Small Business Bailout Considered By Obama Admin.

washingtonpost.com:

The Obama administration is developing an initiative to take money from the $700 billion program for the banking system and make it available to millions of small businesses, which officials say are essential to any economic recovery because they employ so many people, according to sources familiar with the plan.

Read the whole story: washingtonpost.com

Comments

[confidance government]

I am so glad to know where the small business owner rates with our government. Let's see, are they going to get the same sweetheart deals as Goldman Sachs?

[Hdaryl01]

Yep.....ri­ght below IRAN, and right above North Korea.....­.....

[Hdaryl01]

Are there any still left......­...? Small businesses that is. Small businesses have been waiting for assistance for 2 1/2 years. How much longer will this take? On the bright side, the longer we keep shovelling money at the SOCIALIZED RISK BANKING OLIGARCHS, the fewer small businessses will be left to assist, the OLIGARCHS will have more assets, and the belated assistance program will be cheaper...­...

[dems08]

for 2 1/2 years? I thought Jan. 20 was less than 6 mos. ago...

[sueinmn]

OMG what about us who are laid off, running out of unemployment and absolutely NO JOBS!!

We still must pay our bills, eat and keep a roof over top. Another round if UI would certainly help! How do we survive when it runs out? Beg, steel? NOT..... We need to not fall victim to polverty when WE WERE THE STRONGER MIDDLE CLASS WHO PAID OUR TAXES. We were not the cheats, the thieves, the liars, those who stole or are corrupt. We paid taxes, supported our communities, we taught OUR kids values, we do not live off the sytstem for generations, we are not the drug users, WE ARE THE STRONGER MIDDLE CLASS or at least use to be. Dont throw us under the bus now. We need to maintain our credit to get a job later! Credit checks are as important as drug checks when it come to employers. DONT RUIN US!! We didnt cause this! We are the victims!

[sueinmn]

We are the American labor force. We are the ones that will be the American labor force again tomarrow. We will again pay OUR share of taxes! Will the IRS forgive us next year when we have no money to pay? NO, Will our insurance companies cover us even with no money to pay? What do we do?

We are the construction workers, the nurses, the educators, the cops, the firement, the cooks, the road crews, The retail clerks, the professors, the lawyers, the secretaries, the line workers the security workers, all the tradespersons, We are the workers waiting again to work! DO NOT FORGET US. Give us a safety net until JOBS BEGIN UPWARD AGAIN> they are still falling.

We do not want to be the next foreclosure or bankrupsty. Or the next TENT city tennant.

[sueinmn]

President Obama, WE ARE THE ONES THAT GOT YOU ELECTED! Dont throw us under the bus!

[vagabondvet]

I don't know what's worse: the denial that the whole financial crisis was caused by an unbridled expansion of credit in the first place, or the fact that the expansion of lending in this environment will lead to hyperinflation. This is just a rehash of the Greenspan put bubble reflation policy of the last decade and a half, this time for "main street" instead of Wall Street.

[ibsteve2u]

Waiting for your better idea...

What is your better idea, anyway?

I suppose we could trash the infrastructure we have created since 1960, and get rid of all cops and firemen hired since 1960, as well as all teachers..­.and close any public anything created since 1960...

Should be interesting, watching the streets "bloom"...

[ibsteve2u]

Did you ever wonder why they expanded credit like that - in fact, made the decision to drive the economy with a housing boom?

lollll...i­t was because the damage from trickle-down economics and inequitable free trade had already knocked the stuffing out of our economy, and 9/11 was enough of an economic shock to reveal that fact.

Hence, Bush pressuring Fannie Mae into "creating" capital (and the funky financial instruments were born, to the quiet slobbering of Goldman Sachs) as Bush reveals in this June 2002 speech http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfmm):

[bq]
And so, therefore, I've called -- yesterday, I called upon the private sector to help us and help the home buyers. We need more capital in the private markets for first-time, low-income buyers. And I'm proud to report that Fannie Mae has heard the call and, as I understand, it's about $440 billion over a period of time. They've used their influence to create that much capital available for the type of home buyer we're talking about here. It's in their charter; it now needs to be implemented. Freddie Mac is interested in helping. I appreciate both of those agencies providing the underpinnings of good capital.
[eq]

This economic catastrophe was birthed by the Republicans and their policies.

Of course, the right will never admit it....'cuz they're angels, ya know...jus­t angels from that other place, where you're expected to be guilty of sins like greed and lust.

[vagabondvet]

The "better idea" would be for private citizens to be allowed to spend and save their money as they see fit. Rather than trying to crowd out private investment, the government needs to spend less and tax less. Interest rates need to rise, not get kept at 0%.

The housing boom was seen as a way to keep the dotcom bubble from deflating. The 2001 recession is the ONLY recession in US history when housing starts didn't decline http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series//HOUST). It was backed by a monetary expansion that started in the mid-nineties that first started the dotcom bubble. And as for Fannie Mae, Clinton pressured Fannie Mae to relax lending standards way before Bush was in office http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=11).

Credit was expanded because of Republican policies, but not the policies you want to point to; in 1971, Nixon closed the gold window.

[sueinmn]

The over extended credit is part of the problem BUT the banks and insurance companies like AIG acting like casinos is where the truth lies. Betting and selling bad bets over and over knowing the bets are bad.

[vagabondvet]

You're right, but the problem is that the incompetent risky companies aren't being allowed to fail.

[Drdemocrat]

This is a GREAT idea. Turn some of the bail out money for small loans for small businesses!!!!

[surferbuoy]

A day late & a lot of dollars short...bu­t then never say never. Hopefully there are still small businesses to help.

[ran6110]

Don't forget, that thanks to Bush and BIG business that owns a small business qualifies for SBA loans. That's why there is never any money in the program.

This is just a way for the politicians to do favors for their good buddies that couldn't fit in to any of the other bogus programs.

[ibsteve2u]

Given that what the Republicans essentially did wrong - shortened to one teeny little phrase - is block the flow of money of money through our economy, this ain't a bad idea.

Money is the lifeblood of any non-barter-based economy.

Given that the tax laws and salaries at the top are now sufficiently out of whack to stop the recycling of money through our economy, and inequitable free trade has destroyed so many income-generating jobs at the bottom, directly injecting money at the bottom is a reasonable idea.

Particularly in light of the fact that anybody who STILL thinks that giving money - taxes cuts, whatever - to the top of the food chain is going to result in benefits trickling down is a damn fool.

Now the only thing that I don't like about this idea is that the same people who sit at the top of the economy and who are responsible for crushing our economy will still - eventually - get a cut of any money so used.

But that is the way capitalism works.

If the Republicans hadn't have gotten so daggone greedy that they transformed the top 5% from symbiotic parasites into great big, throbbing, pulsing, slimy leeches, we wouldn't be in this shape....a­nd I wouldn't hate 'em so.

Well, not counting the fact that they've kept us strategically vulnerable due to maintaining our addiction to oil, lying us into a war in Iraq, and...

Huh. Guess I'd still hate 'em.

[LeeCalif]

This is Emanuel floating another balloon because of this White House's incompetence.

Out with Goldman Sachs execs or pals !!!!!!!!

[LeeCalif]

What a load of cr@p.

Get rid of all the Goldman Sachs execs or pals(Geithner) imbedded in our government or expect blo od...

[PhilipTaylor]

Must agree with you there!

Get rid of the FED employees as well and for that matter the FED Debt System needs to go!

[outnow]

"Package small business loans and turn them into securities­..." Geithner is a genius! We will see AAA SBA derivatives? Full employment for Wall Street firms. Bundle and sell them in Europe. Ha, ha....

Geithner is a one trick pony.

Cut my taxes for two years and I will be hiring. I don't want to borrow money. Why?

[Eoin45]

Just so long as you also pledge do without the services those taxes pay for.

[sueinmn]

So long as you hire America citizens and pay a living wage!