I’ve never had much tolerance for complaints from our elites about how the mean bloggers undermine public confidence in our institutions. I still think that that is a total cop-out for the failings of our elite institutions. But, I gotta say, the lack of trust in our elite institutions has now become epidemic. It’s still not the bloggers’ fault. But that critique is truer today than in any time in the past. Bloggers did a worse job in this crisis of telling the truth than the press, the party leaders, or even the administration. You could oppose this bill on the merits. But few people argued the merits. They argued strawmen. They used phony numbers. They ignored parts of the bill, or simply said that they didn’t exist. They quoted economists out of context. They grabbed the most alarmist language they could find without regard for the source.
Even if it was a good thing to defeat this bill, this episode was a low moment for standards in the blogosphere.
Standards in the blogosphere?
Who knew?
nalbar
Here is what I think, written by someone MUCH better than I;
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/29/bailout/index.html
He nails it. It’s not the deal so much, as the process. This type of action has become the common standard for America. You can’t complain about the abuse of power for the last 8 years then suddenly it is fine when you agree with a particular result.
Yes, I may have ‘battered wife syndrome’, but at least I have moved out, and won’t be hit again.
Others keep going back as soon as they are shown flowers with a nice note, with a promise that this time, if given another chance, there will be no more hitting.
nalbar
yeah, well, that’s the trust issue. Without question, the Bush administration has lost more trust than the boy that cried wolf. It’s actually an apt comparison today.
It goes far beyond Bush.
None of them can be trusted. Not one. They have failed to do the right thing to many times.
This past week has been ALL politics. There was no economic issue at all, as far as I can tell. At least nothing needing drastic, immediate action. There was nothing last week that was not there the week before, or the week/month before that. Atrios has been warning of this for YEARS.
My honest opinion, take it for what it is worth;
Bush and Cheney finally realized (around Sept 18, when Palin started to tank) that McCain was a sure loss, probably because Rove called them and explained what a mess the McCain campaign was. They had to make some attempt to hamstring the probable Obama administration. What to do? What to do? Answer; go to congress and tell them ‘OMG, the skkkyyyyy is falling!’ We MUST spend all our future resources NOW.
Pelosi went along because …. well, she ain’t no brain surgeon, and she is a ‘go along’ type gal. Reid goes along because … well … he is more Republican than Democrat anyway.
It’s a win / win for Bush ( at least as far as he can think). Either it passes and Obama is hamstrung, or it fails and the Republicans can scream ‘Socialists!’ at the Democrats for the next 4 years.
Of course it is much more complicated than that, and my powers of explanation are not great. But it was all politics.
I mean, if it was about the economy they would at least have a hearing with… an economist, right? They would at least wait and get the opinion of the Office of Management and Budget, right?
Now go ahead and call me names. I can take it.
nalbar
Well, I think it became clear to Cheney that he couldn’t get his bombing of Iran through before he got kicked out of the Henhouse. Since that tactic to raid the Treasury didn’t work, they created this “Bailful” of money to make up for the lost Iran revenue.
This is a Great Grand Larceny again and again and again, but the outrage of voters calling their congresspersons helped stop this blatant raid on our borrowing more money and selling more bonds . . . plus the “socialist” thing finally backfired on the neocons by their ultrarightist compadres. Pfhew! Saved by the Right! Such interesting times.
In any case, wither way it all goes, we’re in for a serious economic correction. I’ve been promoting the idea of SHARING for a while now, and tell me, is there any other answer to our peaceful survival? Competition and commercialization have not worked. There’s only a path of hate, destruction, and ugly retribution ahead if we don’t learn to share our resources. Competitiveness is gaming, and gaming is for a immature race. We have to evolve.
I agree with you. Where were the economists? the hearings? the economists at the hearings? And, is this Goldman Sachs alumnus, now Secretary of the Treasury, a disinterested public servant? Things are time for another political party.
Shades of 1854, and the arrival on the scene of a third political party, now called Republicans. As I recall, it was the Kansas – Nebraska Act which caused all hell to break loose. Feels like were approaching that point of vast voter discontent which may well lead to some massive political changes. I wonder if Obama is up to such a revolution in the public thinking. Time will tell but what an opportunity to effect some major political and social changes.
This past week has been ALL politics. There was no economic issue at all, as far as I can tell. At least nothing needing drastic, immediate action. There was nothing last week that was not there the week before, or the week/month before that. Atrios has been warning of this for YEARS.
Have you even been paying attention to the news, or are you just jumping from blog to blog.
The credit markets froze the other week. NPR did a whole story about it a while back – it’s called the “commercial paper” market and apparently one day last week it just – stopped. People couldn’t get the short term loans that they needed for day-to-day business activities. Things like making payroll were in serious danger because this was a completely unprecedented occurrence.
That’s apparently what freaked the hell out of Bernanke and had him suddenly thinking that “Great Depression II – Electric Boogaloo” was suddenly upon us. (I say “apparently” because idiot Bernanke STILL won’t go on the record with why he’s freaking out). Because this was something that has never happened before – ever. And it reminded him of his dissertation that the Great Depression occurred because of a giant credit crunch – banks stopped lending to each other and the house of cards collapsed.
So, yeah, something changed the other week that wasn’t there before. Besides AIG, besides Lehman, we also had an apparently unprecedented event occur that freaked out the Fed Chairman. Enough that he turned around and freaked out the SecTreasury and HE turned around and freaked out the House and Senate Banking Committees (except for, apparently, the Republican members who don’t seem to understand crap about how finance works and think that the answer to any problem is to deregulate more and lower taxes more).
Now, do I think that Bernanke handled this wrong? Hell yeah. First of all, Paulson handled this in the usual Bush Administration manner – do something and forget that you have to explain yourself to the voters. They pulled the same crap that they’ve been pulling for the last 8 years except that Bush has the popularity of an STD right now.
Second of all, the plan that Paulson and Bernanke came up with was boneheaded stupid. Instead of going with a plan that has been proven to work in crises like this, they pulled some of Bernanke’s economic theories out of their asses and tried to use the US financial markets as his experimental testbed. And Paulson boneheadedly hacked out a “plan” in 3 pages of legislation that demanded no accountability and a ridiculously huge sum of money. He thought he just had to scare the pols into going along with it, but instead the citizenry got wind of what was going on and figured this was another “WMDs in Iraq” story and decided to call Bush on it this time. No one thought to include us in the explanations, and the only person who they stuck out there to explain why this was necessary was Bush – who again is less popular than an STD, and who is completely incapable of sounding remotely genuine.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a real problem. My hope now is that the Dems just jettison the entire Paulson plan and go with something that has proven to work in the past – something like the Swedish plan or the Resolution Trust Corp or something similar. That gives them the upper hand if they can come out and tell voters “hey, we heard you – we’ve trashed Paulson’s plan entirely. Here’s our completely different plan, here’s where it’s worked before, and here’s how we’re going to get your money back when this crisis is passed.” That would go a long way to getting people in hotly contested races on board, I think.
Bernanke flipped out, because, as you said, his academic career revolved primarily around studying the Great Depression. Greenspan left him holding the bag. Did he show too much panic? Yes, probably. But it should tell us something when someone like Bernanke flips out like this and agrees to go along with someone like Paulson.
Krugman: The humbling of the Fed (wonkish) (September 22, 2008)
‘The credit markets froze the other week. NPR did a whole story about it a while back – it’s called the “commercial paper” market and apparently one day last week it just – stopped. People couldn’t get the short term loans that they needed for day-to-day business activities. Things like making payroll were in serious danger because this was a completely unprecedented occurrence.’
Really?
Yet no deal was passed, and payrolls are being made, loans are being issued.
Not quite the emergency that it was made out to be.
nalbar
The credit markets froze the other week. NPR did a whole story about it a while back – it’s called the “commercial paper” market and apparently one day last week it just – stopped. People couldn’t get the short term loans that they needed for day-to-day business activities. Things like making payroll were in serious danger because this was a completely unprecedented occurrence.
And that is not the first time it has happened since August 2007, nor the first market that has simply stopped.
I think Calculated Risk did an honorable job.
I dunno. The amount of screaming and fingerprinting I’m seeing from the Village and from Congress makes me think pretty much everybody is taking advantage of the situation to swing the stoopid bat.
Ilargi, Stoneleigh, gjohnsit, bonddad, b, roubini, russ winter, have all all done pretty decent and informative work. It’s not the easiest topic to understand, but they all certainly made it more digestible.
As for everyone else, I think the general sense of being rushed into a giant scam (again!) was and is a reasonable response.
Remember this: Congress didn’t even consult the economists. Outrageous on its face.
I think most of that list was insufferably dishonest. The ones that weren’t were constantly quoted out of context.
If so, they strike me as remarkably consistent in their dishonesty.
Well, let me use a slightly different example. Take Tom Udall’s explanation for his no vote.
Almost none of that is factually accurate. As best, it’s a gross distortion.
I could go point by point to show how each of his concerns were dealt with in the bill, and maybe some of it was dealt with inadequately. But his explanation really amounts to a giant lie. And it is a lie based on assessing a three-page initial offer and ignoring a 120-page bill.
That is what the bloggers did all weekend.
who originally insisted on a “no strings attached” package. That meme spread like prairie fire, and was still burning into the final package. That’s the one the stuck in the public imagination. But I don’t see how you can blame the bloggers on my list for that, even if they were repulsed by the idea when it came out, because it was truly repulsive.
because every major criticism of the Paulson Plan was inoperative (save one) by the time the bill came to a vote.
The idea that it might not be the best or most effective strategy was still operative. Even the idea that it wouldn’t work was operative. But the rest? It was addressed.
to deflect/delay concerns that it was a predatory plan, or not even the best or even marginally hopeful plan. I do understand that the markets got whacked big-time today, but I’m still not convinced that acceding to even the modified Paulson plan was the best idea. Democrats should have had a Plan B on the table by this afternoon. They didn’t. Epic fail.
The blogosphere somehow got the idea that egomaniacal morons like David Sirota were somehow on par with Paul Krugman.
It’s one thing to bring in folks like Dean Baker to argue against the Krugman take on the bill. Baker is a solid economic thinker. But the Sirotas and Stollers of the world? Give me a fucking break.
Everybody’s treating it as some grand victory. Maybe it was a horrible bill that deserved to fail, but the blogosphere really is full of a bunch of God-damned children.
RenaRF at dKos has a diary on the rec list that is a must-read. Tells the story better than I could hope to.
We’re talking about the banking system potentially collapsing. People keep mentioning a new Depression. That’s not hyperbole. This is serious shit. It will affect real people — all of us — if our leaders simply sit with their thumbs up their asses in DC.
I know people want to beat Wall Street senseless. I do too. But this isn’t about Wall Street ultimately. It’s about saving the damned banking system so that we can function as a society.
Unfortunately, I’m not convinced we’re going to be able to have an adult conversation, because beneath much of this opposition is, I sense, a love of doom porn.
And I’m not convinced people are going to get it until it’s their banks that finally go down.
Yep. I have to buy out my car or lease a new one in the spring. What if my bank can’t lend me the money to buy the car? What then?
I think people are really naive as to how bad this is and how deeply screwed we are.
I hope people stop buying things on credit, including myself!!! 😉
…not that I’m for sale, mind you. That came out weirdly!
You do what I just did, pay $1,000 for a 20 year old Volvo, from a private party mind you. All that it really needed was a decent, used fuel relay from the junkyard. It should hold me a while. Now, I may have to do something about the lack of a radio, but the 23 year old truck that I traded in on it didn’t have one either.
But isn’t this an integral part of blogging? You get what you pay for, the opinion of a non-professional that happens to have access to web space. Sometimes the stuff has merits, sometimes not. Let the buyer beware.
Definitely, the buyer should beware. But I’m normally fairly proud of the loose standards the blogosphere applies to itself. Because the readers were ill-equipped to opine on this complicated matter, the self-correcting (or self-regulating) feature of the blogosphere broke down here.
I also want to add another thing, Boo, and it’s important for people to understand from a macroeconomic perspective:
The Fed is running out of bullets. Its balance sheet is being run into the ground trying to stop this slide. We’re approaching the point at which Bernanke is going to have to start printing, and we’re only three innings into this crisis.
This is not good. And people need to wake up.
Believe me, I know.
I know you know. I’m talking about the blogosphere in general. People have been whipped into a pseudo-populist frenzy, focusing all of their energy on the “Wall Street” and “bailout” bits of this, and they’ve failed to understand what is going on, fundamentally.
This is the stuff depressions are made of. Contraction in the money supply, panic, and inaction on the part of public officials.
Paulson sat on this problem for years, then tried to ram it down our throats in the final moment. Congress did nothing to investigate the problems independently. The whole thing was a fourth-rate operation all along. I’m glad this bill died. Now let Wall Street shit THEIR pants for a few days, and maybe there can be some real discussion of the problems, as there should have been long ago. Give them a $150 billion, if that’s what it takes to have the time for a discussion, but enough of the imperious demands.
Paulson is an idiot. No one should dispute that. So is Greenspan. So is every realtor and mortgage broker and trader and on and on and on. Doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot when your company can’t make payroll.
Again, I’m not saying this bill needed to pass, but the fact that Paulson waited until the last minute doesn’t imply that it isn’t critical to move quickly now. Just because you waited until the last minute to turn in the term paper doesn’t imply that the deadline isn’t approaching.
Tide things over until next January, then work on a real fix in the next administration. This administration has spent its political capital, and then some, and then some.
http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/29/give-paulson-150-billion-and-come-back-in-january-and-do-it-right-
and-heres-how-to-do-it-right/
http://agonist.org/stirling_newberry/20080929/a_shot_of_adrenaline_0
Of course, Newberry has much more involved macroeconomic reasons for a grander renovation. But for now, the shot of adrenaline is just what the doctor ordered, e.g., Uma Thurman in that Tarantino flick–it won’t fix her long-term problems, but it keeps her alive for the time being.
It also doesn’t mean it isn’t a shitty term paper. Actually, under those circumstances, the odds are that it is a shitty term paper.
And I offer Krugman’s basic point: A shitty term paper that gets a C is better than no term paper and an F.
We’ve needed to act on this for quite some time. Many of us saw it coming for years while the typical citizen was staring at house prices and thinking, “Awesome!”
We pissed away that time away.
So he gets a gentleman “C” just for turning it in on time?
With all the garbage produced by Congress, you think the Dodd bill is worthy of lower than a C?
Grading on the curve, are you?
Everything subjective is graded on a curve.
Give them an incomplete and post a back-dated grade next term.
Just because you waited until the last minute to turn in the term paper doesn’t imply that the deadline isn’t approaching.
That’s a good metaphor. To continue that metaphor, when turning in that term paper at the last minute, strive for a C instead of an F.
Printing? Like, of currency? Like inflation and massive devaluation?
Great.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9MTZEgukPLY
There’s a reason we have a representative form of government. Mob rule isn’t pretty, even when led by liberal but uninformed bloggers.
I agree, BooMan – too much fear, too little substance. Which isn’t to say I supported the bill, or opposed it. I never had time to stop and read it and make an informed decision.
I do think a delay at this point is no more fatal than rushing. Either the dollar crashes now, or later. I’d just as soon it be now, so we can start rebuilding more quickly.
The bottom line is that trust is broken. And it had 1.2 trillion dollars in consequences today. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
And it had 1.2 trillion dollars in consequences today.
Markets go up and markets go down. Deal with it. Greenspan couldn’t. And that’s what’s produced the current problems.
That’s naive beyond belief.
Why do you say that? It’s a sparse summary, for sure, but it is hardly based on a lack of understanding. I would appreciate your explanation of what you meant. Are you saying that markets do not naturally rise and fall? Are you saying Greenspan had nothing to do with our current problem? I sincerely curious.
I was objecting to the naivete of the statement re “markets go up, and markets go down,” as if that’s all that is going on here. This is no ordinary course correction we’re going through.
Econ is hard. When a subject is complex, leaders are supposed to help out the public. As our leaders have squandered their credibility, the public has to look to other sources. And most online economic sources I read were against the bailout. Or at least not as fearmongering as Bush and Paulson.
Hence, a lot of people in the blogosphereodome may have been less than precise. But I am still not convinced they are wrong.
Ultimately, I think most decisions made in our democracy are not made because of a careful thought process by the citizenry. I have accepted a faulty process. I’d rather have the faulty process with the right result than the faulty process and the wrong result. But I’m just an end-justifies-the-means Macchiavellian SOB.
If you’re a process guy, you can hang your hat on the fact that when the next major economic crisis happens 30 years from now, bloggers will be ready.
I had such a bad day I didn’t think anything could make me laugh. But “standards in the blogosphere” did.
Boy, you guys sure convinced me to shut the fuck up & listen to the experts on how to fix the problem. If I would have known this, I would never have opposed the war in Iraq, since I’m an uninformed dirty fucking hippie.
I guess I was wrong about Vietnam too.
To spring something on the American public and say we’ve got to buy it right now or we’ll all die just doesn’t sell. We’ve been told by BushCo that everything is hunky dory for eight years. I mean, I’m an old man on a pension and it’s already semi-screwed up for me, but you’d figure that the people who were drinking the lifeblood out of the economy hadn’t killed it.
So there are a lot of questions. And, yes, a lot of mistrust.
It’s not just wacky bloggers who don’t like the deal. If you want to dismiss all opposition as uninformed, then guess who didn’t inform? I heard somewhere that the mail flooding into Congressional offices is something like 2000 to 1 against.
None of the people who put this thing together have much credibility with the public.
I guess I was wrong about Vietnam too.
To spring something on the American public and say we’ve got to buy it right now or we’ll all die just doesn’t sell. We’ve been told by BushCo that everything is hunky dory for eight years. I mean, I’m an old man on a pension and it’s already semi-screwed up for me, but you’d figure that the people who were drinking the lifeblood out of the economy hadn’t killed it.
So there are a lot of questions. And, yes, a lot of mistrust.
It’s not just wacky bloggers who don’t like the deal. If you want to dismiss all opposition as uninformed, then guess who didn’t inform? I heard somewhere that the mail flooding into Congressional offices is something like 2000 to 1 against.
None of the people who put this thing together have much credibility with the public.
Regarding no money, where did the 330 billion in “swap lines” that they put into the economy this morning go?
I think there is a process of change here which can only happen at a certain pace.
For 30 years people have been told by the elite that regulation is bad, big Government is bad, free markets are good, and you interfere with that market at your peril. Now, all of a sudden, the same people are telling them the exact opposite. Little wonder there is a trust and credibility gap – to put it at its mildest.
No coherent popular ideology has, as yet, emerged which people can use to evaluate the proposed bail-out. The only ideology which comes to mind is a socialist nationalisation of the “commanding heights of the economy” – but socialism has been demonised for so long, it is hardly surprising that people are not ready to embrace it.
Somebody has to make a case in a coherent way that people can understand. Saying, “trust me”, I know what I’m doing simply doesn’t cut it anymore. The presidential candidates are the people who should be making that case, but neither are particularly well equipped to do so.
However there is a larger problem. It is a myth that this plan, or any short term solution, can solve this problem. A proper solution will take years, and in the meantime a lot of people will be hurt, and a lot of damage will be done. There is no instant solution and it is childish to think there must be.
For better or worse, the Presidential election is at a stage where only slogans and images playing into existing mindsets have the time to do their work. Changing a whole political culture takes years.
It comes down to people electing a President and a Congressional majority they think has the best chance of figuring out a way of addressing the problem. Presidential candidates can articulate general values or approaches but anything more complex than that will have to wait.
In fact it would be more honest if a candidate said there is no instant solution, and there will be a lot of pain before these problems are resolved. But pain doesn’t sell well, so the candidates are forced to sell snake oil instead, snake-oil recipes largely based on past economic philosophies which have brought us to the current impasse in the first place.
Obama made a start by challenging the deregulation meme. But he would be unwise to pretend he has the complete solution, because that would just raise unrealistic expectations.
There really is no short cut to resolving the mess – it is going to have to be done step by painful step – and a huge number of vested interests are going to have to be confronted and defeated in the process.
You do not necessarily reveal your battle plans to the enemy – always assuming you have them. The first task is to muster your troops and make sure they are adequate to the task. That is the stage Obama is currently at.
There simply isn’t a basis for a national consensus whilst Bush is in power and the Presidential /congressional elections are unresolved. That can’t happen before January, and if the economy goes down the tubes in the meantime that is the unavoidable cost of war.
Great response.
yes.
that is a grave part of the problem. untrustworthy people are saying “trust me” again.
when do americans get to see the extent of the problem?
Obama made a start by challenging the deregulation meme. But he would be unwise to pretend he has the complete solution, because that would just raise unrealistic expectations.
What are you on? Valium? Lorazepam? Thorazine?
There simply isn’t a basis for a national consensus whilst Bush is in power and the Presidential /congressional elections are unresolved.
Today’s rejection of Bush’s bailout/giveaway bill suggests that there is already a sufficient basis for a consensus. Obama is simply afraid to speak to this consensus, for fear of offending the people that made his candidacy possible, the people who run this country, who are in the process of adjusting to the fact that their empire is tanking.
Like all of our recent Democratic presidential candidates, Obama is afraid of embracing a populist platform during the election, precisely because that would give him a mandate to enact that platform once he won. His paymasters would not be pleased at all.
Alexander, you are free to be rough with me, but please be civil to others in comment threads. Thanks.
It’s ok, Boo. I’ve been called a lot worse! And if I read A’s comments correctly there is no possibility of any truly progressive politicians being elected or allowed to do anything and therefore there isn’t a whole lot of point in trying to do anything, and therefore we are all wasting our time. I don’t know why he bothers…
Stoller has a doozy of a post.
I know I like to fan the flames, but you really should take a read at this and respond …because I think he lost touch with reality.
Wow, OK, Stoller almost makes BooMan’s point for him there. That is some pretty thick BS there.
It’s the creative destruction argument. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.
hoo boy.
I was waiting for someone in the comments to say “We who are about to die, salute you.”
Let this be a lesson — when opportunity knocks, answer the door. Barack Obama and his independent-of-the-netroots-campaign may have left Matt in the dust and sunk him into a deep funk but now? Now’s a new day! He hasn’t been this excited in months. He’s going to seize this economic crisis and not let go until he’s seen for the leader he was meant to be and earned the respect that is rightfully his.
heh.
Wow – you SO nailed him. That’s the Matt I remember.
Yup.
Check this on MyDD as a reference for the Tabloid McCain/Cindy drug story:
“If I had to guess, this is an out of the way channel where a lot of people are sort of absorbing political information.
I don’t like this kind of politicking, but in the absence of a functional media system, rumors flourish. Only in the case of the story about McCain and his wife’s drug use, it’s not a rumor, it’s a sad and pathetic fact. Legitimacy crumbles in more ways than one.”
I love your description. Really. love. it.
Whoops, OPEN LEFT. Sorry, I’ve opposed him for so long I forgot where he was for a second.
I think he lost touch with reality.
Can you give examples of where he makes statements that are demonstrably empirically false? If not, why do you say he’s lost touch with reality?
But thanks for your post. It gives me an idea of what Booman meant when he wrote, “Bloggers did a worse job in this crisis of telling the truth than the press.” He meant that there are bloggers out there who have a different point of view than he does.
You are so far off base here.
few people argued the merits. They argued strawmen. They used phony numbers. They ignored parts of the bill, or simply said that they didn’t exist. They quoted economists out of context.
Please give examples. Otherwise, you just come across as trying to find a rationalization for your having badly misjudged the political mood of the country with your hysterical support for Bush’s bill.
As I indicate in an update to my diary about an alternative approach to the financial crisis, there is no need for major new legislation until we get a new president. Even the Bushies aren’t talking about a meltdown, but about economic stagnation unless they get their bill.
If there is not going to be a financial meltdown, what possible reason can there be for wanting the Bush administration to create an economic recovery program, as opposed to an Obama administration???
He doesn’t have to justify himself. We’re all here because of Booman. He’s one of the smartest and sanest in the blogosphere. He’s not perfect – none of us are. But you have shown no grasp of the facts – as evidenced by your insistence on calling this “Bush’s bill” when it was far from that.
I share your high regard for Booman. But please explain why I have “shown no grasp of the facts” by calling Paulson’s bill “Bush’s bill”. Are you saying that I should have called it “Goldman Sachs’s bill”?
So Congress had no input at all, right?
Pelosi herself says, “It’s a Republican bill”.And it isn’t as different from Paulson’s original three-page plan as Democrats have made you think:
Congressional Charade: Changes in Bailout Bill Cosmetic, and Everyone Knows That
But the final bill was different from Paulson’s original in some respects. For instance:
What Wall Street Hoped to Win
The trigger for this “event” was the collapse of the commercial paper market. That’s where the immediate problem is. How does giving Paulson authority over where, who and how 700Billion is invested guarantee any kind of relief in that market? Paulson and Bernanke have been throwing money at the financial system for a year and it hasn’t loosened credit. It’s become tighter.
And please don’t tell me to read the damn compromise bill. I’ve read it. I’ve also read the Geneva Conventions, the FISA act and the Constitution. Don’t tell me about any guarantees in legislation.
If you want to support the commercial paper market–target that market and don’t rely on Wall Street banks or Bush administration flunkies to get the money where it needs to go.
Wow, I trust that Joker fella he seems like somebody you could sit down with and have a beer.
Just think about it for a sec.. try to judge the recovery plan..
one one side, an impossibly large amount of money… on the other.. an unknowable scale problem… it’s not irrational to come to the conclusion that there are good odds that, bailout or not, the piper has to be paid on this one. Rejecting this ‘Good Money After Bad’ would sum up this supposedly wretched ‘neo-populism’. It’s not that folks don’t think the threat is real or are beholden to a knee-jerk impulse to cut off their nose to spite their faces. I think it’s more than that by far. I think many of the folks against a bailout want to see Rome burn. I think many folks have a strong free market spine, ready to take what the market gives us. I think others just don’t trust these folks to execute – right plan, wrong managers. I don’t see any of that as irrational.
The has also been some good panic and even more good humor, sides of a coin. Hardly a low-point. The noise to signal ratio was pretty high sure.. but what better time to chime in.
Congressional leaders and the President have failed to move the people past ‘things are crazy bad’ and ‘trust us – we know what we are doing.’ Oh, and ‘we need to borrow 350 billion for a while.’ Not a winning argument.
I wonder how truly horrific a little money printing would be in the end… I remember other periods of inflation – there was a lot of bitching, fewer stores full of $1 crap and… life went on.
Okay. Forgive me some hyperbole.
Most of your family was exterminated the last time we faced a global depression. I’m not saying we are going to have a global depression, but your own family history should focus your mind about the prospects for an enlightened reaction to severe and sudden economic hardship.
It’s interesting that you frame this that way, as I see the two events as rather similar – both have bad actors who pushed the economy over the brink for their profit and relative increase in power relative to others. In the original Paulson plan, he was going to essential hand-pick the new elite that would emerge from this better off than the market has left the rest..
I’ve been speaking with the survivors of the last depression and they have two interesting things to say:
Luckily, I think the bailout has significantly moved past point 2 with the addition of congressional oversight.
Point 1 is still valid.
Just try to smile more, it really helps!
oy.
Physician, heal thyself. This episode has you talking down to your readers, BooMan. No matter how frustrated you are that is not a good tactic.
Well gee, what caused that? A virus causes ‘flu, a bacterium causes bubonic plague, and incessant lying causes lack of trust. The lying is the problem, not those who expose the lying.
All of the alarmist language is coming from the pro-bailout side. Companies won’t be able to make payroll, no one will get credit for anything, we’re only minutes away from a great depression, so we must have a deal today. Or so I’ve read on blogs.
The one thing I’m certain of is that there are well-informed and usually reasonable people on both sides of this issue.
Gospel According to Paul Krugman
it’s the second half of Krugman’s column that i’m SURE I agree with (emphasis mine)
The only thing worse than no bailout at all would be a democratic bailout that repubs could run against.
Booman, are you being facetious? Hah!
If not, how about nobody, & I mean nobody, outside of that tight band of certain elected officials, actually had full information of what the damn thing entailed. If so, they had to have known for a hell of a long time. Why then did this all of a sudden become so urgent? And if it was such a serious issue, why could Treasury only come up with a 2.5 page report? Middle School size paper to deal with an economic disaster! Damn! Are they totally lacking in “serious?”
Why, then, didn’t anyone in Congress demand full disclosure? If someone is lending/pissing away your money don’t you ask questions? The devil’s in the details. I think that’s the crux of how this whole issue was handled. The electorate is no longer going to take double-speak, bs, etc. from the elected officials. That party(s) is over! How many mess-ups do we have to witness & experience before we say “enough?” This Katrina Economy is the camel that broke everyone’s (D, R, I) back (finally, Katrina, I guess, wasn’t good enough for these idiots to learn a lesson, neither was Rita or Ike or the bridge in MN), we had to go all the way. Lessons not learned. Basically with regard to all elected officials, it’s: YOUR WORD IS WORTHLESS! So, heck no, full disclosure. See that’s the price of losing credibility & governance.
Ordinary people who have been carrying the tax burden for so long wonder why their elected officials waited until now to turn around and say “You know, we want your poor middle class hard working ass to give more. I know, I know, but hang in there because one day you’ll be, if you work so damn hard, you’ll reach that top 2.5% of those who’ll never be taxed.” And those 2.5% brought us the gang of incompetence. That’s the American Dream. No picket fence.
With regard to the ordinary person, it’s about being shafted for over 8 years recently & 20+ in total oblivion. I believe the electorate is finally awakening. And nobody has successfully explained the conundrum of taxpayers bailing these fat cats out and how it would be reciprocated. Yes, I get the global financial instrument’s connectvity. That’s been there, where was regulation? In the Caymans? We, the middle income tax payers, have been, after all, paying the tax burden. I mean, someone entered our (metaphorically speaking) homes and took the silver, the furniture, scholarships for our kids, made you get at least 3 jobs just to stay afloat and feed/clothe your children; and the thieves were there in your fridge, drinking from the last of your OJ carton and they turned around from that fridge, shut the door and said “Sorry, ma’am, it’s the robber man.” And you shied away because you were trying to hold on to the tidbit the !@#$%$ left on the counter. And we were so grateful for that crumb.
That’s why ordinary people are pissed. Forget the politicians, who postured today, we were just a convenient prop … for today.
So sorry to just let out. But I’ve just about had enough of this apathy and I’m so damn worried that we’ll all not collectively get out there and VOTE! Please vote.
IMHO, it became urgent when the Commercial Paper market froze and China stopped buying T-Bills in the same week.
The Paulson plan was supposedly on the books for some time.. Remember the ‘other stuff’ Bush mysteriously had to do a few weeks back? I think this is the other stuff.