Comments about ‘A failure of public confidence’

It is indeed a victory for representative government. They heard us, on both sides of the aisle, and voted no because we told them to. Now what? Main street punished wall street. We put an anvil in place of the golden parachute. Unfortunately my parachute, though not gold, was in the form of funds that are falling as an anvil as well. So, what's our next move? How do we fix it? Or, are we just going to let it come unglued, and see what happens next.

You say well that the electorate is not "sophisticated" in economics. Sophisticated refers to being versed in SOPHISTRIES or misleading arguments. People can see clearly what the bailout is and the injustice of it, and the threat to the value of the hard-earned dollar.

The whole bailout concept is based on sophistry as well as ignorance of, or contempt for, the Constitution of the United States and the significance of the struggles against central banking of many of our forebears. Both Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson had a clear view of the danger of central banks. The latter did something which seems but a pipe dream today; he wiped out the National Debt.

There also seems to be ignorance of how powerful the inflating of the money supply is in destroying the power of the people, and rendering them more docile and tame. The people should retain their power and tame that of those who would redue them to mere ciphers.

I heard all the speeches given by the Congress. Many of them seemed impassioned and sincere. Many pointed out that other options were being ignored and not discussed, and these were not just trivial amendments to Paulson's egregious plan

Andrew Jackson didn't have to deal with a global economy where technology allows capital from around the world to flow in and out of countries in a nanosecond. Take central banks out of the picture and you'll have boom-bust chaos that no constitution will protect. Economic sovereignty is ancient history

Yeesh! talk about sophistry.

I concur.

It bothers me that everyone is saying this bailout is using tax dollars. This isn't the case. Taxes are not being increased, budgets are not being changed, and the government certainly doesn't have $700 Billion in reserve to throw around.

What would have actually have happened is that congress would have signed 700 billion dollars into existence without any value to back it up. This is on top of the roughly 400 billion signed into existence to bailout banks already! These types of actions lead to runaway inflation. I am glad that the bill was voted down.

I personally think some type of assistance from the government is necessary to stabilize the economy, but it must come from money already in the economy. This means either an increase in taxes or a cut in other government budgets.

I think that taxing by inflation is not generally understood. By increasing public indebtedness the value of the dollar is eroded, which has been accurately seen as a "back door" method of taxing.

Most of the current mess has been caused by an accounting sham called the "mark to market" rule. In theory, and where markets are robust, the rule makes some sense. However, in the case of securitized mortgages, there are few players, hence a VERY thin market. Misfortune by one becomes the misfortune of all as the investments are continually written down, eventually to zero or junk status. This has happened even when the loans are performing well and defaults are low.

The crisis of insolvency could be reversed in one fell swoop by the SEC suspending the mark to market rule for financial institutions. Capital reserve requirements would not be impacted and credit would instatly become available. And all for alot less than $700b.

This may seem like simple economics to some of you but please help me to understand - if our Federal Reserve sells or trades securities to support this bailout I would assume countries such as China are the ones buying these securities. Right?
Then our bailout is essentially funded by China or whomever buys the securities, correct?
So the government bailed out Bear Stearns in February for $30 billion then JP Morgan Chase bought Bear Stearns. Does anyone know if Morgan Chase repay the government the $30 billion?

Sorry to ask what might be simple questions but I need to understand.

Is this an indication of how the Democrats will bail us out of all sorrow, sadness, poverty and medical inequality? Thanks Nancy for letting us see what the next four years are all about.

The editors got it absolutely WRONG. The bill didn't fail because citizens were heard. It failed on the merits. The underlying cause of this economic meltdown was eliminating important regulations with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowing the sub-prime mortgages and the speculative ponzi scheme of bundling (ie. tranching) these bad loans.

In 2002-2003 Alan Greenspan was advised and in turn responded "there is no housing bubble." Serially since then the Treasury Secretary has had multiple opportunities to advert the problem and did nothing. Then, instead of informing Congress to work out a solution in a timely fashion, Paulson (blessed by GWB) spent months crafting this three page extortion note along with the message of do this now or die.

As usual, Congress, without appropriate cerebral activity and reflection rushed to judgment in an attempt to put the wrong damn bandaid on the wrong damn boo-boo. It didn't solve the problem and an overwhelming number of expert economists feel other approaches were more advisable.

How often much our Congress fail before they learn how to approach a problem.

Have a hearing of economic specialists and then build an appropriate recovery plan, not just a fail and bail redoux.

I personally like the fact that The House of Reps and Congress voted against the bail out bill. Why should the government bail out these investors and other big companies when it is their fault that they are in this mess.