Have you guys been following?

[Lurker]

I liked the give all homeowners $5,000 to either pay on their mortgage or put into a CD. Don't think it would have worked, but I liked it!

Yeah, it's one of those ideas that sound great at first but does nothing to actually address the problem. It wouldn't have freed up the credit markets and it wouldn't have helped people keep their homes. It also would have been 770 billion spent with zero chance of getting any of it back. At least the current plan gives us an equity stake in things and a tiny chance of getting some of it back.

[Harlowe]

I think there is a good chance we are going to get a lot of money back, I just don't buy into the pie-in-the-sky optimistic economists that say we could actually make a profit.

[Harlowe]

Jon was in rare form again last night. I heart this man almost as much as Andrew Sullivan.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... l-volume-1

[Harlowe]

Well no big surprise, the bill passed the Senate - 74-25.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/01/news/ec ... tm?cnn=yes

[Tarfang_Trubasher]

I caught a piece of the debate on it on CSPAN -- there's a senator (Dianne Feinstein) I'd like to pummel with a shovel right about now...

Despite receiving almost 91,000 phone calls today, 85,000 of them asking her to vote "NO" -- she has the nerve to say how people are clearly too confused over the situation and need the government to act on their behalf.



Way to represent your people. Even if her argument is somewhat plausible (wrong bill being presented by the media), 85,000 people?! The numbers are against her on this.

-TF

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Well no big surprise, the bill passed the Senate - 74-25.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/01/news/ec ... tm?cnn=yes

All the extras they threw in are likely gonna get this thing to pass the house too...

From what I've heard its almost exactly the same rescue package... haven't read through the documentation yet.

If anyone's interested, here's the pdf: http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/AYO08C32_xml.pdf

[Ddrak]

From what I've heard its almost exactly the same rescue package

That's my take too. Same thing, except with a tax cut and increasing the FDIC limit to 250k.

Dd

[Harlowe]

Even with the sweeteners, I think the House is still going to be a tough sell, they seem to be more responsive to their constituents when they are this strongly against something. They might sway enough to pass it, but I don't think this is going to be the easy-peasy ride it took through the Senate. They made it more sweet wooing Republican votes, but less sweet for Democrats. I know they need only 12 more votes from the original vote, but people aren't sold on this in the public. Yes, they want "something" but this package doesn't seem to be the something they want to support. In fact, hasn't support fallen from 57% last week to 48% this week?

the Senate added $100 billion in tax breaks for businesses and the middle class, plus a provision to raise, from $100,000 to $250,000, the cap on federal deposit insurance.

House Republicans also welcomed a decision Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ease rules that force companies to devalue assets on their balance sheets to reflect the price they can get on the market.

There were worries, though, that the tax breaks might cause some conservative-leaning Democrats who voted for the rescue Monday to abandon it because the revised version would swell the federal deficit.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

I absolutely fail to see how tax cuts for "makers of kids wooden arrows" is relevant to anything that the general population might possibly care about. In fact i'm not even sure what that means, i mean who the hell makes kids wooden arrows and wtf are they for ? Are we literally talking recurve arrows or something ? I can possibly see the rack track sweetener, but the arrow one is beyond me

[Klast Brell]

There is probably one American company that makes kids wooden arrows. they probably just donated a large sum to whoever threw that snippet in to the bill.

I'm almost positive that enough republicans (those in safe districts that won't sweat loosing a few percentage points) will suddenly say "we brought you tax cuts!" While secretly giggling in to their sleeves that they managed to bump the asstastic Palin VP debate performance from lead story status on Friday.

[Harlowe]

Isn't there a mental health portion as well?

[Klast Brell]

Oh this is good. I think you can literally see McCain's head spinning around while he talks about how terrible the bill is that he voted for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFm-Uj9aOhs

[Tarfang_Trubasher]

All I can say is -- "Call (not email or write) your House representatives!" Ya gotta let 'em know...

I made sure to mention I'm not one of Feinstein's 85,000 that didn't know, supposedly, which bill they were looking at. I've read H.R. 1424, I know what it says, and I still don't like it.

-TF

[Harlowe]

I agree Tarfang, if you are going to do something - call, if you are going to call - give the impression you know which bill you are talking about. Otherwise, you'll just be viewed as someone (the "Don't give Fatcats mah money!! crew) that simply are uninformed and need to be educated on economy and this crisis.

The more I read it, the more unimpressed I am - but I'm no economist or financial wiz. I just feel it's full of bullshit and not enough meat. Where are the teeth in this bill?

I want something, I am pretty sure looking at the big picture and world economy - we need to do something. But imo (which doesn't mean much) I think that they should have started from scratch rather than massage the failed one. I was under the impression they were going to scale this back and give it more teeth with regard to oversite. Instead, I see a bunch of sugar added that has little to nothing to do with this situation.

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... abyss.html

This is a good read on how the financial crisis has spread to just about every other major economy, worldwide, and what those governments are trying to do about it. Germany had to do a 180 and agree to guarantee all deposits, and it just bailed out another bank. Some countries are taking steps to nationalize their banking systems.

This is fascinating times.

As for the US, I wonder if the Fed will indeed drop the interest rate to zero and give banks free use of money. It doesn't get any more liquid than that. We'll see how it goes in the next few days, although the run on stocks worldwide seems to indicate sheer panic on a global scale. I wonder if this thing just has to work itself out, since the responses to the market have been emotional and not rational.

[Ddrak]

It's not entirely irrational. When you're not sure if the entity you're about to loan money to can pay back the loan+interest, you get a lot more paranoid about loaning money. As a result, liquidity dries up.

Note that Japan had a 0% rate for a while during their financial crisis in the 90s and still had liquidity problems.

Dd

[Klast Brell]

It's a great time to buy a house. If you have the credit rating to get a loan.

[Harlowe]

You better have cash!

[Ddrak]

Wait at least 6 months for the market to bottom out. We're still not at the bottom of this one yet.

Dd

[Kulaf]

Hehe yer not going to see the bottom of this for another two years. Just wait for the CA implosion......it's comming. Hang on Lurker!