The Failure of "Because I Say So"

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.

Comments

[pomawg]

Give until it hurts, if he loses we'll feel real pain. Donate: http://www.barackobama.com

[super]

Why? To watch him turn around and give it away to Wall street brokers/bankers? Get lost, all of you!

[frank1569]

If this were a real emergency, our "representatives" would be demanding a budget re-prioritizing with cuts and shifts instead of simply arguing over who can spend freshly printed taxpayer money better.

Snip $200 bil from the Pentagon; close 500 mil bases and golf courses, then sell/lease them - $200 bil; end the war on drugs - $50 bil; cancel "star wars" altogether - $150 bil; collect all oil lease royalties - $100 bil; collect all hidden taxes and close all loopholes and off-shore shelters - $100 bil.

There's $800 bil to cover any "emergency" without any new pain for the taxpayer while sending a message to the rest of the world that America is being run by Responsible Adults.

[norgotoad]

Let's see:
In lieu of single payer universal health care, these turkeys said,"raise yourselves by your bootstraps", and they gave us "Medical Savings Acoounts" (quickly depleted after one medical procedure).
In lieu of salary raises, these turkeys said,"raise yourselves by your bootstraps", use credit cards and just work harder for the same money.
In lieu of maintaining competitive advantage with jobs in science and engineering, these turkeys said,"raise yourselves by your bootstraps", and outsourced all those jobs.
In lieu of a high quality affordable education system common to every other industrialized country,these turkeys said,"raise yourselves by your bootstraps", and gutted education and training funds.
In lieu of pay as you go (tax THEN spend), these turkeys said,"raise yourselves by your bootstraps", get rich like us and get loopholes while we BORROW AND SPEND against you and your children for generations.

So now they want some big help from us eh? Give Paulson ONLY a copy of a Horatio Alger tale at taxpayer expense. Maybe he and his rich buddies can pick up in idea or two.

[RepugsOut08]

Well said. I feel like the beggar at my door is the same guy who sneered, "Get a job!" when I was down on MY luck. If we lose everything during this greed induced fiasco, will that beggar give a crap about us after he's back on his high horse? I think we all know the answer to that.
I know the right thing is not to give in to this glorified stickup, just like you don't give in to terrorist's demands, but they're holding the economy hostage. Threatening to take us down with them. Is the threat real? I just don't know. I'm sure it is short term, but long term? Ugh!
One thing's for sure though. After the tax payers clean this mess up, don't bother asking for the "socialist" benefits for average Americans you mentioned above. We only have money for wars and Wall Street.

[pcdragon]

The dollar is not getting stronger, they are revaluing the Euro. To wit, the dollar keeps sliding against the yen. Don't let flag waving obscure your vision.

[YankeeYahoo]

And .... now, this is when OUR government will introduce our nation to the NORTH AMERICAN UNION (Canada, USA, Mexico) and our currency will now be the AMERO.

[Soothsayer08]

I think all of the gloom and doom from the Neo Cons was just most of their FEAR tactics. The dow was down yesterday but now it's back up, even though these same people warned that we would could be in a Depression this week., if the bailout wasn't passed. It seems that they lied again. I think it was another gimmick to steal even more money and let the American taxpayer foot the bill.

[Rubyfoo]

You may be right about this, Harry. There are lots of reasons to be suspicious and dubious. On the other hand, nobody knows what will happen with or without some sort of bailout. We're in uncharted waters, and no one wants to take a chance on a meltdown. Anyone who grew up under the influence of the Great Depression wants to be rather sure that doesn't happen again. And we plain just don't know.

[Donald Wolberg]

Mr. Shearer should be a bit more accurate. The Democrats had enough votes to pass the measure without any rRepublicans. In point of fact, no fewer than 98 Democrats as I recall, just as much rejected the package as did the Republicans who said no. I suspect that the failure is also a lack of leadership by the democrats. Ms Pelosi looks more and more like one of those wind up toys, more mechanical than real, and not very capable. It would have been, and may still be, correct to ask for her to step down as leader. It seems likely that this will happen after the elections.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

The Democrats smelled a trap: Bush crying "disaster", the Dems conned (as they were in 2002) into voting for the package, while the conservatives would slam them in the election campaign for giving the store away. So, and here's an unlikely scenario, the Dems were actually better organized than the Reps for once, and Pelosi's strategy was to say to the Reps, we'll both hold hands and jump, or it ain't passing.

[Durango]

Right.

And McCain had better be on board or it goes nowhere.

[Donald Wolberg]

I cannot agree. After watching the endeless debate, it was apparent that there were too many Democrats in the house who feared the wrath of their voters more than they feared the ire of Ms Pelosi (98 or something of them). These Democrats were quite comfortable standing with the rebellious Republicans, also in fear of their voters. This is much like the scenario over the illegal bill that caused an uproar and massive reaction of voters; it was/is a genuine grassroots rebellion. In that sense, I suspect it is healthy. Here in New Mexico, a solid Democratic state, the reaction is even more extreme: to hell with Wall Street and the fat cats! We will get by as we always have." It is hard to reason with such a current of disdain and woe be the politician who tries. Is this not populism at its finest?

[alfalfa55]

It's almost like protection money, like a government version of a mobster saying, "Give me some cash or something really bad is going to happen to you and your family." And it usually works.

[reader110]

I just got a full-time job for the first time since I was laid off in 2001. No one bailed me out - I still had to buy food, pay my bills and my mortgage. When I had to refinance my house to keep my head above water, the mortgage guys screwed me with an 8.5% interest rate. My savings have been depleted and my stocks are in the toilet. Can someone explain to me - like I'm a six year old - why the hell I should be footing the bill to bail out these yahoos?

I agree with others on this blog in that I'm not sure there is anyone in Washington that I'd trust on this, so I vote no - let the chips fall where they may. Let all those rich Wall Street types bail themselves out for a change.

[javagirl]

I totally agree esquire07, failure IS an option when lessons can be learned from it. We are a society that is living on credit, from the government to the everyday citizen. We need to stop that practice now and go back to living as a cash society. Housing prices were so high, the only way a person could get into a house was through some of these bad loans. Who's got any substantial amount leftover at the end of the month to sock away $50/$100K as a down payment. The price of goods is so high, the only way we can afford them is to charge them. We absolutely need to let the system crash and start with a clean slate. Is not having the ability to take out credit cards and loans for things we can't afford in the first place such a bad thing? No. We all (myself included) need to stop the madness...­that means taking a cold, hard look at the way out government­...and we...are living beyond our means.

[LouisvilleLiberal]

Absolutely true. It seems the people screaming the loudest that something must be done are the people with the most to lose if the market tanks.

On Main Street, people seem mystified. Credit cards still work and offers keep coming in the mail....wh­at credit freeze? Are they confuseing a credit freeze with a spending slowdown?

The media gets hysterical people on who shriek about ATMs not working as if there is a shortage of paper money.

None of it makes sense.....­.we are going to throw billions of dollars at a problem we can't really explain?

It's nice to see Democracy in action. I had come to believe it was dead.

Keep emailing your Congressmen!!

[HalleBurton]

"...a credibility crisis."

A Credibility Gap, daresay?
Yes, we need a Credibility Gap now more than ever!

[esquire07]

There are no credible person in DC.

Bush and Cheney have lied about next everything and 4300 American troops are dead - meanwhile Cheney's Halliburton is thriving ( as are Cheney's bank accounts)

Pelosi took "Impeachment off the Tabl;e" = ZERO credibility.

Obama signed FISA = Do not trust him

The Bailiout is Bullsh#t. No one is surprised how quickly Democrats caved in and got on their knees to service George Bush and his lying cabal.

Let the system crash and the pieces fall where they will. Maybe if America has to spend the next decade cleaning up the mess, less innocent people in the Middle East will be killed by American bombs becuase they live atop Oil fields.

[kizzie]

Good for you and common sense!

[werbenjagermanjensen]

They can't offer a credible reason for the bailout because there is no credible reason for it. However, there is every reason to believe that adding $700 billion to the national debt will do real and lasting harm to the U.S. economy, and you don't need to be a Nobel Prize-winning economist to understand that.

[twofish]

I'm not sure who I would trust to both tell me the truth (as they see it) and be right about this one. But here's what I need to know before I'll stop hammering my congresscritter with negative emails:

1) Where did the $700 billion figure come from?
2) Who exactly do they propose to give it to?
3) What exactly do those people/institutions propose to spend it on?
4) How will #2 doing #3 fix this crisis?
5) What exactly is the crisis, anyway?

I say, wait until the new administration and new congress to deal with this. There isn't enough money in the galaxy to buy back my confidence in the current gang of turkeys, not even in Triganic Pu's or Flanian Pobble Beads.*

* Here's the entry from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
http://cantbeatfun.com/Mars/hgttg2.htm

[LouisvilleLiberal]

I emailed Barney Frank to ask him to ask Paulson just one question for me. That was:

When we give you this blank check for $700Billion, what is the first thing you are going to do once it's cashed?

I am sure Paulson knows exactly what he will do first, but they never asked specifically where the money was going, in what amounts and when.

My suspicion was that they were told something in private that cowed them into submission so they went through the motions of asking questions when they already knew they were giving the money away. I think voter input was the only reason the token verbage about golden parachutes and equity were added....a­nd they were so weak, they may as well not have bothered.

[Durango]

Under the original terms that Paulson wanted he could have given each of his children and grandchilden a billion dollars and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Not reviewable by administrative procedure or by the courts.

And they wonder why we don't trust them?

[kizzie]

EXACTLY!! Show us the proof the sky is falling--show us where the money is going and the facts and figures as to why this is happeneing. Take back all bonuses given to the people who caused this mess to put back in the banks to help make them solvent.
So far we have been shown nothing and heard nothing more than Bush$hit who has creid wolf too many times and lied too many times to be believable. I guess it was the last hurrah before leaving office to pay back those who bought him in to office to begin with. Probably got too many threats about books to be written if he didn't meet their demands. Can't wait to read some of the stories that will come out in the future about how he destroyed this country. I'll guarantee someone will come forth and do just that.