Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Greenwald:

Can anyone even remember the last time this happened, where the nation's corporate interests and their establishment spokespeople were insistently demanding government action but were impeded -- defeated -- by nothing more than popular opinion? Perhaps the failure of George Bush's Social Security schemes in 2005 would be an example, but one is hard-pressed to think of any other meaningful ones. We're a "democracy" in which nothing is less important in how our government functions than public opinion. Yesterday was an exceedingly rare though intense departure from that framework -- the kind of citizen defiance of, an "uprising" against, a rotted ruling elite described by David Sirota in his book, "Uprising." On the citizenry level, the backlash was defined not by "Republican v. Democrat" or "Left v. Right," but by "people v. ruling class." As Johnston argues, yesterday's events should be celebrated for that reason alone.

It's true that we don't live in a direct democracy where every last decision by elected officials must conform to majoritarian desire, nor should we want that. In general, elected officials should exercise judgment independent of -- in ways that deviate from -- majority views. But the opposite extreme is what we have and it is just as bad -- a system where the actions of elected officials are dictated by a tiny cabal of self-interested oligarchs which fund, control and own the branches of government and willfully ignore majority opinion in all cases (except to manipulate it).
Moreover, even in a model of representative rather than direct democracy, the more consequential an action is -- should we start a war? should we burden the entire nation with close to a trillion dollars in debt in order to bail out Wall Street? -- the greater the need is to have the consent of the governed before undertaking it. From all quarters, Americans heard the arguments in favor of the bailout -- "agree to have this debt piled on your back for decades or else face certain doom" -- and they rejected it, decisively, at least for now.

mbs are difficult to value in the face of massive non performance- its not only becz they dont want to show us their stupid shitty pile of mortgages

cds are just completely untracked, no one even knows how many are out there from what ive read and heard

xpst

thats credit default swaps not deposits

Why on earth can't these banks provide solid numbers? I was under the impression that most of the banking industry was people keeping tracks of numbers. Is there honestly no database list of these debts? I say fuck them especially if they aren't going to provide solid figures.

facepalm

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE BAD DEBTS IS WORTH

This is why all the talk about "this will ruin the economy/great depression 2" is suspect, when they aren't telling us why it will, or if it will work, or even an estimate of how much money they need. It's scare tactics; the only reason I (and im sure most people) would even think of supporting the bailout is that it will save the economy, which is an idea entirely put across by the very people that will be able to handle this $700 billion dollars in the first place.

Are they not telling us why it will? They are saying the credit markets are tightened beyond belief; add to that, consumer panic leading to runs on banks that is destabilizing them (which is what happened with WaMu over the past two weeks). The worst case scenario for this is pretty bad.

b/c that's dependent on who will default

which we don't know... we just know which tranches the likely defaulters is in

^^ oops xp

I would get behind that Greenwald excerpt more if this had been defeated by referendum.

this day in history: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

but I guess thank u Adam for basically making my point - to "explain" this to Murrcans starts with a primer on monetary policy and derivativess, which, you know, good luck with that, because even most college-educated Murrcans just glaze over and don't get it. And this shit wasn't primer-level derivatives.

most people who deal in these shits professionally dont get it

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE BAD DEBTS IS WORTH

― rogermexico., Tuesday, September 30, 2008 11:38 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

doesnt mean the powers that be cant be more transparent w/their presentation and let us in on the estimates theyve surely made

they don't want to freak everyone out

I'm getting all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the peace and tranqility of the War On Terror

uh just give us the $700b and plz dont look behind this door - you wont like what you see

mtg securitizaton: its a pig in that poke i swear!

I certainly don't pretend to understand this stuff and even the brains at the investment bank where I work don't pretend to understand all the possible ramifications of this. What I do have a sense of and what worries me is the credit crunch.

if true wau

the 'playing football with lucy' was my favorite pre vote joke-- and was correct. however, mccain dint know he was charlie brown too.

i dont claim that I was correct, merely noting the blogger who coined it was

if true wau

dont see any reason to a) believe its false or b) go 'wau'

M White OTM - it's like an old-cat-lady house full of half-feral schrodinger cats and piss.

u hav pissed on the economy and u might be dead

it's like an old-cat-lady house full of half-feral schrodinger cats and piss.

aye. i understand all the populist rage, and i can dig greenwald's schadenfreude and the general fuck-these-fucking-guys vibe. but what's happening to american and european banks seems really pretty ominous. and it's like a lot of the "no bailout" pitchfork crowd is just not noticing all the other headlines on the front page or somehow thinks all these things aren't connected.

I would get behind that Greenwald excerpt more if this had been defeated by referendum.

From what I understand the "no" votes came overwhelmingly from representatives who are in close re-election races. So, not a referendum, but not too far off.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/swing-district-congressmen-doomed.html

That just means people scared of getting voted out on their asses listen to the "people".

i.e. democracy

Like these idiots aren't going to be voted out when the economy tanks even further...

this thread has followed the economy this morning I see

While some are blaming the GOP and others the Democrats for trying to inject politics into this crisis I believe I will reserve that judgement for ALL OF YOU TWITS

Also the assumption that nobody in your country except you knows what a 401K is or how it works is really, really pathetic.

tracer that's only partly to do with the merits, such as they were, of the bill. it's easy to demagogue and really difficult to explain. enough evidence is out there to suggest that the House GOP wanted the bill to pass but also wanted to hang it around the democrats' neck, and everybody calculated wrong

xp good morning.

And the OTHER assumption, that big brokers and investors don't have a vested interest in holding a fire sale in order to encourage a blank check from the rest of us, and well y'know PAULSON and BERNANKE said it could be REALLY BAD, is just absolutely pitiful

if true wau

what did i tell you

im not surprised at the attempt to pin on dems, im surprised at the obviousness of the "hey mccain, FU!"

(is that what u told me?)

Sorry goole, what's only partly to do with the merits? I don't follow you. Allz I know is it seems like most Americans are like "this is some booshit" and Congresspeople know this. Add in a bunch of Republicans who see opposition to the bailout as a possible lifeline towards re-election et voila. Non?

gabbneb when did you start posting to this thread? are you coming here TODAY to otm yourself on this thread? You sir are on the fast track.

i would just like to point out that i have been very otm always and forever

you should be careful with stunts like that lest you end up with somebody else's suggest bans on your tally

lol

the fact that reps in swing districts voted no is an indication of the political precariousness of the situation. i wouldn't call it a referendum on the bill -- there are polls out there showing that people are opposed to a "bailout" (the word, bailout, itself!) but if you describe the things the bill would do people support it. fear of attack ads is not quite the same thing as listening to your constituents or acting in their interests.

then there is the block of hard-right no-voters who are, to my knowledge, safe.

Yeah. I guess it's hard to separate one's feelings about what the bill will actually accomplish and the desire to punt one's representative face-first into a brick wall.

sorry i'm getting long winded: if i read you right, you're saying the bill's defeat has some correlation to the bill's being a bad deal; i don't think the two have much to do with each other really.

xp ha

no, there is correlation, but correlation is not necessarily causation. the timing here has far more to do with it.

dudes dems and reps are going to come back from roshashana w/ten more votes each and pass a nearly identical bill

I hope not.

yes, people in tight races, D or R, do not want to be for this. but most people in tight races are also largely not in urban districts. many voters angry about this don't understand how the absence of a bailout can affect their lives - and when they figure it out, it might be too late, so it's the kind of problem for which the solution might have to happen faster than it can be made politically sale-able.

and it's like a lot of the "no bailout" pitchfork crowd is just not noticing all the other headlines on the front page or somehow thinks all these things aren't connected.

this assumes they read newspapers.

xp - 'nearly', yeah. more will be dems than reps.

i'm gonna go with krugman rather than tombot here

Also the assumption that nobody in your country except you knows what a 401K is or how it works is really, really pathetic.

I'm not the one lighting up my congressman's phone demanding that he drop a piano on my head.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/bailout-questions-answered/

of course it's impossible that paulson and bernanke can be both self-interested and in the right

see the republicans want this bill but they thought they could trick the democrats into passing it on their lonesome so as to run against it - once theyve realized this wont happen theyll scare up the votes needed