Talkback: Will the new bank bailout work?

The best investment you cna make is is to secure your home, food and a gun. Who knows the day when cat food will be more valuable than the butcher’s fresh ground beef.

Its to late America. The people that run the game know its about over, they just wanna make sure THEIR quality of life goes on. Good night and good luck out there.

My wife and I are purchasing a house, but our settlement is not till August. Can we claim this Stimulus on this years tax form?

@Mike, Chicago, IL
Have faith my friend, we surely are on the path of “Atlas Shrugged” but we are running under a false presumption that Democracy is right. All Democracies fail, and ours certainly is. My role is to try and steer this country back to being a Republic under the law of the U.S. Constitution.
Once we restore our Freedom and Liberty again our innovators and great thinkers will be allowed to flourish.
I’m just one lonely working blue collar man of ideology living way up in CNY, raising a cry for freedom once more in our beloved nation.

question? if the banks are being helped,who is going to help me? I received two different notices in the mail from my credit card companys, the first one was to let me know that chase bank used bail out money to buyout washington mutual my credit card and to let me know that my fixed rate will change to variable rate and it will double. and capitalone send notice that if i don’t agree to pay double APR that they will cut my credit cards off and you know they will mess my credit up over this if i don’t. so why did they give the banks bailout money from taxtayers,if the banks are just going to keep slapping us around and kickking us around. and not help us? what are we to do?

The Loneley Lib of Liverpool,

I am by no means high and mighty, just a lowly architect, and I would never talk to God that way! Our country can be separated into wealth dividers and wealth creators, those who create things and those that make their living because others create things. It is basic economics and we have run into the situation where we cannot take in eachothers washing anymore. We are no longer a society of innovators and great thinkers.

I appreciate your insight, just tried to spark a little self-reflection. Thank you for saving a life today, hope the life was worth saving.

@Mike, Chicago, IL
Well aren’t we the high and mighty, I bet you even talk to God that way. Remember what goes around comes around.
Yes I did save a life today, and it’s not my job either…
Live, Long and Prosper

The CEO’s of the banks/Insurance co. and Auto industries were paid billions towards bonus For POOR Performance. Can the Government ask them to pay back the money…. Seems everybody – the Government, Fed, SEC and regulators have been HAND IN GLOVE. These people and their policies served as Financial Weapons of MASS DESTRUCTION!!! What is the point of Tax Cut NOW that there are so many job losses!!!

There are just over 310,000,000 Million people in this country. Why can’t the government give the money to us, and I don’t mean 1500.00 that was a joke. Let’s say the President gave everyone 18yrs and older 50,000 dollars it would total 155 million give or take a few thousand. We the People would use it to pay bills buy a car or a house, and maybe reinvest in the Stocks. Wouldn’t that be cheaper than the 800,000,000,000 billion he will be spending now. I would like to be able to benefit from my taxes like the Big Companies do, But seriously I would just like to pay my bills and not some RICH BANKS BILLS.

I just read the majority of comments left under this heading and I realized something that I was told but did not believe.

Most people are really stupid! Most of you have no idea what you are talking about.

Democrat Republican, who cares? Conspiracy theories, whack jobs!
The government bailout will save us, are you ****’n kidding me?
Your pension….what is that?

We have become a nation of stupid, fat, lazy people. No one takes responsibility for anything anymore and everyone thinks they deserve something. If we throw 100 Trillion dollars at this problem do you think it will go away? How much time do each of you waste watching TV or reading this crap on CNN? Have you read a book this year yet? Do you have any idea how much all of this bullshit wastes your time?

If you each were working instead of typing and reading this God forsaken dribble we would be a more productive society. Your jobs, whatever you do, how do you really benefit society? Bankers, Lawyers, Ivestment Bankers, Stock Brockers, Accountants, Government workers and Insurance related industries. All of these professions are worthless wealth dividers, created mostly due to governmental regulations of some sort or another that really benefit society in a negative way. Yes, we all kid ourselves that our work is so important, but if you did not save someones life today, or make something that people can truly benefit from, (I am not talking about making pepsi or chips and shoving them into stupid peoples mouths here) then we are really just buying time.

Educate yourselves, and for God sakes learn how to spell and use more than a fourth grade vocabulary, it is pitifull!

The bank bailout may work, but hte incredible debt that Geithner and Obama are going to pile upon this generation, and the next two or three generations, is going to crush this nation. The number one purchaser of US bonds is China, and they are making sounds about backing off from future purchases. Who then is going to finance the Geithener/Obama plan?

Let’s hope it works.
Corporate greed has got us into this mess. US companies have a tendency of expanding beyond it’s means. When they realize it, the simple fix is layoffs. Layoffs lead to instability in financial markets, depreciating real estate value and defaults on your most prized possession, your home.
I think all companies should bear the resposibility and must pay at least 6 months severance for layoffs. Corporate America needs to own up this nightmare we are living.

What ever happened to the AMERICAN DREAM of starting a business and making a future for yourself, which is productive and profitable? It seems that in this day and age companies are allowed to become unproductive and remain that way at the expense of the American taxpayers. Here is a thought why not just let them go under on their own if they make it then good for them if they don’t well not to worry somebody somewhere will have the ability to pick up were failed companies left off. If the Government would have taken this stance when the AUTO industry started asking for money they would have never taken the money and would have made drastic changes in their companies to make sure that they would still be around in 50 or 60 years but no all GM did was to say that if they didn’t get help they were going to go under. This could also be interpreted as “ IF YOU DON’T HELP ME BECAUSE I CANT HELP MYSELF IM GOING TO MESS UP EVERYTHING FOR YOU AND SIT BACK AND WAIT FOR YOU TO GIVE ME THE MONEY” and like rats to the trap the AUTO industries problems are now the problems of the American tax payers but wait were suckers for punishment now were going to turn around and do the same thing for the BANKING industry. If you ask me the American tax payer needs a bail out if $400.00 will do a single person good $400.000 would do them even better and that is still less than what FAILED, UNPRODUCTIVE, IRRESPONSABLE companies are getting

I just read a transcript of Sen. John McCain’s speech on March 25, 2008, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/27/mccain.housing.crisis/index.html
Can someone tell me how 4 million mortgages can cause such huge credit crisis? Or, it was cause by the complex financial instruments where most of us don’t ready understand how it was done, where is the money?
Bailout work? Selling another new financial instrument?

I am a 58 year old retiree that receive a monthly pension check. Please advise how will the the Stimulus Package help me?

Tim is supposed to be the only guy in Washington who can figure out the TARP but yet can’t figure out his own taxes, even when the IRS told him how much he owed 4 times…..

Yeah, this is really going to work. The government can’t even figure out how to fund and give those lazy people the digital converter boxes.
‘
How about just not giving any of them those converter boxes, and soon as Oprah is not available, I bet then they will figure out how to come up with $50 for a converter box.

Wow, these last two comments are interesting huh CNN?
I just like to remind people that the Libertarian Party is committed to non Violence, and bringing our Government back to the laws of the U.S. Constitution through electing leadership who accept the principles of the founding fathers.
Truthfully a strong third party would be a major step in bringing those in our present leadership into the correct oversight long ago missing from our Government.

http://www.nmcservices.net/tyranny.html

Just to Clarify the Tyranny in 1871… since most of you never learned this at School…

Go to Prisonplanet.com and read some real guerrilla news that the mainstream media will not present you with.

The Government is falling apart, the Banks are ripping us off…

Anyone who things differently, is either ignorant, or on the payroll.

The government is corrupt, full of liars, crooks, thieves, and lobbyist…

America underwent Tyranny in 1871, and again, we are subject to Tyranny again! Look at the Declaration of Independence… and see what Tyranny is… and see if that’s not happening RIGHT NOW, by our own government!

The Government is preparing for a WAR against the people… the Army is being trained to Pledge Allegiance to the Office of the President, not that of the American people…

You guys are worried about losing a few bucks on the Stock market, you SHOULD be concerned about losing your life in the FEMA prison camps.

the banks keep saying they are loaning money but I have yet to see it. they keep uping interest rates on credit cards even if you have a great credit history. I say we need to hold these charactors accountable for the destruction of the economy.

I believe, that we should not bailout any one. we should let the economy fix it’s self. The government should stop trying to fix debt by causing more. all these bail outs r just hurting our economy and driving up inflation, because they are creating money from bloody thin air

The taxpayer should not bail out the banks. The banks should be firing the personnel that can not perform their duties and hiring someone that can. Also if the executives should give back bonuses and take paycuts until their oranization can produce a profit. I am sick of the middleclass paying for upper management (CEO’s)mistakes.

Hey CNN do you want some real noise ask for talkback about the new drug CZar…

Comments on previous post.

Encourage securitization of mortgages? You’ve got to be kidding me. That is what got us into this mess in the first place. Instead we should try to keep the mortgage in the hands of the originator. If they make a bad laon they would pay the consequences instead of passing it off to some body else who doesn’t have a clue who the mortgagee is or where the property is located.

Cut Government programs by 50%? Do you realize that would put millions of Americans out of work? That would undoubtedly tip our severe recession into a full blown depression.

Break up corporations into smaller pieces (like they did to AT&T)? This will never happen. It would require a massive coordinated intervention by governments all over the world and fundamentally damage the foundation of modern business and finance. Never-the-less, having smaller coporations would be a very good thing if it increased ownership (read shareholder) oversight of the business. One of the reasons that Warren Buffet has done so well is his active participation in the governance of the companies he shares ownership in.

In general, stop blaming Government action for this mess. The blame our government deserves for this crisis is from inaction and inadequate and ineffective regulation/oversight, not just of private banks but of quasi governmental organizations like Fannie & Freddie. Lets never forget that “banking is too important to be left to bankers!!!”

We got into the bail out business because banks were “too big to fail”. There are many reasons why these banks got so big, but for decades there was a natural check on the size of banks. It was the restriction on banks from operating in multiple states.

As the country considers breaking banks up into smaller companies it could make sense to re-introduce the interstate banking restrictions.

One of the best things that could come of smaller banks is that it might make it possible for the banks owners (the shareholders) to actually have a say in how the banks are run. i firmly believe that more ownership involvement would be a very good thing in all corporations, and maybe particularly in banking.

Bailout is what gets most visibility. Huge dollar figure make people believe something big is being done to save them from recession. Though efficacy of the same for economy is doubtful, Obama has to continue doing that at least to show that he is commited and trying to keep up the promises he made during poll.
However, I believe he is also doing the right thing when he mentioned that it is shameful to see ailing bank top executions pocketing huge bonuses while bank is asking for government help.
His adminstration is absolutely justified in defining terms for compensation for banks it is bailing out.
I think it is the result of his efforts that CEO of Citibank, Vikram Pandit has announced that he will take a compensation of $1 till the company returns to profitability.

To conclude just putting money in bailout won’t be enough. Alround efforts with constant monitoring are the need of the hour.

The stimulus package is the biggest joke ever being forced on the american people. Why doesn’t Congress look at what got us out of recessions in the early 70’s and 80’s. The answer is tax cuts. Cut the Corporate tax and business will grow which means jobs. Cut investment tax and investment in the markets will increase. Eliminate individual Federal Tax for a month or two and people will begin spending. Cut mortgage interest rates to 4% and watch the housing come back to life.
No instead all our Congress does is spend on pork.

CNN’s math the other day was that if they gave the current taxpayers the money, it would average about $9700.00 a taxpayer. This was before the 2 trillion dollars. Can you imagine what it would be now, if they gave it to the people? If they did, the people would spend, save, and pay off loans. Some people may even splurge on a vacation and help the hotel industry, which is going under as well. I, myself, would not as my husband has also lost his job. We are steadily going into the money we have saved to keep our home. We have also filed bankruptcy to stop the bleed. We, as many others, put our extra savings into the stock market, which has crashed. If we pull it out we lose, plus get nailed in taxes. In addition, we can’t pull it out until my husband is out of work for an extended period of time. We could really use a stimulus. I believe so could many other people. It would help us financially, help others, and stimulate the economy. I am very disappointed in Obama, who promised this kind of help to us. He, like many other politicians, lied. We have gone from making about 175k to my teaching job, and teachers do not make a lot, plus the states are cutting funds to schools causing teachers to fear for their jobs as well. I guess the children of America don’t need to be educated during a recession, but the banks need the money for their executive salaries and bonuses. Even though about a third of my students have at least one parent who has lost a job.

i think that the american people have been snowed over once again, and they are going to take it like the sheep they are. the gov’t isn’t doing anything to help the people it is just showing you right to your faces what it is going to do to you and how much or your money it is going steal to give to the companies that run the world. they screwed up, now you pay. the gov’t can not give you anything that it doesn’t take from you first.

Wake up America you are being taken for a ride. the gov’t doesn’t work anymore.

i am so glad i don’t live there anymore.

no it won’t work

Why would i want to buy something on credit, if i dont know if i’ll have a job tomorrow. these people need to wake up and recognize people DON’T WANT credit now after living beyond their means for so long and with the real possiblity of losing their job

why not just print up say a google or so, hey and let that guy from lucky charms chair the Fed…

I got on here to vote YES I care about the “TINY LITTLE PORK PROGRAMS” but can’t find it so I will blow up here.I’m angry,not picky. This will anger some but…Jerk all gov. funds from anyone who sends jobs overseas. Not one damn penny to them. Fine them even. Bring our jobs back home. And send the illegals AND green cards back to their homes. We can’t help ourselves, we sure don’t need to help them. I guarantee the Mexicans will get any jobs created. I see it everyday. Make the employers pay a decent wage to the Americans. Let the Mexicans go home and CLEAN UP THEIR COUNTRY.

Talk is very cheap. These comments are for the weak minded and conviction-less. Has anyone thought of applying the second amendment privilege to the perpetrators of this financial travesty as a preventative towards the next?

I feel that before we the taxpayers spend one more penney bailing out bank the should lower credit card rates to about 3.99 percent for everyone. I consumers have a lower rate that 3.99 leave it alone. Do you know that banks are raising their interest rates on credit cards as much as 10 percent. This is outraguous.

I remember a comment my father made to me as follows,”The good Lord givith and the Good Lord taketh away, when he givith you need to prepare for when he taketh away” Boy have we had a fun time spending with out preparing for tough times which have not arrived yet, (My opinion) Seems like some invesstigation needs to be made in to the dealing and perks given to our politicians ie Nancy Pelosi, Reed, and others not so outspoken and critical of the CEO’s of business, They sure have not done any thing to garner good reports the US has headed to the tank, which some people were predicting. Need to send all our politicians to NO
School to learn how to say NO and the Long term results of some NO answers. We now have our problems in the US however we will pull out of this if the politicians don’t help us excessively.

there is no republicans or democrats. it’s all an illusion. a illusion drummed up by the bandwagon that brought all this rhetoric on. there won’t be any more done this year than in the past. there’s only one thing this u.s. can do & that is everyone of us join hands. we all refrain from going to work. don’t buy anything except for basic necessities. they would have to foreclose on everyone & i can’t foresee them doing that. we will all help one another till we rid the scavengers of their greed and wanting to be the global leader. of course, they wouldn’t care because their pockets are full of greenbacks an they wouldn’t need our tax dollars. trash the computers an wall st.

Give The Military a Trillion Dollars,

Start a a military national bank and renew the military just like Reagan did, IE Reaganomics works,,,IMO

I suppose I’m one of those people change frightens. I don’t like change. It frightens me.

Femocrats are about to find out the worthlessness of promises no one wants to do the hard work of fulfilling.

@Nester from NY

“The Creature from Jekyll Island”

I remember visiting Jekyll Island from Brunswick all the time as a kid. The bank people were always trying to * my *.

As far as what the gov & big business are doing now, it is clear they want to enslave us all and for all practical purposes have.

To be blunt:

If those in control manage to survive with only the 3 or 4 trillion they’ve already printed then they’ve enslaved our children and those that follow for generations.

The way I see it, far better if they demonstrate their greed, lack of humanity and empathy, and their narcissism by continuing to print so much money as to make it all worthless.

When that happens our children are free.

If we could recognize that taking action to reverse the slide in home values- real or perceived- then people would feel more confident to spend money and bank balance sheets would stop plummeting.
Housing created this economic slide and we need to cure it before we can see recovery.
Put more money into Fannie and Freddie, drop the interest rates to 4.5%, offer an incentive for people to buy a home in the next 6 months.
As homes begin to sell the prices will rise and form a bottom that allows the banks to set a value that is realistic and supports them making other loans for cars and credit cards.
Why is this so difficult?

No, this won’t work. Business people and investors basically voted that down yesterday. Geithner bombed bigtime. I’d love to see a dazzling recovery as much as the next guy, but facts are facts.

What will fix things in the long term is when we, as a society, break our addiction to credit. It’s funny how the smaller banks who stayed out of subprime are strong and still lending just fine – and it’s funny how businesses who actually have stockpiled CASH can continue to function without problems. The same goes for individuals. Those who put money away when times were good (instead of living beyond their means) are surviving this crisis quite well.

If you’re a business, and you need a credit line to make payroll, I have news for you – you’re not all that viable of a business.

The worst thing is, this is how our government (perhaps the most poorly run business in the world, when you think about it) chooses to operate.

Let them go under. If you run a bad business doesn’t it usually go out of business? There are other large banks that have great business practices and are not in need of TARP funds. Let the government have capital available (if needed) for the proven banks instead of feeding the failed ones. If Geithner wants healthy financial institutions he should allow goverment (only if necessary) to free capital for loans to institutions that are already healthy. (And if he didn’t have previous tax issues maybe people would take him more seriously). I think it is a very sad day when our government can continue spending money in massive amounts that we do not have and pretend that they are doing it for our best interest. The government is making choices on their own, without support of the majority of people, that are going to saddle us, our children and our grandchildren with debt. I disagree with both bailouts by both political parties. I am very saddened by all of the extra programs being thrown in under this so called stimulus package.
I feel that our government is working for themselves instead of the good of the American people. Most of all I am truly sad for all of the hard working Americans who have lost their jobs, and I hope they are able to land on their feet soon.

My opinion is while CEO Kenneth D. Lewis was getting his millions in bonus Bank of America was undermining me as a homeowner. My husband passed away in 2008 so I filed for a assumption & a modification in order to have a place for me & my children to have a place to live. Mind you I paid them to do the above items,I told them the truth about my home & while one department was telling me lies to & keeping me hanging on they sold my loan right from under me with no explation at all. I have receipts of paying them certified bank receipts. what is so bad they did not tell the buying company what they should have been doing so now because of Bank Of America I paid them for nothing I have been dubbed I am disabled with 2 children who are in college full time & work part time we could have afforded to to pay if they had a done the assumption & Modification. Mr. Lewis would you please pay my mortgage off with your bonus.My husband did not have life insurance & his death was very unexpected. Plue we were never late on a payment with Bank of America. So Mr. LEWIS I BEG YOU TO HELP ME. I WAS A VERY PROUD WOMEN BUT YOU HAVE BROKEN ME IN SPIRIT. THANK YOU if any one knows how to get in touch with Mr. Lewis please e-mail me Gil22Gad@aol.com I also have a 36 chapter deposition that was done in 2006 by an attorney which is the same summary that I informed Bank of America concerning our home this was in August & September 2008 they hurried up & started selling our loan. I do not have the monies to make copies of this deposition it cost $80.00 or I would make a copy & sent it to the President Obama the people need to know how they treat folks that work hard & are not late with their payment SO BODY PLEASE HELP I HAVE DOCUMANTATION. THANK YOU

As a licensed Mortgage Broker, I have seen FIRST hand how banks have used their power and lobbying to influence capital hill. My job, and many others like mine, are in jeopardy right now…our industry is hanging on by a thread. ALL because big banks are greedy and want us OUT. Where exactly did that first 350 billion go to?? for new mortgages to families in need?? THINK AGAIN..it lined the pockets of the executives at banks. Brokers do the majority of the mortgages in the US. We keep things competitive for our clients. Banks have no systems in place to handle the kind of volume that will flood the system once the housing market turns around…they can’t handle the mini refinance volume in the system right now!! AND, they don’t have to play by the same rules of compliance that we brokers do. Brokers play a critical part in the housing market..if big banks push us out…get ready for EXPENSIVE loans, long processing and NO customer service..it would be a monopoly for the banks..if you have no other choice for a mortgage, than to go to a bank – that would be a sad day. Get ready to pay more!! Legislation is already in the works with Fannie and Freddie – Adverse Market Delivery Fees – What exactly does that accomplish for the poor family who now has to pay DOUBLE in closing costs for a mortgage…Shame on you Big Banks..and SHAME ON YOU FANNIE MAE & FREDDIE MAC!!! Helping Main Street..I think not!!!

I can’t understand how injecting money from the top down helps the economy. The bailout should be for the homeowners, not the banks, that way the help flows first where it is needed most. Jobs will be created when the money hits the street, be in mortgage subsidies or tax cuts. When you give it to the banks, they take their cut first (and that cut has been sizeable, so far!) and the lesser amount reaches the rest of the economy. Likewise for the car industry. Help people buy their cars, not the companies. They should know how to take care of themselves by now!

What I would like to know is how do Barney Frank and Chis Dodd get a pass for starting the sub prime fiasco. The banks CEO’s certainly deserve to be flogged but the so called OVERSIGHT by congress is what should be investigated.ALL of congress, Democrats and Republicans have been asleep at the wheel.

The plan isn’t going to work, it’s just the rich helping the rich steal from the poor. Obama is a LIAR – on his town hall meeting in Fla. he said that we all would be getting stimulus checks, now it’s only for some. Just what we need more BULL. Thanks for nothing!

First. When a bank is forced to writedown a portfolio of troubled assets due to “market to market” accounting rules, the loss should be amortized over the life of the troubled assets to preserve the capital of the bank to slow the current meltdown frenzy.
Second. When a bank writes down a portfolio of troubled mortgages AND accepts TARP funds it must readjust the principle to the mortgagee by the write down amount. This would reduce foreclosures, ease burden to taxpayer/mortgagee and prevent wealthy funds from eventually buying mortgages for pennies on the dollar at taxpayer expense.

Since I’m not an economist I may not understand the full ramifications of my suggestions but they could not be worse than what we are currently experiencing. First, why can’t interest rates be lowered and terms extended then offered to those homeowners who are paying their mortgages, are doing so but may have had some problems, or those who are in trouble but can afford their payments at a lower rate? If this were done many people would refinance their homes even at the original value and not the deflated value which would pay the mortgages in full, seriously reduce foreclosures, reduce blight in neighborhoods, reduce the devaluation of property and keep money in the banks without us, “the public” bailing out the banks and paying for property that we don’t own. Secondly, there was a program in the 60’s, HB 235, where the government paid families on welfare to own homes rather than paying landlords to receive Section 8 vouchers and still rip off the poor. If the government would again pay for people to own their home and require them to be brought up to code, many of the houses on the market could be purchased; people would have decent places to live; the construction industry could be re-employed to refurbish these homes and money would then be put back into the economy without the government bail out money since we are already paying the bills anyway. These are just a couple of thoughts on what can be done without the trillions in bailout. Whatever banks aren’t solvent, they need to go under. We need to go back to small community banks who are accountable and rely on tangible resources rather than the mega-banks who have no accountability to anything or anyone. What happened to not having monopolies? Let Wall Street bail out the banks and Wall Street. They created this monster; now let them resolve it.

Brad from Colorado. Thanks for the post of the awesome link to the hearings. You have just confirmed what I stated earlier about Fannie and Freddie and the root of our troubles. If you want to know who created this mess, look no further than many of our current Congressional leaders. That is why I feel like throwing up whenever I see Barney Fudds face on TV. Unbelievably this is the guy on WEB today scolding the bankers for doing what they he encouraged them to do, make bad loans and have Fannie and Freddie buy them. Talk about a giant Ponzi scheme.

I can understand Democrats not understanding complex reasoning processes.

These statistics show that the Democratic majorities tend to be clustered in densely inhabited areas.

A number of studies regarding high density populations demonstrate that they often lose their ability to interact rationally and civilyget along with one another civilly or rationally.

Maybe the best use of the stimulus package is to alleviate overcrowding. Nevada, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, West Texas, and Alaska have lots of open space which is not being used.

Why don’t all the Democrats move to Alaska so they can vote against Sarah Palin again?

Enquiring minds want to know?

A few months ago, Bush and Paulson pitched a plan that they could not give details of, based on total trust that Paulson knew what he was doing and the Wall St Banks would be good stewards of the money given to them.

This was a once in a lifetime situation, too complicated to explain and had to be passed in days.

The plan did not work, only gave the crooks more money to work with.

Now Obama and Geithner are pitching the same type of plan except for much more money. They do not have details, too complicated to explain and has to be passed before a deadline set by Obama.

All of this is smoke and mirrors. Don’t the people in Congress know that they are bankrupting the American people.

Reward the deadbeats who took out loans they could not repay, reward the crooks in Wall St who came up with schemes to make money on worthless paper and finally leave the people in Congress and Adminstration who were asleep at the wheel and let all this happen.

All this is smoke and mirrors and rewards the wrong people. There is no way we can spend our way out of debt by borrowing or printing more money. Family units cannot do this and neither can Congress.

Read the other day that we had 156.3 million taxpayers last year and some 303,824,640 population.

How in the world can the few taxpayers we have keep on giving money to Congress to give away and accomplishing nothing for the public good.

This Pelosi / Reid bail out is loaded with pork is based on borrowed money or printed money and does not offer any way to control the money.

Congress should do the simple thing and do away with taxes for a limited period. If they have to take less money and lay off government workers, well welcome to the rest of the working world.

Roughly 25 years ago our economy shifted off of an industrial base and on onto a base of consumption in one form or another. Simply stated, the wealth creation of our economy began dropping and has increasingly done so for over 20 years(as is evidenced by the ever increasing trade deficits which ended up financing our consumerism). The inevitable result was an economy that required ever increasing levels of debt to function. The result of that was the creation of a massive mountain of debt at all levels. What we are witnessing is the unraveling of that debt; a debt that is so massive that it defies even the most aggressive government efforts to contain it’s dissintegration. What the government proposes is to inject a massive amount of new debt in an attempt to re-inflate the ecomonic bubble that is collapsing under the weight of the old debt.
My lack of confidence in the new plan has nothing to do with who either is to blame for the existing mess or if Geithner & Co. is brilliant enough to create a workable plan. The problem is simply too big. We have sown the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.

This bailout and this stimulus package is more work of an incompetent and pork centered congress. this is not a President Obama plan, it is a Speaker of the House Pork, return the favor stimulus plan to payoff here voters. the bail out is from the same people who got us into this. Congress should be fired, it has been on their watch, at their direction, with their special interest efforts that has mess the great country up so badly and will leave a debt of trillions for the next generations. Sen. Dodd, Sen. Frank and manyh more are the ultimate cause for the sub prime mess and the banking mess—-they played right into and set up the progrm that greedy people could explot.

My 529 account is shot to heck, I have Invested all of my savings to try to get kids through college. FAFSA is a joke as it just keeps making excuses for non-support for the education of their children, therefore no loan assistance. I can get a $30,000 loan for a car that will fall apart before the loan is paid, but Wells Fargo, who has gone to the government with hat in hand wants a MINIMUM of 12.74% interest on a loan for the education of the future generation who will have to bear the brunt of these handouts, whereby putting the future generation behind the 8-Ball. What is wrong with this picture?

Treasury Secretary Geithner, the tax cheat, the country just had to have him because nobody else could do the job.

Now we see a portion of his plan…

Completely underwhelming!! Where’s the help for the everyday person who goes to work, pays their taxes and follows the rules?

Stop the insanity of throwing more money after bad. Send direct help to the citizens of this country who need it, have earned it and know what to do with it.

Reply to Michael of Chicago. I stand by my math. Billion has 9 zero’s behind it. Million has 6 zero’s. The number with 12 zero’s behind it is Trillion. Last I heard the Stimulus package was 830 Billion, not 830 Trillion. I did pay attention in math class. Billion in the British system of counting has 12 zero’s but we live in the USA.

Just curious, what institution that gets money will loan money to the unemployed?

My only comment is that is that the CEOs of all the banks and insurance companies getting TARP funds should be required to spend 1 week living in a car and eating at food missions before getting one penny more from us for their companies. It seems to me they might actually get a better understanding of what damage their greed has cause people. $35 Billion, one week living in a car hey on Survivor live through a lot worse for only 1 million. I am quite serious. Not joking.

I guess we should see how things work out before condemning them. No one really knows what to do, anyway, so let’s give the stimulus plan a shot. The Republicans, however, do seem to have evolved into the Party of No. They’re against everything. The Party of “can’t,” “won’t,” and “shouldn’t.” And certainly not the Party of new ideas. More like the Whigs, from whom they descended.

Until the Gov, start to listen to the people and not to their own self interest we will not get out of this mess.
First pass the fair tax into law
Second give the people their tax money back.
Third banks that have gotten bailout funds can’t foreclose on any house.
Fourth Remove all CEO of failed banks that accept bailout funds.
Fifth give small business direct loans.

Government for the people not for their pockets.

@Todd

Non-sequitur thinking…. hows does their leadership ability equate with “the murder rate in counties won by democrats”

Doesn’t really make sense… but then nothing the republicans did for the past eight years did to anyone but them.

Well CNN what do you do with data now? We the people have given our opinions.
Will CNN become an advocate of the people or will you continue to be the advocate of the wealthy?
Will you use this data to write stories about the hardship we are in, and the hardship “We the People” will face going forward? Will you be an advocate for the return of freedom and liberty being restored in the USA?

I saw where the four major bank ceos in England, that had received British assistant, were in the British House of Commons apologizing for their failure in allowing their banks to loose so much money. I have never seen that here from any ceo that has received government assistance. The arrogance of these people is beyond belief. They should be ashamed and embarassed to even show their faces in public for the financial crisis they have created in this country.

The first prong of the “plan”, if it can be called that, will see the financial system flooded with $1.5 trillion, a vast portion of which will come from the Federal Reserve printing more money out of thin air. The inevitable devaluation of the Dollar that will follow this may be enough to force a complete collapse and spell the end of its reserve currency status.
Second, Geithner intends to spend between $250 and $500 billion of taxpayer money to buy up so called “bad assets” and putting them into a “bad bank”. Essentially this constitutes transferring vast amounts of spiraling debt from the books of the negligent and criminal bankers to those of the taxpayer. Does that sound like a good idea or a “bad” idea?
The third part of the “solution” involves a huge expansion of financing for consumer loans and bank lending programs through the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. Essentially offering more debt to the consumer in the shape of student loans, cars and credit cards to the tune of up to $1 trillion.“If the problem America found itself in was too much debt, then how can adding more debt be helpful?” asked political analyst James Pinkerton from the New America Foundation in a Russia Today report.
“The idea of solving it by taking the same pirates who stole the first trillion dollars and saying here’s more money. You look up the word ‘corrupt’ in the dictionary and that’s what you see,” Pinkerton added.
Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich commented that “the government has become an engine for taking money from the people, from their pocketbooks and purses and accelerating it to the top.”

In this whole mess with the banking systems, let us not forget who was in charge during all this time?

Congress and Senate can sit here and pass judgment on the financial greed but they allowed this to happen. Isn’t that the very crux of our Constitution — balance of power and oversight!? While it may be the job of one arm to execute the other needs to be vigilant? Simply because one may have a majority does it relieve the other from asking the right questions?

Both Wall Street (they came up with these instruments) and Main Street (they were ready to believe anything that seemed like easy money) were responsible for this mess. If we buy into the idea that Main Street is not sophisticated enough to see through these financial instruments what makes us think that Main Street is sophisticated enough to appoint the right people!? This still does not relieve the Congress from its paramount role of watching our interest. The punch drunk power hungry congress and senate — simply allowed this to happen.

Now they want scapegoats. The spectacle on Capitol Hill makes you wonder are we in a Democracy? This smacks of representation without responsibility.

Is it enough to say this is someone else’s creation? I would buy that if the person claiming that shield were fighting against that to begin with.
Anything short of that the entire Congress — both houses — is totally responsible for sleeping on the job.

I for one am not ready to delegate my power as a voter to anyone else — I am only willing to delegate my representation but certainly not allow them any power that is demeaning to my being the source of that delegation to begin with.

As long as congress – republicans and democrats alike don’t understand that the ONLY fix is to go back to the exsiting problem mortgages with the homeowners – then NOTHING will be fixed and the economy will freefall down to nothing! Too bad theyre all still looking for campain contributions for next election and not looking beyond party lines. We voted these fools in and this is what we get!

Another thing that would probably help would be to pass legislation that will push lots of short sales and mortgage renegotiations through quickly.

Some ways to do this include allowing bankruptcy judges to adjust mortgages terms, including complete wipeouts, if needed. And, we may need a 90-day foreclosure timeout, on all pending foreclosures. Also, we could do a 1-year freeze on mortgage rate resets to prevent even more defaults.

All to be done without putting any taxpayer dollars at risk.

SANDY CAIN – LAGUNA BEACH, CA

Wise up. Bush’s administration is not the only culprit. Nice blanket statement. The facts are there, and if you took time to investigate the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac scandal, you would see why Wall Street has been reduced to junk. Here is a link for you to peruse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI80QOuNgNE
or, just type “Barney Frank Maxine Waters Chris Dodd Fannie Mae Hearings”
Bush is an idiot, don’t get me wrong, but the dems are largely to blame miss.

Response to Sandi Cain.

You obviously are very mis informed on the Mortgage crisis. It was not the Bush adm. that allowed “easy loans and loans to illegals.” This came from the community services act put into effect by non other than carter and then Clinton. Then the ignorant democrats in charge let fannie and freddie buy the bad loans. In turn the democrat execs and congressmen profited from the process. You need to look at your History befor you spout off.

Mad, I’m real mad. I’m fortunate to have a job, but for how long. I was a fool to reinvest in the market on October 5, 2008. I got out of the market on January 4th, 2008 and thought the group in Washington had it right and so I reinvested. Now, I’m down 35%. I’ve joined the rest who were suckered in to buy and hold.

You know, like President Obama said, if you don’t like my plans, you can always vote someone else in. I’m willing to let him try, but we need to see some kind of willingness on behalf of our elected officials to work together without thinking “will I get re-elected if I vote for this”. Mad, I’m real mad.

“If the government is going to interfere with the banking industry, then why don’t they just go all the way and lend us our own tax money instead of giving it to middlemen who have consistently shown they don’t know how to manage it”

Ron Paul has such a plan, it’s H.R. 2755. Basically, the “FED” is a privately owned corporation that lends money to the US Government at interest. Why is this such a big deal? Because it is fully unconstitutional! The constitution mandates that only the Congress has the power to issue and coin money and that money must be based on gold or silver. The constitution doesn’t give the congress the power to outsource this duty to a private corporation that is mostly owned by International Banksters.

All the money supply in the US is debt and this debt cost us interests to astronomical rates. It is the reason why we have a parasitic “Income” tax that only reason for being is the limit wealth “We the People” can have. All other major banks are a subset of the FED. If you got rid of the FED and fractional reserve banking, all our problems will go away.

Good reading on the subject:
“The Creature from Jekyll Island”

Google, buy or download this book. You’ll understand why this “crisis” has been planned for generations.

We have just lost our freedom, privacy and will be put in debt for years. I read the bill, 680 pages, that the senate passed last night. Our medical records will be published on a government network. No network is secure and can be subject to hacking. There are almost no job creation for the private sector. Everything is an expansion or an addition to goverment spending already in place. The American public has just been scammed. This was a spending package marketed as a stimulus bill to push it through without proper review and scrutiny of the public.

Does anybody really think that our elected officials really care about the middle class? The Bankers scratch Washington’s back, and Washington scratch the Bankers. Same with CEO’s who decide to take a sized salary, all the while offshoring all the manufacturing jobs that were once producing in America. AMERICA DOES NOT PRODUCE ANYTHING. Sure, we have services, like nursing and such, but when have American companies really built anything out of American materials on American soil? The fact that Wall Street imploded is just part of the whole picture. The Multi-nationals want open borders, illegal immigration, and reduce the middle class, while our elected officials want us to be beholden to BIG GOVERNMENT. Geittner is another story. He can’t even run Turbo Tax, so what do you expect public sentiment to be about this plan to get the banking industry on track?

People, hear me out, in very part of the united states we are feeling the econcomical slow down except for the wealthy and lucky ones that have a descent paying job and a loyal employer who cares about the working class people.

However, on the other hand we are heading down a road that will have a sink hole big enough to cause serious and fatal consequence that the industrial sectors and financial/ educational instituations or the US government funds will fail us completely in order to restore any normality in this country.

I made a mistake voting for the GOP (Good Old Party) and their Ideology for Dreamers and Con Artist that would restore our country values and trust in the government system by our leaders and cabinet administrators. Giving more control to the few private sectors that have the power and mind set to get as much from our resources NOW and don’t think about the future of our children well being and economcial crisis later. I hope GOD will forgive me that I was part of this action and was deceived by the media, banks, realtors, mortgage companies, credit instituations and federal agencies representatives.

We need responsible and smart action now for stimulation of our job markets and a Smart Figure System to buyout the housing mortgage assets from the banking instituations with a fair investment return for the American People. God Bless Us All

Same people that got us into this mess are going to get us out…who thought that up? Give banks and businesses that cannot stay in business more money to waste through stupid planning, corruption, and irresponsible lending…great idea, i think that will work fine.

SOCIALISM, do we live in France? Do these gusy think anyone with more than a few brain cells think Washington will save us? I hope I am wrong, and I am behind our President 100%, even though I did not vote for him, but we seem to have forgotten our roots and why this country was founded in the first place. Read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Ran, these are books I would bet most people making our decisions today never read. Thirty years ago, the people in their decision making positions had read these and know why we are really screwed.

I am buying ammunition.

*******I HAVE A GREAT IDEA.!!!******
Instead of just complaining about the issues and placing them on a surface where only those wise enough to read see, why don’t we agree on a solid plan, contribute a little bit of money and place a newspaper ad in a major newspaper so the whole world to see it?
Any takes email me john j_man1963@yahoo. But email a solid plan to fix this crap not just feedback.

This is a lot of bull; (we the people) continue to put up with this crap. If the banks want to play their games, let them. Maybe instead of bailing out the banks for almost a trillion dollars, the government can lend (the people) the money directly and deduct it from their taxes, so it really won’t cost them anything to make adjustment to federal withholdings. They should then pay off all of the debt that we all have and allow for a consolation of their loans into easy monthly payments at 4%. Let’s see what happens if the government decides to try something like this.

Its infuriating all the multiple levels of greed that have brought our economy to the current situation. We have so much blame to spread around including: banks, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, ponzi schemers, SEC regulators, a borrow-to-spend-happy government, and let’s not forget the real estate consumers that borrowed far more than they could afford to purchase homes far more expensive than they were worth.

I get more angry when I hear talk of loan principle modification. I bought a car two years ago for $25,000, its worth about 18,000 today. Can I get my principle lowered to its current value?

I was the responsible one for not committing to a mortgage that I couldn’t afford. I was the one sitting back in disbelief as the home prices skyrocketed into absurdity. I was left wondering, “how do these people afford these insane prices?” Now we know, they couldn’t and the government is talking about modifying the principle to be more affordable.

Has no one considered modifying the duration of the loan rather than modifying the principle. For instance, if the payments are too high, modify the 30 year loan to a 40 year loan and augment the interest rate slightly. The securities backed by the mortgage suddenly become less toxic and a more manageable risk.

With principle modifications, my tax dollars shore up those deficiencies to allow irresponsible people to stay in homes that they couldn’t afford while I’m stuck in my tiny apartment.

I can’t bring myself to talk about the automotive industry bailout. I’d get an ulcer.

Just in from Congress on the “stimulus” bill has passed:

Senators said more than one-third of the bill was dedicated to middle class tax cuts, and it would help create 3.5 million jobs.

“Every provision that is included in this stimulus package will be designed and geared toward creating jobs,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

Hey Brad. Feel better now? I guess all the wasteful spending in this bill just magically disappeared. How can these people look us in the eye tell us such a blatent lies. She needs to obviously go in 2010 also. I hate them all.

his plan is the same as his personal income tax forms….filled with nonesense and no facts at all. this man is just like Obama…he has no clue where he is going with this stuff.

No one can keep spending more money than they take in. No one.

Not the neighbor kid’s lemonade stand on the corner, nor the hardware store on main street, nor Enron, nor the United States of America.

If we didn’t learn the lessons of financially “overreaching” with the current housing crisis, I guess the USA will get what it deserves when the government spends itself into bankruptcy!!

We can’t even balance a yearly budget, much less start paying down the $11 trillion dollars in debt!

Howard Henderson
Goodwell, OK

Most of the posters here are smarter than all the idiots in Washington put together. A little common sense goes a long way. Let the banks go fail and leave our money alone. Tax everyone fairly based on income and stop doling out to free loaders.

Allow all mortgage holders to do a streamline refinance with no appraisal and clean mortgage history. Veterans Admin. already does this. People will get lower rate and payment, saving 200.00 to 300.00 per month with no bail out money up-front. So simple. all these trillions of dollars and no tangible results. Amazing.

While listening to the CEO of the banks, I find it amazing that they can sit there and tell the Congress who gave them the money how they are helping us. They only know how to take with one hand from the govenment while gouging the consumers with the other. Congress should tell them that they must roll back all consumer loans to the rate they were 24 months ago. Mortgage loans, credit card & lines of credit.

I think they should go to jail for loan sharking. I thought that went out with the Mob in Chicago in the 20’s

When will the American people say thats enough. The goverment and CEO’s don’t care about us there only concern is them. How is it we have the people in charge of this mess are they same that got us here.If you look back of the goverment and CEO’s that where in charge when this started they are still there or change to a different company doing the same job.

We can’t just keep spending,we have to produce as a nation. Alas,all the jobs have gone to China,thanks to our leaders and greedy corporations. Its time for a revolution in this country!!!

My TAX CHANGE PROPOSAL:

Let’s make money paid for childcare needed so someone can work fully deductible. An individual is a business too, so if I have to pay $10 an hour so I can earn $30 an hour, I should be allowed to deduct that fully.

Doing this would help in several ways besides lowering taxes for individuals:

1. More people would pay into Social Security and Medicare. Their employers would insist on it and participate, because those employers would no longer be motivated to pay under the table.

2. Fewer illegal immigrants would be employed, see 1 for the reason.

3. Those who provide childcare (usually women who are poor yet live longer) would build up their own social security funds and be less likely to die in poverty.

Obviously, some caps would need to be put in place. Say, $3,000 per month flat.

(I currently pay a full-time nanny $2,400 per month to care for my 4 preschool children, and this is cheaper than sending them to daycare.)

But the simpler the better.

This is just one way in which we can improve our tax system.

I would love to join a committee of regular citizens from all backgrounds, from unemployed and working poor, to middle class, rich, and vulgarly rich. This committee should prepare a complete new tax regime that is fair, yet brings in enough money for our gov’t to pay for all the things a truly great society expects and deserves.

Why do we let government officials go on TV when their comments are not only uninformative, but seem to only drive the market down, down, down. I sat on a plane listening to the Senate hearing and watching the market plunge simultaneously. What don’t people understand about the direct relationship between expressed government “hyteria” and the public’s expressed “hysteria” of dumping stock? Why do we give these government guys opportunity to to only exacerbate the economic problems?
Perhaps we would be wise to get them off the air and conduct the hearings in private or at least not broadcast this type of discussion. Obviously, we are all glued to the tube and it’s biting us big time.

Brad from Wichita, you have my condolences for believing Obama. I personally looked past all the media hype and actually evaluated him on his record. If you would have done that then you would have known his real intentions. Unfortunately the alternative was just the lesser of two evils. Remember the movie “Network”. That’s the way I feel. “I’m mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore”. We elected these people, we have the power to take them out. Start with Arlen Specter and the other three Republicans who are breaking ranks to vote for this so called “stimulus” package. We have a Congressional midterm election in 2010. Let’s make them pay. Next what we need to do is get involved on a grass root level to introduce a new party. The Democratic and Republican parties have both been enveloped in the cancer that is Washington politics for far too long and have outlived their usefulness. Next how do we really change the government. Number one on the list is campaign reform. Once you do that and eliminate the billions of special interest group money, PAC’s and lobbyists then you have skinned the sacred cow. Now you don’t have any paybacks or favors to fulfill to get anything done. How do we do this? Create an account for each candidate that anyone can contribute to, but, the candidate will have no knowledge who the contibutors are. (See how fast the campaign money dries up). Have the government guarantee a set amount of dollars to each candidate and guarantee an equal amount of tv time and radio, media ect. to each candidate. They can each use this to thier best discretion. We need to reinstate government spending limits that were in place but removed during past administrations. Granted there are times that economic sense says we must run a deficit, but limit it to a certain % of GDP. Finally we should start to follow the constitution that our founding fathers put forth instead as interpreting it as we see fit.

when will the politicians realize they are ruining the average joe by spending spending spending change has turned into the same old politics we have had for the last I dont know how many years

Hey Sandi Cain,

The easy loans started during the Clinton Administarion. Get your facts straight.

It will only work for the banks.

Casey in Dallas:

By letting the homeowner refinance the “existing” mortgage at a lower rate, reduces the Banks exposure to default. The adde income every month for the homeowner will be his “stimulus”. The homeowner could start to pay down the outstanding principal if they choose. Or, they could “save” for future expenses while waiting for the housing market to get better, which it will in time. It’s a win for the banks, as the reduction in forclosures stabilizes teh housing industry, thereby increasing the value of their assets.(forclosures)

Let me get this straight.

When I go to a bank for a loan, I fill out an application. I tell them what I need the money for. I promise to pay the loan back, with interest, on time. Otherwise I suffer huge penalties, late fees and my credit rating plumets. If I default, I lose the item I bought or, in the case of unsecured credit, I am sued and the bank can seize anything of value that I own, including putting a lien on my real property.

If I do not have enough income, or if my debt to income ratio is out of line I am denied a loan.

If the value of the item I want to buy exceeds the value that the bank puts on that item, I am declined.

If I have ever filed for bankruptcy in the past, I carry that brand for much of my life and I am denied a loan.

I may need a co-signer.

Now, these very same institutions are aking me (through my government, funded by my tax dollars) for a bailout.

They do not have to apply or qualify. They do not have to account for their spending.

They do not have to prove their credit worthiness.

They can spend my money on anything they want, without any oversight.

They can squander my money on junkets, bonuses, golden parachutes, or a corporate jet.

They are telling us that they face bankruptcy. (If I told my bank that…yes, sure, they would give me a loan…you bet!)

They say that they will go out of business without our money. (Hmmmm, if I told the bank that, would they care?)

They are not monitored by any credit reporting agency, no subject to any reporting errors.

They get the “loan”, whoooo hoooo! They party! They fly 1000 of their best friends to Cancun!

Now…putting this in perspective…

I am lending my money to the bank (that won’t lend it to me) so that they can continue to charge me over 20% interest (usury)on my credit cards and increase my banking fees, automatically taking money from my account if my balance drops below their stated minimum.

All of this and I don’t even become a member of their board? I can’t vote for or against their policies? I can’t have a say in who runs the company?

What’s wrong with this picture?

Casey in Dallas again:

Refinancing the “current” outstanding balance, not a reduced balance is the suggestion here. Some people are having trouble refinancing because of a lack of equity in their home.And yet they qualify for the new mortgage because of good credit and verifiable income requirements.

To Casey in Dallas:
By letting people refinance at a lower rate, thereby lowering their monthly expense. the banks reduce their exposure to defaults and the people get an automatic stimuus. This might also help these people start to pay down thei debt to these Banks. Once again: it’s a win for everyone.

Someone should ask the banks that receive bailout money, how much of a bonus could you pay out without going broke if you didn’t receive bail out money?

So long as the legislators and our elected officials don’t suffer financially from the results of their actions or their lack of actions, they aren’t truly accountable.

If you want to restore some faith in the government we have in Washington, let them peg their pay and retirement benefits to the median family income and retirement benefits retroactive to 2006, multiplied by the percentage of employed rate, and their health coverage derated by the percentage of uninsured Americans. If they suffer as the people who elected and pay them suffer, it may motivate them to forget special interests and get to work. If not, we can expect more indifference greed and incompetence.

USA outsourced 2 million jobs to INDIA in the past 5 years.

Now its time to demand INDIA to buy US Treasury notes worth of $850 Billion to fund the stimulus package

A response to: “Posted By Curt, Detroit Michigan: February 11, 2009 11:01 am”

Sorry, Curt. Another example of not paying attention in class. Your math is off by three decimal places. Your answer should be $6.015 MIL each for 138 MIL people based on $830 BIL. This makes the original poster absolutley correct in her convictions that handing over $1 MIL per taxpayer would be much cheaper. Sorry about that.

Further, the “Bailout” and will it work. If you have a couple of doors with squeeky hinges, do you just lube only one hinge? I really don’t think so, unless you know for sure there is only one with a problem. If you can’t pinpoint the problem (and these ‘PLANS’ sure make that obvious) then you lube the hinges on each door until the noise stops. ~OR, you get earplugs.

There is a lot of positive history in our method of capitalism. It seems to me that the banks were awarded the opportunity to fix themselves, with an injection of capital a couple of month’s back. What did they do? NOTHING! Same old mode of business that got them into the trouble to begin with. Well I guess many of them did line their pockets. Anyway why doesn’t the government just start a new bank? They could adopt some sensible rules, fund it well and start loaning, with common sense. Allow people to finance/re-finance homes at low fixed rates, with no bullshit clauses. People could deposit their money with a little less fear, moving their savings from these badly managed banks and let them go under. Competition is the best thing for our economy, it has proven itself time and again. If these banks had real competition, they would either straighten up their act or go out of business. Is that such a bad thing? As long as we have something viable in place to take their place, I think not. This would obviously ease lending and put a new set of rules on the table. Once things straighten up, sell the bank(s) off as the govt should not be in this business long term. We must rid ourselves of these self serving CEO’s and their second tier leaches.

The President says that the government has to solve the problems of the economy. The shotgun approach of the stimulus bill and the lack of detail in the new “TARP” plan indicates they don’t know what to do except throw money at the problem.

Cut the mortgage rate to 4% accross the board for both home owners and investers. This will cut down the foreclosures and begin moving the housing market. This is what we need RIGHT NOW.

Am I the only one? What happened to the campaign retoric of bringing jobs back to the US. Wouldn’t the government do a better job stimulating the ecomomy by revitilizing our manufacturing jobs, restore our steel plants and stop importing cracked steel beams from China

Sandi Cain needs to do a little more homework. It’s the Community Reinvestment Act (Carter Administration) that became strictly enforced by the Clinton Administration that created the concept of a “sub-prime” mortgage by forcing (yes forcing) banks through this legislation to make loans to people that had no chance of paying them back. Couple that with the mark-to-market rule and the government’s liberal social engineering legislation crippled the entire nation’s banking system. Banks had to shed the sub-prime mortgages from their balance sheets and did so by “bundling” them in derivatives and selling them on Wall Street. Without the CRA there would be no sub-prime mortgages or toxic loans (as they are called) and therefore no paper to trade on Wall Street. It makes me sick to hear people like Pelosi say that Wall Street greed caused this problem and we need more regulation. It’s flawed regulation promoted by liberals that caused the whole damn mess. Repeal the CRA, eliminate Mark-To-Market and let the economy come into balance on its own. Our government will NEVER learn that when it tries to fix the economy through its legislation or spending it only screws it up more. Good luck with the bailout, because it is principally doomed to fail.

Jay, ny I make aproximatley $85,000 per year and was turned down by bank of america. Asking to refinance my car oan were only $10,000 is owed. I am behind one payment which is why I am asking to refi my cureent payment is $545 it would bring to around $300 but will definetly help out. Bank of america is not looking to help out at all?? I was even hung up on (3) times yesterday til someone told me to go online and apply??

I feel very strongly that this new TARP or stimulas will do nothing – just like the last go around. Our unemployment rating is increasing, people are not spending, 401K’s are losing monies and nothing has changed except the banks need MORE!!!. The American people need more, they need jobs, their retirement funds put back, and their businesses whole who does this? certainly not the banks. Greed and turning a blind eye to regulations got them where they are. I did read about several savings and loans that are doing well, do not want nor need TARP money – they followed the rules in lending, did not put people in houses they could not afford, Zero down and two plus mortgages on a home.

As a business owner, I have cut staff, reduced inventory purchases, taken no salary and continue to look for ways to reduce. I also look for ways to diversify which we have done but still I am concerend – private parties do not have money to buy and government work you as a busines owner finance until the project is complete and delivered – how to do this when banks will not loan?

Please stop buying our way out of problems and look for real solutions to fix them, I like many posting comments believe that the banks should be left to deal with the mess on their own. If some survive great if some do not well they do not. We Americans should be the ones left with the decision on who gets what monies after all it is apprently our money (grandkids and their grandkids money)

Stop the bleeding – we certainly our powerless to do so and are left with declining businesses, no credit, unemployment, layoffs, and no 401K’s

I’m glad to see there are a lot of people as mad about this as me. However, I also see a lot of people throwing around numbers they don’t understand and placing the blame on the easiest target. It’s easy to bash Bush and blame everything on him. Don’t get me wrong I am not a Bush fan in the least and never have been. In my opinion he is buy far the worst president of my lifetime and possibly the worst president in our country’s history. He is a war monger and a complete idiot. Having said that, people need to keep in mind that most of this mess actually started with everyone’s favorite president, Clinton. It was under Clinton free trade agreements like NAFTA came to be. Our manufacturing base has been continually eroded with each new so called free trade agreement. These agreements remove barriers for other countries (especially third world countries) to sell to us, but do not remove barriers for us to sell to them. No industrialized country can compete with countries that run sweat shops and have 10 year old children working 16 hour days for $1.25 a day. Also, it was the Clinton administration that forced banks to lend into poor and blighted areas. His so called fair lending standards made it discrimination if you didn’t lend to people that have a proven track record of their inability to pay it back and sub prime mortgages were born. This all works fine as long as property values are rising. Unfortunately when the market turns and the values go down the banks who were making money on the interest, for the payments they did get, also made money when they foreclosed and sold the houses at a profit. It was a win win for the greed mongers. The problem is that all markets are cyclical (yes ALL markets even real estate) it does not take an economic genius to know this. The banks of course went off the deep end with these concepts and their greed knew no bounds. They made money on the fees when they made these loans and sold the mortgages as securities into the market thus shifting all of the risk from them to investors. When you bare no risk you have no incentive to lend responsibly. Alan Greenspan and the other Clinton economic gurus chose not to regulate this nor did they want to regulate the credit default swaps which are the other big factor in our current meltdown. Greenspan himself admitted when he was called in front of congress that he screwed this up. It was only a matter of time before this blew up and it just so happened to blow up under Bush Jr.’s watch. Of course he does not have the mental capability to handle anything, much less, a crisis of this magnitude. Now to the numbers. Personally I did not like the way the first bail out was handled nor do I like the current version of the bail out or the so called stimulus plan. The majority of the stimulus bill is not stimulus. It’s eight years of pent up social programs the Democrats have not been able to push through under a Republican congress and president. They just can’t help themselves. People need to realize that politicians (Democrats or Republicans) don’t care about you nor do they care about our country. They only care about reelection and their own self serving personal agendas. People don’t agree on much but every expert seems to agree as do I that this meltdown started in housing and cannot be corrected until we address housing. However, the original $700 billion bail out did not address it, Obama’s stimulus plan does not address it and when that tax evading scum bag Geitner asks for more money for his plan (and he will) he will not address it either. We are currently throwing good money after bad and getting little to no results from it. If these idiots ever do figure it out it will be too late because by then we will have dumped $1.5 to $2 trillion dollars into a black hole and we won’t have the ability to address the real problem. I have seen a lot of people saying give the money to the taxpayers and I don’t necessarily disagree with that. However, the numbers I see do not add up. You will hear a lot of people say give each tax payer $100,000 and I also saw a post here stating give every tax payer a million dollars. That’s great but they have no clue what that number is. Sherry Ramos posted that we should give a million dollars to every tax payer and her claim is that in 2007 there were 138 million tax payers. Now I did not verify her 138 million tax payers number and I thought there was currently somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred sixty some million tax payers in America, but I’ll be conservative and call it 140 million tax payers. Do the math. 140,000,000 x 1,000,000 is 140 trillion dollars. Someone else said give $100,000 to each tax payer. Again that adds up to 14 trillion dollars. All the mortgages in America could be paid off for 14 trillion dollars, but obviously there isn’t enough money in the world to do either one of these scenarios. I see a lot of people throw around a lot of numbers, but no one seems to do the math. If it were that easy even a dimwitted selfish politician could figure that out. The problem our country is facing is massive and there is no easy fix. Some of this needs to just naturally unwind. The piper has to be paid, he always does. However, some government intervention is needed to avoid total collapse. That intervention needs to be focused and efficient and no plan that I have seen from our incompetent politicians yet even resembles what really needs to be done. People should be mad at the banks and I am not one to reward bad behavior, but they are not the only ones to blame. Bush, Clinton, Greenspan, bankers, insurance companies, Senators & Congressmen were all grossly negligent and now Obama seems to be falling right in line with the rest of them. Stop worrying about your pet projects and stop worrying about your reelection. Rome is burning and we need common sense leadership!! Our politicians have not been responsible with our money or good stewards of our funds for almost 100 years. What makes you think they are going to be now? Look around everything the government touches or has touched in the last 100 years is screwed up beyond belief. Do you really want them taking over the free markets too?????????

Well CNN, it appears from the comments that people are pretty pissed off. It’s OUR tax money that is being spent, in ways that WE do not agree with. It is TIME FOR CHANGE. I’m not sure but one or two more scandals and a couple more days of losses in the market and there may well be a CHANGE. Open rebellion may not be far off!

The Bush Administration advocated for–almost mandated–easy mortgages to the unqualified (including those without a legal right to live here)and looked the other way at creative financing such as interest-only loans and adjustable mortgages.

As for this comment, do your research…It all started years ago when red lining was prevalent. Democrats passed legislation to make it easier for people with no or bad credit to get housing

As for the comment about the old man in Michigan freezing to death….He had $600,000 in the bank that he willed to a hospital, once again people, do your research!!

This is resonse to Brad from Whichita.
Well Put!!!

I too have reead a vast majority of the house bill and for the most part this it is worth less to the general american public that the paper it will be written on. Spending is what drives the economy (spending in all areas as directed by the consumer) not where the government feels spending should be or to free up the credit markes to create spending. If you don’t have an income you’re not going to get a loan (I hope)…

If the government feels the need to inject capital into the market it needs to be done from the bottom up as what happens in a thriving economy. Just a not: Housing prices have overcorrected and will come back.

This is all a result of credit over extension for individuals in our country that call themselves “responsible” (yes, they should be just as accountable as the banks that lent the $$) that did not plan for a rainy day or some other outside influence such as say, increasing fuel prices. Yes if you budget yourself to the limit of expendable cash a bump in the road becomes a pothole that leads to a sink hole.
I did not vote for Obama for one sipmle fact – Anyone that speaks as well and uninterrupted as he does while being questioned (interrogated) is more than likely giving you a line of S%!@ and telling you what you want to hear. The person that has to think about an answer will likely tell the truth.

Brad you are right we need to stand up and tell the government what direction to go.

Tim Geitner is nothing more than one of the short characters from Snow White with a little education. He not only needs to understand the root causes of the problem we are faced with but needs to have an effective plan to address those problems if that is the government’s position. He can’t be an effective communicator or even be convincing that he has a clue using the phrases “I think” or “We think”.

In my opinion Obama and Geitner ar nothing more than the people in our country that they represent. The criminals.

Here are some interresting statistics if you look at the last presidential election on a county basis for the united states:

Number of States won by:
· Democrats: 19
· Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by:
· Democrats: 580,000
· Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
· Democrats: 127 million
· Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
· Democrats: 13.2
· Republicans: 2.1

Bottom line here is that we have successfully elected morons into our goverment that couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag, so how are they going to fight for us?

If the government is going to interfere with the banking industry, then why don’t they just go all the way and lend us our own tax money instead of giving it to middlemen who have consistently shown they don’t know how to manage it.

Yes, I do think the Merrill/L “secret” bonus is cause for concern for the Nation. I think right along with their failure to teach Henry Ford’s lessons re; a strong working class making the best National economy, our colleges and Univy’s have failed utterly to teach any sense of ethics to their grads for the past 20 years or so. It’s really the root of all our econ. troubles today, isn’t it? Thx, IndyMo

Just thinking about the Bank Bailout… lets me see… ok… I will lend the banks my money, that I’m borrowing myself, and paying interest on….. then I will let the banks, let me borrow my (borrowed money) back to me with 10% interest, going of course right back into the pockets of the banks. That sounds like a great plan. I am paying the banks interest to use my own money, that I lent them in the first place… Sounds like a great plan to me.

Dear members of Congress,

Our homes are not even worth what we paid for them. But our property taxes went up.

Could not move to even get another job.
Because we can’t sell our home.

Retirement just a dream. Our 401Ks have taken huge hits. Social Security is nearly broke.

The only money we have if we still have a job has to go for the rising cost of utilities and Gas and grocery’s.

You are bailing out the very Financial Institutions that are turning around and stealing from us. The working middle class.

Take away the power of these Banks and Credit Bureaus and Insurance Company’s
and Utility providers to Steal from us.

Oh and then there is our Health Care. Or lack of it.

What about the poor man in Michigan who froze to death. He didn’t pay his electric bill.

What about the 32 year old with 3 kids that makes 35,000 a year. Has a 900 sq foot house that gets a $275.00 dollar electric bill.
What about the 70 year old lives alone
in a 1000sq foot house that gets a $500.00 gas bill.
What about the 76 year old that has cancer and can’t pay the mounting co- pay of the medical treatments.

This bailout issue makes us sick!!!!

It seems as though many people forget it wasn’t the current administration that created the mess. The Bush Administration advocated for–almost mandated–easy mortgages to the unqualified (including those without a legal right to live here)and looked the other way at creative financing such as interest-only loans and adjustable mortgages. Then they were allowed to loan a higher percentage of their available assets, which left them with approximately an 8% cushion. Now the Obama Administration is supposed to fix all of this in 30 days? Change doesn’t happen overnight, much as we’d like it to. As a self-employed freelance writer, I’m not having a financial picnic these days either, nor do I advocate executive bonuses at any level in this economy. But expecting a new President to fix the incompetence of the past eight years while many of the same Republican Congressmen/women still insist on policies that clearly failed is unrealistic.
Credit card companies, however, need to be put under new scrutiny and regulation because of their onerous practices. Read your new ‘rules’ as you get them. A couple of years ago one of my BofA cards stated that the card could not be used for business expenses. So I couldn’t buy a new printer for my home office on my credit card? When I asked a supervisor at the BofA ’service’ center about that, he laughed and said they didn’t make enough money from me to worry about it. Which, of course, did not answer the question.

Let’s keep things in perspective! While it’s true that many corporations and their highly incentivitzed executives wasted billions, having Congress rant about prolifigate corporate waste is the height of hypocrisy! Talk about the foxes watching the hen house! Congress treated themselves to a raise this year while millions lose their jobs. They have retirement and health plans, most of us can only dream of. If they Congress) were serious about this long-standing national crises, they would have dusted off their backsides long ago and done more to resolve the problem rather than their usual “words of sound and fury signifying nothing”.

It will work a lot better if we clawback the money that Merrill Lynch secretly paid in bonuses of at least $1 million to over 700 people when they knew they were going to be acquired by Bank of America at our government’s request, as was just exposed by Andrew Cuomo.

The bailout won’t work nor will increasing lending. Remember folks, we’re in this mess because banks made loans to people who didn’t have the means to pay them back and they started defaulted on the loans. Do you really think these people are anymore credit worthy now? What ticks me off about the TARP money is that the banks took the money, bought up weaker banks, and then laid off thousands of people. Not one dollar of the TARP should go to any of the banks, or to any company that they lend the TARP money to, without it in the terms that they will not lay off people. This would keep the private sector jobs in place, instead of the Administration’s delusion that building bridges and filling pot holes will solve our problems.

This makes me sick to my stomach! I want all of them fired! I want congress to go! CEO’s to go! they don’t know what to do. they need a plan. Uncertininty doesn’t work for the market let a lone the people of the US.

As I read through the comments below, it is easy to see that Americans feel betrayed by our government and our business leaders. One suggests posting this to CNN to make Congress and the President read. I don’t think they get it, and I don’t think they ever will.

I have never been much of a political activist, but it may be time to change and get involved in someting other than the Republican / Democrat bickering while the country sinks like a rock. Is this what millions of our men and boys have died for the last 200 years? Answer me that?

Bank Bailout 2.0 will not work because it doesn’t attack the root cause, JOBS.
We hear stories of people wanting to purchase something (house/car) but they can’t get the money from the banks.
How can this be true when unemployment is 7.5% with more layoffs coming?
No one should be applying for loans because no one should be thinking they will have a job in 6mnths.
Truth is no jobs are safe right now. And if you’re not safe, you’re not buying anything. If you not buying anything, more people will lose their jobs because they were making the good/services you were buying. (If you don’t understand that statement, stop reading now, you need to read on your economics first)

There is a solution to this, but no one is talking about it. Everyone is so convinced that throwing money at the problem will fix it.
NO! Throwing money is how Merrill Lynch gave $700M to executives.

The short term solution is incentives. (Pay attention now)
The government must incentivize jobs. They must show a company the value of employees when employees are not impacting to the bottom line.
This is very easy to do:
1) Change Tax code so that everyone dollar a company spends on employees can be written off at the end of the year. This saves the company millions in taxes which is the same as making money, which means the employees are now worth something. (It doesn’t need to be an entire dollar, maybe $0.50 of every dollar.)
2) CAP THIS AMOUNT! I don’t know the details, but this deduction needs to be capped so CEO’s making $30M are not included. I say $100k if not including benefits, $200k if you do, and +$5k for every year someone has been with the company. Details are not important now, but it must be done. This item would require additional debate.
3) Only allow this on wages generated inside the US. (Nothing more needs to be said, this is to help US jobs.)
4) This is temporary. Maybe we start with a dollar this year and then gradually role back, but this is not sustainable.

DONE!
Jobs restored, purchase of good/services restored, GDP restored.
The next step is for someone else, cutting jobs that are not needed (America’s biggest challenge).
Thank you for reading, please spread to congress if you know people that know people.

Now what to do for Valentines Day…

Whatever happened to keeping it simple? It seems if a person had something to sell and someone wanted to buy, they paid cash. No cash, no buy. All loans and credit operate on the idea that someone wants something they cannot buy immediately with what they have on hand, so credit was born, based on future income/payment. Whoops! Wait a minute! The future isn’t predictable is it?
Now we all know that if something unpredictable happens the people who owe are hounded to the grave to PAY UP!, by banks, loan companies and so forth. The common man would be hauled to court, prosecuted, forced to pay, jailed, have all his possessions repossessed and be out in the street! Publically humiliated. Is this happening to all the people in high places and positions of power that we trusted with our money? I don’t see it! Where’s the boot?
Now all people with money in banks put it there for the banks to use (ie. responsibly) for the good of all. Wait a minute! The people we allowed to handle our money are buying jets? Going on retreats/conventions? Taking large incomes? Taking large bonuses? And otherwise handling OUR money as if it were theirs to freely use to THEIR benefit? NOT!
The circumstances are now where the consumer/taxpayer could very easily band together and turn the tables on those who have abused their power by misusing their positions of financial trust. NOW, the common man has the power to come back on the big money people and hound them to the grave if they don’t PAY UP! The tables have turned! This is the stuff that causes revolutions! The people in power have no one to blame but themselves!

NO NO NO! To even publicly discuss committing 1 trillion dollars of government money to troubled banks is irresponsible. As the markets indicated, big business is not stupid. Business owners in our country know who will pay the price tag in future years for reckless government spending without end – THEY WILL. The original plan of removing the bad assets from bank balance sheets had some degree of merit because at least the government was getting SOMETHING for their (excuse me MY!) money. Use the remainder of the TARP for the purpose it was intended and let that be the end of it. Besides, what logic is there in giving free money to banks, whose business is to lend and invest money? If given the choice between takng a risk in a small business with the hope of collecting interest income in the future, or accepting free money from the government to pay its necessary expenses, which one do we expect them to do? NO MORE!! NOT A PENNY!!!!!

I’ve heard nothing about
regulation to stop this from
recurring.

This mess was started by:
1) Overleveraging: 30x by Bear-Stearns
Leveraging of 20-50x was a major
cause of the 29 crash. Such
leveraging should not be allowed
in any financial business that
is “too big to fail”.

2) Unregulated Credit default swaps
These are insurance policies, they
should fall under insurance
regulation, with appropriate
liquidity/shared risk requirements.

3) Incorrect property valuations.
This was primarily because the
loan originator was selling off
the loan, and making the loan
only for a “bounty”. Make the
loan originator hold the loans,
or even a randomly picked
percentage of the loans, and the
shenanigans of liar apprisals
and liar loans will go away.

The next problem will be credit cards:
The problems we’ll have there:

4) Adjustable rate:
Disallow them. They got people
in trouble in the sub-prime
market, they do so in the
credit market as well.

5) Default rates on Credit cards:
Disallow this practice.
30+ % percent was usury not
long ago. Now Credit card
companies let customers get in
trouble, then make sure they
never get out due to 30+ %
default rates.

Larry in New Jersey,

That is the dumbest thing I’ve read in a long time. How is that a “win” for the banks? So, if you give me a $100,000 loan, you’re saying it’s okay if I only pay you back $60,000. Get Real!

WHY DO WE KEEP GIVING MONEY TO BANKS? Watching the CEOs on Capital Hill today, they have admitted that they have done very little to help ordinary people on Main Street in a horrific market that they created. The market that they created out of greed and gross mismanagement. Now we are going to give more TARP funds to these banks without any regulation or accountability that they won’t follow the same tactics? The Stimulus Plan that the Senate just approved will fail as well because it doesn’t provide much, if any assistance for the underlying problem- people are unemployed, losing their homes and their retirement.
So what is the bank and federal governments response to this financial disaster? Raise credit card interest rates, stop lending and refuse to help homeowners that are not behind in payments that have lost all equity in their homes. Great- they will guarantee refiancing at a low rate. What about the 10 million people that cannot because they are underwater in their mortgages while banks walk away with $700 billion of tax payer money? A $15,000 tax break if you buy a home in the next year? When corporations are laying off 500,000 workers a month? Washington’s response to this fact is to spend MORE? How is this going to help and how is it responsible? This problem is going to get way worse before it gets better. And our genius leaders in Washington have no idea what to do. Geitner, who is “supposed” to be an expert is clueless too. Why would he address the public yesterday if there is NO concrete plan as to next steps? I see bread lines and soup kitchens in our future.

Never in history have me been able to spend our way out of a crisis of this magnitude. We need to tighten our belts as a nation. Start producing our way out, decrease the trade deficit. History has prooven the only real quick fix is WWIII or a civil war.

IF YOU WANT TO LIVE WITH THIS COMMUNISM,
MOVE TO RUSSIA!

We are still trying to fix supply side of credit when it is evident from past six months that problem is now on demand side. By still focusing on supply side, we are essentially drying up the funds which could have been well utitilized to create better demand for credit – stop job loss, give aid to States and keep current state projects going. If we can bet on Banks to create supply for credit, why can’t we bet on States to create demand for credit?

Why is Washington so bent on giving money to the very people who have created this problem? We are going to give taxpayer money to financial institutions so they can loan our money back to us, charge us interest on the money we loaned them while paying none themselves? Am I missing something here? My credit card fee’s have gone up without reason and my credit limits have been reduced dramatically and Morgan Stanley and their brethren liars are telling lawmakers they are lending money. To whom? Themselves. OH, that’s right, they don’t call those loans, they are called bonuses.

No it will not work. TARP II should be the same as TARP I. The govt. should provide additional capital to allow the banks to write-off toxic assets and suspend mark to market accounting, one of the wrong-headed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.

Unfortunately, the problem was not created in a day and it will take time to work itself out.

I am underemployed. I have been a full time teacher for five years before and now I am half time. I make 1600.00 a month and am given no health insurance.
How is 500.00 going to make up for the 18000.00 I am not making this year.
I am going to have to get rid of my cell phone because I can keep up with the payments. I have moved to a 250.00 a month studio apartment after living in a brand new home 6 years ago. I have no cable, no internet, no washer or dryer. I don’t qualify for unemployment because I work 5 DAYS A WEEK AT LEAST 4 HOURS. So they said I couldn’t get any money. I make too much for food stamps even though by the time I get paid every two weeks I have nothing in my fridge or cabinets.
How is this all helping me. Truth is it is not helping me. I have no credit because of a divorce and I have a car that has a cracked windshield, a broken muffler pipe and 159,000 miles on it and that is all I will ever get since now I am going to be 50 years old and have to save up for my cat food years.
Signed,
Always optomistic but depressed with the reality of my life.

WELL, THE COMMENTS FROM AMERICA’s HEART AND SOUL ALL AGREE…THE GEITHNER PLAN WON’T WORK AND THE GOVERNMENT SUCKS…SO, WHAT’S NEW, HUH?…

We are hard working tax paying americans and never took “risks” we always lived within our means. We made $50-$55,000 Saved up a down payment, and bought a home we could afford. Due to job loss, we have lost our home. Now I am ccurious to what the plan is for the people that have ruined credit due to this problem and can no longer get a loan to buy a house. Lowering the rates on loans is only making the rich richer, and th middle class and lower class will be the ones that suffer who will still not be able to own a home, or take advantage of these great rates.

The government is acting less than responsible. They are robbing the tax-payer blind and promising change yet we all know this is going to do nothing but be of detriment to this country. YOU CANNOT SPEND OUT OF THIS PROBLEM! I would be happier if they were throwing piles of money into a bonfire in the middle of the street rather than know that the CEO’s and less than palatable names on wall street were benefiting from it. People are literally starving. I am struggling to make rent month to month. The middle class is drowning and the government seems to think a stone around our neck is somehow going to alleviate the struggle. WAKE UP! Obama promised change, and soon we’re all going to be peddling for it. Where’s the middle class tax break, Mr. President? Where’s the change, Mr. President? Exactly what I thought; Another puppet on a string controlled by corporations and the elite. Start seeing through the lines, fellow Americans. The government doesn’t have your best interest at heart and never did/will. Perhaps we should all just stop paying our taxes like our President’s elected officials. Make the government look elsewhere for money, because I think we’re all sick of funding their spending addiction. To all politicians who blindly follow this bull: You literally make my stomach turn. You people solely are responsible for the strife millions upon millions are having to live with. I don’t know how you rest at night. That’s right, 1,000 thread count silk sheets. Reprehensible, hypocritical SWINE!

Are you kidding???? They get millions and just party with it. Credit has not flowed, The housing market did not get a boost. Give them??? NO WAY!!!

I favor the bailout at with tax payers being the shareholders of last resort at distressed sale prices. Most of us never get the opportunities that they have had. They have blown their opportunity, some twice. They should not have second, third and fourth opportunities to stiff the taxpayers. Management’s behavior in many cases has been criminally negligent in my opinion.

Further, if we do not have laws to hold people accountable and responsible for reasonable and prudent behavior retroactively, we need one now!

What the government neds to realize is that until CONSUMER SPENDING picks up the economy will continue to tank. Notice – CONSUMER SPENDING, not government spending. Bailing out the cretians on Wall Street will do nothing to get the economy going. The the weak die off and the strong survive. If you had been fiscally responsible, then you have nothing to fear.

Enough with the bailouts. It DOESN’T WORK. Enough with playing with our tax revenue like the Senate is in a penny candy shop. Enough with “stimulus packages”. The only this that is going to change this economy is how we spend our money. That’s the real power. No more keeping companies alive when the consumers don’t support them through the regular course of business. If Chevy is going to make it, then they should make it because they produced a better car for a lesser cost. PERIOD.

This is all a dog and pony show designed to restore consumer confidence while keeping things ’status quo’. *sigh*

WHILE WE ALL WRITE NOTES HERE THE STIMULUS IS BEING DEBATED IN DC RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES! WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT AND WE HAVE TO TAKE CONTROL OF OUR $$$!
IF YOU READ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA YOU WOULD FIND IT DOES NOT AUTHRIZE OUR GOVERNMENT TO DO ANY OF THE THINGS LISTED IN THIS HOUSE BILL. RATHER THEN REPLY OR ADD YOUR COMMENT HERE; DO SO WITH YOUR LOCAL SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN AND WOMEN! AND DO IT NOW! IF THIS PASSES; THE START OF SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE REVERSED (US SOCIALISM) WILL ACCURE. THAT IS UNLESS YOU HAVE THE STOMACH TO TAKE THE US GOVERNMENT BY FORCE.

Coming from someone who has personally delt with not only a Banks refusal to assist/intervene in a near foreclosure, but took their false and luring advice to “get” a modification only to wind up on the verge of foreclosure for it…I absolutely hope someone, somewhere doesn’t something soon to get Banks to not only better utilize the funds they have and will be provided, but to prove it to the American public so that we may regain trust. But until they actually start walking the walk that they talk about, it’s going to be hard for America as a whole to swallow their luring and greedy practices that deliberately scrap the average consumers pockets of even the lint.

Failure should not be rewarded. The greedy banks should never have been bailed out. All this bailout money should have went to make good banks better so that they could fill the void when the bad ones went bankrupt.

All the bail out banks did after getting billions was cut credit and raise interest rates instead of passing it on to consumers. So consumers struggling to pay now have to pay even more. Wasn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place rising interest rates on loans people should have been given in the first place. It is like the banks want even more defaults to occur by their actions.

I have had it, those wall street ceo’s recieved millions, or billions, of bonuses for the last several years while overseing the destruction of our economy. Now the taxpayer is bailing them out. There needs to be a retroactive greed tax passed, 90% of the earnings of those ceo’s whose banks are recieving bailout money. I am not venting, I am serious!!!

Bank Credit?
1) I have excellent credit and all I get in the mail from these banks is Variable rate card offers that start out at 10.99% and up… while they are being lent money at historical lows. In the trash they go!
2) The Fed. and Congress need to set-up a monitored plan that for a limited time (say 9 mos.), 50% – 60% of bailout funds to banks must go to homebuyers and refinancers (both), @ 4% fixed 30 yrs. (no points or origination fees). Equity ratio, because of the market; needs extended to 90% loan-to-value for this 9 mo. period.
3) Institute a policy today (not in 2010), that all credit cards issued through bailout funded banks cannot have their interest rate increased if you have never been late.
In other words, tie some actual numbers and monitoring to these doled out dollars. Hey, hire me! I know how to call each banks customers and ask them what their getting from their bank!

Check the market cap of the banks that wasted taxpayer dollars have been given to. To inject another 1 to 3 trillion dollars into this system is madnesss. We need to call them insolvent and let them file bankruptcy. New entities will take their place. That’s how a free market works. Toxic assests will then have a value placed upon them, even if it’s only a dime on the dollar, and the financial system can then go forward, hopefully with more oversite than which the fed gave to it in the last 15 years. The people that ran these institutions into the ground would be ousted through insolvency which would serve as a perp walk to the public. The names of CEO’s and BOD members could be posted on the new Treasury web site to alert investors of any new banks headed up by those running the failed banks as a buyer beware disclosure so that they don’t get burned again.
To try and re-inflate the housing bubble through revaluation of loans in foreclosure is ludicrous and will cause a outcry across the nation from those who are paying or have paid their contractual obligations. People are in foreclosure for 1 of 2 reasons:either job loss, or greed and stupidity in buying something they couldn’t afford. This rule also applies to other purchases to include autos and plastic card purchases. All aspects of America are responsible for this problem, to include the gov’t, greedy lenders, and the over extended credit driven consumer most of whom know nothing of saving.
Unfortunately there is going to be financial pain for many Americans in the forseeable future as we work off the glut of residential and commercial real estate. We are presently in a DEPRESSION when you look at true unemployment figures and the deterioration of employment which will continue for many months to come according to the experts. To have the Fed tell us that we don’t have deflation is preposterous! Have you checked the value of your house lately. Unfortunately America has no manufactuing base or world war to get us out of our present dilemma.
To continue to print up money backed by nothing more than the paper it’s printed on will not only indebt future generations, but result in massive inflation in the near future.

I look at these men, I see them whine about the millions they received and now they are begging for more. No, I say, because they should all live for a while with the monies regular people have. Exchange their lifestyle, with one of us, when the end of the month comes, there is almost no food left. Just like they did this one slumlord I think it was in NYC had to live in his own property were poor people were just pushed aside and had to live in bad conditions

All of the problems in this country are interconnected–forming a vicious circle that is self-consuming. There are too many root causes of our social, political and economic crises for any one solution to mend.

Bailing out anyone–the banks, the industrial sector, even the taxpayers–is an inappropriate use of taxes. Those funds (which should be drastically reduced) should be ONLY used to operate the government. That said, the government needs to be put on a huge diet; restored to the roles it was granted by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.

The stimulus will not improve the lives of everyday citizens… only the concerted actions of ALL of our citizens will help.

Many house values have fallen below the outstanding balance of the current mortgage.Mortgage holders should be required to automatically refinance these existing mortgages as long as the homeowner qualifies in regards to income.This would be a win win win for the banks the homeownerand the economy.

Tim Geitner still doesn’t get it. So far he has provided NO CLARITY about our new government’s plans to spend an additional $350B when the American taxpayers are clamoring for answers. Who is in charge here? The banks, insurance companies, health care companies and oil companies are still doing very well thank you and the second half of the initial TARP funds should be returned to the taxpayers.

Think of this: The TARP money is taxpayer money. We’re providing this money to the banks and urging them to “lend it back” to taxpayers at a premium. How does that make any sense? Why should taxpayers pay interest to borrow money that came from them in the FIRST place. RETURN THE MONEY TO THE TAXPAYERS and then fix the system that allows gas to be sold to consumers for way more than its currently worth. There’s another outrage.

The issue is that the brilliant “elfman” Geithner has failed to give anyone the impression that he has a clue. We need to let the garbage move through the system, wipe out the shareholders (too bad your bank sucked)and let the stronger banks buy up the pieces. Instead we are throwing trillions of OUR money at these guys who are in the pockets of all of our politicians while these same politicians spew the garbage of how they are going to “control” the big bad banks with future regulation. People, these are the same people that gave us the problem to begin with!!! Wake up. Barney Fudd, Nancy Piloskovich, and Harry Cannotreid had the bright idea that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be more aggressive in buying up more stinky mortgages in order to make loans more affordable and available to people with questionable credit. Guess what. It worked!! The banks and mortgage companies made the stinky loans because Fannie and Freddie bought them up. They then they made even more stinkier loans and Fannie and Freddie bought them up. Funny thing happens in a capitalistic society, if you give someone an incentive to do something and there is money to be made, guess what, they do it!! When housing prices began to fall (nothing goes up forever) then the house of cards began to fall. How hypocritical of our government (or convenient) to now chastise the banks for “efficiently” carrying out their objectives. Now we are throwing trillions at them to shore up their balance sheets and enforcing higher capital positions while on the other hand saying “loan more”. YOU CANNOT DO BOTH!! We are making the same mistakes we have done in the past over and over and over. Instead of getting this over with (yes it will be painful)our politians have convinced us that we need to act and act at any cost to us in order to save us from the impending calamity. Well, when you let too many people buying houses they can’t afford and the housing prices go down then you will have a lot of foreclosures and end up with excessive housing stock. Thats a fact. It needs to work itself out of the system, housing prices will eventually find an equalibrium and the companies that were reckless will fail along the way while others will take their place. That is the way captalism works. Unfortunately our governments current excessive involvement is going to end in disaster. They do nothing timely or efficiently. History has proven this. That my friends is something we should all be angry about.

In addition to the Banking and foreclosure travesty, there is the ripe off of the American people in banks raising interest rates to 30% over a late payment on a credit card. Try calling them, at their invitation; the result is, to quote, “they can do nothing” because we had a late payment. By the way, not a non-payment, just a few days late!!
My sons own their own businesses, an engineer and a lawyer. They have taken a huge hit because of the lack of credit available. My husband and I are in construction, for over 38 years, and are on the verge of bankruptcy. Lack of work and Real Estate investments the reason. We are 64 years old and don’t know how we will survive during our retirement. We are not wealthy, just middle class. The foreclosures seem to be moving in a direction that the banks or their/wall street powerful CEO’s will be able to buy these properties at a fraction of the value. Note: FannyMae’s new reg. that they will not give Floridaand/orcoastline condo mortgages. That means neither will anyone else. Anyone trying to sell a condo will need a cash customer. The middle class will be ripped off and the wealthy will gain. This went into effect in January. It will shut down Florida’s real estate and tourist industry. Thank you for your time, I’ll end here. My blood pressure is rising.

CHASE got bailout dollars and turned around and INCREASED credit card interest rates on what they call “valued customers” – you know….those of us that paid on time always, carried balances and always paid more than the min. payment due. Even though we have excellent credit ratings, we are so valued. NO THANKS, I will spend my money with someone that really does value me.

What good is the bank bailout? Most homeowners trying to get refinancing on the mortgages find out they don’t qualify since home values have dropped. They find that they owe more than their home is worth, or at least they don’t have enough equity…The people that can afford to refinance, are not the ones needing the help.

I think we need new corporate leadership and accountability for corporations;accountability should also apply to disputes about the delivery of products and services.

Pack your bags people…the State Treasury is being run by someone that has no clue how to manage money…for god sake he can’t even do his taxes. It is ridiculous how our country is being run by incompetent individuals. We pay the taxes that are funding these bailouts…we as the people have the right to know what the details are in the bailouts…storm your local represenatives offices…and speak up for this outrageous mis-management of taxpayers money.

Of course it won’t work! This guy can’t do his taxes correctly, even with the help of an accountant. Add in the general incompetence in Washington and you have a disaster in the making.

I hear Tim Geitner’s new plan to stimulate the economy revolves
around all of us cheating on our
taxes together. An administration
filled with old Clinton Hacks and
Tax Frauds ain’t gonna find an
honest, effective solution, Bunky.
“Honest & Effective” isn’t a viable
aspect of this gang’s reality orientation.

I have read many of the 199 comments below and have found NOT ONE who has said they have actually read the House Bill. Well, I have read 320 pages of it and I had to stop because I was at a point where I couldn’t stomach it any longer. Up to page 320 there is no stimulus ($350-400B spent at that point) except a $500 check to the few who earn low enough to get it. Our new President said on National TV several times over the past several days that “there is no pork” in this bill. I call him out right now and say Mr. President; with all due respect you are lying to us! Bald faced lying right to our faces! I voted for you Sir and I couldn’t believe what the Rush’s and Hanity’s were saying in contrast to what I believed to be true. I am ashamed to find I am a fool for believing you from the start! Stop lying to us and do what the people of the country are crying out for: make decisions based on what is best for the people as a whole not what is best for the financial markets and (already to huge) Government. We are not interested in Socialism as a whole. We got rid of Bush by voting you in Mr. President because we thought you would make decisions for us! Remember? “Of the people, by the people and for the people”?! I say NObama!!!! I for one am literally going to stand in the streets of my City with a sign that states: “I protest!” Join with me people of this great Nation and let’s get noticed! Our Government doesn’t seem to hear our cries! STAND UP AMERICA! (Our people) WE NEED YOU! BEFORE IT IS TO LATE!!

Where is the outrage at Congressional Democrats for their “junket” to Williamsburg, VA, last week? The hypocracy is making me sick. Millions in compaign contributions and billions to these so-called bankers. They all make me sick!!

These banks are out to save their banks. The people need the bailout . I think some of this money should go directly to the small businesses that are having trouble . Send the money to the states not to the banks.

This comment section should be required reading for EVERY politican in America. Federal state and local! Maybe then they would get the message that we the people are not as stupid as they assume we are. Come on CNN, run some of these comments on TV so the pols can have no excuse for voting to pass this very unpopular bill……

If you want to put people back to work give the steel mills the stimulus. Who needs a bank if he hasn’t got a job. Who’s going to buy anything when his financial situation is a disaster. I believe what some of your experts have said and that is that we haven’t seen anything yet. The Market may go to 4000 before it hits the bottom. My money is staying under my mattress.

Shouldn’t Congress and President Bush be the ones being grilled? They are afterall the ones who gave the banks (who had failed in the first place) billions of dollars with no strings attached.

Tim Geitner is proving to be just another empty suit like his boss Barry Obama. Where is the change that was promised ? All we see is another free spending socialist that wants to take money from people who are financially responsible and give it to those who are’nt !! That is not change it is the same old left wing crap we have all heard for 80 years.

I thought that the money lent so was supposed to ease credit.

And the banks say they are extended credit? And just HOW MUCH CREDIT ARE THEY WITHDRAWING?

My wife and I are small business owners with a steller credit rating. In the last 6 weeks we have had

1. over $60k slashed from our available credit lines.
2. A loan for $30k with a “lifetime” fixed rate of 6% is about to jump to 11% (of course in the small print lifetime actually means “unless the bank decides otherwise”)
3. We purchased a house out of town last year (4 kids and 3 murders within 2 blocks of my house in 6 months). We were unable to sell our previous house because of the market conditions. So I call Citigroup who owns the mortgage to see if they can cut us a break on our 6.75% interest rate (don’t even get me started there). The answer….NOPE! Seems our market is declining…show me a market that isn’t. Now the house that was worth $425k last July is now worth about $340k.

To anyone who bought their house in the last 10 years, good luck taking advantage of those great “new low low rates”. Better hope your new job doesn’t require you move, because if you do you stand to loose tens of thousands just to offload your old house. I predict that the numbers of “absentee” landlords is about to skyrocket in this country.

tim geitner has proved that he is no genius. in fact, the best thing for our economy would be for this tax cheat to resign his position.

I’m sure there are many people who are qualified, who were not part of the first bailout, were not part of the lack of oversight of financial institutions.

A simple solution for our economy would be to provide a “tax loss carryback” type plan for individuals. Let all taxpayers who paid taxes in 2006 and 2007 get a tax refund of 50% of taxes paid in those years when they file 2008 tax returns. This would return money to tax PAYERs who have helped fund the first round of bailouts, not those who have contributed nothing to the funding of government in recent years.

With all this coverage of the stimulus, the fact that gas keeps edging up, which is what wiped out all our spending cash in 2008 as Americans in the first place, is being ignored! When gasoline futures and oil are trading at prices that “normally” & historically supported prices of $1.50/gal or less, is gas at stinking $2+ again??!! Why can’t the American public get a straight answer about our lifeblood? It’s always a different reason, first investors are shorting and trading making oil go up, then refining issues, etc, etc-will there ever be a true reason or is it going to continue to be like bingo and someone, somewhere picks a number and that’s what we pay for our fuel?!! There is no stability/consistency or sane reason behind it all and it absolutely infuriates me.

I wonder if this thought has given any creedence. Maybe the consumer dosent want any more credit cards, loans, or debt. Maybe we are tired of giving the banks our money and would rather save for a new car or save for the new home. Maybe we are sick to death of how we have een treated in the last 5 years. I called my broker about an account I have and he said that the balance is too complicated to figure right now and he would get back to me. That was last week. It must be really complicated because he still has not called.
And another thing. Where are the cops in all of this? Why have arrest not been made. Oh, I forgot. Madoff was arrested and is in his apartment awaiting trial. His multi million dollar apartment. Oh the hardships we impose on the guilty. I, for one, have just about had a gutfull. I want some answers and I want them straight up. No bull. Put these guys in jail and make them accountable.

It is certainly right to help banks to tide over their financial mess which was the outcome of a people friendly policy of easy credit. Now that the policy has not worked, it would be prudent that banks give loans on proper assessment and to business establishment who can perform. For example loans should not be given to the motor car industry or to tobacco companies but to green ventures like the electric car or solar energy companies and so on. The world needs to reduce consumption of energy and there should be a campaign on the part of the government to educate by example of living simple lives and culturally high.

1. How are the banks calculating a “loss” on home mortgages??
the banks collected interest for many years when the mortgage payments were being made and the banks collected costs from loan processing…where’s the loss???

2. Since many people are not spending but are saving (putting their money into saving accounts), what are the banks doing with the money in savings accounts since the banks are not lending the money???

thank you

I don’t think the banks should get another dime. Instead give the savings and loan companies the money to lend homeowners facing foreclosure to pay back the banks. The banks will pick up as they get their money back. WellsFargo with their free money proceeded to buy back my $25,000 IRA CD so they wouldn’t have to pay me 5% interest. THAT is what the banks are doing with the money – shoring up themselves and buying other banks and not doing anything for homeowners. I also think the balloon payments should be illegal and banks be forced to REFINANCE all loans at a lower interest if they have received bail out money. They are greedy and look out for their own interests only.

i would like to see the money go directly to the american people. giving it to organizations and banks doesnt seem t work.but a stimulu package is better than none.fire all the republicans that voted against the stimulus.they say our children and grandchildren will be left to pay it off. well we are apying today for yesterday so what is new here.i never saw anything like this and thanks to 8 years of a gilded age and a lackluster president we are paying that debt..oh yeah what about a war that costs billions?

Bailing out banks sends the message that it is ok to mismanage my money and “we will try harder and be honest next time” I don’t have the money for a “do-over” I spent it on my taxes. It is all about character and honesty. Geithner and the CEOs of the bailout banks have neither, let them fail. It will cost us less in the long run because they will continue in the same fashion, as there is no one, including our president in training, who will hold them accountable.

Of course this new bailout won’t work. Centrally planning the economy has never worked and will never work. The only way out of this mess is to remove government and get back to a free economy. The bailouts are making the problem 10X worse by redistributing wealth from successful companies to companies which are failures. The bailouts are also debasing our currency in the process and therefore discouraging saving and investing. All we can hope for is that the government let’s the recession take its course. If they intervene more, it will get much worse.

The plan does not address the main issue. We are not letting the free market system work as intended.
We are mixing nationalization with capitalism. They don’t work well together.
If the Treasury views these companies as “strategic assets” then they should be nationalized. Otherwise, let the markets due their work and let the strong survive and the weak fade away. It may be painful (401K) at first but we will end up with a much stronger economy.
By bailing out failures like these CEOs, they have little incentive to turn a profit.

The problem here is that the Government is making things worse by bailing idiots out.

But, we need to ask, why is the Senate and President doing this. It is because the Lobbyist are running this country. Senators are just watching out for who puts money in their pockets. Washington is broke and it needs fixing and don’t expect Obama to fix it. He has over a dozen Lobbyist working in his Adminstration. That is more that a dozen that he said he would have. Remember when he said no Lobbyist in my cabinet. Change, we can believe in, Bull. Stop drinking the cool aid, he does not walk on Water.

Get rid of the Lobbyist is the first thing that needs to be done.

Second, let badly run companies fail. Better run companies will survive.

Third, the only stimulus that should be passed is ones that send moneyback to the tax payers. Remember us, the ones who are footing this bill.

The fact that a tax cheat like Tim Geithner is the newly appointed Treasury Secretary overshadows all efforts at restoring confidence.

If there is to be change as promised by the Obama administration, then it starts by appointing leaders with a clear background.

It is a sad commentary indeed that the administration and the Senate believed this tax cheat was the “best choice for the job.” Step 1 to restoring confidence is to accept Geithner’s resignation.

To start, I aggree with Michael in Chicago, posted 2/11.
Second, all these big banks are corrupt. They got themselfs in this mess with there dreamed up funky mortgages that they handed out, just so they could loan more money to more people and make more money on the interest. They did not care if the homeowner would be able to pay 5yrs down the road. There action led to mortgage lenders pushing these loans because the bank would pay the broker a yield spread on the loan. When taking yield on a loan, the borrowers interest rate would go up. So, the banks gave the brokers “permission” to be greedy as well, BUT at the cost of the poor borrower. Finance and homebuying should be taught in high shool. Note, I am an ex-mortgage broker who would NOT put people in those loans. I have ethics.
If the government wants to help, give the homeowners $500K ea. They in turn MUST pay off their mortgage, turn in proof of payoff to the treasure. Any money left, they need to pay off their credit cards. This will get money back to the banks so they can in turn loan it out to new home buyers.
BUT, the bigger problem now is to get people back to work. Good Luck !
Geithner is on who’s side ?? Come on Mr.President, I got the impression you were smarter than this. Stop helping the poor BIG,greedy, banks.

The people who claim each taxpayer should get 1 Million Dollars simply don’t understand math. The 830 Billion bailout, if divided among 138 Million taxpayers amounts to about $6,000 each. While that is a slug of money, it is not large enough to do much for any taxpayer. What is needed is a restoration of confidence, and more jobs. I don’t see where the bailout is going to help either of those items. If the 830 Billion bailout creates 4 Million jobs, that is $207,500 per job. Can we really afford that kind of job creating stimulus ?

let me see if i got this straight. the bankers first talked the government into bailout money. once they were sure that they would get it but before they actually got it (i guess so they could claim that they didn’t use any of the bailout money) they gave themselves the equivalent of 10% (3.5 billion) bonus as a reward for this successful negotiation?

Do they really think that the American people are stupid enough to believe that? I guess they do. otherwise it would not be business as usual.

There should not be a new bank bailout before we have safeguards in place to prevent disaster of this magnitude from repeating itself. We need changes in corporate governance, we need changes in disclosure and we need changes in oversight. If the congress grants another bailout, then that bailout money will be used to lobby against such changes. 10 years from now we could be in the same mess again.
Also, don’t help Wall Street – help Main Street. The crisis has arrived at Main Street. Helping Wall Street to spare Main Street no longer works. Another bailout would just make Wall Street whole while Main Street gets the short end of the stick. No more bailouts for big banks. Let them go down and we will restart with the few banks that survive.

Where’s the equity in all these socialist giving programs for those of us who never got caught up in the spending spree?

These kinds of absurd measures are a slap in the face of anyone who kept a tight reign on spending and exposure.

Now the solvent are being asked to bailout the insolvent.

The proper course of action is bankruptcy, but to suggest that a course of propping up bad debt and housing prices and mortgage forgiveness etc. changes the rules.

Had I known the rules were going to change and people weren’t going to be responsible for their actions I would have never followed the course I did.

The fact that no one wants to go back and look at how we got here just leaves me slack-jawed. We can’t fix this by changing the rules of the game, the market will never trust that the new rules will be followed the next time we have a catastrophe.

Geithner scared the bejeezus out of me. Far from the financial genius the president has made him out to be, Mr. Geithner struck me as being in way, way, way over his head and a lot closer to a 120 than a 150 in the IQ department. Will the plan work? So far I’ve heard no plan.

In my opinion, all the “Bailout/Stimulus” will never work, as long as the politicans continue to shift the United States to a so-called Service economy. When the shift was started and the good paying manufacturing jobs left this country, the problems began. You can’t pay your mortgage if you don’t have a decent job. You can’t pay for a car to get to that job, without that job. So it seems to me that we need to re-establish the manufacuring base in this country, By forcing the politicians to return those jobs to American soil right now. This can only be done with a STIMULUS for the manufacturing sector. Cut the corporate taxes so they can produce products at a profit right here at home. Enact a “FAIR TAX” to truly fund this country in a equitable manner.The cost in billions or trillions of dollars to be passed on to future generations, $0.00. Let the so called finiacial geniuses figure out how to get there house in order WITHOUT taxpayers money (they have stolen it all, and still want more!) The POTUS should rethink his appointments to reflect the crisis at hand, and the wishes of the Ameican people, NOT the world banking, credit, and financial markets, they can fix their own problems. Above all we must avoid the slide to the socialist side, this is, after all a Republic, with capitalist roots. Let the failures begin, as only the strong survive.

I do not see how this stimulas package is going to work. Spending more of our money is not going to help us at this point. We need to let the companies who are going to fail, fail. It may not help short term but long term its going to happen anyway.
If i owned a business and it was failing the goverment is not going to step in and help me. THey should have to deal with it just like you and me. Failure should not be rewarded in this country

Why did we let these banks get so big? No bank should have greater than a 5% market share. If it fails who cares then, Fed breaks it up and sells it off. SOme of these banks control 10-15% of the market making them “too big to fail” in the fed’s opinion. My opinion let us take our money back, let them fail, deal with the short term pain and get on with life in a few years with CEO’s and companies that now know there is no such animal as “too big to fail”. Think of how many of there workers could be employed still if these scum bags that should be fired gave up the millions they get paid to a more reasonable amount like $100,000 and be happy you have a job for screwing up the country’s economy. Giving greedy over paid CEO’s money is a waste, we a 2 trillion in infastructure repairs that are needed that would do far more now and 10 years from now to help our economy than giving the banks a penny. While we all cried about Exxon’s profits of 9% these banks were and are ripping us off and they were making much larger profits. Winfall tax needed absolutely you make a profit of more than say 20% and you get slammed. If you are making that much you are likely ripping someone off anyway. This is normal the rich screw us and get our money and get richer and than they wonder why people hate them. If I screw up I lose my job they screw up cost us all trillions and they keep thier jobs and get a bonus! Got to love un-checked capitolism. Capitolism is fine a long as it is kept on a short leash and watched 24/7 for someone getting too greedy, remember capitolism is greed by a different name and un-check greed destroys itself. Greed is good in moderation like all things and so is capitolism. CEO’s and Regulators should be filling our prisons not getting a pay day with my money and my kids and grand kids and thier kids and their kids kids.

Unfortunately this huge bailout package will not work. The ones that need to be bailed out are the citizens of the United States. Taxpayers like myself that will benefit more from getting around $100,000 so I can refinance to an affordable mortgage payment, so I can buy another car that I will soon need, so I can send my kids to a College that has skyrocketing tuitions, so I can afford to go to a restaurant and have $100 meal and pay the waiter that depends on me to sustain life, so I can come out ahead after I pay my tremendous amount of insurance premiums every month (health, car, home, etc)…get the point??? I voted for hope and I don’t think the Government is going to change anything by bailing out businesses. The people need the money to estimulate the economy so jobs can be created and kept.

You know, we all have a say in this. I pulled all of my money from National City Bank and put it with M&T Bank. Its high time we stop supporting companies that we as consumers are unhappy with. Its time we start telling them what we think w/ our money. My days of banking with a large commercial bank are over. I’ll be sticking with a regional or local bank. They may not give me unlimited credit, but they typically don’t make poor decisions like this. Also, they are far more reasonable in their executive pay.

Okay, I’m reading some of these comments and I’m infuriated. First of all, President Obama didn’t create this mess, the Bush administration spiraled this country out of control and nobody held HIM accountable. If you want to trash somebody, take it up with Bush. Second, the banks should not have received these funds without extreme oversight. I didn’t agree nor did many other citizens, to flush my money down the toilet and give these bank CEOs and handout, while I’m surviving by the skin of my teeth. I believe the government needs to invest in the American people and not these crooked banks and Wall Street. I’m so furious I can barely type fast enough. The American people need to stand up NOW before it’s too late. The government needs to put pressure on these banks to either do what they promised to do with that money, or return it with interest like the IRS does when you owe them money. I’m sick and fed up!!

Sherry,
I like your sentiment, but your math is way off. It works out to less than $10,000 per taxpayer – not a million.

Perhaps the only thing that will genuinely work, is to take steps to force manufacturing to return to the US.

Ultimately, the loss of jobs, is the main issue. Sending all jobs offshore, simply cannot work. (Something rather basic, which you would think business would understand.)

Of course, there must be a return to fiscal responsibility, by the consumer as well. Using credit to excess, needs to end, and credit cards should have significant reductions in their upper limit, for most consumers. That of course, would require banking reform, which seems to be a hard sell to fat cat, irresponsible bankers.

Gosh some people are being unusual hard on a President that has been in office less than 2 months. This problem happened under Mr. Bushes “leadership” and I think we need to give Mr. Obama time to get his plan in motion.

At the moment everyone is an arm-chair financial expert. The bottom line is all of us .. we have stopped spending as consumers and as leaders of business and until that reverses everything else is just a consequence of this action. As in every downturn, panic reigns in the eye of the storm for all around is devastation, however, it will pass and things will return to normal in time.

Mr. Geithner’s plan is better than doing nothing but it sounded like something he cobbled together on the morning of his speech. For such an “experienced” person this did not bode well for him and I hope he comes back soon with details and execution.

Lastly, Wall Street reation to the plan was akin to a bunch of whiny babies who started crying by dumping shares … realistically the news was not that surprising or bad to warrant a 4.5% decline in one day on the lack of detail in Mr. Geithner’s plan but like usual too many sheep and very few leaders in the stock market.

Today’s economic crisis was caused by people’s fear of future uncertainty as a result of having suffered severe economic losses through the loss of the value of their investments in stocks and other savings and the loss in the value of their homes as a result of the housing crisis we now have.

This economic crisis will not end until that fear is eliminated. Assisting banks, companies and state and local governments is not going to attain that end. Only allowing those people the time to recover their economic losses through new income and savings is going to end that fear. The increases in unemployment and continued uncertainty in the investment markets is only going to delay this solution.

There are no quick fixes to this situation. Years of irrationally driving up investment prices and housing prices has overpriced everything. Markets take time, and pain to correct. Those who made the most unwise decisions, living above their means, counting on a continued rise in house values, etc, were the ones who gained the most, at least on paper. They will be, rightfully so, the ones who suffer the most in the correction. Maybe they will learn from their mistakes, and avoid them in the future.

Unfortunately, it seems that no one in goverment understands this, so they will continue to try to save people from the results of their mistakes. They only succeed in extending the suffering, and maybe in distributing the suffering to all of us. Get ready. It’s going to get ugly.

It seems that the jobs that are going to be added are going to be government jobs. If you work for the goverment you will be able to build roads, buildings,bridges etc. What about anyone that doesn’t work for the goverment? Just give us back our money and let us take care of our families. We will more loving and caring about keeping them safe and out of the hands of people that we have come to dis-trust. Our children are our future…and as parents we want the best thing for them. We can take care of their basic needs and help them with a house and car and college if you guys will give us back our money…and we will spend and they will spend. Just take care of the poor and homeless..If it were not the churches they would really be starving. They are already cold.The majority of the middle class people have the sense to handle their money. When the government takes way too much out of our paychecks and uses it unfairly and unevenly once again it’s the middle class that doesn’t get anything back.Let us keep our money and let the government borrow from the banks since they trust them so much.

Instead of giving billions to companies that have already proven they are corrupt and incompetent, why not give a million dollars to each taxpayer instead… and see how much that would stimulate the economy.

As of 2007, there were about 138 million taxpayers in the United States so that would also make the bailout much, much cheaper.

With a million dollars apiece, we could…

pay off our mortgages, helping the mortgage companies,
send our kids to college, helping the colleges stay afloat,
buy new cars, helping the auto industry,
invest for the future, helping wall street,
save for the future, helping the banking industry…

the list of what WE could do with the money is almost limitless.

Now isn’t THAT stimulating?

People will will look back on this calamity a hundred years from now and wonder how we all stood by and let this happen. Shame on us. If we really care about our rights and about future generations we need to get organized and fight back.We are willing to submit ourselves and loved ones to going overseas and dying horrible deaths for no good reason at all and yet when it comes time for us to fight for our homes, our life savings, our children’s futures, our social security benefits, medicare, an entire country allows itself to be pillaged. These should all be givens, people. What is the purpose of a government that deprives us of these things? We are setting ther standard for our children. We are saying its okay for the government to treat us like this. The American dream is all about progress, reaching toward something, or more importantly, having something to reach for, whether its owning your own home or starting your own business or making the best life possible for your children or finally getting to retire. What is the point of working hard when there is nothing to look forward to? When you know that soon there will be no such thing as retirement because you wont see a penny of social security or medicare (even though we pay our whole lives for it), while these clowns are throwing billions of dollars around like its nothing? They are insulting our intelligence and they are undermining our individual struggles. Im not talking about people who sit at home collecting welfare and having children that they are unable to provide for. Im talking about the taxpayer, the people who get up early and go to work 5, 6, 7 days a week…the ones that make productive contributions to society,come home and nurture their children,try to think of ways to get ahead that dont involve robbing their fellow citizens.Those are the ones being punished now. Those who live beyond their means, max out their credit cards, take on mortgages they cannot afford, declare bankruptcy, go into foreclosure, live off of taxpayer money, the are the ones reaping the benefits of our hard work. My question to you all: What if we refused to pay our taxes? I mean all of us? Will they finally listen? If we dont do something these people are going to continue bleeding us dry and driving this country into the ground

chris Cantwell Bradenton FL
Ron Paul yes, man now your thinking for yourself, if the GOP brings this man to the table, he’s got my vote…
Welocome to the Libertarian party.

As far as USbank is concerned…they have said they didn’t need the bailout money, and yet they still took it. I would also be mindful of their stability, effective Feb. 16 2009 every employee’s pay will be reduced by 5%. They are doing this in order to avoid having to lay off 12,000 employees. They might be strong, but they are not invincible. “BUYER BEWARE”

@Roy Norton Boonville,
You got my vote dude!
Welcome to the Libertarian party !

This does NOTHING to help us… perfectly good customers of greedy Citimortgage who have watched our home lose value each month. All we asked them for was a 1% decrease in our interest rate so we could try and put something toward principal–knowing we need to sell soon. They said “no” that we needed to start skipping mortgage payments for 3 months before they would even talk to us! We have VA backed loan and we called the VA to tell them how Citimortgage was actually encouraging us to stop paying and ruin our credit. How can you afford to sell and move where the job is if you need $40,000 to close? This will be the next wave of foreclosures. What is this country coming to?

How can one make a judgment without any details and where big numbers are just thrown around. We are being treated like idiots asked to believe that additional money won’t be just thrown away like the first $350B.

What is the Plan? I didn’t hear or see a Plan, only an outline.

I don’t believe there is a Plan in place yet.

Lack of credit is NOT the problem. We’re drowning in credit. Look around your city. There’s a bank on every corner. Try to find an operating factory. There is nothing easier than charging it. The problem comes when it’s time to pay it back. Without income (jobs) there can be no prosperity. We’ve been sold out.

What is the “plan?” I didn’t hear or see a plan only an outline. What’d I miss?

It takes just a little bit of common sense to know when the time has come to stop trying to untangle a badly knotted fishing line and simply cut it off and start over. Simply stated, let the markets work by allowing industries of any stripe to stand or fall on their own merits. True capitalism will then weed out those poorly run and marginal companies that should not stand and allow those with solid business models, management and practices to succeed. Once that is allowed to occur, successful industries will hire, banks will lend, people will pay taxes and spend and the free markets will prevail.

Actually, US Bank (US Bancorp)has taken $6.599 billion in TARP funds. Funny how some of these banks are saying they don’t need bailout money, yet are towards the front of the line when it’s handed out.

It just cracks me up that the stock market when down when he announced his “plan”. Like, who thought there WAS a plan that would work? “OH!” I hear the cry on Wall Street, “Its under funded!”

Well F-in’ duh! Here is what happened, Poor ol’ Tim was under the silly impression before he was appointed that he could ‘fix’ it. But then he got the keys to the treasury and discovered, (oh the shock!) that the government actually does NOT have endless money.

No matter how true it may be that if the government doesn’t ‘fix this’, then it will be a ‘total crisis’, it doesn’t change the fact that the government still does not have enough money to do it.

In fact, I doubt that enough money exists to plug this hole.

We obviously haven’t gotten over yet our collective refusal to make hard decisions.

Degrees are granted to intelligent people after progressing through structured learning disciplines. All of the financial “guiding lights” have degrees, they knew and know history and this financial meltdown has happened repeatedly throughout time. What were they thinking? “It” can’t happen to them? What special traits or powers make them impervious to the same foibles and imperfections that afflict the rest of us? Kryptonite hurts no matter which you are when you think you are super.

The salary caps are a joke unless applied retroactively and across the board (close the loopholes), but what is constitutional about Government interference in this manner into any and all business sectors? If the minimum wage is rolled back, or if employers are made to pay double COMP funds “for the good of the economy” during these perilous times, would that be alright? Where is the line? Let business run, but modify the codes of business through the laws of incorporation and taxation as the government has always done in the past. The machine ain’t broke, it is operator error.

No strings attached to the money given to financial businesses under TARP? I don’t think so, and why aren’t we pulling that money back and/or at least modifying our understanding so that now there are strings? Just giving away $350BIL of taxpayers, my, hard-earned money because they aided and abetted the creation of the whirlpool disaster we find the country in now? What is that like? Giving a shiny toy to a mis-behaving kid to distract him from his bad behavior so that maybe he’ll straighten up? What sort of good parenting skills hatched that brilliant idea? No wait; don’t tell me, they have degrees, right?

Give the banks and other financials, those who stepped into this mess with eyes wide-open, say 90 days to begin writing down the terms of ALL held and packaged mortgages starting with those in risk, near risk or most at risk of delinquency or foreclosure. Also give them a deadline for completion and make compliance mandatory. Include terms for struggling mortgagees to easily negotiate better terms at little to no cost, or negotiate a smaller write-down with costs. How to ensure policing or process oversight? Let that be hashed out, but suggest the FDIC have a strong interest. Fannie and Freddie have proven they can’t handle the truth.

Job creation is the key to turning around the country? The old New Deal was not a proven winner, why does this make the new New Deal better able to succeed? Oh, wait, that’s right, they have degrees! The administration’s response for us all to pass this bailout quick and not look behind the curtain has more than a few of us very concerned. Working on retro-fitting government buildings, offices and departments to be “greener” is a noble ambition. Yes, it can save us, the taxpayers some few dollars over the next few years, but that effort pales when compared to the infra-structures in America’s cities. That is where the focus must be. Government offices don’t need the latest whiz-bang technology, but America’s cities do need to replace the 150 year old water mains, the 125 year old nationalized rail systems and the 100 year old bridges. There can be no camparison. Our policticians do not need comfortable offices; America’s cities need life support.

The reluctance to nationalize the bad banks is understandable but costs us more in the long run: Many banks are simply insolvent, given their toxic assets. The government should examine every bank, shut down the insolvent banks, and reopen some of them as governemtn property with a clean balance sheets, enough capital, and the possibility to lend. Old shareholders have to loose everything (they didn’t control their managers well enough), and bondholders get partially compensated from selling the old assets by a resolution trust company. Within a given timeframe, every banks should be reprivatized, because, while government can help in emergencies, they are no good in running an economy.

Whether/not this plan works, remains to be seen.
Perhaps a simpler approach may have been. Get the total dollar amount for the Toxic Mortgages “ONLY”, fro each bank. then give “exactly”: that amount to that bank. The result no toxic mortgage on the balance sheet. A real problem that appears to exist within the financial institutions, is that they want blank checks from the federal gov’t, “without strings attached”. We tried that failed policy in Novem/’08. It only speed up the terrible situation we now face. Again, whether/not this plan works, remains to be seen!

I agree with Lilley in N.C., and have always siad, ever since the first 85 billion dollar bailout for AIG, that if the government would give that 85 billion back to the tax payers, split it even to every taxer payer that was 18 years old and older. They could also take taxes out of if before they give it out, that way the government could still retain some of that money, it would be about 250,000 each. Add in the contract that the people must pay off as many bills as possible with then money, then everybody wins. The banks and the creditors will all get money, and have money to lend again, and you know that consumers would be able to buy more stuff, cause thats what we do. Just on the next go round, the financial institution will be more picking about how and to whom they are lending money.

There is NO accountablity in any of the “Bailouts”. The CEO’s of these failed company’s should be terminated, in public, and given NO golden parachutes. They then should be replaced by auditors assigned by the Treasury department. After being terminated, the IRS should then review their taxes for the last 10 years. They’d all be doing time.

“THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED”

although government may feel protecting banks is a proper move, i feel publically traded banks must rise or fall based on business decisions and consumer sentiment. if the treasury department thinks differently, then i am concerned the marketplace is being circumvented.

This bailout system HAS NO CHANCE OF WORKING OR ACOMPLISHING THE OBJECTIVE, it is not real hard to project the results—look at the first bail out, what positive effects has it had, where did all the money go, is their accountbility with those who recieved the billions of dollars? This guy was there for the first mess-he is part of the problem, and offers no reasonable solution. Inadequate plan, in the best of circumstances it is spending lots of money and getting so little. It is the tax payers money and we have no control over how, where, or even if it is spent. All we cn count on is it is gone! Washington is in the mind set to do anything even when it is wrong, but a trillion or more dollars is a mistake we may not recover from especially when it does nothing, just like the first bailout.
The behind scenes talks in Washington about how this money will get placed is probably pretty scary if it was public—I have no confidence in the plan, get a new plan that has a better chance of working.

I agree with both Bill and Lilley, the problem here isn’t that the banks didn’t make money they just loaned it to the wrong people who didn’t pay it back on time causing them to foreclosure and or declare bankruptcy. Has anyone thought about doing the same to the oil companies who pulled in rediculous amounts of money last year and decided to keep raising fuel prices?

Let the banks, brokers (apt name) and investors who gambled with more risk lose. They speculated to make more than the prudent person. Everyone has been warned investing is risky, you lose. America will survive and so will banks and brokerages who were prudent.

I understand the citizens who are having a hard time making needs meet, my heart goes out to them, however, I feel no petty for individuals who knowingly, with the help of a crooked real estate agent/broker, falsified a mortgage application in order to qualify for a loan they know it cannot afford nor pay.

What were they thinking? Money does not come down raining from the sky. And now, the government want ot bail them out for their lack of intelligent decision making.

I ask myself, What about the other million people who with honesty and integrity applied for a mortgage and are doing the impossible to pay their mortgage payments on time?

What kind of help do these honest people get? Is this the manner in which the government penalizes the honest-law abiding citizens and rewards the fraud-law breaking people?

I do not think the Congress is handling this crisis in an honest and fair manner.

Early on I heard an idea that would have worked wonders. Give each household a voucher for up to $1 millon for the elimination of pre-existing debt. Total would have been far less than the cost of the Bailouts. This would make most people debt free and clean up most of the bad home loans if not all. Then, reasonably tighten up the rules for new credit (auto, credit card, and homes). With the people being debt free, they would be purchasing all kinds of goods and services. This would have given the economy a huge spark of life.

It really makes no difference anymore what the populace thinks, those in power will not listen to any kind of reason because they are so far removed from reality. It is absurd that we’ve even gotten to the point we’re at now.

What’s wrong with letting the market fix this problem? We’ve been throwing money into this black hole in another attempt to patch a failing system together and it will again do no long-term good. In the short term it may boost confidence but long-term there’s no doubt in my mind that it’ll fail.

The fight here is between the interventionist government and the market, and ultimately the market will win out. A system built on endless credit expansion has to implode, and it will.

Regardles of the program implemented the tax paying population will be bilked out of trillions of dollars and to what end? To prop up a failed financial system that based on the market should fail and should be allowed to fail.

If we complain about the compensation of executives, the fix for that was never to have given the cash infusions to begin with…not at the point of compensation and running the business. But here we are again, ignoring the fact that all our past attempts to “fix” these problems have failed, now coming up with another program to fix them.

It has been argued that government intervention in the 30’s prolonged the depression and I believe that the case for this is pretty strong.

Our financial system is mortally wounded, yet like many today we want to nurse it along on a ventilator for years to come not wanting to admit that it’s dead. If we let these big banks go and move on the pain will be very difficult but it won’t be this prolonged agony we’re experiencing now, and in the end we won’t destroy our currency and the world wide economy attached to it.

When the GAO says our present course is “unsustainable” I think it would be in our best interests to listen.

Nobody knows where the first bank welfare money went, other than to finance buyouts, bonuses, planes, junkets, etc…. Sounds like they don’t know where the next batch of our tax money will go either. Sorry President Obama, but you are not keeping your promises. You put a guy in charge that doesn’t pay his taxes and obviously can’t put a plan together. Time to regroup

Everyone seems to want to force the banks to lend money, not realizing that Clinton’s Policies forcing Fanny and Freddie to loosen standards is how we got in the housing mess we are currently seeing.

What is disturbng is that there are no noticeable results from the previous bailout on the economy. It is also discouraging that the failed big banks are carrying on as usual with CEO bonuses, resort trips, and dividends to shareholders. It is time to accept responsibility for actions. There must be accountablity. Restrictions should be placed on the banks that HAVE received money. No more bank bailouts!

Bill from Westover, WV hit it on the nose! As a main street citizen I am angry and frustrated that the whims, emotions and greed of a very few have such an impact in my day-to-day life. Money handlers whose greed is so embedded in their souls that they can take millions in bonuses while destroying jobs for thousands AND go to sleep at night! This is not capitalism, it’s an oligarchy!

Why is it that only companies with billion dollar problems get help?

One of my bank accounts closed due to inactivity, so I opened up a second account at the same place. I then accidentally used a check from the inactive first account to pay expenses at the Wisconsin DMV. They charged me $20 for this mistake, plus I had to pay $5 for a certified check to pay fix the problem.

Now the state is asking for several billion dollars, companies are asking for billions of dollars, and I couldn’t get help for $20!!!! They would not drop the charge.

I made more of an honest mistake than Geithner did with his $34000 tax problem or Daschle did with his $100k+ tax problem, and I pay my taxes!

Where is the break for the people that pay their bills every month?

Comment posted by Pat from Grapevine, Tx makes the most sense for an American economic “bailout”:

What about a plan where based on income 100,000,000 taxpayers get an $8,000.00 voucher to be used only on the purchas of a home, a US made car, US made furniture or appliances, US made machinery or just about anything US made. By the way this totals 800 Billion$. What do you think this would do to turn our economy around? If only 10 % of the taxpayers purchase a home that would mean 10 million homes would be sold in the next 12 months. If only 10% would buy a new US made car that would mean 10 million cars would be sold in probably the next 8 months. And so on and on and on…..

Posted By Pat Grapevine Texas: February 10, 2009 5:03 pm

I thought TARP money was originally to be used to assist people losing their homes. It has not gotten there. Of this $800 Billion only $40 Billion is targeted to stabilize the Real Estate Market. The Real Estate Crash started this problem and $40 billion is a drop in the bucket and wont solve the problem. A strong Real Estate market will bring us back quickly, but a lot more money is needed to start the market again.

By giving $100,000 to 8,000,000 enterperneurs ( $800 billion)@7% for ten years provided its used to increase sales and only 1 employee needs to be hired it solves a good part of the economic crisis. Cut the capital gains to 0% for atleast 2 years would solve the value problem with everyone’s stock portfolio and would stabilize the employment. And lastly give people (legal or illegal) a chance to buy their citizenship by buying a home.

I don’t think the problem is the economy or the financial system..it’s the people who have no morals and live only for material pleasures. They get their pleasures from the money they take from poor people without any concern for their well being. I recently had to deal with a broker who even after knowing I didn’t have very much money saved, told me to invest it anyway. He would have taken my last penny and for what…the economy? People need to have a mandatory stint in the Peace Corps to see how other people live.

Why does no one think of returning this money to the tax payers. A check for $60,000.00 to each taxpayer would
definitely get the economy going and the money would be more wisely spent. Why should we become a socialist country? It would also not be as expensive as the 800 billion we are now spending that will just be wasted.

All I know is that US Bank is one of the only Top 10 banks in the country that isn’t needing this bank bailout money. They have a stable current outlook and stable future outlook according to the three rating agencies and has laid off one person. If I’m placing my money somewhere……it
s with US Bank.

It doesn’t appear that what the government is doing is helping CitiBank, at least. On Monday I received a notice from them that they were raising my interest rate by two points. When I called to ask them why, I was told that CitiBank is having a hard time right now. REALLY? I asked if CitiBank was one of the ones that got bailout $ and I was told yes. I was told that they closing down all kinds of accounts, implying that I should feel lucky that they just upped my rate instead of closing it down, too. I’m partially funding this God-forsaken bailout and I get thanked by having my interest rate raised? I don’t think any of these bailouts are helping, seems that they’re making matters worse. I fear that the US is doomed, that we will possibly never recover. As I say all too often… thank God I don’t have children.

USA outsourced 2 million jobs to INDIA in the past 5 years.

Now its time to demand INDIA to buy US Treasury notes worth of $850 Billion to fund the stimulus package.

By their deeds, you shall know them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJ7LM3iyNg

Watch that… and you will see our future.

This was on Russia Today, because American media is AFRAID to tell you, the American people the truth.

Make “tax cheats” pay up with interest & penalties just like non-political citizens have to. Accountability in big business & Wall Street would be helpful, as well. Then maybe we wouldn’t need a bailout or at least quite so much. Is anyone truly watching distribution of these funds?? Or listening to us mere voters??

America made its voice loud and clear yesterday when Geithner opened his mouth. We are fed up with the crooked politicians in Washington. Obamas biggest mistake was to put cheats and crooks in the White house. How much more proof do you need after seeing yesterdays stocks plunge? We are sick and tired of Wall street and Main street and all their lies. All I can say to them is REPENT!

Freeze the interest rates on existing loans to prevent more foreclosures. Put stricter criteria on loans to prevent those unqualified from getting them and adjust interest rates as necessary. In short, make sure people who can afford the loans get them. Let those who have the loans, but can’t afford the increase stay in their homes and make what to do with it their problem. If they’re stuck with the home for another 10 years because they’re overvalued and they can’t sell, so be it. The financial institutions will have to accept they won’t get the profits they wanted from resetting the ARMs, but 4 – 5% is better than a loss. At least people would be staying in homes instead of them standing empty and destroying the value of their neighbors’property. It has done nothing to get these properties off the market or keep people in their homes. With the job losses, people are sitting tight and not risking moving. More people go into foreclosure…banks lose more money…fewer loans are made…unemployment climbs… and it becomes a vicious cycle.

There can be no hope for this plan or any other put forth by those charged with the governing of this country until they can stand up and state the obvious…we are in a depression. There will be no trust in any policital messenger or banker or corporate until one has the courage to tell the truth. It would seem only then can we create ways out of this mess. Until then….I think I’ve noticed lots of mattresses getting thicker.

I would like to know the answer to just one simple question. What definition of “Plan” is Geithner attributing to that completely incoherent, disorganized jumble of garbage he fed everyone yesterday? It certainly didn’t sound like a plan to me, and was demonstrative of the point the GOP was trying to make during the entire campaign.

Obama has zero leadership ability. He has zero ability to recognize expertise. He has zero ability to make sound decisions. One thing he is expert at, however, is appointing experienced criminals to the cabinet.

Nice going, America. What were you all thinking?

Fifty percent of the average americans
are smarter than ninety percent of the
people in Washington. None of the bank
bailouts, stimulus plans or the TARP
funds have ever worked because no one
in Washington knows where to place the
money for the right fix and the biggest bang for the buck. I’ve never
said I’d like to be the President, but
I may have to run someday and get the
country back on the right track. I know
I’ve got better ideas and better answer
s than anything I’ve heard so for. I
just hope America is not bankrupt when
I get there. If I run I will be running
on the American National Party ticket
which I will build. It will be catered
to all the GOD fearing, gun supporting,
rational inteligent American people.
Thank you for reading this comment.

M, GSO, NC: February 10, 2009 3:17 pm

Thanks for sharing feedback. Maybe you want to take a look at — http://www.financialpermaculture.org/

Matthew 7:24
Build on the Rock

24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

The U.S. Monetary System is a “Fiat” curency-, (1913)-Federal Reserve- Add this to today’s financial shannigans and ERON Accounting, Lies, deceit, CDO’s, SEC- Scandals, and the Bernard Madoffs of the world- Why would anyone expect anything less than financial clamity?

It is the monetary system itself that is broken & until our monetary policy is restored to it’s original Constitutionally created framework, defining that only gold & silver as legal tender (sound money), we are going to continue to see more bubbles and business cycles happen, robbing the public by inflation, devaluing our property & further distorting one of the fundamental American principles of our society, the pre 1913 Free Market. Bailout(s), Stimuli, deficit spending, tax cuts…..doesn’t matter, the public is being held out to dry and will continue to for future generations to come until we change our monetary policy.

RON PAUL 2012.

He’s the only one that wants to eliminate bubbles, not regulate them.

There is no way it will work without all the facts (and off the books stuff) being on the table. It’s just a bandage to hid all the mess.
There is no way I will ever invest in banks again. Thank God I had enough sense to pull out without too much loss. What is needed is proper auditing and regulations.

I read a figures somewhere that there will be 3M foreclosures in 2009 and that the average home price in October 08 was 264k. Assuming that they’re 100% financed over 25 years, it would cost roughly 75 billion to pay the monthly mortgage payment on each and every foreclosure for an entire year. If the feds did that in conjuction with mandatory credit counselling and debt management plans for all that apply that could go along way to resolving the immediate foreclosure issue. As far the banks go, particularly those that refuse to lend even after having received hundreds of billions, perhaps the threat of federal government institution being incorporated to go in direct competition with them would wake up there entrepeneurial spirit a little. Either that or get the money back and let the fdic take them over and force it.

I live in Canada and hearing about what’s going down there makes me ill. I can’t imagine how furious people are. If those banks won’t play after receiving hundreds of billions then they shouldn’t be in the game.

The idea of wasting yet more money bailing out banks (or any business) that was poorly run is beyond comprehension. This does nothing but rewards bad behavior. The economy will not collapse. The free market will rebound, but only if we let the free market work. Socialism is not the answer.

as reported elsewhere in CNN/Money last week, the issue isn’t the banks’ lending. Bank lending is up for 2008 over 2007.

The issue is that between 35% and 80% of the net funds flowing into some lending areas came via securitizing loans — pooling large numbers of, say auto loans, and selling securities based on their future payments.

And the securitization markets have crashed and burned. There literally isn’t anywhere near the volume of credit being made available through them any more.

***
Partly this is because the buyers of those securities have discovered to their horror that they are far riskier than they had thought. Once burned is twice shy, as the saying goes, and they’ve stopped buying any more of such paper until they get reasonable assurance that risks are back in line with potential profits — AND that the people talking about the risks actually know what they’re talking about [four of the five bond rating agencies aren't trusted any more because their ratings proved to be so terribly wrong].

The other part of why many of these investors aren’t buying is President Obama and the Democrats. They’re still on the bandwagon for higher taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains.

Now, if you promise to raise taxes on my investment next year, why should I be willing to take the old deal on risk v gross return? If your higher taxes are going to take away another 1/5th or so of my return, what I want in order to put my money down is 10 percent net return instead of eight percent — and that’s IF the risk level is what it was said to be back in 2007 [which it isn't], so i’m not going to buy any 8 percent deals any more — I’ll start looking again when the economy has stabilized and you’re willing to offer 12% — that might be enough to offset the higher taxes and higher risk.

And if you won’t go 12% return — I’ll simply find somewhere else to invest my money. Maybe in gold or something.

Does this make any sense?

Well I got censored this first time, lets see if I’m less angry, Hmmmm NO!
This is a poor plan; all bailouts will not stop what has been coming for the last six decades.
At 52 yrs of age, my hope for a American dream is over. I will not live long enough to recover all my losses from 2008.
My priority now is my children, grand children, and several generations going forward who are going to be shacked by the debt, our Government is putting on the working American citizens.

There is no need to post a comment here, CNN (Deletes) the comments they don’t like-,

This administration and congress is the most inept and/or dishonest that has hit this country. The US is not the South side of Chicago. We in this country have to take a new philosophy — if they are IN, then they must be OUT. Time for a real change, not an Obama naive episode.

This is not going to work, Congress created this mess by ignoring repeated warning about Fannie & Freddie. So why do we turn to them to fix this?

Our free days are numbered, Socialism is here in the USA in the form of our new president and the Dems in Congress

What about a plan where based on income 100,000,000 taxpayers get an $8,000.00 voucher to be used only on the purchas of a home, a US made car, US made furniture or appliances, US made machinery or just about anything US made. By the way this totals 800 Billion$. What do you think this would do to turn our economy around? If only 10 % of the taxpayers purchase a home that would mean 10 million homes would be sold in the next 12 months. If only 10% would buy a new US made car that would mean 10 million cars would be sold in probably the next 8 months. And so on and on and on…..

I absolutely despise the concept of paying taxes to pay bonuses to these thieves and buy their golden underwear. They have done no good for this country yet and it will not help now.

This mess has been brewing since reagan was elected and wages started being cut. Jobs were sent down South and overseas to break the Unions. All of the companies which moved down South have regretted it because of the lost productivity and profits. The workers overseas are not buying much either because they are not paid much.

Housing has been and still is hugely overinflated relative to wages. The only ones benefitting by high housing prices are the taxman and fake (not real) estate shysters. Till we get back to rewarding productive work, instead of marketeering, banksters and salesboys, things will not get better. Most so called investment activity is no more than shuffling money from one pocket to the other and skimming cream from the top. It contributes nothing to our country or world.

CNN – WHY ARE YOU REPORTING ONLY WHAT THESE POLITICIANS ARE SAYING… THERE ARE HUNDREDS, IF NOT THOUSANDS OF COMMENTS ON THESE THREADS… AMERICA HAS SPOKEN. THIS BOARD IS GREAT, BUT WILL IT REALLY DO ANY GOOD?? HELP US GET THE WORD TO THE POLITICIANS.

Just shows how Wall Street remains out of touch with the sentiment of the people expressed through their congressional respresentatives.

As many people seem to be saying here, adding more water to a leaky bucket doesn’t fix the leak. ‘Bite the bullet’ is a phrase I’ve read a few times on this blog and yes, I think it’s time we as a nation ‘bit the bullet’ and let the free market sort itself out by letting those institutions that are over extended fail. Now the real question is, who thought up this ‘bail out’ fiasco in the first place? I’m sure it can’t have been the financial institutions bribing, oops lobbying, our elected representatives? No way, our elected officials are too honest for that.

It won’t work because the American People get absolutely nothing out of it causing more defaults and forclosures.

I’m sick and tired of the whole mess. No one up there has the faintest idea what they’re doing. Just give me my money back, and let me go home.

I wonder what would have happened if the first 350 billion of TARP money had just been distributed equally to the American taxpayers. I think it would have had alot more impact than giving it to these greedy Wall St losers and banks. They are so shameless and undeserving of help, yet so many 401Ks and American’s investments are tied up in their schemes. Who needs terrorists when you have the kinds of financial institutions we have?

Actually there is no answer at all to this mess. You could do something like the bailout bandaid or do nothing and let things fall as they may. Doesn’t matter. The deep rooted problems in the US are now coming to a head. Left-wing liberals say the main problem is corporate greed, right-wingers say its a host of things such as large welfare rolls, illegal and legal immigration, people living beyond their means, government corruption etc. Well, you are all right. All these things have caused the current situation. I believe the bottom line is that there are too many people on the take with not enough people to support them. Corporate greed is also a big problem but to feed, clothe, house and provide medical care for people that do not do anything is the main problem. Getting out of the business of being world cop would also save huge. Will the government do the necessary things to truly fix the situation? I doubt it so prolonged misery will ensue. I think its going to come to the point where serious revolt will be the only solution. The government is too deeply corrupt. Things will not change without desperate measures.

It is dissapointing that we did not see the details of the whole plan. However, to react as if we understand and believe the plan to be negative and not able to have a positive impact on lending and promote stablility is too premature.

This bill will hog tie the country for years to come!! Any part of the bill that does not stimulate immediately should be placed in a bill for later approval. All spending should be for the next year and a half and target new job and if you combine that with cutting the cap gains tax and decreasing taxes for the entire population, that would have an immediate impact on everybody’s paychecks. Long term pork should be looked at after we are out of this mess. It seems that the majority of Americans are nothing more than sheep that follow blindly without looking at history before making decisions that will affect our children and grandchildren.

This will absolutely NOT work. Throwing money at the problem does nothing to solve the problem. What needs to be done is to allow these big banks to fall and whatever rises out of their ashes will be better and stronger.
Geithner is just following in Paulsons footsteps, the tax-cheat should have been vetoed. Michael Casto is right that main Street needs to be fixed first however he is dead wrong about this plan working. It can not work, the money is not going to be used to free up the liquidity crisis but to stabilize badly run banks. We are being forced into mortgaging our future for a very very limited solutuion now.
Why are we allowing them to help the “poor’ saps who bought homes above their means?? help those who have excellent Credit lower their rates or offer them incentives to trade up. Losing jobs does hurt but again its the way of the world its happened before it will happen again People lose their jobs ergo also their homes. Tough Luck true but its a fact of life. Stop helping them !
This “Bailout: is anything but, its a SELLOUT !!!

It is hard to understand the magnitude of what a trillion dollar bailout means and even write on paper what 1 trillion dollars means to most of us. How this could all come to bear in the last year is truly not understandable.
Your question is like asking we average citizens if global warming is going to happen and I would answer probably but not due solely to man made doings. Yes, the bailout will work but with many consequences.

I think the plan proposed is basically the Bush stimulus plan back in the spring of 08 with no real job creation attached. I do not see any specifics in this plan except for the propaganda that this plan will help free up lending with the banks, which is within its self not specific. The first bailout 1.0 did not work and this second bailout 2.0 will not do anything to help either. Lending (credit) more money is not the way to do this, it will just dig a larger hole for us to fall in within a few more years. Something that I do not think most people understand is that the US banks have the gov in their pocket. If one bank goes to the US gov and says “hey look we are about to fail” then the gov has to help them with no strings attached. The reason is that the US gov could not possibly pay out the money for each account holder through the FDIC at a major bank. That would bankrupt the government and kill the dollar. The jobs plan in the proposed bailout 2.0 is not what America needs. Green jobs and government construction jobs are not the way to help the average out of work American. We need to get back to the root of our problem and that is manufacturing.

I missed some key items–
Go after management for the money, stock options,bonuses, preferred or common stock they fraudulently received during the last 8 years, since all the money they supposedly made was “funny money”.

Institute regulations that will prevent any corporation from ever getting “to large to fail”.

Institute regulations or laws making management liable for any corporate issue, the same way proprietors are. Making corporations independent legal entities with no humans liable is a farce–a denial of human behavior

Today’s market behavior was a huge disappointment and a sad comment on those who claim to be active participants. What do people want? Geithner’s confirmation? Got it. An economic stimulus? Got it, or at least close and should be coming out very soon. Plan for use of the second half of the TARP? Got it. Traders (and some investors) are behaving like spoiled children who demand candy, then still tantrum when they get what they claimed they wanted.

The Government should have just bought all of these foreclosed homes and worked out a deal with the home owners to KEPT THEM IN THEIR HOUSE! Maybe a low interest rate or low payments but something that kepts their house and their jobs.
This would have all been done with. Now we have a horrible mess thats going to get worse with more forecloses and more job losses. And millions of unsellable/unoccupied homes. WHAT A WASTE!

Tim Geithner didn’t even understand federal tax laws, how on earth does anyone expect him to come up with a plan that will help with the bailout that makes sense? Our government has gone completely crazy!!!!! Correct the housing market and the economy will correct itself, just use a little common sense, something that seems to be lacking.

Nope, look up Austrian economics to find out why. It looks like the market voted “NO” as well.

Please, kill this deal and all bank bailout deals. It will not increase lending, and it shouldn’t. There is still way too much debt. People don’t want to borrow any more because they can’t pay all of what they already owe. These bad debts must be written off or written down. Once the debt level is low enough and employment starts to grow, people will once again be willing to borrow.

Set up a good bank, a government bank, with the full backing of the Fed and Treasury. Establish it with $100 billion of capital, and let it lend up to $1 trillion to qualified borrowers of any type, when they want it.

In the mean time, the people need jobs, so we must have a stimulus plan consisting primarily of public works, state aid, and tax cuts, in that order.

Do it soon; Rome is burning.

Well with all these comments its obvious the sentiment is very unfavorable toward this robbery of our tax money. It is amazing to me that with all this lashing out against it, that we, the people –as in YOU, sitting right there reading this— that we cannot come together and have an organized march in Washington to make our collective voices heard. Unbelievable.

Won’t work because this doesn’t eliminate the causes of the problem. What are those causes-the tendency of large corporations to get larger, creating monopolistic conditions with implicit collusions in the market place. Another cause is the greed of management, drawing income at a 300+ multiplier of the lowest paid workers. And often fraudulently, since conditions in the company are not really what the balance sheets and financial statements indicate. Too much is off balance sheet.

The government should nationalize the entire corporate system, break down all corporations into smaller units (like they did with AT&T) and start all over again.

It will work with some strings and regulations attached. These financial institutions seem pretty willing to spend on themselves, just not the American public. If they receive money, they better be spending it! And on the people of this Country, not themselves, and other investments that don’t make sense.

The key to solving the crisis is to restore the confidence of Main St., not Wall St., which is exactly what this plan does. The sell off today is simply an attempt by Wall Street to blackmail the government into doing what Wall St. wants. This tactic has worked so many times in the past that it’s almost a mechanism. Selling off is Wall St.’s way of whining.

This is not that hard to figure out but Washington will NOT do the right thing. Housing created this mess and fixing housing will fix it. Rep. Ensign tried with the 4% mortgage bill and Obama ignored it.

Bailing out the banks and the stupid people who lived beyond their means and got foreclosed on isn’t going to do a thing. They couldn’t manage their money then, so why now?

PLEASE WASHINGTON – give the bailout to those of us with good credit, a current mortgage, and those not in debt up to their eyeballs. If I could lower my rate from 5.75% to 4% I would have an additional $400 per month to spend on things. This in turn would create demand which in turn creates jobs. How hard is this to figure out.

They will not do this because then the banks like Wells wouldn’t have the cash for their retreats to Vegas or San Francisco.

Its a bunch of crap and its only going to get worse.

If you want to go down the road of stimulus then a Direct injection of inflation is the way to go. By devaluing our currency we create higher prices. In the short term these higher prices will hurt me and you but for the manufacturers it increases their profit margins while they pay off pre-inflationary debt with inflationary dollars and With some manipulation to keep raw materials down This allows industries to increase production. The high prices shrink domestic consumption, and the increased buying power of foreign capital makes finished products available for export at lower prices overseas. This allows the flow of Capital wealth to again begin to migrate back into our economy through the trading of goods for wealth.

Also the decreased buying capacity of the American people will decrease consumption, while increased savings allow more Domestic Capital to stay in the country, being put toward domestic investment in production there by further increasing production levels for exports. Eventually this will lead to a balance of trade and further down the road will allow us sufficient savings of capital to begin lending again as a creditor and moving our wealth outward.

Some earlier posts had some incorrect comments. Keep learning:

http://www.shadowstats.com

http://www.financialsense.com

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/10/peanut.butter.raid/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Listing these not to offend, but to inform. More info is always better.

Good discussion everyone.

People:

Don’t expect this waste of taxpayers money to save you. Wall street is holding us all hostage with the diminished worth in our 401K as their lifelines to federal tax dollars; Our tax dollars. I am absolutely disgusted with wall street banks taking us to the cleaners. These conniving vermin plan to sell your home to their partner investment firm for a song and have that firm resell it for full value. Get out of the markets now, before it is too late… Just a suggestion.

There has to be government intervention. No government intervention is what caused the Great Depression. The system will not “reset” itself

James H; 1:05pm
“Does anyone have any ideas about how we average Americans might bailout ourselves from these insane “shock and awe” campaigns of our gov’t that are clearly designed to take the rest of the public wealth and give it to the wealthiest private interests? How can we dialogue about local sustainability?”

I am exactly with you. The solution is to exit the system. Buy local. Avoid the corporate stores and banks. The cost of the lower prices are destroyed communities. They bought out our communities and jobs using cheap credit.

Local sustainability — Easier said than done, but it is our future. Frankly, I fear we won’t get there until the denial and hope is completely exhausted.

It will not work as long as the government is in bed with Wall Street. The free market system needs to run its course. If institutions are going to fail, let them fail. The financial markets need to finally understand that they must be held responsible for their actions. Unfortunately, anything the Obama Administration says now will be taken at face value by the populace without people truly understanding that these “plans” are simply business as usual. The press isn’t helping any by trying to put the policies of the current administration and Congress in the best light possible. Notice that as the market is down by almost 4.5% today, CNN is merely reported as a “slump”. Prior to Jan 20th it would have been reported as a crash.

What is this Bankster Geithner talking about “complex”? Trying to keep the public feeling uncertain and plebian?

Its totally simple there is TOO MUCH DEBT.

And our government’s solution to this is to GO FURTHER IN DEBT?

This is INSANE.

The stimulus plan will not work. Why are we surprised when Geithner, the guy heading it all, can’t even file his own taxes correctly! The quartet of Geithner, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are in the process of making a real history lesson. Unfortunately, after the fact, it will be one that we would sooner forget!

To the clueless in DC:
I have prayed that all of you would take a deep breath, step back and seriously think about what you are doing to the people you represent. It is apparent that all of you are out of touch and have no idea the impact your poorly thought out decisions are having. You of course will not miss a meal, never worry about your multi-mortgages, making a car payment, paying for gas, purchasing food (let alone preparing it) – you are OUT OF TOUCH!

If I could wave a wand – it would commit all of you to spend 6 months living the life most of us do. Me, I work full time, getting up at 3:30 AM, working 9-10 hour days then home to care for my 89 year old mother with no outside help. I pay my mortgage, car payment and other bills on time – including high taxes on everything we purchase – what about you? What do you do for anyone else – even just a single person or do you just delegate these pesky duties to your multiple staff.

Please please please – take another look at this bail-out spending bill(s) and tell us honestly – did you read it? Do you really think it will help anyone but Wall Street, the banks, your buddies? What about us? What about all the hard working, tax paying constituents that now find themselves out of work with no help or prospects in sight.

It is time to stop lying to yourselves and to us – do your job – the one you promised you would – be honest and regain your humanity. Your life will be better for it and you will sleep better at night. But I doubt you will do anything of the kind – you just don’t care!

The world is laughing, waiting to weaken us further – you don’t care.
Our young men and women are fighting and dying for our freedom – you don’t care.
Young and Old people have lost their homes and livelihoods– you don’t care.
We ask for honest answers to serious problems – you don’t care.
An old man froze to death because he couldn’t pay his heating bill – you don’t care.
You promise to help repair or rebuild roads and bridges – you don’t care.

You promise and you preach that you know better – you don’t and you don’t care.

I can only pray that those that placed you in office take you out of office – then you might, just might CARE but I doubt it because – you don’t care!

Where will the bail out and stimulation funds come from? The tax payer isn’t being told about the sources for this money. How much will borrowing these huge sums cost in interest, favors, trade agreements, etc? Politicians from the President on down and the media seem to neglect mentioning or questioning the source(s) for the money – why?

In 1933 we passed the Glass-Steagall Act in response to the banking crisis from 1929. This act separated banking commercial (deposit) from investment banking. In the 1980’s under Clinton, this act was repealed and banks were allowed to be both commercial and investment banks. I think we need to investigate re-separating the banks to reduce risks and speculation making each back regardless of category accountable for their financial actions.

This economy needs to be left alone. It needs to reset itself, just like any other system. It will come back into its own equilibrium. We have been greedy and all tried to lead the lives of luxury. I have been able to cut back and I am surviving until things settle down.

There has been virtually no mention of the Fair Tax, which would inject trillions into the economy in market based capital flow, as well as generate revenue from illegals and under the table employees that don’t currently pay into the system. Why print fiat money when we can just attract it. It also has the secondary effect of stimulating the manufacturing sector due to lower production costs. Might not be a perfect solution but it is cetainly head and shoulders above ANYTHING that has been mentioned so far.

The government caused the problem to begin with, both parties contributed to it, by reregulating (what they had to do to put unqualified families into homes they could not afford)or not regulating the banks and then we rewarded them with a bailout last year and this year we will do the same thing with the same results. Get the government doing the job they should do and let the banks do their job and we will all be better off. Both big government and big business are a big mess

Tim Geithner is nothing more than Hank Paulson with hair

Both are clueless

It depends on what your defintion of “will it work” is.

It won’t bring us back to the boom times we have recently had. It won’t suddenly turn around our economy with a snap of the fingers. There will still be a loss of jobs. What it will do is slow down the downward spiral and provide a down payment on our future economy far after President Obama leaves office.

My opinion is that the most important piece in the stimulus is the energy initiatives within it.

No foreign dependence on oil leads to us not caring (or at least not being in the Middle East and all these wars we have been are currently in). It also means less money for the Middle Eastern countries…what their economy depends on. Less money means less power for the existing regimes. Less power means the possibility of regime change. Of course it isn’t as simple as I’m making it sound, but high level, that is what can happen.

In the future if we are not waging wars in the Middle East because we need their oil, we will be saving billions of dollars. Then, we can start to pay back our deficit.

For those that say the government shouldn’t get involved in dictating an energy policy and we should just let the free markets handle it, I think they are very closed minded. I’m all for private capital, but for big programs that in the end should help your energy security, thus your economy, we need government intervention. The railroads, original electricity grids and countless other big projects all started as governement projects. There is nothing wrong with that.

What is the government trying to do? Is this some kind of dream they have that everyone can own $400,000 homes and have a BMW parked in the drive way? Face it, over the last countless years there persisted in this country and around the world an idea that we could all have extravagant life styles, no matter what the cost; borrowing money we didn’t have (going into debt), environmental devastation, and resource exhaustion. Well, it just can’t be and that dream is over, and so the reason for the economic downturn. We are going through an adjustment where our standard of living has to come down, there is only so much to go around. Therefore government must not intervene and should let things run their course. And because politicians are up in dream-land living the life of luxury with no worry, they just don’t get it.

…What I think everybody here needs to realize (if it isn’t already obvious) is that we are in a recession.
That is, we are currently in a situation where the market is naturally correcting from a situation where everything was overvalued, and was bought on cheap credit that nobody could really afford to repay.
So, the solution to the mess is not to hand out more money to those who were irresponsible- instead its to let the chips fall where they may.
If banks need to fail, then they should fail.
We don’t live in a socialist society, we live in a free market economy. …Why then are we using taxpayer dollars to subsidize banks??

It is easy to critize and play the blame game. To be completely truthful, much of our society is to blame. Many of us, including the banks, the politicians, and the average Joe from main streat was blindsided as this whole mess started to unfold. All of us have been spending and spending, while always assuming that our future revenue would pay for our past debts.

The problem now is that the consumers, (all of us) no longer have the confidence to make a purchase from a cup of coffee to a car or home. Many of us don’t know if we will have a job tomorrow. The less we spend; the more businesses will struggle and more people will get laid off and the less people will spend.

The idea of any stimuls package is to stop the downward spiral and try to start reversing the damage to our: confidence, economy, and country.

Once we get this mess stablized, I think our goverment should take a hard look at what happened and make some serious changes. I agree with another poster, that it is time for a consumption tax. If we had a system like that in the first place, I think the US would have been much better off financially, and this mess have never occured.

How effective to spur lending? Zero! The banks are SO deep in the hole from derivitives bets which they lost, that they are not about to part with their capital.The Fed can’t even print enough money to dig banks out of the hole they are in. It’s about 56 Trillion dollars deep!!

You Know I just read and article called the cause and effect of the great depression of 1929 – 1940. And it really is interesting that 80 years later we really have not learned anything. It seems back then the great impact to getting out of the depression was government spending and intervention, but funny thing is they never mentioned anything about transparency and bank bailouts. It seems if the government is going to spend our tax dollars then they need to spend them wisly, because the way I see it is the downturn they speak of is depression and its coming. Remember back then unemployment hit 24 – 25 % and we are at almost 8% and climbing, Interesting?

What I don’t understand fully is why our “officials” (in both the Bush and Obama administrations) keep calling this thing “unprecedented”, “severe”, “worst since the Great Depression”, etc. Yes it IS a bad recession. But we’ve had many bad recessions since the 30s. When I took ECO 101 thirty years ago there was a section in the book on “announcement effects”. This I took to mean that government officials could help create economic problems by their loose mouth, or help solve them by doing a little cheerleading. Why is everyone in government soooooo pessimistic? Mr. obama, why is 2010 magical? (Last night in his news conference Obama basically wrote off 2009 as “tough year” with 10 months to go!!!) No wonder the stock market is tanking as I write this. And how the heck does he REALLY know? C’mon government officials, get a grip! If this $1 Trillion plus in new debt is really worth passing, how about SELLING it to the people with OPTIMISM about its “shovel ready” effects? Given their attitudes, I’d say “Get out of the way, Federal government, and let the private markets do their work.”

When you find a leakage in a water tank, we would need to find and fix the leak. Just pouring more water in the water tank will not help in long run.

In the similar way, we need to fix the banking sector and their practices first before pouring in money on them. So having different bailout packages will be of no use.

Wake up people, they’re doing this on purpose!

These fear tactics send investors dumping stocks and fleeing to Treasury Bonds, which is what Obama needs to fund his massive spending programs!

Every one of these goons in Congress needs to be thrown out! We need to get rid of Republicans and Democrats forever! Don’t vote Red or Blue! They’re all crooks!

This is our ONLY hope of getting out this mess…

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h833/text

The complete Abolishment of the Federal Reserve!

The Stimulus bill, is just feeding the monster, not stopping it… call YOUR congressman and tell them you want to support H.R. 833

Who knows? It is so vague that it is impossible to say. I have a plan too -fix the banks and get them lending again, get private capital – details later. Trust me. Most likely the usual culprits will game the system and make out like bandits and the rest of us will pay through the nose.

NO! It will not do a thing for the economy. Until house prices come within reach of the average family income, nothing will change. All of these MBA wiz-kids talk of going back and doing the same things that got us into this predicament – unrestrained borrowing. Batten down the hatches and read up on what it took to survive the 1929 Depression. People will need to learn those valuable lessons to survive. People should also return to GOD and moral values. We will be paying for our sins for a long, long time.

It is the monetary system itself that is broken & until our monetary policy is restored to it’s original Constitutionally created framework, defining that only gold & silver as legal tender (sound money), we are going to continue to see more bubbles and business cycles happen, robbing the public by inflation, devaluing our property & further distorting one of the fundamental American principles of our society, the pre 1913 Free Market. Bailout(s), Stimuli, deficit spending, tax cuts…..doesn’t matter, the public is being held out to dry and will continue to for future generations to come until we change our monetary policy.

Let’s face it… It’s only $1T. We have spent $7B in Iraq for NOTHING! This $1T at least will be spent in HERE. And forget private banks… they are already nationalized by Bush…

The first thing to do to solve the economic crisis is for all America to simply turn off their TVs. Anyone who uses the TV to get their information is being manipulated into believing whatever they want you to believe.

Next, you have to ask yourself, what would Ronald Reagan do? Well we don’t have to ask. All we have to do is look back 28 years and we see what he did. Cut taxes, cut gov. spending and let the MARKET sort it out. In less than 4 years the market fixed itself. Do you all forget 1980/81? We had DOUBLE DIGIT INFLATION AND DOUBLE DIGIT UNEMPLOYMENT and the price of gas and gold was higher than it is now (when adjusted for inflation.) Yet in less than 4 short years the whole thing fixed itself with a little belt tightening by Americans. Compare that with what FDR did during the depression. Most educated economists now say what FDR did (spend his way out) PROLONGED the depression for 10 years!

America we have been in this situation (worse) at least 2 times and we have examples of the right way out and the wrong way out. This is a no brainier. But first just STOP WATCHING the TV!

What are the terms regarding new home buyers? Will there be a change to the $7500 tax credit for new home buyers? Also, does anyone anticipate this stimulus plan affecting interest rates?

Keep giving them money when the banks aren’t spending? How affective can we be?

Not to mention, this has little to do with the loans or protecting the American people. There is a wealth group of Americans who want the land. They’re going after it to finish off what our founding fathers started.

Our debt is merely debt, why do you think we spent so much in military acceleration? There’s a scheme here consistent with that of our past. We are still conquering. We’re so naive! We’re caught up on the jets that Ford, GM, and Chrysler used when pulling up to congress (they still own those jets).

How can this plan work? Ever heard of First American Title? Corelogic? Evaluate their collateral risk management logic.

This is the plan? Where are the details? Timelines? Give us something concrete to give us hope. What a joke.

Why have a press conference and basically say nothing meaningful? We had to wait an extra day for this announcement? Mr. President, where’s the transparancy you preached during the election?

How are you going to get private capital to buy toxic assets at negotiated, “bank preferred” terms when the banks are valuing their assets at triple the value from the rest of the market? Furthermore, what are these “toxic assets?” Does anyone really know the underlying collateral? The bankers did such a good job “slicing and dicing” these things that no one can price them effectively.

Game Over….

American credit system is intrinsically flawed. What happenned to save up and then buy?? I say let the system collapse. Why should prudent help the prodigal? hmmm see socialism 101

6 of one half a dozen of the other, if no one is willing to address what happened and who is responsible patching a hole is not the answer. As long as we continue to patch the problem it will only fester and get worse. I realize they do not want to throw more people out of work by shuttering insolvent banks, but at some point you have got to bite the bullet and take the hits. Knowing what they are and working with that information.

Mr. Geithner has told us to be patient with this bailout because these are very complex issues. Isn’t this the same guy who made a “mistake” on his taxes because he couldn’t figure out how to work Turbo Tax? How complex is that? And we’re supposed to think he’s the next great hope for America! Please! Give me a break!

Hey, Bryan,

I’m all for working within current funds as much as possible, but for us to do that as a nation, we’d have to stop the economy and just pay down debt for a decade or so before we do any more credit, except that if we shut the economy down, we have no means to pay the bills…

So, moving beyond the way I think the world should be to deal with what it is, I claim that we need economic liquidity available so we don’t lose the ability to pay down our debts. The fact that vast numbers of people are going to spend themselves into bankruptcy doesn’t alter the need to make the financial system sound again.

Personally, I can’t benefit from tax credits for buying a house or a car, and I’m working at clearing what’s left on my credit lines, but businesses need financial liquidity to function, and that’s enough to make rebooting the securitization process worthwhile.

HAHAHAHAHA—will it work? Of course it won’t. Until all the off-balance sheet toxic crap is dealt with, TurboTax Timmy can throw all the money in the world at it and it won’t help. This administration is already proving to be more inept than the last.

Doing nothing won’t work…

Personally, I’m in my early 30’s and most of my friends are married, in two income families, with no children or one child. We all have disposable income (which we’re all pretty much saving) and none of us are looking to borrow money or buy anything huge at this point in time. If we’re not looking to borrow and we can afford it, who is looking to borrow? All the money in the world doesn’t do banks any good to generate lending if nobody wants to borrow.

I think the experts need to crunch the numbers and figure out what happens if the last 15 years were the abberation, not the norm.

No the plan will not work, as far as bringing new jobs and stimulus to the US… it will work if you wanted to pass a huge SPENDING BILL that will devalue the dollar and steal from several generations of hardworking americans.
So, depends which side you want to win…
Personally, I’d vote for FREEDOM, and LIBERTY, instead of the out and out TYRANNY that is happening in our great nation.

NO WAY, the first bail out was a total rip off and this one is no better. The banks are the cause of the problem , and giving them this amount of money to the incompetent banks and irresponsible banks who did nothing of material benefit with the first bail out is absolutely crazy. The proposed stimulus is a poor plan who was drafted by the speaker to take care of her payback IOUs, we need a plan that creates jobs, frees up real omey people can properly spend and does not create a deeper culture who live off the government entitlements.

One easy way to resolve this entire problem is give a notable stimulus to each and every American… Not companies, not even the states. If every citizen received $3000 it would set the recovery in motion. Might be seen as a socialist approach but it would make the difference. Everyone with bills could begin to pay them. People with flexibility to spend would buy goods and services with the extra income. More frugal individuals would save the stimulus. If they decide to save it in a traditional deposit account then the banks would be able to increase their tier 1 capital ratio and begin lending again. If they decide to invest the amount then it will help to buoy the stock market with the demand for securities. Might not fix the housing situation, but with money flowing again, it may help stabilize the economy in a way that allows the housing market to reach a floor and begin a recovery. I’m not a huge proponent of the redistribution of wealth, however the government spending ludicrous amounts of money to prop up failing institutions will not help the economy. Plus this would actually cost less than the current program.

Sure! Everything’s gonna be super from now on.

Jesus.

The country is out of money. Why don’t people understand this? Pick your head up from your magazines and computer monitors. It’s over.

No way the plan will works, the damage to the entire financial system was too huge and by keep taking “painkiller” it will not cure. i always believe NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

Over $5.6 Trillion has now been pledged to revive banks and the economy. The amount is staggering and will surely rise. You cannot throw new seed into a diseased field and expect a good crop.

It is time to prepare for an orderly closure of many banks,insurers and some large manufacturers. The bulk of the goverments efforts should focus on getting people back to work via a WPA type program.

A message to Obama, Congress and the Senate: Forget this new math baloney and get back to the basics. Burn the sick crop and start again while there is still some fair weather to be had!

To Pete in CA, yes socialism is that bad. If you like it as a solution, move to Cuba. Let the strong regional banks take the lead. Check out Third Federal in Cleveland and you will know what I mean comrade. They have been around since 1938

Whamma Bamma and Congress are fighting the Market. And the Market always wins. The best thing they can do is crawl in a hole and let the Market work. The more the government gets involved the worst things become. Always has and always will.

It will not work. The main issue is not being tackled, consumer confidence. The average indebted American is saving money and paying down debt, injecting more money into the banks to give out more credit is not the answer. If consumer confidence is down, so will sales, regardless if we have the credit or not to make those purchases.

Like someone had said already “Trying to grow credit in order to lend to overindebted American consumers is like trying to eat yourself out of obesity, or trying to get over the withdrawal symptoms of heroin addiction by shooting up with more heroin. Pure insanity.”

NO. And the income limits on the so-called “Make Work Pay Credit”, to qualify for the full $500 per worker ($1,000 per two-earner couple), are WAY TO HIGH! The maximum income limits for the $500 credit should be dropped to say $25,000 per individual and the amount of the credit should be raised to $1,000 for individuals making under $25,000 per year.

No, this bailout won’t work. It doesn’t address the home mortgage delima. A new job won’t pay for a mortgage they couldn’t afford with their old job on a house worth 75% of what they owe. This one will last a loooong time regardless of how much money they throw at pork projects. New loans may help businesses some, but not so much individuals because of much tighter qualifications. The banks are in a Catch-22.

Response to Ken, Dallas TX…

Amen! Maybe we consumers should just buy what we can afford with cash. What a novel idea!

Also, can anyone explain to me how the govt spending another 1/2 trillion dollars will improve the 1 trillion dollar deficit we already have?

It’s amazing how Americans can always find someone else to blame: Evil Bankers, Wall Street CEOs, Republicans, Democrats…etc.

US Citizens who bought houses at a higher price then they could afford, and walked away from them when their value went down, caused the economic crisis. No one else. Banks aren’t to blame, they are doing the right thing..protecting the interests of their shareholders. Those with great credit, are getting loans. Unfortunately, those with great credit don’t want to borrow. Trying to “Force” banks to lend money to people/organzations that may not be able to pay it back is stupid.

Also, look at the banks. Wells Fargo, JPMorganChase, and State street are doing fine…don’t need TARP. They have anticipated and have built reserves to weather the storm. AIG, Citi, Bank of America didn’t. They will most likely have to restructure to survive

All this Stimulus looks good on paper for the big banks and those who have or will lose thier homes ,but what about us, the average American that has paid their bills , gone through a layoff, and luckley found a job, putting kids through school and trying to keep up with inflation. What do we gain? So far I have not seen anything that helps us get stimulated. If anyone knows let me know.

By the way I am a single father raising two boys 15 and 11.

The only way the plan will not work is if Banks do not respond to the tax payers and if they do not improve their operation’s efficency. What this
means is “pay good help get rid of bad help” for starters. They need to view their lending practices as a win win
scenario instead of how much can I make off this windfall cash injection.

In so far as the stimulus package is concerned, if $ are used wisely and if
the money is injected in stages to determine if what we are spending money on is getting back to the public
instead of the FAT CATS, we stand a good chance of recovery. With this much $ injected there is no way we won’t get a boost in our economy but
we need to “look before we leap” so to speak.

Best Regards,

Former semi-retired Credit Manager
Rodney

We need to stand up as a people united and throw these bankers and politicians in jail for taking that money and giving to themselves as “bonus money”. Obama needs to start doing what Bush didn’t and make these people who are responsible serve prison terms. They are robbers, thieves, liars, and not what America and it’s people represent.

No it will not work.

The solution is to scrap the current Tax and spend system in favor of a consumption tax and drastically reduced federal spending. Eliminate 50% of the federal government and the markets will respond.

The plan is working because we are frozen like a deer in headlights and the money flows away. We are confused, stressed, and trapped because it is impossible to fully accept — that the gov’t could take the money in broad daylight.

Good “cop”/bad “cop”; Good treasury/bad treasury; Good pres./bad pres.; Up/down, Bubble/bust, Hope/despair… Get it, you are bounced around in a box.

A couple trillion dollars might have a funny effect on someone’s view of right and wrong.

Audit the gov’t agencies, nationalized banks, insurance, mortgage companies, federal reserve. Not words, let the lawyers look for the fraud.

Here’s the mystery where did the trilions go…

This plan, combined with the bailout and other “guarantee” efforts should provide a “down payment” on the recovery. More will be required, but one step at a time.

The base source of the problem was the decision by the consumers that real estate was overvalued. This triggered a domino effect: Lower home prices -> less home equity -> Consumer purchasing restraint -> Lower retail and energy sales -> Lower equity markets -> lower 401K balances (especially scary for people hoping to retire soon) -> More Consumer Restraint -> Lower stock market values -> etc. etc. etc.

Somewhere in this process, even those of who are financially sound recognized that it made more sense to hold back on buying that next home, as prices were going our way. As a matter of fact, by hoarding our cash, we are actually getting richer in terms of purchasing power. To paraphrase: “In the land of the penniless, the man with a dollar bill is king.” And to top it all off, is now makes more sense to walk away from a home that is $100,000 underwater than try to re-negotiate the loan. Can anyone say “stampede for the door?” Forget panic – the logical thing to do is to go bankrupt. After all, in 5 years almost everyone will have bad credit history from this period, so how much real impact is it going to have on your credit rating?

The bail out is enough but in the wrong hands, just ordinary folks is the economy
it doesn’t make sense to bail out the ones holding us Hostage, to borrow our own money at criminal interest rates, pay off at sixty percent our credit card debts, government still have money for our inter-structure needs and we would all be better off, I didn’t make the credit debt but didn’t put banks in hole asking to bail them out whats the difference how the banks get our money, through top or bottom, it would at least help the struggling bottom,whats in it for us?

Does anyone have any ideas about how we average Americans might bailout ourselves from these insane “shock and awe” campaigns of our gov’t that are clearly designed to take the rest of the public wealth and give it to the wealthiest private interests? How can we dialogue about local sustainability?

Trying to grow credit in order to lend to overindebted American consumers is like trying to eat yourself out of obesity, or trying to get over the withdrawal symptoms of heroin addiction by shooting up with more heroin. Pure insanity.

Small banks are lending. They’re just being extremely picky to whom they lend to. Why would a bank lend to someone who’s a default risk? This tightening of credit is the natural course of events in this portion of the business cycle.

Where are banging on the banks doors trying to buy assets. In some cases 50-60 cents on the dollar. The are dragging there feet every time the govermrnt over promisses they are going to step in. If the goverment would stop putting up safety nets the private equity would clear the banks balnce sheets of these so called”toxic assets.” Please step aside goverment and help the taxpayers and the unemployed and let us clean these balance sheets!

It is going to take a lot more than a bunch of windbags in this type of forum to get something done. Taking any action now is better than doing nothing. Boys, we are dying. We damn well better get to work and send up a stream of constant prayers. Sitting around gabbing about who to blame, why things are going to fail, and other such stuff is nonsense that we don’t need now. It will work if we make it work.

“…And what’s with this bad bank idea and private capital? If an investor thought the toxic assets were good for something they would have bought them by now…
Posted By Frank Hummel, Dallas TX: February 10, 2009 12:25 pm ”

Frank, getting private capital back into the securitization market again isn’t about rehabilitating old toxic assets, it’s about getting new credit flowing, rebooting the system so that it can run without creating new toxic assets.

You’re right about cleaning up the old bad stuff, but what’s shutting the economy down is that there’s not adequate money available for new lending. Since securitization accounted for more than half of available credit before the collapse, it’s not reasonable to think we can get back to healthy market conditions without regaining that liquidity.

Getting new, well-managed credit flowing is essential.

NO! Of course not. Market has and needs a way to correct itself. Manipulation is not the answer. People got greedy and ignorant thinking that creative credit is free money, thus spending way beyond their means. Financial institutions got greedy preying on those greedy and ignorant people. Payback time is up. Lesson has to be learned the hard way. Now, everyone is affected, even those innocent ones who lived within their means. If there is anyone who needs to be rewarded, it’s those people who did not get greedy and acted ignorant, but who are now heavily affected. The others, they can hit the streets and give up their pretend money. Greedy banks need to close.

It certainly addresses the major weak points in the economy, and he seems to have a better grasp of the problem than our last TS. I worry about his ability to get more money out of Congress though.

Is socialism really that bad?? If this doesn’t work as many of you suggested, we can take the banks over and nationalize them. If someone doesn’t want to make money in banking, others will. Saying we have to have those guys as banker is absurd.

This so-called “plan” is nothing more that a mechanism to create massive new spending on new and existing socialist programs, patronage and waste under the guise of a scare-the-hell-out-of -them “stimulus pacakge”. Exactly what we do not need and should not be doing. Absolutely disgraceful.

It’s a sad testimonial that the only sector doing well today are the UltraShort ETFs. Well, I suppose if you want to gut the financial markets, then not removing mark to market and enforcing the uptick rule has done it. Why would any private investor want to deal with the government?

INDIA’s rich folks, due to outsourcing of the jobs from USA, are purchasing $5000 customized diamond studded Apples Iphone and are invested billions of dollars in Western movie studios.

Maybe now its time to demand INDIAN government to buy US Treasury notes worth 850 Billion dollars.

Geitner proposal also talks about needing more money later, more debt. When will our government wake up and understand that if their debt becomes large enough there won’t be much money left to loan in the private industry. No more deficit spending. Let the free market work. The US is in a “group think” mentality and that is dangerous. We need real leadership.

Why not bring back Savings & Loans? Separate the bad from the good. Part of the reason that the S&Ls went away was that banks were allowed to do loans to compete with S&Ls. S&Ls, could not do what banks did unless they became banks. Their resource was people wanting to save by investing into the S&L to get interest.

Simple idea, but worth a thought.

Will the plan work?

No.

Why not?

1) The bank bailout is trying to use investment as a means of recovery, when over-investment in warped paper assets is precisely what caused this mess. You cannot reinvest your way out of insolvency. The banks are insolvent. Period. Liquidate them *nationalize) and start again.

2) In the same vein, you cannot spend your way out of debt, as the stimulus package is trying to do. The major cause of this debt is the trade imbalance and correcting that—already underway—by dramatically reducing imports is the solution.

The current architects of these fiascos are trying to re-inflate a bubble. The economy has to contract and stay contracted for a period by about 14% (Krugman and Roubini). That means Americans need to see a real, measurable decline in their standard of living by that much, or more. All the feds are doing is running up massive debt and imperilling further growth, delaying a recovery. Obama will get his “lost decade”. He’s making it happen.

No chance another bailout will work, why would another one work? Has everyone forgotten the last one? It did nothing but reward billions for bankers! Banks are more greedy/dishonest now than they were 12 months ago! Credit is NOT flowing!

I wanted to refi my home to 30 year fixed, I found a bank with a decent rate/closing cost in my state. They ran my credit, said my score is over 750 and should be no problem. They accepted my $325 to lock the rate and get started. After several weeks they called back and said my loan was rejected but they kept my $325!!! How much of this is going on? I’m now in the process of moving everything I have to a credit union. I will never trust a bank for the rest of my life. If they wanted to give me money now they can forget it!

they might as well try to make the weather

This current attempt at socilizing the big banks will not work. Captialism needs to be unleased in it’s purest form and if it takes out the banks that caused this mess so be it and the investors. Let the strong banks that do not need govt bailouts take the lead. Let the housing market find it’s own neutral ground and do not bail out the Joe the Plumbers who bought 400,000 homes with little or no down payment on a 60,000 salary.

I believe that the breadth and scope of this bailout plan and stimulus package is insufficient to ignite our economy’s engines in a forward momentum.I would initiate a forced savings plan for all Americans. Our saving rate was near zero, and has increased during the past year, but still is below our major trading partners. Debt needs to be paid off. Try running our economic households the way we are running the country’s economic house. We would be out on the streets. There has been negligable talk in regards to entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare that many citizens rely on and many more will in the coming years as the baby boomers start to retire, if they can retire at all. Interest on the debt, spending on wars, aging infrastructure, and promises made by our new President, if implemented, will bankrupt our nation. Be prepared for runaway inflation in the coming years as well as a decline in our lifestyles as the American dream becomes extinct.

This time, USA government should demand INDIA to buy the US Treasury Notes worth 850 Billion US dollars to fund the stimulus package, because 2 million White collar jobs were outsourced to INDIA since the year 2003. This is the least favor India should do to USA.

Note – so far China and Japan already bought approx 2 trillion worth of US Treasury notes. Now its India’s turn.

This is not going to help. think about it from the bank’s POV.

they do nothing, get paid from the government. they lend out money they take a risk of losing that money. I would take the lower risk too.

no one is going to earn money the old fashioned way until the government says “enough, your on your own, sink or swim”.

Either we print the money and devalue our money or borrow the money (in the form of Bonds) and pay interest and in a nutshell sell the next generations’ future to Japan and China. Geithner and Obama are overthinking this. Let the chips fall where they may. The pain is less than this will be.

I think the bank bailout plan is a good start. It sure is alot better then the first 350 billion tarp plan. The treasury secretary has been in office several weeks and now has a plan; I think that is very impressive. I think our banking system is on the cusp of caving in on itself. We needed a bank bail out plan now, yesterday, a month ago and now we have one. We need to solve the financial system sooner rather than later; until that is done unemployment will not abate and only get worse. The treaury secretary should be given a chance for this plan to work. As a hard a– republican, I will give the secretary’s plan a chance to work.

Wow. Come on, guys, don’t you have anything interesting to say?

“The reason credit is not flowing is because no one is buying anything.
Posted By Owen, Batesville, MS: February 10, 2009 12:10 pm”

Is that how your life works? You have everything you want, so you’re not buying anything and you don’t need any credit?

How about a show of hands on that?

“Rescind mark to market and bring back the uptick rule
Posted By Michael, Gaithersburg, MD: February 10, 2009 12:07 pm ”

Irrelevant and useless. Mark-to-market actually mitigated the damage from this fiasco by revealing it while it was still growing.

Overall, unimpressive discussion.

Finally some bold plan but no action from the federal Govt. Something similar to Mr Paulson plan but with some new ideas. The big mess we are in can be only solved by bold action and sticking with the plan.

The whole nation is held captive by only 8.5 % of the mortgages is untenable. Yeh they say they were cheated by the bank, RE brokers, mortgage brokers signing into loans that they could not afford. Some of them lost there jobs and could not afford the homes that they bought few months back. Noe the bank is foreclosing on them, % wise it is even smaller.

Like X president Bush President Obama has to declare to wipe out inaction from the Government, Mr Geithner included.

He ought press him for action on his plan. The real question is will he do it?

Wall Street and Congress have lived in their own world that is full of rewards for them and not the average citizen.To much time has passed action must be taken now, reviewed and revised as necessary. No time should be wasted. The “perfect” solution will evolve.

Capital will flow. Much of the market has been holding out to see what programs come and how they can leverage them, or how they will impact various sectors of the credit markets. As details unfold strategies will be used to deploy those idle funds. The sad thing is that the programs will not be nearly as cost efficient as they are desgned to be. There will be much more subjectivity used than will be originally outlined; which will work against the taxpayer.

When that capital flows, it will move away from treasuries and the costs will esculate. The goverment should work with the fed to allow for an increase in taxes before the interest rate are jacked up. This will help pay for the programs, curb inflation; and bolster the dollar.

Energy programs should be paid for by fuel use surcharges. This is another way to pay for programs as you go, charge the direct benificiaries, and stimulate demand for new fuel efficient technoligies.

Absolutely not! We need the regular folks in this country to educate themselves and not believe everything they hear..We need to make things again in the USA. We simply outsourced to many jobs. “Fair Trade” not FREE.
The political scene has officially hit the “Totally rediculous” status. We need the truth from the media on both sides of the isle. The truth is something nobody wants to hear SO nobody in our government will tell it. Remember people they all work for us, we decide if they stay or go on election day. Right now many in the congress and senate and everywhere else needs to go. We need NEW blood in those areas. Roll all of them, even though there may be some good people lost it will tell our leaders that we are taking our country back and that they work for us.

NO! Waste of money spent on all the wrong things. Rewarding those who created the mess is not the answer. Change we can believe in, YEAH RIGHT!!!!!

The plan is a joke. It only addresses symptoms of the problem and is full of social engineering and useless pork. If they really wanted to address the issue, they would abolish the Federal Reserve and go back to a monetary system not based on fiat per the US Constitution. That will never happen since that would end the out of control spending of Congress that is well beyond the means of the Country to sustain itself. Congress are nothing more than crooks similar to the person that robs a convenience store. The only difference is the size of the theft. And the convenience store they rob blind are the collective wallets of the American people.

It [the plan] is working. The market is reacting perfectly normaly to all of the Gov’t action. That is to seize up and go lower in the face of intervention.

Isn’t that the plan? To create an emergency, psychological stress, and transfer wealth?

Hell no if the free market is still functioning.
The plan will prolong pain and steer us directly to socialism.

This will be another failed attempt to circumvent the free market and the liquidation of bad debt. It will fail.

I agree, there’s no credit flowing because many don’t want to borrow. Our excess consumption has finally come to an end.

What we should notice is the little health care initiative slipped into the stimulus bill that in essence looks like a precursor to ID cards or chips and looks to offshore health care jobs…it’s a disaster.

People need to stop being distracted and pay attention to the massive extortion of tax dollars to do things that are so beyond the limits imposed by the Constitution. This is a calamity…really.

As a mortgage professional, I can say that valuations are attractive right now and lower interest rates for mortgages will be enough to stimulate sales! We saw a dramatic increase in business a few weeks ago when the rates dipped just below 5% but that has slowed considerably with the recent uptick in rates. If we can get rates to 5% or just below, we will reach a tipping point and market forces will respond. There is no shortage of money to lend! Those who are underwater on their mortgages should be offered a secured second mortgage at no or low interest rates that can be paid when the home is sold when the market recovers over the next few years. The US government can afford to sit on those loans until they can be repaid in full and then there would be a minimal risk of loss to the tax payers over time.

Nope, it’s not gonna work. Same like the first one did not work. The banks overleveraged themselves and not have a lot of bad assets on their books.
And what’s with this bad bank idea and private capital? If an investor thought the toxic assets were good for something they would have bought them by now.
Let whoever made bad decisions fail, and let’s get this over with and start fresh. It’s gonna be hard but at least we’re not indefinetly prolonging the pain.

The earlier comment by William Schraeder has it exactly right. Our nation has become so driven by “entitlements” and what we all perceive as “rights” that we have become expectant of and dependent upon government intervention. Mr. Schraeder has it exactly right, in my opinion, in calling this “socialism” – as opposed to “free market enterprise”. Imagine if we were subsidizing manufacturers of buggy whips.

No. This new TARP plan will not work. The only plan that will succeed requires TIME and PAIN. The U.S. Government should not be in the business of getting troubled assets off the books of the banks. This is for the banks themselves to solve. Government action is neither warrant nor required. Each bank could write off its bad loans to zero right now. The problem is they are so wound up with leverage they would be instantly insolvent. I say let them fail. Let the system go. There is a need for banking services in this county. The small and medium sized banks will step up. All the U.S. Government is doing is creating a false economy with all of their ill conceived methods. Spending Trillion is about the worst methodology out there. Again, TIME and PAIN. Let housing bottom out in the next 36 months. Let the chips fall.

See http://www.economist.com/daily/kallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13061979

This shows it how I see it.

What plan? Sorry, this is not a plan.

The new website that he mentioned has video replay for Tim Geithner’s debut. And he seems angry; I like that. So I, for one, welcome our livid new banking overlord!

It seems like a very balanced plan. The days of guaranteed profits for private investors are over. Private investors will need to be astute and invest wisely and take risk to earn their profit. We are about to find out who the really smart private investors are.

I agree completely Ken – the key is getting the debt securitization market flowing again. The crisis we as a nation, and world for that matter, are facing stems from that debt market shutting down last year. Not that crisis was caused by the debt market securitzation but, rather it was an unwilling pawn in the overall crisis.

Geithner was very calculated in a broad approach to addressing the instability of the financial markets and admitted mistakes will be made along the way. I am pleased to see he is being realistic and open with Americans and the world.

I believe we are on the way to a solution at some point along the way. It will be trial and error for a bit but, this administration is taking an honest and open approach to fixing the problem. With all the intelligence and talent in that room and in the new administration, at least we know the battle will be hard-fought.

So far so good, great job Mr. Geithner and everyone involved in that team! Let’s keep our fingers-crossed and see where all this leads us. I have all the confidence in the world that this administration will act and react as the market warrants.

Simply pumping more liquidity into the system is not going to repair the economy. Liquidity in the system will not help if there is no demand for goods and services. The excess liquidity will only cause deflation. So there needs to be policy in place to address the demand problem as well as the credit problem. The reason why demand is low is 2 fold. First, it is psychological. We are in a new era of frugality because of pessimism. Second, wealth has decreased because of falling home prices. There really isn’t a way to fix home prices because they were over-inflated so you have to let those prices correct. But you can cushion the effects of the falling prices with policies that mitigate foreclosures. This would allow the prices to slowly correct while minimizing the damage to the average consumer. It is inevitable that the correction process will cause lower demand, but dampening this effect will be key.

The last point in Geithner’s speech addresses homeowners but there isn’t a plan solidly in place yet. The first three points help to address liquidity. If they can get the fire in the housing market contained, this plan has a very good chance at success.

The money center banks reflect the to big to fail policy of the last 20 years.
This idea that they have a blank check from the taxpayers to continue reflects political corrption rather then change. Obama or the next president will have to deal with the reality that these banks are a drain on the economy ad trying to save them has no positives. Obama adminstration looks like Bush more of the same confusion and political PR.

The reason credit is not flowing is because no one is buying anything.

Too little too late – the plan does not address one primary ingredient for lending – borrowers. Everyone was in debt up to their eyeballs before the crash. Now people and businesses can’t afford the debt they have, much less going out and borrowing more.

Bank bailout money won’t even fill the cracks left from reduced borrowing – it will just evaporate like the last go around.

Rescind mark to market and bring back the uptick rule

Th only way to fix this mess is to allow the free market clean it out. Socializing gains and losses is not a free market; it is socialism, period. Anyone that does not understand that does not understand what made America great.

Markets do not go straight up. I know, that goes against what you have been told by CNBC, Bloomberg, and the rest of the left-wing socialist media. Get over it.

This looks like evidence that Geithner knows what he’s doing.

The biggest reason credit’s not flowing now is that credit relies on the debt securitization market, which shut down last year. Geithner proposes to reboot that market, with new bond insurers, and I don’t see any gaping holes in that idea.

Since the debt securitization market accounted for twice as much credit availability ad banks’ balance sheets, restarting the securitization business is a crucial step. Because the new bond insurers Geithner plans to set up will be doing their due diligence, credit won’t be as wild as it was before, and it won’t be likely to lead us over the cliff again.

So far, so good.