Bush's ironic concern
- Thread starter jensieblue
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I am beginning to like you.You sound like a good American.
Thank you. uh did you not like me before?
Thank you. uh did you not like me before?
...don't mind me, I have to make peace with myself everyday. I appreciate your posts.
Yea, me too. I wake up every day and look at the sun and wonder what did I do to deserve the pleasure of living here?
I spent most of yesterday tuned into CNBC and reading up on this thing, and I have to say while I don't like bailing these characters out and I think the CEO's and investors of these firms should pay a huge price, I'm not as down on this deal as I was two days ago.
It's important to note that this is in fact an investment plan, not a give away. From what I understand is the current plan, the securities will be purchased at auction, with the private sector bidding along with the government. Those securites will then be sold down the road. Worst case this costs us 150 billion or so (on par with the S&N crisis) best case the government breaks even or makes money. It's not a 700 billion give away as I once feared. I just hope there are serious repercussions for people resposible for purchasing these assets in the private sector, although I'm not convinced this is in the final bill yet. My hope is that the golden parachute provision and the claw back provision are retroactive. That way the biggest idiots involved in the institutions that have already failed will receive some serious payback.
The Carter Bush analogy is so far off the mark I don't know where to begin....carter was fiscally responsible, did not engage in culture war, did not start 2 wars, spoke out about energy independence before it was fashionable, and his major failings was his inability to compromise with congress or rescue the iranian hostages.....the massive inflation and unemployment were not of his making, but OPEC's. carter left office with relatively clean books and no war....reagan came in and started the steady drive to debtor hell that we are in today with knucklehead g double uMost Republicans I know are privately appalled by Bush's lack of focus on domestic issues and his getting us in a mess in Iraq. His complicity in running up huge deficits helped lose the Congress for the Republicans. I consider Bush to be the Republican Jimmy Carter.However, Bush is history shortly and we must move forward. Of the two choices we have, McCain is the only hope for truly fixing this country's problems. Obama will tax us back to the stoneage and then sign the country over to the Chinese.
If there will be bidding w/ the private sector involved, is there any control to keep them from driving up the price the government will pay? After seeing the mess oil speculators and short selling financial stocks have caused recently I think that's necessary.
I still don't understand why if there are private investors willing to buy, the government needs to buy.
I still don't understand why if there are private investors willing to buy, the government needs to buy.
If there will be bidding w/ the private sector involved, is there any control to keep them from driving up the price the government will pay? After seeing the mess oil speculators and short selling financial stocks have caused recently I think that's necessary.
I still don't understand why if there are private investors willing to buy, the government needs to buy.
Banks are unwilling to sell at current prices, which are supposedly fire sale prices. With the government stepping in to buy tons of this stuff, it's assumed private sector buyers will be willing to pay higher prices. This is one of the big gambles of this.
The whole point is to get this stuff off the books of these firms at reasonable prices (but below the maturation value) which should get lending going again.
The question you asked scooter, along with some other key questions like "will the banks, even though they get to unload this stuff, actually start lending again?" are the big what ifs of this thing.
One of the things Bush was saying (before I got pissy, started wondering if he had botoxed his upper lip and waxed his eyebrows, and turned him off) was that we needed to get the banks loaning money again so that people could do everyday business.
I have heard firsthand that standards have been tightened, and it's harder to get a loan, but I have yet to hear of anyone who I personally feel SHOULD get a loan being outright denied. I think the tighter lending standards are long overdue and not ridiculous in any way. Sympathy goes out the window when I hear that they now want to (gasp) verify your income and have a 10-20% down payment.
It seems the people being denied are those whose credit history, assets, income etc. make the loan a bad risk and that if even a fraction of them had been denied over the past couple of years, there would be much less of a crisis and far fewer folks "upside down."
Would love to hear from the Sowal peanut gallery on this, as I know my reality is not necessarily the world's reality!
I have heard firsthand that standards have been tightened, and it's harder to get a loan, but I have yet to hear of anyone who I personally feel SHOULD get a loan being outright denied. I think the tighter lending standards are long overdue and not ridiculous in any way. Sympathy goes out the window when I hear that they now want to (gasp) verify your income and have a 10-20% down payment.
It seems the people being denied are those whose credit history, assets, income etc. make the loan a bad risk and that if even a fraction of them had been denied over the past couple of years, there would be much less of a crisis and far fewer folks "upside down."
Would love to hear from the Sowal peanut gallery on this, as I know my reality is not necessarily the world's reality!
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If there will be bidding w/ the private sector involved, is there any control to keep them from driving up the price the government will pay? After seeing the mess oil speculators and short selling financial stocks have caused recently I think that's necessary.
I still don't understand why if there are private investors willing to buy, the government needs to buy.
I don't see how. It reminds me of the old saying about smart money and dumb money. Government money is dumb as a door knob.