Thank God that this giveaway to the rich and well connected was defeated. It would have done absolutely nothing to reform the banking system and it would have given powers to the Secretary of the Treasury that were totally un-American.

In addition, the money would have had to be borrowed, thus exacerbating inflation and increasing our debt.

It's time the filthy rich of America bailed out the rest of us. It's time we started at the top of the heap and took from those who have profited so handsomely from "free trade", deregulation and the criminal excesses of their pals on Wall Street, instead of trying to stick the vast majority of struggling Americans with the bill for their greed.

I had the displeasure of watching a discussion on ABC News yesterday with George Stephanopoulos and the usual gang of rich, well connected idiots like George Will, Newt Gingrich, et al. They all agreed on one thing: The rich aren't responsible for any of this! It's the fault of the poor working slobs who have been "living beyond their means".

I nearly puked.

re: "If banks can't lend to other banks - and they won't until the mortgage crisis is dealt with, no one gets money. No one."

This bill did nothing to deal with the mortgage crisis. No bill could. Home prices were hyperinflated by a combination of Greenspan's uber-low interest rates, flaky mortgage products concocted by brokers and bankers and sold by Wall Street; and by an American public that was led to believe the wild and crazy idea that home prices would always and forever rise. Home prices must collapse, and any attempt to prop up prices is doomed to failure.

The bill also did absolutely nothing to deal with the root cause of the banking problem: The guys who run it. They're all crooks. They've always known individually that they were crooked, but now they know that every other banker was running the same scam. THIS is the reason they won't lend to each other. Bank A wants to borrow from Bank B, but Bank B doesn't trust Bank A. "Hey, we can't trust what these guys are telling us -- they're as crooked as we are!"

It's time to replace the whole rotten structure.

History will note that the reign of Bush the Terrible (also known as Bush the Cruel, Bush the Torturer, Bush the Despised, and Bush the Unholy) was bookended by two disasters known by their numbers: 911 and 777.

I'm frightened and confused...What does it all mean???

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!

Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...

Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!

Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

re: "Was Rambeau right? Is magic loose in the world?"

No, I'm afraid that it was Magic Johnson who was right and Rambo will be loosed in the world.

:)

SEE:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Magic_Johnson.jpg

Caption to pic: "I told you Bush was a fucking idiot!"

re: "not quite as many Americans oppose the bailout as was thought earlier"

33% of Likely Voters now favor the plan. Wow. Last time I checked, that was only slightly above the poll numbers on Bush's job rating.

re: "What happened today cannot stand"

I'll give them my money when they take it from my cold, dead hands!

re: "the kind of calamitous selling that swept the U.S. stock market on Monday

“It’s our view that this package, in a fundamental sense, will not solve the problem,” said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Johnson said that he had been hoping that the bailout plan would simply stabilize the markets through the presidential elections in November, but that he was now pessimistic about even that.

Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners, an investment firm in Greenwich, Conn., said the Treasury’s bailout plan might have even unnerved many investors.

“I don’t see how it can help banks unless it’s clear that the government is going to buy these assets for substantially more than they are worth right now,” Mr. Darda said. “It’s such a big step in terms of government influencing the private sector, and it’s hard for investors to take a leap like that overnight, especially when they don’t know what’s going on.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/business/30plan.html?hp