Lets say this bill failed to pass. Sure, you might agree with the reasons for various folks to vote against it. Then, however, look at your predictions about the stock market and the dollar on passage, and recognize that with no bill, those same manipulative interests would take the markets the other way, particularly since it seems to be the general assumption that MONDAY is D-Day. Monday with no Bill is a really really ugly day on the market, and suddenly people who had previously believed that nothing should be done, will be pounding on their representative’s door to save them.
I have to wonder what it was that Paulson / Bernanke said to GW and Congressional leaders about what was coming.
The last time public input to congress ran anywhere close to the opposition expressed to the Bailout plan (and it’s a distant second) was during the deliberation phase of the Iraqi war resolution in the fall of 2002.
I went eye-to-eye with my congressman of the time, a scary bastard whose prior claim to fame was running the infamous torture prison in Vietnam under the Operation Phoenix program, and called him a liar for saying the he had top secret irrefutable proof that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US due to its WMDs.
I had read all of the UN reports on the subject and knew that what he claimed was impossible and told him so. Probably not the smartest move of my life, but I don’t see any particular reason to let people get away with bald-faced lying. I can still recall the look of pure venom he had for being questioned by a ‘nobody’.
The public was absolutely right then too but, as now, congress felt itself above the will of the electorate and in possession of better information that required "bold leadership" and "doing the right thing".
Of course, that all turned out to be wrong and the "little people" turned out to be completely right.
This time congress will turn out to be even more spectacularly wrong.
Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. Either the will of the collective is smarter than the individual or it is not.
But let’s at least be honest with ourselves here; we do not have a democracy.
Not when public opposition is running better than 100:1 against something that gets decided over a single weekend.
Yes, but I just wonder what else they would say - that everything predicted is now coming to pass?
Does it seem reasonable to assume that it is far too late to change all this? After all, anyone who COULD vote, for example, to issue REAL U.S. currency to replace fiat Fed Bank money, would never do so because they are all bought and paid for too. And, it should also be pretty clear, from the past, that anyone who speaks out against the present system will, sooner or later, be simply killed.
Still looking for a place to live where World Bank tentacles do not extend yet.
Ben
Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, who would normally be his party’s point man.
Pressed about his role, Mr. Shelby replied, “My position is ‘No.’ ”
That’s a name I want to remember. This is the good guy.
hard to disagree w/ complaint core: having said that, WHY is everyone dumping ONLY on Frank, Pelosi, et al; HOW about Hanke-Panke Paulson and Bush League; they KNEW this was coming ------had HOPED to stall and let new prez. handle—(thus saving them the stressed out legacy)----Bottom line-----the future was coming toooo fast and they could not hold their finger in the dike any longer----------these 2, and Greenspan and Phil Gramm were HUGE in causing this—(and Mccain would prob. pick Gramm as his replacement for Paulson---------wheee-----
People of USA can have their say over this shameless act - pull your money out of the foony banks, stop paying your morgage. Show your civil unrest - refuse to be enslaved by the banksters. Stop voting - do not accept politicians payed by the banks. You always have a choice!
Proponents of the new House plan say it should be palatable to critics of
any perceived bailout because both investors and borrowers would take a loss.
Banks and investors who hold those mortgages — often in complex mortgage
securities — would be required to write-down their value, while homeowners
would have their loans refinanced into more affordable ones.
It appears that a TARP was not enough to cover up the
mortgage crisis. Endangered mortgage homeowners could not benefit from the kind
of credit repair scores presented by Treasury Secretary
Paulson’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. On the contrary, 1.5
million homeowners can obtain a sense of security when they’re facing
foreclosure through the Federal Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair’s new
mortgage modification program. This straightforward system, a $24.4 billion
program drawn from the $700 billion pool that TARP set up,
will allow lenders a stipend of $1,000 per loan they renegotiate with
financially stuck homeowners. In the event of default on a loan, the FDIC
has pledged to take on up to 50 percent of the loss. While Paulson proclaims
this as a mere spending that will only bankrupt the FDIC, many
view Bair’s movement as a needed investment to maintain the liquidity in the
mortgage industry. While this won’t solve all the problems immediately, it’s
certainly a bold effort to help repair credit.