Yeah they are counting equity X(

and no we didn't bail them out 12 years ago.  We should never bail anybody out.  That's what Chapter 11 is for.  We're sure as hell gonna hear them scream for a bailout from now on, though.

"equity is money in the long term"

that's what Greenspan thought when he touted home equity loans

and this country was built on the maxim " Never give a sucker an even break" .   The govt bailed Wall Street out beccause it was conned into thinking it could not afford to let wall street go bankrupt.  Is that every going to change?  what is going to change it?  you think wall street is ever going to say "Oh we can get the money, it' snot a problem...but...it would be wrong"?

you meantion bailouts but realize that any company in debt has money owed out that in turn would be linked to banks and a major downfall to a fractional reserve system is that at its worst point only 10% of the proposed money actually exists as a bond and properly backed. so when a market collapse happens on this scale it is manditory to have some form of bailout or have to deal with a probable collapse of the banking system. and god knows we can't have that happen. that means people loose money

"You guys ARE making a profit from said companies."
I'm a Belgian, so if you care to explain?

> The Yell wrote:

> "things are going to get worse before they get better

interesting event:  The US Federal Reserve, acting on its own, is writing checks to buy US Treasury bonds.  This is basically printing money to loan to the federal govt.  It is going to devalue our dollar so the Fed hopes people will be forced to spend more, not save more as prices go up.

The Fed doesnt ask permission from Congress or the President to do this.

The President is the one who has to explain to the world why their US bonds are losing value, and why their imports to the USA are falling off as prices rise.

I don't think this House and this President will agree the Fed was set up to create stagflation and a trade war."

this is actually an indirrect relation between the "federal reserve" bank and the government. yes at one time the government did claim bankruptcy but they do not owe the money to the "federal bank". the indirrect relation that is happening is due to the FDIC sticker you see all over the top banks these days that state if a bank goes under every person is entitled to up to 100k of thier savings. so what happens when all the major companies start to go under, fault on thier loans from the bank, the bank then looses liabilities which in turn makes then loose equity,(thank you fractional reserve system) thus banks are in danger of loosing billions of dollars then never had. everyone goes under. but wait. they are all FDIC ensured so now the government is now responisble to pay all of the people thier billions of dollars.

there are a few options the government can take, let them all fail, the monitary system will probably collapse with them, and if not will cost lets say 4 trillion(this is a random number to make a point) and the market drops down under 4,000

save them all by lending out money to every company by lending out 2 trillion dollars, that immediately makes the ecomony explode but would make prices of all good sky rocket as well as massively devaluate the dollar while promoting companies to keep loosing money annually

or option three "pick winners" which has both effect which almost cancel each other for a while. while some companies drop off the radar the "Winners" do amazing and make up for the loss, while the 700 billion (6.3 trillion in the fractional reserve system) causes a temporary bubble that can be slowly fed to keep the economy afloat for a short while.

>>so when a market collapse happens on this scale it is manditory to have some form of bailout or have to deal with a probable collapse of the banking system. and god knows we can't have that happen. that means people loose money<<

They lose more money when you trash the system that has created more wealth than the world has known to date. There are two options. You can let people who make bad decisions suffer for them, or through corruption you can force all of society to suffer for them. It is not mandatory to choose the latter.

>>fear tactics or not if wallstreet collapsed many would have lost life savings, jobs, and the monitary system that makes the whole world go round these days.<<

I wouldn't have lost my life savings. Why am I obligated to pay for the bad choices of others? Let the successful companies not run into the ground by idiots get the increase in business to rebuild a stronger wall street, don't bail out the failures at a cost to us all of propping up a degenerate, corrupt communist government-wall street apparatus. I don't owe you or anyone anything. I pay my taxes. Stop coming up with new debts that I suddenly owe because some idiot didn't take care of himself. Garbage like this is why our cost of living is so high. Garbage like this that leads to our high cost of living leads to our high production costs leads to our inability to compete on a global market leads to our massive trade deficit leads to our inevitable decline as a people, as a country, as the world's largest economy. I choose success. No, it is not mandatory that I choose failure because it'll make the failures feel better if I pay for their losses. Again, I don't owe you anything, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a loser. I don't bet on losers or give them my money. Stop telling me that I need to for my own good. It's not.

"ok, theoretically, lets say the US government did not bail out any companies,"
ok.

"multiple banks went bankrupt,"
We are not talking about the financial institutions. Thats a complete different story.

"GM and chrysler at least went bankrupt"
Yep. As they should.

"millions more people lose their jobs" "then they did, car part manufacuers go bankrupt with GM and Chrysler gone,"
That is two times a giant jump to conclusion I disagree with. What would have happened? someone would have bought those companies or pieces of it. If nobody was able to pay much, it would have gone cheap but what is the problem with that? The debts of those companies would have been gone. So the only difference would be that there would be another management then one that has proven its incapability. Some people might have lost there jobs. But the gov could give a very small bonus to the new owner if he wouldn't fire them all at once. That bonus is very little compared to buying up the entire company.

What happened now? The same people who are responsible for the crash - partially because they give themselves to much cash from their own company, partially because they are incompetent - are allowed to continue with tax payers money. That's insane.

ok i appologize for beating on the banking idea, IMO this is what is hurting our economy so much right now, plus all the new legislation which is vastly misunderstood.

i beleive the idea of the bailouts were to first keep these companies open AND in america, secong keep these jobs open AND in america, yes a competitor would have most likely bought up the failing company but they would have most likely been foriegn and posssibly closed down, converted or shipped jobs overseas.

****although obama receives a lot of negative spotlight for this it was a definite way to keep these companies and jobs in america. a very important fact that is almost never spoken of is the fact that almost all of this bialout money will be paid back and about 210B out of 540B has been paid back as of sept 30th.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/bailout-follow-the-money/

>>millions more people lose their jobs then they did, car part manufacuers go bankrupt with GM and Chrysler gone, and zero cars can be manufactured in the US for a decade. <<

Bankruptcy doesn't mean they cease to exist, it means they get a chance to make themselves profitable again by renegotiating contracts. Not only would they have a chance to fix themselves and become profitable again (which would involve manufacturing cars in the USA and demand for parts), but even their lost business would be available to Ford to pick up (which would involve manufacturing cars in the USA and demand for parts).

>>The stock market crashes, the government isn't bailing out anyone, so they aren't backing people's investments, so everyone who owned an account in any bank that goes bankrupt loses everything, which is a huge percent of the country.<<

Accounts are already insured up to $100,000 or whatever the dollar amount is, so I have no idea where you're presuming "everyone" who had an account would lose "everything." I said failing banks should not be given taxpayer dollars, not that the federal government should break the law and abandon money it has insured.  Additionally, not everyone had an account in a FAILING bank. I don't have more than $100,000 anywhere. I wouldn't have lost a DIME, yet you've just said I'd lose "everything." You're losing me here because you're wrong on the facts.

>>the value of the dollar is a tiny fraction of what it used to be because there is no stability in the US because the government isn't backing their businesses.<,

Vague generalizations. Inflation because the government is handing out money like candy is what is going to destroy our dollar. Letting failed business fail and letting profitable business pick up their business strengthens our economy and our dollar, not weakens it. Our dollar isn't strong because the government props up failed businesses, it's strong because the free market picks the winners, resulting in a net increase in production, and the government DOESN'T prop up failed businesses.

>>also, giving companies money that are losing money isn't throwing money away. what does the company do with the money? they are giving that money to other business and employees most of whom are probably in the US. and what are those other busninesses and employees doing with the money? they are giving it to other businesses and other employees and it keeps being given and used by more and more people, primarily in the US.<<

They're mostly buying stock in the juggernaut USA government because it's [interest] free money to invest with sure return. It's not helping anyone. It's lining their pockets. Follow any of the bailout money and you'll be disgusted by the stupidity of the lawmakers who gave it out.

Why does everyone pretend the sky was going to fall? Our economy took a hit. But these failing companies still had funds and assets available to liquidate and we have laws to handle bankruptcy which do not necessarily involve these companies disappearing. The market was slow, which it was right to be, but not nonexistent. The monetary system wasn't going to explode by our losing failed companies. No matter how large the hit would have been, it's only going to be worse down the road as we explode our debt to socialize their failure. This is a direct affront to the free market and its successes and will result in the same communist failures we've seen repeatedly across the globe. This is presumably why you've had to make up claims about how much the average citizen would have lost. I don't know anyone with more than $100,000 with any single bank who'd have lost a dime. People know what their accounts are insured for. If they don't care enough to protect their assets it's their free choice to lose them. I don't recall where in the constitution or where in any contract I've agreed to that I would pay for the shortcomings of my countrymen. Making up things about how much everyone would have lost doesn't explain anything, it's a rationalization for actions which you apparently already know were irrational, in addition to unjust. It's nice to say that it would hurt everyone to justify bailing out the failed bankers who worked hard to produce massive failures, but doing so only seems rational so long as you ignore the facts that you're exaggerating the harm to the populace and ignoring the even greater cost to the populace when their currency is devalued.

Again, I point out to twosidedeath that many of these companies are just paying the government back with other government money. Many haven't become profitable, they're just fudging their numbers and the corrupt leaders giving out the money are pretending not to know exactly what's going on.

These bailouts are just putting off the pain. The longer we put it off, the worse it will be. If you want to argue that they were NECESSARY to put off the pain, sure, I agree. But I don't agree that putting off the pain and making it worse in the future is a desirable goal. You're wrong on the facts in claiming that automakers (and their suppliers) would disappear from the country because of bankruptcy--bankruptcy was their chance to renegotiate contracts and become profitable. You're wrong on the facts to presume that every American would pass Ford up as an American-built alternative to failed automakers. Sure there would have been pain, but the simple fact is that the pain to come is going to be worse because we put it off.

If you're worried about a market collapse, do you take comfort in the fact that American markets will simply become irrelevant when we stomp the value out of the dollar and the rest of the world takes up a different currency, congratulating us on shitting away our wealth and becoming a developing country? Because then a "collapse," which you're calling a big hit to the market, wouldn't matter. It strikes me as odd that people are advocating taking a HUGE hit to our monetary system later as a solution to avoid a big hit now.

Nonsense distracts from the real problems we have. We need to address them. Government bailouts will not make failed bankers suddenly competent. Government bailouts will not make American products competitive on a world market, while we pay state employees six figure incomes with huge benefits for work about as good as a monkey would do, and corrupt politicians line their union thug supporters' pockets while they rob Americans of a productive and wealthy future.

It is certainly true that certain bailouts avoided pain now, but the cost is such a huge devaluation of our dollar (in addition to the harm done by propping up failed institutions at a cost to the successful institutions which would have picked up their business) that I literally worry about having tell my children that this was once a great and wealthy nation, in which freedom inspired such success and wealth creation that the world learned something about the true value of freedom and the rights of man. Our parents (Americans) understood this simple truth, that passing the buck on and EPIC groupthink eventually results in failure, much to our benefit.

I don't argue that the USA has never done any wrong. But the simple fact is that it is the merits of the free market of the USA that have produced our massive wealth. We didn't steal it from Zimbabwe or the Congo. They've never had anything worth stealing to produce a single percentage of the wealth that WE have CREATED. Ignorant "thinkers" like Obama have never realized more than Marx, whose juvenile ideas I fount fault with while still a child of 19 myself. His (Obama's, here for an example) ideas are not more enlightened or refined than bowing down to certain Arab monarchs who don't wield enough power to stop terrorism or the mutilation of women among their own populace. Not exactly the level of enlightenment (enlightenment, because if we were to compare wealth the comparison would be as laughable) suitable for any comparison.

I don't care about imperialism or power over others. (I'm not exactly a fan of our [America's] engagements abroad.) But I do care about honesty and simple, indisputable facts. And the simple, indisputable fact is that when we go beyond the free market to some quasi-communist economy where I'm somehow bound to squander my earnings when some fools in business and their corrupt [ie, bought] government officials say it's good for me, we're ruining and throwing away all that generations and generations of good men and women have fought, bled, and died to give us. It's not complicated to think that my standard of living should not be any more tied to billionaires and their retarded gambles on wealth than I bind myself to by contract.