TheJiggler

I think we should cut off all aid of this kind, but last time I checked we give almost as much to Egypt as we do Israel. I'm glad you have come to youor senses and come out against the War On Terror. Foreign assistance is of course one our most cost effective tools in said war.

That's still pretty far - But thanks for the beta (Snugtop) When are we going to have tea in the Sahara, G-Spotter???

Where do I climb?

If McCain wins I predict a disolution of NATO.

23 in the House. 8 in the Senate

Jesus Spice

Caribou Barbie

Firstly this is just wrong. Investment banks (or those banks formerly known as investment banks), are defaulting because they can't borrow. They can't borrow because nobody knows the value of their balance sheet. Secondly, calling mortgage backed securities "practically worthless" is a strech. How many people that you know are currently in forclusure? Lets assume that 10% of people with mortgages are in or will be in forclosure (this number is ridiculously high). We'll also assume that a house in forclosure is absolutly worthless (not true). What is the value of the mortagage backed securities backing these houses? 90%. The problem is nobody knows who will be forclosed upon. It could be that in a given bond 90% of the houses in it are being forclosed upon. But you can't really know this. So nodoby will buy them. The number I heard, and I could be totally wrong, is that mortgage backed securities right now are selling for 22 cents on the dollar. Do you reall believe the value of the US housing market is down 78% in the last 2 years?

Actually no. The higher the authorization the better. The point of this is to restore confidence in the Financial sector. The world needs to know there is a nearly infinite pool of money that can be drawn upon if need be. The idea that banks will be much more willing to loan out money if they know they can get rid of thier poorly perfroming assets. Additionally if there is a small pool only the worst assets will be bought up by the govt. This would be a worse scenario. Right now there is a fire sale on essentially all mortgage backed securities. Nobody wants these. Not beacuse the are worthless, but because nobody knows what they are worth. Basically the govt is going to buy these securities. Supply and demand works and by buying these their value will increase. If we do this, I suspect we'll lose at most 10%.

I'm sure your mothers recipe is delicious, but I was referring to the other Turkey.

Captions?

Sarah Palin should have Henry Kissinger baby sit her. -Ben Stein

VPILF