To save the US economy - Republicans turn to a tribunus plebis??!

Remove all ads!

Weren't most of the Republicans listening to McCain and on board with this bailout until Nancy Pelosi opened her yap and ripped on George W.? How is McCain to blame for that? And what, if anything, could Obama have done to stop her from running her mouth, and souring the Republicans on the bailout?

BTW, Chandos: I think Shakespeare had the best quote for the topic at hand. "First thing we do is kill all the lawyers..." I think he'd have added the politicians and judged to that list...

What I fail to see is why the banks are in danger of actually going under as opposed to just showing heavy losses from all the defaulted loans and mortgages. Don't they make the lion's share of their money on the interest which is included in the payments that most of their customers still make? Okay, so they lose principle and future revenue when one customer defaults, but the majority are still slaving away under the relentless master of debt. If enough customers are defaulting to cause a bank to fail, then the economy was already screwed before the banks began to falter...

 

I like the Chinese approach. Decide at what level you want to assign responsibility, and proceed with mass executions.

Sure, we'll bail your company out. But in order to mitigate the moral hazard effect, you're gonna have to die. Sorry. Them's the breaks.

Who says totalitarianism can't be any fun?

 

If the economic future of a nation is at stake, do you really think that Republicans would vote against that economic future because of an off-handed remark made by a rival party member? If so, then they are a worse lot than I would have believed them to be. But I don't think that is what happened. Instead, the Republicans are setting this up to be a Democratic bill, because they know the voters hate it, and they want the Dems to take the political heat for passing a "much hated" bill. It's just politics as usual, but in an unusual situation.

 

It's not the bad debts so much as the lack of liquidity. A bank lives or dies by its liquidity, given that most bank is based on the idea that people aren't all going to want their money back at a faster rate than other people are repaying their loans. And it's a bit of a vicious circle in that once a bank can't repay one depositor then all the others will queue up to get their money out and the whole organisation collapses. We haven't seen that situation, because when some of those banks have started to run short of capital the alarm bells have gone off and they've had to go under or be bought out.

 

And even if that is so, does that justify their vote? As in: 'Nation First!' and all that? Or is it more that she offered them a welcome excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway for ideological reasons? I don't buy the utterances they brought on many levels but those two are by far the most important ones.

I continue here.

 

Ragusa, I don't think that has much to do with anything. I think they're just seeing this as a bad bill that won't do what (if anything) is needed but will cost the gov't (because we both know no one in Congress cares about the taxpayer) deeply. If Pelosi's remarks had anything to do with it, then Congress is actually filled with 5-year-olds.

*stops to think about it for a second*

Actually, it may be anyway.

 

One of the better explanations of this entire situation. Many don't want to talk about it, but it really was the govenments fault. When the government used banks to perform social engineering it was destined to fail. Now I admit, this video goes a little too far and blames everything on the Democrats which I don't believe is fair. There were plenty of Republicans involved also.

The one thing that I did find interesting is that McCain tried and failed to fix this before it blew up. If this is true, I'm not sure why he isn't trumpeting this more.

Enjoy

 

Of course the amount of information that video is trying to pass on to me is waaay too much for me to even bother to try to find out if it's true(not to mention it flashes past my eyes way too much for even that to be possible). However, considering that this is not exactly the first meltdown of a national banking system caused by deregulation of the banks and issuing of cheap loans I find it unlikely to have had the influence this video claims. I suppose that to someone who does not believe in market failures it's easier to see the government regulation as the cause. Not that it is not possible, just that I don't find it very likely.

 

I find it interesting that the party of "personal responsibility" will go to such lengths to never take responsibility for anything.

 

Why not? We are using it in Iraq and it seems to be working there.

 

Most Western European states have quite strong influence in their banking systems and financial sectors and well, I honestly do not think it matters that much what we do or if we regulate or not. The fundamental way our financial systems is built seems to demand a crash now and then and there are always different reasons. As long as we build our financial institutions as deck of cards who rely purely on human perception and very little on reality they are bound to crash but I see no other way. I even think these crashes are needed and good in the run long as they weed out the worst of the worst and to some extent santize the markets.

This was a rather confused rant I wrote while listening to the awful music in that video and I wonder if it makes any sense at all. As for the video I am with Morgoroth, impossible to take in any of the information in it, too much, too fast and when I spotted a spelling error in one of the first flashing signs I have a hard time taking it seriously (even though I know that it is quite irrelevent).

 

It could be that it isn't true....

 

Actually, I think he is addressing it in new campaign ads.

 

Which legislation is that? Does anyone have the details of the "supposed" legislation? I remain skeptical of anything that these guys are saying. Sorry, but if you can find something better and more detailed it would be helpful. The RNC cannot lie their way out of everything, as they have done in the past.

AIG, btw, is the country's largest insurance company, that was invested heavily in mortgage debt.

I did not need to watch it at all. I take it that they are blaming the failure of the nation's largest insurance company on a "social engineering" experiment by the Democrats? All the years of deregulation and corporate greed went into a failed social engineering plan? Interesting, much like science fiction. As I commented, this is one that the Republicans cannot lie their way out of. But there's Bill Clinton, former leader and member of the Democatic Party, asking to "saved" from himself by the Democrats. Maybe Dick Morris and FOX News were right about him after all...

 

Perhaps because it is just a narrative that will not hold up to scrutiny and he and his campaign staff know it?

 

Took me a whole 30 seconds to find it.

Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act

Of particular interest is McCain's comments. Combine that with Clinton's comments and you should start to realize the financial meltdown has been on the horizon for over 10 years. Both parties had a chance to stop this and both parties failed miserably. It is flat unfair to target Bush and the republicans for something Clinton and democrats share an equal burden for. At least McCain tried (and, credit where credit is due, so did Bill).

Chandos it really appears that you are so biased against republicans in general that you cannot even accept when any republican does something right.

 

So he co-sponsored a bill to regulate housing in 2006? What came of it? It failed. No subsequent efforts after that, which to me calls into question a sense of urgency McCain perhaps felt.

As far as the crisis is concerned it wasn't just the absence of regulation if you ask me. If anything deregulation was an exacerbating factor, in the sense that it led to lack of transparency and irregular accounting. Regulating the mortgage market would have improved some of that, and perhaps have averted predatory lending to unsuited debtors (where creditors then sold off the mortgage like the proverbial hot potato to someone else to cash in on it asap). McCain's bill was a good, if narrow thing. It ignored the hedge fonds and the banks and investment banks and insurers who were juggling with the products of the mortage market - all of which having different accounting obligations. Deregulation wasn't the only cause of the current crisis. It was one cause of many.

For instance there was something else that contributed greatly to the current crisis, 'on Bush's watch', in those eight years he had time to watch, observe and do something, had he only wanted: This war down there in sandland. While the D's caved in to Bush on that again and again, it is fair to say that Bush was the force that pushed the war in Iraq.

The link between the war to the current crisis is the dollar. Bush has been trying to finance a trillion dollar war on the cheap - without cutting spending, without raising taxes, without urging his country to save and conserve - through the traditional means kings have used before him: Inflation. As a side effect, the Dollar is right now against the Euro 40% less worth than what it was in spring 2003. And where does the US take those 700 billion dollars for the bailout from? They certainly aren't carving them out of the war budget.

To finance the war Bush has been and is still inflating the dollar by having the Fed keeping money cheap. Interest rates were lowered in response to 9/11, with the benign intent to not let the terrorist strikes disrupt the economy. This easily available, cheap money is one of the major factors contributing to the busted credit bubble - in the critical years when the bubble really started to inflate. It was that cheap money and low interests rates that made people think about buying houses they couldn't afford before. While it would probably help fight inflation to increase interest rates, as a bitter side effect, under the (iirc rather common) US practice of flexible interest rates, it would take a beastly toll on mortgage debtors. Which is why I don't think it will come. Inflation is somewhat less painful.

Essentially the US is now stealing money out of the pockets of the taxpayers and lenders alike to fund the war without the political inconvenience of general sacrifice. With the war and the war funding McCain did not have a problem. He is still calling for lower taxes.

 

T2,

You do make a valid point. I certainly wouldn't call it an "equal" share - we both know which party had free reign to do whatever they wanted to for 6 of the last 8 years, and which party heavily favors deregulation - but your point is noted. This is everyone's problem, and we all need to be in on the solution.

 

I did not attack you personally, nor did I make any comments about your particular "biased" viewpoints. Everything I was attacking in my comments was directed at the RNC. You can keep your personal comments to yourself, since I couldn't care less whether you believe I am biased or not. Someone posts a silly Youtube link and we are all supposed to suddenly fall over and believe that it is serious or factual.

The real issue about the legislation is if it could have prevented the meltdown of AIG, which is issue that we are currently concerned with. The government take over of the GSEs, Freddie and Fanny, has already occurred and are done deals.

However, it speaks highly of Mac that he wanted to regulate GSEs more closely:

It does point out that GSEs needed reform, while I'm not an expert on these kinds of entities, I don't think that AIG is one of them. But I could be wrong, since I'm no expert on insurance compaines. The theme we want to develop here is if there was a comprehensive desire among Congress members of either party to reform the financial markets, including nonGSE's, at least that's how I viewed the progression of the dialogue brought to us by TGS. But I commend Mac for his attempt at the particular reform he sponsered.