Thank goodness, it went down

[MadHound]

Let's hope that this bailout stays down. I simply can't believe how many people here once again fell for that old Bushco trick of yelling FEAR followed by extortion. I don't care why the bill went down, I don't care who put it down, I'm just glad that it went down and here's why, the bailout would have caused worse problems for us in three to six months than any possible result of not passing the bailout, including the big Bush bogeyman, Depression.

With a bailout our US Treasury Bonds would have had their ratings tank. That means that nobody would be buying up our debt, and we would have had no money to fund our government or country. Get that, no money period, no money for Social Security, no money for infrastructure, no money for defense. Furthermore, injecting the type of cash liquidity that they were talking about would have raised inflation at home. Thus we would have been facing a perfect economic storm, no government money and high inflation. In my eyes, that's worse than any Depression. We've survived Depressions before, we wouldn't have survived the crisis of no government funding.

So rejoice a bit, a horrible catastrophe has been averted. Yes, we face tough economic times ahead, but we will have a working government, and hopefully after the elections, an intelligent President on our side. And please, never give in to this type of blind panic again. It got us the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, and nearly into a government killing economic disaster.

[cali]

1. rejoice? uh, no. this is not the time for that.

and your wrong about no one buying our debt. I didn't support this bailout package but something has to be done.

Nothing has been averted. We don't know what's coming down the pike, but as of now, the future looks pretty dire.

[MadHound]

6. How many people, nations or countries would be buying our debt

If the bonds were rated at a B+, down from a AAA? Very, very few, and we'd have to be offering sky high interest rates for them to do so. Hell, commercial houses last week started downgrading to that level simply on the proposal of the bailout.

As much as you care not to admit it, we did avoid a much worse catastrophe today, and yes, that is cause for a bit of a celebration.

[WheelWalker]

2. It seems so obvious, doesn't it?

[Cronus Protagonist]

25. I dunno, a lot of people on here bought it hook, line and sinker.

n/t

[Vincardog]

3. Call your Congress critter and Tell them not to pass any more bills

allowing the criminal cabal to loot our treasury any further.

[lapfog_1]

4. I'm going to need a loan

say $20K for this year, and $80K for next. Can you fix me up?

[johnaries]

5. So, can we all come and stay with you?

In case you haven't heard, no body is buying our debt anymore NOW.

[MadHound]

10. Looks to me like they still are

Our bond ratings are good, Interest rates and volume are quite reasonable. I suggest you go check out the markets before making such broad statements.

As far as staying with me, why do you think that you'll need to? Why are you buying into all this Bush backed hype of doom, gloom and fear? Do you honestly think that he and Paulson were giving you the straight goods with all the hype that they're spewing? If you do, I have some land to sell you.

[MadHound]

11. Looks to me like they still are

Our bond ratings are good, Interest rates and volume are quite reasonable. I suggest you go check out the markets before making such broad statements.

As far as staying with me, why do you think that you'll need to? Why are you buying into all this Bush backed hype of doom, gloom and fear? Do you honestly think that he and Paulson were giving you the straight goods with all the hype that they're spewing? If you do, I have some land to sell you.

[dbonds]

7. The US can just learn to live without credit, be a cash only country.

[Lyric]

14. YEAH! Because college should only be for rich people, dammit.

Who needs education? We can always go work in the factories, right? Good union jobs, manufacturing, just like Grandma and Grandpa.

Oh wait...

:eyes:

[dbonds]

15. I was being satirical on the OP premise.

But now that you mention education, I think it should be public funded through first 4 years of college.

[Lyric]

16. I apologize. I didn't catch the satire.

I've heard so much of this crap recently that I thought you were being serious.

And I agree with you.

[readmoreoften]

26. I'm sorry. I thought that Europe, Latin America, and Australia had affordable or free education.

Oh right, they do. The fact that we have to put $50K on credit to get a Ph.D. to work at Starbucks or Home Depot is disgusting in the first place and a huge part of our problem.

Not to mention the loan scandals and how many students are strong-armed into private loans with adjustable rates because the school decides they "earn too much" for public loans so that the school can get a kickback from Sallie Mae and Citibank.

Fuck loans.

[aldo]

8. The Dem leadership were like stampeded lemmings

Put the whole financial system into bankruptcy reorg to keep financing flowing, preserve the commercial banks and let the speculators die the financial death they've so richly earned.

[TexasObserver]

9. This is the best outcome.

If the bill had passed, the bailout money would help the markets just enough to keep them from falling apart, but it would not fix this problem, merely put it off a few months.

With GOP killing the bill, they have bought the declines in the market. The story today will be GOP VOTES BAILOUT DOWN - FINANCIAL MARKETS CRASH.

This is going to make the GOP famous, and will help create the groundswell of public support for some form of a bailout.

[riverdeep]

12. I'm thankful too.

People like us will be blamed for the hardship about to come down, but it's a game of 'what ifs'. What if this had passed and only bought us time to explode the economy even worse than if it hadn't passed. I'm just afraid that round two will include even more concessions to Republicans, making it even worse than this bill.

Ultimately, the blame needs to lie on the ones who created this mess, the people who have squarely been in charge for the six out of the last eight years. If there were things they wanted done, they could've done them, they didn't. They just made them worse.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. I've just come from reading some of the over 800 comments

on the New York Times website.

People have been making some very good points, particularly of the folly of forcing the House to vote on a bill that none of them have had time to read. (Where have we seen that before?)

Some people with obvious knowledge of financial markets have been criticizing the bill, too. One writer with a lot of experience in politics and government did read the whole bill and said that if someone with his background didn't understand it, what hope did other people have.

Get over there and read the comments. It will give you a new perspective if you think the sky has fallen.

[Karenina]

20. Thank you, Lydia!

:loveya:

[Kickin_Donkey]

17. I hear that ...

this was bad legislation that needed to be put down. A corporate giveaway. Another incidence of disaster capitalism. A last fleecing by the Bushies. Another panicky Patriot Act.

[BelgianMadCow]

18. Given the REALITY of the bubble, the only way was down

and I agree that not accepting this manufactured crisis' rush solution was the lesser of two evils. But I'm not an expert...

[bvar22]

19. Fix the boat BEFORE bailing it out.....

...or we're just wasting our time and our children's money.

For a Boat Repair Manual, SEE Teddy (Trust Buster) and Franklin (New Deal) Roosevelt.

[crickets]

21. Thank for explaining so clearly why some of us wanted this bill to fail.

It had nothing to do with a "Bring on the Depression!" mentality and nothing to do with lack of compassion for all of the jobs and retirement funds that are hanging by a thread. My main reason for opposing the bill is just as you've described: if the T-Bonds tank, we are beyond toasted.

I also opposed the bill because it was going going to put the country even further into debt by throwing more money at a problem rather than taking action to address the underlying reasons for the problem.

Rather than being angry at Congress for not passing the bailout bill, I'm angry at them for not writing a better bill in the first place, one that the American people could actually stomach, if not support wholeheartedly.

[goodboy]

22. That's right. (nt)

[mzmolly]

23. Sorry no rejoicing here.

Bush isn't the only person sounding the alarm this time around.

[jazzjunkysue]

24. I'm no economist, but there are alot of experts who didn't like this bill.

No one knew what would happen with or without it.

I didn't like the power grab that went with it.

I think the investors can pony up some concessions and guarantees of their own, if their stocks are that important to them.

Most of the "loss" today was paper loss: Most people didn't put in the money they "lost" today: Most people put in a much smaller number, and watched the numbers on their monthly paper statement rise.

It's true that they may lose the principal investment, but, it was a risk they took voluntarily.

As an american, I don't want the treasury as part of that risk. I don't want social security in there, either. And I don't want to play lottery with everyone's health insurance, which is what McCain's "health insurance plan" does.

I guess I'm a tough love parent. If we're going to ride some bumpy roads, let's at least make sure they're real roads, not rides created by a ficticious legislature about a fictitious stock market.

It's all smoke and mirrors, and I have never joined in, for these reasons.

If a really bad recession is the price for everyone growing up, then so be it.