Bailout - Yea or Nay?

[weemadando]

So, do you think that the bail-out should go through?

[MKSheppard]

Fuck it; they need to learn from their mistakes.

[weemadando]

Personally? They can go hang. These idiots ran things for years and rode high on the profits, along with shareholders and everyone else who wilfully played their game. Now when things go bad for them, after years of demanding less restrictions and oversight from the government they demand that the government bail them out?

Fuck off. Sure it's going to fuck the economies of the world short term, but to bail them out is just to ensure that the cycle continues.

[Stark]

I find both options ridiculous. Giving huge amounts of money to rich bankers is bad, but so is pointing and laughing when it might be possible to do something, just to spite 'rich people' or whatever. This shouldn't polarise the world into class warfare; whatever is done should be done to minimise the damage, NOT 'punish' the 'bad' 'irresponsible' 'greedy' people.

I think many people are far too eager to cut off their nose to spite their face, simply to make so-called 'regular people' feel better about being poor. The objective is economic stability, NOT punitive policy. That should be done later, when there's no massive crisis looming.

[K. A. Pital]

Is there a massive crisis in the overall economy looming? In that case, what good can giving 700 billion to Wall Street do? If the crisis is systemic, blowing money won't do shit. Japan tried that. If the crisis is NOT systemic and is not in the real economy sector, there's no need to waste huge amounts to save people who caused a market bubble.

[Bluewolf]

Echoing Stark I think some other method should be use to try and minimize the damage. What good is there just to leave things to fall apart? This bailout plan is flawed and wont be that effective.

So what type of plan would help reduce the damage to the economy?

[Edi]

They need to do it the same way Sweden and Finland did in the 1990s. This means the government is going to have to lay out a lot of money and there's going to be some losses, but a lot of it can be recouped once things are done and the shit flushed. The investors get assraped in that model and the actual morons responsible for the decisions that led to this go to prison and have as much of their assets confiscated as are required to cover the cost of their negligence, leaving them flat broke out in the street. Meaning the executives get the biggest shafting of all.

Of course, this is never going to be done, so fuck them.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Nationalise the lot of them, then bail them out. I don't see why they should get free cheques. Hold them accountable to the public.

[Admiral Valdemar]

There are no solutions to this mess. Reacting to something that was painfully obvious to me years ago is not a solution, but a form of belated damage control to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Sorry, but the Case-Shiller shows we're not even halfway down this slope of hell. House prices will have to be far lower to be anywhere near actual values. Tie that in with LIBOR exploding, the dollar freefalling, commodities going up, actual wages eaten away by inflationary pressure and the oncoming energy crises and you've no way for these prices of the last year to ever come back in our lifetimes. Even if the prices for homes stayed relatively unchanged, you'd not be able to justify the loans for it, to say nothing of constant revisions downward in value.

You cannot solve this correction. That is what Paulson's plan was trying to do by perpetuating this clusterfuck. As aerius (or maybe it was J) said, a heroin addict being given pills and booze to ease the pain solves jack. Let the correction happen. We'll all be screwed by it, but at least we won't be trampled under the system and screwed. It'll hurt them all.

[Zablorg]

Fuck the bailout. The only thing that's going to solve this mess is a long, long time, by which point I figure they would have had a good long look at their workings. Like sitting in a corner for the better of a century. Didn't they already try pumping miniscule amounts of money into the system and it just got washed away like everything else?

I mean fuck, I tried the same thing in Sim City 3 and I wound up impeached.

[Vympel]

We don't need no water, just let the motherfucker burn. That's if I have to choose between a $700 billion oversight-free handout to Wall Street and doing nothing.

[apocolypse]

Seconded w/ Vym. Fuck them and their stupidity. Giving them money for fucking up isn't exactly going to change much.

As an aside, I see the Senate is taking up the vote today. I'm sure they'll pass it. I'll be pissed, but not terribly surprised as I'm sure leverage has been applied by this point.

[Uraniun235]

Comedy "everything's insolvent, go to command economy" option.

[Mr Bean]

There does need to be a limited bailout. Specifically we can buy large numbers of these loans then go non-profit on them.

IE one of the biggest up-the-arse issues homeowners are having is the fact that they bought houses for a low introductory rate then get it jacked up to high hell after a year and they can't afford to make payments. What if the Fed steps in and buys these loans out but drops the interest rate to a single percent in order to ensure payment. It's becomes much easier for people to pay of the loans if they are not being charged 30% of a frigging 500k loan as happened to alot of people in CA.

So no, bailout the home-owners and by extension the banks. Speaking of which, grease up the Courts because we have allot of people who need to go to trial.

[ray245]

Could a bailout, or an act of pumping in money be able to ease the economic recovery from a recession or a depression?

[Korvan]

If it was up to me, I'd say fuck 'em. Then I'd put that $700B into major infrastructure projects, something that'd benefit everyone, not just the fat cats.

[J]

Could a bailout, or an act of pumping in money be able to ease the economic recovery from a recession or a depression?

No. $630 billion was pumped into the market on Monday while everyone was watching the bailout bill. The markets loved it so much they crashed around 7% in a day.


Bailouts do nothing to solve the underlying problems. See the Genesis Plan (PDF) for a quick outline of what must be done to solve the crisis.

[Admiral Valdemar]

France is also offering $400bn now for EU banks. I wonder if they grasp that black holes are insatiable...

[Darth Raptor]

Comedy "everything's insolvent, go to command economy" option.

It's probably testament to my ignorance that I don't see how this is the comedy option; especially next to the two apparently for serious choices of "terrible plan" and "do nothing".

[Knife]

On the two options available, fuck em and let em burn comes to mind. But above and beyond that two choice poll, a lot of stuff needs to be done but not necessarily shoveling 700 billion into wall street. Regulation on those assclowns, sure. Maybe a government assistance program for people to save their homes (mortages), and perhaps government money available for new banks or smaller banks to become more competitive on regional or national level to fill the vacuum of all the failed banks.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Where's the "Watch the world burn" option? I don't see how pissing on an inferno changes anything.

Also, Putin is pissed about the lack of bailout. I wonder if that will make some even more adamant to get it killed again.

[apocolypse]

Where's the "Watch the world burn" option? I don't see how pissing on an inferno changes anything.

Also, Putin is pissed about the lack of bailout. I wonder if that will make some even more adamant to get it killed again.

As much as I'd love to see it get killed again, I have a feeling it'll pass this time.


As an aside (completely OT) what "Google [Bot]"? I see it under users browsing this forum, but there's no hyperlink like registered members get.

[Uraniun235]

France is also offering $400bn now for EU banks. I wonder if they grasp that black holes are insatiable...

Nobody likes to be told they're facing a no-win scenario.

[Pablo Sanchez]

What I've wondered from the beginning of this bailout discussion is, if these companies are too big and too critical to the economy to be allowed to fail, why were they ever allowed to fuck up like this? And how in God's name could the solution proposed by the President and the Congress be "give them taxpayer money and change nothing about the system."

I think this is a good opportunity to get some hot-shit economists and task them with creating a proposal to move the American economy from the "wealth increases infinitely, forever" model which helps produce these bubbles into a model designed for stability and equitable distribution of wealth (the second being a necessary part of the first).

[Admiral Valdemar]

Nobody likes to be told they're facing a no-win scenario.

I guess so. But we have to do something! I love that reasoning that the press and White House are peddling. If your house is on fire, you HAVE to do something. Even if that something is you panicking and simply videoing and sending the footage of your burning house to friends for a small charge. Least we did something in time! Phew.

Honestly, if this "new" plan gets passed, with all the added "sweetness" (LOL, some tax breaks and some obscure tinkering with CEO pay? Are they fucking kidding me?!), then I need to count the number of days it takes for nearly a trillion bucks to be seen as "not enough" and for the markets to continue their impression of a lawn dart.

The financial sector has shown it can grab us by the short and curlies and threaten our way of life in good and bad times, despite their total incompetence in doing that one job of keeping tabs on money and who has it. It's time to tell them to fuck off and reap what they sow. If that means global hardship to get out of this insane relationship, then so be it. It's too bad no one in Capitol Hill or anywhere of real exposure to the public can summarise this in a sound-bite and convince everyone else.

Pablo also has a great comment. We need to get off this "growth/greed is good" bullshit. There are already articles on people potentially making back profits on their house value in the near future! WTF?! You'll be lucky to break even with these prices, let alone make a profit, assuming you can even get a loan for anything you want down the line. It's pretty damn clear Wall Street's MO of fucking over everything and everyone for a percentage only leads to short term gain and a ransacking of society, not to mention the environment.

Modest living is needed, because if we can't curb our desires to have more, more, more, then we're fucked either way.