Me too, but I don't think it will matter in the end. Public sentiment seems to be against bankers and "lack" of regulation, judging by the media response and the papers here.

The Republicans have offered a glimmer of hope by turning the package down, but I won't count on them defeating future measures until I can access some of the .gov pages I usually use to check up on Congressmen. They're still down right now.

There is a fundamental flaw in public reasoning, exemplified by repeated usage by the media of the phrase "Who will/should run the country?"
Government isn't supposed to run the country, it's supposed to let the country run.

When everything goes to hell in a handbasket, most people look to the State to fix it, even when the state caused the problem in the first place. And who can blame them? We are taught this system from first grade (if you are in a public school);
"We're a Democracy" "We are Empowered" "Your vote counts" blah blah blah......
whatever.
Trusting the State to solve problems is especially dangerous when combined with politics, which is mostly the art of manipulation and/or deflecting blame. The sources of problems are misidentified, and the problem continues, only to be "fixed" again, and resurface again with worse consequences.

I'm not sure what Washington's next move will be. The media has been strongly critical of bailouts (generally under the misconception that the companies are entirely at fault), but the recent nosedive of the DOW and the repurcussions we are seeing worldwide already may spur a knee-jerk response.

Either way, general fiscal policy will probably remain unchanged. Best case scenario; bailout rejected and we ride the recession to a new bubble in some other industry, back to square one.
Worst case; bailout passes and the resulting inflation and public debt makes the next bubble-burst worse.

Without a major policy reversal in State spending we will eventually slide to economic ruin and social chaos. :down:

Well i certainly don't see the GoP as saviors but it is encouraging that the opposition to the bill is bi-partisan.

Shame on all of the companies who did this to us. Those greedy big wigs on Wall Street were careless about their business practices and thought that money grew on trees and that they could ride the bubble and didn't even worry about the pop that has now happened (and now they are riding their golden parachutes away from the burning companies). And then, when it does go down hill, the corporations cry for help bailing their butts out of the fire because they didn't plan well for the future.

Sorry all you companies, but if nobody wants to look into the future and plan for it, I'm not gonna bail you out with my own money. Besides, if I went out right now and got a loan for a big house and didn't think about how I'm gonna pay for it next month and I go broke, people would say I was stupid and I deserved it when I held a fundraiser to save my house. So then why did they expect us to come with open arms and pocketbooks when they did the Wall Street equivalent??

:hmm: :hmm: :hmm: , maybe........

I guess it depends on the reasons for bi-partisan opposition. Hopefully, after I get home from work I can look some of them up. I still don't know who voted for what and why.

I'm generally not fond of bi-partisan initiatives, because I hate to see that kind of solidarity amongst a legislative body, I guess we'll see. Who knows? Maybe there is a major paradigm shift in the works?

Hope springs eternal.

@ August



See? Everyone is eager to blame the market, despite everything the government has done to produce this crisis.:down:

Media... yea.. there a reputable source.

You know it seems to me there is a lot of finger pointing going on. Posturing, politicing, etc.

You think the timing is by chance? I dont think so.

Dammit quit playin politics step up and solve the problems.

Without a doubt the quasi socalist policys have brought us to this brink.

Without a doubt no one is willing to step foward and 'lead'. Make the tough choices. All want to be the hero, none want to be scapegoat.

ohhhh.....don't even get me started on the government.

Basically, De-regulation helped allow this to happen and the war quickened it's pace. I doubt this administration will be painted well in the future and might serve as an example of governments gone wrong.

That aside, although the bush administration allowed this to happen by not watching over more carefully, the corporations did not have a gun held to their head when they made the decision to use such risky and near-sighted business practices.

Everyone? It's one anonymous poster on an internet forum. That's quite a stretch of logic you've got there! :D

Can we re-join the Crown and use the Pound?

I'll pound you if you say that again!:lol:

Good :up:

Good Again :up: :up:

Those manufacturing jobs are never coming back to what they used to be. Asia will still be cheaper by a good couple of miles. But I still do hope it helps some of them come back.

And all the excitement aside, isn't this just a natural cycle in capitalism? I mean, it has to bust to boom. Constant growth forever isn't possible. A nearly trillion dollar hand out by a government that's several trillion more in debt doesn't make sense to me.

PD

Actually, if the government would impose the tariffs and duties on imports like it used to, the cost of foreign made goods would be equal to or more than the what it would cost to make it domestically. But that would be "fair trade". Trouble is, corporate America for the last 40+ years has been lobbying congress to strip away the tariffs and duties so that corporate America could move overseas, close down industry here, and get workers worldwide to do the same job for a far cheaper wage than an American would, then turn around and ship the product home, pay very little for importing it, and sell it for the same ammount or more and increase profits sometimes 100 fold.

Yes, and it used to occur naturally, but ever since the the Federal Reserve came into being, it has been scientically created (Congressman Charles Lindberg Sr. warned of this occurring after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was signed into law). This gives a few who are in the know the ability to buy and sell with insider information and therefore increase their power and their wealth at the expense of the majority.

I happen to agree with you. But $700 billion in federal aid to investment bankers just isn't the solution. Increased regulation of both our legislative branches and our financial institutions would be a good start, IMO. Some of THE highest level crimes are committed at high levels in these two institutions.

PD

Edit: Now that I think about it, regulation probably doesn't cut it. Outright surveillance would not be a bad idea, I think.

Well ya know PD, the old saying goes, Washington D.C. is the only place in the world where you can run for 10 square miles and never leave the scene of the crime.

There actually already is government regulation. It's the Constitution of the United States of America, and The Bill of Rights. Getting the **censored** to adhere to those rules and regulations is the tough part. As my old contact at the EPA Clean Air Division used to say, there's too many lawyers. Too many things are left open to interpretation, and therefore the former documents that charter our Republic, are rendered impotent by them.

And I agree totally 100% that these institutions shouldn't be baiked out, but they shouldn't have been forced by the government to make these bad moves in the first place, especially since the government promised to make good the bad if things went south. So the institutions going to D.C. isn't a crying situation, as much as it is, ok, now it's your turn to make good your promise on the obligation.

By heart I agree that the taxpayer should not have to pay for the failures of selfish greedy bankers who introduced business practices so risky and off reason that the status quo is the result. It is too costly.

But by mind I see that there is damage coming from not saving the system that spreads through all economy, sooner or later effect John Smith on the street again, and causes damage to other nations as well, and huge damage. So again: it is too costly.

40% of democrats and two thirds of republicans voted against the bail out. They all are people taking themselves very important and wanting to continue their careers after the next election they must face. They will decide on the bail out for populistic reasons, then.

I personally do not know what to do here, its like having to choose between cholera and plague. And whatever you do, it will probably be wrong in both cases. Also, it is argued and I think that is true, that if you go for the bailout option, 700 billion is not enough. critical analysts and economosts argue that several times as much would be needed.

The consequence on an administrative level however must be clear. There must be better regulation in that there must be better rules and tighter rule enforcement. It cvannot be that the community is left defenseless against the greed and irresponsibility of the few. Certain standards mst be set that prevent certain high risk operations, and violating them must be under so intense negative sanctions that it does not calculate well to even take them into account. We just have seen that the market itself will not rgulate itself, but will allow pathologic egoism and irresopnsibility to destroy it all - more of that cannot be the answer.

On the other hand, offices and authorities that should supervise and monitor the market practice, failed, and failed both in america and in Europe. In germany, esepcially banks that were run by boards filled with not bankers and experts, but politicians (the socalled Landesbanken) have seen a series of crushes and failures in this year, so politicians should not be expected to decide on the final monitoring system and they also should not be the responsible persons of control. In general, that the supervision in europe already was nevertheless tighter and more rules - against America's will who wanted more deregulation worldwide - over here regulate business practices, saved us from being affected as hard as america so far, plus the different consumer behavior with mortgage credits, and the encouraging by banks to not save (another symptom of the failure of the market). But this could change for us in europe - the impacts we see coming closer day by day. Germany, probably one of the most stable players on the scence, already had been hit repeatedly by banks who could not resists to follow the example of greed and quick profit and took high-risk opportunities. In Britain I read they have also a problem with non-secure mortage credits, nd already seem to bee hit worse than we are. Spain also has a mortgage crisis, and some things go on in Netherlands, Belgium and Lichtenstein as well (well, Lichtenstein is no surprise, is it :lol: )The real costs however will come with a delay, in form of recession, more than halved economical projection values, cut of jobs and the loss of taxes, and the stress all this together puts on the GNP and the state budget.

As a German banker said on radio on the weekened - "the next American colleague telling us we should deregulate more our banking market and should become a more liberal market, we probably will rip his head off." :D

40% of Democrats voted against, I read yesterday - but two thirds of the Republicans.

On a side-note, this of course is a bad blow to the government as well - to be let down not by the opposition, but by one's own party. :D

This is the German finance minister in interview:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...581201,00.html

I hope your right....but yes it seems it does need to bust and rebuild to be stable once again. However I live in Michigan and I would Love to see GM Decide to move back into flint and ford start growing.