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Early Addition
The Bush administration's $700 billion request to bail out bad mortgages was formally sent to Congress today. From the Washington Post:
The package, the most sweeping government intervention in the markets since the Great Depression, was $200 billion higher than lawmakers had been told yesterday to expect. It also does not include the $200 billion that officials said earlier this month the government will spend on the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.President Bush told reporters today, "It is a big package because it's a big problem. The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package." Further, he tried to explain why he did it, being the MBA President and all: "I'm sure there are some of my friends out there that are saying, 'I thought this guy was a market guy, what happened to him?' My first instinct was to let the market work, until I realized, while being briefed by the experts, how significant this problem became.''To accommodate the spending, the package also would also raise the federal debt limit to $11.3 trillion from the current $10.6 trillion. The debt now stands at $9.6 trillion.
The NY Times has an editorial, saying, "Taxpayers have every right to be alarmed and angry" about this fifth bailout, but it's "not necessarily a bad" plan. However: "Make no mistake, this crisis could have been avoided if regulators had enforced rules and officials had dared to question risky lending and other dubious practices."
For the give-me-a-goddamn-break file, the Wall Street Journal looks at how "New York's Wealthy Economize":
A nose job in a hospital with a private nurse in attendance had been something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher's children. But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it.On the other side, the Daily News' Errol Louis has a column about regular people wondering where their bailouts are.The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old's proboscis.
"The other noses were more prominent," the stay-at-home mother from a tony New York City suburb in Westchester County told her 16-year-old daughter. She could get hers done when things settled down.
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I can't even begin to get my head around what a moronic mess this whole thing is. There is so much I want to say and can't even get anything out.
And what was it that the GOP always accuses the Dems of, Tax and spend? Largest EVER government bailout on GOP watch. The treasure only had 800 billion at its dispose. Now we have the equivalent. That is about the same as the average American saves about 1-2 percent annually. Boy, are we f*^ked! They screw up and say they need to do this. Now the Dems will inherit the greatest national deficit in our history and what are the Dems supposed to do to correct it-Tax and spend just what the friggin' GOP set it up to do. Conspiracy, why not? It is their strategy to get back in in 2012.
Why is everybody mad? It's not your problem anymore. It's your great great great grandchildren's now. Man, imagine having to buy a loaf of bread in 2099 from the chinese that will cost them 1 million dollars a slice. Baby Boomers fucked everything up/
Heckuvajob, Georgie.
Doesn't exactly take a futurist thinktank to have seen this coming. Nobody watching the store apparently. Free market. Dummies. The bailout is unfair. I hope they will guarantee an affordable fixed rate for all those folks who are losing their homes. And it urks me that there won't be much pain and consequence for these aholes on Wall St. and Washington. Plus, this may not work. The secret of money: there is never enough. Open market capitalism should have some guidelines that keep the economy sound. We all depend on that. You just have to legislate against unbridled greed. Welcome to the golden shower of the trickle down economy. Thank Reagan for that.
What happened to the Republicans wanting only a free market economy? This exhibit of economic patriotism is so unlike the Republicans. The world is watching and gloating.
congress is mostly to blame for this mess.
Looks like our "first MBA President" & his "free market" rethugs screwed things up so badly that we've become a socialist nation, using taxpayers money to bail out failing businesses. Can you imagine the bloody screaming that they'd be doing if this happened on a Democratic president's watch?
Hey, George W. Dumbf__k: when Hugo Chavez nationalized businesses, he had the brains to get ones that ere making money... like the oil companies. You're so dumb, you grabbed the ones that were already belly-up! Moron!
"congress is mostly to blame for this mess."
Yeah... the republican congress who, under the 'leadership" of Phil Gramm finally got rid of the regulations that Roosevelt & the Democrats passed tp protect us after the LAST time Wall Street ran unfettered.
Greed is NOT good. Greed does NOT work.
The current crisis came about because of the massive production of funny money. Producing yet more funny money is probably not going to solve it. And no, your great-grandchildren are not going to be paying the debt. You are, when your bank accounts go down the drain.
Agreed with #10 and that is why I am angry at the damn Boomers.
I am 25 and you meant to tell me me and my children will pay for this mess.
The faux-patriotic GOP don't care one bit if they bankrupt the country, as long as their own personal accounts are doing well.
Blah Blah feckin Blah....Who ye gonna blame Smart guy? Left right Left right...oh thats a dummy derby ain't it? Oh it is
Nobody knows how to fixit, the Banjo player from Deliverance says it will fix itself...
up is down black is white
Don't think that the federal government can't collect on these loans. Just like student and SBA loans, the price of relief here could be that the defaulters cannot ever dispose of their debt in bankruptcy and will bear their burden for the rest of their lives or until they pay up. Uncle Sam is one cruel shylock.
#11: I think the current crisis has a lot more to do with class than with age group.
If you're 25 you might actually come about ahead -- depends if you can get control of any assets when the fire sale occurs. It will be tricky, but fortunes are made during depressions and other catastrophes. First, though, we've all got to get through the next five or ten years. Among other effects of printing money, the dollar will go in the can and gas will cost not $4 but $10 per gallon, or more -- for example.
We're being turned into a third-world country.
Investing heavily in the melamine futures market as we speak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwPkTmqfpg
Don't worry, all this money is coming from the Federal Reserve's magic photo copy machine.
AMERICA COLLAPSES!!! I LOVE it!.