Now that Paulson has added international banks to the no oversight bailout

[salin]

for which we owe the bill - the price tag just jumped.

Be honest - bill us for the cost. Let's pass the price tag directly to today's tax payers. A bill for (adding the expense of foreign bank debts) of about 3,000 per person. A family of four - fork over 12,000 tomorrow, in order to pay for this policy. Don't have the money? Too bad - we have to save the big financial institutions to which we have been giving tax breaks and deregulation presents at an accelerated rates... might fail. The cost to the economy are too great to risk - so pony up now. Don't have the 12,000 in the checking account? No problem - just start paying the interest on today, and in the future pay balloon payments to cover the difference, because certainly, in the future, you will be earning more - and thus more able to pay.

:sarcasm:

But really, isn't this what we are being asked to do? And with Paulson now wanting to bail out foreign banks as well as domestic banks - and asking for the ability to do so without ANY oversight (the Bush admin proposal specifically states that no court or govt entity would have the right to review and challenge their actions with the TAX PAYER money and how it is spent. The only difference from my above scenario - in which the real costs would be passed directly on to the debtors (tax payers) is the belief that passing off the cost (with the accrued interest) makes it seem as if there is no cost. If we let them do this, sooner or later we will be faced with horrific tax bills that many of us will be unable to pay. This makes me angry. I own my house (no mortgage), I have no credit card debt. and no car loan - I don't have a high income, but I live very frugally. And now I am on the hook for a huge tax obligation... with NO oversight, no promise of regulations that will prevent a repeat, and giving the NO ACCOUNTABILITY responsibility to manage this money with a member of the Bush Administration that just one week ago couldn't even get ice (via FEMA) to Houston?

Seriously, we need to talk about this policy in terms of the increased tax obligation to each citizen of this country.

IF, my increased tax debt (and payment at some point in the future) is accompanied by serious regulations (federal) that prevent future financial meltdowns, and if it alleviates the likelihood of "great depression" conditions; and if there is a provision that allows for the federal govt to recoup most of the money (which would lower our escalated tax obligations), than even though I have played NO part in creating the crisis, for the sake of preventing a total bust of the economy - I will pay my share to help the country prevent an economic catastrophe. BUT if the solution includes no correcting regulation, and no requirement of FULL + interest repayment of the bailout - that will be recouped over the long term (think of the equivalent of a 30 year mortgage) than there is NO WAY I would support such a policy.

We (taxpayers) will have to pay for this. At some point we will pay. And in the current culture of we never pay our bills fully in order to give tax cuts - the interest accruing on our debts is escalating at a grotesque rate. And this is where I get seriously angry. I saw no benefit from the horrible behavior that led to this situation. But some gained financially A LOT - certainly their tax obligation should be much higher? Surely the execs of Country wide who earned MILLIONS in 'bonuses' and pay - ought to have an exponentially greater tax obligation than those of us who had no part in the whole mess.

Cheney can claim that "deficits don't matter", until the cows come home. But the fact is that our economy will completely fail if - somewhere in the future - we can not continue to pay off the debt and the interest on that debt. We need to start talking about these issues in terms of how much these expenditures increase our (taxpayer) individual debt obligations to the government.

And bailing out Phil Gramm's USB - can there be a grosser joke on US taxpayers?

[aquart]

1. Has anyone suggested a health workup for Paulson?

Examine him for, say, mini-strokes or the onset of Alzheimers?

[salin]

4. seriously...

hard to imagine explanation except - extreme influence by folks like "saveme" Phil Gramm (VP of USB), who wraught this whole situation by his fricking legislation; or as you suggest - a serious mental defect - assuming that we the tax payers will play the Mikey in the old cereal ads. As in "Ask Mikey (taxpayers) He'll try (pay for per taxpayers) anything.

[NotThisTime]

2. First? No to Foreign banks & ALL of your regulations IN PLACE....

I believe this will happen (the regulations that is), the foreign banks, your guess is as good as mine.... USB should NEVER receive a damn dime

[salin]

6. one would hope... but Paulson has committed to this (supporting USB and other foreign banks).

And why should we get a tax obligation for a bank that has been in trouble for helping their wealthy American investors to avoid US taxes?

[tblue]

3. You said it all. Thanks for a great post.

[salin]

7. thanks for the compliment.. I just can't find enough words

to express my outrage/disbelief. So USB is in trouble for helping really wealthy American clients shelter their income (re: AVOID TAXES) - and has Gramm as an advisor - who engineered the conditions for this melt down... and I - as a US taxpayer - and am expected to pay for their BAD BUSINESS decisions. Seriously?

[wordpix]

5. you make sense & I agree---unfortunately, the geniuses in BushCo have never made sense

the only thing they think is sensible is keeping their criminal money machine going.

[salin]

8. The "no court nor agency can review our actions" was bad enough...

now adding to this NO oversight proposal that now Paulson has expanded to cover foreign financial institutions... the whole thing is off the charts. We have entered the world of the absurd. Crisis level - but the proposal is still absurd.

[KewlKat]

9. You need to recypher

Per bloomberg we now are considering more debt options:

The U.S. Treasury submitted revised guidance to Congress on its plan a day after first submitting it, as lawmakers and lobbyists push their own ideas. Officials now propose buying what they term troubled assets, without specifying the type, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by a congressional aide.

The change suggests the inclusion of instruments such as car and student loans, credit-card debt and any other troubled asset. That may force an eventual increase in the size of the package as Democrats and Republicans in Congress negotiate the final legislation with the Bush administration, analysts said.


``The costs of the bailout will be significantly higher than originally considered or acknowledged,'' said Josh Rosner, an analyst with independent research firm Graham Fisher & Co. in New York. ``How, given these changes, can the administration and Federal Reserve believe they are being forthright in their unrevised expectation of future losses?''

In another change today, the Treasury said it would limit its $50 billion plan for insuring money-market funds to those held by investors as of Sept. 19, excluding any subsequent contributions.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYXtwpG9mw9g&refer=home