Now everybody is afraid to move. We have all the chicken littles screaming the sky is falling, so the bailout isn't doing what it was intended to do. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself? Sound familiar?

The giant lending institutions need to be bailed out, they need the money NOW, there is no time for a plan.  The bailout to this point has been an utter failure. Cash is flowing out to banks, but it is not flowing out from the banks in the form of loans, and the government can't track what is happening because there is no system setup to apply any oversight. Should we be surprised? We're allowing the very people who caused this mess to try and fix it?  Are we fucking insane!?

hmmmm....the government gives millions to themselves for congressional payraises  in additional to millions bailing out big corporations, and then they say 'here's $500...go buy a tv.'  Anyway, I went to New Orleans....didn't even cover my trip.

I hope this helps out the consumer.

By genghisthehun

Governement interference caused this problem, now we look to government to solve the problem. 700 billion dollars, when we are already borrowing money from China on a daily basis just to pay the interest on our existing debt. And some here scoff at the term "socialism"?

President Bush has just announced the creation of an over-sight committe to investigate the cause of the current economic de-stabiliztion and has chosen Doug Neidermeyer to chair the committee. At his first press conference, after having reviewed the actions of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Fed and Goldman Sachs, Neidermeyer concluded,  "...and most recently of all, a "Roman Toga Party" was held from which we have received more than two dozen reports of individual acts of perversion SO profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here." He was immediately replaced by Senator Blutarsky, who has not been seen in public for years...

There's a fundamental problem here with this bill. It's not just that it will bail out people who made bad decisions in the market, nor is it really about the massive amount of spending that will be incurred as a result of the bill, thus dragging our poor, broke nation more into the red. Rather it is that events have been moving so fast that this parameters of this bailout will no longer work given the scope of the problem.

The problem now is no longer isolated to the banking sector. The problem now goes to the very core of our economy--the monetary system. The Federal Reserve has been printing out too much money, thus watering down its value. At the root of the problem is that we've built a service economy based on a business model that calls for continuous expansion. As a result, we've debased the entire reserve system to the point where there are no reserves left! Treasury bill rates are almost at zero now and interest rates are only slightly higher now, at 1.5%. The Fed is out of ammunition to solve this problem. The quality of America's money continues to down with each passing day. So in short, we're no longer debating whether or not we will be going into a recession or whether or not this mortgage crisis can be solved. In fact, history will likely record that the sub-prime issue was merely a trigger for this economic disaster. Now the question is how will we handle a worldwide economic collapse.

To put it simply: in an attempt to encourage economic growth, the Federal Reserve, especially over the past 10 years, printed extra money to allow for more cash to chase more goods. All that printing was financed by various international banks in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Now that the economy is slowing and credit is drying up, there's a glut of dollars floating around in the system not being used, thus creating deflationary pressures not only on the dollar but on other world currencies. Our foreign creditors arent getting paid. As a result, credit is drying up, hence we have a credit crisis. That means that businesses are having a hard time getting the cash they need to meet operating costs. International markets are also collapsing because they have a lot invested in the American dollar. The Fed continues to pump liquidity (or print more cash) into the system in an attempt to start economic growth, but this only weakens the value of the dollar, getting us more into debt, and THUS MAKING THE PROBLEM WORSE! The Feds strategy is like giving a crack addict more drugs rather than weaning him off to solve the problem.

The Fed thinks that if credit loosens up again, we will be able to more effectively finance our spending habits, but doing that wont solve anything here because this whole problem is related to excessive debt. The slow down only revealed the rotten underside of growth fueled by fiat money. More practically, I think that we are only seeing the leading edge of some major economic problems, at least until sometime next year. Already there are signs of shortages and delays. Already we're hearing reports that grain shipments are being delayed due to credit problems. The credit issue, which is a separate issue from both the recession and the monetary crisis, might lead to shortages in basic commodities.

As I see it, right now we have two big problems: one is that LIBOR rates are way too high right now, which might be an augury for the upcoming implosion of the credit derivative swap market. The second problem is related to the first one; for the debt crisis that will be created by the implosion the $55 trillion derivatives market might cause millions in this country to go bankrupt. The government has done practically nothing to address the credit markets, nor has it made any moves to fix the underlying problems in our monetary system. Today Bush said that we have a "liquidity problem"...one month ago that was the problem! In order to fix the problem, we need to get focused on root causes and corrective actions. If we continue solving the wrong problems the crash will continue. Recapitalizing the banks might be a helpful move, but it will only be a move to reduce the bloodletting. The big caveat is that such an effort would have to be internationally coordinated--it might be tough to pull this off.

I haven't heard a single person stand up for this and say that this is a good idea. So, how is this going through?  And how the hell are we paying for this?  I guess Congress is expecting to take out an adjustable-rate loan . . . oh, wait . . .

Great news....  The "Masters of the Universe" crap the bed and the taxpayers have to wipe their asses.

AKA The American Public Gets Screwed (Without Vaseline) Act of 2008.

Yea, I get to pay for bad investors...