Mother Jones - Comments for "Pass the Effin Bill"

One thing you have to give to the Bush administration is that they are consistent. Consistently wrong. No wonder people don't trust them to do anything right.

The more I think about and analyze this bailout, the more ridiculous it seems. I think that is the hurry--they don't want the folks to figure out the ulterior motives.

I know you ain't stupid, so why do you never learn? Patriot Act, Afghanistan, Iraq, Rose Revolution, Hamas, Iran, Syria, etc. etc., not to mention 'financial innovation'. All the same Democrats who thought that Iraq was a good idea think we have to pass THIS bailout, and will accept no substitutes... because Paulson (& Bush) said so. ....

You might as well just get 'SUCKER!' tattoed across your forehead.

Yes, Max. It's disheartening. I was all set to vote for Obama, too. Now I guess I'll vote libertarian, or green. Or something.

The crisis is inside Congress's OODA loop. It does no good to try to react faster. If the problem won't wait for Congress to get the details settled at their own pace, there's no hope they can catch up with it.

How is it so many people don't even have the OODA loop concept clear? It's so simple and obvious, but they still want results faster than they can get them.

> As evil as the system is, or
> is perceived to be, the
> unfortunate reality is that
> the time of SHTF is possibly
> here. Or as the various
> collapse conspiracy sites
> abbreviate TEOTWAWKI.

Which is exactly what we were told at the time of the LTCM collapse/bailout. Regulatory controls put in place: zero. Incentives modified: zero. Gigantic salaries and bonuses for all the guilty parties, continuing on to 2008: check.

But this time, THIS time it is _different_. This time there _must_ be a bailout or all will collapse. And quit talking about salary clawbacks or criminal investigations; such things are not helpful and will not be allowed.

Fool me once...

Cranky

All very good comments. However?

As evil as the system is, or is perceived to be, the unfortunate reality is that the time of SHTF is possibly here. Or as the various collapse conspiracy sites abbreviate TEOTWAWKI.

It will interesting to see how the Left or Right Blogosphere responds to scenes of $50/lb for a bag of rice,
assuming that the electricity is still on for the Internet to function.

I can only assume the Survivalists are at a near state of joy, seeing their long feared (or hoped for) scenario come to reality.

All very good comments. However

As evil as the system is, or is perceived to be, the unfortunate reality is that the time of SHTF is possibly here. Or as the various collapse conspiracy sites abbreviate TEOTWAWKI.

It will interesting to see how the Left or Right Blogosphere responds to scenes of $50/lb for a bag of rice,
assuming that the electricity is still on for the Internet to function.

I can only assume the Survivalists are at a near state of joy, seeing their long feared (or hoped for) scenario come to reality.

All very good comments. However?

As evil as the system is, or is perceived to be, the unfortunate reality is that the time of SHTF is possibly here. Or as the various collapse conspiracy sites abbreviate TEOTWAWKI.

It will interesting to see how the Left or Right Blogosphere responds to scenes of $50/lb for a bag of rice,
assuming that the electricity is still on for the Internet to function.

I can only assume the Survivalists are at a near state of joy, seeing their long feared (or hoped for) scenario come to reality.

This thing has to be hurried at all costs and any price. It's a matter of hours. Not because the Dow Jones might fall but becose Congress wants to leave.

...Bushco continues to govern the country like a Pleistocene American bison-jump : use repeated shocks to frigthten the herd, to drive them this way and that in increasing terror, until in a madness born of fear the voters plunge over the cliff. After which the hunters pick over the wreckage for their meat.

Posted by: joel hanes on 09/28/08 at 1:37 AM

...But...But, Dumbya seemed so sincere and nice when he explained this (latest) impending catastrophe?

No, don't pass the effin' bill.

Maybe because I'm not a financial whiz, or perhaps because I am so far from NYC and DC, here in Seattle, but I don't see that there is a need to rush into this. The Paulson plan seemed to pay off the gambling debts of big gamblers. In my way of thinking, they should pay for their bad debts while the public is protected, if that is possible.

These weasels have been part of the money bags bunch that elected the Republicans who wrecked this country. They should pay for that.

The Bushie's fear campaign seems to have worked quite effectively, allbetsareoff. Nothing like a lot of fear to get people to stop thinking rationally. The only "disaster" if we don't get a bailout will be to the balance sheets of some Wall Street Banks. Check, the news, Small banks, regional banks, the ones who didn't get involved in all these CDOs and derivatives, are still lending and doing just fine. The excesses of the markets in the last 8 years need to be wrung out, and the only way to do that is for the stock market to take a hit and reset to realistic values. Don't expect other taxpayers to bail you out if if were foolish enough to invest thinking that stocks could only go up. Man up, and take your medicine.

Well now, do you really think that printing up billions of dollars in bailouts will do anything other than cause a hyperinflation like the prewar Weimar mefo bill or current Zimbabwe cases? You illiterate bloggers have lost your marbles (if you ever had any.) How moronic is the true rallying cry of the Fed and Treasury: "Save the bubble, blow it up bigger than ever, that's the ticket!" There are none so blind..

150 Economists, including 3 Nobel Prize winners, have come out against this bailout. The story is
posted around the internet and easy to find with a Google search.

This bill is nothing more than GW Bush's final gift to his fat-cat (no, that's not really a cliche in this case) supporters.

The bailout can only be financed with additional debt, and since the US economy doesn't have $700 BILLION of money available to finance this bailout (if we did, we wouldn't be in this alleged "liquidity crisis"), we'll need foreign investors to buy more of our funny-money -- ones who already hold massive amounts of public and private US debt. But printing up another $700 BILLION of money and dumping it into the world markets will cause a collapse of the dollar and eventually, hyperinflation. The cure is far worse than the problem.

You mention "oversight" of the bailout. Read the bill. The "oversight" is a sham, with it being provided by the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce, the heads of the SEC and Federal Reserve. ALL Bushies and Wall Street insiders! This is not "oversight", this is the fox guarding the henhouse.

The claim that the credit markets have "frozen up" is a scam. The big banks have simply stopped lending to create this artificial "crisis" to prod their buddies in the White House to get them this bailout. They're quite effectively gaming the system.

Kevin, I don't say no, I say hell no. There used to be a time in this country when this level of foreseeable incompetence was punished, i.e., the Captain of the Titantic went down with the ship. Today we're being driven to panic by a bunch of Wall Streeters who threaten to hold their breath until their customers turn blue if the taxpayer doesn't bail them out. Hogwash -- there are still trillions of dollars floating around looking for a place to be put to use. Maybe the nameplates on the doors might change, but profitable businesses will still be able to finance their operations after a week or two of petulance if this bum's rush is voted down. There are no aluminum tubes that have to be destroyed tomorrow, and we won't be greeted as liberators if we pass this. Why are you so easily rolled?

I'm sorry, but these people have cried wolf too many times, and rich friends of the Bush administration have been been shoveled too much taxpayer money already. I love reading Kevin's articles, and I trust his intentions; but he was frightened by Republican exaggerations and lies into supporting the Iraq War too. So now I should be persuaded because Kevin is citing more Republicans, who are now making end of the world arguments to give a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to their Wall Street friends? I don't know anything about economics, but this is not the way to convince me. So I have to think, if the plan includes any money that benefits rich campaign contributors or other friends of politicians, I'm against it.