Urgent! Get skeptical! Get very skeptical!

[kpete]

Urgent! Get skeptical! Get very skeptical!
David Cay Johnston, one of the most effective investigative journalists, now retired from the New York Times, was interviewed about the bail-out on NPR's On The Media. He thinks the bailout is a crock. Here are some (slightly edited) excerpts from that interview.

"... Brokaw and many other journalists on TV and on the radio assume, because we were told there's a crisis, that there's a crisis. The fact that we've had a couple of big firms on Wall Street fail -- that's capitalism! If you'll look around, you'll notice that banks are still making ordinary loans to ordinary businesses, your PO box is still full of proposals to sell you credit cards and extend your debt, the internet still has very toxic mortages that are at the heart of this.

"(On September 26, one businessman writes: 'I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.')

"... I don't have any doubt that whatever people in the market have said to Secretary Paulson has scared him. But remember that Secretary Paulson used to be the head of Goldman Sachs, the biggest investment bank in the country. Goldman Sachs has announced that it's converting itself into an investment bank which will allow it, by the way, to get in on this $700 billion. That alone ought to have people asking questions: 'Wait a minute, what's the pricing of this deal? Who's going to make money off it?'

..................

"... Urgent? That's politics! That's not economics! Congress had set September 26th as the date when they would go into recess and the members could go home and campaign. If this is such a gigantic crisis that we have to put out $700 billion which we may never get back, then perhaps Congress needs to stay in session. ...

................................

The list of Johnston's "core questions" that journalists (and bloggers!) need to be asking about the bailout can be found at Poynter: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13610

much more at:
http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2008/09/david-cay-johns.html

[WA98296]

1. Something smells very bad.

[ingac70]

2. Just last week Bank of America sent me an offer...

for a $50,000 loan, no collateral.

[msallied]

11. BoA and Chase are not in trouble.

It's the rest of them that are.

[monmouth]

3. On Friday I called my guy at Wachovia re rumors they were being

bought by either Citi or Wells Fargo. "First I've heard of it.".... He's a senior officer, so I'm just going to relax, not much but not get crazy...

[ContinentalOp]

4. k+r -nt-

[amborin]

5. no kidding..see The Nation article i posted last week: big SWindle

[unblock]

6. yes they're overstating the urgency; however, it's very true that there are serious problems

that need fixing quickly.

and yes, consumers are still getting offers for cheap credit cards, because banks are addicted to the fees and high interest revenue (after the new card teaser rates expire or you make a typo trying to make a monthly payment).

however, real companies are seeing their funding shut off. that's my job and i've been seeing a lot of it in the last year. funding deals that were no brainers just over a year ago simply are not getting done without help from companies like the one i work for.

paulson's plan of simply throwing money at it isn't the best solution, although any decent solution would be expensive.

yes, there's more than a whiff of b.s. in the selling of this bailout; but the problem is certainly real enough, sorry to say.

[Lint Head]

7. I personally believe there is NO CRISIS. The Shock Doctrine tells

it exactly like it is. Country after country have gone through a manufactured meltdown from Bolivia to Poland so the Chicago School of economics trash and burn concept can recreate a new capitalist idea from a clean slate. This process results in the deaths of many people from starvation to torture. It's the usual. Republicans think that killing is the solution to ever problem.
Our Constitution is dead by design. Our economy is dead by design. People in New Orleans are dead by design. Don't kid yourself.
Asked yourself this. Do you think a bunch of politicians can resolve an economical disaster that took almost 30 years to happen over one weekend? If so, I have a bridge to nowhere in Alaska I would like to sell you. :dem:

[lostnotforgotten]

8. Naomi Klein "The Shock Doctrine"

http://blip.tv/file/521421

[lostnotforgotten]

9. Free Market Solution Right Here - Bailout Not Required!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daOfYmSLW_U&eurl=http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/590-FLASH-Fed-Speaking-Out-Both-Sides-Of-Mouth.html

[krawhitham]

10. WaMu sent me an offer THE DAY they went under

just because banks are trying to do business as usual does not mean all is well

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Yep - the piranhas are just taking advantage of the taxpayers for their own gain.

McCain says he'll make sure that CEOs aren't "unduly rewarded" or whatever fucking nonsense word he used.

Bullshit - any firms takes bailout money, the CEO and entire executive committee and entire Board of Directors should be forced to sell everything they own and chip in as well. The problems are their goddamned fault, not mine.

A bailout stinks to high heaven.

Let the fuckin' things go bankrupt and dissolve; America is filled with entrepreneurs and smart, driven people with great ideas: the hole created by the sinking companies will be immediately filled, and our economy will continue on without fucking over the taxpayers twice.

[pberq]

13. It's a really big swindle

They are using scare tactics to blackmail us into believing we need to hand them $700 billion.