Say it with me - 700 BILLION Dollars

yeap.........its just like Colbert puts it....... whenever you screw up ... don't just screw up.............. screw up BIG .. screw up ROYALLY... to the point where you endanger the whole world ... only then you can expect a bail out such as the one AIG and others are getting.....


But seriously ... this is really fucked up......... we need the equivalent of at least 16 years of Clinton Economics to "start repairing" the financial mess we are in....

Now that all the banks are merging I guess they will really be to big to fail now

700 BILLION Dollars

Wow.

And the real kicker is... it's all borrowed money!!!!

no shit... if i have to loan another billion to the govt.., i am going to be really pissed off....

Mark Cuban wrote a good piece on how this kind of stuff will keep happening unless there are some major changes made. He made a great point when he said that CEO's of these companies basically get their jobs then play it pretty straight and conservative until they hit their golden parachute point where no matter what, even if fired, they stand to make millions. From there they have no reason not to throw the hail mary and take big risks. If they work, they make even more money and if not they get fired and walk away with millions and millions. So they have no real incentive not to take these risks and do things that they know could end very badly.

He made some good suggestions like making it so that no CEO was paid in stock. Give them a salary and if they want stock make them buy it on their own and take that risk. He also suggests that they make a law where if a company has to have any sort of public finance bailout or help that the CEO automatically forfeits all off their bonuses and severance pay.

I found the post to be pretty cool and to have some real good ideas. Without some kind of changes there is no reason to think that this won't happen again in another 10 years.

a more realistic view-

Man city have 500(1000$) billion behind them and they're just a football club.

God Bless America, greatest country on Earth.

To put it into perspective. $700 billion is 10 years worth of universal healthcare in this country.

"The action proposed today by the Treasury Department will take away the free market and institute socialism in America," Bunning said. "The American taxpayer has been misled throughout this economic crisis. The government on all fronts has failed the American people miserably."

Republican Senator Bunning

He was ranked by National Journal as the second-most conservative United States Senator in their March 2007

Now, if they can just wipe out 50% of the population, their plan will be complete.

I like this guy more and more

It was the second time in less than a week that the junior senator from Kentucky blasted Federal Reserve and Treasury Department leadership. On Wednesday, Bunning criticized the Fed for an $85 billion bailout of insurance and finance giant American International Group; he introduced legislation that would strip the agency of its power to use taxpayer money in future bailouts.

"I have said on more than one occasion that I don't think the Federal Reserve can handle the powers they have, and this irresponsible bailout just proves my point," Bunning said earlier this week. "The only difference between what the Fed did and what Hugo Chávez is doing in Venezuela is Chávez doesn't put taxpayer dollars at risk when he takes over companies — he just takes them."

That 700 billion is just to buy the toxic paper.

Doesn't include the bailouts.. the damage done to economy etc.


This real estate crash will cost the country will north of 5 trillion dollars in asset value evaporation.


Say it with me. $5 trillion dollars!!!

Time to tax online porn

So the Republicans are pro socialism whenever it involves bailing out their million dollar buddies?

but not pro socialism when it comes to taxes being distributed and healthcare for the poor?

Hmmmmmm

Probably because he is smarter ...

as for 700 billion, that is the figure thrown in the public...

As usual, it will be more, probably more like 1 trillion....

So... a ship is sinking and you offer 700 billion buckets to bail with.... not something to plug the holes with?? Makes sense.

And what exactly happens to the value of a dollar when pump out a ton more of them on a whim?

Here is the problem. If they don't bail these companies out millions of people could get screwed over badly and lose a lot. There are people who could lose their pensions,/401K/IRAs there are people who could have their homes go so far down in value that they are useless and there are a ton of banks that could go out of business and that is just the tip of the iceberg. If these companies are allowed to collapse it could cause a recession in this country that could devastate us for some time to come.

So I think, for the good of the country, they need to be bailed out. That said, there needs to be some regulation put on this industry to make sure it doesn't happen again. Clearly the free market can't handle itself in this situation and many innocent people could end up paying the price for a few people's greed.

I will say this though.


Had the bailouts and the bail out of the banks from toxic assets not been done.

we would face great depression II without a single doubt in my mind.


I'm still not sure if the bailout is going to prevent that from happening or not..

But the alternative would have cost the country much much higher !



It is indeed funny though as soon as Goldman Sachs started getting bear raided in the street.. Paulson immediately comes out with this.
hehehe

For those that don't know Paulson used to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Nothing like letting 10% of your population suffer and die due to not having universal healthcare while at the same time bailing out the rich... Money first.. then party.. then country.. and maybe then the citizens...

good.. and then maybe people will wake the fuck up and start getting involved in govt...

its what the govt fears the most.... people taking back their country...

the govt could care less if the common man suffers, they (govt) just dont want him to start nosing around in their (govt) business

Investments have risks. Teach people that they should keep an eye on who they are investing with. You invest with bad companies, you lose money. If you don't want risk, then just switch the thing to communism where no one needs to worry about losing their 401k.

All this does is set us up for it to happen in another 5-10 years. People need to learn that they have to quantify their risks in life.

Ok, I disagree. If you make a shitty decision, live with it. IRA/401K are all risks that you know you are getting into. I don't want to spend MY tax money to bail everybody else out. People hitting rock bottom might just be what this country needs to get back on track.

You are correct. IRA and 401K are risks. They are essentially investments. Here is the problem. If you work your normal job and you take, say, 10% of your income and put it into a regular FDIC insured savings account and let it collect a few percent interest and your employer matches your contribution most people would end up with less than about 10 years worth of salary waiting for them when they retire. So it doesn't work. The IRA and 401K provides people an option where they can have this investment with very little risk, and frankly, these bank failures don't have anything to do with that risk.

If you make the national average of 45K per year and you put in 10% and your employer matches it that is around 9K a year. Times that by 30 years at around 2% interest and you get 388K that is around 8.5 years worth of salary. If you got 4% it is around 555K or about 12.5 years worth of salary. Some people might not live long enough to go through that, but if you retire at 60 when you hit 72 you are out of money unless you want to live on less than you were when you were working.

My point is that our government loves to preach personal responsibility. they want people to set up IRAs and 401Ks so they don't have to live off the system when they retire and so when they get older and retire they are actual consumers who spend money on things, not just people barely getting buy and taking money from the economy, not putting it back. Mutual funds and responsible investing allows the average working guy to invest their money with very limited risk and with companies like AIG in place to insure transactions it makes the risk even less yet. But when these companies get greedy it costs the average guy. If the market goes through a normal downturn and you lose a little money, in the long run it will probably balance out and you will have an upturn and make it back. That is your risk. You expect the market to fluctuate and as long as everyone does their job correctly, the market almost always rebound especially if you invest in the lower yield low risk type of funds. When some CEO of a company gets greedy and does very risky things that causes his company to go under only to let him escape with a multi-million dollar settlement, it is not part of the typical investment plan. When you ask for a prospectus on their mutual funds they don't include the part in the long term predictions about their CEO driving them into the ground.

You don't want to spend YOUR tax money to bail these guys out. I hear and understand that. But would you rather see millions of people lose their entire retirement and then end up on social security as their only means of income? How much of your tax money do you think that will cost? It will be a whole hell of a lot more than it is going to cost to bail these companies out.

I think some people don't understand exactly what letting these banks and companies fail would mean. Potentially letting an entire generation of people lose their entire retirement will not teach them a lesson. Unless they were sitting in the board room and knew what these companies were doing on a day to day basis they, like most of the nation, would have never known this was going to happen and if it was allowed to happen, no good would come of it.

I'm not saying people should not take responsibility for themselves. I am saying that sometimes there are crooks that fuck things up for everyday average people and in this case not bailing these companies out would be devastating to the economy of this country.

It's so cute how many of you don't have any clue at all about economics. Carry on, it's entertaining me.

I think most of the forum dreams of McDonalds and blowjobs, so we're already there in spirit.

You are correct that this only sets things up to happen again if something isn't done. Sorry, but the free market isn't working here. You can call it communism or socialism or whatever you want, but the free market, in this case, got us to this place. If there is not some kind of major changes or regulations made we will be right back here again in another 5-10 years. Clearly, left to their own devices, there are people and companies who only care about making money for themselves and not the clients they service and they will stop at nothing for that no matter what the outcome. If things are changed so that they take on some of the risk, maybe they won't be as willing to gamble as much with the investors money?

Investing in bad companies? Lehman Bros and AIG are two of the largest and, until now, most well respected companies in the financial world. They were talking about the possibility of Goldman Sachs seeing the same fate (until the short sales were cut off) and they are also well know and respected. Merrill Lynch & Co have been around forever. If you can't trust companies that have been the pillars of the US financial world for years and years who can you trust? And again I ask how is Joe Bob the auto mechanic supposed to know that the CEO of Lehman has put the company on a path to buy up a lot of high risk sub prime mortgage debt when have the people in the company itself didn't know?

They would certainly have an interest in the government because we would have millions living on welfare, food stamps and government cheese.

Interesting tidbit about that.

CEO's started demanding payment in stock options when capital gains taxes were cut....because exercising stock options resulted in capital gains tax at a much lower rate than income tax.

This is one of the big reasons why republicans can (and constantly do) claim that revenue from capital gains taxes increased when the rate was lowered.
Of course what they don't realize is that if we lowered taxes for everyone with the name "Smith", tax revenues from people named Smith would increase dramatically....because lots of people would change their name.

Anyhoo....the point I wanted to make was that capital gains taxes being so low created a double whammy because now not only were CEO's paying much less in taxes, but it was in their best interest to do absolutely anything to make their stock price go up....be that cooking the books or giving out mortgages to people who couldn't afford the payments.

This thing will more likely cost 1.5 Trillion....I'm guessing that because the Savings and Loan bailout ended up costing taxpayers twice as much as we were originally told.

The only good thing about this is that the "free market-deregulate everything-government is bad private sector is good-lower taxes for rich people are good for the economy" people will have to STFU for the next 40 years or so.

At least they had to after the last big mess that FDR had to clean up.

I as going to post that picture 700,000 times, but... you get the point...

I agree with every suggestion. Too bad Mark Cuban isnt president.

Your empty " smart ass " one-liner are so cute....

Must the the Costa-Rica, sorry the Vancouver air that does it...

Oh come on, there are actually people posting in this thread that believe the US tax payers are handing over 700 Billion Dollars, for nothing, to rich people that own banks. You don't find that a little humerous?

Yeah, I don't always agree with Cuban but he is a smart guy and made some really good points.

Great point. I don't blame CEO's for using this tax loophole. Hell, if I were about to get a job as a CEO and saw that taking stock instead of cash could end up saving me millions I would too. But like you say, once their pay was linked to the price of the stock they did whatever they could to make that stock go up and up and up.

I think it's funny that nearly every thread you post in, you are slamming someone in some way.

Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. Guess which category he falls under.

What can I say? GFY is full of fucking idiots. Someone has to point these people in the right direction. Now granted, most idiots like Aico for example, will never stop being idiotic. At least I can say I tried though.

700,000,000,000.00

I like 0's. Even more so - when a number is before them.

The money to pay for this isn't borrowed... it's leveraged in the same manner that these banks were leveraged. They are basically printing bonds... if you think the dollar has been weak lately then you are in for an awakening... watch the value of the dollar drop like a rock and inflation jump.

Only Dutch banks lost 17 billion euro (like 25 billion$) there,
so it's not all coming back on the US tax payers at $2000 a pop, this goes worldwide

Well, I think it's all about the money

why not bang your head against a wall instead?

most ultimately come to realize this is an exercise in futility.

When you're right, you're right. On this issue, you're right.