Posted on 09/23/2008 5:19:04 AM PDT by SE Mom
When Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) gavels in the Senate Banking Cmte., he is expected to pro- pose changes to the Bush admin.'s $700 billion intervention in the financial markets. Witnesses include Sec. of Treasury Henry Paulson; Ben Bernanke, Chair of the Federal Reserve System; and others
(Excerpt) Read more at c-span.org ...
Most of our grandparents went through the ‘Great Depression’! Mine did ok(relatively speaking) because they were a self reliant bunch. It may be time for America to ‘rediscover’ that lost ‘art’. Just sayin.....
Dodd, the “disgrace” chairing the committee he created when he stole the ten million, is the DemocRAT idea of a fox watching the hen house. Why the hell are the Republicans allowing these crooks and traitors a free pass, why are they not indicted for corruption. If and until these Senators have the will to prosecute one of their own then the entire Senate should be prosecuted for dereliction of duty. Do these arrogant “lords of disaster” have any fear of the people who vote them into these powerful positions that they maintain for decades and turn into their own private enrichment programs.
If I have to make a choice between seeing my stocks tank and seeing my dollars tank, I’ll take the former.
Or do you think something unusual or suspicious could have happened suddenly last week to cause this emergency?
Thanks!
Most of our grandparents even if they lived in the cities weren’t too far removed from the farm and knew how to survive.
The only way people in the cities will survive is pillaging the country side for food. Many won’t survive if they try this.
Food comes from the grocery store and restaurants.
Paulson — with a straight face: “This all about the American taxpayer. The taxpayer is all we care about.”
[Yeh, right! It is all about the taxpayers coughing up $700 Billion for this and another $500 Billion the Dems are working on. That adds up to $1.2 Trillion, just in these 2 bills.]
Honestly, Mr. Paulson, we taxpayers can’t afford much more of YOUR kind of help.
It was repeatedly by folks like Dole, Allard, McCain, Greenspan, etc., but the Dems blocked any changes in regulations and oversight. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been used by the Dems to provide sinecures for folks like Raines, Johnson, Reno, Gorelick, etc. Althoiugh supposedly private, these institutions provided contributions to the Dems in Congress and to Dem related non-profits in the form of contributions. It was a large piggybank funding the Democrats. And as Dole mentioned, they spent over $100 million lobbying Congress. Political expediency and partisanship were more important that the welfare of the country.
And if they really didn't expect it to be this bad, what exactly happened last week that they did not foresee?
It actually started weeks ago. I think they didn't understand how extensive the impact would be in the US and globally. The entire world economy was affected. The whole house of cards could be brought down plunging this economy into something like the Great Depression. The fall of the credit markets would cost millions of Americans their jobs, wipe out their stock market holdings, and caused the real estate market to collapse.
Pauslon: [Dear in the headlights act].
Shelby: What other proposals did you consider?
Paulson: Blah blay
Shelby: How do you justify bailing out the banks that caused the mess. I presume that they will profit from this bailout.
Paulson: I am also frustrated. But I am concerned about people's hard earned savinvs (violins start playing....)
This is scary. I know Paulson is under enormous stress and pressure- but he is not giving me any confidence in his leadership OR his damn plan even working.
This is the denoument of 20 years of increasingly large and sophisticated levels of self-dealing.
Something we both agree on! :) My father (born in 23) still lives in fear of deflation. One winter, the coal he picked up along the railway was the only way he and his mom stayed warm. They couldn't even afford coal in KY.
Paulson - shocked when he arrived to discover the shoddy regulatory structure. Shocked, I tell you.
Any action as large and as morally dubious as this bailout deserves due diligence. We're entitled to know if (1) it is necessary, and (2) it is sufficient.
So far, what we've heard is based on nothing but the say-so of those who will be given unlimited power. That's not enough evidence for me.
Quit the Republican Apologist role. Their hands are covered in the blood of this crisis.
Paulson - you taxpayers don’t want to be on the hook. Well guess what suckers. We’ve already got you on the hook.
"The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in modern history, and is used in the 21st century as a benchmark on how far the world's economy can fall. The Great Depression originated in the United States; historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The end of the depression in the U.S. is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939."
The depression had devastating effects both in the developed and developing, largely still-colonized world. International trade was deeply affected, as were personal incomes, tax revenues, prices, and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by 40 to 60 percent.[2][3] Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as farming, mining and logging suffered the most.
Massive increases in deficit spending, new banking regulation, and boosting farm prices did start turning the U.S. economy around in 1933, but it was a slow and painful process. The U.S. had not returned to 1929's GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940 — down from 25% in 1933.
You know what I don’t get? Why is it that Sec. Paulson can testify that the regulatory system didn’t fit the model, but he can’t testify that “hey, you guys effed-up.”
Is it fear of congressional retaliation?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.