Bail Out the Banks and Insurance Companies. Not.
Well, this is my first journey into The Lounge...and yes, I read Molly's warnings, and no, I don't think I've violated them.
The "subprime" mortgage market has collapsed and too many foreclosures on overpriced real estate have caused banks, developers, individuals, investment banks, and the biggest insurance company in the world (?) to go broke. So the politicians in power (Democrats & Republicans, to you) decide we need to save these people from their own bad deicsions, and bail them out.
I say, no. Let's not.
I saw the bailouts compared to the S&L bailout during Clinton's administration ... biggest boondoggle yet. We are saddling ourselves and our children with bailing out investors, bankers, developers who knew (or should have known) what they were doing, and accepted the risk.
And they want us to turn our Social Security investments over to Wall Street, too. Forced to contribute but with no say in how it's managed. I think we revolted on some principle like that...was it more than 200 years ago? Do we never learn?
I can't help but believe that behind all these poor decisions and stupid risks looms something even larger: wealth was destroyed when the Twin Towers went down. Lots of human lives were lost and lots of records and valuables went down as well. This feels like an aftershock to me.
I mean, think about it, who could possibly think for one minute that grouping together bad loans made a good investment? huh? As a "stopgap" strategy, a way to prop up the economy with the "real estate bubble" to avoid living with the real economic damages we suffered? Yeah. Get enough time and enough subsidiary events between one disaster and another, and the voters will forget. They won't connect these dots.
It's the same reason we went to war. More as a distraction than anything else. Look we're doing something, and it's expensive. So forget about the past, OK? Forget about our earlier mistakes. Don't change the way we think and act, don't examine our values, just keep trying to distract ourselves from the truth in the world today. We're #1. Feel better now?
Original Post by rachd:
But my point stands on your selective reading. She asked the figures on how many LEGAL texans get foodstamps...my point was if 44% of texans getting foodstamps are illegal, then it stands to reason that the remaining 56% are legal. Unless there's a legal status I'm missing...such as partially legal?
Ok, once more from the top, read carefully. The link you posted said that 44% of illegal aliens in texas were getting food stamps (or other services), from this information we can conclude that 56% of illegal aliens in Texas are not getting food stamps.
We can not conclude anything about the percantage of legal residents of Texas who are on food stamps. 44% of illegals in Texas being on food stamps is in no way, shape, or form the same as saying that 44% of the people in Texas on food stamps are illegal.
So I am a little confused, is this bailout going to give people lower interest rates on their homes to help them pay it off to help stop foreclosures? How exactly is it going to help stop the housing and credit issue?
I guess I am not seeing the correlation between giving these companies 700 billion dollars and how that will help stop or slow the amount of foreclosures and this crisis were in.
Original Post by floggingsully:
Original Post by rachd:
But my point stands on your selective reading. She asked the figures on how many LEGAL texans get foodstamps...my point was if 44% of texans getting foodstamps are illegal, then it stands to reason that the remaining 56% are legal. Unless there's a legal status I'm missing...such as partially legal?
Ok, once more from the top, read carefully. The link you posted said that 44% of illegal aliens in texas were getting food stamps (or other services), from this information we can conclude that 56% of illegal aliens in Texas are not getting food stamps.
We can not conclude anything about the percantage of legal residents of Texas who are on food stamps. 44% of illegals in Texas being on food stamps is in no way, shape, or form the same as saying that 44% of the people in Texas on food stamps are illegal.
Ummm...guess you didn't see that I edited.
Original Post by rachd:Yes, but since (in Houston at least) illegal immigrants tend to live in certain areas and since it's the area that determines which school you go to...then it's those schools that teach in Spanish. It's an advantage given to those schools that other schools (those located in areas with a low illegal population) don't get.
What advantage is being given to those schools? Are the schools that aren't in areas with a lot of illegal kids not free to teach spanish 6 hours a day? If teaching that much spanish is an advantage, why aren't all the other schools doing it?
Original Post by rachd:
Ummm...guess you didn't see that I edited.
I guess I didn't, I only saw the 2 posts that you edited that are still wrong:
"Only 44% of Texas illegals use foodstamps? That's not bad. Do you have any figures on how many legal Texans in the same income range use foodstamps? Ummm...if 44% are illegal then it stands to reason 66% are legal....just saying."
"Edit....never mind. She asked the figures on how many LEGAL texans get foodstamps...I read the report to say that 44% of texans getting foodstamps are illegal, then it stands to reason that the remaining 56% are legal."
earth_mom
I'm not sure how the current crisis is directly tied to the fall of the WTC.
I can see how it's tied to
- tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% which were not offset by cuts in spending but paid for by defecit (these started before 9/11 and then we had two more cuts after 9/11)
- spending like a drunken sailor* on the iraq war in the use of contractors and especially no bid contracts, no oversight of contracts which led to egregious fraud, in addition to other 'normal' war expenses again using money we borrowed from other countries driving us deeper into defecit
- the expansion of government to its biggest size in our history with new layers of bureaucracy and new departments, which yes drove us deeper into defecit
- a 30 year campaign of deregulation in banking, the coup de grâce of which occurred in 1999-2000, courtesy of wendy & phil gramm
- securitization of mortgages which obscured the risk from the risk takers who were all too willing to turn a blind eye for the sake of a quick profit
- so-called free trade agreements and normalization of trade with china (active encouragement of development in china) which led to ever-increasing trade defecits which drove us deeper and deeper in debt
- various efforts to keep wages here low combined with encouragement from politicians to 'go shopping' which led to more irresponsible borrowing
Do you think there is a plot that ties this to 9/11?
*using this term in this context is actually an undeserved insult to drunken sailors
As far as my opinion...it's the burden on the schools that I find most shocking. The cost is one thing...but the fact that by teaching 6 hrs in spanish and 2 hrs in english, this means we are giving learning advantages to illegal aliens that citizens don't get. We'll have many bilingual students come out of these schools...it doesn't seem fair to the schools that teach 8 hrs in english.
What the hell does it matter if they're learning in Spanish? The US does not have an official language. And if you want other elementary schools to start teaching so the kids are bilingual... then try to change things. Because you can't complain about the language when there's no official language in the US.
it matters because spanish teachers are more in demand because of such high levels of immigration and so we spend more $$$ to get them now
and we import them from other countries (VIF) because that's the only way we can get them
incidentally, i put my daughter into a spanish immersion magnet school so she's bilingual - i speak only the spanish that she has taught me - olé! caliente! antonio banderas! (ok, i already knew that one)
i was looking forward to a discussion about the bailout. had to wade through a whole lot of off-topic discussion about immigration to get there though... 
yes, the bailout would simply be delaying the inevitable - our financial system is pretty messed up (how, exactly can we continue with a negative savings rate?). but, right now, the bailout we're talking about is NOT giving money to people who bought houses they cannot afford - it's buying up securities that still have fundamental value, despite the demand drying up, from financial institutions in order to inject some liquidity into the market.
joe and suzy homemaker are not the only people who need to refinance loans. businesses are constantly refinancing loans - often not because they want to, but because the loan has matured (commercial loan terms tend to be much shorter than home loans). if credit dries up (because the banks have gone out of business, or have no cash because they're suddenly holding assets (mortgage securities) that no one wants to buy), a lot of non-bank businesses are going to go bankrupt - and we're going to crash into a deep recession. i think the plan behind the bailout is for the economy to slide into a shallow recession instead. over-correction of the markets helps no one, particularly not the little guy (and the rich guys will STILL be rich). also, the securities are not value-less - many of the loans will still pay till maturity, particularly if the economy doesn't crash.
that said, i don't know if the bailout is a good idea. it's just good to really think about the complexities of the situation, rather than "rich people getting more money is BAAAD".
In fact there was no mention of a recession, let alone a depression, only a 'slowing of economic growth'.
Christ Almighty! The one chance he had left to be totally honest and retain some measure of creditability and he's still pretending everything is 'fundamentally sound' - while begging for 700 billion.
Asking for speedy resolution while only now agreeing to oversight?
Gah. Am too pissed to continue.
That's because, technically, we are not in a recession and definitely not a depression...yet. The media has portrayed this as a recession, but rarely will you hear an economist say that the past year we have been in a recession, because we still have economic growth. The growth has certainly slowed, but not receded. Which, would be why he didn't use those words. If the president uses words like "recession" and "depression", people, banks (specifically banks in other countries!), businesses are going freak out even more. I think what will happen next will determine if the possibility of a recession or (dare I say it) a depression.
His job is to reassure us in the decisions of the government. He wasn’t pretending. He believes this is the best course of action, and he is trying to reassure and home this in to the world.
What he didn't say is that his administration is as much to blame for this crisis as is Wallstreet.
wah wah waaaaahhh.
I love how you defend Bush to the death.
Look. I call it how I see it. I don't agree with many of his decisions, and I certainly have doubts about the 700 Billion, but he's not some monster like some people think on this site. It’s ridiculous.
Fannie Mae really WAS run right into the ground by ::shock:: DEMOCRATS. Former Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines was the White House budget director under Bill Clinton. He was also cited by the Washington Post as an economic advisor to...Barack Obama. Obama, in his very short time in the U.S. Senate also quickly became the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, ahead of even John Kerry.
Or, how about Jamie Gorelick. She served as Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General. She installed the Intelligence "Wall of Separation" that helped lead to the disaster we suffered on 9/11. Then she served as Vice Chairman at Fannie Mae. In 2002, she told "BusinessWeek" that Fannie Mae was "very, very strong" and was "managed safely". For her efforts, driving the company to the brink, she received $26 million plus bonuses. Score!
What does that have to do with what’s going on now? Well, Fannie Mae is heavily involved with the Congressional Black Caucus. Interim CEO Daniel Mudd described the relationship Fannie Mae and the Congressional Black Caucus shared as a "family" relationship. The Caucus pressured Fannie Mae to get mortgage loans for millions of Americans who couldn't afford them. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the worst offenders in this housing loan crisis, which in turn caused so many banking institutions to go down with it. The crisis has had a domino effect throughout our financial institutions. In fact, AIG was in part brought down because it held $600 million in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, President Bush has called for reforming Fannie and Freddie 17 TIMES this year alone! The democrats' fingerprints are all over this crisis. I don’t think blaming the administration (although seems as to do these days) isn't always the best course of action.
But, then. That could just be me...
Original Post by crazineko:
His job is to reassure us in the decisions of the government.
You might want to re-check your middle school social studies book, his job is not to reassure us of anything, his job is to enforce the law.
Him and his administration... yeah- they're awful. After 8 years, they've run the country into the ground. He needs to take responsibility for what has happened during his time as president.
#94 - Ali - lighten up girl. We are discussing a subject and she was giving her opinion. I enjoy these kinds of threads and most of us here like that we can rationally discuss these things with people who might have different opinions and views.
What he didn't say is that his administration is as much to blame for this crisis as is Wallstreet.
Kathy, I didn't really expect him to. When was the last time any president addressed the American public and stated "my administration is to blame for [fill in the blank]"
