LONDON -- Over dinner last night, i was trying to explain to a British friend why the majority of House Republicans fled the bailout bill compromise. Reading the polls, it's easy to understand why those with the most hotly contested elections this November were the least eager to sign up for the bill. But, in surveying the wreckage, one fact became clear: the credit crisis was exacerbated by a credibility crisis.
It's easy for Americans to look at President Bush -- he of the 935 lies in the Iraq war runup--and Henry Paulson, the Goldman Sachs-bred Treasury Secretary -- and say, "prove it" regarding the dire predictions of doom if a bailout doesn't occur. As an American typically ignorant of the arcane ways of the financial wizards, what was missing for me in the scare talk last week was somebody who could put the danger in concrete terms: a businessman, say (as opposed to a financier), who could tell me how lack of credit would prevent him from stocking up on new inventory or meeting payrolls. An administration marked by profound arrogance (hello, Mr. Cheney) sent a financier to Congress to demand unprecedented power for a financier, and the scare talk sounded familiar and empty. It's the boy who cried Wolfowitz.
Somehow, if the danger is that real and that near, somebody with a shred of credibility and some real skin in the game has to stand up and tell us exactly what's in the alleged abyss. The administration's failure to understand that fact is telling and profound.
Loading comments… 
They threw $300.00 at us when the protests got louder and said "Now go away". (most of them pay $300.00 for their ties!)
Now, they are threatenin
Wonder why we don't feel sorry for them?? Many American's won't get any of that credit because they have sat by and allowed so many to watch their credit ruined. No matter how much you give them, they are not going to give loans to the millions who now have bad credit.
They are all a joke!!
I mean, we can complain about the greedy bankers, but at the end of the day, isn't the crux of this issue that there are bad mortgages on the books? Aren't bad mortgages nothing more than credit that has been extended to someone who didn't deserve it?
That's why there USED to be standards about who could qualify for credit, and why most people weren't able to. It's only been since the de-regulat
The Bail Out failed..
The world is still turning..
The USA did not go down in flames..
The Internet is still standing..
Stocks even rose a little..
So, I have to ask...
What's the problem???
Michale...
Why accept this bankster bandaid scheme when we all know that major surgery is needed?
IOW unless we bail out foreign banks and investor he will not approve anything.
Why must the American tax payer pick up the tab for mistakes made by China, France and England?
R- Rep Sherman from CA who is a CPA and on the foreign relation and finance committee
said the money will go, according to the bill and what Paulson demands, to bail out these foreign investors or Bush won't sign it.
Am I the only one who thinks this is pretty big news?
For the same reason that bush has said that he will veto any bill authorizin
Which would scare most of us if only someone took the time to draw the line from . . .
Bad mortgage-b
But, even having heard all that, I NEED A PRIMER, for most of it means nothing to me in concrete terms.
One thing, though. It's beginning to dawn on me that WE NEED MORE BOTTOM-UP IN THIS EQUATION.
If bad mortgages are killing us, why not guarantee OUR mortgages, NOT the banks loans. Empower some quasi-publ
Then, via a transactio
Just a few thoughts.
By way of a primer...
America is all about Capitalism
A mortgage used to be something of an exception, very low risk.
When other investment
became more rewarding & more risky. Those of you who
have such high-risk mortgages have now become
high-risk capitalist
Sheesh. Pay your mortgage or lose your house. If you're not capable of keeping that deal, then rent.
Second, because the only sure way to get us out of a depression is for massive govt spending AT THE BOTTOM. This ensures that people will have jobs, money, and food. They will use the jobs and money to buy food and other goods and services, which will help out the ENTIRE economy.
Now, I'm not saying that we need that kind of bailout, I'm not saying that we need ANY bailout. But if we are going to have a bailout, let's get one that costs the least AND gives us the biggest bang for the buck!!
In GOD we trust is becoming more profoundly a standard as we hear the pitches o the dream and mythmakers crying, possibly for real. "WOLF!"
Let's say Frat Boy George and his Corporatoc
Easy! Bankrupt the financial and taxation system, scare the beejesus out of the citizens and further impoverish the disenfranc
Brilliant if you're an evil mad scientist. Sounds like W and Dick, no?
We may have a credit cruch, but nothing like Bush & Paulson are crying. And Bush caused this with Pelosi, Dodd, Frank, & Bush are the ring leaders. We knew this was going to happen when Pelosi took Impeachmen
Too bad the Clinton's are'nt coming in, they fixed this with the othyer Bush. Whatever, just remember: Republican
Trust me, the change we want is not the change we gonna get.
If true, it raises a question as to whether McCain's gambling might ever have put him in a situation where he was pressed to repay his debt through Senatorial favors.
An enterprisi
We get Bush and his cronies telling us that things are dire. Who knows what Bush is selling this time?It isn't as if we can believe a thing they say. When did Bush stop protecting the fat cats. This week?
Then we hear from the Republican Congress. Now here is an entity with zero credibilit
Next we hear from the main stream media. No education, no informatio
There isn't a clean well to go to. Absolutely no one knows what is going on.
Hence we often buy wooden nickels. Knowledge of geography is going the way of Latin. The difference is that we desperatel
Instead, it seems most young people want to be rock stars and fashionist
I know there are lots of smart kids out there that are strong in science, math and economics but they are too few and far between. Instead we have parents pushing their kids into hollywood.
Apparently they went out and sold mortgages to anyone with enough pulse to sign their name. They took these mortgages and bundled them into unregulate
Apparently every bank in the world bought these. Some of the mortgages were still good, many were not. But they don't know which.
Somehow these "financial instrument
But the problem is that the financial wizards at the investment banks were buying on margin (is that right?) Up to $30 -$1.
Which meant that when the value of homes dropped they couldn't pay their margins?
Who was loaning the investment banks this money? And why would anyone with a lick of sense loan money on those kinds of margins? isn't that exactly what caused the stock market crash in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression
And is the problem that all the American dollars in the world are locked up in these margin loans?
And there are no other dollars anywhere? (I would look in Columbia myself)
This is what i have been able to gather as to what the problem is. But I don't really know.
I rely on the American corporate media for my informatio
"Here is a very quick explanatio
The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government
Confused?
This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the "$700 billion" transactio
The banks needed Congress' approval. Of course in this topsy turvy world, it is the banks which set the terms of the money they are borrowing from the taxpayers. And what do we get for this transactio
The best President you'll never have.