The Republicans may well have been right that the bill wouldn’t have worked. It doesn’t matter. They may have been wrong. That, also, doesn’t matter. Voters just don’t think these things through clearly enough to use them as a cardinal point.

McCain came all the way to Washington to take credit for adjusting it and making the bail out palatable and then it tanked. That doesn’t matter much but it does make McCain look impotent—and that matters.

Remember when the Republicans shut down DC under Gingrich? They may have been right, but ultimately, they took the blame for the intransigence—not the Democrats (who held their nose and voted for the bailout yesterday).

The bailout stinks—but it’s the best of a bad lot of options.

It’s not about rescuing “Wall Street” or irresponsible people who borrowed more than they could afford or speculated and were irresponsible.

It’s about there being money in the ATM, food in the supermarket when you go there, gas at the gas pump, having the ability to finance a car or a house if you’re moving. It’s about making sure that your company can meet payroll and give you a check this week—and that there’s some place to cash it.

Stop thinking your rewarding traders with $50 million dollar bonuses. You’re not. Those days are over, guaranteed.

This is about saving our own buts in the short term and hoping that the illiquid issues will regain value in the future (and they will if we pay down the deficit).

It doesn’t really matter what was done yesterday—but I promise you the voters won’t ascribe any real nobility or motivation or even thought to the Republicans actions. They just helped Obama more yesterday than with any other single action. Because voters don’t think rationally and scared voters really don’t think at all—they lash out and blame.

And they're blaming those who scared the hell out of them yesterday with a precipitous drop and talk of a recession and depression to follow.

You bono.

Me no bono.

$700 billion is a number pulled from a hat. Congress has a constitutional responsibility not to hand the executive $700 billion, no strings attached.

And McCain is worried about earmarks? At least everyone knows where that money is being spent.

Demosthenes2:

Stop thinking your rewarding traders with $50 million dollar bonuses. You’re not. Those days are over, guaranteed.

I don't believe you.

I don't even believe that you believe you.

You're right on the politics exactly. It did make McCain look impotent and will by default benefit Obama even though he's doing nothing really but campaigning and walking around getting in his photo ops.

but you are wrong and buying into the scare fear mongering machine of the Bush Administration and Pelosi et al who want a bail out to insure those that line their own pockets keep getting it their way.

The average American is the loser here the sky won't fall or fold if the bail-out doesn't happen. Your bank accounts won't disappear.They'll be problems in securing new loans..yes. They'll be tightening up of all that. That is probably a good thing...but if we add more debt our costs for food will go up even more for example because when you are indebt you pay more for evrything else to pay off the massive debt the top corps have to carry...so I say let it fall...things will adjust.

There is money in the Treasury.If they can reallocate funds from philanthropic held funds in the trillions they can shore up , in other areas. the Congress can ad money from one section of it's allocation to another in a heartbeat. But they prefer to scare you into thinking it's going broke(they do this to get you to go along with any of the stupid corporate self interest deals for the wealthy that they can..and that is for both dems and GOP.

Oh not to say Wall Street doesn't have a mess on it's hands..it does..but it shouldn't be us the taxpayer that bails them out.

How about Trump, McCartney, Oprah Winfrey and all the other billionaries ponying up a few milllion and see how that helps the situation?
Now THAT I'd like to see!

;-)

It's sick..how much they are trying to scare everyone about all this. It's bad but they want to pressure us into agreeing to footing the bill for their recklessness.

Sincerely,

Jane Average

Yes and no.

You’re right that we shouldn’t hand over $700 billion with no oversight. Oversight should take more than just the form of a beefed up SEC because the street always comes up with a new instrument (derivatives, equities derivatives, CDOs, etc.) to circumvent the regs. The real oversight should be—here’s $700 billion. Now—you will go through ever mortgage. Those who can pay it at (say, for example) 4% instead of 7% get to do so—oh—and you should be prepared to take a principle hit of anywhere from 5-15% if that’s what it takes to make it work. That’s your pain for being stupid.

But—the $700 billion is kinda like mélange in Dune. The Spice must flow. Send a third stage guild navigator to the House of Representatives to underscore the point.

No $700 billion no payroll, groceries, gas, cars or houses. No jobs (and increased losses) no orders no lumber. Well, you get it, I know.

It’s OK to regulate the hell out of it, but they need the spice… err… I mean cash flow.

Oh—and I really do believe that the day of the trader making kick ass bonuses are over. Two reasons. The traders I know are slitting their wrists and going on plans with no bonus upside. Second—some head hunter just called me to offer me a job trading for a $175,000 base, 40% commission on 12 month income, 11 week training program, 4 year hold. That’s significantly more than I make today. By multiples. If I thought it was real I’d be impressed. When chimera like that start getting thrown about, it’s over.

The banks are hiring traders to trade without upside. It’ll be years before you see those bonuses again.

When you can’t finance a car or sell a home (no buyers can get a mortgage) or buy one the rest of the economy goes too. If the grocery store can’t get supplies or make payroll than the jobs go—then the supplies. It’s the grease that makes everything else work.

You’re not scared now—but the reason the depression happened is that DC and the banks acted too slowly. This is about making payroll and the ability of the stores you do care about—groceries, hardware, tires, to get inventory and stay open.

Let the firms fail. Nobody cares about that. But don;t let them take down with them the pipes and infrastructure to make your company and your neighborhood function.

And you can't make me.

I bought my (now paid off, used) car on 9/13/01. I wasn't scared then either.

Maybe I can get some advise from a rational person DEM...

I am not part of the problem, I (we) bought a forclosed home in the late 80's, maybe 5 more years to pay at under 500. a month, 3000 sq ft, new a/c units so electric bills under 200 and energy efficient. We make payments on time and the appraised value has risen but not out of the realm of market value. So, as our income rose, we are at six figures now, we did not go out and buy a fancy builders house in the neighborhoods surrounding us, in fact we wonder how anyone could afford them and sleep at night, we felt smart and responsible even though I have to live with some outdated wallpaper for a little longer now.

I (we) have put money in a 401K for over 20 years, mutual funds, but nothing too risky, we have not made a ton but we were getting a little more return than tbills or money market accounts. The plan was 14 more years to retire, now I am told we can probably expect to work longer...

Yesterday the advise of the brokerage firm was to invest more, buy some low and make some return to offset what we have lost lately. How crazy is this? Who is learning what lessons? Isn't that just more of the same that got the market where it is today?

Now, bam I (we) have donated about 50,000. to the cause and all I hear is that in 10 years we will get it back, wish someone would have just asked to borrow it.

And if I hear one more person say I (we) deserved it, I may just have to pull it out and put it in my mattress...what am I missing here?

kim

Still scary as you believe it is..in the 19030's depression there was no way to dig our way out of it but one..and that was WW2 and the massive influx of manpower, motivation and true grit with the creation of new industries in building weaponry. No amount of bank fanagling the Joseph P Kennedy and FDR did changed a damn thing.

Today we are also facing a real internal and external threat from terrorists in the Middle East and we need to also free ourselves from foreign oil especially the Oil we buy from Middle Easterners whose best interests are not our own.

Therefore ,what we need is a new motivation to start new industries for energy and fuel be it alternative, shale, wind, solar, oil drilling whatever it takes to get our own country's economy moving again and pull us out of this mess.

I'm beginning to think that James Carville was dead on with his assessment that McCain lost the election the day he said, "The fundamentals of the economy are sound," because everyday since then his polling numbers on Rasmussen have been cratering, going from up three to down six. His grandstanding on the bailout, which has now blown up in his face, just reinforces this trend.

Herbert Hoover George Bush and his GOP cohorts have unleashed the forces of economic chaos, hidebound as they are to their free-market fundamentalism, so the election in now, really all about the Senate. The numbers are pointing to at least a 58-42 Democratic advantage and suddenly Coleman, Smith and McConnell look vulnerable. With sixty votes the Dems can squash any filibuster and reduce the Republicans to sputtering fury.

I'm buying Canadian materials today, with cash. Then I'm just gonna sit on em-- maybe till 2010. And I'm not looking in my 401K until at least 18 months from now. DJ's up over 300 points already, so things won't look as ugly tonight as they did yesterday, but it's not worth getting your hopes up. Who knows what it'll look like in a week, even if there's a new bill, and even if it passes. My guess is that on the surface, the Dow will jump once Congress agrees to something, whatever it is. And it'll jump once Obama's elected. But the credit culture is going to cost us in ways we're not fully imagining right now. Just think how the ripple effect is going to hit research and development, a few months down the road, and what that'll do to our global competitiveness over the next decade. And because so many of our jobs are service related, unemployment is going to snap and pay out line like Moby Dick's on the other end.

I agree with you, the blame will be portioned out in the voting booth; not just to the benefit of Obama. People don't want to see such inept sausage making up this close; but those who voted down the measure because their constituents said to, are going to be pleading that case for the next month. It's going to look like what it is: mob psychology. And it's not going to make a lot of difference, unfortunately.

There's a recession in progress,and if I were advising someone going to college, what kind of career they should think about, I'd recommend bankruptcy law. Those folks are going to make fortunes over the next couple of years.

Maybe not you personally, but you should be worried for all the people who work in one of the following fields, cause chances are their jobs will be flushed down the Depression toilet --

• Airlines and tourism
• Hospitality (including restaurants)
• Finance/Insurance/Real Estate
• Construction
• Retail
• Autos
• Business services

Our landscape will soon be littered with millions of vacant homes and strip malls.

the real estate market hasn't found its pricing floor and American-made automobiles suck right now, I don't think many people are going to be too concerned about having to put off such major investments for a year or two. There is no point in pushing these markets until the backlog of inventory slowly comes down.

So we're pretty much stuck with paying off our credit cards and paying down our existing mortgages as it is. That is what will eventually put money into the system. We're going to slowly pay off our debt.

For a while, there will be short term credit crunches, but this is not 700 billion dollars worth of stuck on stupid. A little procrastination is actually going to help push real estate prices down and we're all going to take a hit on the homeowner equity that was made out of pixie-dust.

The problem is timing. Can we wait until after the election? Yeah, probably, but Congress won't be in the mood to do much in a lame duck session. So I am only in favor of doing enough to tide us over until February when the next administration can start to sort out this mess with a clearer head.