In eight easy-to-read diagrams.
Also worth reading: It’s not a bailout: it’s the dollar’s credibility.
I hope Congress passes this fucker soon. I don’t WANT to live through a depression, thankyouverymuch.
UPDATE: Here’s an excellent discussion on how we got where we are. (It leaves out the Fannie/Freddie angle, but otherwise is spot-on).
Paulson started this bailout plan with 3 pages-the house bill was 100+pages-the senate bill is 400+pages. There is so much bull shit in both bills they should not be passed. If this really a crisis and if the sub prime loans are the real problem then a 10-15 page bill should take care of the problem. Any and every time the ass holes in congress rush thru a bill it is truly a shit sandwich. If this is a real crisis enough time should be taken to get the fix right, if it is all smoke in your face then enough time will expose it.
Sadly, I think time isn’t on our side in this case. But yeah, the bill’s a monstrosity now. The Senate just passed it; let’s see what the House does with it.
Yeah, I’m sorry, but they guy is asking me to trust the government to make enough money off the good paper they’ll be buying to cover the bad paper, and any difference comes out of our wallets.
Never. In. One. Hundred. Million. Years. would I do that. I wouldn’t even trust Ike or Reagan to get the right people to do that.
I’d rather they cut taxes to get more private liquid into the pipe, even if it is a trickle instead of playing these “We’ll buy this and sell that, you can have those, but we’re keeping a pile over here”, etc. games.
They may as well be having mortgage holders apply for individual “stimulus checks” to people to apply directly to their mortgages, if that is where the money shortage is coming from. It may even be cheaper that way.
Tuesday and Wednesday were verifiable proof that the Street was willing to play chicken and throw their little tantrum over not getting their way. Screw them. They can dig themselves out of it. Let it crash.
Lastly, the guy hasn’t yet spoken a single word about the credit markets going into self-lock mode to see if they’ll be loaning out their own money or, as they would prefer, be able to start loaning out the greenbacks they’ll be getting from The Fed.
I’m not asking for perfection. I just want common sense. There is too much infrastructure for it to not recover.