Henry Paulson

Quote from Renegen:

You're right, however a bailout will only KEEP the current flawed, financial system.

A bailout should come with strings attached. Do you for example bail out your kid without demanding something back?

I agree, don't bail them out with taxpayers money so they can repeat the same thing again, but then when did the ordinary Joe taxpayer ever figure in any of this. It will be politically spun so well that the taxpayer will end up thanking the government for saving them from another 1929!

Whatever strings they attach the market will always argue it's too restrictive and interferes with day-to-day business. Here in the UK they're already arguing that the temporary ban on short selling is illegal.

Let's face it the markets pretty much run the economy, they're the puppeteers pulling the strings.
 
Quote from cabletrader:

What's the alternative, don't bail them out and let the whole economy go to hell in a handbasket? The individuals who created the mess will still have walked away, they were long gone with their haul of cash well before the shit hit the fan.

I'm not an economist and I don't live in the US but his way seems to be the best of two evils from what I've seen and read.

The "outdated" 3Q 2008 NYSE Euronext circuit-breakers governing trading halts in the event of single day 1200, 2400, 3600 point declines:

http://www.nyse.com/press/circuit_breakers.html

The "new" 3Q 2008 USSRA (the United Socialist State Republic of America*) circuit-breakers governing trading halts in the event of single day 400 point decline followed by a second single day 400 point decline:

NYSE stays open - taxpayer ponies up 1 Trillion to bailout all corps responsible for the decline

***************************************************
* I snitched USSRA from Nouriel Roubini. Here's some more from him:

"This is the biggest and most socialist government intervention in economic affairs since the formation of the Soviet Union and Communist China. So foreign investors are now welcome to the USSRA (the United Socialist State Republic of America) where they can earn fat spreads relative to Treasuries on agency debt and never face any credit risks (not even the subordinated debt-holders who made a fortune yesterday as those claims were also made whole).

Like scores of evangelists and hypocrites and moralists who spew and praise family values and pretend to be holier than thou and are then regularly caught cheating or found to be perverts, these Bush hypocrites who spewed for years the glory of unfettered Wild West laissez-faire jungle capitalism allowed the biggest debt bubble ever to fester without any control, and have caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

They are are now forced to perform the biggest government intervention and nationalisations in the recent history of humanity, all for the benefit of the rich and the well connected. So Comrades Bush and Paulson and Bernanke will rightly pass to the history books as a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the USSRA.

Zealots of any religion are always pests that cause havoc with their inflexible fanaticism – but they usually don't run the biggest economy in the world. These laissez faire voodoo-economics zealots in charge of the USA have now caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the nastiest economic crisis in decades."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/18/marketturmoil.creditcrunch
 
Somebody needs to make up a site "America's Most Wanted" with not just the administration guys, but also all the C-suites and board members of everyone of these bailouts
 
Quote from Agassi:

The National Association of Home Builders cut off
all political funding (around $20m, 65% to Republicans
and the rest to Dems) in February after a tax refund
clause failed to make it into an economic stimulus
package passed back in January. Just yesterday, the US
Senate agreed to a bill that lets the same homebuilders
to "carry back" recent losses to earlier years of
profit!! Now, the Congeressional Budget Office (CBO)
figures that the taxpayer will end up paying the
homebuilders approximately $6b, a very large percentage
of which will end up in the coffers of the very same
homebuilders that are partially responsible (along with
end American greed!) for the mess that we are in right
now. Some scoundrels ("All politicians are
scoundrels", GB Shaw)up in Washington tout this as a
measure to avoid distressed prices and prevent layoffs.

Bull Shit!

The last credit card bill that I paid late was when I
was back in school (1993-94). I, as a taxpayer am being
penalized for paying my cards on time, paying up my
mortgages on time and in general, for being circumspect
about my fiscal responsibilities. I am being forced to
pay to rescue companies and individuals that did not
have a sense of fiscal responsibility and just pandered
to their own whims and greed.

This country is going to the dogs -- as long as idiot
politicians who are in the back pockets of corporate
america are around and as long as special interest
groups are around, this country will never learn what it
means to be fiscally responsible. After all, fiscal
responsibility has to start from a grass roots level
and that means you, I and the rest of the people that
inhabit this country. This malaise thrives up every
orifice - we are a huge debtor nation.

Let the homebuilders and mindless people that accumulated
debt fail. That's the only way true capitalism will
work because that is being responsible for the actions we
take.

I've never been able to trade T-bond futures profitably.
I would be a lot richer if I could just get my losses on
those things paid back to my by the US government. Now,
why would you not want to pay for that one?

I detest/hate/resent/loathe what is happening. We are
all thieves as we are stealing from future generations
by not letting the people that need to take pain, take
it.

Very soon you will read that the National Association
of Homebuilders has re-instated its political contributions,
or even doubled it. Here we call them "lobby groups" but
we point to other countries and call it "bribery".


PS: FYI, the best performing group amongst stocks has been
the homebuilders. The best performing company this year
amongst the SP500 has been Pulte Homes.

This is sad. Everyone is raiding the US budget.
 
Quote from cabletrader:

I agree, don't bail them out with taxpayers money so they can repeat the same thing again, but then when did the ordinary Joe taxpayer ever figure in any of this. It will be politically spun so well that the taxpayer will end up thanking the government for saving them from another 1929!

Whatever strings they attach the market will always argue it's too restrictive and interferes with day-to-day business. Here in the UK they're already arguing that the temporary ban on short selling is illegal.

Let's face it the markets pretty much run the economy, they're the puppeteers pulling the strings.

Joe Taxpayer can pay a dollar now or 5 later.
 
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