So we have the cash to bail out the Investment Banks, But not Mortage Holders

Who were facing the bad terms on their loans... :wtf:

Not only that, it was profoundly undemocratic... No elected official voted for this. It was carried out in the dark of night by the Unelected Federal Reserve.


They should not be allowed to spend tax-payer money in this fashion without accountability. I seem to remember something in the constitution called checks and balances.

$30 billion would have saved a lot of homes... not to mention the 'discount' window being opened at 2.5%

You make a good point. Is this democratic?

Most don't have a clue what just happened.

The bastards. :grr:

The saddest thing is how most people just seem to accept those priorities as the natural order of things.

It's the same scam over and over. Crooked investors with lots of money and crooked investment advisers who are on the take hype a market, be it real estate, tech stocks, ordinary stocks, Enron, gold, you name it. The prices in the market start rising. People who want to get rich quick or just keep up with inflation start putting money into the market. Big institutions like pension funds and very wealthy investors finally get into the game.

Then all of the sudden, the crooked investors "take profits," the market crashes, and the government either investigates or actually bails out the institutions and the big investors who did not get out in time. The little investors, the ordinary folks and sometimes the pension funds get stuck with investments that have lost their value.

The economists whitewash the scam by telling the public that it's nobody's fault because the markets are cyclical. Yes, markets are cyclical, especially when crooks orchestrate booms and busts.

In the end, the insiders do fine. The little investors who are trying to save for their kids' education or for retirement or just for a rainy day lose. The government plays a role. It sets the stage by deregulating or closing an eye to the cheating and fraudulent accounting that facilitates the game.

This same scam has happened over and over and over. Think 1929 and the great depression (they used Ponzi schemes back then), junk bonds, the S&L crisis, Enron, tech stocks, and now this sub-prime mortgage crises. There is always a failure to regulate, dishonest business practices, boom and bust. Those who perpetrate these booms and busts know exactly what they are doing. Fraud is always involved at some level. A few real obvious profiteers get scapegoated. The rest just get rich.

And in most of these scams, the government ends up covering the losses one way or another. In the S&L crisis and this crises, big lots of properties will most probably end up being sold at bargain basement prices to a few very rich investors and banks. And many of the buyers will be foreign nationals who will then own a yet larger interest in American and have a greater say in what goes in our government.

In his speech on the economy, Obama suggested that the government be given access to the trading records on the various exchanges. That is an excellent idea. Really controlling market manipulation and insider trading is an important step in ending the scams in investment markets.

want to be protected by the government, they should have to keep a reserve on deposit... the same as regular banks.

And to keep the investment business on-shore, American companies would need to go through American institutions for IPO's and other investment and loan intstuments.