I think one telling thing in all this is the degree to which Bush and the rest of the White House have been out of the loop so far. Supposedly they were "briefed" on the AIG bailout. Briefed? WTF? Remember when the government gave Chrysler those loan guarantees back in the Iaccocca days? That amounted to 3.1 billion in todays dollars and there were Congressional debates for weeks about it. With AIG it's 85 billion and the Treasury and the Fed apparently just decided it themselves! The White House and Congress have both just ceded the whole thing to the cabal of Wall St. guys who run the markets. It's insane. Congress must step in and stop them from printing more money to bail out more of these guys. They must let them fail. It will hurt, but it is the path of least hurt that is available to us. There are no options that avoid pain at this point.
Of course the markets are up so far today, so what do I know? (That's rhetorical please.) On the other hand, that's how the '29 crash happened (down a little, then up, then down more, then up a little, then way down, then back up a little, then down some more, etc... over about a week.)
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Of course the markets are up so far today, so what do I know? (That's rhetorical please.) On the other hand, that's how the '29 crash happened (down a little, then up, then down more, then up a little, then way down, then back up a little, then down some more, etc... over about a week.)
- jim 9-18-2008 3:43 pm