Oh yeah that $700bn will not be missed now...

The second version is even worse then the first!!!

Did you NASA only operates on $9 Billion a year to launch the SPACE SHUTTLES, operate the International SPACE STATION, and all of their other programs (Hubble, Mars Phoenix, etc)???

WTF do the banks need SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION for?

Especially when their CEO's make millions for nothing (Alan Fishburg - WaMu).

Come on people, wake up and call your congress monkey! NO BAILOUT!!!

As I see it, the only way this will do good is if people start pulling out of the stock market or other non-cash accounts and opening large cash accounts. If the total amount of cash in the system stays the same, changing the way it's spread around isn't going to do very much other than possibly weed out the weaker banks.

P71 wrote: The second version is even worse then the first!!! Did you NASA only operates on $9 Billion a year to launch the SPACE SHUTTLES, operate the International SPACE STATION, and all of their other programs (Hubble, Mars Phoenix, etc)??? WTF do the banks need SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION for? Especially when their CEO's make millions for nothing (Alan Fishburg - WaMu). Come on people, wake up and call your congress monkey! NO BAILOUT!!!

It passed http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122286874792094117.html

read this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7645743.stm It's humbling. that is a former superpower telling us that we're done being a superpower....

"The US is seen as declining relatively and there has been an enormous acceleration in this perfect storm of perception in the waning days of the Bush administration. The rise of new powers, the increase in oil wealth among some countries and the spread of economic power around the world adds to this," he said. "But we must separate the immediate moment from the structural. There is no doubt that President Bush has created some of his own problems. The overstretch of military power and the economic crisis can be laid at the door of the administration. "Its tax cuts were not matched by the hammer of spending cuts. The combined effect of events like the failures in Iraq, the difficulties in Afghanistan, the thumbing of its nose by Russia in Georgia and elsewhere, all these lead to a sense of an end of an era.

It's time to stop whining about where we are now. too bad we are here. Best start working cause we're headed the wrong direction fast.

Edit.. and the crazy thing is that what we need to pull us up is not cost cutting but the two things that started us into this mess... innovation and entrepreneurship..

ignorant wrote: Edit.. and the crazy thing is that what we need to pull us up is not cost cutting but the two things that started us into this mess... innovation and entrepreneurship..

The crazy thing is that our debt based monetary system depends on an exponentially growing economy, money supply, and credit market. Draw a graph of an exponential function and see what happens to it eventually. Since the amount of change each year depends on the current level the graph takes off and approaches vertical at some point. This is where we are with our money supply. Where it took well over a hundred years to make the first trillion dollars, we now are turning out a trillion in under 4 months. This will only get faster - otherwise the system will not work, since all money comes from debt and debt has to paid back with interest the money supply has to continually expand. So $700 billion this time. It will be more next time and it will come sooner. The human brain is ill equiped to deal with exponential functions.

It is an unsustainable system, no amount of government bailout money or innovation and entrepreneurship will pull us out of this if we do not change our absurd monetary system.

ahh.. the gold bugs come out.

ignorant wrote: It passed http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122286874792094117.html

It DID NOT pass yet. It passed the Senate, not the House. That's the same thing that happened last time.

There's still plenty of time to call your Representative and ask him to vote it down.

I just don't understand those who are so violently against this bill, save those who are ideologically for a complete hands off economy. I think it's neccessary, but I don't like rewarding those who made bad choices.. Without it, it'll be like Japan in the 90's only worse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/opinion/02kristof.html <--- pretty good even editorial.

Japan didn't want to bail out the fat cats in the 1990's.. So they got 10 or more years of horrible recession..

It's going to pass. It's just a matter of how much they have to convice us first. I, personally, think we need to stabilize the economy, but cut all of the pork out of this bill. I heard on the radio this morning that there were hundred million dollar tax breaks for this industry, that one, some rum company, etc. We get to pay for that too, oh boy. Then they say "oh, we're going to stick it to the CEO's and their parachutes." 20% tax. Whoopie. They still walk away with $x*10^6 for destroying the company and we still pay for it. There should be a 100% tax on the parachutes, 200% tax on the company for all executive compensation over $500K (or less) for any company we are bailing out. And that's just to start with.

Dr. Hess wrote: '...tax the berkeleyers.'

Umm... who are you and what have you done with Dr. Hess?

ignorant wrote: I just don't understand those who are so violently against this bill, save those who are ideologically for a complete hands off economy. I think it's neccessary, but I don't like rewarding those who made bad choices.. Without it, it'll be like Japan in the 90's only worse. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/opinion/02kristof.html <--- pretty good even editorial. Japan didn't want to bail out the fat cats in the 1990's.. So they got 10 or more years of horrible recession..

What what what?!?!?!

That's a horrible editorial. It does nothing to explain the reasons behind the japanese banking problems (which basically involved hiding debts and obligations in zombie corporations for years).

I can't predict the future, but I do honestly believe that a bailout is worse in the long run than just taking our lumps now. The system needs a radical overhaul and if we keep up the farce that this is just a roadblock we need to get around to continue on free and clear, we'll find that we'll be in worse trouble for following the wrong path than if we had just admitted the problems and returned to the path of sound economics.

Greg, I dunno which would be worse for us in the long run. I am sure that passing the bill as it will pass will greatly benefit a small group of people, including out congress critters who have raked in several hundred million dollars from the financial sector. I was just reading articles on Dodd and some new guy from Florida. Yeah, they'll come out ahead.
However, as the Federal Reserve created the Great Depression, as documented by Ben Bernanke http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59405 , and sitting around after the fact only made things worse, I don't know of a good solution to this one. It took a decade to set up this mess, and we will be paying for it for two decades one way or another. Many people say that WWII was what ended the Great Depression. I don't want to see WWIII end another one.

Dr. Hess wrote: Greg, I dunno which would be worse for us in the long run. I am sure that passing the bill as it will pass will greatly benefit a small group of people, including out congress critters who have raked in several hundred million dollars from the financial sector. I was just reading articles on Dodd and some new guy from Florida. Yeah, they'll come out ahead. However, as the Federal Reserve created the Great Depression, as documented by Ben Bernanke http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59405 , and sitting around after the fact only made things worse, I don't know of a good solution to this one. It took a decade to set up this mess, and we will be paying for it for two decades one way or another. Many people say that WWII was what ended the Great Depression. I don't want to see WWIII end another one.

Many things caused the great depression and none of them are repeatable in this market. If another depression were to occur, it wouldn't be solely because several large banks failed and it won't be stopped by borrowing more money from the Chinese. We have to fix our fundamentals if we ever want to recover.

BUT if the Chinese decide to buy up all the available properties left from the mass migration INTO the cities from all the foreclosures/high fuel costs/etc then we SHOULD be able to get our Chinesota milk products pretty cheap here in Michinagan.

John Brown wrote: BUT if the Chinese decide to buy up all the available properties left from the mass migration INTO the cities from all the foreclosures/high fuel costs/etc then we SHOULD be able to get our Chinesota milk products pretty cheap here in Michinagan.

Why buy the property since we'll be begging for every Yuan we can get our hands on.

Not sooner when we need it, no they would wait until AFTER the fall and buy all the properties from the last bank standing... The CEO will bank out for trillions in a single big cash payout and retire to Switzerland leaving the rest of us learning Mandarin.

ignorant wrote: ahh.. the gold bugs come out.

I wish I had a good portion of my money in gold, but I do not. That being said I think it would be a smart place to put one's money right now. Here is a graph I made that shows an exponential growth of 5% per year. I started with $1000 and it grew to $131.501 in 100 years.

See how it takes off with time? That's where we are. I'm not a big conspiracy theory guy, but the Federal Reserve just cannot go on forever - can't argue with math. The blue line is the total amount of dollars and the red is the change from the previous year. Our brains hear things like GDP grew 4% and we think the red line is what we get over time, but it is the blue line that results.

We are operating on the steep part of the curve right now. Make no mistake this is the root cause of our economic "crisis". Since all dollars get loaned into existence and have to repaid with interest the system requires this type of growth and my point is that an exponentially growing money supply is not only absurd but unsustainable.

I can redo the graph with numbers from 1913 until present if you like, but the shape of the graph will be the same.

What are the two different lines on the graph? What am I supposed to be looking at?

The chart represents butt cheek firmness over time. The blue line is when you are 21 and the red one is when you are dead.

What are you worried about, they will pass the bailout bill to save the economy and will learn there lesson about spending money they don't have.....

TITLE III—EXTENSION OF BUSINESS TAX PROVISIONS

Sec. 301. Extension and modification of research credit.

Sec. 302. New markets tax credit.

Sec. 303. Subpart F exception for active financing income.

Sec. 304. Extension of look-thru rule for related controlled foreign corporations.

Sec. 305. Extension of 15-year straight-line cost recovery for qualified leasehold improvements and qualified restaurant improvements; 15-year straight-line cost recovery for certain improvements to retail space.

Sec. 306. Modification of tax treatment of certain payments to controlling exempt organizations.

Sec. 307. Basis adjustment to stock of S corporations making charitable contributions of property.

Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.

Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.

Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.

Sec. 312. Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico.

Sec. 313. Qualified zone academy bonds.

Sec. 314. Indian employment credit.

Sec. 315. Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations.

Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance.

Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.

Sec. 318. Expensing of environmental remediation costs.

Sec. 319. Extension of work opportunity tax credit for Hurricane Katrina employees.

Sec. 320. Extension of increased rehabilitation credit for structures in the Gulf Opportunity Zone.

Sec. 321. Enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions.

Sec. 322. Tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia.

Sec. 323. Enhanced charitable deductions for contributions of food inventory.

Sec. 324. Extension of enhanced charitable deduction for contributions of book inventory.

Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds.

....oopps!

WTF is this bullE36 M3?

I'm dropping out of college and buying a houseboat and getting the heck out of here.

What's with this "motorsports facility" crock of crap?

Not BS that's our representatives at work...not sure who they are representing.

The blue line is the dollar supply over time and shows the type of growth required by our absurd monetary system.

The red line shows the increase in the amount of dollars from the previous year. I only put the red line on there because that is how are brains think (at least mine does). If you hear that something grows at a constant 5% in my mind I picture the red line, but the reality is the blue line.

Monkeywrench wrote: What's with this "motorsports facility" crock of crap?

As I understand it, a group that built a new motorsports facility wanted to depreciate it based on a 7 year MACRS basis, but the IRS, to get more taxes, wanted to push the depreciation to a 15 year MACRS basis. The bill basically establishes that the park can continue using its current depreciation strategy and they won't owe any back taxes.

This bill is so important they can't wait to fill it with crap that would never pass otherwise.

That's why we need both term limits and a ban on bobtailing.

Jensenman wrote: ban on bobtailing.

you mean you wouldn't let tractors drive around without trailers??? Blasphemy