US financial bailout in hindsight

[bascule]

The bailout was intended to unthaw the credit freeze and get financial institutions to start lending money again.

 

Instead, credit seems to remain frozen, and despite assurances that the money would not be used to line executives pockets, that seems to be exactly what happened:

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24012700/the_new_trough/3

 

Worse, the Fed has lent out almost $2 trillion in loans which don't require Congressional approval, and won't even name the recipients:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide

 

My overall impression of the bailout(s) at this point is not very positive, and I do not think they have done much to remedy the financial crisis.

 

What do you think?

[ParanoiA]

I read about this a bit today and it just aggravated me so much I didn't even finish the article. I'll try again tomorrow.

[john5746]

I still think that confidence that the government was going to do something helped keep the market from tanking. It is still headed in that direction, so time will tell if this bailout will be effective. It appears mistakes have been made and plans have changed, but it ain't over yet.

[iNow]

Yes, it was absolutely helpful. It just wasn't as helpful as many of us would have liked, nor necessarily helpful in the economic domains we personally wanted strengthened... but, it did help.

[bascule]

Perhaps I should've phrased the poll as: Do you think the bailout was worth the $700,000,000,000.00?

[iNow]

Tough call. I only lost about 30% of my portfolio. Who knows how much I'd have lost w/o the bailout... seriously, it could have been as high as 80-90%.

[Mr Skeptic]

I think that any positive effects of the bailout need to be compared to the negative effects of borrowing money, and the precedent this kind of situation provides. We've got to pay for the bailout, it was not free. And the bailout may promote more unwanted risks by people who now expect to be bailed out if something goes wrong.

[john5746]

< rant

 

I tell you, I was absolutely depressed today to read about how GM pays people to do nothing, 8 hours a day for years! I just can't believe we have to bail idiotic systems like this. Wouldn't it just be better to let them fail and help start a new car company - making mostly electric and hybrid cars WITHOUT unions? I really want to buy an american car, but damn no wonder we aren't competitive. /rant>

[bascule]

Perhaps I should've phrased the poll as: Do you think the bailout was worth the $700,000,000,000.00?

 

Hey mods, can you hook me up with a re-poll with the above question?

[iNow]

That would invalidate the five existing posts, though.

 

 

 

BTW, John - I freakin' hear ya brother. Un-frac-ing-believable.

We build crap products that nobody wants.

We're going broke.

Gimme gimme gimme.

 

I'm so mad at Pelosi and Reid right now I could have a myocardial infarction!

[bascule]

That would invalidate the five existing posts, though.

 

Yes, I'm saying clear the whole thing out and start over. Mea culpa... I asked the wrong question. I didn't put it in the proper context.

[iNow]

I knew what you meant. Doesn't mean it wasn't fun giving you a hard time. Speaking of which...

 

Are you also going to update the vote so we can ask about the $585 billion bailout in China, or the $55 billion bailout in Britain, or the $25 billion bailout in Hungary, or the $8 billion bailout in Pakisan, or the $17 billion bailout in the Ukraine, or the $14 billion bailout in France, or the countless other influxes of cash being injected right now by governments around the planet...

 

My larger point being that we don't live in a vacuum, we're not the only ones with issues, and others are taking the same exact course of action we are, just on a scale more in line with their economies.

 

Should we also vote whether we think their bailouts were worth it?

[Pangloss]

I don't see how anybody can form an opinion on this when half the money hasn't even been allocated yet and even the initial effects may not be measurable for many more months, if not a year or more.

 

That having been said my feelings on the bailout haven't changed. I hate it, but I think it may be necessary. We have a managed economy, a compromise between capitalism and socialism, and we're still figuring out exactly where to draw the line. This is something we're going to have to ride out and see what happens, and learn from it in retrospect.

[bascule]

Are you also going to update the vote so we can ask about the $585 billion bailout in China...

 

...which, as I understand it, went to individual Chinese citizens, not banks.

[bascule]

Okay, I f-ed up the phraseology of the question originally, so YT deleted the thread and gave me a do-over. DO-OVER!

 

I'm going to try to put the poll in the proper context this time. Here goes:

 

So, Wall Street fat cats lining their pockets with precious government monies. Two trillion in loans going to who knows where. It's CRAZY!

 

What do you think?

[YT2095]

there, the poll is now Reset (because it`s a new one) your cookies should allow you vote again in light of the new question/title change, the old thread has been merged with this new one to keep all your posts.

 

That`s why I temp deleted it

 

carry on as you were.

[npts2020]

Ok, now I'm gonna stir the pot some more. A better question would be was the bailout worth while to you? If I am an executive or stockholder in AIG, WaMu, et. al., the bailout was very worthwhile, for the rest of us it will suck. It is like trying to pump up a flat tire without fixing the hole. Can anybody name one action that has been taken that is going to have a positive long term effect and tell me why it will?

[ParanoiA]

The problem is I separate my personal gain from my government positions. I don't take a position "x" because I personally would gain from it, or because my personal moral code agrees with it.

 

This is why I get so frustrated with this tack that people's personal opinions on a subject should be mirrored in law. I personally would never smoke crack. But that has nothing to do with whether or not I think crack should be legal. I don't think the average person partitions that. If they would never do crack, then nobody else should be allowed to do crack. Weird.

 

So, the bailout may be worthwhile to us, and would seem a more objective conclusion than it may at first appear, but I'm not sure how valuable that is to bat around.

[Mr Skeptic]

I just found this comic, it reminded me of iNow.

 

 

Argh! It's missing the end. One replies, "Makes sense to me." and the other "Just give us our 401(k)s back!!!"

[Realitycheck]

Now, it's a Republican-led blank check to do practically whatever they can convince Paulson and Bernanke to do. Be a real conservative and don't do anything with it. Of course, they mind figure out some minor patch work to do.

[npts2020]

Now, it's a Republican-led blank check to do practically whatever they can convince Paulson and Bernanke to do. Be a real conservative and don't do anything with it. Of course, they mind figure out some minor patch work to do.

 

Think they can spend (or give away) $700 billion by mid-January?

[ecoli]

Think they can spend (or give away) $700 billion by mid-January?

It depends how fast the Fed can print it... I have no doubt that they can.

 

Now, it's a Republican-led blank check to do practically whatever they can convince Paulson and Bernanke to do. Be a real conservative and don't do anything with it. Of course, they mind figure out some minor patch work to do.

but don't you love how Bush is now coming out with statements like this:

 

In the wake of the financial crisis, voices from the left and right are equating the free enterprise system with greed, exploitation and failure, but the crisis was not a failure of the free market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system.

 

... now that it has become obvious that the bailouts aren't going to work how we wanted (and how I predicted).