Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Will the Bailout Work?

I hate to get sucked into this like everyone else but it seems like one of the few times recently where the news of the week legitimately should be the news of the week. It sounds like they're getting called out pretty hard for the lack of oversight, now ever Paulson admits that oversight in necessary, so that probably going to happen. Thats probably the second most critical part of this whole thing. Unfortunately the most important part is much harder to know, is it even going to work? What happens if we invest a trillion dollars and the companies still go belly up? The first question no one really knows the answer to because we don't ave time machines, the second question on the other hand has a pretty easy answer, and we all know it, we're fucked.

Like I said I don't expect to get a straight answer from anyone on whither or not this will work, but I'd like to find some differing opinions from some good sources.

Here's one that lays out what needs to be included, I guess the assumption (to be fair I haven't finished reading it) is that if all these things are done then it should work. Oh and the things that need to be done, regulate regulate and regulate.

Heres a little from the BBC, I always like to see what those outside our borders think.

Forbes is going to look at this from a little different perspective but it's a lot of comments by lawmakers so really not that different, but this quote is pretty amazing.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Which is why Chuck Shummer is pointing out that the plan is to spend about $50B a month, we all know were trying to navigate uncharted waters so why not give like $150 billion and then see where we are in three months, why write another huge blank check? Wow, how fucked up are we when we can actually say things like, lets start with a more reasonable number, say A HUNDRED AND FUCKING FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS!

I do find it amusing, the fiscal conservative who once controlled the republican party are up in arms because it's socialism, the fiscal liberals are up in arms because it's socialism for the rich paid for by the rest. A little bit of socialism isn't a bad thing, but make sure your protecting the weak, not the powerful who fucked up. It should be noted that many of these articles have mentioned that the senators are getting lots of phone calls and almost no one is in favor.

Somewhere and now I've lost the link there was mention of how some Exec's refused to cooperate with provisions that they must take a 10% loss. To me thats easy, either eat the loss for the year, get a huge influx of money from the government and try to rebuild your company under new regulations, pay back your debt to the Gov with interest, and then continue on as a business. Or go bankrupt. If they think the that they should automatically turn a profit after getting their asses saved by the very people they have fucked then they can suck my left nut. They're standing on a collapsing building, trying on their golden parachute and complaining that the cords are silver instead of platinum. I'm about ready to say fuck it all, even if it plunges us into a modern great depression these capitalist fucks need to feel the pain. This is the free market, they wanted fewer regulations, they got them, they did exactly what you would expect and it failed. Lets not forget that

Oh and to tie this in with the election, how come no one is bringing up McCain's involvement with the Keating Five Scandal?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for talking about this legislation because we all need to discuss this openly before they vote on it. The Sunlight Foundation put the two bailout bills online so people can comment on it. Feel free to visit publicmarkup.org to discuss these bills with others.