Bush bailout for Dummies

[Steve]

We kept being told we were a couple days from a financial collapse that has not come to fruition.

 

The bailout plan in its scope and size and the urgency with which it was asked for originally was either over panicking by the white house and/or another in a long line of scams.

 

 

[chuckwoww]

I think a lot of it comes down to Paulson. I can't decide if he's a crook or just a Nervous Nellie.

 

Of course someone's pulling his strings too.

[Bangkoktraveler]

We kept being told we were a couple days from a financial collapse that has not come to fruition.

 

The bailout plan in its scope and size and the urgency with which it was asked for originally was either over panicking by the white house and/or another in a long line of scams.

 

 

 

 

History may show this bailout to be the third biggest scam the USA people swallowed. THe two largest scams are the scams that will come before GWB leaves office.

 

History will show this administration to be the worst and the administration that came close to destroying the country.

[shygye]

We kept being told we were a couple days from a financial collapse that has not come to fruition.

 

The bailout plan in its scope and size and the urgency with which it was asked for originally was either over panicking by the white house and/or another in a long line of scams.

 

 

When States are having problems getting loans, small biz have zero chance. Car dealerships can't get financing and now Toyota car sells has plummeted 30+%.

 

 

[Steve]

There is a financial downturn, even a crisis. No one is denying that. 700 billion dollar check to spend any way you see fit by an administration that has the credibility of a used car salesman (apologies to usd car salesmen everywhere)?

 

I just don't buy the white house solution for it. Weren't there credit crunches, hard to get loans, etc. in the prior recessions? Anyone around in the '70s? Did we need 700 billion then? The free market will flush out the bad companies and new ones or old ones that were stronger will take their place.

 

If the Treasury got its way, the american taxpayer would be stuck with Wachovia and Washington Mutual right now when it didn't need to be.

[shygye]

Did you notice that the Citi Corp deal buying Wachovia had the FDIC guaranteeing to limit the loss to $35 billion? Anything over that would be absorbed by the government.

 

No free market on the Wachovia and Washington Mutual deals.

[bust]

You are correct in your observation that the Australian Banks are vulnerable due to the Superanuation carrot but not sure how that equates to being bailed out...

[shygye]

Aussie banks have to go overseas to get funding. Without this funding the banks lose liquidity and can fail just like AIG.

 

Link

 

Amid the parallel chaos in European markets overnight, three-month $US-Libor rates were at a record 292 basis points, Euro-Libor at a record 148 basis points and the purest indicator of confidence in the financial system, the TED spread (measuring the gap between three-month Libor and US Treasury bills), blew out to a record 385 basis points.

 

As Australian banks source half their funding from these wholesale money-markets overseas, even our own banking sector is now against the wall. Suncorp's move to put itself up for sale, as augured here, is evidence of the critical funding crunch.

 

Treasurer Wayne Swan finally confessed last week what we should have been told long ago. The Australian Government, through its policies of the last two decades, has lost control of our financial sector...and interest rates.

[bust]

Watch the lending dwindle to a trickle......then obseve the carnage....

[Bangkoktraveler]

Who is going to get bailed out today?