It didn't save anything, it only deferred the problem until today. The bailout didn't bring change to the big 3, which is why we're forking over money to them now. Letting them go under would have sent a signal to the survivors to get their act together or suffer the same fate. Also, those lost jobs and impact to suppliers was a red herring. The loss of Chrysler would not have lessened the demand for new cars from the rest of the country, it would resulted in increased supply from the remaining manufacturers to compensate. Who's talking books here? Not me. I'm for less government, way less at the federal level. I'm for abolishing the Fed and fractional reserve banking. I'm for abolishing fiat money. I'm for replacing the IRS with a consumption tax. And, I'm damned well for the elimination of PACs and lobbiests, installing term limits and requiring economic competency tests for the House and Senate. What a crock. You're talking about socializing the losses created by a bunch of assholes and against unbridled commodity speculation that has brought more harm to the average American then this credit "crisis?" IMHO, requiring delivery of just 10% of the contracts bought would have prevented the commodity bubble from ever forming. What you can't seem to grasp is that all speculation is not good, especially when it brings harm to people who weren't even remotely connected to the game. What people not connected to the game need to realize is that their apathy had as much to do with this situation as the idiots who didn't appreciate risk did. The excess needs to be worked out via the principles of Capitalism, not Marxism. And, we damned well have to learn our lesson this time and put firm measures in that go beyond trying to prevent bad actors from getting involved, we need to remove them from the environment. -- It's okay to cull the herd...
Bear markets are always about financial liquidity and credit crises. You really need to read some history. OldTrader
Hmmm, lets see. After the great depression measures were put in place to prevent this from happening again. So some new kids come on the block and have never experienced the great depression. These kids go "We now know how the market operates, these measures are not required, we have it all under control. Let's us brokers / market manipulators (previously known as: market makers) make some more money and squeeze the goats totally dry. Let's abolish the uptick rule so we can swing the market even more". Let's take the tech boom at the end of the last century. This time round the goats all jumped on the housing boom. If there is one thing history teaches us is that people do not take notice of history. Sorry, but if I listen to Bush's speeches on homeland security etc etc it can be translated to another country in the past century and whose currency went totally down the gurgler. I have not seen enough "pain" that will ensure a fundamental shift in behaviour and until that happens everything being done now is nothing but a band-aid and postponement of the inevitable. Maria
well you may need to realize that we dont live in Alice in Wonderland. Live with the speculation and greed that is innate of human kind. Then you should not complain about oil price bubbles nor rice/corn bubbles, you should not complain when once or twice in your lifetime your savings and cash in bank disappears overnight. Have trouble with that? Well then you may go back to the woods and start hunting deer again which equates to taking all your savings and stacking it under your pillow. Well the alternative is to let government and regulators allow a healthy dose of speculation but when it starts getting out of line and starts threatening a whole system let them intervene to at least save the broad public. Make you choice but dont argue that you want to get the good parts of completely free markets while you want to avoid any risk of a complete system breakdown. You may want to live with this risk but most others definitely dont. Most want to go about their jobs, apply their skills, save their income and enjoy their wealth.
The people who voted for the repeal of Glass-Steagall were hardly "new kids" nor can you say they were ignorant of history. Bullshit. They only knew what they were told. They were compromised by the lobbiests, PACs and special interests who stood to gain mightily by getting these roadblocks thrown out. That's the sort of change that needs to happen this time, putting mechanisms in place to prevent this sort of corrupt behavior from occurring again. Complete agreement there. No Pain, No Gain...
What you're advocating is not a free market. What you really want is an anything goes market. One that not only allows corrupt, opportunistic behavior, but promotes it. That sort of model, which we're currently living with, is simply not sustainable.
dude you are picking things completely out of context as suits. Keep it all in perspective as I put it in my post.