From the left:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/23/news/companies/fbi_finance.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008092319

And the right:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,426783,00.html

Not that it would help us any, still, I would love to see some of these clowns go to jail.

Better yet, confiscate all their wealth, never let them accumulate it ever again (after all they have a LOT of restitution to make) and make them live the rest of their lives earning $1 over the official poverty level.

If I cannot have that, I'd settle for having them strung up by their toe nails. Then the finger nails, then shot them all.

Only half kidding.

What wonderful news. Would that their boss didn't work for crooks.

I've come to the conclusion we're just effed.

I still don't understand how a country can be stable with

1) Massive trade imbalance
2) Massive debt
3) More Massive debt
4) Slowing advancement of science, education, and arts.
5) A divided country
6) Poor distribution of what what wealth does exist.


If you stop to think about it, where are the competitive advantages?

Sigh, hopefully I become more optimistic in the coming days. It's not fair to the brave men and women fighting everyday, or have fought, for OUR freedom to have such negative thoughts.

D, I'm feeling your pain... except for #6, you've nailed it. #6 has been tried in other counties and failed miserably.

This bailout redistributes wealth from the collective lower-middle class to the wall street gangsters..

There is no longer representation of the middle class in this country. It doesn't matter what either side says, they aren't looking out for us.

Which is precisely the problem and is exactly why we're in this mess.

We're damned if we do. Damned if we don't. And the wealthy directly benefit the most. The rest of the country goes down the drain if we don't prop the wealthy up.

The country goes down the drain because the banksters are FLUSHING IT.

The "bailout" does nothing to fix the underlying, but does further reward those who knowingly created this circumstance.

100% agree. BUT....we might have dug such a big hole there's no way out.

We spend somewhere around 400 billion per year on INTEREST on our national debt. We literally borrow to pay the interest on money we already have borrowed.

You are absolutely right, D-Rod. For a pithy explanation of where we are and how we got here, the basics are covered pretty well at www.fedupusa.org.

I'm not into the big conspiracies. I have my own opinion on what got us here. That doesn't matter.

What does matter is what the solution is. I still think taxes need to be higher to close the gap. You can whine about entitlement spending, blah blah, but it's somewhere in the range of 20 billion not including medicare/social security, which are other animals. I still think fiscally stabilized government is the cornerstone of our economy. The value of the dollar is closely related to the stability of the government. A strong supports US companies.

Many folks feel a stable government comes from a healthy, growing economy.

I disagree. I feel a stable government provides the foundation needed for a healthy, growing economy.

stabilized or responsible??

Stabilized would include responsible.

We've been divided for a very long time. In some ways, it's a good thing.

Paralyzed divided?

I don't believe that's where we are. Government is, but I don't believe the people are.

Government got out of the way of business. Regulatory oversight was light to non-existent and the cry for "let business be business" was heeded by successive administrations of both parties.

NOW THEY WANT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION AND YOUR MONEY.

Just say "no". Loudly and often.

The financial reckoning is coming, no matter what is done about the so-called bailout. What we're arguing about here is who pays. Wall Street would like you to. And your kids. And your grandkids.

I'd like Wall Street to pay....

And my grandkid's kids assuming this place doesn't blow up before then.

Once they fire off that big atom smasher, we won't have to worry about Wall Street.

The way I see, the big black hole is just looming. The $700B is but a bribe to keep it away a few extra months. In essence, we'll be in dire economic conditions with an additional $700B racked up in debt. At least the people who put us here will be living high on thier wealth while the rest of us suffer.

On a side note, anyone have a DIY set of plans for a guillatine? Halloween is just around the corner and all....

Dang Mutt. You're more pessimistic than I am. What happened?

What was that movie a couple of years ago about this. Fun with Dick and Jane. When they find the SOB that sank the company and he was arrested.

Also why is ther not more of this? It was big new in Columbus.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/contentbe/dispatch/2006/05/23/20060523-A1-00.html

He woke up, smelled the coffee, and watched the rats escaping with all the cheese.

Yeah pretty much. Woke up, stepped in a big pile of reality, and can't get the stink off my shoes.

I have to admit though, I've taken a play from thier rule book. Today at lunch, I gathered up as many credit card apps as I could find. I filled them all out, probably a dozen or so. The current accounts I have and the foolish ones that approve me, will soon find maxed cash advances and some pretty large expenditures relating to Mutt-utopia infrastructure. Then I shall declare bankruptcy and cancel my phone.
BofA is buying me a tractor.
Citi will be splurging for barn materials.
Chase probably doesn't know they're footing the bill to stock my pantry.

Yep, I plan to get my share of that $700B back on the front end...

Wise decision?

Why start now??

Go Mutt, Go Mutt, GO, GO...

As I see it, we do not have much choice but to save the sheep that would be burned and hope that we can let a few of the porkers fry. The problem is that this is not the first time we have bailed out the financial industry. Remember when we had to bail out New York because they had been bankrupted by union demands? And then Marion Barry, that model citizen, made us bail out D.C. The Reagan bailout of Chrysler may have been the only good bailout, but then we bailed out Citibank, C-M and BOA because they gave billions to Latin American governments that would not repay them. If my timeline is correct, Clinton bailed out Goldman-Sachs and others during the Mexico-IMF fiasco. The worse part is that when we bailed out many of the nations like Mexico, Thailand, and Korea, we devalued the wages of those countries, which made their products cheaper to buy. That put a lot of Americans out of work when industry moved overseas.

When we bailed out Mexico, Florida tomato growers were wiped out, Ford and Delphi move their plants to Mexico, as did many textile companies. It is that bailout that was ultimately responsible for the trade deficit that is hurting us now.

The public fails to realize that analogy of the butterfly in Japan creating a hurricane in Florida is true. The issue is what other factors come into play, and over how long of a timeline. Some things do not affect our lives until decades later. Jimmy Carter's presidency is primarily responsible for the problems we have with the Taliban and Al Queda today, yet it happened so long ago, the public scoffs.

Does it matter?
If we make wise decisions we pay the price of not living as well as
Those who make poor decisions who have the government to bail them out.