Arkansas Blog

Any news on how the Arkansas Representatives voted?

Looks like all that lobbyist money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn't do the trick.

I'm glad everything I have is in land.

I really have little sympathy for those stupid enough to keep their money in the stock market. With the national debt doubling in 6 years with no end in site, why would anyone be surprised that this is happening?

The $700 billion would only be a temporary fix and make the problem (debt) worse in the long run.

Admittedly, my knowledge of the underpinnings of the breakdown is limited to that which I've read in the newspapers and seen on tv. However, when people who know much more than me about it, Warren Buffett for one, say that if we don't pass this bill then the repercussions will be monumental, then I cannot understand how we second guess these experts. Maybe I'm wrong and there are other financial experts who say that the bailout won't work, but I haven't heard any reputable opinions saying we don't need to do this. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I'd love for somebody to explain to me why my impression on this situation is wrong.

DMitch, Buffet knows it would help the stock market in the short run. And he has billions in the stock market so of course he's going to support it. He would be doing a great disservice to his stockholders if he didn't.

The problem is the ever increasing debt and ever weakening dollar. The bailout only makes that problem worse in the long run, but it would help in the short run sure.

Perhaps we need a bailout of wall street to save our economy, perhaps we don't. I don't know. I do know we need more than one week of information and debate before committing 700,000,000,000 dollars (did I get enough zeroes in there? I lose count sometimes.) of taxpayer money and turning the USA into the USSA.

In short, I agree with the following comments by Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

"None of this has been subject to a critical analysis," charged Rep. Kucinich. "We haven't had access to the books to the people who are claiming they are going broke."

"The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street is driven by fear, not fact," Kucinich said on the House floor Sunday. "This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren't we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers' money? Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren't we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess? Why aren't we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren't we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?"

read this... http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/09/final-push-to-kill-bailout-monstrosity.html

and this... http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/29/bailout/index.html

and contact your congressman and senators and tell them to vote against this current bailout bill.

Paulson aka Mr Risk said himself last week on CSPAN before a committee... he really only needed 50 billion per month.. Outrageous enough... Why on earth should we/congress give him more than that?

Oh, I don't know. All my money is in Switzerland, with some petty cash in the Caymans.

So my question.

You mean Wall Street is finally going to be treated exactly like the rest of overreaching Americans whose beyond-their-means property's been foreclosed and is now owned by financial institutions (The Government)?

Don't be silly. Injustice will prevail, Hog fans.

The goal here is twofold: 1) Republicans own the government, and 2) Republicans own all property.

Systematically disenfranchising Democratic voters around the country and otherwise stealing elections with impunity, they want to do it again.

They HAVE to because they've been caught and exposed. They must act quickly.

Here are their two choices.

They can apologize, turn tail and run and hope they're not indicted and imprisoned for their crimes.

Flee justice, in other words.

NOT gonna happen.

OR, they can press forward and go all-in with their determination to shred the Constitution and Bill of Rights and privatize their ownership of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING (you know, like Halliburton and our Armed Forces), so the rest of us never own anything and just lease or pay rent (plus interest on defaults) on our "military," "homes," "property," "transportation," "food," "fuel," -- in effect shaking down America.

Like the Mafia.

"I'm glad everything I have is in land."
It's none of my bidness, eark, but I wish you were more broadly diversified.

People need to realize that this is all because of debt. Our government and its people have been living off debt. Consumers are having a hard time making debt payments because of the high price of oil and inflation. We are a consumer driven economy so why is this surprsing to anyone?

Why durango? So I could be losing money with the rest of you?

Everyone knew this was coming. We passed the point of soft landing several years ago, didn't even aim for a hard landing, and this plan was just a controlled crash. Doesn't look like we get that either. Just let the mother-effer burn.

Norma,

Your argument doesn't make sense to me because Republicans voted against the bill: 133 against and 65 in favor.

Democrats voted for the bill: 141 in favor and 94 against.

So if this bill was some Republican contrived trick to get us to bail them out, then why did they overwelmingly vote against it. And why did Dems vote for it?

I'm a Democrat. But I am unbiased enough to see that your argument doesn't stack up.

I thought I was lucky owning my home outright. But I'm a couple of years from retirement. My retirement fund that I prudently put into "safe" areas is gone. Property taxes and utilities bills are going to take my home away. There are not enough WalMart greeter jobs available for us geezers. Let's just repossess the homes of these speculators and move in. What's the addresses of all of the Stephens' homes, as a start?

Let's foreclose on their homes and those of their congressional lapdogs. I'm starting to hear the sounds of Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers"

"Look whats happening out in the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Hey I'm dancing down the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Ain't it amazing all the people I meet
Got a revolution got to revolution
One generation got old
One generation got sold
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry
Hey now its time for you and me
Got a revolution got to revolution
Come on now were marching to the sea
Got a revolution got to revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we
We are volunteers of America"

FBI, take notice, they, not we, are the enemy. But we will end up in Guantanamo.

At least we will have a roof and 3 meals ... for a while. For a short while.

You have to know when to play the game and when to walk away.
When Wal-mart was growing, it was time to play.
When Wal-mart stopped growing as fast, it was time to walk away.
When the dot com boom took off, again it was time to play.
When the dot com was too high, it was time to walk away.

Diversification is for people who don't have a clue in what to invest so they cover all bets.

If things go as I think they will, land won't be worth much for a long time either. BUT at least it won't vanish. Eventually it will be worth something again.

re: "the repercussions will be monumental"

They will be monumental but they have to be faced. I thought September 11th would wake this country from it's slumber but opportunists seized the moment for short-term political gain. How many new strip malls have you seen get built in the last 10 years that never have full or sometimes even 1/2 occupancy? They weren't occupied because they should have never been built. This financial crisis is going to force us to make hard decisions about what we really need. Brother-in-lawin' it ain't going to get it anymore.

I have mixed feelings about the bailout. I am generally against expanding government and spending great deals of taxpayer dollars, however I lean towards supporting it and here's why...

The biggest concern is the credit markets. While EARK and I disagree on the bailout, he/she nailed it when they said "our government and its people have been living off debt." The problem is we still do.

If the credit markets freeze up our economy is going to come to a screeching halt. Car dealers won't be able to sell cars - because who buys a car in cash anymore? Banks won't give loans or lines of credit for small businesses who need extra cash flow for expansion. Retailers like Best Buy aren't going to sell many big screen TVs - because people won't be able to get financing.

its the credit market freeze that really scares me. i think the bailout would have helped prevent that from happening - but no one really knows if it would have been a long term solution or not.

We've gotten to this point by living off of debt and by greed at ALL levels. Greed on Wall Street AND greed on Main Street. Helping low income Americans buy houses is admirable. But helping them buy at $150,000 house when a $90,000 house will do is part of the problem. Community banks are to blame for that - as are consumers who DID know better, but they wanted that "nicer" or "bigger" house.

Warren Buffett has shown some good sense in the past. Not the kind that is focused on his own pocketbook exclusively. He came out against abolishing the estate tax, for one. I am inclined to believe his intentions aren't merely selfish.

I haven't read anything extensive yet on Krugman's position on this current plan, but I've seen headlines indicating that he at least has tepid support for it.

I don't know what the ramifications would be, but I do know that I'm still getting credit card offers and the banks are still making loans.

Maybe waiting would be prudent. Wait and see if natural healing hurts that bad before we fill the expensive perscription.

I'm open to persuasion here, but chicken little protestations aren't persuasive. The Dow isn't either. If someone who thinks this bailout is a good idea could explain the cause and effects of this thing or point to a link with that kind of information, I'm interested.

BusDriver, where do you think the $700 billion will come from?

ANSWER: The credit market.

It will be new bonds sold.

It's not a matter of credit not existing.
It's a matter of credit not willing to invest.
Bonds are safe enough so they can be sold to prop up the stock market which is not safe.

Also BusDriver, there is no shortage of credit. The problem is that consumers have reached their debt limits. What good is credit if consumers don't have enough money to pay off debt?

There is nothing wrong with buying a house. The problem is when you can no longer afford the payments, or you have borrowed more against it than it's worth.

This problem was not caused by people buying homes and getting mortgages. The problem was caused by the doubling of oil prices, inflation, and lack of increase in incomes.

The "mortgage crisis" is a symptom. It's not the cause.

Just hit -711.
This is interesting.
I wonder what it's gonna do to po-folk like me who don't have any money in the market...
The whole situation is kinda exciting, in a perverse way.
May have to go back to relying on what the old timers told me when I was a kid. Invest what little I have into fish hooks and .22 shells.

"Car dealers won't be able to sell cars"

That one's got me crying.

Hahahahahaha.
Republicans blaming Pelosi for the fact they could not get their members in line to vote for a bill McCain supported and "suspended" his campagin for.
They got their feelings hurt....what a bunch of big babies....whaaaaa, Nancy hurt our widdle feelings....

You DO see how this takeover works, don't you?

A private citizen owns property. She or he decides to sell it. The "financial institutions" (which The Government plans to take over anyway) heavy-sell sub-prime lending.

You, private citizen, unload your property and make a profit.

The new owners are soon foreclosed on. Their "property" reverts to the financial institution, which then goes under because of all those bad loans and is taken over, bailed out, OWNED by The Government.

Which now owns all that formerly private property and utterly controls it.

THAT'S how they take over private property on a massive scale.

You DO understand, as renters rather than owners, that "management" has the contractual right to enter your domicle whenever they wish, for any reason, don't you?

MSM, as you know in America, is already effectively owned and controlled by five mega-conglomerates. ALL Republican.

Solution?

Oh, girlfriends, it's so ancient and so simple.

"Lysistrata."

We've got what "they" want.

More precious than oil in the Middle East.

The most valuable commodity on earth.

The secret to desire, Love, pleasure and the continuance of the human race.

We've got it, women.

Let's start brokering it in the Halls of Power.

Only put out if they show you their voting record paper trails.

Aristophanes got it right in 411 B.C.

Keep our legs crossed for a month and regain America, women.

I care less about consumers being able to use credit to BUY things. But if retailers and businesses can't sell products and expand their businesses, people are going to lose jobs, businesses are going to fail, and the market is going to tank even more than it already is.

The reason Rwingers and DINOs voted this down is because more neo-con provisions were not included. Like huge credits which allow the "free market" to work. The other reasons are that their mail is running 100:1 against it. It's been sold as a Wall St. bailout but it's not. It will bail out lots more than Wall St.

>>They can apologize, turn tail and run and hope they're not indicted and imprisoned for their crimes.<<
NormaBates

Sorry sweet thing, FBI has an ongoing massive investigation into Wall St. corruption. Unfortunately the arrests and expose` will not be available until after the election.
That is not inside info. Google it.

eark. Hang on to your land. Unlike securities they're not making anymore of it. Unfortunately if you need funds to live on from your land sale there may not be any "qualified" buyers.
But, you can always sell gold in scary times, small quantities at a time.
.

"Car dealers won't be able to sell cars"

That one's got me crying.

It's an example, Rod, of the fact that the public (right or wrong) uses credit for virtually everything in this day and age. Some, like myself, pay it back but many don't. Its also an example that there are two parties that depend on these transactions - the seller and the buyer, and its in the best interest of our economy for things to be bought and sold. Sorry the car dealer example wasn't good enough for you - the same could be said for grocery and department stores, or most businesses for that matter.

i'm glad you think that our country's economic situation is comical.

The car dealers that sell economic cars won't have any problem- you will see a fast-tracking of things that are not wasteful, it doesn't take capital as much as it takes cutting the fat. The ones that clear away forests on the edge of town LIKE STEVE LANDERS- might consider opening an electric car dealership in the MIDDLE OF TOWN.

You might not see so many 16 year-olds rolling down Kavanaugh in Range Rovers.

BTW, does anyone know how you can check to see if your bank has a chance of failing?

"Keep our legs crossed for a month and regain America, women."

OK, Norma Lysatrata Bates. Keep your mouth shut and nothing else! Understand?

"The car dealers that sell economic cars won't have any problem".

it doesn't matter what kind of car it is. Even a Toyota Prius costs $25,000. The point is that if your credit isn't perfect you're not going to get the LOAN to BUY the car. most people don't have 25 grand laying around to buy a car. and even if you do get the loan, who knows how high the interest rate will be?

wake up rod.

Absolutely right, eLwood.

As I said:

"They can apologize, turn tail and run and hope they're not indicted and imprisoned for their crimes.

"Flee justice, in other words.

"NOT gonna happen."

It doesn't take an astrologer to predict these criminals, including the War Criminals at the top, will never be convicted of anything.

That leaves them with their only other choice.

And thank you for this:

"The reason Rwingers and DINOs voted this down is because more neo-con provisions were not included."

Bingo!

eark,
Where the hell do you think the credit comes from? It comes from bleeding the people dry. It comes from being a vampire until there is no more and then retiring to a non-extraditable country with a numbered account.

We are on the verge of class warfare in the real, not metaphorical, sense. People outside of Washington are scared, angry, and frustrated. George McCain (name on purpose) tells us to believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong. How many of his homes are being foreclosed?

McCain had the same platitudes when his buddies in the savings and loans disaster went belly-up and he helped to bail them out. We got to revolution.

If the real issue is the credit markets, why can't the $700 Bil be used for new loans only? infused to banks all over the country to get to the main streets borrowers.

re: "wake up rod."

Dude, move closer to work. Ride a bike. Buy a used car. I wouldn't pay $5,000 for a car, much less $25,000. The car I have now cost $2,700 and it's the most expensive I've ever owned. Adjust already.

"OK, Norma Lysatrata Bates. Keep your mouth shut and nothing else!"
I dunno, Cato. Maybe you oughta reconsider that one, if you get my drift.

>>We are on the verge of class warfare in the real, not metaphorical, sense.

Oh how I wish you were right Bro Jim. But you and I know what's gonna happen. Preachers
are gonna soothe people's souls, saying this time of over extended frenzy is the work of
the devil. Prayer meetings will go from one night per week to 5 as they attempt to soothe
the soul of those on the verge. Just as prayer and preaching settled the masses into
voting against their own interests prayer and preaching will be used to soothe them into
accepting the enema of corporate finance failure. More With Less. It's Jesus' Way.

I'm thinking we should begin a prayer meetin right here on these pages. Of course I offer
up prayers to my god, money, which may run contrary to the majority view of Methodists,
Presbyterians, Episcopalians on here. I doubt we have many fundies since chasv is booted and
LargeAssHole can barely read and write.

But let's have a member of the faithful to lead us in conjuring and conjure up some prosperity,
forgiveness for the greedy, sinner who got us into this mess and above all lets pray for our President in this time of need to guide him into Grace.
.

"Dude, move closer to work. Ride a bike. Buy a used car. I wouldn't pay $5,000 for a car, much less $25,000. The car I have now cost $2,700 and it's the most expensive I've ever owned. Adjust already."

you're missing the point. not worth the time in trying to educate you.

Eark, you are *dangerously* wrong about this. Believe what you want about this government intervention, but please don't spread inaccurate information. If you want more background on the problems going on right now, google commercial paper. Read about how it makes our corporate system function, and then you'l understand why a bailout (of some kind) needs to happen.

This is not about *people* buying cars or flat screen TVs -- this is about comapnies not being able to buy inventory or pay receivables. Imagine: all of a sudden, your company doesn't have the short-term funds it used to borrow monthly to buy corn and steel and silicon. This means cars and cereal and semiconductors don't get made. So corporate earnings plummet...a bunch of people get fired... maybe your company goes bankrupt...government tax receipts go down. Then GDP drops. Our deficit goes up even more. The dollar falls to new lows, and oil goes to new highs, we have more people unemployed and with no healthcare, and even less money for social programs, etc.

This is a worst case scenario but it's an attempt to explain why the seemingly esoteric world of overnight lending, if it does not unfreeze, will affect 'normal folks' in a lot of bad ways.

Other things I just want to correct :
"there is no shortage of credit"

Yes, there is. The high yield market is closed. The investment grade market is closed. The convertible debt market is closed. The asset-backed market is closed. PS, eark -- credit is not just what you and I charge on our cards.

"Where will the $700b come from? the credit market."
No. It will come from the Treasury. The US Treasury, though it does issue fixed-income securities, is not part of the bond market. The US Treasury can always find buyers of its paper (theoretically at least although at some point I assume China and the Middle East may stop humoring us), but right now, banks and companies can't.

I this is the first time in the history of the blog that I've agreed with one of TheBusDriver's comments, but he/she actually seems to understand what is going on and why it matters WAY beyond Wall St. I would rather "the bailout" had provisions for homeowners that allowed bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages or a moratorium on foreclosures. I would rather Paulson had less control over the disbursement of assets (because I do, frankly, believe that he rewards indviduals he favors and punishes those he does not). I would rather we had to more time to think this through (although please take a look at the scope of intervention in Europe that occurred last night and tell me this isn't urgent). Finally, I want far tighter leverage and asset disclosure oversight put in place by the OCC (office of hte comptroller of the currency), FDIC, SEC, etc.

But for now? I just want no more banks to go under.

From my seat on the trading floor it looks like big trouble for moose and squirrel.

Clicky for cartoon

"you're missing the point. not worth the time in trying to educate you."

I feel that you miss the point. The point being, you can't spend what you don't have. Quite simple really.
THIS IS CALLED CHANGE. It's not 94.1 the Point. It's not baseball , hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. It's real. Get used to it.

Ok, packers, the markets are closed and the God of Money, gold, WON the Day !

915. 50 !! Up from Friday's close at 888.50

T-Bills are the only other winner.

Pork bellies down
Oil down (-$10 barrel)
Home heating oil down.
Live cattle Down.
Silver Down
Soy beans Down.
Platinum Down...and that's a rich man's commodity.
It's all down
Save for Gold
T-Bills. So the government's promise to pay is still good.
Faith fellow travelers.
.

One of my favorite bailout cartoons. Clicky

From my seat on the trading floor it looks like big trouble for moose and squirrel. <<

MarthaB I tried simple explains on a previous thread, to no avail.
If folks will support this Emergency Measure the gov will end up profiting
from it. Just like the Chrysler and Mexico bailouts. Both profitable. Safeguards are in the
final draft.

Ok, Razor Trekkies, one more time. America operates, runs, must have, etc CREDIT.
Without it stuff don't get made, traded, bought, exchanged, exported. How many on
here paid cash for their homes? Inheriting a home doesn't count but if you did inherit
your home did your family finance it or pay cash?
See what I mean.

How many on here have ever put a a vacation on a credit card?
See what I mean.

How many on here, under 50, have financed or leased a car?

.

S&P @1110.00. If memory serves that was what it was on the last presidential election day. Looks like for the Bush' legacy it still has a long way to go down.

Another fact for the bus driver is that I heard last week that over half of the homes in Arkansas do not even have mortgages on them. If true so much for common perception vs. reality.

I am right there with you eLwood...

I am also thinking we might want to use the tried-and-true xenophobia method to get people to support the bailout... here is my final attempt:

So all these US banks own billions and billions of dollars of mortgages that aren't worth crap anymore. If the banks want to get back to their normal business, they gotta get rid of them. If the government doesn't give them some temporary help, they'll have to go bankrupt or look elsewhere.

Who has money these days? Um, let's see. Russia. The Middle East. China.

So for these banks, either they liquidate like Lehman or they sell all those toxic mortgages for pennies on the dollar...to the Saudis. Or Chinese. Whatever, take your pick of evildoers.

Yes, that's right, Americans. Default on your mortgage and a gen-u-wine Arab will own your home.

Unless, of course, what actually ends up happening is most people don't actually default, and so the foreign buyer who paid 20 cents on the dollar makes a 400% return on his investment.

That would be just great for America.

I was prepared to learn some stuff, but some of Y'all got me rolling. First, I'm with Rod on this one:

"Car dealers won't be able to sell cars"

That one's got me crying."

I understand credit is needed, but I also understand people are driving/living waay beyond their means...with our government leading the spree. I will not finance a car that costs more today than my first house, AND IS A PIECE OF PLASTIC SHIT THAT WILL BE LUCKY TO RUN AS LONG AS THE DEBT. How come we've advanced so far that we now can't make cars/appliances as good as they were fifty years ago...because making quality doesn't benefit the 'right people.' Anyway, I just had to chime in with my 2-cents about roads filled with overly priced cheap cars...and agree with Rod.

Given that my hubby's had me convince for about seven years that 'hard times are a coming,' and that Monkeyboy has been at the helm for about the same...I fully expect the worst to happen. (How long can any country continue to fight a based-on-lies war that's economic cost is charged to the future...or continue to sell its middle class to China without a day of reckoning occurring?) I hope not...'cause shit runs downhill. And, before those Wall Street millionaires (aka our elected officials and their families) suffer the consequences of their greed, they will make sure we suffer more.

I don't want to stand in soup lines...or watch any other human do the same.

But maybe some drastic changes are needed so our children/grand children aren't paying for ALL our crap.

I don't know, norma, about all that legs-shut stuff...I'd like to think I have more to negotiate with than JUST that; but I'd really like to think that I don't have to negotiate a damn thing 'cause I have what it takes to enjoy my legs wide open and get what I want because what I want is fair.

elwood I thought you were telling people for days on here to call the reps and tell them to vote against it or was that someone else?

Martha B, since you are so smart, why don't you tell us what the root of this problem is. If it's not a lack of money in the hand of consumers (ie. consumer spending), what exactly caused this.

Ah, zelda, you slay me. Fair is fair, huh, with the gender whose brains are you know where? Just how do you explain females control about 90% of the wealth in America? Being fair? Hahahahahahahaha. I think it's from being smart........*grin* There's no telling the wealth that Norma has squirreled away.....

>>>So all these US banks own billions and billions of dollars of mortgages that aren't worth crap anymore. <<

Martha, Martha, Martha! Shame on you. You're in the bidness girl. Calm down. Surely in Econ 101 or Financial Management 201 you learned about inflation. It's inevitable in a fractional reserve banking society. It's also inevitable in a deficit spending society.

Sooner or later inflation will increase and the those mortgages, representing homes, will be worth more than they are presently. Then along with inflation will come population increases. It won't be the quick payback Bushco is selling but it will pay out.

But somewhere in the not-so-distant future companies are going to have to write down the value of those remaining mortgages. They're going to have to re-negotiate the terms since Congress would not mandate it. If none of that occurs they MarthaB is right on, Saudis will own millions of American homes and

Stranglove wins! Saudi Muslims will come here en masse and kill us,each and every one of us. So the bailout must proceed!

eLwood, all the gold I have I wear on my body but, I have been in the pantry counting how

many bags of dried beans/peas I have and salt pork to season them.

I've been a kept woman all my life so know little about money, except how to spend it and give

big chunks to those less fortunate.

Gramps already spinning todays vote like crazy.

I worry about the young and what the future holds for them.

PS. The Feds have been making money (credit) available and will continue to do so. This bailout was about buying bad investments from a few companies. It's not about credit.

The Saudis already own 1/6th of this country. And were do you think the $700 billion is going to come from anyway? The tooth fairy?

go to bauerfinancila.com to check your bank rating.

MarthaB - What are we making.. is the question? What is our economy based on... just as important as questions such as -what is the real bottom/real value of our real estate and what is the real value of the junk paper Paulson/we are going to buy or make loans?

I'm poor as a church mouse now... These cretins put my dollar value in the tank..and I work seven days a week while falling further and further behind ( I don't have hours in the day to add to my work load)... lower quality foods, lower amount of food, no health or dental care..and I do not abuse credit nor do I live in any extravagant manner at all. My vehicle is over 20 years old and I won't buy another until I can buy one powered by electricity or which gets 40 to 60 mpg on dirt roads. Most of the people on this blog have money..live way above the average workers living standard. Do not be fooled by your pleasant little fuzzy bubble. People are hurting, they are worried and angry... as soon as enough of them realize taking a day off with their pitchforks in hand will serve them far better than working at a loss... we will have our next revolution... it's simmering now. The top needs to feel pain which they have inflicted upon so many since America dumped Carter thought for Reagan divisive greed.

We need to get real on so many levels...and we absolutely do not need to spend 700b on the same direction with the same crooks for more of the same Friedman economic theories. It's time to base our economy on something besides needless war, oil and other commodity speculation, and trumped up paper pushing. I don't understand derivatives... but I know enough now to see we absolutely should not help these critters continue to hide them.

If business needs loans... then borrow directly from Government directly for a while... not bail out crooks and liars with their junk... who are still loaning away a shark rates. WHy pay Wall Street to do what we can do ourselves for with much more efficiency, a better rate for all and much more assurance of better returns for all?

We need strong new regulations, with strong guarantees of returns (taxes and fees on the rich and their stock transactions).. and an entirely new plan... a new economic model.

Stop trying to help the miserable greedy Wall Street cretins which who got us in this situation and have no intention of doing anything else until the law forces them to do so.

eLwood -- sarcasm. If I didn't think those mortgages would eventually appreciate in value, I wouldn't have suggested Saudis could make a 400% return. Saying they were worth crap was a dramatic flourish. But, as you should well know, from a market-based perspective, something's value is what someone else will pay for it. If there's no bid for those mortgages, then, pray tell, what is their worth?

Which, eark, leads me to your question of what got us in all this trouble. So basically, no, this crisis has very little (if anything) to do with consumer spending. What happened was, financial instutions used leverage to buy and sell a lot of new kinds of securities -- in particular, CDOs, which are made up of lots of itty bitty pieces of mortgages (and other assets that generate cash flows -- you can make a CDO out of anything that pays you money on a regular basis). These CDOs were rated AAA (top quality!) by the ratings agencies, so banks thought they were very safe assets and held a lot of them on their balance sheet as collateral for the money they borrowed. Then, as those mortgages began to reset, and property prices declined, banks started to realize those securities were not worth the $100 they had paid for them. No one knew what they were actually worth because there wasn't a market for them (they don't trade all the time like GE shares). So they had to mark them down -- which meant all of a sudden the banks were underwater....sort of like homeowners on their homes.

Then, everybody got really freaked out about lending to each other. See the whole post on commercial paper earlier. And then LIBOR (the intra-bank overnight rate) went CRAZY and then REALLY nobody would lend to each other.

In a nutshell, it's complicated. But no, it isn't about consumer spending. It would be better if people hadn't bought houses they couldn't afford...but that's only a tiny part of the problem.

If there's no credit out there, could someone explain how Bank of America and other companies are buying up the failing companies?

Bad companies fail, and are taken over by stronger companies.
Bad investments lose money and are bought cheap by smarter investors.

That's how the free market works. Of course it sucks when you are one of the losers, but that's not our fault.

Dude, Bank of America is buying Merrill with stock

NOT CREDIT!!!

Martha B you are the one telling me that oil prices were not high due to investment speculation. So explain how oil shot up $26 one day last week with no increase in demand and no decrease in supply? You are clueless and blindly believe the MSM and wall street.

And I'd bet my land that Martha B works for and investment firm on Wall Street.

That is CAPITAL Martha B and they have it. BOA is doing just fine. Most companies are making money. The bailout is for those financial firms that are not making money.

>>elwood I thought you were telling people for days on here to call the reps and tell them to vote against it or was that someone else?<<

You have it half right. I was opposed to the bail-out as written, those 2.5 pgs of total giveaways and without oversight by Congress. That's what I wrote my 2 Senators about. The provisions.

The Devil is ALWAYS in the details.

Now there is Congressional oversight, executive bailouts or golden handcuffs have been limited to $500K per year instead the tens of millions they were getting after running their companies into the ground, profiteering on preferred shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been curtailed.

I will tell you what frightened me eark. In Sunday's The Morning News was an article (entitled Capital Defense) about Ark community banks being so severely leveraged ... 92% of their deposits being loaned out. That will
be a big hit. The Bail-out will give them time to contract enough to be safe provided regulators act accordingly. Some greed has to go. Their receivables must be collected and margins increased. I don't want to see small banks failing. Do you? Last time I looked FDIC
was using a ONE Per Cent Fiduciary rate for insuring bank deposits. Recently saw an article about increasing the fiduciary reserves.

Another bothering thing is our Current Account Balance. Without credit-financing it will become dangerously larger even with the Import-Export Bank helping out. Jobs will quickly dry up.

But I think about all the jobs losses if credit dries up quickly.
My brother once had to operate his business from credit. It was
a very profitable business but he carried large account receivables
and found it necessary to finance his operations for months until the
receivables flowed in... they always did.

Is that enough for you?
.

Bear Sterns was bought with a loan backed by the feds Martha B.
AIG was loaned 85 billion by the Feds with its stock as collateral.
There's no need to give a handout to wall street.
We just need to loan money to the successful companies to take over the bad companies.

Yes, I work for an investment firm (not on Wall Street). I think that my multiple mentions of working on a trading floor made that clear. :)

eark, you don't have to agree with me, but I'm not clueless. I don't understand everything (terrible at options pricing) but I would venture to say I have a more sophisticated understanding of the financial system than the average American **because it's my job**.

I have been trying to explain some of the subtleties because I think the rescue package deserves support and because I think it is hard for people who don't deal with ABS and CDOs and CDS every day to understand.

Back to oil -- the long explanation I gave about speculation was to explain what "speculation" actually was -- why it wasn't market manipulation being done by lone actors but by the same fund that manages your pension. I see it didn't get through.

Oh well.

elwood, if a bank is run badly then it should fail. The same goes for a company.

When will people realize that never ending debt (credit) is not the answer? Debt must be paid back at some point. It's one thing to borrow money for business purposes which will make a profit. It's another thing to borrow money for consumption. That's what this country has been doing.

These people that hold bad debts should lose their money. Others will come in and buy those assets (not the government) when it becomes profitable to do so, and it will. That's how it works. We need government involvement on the front end and not the back end.

Mistakes were made and its time for those who made the mistakes to pay. Everyone will suffer but that's how a free society works. That's why government oversight and regulations are prudent.

"Martha B, since you are so smart, why don't you tell us what the root of this problem is. If it's not a lack of money in the hand of consumers (ie. consumer spending), what exactly caused this."

Posted by: eark

eark, here is our problem:

"They're called "Off-Site Weekends"-rituals of the high-finance world in which teams of bankers gather someplace sunny to blow off steam and celebrate their successes as Masters of the Universe. Think yacht parties, bikini models, $1,000 bottles of Cristal. One 1994 trip by a group of JPMorgan bankers to the tony Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida has become the stuff of Wall Street legend-though not for the raucous partying (although there was plenty of that, too). Holed up for most of the weekend in a conference room at the pink, Spanish-style resort, the JPMorgan bankers were trying to get their heads around a question as old as banking itself: how do you mitigate your risk when you loan money to someone? By the mid-'90s, JPMorgan's books were loaded with tens of billions of dollars in loans to corporations and foreign governments, and by federal law it had to keep huge amounts of capital in reserve in case any of them went bad. But what if JPMorgan could create a device that would protect it if those loans defaulted, and free up that capital?

What the bankers hit on was a sort of insurance policy: a third party would assume the risk of the debt going sour, and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank, similar to insurance premiums. JPMorgan would then get to remove the risk from its books and free up the reserves. The scheme was called a "credit default swap," and it was a twist on something bankers had been doing for a while to hedge against fluctuations in interest rates and commodity prices. While the concept had been floating around the markets for a couple of years, JPMorgan was the first bank to make a big bet on credit default swaps. It built up a "swaps" desk in the mid-'90s and hired young math and science grads from schools like MIT and Cambridge to create a market for the complex instruments. Within a few years, the credit default swap (CDS) became the hot financial instrument, the safest way to parse out risk while maintaining a steady return. "I've known people who worked on the Manhattan Project," says Mark Brickell, who at the time was a 40-year-old managing director at JPMorgan. "And for those of us on that trip, there was the same kind of feeling of being present at the creation of something incredibly important."

Like Robert Oppenheimer and his team of nuclear physicists in the 1940s, Brickell and his JPMorgan colleagues didn't realize they were creating a monster. Today, the economy is teetering and Wall Street is in ruins, thanks in no small part to the beast they unleashed 14 years ago. The country's biggest insurance company, AIG, had to be bailed out by American taxpayers after it defaulted on $14 billion worth of credit default swaps it had made to investment banks, insurance companies and scores of other entities. So much of what's gone wrong with the financial system in the past year can be traced back to credit default swaps, which ballooned into a $62 trillion market before ratcheting down to $55 trillion last week-nearly four times the value of all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. There's a reason Warren Buffett called these instruments "financial weapons of mass destruction." Since credit default swaps are privately negotiated contracts between two parties and aren't regulated by the government, there's no central reporting mechanism to determine their value. That has clouded up the markets with billions of dollars' worth of opaque "dark matter," as some economists like to say. Like rogue nukes, they've proliferated around the world and now lie hiding, waiting to blow up the balance sheets of countless other financial institutions."

Click on name for full article. Not all of the problem a HUGE part.

"Just how do you explain females control about 90% of the wealth in America? Being fair? Hahahahahahahaha. I think it's from being smart........*grin*"--cato

Absolutely! But I am amazed by that 90% thing of yours...true...or you just playing?

Women are the quintessential 'multi-taskers'; been doing it before they could vote or own property. So now that we vote and own property...look out. And it's quite the disadvantage to the one-track gender. Kinda unfair...perhaps y'all could get some kind of disability check for being perpetually one track (from all that government money). I definitely think it's one. Ha to hubby, son and the males on this blog.

Now, jazzy, you have been a partner who didn't get an OFFICIAL paycheck for your work. You are not a kept woman...but an underpaid woman who hasn't been appreciated by her culture. YOU HAVE EARNED AT LEAST HALF OF EVERY DAMN DIME YOUR 'KEEPERS' EARNED. When people ask me if I'm working I tell them 'Yes, I'm just not working for a paycheck.' There is no harder job on the planet than being a stay-at-home mom of young children...lordy it's hard.

I love our representatives revolting against the leadership/White House...just wish it had been over something like a based-on-lies war, torture, child abuse, Guantanamo, the Bankruptcy sellout, poison from China...

urgh, eark - a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

- re Bear: no, it was not bought with "loans". it was bought with $2B of JP Morgan's cash. The Fed simply backstopped up to $30B of liabilities because Bear's books were so messed up that JPM wouldn't take on their debts without some cap on losses.

- re Bank of America stock: yes, stock is equity capital. But it's not the same as debt. When BofA issues stock to Merrill shareholders, it is essentially taking money from its own shareholders by giving away part of their ownership. There is no cash involved. What is messed up right now are the credit markets, in which someone gives you cash and you promise to pay them back. And, by the way, there is a way to raise cash through equity -- it's called an initial public offering. Guess what? That market is closed too.

if I give you a 10,000 loan, you have 10,000 to spend. if I give you 1 share of Martha, Inc., you ain't got much of anything and I own less than before. That is a very simplified explanation of BofA using stock to buy Merrill. And why it doesn't make everything okay.

"I have a more sophisticated understanding of the financial system than the average American **because it's my job**. "

Yeah, Martha B. People with a "sophisticated understanding of the financial system" have created this mess. Some of us average people out here in the boonies are smarter than they are and you. It might do you some good, and WS, to listen to others for a change.

Hey Martha B - its nice that we can come together on economic policy (even if our politics don't jive). Too bad the House couldn't follow our lead. Glad to see somebody on this blog "gets it".

Martha, and what that boils down to is that they paid $2 billion dollars down with the feds covering the rest. It's the same thing.

Still waiting for you with your "sophisticated understanding of the financial system" to explain the $26 jump in oil prices that day last week.

eark, I am happy to listen to other people's opinions. There are a lot of people smarter than me - both on Wall St and in the boonies. In the case of this thread, in the last two hours, though, you have said a lot of things that are factually wrong, and I corrected (some of) them as part of an attempt to make a case for the bailout plan.

Cross your legs for thirty days? To alter the course of Human Civilization?

I spent longer on the Atkins Diet.

"Show me your Paper Trail."

That's my byword, as soon as they've bought me a few drinks and lean in for the, "Let's go somewhere," line.

I LOOK IT OVER, TOO. Just to see how they voted. If they don't have one it's "kiss-kiss" and I slither out.

I feel so empowered, now.

Of course, it's sometimes lonely here in Little Rock 'cause I'm unwilling to commit adultery with any man under mid-six-figures.

But I travel out-of-town a lot.

Nonetheless, legs crossed till November 5th.

We can turn the tide.

ELwood...if you say this thing needs to pass, I'll agree. I really have an aversion to soup lines...and I LOVE air conditioning, food in my cupboards and I love having doctors/medicines to ease my pain. I'm conflicted about it...but trust your assessment (hubby says it needs to pass, too).

Eureka...we're just like you.

>>That is a very simplified explanation of BofA using stock to buy Merrill.<<

Bank of America bought some very valuable real estate with that stock swap too.
110 West Coast institutions fell into BoA coffers after the swap. Smart move
for people solvent and on the go.

Martha, I over simplified the BS buyout. Other than that, what have I said that is factually wrong?

Martha none of us have all the answers, but none of the current problems came as a surprise to me. Can you say the same?

Personally i find this factually wrong, eark.

"This problem was not caused by people buying homes and getting mortgages. The problem was caused by the doubling of oil prices, inflation, and lack of increase in incomes.

The "mortgage crisis" is a symptom. It's not the cause."

Personally i find this factually wrong, eark.

"This problem was not caused by people buying homes and getting mortgages. The problem was caused by the doubling of oil prices, inflation, and lack of increase in incomes.

The "mortgage crisis" is a symptom. It's not the cause."

Ian Welsh and Stirling Newberry have been right about so much of this for years now.. Here's what Ian says Congress should do now.

(full post at my name, clicky)

Give Paulson 150 Billion and Come Back In January and Do it RIGHT (And here's how to do it right)

The bill has failed. Good. It deserved to die. There are two considerations at this point. The first is to get through the next three months. Paulson, in testimony said that 150 billion was sufficient. Give that, and only that, to him. While I doubt he exactly "needs" it, he and Bernanke must not be given an excuse for engaging in a fit of pique now that their pet bill went down, and "proving" that disaster would occur without it.

The next step is to start working on defining what a good bill would look like for January. I am going to reference myself and Stirling Newberry on this and list what I consider essential in a good bill meant to help both Main Street and Wall Street.

SNIP

Dear Martha,

The problem is not a lack of money. The problem is that few people (including me) are willing to give more money to bad companies. There is credit for those who are deserving and worth the risk. Even the US government, despite all it's debt, can raise $700 billion through bonds (borrowing).

Oh lordy, Zelda...I know I'm worth at least a mil a month, just wanted to pull your string :-)

Think I read in the 70's stay at home mom's were worth $68,000 a year.

I still like to say I'm a kept woman, especially to fundies, 'cause it sounds kinda naughty, and

you know how I love to shock fundies..

Well Bus Driver, tell me why that's wrong then.

There has been too much money on the top end (investors) and not enough money on the bottom end (consumers). That's the problem.

This problem was not caused by people buying homes and getting mortgages. The problem was caused by the doubling of oil prices, inflation, and lack of increase in incomes.

The problem was caused by a combination of greed and ignorance. here it is in a nutshell.

It was US Government policy to encourage loans to lower income individuals - even allowing them not to show level of income (ignorance) who then bought more house than they could afford (greed) based on the fact that it would appreciate and they wouldn't have to worry about losing money (ignorance), sold by mortgage bankers found creative ways to finance those houses and make their commissions (greed), who then sold the loans up the chain - not my problem! (greed), to those who bundled those bad mortgages for sale on the open market (greed and ignorance).

Does inflation play a role? maybe. Lack of increase in income and higher consumer prices? i suppose you could say that affects one's ability to pay their bills, however to "assume" that incomes will always rise and consumer prices will not is wishful thinking - i.e. ignorance. it is the same thinking that assumed home prices would continue to increase for an indeterminent amount of time (what bubble?).

I'm glad this bill failed for one, because I don't think it's much better that the first one introduced by Paulson. The oversight provisions have the foxes guarding the henhouse and executive compensation is a joke.

The second reason I'm glad it failed is the way they're trying to rush this bill through. That makes me nervous. Everytime Bushco has told us we have to ACT NOW, OR WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!, we've ended up with such gems as; the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and the Protect America Act just to name a few. When they say we've got to do this now or else, it's a good indicator that we need to slow down and look at some other options.

I'm against bailouts in priciple, but I understand this is gonna be necessary. However, the impact of this and what it means for the future of this country is enormous, and I think we need some deliberation and debate before we end up with a cure that's worse that the ailment.

Funny Zelda, I was just out in the yard (on break).. And my lawn tells the story. I bought this house 4 years ago... 25 percent down and a flat fixed good rate (but a little higher than some in order to keep it fixed)...on a less than ten year mortgage. When i bought this old country house I splurged and bought a used John Deere riding mower.. within 18 months.. I parked the rider and bought an efficient push mower.. to save gasoline waste. The next year I allowed half my yard to grow back with the surrounding woods to save even more gasoline. This year... I have learned to take the remaining half of my yard and mow only when the grass absolutely needs it, not every 7 days to keep things extra nice.

We are counting the shrinking value of pennies we don't have..and being expected to support the uber rich in their continued excess... Rich who if bailed out will not be loaning money or otherwise financing the changes our economy needs.

I noticed Martha didn't have advice for those who work seven days a week... and can barely get by now. Yet it is we who are expected to loan our robber barons the booty to get out of this.. when in all actuality there is no suggestion they will get out of this.. except temporarily at best. Martha, you are young and smart... fix this problem, don't repeat it.

How does one know or check to see if their local bank, say Bank of the Ozarks, is not troubled?

>>>It was US Government policy to encourage loans to lower income individuals - even allowing them not to show level of income (ignorance) who then bought more house than they could afford (greed) based on the fact that it would appreciate and they wouldn't have to worry about losing money (ignorance), sold by mortgage bankers found creative ways to finance those houses and make their commissions (greed), who then sold the loans up the chain - not my problem! (greed), to those who bundled those bad mortgages for sale on the open market (greed and ignorance).<<,

Driver, opinions are just fine. But I've seen that bit about 'not qualifying for loans' tossed around quite a bit but NEVER does anyone tossing it around give any evidence. So here's your opportunity to come clean. Cite an actual source* where someone can go and see it in black and white. See the law, code, etc where it says as much.

* FOX NOISE opinions are not sources.

.

I'm with you, Senor.

Whatever it is, if Bush is behind it, and especially if he's trying to rush it through, it can only be bad for the working class and the poor.

If you're going to bail anyone or any group out, bail the people out at the bottom. This endless corporate welfare -- transfer of wealth so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- is ruinous.

Bus Driver, anyone can just repeat what WS and the MSM is telling everyone.

These people that supposedly were not qualified for getting the loans they got (won't argue with that claim), why did they stop making their payments though? They were making them for a good while before this "mortgage crisis" occurred. What happend?

I'll tell you what two things happened.

1) Oil prices doubled in one year increasing their costs while their income did not increase.
2) The housing market burst causing housing prices to fall below the amount people had borrowed against them.

So some CONSUMERS could no longer make their payments, and some CONSUMERS just walked away not wanting to pay more debt than their houses were worth.

Do you have any idea how much money the doubling of oil prices has taken out of the economy?

Stocks were WAY over priced and still are over priced. This is what happens when things are not worth as much as some claim they are on paper.

What about the role of hedge funds? Please explain. From The New York Times:

"At the same time that the credit-default swap market was growing, so were hedge funds, which became behemoths that were largely exempt from any regulation.

"The logic behind both of those decisions was that regulation was about protecting individual investors. Because small investors could not invest in hedge funds or mortgage-backed securities or credit-default swaps, the government had no reason to interfere with private enterprise.

"It turns out that those products could threaten the entire financial system, and their abuse could produce a credit crisis affecting virtually everyone."

What about the role of hedge funds? Please explain. From The New York Times:

"At the same time that the credit-default swap market was growing, so were hedge funds, which became behemoths that were largely exempt from any regulation.

"The logic behind both of those decisions was that regulation was about protecting individual investors. Because small investors could not invest in hedge funds or mortgage-backed securities or credit-default swaps, the government had no reason to interfere with private enterprise.

"It turns out that those products could threaten the entire financial system, and their abuse could produce a credit crisis affecting virtually everyone."

whatabout, that's a big part of the problem . The deregulatory attitude that was ushered in with the Reagan years. "Gubbermint is the problem." Recall that?

That poisonous attitude was not curtailed much under Clinton. When Bushco arrived with freshly washed Neo-Con faces from Nixon/Reagan years the deregulation environment ran rampant.
.

Some of you act as though actual money has disappeared. Do you think somebody is physically burning it? There's just as much money out there today as there was months ago. The problem is that assets (homes, stocks, derivatives, etc) are no longer worth what they were. Actual money is not backing up their worth. This is what happens when there is a correction in the stock market, housing market, etc. When consumer spending decreases and the economy slows, which it has, these assets lose their value. Those who sold the assets before the correction are doing well. Those who made the mistake to hold onto those assets are in trouble. It's not the role of government to bail out investors or businesses because of bad business decisions. That's not fair to all those who didn't make those bad choices.

Just for the purpose of enlightenment eark, explain to us or define money.

.

We need all the levity we can get, jazzy. Yeah, you and 'kept' just don't jive ha...all that keeping quiet stuff. My pantry's looking poorly since I've been trying for healthy/fresh...guess I'll stock up on some of those beans--healthy, delicious and cheap.

On the upside...poor people didn't lose any stock. But when the loss trickles down it'll hit much harder.

How is this the Democrats fault (the bill not passing) when they don't have the majority needed and...never mind. I'm tired of the same old shit.

MarthaB, while highly intelligent and knowledgeable, is hardly disinterested: She works for a hedge fund. So though I agree that a bailout is necessary, I understand why many people -- those who don't work on Wall Street -- are leery.

I'd love to know how much money and by whom was made by shorting all these financial stocks. Somebody made a killing off the stocks going down. Shorting needs to be banned. That's just one thing that would help.

If we don't bring back solid financial principles to the stock market, it will continue to be one big casino which will go bust occasionally.

Eureka -

I didn't have any advice, only explanations...I was trying to explain why this isn't so much "bailing out the uber rich" as it is an attempt to prevent a much broader contagion that would affect jobs, personal income, and other stuff that working folk care about.

If no bailout happens and only the rich suffer, I will put a picture of myself on the blog and you can post 'I told you so' and other insults beneath it all day and I promise I will be SO HAPPY to accept every last comment.

But if you really wanna know, what should people who work 7 days a week do? Vote in their economic best interest. Let their representatives know they understand the difference between the Obama and McCain tax proposals and they ain't fooled. I also said above that I think there should be a moratorium on foreclosures bankruptcy judges should be allowed to renegotiate mortgages.

But I'll add to that -- raise my taxes and implement a single payor health care system. Raise my taxes and invest in infrastrucure. Raise my taxes and fund the NIH. Raise my taxes and pass stricter emissions laws. Oh, and raise the minimum wage while you're at it.

I know I earned a badge of evil in your book when I supported Hillary...but I promise, I am not all bad.

elwood,

Land is an asset.
A house is an asset.
Gold is an asset.
Stock is an asset.

Money is money.

omg, eark - I am beginning to think you and I were put here to annoy everyone else...i promise not to post anything else after this because i have already clogged up this thread waaay too much.

but you CAN'T be serious that you think shorting should be permanently banned?! please explain. we don't have to discuss the uptick rule unless you want to.

by the by, the index of 824 financial stocks that can't be shorted fell 11% today...so i guess that didn't work.

anyway, it's funny that you are so critical of the "MSM" because most of what you've said is straight out of their shtick:

" grumble grumble oil speculators...grumble grumble...shorting is evil...grumble grumble...handouts to wall street... grumble grumble...people spent too much money except me with my LAND and i saw ALL of this coming..."

If only you'd mentioned illegal aliens, I'd have thought you were Lou Dobbs.

>>And this is great: Before the vote, McCain took credit for pushing the bailout bill to successful passage. Oops. Sorry 'bout that. Now he's blaming Obama and Pelosi. Maybe it's time for him to suspend his campaign again.<<

Yea, The big WHOPPER. Seems FOX Noise was in on the plan too. They were spewing "It's Nancy
Pelosi's fault" before the R congressional delegation arrived out side the halls of Congress to say the identical same thing. What a Chorus line !

Other spin is that McBush is the big loser on this one. Mr Drama "suspended" his campaign so he could go back and help the measure get passed. His own people turned on him. It failed.

What I read happened, and sorry I didn't save the source, is that McCain went back and got his extremist Representative friends in on the deal. Prior to that they were sitting it out. After involving the Rwingnuts the deal went South with the help of FOX Noise machine.

I may be wrong Martha but the ban on shorting of financial stocks was temporary.

Why do you think shorting was banned for a while? If it is such a good thing and necessary, why was it recently banned for a few days on financial stocks? We did just fine before shorting Martha. Why do you think shorting is necessary?

I've never said shorting was why the stock market went down today. Don't be silly. I said it was JUST ONE thing that needs to be changed on WS.

Martha the mainstream media has not been saying what I'm saying. You are full of shit.

I don't think you people are getting it yet. We have dug ourselves into a huge hole (10 trillion debt..not counting private debt and entitlement liabilities). Borrowing another $700 billion only makes the hole deeper.

We have to get control of the debt, but if we cut spending or raise taxes, that will also hurt the economy.

Bottom line: This is going to get a lot worse before it starts getting better, and there is no escaping it.

I guess I missed the mainstream media telling us oil prices were the result of speculators or telling us to sell our stocks and buy land. Wish I had heard 'em say it. While some members of the press may have made those points, MSM refers to the media as a whole. Most of the media talks about the China/India demand for oil every time oil goes up a few bucks. If you read Bloomberg and more informed media, you'd know that the lower dollar and investors are mostly to blame.

I even heard one of the MSM stations say the 20 something oil spike was related to world demand. Of course, that was not the case but I guess they got in the habit of saying it.

Here is what I don't understand. Mrs. Pelosi always appeared to lead the effort to get this bill passed. However, when the votes were cast she lost 40% of the demos voting. What happened. That is a substantial percentage who did not support the bill. Didn't she count the heads before the vote? Dumping on the opposition party when you are looking for their support, as she professed to be seeking, doesn't look like leadership 101 to me.

Mrs. Pelosi seems to be failing in the leadership department. She is head of the House. The Speaker position requires that they work both sides of the house not just their own. 'Mr. Sam' Rayburn epitomized this skill. Maybe filling a position to satisfy the purveyors of political correctness doesn't serve the people as a whole.

The rumor is that the demos are going to craft their own bill loaded with all of the special interest payoffs that they tried to get with the bill that failed. I don't think so. Then the bill that passes will definitely be labeled a demo bill and if it fails then the demos will be left holding the bag. I wouldn't bet on it.

Would it be too hopelessly old-fashioned to quote Lou Mannheim (Hal Holbrook) from the movie "Wall Street"?

"Remember there're no short cuts, son. Quick-buck artists come and go with every bull market, but the steady players make it through the bear markets. You're part of something here, Bud. The money you make for people creates science and research jobs. Don't sell that out."

Is it passe to ask that making money be tied to something tangible -- jobs, widgets? And not jobs like yard boy to the uber-rich or widgets like $20 million spec homes. This is a real question. Or is shuffling paper all there is to this brave new economy (which is looking pretty scared right now)?

I seek enlightenment and a civil discussion.

Mz MarthaB, note :

>>elwood,

Land is an asset.
A house is an asset.
Gold is an asset.
Stock is an asset.

Money is money.<<

After this just go home. There's no reaching and it's time for dog walks, dinner, and TV entertainment.
Maybe cast a few horoscopes too.
Ta-tah. Keep shining up there in NewYark.
.

Martha, actually we have met a few years ago. (Don't even try guessing, I barely remember it myself) And no, i don't hate Hillary supporters.. but I enjoyed going toe to toe with y'all about her being in my or your best interest...)

And I am tired of waiting to see the same old failed ideas in economics repeat themselves. We the liberal people have been correct for decades. Since FDR was pushed by a rising Socialist voting population in the US 1930's.

Kucinich, his current Main Street plan is in all our best interest today. The more I look at Paulson and the big boys gun to our head approach to us bailing out their crooked ways.. the less I like it. That goes doubly for nealry every "Wall Street" type of rambling excuses.

Let them mow their own lawns.

Martha, actually we have met a few years ago. (Don't even try guessing, I barely remember it myself) And no, i don't hate Hillary supporters.. but I enjoyed going toe to toe with y'all about her being in my or your best interest...)

And I am tired of waiting to see the same old failed ideas in economics repeat themselves. We the liberal people have been correct for decades. Since FDR was pushed by a rising Socialist voting population in the US 1930's.

Kucinich, his current Main Street plan is in all our best interest today. The more I look at Paulson and the big boys gun to our head approach to us bailing out their crooked ways.. the less I like it. That goes doubly for nealry every "Wall Street" type of rambling excuses.

Let them mow their own lawns.

Got to revolution

Ok dinner ain't ready yet.

>>I seek enlightenment and a civil discussion.<<

Ok Sadie, I'll take a swing, just one. Right here in NWA there are some start-up firms. Doing bio-research. Big returns if successful. Another doing miniaturization research and development, on wee small things that can be injected into your artery and repair a damaged vessel, remotely controlled. But it takes lots of C-R-E-D-I-T. It may be possible that a lab in Singapore or a group in New Delhi may beat them to the punch. Who wants to take the risk?

Also, I was told that we need more CT-scan facilities in NWA. Big bucks on that one. Jobs pay real well. But again, someone must be willing to finance the facilities. The people to operate the high tech machinery need loans to go to school for training.

The local Jewish community seeks to build a new synagogue. Loans for that one will be needed.

There's a few. Just from my little neck of the woods. From high risks to low risks.

.

This bailout would have nationalized losses and privatized gains.

By STANLEY KURTZ

Chutzpah: ACORN's drive to lower mortgage standards paved the way for the meltdown - yet last week, it was holding protests like this one in Florida, trying to get a cut of the financial-market-rescue bill.Posted: 3:53 am
September 29, 2008

WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.

In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.

In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions.

Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets.

Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster.

ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.

Long the director of Chicago ACORN, Talbott is a specialist in "direct action" - organizers' term for their militant tactics of intimidation and disruption. Perhaps her most famous stunt was leading a group of ACORN protesters breaking into a meeting of the Chicago City Council to push for a "living wage" law, shouting in defiance as she was arrested for mob action and disorderly conduct. But her real legacy may be her drive to push banks into making risky mortgage loans.

In February 1990, Illinois regulators held what was believed to be the first-ever state hearing to consider blocking a thrift merger for lack of compliance with CRA. The challenge was filed by ACORN, led by Talbott. Officials of Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, her target, complained that ACORN pressure was undermining its ability to meet strict financial requirements it was obligated to uphold and protested being boxed into an "affirmative-action lending policy." The following years saw Talbott featured in dozens of news stories about pressuring banks into higher-risk minority loans.

IN April 1992, Talbott filed an other precedent-setting com plaint using the "community support requirements" of the 1989 savings-and-loan bailout, this time against Avondale Federal Bank for Savings. Within a month, Chicago ACORN had organized its first "bank fair" at Malcolm X College and found 16 Chicago-area financial institutions willing to participate.

Two months later, aided by ACORN organizer Sandra Maxwell, Talbott announced plans to conduct demonstrations in the lobbies of area banks that refused to attend an ACORN-sponsored national bank "summit" in New York. She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting - for example, by overlooking bad credit histories.

By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott's program as "affirma- tive-action lending" and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities.

And Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed - Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories."

What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans."

Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive.

In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report ac knowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."

Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar?

The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.

And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.

In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."

IN short, to understand the roots of the subprime-mort gage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.

Then you'll truly know what community organizers do.

Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC.

Martha if you are still around this evening.. I would love to see your reply to the 300ish word post at my name.

snip
Fed to Congress: We'll Just Print 630 billion dollars K? Thx Bye.

Dropping this stuff out of helicopters

Looks like the Fed doesn't much care what Congress does (h/t C&L):

The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

This dovetails with something I've been saying for a long time. In essence Bernanke can print as much money as he wants, so the idea that Hank had to have 700 billion NOW always seemed a bit strange to me. If Congress didn't give Paulson the money, Bernanke could always just make it.

SNIP

Pelosi, frank, dodd and reid failed and they failed miserably. Mrs. Pelosi's gross leadership failure warrants that she resign as Speaker. She is not a leader and it shows. The nation needs leadership in the Congress. The President couldn't make this happen by executing the powers of his office. Only the Congress has the Constitutional power to make this happen.

Well, we made it through the day. After the vote and when the stock market fell 700 points, I looked up in the sky for a lightening bolt to signal the end of the world and all I saw were birds. I'd feel better about this bailout stuff if people like Rep. John Boehner didn't act like a 2 year old. No wonder his name is Boner.

I'm with senor, every single time the Bush administration yells FIRE FIRE FIRE we get screwed out of another piece of old America. This rogue administration knows if you wait for a crisis and catch the American people having a tizzy, you can rob and rape at will. People.....they've done this to us so many times before! Do you not remember? Must you salivate every time Bush rings a bell?

I'm sure something must be done to bailout a bunch of people who don't deserve jack shit, but to willing run to put your mouth over the Bush tailpipe is insane! Martha says Russia has the money now. Let's reflect a moment shall we.......

About 15 years ago, I'm not bothering to look up the date, the USSR was torn apart. Some people say by Ronald Reagan's strong Christian hands. Now in the length of time it takes to grow boobs on a cheerleader Russia is rich and America is in the gutter. Maybe that Russian fire burned off the brush and allowed for new growth? I'm the last to wish for bad times...but since Bush took office a million things have pointed to the fact that the only way to get old America back is to melt the current one down. Everything is FK'ed up....name one thing that isn't. OK...HBO...I likes HBO. I'm studying to be a Vampire!

Cheney-Bush have been like metastasizing cancer on this country. While we worried about Michael Jackson and Brittany, little Cheney-Bush moles have been FK'ing with the foundations of this country, jerking every law over towards them. Injecting people and crap into everything so that what they don't control is too messed up to function properly any more. Imagine a time when the White House wouldn't cooperate with an internal Justice Department investigation? Where is Brezhnev, I know he's alive and well and hiding in Crawford.....where is Brezhnev?

So sorry boys and girls......the best thing that could happen to America is the deconstruction of America so we can rise up out of the ruins, start all the way over again and make a good country like we used to have when our parents were little. Call it Born Again America if that gets your rocks off. Nothing levels the playing field like a big Depression or a giant Revolution....we might just have us both!

Next thing you know a new Chevy's will cost 895 FOB from Detroit, not Mexico. The few rich folks will only own one home. We won't see Air Force One landing in Rogers to pick up an embarrassing load of cash from fat white Republican cows. No Florida Democrat will have frozen piles of cash in his deep freezer. It won't cost a billion to elect the next President. We might be able to hold an honest election. And everyone will know how to make biscuits & red-eye gravy.

I had sorta hoped to sail easy to the grave, but what the heck....I'd rather scrape in the dirt like my great grandfather than be blackmailed, abused, lied to, and help support torturers like we're doing today. Dump all these ABS and CDOs and CDS and let's get back to trading mules with a handshake. America might be a fun place again if everyone is poor! Get back getting a girl at a pie supper instead of myface.com, think of how all this walking will invigorate the American shoe business!

I'm sick of the daily dose of lies, liars, news of the super rich, Cheney flying around in a Airstream trailer, 60 thousand dollar Cadillacs, 140 buck a month cable bills, old bald skeletal white men who got 122 million dollar parting gifts telling me we're going to be in big big trouble. Screw it!

Back to nature! We're the Natural State.....we might be number 12 instead of 48 by next year! Look on the bright side! Slap the next person that passes you on the ass and then giggle like a crazy man! You'll notice no one has called to ask your opinion. No one's ask you to rush to DC to vote. We're as helpless to do anything about this crisis as the ants crawling on my kitchen table as I type.

I didn't break it. I can't fix it. I can't help or hurt a damn thing. Like everyone else on this blog....I'm just here for the ride. Wonder if I have enough taters for tonight? hmmmmm

So who is trying to borrow money but can't? Interest rates are low.

There is a difference between getting a loan from a bank or fed reserve (credit) and getting someone to invest in your company (stock).

The problem is that people are not interested in investing money in stock (asset) especially stock in failing companies.

Elwood. I don't know why you felt the need to respond to my explanation with a smart ass remark. I didn't mean to be a smart ass with my answer. I don't know how to make it any more simple.

Land is an asset.
A house is an asset.
Gold is an asset.
Stock is an asset.

Money is money.

Last time I checked you can't eat land. Unless you can sell that house and land you can't use it to pay your taxes and utilities. Being out of debt is a valuable asset when things go bust. However, I'm not sure any of us will be out of the woods if the economy tanks. If the chinese quit financing our deficit then we are really in trouble.

"Last time I checked you can't eat land."

Uh, where do you think food comes from "my friend?"

Property taxes on my land are less than $2 an acre. I'm sure I could produce enough food to sell to LARGEASS to pay the taxes.

Yes, but undeveloped land doesn't generate a lot of tax. However, developed land with a home on it especially in an urban area will generate a high tax bill.

"Yes, but undeveloped land doesn't generate a lot of tax."

That's right. Although I'd hardly call it "undeveloped." God did a pretty damn good job of doing that already. Deers, bears, squirrels, fish, turkey, ducks.... all food last I checked.

Aesop's Fabel...
The Farmer and the Snake
One Winter a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. "Oh," cried the Farmer with his last breath, "I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel."
"The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful"

Anyone else remember which political party was in power when the Great Depression took the USA down to its knees?

Who was it?

Oh, it was the GOP!!

Guess who's in power today?

What else can I say.

This is a pure dammmmmn mess that the Bush-Cheney Administration has gotten America into.

This is not the fault of most Americans who went looking for a home, made a downpayment and were sold a mortgage product by a banker/mortgage broker who knew full well what would happen to that family. The mortgage brokers were more interested in making loads of cash on the front end. Then the Wall Street guys that created the sham investments figured out a way to make loads of cash.

If you did not read the article in Sun's DG about the little AIG unit that reaped $300 - $600 MILLION in ANNUAL COMPENSATION for its 370 person office, be sure to read it and get red faced angry(reprinted from a national pub of course). It also details that Paulsen brought in his former Wall St colleague to negotiate the $85 BILLION Taxpayer loan to AIG and that Paulsen's former firm had $20 BILLION at stake if AIG failed. So, for anyone who is naive enought to think that somehow the B/C Admin is not taking care of its special interest buddies, there is some oceanfront property in Nevada County I'd like to show you.

While the rest of us are choosing between $4 gasoline to get to work (B/C Admin in bed with Big Oil) and $4 gallon of milk for our children (B/C Admin manipulation of corn market), the Wall Street execs of the "bankrupt" companies we're bailing out are still being driven to work in limos, flying in private jets and have so many homes, they can't count them.

Yes, this may be a bailout for the country's economy, but it stinks. Completely. The B/C Admin. controls all but a few federal agencies and commissions. The B/C Admin is 8 years WIDE and 8 years DEEP and is doing everything it possibly can to elect the Republican Ticket (McSame-Failin'). And IF the Repub Ticket wins, what reasonable person actually believes that those thousands of people in charge of all those fed offices are going to let them change one single regulation that has benefitted the GOP wealthy while the rest of us are desperately trying to just hang on?

Community organizers are not to blame for the mortgage mess. Blame it on greed. Wall Street, Bush Buddy Greed. Face it: the lily white banking community had been turning down all non-white applicants for financing of homes and credit of any kind for decades so ACORN and others pushed for equality in banking decisions and yes, they did want some funds devoted to development and mortgages in the most underserved areas of the community. Again, this small portion of lending did not bring on this economic disaster.

When I think of the sacrifices that our grandparents made to rebuild from the Great Depression and the sacrifices made by our parents as servicemen and women in WWII to rescue Europe from Hitler and literally save the world, it is sad to think that here we are in our generation about to loan $700 BILLION to a segment of irresponsible greedy, self-serving profiteering companies who will not lose their homes, their country clubs, their ski trips, their nights in Paris and weekends at the Hamptons or their jets, millions of deferred income, rich pensions, limosines and luxury vehicles although their greed caused millions of normal Americans real financial and family hardship. What could Arkansas do with 1/50th of $700 BILLION? It would be terrific if we could just spend that money on college education and clean energy R&D and start-ups and really sustainably grow our way out of this into a robust econnomy, free from foreign oil and Wall Street greed.

If you want to know why Congress voted the way they did on the bailout, just look at the votes with respect to which members have tough elections or a possibly viable opponent. It doesn't take a Lee Atwater (RIP) to craft that attack ad about voting for a Wall Street bailout while people are paying $4 for gasoline, milk and orange juice.

If Americans don't wake up and vote for Obama to get real change, we will have 4 or EIGHT more years of the same people in the B/C Administration. Lead paint, tainted milk/chocolate from China, credit card "late payment" fees, food and medicine recalls, highest gasoline and food price increases, hidden sources of food (no truth in labeling laws), Wall Street and Big Oil/Big Corporate greed and so on and so on and so on....Wake Up and smell the java.

Good GAWD!
Sl, No more Rush Karl Christian (who's your daddy?) Hudson 'Limpbaugh',III talking points...PLEASE!

Guess who was in power when the Japanese launched an attack on Pearl Harbor because we let our guard down. We were totally unprepared and approximately 3,000 servicemen died and our Pacific Fleet was almost destroyed.

You could have a little problem with the land/asset and home/asset line eark.

It's called time value. Even though you own a piece of land and a home on top of it, it takes a willing buyer and a willing seller agreeing on a price. That could be today or 2 years from now.

I'd stick with your other assets that are liquid.

I hope that obama/biden ticket is elected this November. I hope that the democrats have a filibuster proof majority and control both houses of the Congress. I hope that President Obama has an opportunity to fill at least one, maybe two, Supreme Court positions.

I want the American people to have a full and unadulterated dose of liberal democratic rule over this nation. I want every voter to know what it means to have a government that is unrestrained in terms of being able to implement every left wing policy that the democratic party every dreamed of. I want the American people to taste democratic party politics in every cell of their bodies so that no doubt is left in their mind as to what it means to have that party fully in control of this nation. I hope that this nation survives but if it does we will not see another democratic majority in the Congress or a democrat as President for at least a generation.

After reading these 170 posts it's time to bring out this one. Clicky

Too many of you live in the abstract. Millions of Americans see their life savings erased in the past two weeks. A financial rug has been pulled out from under many retirees or soon to be retirees. Ignored under the frenzied federal giveaway to Wall Street gamblers is the lack of funding for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

Honest people are being blamed for not being more responsible. People who used economic condoms and still got fatally infected by the speculators' greedy failures. They have few remedies. Some of them can still work, but their skills are no longer valued.

Corporate insurers won't cover them. Companies won't provide the basic benefits, but they have to work. They are desperate. I'm waiting for the wheelchair and walkers invasion of Washington. Canes against conspiracy!

If you were worried about immigrants taking your job for pennies on the dollar, get ready for the gray invasion. When you get replaced by a person of advanced age, a geezer, perhaps you will take this situation seriously.

Perhaps then, you will join us on the streets. Perhaps then you will join us in foreclosing on the properties of the aristocrats of this disaster. Their dishonesty is being rewarded with a trillion dollars of our money. They gleefully made profits from our collective losses. Let's march on and appropriate all of the property owned by the Stephens conglomerate and any other traitor who made this happen.

Imagine thousands of people converging upon the estates of the government recipients of this bailout welfare. "Welfare Cadillac" used to be a favorite Republican epithet to demean the poor, when the rich were the ones living large. It has not changed. They blame us for their greed.

As I said before, these economic speculators are terrorists, worse than al-Queda, but George McBush will not pursue them. It's up to us. The feds are owned.

Cato...that is awesome. Is that a real ad? If so, even more awesome. When I worked Med-Surg, the old folks kept me hopping. Sundowners is a real affliction, maybe that is what is wrong with Strangelove.

I am assuming it's authentic, Scottie.

Norma Lysatrata, your dream of crossed legs until Nov 5 will never work. Wimmin just can't keep from getting all 10s! Do the clicky

Norma, I forgot to congratulate you on your very honest confession about how you can control men by withholding your delights. You are right. You do control men by effectively withholding sex. Unfortunately, men are willing to sell themselves for those delights. This explains why we now have a nation of emasculated males and broken families. You will probably continue amassing this power because I really don't see anyone from the male community stopping you and your sisters. However, there is one very stark possibility that you may have not considered. All of this is predicated on civilization continuing at least as we know it today. However, if civilization does break down, for whatever reason, then the consequences won't be pleasant.

Stranglove, guess how many US soldiers have died in Iraq so far under Bush's leadership.

Guess how much it has cost this country unnecessarily.

With the resources that have been expended to date in this war, we could have built a new school in every community in America, provided water to every rural community in the country, built a new hospital in every city in all 50 states, etc. You get the idea.

Has this helped America become a safer place? Has it assisted us to grow in stature in the eyes of the world? Are we better off today than we were yesterday, or the day before?

Hardly.

It is time that the people of America start voting their consciences, their pocketbooks, and their brains. It is time to bring honor, common sense, and good times back to our nation.

Vote Democratic.

Yes, vote surrender. That is what voting democratic means. Let them destabilize the middle east and establish a place where they can train, plan and launch attacks on the West and eventually those schools will just become targets. Our borders are so open that you could bring anything through them. Wait till shopping centers, schools and restaurants start getting blown up like they used to do in Israel. They have a group in Israel whose job is to go into an area where people have been blown up and they collect the pieces of human flesh. Would you like to do that in this country?

This just in from Letterman:
Top Ten features of the rejected $700 billion bailout plan:
#1 Bush has to send every American a "Sorry I'm a dumbass" card.

Oh, lordie Cato. Does that ever bring back memories of a country drive the day my elderly father hooked his cane onto the steering wheel. We landed in the ditch -- fortunately a shallow, dry ditch -- and yes, he was given Thorazine. Funny thing though. I suspected the problem was the cocktail of other medications he had been on for several months following surgery and a subsequent blood clot. Took Pop and his meds to his original doctor and yep, that was it.

Strange (yeah, commenting against my better judgment), explain the following breakdown of votes to me please:
"The vote against the measure was 228 to 205, with 133 Republicans turning against President Bush to join 95 Democrats in opposition. The bill was backed by 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans."
Looking at the numbers, I'd say the minority leader kinda fell down on the job -- a lot more than Nancy Pelosi. In case you haven't noticed, that's the one who is in the same political party as Bush, Cheney, et al. Not too much leadership from the White House either. With the administration's credibility waaay in the tank, I'd say it's kinda hard to have much sway, even with those in your own party. But then Bush never had that capability anyway, did he?
Oh, but I forgot. You think Pelosi should be home, barefoot -- I think she's too old to be pregnant. Send her home, that's the ticket, right, Strange?

Anyway, I have to agree with whoever said above: Uh uh. Bushie and company are trying to rush something through and given past experience, something smells funny. Let's just step back and take a better look at things first.
In fact, it looks like a bunch of folks in his own party might just be thinking the same thing.

"died and our Pacific Fleet was almost destroyed."

There you go again, Strange.

There is a tendency to think of the losses at Pearl Harbor as being devastating. But they were not much more than a pinprick attack on American military and industrial strength.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the combat strengths of the American and Japanese navies were:

Battleships...US 17....Japan 10
Carriers......US 7......Japan 10
Cruisers......US 37.....Japan 35
Destroyers..US 171....Japan 111
Submarines..US 113....Japan 64

The US had under construction 15 battleships, 11 carriers, 54 cruisers, 193 destroyers and 73 submarines plus 500 auxiliary vessels.

There was a great disparity in the strengths of the two navies which was growing wider each month.

At Pearl, the brunt of the attack was borne by battleships of the Pacific Fleet. Of eight battleships in Battleship Row, seven were sunk or damaged. Every single one of them was either obsolete or obsolescent. Only one -the Arizona- was a total loss. The other six were repaired and sent back into action, some as early as February 1942. We lost no aircraft carriers and these ships turned out to be the backbone of the fleet, not the battleships. The battles at Midway and the Coral Sea were turning points in the War, all brought about by US Naval forces and it was then really not a question of who was going to win the war but how long was it going to take.

I shoulda finished reading the thread before I posted. Had I done that I wouldn't be pulling Strange's multiple posts trick. But . . .

WHO THE HELL IS DESTABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST?

I apologize to the rest of you. My voice carries sometimes.

Hello.....is the Internet Tubes still working? You all alive out there? Have the pods hatched? I am totally amazed with Rome burning in all directions, strangelove can still find ways to predict total doom if the Democrats get in power. At the rate we're going Obama is going to inherit a country that resembles a giant Afghanistan without camels. How could Democrats make it worse?

What in the name of Helen Twelvetrees does it take for little people Republicans to admit their Party has screwed the pooch? My God man....Cuba is looking wonderful! And it's all Cheney-Bush's fault......remember that blowjob President we had that left a 230 billion dollar surplus? Remember when we weren't at war with anyone? Remember when we thought only the Japanese tortured people?

ALL GONE. It's all gone! Now the very people who have gutted us like so many fish are asking to be saved from financial ruin? FK' em! If everyone will review their own lives.....when you FK'ed up...who bailed you out? I'm just not ready to accept the blackmail of We're So Big if you don't clean up our mess and give us a trillion dollars we're going to go down and take you with us! TAKE US TAKE US I CALL YOUR BLUFF! Let her rip! Anyone else hear the private jets warming up on the runways all across America-AT&T?

Our crooks need saving! Clean out all your bank accounts! Give up all you have! And by all means do anything Cheney-Bush tell you to do. If we'll just give them their 148th chance...they'll get this one right! But by all means vote for McCain in the fall.....he is a War Hero! He is a maverick! Just today he was congratulating himself on flying in and getting this bailout bill passed! Only they had to interrupt him and tell him once again for the 14th day in 2 weeks he's WRONG WRONG WRONG. Are all mavericks this dumb?

Wake up! Don't do the bidding of these thieving, lying Iraqi baby killers! DO let the Democrats have the time to go write a bill that will get it all right. What did you dad tell you when you were growing up....if you're going to do a job, do it right! Only a nation of fools would be voting on a bill written ahead of time by a pack of criminals responsible for the mess we're in.

If Wall Street can't wait to do it right......let it burn! Let's see some millionaires get laid off. Let's see some kings of high finance get their jobs outsourced. Look at it as a downsizing of Wall Street. A plant closing. A relocation of resources.

Some of us will survive to bring this country out of the ashes. Paying 700 billion in ransom for a dying country to a crooked Republican administration........I just say THANKS, BUT NO THANKS...

I hear you, DBI.

"You could have a little problem with the land/asset and home/asset line eark.

It's called time value. Even though you own a piece of land and a home on top of it, it takes a willing buyer and a willing seller agreeing on a price. That could be today or 2 years from now.

I'd stick with your other assets that are liquid."

Of course the land would be worth nothing if there were no buyers. That would be the case if things got bad enough, but who cares? You live off the land if things are that bad and sell it once things recover. Would you rather have stock in a company that goes bankrupt and lose everything?

FDIC insured CD's are not too bad of a risk right now for some liquidity.

You know what's insane...Half of the American voters will vote Republicans! Blame that on the Survival Bible NUTS! What happened to my country?

"Vietnam taught us the danger and folly of going to war on a false pretext. Tonkin Gulf was to be a lesson to us all, as was the intended impeachment of Nixon for violating the law and the Constitution. We wouldn't let that happen again; no president was ever going to spy on his own people again, or persecute people who didn't agree with him or his policies." [CLICK]

re: "Only a nation of fools would be voting on a bill written ahead of time by a pack of criminals responsible for the mess we're in."

A state of fools did that very thing yesterday. Arkansas. Speaks volumes about our state's addiction to corporate welfare.

"I hope that obama/biden ticket is elected this November. I hope that the democrats have a filibuster proof majority and control both houses of the Congress. I hope that President Obama has an opportunity to fill at least one, maybe two, Supreme Court positions."--strange

I almost missed me agreeing with strange...wholeheartedly! May we both get our wishes, strange. It'll be so nice to have a President who can speak English/who realizes the earth is more than five-thousand-years old...an economy that's NOT tanking, COMPETENCY, government contracts based on actual bids, a respect for science, logic, education, reason, smart capable people and to be moving forward rather than back to the Dark Ages with the religious NUTS.

It's such a delightful dream...thanks for sharing it, strange.

Stock Market is up almost 300....what happened to the end of the world?