Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?

The largest U.S. Government-sponsored bailout since the Great Depression - possibly EVER - is on the table.

It is estimated to cost $700 billion over the next 2 years. Here is a good article listing what is included and how it will be managed.

That's $2,304 per person living in the United States. (Please keep in mind that as of today, the National Debt is $9.73 Trillion ... so every resident already owes $32,000, mostly to China.)

The government will get the assets and will sell them, so there's a chance they'll turn a profit.

So my question to you is, if it were coming out of your pocket directly and it were your decision:

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe we should punish those responsible for the problem as it exists. Please feel free to go to this story so we may see who the culprits are.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

Anne said...

Hi Matt L! Thanks for reading, although I don't know who you are!

Personally, I don't like to give credence to editorials (particularly those written by someone on the payroll of a presidential candidate!), but the article you reference got me digging.

According to this Washington Post article, there were several efforts by the Bush Administration to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the last 3 years. There are some great side-by-side comparisons of the different bills (particularly House Bill 1461) and what each would have offered. Indeed, these reforms were blocked by the Democrats.

I will be watching Senator Dodd and others closely in the next few weeks. Thanks for the tip!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html

http://www.ncvaonline.org/archive/CRS_GSEReport_052605.pdf

Anne said...

Article on co-sponsor of the bill Republican Mike Oxley on why it was not passed - The White House.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8780c35e-7e91-11dd-b1af-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

lemmie said...

I hear ya sista!

I love the fact that the execs get golden parachutes on top of all of this. Isn't it enough that some of them made 73 MILLION dollars last year! GREED!

Anonymous said...

I'm not taking all the blame away from the Republicans, they had their shot at fixing the problem in 2002, though it was not as bad a problem as it was in 2005 the administration raised the questions then. What I would like to point out is that the current campaign has one candidate that knew what needed to be done and he co-sponsored the bill that might have avoided this situation and from the best I can tell the other candidate benefited from it. McCain is getting a bad rap for being part of this problem when he actually tried to correct it, and thats just not right. And no I don't want to pick up the tab but we may have no choice. So if we can prove that these people knew what they were doing we should prosecute them.

Anne said...

I completely agree. Thanks again, Matt!

Anonymous said...

In response to the Oxley note, yes the White House wasn't happy with the bill because it didn't privatize the companies, we see how well it was working with the government oversight. However there were champions in the Senate (S.190, by Hagel, Sununu, Dole, and McCain) but, they were on the wrong side of the aisle and it died in committee. Looking at his record the President would likely have signed the bill if it had made it to his desk, if I'm not mistaken he didn't veto a bill until last year. But to take your point, we will never know.

Anonymous said...

Here is a link to an article from Sept. 1999 which I beleive begins the trouble we are in now.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Pay special attention to the comments by Peter Wallison.
Like I said there are many to blame on both sides, but the Government created this problem long before the current administration and one side has had more involvement than the other. Lets just be fair and not blame the messengers.

Unknown said...

I think your dialogue should be posted on CNN! I found this VERY interesting. Thanks for posting!