The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    oleeb's picture

    Before we fork over a Trillion dollars I have a question: why is it important that we save these crooks from their own greed, fraud and failure?

    By oleeb on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 3:32am |
    Pardon me for asking, but just why is it, exactly, that it makes any sense for me or anyone I know or run into during my life to bail out the investment banks?  I really would like to know.

    Let's say we let them crash.  What difference would it make to the millions that have been working for declining wages, losing benefits, even losing their homes?  I am beginning to think that the only reasonable response to the "crash" on Wall Street is to let them go ahead and take their lumps.  We little people are going to get fucked either way.  It's just that if we don't hand these crooks a Trillion dollars in the next couple of weeks, we'll still have some money left to spend on health care, fighting poverty, economic and community development, education, the NIH and a thousand other things that are worth spending our tax money on.

    I honestly do not see how saving those rich assholes benefits the common people of this country.  All it does is load us down with debt that will, at some point down the road, turn into an enormous tax obligation and you can be damn sure the rich will not get stuck with the tax tab.  Nope!  The rich will escape higher taxation while the little people once again are forced to work like slaves to keep the rich growing richer.

    Comments

    Have you heard of the "Great Depression"? This one is supposed to make that one look like a little recession...I can find NOTHING written that tells me it can be avoided if we let the country's financial underpinnings come undone...You obviously have access to the internet. Do your homework. If you find reputable info to the contrary, I would be interested in seeing it. I HAVE been researching, and everything I see says if we're damned if we do, damned if we don't...one way just involves my grandchildren starving, and frankly, I'd rather help the bastards than let that happen.


    by stillidealistic (not verified) on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 3:51am

    Yes, we are damned either way, but I don't see how keeping the rich as rich as they want to be helps your grandkids or mine. I see no benefit to the average person for propping up a failed system that will only serve to enrich those who wrecked the system and enslave those who will be forced to pay. BTW, the depression is already here for millions in case you hadn't noticed.

    But again, who suffers if the "financial underpinnings" fail? Is it the common people who live hand to mouth to begin with? I think not. I think it won't get much worse for the average family than it is now. I think we're being bamboozled into believing that if the rich suffer it is worse for everyone but that the average people can suffer endlessly and that's just the natural order of things. I say, let it crash. We can always bail their asses out later.


    by oleeb (not verified) on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 5:11am

    The more I read about this the less I am convinced that a trillion dollar bail out is not needed by the end of this week or even the next.

    The "financial underpinnings" are not falling apart. The problem is key financial institutions are not extending credit to each other due to these bogus assets in their balance sheet resulting in economic standstill as in the Great Depression.

    A bail out is essentially a righting of these balance sheets so financial institutions can again be confident about extending credit to each other.

    I'm not convinced a bail out is needed because what should happen, in a free market, is that new financial institutions should enter the market whose balance sheets are free of these bogus assets. These new financial institutions with their competitive advantage over the old ones can then resume with the normal operations of a healthy economy.

    So instead of an out-right bail out of financial institutions saddled with these bogus assets, a trillion dollars should be directed at jump starting new ones with rules and regulations banning these types of bogus assets at the very least.


    by Eastern_Media_Elite (not verified) on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 6:13am

    damn editing...it should read

    The more I read about this the less I am convinced that a trillion dollar bail out is needed.


    by Eastern_Media_Elite (not verified) on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 6:15am

    I think that the issues are too complicated for any of us to understand because that was what was intended. Even the heads of the companies that did this had no idea the level of risk and still don't. They spent a lot of money to get the rules changed so they could make this mess. The companies that did this should not survive. This needs to be a lesson.

    Did all the banks get involved in this? I thought we already own Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and their problems. Could we make enough money available to solvent banks that are just banks to allow enough credit to let the economy work? Why does the credit have to flow though the bad players?

    While we're asking questions, why does the price of oil go up when the dollar falls. We need to limit the oil future positions only to those that actually produce or receive oil. Do it now.

    First we had preemptive war, now we get preemptive bankruptcy. Enough.


    by AustinSax (not verified) on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 8:38am