Do You Suport the Bailout?

[Toro]

I didn't see such a poll elsewhere, so Mods, if there is one, please shut this one down.

I'm very interested to know if you support the bailout? Why or why not?

 

[Paulie]

Absolutely not. The generations responsible for either causing or allowing it should be the ones to weather the storm, so that a true correction can be felt by our children who should not have to be responsible for even one DIME of debt or LOST dime from inflation because of it.

All it does is perpetuate the failed economic policy our government forces down our throat. It's an affront to the free market, and it's downright shameful that we are passing this on to our children.

This country NEEDS a real recession right now. But of course, it's an election year.

 

[dilloduck]

No way--anything that Wall street, republicans and democrats all agree on has to be bad for us.

 

[rconry]

hell no i don't support this crap. it seems like these banks played speculation trying to raise rates when they were going down to try and take over these houses to sell them later and make a profit. their rotten business deals went wrong and now i am supposed to let my tax money go to make sure they get a paycheck. when my industry took a dive in the 90's no one was there to help me. right now i am making less of a wage than i made in '95. i am supposed to take two kinds of insulin to control my diabetes and currently i can only afford one, and i do have health insurance. well my insurance isn't really worth a s***, so i just sit back and count the days until my kidneys fail. to tell you the truth if my taxes are raised so we can have some sort of affordable health care for the people who need it, raise them. i know a guy at work who was put on xanax and developed a habit for prescription drugs, now he'll do any pill out in front of him. since he is a drug addict and had to take some time off work because he was a danger to himself at work the state of ohio gave him a medicaid card and now he gets free medical. he wonders why i dislike him so much. i can't afford my mediation and i am not a drug addict, but ever since he became on he gets everything he wants. well now his house is in foreclosure. we'll see what kind of help he gets for being irresponsible with paying the bills too.

 

[CrimsonWhite]

I could get behind this bill if it actually addressed the problem. All this does is infuse money into a market that would have rebounded on it's own. Giving banks money that will still be dependent on collecting mortgage payments that won't show up. Buying debt at 20 cents on the dollar, what is teh federal govt. going to do with these loans that they purchased? Foreclose? If so, how are they going to liquidate? This bill sucks. It leaves more questions than answers and now Pelosi wants to hold hearings to find out what happened? Why doesn't she just ask Barney Frank's boyfriend? He knows what happened.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

No.

You cannot solve a problem caused by government regulation, with more government regulation. We need to let the market stabilize itself, stop our out of control spending, quit inflating the money, and return to sound currency.

The media disgusted me throughout the whole process as well. One minute they're denouncing President Bush as having no clout, then they turn around and force his fear-mongering, "without this bailout our economy will collapse" nonsense to the masses.

 

[Ravi]

Reluctantly, yes. I only hope that Congress makes sure this cannot happen again, but I don't have much hope of that.

If people can't get credit and the world economy collapses, my future is in question, through no fault of my own.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Allow our economy to collapse and create a new Great Depression and you will destroy this society. If can not survive such an event. Our cities would go up in flames and Government would break down. Can we say Anarchy?

We are not the self reliant people we once were. The last 3 generations have been taught that they will get what they want and will always HAVE things. Remove that and the entire society collapses. One LARGE collapse all at once would tear us apart.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Allow our economy to collapse and create a new Great Depression and you will destroy this society. If can not survive such an event. Our cities would go up in flames and Government would break down. Can we say Anarchy?

We are not the self reliant people we once were. The last 3 generations have been taught that they will get what they want and will always HAVE things. Remove that and the entire society collapses. One LARGE collapse all at once would tear us apart.

This is what Bush, Paulson, and Bernanke want people to believe would have happened. It's not very accurate.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

This is what Bush, Paulson, and Bernanke want people to believe would have happened. It's not very accurate.

You are wrong and fortunately they got what they ask for. Though the collapse is still possible.

 

[editec]

Not as currently structured, no.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

You are wrong and fortunately they got what they ask for. Though the collapse is still possible.

I am not wrong. The fact that they're now telling people, "We're still not sure that this is the end of the problem," pretty much proves it. If you're still buying into the propaganda I suggest you check the link I will provide below.

Ludwig von Mises Institute - Homepage

If you still don't believe me, or are too lazy to read a few articles, then you can wait for the next crisis to hit I suppose.

 

[AVG-JOE]

This bail out or rescue or whatever is just throwing money at the problem that got us here.

I could get behind The People making proper, interest bearing loans to various businesses and individuals, or I could get behind the actual nationalization of the insurance and banking service industries (because they don't make anything).

We need to get on one road or the other - It is the quasi-private / quasi-public hybrids like the Federal Reserve that caused this mess. We will be back to this table in a few years, with a stack of insurance bail-outs under AIG to consider also, assuming that the middle class is still capable of paying taxes.

-Joe

 

[editec]

You truly want to truly solve this problem?

Make the government the LENDER of money that ALL of us borrow.
That puts the government in the position of having direct control over how much money gets into the system, and it ALSO eliminates the middlemen who do nothing but lend money they ALSO are inventing.

Now the government will undoubtably make mistakes, and sometimes have too much or too little money in circulation, just as our current system does.

But then the interest what we repay to the government for the debts we incur go back to the commonweal, instead of going into the hands of people who basically produce NOTHING except more debt than capital

We could continue to have a capitalist system, and if people with vast sums of money wanted to invest directly into private ventures they could... just so long as they had to (by law!) only lend their capital at the same rate of interest as the government would if they were the lender.

Why the same rate of interest, you ask?

Because otherwise private capital would CHERRY PICK who they loaned money to, hence leaving the government only lending to the worst credit risks.

You know, much like private health insurers destroyed Blue Cross and Blue Shield by cherry picking who they would insure?

I may have left a few million details out of this plan, but this is, I think the only SANE way to devise an honest (read classless) economy.

 

[NOBama]

No, I don’t support the Bailout Bill because, I think (not necessarily in order of importance):

1. It’s impossible to borrow yourself out of debt and, in this case, I don’t understand how printing more money will help, it will only inflate the price of everything.

2. One politician saying he/she voted for the bill yet warns us that it may not work raises doubt in my mind, numerous politicians saying it removes all doubt.

3. We have no “Plan B”.

4. Short of Anarchy ensuing if the bailout doesn’t flat out fail, Congress has granted themselves a perpetual excuse to blame the condition of the economy on the bailout, for generations.

5. Now that we’ve started down this road, I believe the 700B$ is only the first installment of an unknown amount.

6. I don’t have a clear idea of what other asset classes treasury intends to buy. Paulson made it clear that he intends to buy more than mortgage backed securities which represent over 1T$ alone, so where’s the money to purchase these other asset classes going to come from?

7. What roll will politics/lobbyists play in dolling out the loot or determining asset value?

...

 

[Paulie]

Allow our economy to collapse and create a new Great Depression and you will destroy this society. If can not survive such an event. Our cities would go up in flames and Government would break down. Can we say Anarchy?

We are not the self reliant people we once were. The last 3 generations have been taught that they will get what they want and will always HAVE things. Remove that and the entire society collapses. One LARGE collapse all at once would tear us apart.

With that logic, it sounds like you have given up and become a liberal. That, or you always were.

Who CARES if society goes up in flames? Let the weak perish and the strong survive. Then we can start over and try this whole experiment all over again, only this time get it RIGHT.

 

[Ravi]

It becomes clearer with each passing day that most people, me included, really don't have a clue about what happened, why it happened, and what the government is trying to do with this bailout.

Today's This American Life had an excellent broadcast about the subject and the credit swap market which should clear things up for a lot of people.

The podcast of the show is available starting tomorrow and I'll link to it then.

 

[Paulie]

It becomes clearer with each passing day that most people, me included, really don't have a clue about what happened, why it happened, and what the government is trying to do with this bailout.

No, huh? You still don't understand?

The govt. spent too much money, BORROWED too much money, and the citizens followed the example. The government borrows and prints their way out of messes, and the citizens follow suit. It's an endless downward spiral.

That is the EASIEST way to explain it without having to resort to wording that only economists typically understand. There are obviously a lot of underlying things at hand, but basically, our entire monetary policy is GARBAGE.

What the government is trying to do? If I didn't know better, I'd think they were setting us up for collapse. There's no POSSIBLE way this bill is going to be a fix. Just NO WAY.

It almost seems to lend credence to the idea that they will crash the economy and the Dollar, partner up with Canada and Mexico in a new union, and issue a new currency much like the Euro. Because there's no way the Dollar is going to survive this.

Read up on the Roman Empire, and how they handled their monetary policy. We handle ours almost EXACTLY the same way. And Rome fell via economic collapse.

 

[Ravi]

No, huh? You still don't understand?

The govt. spent too much money, BORROWED too much money, and the citizens followed the example. The government borrows and prints their way out of messes, and the citizens follow suit. It's an endless downward spiral.

That is the EASIEST way to explain it without having to resort to wording that only economists typically understand. There are obviously a lot of underlying things at hand, but basically, our entire monetary policy is GARBAGE.

What the government is trying to do? If I didn't know better, I'd think they were setting us up for collapse. There's no POSSIBLE way this bill is going to be a fix. Just NO WAY.

It almost seems to lend credence to the idea that they will crash the economy and the Dollar, partner up with Canada and Mexico in a new union, and issue a new currency much like the Euro. Because there's no way the Dollar is going to survive this.

Read up on the Roman Empire, and how they handled their monetary policy. We handle ours almost EXACTLY the same way. And Rome fell via economic collapse.

Sorry, Pauli, you know a lot but you are way too partisan. If you get a chance, listen to the broadcast. I didn't hear the entire thing, but I think it has more to do with a lack of transparency between lenders...in other words, Bank A doesn't know who Bank B is in debt to, or to whom Bank B's debtors are in debt to. So when one bank fails it sends a ripple, or a flood, of panic through the system and banks can no longer get credit nor offer it.

And you know what? I don't want the country to meltdown so we can start all over.

 

[Paulie]

Sorry, Pauli, you know a lot but you are way too partisan. If you get a chance, listen to the broadcast. I didn't hear the entire thing, but I think it has more to do with a lack of transparency between lenders...in other words, Bank A doesn't know who Bank B is in debt to, or to whom Bank B's debtors are in debt to. So when one bank fails it sends a ripple, or a flood, of panic through the system and banks can no longer get credit nor offer it.

And you know what? I don't want the country to meltdown so we can start all over.

Bank A and Bank B's balance sheets are available for scrutinization. There's no excuse for not knowing. A smart investor wouldn't purchase stock in a company without first seeing their balance sheet, so why would a bank loan money to another one without seeing theirs?

The problem is that the average person has no clue how to PROPERLY manage their money, their investments, etc. Most people take comfort in believing someone else is taking care of the hard part FOR them, when in all actuality, nobody cares about you but YOU. You are your last line of defense when it comes to your money.

WE are the problem, Rav. It is US, as citizens who still control their own country, who are responsible for making sure it is well taken care of. But we don't care to be responsible for it anymore. We vote hoping that someone ELSE will, when we SHOULD be voting for who actually REPRESENTS us. Those who are in government do NOT represent us. They probably haven't represented us in 100 years, possibly more. With the exception of the few TRUE representatives who happen to slip through and fight the system throughout the years. There have been several, but they always remain nameless because the media (who is in bed with the establishment) will not give them adequate, favorable coverage.

You didn't pick Obama. The media and the establishment picked him FOR you, starting about 4 years ago. Most just don't realize it. They think they made their own informed choice, but most didn't. Most picked who the TV casually and discreetly told them to pick.

The same goes for McCain, only that wasn't being set up for years. That was an acute operation which seemed to kickstart right around the time Bhutto was killed. McCain will be a good little establishment BITCH, and so will Obama. They're both "safe" candidates, and that's why no matter who wins, the establishment still WINS, while we go on having the illusion that we had a choice.

And I don't want society to go up in flames either, but sometimes I'm afraid it's the only REAL way this country can be saved. Because the corruption, the apathy, the greed, the stupidity...it's all way too deeply embedded at this point to be changed by one bill, or one election.