We need a solution but nothing resembling what’s on the table today. My stance. . . No taxpayer money without huge and comprehensive reform. Of course that’s not happening as of today. What’s happening is Washington is creating $700 billion worth of power over Wall Street. Now it’s going to be government bureaucrats deciding which mortgages to buy and what to pay for them.

In the late 1980’s, the Japanese didn’t admit their systemic economic problems and their repeated government ‘bailouts’ stalled their recovery for 15 years. Because they tried to forestall and delay the inevitable, it only made things worse when ‘the end’ finally happened.

I agree with one stance taken by Congressional Dems that no one person (i.e. Paulson) should have the blank check power he’s asking for. BUT I don’t trust the Dems to write in the requisite safe guards. In the Dems original proposal (remember, the one that Reid said they had a deal on but really didn’t) TWENTY percent of the potential upside profits to be realized by the government would go to a new version of ACORN. Everyone complained when the Patriot Act was written “in haste” and that took MONTHS. This thing is being written very hastily.

The Dems wrote the last $300 billion bail out of housing this past summer (wasn’t THAT one supposed to fix this?)  And what’s IT full of? Pork. What’s the $700 billion plan going to get filled with? Most likely more affirmative action mortgage provisions.

Why does the American Taxpayer need to buy these mortgage backed securities (or the actual mortgages) instead of simply lending money in the appropriate places?
What’s the REAL value of the housing stockpile?
What’s the REAL value of all the credit paper?
We’re going to pay an inflated price today and how much lower will their values drop?
I don’t trust the government to buy, hold and then sell this stuff all the while letting the financial companies off the hook further than they deserve.

Treasury Sec. Paulson has been wrong for the last two years. What makes him right now? He comes from Wall Street (Goldman Sachs) so of course he thinks the bail out flows through Wall Street (i.e. Wall Street’s in charge). I agree that something must be done soon to prevent a meltdown, but the problem is that we will end up stopping there and we will lose the longer term focus needed to ensure a 5 to 10 year growth plan. After the bleeding has been cauterized we must continue to “Plan” something better. This plan is lazy. The money will be appropriated and we’ll be done with it and forget about it soon after Paulson spends his ‘kitty’.

The only real way to come up with all this money is to insure the economy grows.

REPEAL SARBANES-OXLEY
It did not do one thing to warn us of a single one of these bankruptcies. So it doesn’t work as planned. All it does is burden the economy. It’s claimed that it adds an additional accounting overhead of 3 million dollars per year to the average small business. In Silicon Valley in the 2nd quarter of this year there were 0 IPOs and only 1 IPO in the 3rd quarter. Maybe it’s time for some more trust busting of the likes of Microsoft and Google.

GET RID OF CAPITAL GAINS TAX
Some libs here have stated that most Americans do not pay these taxes. Hogwash.

Change the practice of ‘Mark to Market’. It causes too many bankruptcies and is responsible for much of the devaluation of mortgage securities.

But most importantly, WE NEED A REAL ENERGY PLAN

$700 billion for the ‘present’ bail out plan? – That’s the same as our annual energy importation bill. We need to change that A.S.A.P. and screw climate change. Between coal, shale oil and natural gas, the U.S. is said to have more energy reserves than any other country. And our access to it is crippled by our own government. If only HALF of that capital were to stay here to be invested, our growth during the transition would be sitting fairly pretty.

And we haven’t even started to fix our decrepit education system.

we agree on pretty much everything except the repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley.

I've seen some respected economists suggest that the total price tag for a meaningful bailout will approach 5 trillion. Over 1/3 of total GDP.

Wow, we sure could use that 200 billion a year we're spending in IRAQ about now as well as the dollars we export to oil exporting nations, eh?

Wall Street and CEO's would like to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. It was put in place after Enron and Worldcom.

It is not that onerous, it just has some strict requirements for CEO's and CFO's so they can't pull Bernie Ebbers. Both Ken Lay and Bernie claimed they didn't know what was going on within their companies when it came to finances.

Sarbens-Oxley has nothing to do with what happened. Similar or stricter accounting rules is in place in EU and many other countries. Now we are going to get on our pompous asses and say, we are America and we don't need it.

Nobody is claiming that it caused or had anything to do with causing the current problems. The point is that it did nothing to alert anyone to the troubles. So replace it with something effective.

The point is, it costs billions yet rang zero alarms this time.

The deal inked today leaves up to Paulson, which securites to buy and what to pay for them. Somebody's got to make the call. . .  but him?

I think he should resign now that the deal is cut.

-- Modified on 9/28/2008 8:05:47 PM

This law makes it difficult for shareholders to recover damages a shareholder has sustained as a result of securities fraud. Becuse of this law corporations have disregarded Generally Accepted Acounting Principles (GAAP). We need to bring back transparency to a firm's financial records.

(2) Reanact the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. This law was repealed in 1999 by the REpublican Congress and a Democratic President. The repeal of this law allowed investment lenders Citigroup etc. to to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles.

(3) Suspend the writ of Habeaus Corpus. That's right, put all ex-CEO's from Lehman Bros, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac including Raines and Jim Johnson et al in Federal custody and freeze all their assets. WE must immediately confiscate all their paperwork before these CEOs shred them. The US Congress has the responsiblity to suspend the writ of habeaus corpus when there is a clear and present danger to the US Constitution. If Sec. of Treasury says this is our financial Pearl Harbor, then I say jail these bastards because they have damaged the United States financial infrastructure.

These CEOs are a disgrace to American capitolism. America use to reward industry and thrift. Now we reward cheating, lying and stealing and I am tired of it. We should absolutely not say yes to this $700 billion bailout.