2a) Will it at least be enough to avoid total financial meltdown (as I wonder about in this other thread of mine)?
(Inspired by 2a) About the negotiations themselves: a lot of people have been sounding the warning bell about being on the verge of a second Great Depression. Others have looked at the negotiations, seen (in their eyes) politics being played, and wondered if that means it’s not so urgent after all. What are your thoughts about the DC wrangling that has brought us to this point, and its relation to the actual need for urgency?
The television just said that Warren Buffet said that if we do not have immediate passage of the plan that we will have the worst financial meltdown in history.
Mmm. He may well be right, but I’d take his word on this with a grain of salt, given that he has bet heavily on the bailout being passed. His recent investment in Goldman Sachs amounts to a wager that the bill will pass. So he has a vested interest in convincing people that the bill must be passed.
Yup, it most definitely is. They badly want to go on break to campaign for their jobs. I believe the deal passed days ago until John McCain decided he was going to try to make it work so that it looks that he made the deal happen. That backfired on him badly.
I certainly hope so. It isn’t difficult to figure out that things are pretty bad out there especially with our banking, insurance and credit confidence market which is the driving engine of this economy. This helps stabilize things a bit so that capable and able Americans can get to work reversing the economic trends.
Yes it did. We have learned quite a bit about what to do stabilize our economy when its on life support. 50 years ago, maybe 100, we would have had that melt-down you talked about.
The facts are that those charged with standing guard sounded the alarm just in time and the field generals drew up a plan to face down impending doom, however, the true game-players(John McCain and Co.) saw an opportunity to take credit for whatever the solution eventually becomes, injected their egos and their sinister designs and prolonged the inevitable solution.
Here’s how you will know if what I said above is true. If the bill they pass bears much material semblance to the original bill forwarded by the administration and Paulson and supported by the democrats, then you can say that all that happened was that John McCain sought to inject himself in order to position himself as the “bail out king” who canceled his presidential campaign to ride into Washington, and save the day.
Clu-Me-In: Do you see any contradiction between your hopeful uncertainty in your answer for (2) and the flat “yes” in the answer for (2a)? My interpretation of what you’re saying there is that the bill may fail to do things as well as it should, but that it will work well enough to prevent the worst. True?
It is impossible not to be just a tad bit uncertain particularly in view of the fact that an egomaniac could still end up wiggling and lying himself into the office of POTUS.
If John McCain/McSame as George Bush returns to office, then all bets are off.
Well, yes, but that’s January. I’m talking about this bill now, in late September, since much of the crisis/tipping point seems to hinge on this particular moment (am I wrong?). As you said, four months gives at least SOME breathing room to stabilize things. Plus, I would in that case ask which attitude of answer, 2 or 2a, best fits your opinion.
(As for whether the President matters either way, that’s a subject for that other thread of mine I mentioned in my OP. Feel free to share your thoughts on that there.)
No you’re not wrong. I did indicate in my earlier answer that this bill stabilizes the market enough so that able and capable Americans get to work reversing the damaging effects of a credit crisis that the economy has suffered which is akin to a human body suffering an aneurysm.
Ah, okay, so you do believe that the immediate problem will be fixed. That’s what I was wondering about. Now, whether we’ll ever reach that point again remains to be seen, but I like to think that the Fear of God was put into everyone, the kind that actually sticks. After all, no politician wants to lose power (or be known as being part of the Congress that destroyed America) and no company wants to go out of business.
Well, one thing the Politico link in my OP mentions that the WSJ does not is the possibility of fronting half of that $700 billion now and half later, once folks see where it’s going and what it’s doing. What happens with the rest and when may depend on the oversight committee being mentioned by both sources.
See, all of that could have been done in compromise negotiations between the House and Senate. It did not call for the grandstanding STUNT Senator McCain pulled recently. That is the mark of a desperate and floundering campaign.
Well, we’ll see. I’d like to keep this thread deal-focused, if possible.
I just had to mention how amazing it is to see the range of viewpoints on this thing. Many conservative blog commenters don’t seem to believe that the US economy is in any danger. And many of those who do think that “a temporary Depression” is necessary to keep our Constitutional rights. One guy even commented that in Georgia (home of gas shortages for no real reason that I can see), ammo shops are getting bought up, and he hints it’s because armed revolt is being brewed. And this while everyone on Capitol Hill and Wall Street are running around like we’re about to see everything destroyed.
I gotcha. I’ll end with this… Conservatives tend to use fear and the hint of revolt as their weapon of choice when they find their party losing the argument on political matters. They see the distinct possibilty now that their arch enemy - the so called ultra liberal democratic Senator from Illinois, is poised to wrest away ownership of the vision for America from them.
This bailout plan debate was played masterfully by Obama, pretty much by allowing and trusting those knowledgeable about the intricacies of the economy to workout the details and present it to America, sans grandstanding stunts.
If it does not deal directly with redoing mortgages ,it will not work. There are still 5 million homes to deal with. Buying the mortgages from financial companies will make them happy. Now we have them. What’s next. ? They can take down any company. They have to be redone. We have to have payments coming in to stabilize the system. That will be a big lag on any recovery. It will take time. I hope we have it.
But John Boehner apparently just publicly threw his support behind it, according to CNN.
Which makes my first question, will this pass, persist, especially given its unpopularity in the general public (which STILL makes for fascinating thought, IMO, and I’m sad no one else has pondered this yet).