...as in FIRE!
...or is it "liar, liar pants on fire"
...or maybe Fire Sale
The Bush Administration, a debacle by most standards, has proposed a $700,000,000,000. Emergency Economic Stabilization plan to relieve banks of bad debt so they can loosen their belts and get tightly contracted credit flowing. Credit, of course, being how this economy functions and since much of of it is coming from overseas we don't have the leverage to agitate our sugar daddies given we're in hawk for at least the next generation. Since Bushie is fresh out of any political capital he may have thought he had, I am reticent to believe a single thing he and his operatives say. Will the economy really melt down if we don't prop up the banks? How much risk to that end are we willing to bear? My inclination is to let the chips fall where they may. But it's not just greedy "Wall Street" big shots who suffer. This situation could become so protracted that it effects us all. We, the taxpayers, are damned either way unless the government gets such a smokin' deal on the mortgage loans that they can either recoup a lot of it by reworking the deals or eventually sell them for profit. Imagine that your landlord is the US government! That should work about as well as any other federal agency.
Honestly, I'm not surprised the bill was defeated because it's rife with uncertainty. I read the text of the proposal and while its objectives are clear, the details are rather unsettling. Nobody really knows how deep and ugly this thing is or what it's going to take to right it. The key components are the purchase of "troubled assets", relief for homeowners, caps on executive compensation and some gratuitous elements thrown in for good measure to make it look like they care about our money like an oversight committee, transparency, and tax implications. If the current oversight committee of incompetent a-holes - Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, navigated by George Bush et al. - had been doing it's job, we wouldn't have need for another. There is so much blame to go around that everybody has proverbial blood on their hands. Why are people just now finally accusing Washington of being irresponsible in not passing this bill? Both sides of the isle have been culpable for a decade. We have a systemic economic problem, spurred by policy problems, exacerbated by greed and worsened by lack of oversight.
We all know that if we make bad decisions in our personal lives there are consequences. I'm not seeing too many consequences for reckless bankers or irresponsible borrowers. I do not wish to be punitive but I hope for fairness. I work 3 jobs to make sure I can make good on that which I've committed to and resent having to play fireman as well to rescue out the smarmy.
...or is it "liar, liar pants on fire"
...or maybe Fire Sale
The Bush Administration, a debacle by most standards, has proposed a $700,000,000,000. Emergency Economic Stabilization plan to relieve banks of bad debt so they can loosen their belts and get tightly contracted credit flowing. Credit, of course, being how this economy functions and since much of of it is coming from overseas we don't have the leverage to agitate our sugar daddies given we're in hawk for at least the next generation. Since Bushie is fresh out of any political capital he may have thought he had, I am reticent to believe a single thing he and his operatives say. Will the economy really melt down if we don't prop up the banks? How much risk to that end are we willing to bear? My inclination is to let the chips fall where they may. But it's not just greedy "Wall Street" big shots who suffer. This situation could become so protracted that it effects us all. We, the taxpayers, are damned either way unless the government gets such a smokin' deal on the mortgage loans that they can either recoup a lot of it by reworking the deals or eventually sell them for profit. Imagine that your landlord is the US government! That should work about as well as any other federal agency.
Honestly, I'm not surprised the bill was defeated because it's rife with uncertainty. I read the text of the proposal and while its objectives are clear, the details are rather unsettling. Nobody really knows how deep and ugly this thing is or what it's going to take to right it. The key components are the purchase of "troubled assets", relief for homeowners, caps on executive compensation and some gratuitous elements thrown in for good measure to make it look like they care about our money like an oversight committee, transparency, and tax implications. If the current oversight committee of incompetent a-holes - Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, navigated by George Bush et al. - had been doing it's job, we wouldn't have need for another. There is so much blame to go around that everybody has proverbial blood on their hands. Why are people just now finally accusing Washington of being irresponsible in not passing this bill? Both sides of the isle have been culpable for a decade. We have a systemic economic problem, spurred by policy problems, exacerbated by greed and worsened by lack of oversight.
We all know that if we make bad decisions in our personal lives there are consequences. I'm not seeing too many consequences for reckless bankers or irresponsible borrowers. I do not wish to be punitive but I hope for fairness. I work 3 jobs to make sure I can make good on that which I've committed to and resent having to play fireman as well to rescue out the smarmy.
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