The $$$700,000.000.00 BAIL OUT, What You Think???

[jlseymour]

Whatyouthink???

[Dave London]

jerry check your PM

[Big-Un]

Keeping politics out of it, I think it is a dumb move to condone greed and reward irresponsibility.

[JT Kinney]

Good Evning to All,

I'll second what Big-Un has to say, The Wall Street mongals dig a hole they can't get out of, and expect the tax payers to bail them out. Thats "BS".

JT

[WVEngraver]

You asked for it ... now here it is ..........

The SEC and IRS look the other way when large investment firms pour tons of money into the system on credit. Credit extended to illegals and deadbeats. Meanwhile they maintain the appearance of due diligence by screwing the little guy that plays by all the rules. It's the second largest crime syndicate in history backed by the largest ... the Justice Department.

.... and how do I feel about tax payer funding for this? It looks like I may just decide to forget to file. It take ten years for them to figure out who forgot to file anyway. By then, we'll have economic meltdown, the end of the world be just about here and those of us that "cling to our religion and guns" will have taken to the brush for the final conflict. One thing's for sure ... I'll have some of the nicest engraved stuff geo-cached in the woods.

Bring it on!!!

[SpiderCurt]

Hi All

When they were only talking about bailing out AIG for $85 billion, my wife got this e-mail. I have removed email addresses and such and removed the double space format for this forum:

Quote
"I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a 'We Deserve It Dividend'.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up.So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00. My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a 'We Deserve It Dividend'.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.A husband and wife have $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back, and of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President. If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it.
Sell off its parts.

Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate.
Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work."

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion 'We Deserve It Dividend' more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC. And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam. Talk about a stimulus package!"

Unquote

I know it will never happen but think it is an interesting idea.

[jlseymour]

Great Plan, coast to coast block party...
That the best plan I've heard...
Jerry

[SVD]

I'm not happy about the bailout but because the .gov caused it they do have to help fix it.

It was all done for the best of reasons, of course. The Democrats wanted everyone to own a home - a laudable goal. But they went about that by putting tremendous economic, social, and legal pressure on banks to make sure they were giving 'enough' loans to 'the poor'. They made use of community organizers like ACORN (the same ones regularly convicted of voter registration fraud and yes, an early job of someone in the news lately) to both get people to apply and attack banks that wouldn't loan people money just because they couldn't pay it back.

After a few years they started having Fannie & Freddie buy up the known bad loans.

That still wasn't doing enough so they pushed the 'Mortgage Backed Securities' (MBS) idea.

So now they had a situation where banks were just shy of forced to give loans to anyone who appeared to have a pulse, a market for selling off the bad loans right away (so the bank takes no hit itself), and a market for keeping those ticking time bombs moving. So, of course, we get ads for 'zero principal' loans where you put no money down and pay no principal - interest only. Now there's a good idea.

But it all works, sort of, as long as the housing market's moving up. Too bad it can't do that forever, eh?

Add in the behind the scenes chicanery being done at Freddie and Fannie to cook the books and get their mega bonuses and we get this steaming pile of crud we have now. BTW, it just came out that Barney Frank (D), one of the ranking members of the Banking Committee's boyfriend was a high-ranking official at Fannie Mae while Mr. Frank was voting on whether or not to add oversight. For some reason Mr. Frank voted against it saying everything was fine (they have it on tape).

On last note: they did not add pork to the bailout to get it to pass. The Senate can not start a spending bill (it's in the Consitution) so they did a necessary end-run around that by pulling up a spending bill they already had (which had already passed 92-3 but not yet been officialy sent along) for 'reconsideration'. The reconsideration was to add a minor amendment otherwise known as the bailout. So they didn't add pork to the bailout, they added the bailout to a routine porksicle.

[WVEngraver]

I like what Glenn Beck had to say ... "We don't need to be french kissing Karl Marx on the floor."


Curt, like the bogus stimulus package ... a political handout will simply go to Walmart and inevitably our Chinese corporate interests. The rest will find its way to the crack dealers, the lottery and beer joints and worst of all ... the oil companies. Speaking of oil ...

Redistribution of wealth is already happening now anyway ... the biggest since the Great Depression.


Hey Steve ... is that "porksicle" anything like the "hammernsicle" we're gonna end up with soon?

...and let's remind our fellow readers .... that's Barney "Beacon Hill brothel" Frank (D. Mass of course)

[Joe PAonessa]

I got the "give the 85 billion to the people" E-mail several times and each time I responded to everyone who received the E-mail with this little math lesson:

85 billion divided by 200 million comes to a whopping $425 per recipient. don't quit your day job.

Joe Paonessa

[airamp]

Hi,

What caused it and what can you do about it??

Check this video out on utube.

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=NU6fuFrdCJY

airamp

[SpiderCurt]

Good point Joe

Shame on me, I didn't check the math or the statistics.
To put it nicely, I suspect both are inaccurate.

[Gail]

The gov't made the lending institutions loan mortgage money to people you and I would not loan $20 to. There were good people pressing for oversight on this, but got nowhere with it.
Yes folks, welcome to the United Socialist Republic of America.
I spoke with my Rep. yesterday, who was among the few voting No. He said the pressure was immense to pass this, and even included threats.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Sir Winston Churchill

[WVEngraver]

Gail rocks!!

[jimzim75]

Normally I would think this was a bit off topic, but it isn't.

The world has fallen in love with the China price. This exported tens of thousands of Jewellery Jobs to China
and India. The effects have been felt from major cities right down to the country side. Most people now
think of the China price as being normal and what jewellery should cost.

What is the China price like? If a setter makes around $3.00 per stone on setting a one in a pavé ring.
this same stone is set for .10¢ in China. If it cost $60.00 to clean and finish a ring in North America,
the China price is $2.00 or less.

From North American diamond dealers lowest one pointer you can buy is J-K, SI2.
What is coming from China and India is H-I, I5. What's the difference for the members that don't know
diamonds. The first North Am price is $200.00 per carat. The second China lot is around $25.00

This is compounded by the fact that China keeps it's currency the Lewon, artificially low against other world
currencies.

This is the way a lot of different thing are rather than just jewellery. Jobs have been being exported at
a breath taking rate. The politicians pander to those who are the salesmen for the China price.
They see nothing wrong and say that's free trade.

They forget the golden rule of Politics which is, "To keep most of the people employed, most of the time".
700 billion is nothing to what is going to have to be paid. Which begs the question if the middle class is not fully
employed or employed in jobs that make a North American wage. Who is going to pay for these bail outs?
The rich? I don't think so. So where is the money going to come from for the 2700 billion dollar bail out?

The politicians need to wake up and see there is a war going on. We're losing at the banks.

The small businessmen and craftsman have been abandon or forgotten about. I for one will still fight on
and try to make a living. I wish the odds weren't stacked against me as much as they are.

Jim

[graniteguy52]

Sorry, but that's 850 billion (not 85) shared by 200 million taxpayers - $4250.00 that we get to pony up to bail out these @#%&* people!

[WVEngraver]

Spot on Jim.

There is something very wrong with "free trade" and that's because it only works in fantasy land ... between countries of very similar economic structure and standards. Even Adam Smith, the founder of free trade in modern economics, recanted later in his life.

It's being touted as a "conservative" and Republican philosophy but it is in fact a very liberal policy. Classical liberal to be exact. This is one of the reasons why modern Republicanism no longer represents the true Conservative view .... and it hasn't since Reagan.

Conservatives throughout history have backed a certain level of protectionism ... ie: tariffs. Hamilton being the best and foremost example in early American history. Even high tariff liberals, like Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, put country first. Nationalism was not twisted into being part of the Communist ideology as it is being done today. Free trade in the 1800s was seen as a radical left wing idea here in the United States. England experimented with it and look where it got them in two world wars ... American industry bailed them out each time.

When we send our manufacturing overseas, we export our true assets and wealth. Research and development is a direct result of home grown manufacturing. We are becoming a nation of consumers on government subsidized benefits. The American worker (and the high cost of employing him) is being dumped for Chinese slave workers while the multi-national corporations and their Benedict Arnold CEOs retain their customer base here in the US.

As Patrick Buchanan stated .... "The hens of free trade are coming home to roost"

This is the beginning of a major economic meltdown. This lending debacle is a not an isolated issue but a side effect of a much larger, looming dark cloud. Everyone wants to blame Bush when this is actually a snowball Clinton began rolling. Democrats pushed legislation to ease homeowner lending to lower income families. Sorry ... but owning a home is NOT a right. Now, the Arabs put pressure on this country for waging an un-Constitutional war in the Middle East by driving oil prices up and robbing these very same people of what little wealth they had to pay these mortgages. Free trade agreements put them out of work and onto food stamps. These are the growing pains of our emergence into the global economy while at the same time trying to save the Dollar from total collapse. Decades of band aid policy and corruption passed from administration to administration is finally boiling over ... kiss world dollar hegemony and national sovereignty goodbye. Problem, reaction, solution folks ... our government has created this and now the solution that is on the table is a redistribution of wealth and a national healthcare plan. People need to stop looking to the government for a solution to everything because that sort of indifference to Liberty is the path to tyranny.

Also ... Bruce Springsteen can kiss my redneck ass. I hope his next album is "Born in Venezuela".

Have a nice day!!

[airamp]

Hi,

Well first of all we should have term limits on everyone in the house and senate. That would get rid of the guys sitting on commissions that took moneys and allowed this to happen and have been there for 30 years?

Would you take a low paying job with that much responsability without some perks? (like 90 million dollars on the side?)

Second we should take away there immunity to prosecution. These people are greedy and self centered when they are supposed to be representing we the people. They are not doing there job and should be put in jail along with the people (the ceo’s, cfo’s and lobbyists). (bag man).

What they do this every 6-8 years (savings and loan, Emeron) and some go to jail but the politicians get away and wait and do it again?? Bad News.

Third immunity should be taken away from all judges, city state and local commissions. This will assure they listen and act in the best interest of we the people.

Vote any sitting official out of office now. They are afraid of losing there jobs. That is change..

One thing that hasn’t been considered. Many foreign governments have large investments in this country . Throughout history when there is imbalance and finical trouble the next thing that happens is invasion or a takeover by the military (marshal law) due to the threat of invasion.

If our military leaders decided to take over Washington due to the national security it would be bad but I trust them more than anyone in Washington.

I have been trying to stay away from this but there is nothing in this “loan” for any American. The lies just keep getting bigger.

AirAmp

[jimzim75]

[QUOTE=WVEngraver]Spot on Jim.

There is something very wrong with "free trade" and that's because it only works in fantasy land ... between countries of very similar economic structure and standards. Even Adam Smith, the founder of free trade in modern economics, recanted later in his life.

Hi WV,
No matter who gets in office. They should understand the terms of the deal.
They cannot betray the working man and not suffer a pay back.

I don't want revolution but I want people in office who are on my side. Looking out
for me. I'm not really to impressed with either side in the up coming US
Elections and will not state how I will vote in it.

What I'm asking for from either side is. Remember you represent craftsmen
and small businessmen. We have to pay those huge bail outs. Being ineffective
at your job, or pandering to big business doesn't help me at all.

We elect a President to be Wiser than the rest of the countries and more
clever at outwitting the rest of the world to keep us, No. 1.

The same could be said for who be Prime Minister here in Canada. I can't vote
in that one, though.

I would hate to think that it's really necessary to take a 2 x 4 and whack
these candidates between the eyes, to wake them up. (Figuratively speaking, I'm not threatening any canidates.)

The craftsmen and small business owner are asking for help, not loans.
Defend us, or get ready to defend yourselves against the storm that will
surely come.

Jim

[WVEngraver]

Right again Jim,

Small business is almost 85% of the total GNP in Canada and here in the U.S., small business has generated almost 80% of all new jobs over the last decade.

Pretty staggering numbers despite the fact that small business is continuously being buried and burned. It's also small business that employs almost half of the entire work force.

I too am lost in this election. After supporting Ron Paul's campaign and then being active for Fred Thompson, I don't feel that I have anyone to vote for. I don't even wanna vote now but I'll certainly hold my nose when I do. Both advocate big government and globalism ... just one not so bad as the other. One thing's for sure, expect Amnesty version 6.0 either way.

I think Stephen Colbert put it perfectly ... "The only change I can believe in is the change that never happens."

-------

Hi Airamp ... term limits is a MUST. I think the presidency should be changed to a 6 year term with a limit of two. A bit of history here ... the Confederate States initiated these policies in 1861. Even Patrick Henry and a great number of other Virginians predicted the hijacking of this government by special interests, corporations and the banks long before the Confederate congress took the initiative to write it into their Constitution. "I smell a rat!" was Patrick Henry's cry when the U.S. Constitution was being drafted ... he was right.

It's rather ironic that we are still fighting for this lesser known historical factoid. Of course we know who won that fight and it's the winner that selectively writes history ... or omits it.

Catch y'all later, (boy do I love this Watercooler section!!)

Chris

[airamp]

Hi Chris,

Well that is a great factoid..

It seem to me that no matter who gets in it is the old timers (30 years in house and senate) that make the rules and know how to extort, bribe, run a flawless rackets and generally manipulate anyone most of all US. NON go to Jail.. After all 99% are lawyers.

What they know how is to make money for themselves and by that time they have been in that long, they owe so many they couldn't represent “we the people” if there lives depended on it. And they make sure anyone that gets in there way will pay the consequences.

A liar can never tell the same story twice... these people are nothing more that big criminals and should go away under the federal Racketeering laws in my opinion.

In Connecticut the FBI put away 3 mayors, 1 governor, 1 senator and a boatload of contractors under the racketeering laws so it can be done.

Maybe it is time to do the same with the house and senate.

Airamp

[WVEngraver]

Liars & thieves!! .... and they still keep their jobs long enough to die in office.


My question is how does a government police itself? It doesn't, it just maintains the appearance that it does.

Checks and balances are out the window. Have been since the 14th Amendment.

Now the fear mongering is setting in as we are witnessing the potential end of our fiat currency. I'm watching Jimmy Gerstel on the coin hunter show and the B.S. is thick. CNN says put your money in T-bills, Jimmy says buy gold because it will be rationed by the time it hits $3000.

I put all my cash into guns and silver bullion over the last two years .... not to mention ammo. What people lose or don't have, they will come to take.

Good to be prepared but not paranoid. I want GOOD people to get real mad. Furious even. A government by the people and for the people which can be abolished at any time!! We need Thomas Paine reincarnated to invigorate a new generation!!

Catch ya later,

Chris

p.s. ... my Confederate currency has more buying power than the dollar!!!

[SVD]

The part of the problem that people forget about is the entrenched bureaucracy. They're not elected and it (literally) takes an Act of Congress to fire them.

One bit from last night's debate that sounded good: McCain's plan to use the $300,000,000,000.00 in the bailout tagged for stablizing the housing market to simply buy the screwed up loans and 'reset' them. Still not something I like, since it smacks of rewarding bad behaviour / stupidity but at least it's soemthing aimed at the individual rather than just the big corp. And a lot of people got into those loans because they trusted people who got paid if the loan went through, not if it got paid off.

[jimzim75]

As far as the election goes, I voted yesterday with an absentee ballot.
So it's all entertainment from now till Nov.2, 2012.

It would be nice to be able to hold the winner to his promises and platform.
I sure they will not be focused on the little guys problems till 2011.

Talk to ya later,
Jim

[Jroettger]

I only have one thing to consider for my family. As a retail jewelry craftsman serving the middle class, most of the payments I receive are by charge card. If the plastic fails I can't say if I'd still have a business. When a young guy wants a fancy wedding ring out comes the plastic. Most of the rings I make are peoples dream rings, often the largest jewelry purchase of their lives so they need credit for this long term investment.

Also, the government is printing all this money in the back room to pay people up front. What's gonna happen to the dollar's international value?
If I were president I would bring our military home ASAP. Put all the junk in moth balls and rely on good nukes, the MAD doctrine along with a reasonably sized military. Position the troops at the border working customs to ferret out smuggled nuclear devices and keep illegal aliens out. I'd make a truce with al quaida and get off their turf. I'd forget about our petroleum based national security interests (really just acting on exxons behalf) figuring if we're gentleman anyone will be happy to sell us their oil. And I'd legalize drugs and tax them like alcohol and tobacco and stop wasting resources on the bogus war on drugs (which is really just cutting out the competition for the big pharmaceutical companies). This is just wasting money incarcerating inner city minority youth and wrecking their lives with jail records and and contributing to the cause gangland violence. We could be using all that incarceration money on educating people about the dangers of addiction and providing career skills. The tax dollars from pot could be used to help our bankrupt government. The real benefit would come by redirecting money to the legitimate economy by allowing many middle class pot heads to spend there money on jewelry and consumer products (thereby helping the economy) instead of having it go to drug cartels. Remember the great depression also followed a war on drugs, the prohibition of alcohol preceded it. With my plan we could have a booming economy in about 3 years and begin real progress paying down the debt. We would also be more secure having given up the purchase of foreign enemies by our in your face behavior.