Anyone who is against every form of bailout is simply unaware of the consequences of not acting.

[BzaDem]

I'm not saying THIS particular plan is the best one; there are many things that need to be changed (especially the oversight provisions).

At first, when I saw all these posts against any form of bailout ("I don't own this, I don't own that, so let them all go down"), I thought to myself, how could you wish upon our nation another great depression. But then I realized that no one on DU who actually knew what the consequences of a dead credit market were could possibly oppose all ways to end this crisis. Maybe in freeperville, but not here.

[melody]

1. I'm in favor of a modified bailout

But I sure as hell understand the resistance to it. I think perhaps, due to the doomsayers, a lot of DU'ers assume we'll shortly be in a Great Depression even if we do act.

[BzaDem]

2. I understand the fear, but such a big intervention drives right at the heart of the problem

If we do end up in a depression, it would be because of some reason unknown to us today. The chances of that happening if we do act are not worth ensuring that it happens if we don't act. I am as much against these greedy CEOs as much as anyone else here, but I do not want revenge to get in the way of saving the American people from assured disaster otherwise.

[endthewar]

16. It boils down to China and OPEC

If China dumps its US treasury bonds onto the open market or if OPEC switches off of the US dollar, then the US dollar is royally screwed.

[melody]

24. See, that's my concern ... what else is out there waiting to happen?

Are we going to get stuck with this bill AND lose our entire retirement/pension benefit? Who knows what is coming next?

[Triana]

3. I realize we need a bailout BUT I want it with CERTAIN PROVISIONs to protect the people paying ..

...for it - namely the TAXPAYERS.

I want NO executive bonuses and LIMITED executive pay (or else they CAN choose to just fail and go bankrupt - THEIR choice - they are NOT nor should they be in ANY position to bargain about this). TAKE it or NO DEAL.

I want a LOT of oversight of the program - INDEPENDENT oversight.

I want a LOT of ways to help homeowners keep their morgtages and homes and to STOP the foreclosures!

I want REGULATIONS that the institutions who accept the bailout MUST adhere to in order to prevent this again.

I want the financial and operating records of those institutions past and present - made PUBLIC.

Considering the circumstances, and the amount of money at stake, I do NOT think this is too much to ask. In fact, it may be too LITTLE.

[BzaDem]

4. I agree with most of that, though I think a re-regulation bill has to come afterwards

since it will take longer than a week to come up wtih and put in the essential regulation that we need.

I was more aiming at all the people who don't want any bailout (which I have seen many times today).

[abumbyanyothername]

13. The point is

if there are consequences to a depression, a TRILLION dollars can go a long way toward paying for those, without cycling the money through the banking system.

[AdHocSolver]

15. If the re-regulation bill doesn't come first, it will never happen.

Where have you been the past eight years?

[endthewar]

17. I read somewhere that one of Obama's advisors

wrote an opinion piece suggesting that the original bill expire after 6 months so that they'll be forced to revisit the issue of re-regulation.

[sandnsea]

5. Inflation can do tremendous damage too

The more I hear about this bail-out, the less inclined I am to support it. I don't know what these big banks are up to, but I guarantee you I'm not liking it. This is going to be painful no matter what we do.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. If things are as dire as they suggest, printing money isn't going to fix it.

There simply isn't any basis for the current economy no matter how many band-aids they stick on it. The "service economy" myth/scam has run it's course. They'll be inventing a new bail-out plan in a few weeks when this one
doesn't stick.

[BzaDem]

7. I don't think we're simply printing 700B; we're borrowing it.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. It's the same or worse.

[backscatter712]

14. The Federal Reserve literally conjures money out of thin air.

It's all bits in computer systems - sure, a lot of the money is borrowed from China, but the Federal Reserve literally creates money out of nothing by just adding to their internal bank accounts.

Which means that if the .gov and the Federal Reserve keep this up, we're gonna be buying loaves of bread with trillion-dollar bills like in Zimbabwe...

[TheKentuckian]

8. Honestly, we have the advantage

write the bill with our full demands and send it to be signed. Give Paulson a reasonably free hand but with some oversight and fail safes built in and write the rest as we see fit. Make the idiot veto it.

[ecstatic]

10. I just want my bailout too!! 50K would be great! 100K even better! nt

[AdHocSolver]

11. This is NOT a bailout they are proposing. It is a giant swindle.

The manure is going to hit the fan blades anyway. This bailout is no more than a stopgap measure to allow the corporate crooks to get their profits out.

The government deficits BEFORE this so-called bailout are sufficient to collapse the economy. This bailout is just throwing kerosene on a fire. The U.S. government already has more debt than it could collect enough taxes to pay back as it is.

A "bailout" would be like a guy with $50,000 in credit card debt asking a bank for a loan to make his payments. This so-called "bailout" is total nonsense.

The depression is coming. you want to forestall the worst outcome?

First thing to do is rewrite or cancel the trade and financial agreements like NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank to bring JOBS back to America. The huge U.S. trade deficit is devaluing the dollar and stimulating inflation that is one cause of the debt crisis. Working Americans pay income taxes which provides money to the government to perform its functions. The federal deficit would not be nearly as great if the government didn't have to borrow billions just to operate. Also, eliminate or reconstitute the Fed which is a major enabler of these scams and swindles.

The corporations and the Republicans have brought this debt crisis to America with their policies even beyond their scams and swindles.

The merges and buyouts enabled these swindles and brought this economic "hurricane" to us.

There is going to be a serious economic "adjustment" anyway. Using any of their proposals whether "bailouts" or more "deregulation" amounts to throwing gasoline on a fire.

[napoleon_in_rags]

12. You can press the snooze button or not, but the hangover is for real.

This isn't about the stock market. It isn't about banks. I don't believe its about any kind of a fascist takeover as some have suggested. This whole thing, every bit of it, is about energy.

I was revisiting some Trotsky and Marx tonight, reading about the eras when Labor was such a huge force it could bring about something like the Soviet Union. Labor in the USA is nothing, because the labor that has supported our modern booming economy doesn't come just from workers, it comes largely from machines. The productivity of these machines was dependent on cheap energy, and the era of cheap energy is now behind us. And that means everything made by machines, which is pretty much EVERYTHING in our culture, is getting more expensive. Global production and transportation of EVERYTHING is getting slowly more costly, and that means less wealth to go around.

The fact is every generation up this point, and our entire economic model, has been based on a largely rising supply of oil and energy. That's why in the past we could make bets like passing deficits on to the future with the earnest belief they would be able to pay it, due to economic growth there would be more taxable wealth in the future. But the days of economic growth are largely over, over at a global level. So we can press snooze button here hoping our "wealthier" future generations will be able to pay it off, but its a fantasy. There aren't going to BE wealthier future generations. I say face it now, and keep the current leaders from attempting to pass off the buck to our future generations and President Obama.

[dkf]

18. I don't think we are against any bailout, just THIS bailout.

Lots of people are very suspicious because Bush and Co. have a very shady past with cronyism. I think it is CRAZY to give these guys $700 Billion with no oversight.

Frankly, I'm beginning to think we bailed out AIG to keep some European Bank from crashing and that makes me very very suspicious. Then we open up the bailout itself to foreign banks.

Those UBS lobbyists/Phil Gramm must be working OT.

[mtnester]

19. It is not a bailout, it is a handout

courtesy of the Bush regime.

Paulsen is not even concerned about limiting executives salaries as a condition of the "bailout." That alone defines the entire thing for what it is, the last grab into the cookie jar.

Oh, and I guess transferring all that financial decision making power to ONE guy with no penalty or oversight also speaks for what it is, one of the last ways to destroy our democracy so that the executive branch gets to do what it wants, when it wants, how it wants with NO checks....I have seen the wrecking the economy as the last step toward fascism on this board, and I agree.

[Robyn66]

20. It sounds to me like paying one credit card with ANOTHER credit card

and then using your pay check to go bar hopping.

I think there does need to be a bail out but I am completely against giving these executives their multi million dollar golden parachutes AND giving exclusive control to ANYONE in the Bush administration. SOunds too much like the war to me!

[Jennicut]

21. This is the last resort but the fact that these guys are Bushies makes us all wary

The Bushies NEVER do anything for anyone else unless it involves kickback to their cronies. Sigh. I don't want another Great Depression either and some sort of bailout is needed. However, regulation and supervision is needed as well. We shall see what we end up with. Dems are screwed by this because if they sign it there are those of us that will say they are sell outs. If we block it than we are accused of letting another Great Depression happen.

[Vinca]

22. We can't have an "unregulated" bailout, which is what Paulson

is proposing. Sign the check and trust me. No - you can't trust this administration or anyone from it.

[LatteLibertine]

23. A modified bail out will be necessary

and golden parachutes are not. Do not allow crooks to benefit from this mess.

[Bluenorthwest]

25. Criminals need to be punished

Not paid millions for being crooks and failures. If we are 'bailing them out' we should own what we buy. The profit must be made public, not just the debt.
No golden parachutes for theives and failures. And if they don't put in re-regulation now, we will still be unregulated, which is what got us here, so like a leaky boat, you can bail out as much as you can, but you will just take on more water untill you fix the hole. Fix the hole first, or sink. Period.

[sentelle]

26. here is my concern about this

What's to stop corporations from doing this again and again, if there is no punishment.

We now have taxpayers footing the bill to foreclose on other taxpayers. In many cases people are being foreclosed on, and are footing the bill for it. Taxed twice for the same property?

I think its Bartcop's rule on mistakes. If a company makes a mistake that allows them to make money, expect that mistake to happen over and over. Well, what's to stop THIS from happening over and over, bankrupting everyone?