we're still trying to flip votes.

680 points is nothing... call me when the Dow drops 2k or so in a single day.

Deep breath everyone. Calm down.

That is all I have to say about this.

and I'll say it again-- Let the Wall Street robber barons crash and burn. They'd do the same for you or me.

Hell, they've been doing it.

It won't just be the Fat Cats that loose on this one.

Let's see if John McCain "suspends" his campaign again (cancelling Sarah Palin's debate with Joe Biden, of course) and parachutes in to "set things right". In which case all of the Republicans will vote "no".

Hooo boy.....

The far left and the far right coming together to prove both extremes are dangerous to America.

look, all the oversight provisions were watered down considerably; c'mon, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Housing Secretary and the director of the Federal Home Finance Agency. That's the fox guarding the henhouse, to use an tired cliche.

the House Repubs watered down everything that the American people complained about this week.

I know Boehner was responsible for this exception:

from the NYT:

The limits on executive pay in the bill, also added in response to pressure from legislators, appear unlikely to be used very often. The secretary could take such steps if he bought substantial assets “from an individual financial institution where no bidding process or market prices are available.”

Presumably, if there is some kind of bidding process, those limitations, over which the secretary also has considerable discretion, will not apply. However, institutions that receive $300 million or more from the program would face limitations on executive pay.

@Teresa: When you say there will be others besides the fat cats who lose, please elaborate.

I lost my house in the subprime debacle last summer (cashing in equity to support a small business, lest you immediately get to moralizing); my IRA is 100% invested in commercial real estate REIT's (my broker is a freakin' genius); I don't hold any stocks, bonds, or other financial instruments; I ride my bike to work; and I work for a company that makes solar panels.

I'm with Publius Maximus: These f*ckers can burn. The financial services industry has grown into a cancer on the REAL economy (you know, the one that actually MAKES STUFF). The current bailout package does nothing to prevent this from happening again (e.g. howzabout hedge funds?). Bring back Glass-Steagall, repeal Gramm-Dumbass-Bliley, and start taking care of the American people.

This is not about Wall Street fat cats, folks. This is about the total freeze of the short term paper market—-in other words, the fast credit lines that companies take out on an almost daily basis to pay their bills and payrolls. Right now, the credit crunch has almost got that market locked up, and it's essential. If that credit market dries up, tens of thousands of medium-size and large companies will have no access to capital to pay their expenses while they wait for receivables. That means layoffs, shutdowns and the possible collapse of the economy.

Yes, in the short term this is helping the big investment banks and thrifts, but it affects everyone.

In the turbulent days of September 1929, the market was buoyed by talk of 'organized intervention' to prop up the market. By mid-October, the efforts of multi-millionaires to prop up the market were abandoned, and the market went into free-fall. There were days when it lost as much as 10% of its value in a day.

After a few months, some sticks were worth 10% (or less) of their peak value.

And just now, the 'organized government intervention' proposed by Paulson has failed. I understand the populist outcry against it, but I fail to see a better alternative.

The only remaining question is this. Is this more like 1987, or 1929?

want this bill to fail, and I am not "extreme".

Giving 700 billion dollars to bankers as a reward for letting them drive their industry into the ground? That seems "extreme" to me. Extremely anti-democratic.

The entire process seems horribly plutocratic to me. Yes, I'm a bit surprised to see the bipartisan plutocracy isn't getting away with it. But not unpleasantly so. If the bill does fail, then we may get a chance to see what happens when the private sector is left to sort out its own affairs.

I'm guessing the sky won't really fall.

The thing about all these bank failures: somebody out there has the actual money, unless its all imaginary anyway, in which case it doesn't matter at all.

Maybe all the bankers who lost all the money should be sent to Gitmo?

Well George,

Probably your first three page plan would have been just the ticket to jumpstart the market after all. A Machiavellian Prince of Funds who could finesse and finagle Wall Street and make the dirty deals needed to do the job.

But, alas, no one trusted you and your minions. So instead everyone put their fingers in the pudding and made it a beaurocratic web, a wasteful nightmare of hurdles and hoops.

Why was that?

Because this is what happens when you mislead a nation about making pre-emptive war and run the White House on the premise of "reality is what we say it is".

You were saying?

Didn't you mom tell you that no one will believe you and stand behind after you lie to them?

You are to blame, so go in shame.

...agreeing with DanielGree:

The Extremes Against America

The far left and the far right coming together to prove both extremes are dangerous to America.

-- DanielGree

Payroll for one, business cannot function without access to the credit market. I am not opposed to Wall Street folk suffering, certainly there needs to be payback for their irresponsibility, but business will suffer. You will suffer, you may have lost your home during the subprime problems but now you stand to lose your job, your business if you have one, your retirement if you have one, your children will have no access to students loans. The world wide Markets could collapse, meaning China could call in their loans to the US. Meaning our government could collapse as well. this is a big deal, bigger than most people realize, a depression is not a good thing and bringing one on purposely is incredibly short sighted and irresponsible. People who are elected to govern are supposed to govern. Sometimes that means losing your job even when you've done the right thing. These extreme ideologues have made it so food will be more expensive, there will be greater inflation, oil will sky rocket more, there are many consequences to these actions, we have yet to see the shit that is about to happen.