Posted By: realdogmatic1 @ 09/29/2008 5:07:12 PM

    Here McCain goes...don't blame ME!!!! I am REPUBLICAN...and remember the "R" stays for not "REPSONSIBLE". Wake up America!!! You been asleep too long.... I guess you will wake up in the SOUP Line.

  • Posted By: OnlyCure=Truth @ 09/29/2008 12:35:49 PM

    For every billion dollars they print the value of the money you already have goes down as they delute your money.

    • Posted By: Fred Norris @ 09/29/2008 1:04:16 PM

      wow - an economic guru. No kidding jack*ss. Honestly, please stop blogging and sending out your meaningless thoughts, I'm embarrassed for the United States after reading your words...

      • Posted By: MsChiTown @ 09/29/2008 4:58:50 PM

        Ignore him OnlyCure=Truth. You're making more sense than many of the "experts."

      • Posted By: Iconoblaster @ 09/29/2008 2:05:29 PM

        "Meaningless thoughts"...like explaining where inflation really comes from (its not a mystery, except to the general public, easily kept in the dark by government officials pretending they don't KNOW where it comes from). Keep it up, OnlyCure, you are doing fine. Unless there is a precipitous decline in production (and there hasn't been) the only source of inflation is an increase in the supply of money. Just as OnlyCure explains: they print more money, and the bills in your pocket are suddenly worth less. The tripe about minimum wage laws is absurd. Minimum wage laws don't do what they are advertised to, but they also don't cause inflation. Inflation is an increase in the money supply, relative to the goods and services available to be purchased...the Federal government, through its deficit spending, and the Fed, printing the money to cover it, create inflation in our economy. Its as simple as that.

      • Posted By: OnlyCure=Truth @ 09/29/2008 1:30:16 PM

        It is people like you that created this mess. Your the embarrasment.

  • Posted By: bartsimpson2008 @ 09/29/2008 4:50:35 PM

    I find it to be extremely funny that the republicans in the house would not vote for a bill put forth by their president and by the fed chair who was appointed by their republican president and when the market crashed because the republicans would not support it they blamed it on the democrats. Partisan politics are alive and well in DC and unfortunately the average citizen in this country will pay for the failure in the House today.

  • Posted By: KLM1378 @ 09/29/2008 4:49:35 PM

    Why can't the Government use that 700 Billion by making it available to other Finacial institutions whose Balance Sheets are in decent shape and let these other companies fell? Would'nt that make cash available to banks to lend to consumers and companies. These big companies would just start doing buissness with a new bank. Whats wrong with that. If the economy is in good shape people will find work. I see no reason to reward these greedy executives and Board of Directors for the bad decision they made. I would like to know who paid these people 12.8 million to run these companies in the ground. There assets should be siezed just like mine would had I done something like that.

  • Posted By: Omnius @ 09/29/2008 4:45:58 PM

    A total repudiation of "Alzheimer" Reagan's Tinkle Down economics that has only given us regular Americans the wrong kind of Golden Shower. So funny to watch the largest point drop of the DOW happen on "Harvard Business MBA" Bush's watch. If I were Harvard I'd rescind his degreee because if that's what a Harvard MBA in Business is worth then kids better go to some real college and learn real business at a far smaller cost.

    "Gambler" McCain showed a complete failure of leadership by not being able to get the House repugnant ones behind the bill in sufficient numbers while he claimed credit for all the work before the vote, once again declaring premature victory. He played petty partisan politics and we saw Wall Street crash and burn on this Black Monday! Now the repugnant ones are playing Spin Baby Spin to hide their failure.

  • Posted By: meem101 @ 09/29/2008 4:30:53 PM

    It seems ridiculous to blame this on anything but what it really is and that is mismanagement.
    8 years ago the economy was in the black, and now here we sit looking at the product of the republican philosophy in action.....

  • Posted By: morethanmad @ 09/29/2008 4:30:31 PM

    Mr. Samuelson, you have been such a great cheerleader of the economic policies that have got us in this mess, what are you going to do now that it appears it is all going to come tumbling down? One good thing about being poor in a rural community is that we don't have far to fall and we will at leat eat. I wonder what people on the Upper West Side are going to do. Don't really care.

  • Posted By: AlanCB @ 09/29/2008 4:08:58 PM

    Comment: Obama fiddles while Main Street burns. I watched the vote as Dems bailed out off the bailout. Where was Obama's leadership? On the road campaigning, Where was McCain? In Washington trying to save the bailout. Obama's response to this crisis, "Call me if you need me." He looks like a rat deserting a sinking Dem ship.

    • Posted By: JC0101 @ 09/29/2008 4:28:09 PM

      Obama was involved in this thing from the beginning. He was in regular contact with Paulsen while McCain didn't do a thing. Obama called McCain on Wednesday and asked that they do a joint statement with some principles that both would agree on to get this passed. McCain obviously panicked when he realised that Obama was heavily involved in this while he wasn't doing anything. He tried to get the one up on Obama by "rushing" to Washington in a very showy display to get involved and then take credit for the bill. It was McCain's own party that brought this bill down. McCain's leadership ability needs to be questioned at this point. He can't even lead his own party.

  • Posted By: OnlyCure=Truth @ 09/29/2008 3:06:49 PM

    If you need a loan to pay your employees you should not be in buisness anyway.

    • Posted By: JC0101 @ 09/29/2008 4:13:41 PM

      My dad was a farmer. He depended on credit to pay some of his bills until he could sell livestock and pay off that credit. This is a very common way to do business. If you receive money from jobs every couple of months but your employees need to be paid every two weeks you may need to have some credit to pay them from time to time.

      • Posted By: Boulder Sue @ 09/29/2008 4:26:48 PM

        JC: You are entirely right! OnlyCure obviously knows nothing about what it takes to run certain businesses, like farming

    • Posted By: Boulder Sue @ 09/29/2008 4:24:09 PM

      OnlyCure: spoken like someoe who truly knows nothing about running a small business. I'm with the farmer guy!

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