I’m trying to come up with an analogy for the spectacle of the federal goverment spending $700 billion with no accountability to bail out a bunch of bankers and CEO’s. Here’s what I’ve come up with: picture Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell in a threesome.
YMMV.
Bits of my soul just died.
$700 billion, that’s only a down payment, this figure and what has already been laid out – Bear, Fannie and Freddie, AIG amounts to $900 billion – still only a down payment. It’ll be trillions – AIG was sunk by CDS (derivatives)AIG guaranteed $450 billion.
They’ll be printing and Mugabe will be welcoming us into his hyper club.
More details – getting trashed
Imho, financial life system has changed. Saving the system will in itself feel like the great depression they’re seeking to avoid. A hyper-inflationary depression.
Booman!
The thought of only the two of them is bad enough…
More like the s&m master and his/her acolytes – the rest of us just helpless bottoms who have forgotten the code word.
boo, that’s an ugly thought.
why does it remind me of this?
Give us a room, close the door
Leave us for a while.
Your boy won’t be a boy no more
Young, but not a child.
I’m the Gypsy – the acid queen.
Pay before we start.
The Gypsy – I’m guaranteed.
I’ll tear your soul apart.
I think we the taxpayer should get a cap on credit card interest rates. If we are bailing out wall street, there should be a cap on all intrest rates at 14%. Give the taxpayer something too.
14%?! try prime + 1…would make it a fair trade, eh.
we’re allready on the hook for gazillions…..and let’s see the bankruptcy law repealed too.
it’s bargaining time on the hill…and you’ll soon know who your friends are…and aren’t.
amazing that McCain was against the New GI bill, that cost what 35 Billion..saying it expensive. but he is willing to dole out 700 Billion for Wall Street.
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080913/OPINION03/80913001
Do you think anyone would make unsecured loans at prime + 1? We need a cap but it needs to be reasonable.We need credit reporting reform to go along with that reasonable cap with the repeal of the new bankruptcy law.
We know that allowing banks, investments and insurance to merge is a big part of this problem. Make them pick what part part they want to keep and sell off the rest. The break up of these companies is what they deserve.
Get rid of those Enron laws including the ones that allow oil speculation.
I don’t expect much from a congress that just gave in on off-shore drilling.
Prime plus 10 percent is still a nice profit;
I agree Bankruptcy Reform, cap on interest rates, repeal of the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 1 percent.
(from TPM) “…according to the WSJ, finance industry lobbyists are already giving orders to Republican hill staffers not to allow any meaningful reforms or protections for taxpayers. So, just the money. No strings attached. “
I guess we can now roll over, or is it bend over.
Paul Krugman found this in a McCain-bylined article in the latest issue of a professional journal (hold onto your hats):
Damn. Talk about the perfect gift that keeps on giving. This is not just some gaffe. It’s his economic worldview, and the timing is almost supernatural. I hear the Dems are already cranking out ads. I really think McCain just killed off any chance he might have had for victory.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/mccain-on-banking-and-health/
I’m waiting to receive my stock certificate in the mail now that I own AIG.
I am wondering when is the next AIG shareholders meeting.
BooMan, I think it’s more like being forced into that threesome.
Other than that, words fail me. These two comments from TPM seemed to encapsulate the queasy feelings I’ve been having all day:
1. From Josh Marshall’s “Before We Jump In,” on TPM 9.20.08:
“This morning a friend told me it’s like the Iraq War all over again — Shock & Awe, followed by an occupation of Wall Street, and all with no exit plan.”
2. And from TPM reader TC, just below:
“Is it just me? With this last enormous bail out of our Wall Street Investors/Corporate America, I have this picture in my mind of these cartoon Republicans sweeping out the last of the people’s money from the vaults. It took eight years, but they managed to get it all. The War/Private Contractors, the Oil Companys, the deregulation and fleecing of America. These Republicans started their tour of duty eight years ago with the coffers overflowing, flush with cash.”
I agree. It is a rape of the federal treasury by Villagers who screwed every pooch within sight over the last eight years.
I’m avoiding tributes to Yankee Stadium like the plague this weekend because I can’t stand the sick feeling in my stomach when I think about that great place being torn down.
I hope ghosts know how to travel.
Bill Moyers did a short but devastating report on the massive corporate-political robbery that the new stadium accomplished. There may not be a more potent example anywhere of America’s adoption of vampireocracy as its actual system of governance.
For those of us living in flyover landt, there was one silver lining: we finally know for sure that the vaunted sophistication of New Yorkers is just more hokum. There’s no place in the great plains or Texas or anywhere else with a riper crop of all-day suckers.
PS — While you’re at it watch the whole show. It’s one of Moyers’s best ever — Kevin Phillips on the bailouts and the economy, two very sharp NYT financial writers, and a nice little montage about the huge rewards the CEOs of the bailed-out companies got for their brilliant efforts. (Personally I like the Great Depression solution much better: the leap from a high window sans the golden parachute.)