Monday, September 22, 2008

Bail-Out Overview

Let us be perfectly clear: somewhere between $700 billion and &1.8 trillion of your tax dollars are going to bail out companies that are in trouble because the rich smart men who ran them made bad decisions. Bad decisions they could make because they were not regulated -- there was no oversight. There was no oversight because they insisted oversight would hurt the economy.

I'm betting it wouldn't have hurt it $700 billion worth.

Those rich smart men will now retire with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, while you pay for their mess. For bonus points, the text of the bailout act states that there is no oversight over the funds being distributed. Which, as we've seen, works out so well.

In the past, capitalism punished bad decisions. No longer. So, we can socialize the national banking system, but not health care. Aces.

For some historical context (admittedly partisan in analysis, but the facts of record are all accurate).

For the Very Simple Explanation of what exactly happened in a way you can explain to your Grandma, Ezra has this.

For an alternate reasonable solution, you can read Ezra's discussion of this fella.

Do economists like this plan? Noooooooooo.

Whoops, props meeting. Enjoy the New Century!

65 comments:

TheMindFantastic said...

Sounds like Leverage is exactly the right sort of show for these sort of times.

Anonymous said...

John, I wonder how many of our former McConnell Hall bunkmates would agree with you?

Geoff Thorne said...

I was going to make a supportive crack but, frankly, the whole thing is just too disgusting.

Why the hell aren't Americans fucking pissed off about this shit?!

MORONS!

Sorry. I may come back and dump this later.

Anonymous said...

Why the hell aren't Americans fucking pissed off about this shit?!

I don't think the enormity of this monstrous clusterfuck has really hit the zeitgeist yet, nor how it will be a drag on the US (and world) economy for many years to come. The ripples are definitely going to topple some third world governments somewhere and lead to oh-so-predictable human suffering and death.

The Bushies are trying hard to ram through their wish list at the end of this congress so Wall Street types can skate without losing their pound of flesh (several pounds would be more appropriate... maybe a few limbs, too).

Given how pussified dems always buckle when Emperor Prissypants stamps his feet, he'll probably get his way this time, too.

Zed said...

What I can't fathom is how it is that not a single one of these rich bastards have been found hanging from a lamp-post yet. I'm not saying someone _should_ kill them, just that I'm surprised no one _has_.

Anonymous said...

If you look at it from their point of view, they weren't making bad decisions. They knew the government would bail them out. They knew they had golden parachutes. They had NO incentive to protect their companies at all. The only incentive they had was to make as much money for themselves as possible.

Itadaki Mouse said...

1.8 trillion. Do you know how many $300,000 mortgages that would pay off? Six MILLION mortages.

My economic stimulus check is $298,800 short.

Anonymous said...

Bah, I've been watching this historic FAIL for frikkin months.

It will STILL all go FAIL on them.

But I think they've postponed that for 2009, now. At least I won't have to blog THAT!

Anonymous said...

1.8 trillion. Do you know how many $300,000 mortgages that would pay off? Six MILLION mortages.

My economic stimulus check is $298,800 short.


Actually, that's not a bad idea. Let's solve the problem from the bottom up -- give the money to all the people who actually own the "bad" mortgages, and let them pay off their homes. They end up with houses, and the banks get their money.

What? Only rich people can get free money from the government?

Unknown said...

Best line I heard about this: when the government gives money to people it is called welfare, when they give it to corporations it is called a bail out.

You could give this money to millions of us who have debt in not just houses but student loans and do more good. Hell you could just give each citizen $10,000 and come out cheaper than what they are paying.

Anonymous said...

Now would be the right time for the aliens to show up and invade.
Personally, I welcome our new alien overlords. At least they'll know what they're doing.

Tim W. said...

However bad it is to bailout these corporations, not doing so would be catastrophic. You either fork over $1.8 trillion in money the government can ill afford or watch as foreign investors yank all their money out of the American economy and watch it collapse. Although `loaning' this money (it is considered a loan) only locks the US government into even more bad debt, to go along with their deficit and looming social security and healthcare apocalypse. I think it's only a temporary fix. Doesn't the upcoming American election seem like figuring out who's going to captain the Titanic AFTER it hits the iceberg?

John Seavey said...

See, this is why I've missed your updates. Because the BS has been flying so fast and furious over the last few months that you can't possibly make a catch-up post on it all. McCain's VP choice? I wanted to hear John Rogers' take. The Republican convention? I wanted to hear John Rogers' take. Palin's Bridge to Nowhere? Oh, did I want to hear what John Rogers thought about that.

We understand, of course. You're busy doing writing work that pays the bills. But we all miss you, man.

Kidsis said...

Will you please begin instructing us on how we can become Canadian citizens? I'm ready to go.

Anonymous said...

Yes, you should all come to Canada! Bring whatever wheelbarrows of cash you have left after the USD gets devalued 100 or so times and leave your handguns at the door.
Really, what you Yanks should be unnerved by is that your top financial officials are actually scared shitless enough to float this trillion-dollar rescue scheme at all. Because the alternatives are actually much, much worse. That means the current reality is the U.S. economy is threatened RIGHT NOW with many horrible things, starting with the collapse of major investment banks and leading to the collapse of many big scary companies who keep things ticking along.
Seriously, be afraid. This plan may look bad, but watch what happens to the stock market if it does not get through Congress.
Wow, the things you think of after you launch a trillion-dollar war...
I'm afraid Homer Simpson has the final word on the beginning of the 21st century: D'OH!

Anonymous said...

Hey Rogers,

Do you need an accountant at your compound up in Canada? I've never dealt with the Monkey-Point version of "accounting" that gets used in Hollywood, but I'm hoping that would be a plus. I'm not allergic to bees if it makes a difference.

cycad said...

Oh wait, haven't you heard? McCain wants to do to the healthcare system what he did to banking...

"McCain on banking and health

OK, a correspondent directs me to John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. You might want to be seated before reading this.

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!


Paul Krugman is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times "

Mike Cane said...

flynn wrote:

>>>Seriously, be afraid.

Jaysus, man, I've been screaming since JANUARY. My fingers are hoarse!

If I'd bloody posted the date I expected, everyone would be throwing bucks at me right now -- because it happened EXACTLY when I expected. I just didn't put down the damned date in the blog.

Anonymous said...

Now this is how we should do it in this country!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4810644.ece

CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of sacked workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who had dismissed them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi.

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, an Italian-headquartered manufacturer of car parts, died of severe head wounds on Monday afternoon after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said.

The incident, in Greater Noida, just outside the Indian capital, followed a long-running dispute between the factory's management and workers who had demanded better pay and permanent contracts.

Anonymous said...

Nobody should be surprised Bush bankrupted our country because he basically did the same to every business venture he undertook.

Mike Cane said...

Hey, Rogers, here's that Nigerian business opportunity you've been awaiting: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Hey, at least we know Paulson has Internet skillz!! Break out the champagne. Happy days are here again.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said:

Nobody should be surprised Bush bankrupted our country because he basically did the same to every business venture he undertook.

He knew it was coming. He was just counting on it happening after he left office.

El Cid said...

Yes -- PLEASE -- contact the team from Leverage and tell them we are poor bedraggled citizens and we need help.

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knic pfost said...

i'm still confused why we think the people that run government are going to do a better job overseeing and regulating the economy than the rich guys.

obviously the rich guys really screwed the pooch on this one, but do you really want congress making your financial decisions instead? remember, it was CONGRESS that passed the stupid bailout bill in the first place.

i guess i just don't understand the logic that government is somehow smarter or more efficient than the rich folk. as far as i'm concerned they're both about on the same level of insensical.

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