So the Fed bailed out McDonald's...

[Toucano]

That's right. The "happy meal" McDonald's.

Where the fuck is MY bailout?! I've made bad decisions, too!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/federal-reserve-documents_1_n_790433.html#3_mcdonalds-among-companies-that-got-emergency-aid

[MineralMan]

1. Yabbut, we got back the McRib, so it's all good.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Sickening!!!!!!!!!!!

[Toucano]

5. Grimace is too big to fail?

The corporations all got handouts while the main streeters got foreclosure.

[JoseGaspar]

3. They are too pig to fail... n/t

[AngryAmish]

4. Did you even read the story?

It is well known that commercial paper market almost stopped. Commercial paper is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_paper> short term debt by corporations to smooth out cash flow. It is sold by big corporations every day. When this market froze the government started buying just to keep some liquidity in the market.

Do you think this was dumb? Really? If the commercial paper market stalled then these corporations would have to hoard large sums of money for a rainy day. This money could not be used to dividends, investment, paying of workers etc.

It was not a bailout. Jeez, how stupid.

[Toucano]

6. That's the definition of a bailout.

They got their heads down underwater and Uncle Sam stepped in to throw a life preserver.

The small businesses that supposedly drive this economy collapsed and had to suffer the consequences of being over-extended.

The corporate players were saved.

[AngryAmish]

10. Umm, no.

Where, anywhere, did it say that McDonalds was underwater? They were not. The market froze up because there was a panic. The Fed bought a lot of commercial paper to restart the market.

About the corporate player being saved? You are right. But Life in the US is much better with a commercial paper market than without.

I'll say it again: McDonalds was never overextended. They put their paper on the open market - like they do everyday - and the Fed bought it. No deal, no collusion.

[Toucano]

14. And Joe's Hamburgers saw his equity line frozen.

He couldn't pay his vendors or pay his workers.

He used his personal credit card to stay afloat until Bank of America decided he had used too much of his available credit, doubled his interest rate and cut that credit line.

That type of story is repeated all over the country.

The big players got saved, the little guy got hosed.

[Autumn]

18. Yep, our little local restaurant closed down. Damn good food

too. Couldn't stay afloat.

[uppityperson]

15. You mean GE and Harley Davidson? They are listed there also.

Last time I buy a Harley or new GE appliance! I'm SeRIES!!!11

[JuniperLea]

20. Wrong... wrong... and wrong...

Please, don't try again.

[WCGreen]

8. It's clear we don't have all that many practicing small business folks here...

Commercial paper has to keep flowing or people don't get paid...

[Chan790]

16. Yup, I knew that.

Then again, I'm a bad person according to some DUers because as a philanthropic-business-banker (because writing doesn't pay the bills) I work with NPOs of all sizes to help them help rich assholes make large bequeathments to our clients (the aforementioned NPOs) to reduce their estate taxes.

(Because it's totally better that they pay $2M in taxes so they can leave $5M to their spoiled kids instead of donating $6M to charity to avoid paying taxes.:eyes:)

[WCGreen]

22. I'm an accountant and I am leaning toward getting rid of the Estate Tax...

But I would also eliminate the bumped up basis for inherited assets.

The reasoning would be, to me at least, that the economic event has to occur in order to trigger taxation.

People could keep their bequeath assets but would have to pay on the basis of the bequeather.

If the asset is fro prior to 1980, say, when records are reasonably available, then use the value of the asset from Jan 1, 1980.

Then all the whining about having to sell the farm to pay Estate Taxes would go out the window, so to speak.

Curious, how do you think that would impact philanthropy?

[Chan790]

24. We like the tax (speaking from the standpoint of our LOB of the bank)`

I'm pretty sure that puts us at odds with the other lines-of-business of the bank, but I think the clients like the tax too. It drives bequeathments and planned giving which are how an organization typically takes in its' largest donations. Eliminating the tax would be bad for philanthropy...the best thing for our clients would be if the tax increased.

I'm not kidding in that previous example, they really will give away the farm to avoid paying any tax whatsoever. The estate tax is of vast economic benefit to our clients. The more punitive it seems, the greater the lengths people will go to avoid it. Every time there is even a hint of a rumor of a possibility that the estate tax might go up, we see a spike in business.

Disclosure: The bank is not generally all that philanthropic, we serve the client's interests because it's profitable to us. It's part of the reason I keep saying I want to leave the bank, I don't like what I do. I wanted to be a development or PR coordinator in the NPO sector.

[girl gone mad]

23. You can make a case for McDonalds and Verizon.

But $2.3 billion to Harley Davidson?

That's just crony capitalist garbage.

[Egnever]

9. No one ever reads the stories

Its the headlines that matter.....

:mad:

[Autumn]

7. How fucking sickening is that

we are fucking suckers.

[AngryAmish]

12. No no no

We are not suckers for keeping liquidity in the commercial paper market in a panic. Was FDR a sucker for calling a bank holiday?

[PBS Poll-435]

11. UnRec for HuffPo idiocy

Please read something, hell anything about the Fed, Alexander Hamilton, commercial paper, loans, money, The Jetsons.

Just read something today.

[Forkboy]

13. What about The Jetsons?????

:)

[KamaAina]

21. I knew it! It was Mr. Spacely's fault all along!

:sarcasm:

[hughee99]

17. I didn't see anything about a "bailout" or corporate bad decisions in here,

The article I read was about keeping liquidity in the commercial paper market and the blurb finished mentioning the loans had been repaid. You must be looking at a different story.

[JuniperLea]

19. "The Fed says that all these loans were repaid."

Looks like you're a day late and a dollar short on the outrage...

Don't we have enough REAL issues to worry about? This is a major fucking waste of time and bandwidth... so is fucking HuffPo!

:mad: