It’s like, I know heroin addiction is a big problem. Say I know a heroin addict that is in bad shape, and he’s begging for my help. He wants me to give him A WHOLE BUNCH OF FREE HEROIN. I know he’s in bad shape and I know he needs help, but I also know enabling his habit isn’t the answer. I don;'t think he’s in any position to dictate the terms of his recovery.
I think if we give these people money, they’ll just burn through it,use it to make more bad loans and come crying for more. In six months or a year we’ll be back where we started, only 700 billion dollars poorer.
And why aren’t the bankers and Wall Street guys deep in all night meetings trying to figure out how to save themselves instead of watching CNN with dumb looks and outstretched hands? They certainly are clever enough with manipulating money when it profits them. Apparently, the idea of a bank consortium coming up with their own plan to bail themselves out was rejected early on by the Wall Street guys who “didn’t want to have to work with their competitors”. It’s the easy way out for them to take our money. I say squeeze 'em.
I say it’s fear politics again and I’m not playing anymore. I think lending standards need to be tightened. So this is detox and it might last a while but it’s unavoidable. Prudent people who live within their means and have the recommended amount of rainy day savings should be just fine for a year or so, even if they can’t borrow money…and the rest of you will get a hard but well deserved lesson in not spending what you don’t have
Get your pencils out of the way of my all-nite dance competition.
Since we’re on the “fairly useless metaphor” trail now, how about me saying that putting a heroin addict in complete cold turkey can be life-threatening, and it’s often best to give them a subsitute drug. (To stretch it further, Heroin = private capital, Methadone = public funds. So there.)
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”.
What about prudent people who have had unfortunate life circumstances that have robbed them of what savings they had, who are now extremely financially vulnerable? Like me, for example. Zero debt apart from my mortgage, which was completely realistic at the time of purchase, in a low budget house, with me in a reasonably high earning job, and posing an extremely low credit risk. And yet if I lose my job, in such economic circumstances I’ll have little chance of getting a new one, and therefore will lose my house, with little chance of being able even to be able to rent.
And I’m not even in the US. I’m in England! Your ‘moral’ stance, and that of your politicians, could quite possibly cause all this to happen to me over here.
What “hard but well deserved lesson” will I have learned?
The Irish Gov. just guaranteed 100% of the deposits in all Irish banks.
I work for one of the largest financial services companies in the world and have a decent amount of money in a pension plan.
Worried? Yep.
The reason given last night by the GOP outside the house and by the McCain camp was that Pelosi had given a partisan speech which made GOP delegates angry so they changed their votes. Disgraceful, immature and mindless cunts.
And it was absolute bullshit, as well. Most of the Republican congressional critters from my area voted against it, and those folks have been in lock step w/Bush for 8 years. Why did they vote that way? They’re scared for their jobs.
The Belgians have nationalised a Bank so have Iceland. This truly is global. The whole financial world have been acting the bollocks.
Decisions made by people who had no personal risk because of their work contracts have fucked the world. Capitalism/Markets need risk to function correctly.
Hopefully they’ve learned that letting the members of administration act without oversight does not, in fact, solve the problem at hand. See: Iraq, Osama bin Laden, Guantanamo Bay, Homeland Security, Alberto Gonzales, the TSA, etc.
I don’t know how many of you fell for it the first time, but I’m glad congress is finally starting to wise up.
For fuck’s sake, people. You’re complaining about the media doing it and now you’re doing it too!
The sky isn’t falling. The global economy is not going to collapse. This is more than a hiccup, less than a stroke, and we will all survive.
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.
The bailout will come, and hopefully, it will come with strings attached.
Me, not at all. I’m not in your fucking country and have no recourse to the actions of your politicians, even though they have a fairly direct effect on me.
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.
By the way, if we really want to throw some blame around for our own worries, how about all those clever bastards who pushed for the demutualisation of building societies. The bulk of mortgages in this country used to be in the hands of non-leveraged organisations that didn’t have to worry about a drop in market confidence, and were heavily restricted on what they could borrow. Right now, that seems like a pretty bloody good idea.
Markets all bounce back in the days after a crash- around 75% of the loss is recovered usually, IIRC. Uncertainty over the bailout is the only thing keeping the Dow from bouncing back properly right now.
I don’t think you quite understand how dependent the global economy is on the American one. Britain/Europe could have a 200% balance of payments surplus and enough cash reserves to cover their obligations fifty times over and they’d still be in the soup if our economy tanked.
50% of the world’s economy is based on supplying things to Americans. Sustainable? Sensible? Of course not, but that’s the way it is.
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.
None of which unfortunately changes the fact that we’d be in far less trouble if our banks weren’t hugely exposed to US losses, and if we’d not converted some of the safest financial institutions feasible for home loans into commercial banks. The 4 big hits in the UK banking sector (B&B, Halifax, A&L, Northern Rock) are all demutualised building socs that previously would have been far safer, due to much lower leveraging and market exposure. Their spectacular fail has caused much of the panic that’s threatening to tip things over here. Combine that with the massive exposure to US mortgage debt and you’re in real shit.
