If you were pro-bailout, how are you feeling about it now?

I'm not berating anyone for being pro-bailout. I'm just curious how you see it in light of the meltdown of world markets. I wasn't against it only because I didn't see how it would work, I was against it because of the way it was shoved through without any hearings or deliberation. Be that as it may, it doesn't look good for this legislation bailing out the financial markets. The economic future looks just as grim as it did before this passed. So are you still convinced this had to be done?

but, I did believe that it would slow down the inevitable. Well respected economists said something was needed.

I knew inflation would follow, and that the crash would come at some point. I wonder what the markets would be doing had it not passed. It could have been worse, I really don't know.

thought it was a bad idea. Also, for all we know, it actually made things worse.

What a mess.

many of which can (and perhaps will) be adopted.

It's also pretty obvious to say that we won't know anything about whether the plan is acheiving its goals with respcet to the credit markets until it actually starts to be implemented.

It's too soon to tell whether it will do any good (or bad) in the long run. I wasn't for it, or exactly against it -- just confused. One thing that confused me a lot is that some really stupid right-wingers like Michelle Bachmann were against it, along with some smart Democrats like Russ Feingold. So I don't know what to think.

I think that the thought that this bailout would immediately cure the economic woes would definitely be naive. The bailout in my opinion was the analogous to turning off the water when we have a busted pipe in the house. It doesn't fix the problem but it does stop the flooding. We are in for a bumpy ride over the next year or so.

60 trillion in swaps by the banks is certainly a problem. I also hope no one is still spouting the line that the economic foundations are sound.

However, I suspect that it will simply allow i-bankers to grab enough loot to pay off their third jet and eighth house.

3 million more jobs than if it was passed. We will lose jobs anyway, but 3 million is too many to risk.

Unfortunately, tens of millions of US jobs are in frivolous "service" industries, things that everyone can and will do without when times are tough.

Starbacks, Krispy Kreme, Cinnabon, all those chain "restaurants" like Applebees - they will be folding up in the boarded-up exurbs like nobody's business. This will be at least as bad as the 1981-82 recession, when 12 million were out of work. I like Warren Buffett, but he's blowing sunshine bubbles on this one.

Which hopefully should trump any slease that McClain will bring up.

Will it work completely and is it perfect? No, not without implementing some other radical triage(as Roubini puts it) and help from the private sector as well (as Roubini puts it http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4168533

If we didn't it would be worse

First I have to agree that since not a single troubled asset has been purchased yet, it's hard to tell what its effect will be. The markets that are crashing are equity markets which are reacting to all sorts of news, not just credit news. The bailout never had the capability of preventing a world wide recession caused by lack of confidence; it had the capacity to prevent a credit freeze which would have made any recession a depression.

Funny thing about that is, that even if it "works," there will be no way of knowing for sure -- other than that we won't be in a 30s style depression.

The bill as passed does not give the Treasury the unfettered power that the initial Paulson plan proposed, nor does it really provide oversight. What it did was punt the political struggles about how to carry out the bailout down the road with more players able to exert informal influence over Paulson/Treasury.

For example, right now, we should be engaged in a struggle as fierce as the struggle some engaged in to prevent the plan from being enacted, and the new struggle should be over (1) who manages the assets, and (2) how the assets are priced.

Last Friday, the NY Times reported that Paulson was trying to contract out management of the bailout to private investment banks and asset managers at extraordinary costs to the taxpayer.

It seems to me the most logical asset manager for this program should be the two biggest, most experienced mortgage backed securities asset managers ever -- that happen to be the two we purchased/nationalized a few weeks ago -- Fannie and Freddie. That way, not only do we get institutions with comparatively low cost/high expertise, but all the fees that will be paid will prop up our own government investment in Fannie and Freddie ownership -- the first chance to earn profits for the taxpayer. But that's not as sexy a struggle as saying "let it collapse" or "they're about to steal $700 billion!"

it's going to fail. A decade of bad economics cannot be bought away in one great cash flinging act of desperation.

Who put it in the bill?

It seems that the overwhelming majority of DUers have no clue how Congress works. This pork didn't just appear for this bill. It was already cued up and ready to go, but had to be attached to some other bill.

It jumped the line and was attached to the bailout in order to win a few votes but was going to get passed anyway.

Look at most legislation, and you will see all kinds of crap added to the major bill which is just a vehicle for passing minor stuff that was already in the queue.

must we make a judgment in just a couple of days? (Aside from being the first to say "I told you so..."?)

Yeah, world markets are going nuts right now, but things haven't played out yet.

Come back in a few months and ask.

... it was going to save the economy immediately?

There are SO many other things going on. First off, the money doesn't get into the right hands for at LEAST 2-4 weeks.

Second, factory production and unemployment reports just came out Friday, and they were bad.

Third, World Markets are struggling.

AND finally, the bailout wasn't going to save us all and make the economy grand. It was ONLY aimed at slowing down the free-fall in the CREDIT markets.

Just passing it means nothing, it still has to be implemented. We can only hope that we can stave off complete economic disaster long enough for our party to get a better grip on government.

but did think almost anything was better than doing nothing at all. I think this particular bailout was only one step above nothing-at-all, however.

I'm still convinced something had to be done; but I think it should have been done LONG ago, pro-actively, and not reactively in a rush. There were plenty of signs IMO that the banks were not regulated nearly enough (that goes as much for post-Thatcher Britain as for America) and that things could easily end up going wrong.

I still hope that the world can avoid massive economic disaster, and end up with far tighter regulations on Big Money and the banks.

within such a short time frame.

Furthermore, it's also impossible to tell how much worse the situation could be had it not passed.

after its actually been implemented. I was in favor of action being taken, not necessarily this bailout. If the situation wasn't so severe, seeing all these posts claiming the bailout failed before it even was implemented would be comical. People don't like it because its a huge F*ck you very much to the American Tax payers.. Wall Street doesn't like it because it ties their hands on specific things.. we will see who gets shafted the most in the end I guess.

The tax payer will get shafted the most.

One can hope though! :D

Nothing is very clear to me right now. Down is up and up is down. while I do not think the state of things will mirror the great depression, we are most definitely in very rough waters with no signs of the shore for some time to come.

I hope things are going well for you and your family, as my thoughts go out to everyone else here during this time. :hug: