I'm missing the part where I laid responsibility on anyone.

I'm just saying if it comes to your scenario, then there will be very few people surviving what could have been an avoidable disaster.

Who do you think is going to pay that $700 billion? The tooth fairy?

There is no way to avert some sort of downturn, that is the end result of artificial credit bubbles. We could prevent it from happening again by auditing the entire banking system and sending every CEO connected to this, the FED board and several politicians to prison. Unfortunately no one is willing to take the drastic measures neccesary to fix the system, so we will have more and more of these to come. Hell, we've got people who say they hate the banking system but that we need it to survive, utterly pathetic.

No worries though, if things get as bad as they did in the Great Depression, we'll just get another War going to take care of the unemployed population. That's how this country tends to solve things of late.

Come on, leave your childish sarcasm at the door. We both know there are multiple ways of dealing with this.

There naturally are alternatives, and I guarantee you that none of them were in that bail-out bill. There could naturally be a simple reassessment of a credit/debt based economy, also a probe into the general concept of inflationary policies by fractional reserve banking (aka modern usury), but a line has to be drawn in the sand before this gets started, and that line ought to be this stupid bail out bill. When people learn that they don't need these corrupt moneychangers dictating the value of their labor, the better off we will be.

I'll simply defer to my better judgment and prepare for the worst, because giving power to the FED and the executive branch is the exact road we shouldn't be taking, and that is exactly what this bail out carries. But one thing I'm definitely doing is voting against my Rep. Patrick Murphy. If that fucker thinks I give a shit that he served in Iraq and likely machined gunned a bunch of innocent people, he's got another thing coming.

Who is supposed to conduct the probe?


Do you even realize the absurdity of such accusations? I'm being completely serious when I ask you if you realize what a grotesque caricature you've become.

So the Senate sweetens the pot by upping the FDIC limit to $250K USD and adds incentives for small business. Why is our government determined to pass another bill we don't need? Or is the House going to add a poison pill condition and dare Bush to sign it?

The cycle just continues - leadership pummels the idea de jour in the media, then rubs elbows late at night, approves a deal and tells the world 'bi-partisanship wins again' for the American people.

At first I was nearly convinced this bill was dead in the water - now I am almost convinced the bill, in some form, is bound to pass by Halloween.

Hail the crash! Real change can come with it. That's when a real shift in power will occur.

But lets assume that shouldn't happen. You are right, in that the way so many programs are rooted in the central banks. But remember what the banks are doing themselves, leveraging absurdly high loan statements and interest rates, numbers that are unfathomably reachable. Companies and programs file for bankruptcy, and they close, meaning that nobody gets money out of this, anyways, except for the aforementioned rich.

So banks need to stomp out interest rate, and cut back loans to a manageable number. The economy must then be redesigned. Bring in a Warren Buffet system for the faltering companies to check whether new policies seem stable, realistic, and make sense. Most CEOs should be fired, some not, and then start the process of putting money first into programs and other entities once dependent on the banks; and finally inject money in the banks themselves, with strict guidelines mirroring the above sensible policies, as to where the money needs to go. None of the current CEOs of the failing companies would be kept, as they failed to perform their job (the problem now was made because of stupidity and trend hopping, not risks).

I'm not set out on vengeance. My point is to spend money in a way that helps the economy get beyond the situation, not in a way that rolls back the clock to where we were a couple of days before the crash. As I said earlier, doing that will not solve any problems. It'll just allow you to shop at Harris Teeter for the next month before shit hits the fan again.

While I agree with what you are saying to an extent, the problem lies in the people (like myself) that have a corporate job and work their ass off to pay their bills on time. Why should we innocent people who didn't fuck up have to pay for these other people's fuckups?

I have no problem with them injecting money into the system, fuck it, print up a trillion dollars...unfortunately this is just a bandaid. The sooner that you realize that you are just a social security number and that the government has control over your freedoms and money, the better because they do. That's what happens when you are apart of the system and pay 30% of your salary to the government, they are supposed to take care of this kind of shit. Why should innocent people be bothered with this crap? It's a catch-22.

You can take it back as far as 9/11, that it was all a ploy to destroy or better yet, eat away at Wall Street, after all that WAS their goal, to try to break our belief system and the American dream. Now, while I can sympathize to say that I can understand that there is a shitload of corruption going on behind closed doors in our governmental system, why if bad business was conducted on Wall Street should we the people have to pay for it in the long run?

What they should do is analyze the fallout and throw these fuckers in jail that made bad business decisions. The people who borrowed with no money down and lost their homes, they made bad business decisions too, and that's their problem IMO. I bought my house which is right outside of NYC in 1997 and the value has now doubled (even in the soft housing market). But guess what? I've had my house on the market since June because we want to move upstate and can't move it because these fuckers made bad business decisions and fucked the market up with their no money down loans. I put 60K down on my house back then (20%) and why should I have to suffer because of these fucking idiots?

You roll with the good, the bad...but the truth is, the US government doesn't want the middle class to fail because if that happens then revolution could take place and they don't want that to happen. That's in part to why they want to pass this bill. It's not to bail out WALL STREET per se', it's to keep everything at an even keel.

It's pretty bad when I have to get a phone call from my wife saying we better take out at least one week of money of the bank JUST IN CASE.

Do you have a family and kids?

In the media the big deal right now is the Vice Presidential Debate tonight. If we really had a problem there would be no debate. So there is little reason to get personal or to imply one person will not understand the issue becuse they don't have kids.

The American People, whatever honest media and government representation is left out there, but it probably won't come until after the downturn. You have to wake people up before they become active enough to reject economic tyranny, and unfortunately it's taking way too long. To quote someone who whose name I can't remember at the moment, "The Revolution eats it's own children, but not quickly enough".



The accusations become a little less absurd when you watch a dozen ads of a person who claims that he knows what he's talking about because he volunteered to fight in a war of aggression, and then adds insult to injury by siding with elite banking interests instead of honest tax payers. I can forgive the guy for being duped into going to Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11, that's what happened to Pat Tillman, but for the guy to go on television and assert continued pride in this decision is 12 times as grotesque as any flamboyant accusation that I could throw at someone.

P.S. - Wars are the process by which killing is the conclusion, and every war has collateral damage. If Mr. Murphy didn't actively shoot people before assessing who they were, he was a party to it.



In the short-run, you'll have to hope that things don't get too out of controll too quickly. But in the long-run, if you want to get yourself out of the situation you're in, there are things that you can do to ensure you're own economic security. First off, get yourself out of debt, pay off anything that you owe to the credit card companies that you use if you have any, and sell any useless trinkets that you've accumulated over the years. After that, either look for some low priced farmland (20 acres will do the trick) and start thinking about becoming self-sufficient. Look into getting solar panels or minature wind turbines to provide you're own electricity. You might even be able to take some people in to work on your farm in exchange for room and board.

Build something real and defend it, and you'll be okay.

So your best idea is a totally unrealistic pipe dream.


Murphy was in the military well before the war started. After that, he has little choice in where they choose to deploy him. Besides, even if your lies were true, very few of his ads actually assert that he knows what he's talking about because he was in Iraq, but that he's actually disgusted with the war and his whole point is to oppose it. Not quite pride. Oh, a lot of his ads also mention that his dad was a Philadelphia police officer. You might as well also claim his father also murdered several innocent black people, because we all know how racist the Philly police are. Obviously if his father didn't actually systematically murder blacks, by being on the Philadelphia police force, there must be some way to blame him for it.

Do you even know if Murphy saw significant combat action that would have furnished him the opportunity to kill civilians? Unless you can readily prove that, you've just resorted to defamation because you have nothing else against him apart from his position on the bail out.

I'm not saying you don't understand the issue at all...but stances on these sort of things can change. That was my point.

But still you pay taxes correct? That's a sort of anarchistic way and while I'm 100% down with that, still you have to deal with THE MAN regardless if you are a farmer or work a corporate job. Maybe your life is more simple and while there is nothing wrong with that, there is also nothing wrong with working a job and making a good living.

I am at the point of moving upstate and if I can sell my house, I will almost own it outright and will have no bills. I don't want to live off the land though. Right now actually I'm pretty secure and live pretty well.

My point is, why should other people have to pay for this problem since other people made these mistakes?

Nope, it's a long term solution to a long term problem, one that's been plaguing this country for nearly 100 years. Thinking that throwing a few billion dollars at the problem or scapegoating a few lower level government officials or a token CEO does not even begin to address the heart of the problem. Doing any of that is akin to going up to a tree that bears nothing but rotten fruit, and simply pulling off a few bad apples and throwing them in the trash. In order to solve the delemna, you have to take what few good seeds are on the tree and plant them, and afterwards you take a hatchet to the remaining problem and start anew.



That's part of my point, why join the military and then suddenly oppose something that you're own volition helped make happen? A wise person would not have gotten involved in the military in the first place, especially considering what happened in Vietnam and South America.

What the hell point is there in opposing Iraq when you're ready to go jolly on the spot and bomb the hell out of either Iran, Pakistan, or do some more damage to Afghanistan.And as to Murphy's father, I've met few policemen in my life who weren't on some sort of power trip. If he's using that as a campaign wedge issue also, then I have yet another reason to hate Murphy's guts.



If he didn't see any action, then what the hell is he doing putting mentions in his ads of serving in Iraq, especially if he's not mentioning what his duties included? If he sat behind a desk or did maintenance the whole time, what the hell is the reason for mentioning it aside from pandering to warmongers with left-leaning views of domestic policy? If he didn't see any combat action, then I'll retract the statement, but the guy still has my contempt, especially if he's leading people into thinking he was a combat veteran when he may have been a desk jockey, and I'll shout it from a mountain top and be entirely unashamed of it.

Fuck the bail out and fuck Patrick Murphy, that's my final word on it.



I pay the IRS their protection money if that's what you mean, I have a social security number so it's difficult for me to avoid an audit if they decide to do one. However, the laws provide a good amount of tax breaks for people that live and work on farms, particularly ones that keep lifestock such as horses or grow organic crops. Perhaps it's because those corrupt fuckers know that if they screw up the economy too much, only people like me will be in a position to provide any kind of food or sustanence to local communities.

I don't see a problem with having a job that pays well, although I personally hate cities and I don't like the idea of having a boss in a suit telling me how it's going to be.



You personally shouldn't have to pay for it, and depending on what company you work for, you're bosses probably shouldn't have to, but people like me who have grown to love the agrarian ideal have little to no stake in this banking fiasco, and we are definitely going to be paying for it, whether it's through the hidden inflation tax that the Republicans love so much or one of those stupid income tax hikes the Dems. are known for. I'm tickled as pink as a domestic pig that these donkey lovers have the gaul to tell me that they only tax the rich when the rich pay for their lavish plane rides and living accomodations in exchange for economic favors like this bail out through lobbying and gifts, not to mention that true tycoons like the Rockefellers, the Ford family, Warren Buffet, and all the rest are often exempt from paying the tax themselves through the non-profit loophole.

edit:

Well, I just called Mr. Murphy's office in Washington, his secretary sounded like a nice lady so I decided not to be overly forceful. Suffice to say, Murphy knows he's not getting my vote this election if he gets the message, and if he votes in favor of the bailout this time he'll have a bitch of a time carrying any of my area, because I'm going to be going door to door to every house within a 3 mile radius telling people about how much more he loves the Wall Street elite than he does the future and well being of his own constituents. I hope he votes for it, because I'm going to enjoy making him work for his reelection.

I don't have a boss in a suit telling me what to do, but as far as the emperors are concerned, they all indeed wear that garb. I grew up around NYC so it's hard for me to give it up, but I'm going to. I may work an easier job and need less money to survive, but regardless of your choice to own your own farm or own business, you still can't get away from paying taxes and still you are apart of the system indeed if you live in the USA, there's no getting around that.

I work in the music industry and purposely left the financial world because I hated it. Maybe my job is the same like working some other financial job, but at least I can wear what I want and it is a less uptight conservative enviornment.

I agree with you though about lining pockets, but that's been since the beginning of this country. Perhaps somewhere along the line the original ideology got lost (and while I think that's true) still you pay the tax and shouldn't have to deal with big businesses' bad business decisions. Even if you own a farm, if you have any sort of retirement plan, most likely it's effected by Wall Street and someone in a suit and tie making the decisions...whether it's the government or not. Again, it's a catch-22.

@deathcorpse

Working for the music industry is a little better, although personally if you're working for anything that's RIAA affiliated, not by that much.

But on a serious note. I don't have a retirement plan, my plan consists of working until I can't anymore and then wasting away in a bed waiting for death to visit me, and it won't be a hospital bed. As far as I'm concerned, the insurance industry has nothing to offer me since I don't have any children and am not yet married (that may or may not happen in the near future, but being single and under 30 has its perks), so I don't have any. I can think of much more practical things to do with my money.

As far as I'm concerned, the green paper that we use has no value, its not backed by anything real other than the belief of the public. Real value is the real commodities that you own, and money is nothing more than a medium of exchange for what is true value. It is the one thing that has prevented us from either a completely chaotic feudal system or a barter system, perhaps that's the reason why the bankers see fit to rape the value of money with inflation, because they hate the idea of universal economic stability, just like a child hates a toy when he finds out that anyone can get it.

I'm only in the system and supporting the Empire that usurped this country away from its founding principles because I prefer a farm to a jail cell. If the IRS didn't have armed agents ready to take what I have by force, they wouldn't get a single penny from me, nor would the rest of the Federal Government for that matter.

I agree with you 100%. I feel the same way, and I use the system to my absolute advantage. I've seen some crazy stuff in my day about what goes on behind closed doors. I'm also somewhat of a believer in the Yipster Times mentality and ways.

As far as the label is concerned, it is an RIAA label. You can't make money and have a retirement plan and good health insurance working for some black metal indie. It don't work that way. But I don't mind what I do. I'd rather be touring/recording but I make more money doing what I do and having the benefits for my family based on the age I'm at and don't have to travel. That to me are all plus in my book. I don't want to travel if I don't have to. If I was single it would be a different story.

I do plan to move upstate very soon and change what's going on, but I don't think that's going to change my point of view about things, it's all the same shit no matter what. Less bills and owning outright your land and property=freedom to me. But it's not much different if you were a millionaire and decided to "drop out". That is my plan eventually, but I know that you can't really do that, unless you go underground; and I don't mind being above ground.

Consumer mentality, bad capitalism, lazy business, bad policies and greed will continue to lead America on its path of destruction. The 700 billion dollar bail out will support these causes of the destruction of modern capitalism. I'm not even concerned will all the bullshit that has been sprinkled over the bill to get politicians to swallow it. It's a 700 billion dollar band-aid that promotes many characteristics of American capitalism that is choking a nation. 700 billion dollars and the ship will still continue to sink. If we pass this bill and continue more of the same we will hit the same god damn iceberg. I expect this again with 10 years. Another 700 billion to a trillion dollars will be spent. Even if we pass the bill and try to work on some regulation the problem will still be intact. If the roots thrive then so will the weed of bad capitalism. Suck it up and endure may be the best option. Yes, I have weighed the consequences and I am fully aware of the potential damage. Even though I am aware, I still believe we should just suck it up and endure.

If this bill gets passed, any body who votes and has a represetative/senator who supported it should start campaigning for any candidate who believes the bulk of what this post I'm quoting has stated. I am, by my own profession, a capitalist, and as such I want this abominable monster known as corportist crony capitalism destroyed, to the very root. Consumerism must be replaced with a nation of frugal savers and thrifty spenders who live within their means, anything less will result in another disaster like the one that will eventually hit us. We either suck it up now or we'll have twice as much to suck up the next time.

I can't even begin to express my extreme loathing for consumer mentality, bad capitalism and greed that forces our head through the nose. Take Wall-Mart for example, If there was ever a corporation that promoted consumer mentality, bad capitalism and greed this is it. This company that screws it employees out of any health care coverage by giving all its employees a part time shirt. Work em 30 hours at minimum wage and give em no benefits. That is a strategy of this monster. You can't support yourself working 30 hrs at a week at Wall-Mart. What people do is take on a second part job, and between these 2 jobs that offer no benefits and low wages they barely scrape by. If a medical or some other emergency arises they simply can't pay the bills. What if this person owns a house? He won't own it for long seeing as he has no means to handle all the extra bills he has. This is only one effect of consumer mentality, greed, and bad capitalism. We need those low prices so we can buy more shit that marketing tells us we need. Don't look to the US to supply those ultra cheap products. So what businesses like Wall-Mart does is put out a contract. The contract says we want so much of said product and we want it at a cheap price. Other companies bid on this contract offering lower and lower prices until someone wins. In the in China won the contract. China has the contract but also has a problem. The contract demands so many of the product(which is done to get a lower price per product) that even China with all it's manpower can't scrape the resources to fulfill the contract. What does China do to solves the problem? Sub-contracts! China will make another contract. China needs to make money of this contract, getting rid of it isn't enough. Who can do the labor for cheaper? Children working 12 hours a day sure can. That is where the sub-contract will end. Children made your shitty t-shirt. All the labor is done in other countries so that mean less jobs for Americans. We need that ultra low price so they pay their employees less. Even though I use Wall-Mart for an example it exists all around us, it's not just them. Consumer mentality, bad capitalism and greed leads to less American jobs, lower wages, more bankruptcy.

Roughly translated, if you don't support this stuff, don't shop at Walmart. Personally, I've grown to like the farmer's market a lot more. You know the people there, and you know where most of the stuff came from, this whole multinational thing is a waste of time, put your local community first and buy local products.

There are other Instigators of this, but they are the major one. This has plenty to do with the crisis at hand.

I don't exactly disagree, but honestly, anyone who buys a house with a job at Wal-Mart is a fucking idiot and I can't have any sympathy for them. It's not like they were forced at gunpoint to a) get a job at Wal-Mart and/or b) buy a house.

This whole notion of living above your means is not just the fault of the big evil corporations (which I dislike as much as anyone), people. First and foremost it's the idiots who accrue debt by making stupid decisions and thinking they're entitled to all sorts of crap.

France, Germany Clash Over Plans to Bail Out European Banks

Ireland approves bank guarantee plan

Greece to guarantee all bank deposits, official says

I think there is also part of the Senate bailout bill to let FDIC insure 250,000 dollars in deposits, instead of the 100,000 dollars they do now. Is it a good thing to insure all those deposits, like Greece, Ireland and we are doing? From a policymaker's perspective I suppose it is. This boosts citizens' "confidence" in the banking system and gives them less incentive to want to take their money out of banks, which incidentally helps banks stay afloat. So they're able to take down two birds with one stone. But this is a risky ponzi scheme in my opinion because if and when the banks do go down, the FDIC has to insure that much more money, and how are they going to do it? I don't exactly remember how much money the FDIC has, but it's a tiny, tiny fraction of all insured deposits. They can't do it on their own. The government is going to have to tax its citizens in order for the citizens to get back their "insured" deposits, as well as create money to pick up the shortfall. Essentially what this means is that your deposits aren't totally there anymore, and when you do get your money back, you would have lost wealth because of higher inflation. In a sense the same holds true for your pension funds. Let's say the bailout passes and the government pulls off this "rescue." Well then you have to pay the price with higher taxes and higher inflation, giving your pension that much less purchasing power. A lot of people made a big deal of the stock market losing around 8% Monday and 1.2 trillion dollars being lost because the House rejected the bailout bill. But the stock market still has lower to go, it's going to go down (certainly in real terms) regardless whether or not this bailout gets passed.

Though I am philosophically against the bailout (because I believe it is merely a bailout of banks that should go under, banks that create money out of thin air through the mechanism of fractional reserve lending and "earn" interest on that debt--disgusting), I'm pretty sure it's going to pass and quite frankly I'm eager to see how the government deals with this financial crisis. Ultimately I believe their actions will be futile to solve the real problem (while probably creating a whole set of other problems in the process), because the problem of the situation we're facing now was too much credit creation. You can't solve the problem of too much credit creation with even more credit creation. Credit wants to and has to contract. I'm of the opinion that whatever can't last won't. I think that applies to our current credit/debt- and consumption-based economy, as much as governments and citizens don't like to hear that.

Addendum: I alluded to fractional reserve banking, and I think part of the bailout bill allows banks to actually have zero reserves. Nada. This insane. The whole bailout is insane. But you gotta do what you gotta do I suppose.

This ignorance of how economics actually work is pretty widespread, and you have people in both the banking industry and in congress who get themselves rich by playing off of these peoples' ineptitude and then duping taxpayers into picking up the tab while CEOs get their millions in bonuses and their lobbyists get the complicit government officials all sorts of treats.

Everyone who contributed to this problem should pay for it, not just the bankers, the lenders, and the fools who took these loans, all of them.

It's called consumer mentality, I don't blame the big corporations for it. Places like Wal-Mart however do encourage it. Wal-Mart wouldn't exist if we didn't support it. People who work at low wage jobs got loans for those houses because the banks told them they could afford it. Wal-Mart is just one example anyway. I don't simply say, big corporations bad. There is no reason a big corporation can't be beneficial to society, middle America and to people as a whole. You have to understand that consumer mentality, bad capitalism, and greed doesn't only reside in big corporations and CEOs but can be seen throughout America from Upper class to lower. It's a plague that needs to be wiped out. It's crippling the American people, society, economy and hindering the progress of mankind. Ben Barber book, Consumed, speaks a lot about this. I strongly recommend reading this book or just watching some interviews with him.

Precisely why giving fat cats a check for $700B USD is a bad idea - as it glorifies the bad decisions that brought us here.

The sad thing is, these fat cats know that if they get into trouble they have to bundled out otherwise the rest of the world is fucked. Most of the worlds countries economies rely on the American economy, if the american economy does well so do we.

Here we go with the fat cat bashing. You people are pure Baltic Avenue.

Incidentally, Bush signed the bailout into law today. The Emergency Ecomonic Buttfuck Act of 2008 or something. What I find the most grotesque about this situation is a substantial portion of the American people were saying no to the bailout, many perhaps because they simply don't trust the elected to fix it properly, yet they passed it anyway.

The only good that can come of what happened here is that maybe this country will finally recognize that they don't have real representation any more. America is neither a Republic nor a Democracy, regardless to what these phony 2 parties say to the contrary. If the people don't want it but the elite do, it happens anyway.

For the record, this bail out bill is a de facto tax that everyone EXCEPT the very wealthy will pay. Either we will have an income tax hike that they will get out of, or we'll have a de facto tax hike via inflation that they will get out of since they got all of the damned new money that was printed.

Can you believe some of the crap that was thrown into this bill?? Or rather, taxes that were let go? 2 million dollar tax cut for companies that make wooden arrows? WTF?

^ welcome to planet Absurd. Enjoy your stay, but remember booze might be required in order to endure it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

ideally, That bailout bill should have had NO added shit aside from that dealing with the bailout. All this extra baggage that came later... gah, no one in Washington can refuse the opportunity to add a bunch of golden elephants into the box...

All of that extra pork that was put into the bill was for one purpose, and that was for the representatives in districts that didn't want this bill to have something to try and buy off their constituents with. In many cases, it probably will not work and people will still be pissed off and vote out their representatives. The problem is that they will likely replace them with someone just as bad.

In Germany we have a bank with the name Hypo Real Estate, who is also affcted by the bank crisis, and the 'bail-out' has failed. It turned out that around 100 billion euro at maximum were needed for this one bank alone and the government refused to pay it.

until the end of next week this bank needs 20 billion euros... but where to get it?

let her die ...

Yeah, it is also a big deal here because Dexia, one of our biggest banks has parts in Hypo so it also needs some billions (not as much as Hypo, but still) to survive. I think they can't do anything else then let Hypo die, the debt is just too much, but then again, this will probably have a big international domino effect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7653868.stm

Looks like they are doing something, though.

Yeah, first it looked like they would let her crash, but then had been a second attempt to rescue her.

The whole bail-out is a pandorra's box. Thanks for opening it.

Yar dee har dee har! Strong Euro? Despite all the US's financial problems and a plunging stock market, the dollar is still making record gains against the "strong" British Pound and Euro. In the meantime, oil is falling to lows not seen in months. The Eurozone should stop blaming the US and fix its own problems.

This is not a financial crisis brought on by just the government of the US or just this person or only that company, etc. The world got drunk on enormous, unprecedented gains in wealth in the past 15 years and EVERYONE got greedy.

Let these corporations fail so that the world has to deal with a crapped-out global stock market, and arrest greedy CEOs. That way, everyone takes their lumps, like they all deserve.

I'm happy with my small car, small house, and very few possessions. That doesn't seem to be the American way anymore though. Guess people will have to learn.