Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

wares yr gf live max

stuyvesant ave near fulton

but shes MY girlfriend dude go get your own

yah LIKE im having a girlfriend whos cafes are all out of business

all can agree: now is the time for dating FANCY bitches

ur loss dude ~~

pix?

A nose job as a rite of passage, hm.

Roffles:

"It's going to be very hard psychologically for these people," Frank said. "I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done."

oh how my heart bleeds

Yves Smith has a great lengthy post on why this bailout plan should be DOA, and what a reasonable plan would look like:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/why-you-should-hate-treasury-bailout.html

those poor children, it's probably worth a whole lot of money to NOT be told you're ugly by your parents growing up

i read something on some blog somewhere to the effect that ugly old fat financial types are giving up their "high end" girlfriends

Been calling my congressman and (lol) senators this morning to ask them to oppose this bullshit. Interestingly, the new guy in MS-1 had the most intelligent phone answerer, who wanted to get into the specifics of my opposition. "Is is just the lack of oversight, or are you opposed to the whole thing in general?"

"I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done."

Diddy?

did you go for option 2 there, RH?

Dr. M -- yes, definitely.

Cunning Realist = none too thrilled.

something needs to be done to keep the credit markets from completely imploding

RR: bad idea - http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/09/bailout-of-all-bailouts-is-bad-idea.html

but i don't know if i fully buy his alternative. how does it work so neatly, that "creditors would be paid off" ?

A better idea would be for the Fed and Treasury to organize a giant workout of Wall Street -- essentially, a reorganization under bankruptcy, for whatever firms wanted to join in. Equity would be eliminated, along with most preferred stock, creditors would be paid off to the extent possible. And then the participants would start over with clean balance sheets that reflected new, agreed-upon rules for full disclosure, along with minimum capitalization. Everyone would know where they stood. Bad debts would be eliminated. Taxpayers wouldn't get left holding the bag. And there would be no "moral hazard" incentive for future financial wizards to take giant risks with other taxpayers' money.

i propose all debt in the entire world be forgiven and we start over

Live 8.2

And this really is the most objectionable part of the whole goddamned thing, as every blog mentions:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Okay, so that's, what, unimpeachable monarchial powers in the hands of an official who will remain unanswerable to any court of law. Who will decide which financial institutions will live or die. On the basis of the taxable wealth of the electorate...wait which century are we in again? Oh yes, the 21st, as the secretary will have unbounded immunity from examination as secretively as every other Bush II governmental official.

Why is it necessary to word it like that when the Treasury will be changing hands so soon - or will it ...oh my. Now that you're on the cover of Newsweek and called "king"

Exactly, the Treasury proposal would basically give Paulson $700B to play God with. He would be granted sweeping powers to use vast amounts of taxpayer money to decide who lives and who dies in the financial world, and protected from any oversight or second-guessing of his decisions. This is clearly untenable.

Why is that even necessary? I really don't understand the logic behind it. (xpost)

dont forget that said king was v recently in the employ of the industry in question!

dude should be fired for even proposing such a thing

And there would be no "moral hazard" incentive for future financial wizards to take giant risks with other taxpayers' money.

water rolling downhill, etc. See also: Congressional wizards taking giant risks with other taxpayers' money. But hey, at least they're elected officials, right?

>Exactly, the Treasury proposal would basically give Paulson $700B to play God with.

Well no - from Smith's blog that you yourself posted: And mind you, $700 billion is not the maximum that the Treasury may spend, it's the ceiling on the outstandings at any one time. It's a balance sheet number, not an expenditure limit.

Also, by making GS (where Paulson once was, right?) & MS holding banks - this is more than just repealing Glass-Steagal then...is this indefinitely killing the i-bank for good?

Counterproposal - I'd like to see conservative/Repukes argue against its logic re: the Treasury

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/ts_nm/financial_bailout_congress_dc

Senate Democrats propose conditions for bailout
31 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Monday issued a counterproposal to the Treasury Department's financial bailout plan that would give the government shares in firms unloading assets and limit executive compensation.

According to a legislative proposal obtained by Reuters, the majority Democrats also want to set up an oversight board that would include the chairmen of the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and Securities and Exchange Commission to limit the Treasury's otherwise largely unfettered powers.

In addition, the Democratic plan would ensure that decisions taken by the Treasury secretary as part of the proposed $700 billion bailout would be reviewable under certain circumstances. The Treasury had asked that decisions not be reviewable by any administrative body or court.

The more I think about this plan, the less I like it. Even if oversight is added, the idea of buying up the troubled assets seems like it's basically got the problem backwards. Under this plan, the banks that invested the most in the worst kinds of mortgage-related assets would be helped the most. If the object is to make credit available, why not try to make it available through the banks that bought the least of the troubled assets? There were some banks that wisely dealt with the problem early on, and escaped the worst effects of the crisis. Why not pass measures to help them to extend more credit, if the object is to free up credit, rather than throwing taxpayer dollars at the worst offenders, without exacting anything from them in return?

I think the first thing that we need is full disclosure. Which banks are holding the most of these troubled assets? Which ones are most in danger? We don't need a behind-closed-doors solution to these problems.

the whole focus on the repeal of glass-steagal as a cause of this mess is pretty o_O when you consider the only institutions not hurting right now are the diversified mega-banks

> this is more than just repealing Glass-Steagal then

To clarify: I know that happened 9 years ago; I guess I'm still grasping what the current incarnations of GS & MG are, now. Morgan Stanley is bought 20% by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/ts_nm/financial_bailout_dc;_ylt=AiuUbsUA9DmqfmPi17Mkpv1g.3QA

Meanwhile, the fate of Wamu is still inconclusive

While I understand and sympathize (and to some degree agree with) the desire for full disclosure, what practical effect is that going to have on public reaction to whatever plan ends up going forward? It seems that Congress is gung-ho with going forward with some form of it regardless of what the public has to say, plus how much of the economic detail is the public going to successfully understand in order to formulate an informed, intelligent response?

its more accountability than disclosure - of course you need the one to have the other

I'm not sure what effect it would have on public reaction. I think that the public at large is going to be very suspicious of any plan that commits so much taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street. So far the message from Paulson and company has been "Trust us, we know what we're doing" and "You don't have time to think it through - just approve it". I don't think it would be that hard to get public opinion on the side of a bit of thoughtful restraint, despite the atmosphere of fear. Disclosure would help to replace these vague fears of total systemic collapse with some specifics. Last week you had Congressional leaders of both parties putting out a statement that after AIG there were not more big shoes left to drop (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/17/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4454445.shtml) So why is it suddenly so imperative that we hand over $700B with no questions asked?

xp

I want to know if the Democrats in Congress are really going to challenge the admin. on this w/ their counterproposal with a fight - which would be the v first time - or just cave in 3-4 days at the risk of getting politically attacked when (as one sees today) the market keeps sliding and Reps start blaming them for "stalling" ? I predict the latter, but it seems like something else is going to go on behind closed doors to buy their acquiescence, again

I'm too cynical to have any positive expectations with this entire mess

But it seems like this is just as unpopular on the right as on the left -- the only people pushing it are Bush and Paulsen. What Repub support am I missing?

The Republicans who are steadfastly against this are against any further bail outs, and not likely to partner with Democrats who just want to revise Paulson's Plan to adjust the provisions and vote to reject this. I mean, I'd be surprised if they do.

Meanwhile: (CNN) - http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/22/campaign.wrap/index.html Sen. John McCain on Monday told voters he was "greatly concerned" about the government's proposed rescue plan because it gives Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson too much power.

Sen. John McCain said Monday that he has concerns about the treasury secretary having too much power.
1 of 2

"Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

isnt this basically what happens in episode III

"radiant flowering crab" = my favorite ilx name of the week

Oh I don't know.. Jefferson ordering the purchase of like a fifth of the North American landmass was pretty big

I just wonder if, when the effects of this are felt in 6 months to a year's time, if anyone remembers any of this or if the 10% unemployment and negative growth all gets blamed on President Obama

McCain has been saying some reasonable things. Obama should promise to appoint Krugman as Treasury Secretary if elected.

xp

o. nate otm all over

McCain has been saying some reasonable things.

On which day of the week?

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 09/22/08 at 16:29 GMT (EST+5) is
305,225,441

700,000,000,000/$305,225,441=$2293

I say we let the banks fail and give everyone in the country a check for $2293.

Who would cash the checks?

Or checks to all homeowners (esp. if paid just on principal), since if we could paid off our mortgages, this crisis would be better. Or is that too much moral hazard for ordinary folks to handle?