Comments on Re: Bailout Deal Collapses

this could have passed on democratic votes alone...

It's down 666 right now. I hope that's where it closes.

the dow went down 700 things and is barely at 10,400 things!!! this is a catastrophe! it's just like the great depression only without any of the bad things.

Why can't we just let the financial industry go bankrupt and establish a gov't commercial lending institution? That's what all the people on tv are complaining about if this doesn't pass: frozen credit.

Seriously, can someone explain why the government can't just replace the functions WaMu, AIG, etc?

I'm reminded of this quote, supposedly from a 19th century U.S. Secretary of Commerce: "You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!”

Why can't Pelosi just find a deal that the House Democrats like and ram it through on a near party-line vote? Is Bush going to veto it after a day like this for the market? (Don't answer that - I know he might. Sigh.)

Most economists will tell you that most stocks are overvalued, that most Americans are spending more than they make per month, that the government is broke and is spending more than it makes (while not investing in things like education and infrastructure). Lenders have extended mortgages, credit lines and credit cars, home improvement loans, car loans, etc, to people who can't afford them. This all adds up to what we are seeing - an adjustment in the market, and some businesses and people who made bad choices going bankrupt.

We should be looking to help people who have lost their jobs - just like Clinton did when he took office, the next president should immediately lengthen unemployment insurance payouts. Aside from that, with or without the bailout we are facing a painful adjustment for many people. It's how markets work. American society has been overconsuming for decades, it looks like it's time to pay. Borrowing a trillion more dollars from foreign banks and governments to hand out to idiots who caused this problem won't change that, it'll just ensure many of those idiots have more money they don't deserve.

Barney Frank nails it.

@ 4 - why not just let the healthy banks sell more of their product to make up for the banks no longer selling theirs? If 10 shoe companies went out of business, would we have a shoe crisis, or would the other shoe makers pick up the slack? Isn't it the same with loans? I really don't understand. Not the first time for me.

Dave Reichert voted to help kill this monstrosity. So now I am definitely voting for him -- I was going to sit out this race, but this is what we keep Republicans around for. I'll probably throw him a few bucks in the next couple of days aw s well.

Go, Meinert, go!

For those sloggers over 35, does this bailout thing kinda remind you of the Iran Hostage situation of '79/80 that lost Jimmy Carter the election? If the Dems let this mess continue and blame the Repubs, could Obama win a landslide and save the day in the end? Or am I eating too much corn out here?

@1 and 6

No party is going to pass a bill without significant buy-in from the other, not with elections a little more than a month.

If the Dems hammer through an unpopular bill (which the current bailout is), they'll get fucking clobbered in November, especially if Republicans can just close their eyes and scream SOCIALISM as loud as they can.

Of course, you could attempt to gather votes on the merit of the bill ... but really, how's that going to look on CNN?

@6 - Paul Krugman says the Dems needed some Republications to vote for the bill to provide political cover: Whatever passes is going to be politically unpopular, and if it was a Democrats-only bill, the Republicans would slam the hell out of them for it, even if it was the right thing to do on the merits, and the alternative - no bill - was much much worse. Which I'm not sure is the case, but Krugman says that's Pelosi et al's logic.

i LOVED the barney frank vid, mike. cheers for that.

I'm confused. We didn't want the bailout, right? Left-wingers didn't want it. So...what happened? It got killed, but mostly by Republicans? How?

how about DON'T PASS IT if it's politically unpopular and ill-advised? maybe they can hire some iraqi government consultants to teach our representatives about democracy?

Floyd Norris, tha other NYT fella, points out a secrecy feature of the downed bill:

"The banking industry is in trouble with or without this bailout. Its efforts to change accounting rules to hide its problems are sad and appalling. The defeated bill would have authorized the Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend the mark-to-market rule, which forced the banks to admit how badly they had gambled and lost. The S.E.C. has already yielded to political pressure and barred short-selling in financial stocks, so it is possible it would yield to the accounting pressure as well."

Barney Frank needs to shut the fuck up because he is smack dab in the middle of the web that caused this mess in the first place.

Dodd too, Mr. Sweetheart CountryWide Mortgage and biggest recipient of Fannie/Freddie contributions in Congress.

Why are we so willing to scream and yell and point fingers at the Republicans and not also hold accountable our own Democratic representatives who had a hand in this?

Is it easier to stomach right now if we cast this as the evil Republicans? Because any way you slice it this was a pile of garbage that they ALL were trying to shove down our throats in a hurry with no guarantee that it actually would solve the problems they were claiming it would solve.

Shit, here's a bottom line for all of you, both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the clusterfuck we're in right now and both Democrats and Republicans are trying to screw the American people while attempting to pin the blame on the other party.

It's time to impeach Nancy Pelosi - she makes Sarah Palin seem smart because all she can do is vent hyperbole.

yeah, hows that short sale ban working out for everyone today?

Hey Fritz, might as well stay home. Darcy Burner came out against the bill as well.

It got killed because it was unbelievably UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Both Dennis and Ron voted against it, so that tells me that if the left AND right wing constitutionalists vote against it, something was rotten. There is no authority in the Constitution for this type of deal. America can't keep selling these imaginary goods. It's a crap system. Manufacturing needs to step up in the USA, esp. new technologies in environmental design.

Whoo, now I'm tired. BTW, Obama is still better than McCain.

bellevueave, how do we know it's not better than if the short sales weren't prevented? you cannot argue what did not happen.

the prevention of short sales wasn't a guarantee that the market wouldn't crash, just an attempt to prevent it from crashing harder.

McCain just said it was Obama's fault.

infrequent @24, think ba's arch comment relates to how banning short sales removed a market hedging mechanism that used to put a floor on index drops. Monday we got 777 down, when it could have been a lot softer if shorts were in play as usual. Banning shorts was driven by short-term politics, not economics at all. Unintended consequences are now in play. Tomorrow might be even more interesting.

There wont be anyone to cover their shorts tomorrow.

I find it really irritating that government action was taken based on bad information such as "shorting caused companies to collapse" not the underlying cash flow problems or poor investments. No, it was 12 months of companies being shorted that did them in. Nevermind that people made money off their shorts, lending out shares at insane interest rates for shorters to borrow, that it created a false bounce two days last week, etc etc.

No, the shorting ban was going to stop companies' stock price from going down.

So it's the Democrats' fault that Republicans didn't vote for it? Huh?

Is the entire platform of the Republican party now based on the premise that Republicans are never directly responsible for their own actions or the consequences of those actions?

This should go to the next President, Obama, anyway. The Dow isn't going to disappear. This is a repudiation of George Bush in it's entirety. Democrats should not run every time he cracks his whip. Pass another stimulus payment.

Well, by that logic, if the Democrat's Speeches suddenly have such awesome power--quick someone make a speech Withdrawing From Iraq War! A speech Demanding Universal Health Care!

Behold, their mighty rhetoric...

why isn't anyone BLAMING McCAIN?!? didn't he drop everything to personally write up the bailout bill?!

@22 -- Well, leek, that's good to know. But, hey, Reichert delivered the vote, so I figure I owe him my vote.

Unfortunately McDermott voted yes. You can contact him from this link. Let him know that we will not accept responsibility of failed businesses, and a failed system. Tell him you'll prove it by taking your vote elsewhere.

http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/contact.shtml

Nice summary of the vote from a great website.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/near-death-of-state.html