On Demand
A Closer Look at the Bailout Plan
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, says the bailout must include help for ordinary working Americans.
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I'd like to know who is going to jail.
How about this: the executive officers and directors of any company accepting a federal bailout must agree to sign a confession of wrongdoing and/or incompetence.
September 24, 2008 - 10:04AM
Scenario 1:
Banks get a trillion dollars -- and bankruptcy courts enable homeowners to reduce their home prices, probably by half, in court.
This of course sticks banks with a trillion or more in evaporated accounts receivable.
Scenario 2:
US Govt. does neither.
Preference?
Give every company that takes bailout money two choices: All senior executives must either resign with zero compensation OR have their salary lowered to their equivalent govt pay grade.
Could you ask Mr. Cantor his thought on a concept I've seen flogged to death on the Internet?
Is the Community Reinvestment Act responsible for today's difficulties because banks were "forced to write mortgages to poor people who could not afford them?"
Thanks!
I don't understand why we should bail out irresponsible citizens who took out mortgages on homes that were clearly beyond their means. It only punishes the responsible citizens who rented homes because they knew they couldn't afford to buy.
I find that just as egregious as the greed on Wall Street.
"In America, the only respectable form of socialism is socialism for the rich."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
What is the guests opinion about the New York Times article, written yesterday, about how Sweden responded to a similar crisis in '92? Is it a reasonable solution to our current crisis?
Who is this guy? Is he an economist? He sounds like a Communist.
This is not a result of Banking Deregulation, or High salaries - this is a result of the GOVERNMENT telling Banks that they had to start lending to people who they didn't want to lend to - the people who did not have good credit. So they tried to create a way to spread the risk - mortgage backed securities. It got crazy because GOVERNMENT programs to create the housing, sell the housing to people who couldn't afford it, and get them mortgages they couldn't afford, pushed the Bankers to keep going.
"Made whole" in the legal/financial context = compensated, paid back, i.e., the taxpayers would get their money back.
the phrase "being made whole" i think has more to do with the people haveing their situation adressed so as to remove the injustice of this whole dishonest mess.
Yesterday, on NPRs Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed NY Times financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson who says that a crisis will occur even if the bailout DOES occur, so Paulson's argument is meaningless.
@ Dan,
Do you know what a CDO is?
Investment banks weren't "forced" to mix these bad motrgages in with less risky debt and sell them together as securities. Nor were the ratings agencies "forced" to rate these CDOs as quality securities.
McCain Aide's Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac
One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years.
When will they stop harping on the so-called 'drive to increase homeownership' that led to all these bad mortgages? It was not a drive to get people into their own homes- it was a drive to get people to take on debt. The asset on which the debt was supposedly based had nothing to do with it- could be a new SUV, credit card purchases, whatever. Mortgages were simply a more efficient means to get people in debt because the amounts/values are so large.
A guy commented "Who is going to jaiL?" Well, it should be one of the worst jails this country can supply- A PRIVATE PRISON! No special treatment for THE SUIT. The higher up on the ladder the better (we don't want little dopey people-we want THE HAMPTONS-MARTHA'S VINEYARD!)
It's also about the right time to end this ANTI-SOCIALISM/ANTI-LIBERAL RUSH LIMBAUGH crap! Wait until you hear how he and his minions try to scramble this into "We were only doing it for people-wah!" And those Democrats like the Clintons-NAFTA BACK-STABBERS towards American workers.
$20,000 a week? I make $20,000 a year! I don't do a lot of splurging but I live a comfortable life.
I think I could live on $20,000 a week.
I'd give some of that to some of my friends to car e for their children with special needs, in a trust, so that it wouldn't be abused.
come on, who needs that kind of money! After awhile, the new dress or the 14th car doesn't give your the same thrill.
I think to cap it at what the President makes is a good idea.
The deregulation is not the problem; the rules of allowing users to borrow are the issue. Grouping and reselling of loans, serialization allows banks to offset bad loans with better loans and let companies specializing in collections work their best effort. Everyone works to their strengths. Unfortunately, rules allowed many to get into home they could not afford, but legally and by the rules.
I cannot believe Brian Lehrer just repeated the Right Wing meme that it was loans to all those poor (read undeserving) people which "caused" all this mess!!! The law was that people who could meet the standards of a loan be allowed to get a loan and not be "redlined." Remember redlining?
No, it's the financial sector realizing they could sell anyone anything, tell them that in two years they would have so much equity they would "just" refinance, and then the Master of the Universe went off and sold the same mortgage over and over and over in different forms. Each sale earning beaucoup bucks for the seller--and the last buyer is the chump. And they were unregulated, unscrutinized--some unscrupulous.
It was a Ponzi scheme.
But, the MCM (mainstream corporate media) tells the tale of the powerful, except for those few intrepid reporter/investigators who really dig--and, if they make the newspaper pager pages at all, it's way at the back of some lesser read section.
And, alas, even our intrepid public radio personnel are influenced by the MCMers' incessant telling of the tale of the powerful
This is reminding me so much of the run-up to the Iraq Invasion--the truth is there, it's even been reported by some, but the truth gets told once, then is lost in the din of MCMers' all saying much the same thing.
Help! I want a real free press!
All of this is complicated but everyone should follow what the make up of this bailout will be. The Treasury will get the $700 billion because the credit markets must be eased. BUT in a year's time do you want to be dealing with the inevitable recession, the inflation that this $700 billion will instigate while watching the CEOs of the bailed out companies make the same amount they made before this disaster. They have to feel the pain just like everyone else.
And where is Gretchen Morgenson appearing, other than on Bill Moyers' Journal and Fresh Air?
Bless Terry Gross.
To reiterate: The MCM (mainstream corporate media) tells the tale of the powerful. There are some great reporters, brave investigators. They do not get the same PR as those who curry power.
There's that incredible duo from, oh, one of the Phillie newspapers-- (mayber they're no longer employed there? All those cutbacks--get rid of the ones who speak truth to power?) --who wrote about how the tax system has been controlled by powerful and gamed to benefit them, not the mass of tax payers.
There was the report on NPR's ATC, in the fall of 2002, which pointed out that scientists and experts from the AEC said the aluminum tubes which the WH said were definitely designed to be used to make weapons grade uranium were nothing of the sort. They simply were not tooled the right size or thickness. Didn't matter--even on NPR I seldom heard about that rebuttal after the Iraq Invasion gained momentum.
It's not that truth and facts are not reported; it's that they get buried or ignored.
Sorta like those Downing Street Memos.
And I do understand that public radio needs to receive it's corporate grants. I love WNYC--but it could do better.
Hey, how about having Amy Goodman on?
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