$700 B Bailout

I know we have some economists on this site. Educate me. Pros, cons...

Personally, I'd love nothing more than to let every single one of the affected companies fail. But the ripple effect pretty much removes that as an option. I can't see this actually doing anything but postponing the inevitable though. If less than half of this bailout ends up in personal bank accounts, I'll be shocked.



*I know this was touched on in other threads, but I thought it was worthy of its own.

quick fix to keep the credit line moving. might work, might not. something did need done. this administration probably shouldn't have waited until all the animals were out of the barn, before closing the door. i would like nothing more then these high priced C.E.O's going down with the ship, but that only hurts non players in the end

I don't understand why we have to BUY all the bad loans. Why can't the gov't just insure the bad loans? Seems like that'd be more cost effective?

i think they are looking at it as an investment, not a bailout.

Not sure if there are any Easterbrook fans here, but this article (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/080923) does a great job summarizing things in a very general way. This country is going to hell. I love the fact that all of those responsible have profited hugely and will bare no accountability in this mess.

This whole thing is so stupid it's unbelievable (http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/09/23/bailout-paulson-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0923bailout.html).

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

The level of audacity (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21draftcnd.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) breathtaking.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

quick fix to keep the credit line moving. might work, might not. something did need done. this administration probably shouldn't have waited until all the animals were out of the barn, before closing the door. i would like nothing more then these high priced C.E.O's going down with the ship, but that only hurts non players in the end

You are so from Lancaster. lol.

This whole thing is so stupid it's unbelievable (http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/09/23/bailout-paulson-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0923bailout.html).



The level of audacity (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21draftcnd.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) breathtaking.

What's truly ridiculous is that every quote looks like it should come from the Onion. But no, that's our government, people.

I don't understand why we have to BUY all the bad loans. Why can't the gov't just insure the bad loans? Seems like that'd be more cost effective?

Well one of the issues they're having is actually pricing the bad loans. In other words determining how much they're worth or how worthless they are. So from an accounting standpoint it's tough to add that type of asset to your sheets.

Their are all types of challenges with this crap.

What I don't understand is how this whole thing has gone so far and unnoticed by so many people. You have the president, congress, all the other people in Washington but then more shocking is all the people on Wall Street which did not see this coming. I'm not talking about the people who profitted from this but all the annalist who study this stuff day after day.