Washington to Wall Street: Drop Dead

Mr. Gross, you have it all wrong and have exposed you true socialist side. In a capitalist system business fail. This bail out is pure socialism. Which is probably why you are for it. If the bail out was so great why didn't all the Dems vote for it. Then they could really blame the Repubs. But that was not the case The Dems also saw that this was bad. You say "tax cuts that led to the addition of trillions of dollars in public debt" Tax cuts don't add debd

Isn't news supposed to be unbiased? This piece wouldn't have made it past my desk If I were editor.

7dollars: "wet dream"? you are still are a teenager, aren't you. Obama's base support.

Nancy Pelosi killed the bailout bill, she has enough Democrats in the House to pass that bill without a single Republican. It is an informed electorate that makes America great, so please stop trying to spread this disinformation.

Why is John McCain campaigning? He said he wouldn't until the economic crisis was resolved.

When are you going to do an article that explores the racism implicit in the 90%+ black support for Obama?

McCain, the grandstanding media hog, blaming Obama for the collapse is total cr^p. The voters know it, the media knows it, everyone knows it but him. His behavior gets more and more bizarre as he falls furthr and further behind in the polls. Watch for some real weird stuff as they try to distract with 'game changing' stunts.

It won't work.
01/20/09. The End of an Error!

John McCain. Let us be clear. We all thank you for your brave military service. We all honor your maverick stances in the past, but, it is become achingly obvious that you will say anything and do anything to get to be president. Your honor is a shambles. You slander your own name. The memory of who and what you were is lost in the river of deceit and lies which bear your stamp of approval. Shame on you, sir. You are not fit to lead us.

You readily blame the republicans, but Democrats have been running congress the last 2 years. Of the 7 longest serving members of the Senate 6 are Democrats. All the financial standing committees in the Senate are chaired by the Democrats and finally 95 Democrats also voted NO to the bailout plan. So blaming the Republicans alone is a little short sighted.

I hear a lot of people blaming wallstreet greed for the current financial problems but no one wants to take responsibilty for their own greed. If you took out a high intrest mortgage or bank loan that you can not pay you are just as responsible for this mess as wallstreet is. I know a lot of people who took out mortgages for their homes where the monthly payment they had to make to the bank was %50 or more of their monthly take home pay. Just because the bank approved you for the outrageous loan amount it is still up to you to be smart enough to figure out how much you can afford within your monthly budget. I have a friend who sales cars and he said he has people come in every day to buy expensive cars that they can obviously not afford and they are begging for 72 month and 96 month car loans because they can not afford the monthly payments for a 60 month or 48 month car loan. A lot of americans have been living on too much borrowed credit for too long and this is the result of it. Wake up and take a look at how you handle your personal finances. Yes the lenders and the goverment have plenty of blame in this as well but don't discount the average joes role in this mess as well.

The republicans didn't kill the recovery bill, the democrats did. They stand to benefit from a financial crisis.

The truth is that in 2005, for the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill, S. 190, was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets. If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0



In support of S 190, also known as the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, John McCain said: "For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay."

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16

Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 would have Amended the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
Most importantly with regard to the CDS situation, S. 190 set forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting. Adoption of these regulatory provisions would have undoubtably affected the way CDSs were dealt with in "private" enterprises.
The bill would have also amended the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation., and transfered the functions of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Banks to such Corporation. If this had been in place three years ago, this whole situation might have been averted.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-19

It is not mentioned that 133 Republicians voted against the bill as well as 95 Democats. It would be better if the Democratic party spent their time and energy unifying the party rather than pointing across the aisle. The bill would have passed if the Democrats could get together on it. There must be some parts of the bill that raises concerns from both parties, otherwise it would have passed.
voanews.com/english/2008-09-29-voa43.cfm?rss=topstories gives more detail on the numbers

This article is a blatant example of bias in the mainstream media favoring Democrats. Mr. Gross has obviously chosen to set aside his journalistic responsibilities in favor of political propaganda.

I agree with those who said democracy has worked here, and I don't begrudge the Republicans their vote in the slightest.

I'm giving the House Republicans credit for standing up and representing their constituencies, and not panicking and passing this bill on the say-so of a lot of financial institution folks with seriously obstructed views of what's going on. I'm a bit surprised at the willingness of the Dems to go along with a Bush-appointed Treasury Secretary bailout.

The stock market's probably going to tank. It needs to tank. It's been overvalued. And I'm beginning to be among those who think it's necessary for these banks to fail, to some extent - otherwise we're just hemorrhaging funds into these institutions who aren't likely to change their policies. The culture of selfishness and plunder in Wall Street is WAY too deep-seated to have been uprooted by just these failures, massive in scope as they are.

I honestly apologize to those whose stock portfolios are threatened by this situation, but honestly, if you have enough in the bank right now to *have* a stock portfolio, you're doing better than many. Go to cash, or to gold, and research which banks have avoided buying all this bad paper. It's a terrible situation, but terrible situations happen. What we need to do is get back on track. I don't think the right answer is essentially forcing the entire country to pick up the tab for a bunch of ravenous bankers who knowingly made bad loans in order to get rich and their foolish clients who agreed to loans that people with twice their capital couldn't have sustained. These men and women are going down; they need to. We don't need to hamstring taxpayers with a $5,000 tax burden apiece for this problem. It would cripple a lot of people who really and legitimately have just been working hard and doing right.