Can we be against a shitty bailout bill without being accused of wanting good people to suffer?

I know many wonderful retired people living off of the few hundreds of thousands they have invested in the markets over their 40+ years of hard work. I wish ill fortune on none of these people. I would like to see all of them to double or even triple their money before they die.

However, my compassion towards all of these fine individuals does not make a shitty bailout bill a good idea.

Those who are for total inaction I am still largely confused about.

... but I am REFLEXIVELY and UNREPENTANTLY against ANY action proposed by Bush and his cronies.

Is there a case for some kind of government intervention? Of course. But anyone thinking this PLAIN VANILLA GIVEAWAY is the correct course of action must be awfully gullible.

I am for as much action as possible when it comes to economic justice.

:thumbsup:

Of course, we don't want the smoking gun to turn into a mushroom cloud, now do we??

My family is dirt poor and recently lost our house to the same crooks people want to bail out now. Things may get worse for everyone but I'm willing to struggle even harder so that my kids might have a chance at a just economic future instead of the life at taco-bell that rich people have planned for them.

Basically, the only hope for the poor is that alot more people get poor so we will have the power to demand social justice. If we bail the system out and wait to get anything for the poor the powers that be will once again tell us that 2 bill for kids shots or 40 bill for medical care isn't doable.....right after they get their 700 bill for their rich friends.

People keep acting astonished that "we" cant work together. That is because there is no "we" to begin with. There are 2 Americas here and let me tell you one of those Americas is more than happy to see this economy crash and burn if there is any hope at all something fairer will arise from the ashes. It sure would be nice if Dems remembered how to stand up for the poor and perhaps our calls and letters has reminded them we exist.

So maybe the next deal will be better. If not, it will be killed by poor dems and poor reps just like this pig was today.

It's just that the vernacular is fucked up.

Intentionally.

Our economy has not been sustainable for DECADES. I'm sorry too for the victims of this early reality check-- and I do think this is only the first such shock-- but any bailout that seeks to restart the economy along the same failing trajectory is a bad plan.

That' ain't no big deal.

Relax.

If Bill Gates has all his money in the market he probably lost three and a half billion dollars. How's he supposed to make it on the fifty odd billion he has left?

on the President of the United State's desk since last year?

Would they bother to ask just why the huge RUSH RUSH SIGN NOW OR WE ALL STARVE mantra?

Would they bother to point out all the better alternative plans than this bushit "bailout" crap?

Likely not. But hey, the majority of Americans smelled the bushit (as the majority did against bush's bullshit illegal invasion of Iraq). And this time, the majority made sure their voices were heard.

We do indeed have The Power.

You may not WISH these people ill, but you are imposing it on them nevertheless.

I agree that it sucks that we are where we are, but here we are. We have to take distasteful measures to staunch the bleeding. Then and only then can we take actions to fix the root problems.

We need to return to Keynesian "bottom up" economics and regulate the markets. But we can't do that if there is no market to regulate.

the next three years?

The government could offer better terms to those who want their houses, but cannot currently pay the poison pill mortgages they signed up for. If a current owner simply cannot pay at any reasonable terms, the government would then own the defaulted homes to do with as it saw fit to help cover our losses.

There is no way such a plan could cost more than 100 billion. So why does Wall Street need more than a trillion again?

the straw that broke the camel's back. We can remove the straw, but the back is still broken.

I just LOVE how all the fans of "bail outs" don't remember how long we've (those of us in the bilges) been saying the boat's leaking.

Why is it there's this call for a "bail out" when the water finally reaches the first class cabins??? Fuck em.

to the Ninth Ward and how Bushco failed. But this also affects the Ninth Ward, too. The "first class cabin" will be fine - they'll just pull their money out of the market and invest it in more physical assests - like new yachts. It's the rest of us who will suffer when we no longer have jobs.

DLC wants to lay a guilt trip on you because you're opposed to the people bailing out the corporatists.

Framing this as an either/or situation as they're doing isn't honest. It's no better than "you're either with us or with the terrorists"...No gray area, just more black & white framing to force people to take sides instead of demanding better solutions.

of the economy, can fuck off.

I have come to my own understanding of this, which is that the system which we've all been living under, fueled by credit, will undergo a life changing transformation. Whether or not we do a bailout - the bailout is designed merely to change the timing of the upcoming readjustment (to use a mild term for a horrific event for most people out there).

There is no alternative "bailout" that will fix 100% what ails our system. It isn't fixable in that way anymore.

The only thing I am really worried about in the short term is that from what I am reading, I can see that a lot of people still don't understand all the effects we will see from what is about to happen. Not blaming anyone really, because it has taken me much time to start realizing how this will go down, and I don't even understand all of it. Just enough to know, from reading posts here and elsewhere, that many still haven't reached that understanding or have focused on the full implications in their own lives. The amount of people who really think that because they are not what they call "fat cats" and thus won't have their lives utterly upended are still staggering.

Good news is some get it; I think some have taken steps to protect themselves and their families for any disruptions that may come (food so they can eat, wood to heat their homes, a bit of cash on hand for emergencies, paying down whatever they can of their debt,and tons of other stuff). There probably isn't a way to make any of what is coming easy, but I guess you can make it more survivable.

Dh heard today on Bloomberg that freaking Paulson got 500 million of Goldman $$$ without taxation. At all. Some rule I hadn't previously known about that says if you go from the private sector into government (like, say become treas. sec), you don't have to pay the capital gains. This is worse than horrific and probably won't get much play on the MSM - and nobody watches Bloomberg anyway. I thought about checking the veracity of what he heard at the Bloomberg site, but am not going to bother. It makes me sick and pissed off. OTOH, watching what my friends and neighbors have done with the easy credit waved in front of their greedy freaking faces makes me also sick and pissed off. I have zero pity for anyone in either of these groups of credit suckers.

The upshot is that Wall Street has taken the country for a ride, but many in our country went along with it and turned it into a gigantic joy ride. And people from poor to rich are going to feel this smack them upside the head, and hard. I am pretty damned discouraged.

A number of extremely ignorant (if not outright stupid) people have been posting at volume for a number of days now exclaiming such nonsensical tripe as "Let it Burn!" or variations thereof.

As calling out specific DUers is against the rules here, I will avoid doing so, but that rule is what has made the point you raise in your post so difficult. I can't just start a list of names, but the threads are still there, on the front page even. People are saying those things -- at volume -- and they are defending the absurd idea that a total collapse of our economy either won't be all that bad for them because, hell, they got nuthin' anyway and will only injure so-called "fat cats," who apparently deserve whatever they get. And others who oppose the bill in good faith seem to be ignoring that this is taking place.

This is not just a false dichotomy, it is uneducated, wrong on every level, and, again, stupid.

And I don't tend to call people here stupid. Misinformed, wrong, ignorant, etc., yes -- stupid, not so much.

Now, I don't know what absurdities you've faced. Maybe several people have come along and accused you of wanting good people to suffer merely because you opposed *this* bill. I have in the past couple of days had a few thoughtful discussions with hardened opponents to the bill, but in each of those threads was some yahoo who came along implying if not outright asserting that total economic collapse would be a *good* thing. And they pile on and latch themselves to the more thoughtful posters, and those posters do little to nothing to distance themselves from such notions, and the association is then made.

I don't harbor malice toward those who had legitimate enough concerns about the bill as presented to oppose its passage. The other side to this coin is that those of us who supported passage are being accused of being flippin' fascists of all things, even though most of us have made very clear we thought this bill was far less than ideal and that we in no way thought it was an ultimate solution to anything. I do harbor malice toward those people and to those who really think it would be a grand old idea just to let the economy go in the toilet so we could just do a cold reboot.

Just ... start again ... yeah ... simple stuff that.

So, if this post is offered in good faith, then I offer one in good faith as well. We can disagree on the means if we can agree that just sitting here watching it burn is about the dumbest of all the dumb ideas we have heard to address this problem.

Not for one second. And were it true, so what?

I have seen over 100 posts claiming that there is some horde of people here saying "Let it Burn!" I don't see any members of that horde, and the charge is obviously intended to smear any and all critics of the bailout.

It is ironic that while you smear and malign others, you complain that you are being called a "fascist."

There may be some anti-bailout people who have done the things cited in your vague and generalized complaints, but yet here you are doing the same thing for "your side."

I am one of the few people here who has consistently used the term "fat cats" and you use that as an example of the bad actors you are attacking here. I take strong exception to this, and challenge you to show us the posts I have made that fit any of your characterizations. Don't claim to worry about calling out a member, you have called me and many other innocent people out, although cleverly, and only by inference and implication, and insinuation and hints. I accept being called out and will not complain. I would ask you to now take responsibility for the intentions of your remarks, and back up your charges here or withdraw them.

Then you say that the thoughtful posters are somehow responsible for irresponsible posters, because somehow the irresponsible ones "latch themselves to the more thoughtful posters" and that "those posters do little to nothing to distance themselves from such notions, and the association is then made."

No. YOU are making the association. It is called guilt by association, and is abominable.

You've been in some of the threads.

It wasn't *you* saying that, but you've been in the threads.

OnEdit: There's an active thread *right now* where someone posted the today's crash wiped them out, and another poster responded by telling them they were better off. (Edited to remove inflammatory opinion of such comments.)

And yes, that's a paraphrase because I do happen to follow the rules here and have no desire to get into a pissing match about this. The only people that don't know this is taking place either seem to be intentionally ignoring it or silently agreeing with it.

I respect you, always read your posts with care and consideration, and I think you know that while I can be assertive and argumentative, I don't engage in personal attacks. So, yes, I know that it wasn't me you are talking about - although you then qualify your reassurance that you weren't attacking me by saying "but you've been in the threads." And what would that make me guilty of? You crafted your post very carefully in such a way that the smear you are making can be construed to apply to all opponents of the bail out. Was that an accident? Need I rewrite it from the opposite point of view? You would, I believe, under those circumstances object to it just as much as I am objecting to it now.

Roy, I have to take strong exception to your post here. I hope you will discuss it and reconsider your approach.

Please show me where anyone has said "let it burn" on a thread I have participated in, and I will immediately respond to them and object to that. I don't believe that I can be faulted because people respond positively to the things I post - if more people do, I don't think that means that people are "piling on" - and I don't believe I can be held responsible for the behavior of every person who posts on a thread I am participating on.

I deserved that.

I've been far more abrasive today than I normally am, and I guess I just need to go take a cold shower or something. I saw a lot of things happen today that affect me and people close to me (none of whom are wealthy by any stretch of the imagination) personally, and even the hint that there are those that think this meltdown is overall good for us just burns me to my core. I also grew up with a grandmother who lived through the Depression and "credited" the deaths of four of her siblings to the horrific conditions in which she and her family lived.

In any case, the implication you highlight was, in fact, accidental. When I say you were in the threads I simply mean you were posting in some of the threads in which the kind of thing has been said and assumed you would notice it. I was taken aback at your saying you had not. And I overreacted to that.

"Let it burn" has now become a euphemism, I will admit. I did in fact see someone say that very thing, I think on four days ago. Maybe three. It's all starting to blur now. It's been repeated so often now, searching just for that phrase is pointless. I can't find it and don't remember who it was. At the time I brushed it off as an outlier of opinion before I started seeing similar comments, even if they weren't quite that spectacular. The more typical comment has become something like "who cares" or a rather disingenuous question posed yesterday about the real effects on people not invested in Wall Street directly and a subsequent follow-up, after some rather dire but realistic predictions were offered, that this person thought all of that was just fine because it would not affect them. Follow-ups then included even more inflammatory comments suggesting that people who have exposed themselves to any kind of risk from this economy were simply dumb and deserve what they get.

No one is unexposed.

In any case, to clarify something, I am sincere in saying that I can fully appreciate the reasons many people opposed this bill. I had a discussion with someone last night who was even more adamantly opposed than you are, if that's possible, and I believe he made a number of good points. *I* didn't "support" the bill in all its glory. But, I recognize we are rapidly running out of time. Bush's "cry wolf" strategy is biting us in the ass because, as someone else said, there really is a wolf at the door, and he's hungry. We *must* figure out some way of fighting him, or we are screwed, and my view of the bill was that it was a far less than perfect stop-gap that would allow Obama and a new Congress to take office and set about addressing the real problems.

Again, my apologies.

We are not enemies. We must pull together. People are frightened, upset, and with good reason. They are lashing out in fear and desperation and anger.

Eveything you say here is true and has tremendous value. I agree with every word you wrote. Of course we are all at risk. It is no joking matter.

I appreciate your point that people are making callous and insensitive remarks that have no place in the dicsussion. I will be more alert to that, and challenge it when I see it.

It is the rare person who can admit an error. I admire this so much, and I believe that the character you have shown us here is what will be needed in the coming days. You have set a high standard for us all to aspire to.

In short, when I grow up I want to be just like RoyGBiv.

Heartfelt thanks.

As I said originally, we can disagree on the means. But what I've been witnessing in the past few days -- and not just here -- strikes me as the beginnings of a breakdown of any attempt at solidarity. (And as I type that, it strikes me that this may in fact be the whole point of the right-wing strategy here.) Between those who say it doesn't matter and those who say it matters so much that would should happily throw away standard accountability there is the vast middle that either doesn't know, has a soft opinion one way or the other, or a hard opinion one way or the other that still accounts for disagreement, but we're being pulled in so many directions at once it is hard to get a footing and know where we're at or what we think, much less where we're going.

My best friend is in complete denial, and it's become a challenge to me to try even to communicate with her when she discusses her finances and how much better off she will be next year when I know for a fact that the major source of her funding is tied inexorably to a liquid credit market. From afar, I'm watching her not even acknowledge a problem exists and plan her life around income that very well may not be there come January. And what then? I don't know. Another friend saw his total net worth drop into the negative in one day and his 13 years of employment with the same company threatened with a sudden memo about reorganization due to uncertainties about whether that company will be employing anyone as of October 1 ... day after tomorrow.

And *they* fight with each other over what should be done or could be done or whose responsibility it is, and they both argue with me about what caused it.

It's the most unnerving national event I have experienced already, and it's barely started. 9/11 and the fistfight I broke up in a parking lot seems like child's play by comparison.

I think I'm rambling.

I appreciate your being gracious about the apology, but you may want to reconsider being just like me. I'm sitting here with a bag of potato chips and a cat trying to figure out what I did with my other slipper. (I'm sure the cat hid it somewhere as a joke. He likes jokes. Funny cat.) I'm not sure I can recommend that existence to others. :-)

Anyway ... take care. As you say, we'll get there. I haven't lost hope; I'm just pissed and frankly don't entirely know who to be pissed at. I didn't exactly need more motivation to get Obama and the rest of the adults in office, but I got it anyway. I will not let my country be sold down the sewer to these bastards.

"I'm sitting here with a bag of potato chips and a cat trying to figure out what I did with my other slipper."

Hey! It is worse here! The cat has wandered off and I can't find her, I am out of potato chips, and my slippers fell apart a month ago or so and I have given up on them.

You say that your best friend is in denial about this, and I fear that many are. It is good that you are bringing this to our attention. Hard times are coming. There may not be any way to avoid that. I see why the "let it fall" sentiments anger you.

I don't think that the so-called "let it fall" people are as much of a terrible danger as they are being portrayed as being, nor as hard-headed or unreasonable - of course I am sympathetic to them and so may be influenced by my bias.

Working in farm country, and before that living for decades in a poor neighborhood in Detroit, I don't ever talk to anyone who is in this kind of denial, and hearing people say "let it fall" is an everyday occurrence and has been for years. After all, the rest of society has been saying "let it fall" to them when it comes to the things they need all along. Few have objected to that. What they mean is that they aren't being heard, have no stake, have no friends in the circles of the powerful, and are willing to risk things getting worse because the way things are is so intolerable and wrong. We can say that they "shouldn't" be so rude and uncivilized and obnoxious, but being chipper and optimistic and upbeat is a lot easier for those who have been having things pretty good all along.

So the people I speak to are not saying "let it fall" because they are in denial as to how that might affect them, but because they already have no stake and all other means to be heard or to get justice have failed, and because the people who have a stake in the system have been saying "let it fall" to them about everything they need and depend upon.

Alabama song ...

"Somebody told us Wall Street fell/
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell."

I've lived in the city too long. I grew up in a hamlet of about 200 people, moved to the "city" with around 15,000 people where I lived for 30 years and now live in the fourth largest city in the nation, and I think every damn one of them drives the same road I do to work every day.

But I digress.

The point of the Alabama lyric is to acknowledge that now, like then, there are sectors of the economy and areas of the country that have been in an almost perpetual recession if not outright depression for quite some time. This is why I left the small town in the first place, looking for something more, forgetting my training in history that lets me know it'll catch up eventually no matter where I go. But now that I'm here, I've lost touch with what the people in that town live with day in and day out. There was a depressed housing market and a credit crisis where I came from when I left it 8 or 9 years ago, and we dealt with it ... not happily, but we dealt with it.

Maybe that, to some extent, is what I see with the "who cares" and "let it fail" comments. It's not all of it. There are nihilists among us, and I have little use for them.

Well, I found my slipper. It was momentarily a cat butt pillow, so I was right about that anyway. :-)

Take care.

As you say, there are sectors of the economy and areas of the country that have been in an almost perpetual recession if not outright depression for quite some time.

What could be worse than a Great Depression?

Many Americans cannot imagine anything worse. But if the entire population was consigned to the existence that too many are already living, permanently, and there was no hope of ever escaping that, it would be much worse than a Great Depression. In much of the world, people are living that sort of permanent Great Depression and are in despair and without hope.

We think of the Great Depression as the most terrible thing imaginable because we have better times to compare it to. Many people in the world would trade what they have now for a Great Depression, because at least they would have a chance to fight their way out of that, and they are now trapped in a never-ending depression.

That is what many of us who oppose the bailout fear.

Yes, there are some nihilists among us. I will kick their butts from here on out when I see them lol. I don't see that much in farm country, because here it is pitch in and cooperate and get along or be an outcast and go hungry. Immediate feedback, and a strong shared ethic of cooperation and self-sacrifice.

I'm not a member of the "Let it burn" crowd, but this was bad legislation. It deserved to die.

My only moral crisis was that I would up siding with House Republicans...

and i don't want anyone to suffer.

You're either with them or against them.

Also, a lot of people here are reflexively loyal to the Democratic party leadership and will repeat whatever argument is needed for it.

WHY do you hate America? :sarcasm:

I've heard economists I respect argue both sides of the coin and it leaves me, very much a non-economist, on the fence. Believe me, that's a very unusual place for me to be!

What I have objected to is the nastiness around here lately. Too many people have told me and others that they wish we'd crash and burn because we do have retirement accounts we're worried about and, yeah, many of those are at least partially invested in stocks. That, for me, is just beyond the pale. From what I've read here, these aren't for the most part huge accounts and they're the result of saving over decades of hard work just like the people you know. Just spend a little time reading what SOME of the anti-bailout people have been saying and you'll see what I mean. I welcome the reasoned posts on both sides of the argument and have been reading with great interest those who appear to know their economics and it hasn't mattered which perspective they've offered -- I'm reading to learn and decide. Or just learn.

Opposing the bailout -- go for it! As I said, I'm learning from those who do and have a good understanding of the issues. Same goes for the other side. I just wish the nastiness would stop. I know some people dismiss it as typical forum stuff -- I don't. It's gotten really ugly around here lately.

There are many alternatives besides handing Goldman Sachs a $700 billion line of tax payer credit to overpay for Wall Street's bad assets as it pleases with no real oversight.

hate Oregonians and North Carolinians
it's not about jobs, but it's the same tremendous fallacy