TARP's OUT! Our government has no clue on how to fix financial crisis!

[oreo]

Secretary Paulson just threw out "tarp"--the 700 billion dollar bailout bill that was rushed through congress, while we we're being told it had to happen or everything in our world was going to collapse overnight. Since the bailout was approved the stock market has kept falling. Why? No confidence.

The "tarp" or 700 billion dollars was to buy "toxic" mortgages from banks--so that it would free up money for banks to loan out to US.

Well, this plan has gone out the window. Now the federal government is going to shore up consumer borrowing for new cars & (get this) credit cards!

Now, I don't know if you all remember, but we were all scolded last year for using our credit cards too much! Our goverment stated the typical American family carried too much credit card debt! Today, they want us to use our credit cards piling up huge amounts of more debt, & by the way while you're at it, go out & buy a new car.

Now, they're all up there on Capital Hill talking about bailing out the auto industry in this country. Well, I have just one question. What if we, the American public, really do not want to buy a new car? What if we're O.K. with the ones we have already, (hopefully) the ones that are paid for? Did our government ever think of that? Apparently not.

It's not that the banks are not loaning out money, or that they don't have enough money, it's that WE--the American consumers are not borrowing any money. Americans have dramatically reduced our spending, we have tightened our belts.

So someone please explain to me, how will throwing billions of dollars at the auto industry help them, when no one is buying their product?

Americans are loosing their jobs, their homes, their life savings--& our government wants us to spend, spend, spend.

I am no Harvard economist, but it would seem to me, that if our goverment was truly interested in getting this economy up & moving,--they should give us (the taxpayers & bill-payers of this country) the bailout money & YES--we would spend, spend, spend our way out of this economic mess. Some of us would even buy a new car.

It appears to me, that our goverment does not trust the taxpayers & bill-payers of this country to do that. So they instead prefer to give it to the exact same people who drove their industries into the ground in the first place.

Where is the common sense in that?

Your comments?

 

[Mad Scientist]

Faced with tough economic times, Americans are doing the right thing:
They've stopped spending.
Why spend any savings you have when businesses all over are laying off or going under? The unemployment rate is expected to be around 8-10% when the dust settles. People are rightly nervous and will not spend when in a down economy.
Government should be lowering taxes and reducing regulation on businesses to allow them to thrive and hire more workers. But it looks like Obama isn't going to do that but will do the exact opposite. He is also looking at a cap-and-trade system that will siphon off more money from and be a millstone around the necks of businesses. What is he thinking?
I for one am not optimistic.
And by the way, you don't need to be a Harvard economist to know why the economy is hurting. Just like you don't need to know how to play guitar to know if it's out of tune. Don't let the biggies bullshit us!

Little country common sense for ya''ll!

 

[editec]

TARP's OUT! Our government has no clue on how to fix financial crisis!

You have been misinformed.

Our government does not want to fix the problem, they are seeking to exacerbate the problem.

And they're doing a might fine job of it too.

Think about it for a moment folks, and some of you who are faithbased fools (and I am NOT talking about your religions, here, but your faith in leadership) will see I am right.

Do you really think that the world's best and brightest economists did NOT KNOW:

that deinduistrializing our nation by giving all the trade advantages to foreign companies importing into this nation was going to make the nation poorer?

that inflating the money supply while deflating the average salary would lead to the average American family borrowing from Peter to pay Paul?

that taxing Americans to spend trillions on the defence of other nations, while giving those nations a pass on trade laws, and allowing (indeed helping!) their government call any union organizers "communists" so that their goods would be much much much cheaper than American made goods, would not destroy this nations industrial sectors?

that, giving trillions of dollars to the very people who caused this fiscal meltdown, and then putting them in charge of this nation's solutoin to that problem would encentize them to actually fix it?

Folks, wake the fuck up!

These people are NOT that stupid.

 

[strollingbones]

the american people have tighten their belts and stopped spending...has the us government done that...hell no...will they...hell no...

 

[editec]

the american people have tighten their belts and stopped spending...has the us government done that...hell no...will they...hell no...

The American people's belt tightening is not in large part a conscious decision.

They're still spending as much as they were only now it's not going to Main Street USA, it's going to Main Street Saudi Arabia, and Main Street Peking.

American is broke because 30% of everything we buy is foreign made, folks.

That means that thirty cents our of every dollar every Americans spend goes where?

OFFSHORE!

Free trade, my ass!

 

[oreo]

the american people have tighten their belts and stopped spending...has the us government done that...hell no...will they...hell no...

We're not spending our own hard earned money, so the government is spending our own hard earned money for us!

 

[oreo]

I guess our government has never learned the expression of what MOST OF US LIVE BY:

SINK OR SWIM!

All of these bailouts are nothing more than cheap life vests that are loosing air quickly. There is no boat on the horizon, nor will there be. Let those that FAIL, FAIL--so we can RECOVER!

Government is not the solution, it's the problem: "Ronald Reagan" And it's becoming a bigger problem day by day.

 

[oreo]

The American people's belt tightening is not in large part a conscious decision.

They're still spending as much as they were only now it's not going to Main Street USA, it's going to Main Street Saudi Arabia, and Main Street Peking.

American is broke because 30% of everything we buy is foreign made, folks.

That means that thirty cents our of every dollar every Americans spend goes where?

OFFSHORE!

Free trade, my ass!

Again--you're talking energy. Agreed--to get this economy moving we need to produce our own energy, brought to us by American workers. Government restrictions have deterred any movement in this direction for decades. Now that Obama was elected & we have a democrat congress--"guess what"> It looks like they are going to renige on drilling off of our own shores, even though 70% of Americans want too, including 67% of the Americans that voted for Obama.

But, I have to disagree with you on one point. Americans are not spending the same amount of money. No way. We have cut back on EVERYTHING. That is why we are now in a GLOBAL recession. Every country we do business with is in the TANK. The old saying: If America sneezes the rest of the world catches cold. Well it looks like the rest of the world has got phenomia. And they're blaming us for it.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Secretary Paulson just threw out "tarp"--the 700 billion dollar bailout bill that was rushed through congress, while we we're being told it had to happen or everything in our world was going to collapse overnight. Since the bailout was approved the stock market has kept falling. Why? No confidence.

The "tarp" or 700 billion dollars was to buy "toxic" mortgages from banks--so that it would free up money for banks to loan out to US.

Well, this plan has gone out the window. Now the federal government is going to shore up consumer borrowing for new cars & (get this) credit cards!

Now, I don't know if you all remember, but we were all scolded last year for using our credit cards too much! Our goverment stated the typical American family carried too much credit card debt! Today, they want us to use our credit cards piling up huge amounts of more debt, & by the way while you're at it, go out & buy a new car.

Now, they're all up there on Capital Hill talking about bailing out the auto industry in this country. Well, I have just one question. What if we, the American public, really do not want to buy a new car? What if we're O.K. with the ones we have already, (hopefully) the ones that are paid for? Did our government ever think of that? Apparently not.

It's not that the banks are not loaning out money, or that they don't have enough money, it's that WE--the American consumers are not borrowing any money. Americans have dramatically reduced our spending, we have tightened our belts.

So someone please explain to me, how will throwing billions of dollars at the auto industry help them, when no one is buying their product?

Americans are loosing their jobs, their homes, their life savings--& our government wants us to spend, spend, spend.

I am no Harvard economist, but it would seem to me, that if our goverment was truly interested in getting this economy up & moving,--they should give us (the taxpayers & bill-payers of this country) the bailout money & YES--we would spend, spend, spend our way out of this economic mess. Some of us would even buy a new car.

It appears to me, that our goverment does not trust the taxpayers & bill-payers of this country to do that. So they instead prefer to give it to the exact same people who drove their industries into the ground in the first place.

Where is the common sense in that?

Your comments?

We are going to see the fact play out CLEARLY and all before our left-wing loons' collective eyes, the GOVERNMENT is USELESS!!!!! Government is NOT the answer to ANYTHING!! They have no power to alter global economic events and the things they do have power to do, they COCK UP!!!!

When will IDIOTS across this land EVER get the clue that GOVERNMENT basically, has NO USEFUL PURPOSE, outside of maintaining the armed forces?

 

[Zoomie1980]

We're not spending our own hard earned money, so the government is spending our own hard earned money for us!

There is nothing surprising about this. Americans are finally doing what financial adivisors have been advocating for years and decades. STOP SPENDING, STOP BORROWING, Save, save, save and live within your means.

Well when that happens a LOT of marginal people in marginal business LOSE THEIR JOBS. We CONTRACT but the contraction is all NORMAL and EXPECTED.

We have lived beyond our means in this country now for 30 years. The bill HAD to become due at some time. that time is now. We need to pay the fiddler, the government needs to let that fiddler be paid, get out of the way, let the weak die, let us swallow our bitter pill, then let us get on to recovery

And there is a reason WalMart profits are growing in the middle of a consumer recession. The WalMart model WORKS and is a classic example of the free market in action. Low prices, non-unionized labor, giving the people what they want, quality goods at a CHEAP price. If that's not the model of capitalism in action, nothing else is. God Bless WalMart....

 

[Toro]

These people are NOT that stupid.

They aren't stupid but they are somewhat clueless.

 

[Toro]

I guess our government has never learned the expression of what MOST OF US LIVE BY:

SINK OR SWIM!

All of these bailouts are nothing more than cheap life vests that are loosing air quickly. There is no boat on the horizon, nor will there be. Let those that FAIL, FAIL--so we can RECOVER!

Government is not the solution, it's the problem: "Ronald Reagan" And it's becoming a bigger problem day by day.

No, in this case government is the solution, or at least part of the solution. The actions by the government have been ham-handed at best and incompetent at worst - though, in fairness, the people trying to solve this problem are working in an environment no one has ever seen before. However, had the government not stepped in, the unwinding of this financial crisis would have been far, far worse.

We do need to shut down the companies that should fail. Otherwise, we risk creating our own zombie companies and replicating Japan of the 1990s.

 

[sparky]

imho, little consideration is given toward the producer/consumer ratio at the bottom of the pyramid, as it is the top in America

in a nutshell, you loose the foundation (i.e.-middle class) of any country, and it'll eventually tank...

 

[editec]

Again--you're talking energy.

No I am talking about 30% of everything we BUY

Agreed--to get this economy moving we need to produce our own energy, brought to us by American workers.

We're on the same page there. That's a big part of the problem , but not the whole problem.

But, I have to disagree with you on one point. Americans are not spending the same amount of money. No way.

That's true but the 30% problem remains, even if it's 30% of a smaller number.

$3 out of every $10 we spend goes offshore!

 

[DavidS]

the american people have tighten their belts and stopped spending...has the us government done that...hell no...will they...hell no...

Retail sales take record drop; import prices tumble

Link here

 

[editec]

Retail sales take record drop; import prices tumble

Link here

The stupid policy chickens of the last five decades have come home to roost, folks.

The working classes credit is tapped out and so our consuming public can no longer be the economic engine of the world.

This economic problem isn't forever, but this recession isn't going to be a short shallow one, I suspect.