Financial Meltdown (9 Viewers)

[Njja]

Okay I'm not an economist but this entire bailout move sounds fishy to me.

I realize the reason they are saying how much it is going to cost each

American is to fool the world into thinking we aren't just going to turn on the

presses and print more money. Sorry, I think they know that guys.

Here is my question, why don't they just tell us they are going to use these

funds to make money for us instead of take money from us?

AIG is a 1 Trillion dollar company, if you bought 80% of it for 80 Billion.....you

just made 720 Billion on paper. Why thats enough to pay for the current

quote on the Sub Prime buyout. I didn't go to the Wharton School of

Business......but I can count.

Here is my question why don't we turn our newest asset AIG over to the

Social Security Trust Fund? We could tear up 80 Billion in IOU's and start

pumping the profits from AIG right into an actual Trust Fund (which could

not be touched except to pay the benericiaries (people collecting Social

Security)?

Why isn't this on the table? Okay lets say someone says what about the

current stockholders of AIG? Thats a fair question, the current Market

Capitalization (value of current market price times outstanding shares) is

10.35 Billion we have just paid nearly 8 times that for our 80% stake.

When we return the company to profitability the stock price will increase and

the 20% remaining in stockholders hands will be worth far more then it is

today. Why aren't we doing this? Anyone?

We are going to buy SubPrime Mortgages at $.45 on the dollar why not give

them all to Social Security Trust Fund Also? Tear up another 700 Billion in

IOU's to the SS Trust and give it these assets! Even if the properties were

sold and the new mortgage prices was 65% of the original loan SS would

make a 20% return of assets + the interest on the loans......price to you

and I? ZERO! And we would have a stronger SS Trust Fund?

We have a lot of smart guys out there......why isn't this being done?

 

[Canadian Samurai]

That might actually be a good way to handle it John. Put the profits to work for the people for a change.

 

[kilted vampire]

That might actually be a good way to handle it John. Put the profits to work for the people for a change.

Oh........never mind......

Let us hope that it turns out well. Lots of people out there smarter than myself. They are the ones who screwed it up. I think we have to look out for our families and friends. Hunker down for awhile and hold tight.

What little money I do have is with Wells fargo. They tend to be conservative and thus not in dire straits. Sometimes I get lucky.

I do hope none of my friends get hurt in this.

 

[Canadian Samurai]

I'm quite suprised someone from a foreign country would tell and American

how this happened.

Most of the people in this country didn't see it coming.

Wall street didn't see it coming........

President Busch didn't see.......well thats another story

In this global economy, being from a "foreign" country is pretty much irrelevant - and perhaps an asset like standing on the side of the road gives you a better perspective on a car crash maybe? Also, as you implied yourself the overzealous housing boom was not exclusively a US phenomenon, it happened in Canada to a lesser degree too. We also have a stock market as well you know, albeit inside our igloos, but they did get the electricity connected last week so I hear it’s fully operational now.

Second, someone with more brains than me really should have seen it coming... because anyone who has studied economic history knows boom and bust (bubble and burst) is the natural way that markets function if there are no controls put on actors in the system (and even then, you can never get rid of their cyclical nature). It’s not rocket science – it’s the psychology of human behavior. People flock like birds and startle just as easily. First, someone sees a brand new (and usually risky) opportunity to make money. Then, others start joining in and the analysts label it the “next big thing”. Soon it becomes mainstream and every one and their uncle joins in so they too can become a millionaire overnight. Government indirectly encourages it as the latest way to grow the economy – because in a capitalist society pumping up GDP is their single minded obsession while in office.

The problem is, no one ever stops to think if their wealth is based on a solid foundation, or whether they are falling prey to what Greenspan called “Irrational exuberance”. Things start to break down behind the scenes when companies, in their lust for profits, start making way too much of the product at the centre of this supposed wealth boom (housing in this case), more than they could ever hope to sell. Yet they treat the sales like a done deal in their accounting. So a bubble starts to inflate equal in size to the difference between actual wealth and theoretical paper (electronic) wealth. In the buying frenzy, vast amounts of credit are lent out that will never be repaid. Finally, some event shakes the confidence of the smarter investors and they pull out. All of a sudden everyone wakes up to the fact their instant fortune is a house of cards and they panic, leading to a stampede to the exits and a defaulting on credit that crashes the system.

That doesn’t mean it’s possible right now to predict what the next big thing will be, or what will eventually cause it to crash. But for over a hundred years, this pattern has repeated itself remorselessly, without fail. And yet every single time, people are completely shocked when the party suddenly ends. Why? Because the average person (including most stock brokers and financial experts) are fairly ignorant about both economic history, and future underlying trends. They live in the moment, blind to what came before and what is approaching. Those wise enough to see it coming often don’t have the guts to interrupt the gravy train while it’s rolling because they’re profiting from it too. Those that do speak up, you never hear about (or more likely, choose to ignore) because our world prefers feel-good fantasy to cold hard reality. No different with climate change as we talked about before.

In the Great Depression, it was a similar case of unregulated stock markets, overvalued stock prices, an oil boom and another real estate bubble that ultimately left the banks holding collateral in stock worth less than the money they had lent out. By 1934, 40% of US banks had foreclosed, a pattern repeated all over the world. Have we learned anything since then? I wonder sometimes...

In the ‘90s dot com boom, too many silly websites set up too quickly with no revenue generating model to support them led to a bubble burst that still haunts us today. Because to head off the inevitable downturn and keep the gravy rolling, Greenspan dropped interest rates close to zero to stimulate the economy which worked in the short term but, together with the newfound private financial love of the subprime market, created the conditions for people buying houses they could never hope to afford. But developers and builders were more than happy to oblige and housing starts fueled the American economy even as manufacturing was/is further gutted and outsourced to China. Nevertheless the stock market was giddy as a school girl chewing Bubble gum. Yet all it took was Hurricane Katrina and the spike in oil prices to shake people’s confidence and bring many dreams of gas guzzling, suburban home ownership to an end and the panicked rush to the exits began. Of course, the upward correction in oil prices could be seen coming a mile away by anyone who studied supply data and peak oil theory, except of course by the financial analysts.

So right now our system is lurching between crises, with solutions to one crisis creating the genesis for the next. The US dollar still has a long downward correction ahead of it because of the crippling debt situation which again is being made worse by these bailouts. But the real tests are to come. Stock market breakdowns are largely psychological in nature, a question of confidence in the system. Looming physical shortages, of fossil fuels, water and food, well let's just say they’re on another whole order of economic magnitude that can’t be solved by the Fed tinkering with the interest rate. But let us not trouble ourselves with those issues right now friends, because I hear the stock market gravy train is starting up again somewhere else… we better all get on board the latest craze because there's no way history will repeat itself this time, right?

 

[Njja]

In this global economy, being from a "foreign" country is pretty much irrelevant - and perhaps an asset like standing on the side of the road gives you a better perspective on a car crash maybe?


You make excellent points, I meant no offense with my "foreign Country"

reference, it would take me far to long to develop the insight to be able to

comment for example on the Canadian Economy.

I would hope established countries such as yours would have more capable

leadership.....yet on this point we are most certainly no shinning example.

Where are the great leaders of the past, the voices of calm and reason?

Today faced with a situation like we are discussing here the best we can

hope for is a group of politicians all pointing at each other and saying

"He did it"

 

[damian]

There is an interesting article in today's Times by their business writer, Joe Nocera,who sees the government's plans as equivalent to a hail mary and that much more pain is on the way, particularly if the government proposes buying mortgages at half or less of their value as the actual price will have to be marked down on the seller's balance sheet, generating further losses.

You can probably find the article on the web but I can always post it later.

\
I love that expression a "Hail Mary." I have heard it in sport that is a Hail Mary pass. Which is usually better than a hospital pass.

 

[jazzeum]

Here is the article from yesterday's Times:

It was the end of the worst week for financial markets since 1929, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. looked sleep-deprived.

He had begun the week agreeing to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, arguing that the government had to stop putting taxpayers’ money at risk. Then, midweek, he brokered a deal to rescue the American International Group with an $85 billion loan from taxpayers — arguing that the risk to the financial system was too high to allow the world’s biggest insurer to fail.

Neither move had done anything to stop the financial tsunami. So on Friday morning, just as the markets were opening, Mr. Paulson unveiled the government’s latest attempt to stop the bleeding. Maybe it was because he was so tired, but there was none of the glass-half-full blather that is de rigueur for a cabinet secretary. Instead, his flat, just-the-facts-ma’am voice and weary body language conveyed an unusual sense of urgency.

The core issue, he said — the mistake that had led to all the other mistakes — was that “lax lending practices earlier this decade led to irresponsible lending and irresponsible borrowing.” True. As for Wall Street, toxic mortgage-backed securities had become “frozen on the balance sheet of banks and financial institutions.” He added, “The inability to determine their worth has fostered uncertainty about mortgage assets and even about the financial condition of the institutions that own them.” True again.

And that really is the crux of the matter — the financial system has seized up. But so far, the government’s actions haven’t helped. Letting Lehman go bust may have sounded good at the time, but it has had disastrous consequences.

It has led to complete chaos in the multitrillion-dollar market for credit-default swaps and was a crucial reason Morgan Stanley was forced to scramble to stay alive this week. It is also why questions were raised about the viability of Goldman Sachs, a firm with a pristine balance sheet and almost none of the bad assets that are bringing down other firms.

The rescue of A.I.G. further undermined confidence because, within the space of several days, the government did a complete about-face. The bailout suggested the Treasury Department was as confused about what to do as the rest of us.

So rather than help solve the crisis, the Treasury Department has actually contributed to the biggest problem in the market right now: an utter lack of confidence.

Nobody understands who owes what to whom — or whether they have the ability to pay. Counterparties have become afraid to trade with each other. Sovereign wealth funds are no longer willing to supply badly needed capital because they no longer know what they are investing in. The crisis continues because nobody knows what anything is worth. You simply cannot have a functioning market under such circumstances.

Will this latest round of proposals end the crisis? I know the stock market reacted joyously on Friday, but I’m not hopeful. One solution being promoted by the Securities and Exchange Commission — to make life more difficult for short sellers — is a shameful sideshow. A second solution, which Mr. Paulson announced Friday morning, requires money market funds to create an insurance pool to cover themselves against losses.

That may provide comfort to investors who equate money funds with savings accounts, but it is fraught with moral hazard.

And the third solution — the big megillah — is Mr. Paulson’s plan to create a new government mechanism to buy mortgage-backed securities from big banks and investment houses. Once they are off those companies’ books, life can return to normal — or so Mr. Paulson hopes.

He acknowledged that it would likely cost taxpayers “hundreds of billions of dollars.” I think it will cost more than $1 trillion.

It is a weird tribute to the scale of this crisis that Mr. Paulson felt he had no choice but to rush this proposal out, because as the day progressed it became increasingly clear that the Treasury Department didn’t yet know how this mechanism was going to work. It is an idea of a plan more than an actual plan. In football, they would call it a Hail Mary pass. Sometimes, of course, a Hail Mary pass is completed for a touchdown. But most of the time they fail.

Let’s take a closer look at the government’s latest response.

KILL THE SHORT SELLERS It’s understandable why people get upset at short sellers in tough times. As President Bush put it Friday, short sellers are “intentionally driving down particular stocks for their own personal gain.” But that perception is more myth than fact, and in any case, it’s not the dynamic here. Stocks are falling because companies made huge mistakes that have caused them a heap of trouble. Indeed, in July and August, short interest in financial stocks declined by 20 percent. Why did the stocks continue to go down? Because there were too many sellers and not enough buyers: it’s that confidence thing again. Blaming the shorts is classic blame-the-messenger behavior.

The S.E.C. jihad against short sellers, which includes the banning of short selling on 799 stocks and forcing disclosure of large short positions, is nothing more than playing to the crowd. It is simply appalling that as one firm after another vaporizes — firms, let’s remember, that the S.E.C. was supposed to be regulating — the only thing the agency can think to do is flog the shorts.

There were so many better moves it could have made. After Bear Stearns fell, it could have sent SWAT teams into all the other financial firms to assess their mortgage-backed paper. It could have then announced to the world the health of each firm, which would have helped the market regain some confidence. It could have forced firms to disclose their mortgage-backed holdings so that counterparties could evaluate them. It did none of these things.

(Continued in next post)

 

[jazzeum]

(Continued from prior post)

Then again, maybe the S.E.C. is trying to cover up its own culpability in this crisis. Four years ago, the agency pushed through a rule that allowed the big investment banks to take on a great deal more debt. As a result, debt ratios rose from about 12 to 1 to more like 30 to 1. Guess what Lehman’s debt ratio was when it went bust? Yep: 30 to 1.

SAVE THE MONEY MARKET FUNDS The precipitating event here was the news that the Reserve Fund, a money market fund that caters to institutions, had “broken the buck” and was paying investors 97 cents on the dollar. That is only the second time that’s ever happened, and it had to scare investors, because most of us have come to think of money market funds as being the equivalent of bank savings account — perfectly safe.

In the aftermath, investors in the various Reserve money market funds pulled $58 billion out in the space of a week, leaving the firm with only $7.1 billion. If that same fear had spread across other money funds, it could well have led the funds to stop accepting short-term commercial paper. That would have been a disaster, because big companies rely on the commercial paper market to finance their day-to-day needs.

Under the circumstances, insuring the money market funds probably makes sense. It will calm investors and keep the commercial paper market functioning. But think about the moral hazard! It bails out poorly managed money funds — the ones most likely to break the buck — at the expense of funds that haven’t taken the extra risk that causes a sudden drop in value.

And then there’s this: If you have your money in a bank account, only $100,000 is insured. But if you have it in a money market fund — which usually has a slightly higher yield precisely because it has a small element of risk — you now have unlimited insurance. It’s the world turned upside down.

THE BIG MEGILLAH For the last few weeks, a growing chorus of voices has called for the establishment of a new Resolution Trust Corporation, the entity the government devised in the wake of the savings and loan crisis to take over, and eventually sell off, the assets of failed S.& L.’s. On Wednesday, that chorus got its most powerful voice, when Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, co-authored an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal.

That crisis, however, was very different from this one. Most of the assets in the S.& L. crisis were real estate — which are always going to have value. And the government didn’t have to acquire them; it simply took them over and, over time, sold them. This time, the assets are complex derivatives of uncertain value that the big firms will actually be selling to the government.

But how is the government going to assess these securities — and what price will it pay for them? In many cases, these securities aren’t being sold because they are still overvalued on a firms’ books. That is, their mark-to-market price is unrealistically high. Will the government buy it at the too-high price? If it does, the firms won’t have to take additional write-downs — but it will constitute a huge, unjustified bailout of Wall Street. (More moral hazard.)

But what if the government drives a hard bargain, and gets the securities for what they are really worth — 20 cents on the dollar, say, instead of 50 cents? In that case, the firms would have to take yet more enormous write-offs, which would further damage their balance sheets, and they would have to raise billions more in capital. Maybe the removal of these bad assets would allow the firms to raise the capital. But maybe not — meaning one or more could conceivably have to file for bankruptcy, creating yet another spasm of financial turmoil. It’s a huge roll of the dice by the government.

Finally, there is the question of how much it will ultimately cost. “Institutions so far have written down $550 billion globally of bad debt,” said Daniel Alpert, managing director of Westwood Capital. “We think that when you add up all the problems in the residential housing market still to come — further erosion of housing prices, mortgage foreclosures and so on — we are going to need another $1 trillion of write-downs.”

In other words, for all the toxic securities that Wall Street has acknowledged holding, there will be yet more mortgage-backed paper that will go bad as the housing market continues to fall. As much as we all hope the worst is over, it’s probably not.

And as much as we might hope that the government finally has the answer, it probably doesn’t.

 

[Rutledge]

"Why? Because the average person (including most stock brokers and financial experts) are fairly ignorant about both economic history, and future underlying trends. They live in the moment, blind to what came before and what is approaching." Canadian Samurai

Wow, quite a judgemental assessment -- from the Canadian warrior for truth, justice and the socialist way So most stock brokers, and even "financial experts", are ignorant about the markets' history? Given that is their chosen profession, about which they know more than just about anything else, presumably they must be an overall ignorant bunch about basically everything. Good to know! (especially as I am one!)

As far as being ignorant about future trends, I am having a little trouble with this one. Now admittedly, I am ignorant about most things. But unless one can actually predict the future, how can this be? Isnt it more likely that visions of the future are different? I mean, until the future actually occurs, its a little hard to call someone ignorant about it, right? Or maybe the Canadian Samurai actually has the gift of foresight. If so he could make tons of money in the stock market, in my humble and ignorant opinion.

Perhaps another perspective could be offered which doesnt hinge so much on low IQs and such? I would offer that optimism about the future has been the driving force in the building of the USA. It was it that sent the first explorers to our shores, our founders to establish, and so on. So while there have been and will always be mistakes made, both big and small, the basic american philosophy is optimism about the future. This is fundamentally why we have been so successful. It allows one to push forward and believe that why sure, maybe it really is different this time. Often times it isnt, but sometimes it is. How many buinsesses have started up in somebody's garage have failed? Most, I presume. But some have turned into Hewlett Packard and Google. The failed ones I guess were started by ignorant people who should have recognized their destiny. But the others, well, I guess ignorance about their odds actually proved helpful.

 

[Njja]

I have always found that a lot of people that advise, report, or comment

on the market have a hidden agenda. Here are a few examples.

I have always enjoyed a Snapple on occasion so I invested in their stock

and did quite well until Dan Dorfman a popular CNBC Commentor announced

that the ship on the snapple label was a slave ship......down whet the

stock. Snapple quickly pointed out it represented our forefathers tossing tea

into Boston Harbor before the revolution......the ship was transporting tea...

as in Snapple.

Was Dan done? No, the following week he announced the K in a circle on the

label meant Snapple supported the KKK Again the stock lost ground

Snapple said it meant the product was simply Kosher. This time we did not

fully recover, to much bad press in to short a period of time.

Dan Dorman lost his position as an on air commentator, and writer for

Money Magazine and fell from grace when it was suggested he was a target

of a Federal Probe on insider trading.

Another "Market Annalist" I have found problematic is Judith Hong of

Goldman Sachs a VP and "Expert" in beverages & alcohol in her 30's her

quips, comments, and observations can freeze solid companies in ther tracks.

Wall Street has in my opinion unrealistic expectations which often lead to

market instability. Double digit growth is expected, annalist's expectations

must be exceeded quarterly, and a company better follow the formula laid

out by people such as Hong or they will incur her wrath.....an endless series

of criticisms designed to shake investor conifidence.....and build her own

importance by heralding the decline in price she predicted.....and in part

caused.

Her experience you ask.........a lifetime spent in this industry perhaps?

Could it be in her blood....perhaps her father spent 40 years in this industry?

Ah no.....he's a dry cleaner.....and she was a VP at 29.....probably learned

all that in 4 or 5 years out of business school.

Which brings me to the author of the N.Y. Times article Brad mentioned. It

would seem he feels that people that "Sell Short" are being picked on!

Are they? Lets hope so! Is it the American way to bet someone is going to

fail? Do you wake up and think man I hope Leman Bros crashes today and

28,600 people lose their jobs.......so I can make a quick buck?

I think they should find the guy that thought this up and throw him in jail.

For 30 years I have bought and paid for stock, not on credit, or margin,

paid for. I don't buy a thousand on margin I buy a hundred and pay for them.

I only make money when they go up, split, and grow. I only buy companies I

admire and respect. Who buys a loser?

Anyone wonder how you buy something and make money when it goes down?

Its a neat trick someone with a hangover must have figured out.

You open a margin (credit) account with your broker. Then you pick a stock

you believe will crash.....say one that didn't jump when Judith Hong called...

and you know she's annoyed. Then you tell your broker you want to sell 100

or 1000 or whatever your credit will allow of this company at todays price say

50 and if you bought say 1000 they dump $50,000 into your account.

You tell all your friends and neighbors you heard they were going broke and

pray the stock takes a hit say it drops to 40....then you tell your broker to

buy the 1000 and replace them leaving you with $10,000 less fees!

You just made $10,000 in a declining market! Wow......who else can we

ruin?

Now heres the best part......you might ask who was stupid enough to allow

you to sell their 1000 shares.......and what was their benefit?

Nothing.....they didn't even know you did it. Their $50,000 investment was

legally stolen from them and used by you and your broker.

Brokers hold stock for lots of people, makes it easy to trade, and most

brokers charge you $35 and up to have the stock issued to you in your name

and it can take 6 weeks. They convince people to just leave it in their

account so they have shares on hand to sell when another customer wants

to sell short.

Poof there goes your shares!

Broker would say "No problem" short account must contain enough funds to

buy back stock that was sold so you were never at risk.......ha!

I don't know about you, but if I drop $50K on something I don't want anyone

"borrowing it" even for an hour.

 

[Canadian Samurai]

I would hope established countries such as yours would have more capable leadership.....yet on this point we are most certainly no shinning example.

Unfortunately most of Canada's politicians are buffoons and/or liars, no different from anywhere else.

In terms of knowledge of the US economy, you can't study the Canadian economy (which is heavily export dependent on the US) without following what is going on down south. America is also the driver for the world's financial markets of course.

Take care, it's been a lot of fun chatting with you.

 

[Canadian Samurai]

Wow, quite a judgemental assessment -- from the Canadian warrior for truth, justice and the socialist way

Regulating financial markets is now considered socialist too? Well I guess the entire Western world will be turning socialist in the coming months because a little bird told me the public is understandably a bit upset about this whole affair and wants measures implemented to make sure it doesn't happen again (hey, isn't the $700 billion in government assistance to the financial markets basically socialism as well - corporate welfare)?

The fact is, Roosevelt, the greatest US President of all time, as he pulled the US out of the Great Depression, took radical steps to regulate banks, the financial system and the stock market. Does that make him socialist (some say he was)? Unfortunately in more recent decades we forgot why he put those measures in place as we cut away “red tape”, making a crises like this inevitable. Again, our memories are very short and apparently we need to be taught the same lesson many times, like a dog.

When it comes to financial markets, I just want to see a return to the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s when government in our countries had rules in place to provide some stability and prudence to the market as well as ensure that a few people weren’t running away will all the riches. It’s far more cost effective to prevent a catastrophe than to clean up the mess. I’m sure some regulations would have been cheaper than $700 BILLION dollars. I hope the government bails me out the next time I have financial trouble.

 

[Spitfrnd]

Regulating financial markets is now considered socialist too? Well I guess the entire Western world will be turning socialist in the coming months because a little bird told me the public is understandably a bit upset about this whole affair and wants measures implemented to make sure it doesn't happen again (hey, isn't the $700 billion in government assistance to the financial markets basically socialism as well - corporate welfare)?

The fact is, Roosevelt, the greatest US President of all time, as he pulled the US out of the Great Depression, took radical steps to regulate banks, the financial system and the stock market. Does that make him socialist (some say he was)? Unfortunately in more recent decades we forgot why he put those measures in place as we cut away “red tape”, making a crises like this inevitable. Again, our memories are very short and apparently we need to be taught the same lesson many times, like a dog.

When it comes to financial markets, I just want to see a return to the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s when government in our countries had rules in place to provide some stability and prudence to the market as well as ensure that a few people weren’t running away will all the riches. It’s far more cost effective to prevent a catastrophe than to clean up the mess. I’m sure some regulations would have been cheaper than $700 BILLION dollars. I hope the government bails me out the next time I have financial trouble.

Regulations are no substitute for judgement; unfortunately, when they are put in place they are most often treated that way. Cutting away red tape did NOTHING to make this situation; bad judgment by government and private parties, both on the borrowing and the lending side is really to blame. It must be remembered that to sell something, there must be someone to buy it. If fraud was involved, we have laws for that; if stupidity was the culprit, I don't see a regulatory improvement. It is no surprise however that a fan of more regulation would consider Roosevelt was the greatest US president. Not to worry though, I am sure there will be more than enough irrelevant, after the fact political proposals that address yesterday's problem to satisfy even the more ardent fan of large government.

 

[Canadian Samurai]

Not to worry though, I am sure there will be more than enough irrelevant, after the fact political proposals that address yesterday's problem to satisfy even the more ardent fan of large government.

There were regulations in place in the 1960's concerning banking and lending requirements that would have probably stopped this problem from developing the way it has. But if you're not a fan of those rules (which really aren't expensive to have or enforce), don't despair, with the government debt situation the way it is I'm not sure the US regulatory structure can afford to get any larger right now, at least until the wars are brought to an end.

 

[Njja]

Here we go again!

Is no one concerned?

Our national economy being decided by the very people that got us in this

mess in the first place......only now they are in a hurry.....got to go on

break again.

The latest I heard is one of the canidates wants to include bad car loans,

and credit card debt along with foreclosure protection.

So unless all the Americans that actually pay their bills WAKE UP! And call

their Senators we (responsible Americans) are going to wind up picking up

the tab for all the dead beats!

If you have someone in foreclosure.......and you are going to "Protect" them

what exactly are you going to do? I mean he isn't paying his mortgage as

it is.......are you going to send him a monthly check?

How long before he stops paying property taxes? I mean he's protected.

How long before he racks up his credit card bills for a new set of $2000

Rims for his escalade.......and the gas to run it.

And are we also going to pick up the tab on his new one........cause he's

not going to "roll" in a 2007 once the "Sweet" 2009's are out.

Just something you should be thinking about .......in my opinion.

 

[nmrocks]

Your absolutely right, the fed chairman not only wants to bail out these losers and the rich he wants to include Non-American banks and holding companies as well. To add to this he wants a 15 Billion dollar gift to the world bank as well. I got my last remaining assets out of the market today, Gold and Oil Jumped huge amounts as the dollar plummeted on world markets. There's more defaults to come as well as automakers. there will be no money to lend and what will we do when next summer gas goes to $5.50 or $6.00 a gallon???

Here we go again!

Is no one concerned?

Our national economy being decided by the very people that got us in this

mess in the first place......only now they are in a hurry.....got to go on

break again.

The latest I heard is one of the canidates wants to include bad car loans,

and credit card debt along with foreclosure protection.

So unless all the Americans that actually pay their bills WAKE UP! And call

their Senators we (responsible Americans) are going to wind up picking up

the tab for all the dead beats!

If you have someone in foreclosure.......and you are going to "Protect" them

what exactly are you going to do? I mean he isn't paying his mortgage as

it is.......are you going to send him a monthly check?

How long before he stops paying property taxes? I mean he's protected.

How long before he racks up his credit card bills for a new set of $2000

Rims for his escalade.......and the gas to run it.

And are we also going to pick up the tab on his new one........cause he's

not going to "roll" in a 2007 once the "Sweet" 2009's are out.

Just something you should be thinking about .......in my opinion.

 

[Njja]

Its a scary time, I'm shocked when I hear these "Experts" talking about

bailing out credit card, car loan, and stopping foreclosure actions against

people failing to make home payments.

What about the rest of us?

Are we just suckers?

You pay your bills........and now you are going to pay someone elses credit

debt?

Time to contact your senators they are easy to reach by phone and email

and tell them you do not support this nonsense.

If you get up tomorrow morning, and go to work.......and don't speak up on

this matter what are you thinking?

This is no time to say......whats the use.

Its either speak up, or you might as well quit paying for anything and charge

up to your eyeballs and stick your hand out with the deadbeats.

Problem is.......someone working is going to have to foot the bill for this

nonsense.

The real shame is they think nothing of telling us Social Security is going

broke.......after we have paid into it for 4 decades.......but some stiff in a

house he can't afford....with maxed out credit cards driving a $50,000 car

needs help NOW!

I guess its partly our fault for sending idiots to Washington.....what were we

thinking?

 

[jazzeum]

While this an important subject to our financial health, I'm not sure a toy soldier forum is the best place for this kind of discussion.

 

[Njja]

Brad:

Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps we should not discuss it at all. It will all just work out.

On the other hand if we do nothing, its quite possible there won't be a toy
soldier forum or marketplace in 6 months.

How about this, I won't bring it up again, if no one posts anymore on this
thread its over.

Or you could close the thread......don't want to upset anyone or make them
think about what will affect their future and that of their children.

You choose.

 

[Canadian Samurai]

I will say this John, that while we don't agree on how to solve some of these issues, it's actually quite refreshing to see someone like yourself who worries so much about the future and how decisions today will impact it. So many people nowdays have their heads buried in the sand like ostriches, worried about their little day to day issues, that they never stop to consider that decisions being made elsewhere or at the top can render all their hard work basically meaningless. Nowdays the media just seems to treat politics like a game (or even worse entertainment), as though there are no high stakes involved, and I can only assume that reflects the view of the majority of people out there, especially young people. Well, one day when the price of food triples or quadruples, those same people all of a sudden will wake up and say: hey, what happened? Well what happened was decisions made 10 years earlier when they couldn't have cared less about economics.