# Congress throws the country under the bus. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 30, 2008, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780 "2008-09-30T00:17:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/61 "2008-09-30T14:30:42Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If you’ve got money in the markets, well, yes, you’re fucked- but it is actually possible for the real economy to go on as normal while the imaginary one is crashing. I know what you mean. I get on the internet and I see everyone running around, both here and in Washington, freaking out. At work all the business conferences are from financial companies worried about their futures. And then I go out to the mall or to the grocery store, and while prices are higher than they used to be, businesses dealing in real goods and services are still banging along, happy and relatively prosperous. I think if this crisis helps shake people of the ‘money for money’s sake’ mindset, that can only be a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/62 "2008-09-30T14:43:02Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > Yes, I do appreciate we’d still be in massive trouble if the US economy tanked, thanks, and am also rather conversant with the interdependence of the global economy. Hey, it’s not my fault your location field is blank. 😛 What on earth was the point of demutualizing building societies? Then they’re just… well, banks. Don’t they have charters prohibiting that sort of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/63 "2008-09-30T15:01:34Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > What on earth was the point of demutualizing building societies? Then they’re just… well, banks. Don’t they have charters prohibiting that sort of thing? Some very clever bastards noticed that the organisations were sitting on good reserves of assets, and were far less risky than banks. And they thought “if we demutualize, we can cash in on this”. And they did. Wasn’t that clever. Right up there with thinking that lending money to people with low-income to buy houses with minimum deposits was a good move. Or other people thinking that purchasing those debts from other institutions was a way to get in on the action. Or any of a number of recent moves by the financial institutions of the US and UK which currently have me re-evaluating my previous belief that capitalism works with minimum intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/64 "2008-09-30T15:13:30Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > Or any of a number of recent moves by the financial institutions of the US and UK which currently have me re-evaluating my previous belief that capitalism works with minimum intervention. I think you need to re-evaluate the definition of “works”. I don’t think there’s any debate at all that capitalism can produce much bigger gains with minimum intervention. However, there’s also very little (rational) argument against the fact that capitalism also produces much bigger losses with minimum intervention. ---
**Author:** ![RyJae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@RyJae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RyJae)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/65 "2008-09-30T15:28:41Z")
For my part in helping the economy we took a portion of my retirement savings and invested in BAC. (BoA) and I’m winning right now. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/66 "2008-09-30T15:36:30Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Find your own damned street corner! Anyone want to buy pencils? Pencils for sale! > > -Joe _Nothing for sale!, I have absolutely nothing for sale!_ ---
**Author:** ![Westrogothia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@Westrogothia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Westrogothia)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/67 "2008-09-30T15:48:57Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Or to use another one, there was an professor of economics on the radio earlier saying “if your house is on fire, _first_ you put out the fire, _then_ you deal with what was responsible for it”. Yes very cutesy story but really doesnt mean anything. Heres a house on fire metaphore for the “other side” “Sometimes its just best to let the house burn to the ground instead of risking lives to save it.” ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/68 "2008-09-30T15:51:58Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Largest single one-day point drop on record: -777.68 points (29 September 2008) > Overall percentage: -6.98% > > Largest single one-day percentage drop on record: -24.39% (12 December 1914) > > Largest single one-day percentage drop in modern times: -22.61% (19 October 1987) > > Source: [Track the proposal to bail out the struggling U.S. financial system - CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/25/economic.meltdown/index.html) I saw a chart this morning that showed the largest percentage and point drops in history. Three of the five largest point drops have occurred in the past eight years. An interesting raw statistic. ---
**Author:** ![RyJae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@RyJae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RyJae)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/69 "2008-09-30T15:57:25Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I saw a chart this morning that showed the largest percentage and point drops in history. Three of the five largest point drops have occurred in the past eight years. An interesting raw statistic. Yeah but if you look at the overall chart, the insane\* rise has been over the last decade or so. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/DJIA\_historical\_graph.svg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/DJIA_historical_graph.svg) So it stands to reason the big drops should also happen more recently. \*IMHO of course, since I’m not an economist. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/70 "2008-09-30T16:01:22Z")
> [@Westrogothia](#): > > Yes very cutesy story but really doesnt mean anything. > > Heres a house on fire metaphore for the “other side” > > “Sometimes its just best to let the house burn to the ground instead of risking lives to save it.” Except, of course, that there’s 260 million people living in the house, almost all of whom are going to get burnt. What we need now is a car analogy, possibly involving MP3s. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/71 "2008-09-30T16:06:26Z")
> [@Dead\_Badger](#): > > What we need now is a car analogy, possibly involving MP3s. No MP3s, but: When you’re in a car with no brakes heading for a cliff, you’ve got to bail out. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/72 "2008-09-30T16:17:08Z")
> [@Dead\_Badger](#): > > Except, of course, that there’s 260 million people living in the house, almost all of whom are going to get burnt. Unless the house is in foreclosure. Then you don’t even get to vote on whether your ass is worth saving or not. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/73 "2008-09-30T16:17:51Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > I’m well sorry to hear your worries, mister, I really am… > > …but (sorry, you knew there was one coming) being fair here, I can’t see why America has to consider anything other than their own financial worries. If UK and European banks have left themselves dangerously vulnerable to collapse, that really isn’t a concern for American taxpayers is it? Sure if they collapse they’ll take us with them, but honestly that’s our fault. I agree that European banks are in the shit too, for their own stupid reasons, but the situation in the US is the Big One. You acknowledge in later posts the interconnectedness of the global economy. Do you think, if Congress were unable to proceed with any kind of bailout and the US economy tanked, that our economies here (and elsewhere in the capitalist world) would survive without massive repercussions, bankruptcies, redundancies, etc.? I don’t. The thing that makes me concerned is that without “sucking out the toxins” (as Robert Peston analogises with nary a burning house, MP3 or heroin addict in sight), if “something else bad” happens while all this is going on - another terrorist attack in the US, outbreak of war between two large economies, or in a politically sensitive area, or some other coincidental economic disaster in an unrelated market - it would precipitate an unsalvageable downward spiral. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/74 "2008-09-30T16:27:21Z")
> [@RyJae](#): > > Yeah but if you look at the overall chart, the insane\* rise has been over the last decade or so. > > [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/DJIA\_historical\_graph.svg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/DJIA_historical_graph.svg) > > So it stands to reason the big drops should also happen more recently. > \*IMHO of course, since I’m not an economist. Not so. The largest rise in the DOW was between 1980 and 2000. Immediately upon Bush’s election, there was a major drop (April 2000), then after 9/11, another major tank, then this most recent bomb. After eight years of stellar leadership from the White House, the DOW has managed to end up _lower_ than it was when Bush took office, and the current credit crisis threatens to decimate families. That’s quite a legacy. Interesting to note that the last big tank was in 1987 during Reagan’s (aka Master Deregulator) regime. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/75 "2008-09-30T16:34:00Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Interesting to note that the last big tank was in 1987 during Reagan’s (aka Master Deregulator) regime. Yes, but to be fair, you have to attribute a good amount of the credit for the Clinton-era boom to Reagan’s deregulation too. Again, it’s just more evidence that deregulation gets you bigger rises… and bigger falls. No net change in the long term, really. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/76 "2008-09-30T17:27:10Z")
> [@wring](#): > > Their way, they get to specifically blame democrats. Speaking of blaming Democrats, the [RNC sent an ad out](http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=11492) excoriating the bailout, and hanging it around Obama’s neck, yesterday morning. (It wasn’t supposed to, and didn’t, get aired until today. But the ad must’ve been cut Sunday, since a Lansing, MI radio station got it at 7:55am yesterday, and other stations got it yesterday morning.) That was, of course, hours before the Pelosi speech that the GOP Congresscritters gave as their reason for throwing the country under the bus. That’s obviously been their game all along: to get the Dems to compromise with them, producing a stinker of a bill, and then pull out and stick the Dems with the blame. Didn’t expect to find such blatant proof of it, though. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/77 "2008-09-30T17:28:17Z")
Okay: assume the economy is a cow… ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/78 "2008-09-30T18:22:13Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > I know what you mean. I get on the internet and I see everyone running around, both here and in Washington, freaking out. At work all the business conferences are from financial companies worried about their futures. And then I go out to the mall or to the grocery store, and while prices are higher than they used to be, businesses dealing in real goods and services are still banging along, happy and relatively prosperous. > > I think if this crisis helps shake people of the ‘money for money’s sake’ mindset, that can only be a good thing. It’s not what’s happening now - it’s what happens three, six twelve months, two years from now. With the ‘money for money’s sake’ companies ceasing to loan to each other, or ceasing to be altogether, and the banks in gridlock, nobody is financing anything, money goes into bonds not stocks, IPOs cease, nobody’s spending, so companies’ profits drop but they can’t borrow to tide themselves over, so they downsize, then the bankruptcies start. It’s a consumer economy and people aren’t spending, so your mall starts displaying empty lots, and there are fewer people shopping in the grocery store and they’re looking for bargains not luxury goods, so profits drop in the supermarket, they lay half the workforce off, and those former workers decide they don’t need to change the oil this month, and those tires will last another six month, and suddenly right down the other end of the scale, Joe’s Tire and Lube Shop, running for thirty years, turns off the lights and closes for the last time and Joe sadly puts the last nail into the last of the boards that he’s used to cover the windows. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/79 "2008-09-30T18:35:12Z")
> [@Spartydog](#): > > Kind of sounds like Newt Gingrich when he thought that Clinton dissed him. “Well, if I have to sit in the back of the plane I’ll just shut down the government. That’ll show 'em!” > > Geez, you watch Washington operate and it’s like a bunch of little boys in a sandbox. No wonder we’re in trouble. Putin and China are sitting there plotting ways to exploit the situation. What worries me it that they just may be figuring it out. They won’t have to figure it out, we’ll do it for em. They will (meaning Russia and China), by the time all of this is over, bailout or not, will own a goodly portion of our country. By own, I mean, hold the debt on, meaning that both the Russkies and the Chinese will have the final say in what we do and where in the world we do it. We’re already fucked, we just have yet to feel it. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780/80 "2008-09-30T18:40:51Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > It’s not what’s happening now - it’s what happens three, six twelve months, two years from now. With the ‘money for money’s sake’ companies ceasing to loan to each other, or ceasing to be altogether, and the banks in gridlock, nobody is financing anything, money goes into bonds not stocks, IPOs cease, nobody’s spending, so companies’ profits drop but they can’t borrow to tide themselves over, so they downsize, then the bankruptcies start. It’s a consumer economy and people aren’t spending, so your mall starts displaying empty lots, and there are fewer people shopping in the grocery store and they’re looking for bargains not luxury goods, so profits drop in the supermarket, they lay half the workforce off, and those former workers decide they don’t need to change the oil this month, and those tires will last another six month, and suddenly right down the other end of the scale, Joe’s Tire and Lube Shop, running for thirty years, turns off the lights and closes for the last time and Joe sadly puts the last nail into the last of the boards that he’s used to cover the windows. I think the scenario you are painting here is highly exaggerated, for _precisely the same reasons that “Trickle-down” economy never worked_ – pouring money into the top doesn’t make it rain money on the people at the bottom; not immediately, not in the long run, never. Similarly, sucking money **off** of the top won’t magically suck the money out of the pockets of the people on the bottom. Not to say there won’t be cases like you’re describing, but it most likely will happen as sad anecdotes, not as a ubiquitous theme, IMHO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congress-throws-the-country-under-the-bus/465780.md?page=5)