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:
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
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Thank you very much silly Amerikans for now funding recovery of our excess risk ventures in your Wall Street games.
Now we will use your money wisely next time and never invest with you again thank you. Our ruling business elite thank you so kindly and trample on us citizens with heavy foot now again.
Hey... here's an idea, Cenk. When you look at our current financial mess, we've been zoomed in on one facet, the mortgage crisis, but there are other HUGE issues involved in the US taxpayers woes. One is the way we've been gouged at the gas pump for... wait... oh, look... hundreds of billions of dollars in obscene profits. Add that to the hundreds of billions in no-bid contracts for defective or undone work and pretty soon we're talkin' some real money here.
I'm thinking maybe the people and corporations who enjoyed the TRILLIONS of dollars in excessive compensation they made for keeping the profits and trickling nothing down to the rest of us should pay proportionately more to get us out of this fiasco Maybe we need a graduated surtax based entirely on the increased gains over normal made in the past, say, 7 years... on both personal and corporate taxes. A "you got the benefits, you get the pain" bailout. The more you benefited from this irresponsibility, the more you pay to recover. Those who were shafted the most get dinged the least. If we were fiscally responsible, why should we be expected to bail out these corporate traitors.
(And no, that's not overstatement. Bringing down the United States of America through acts of corporate greed is still bringing down the USA. It doesn't excuse treason just because the means were financial. Bombs are not the only weapons, especially when you need money to buy them.)
So who exactly are you calling traitors? You've lumped in contracters hired by the federal govmt or fed agencies (i.e. Defense, State), gas prices and the sub prime mortgage crisis. So who exactly are you taxing? Would you tax people who took out loans they knew they couldnt pay back? the regional banks who loaned them the money? You say anyone who was irresponsible should be taxed? Would you tax those who were irresponsible and lost money? Or those who acted responsibly and made money? Or do you just want to tax success?
I think what he's saying is that you can only bleed America of its money for so long. I heard a troubling report today about how the treasury can just print more money to cover our debt. Can we say endless devaluation of the American dollar? Can we say depression?
Um... excuse me... we are ALL about to be taxed, in a historically unprecedented way, at least for this country The only question at this point, is "By what methodology?" If we are being taxed for others irresponsibility, and will be taxed hard enough to hurt (and $2000 would definitely hurt me... that's 4 months worth of health insurance), then the people, including "corporate persons", who made millions over this period of time should also be taxed so hard it hurts. Will this happen? I doubt it.
I would venture to say that any realistic appraisal of the average, mainstream American would conclude that they made out pretty poorly in this mess, and will continue to do so. Most were responsible. Many were trapped, often by herd instinct. Many were duped for a commission. Most did not make millions of dollars selling loans to people they knew couldn't afford it, knowing they wouldn't be the ones to pay should it all fall apart. Not understanding how badly it could fall apart is no excuse. And if they did know, and their only thought was "Wow, think of all the devalued properties and companies I can buy for pennies on the dollar when it all craters," THAT 'my friend,' is treason.
Cenk there is another looming crisis with building slowing.
Contractors and tradesmen will be forced to sell old warn out tools- this glut on the new tool market could cause companies like Milwaukee and Skill to go under- I"VE GOT THE SOLUTION!
All Reps and Senators will distribute cash for these old tools at their offices in the wee hours of the morning, everyone in cognetto, no reciepts or paper work of any king (for national security reasons).
and the economy will be saved.
I called all 3 of my elected representatives today, as well as Pelosi and Reid, to ask them NOT to cave in to the bailout demands.
You want to stimulate the economy? Invest in our infrastructure. Invest in green jobs. Help people stay in their houses.
It took over a decade to get into this mess, it won't take 2 weeks to get out of it no matter how much money we throw at the problem.
Yes, it feels like screaming into the void, but maybe if enough people do it Washington will actually listen.
Right on.
But sadly, I'm starting to feel the abyss staring back.
They're listening. i called yesterday and apparently a lot of people had the same idea and they realized the public was not behind this hair-brained scheme as it was initially written. These blogs shouldn't be just about venting but about taking action.
So an interesting solution to this occured to me this morning. The reason given for needing the bailout is, that without it, credit will totally dry up because of all the bad loans using up all of the available money. We need to pump money back into these deflated investment companies, because without it, our highly credit dependent economy will literally seize up for lack of available money. So the proposal is to buy up the bad loans so we, the tax payers, end up owning them. Well how about this: don't buy the bad loans. Set up a temporary governmental agency, give it the trillion bucks, and have it write good loans. This keeps credit available to those who need it allowing the economy to keep going. Over time this gov't agency can sell off the good loans as the investment sector recovers and eventually dissolve. The beauty of this is that none of the current bad players get rewarded and they can die without taking the rest of us with them. At the same time, because the new loans will be good quality we'll eventually make our money back with interest. (Of course if we have a Republican administration this would never work because they would sabotage this agency. Even with Democrats in charge it would be about even money that they could pull something like this off. Still, this seems better than just flushing the money down the Wall St crapper.)
Why not.
At least you weren't one of the idealogues who got us into this mess, so I'm willing to try your idea.
to whom would you be loaning these "good loans". The toxic loans are toxic because they were made to people who cant pay them back and have no assets for colateral. How would this get rid of the toxic assets unles you were loaning to the banks that hold them? Thats pretty much the plan
The bailout is for toxic US assets, why should Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs get help and not Barclays, which now has about as many US employees as those two. Goldman and MS also have tons of toxic assets on their UK books. So if, or more likely when, the UK gvmt provides a similar package it will be open to all banks operating in the UK markets for the relevant assets.
The purpose of the bailout is to prevent these toxic assets from pricing down decent assets by flooding the market, it should therefore be targeted at those banks holding those assets, regardless of country of incorporation, otherwise it wont have the necessary effect.
How bout giving the money to the homeowners so they can pay off their loans and thus be able to continue being solvent. The banks get the money from these now "non-toxic" loans and they won't need to be bailed out thus no treasury fiasco....
the toxic loans were made to people who should have been homeowners. problem was they werent and declared bankruptcy, thats what made that loans toxic.
In that case, perhaps the UK can donate, say, a hundred billion or so to the JOINT problem.
Thats precisely what they are doing
Dude, you rock as always! (Streaming the Young Turks right now)
Indeed! The government should not bail ANYONE out of mistakes, misfortunes, or challenges of any kind.
Wall Street. Main Street. Illegals. Legals. Underprivileged. Overprivileged. Farmers. Automakers. Candlestick makers. Third World. Iraq. Adversaries. Allies. Yadda Yadda Yadda . . . This is what equality before the law means!
Charity should be voluntarily provided by those who can and do provide it from their own resources. Government charity is NOT charity.
True, government, contrary to bushco's belief, is not a charity. However, many churches are. Maybe Paulson should seek help from faith-based charities. Let the churches help them out of their tough spot.
Well, you ARE consistent.
And I'm sure you bring your own parachute when you take planes.
Get what you pay for and pay for what you get. What could be more reasonable?
I just cannot resist the temptation
Do you take your own shopping cart to the grocery store?
excellent points. get them to the congress..
I have been on the phone all day - calling congress - i have notified the dnc of my concerns - everyone needs to take this seriously - but let them prove we have a crisis..th
A proud independent white woman for obama
Good question, Cenk. And...
Why the HELL is OBAMA in favor of looting our pockets to send 700 billion dollars to Wall Street?
Even Newt Gingrich is calling for a rejection of Paulson's 'stupid' plan, as he called it.
But Obama is out there giving compliments to Bernanke and Paulson, saying they are doing the right thing. He says he supports the handout, with only a few minor conditions he wants to see. Grrrrr.
I've been a big Obama supporter, but now I'm starting to feel that there are just no good choices in this election. Very disappointing.
Bingo.
Newt is right on this issue. Obama and Bush are wrong. Sure, NOT bailing out these companies will be painful in the short term. But bailing them out would be worse; it would cause a lot of financial pain for years and years to come.
The culprit in all of this is not 'Wall Street fat cats', it's lobbyits and the government itself. The government created the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act - look it up), which pressured banks to make high-risk loans to people who couldn't repay. Then, in 2003 when Fannie and Freddie were in trouble, the Bush Administration tried to create an oversight agency to provide more regulation. Fannie and Freddie themselves were for it. Guess who blocked that legislation? Yep, the Democrats in Congress. Don't believe me? Here's an article (not an opinion piece) from the NY Times. Pay special attention to the end of the article:
http://que
Highly recommended. Great twist at the end!
Re Obama: my yellow BS card for soccer (and politicians) came out twice already; once over FISA and once over offshore drilling.
Obama was one of the first who talked about taking care of Main Street - the taxpayer. It was right on the headline of this blog. It wasn't til he talked about it that others started chiming in.
Cenk your analysis on TYT is the best. Obama People listen to this guy. Save US from McSame and Evangelical Emperorist Palin of Alaska
Wait just a minute, we all have credit reports and every bank will say that their interest rates are determined based on the risk indicated in your credit report...
So based on that risk, they have been charging higher interest on the bad debts, right... and now they want us taxpayers to take the risk that generated their rewards...
Oh that is right, Paulson came from that industry and wantsto go back to it...Kind of like the steward in the bible or the revolving door...
Good thought.Do
nope, it just goes to reflect the overall inflation rate....Sa
So if the inflation rate was 0, then the banks would still get the 1.5%...
2 points:
1. Foreign banks invested in the US because they were led to believe it was safe - the US had a financial regulatory system and many of the investments they took on were rated AAA by reputable agencies. Behind the scenes we now know the regulators were not doing the job they were supposed to and we still need to know how those rating agencies were fooled - or complicit in it - but essentially for the US to turn around now and tell foreign banks, and governments, that they were simply the victims of a US Administra
2. The US banks can pay hardball. The COEs and executives already have their fortunes tucked away in safe havens, probably in Euros or sterling, and will be the ones to suffer least if the whole system implodes and the dollar achieves parity with the peso. On fact when the dust settles they'll be the only ones with any capital to invest in the rock-bottom market, with not much competition. They'll make a killing, from their foreign bases.
We're better off without the traitors. Maybe we should have a going-away necktie party for them.
If a CEO gets fired for doing a bad job, why should he or she be excluded from the sting of showing up at the unemployment office? Typically, they are wealthy enough to choose whether or not they WANT to work again. How many of us have that luxury? Instead, they are rewarded for poor performance, and now, we are all expected to pay for their disasters.
Cenk.....I have been listening to you for years. I heard your show this morning, discussing this situation. How dare these thieves ask us to pay for their high rolling, incompetent moves? No way, no how.....an
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