Why Should We Pay for All the Bad Loans of All the Banks in the World?

There are three unconscionable parts of this federal bailout plan.

1. It now includes not just US banks, but nearly all of the major international banks. Why should the United States taxpayer single-handedly pay off all of these bad loans? If these foreign banks want our help, they should ask their governments to chip in. No deal until they do.

2. The lobbyists have already gotten their claws into this and the bill has been expanded from bad mortgage assets to all of their bad loans. That's insane. Wall Street is about to dump every bad mistake they have made in our lap and run for the hills. I guarantee you all of these companies, and the executives running them, will be back to making a tremendous amount of money very shortly. But we'll be stuck with their "toxic assets." This should be our response to this proposal -- Hell no!

3. The executives of these failed companies still want to make millions of dollars upon their exits from the companies they sunk. They're threatening not to play ball if they don't get to keep their millions. Great, go away. Deal with your own mess in your own way then.

They are in no position to threaten us. They're the ones coming for the bailout. If the Republicans want to make a stand on this issue, be our guest. Make our day. Please argue that these failed CEOs should get tens of millions of dollars as we spend $700 billion in taxpayer money to bailout their companies. Please make that case to the American people and see how that works out for you.

In the video below, I explain why we should say "No Deal" to these bankers, even if the Democratic proposals are completely adopted:

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Comments

[marinara]

man darwin has got to be laughing at all the people in debt to insane mortgages

[sd4peace]

and satan is laughing at the souless criminals who preyed on people wanting a piece of the American Dream.

[marinara]

why should bear stearns employees receive billions in bonuses while the taxpayer is bailing out a bankrupt corporation?

Because our government believes in the fiction that is: "what good for wall street is good for the gov."

I accuse them of thinking: "The invisible hand of the market is perfect, so we have to perform human sacrifice to maintain the good will of that invisible market hand. "

Sickness, and our media responsible for it in no small way.

[S1m0n]

"Why Should We Pay for All the Bad Loans of All the Banks in the World?"

Because the real problem is that all those banks don't own mortgages, they own shares in pooled mortgages.

Loans--good and bad--have been aggregated and turned into widely-held securities, and you can't nationalize a fraction of a security: all the owners have to be paid.

[Cilantro33309]

So right, yet it does not have to be solely the American tax payer who has to anti up for those securities...

Oh, and we're not just talking about mortgages in Paulson's proposal...we are talking about ALL LOANS for ALL BANKS!!! I say if that proposal goes through DC needs to experience a modern day witch hunt....

[skwan91607]

"Fruitful economic policy", "Too big to fail", "Act sooner and must act now... 700 billions dollars" sound familiar what Americans heard after 9/11. In this administration using big chunk of public fund always urgent and imperative, also no question asked. This financial crisis comes under the watch of those fellows who suggest it is urgent now, but not more than a year ago. It is imperative because Americans will be hurt tomorrow, but not seen a little early time. These incompetent officials to oversee this big amount of rescue money is questionable. Why do Americans trust them in this period of emergency? Do they know what their responsibility are before the crisis and do they know how to take care of this problem by not seeing it is coming? An independent rescue committee is seemingly appropriated. The appointed personnel of this administration should be gone for a few more months for good.

[steamboat]

Cenk, I agree.......and a good example is why should I as a taxpayer have to pay for all these people who bought homes with nothing or very little down. And were able to obtain the homes, anyway. They were over their head, so I say tough. Go back to the days when people had to put at least 1/4th down.

[sd4peace]

These people didn't loan themselves money. The banks knew the risk, but didn't care because they knew they could bundle them and get rid if them

[navy62802]

Does anyone else feel like this crisis has been orchestrated? Our temporary fix will take effect just before all of the current administration will leave office. Just a thought...

[AngloAmerican]

Orchastrated by whom. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan and multi million dollar donor to Dems? Fellow Dem Lloyd Blankfien of Goldman Sachs, which is the single biggest corporate donor to the Obama campaign?

I thought investment bankers were supposed to be interested in profit right? So they throw away their careers, their reputations, their own personal finances all just to get McCain in? They got China and Dubai to play ball too? just a thought...

And on the personal finances front, yes the CEOs saw their net worth drop anywhere from 30% (John Mack, Lloyd Blankfein) to (Jimmy Cayne, Dick Fuld) 99%

[navy62802]

No, I'm saying they set this up in order to profit...at the expense of middle and lower-middle class homeowners. The mechanics of instituting bad mortgages and then betting that they'd fail. Anyone who engaged in this practice is directly implicated. Anyone who pushed for less regulation...the people who set up the structure that allowed for credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. Then when the puppets of the banking industry became the head of national economic policy, they intentionally turned a blind eye because they too were invested in this market. When you're pocketing literally billions of dollars in this market, you can be blinded by your greed. That's what I mean by orchestrated... government officials intentionally looking the other way so that they and their buddies can balloon their bank accounts, then when the debt goes bad, force the taxpayers to cover their asses.

[navy62802]

Oh and by the way, we will be financing China and Dubai with the bailout...read the Paulson proposal!

[Doofus]

Very possibly, the Uncovering of the crisis has been orchestrated.

Think 'October Surprise'.

George to Henry: 'Help us out here, Hank.'

Henry: 'As you command, Mr Commander Guy! Hail, victory!'

[sdskelton03]

Cenk

This isn't about what is just, right or fair. You are right, this stinks to high heaven and the bailout should definitly be tweaked so as not to reward those who messed things up in the first place.

But this isn't about fair, it's about preventing the meltdown of our economic system and way of life.

If you are against the bailout, that's fine. I think, however, that you need to address what happens if we do not bail out these companies.

[valkyrie607]

Personally? I think we need a new economic system and a new way of life.

I guess that's what comes from studying ecology and earth science too much.

[skwan91607]

Do you meant we should go back to the hole and studying something like the holy books.It is a good suggestion. Try that first and see what happens?

[Lotus19]

The problem is they're not credible and it didn't help to include language that there would be no oversight and review of the plan. And these are the same people responsible for the crisis in the first place. Are they nuts? And what about the millions that the CEOs want to walk away with...after running these companies in the ground. Why should the taxpayers have to pay for that? I have my own family to take care of. Not to mention...they've already made their millions.

And now we hear that the programs that were being looked at...healthcare, infrastructure, education....all will be on hold. We should do ourselves a favor and lean on your elected officials to, at a minimum, work on a plan that factors the American people into this bailout.

There's enough blame to go around but there's a reason they call it predatory lending and the so-called greedy consumer is already paying the price by losing their homes. Those responsbile for these predatory practices should not be rewarded by our tax dollars.

[sdskelton03]

You missed my point Lotus.

The question is what happens if we don't do this?

[faith]

Perfect, Cenk !!! Well stated. I just wish you would send an email to Senators Boxer, Speaker Pelosi, and Mr. Reid, et al with the very words you used on utube. ! Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

[ThemisDike]

The problem is that they are Privatizing profits and socializing risks!

[sophistwatch]

There should be criminal charges not a bail out. This happened before and Wall Street knew what it was doing.

http://www.derivativesstrategy.com/magazine/archive/2000/0900play.asp

[jinxed]

This whole deal stinks to high heaven. Anybody involved in this mess needs to be charged with fraud. LET THE PERP WALKS BEGIN!

[steamboat]

Agree.....and start with Franklin Raines. Made $90 million at Fannie Mae in buy-outs, etc......then get Chris Dodd for his Countryside Mortgage fiasco.

[AngloAmerican]

countryWIDE there big guy...but youre right on Dodd

[runutz]

Bailout a working class family of 5 - eradicate all their debt and let them start over!

[diahni]

Let's bail out all the people who lost their homes instead. I'm for Obama, but do appreciate that McCain stated the obvious - the leader of the free world makes a mere fraction of what these financial sleazebags make. Why? Because they make the rules, that's why. A new day in America starts with our elected officials watching the hen house instead of the greediest foxes in the world. A forty million dollar golden parachute? Why? In a very unfortunate way, the financial crisis is a good thing. Finally, Americans are waking up.

[S1m0n]

Why not save the 700 billion, wait for these aholes to collapse, and then use the money to replace them? That way you're not rewarding failure.

[AngloAmerican]

First of all, its not rewarding failure, its blunting the degree of loss. Second, are you serious, you think you can let the global system of debt and equity collapse and rebuild it overnight with 700 billion dollars. Hell if you did that 700 billion would probably buy you a quart of milk or at the very least provide kindling to heat your stove. Do youreally think finance is just some isolated niche. Hell we spent far more than 1 trill to rebuild Germany, not cause we wantedto reward the evil of the nazis but because we knew that a stable functioning Germany was in everyones interest.

You share the same school of thought that slapped Germany with astronomical reparations after WWI, it just created chaos

[jinxed]

Yeah, we did spend a lot of money to rebuild Europe after WWII. And how did that work out for us? If I remember my history right, only two or three small countries paid us back and all the rest said F@&K YOU America!

[RENREVARD]

Why not take the 700 billion and a start new banks?

[AngloAmerican]

So everyone from a failed bank moves office into the new bank? who do you think would be hired at a new bank...bankers. Also the 700blm is aimed as much at insurance companies as it is investment banks

[jinxed]

WONDERFUL IDEA!!! Just make sure we find somebody who is honest to run it. That might be a real challenge!

[Doofus]

As the saying goes, if you owe your bank $1000 and
can't pay, you have a problem. If it's $1,000,000, they
have a problem.

If it's a thousand banks, we have a problem. Or, so
they would have us believe.

[Doofus]

A thousand banks, each with a thousand customers, each
with a $1M problem. That gets US to $1,000,000,000,000.

[charon]

The enormity of the attempted crime by bushco should result in jail time for the lot of them. No bailout, not a penny for these pirates in pinstripes. Send them packing and clean the foxes out of the henhouse.