"The alternative plan allocates less public money and relies more on tax breaks, lifting regulatory barriers and using less bailout-oriented mechanisms to free up capital and credit. It also seeks to create a privately funded mechanism to ensure mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.
This sounds very good to me, however, at this point, I still feel unqualified to comment intelligently. My sensibilities however tend towards less government intervention, as in the video below:
THURSDAY: We may be victims of Wall Street greed — but not quite innocent victims.---Victor Davis Hanson writing today at NRO.
At the moment I, like every American, feel like a spectator to two mega dramas now unfolding: the great economic meltdown of 2008 and the presidential dogfight of epic proportions. Somehow they seem inexorably connected.
It's rare I have no opinion on something, but tonight after hearing President Bush speak on the 'bailout' (it's not really a permanent bailout, but a buy up, hold and resale of iffy mortgages so credit doesn't dry up to you and me) followed by numerous talking heads, pro and con (Newt being the most vociferous con opposed to the $70 billion plan), I honestly don't know what I think. It remains to be seen how much of this sense of urgency is being conjured up by the Administration led by Treasury Nanny Hank Paulson for quick passage with no conditions, and how much is truly a dire warning of impeding meltdown. I mean, only 5% of all mortgages are sub prime and so for me, it seems this could be over-stated a bit.
Sub-prime mortgages---first pushed by Congress and cheap money in the late 90s, then bought and resold by Fannie and Freddie, then bundled and resold with other products by the likes of Lehman, Bear Sterns ----have spread like bird flu through the global economy and no one knows where the next outbreak will show up, or how lethal it will be. No one can know.
Does anyone grasp how this drama will all play out? Hind sight is always 20/20. It seems the only solid ground to stand on right now is I don't know. Seems prudent for me to just keep watching and see where the chips start to fall. May God help and bless this country.
7 comments:
Over-stated you say? Are you finally beginning to get it?
Words that Bush used tonight like "crisis" ... "danger".... "panic" ... "collapse" ... etc. Yes, over-stated to create FEAR and urgency. Sound familiar?
No, this meeting could not wait until Saturday, call off the debate! You know Bush and McCain planned this together. (When Fox News poll shows Obama up by 6, it's time for a stunt).
Fire Cox, get Palin, call off the first night of the convention, do something! Reactionary political stunts. Not bold, but desperate.
What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough Mr. McCain ? Suspend being president?
This action will have ramifications.
That's your victim rant for the day here.
I was just agreeing with you
Webutante,
IMO, the events already unfolded show this to be a financial crisis without parallel in my lifetime of57 years. The nation's 5 largest investment banking firms are no longer investment banking firms. These firms had survived every previous financial crisis of the 20th century, including the Great Depression.
Wall Street as we have known it for two centuries - independent and free of the government's strict commercial banking regulations - no longer exists. That fact alone should indicate the seriousness of this crisis.
This is not a time for our elected leaders to be worrying about scoring political points. They need to act decisively and quickly to prevent the nation's commercial credit from drying up. Commercial credit hasn't dried up yet only because the Federal Reserve has been flooding the markets with liquidity.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to note that last night we saw the largest bank failure in history. WaMu was much larger than the previous record bank failure - Continental Illinois Bank in 1984 - even if we adjusted asset values for inflation.
These are scary times.
Agreed.....anyone who thinks there will be a quick fix, even with the agreement, surely has another think coming.
Thanks for the link to Hansen. I love his Frankenstein analogy.
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