I See the Light
It came home to me loud and clear by mid-day yesterday why so many members of Congress simply could not vote in favor of the rescue bill before them now. The responses to my blog yesterday on CNBC.com “Why You Should Write Your Congressman” (Main Street, Wake Up… on my website) were easily ten to one in opposition of my support of passage of the bill. The language in some of the emails was simply unrepeatable and the vitriol and anger brought me back in time to my study of history. I had an image of Robespierre at the onset of the French Revolution with hordes of angry French citizens railing against the Crown.
I truly wished I could respond to many of the hate-mailers, but I realized it would have no impact on their point of view. Their anger was understandable and most of them cannot be blamed in any way for the crisis. However, their voices cannot justify allowing the entire financial system to collapse and as punishment for past mismanagement.
Unfortunately, despite dire warnings from sage and respected investors such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gross, Middle America is not convinced that the bill before Congress is not simply another bailout of the rich at the expense of the rest of the population. Nothing will disavow them of that. Hopefully enough members of the House and the Senate will have the fortitude and integrity to risk the possible political repercussions and vote to pass the bill before them. Sometimes the patient really does not know what is best for him or her.
I encourage people to go online and read Thomas L. Friedman’s op-ed article “Rescue the Rescue” in the New York Times today. It is lucid and totally on the mark.
Tags: Banking, economics, finance, government
October 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)
Obviously you are the product of publik edukashun!!…P.S…NO bailout,,,study the Austrian economics models
October 1st, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Thomas Friedman is a putz. Right now there are some very important economists saying a bailout is a horrible idea….economists that aren’t fully vested in a big ROI on a bailout like you and any other “analyst”.
It’s not a RESCUE, but nice spin. It’s a BAILOUT. Just for the record.
And if you want to know why there is anger, it’s because you try to scare people with claims of losing jobs in the financial sector. Well guess what! The manufacturing sector has been hemorhaging jobs like crazy….uh where was the bailout for workers in Michigan and Ohio? SILENCE.
Where was the bailout for the American workers that had to compete against 250,000 H1b visa workers and NAFTA jobs going to Mexico? SILENCE.
Or the call centers going to India and the Phillipines? Or the engineering jobs and the pharma jobs and the….etc. etc. SILENCE.
I worked for JP Morgan while Jamie Dimon made nearly $60 MILLION per year. That was more than 2500 times my salary as a part-time employee. Then Jamie decided to increase health care premiums for part-time workers,thanks Jamie. And then in his ultimate wisdom moved all 300 jobs to the Phillipines! Yay! So I am unemployed as we speak!
But I’m not a banker by choice. No, I actually have a masters in computer engineering. But alas, when Bill Clinton signed the H1B Visa bonanza Bill, most companies opted for the cheap Indians over Americans. And now most HR in engineering are in fact Indians. So I can’t find a job I spent $30,000 on an education to get. And what is the response from the financial sector? STOCKS UP! YAHOO! Because you analysts love efficiency and LAYOFFS.
So now I’m supposed to care about jobs in the financial sector? ABout the welfare of JAMIE DIMON and his ilk?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Give them tax cuts and bailouts so they can move more jobs to India?
I say let them burn. What are the consequences to me?? Hopefully we stop buying stuff. And China and India’s economies implode. Then maybe we might get some jobs back.
Maybe we become solvent again?
But thanks for pretending like you are an unbiased bystander caring about the country and THE WORKER of America. Do you really think people are that stupid? You have plenty to gain on a BAILOUT and plenty to lose if it fails. Just like I had plenty to lose when Microsoft and GE got their way with immigrant workers….when no one gave a damn about me. HOWS IT FEEL??? Horrible I hope. LOL.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I enjoyed your comments both yesterday and today. I would foward the NY Times article you reference to all 3 of my congressmen (I am from Florida), but it is clear from their public comments that none are literate. In fact, as I listened to the usual drivel from my very own Senator Bill Nelson it is evident that he, like most Americans, doesn’t have a clue about the nature of the problem, the impact of the legislation being proposed to fix it, or the catastrophic consequences of failing to act. I join millions of Americans in wanting to see many of the financial world’s elite (I personally would begin with Angelo Mozilo) hanging from a lamp post (merely a figure of speech). That however, will not solve the problem of banks not having enough liquidity to extend credit to creditworthy businesses who need it to meet payroll, purchase inventoy, and continue to employ people like me.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Ms. Chadwick;
with all due respect…..LET IT CRASH and LET NYC burn. We are sick and tired of GREED, manipulation and the hysteria of people like you who say we will vanish without your BLACKMAIL for this bailout.
We are sick of casino mentalities and then the bailing out of those same individuals. Sometimes, especially for DRUG ADDICTS, you need to stop giving them DRUGS.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 am
To Mr Koon.
I completely understand the legislation. I understand that Paulson is a spawn of the evil that has created this greedy mess. Paulson is running the Treasury as if he were running Goldman Sachs.
Maybe, Mr Koon, you should do a little brush up on reading comprehension yourself. Because it’s apparent that you missed the part of Paulson’s proposal that made him dictator of our economy with a limitless credit card paid by tax payers to buy whatever junk he wants from whatever buddies he has on Wallstreet.
The simple fact that Bernanke and Paulson have been the architects of this disaster should be enough to dismiss the legislation sight unseen. Not to mention the fact that our manipulator in chief has come out with his own mushroom cloud scenario for the economy. Yeah, let’s put our trust in these bozos.
It’s amusing that when US manufacturing is on the brink of disaster that we are told let the free market run its course. Let the manufacturing leave the country in the name of free market economics. But when it’s the wealthy financial sector that needs to let the free market unwind it’s horrible greedy mess, that then we need socialism to bail them out.
Again, Mr Koon, realize where you are receiving your information from and what interests they have in shaping your opinion. You are being terrorized just like Bush terrorized a nation to go to war. Look how that turned out. Were you one of those that feared Iraq? Or did you see the oil behind the scare tactics?
Don’t be a sucker, Mr Koon. This is your children’s money that you are playing with.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:07 am
I have started, maintained, and sold for a profit two businesses (each reaching 5-6 million per year in gross revenues. I lived through 16% short-term money during the 1980s. My companies bought what they could afford. The majority of businesses that ALREADY cannot meet payroll were probably aggressively “leveraging” their assets to hire workers and buy equipment, offices, and plant with credit rather than capital. Let these over-eager risk-takers face the consequences of their actions. They will either cut back and become more efficient or fail. All surviving companies will serve the market; their revenues and profits will go up.
What has happened in the last 20 years? Who convinced every chuckle-head that he (she) could start a company and succeed regardless of how stupid their business plan or how naive their understanding of the market? It is time to thin the herd. America will be better for it.