breaking news -- financial

[lagilman]

-- $700 billion bailout bill fails in House. Dow down by nearly 600 more than 700 points.

Put on your seat belts, everyone. The storm is not pending, the storm is now.

suggested reading before leaping into the fray, because it's the least overtly biased in either direction as I can find on quick search

This thread is now open for comments, questions, yowls and whimpers. Keep it polite, and don't throw accusations you can't support. And if you're not a financial advisor, please state so before offering financial advice.

EtA: since someone asked: my so-called credentials. /tongue in cheek (mostly)

Comments

[filamena.livejournal.com]

I hear Iceland is beautiful.

[naienko.livejournal.com]

Taking donations to buy an island in the South Pacific.

[lagilman]

But melting.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

Iceland is beautiful!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Item on PBS this evening, one of Iceland's larger banks just got taken over by the government . . .

[lagilman]

Everything is Connected.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The mass whimpering in the background represents folks, like us, sitting on the edge of "retirement" . . .

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my mom and dad are pretty... well numb is a good word. They won't be retiring any time soon.

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

Wondering why *all* their heads don't implode from the panic-vacuum that's developed inside them.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

The best advice I've seen is don't freak out yet. This whole thing was railroaded through in the same way the war in Iraq was--right down to the phrases used. It's not over and it won't be over until some sort of solution is found.

The thing we have to hope for is that that solution is better than the one that just got voted down. That is the big woolly mammoth in the room.

[lagilman]

Freaking? No. I haven't freaked out yet, and don't expect to. Worry? Oh yeah. Especially, as Jim said above, if you were counting on your stocks in the next year or so. This isn't a fake crisis, it's a very real one, created of many layers of stupidity on the part of many people.

(and the ride is going to be bumpy for a while, even if they come up with a hail mary that connects. This won't go away overnight, or even in the next month)

I'm hoping for the "hah, we were just kidding, here's the new, better proposal" to come out of Paulson's back pocket. I'm not holding my breath, mind you, but I'm hoping.

[lagilman]

Why would they do such a stupid thing

probably because it was not a good plan, and the voters were almost overwhelmingly against it.

That said, I suspect that "not a good plan" is better for the American economy, and the global economy, than no plan at all. We can talk all we want about letting the dust settle, etc, and making people take responsibility, but everything I've read suggests that risks destroying even more lives all along the fault lines, without any hope of protection. Hopefully, they will be able to get something that addresses the massive failures of the first plan, but... see above post re: not holding my breath.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

>That said, I suspect that "not a good plan" is better
>for the American economy, and the global economy, than no plan at all.

I think that was the basis for the leadership agreeing with this. When you find out you have to jump, you take the least-bad choice . . .

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing this as the capstone of the neocons' plan. Loot the Treasury and bolt. The whole $700 billion thing rips my gut the same way the "must invade Iraq nownownow" thing did. The tagline I saw somewhere, "Give us $700B or the economy gets it," sums it up for me. This is the biggest holdup in the history of the world.

I know you're not freaking out, Suri. We're all so worried we're sick. The markets are being markets, i.e. brainless mobs run entirely by their emotions. Unfortunately, that also describes Congress. I wish we had real leadership, someone who isn't part of the crime syndicate that got us into this in the first place, to step in and say, "All right. That's enough. Here's the sensible way out, and here's what we do first."

The bill just defeated was nothing even remotely resembling a sensible way out. The fact it was apparently the best of a whole lot of bad options...hey, this is BushWorld, where "least worst" is the best you ever hope to get.

What/where is Jim's comment? I can't find it here.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Ah so. Right above my post. Yep. GMTA.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Even the people who voted for it prefaced their vote with statements about how bad a deal it was. And it only "lost" by 13 votes.

Am I reading the news right? That they're going to vote again?

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

That's what I don't get -- if it's such a bad deal, then don't vote for it!! Make a deal that doesn't suck.

[lagilman]

Those hoofbeats you hear are from all the horse-trading going on down in DC right now.

You know, when I studied the politics of the Great Depression back in college, I didn't think I was having a practice run....

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

As I just posted in my journal, as you contact your Congresscritters once again as the re-vote looms, don't forget that they're all up for re-election once again.

I made sure to mention this little factoid in the email I just sent to my Representative ... I wasn't pleased with how she voted, and fo' sho' I'm going to remember that next month.

[rwglaub.livejournal.com]

I had this on one of the monitors connected to my computer at work. (I was out all last week teaching a class on counterterrorism.) We all stood there with our mouhts open in shock as the market dropped, and dropped and dropped. Then the House rejected the plan. Then the bottom fell out.

I'm lucky, for now. I'm one of the few left in government still in the old Civil Service retirement plan. Everyone since late has been required to sign onto the new FERS, which depends heavily on the stock market.

But I'm still very pissed off at the idiots in the current administration who decided that their rich friends on the Street didn't need any oversight and regulation.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Needs to be a regulatory agency with actual power to regulate, and regulations that actually do keep things under control. Needs to be infusion of capital--but not a blank check based on "How much can we hold them up for before they scream?" And above all, the compulsive gamblers who got us into this should not be put in charge of the casino.

This was a rush to war, and unlike the last one, it failed. I'm afraid I don't have the faith others do that once a bad law is on the books, it can be "fixed" later. We've had decades of bad laws begetting worse ones, leading to the perfect storm of the past few days. I simply don't have any trust left.

Looks as if a whole lot of people in this country feel the same way. They're as mad as hell and they're not going to take this any more.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Two points worth noting:

1) While this was the largest single-day drop in the Dow in terms of points, it was not the largest in terms of percentage, because the market has grown so much (anybody else remember when nobody thought it would ever break 10,000?). That does not, of course, mean this isn't a disaster.

2) One of the reasons many of the Democrats and Republicans both voted against this package was because of the amount of power it handed the Secretary of the Treasury. While I believe we need a bailout package machts schnell, I am very wary of large complex bills generated in very short periods of time in response to crises--the Patriot Act springs to mind. It may be that some House members remembered how well that one turned out.

Right now, I'm living on investments made by other people. After midnight tonight, I get to find out just how badly I've been hosed. I think we're very possibly heading for another Great Depression, but it is entirely possible that giving the Secretary of the Treasury nearly unlimited power over the nation's financial system would end up being even worse.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

The best comment was from a representative in Texas: I didn't vote for the bail out because it puts us on "the slippery slope towards socialism". I don't know exactly what's wrong with socialism. Sure, unlimited socialism (aka the Soviet Union and totalitarianism) is bad, but so is unlimited capitalism (aka the USA for the last 20 or so years). I don't know enough about the bail out plan to make any useful comments, but voting against it simply because it smacks of socialism just rots my gut.