there goes my retirement SS

[glassgowkiss]

this is fucked

it's supposed to be capitalism not socialism. why should tax $$$ go to companies, which made bad decisions. maybe the ceo's, who screwed this up should return their hefty salaries and bonuses instead.

[dberdinka]

Todays seniors and baby-boomers have just extended their generational warefare against our children and grandchildrens future.

 

They (the old) have gotten wealthy from 20 years of unsustainable debt-fueled prosperity. Now they're going to do everything they can to prevent the devaluation of their houses and equities to what they might actually be worth.

 

Can't let any more completely iresponsible companies go bankrupt? Well then kick the can down the road to next generation! Borrow another 300 billion (that 300 1000 million!) from foreigners then buy up all the crap investments from big business so they can get back to making money. Who cares if your grandchildren pay for it with higher taxes, lower benefits, a weakened economy and a weakened dollar? They'll all be dead.

 

While there is some presidence for similar governement intervention that ultimately didn't cost the taxpayers (the Japanese government bought low and sold high during their recession) I wouldn't hold my breath when it comes to Uncle Sam. Our governement will have to overpay for these "investments" to prevent the banks from going bankrupt in the process.

 

It's time to realize that we the young are goinging to get screwed unless we get involved. Vote for the young, demand your representatives cut social security benefits now, cut medicare benefits now, hike the estate tax to pay off the fucking the mess that we will inherit. Jesus Christ I'm pissed off!.......

 

[Hugh Conway]

Uncle Sam will make a pretty penny from the AIG loan dberdinka

[max]

...demand your representatives cut social security benefits now, cut medicare benefits now, hike the estate tax to pay off the fucking the mess that we will inherit. Jesus Christ I'm pissed off!.......

 

 

yo D! I'm totally with you on this (and other wacky ideas you've thrown out) but this kind of talk makes most people laugh.

 

You're right. It seems like younger people need to wake the f$*! up or they're going to get screwed.

[j_b]

Just imagine how much more fun we'd have if the pirates had succeeded in privatizing social security by investing accounts in the market.

 

Not only would it ensure that at long last the pirates' wet dream would become reality, social security would finally be bankrupt after decades of their announcing it, but it may make us forget the 2+ trillion dollars the fed "borrowed" from the social security fund.

[Alex]

I already know I'm going to get screwed, and am making my own arrangements, not relying on government to watch my back.

[max]

I already know I'm going to get screwed, and am making my own arrangements, not relying on government to watch my back.

 

Before I came to this sort of conclussion myself, I was both fearful for my economic future as well as pissed at the gov. Now that I've realized I'm on my own, I actually feel more in control (relatively), and just resigned to the reality of it.

[tvashtarkatena]

I'm switching my vote to McCain because I'm concerned that the hyper-wealthy, just because of a few years of bad judgement which could happen to anyone, might be reduced to just really wealthy. Plus, I'm a commie.

 

Oh, and I love McCain's 'new' idea of creating a Trust. Are we going to clone and resurrect J.P. Morgan to run it?

Edited September 19, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[dberdinka]

Uncle Sam will make a pretty penny from the AIG loan dberdinka

 

I work in insurance so I actual have some moderate understadning of what happened to AIG. And I agree that yes money will be made, or at leats not lost, on the AIG deal. But thats because they suffered a liquidity not a solvency issue. Their (vast) assests are tied up as RBC (risk based capital) in all the traditional insurance products they write. They couldn't pull that out in time (though NY was going to let them pull some) to cover their CDS costs.

 

I don't believe that the investment banks are suffering from liquidity issues alone. If they sold their securities at actual market value well it might improve their liquidity but only for their creditors because they'd go insolvent in the process. We are going to buy all their shit for way more thats it's worth.

 

I already know I'm going to get screwed, and am making my own arrangements, not relying on government to watch my back.

 

And Alex. This isn't about the government watching your back or not, it's about the government sticking a knife in it and smoothering your baby while they're at it.

 

Time to stock up on pitchforks and muskets bitches.

Edited September 19, 2008 by dberdinka

[Hugh Conway]

And Alex. This isn't about the government watching your back or not, it's about the government sticking a knife in it and smoothering your baby while they're at it.

 

Time to stock up on pitchforks and muskets bitches.

 

Indeed - the bill will be coming due, and it will be painful. cutting or eliminating benefits and raising taxes.

[prole]

It's pretty breathtaking how well the state and capital have so thoroughly pulled the wool over our eyes in two respects. First, that there is really a deep separation between states and markets. Episodes like these fully expose the relationship between states and markets that are submerged in periods of prosperity and obfuscated in pro-business literature. As is pretty obvious from the postmortem being done on the financial system, the state in the post-New Deal era has enabled and profited from the Ponzi economy that developed with deregulation of the industry and the neoliberal restructuring of the country.

 

Why is the state so heavily involved in rescuing capitalist firms in crisis after decades of persuading you that the market could take care of itself? In the first case it never could or did take care of itself and secondly it's simply too politically risky to allow another Great Depression just to prove a point or to see if the theory really works. For a nation whose majority hasn't known true desperation or deprivation in decades raised to believe the USA was too great to fail, the political and social damage caused by such an event would be suicidal for the system as a whole. For anybody that values their American lifestyle, they should be thanking God that the state has intervened!

 

Secondly, that there is such confusion as to the nature of this crisis and the "sudden" intervention of the state to manage it represents a profound misunderstanding of the system which we all live under and a breathtaking lack of historical perspective. The "But, wha...dis iz soshulizm!" response borders on the absurd in light of state interventions that have been occuring as a result of these crises in other parts of the world in the last decade. Much less the rule and institutions that were set up in the 30's to prevent another Depression that people like McCain have been tearing down for the last thirty years. Read a fucking book!

 

 

[glassgowkiss]

and why is it always happening when republifucks are at the office? S&L crisis and now this! and how sound is this economy?

[Stefan]

in this latest move here is what will happen.

 

your taxation amount will not change.

whereby more of your taxes will pay for less of the current federal government programs

whereby we will get more debt

whereby we will have more interest to pay

whereby we will have even less to pay for for future programs

eventually your taxes will go to pay for only interest on debt...but that will be in about 40 years.

[Jim]

As is pretty obvious from the postmortem being done on the financial system, the state in the post-New Deal era has enabled and profited from the Ponzi economy that developed with deregulation of the industry and the neoliberal restructuring of the country.

 

 

Read a fucking book!

 

 

And how! So much for the invisible hand - more like the inevitable handout.

[prole]

For a longer term historical perspective on the relation between state and markets that speaks to the current crisis, you couldn't do any better than Polanyi's The Great Transformation

[dberdinka]

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday morning,

 

“It’s probably $500 [billion] to a trillion dollars, and that’s going to visit the taxpayers sooner or later,” he said. “It’s either going to be a debt charged to all of us or to all our children.”

 

Now really who's going to take on that debt? The 60 year old in the $700,000 house with a power boat down at the harbor or the two year old in diapers?

 

Our country is sick.

 

 

[bobinc]

Way sick.

 

Recall, too, that in the 30s many more people lived on farms so at least could feed themselves.

 

Also, back then we had factories that could make products the rest of the world wanted to buy.

 

Now we have factories of debt.

[prole]

Way sick.

 

Recall, too, that in the 30s many more people lived on farms so at least could feed themselves.

 

Also, back then we had factories that could make products the rest of the world wanted to buy.

 

Now we have factories of debt.

 

This points to an interesting question. Given that most of the wealth creation in this country has been related to illusory financial acrobatics, debt, and speculative bubbles at the same time real production has either been in decline or off-shored, what are the foundations for future American economic growth?

[dberdinka]

So the "Troubled Asset Relief Program" (TARP) is going to bail out the banks at a cost of at least 500 1000 million dollars. Some of us believe that little of that will be redoverable. Will part of the process include re-regulating these banks? Lets see...

 

Heres part of Paulsons (Treasury Secretary) initial statement on TARP:

 

"This crisis demonstrates in vivid terms that our financial regulatory structure is sub-optimal, duplicative and outdated. I have put forward my ideas for a modernized financial oversight structure that matches our modern economy, and more closely links the regulatory structure to the reasons why we regulate. That is a critical debate for another day."

 

Kicking the can down the road. Mother fuckers.

 

 

 

[bobinc]

I kinda like the socialist scheme to invest in alternative liquid fuels research. Even if we fail we can say we tried. We've wasted several hundred $billion in Iraq as far as I can tell (on a per gallon basis, we're paying twice what we did when the occupation began) and I'm ready for a Plan B.

 

BTW: TARP-- awesome choice by the Feds! Almost as good as CREEP.

Edited September 19, 2008 by bobinc

[dberdinka]

This points to an interesting question. Given that most of the wealth creation in this country has been related to illusory financial acrobatics, debt, and speculative bubbles at the same time real production has either been in decline or off-shored, what are the foundations for future American economic growth?

 

Growth?

 

Seems to me that our economic growth has been an illusion. Now these bastards are doing everything they possible can to maintain it.

 

The entire country would probably be better of with 25% less. 25% less house, 25% less transfat, 25% less plasma TV screen, 25% less gas in the 25% smaller SUV.

 

Unfortunately there's no way that 25% cut is going to be equitably distributed.

 

My apologies for my stream of posts. I'm just irate and its stress relieving to yell at the internet.

[prole]

 

"This crisis demonstrates in vivid terms that our financial regulatory structure is sub-optimal, duplicative and outdated. I have put forward my ideas for a modernized financial oversight structure that matches our modern economy, and more closely links the regulatory structure to the reasons why we regulate. "

 

This is exactly the same language employed to explain the need for DE-regulation circa late-80's/early 90's!

[dberdinka]

I noticed that as well.

 

Don't forget that Paulson still hass a massive finacial stake in Goldman Sachs even if it's all sitting in blind trust. The timing of all this is spectaculor. Let at least half the competiton fail then step in with a rescue plan that will bail out the company he's heavily invested in. Self interest all the way.

[j_b]

This is exactly the same language employed to explain the need for DE-regulation circa late-80's/early 90's!

 

You mean late 70's.

 

The perfect stage is set for the shock doctrine:

 

[video:youtube]ki227rUFf_k

[mtn_mouse]

I'm switching my vote to McCain because I'm concerned that the hyper-wealthy, just because of a few years of bad judgement which could happen to anyone, might be reduced to just really wealthy. Plus, I'm a commie.

 

Oh, and I love McCain's 'new' idea of creating a Trust. Are we going to clone and resurrect J.P. Morgan to run it?

o

 

I know that is tongue in cheek talk there, BUT, hasn't GW become the most socialist of all presidents? Where did his conservative goals go? He created two new government agencies, the biggest increase in govt employment, now this, buying up companies. I suppose socialists should in fact support GWB. (p. sorry fairwether.)