b,121on a personal level, should we be taking any precautionary measures? take money out the bank, invest in chinese curency, stockpile weapons and canned food, etc.
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b,121and i really appreciate the layman explanations and general discussion. REALSTRUT2008
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font class="post"1b,121b,121In my opinion? No. Things are bad relative to how they were, say, a month ago or a year ago, but they're not bad enough to start going all survivalist. b,121b,121I'd sit tight, try not to panic and don't try to get credit for anything!
b,121on a personal level, should we be taking any precautionary measures? take money out the bank, invest in chinese curency, stockpile weapons and canned food, etc.
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b,121and i really appreciate the layman explanations and general discussion. REALSTRUT2008
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b,121In my opinion? No. Things are bad relative to how they were, say, a month ago or a year ago, but they're not bad enough to start going all survivalist.
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b,121I'd sit tight, try not to panic and don't try to get credit for anything!
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Make a baby, in a few years it will take care of you when shit really hits the fan.b,121And keep your work indispensable so that you are not a victim of the swaying market economy.
font class="post"1b,121b,121I don't see how you'd be screwed unless you know that in the next few months/year your interest rate is going to skyrocket. b,121b,121Basically, you won't likely be able to get a better re-finance deal until this stuff is over. But if you are in a decent fixed rate mortgage, and not trying to move anytime soon, you should be fine.
b,121It's only Monday, the Bill will ultimately be passed. Mark my words.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121I heard that Congress won't re-convene until Thursday. Is this true? If so, it's good-bye economy unless there's a (a la 9/12/01) market holiday.b,121b,121Concerns:b,121b,121b,121??? Will the US economy's insolidity lead to the Euro replacing it as the international standard?b,121b,121??? Are Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase taking on too much bad credit at once?b,121b,121??? Should I lower the % of my paycheck going into my 401(k)?
b,12156 billion = health care for 16 million people
b,12156 billion = 58 million homes w/renewable electricity
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b,121Kick me if I'm wrong, but isn't that called socialism?
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b,121Sure. So what?
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b,121Public education is socialized in most industrialized countries - anyone want to take issue with that? We socialize so many things - no one calls it socialism until they want to bash it.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121The idea of the $700b bail out is to keep the capitalist dream alive! Considering the peanuts responsible for this debarkle are going to get away unscathed, I agree with what you were originally getting at. b,121b,121b,121the question you gotta also look at is, with the gvt taking such large interests in the financial sector, what are they going to do differently? more checks, balances and bureaucracy? b,121b,121
b,121 what are they going to do differently? more checks, balances and bureaucracy?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121LOL. not by what ive been hearing. sounds like the republicans were absolutely refusing to go along with any provision protecting common folk. this is going to be a fatcat bailout when all is said and done.mother fuckersb,121b,121 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/f-u.gif" alt="" /1
b,121 what are they going to do differently? more checks, balances and bureaucracy?
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b,121LOL. not by what ive been hearing. sounds like the republicans were absolutely refusing to go along with any provision protecting common folk. this is going to be a fatcat bailout when all is said and done.mother fuckers
font class="post"1b,121b,121That's not my understanding. "Word on the street" is that most of the Republicans who voted against the bailout opposed it on ideological grounds - they saw it as irresponsible for the gov't to be spending taxpayer dollars to save Wall St. b,121b,121Democrats who voted nay don't trust the Bush admin with that kind of $$$ and, like the GOP, are pissed off at Wall St. for f*cking everyone's shit up. We'll see what happens later this week.
ok. ihadnt read anything...just hearing people talk. as usual, soulstrut is my most reliable source of the truthb,121b,121 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /1b,121b,121b,121but people should still get prison or guillotine over this
b,121I don't see how you'd be screwed unless you know that in the next few months/year your interest rate is going to skyrocket.
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b,121Basically, you won't likely be able to get a better re-finance deal until this stuff is over. But if you are in a decent fixed rate mortgage, and not trying to move anytime soon, you should be fine.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Be thankful you weren't buying a home in the early 80s. Interest rate of 18%!
b,121It's only Monday, the Bill will ultimately be passed. Mark my words.
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b,121I heard that Congress won't re-convene until Thursday. Is this true? If so, it's good-bye economy unless there's a (
a la 9/12/01) market holiday.b,121 b,121b,121h,121
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b,121Rosh Hashanah, bro.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121I'm agnostic. How does this help me? img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /1b,121b,121b,121Repeated concerns:b,121b,121b,121??? Will the US economy's insolidity lead to the Euro replacing it as the international standard?b,121b,121??? Are Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase taking on too much bad credit at once?b,121b,121??? Should I lower the % of my paycheck going into my 401(k)?
b,121??? Are Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase taking on too much bad credit at once?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121I work for one of the above companies. The amount of propaganda we've been receiving is substantial/convincing. I'd like to think they've thought it through.
b,121 this is going to be a fatcat bailout when all is said and done
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b,121George Monbiot:
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b,121According to Senator Jim Bunning, the proposal to purchase $700bn of dodgy debt by the US government was "financial socialism, it is un-American". The economics professor Nouriel Roubini called George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America". Bill Perkins, the venture capitalist who took out an ad in the New York Times attacking the plan, called it "trickle-down communism".
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b,121They are wrong. Any subsidies eventually given to the monster banks of Wall Street will be as American as apple pie and obesity. The sums demanded may be unprecedented, but there is nothing new about the principle: corporate welfare is a consistent feature of advanced capitalism. Only one thing has changed: Congress has been forced to confront its contradictions.
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b,121One of the best studies of corporate welfare in the US is published by my old enemies at the Cato Institute. Its report, by Stephen Slivinski, estimates that in 2006 the federal government spent $92bn subsidising business. Much of it went to major corporations such as Boeing, IBM and General Electric.
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b,121The biggest money crop - $21bn - is harvested by Big Farmer. Slivinski shows that the richest 10% of subsidised farmers took 66% of the payouts. Every few years, Congress or the administration promises to stop this swindle, then hands even more state money to agribusiness. The farm bill passed by Congress in May guarantees farmers a minimum of 90% of the income they've received over the past two years, which happen to be among the most profitable they've ever had. The middlemen do even better, especially the companies spreading starvation by turning maize into ethanol, which are guzzling billions of dollars' worth of tax credits.
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b,121Slivinski shows how the federal government's Advanced Technology Program, which was supposed to support the development of technologies that are "pre-competitive" or "high risk", has instead been captured by big businesses flogging proven products. Since 1991, companies such as IBM, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Caterpillar, Ford, DuPont, General Motors, Chevron and Monsanto have extracted hundreds of millions from this programme. Big business is also underwritten by the Export-Import Bank: in 2006, for example, Boeing alone received $4.5bn in loan guarantees.
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b,121The government runs something called the Foreign Military Financing programme, which gives money to other countries to purchase weaponry from US corporations. It doles out grants to airports for building runways and to fishing companies to help them wipe out endangered stocks.
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b,121But the Cato Institute's report has exposed only part of the corporate welfare scandal. A new paper by the US Institute for Policy Studies shows that, through a series of cunning tax and accounting loopholes, the US spends $20bn a year subsidising executive pay. By disguising their professional fees as capital gains rather than income, for example, the managers of hedge funds and private equity companies pay lower rates of tax than the people who clean their offices. A year ago, the House of Representatives tried to close this loophole, but the bill was blocked in the Senate after a lobbying campaign by some of the richest men in America.
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b,121Another report, by a group called Good Jobs First, reveals that Wal-Mart has received at least $1bn of public money. Over 90% of its distribution centres and many of its retail outlets have been subsidised by county and local governments. They give the chain free land, they pay for the roads, water and sewerage required to make that land usable, and they grant it property tax breaks and subsidies (called tax increment financing) originally intended to regenerate depressed communities. Sometimes state governments give the firm straight cash as well: in Virginia, for example, Wal-Mart's distribution centres receive handouts from the Governor's Opportunity Fund.
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b,121Corporate welfare is arguably the core business of some government departments. Many of the Pentagon's programmes deliver benefits only to its contractors. Ballistic missile defence, for example, which has no obvious strategic purpose and is unlikely ever to work, has already cost the US between $120bn and $150bn. The US is unique among major donors in insisting that the food it offers in aid is produced on its own soil, rather than in the regions it is meant to be helping. USAid used to boast on its website that "the principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the USAid's contracts and grants go directly to American firms." There is not and has never been a free market in the US.
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b,121Why not? Because the congressmen and women now railing against financial socialism depend for their re-election on the companies they subsidise. The legal bribes paid by these businesses deliver two short-term benefits for them. The first is that they prevent proper regulation, allowing them to make spectacular profits and to generate disasters of the kind Congress is now confronting. The second is that public money that should be used to help the poorest is instead diverted into the pockets of the rich.
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b,121A report published last week by the advocacy group Common Cause shows how bankers and brokers stopped legislators banning unsustainable lending. Over the past financial year, the big banks spent $49m on lobbying and $7m in direct campaign contributions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent $180m in lobbying and campaign finance over the past eight years. Much of this was thrown at members of the House financial services committee and the Senate banking committee.
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b,121Whenever congressmen tried to rein in the banks and mortgage lenders they were blocked by the banks' money. Dick Durbin's 2005 amendment seeking to stop predatory mortgage lending, for example, was defeated in the Senate by 58 to 40. The former representative Jim Leach proposed re-regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their lobbyists, he recalls, managed in "less than 48 hours to orchestrate both parties' leadership" to crush his amendments.
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b,121The money these firms spend buys the socialisation of financial risk. The $700bn the government was looking for was just one of the public costs of its repeated failure to regulate. Even now the lobbying power of the banks has been making itself felt: on Saturday the Democrats watered down their demand that the money earned by executives of companies rescued by the government be capped. Campaign finance is the best investment a corporation can make. You give a million dollars to the right man and reap a billion dollars' worth of state protection, tax breaks and subsidies. When the same thing happens in Africa we call it corruption.
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b,121European governments are no better. The free market economics they proclaim are a con: they intervene repeatedly on behalf of the rich, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Just as in the US, the bosses of farm companies, oil drillers, supermarkets and banks capture the funds extracted by government from the pockets of people much poorer than themselves. Taxpayers everywhere should be asking the same question: why the hell should we be supporting them?
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
That's fairly typical Monbiot riffing, but he makes a lot of valid points nonetheless.b,121b,121Dude who described the bailout as "trickle-down communism" = img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/melt.gif" alt="" /1 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/melt.gif" alt="" /1 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/melt.gif" alt="" /1 b,121b,121Why isn't that dude in a rubber room somewhere? That is just f*cking insane. Even if it were true, if it works as efficiently as trickle-down economics, then the US should be able to declare itself a worker's state at some point in the late 50th century.
b,121??? Will the US economy's insolidity lead to the Euro replacing it as the international standard?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Luck,b,121b,121I am not a financial adviser, nor lawyer. b,121b,121This is the bitch of the current situation, its hard to answer your questions because so much is up in the air. Frankly, unless Congress gets off its ass and explains why their plan is critical for the economy in terms that the general public can understand and support we are going to be slippin' into economic darkness.b,121b,1211) Right now oil is purchased with dollars and that is the international standard. If OPEC flips to the Euro, we are in trouble. But if they do that it will be patently obvious that the dollar is tanking hard anyway. That all presupposes that our sliding economy doesn't take international currency markets with them.b,121b,1212) There is a limit to what debt those three banks (and Wells Fargo and some international banks) can take on. Right now they get some prime assets at fire sale prices. I was reading the other day that the CEO of JP Morgan Chase said that there is risk for his company in taking on WaMu, the economy could tank so bad that it drags his company down, but it wasn't reckless risk. I am pretty sure that if economy is bad enough to take down JP Morgan Chase, we have bigger problems to deal with.b,121b,1213) The last question is a two edged sword. It depends on how your 401K is invested. The fact is that your dollars buy more when the market is down, which means when the market swings back up you gain way more in return. But you have to be in it for the long term. This doesn't mean a thing if the 401K program is poorly invested. So, really to understand your own risk, you need to consult someone who knows the market and can guide you through your options.b,121b,121I hope this helps a little.
b,121Unless you are getting ready to retire in the next few years you should be alright.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121b,121"Q. Is any investment truly safe right now?b,121b,121A. As long as you trust the United States government, sure."b,121b,121DOH!
Dark Knight Bailout...b,121b,121object width="425" height="344"1param name="movie" value=""1/param1param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"1/param1embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"1/embed1/object1b,121b,121Pretty good, a little shaky when the Joker enters the room...
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