In brief: the failure of the bailout

[demiurgent]

It's surprisingly simple.

Neither major political party was willing to sacrifice the election to save the nation.

There is nothing more basic than that. Neither party would sacrifice personal power in order to save the economy of the United States of America.

My representative voted Nay. For the first time, I'm considering voting against her in November. I'm certainly calling her office tomorrow to express my deep disappointment in her.

For those who don't want to see the bailout of Wall street firms because gorsh, they's all rich and it's not fair? I hope you really, really enjoy the next ten years.

Comments

Re: UMmmm. Nah.

[zoethe.livejournal.com]

Here's the thing. You can't look at legislation as "a start." Legislation is an end. No one is going to tinker under the hood, legislatively, once it passes. Passage commits 3/4 of a trillion dollars to this still-terrible plan. And if that doesn't work, what does Wall Street do? Come back for more?

If you had a sibling who was a gambler, and he said to you, "I can only kick my habit if you give me a couple thousand dollars, and in exchange I will try not to gamble," would you think this was a wise idea?

Re: UMmmm. Nah.

[bunny42.livejournal.com]

No, but my sibling wouldn't have somebody hanging over his shoulder watching him. As I understand it, the newer version of the bill provided for accountability. And at least attempted to punish by eliminating golden parachutes.

Who says they can't change it, once it's passed?? Happens all the time. I was a Fed for more years than I care to admit, in the Treasury Dept., too, and we were besieged with constant tweaks, changes, updates and downright reversals. It often depended upon who was currently in office. Who can forget Mr. Gore's attempt to reinvent government? But mostly it was HQ realizing that a given policy wasn't doing what was intended and trying to make it work.

No one knows if this would be enough to reverse the slide, but I damn sure would have liked to see if and how it would help. This is new territory we're exploring. Congress must use judgment (yeah, I know, I know)and caution, but they have to do something. Ya know what happens when good men do nothing... I hate to even contemplate the results. Those "bad" men who "need to be taught a lesson" will be the only ones to survive this.

Re: UMmmm. Nah.

[zoethe.livejournal.com]

It limited golden parachutes, but didn't eliminate severance packages - so those guys will walk with millions anyway.

And yeah, laws get tweaked all the time, but not within the short period that the bulk of this money will be distributed.

I,for one, want a much better picture of how this is actually going to help before I commit this kind of money to it.

Re: UMmmm. Nah.

[bunny42.livejournal.com]

But... severance pay is a component of a golden parachute, along with stock options and other financial perks. It's not a separate thing.

Anyway, I suppose this is all rhetorical, at this point. We can conjecture all we want, but we common folk just have to wait and see. And worry.

Re: UMmmm. Nah.

[zoethe.livejournal.com]

Besides, despite the vote, the Treasury is still pumping billions into the markets (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08273/916041-28.stm?cmpid=business.xml).

Which means that the price tag for all this is really a LOT higher than the already staggering one presented. Who's going to pay for all this, anyway?