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[quote=gigantes]
ie, we must not let the fact that the boy with the dunce cap has been calling wolf the last 7-8 years prevent us from doing something when an actual wolf shows up. this is a monster wolf from what the experts say, not the paper wolves that karl rove and crew typically trot out in their second-rate halloween display.[/quote]
Well put. I'm still not sold on the bailout as written though.
[QUOTE=Real Men Wear Green]The Congressional banking committee or commision or whatever those guys Tester and Co. call themselves didn't see this coming, and they're supposed to be experts (they blame the Fed for nmot reporting to them on it). These companies claim to have this that and the other asset and we oftentimes have no clue whatsoever (look at Enron). Under these conditions, I don't like having to just trust the expert. My life really isn't even worth 1 billion dollars, let alone 700...[/QUOTE]
to say that they are expert and they should have seen this coming is like blaming the weather forecast for not being able to predict whether or not it will rain 100%. Sometimes there are things that you could be cautios and feel as if there should be something wrong, but yet it's difficult to detect what exactly is going wrong. Well the expert know what went wrong now, and is proposing a way to save it, but you think that since the expert couldn't predict the future so their understand of what is happening now is wrong, then we really have no one to turn to.
I really wonder how intolerable it would be if we just let the market ride itself out, even if we have to go through a depression of some sort. It seems we've enjoyed an almost too good to be true era of internet booms/stock booms to real estate booms making a lot of people rich with a higher standard of living. Maybe we need to face a downturn, of more penny pinching, less over consumption, and more down to earth reality in how we all live?
I just highly doubt it'll be the 'Great Depression' where people are killing themselves everywhere and people are supposedly starving. Thats very extreme when people say that. It just seems if we let it ride out, the market will naturally go down, and naturally up itself through free market competition. New companies will pop up or merge eventually i would think to profit where those huge failed companies left room for someone, or many, to move in.
@real men,
re: your salient points, i don't know why they couldn't see this coming. i imagine they knew that these institutions would be under a crunch, but from the available info thought that they would be able to withstand the crisis.
is it possible that if the full asset sheets were known (including off-the-sheet info not known to the general public), the experts could predict stuff like this more accurately? because if so, the experts could have predicted the entire history of bankruptcies and financial collapses.
my thinking is, when the experts don't know something then it's bound to be extraordinarily complicated or to contain much hidden information. neither of those should be reasons to discount the value of the experts IMO.
[QUOTE=hwliuLAP]to say that they are expert and they should have seen this coming is like blaming the weather forecast for not being able to predict whether or not it will rain 100%. Sometimes there are things that you could be cautios and feel as if there should be something wrong, but yet it's difficult to detect what exactly is going wrong. Well the expert know what went wrong now, and is proposing a way to save it, but you think that since the expert couldn't predict the future so their understand of what is happening now is wrong, then we really have no one to turn to.[/QUOTE]
Theres also a lot we don't know, or i never knew, and most people don't seem to know about the business sector. Fannie Mae and i believe Lehman Bros., and i'm assuming many other big companies are known to have cooked their books withiin the business sector but were never made accountable, in 2005?. I wish i could link the CNN interview with some 'expert' from the Wall Street Journal talking about how they donated to something like 365 out of 435 or something political candidate campaigns for them to look the other way, with the official CNN expert guy nodding his head. There was more to it, i just can't recall it specifically right now, but it seems well known to the 'experts' that a lot of these big business companies are extremely crooked, and get away with misrepresenting their profits.
I'm sure someone else saw it or knows about it, maybe they can explain it better. Either way i got the overall impression that a lot of these huge 'professional' companies that seem like they run on the up and up at the top of the corporate ladder, are run in underhanded ways generally that are a big part of the problem. Nothing changes with just a blank check when the underlying issues aren't addressed. I guess thats the realization everyone has come to now, but there was more than i knew, and i think more people knew, to all of this it seems.
[QUOTE=hwliuLAP]to say that they are expert and they should have seen this coming is like blaming the weather forecast for not being able to predict whether or not it will rain 100%. Sometimes there are things that you could be cautios and feel as if there should be something wrong, but yet it's difficult to detect what exactly is going wrong. Well the expert know what went wrong now, and is proposing a way to save it, but you think that since the expert couldn't predict the future so their understand of what is happening now is wrong, then we really have no one to turn to.[/QUOTE]
Well, the main reason I do believe in the bailout is because Jim Cramer is for it, and he saw the current crisis coming well in advance. But I don't think you fully understand the reasons behind my reservations. I'll list them.
1: I don't trust the Bush Administration at all. They used both Katrina and the Iraq War as excuses to funnel government money into their friends at Halliburton, and I actually have more faith in them giving the bailout funds to their cronies than I do in them actually accomplishing any good.
2: These companies can and do lie. They were incapable of managing their companies correctly before but somehow the receiving of billions will make them smarter and more honest?
No question that something has to happen, but I would liek to see some more deliberate action done by people that are actually trustworthy. I do not blanketly blame the "experts," I just don't trust the people that have been in charge up to the point.[QUOTE=gigantes]@real men,
re: your salient points, i don't know why they couldn't see this coming. i imagine they knew that these institutions would be under a crunch, but from the available info thought that they would be able to withstand the crisis.
is it possible that if the full asset sheets were known (including off-the-sheet info not known to the general public), the experts could predict stuff like this more accurately? because if so, the experts could have predicted the entire history of bankruptcies and financial collapses.
my thinking is, when the experts don't know something then it's bound to be extraordinarily complicated or to contain much hidden information. neither of those should be reasons to discount the value of the experts IMO.[/QUOTE]
Again: I am not against "the experts." I am against the people that have been in charge. To repeat myself, Jim Cramer saw this coming last year (and told us to invest in gold, which is doing very well at present). I just don't trust the people that have been in power.
[QUOTE=Real Men Wear Green]I just don't trust the people that have been in power.[/QUOTE]
well, that is just one of those things that we are going to have to live with.
for example, if the examining doc who (rightfully) says we need to have the appendix out happens to be an obnoxious @sshole that you've known for years- he's the last person on earth who should tell you what to do with your life, but he happens to be right in this case.
I'm not sure what to think about the bail out plan. I hate the fact that it has come to this when these big time companies like Fannie Mae turned a blind eye to the future to bring in big temporary profits. They all knew it was coming and did nothing about it, and now it has come to this.
I just wish I knew more about the plan. How the money will be distributed? What kind of a tax hit we are going to take? Will this really work, or should ride out the public market and see if it will correct itself? I've read a lot about it, and I can see both sides.
This just popped on on Yahoo!.
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown[/url]
[Quote]WASHINGTON - President Bush readied a prime time speech to the nation and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson accepted a major change in legislation for a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry on Wednesday as the administration scrambled to prevent further deterioration in the economy.
Republican officials said that Paulson had bowed to demands from critics in both parties to limit the pay packages of executives whose companies benefit from the proposed bailout. They spoke on condition of anonymity because Paulson's decision had not been formally announced.[/Quote]
How this will be done is beyond me. It was one of my major concerns about the plan. I certainly don't want these CEO's to benefit at all from bad business decisions. I just don't know how you regulate all this.
Here comes George Bush tonight at 9 PM to speak to the nation.....gee, where have we seen this before?...oh yeah....Iraq War BS.....Patriot Act BS.....
Here's a rule of thumb: If George Bush is pushing hard for something, we should quickly dismiss it and do the exact opposite. I think after 8 years of Bush/Cheney acting as traitors to our nation, at least we can learn THAT much.
[url]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26869586/[/url]
Let's think this through logically. There's only about three months left in this Presidency right? Why not wait to take drastic action until the NEW President gets into office? Since that President will be hampered by this "deal", shouldn't he be the one to sign it into action?
Makes sense right? Of course not. Bush and Cheney have to rape the Treasury for as much as they can even in their last breaths of power. Just to make the raping complete.
On one hand I do not at all enjoy the idea of footing the bill to bail out corporations that got us in this mess, their overpaid executives who took home millions despite presiding over this mess, and the idiot homeowners who can’t be bothered to understand the terms of their loans or understanding the meaning of the word afford. But the again is there an alternative? We rely so much on credit that you almost need somewhat to bolster the credit market and open up lending, hopefully responsible lending again. I am glad that congress is not rushing this through though. Another 1-2 weeks won’t kill anyone and allow us to flesh out more details. I mean who in their right mind would hand out a check for 700 billion on the basis of 750 words? I’ve had to write longer essays to get $2000 scholarships!
My opinion is that we need a bailout but we also need to be careful about how the money is spent. No way we should trust Bush-Cheney and their cronies with any more absurd powers like that. They’ve already put us in a hole with Iraq while making their buddies rich. I’m sure they’d do it again if given a chance.
You guys know what the really pathetic part about this is though? The real victims end up being the responsible folks, that what really sucks. Corporations like Wells Fargo for example, or consumers who understand what it means to live with their means. We end up footing the bill while idiots get to keep their homes they shouldn’t have bought in the first place and corporations get rewarded for taking risk they probably shouldn’t have either.
[QUOTE=shadow]On one hand I do not at all enjoy the idea of footing the bill to bail out corporations that got us in this mess, their overpaid executives who took home millions despite presiding over this mess, and the idiot homeowners who can
[QUOTE=bagelred]Here comes George Bush tonight at 9 PM to speak to the nation.....gee, where have we seen this before?...oh yeah....Iraq War BS.....Patriot Act BS.....
Here's a rule of thumb: If George Bush is pushing hard for something, we should quickly dismiss it and do the exact opposite. I think after 8 years of Bush/Cheney acting as traitors to our nation, at least we can learn THAT much.
[url]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26869586/[/url]
Let's think this through logically. There's only about three months left in this Presidency right? Why not wait to take drastic action until the NEW President gets into office? Since that President will be hampered by this "deal", shouldn't he be the one to sign it into action?
Makes sense right? Of course not. Bush and Cheney have to rape the Treasury for as much as they can even in their last breaths of power. Just to make the raping complete.[/QUOTE]
You have to be careful though. There is a lot more to this for the entire economy, and therefore, the everyday people. It's not just helping these corps. A financial meltdown will not help everyday people fighting to make it through. A bailout needs to happen. Waiting 3 months could be a disaster.
[QUOTE=RapsFan]You have to be careful though. There is a lot more to this for the entire economy, and therefore, the everyday people. It's not just helping these corps. A financial meltdown will not help everyday people fighting to make it through. A bailout needs to happen. Waiting 3 months could be a disaster.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-home-front/2008/09/19/ron-paul-this-bailout-wont-be-the-last.html[/url]
Ron Paul was right about this economic situation, I trust his opinion. He is saying no bailout.
It's so disheartening to know that a monster like Osama Bin Laden accomplished exactly what he set out to do only 7 years ago.....absolutely bleed us economically.
He set the conditions and hysteria....our government played it right into his hands.
Of course this collapse is part of a bigger picture (fed, economic policy, etc.) but the terrorism hysteria put us into meltdown overdrive.
And just wait until US auto makers need a bailout.....it's going to get real messy.
:mad:
[quote=Dash]
And just wait until US auto makers need a bailout.....it's going to get real messy.
:mad:[/quote]
Jeez I didn't even think about that :banghead: