A letter to US senators

The thought of US taxpayers being stuck with paying a rich foreign bank or individual overinflated prices for foreclosed homes makes me sick. The economy is getting worse here and we'll all have to pay alot more than most of us can afford at this rate.

Taxpayers should not be paying for ANY mistake of others. When one takes a risk, one should be prepared to deal with an adverse consequence. Personal responsibility!

I heard a great quote from a University of Chicago economist: "People will just have to get used to living in houses that they can afford". What a radical concept...

I would love to punish the malefactors of great wealth. This bill will, unfortunately reward rich people who made bad bets. But the rich will not get near as much benefit, proportional to their wealth, as the little guys who are now about to be laid off and tossed out of their homes because credit has seized up and housing prices have dropped so dramatically. I do not fully understand the credit markets, and I doubt if any of the previous posters to this thread really do, either. I predict the revised bill will pass, there will be a rally on Wall Street, the dollar will decline again, and on to the next problem. Or a replay of the present problem with different names and scenario. Sooner or later, the US government will have to either raise taxes and reduce profligate spending, or go bankrupt.

By the way, I notice a number of comments above decry "Bailing out Foreign Banks." The USA is the world's largest provider of financial services, and most of the money will go to US firms. I think certain aspects of this proposal STINK. But thousands of small and medium sized banks - today - are finding it impossible to extend credit to their Main Street customers who need it desperately, because the banks' sources of credit have dried up. 700 billion will buy some time, and then we'll see what happens next. Too bad the US economy is so heavily dependent on credit.

Which rich foreign banks are you talking about?

Care to elaborate some more on the players in this "global conspiracy" of yours? (I.e. name names.)

It's really hard to take posts like this seriously unless you include EVIDENCE to back up your personal speculation.

Thanks!

The little guy sees no way out. The bailout does not appear to give him anything. Will it stop pending foreclosure or undue a foreclosure and put him back in his home? Will his mortgage be rewritten to a level he can afford? How about making it easier to correct errors on his credit report. Will his credit cards be renewed when they expire--probably not. The price of gas this summer sucked up what little cash consumers had. Now, people who have it made are looking down their noses at the rest of us telling us that we are irresponsible while demanding that we protect them from their self-inflicted greed driven failures. After the crash, people will come to their senses, but it will take a crash to make it happen.

As recent as last week, I got a phone call from someone offering me a house of my own with nothing down.

I'm no fool, I know all about escroll, closing costs, inspections, and all those unexpected costs that pop up before moving in. Trouble is, a lot of people don't. I blame these fools.

I blame banks who thought they could somehow make bucks off risky loans.

I blame freddie and fannie. I hate these motherfuckers anyway because of what they did to my student loan. Without them, I'd had paid it off years before I did, but I digress.

I blame the Republicans, who held a hearing about this in 2004, but let the matter drop after that.

I blame the democrats, who are after the demise of America anyway.

I blame the drive by media, who wants to blame Bush for everything, even the garbage pick up in L.A.

I blame Wall Street for not imposing it's own restrictions and waiting on the feds to fix everything.

I blame Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank, who are incompetent motherfuckers. I blame Charles Rangel, who is a racist. I blame the media for propping up these idiots.

I blame ABC and Charlie Gibson for believing in man made global warming, because they know damn well it doesn't exist and they're just after the demise of America anyway.

I blame Hollywood for hating America and propping up incompetent film makers and celebs who are too busy grinding their own axes instead of making movies that are worth seeing. I blame Hollywood for backing up democrats, incompetent democrats, racist democrats, the gamour media, and well placed people who are after the demise of America.

I blame the general public for not burning democrats at the stake, and for paying to see the putrid trash Hollywood pumps out nowadays. The public deserves better than to be spoon fed shit, but they seem to have aquired a taste for it.

I'm thinking Dudester is gonna be in a bad mood on Nov. 5.

I read today that the international finance system as we know it will be history if the US doesn't pass a bill. Apparently the rumour is that Chinese and others who loan money to the US say our current financial system will be finished if we don't back up Fannie and Freddie. However the guy posting the info stated that the Chinese and other asian countries got our manufacturing jobs in exchange for buying up US treasuries to keep the current cycle going where US consumers keep buying their products. The US is borrowing too much money from overseas. I agree this all started with the Clinton administration forcing Fannie and Freddie to make riskier loans to low income people to increase home ownership. Things were ok as long as the economy and house prices kept going up. However business cycles eventually go back down.

You ever get the feeling we're all living on borrowed time with our nation in debt to our eyeballs or worse? It kind of sucks to work your whole life, save and be responsible, then have your government make a whole lot of bad loans to people who can't afford it when times turn worse. Then you either pay for it or risk having all your savings devalued or worse. I think there is a better way than the current bailout plan. I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese and possibly others threatened to dump all their 1 trillion in US treasuries back at one time if we don't back up Fannie and Freddie and all the bad loans the Chinese and others bought. I finally got an inkling of why many of the rich were buying up physical gold. Our fiat money system will collapse as soon as faith in the system is gone.

"I hate these motherfuckers anyway because of what they did to my student loan."

Huh??

"who are after the demise of America anyway."

Nonsense.

"who wants to blame Bush for everything"

So much for "Personal responsibility!"

"I blame Wall Street for not imposing it's own restrictions and waiting on the feds to fix everything."

What "restrictions"?? A lot of them were stripped by the GOP a loooong time ago!

I guess that almost everyone is "after the demise of America" in your warped world Dudester...take a pill & chill out man.

"if we don't back up Fannie and Freddie"

Fannie & Freddie have already been bailed out...read a newspaper sometime.

"I agree this all started with the Clinton administration forcing Fannie and Freddie to make riskier loans to low income people to increase home ownership."

No one was "forced" to do anything.

It's really quite astonishing how ignorant people are when it comes to financial matters. I fully understand how people are sick & tired of their govt. crying wolf over & over that "if we don't act now, the world will be in jeopardy" (Iraq anyone??), but when people's investments (for retirement & otherwise) are tanking, businesses large & small alike are having a hard time getting money to make payrolls, & regular people are having a hard time getting loans for, anything...you have to wonder what it will take for America to wake up. I strongly believe in democracy, but it's times like these that shake those beliefs.

"I hate these motherfuckers anyway because of what they did to my student loan."

Huh?? Just about everytime I had the entire thing consolidated, they would break it into four pieces and quadruple my payment. Imagine your car note being 200 one month, and 800 the next.

"who are after the demise of America anyway?"

Just as the Republicans adopted Perot's platform and made it their Contract with America (1994), the dems adopted the platform of the communist party (1890) and have clung fiercely to it since.

"who wants to blame Bush for everything?"

ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Ray Nagin, Pelosi, Rangel, Sharpton, Rev. Wright, Obama, liberal bloggers, take your pick.

"I blame Wall Street for not imposing it's own restrictions and waiting on the feds to fix everything."

Since when does the GOP influence Wall Street regulations upon itself?

I guess that almost everyone is "after the demise of America" in your warped world Dudester...

No, just the dems. They shoot down anything that would better the country-case in point: domestic drilling. Domestic drilling would not only release us from ties with the Middle East, but it would boost our economy. Their excuse? It would pollute the environment. Aside from the Exxon Valdez (an isolated non well incident), what oil spills have we had? That's right-none.

Dudester,

Talking to idiots is a waste of time. FACTS mean nothing to them, as I've proven.

"Just about everytime I had the entire thing consolidated, they would break it into four pieces and quadruple my payment. Imagine your car note being 200 one month, and 800 the next."

How the hell did they do that??

"Just as the Republicans adopted Perot's platform and made it their Contract with America (1994), the dems adopted the platform of the communist party (1890) and have clung fiercely to it since."

Really?? I wasn't aware that Perot was in favor of "cutting the number of House committees", "cutting committee staff by one-third", "limiting the terms of all committee chairs", "baning the casting of proxy votes in committee", and "requiring committee meetings to be open to the public". I thought his main issue was balancing the federal budget, which Clinton did by the end of his term (based on ZERO GOP votes in 1993).

So, Bush wasn't in charge over these last 8 years?? I think he was, and he & his Party are going to be going down because of their massive failures.

"Since when does the GOP influence Wall Street regulations"

They don't "influence" them...they eliminate them, period. Hence the current crisis that we're in right now.

"domestic drilling. Domestic drilling would not only release us from ties with the Middle East"

Hey, we're apparently going to have MORE domestic oil drilling (above the doubling of oil drilling permits that has happened in recent years), but it's NOT going to do a thing to about getting us off of foreign oil, since there is in no way, shape, or form enough domestic oil here to fullfill our daily demand of over 21 million barrels.

"Aside from the Exxon Valdez (an isolated non well incident), what oil spills have we had?"

Well, there's the Ixtoc I oil well spill into the Gulf of Mexico in 1979-1980. That's not counting the dozen plus or so other oil spills that didn't directly affect the USA. Wasn't there an oil spill in San Francisco Bay not that long ago from a ship??

"I need to see that bailout approved!"

It's looks like it will be soon.

Dudester,

Not that it matters when talking to an idiot, but you might find this link interesting:

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/resul…

It just happens to quote environmental groups that estimate there has been THIRTY ONE times more NATURAL OIL SEEPAGE in Santa Barbra than was spilled by the Valdez.

Of course there are thousands of NATURAL seepage sites all over the world. Not only oil, but methane as well which is far worse for the atmosphere than anything man can spew!

Again, don't waste your time trying to explain FACTS to idiots!

"there has been THIRTY ONE times more NATURAL OIL SEEPAGE in Santa Barbra than was spilled by the Valdez."

No you idiot...read your own article...they claim that "the amount of oil that has seeped naturally into the ocean since 1970 (about 38 years) is 31 times the amount spilled in the 1969 accident", which, over a 10-day period, was an estimated 80,000-100,000 barrels of crude oil (or less than 420,000 gallons). The Exxon Valdez spill was a spill of 10.8 million U.S. gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude oil into the sea, which eventually covered 11,000 square miles of ocean. The total amount of oil "seepage" has been apparently estimated at only 3 million gallons.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Santa_Barbara…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_s…

Facts matter...

Dangit I HATE it when people use facts ...

My point of view about (ahem) the OTHER side, for a while now, is that America has gotten to the point where it's considered appropriate to believe, "Nobody can convince me of anything, because I'm a proud American. I know what's what. I sure ain't so weak as to be SWAYED by something as devilish as PERSUASION or EVIDENCE or LOGIC ..."

The problem isn't, so much, now'days, that this is going on; it's that, for the first time in American history, it's started being considered inappropriate NOT to act that way and, also for the first time in American history, it's started being "cool" or "public minded" to deliberately LEARN to act that way and, also for the first time in American history, it's started to be OK to STATE IN PUBLIC that you "can't be swayed by reason" (or similar).

Can't hear reason + allowed to vote in your democracy = death of your democracy.

Some guy here has a constant ID10T error between his ears!

BG: "Dangit I HATE it when people use facts ... "

In that case you will LOVE MisterGay.

It sure would be nice to be set up with a daytrading account. That's about the only decent way to make money unless you're really good with the trends. For the average investor, I expect stocks to start going up for longer than a day or two at a time near the end of October after the market has already gone down another 1 to 2 thousand points in the Dow in spite of interest rate cuts and government intervention around the world. The bailout bill doesn't fix the root of the problem from what I've read so they are already talking about more bailouts after this one fails or as congressmen will probably say something like "we knew this would only be step one of a bigger bailout".

Obama should win the election easily using the stock market as a negative sentiment indicator. I noticed there is an Obama channel on Dish network now. He gives taped messages and says he will not raise taxes on the middle class. I think that is like shadowcat saying he will not visit any more strip clubs. Of course if shadowcat says he is really serious, I'd give shadowcat better odds. Of course what's the difference between an official tax increase and devaluing our currency by firing up the printing presses and making inflation go rampant? Not much I believe.

Oh, I think McCain's health care plan from what I've heard will destroy employer based health care plans. I'm planning on voting for a third candidate this year.

"Of course what's the difference between an official tax increase and devaluing our currency by firing up the printing presses and making inflation go rampant? Not much I believe."

From what I've read people would rather have more money that buys less than less money that buys more. :) Oh course, this was in the context of annual raises.

Anyway, there are some bright spots. Energy isn't nearly the problem people believe it is and the Chinese probably want to continue selling to the U.S. no matter how worthless the U.S. dollar becomes. It was President Bush that was so desperate for a cheap dollar to create "jobs." Does the world want U.S. cars even at a discount? There should be a good demand for U.S. food, but the government better be turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants. :)

"There should be a good demand for U.S. food, but the government better be turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants. :)"

Oh, the government needs to get rid of its nitwit program encouraging the use of corn for ethanol. :) It is a little surprising that no matter how much these buffoons steal or just make a mess of things that the people still want more! I guess it just feels better to do something and there is always hope for a different result.