Bailed out banks

[Guest]

are buying banks in China? I was channel surfing (a guy thing) last night and caught Gretta Van Sustern talking with Donald Trump about the bank bailouts. He was saying that a lot of the banks are using the money to buy other banks, even one in China, instead of loaning the money out to stimulate the economy. I need to start watching more news because this is the first time I've heard this said. Is this old news and if not I need to stop dreaming of TV and pay attention more? :cus:

[Guest]

This is true. The bank bailout was a hoax and not one dime has gone to help the general tax payer. That is one of the reasons the auto bailout is having such a hard time. The democrat way the Rich get Richer and the poor depend on the rich.

[Guest]

There are minor and major perpetrators to the apparent failure of the bank bailout plan. The minor perpetrators are the members of Congress who voted a huge amount of money and didn't provide the Treasury Department with even the vaguest directions on how it should be used. To be fair, the "bailout legislation" was heavily negotiated and pushed thru Congress in a big hurry--less than a week, as I recall. Some members of Congress spent more time crafting earmarks and tagging them on the bill as opposed to spending any time thinking about how the bill could have been made better for the taxpayers.

But the major perpetrators are the Treasury Secretary and to a lesser extent his boss, the President, who simply gave the money to a bunch of banks and insurance companies without attaching some conditions to the investments, which was well within their authority. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the investments might have been conditioned with limitations on executive compensation, non-core business investments or acquisitions, or shareholder dividends, as examples. It doesn't take decades of experience in the financial industry to come up with these ideas, so being inexperienced with the unprecedented situation is no excuse. Competence within the Executive branch appears to be even a greater cause of the misuse of public funds than the inadequacies of the legislation passed by the Congress. The trio of George Bush, Henry Paulson and Neal Kashkiri are beginning to look like Larry, Moe and Curly--except they're wasting amounts of public funds that few of us can even imagine.

And like I said, some Congressmen spent more time crafting earmarks to benefit lobbyists for the likes of wood arrow manufacturers in Alaska than actually thinking about how the bailout bill might have been improved.

[Guest]

There are minor and major perpetrators to the apparent failure of the bank bailout plan. The minor perpetrators are the members of Congress who voted a huge amount of money and didn't provide the Treasury Department with even the vaguest directions on how it should be used. To be fair, the "bailout legislation" was heavily negotiated and pushed thru Congress in a big hurry--less than a week, as I recall. Some members of Congress spent more time crafting earmarks and tagging them on the bill as opposed to spending any time thinking about how the bill could have been made better for the taxpayers.

But the major perpetrators are the Treasury Secretary and to a lesser extent his boss, the President, who simply gave the money to a bunch of banks and insurance companies without attaching some conditions to the investments, which was well within their authority. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the investments might have been conditioned with limitations on executive compensation, non-core business investments or acquisitions, or shareholder dividends, as examples. It doesn't take decades of experience in the financial industry to come up with these ideas, so being inexperienced with the unprecedented situation is no excuse. Competence within the Executive branch appears to be even a greater cause of the misuse of public funds than the inadequacies of the legislation passed by the Congress. The trio of George Bush, Henry Paulson and Neal Kashkiri are beginning to look like Larry, Moe and Curly--except they're wasting amounts of public funds that few of us can even imagine.

And like I said, some Congressmen spent more time crafting earmarks to benefit lobbyists for the likes of wood arrow manufacturers in Alaska than actually thinking about how the bailout bill might have been improved.


You leave the intial problem of HOW THIS BEGAN blameless ?? You say the congress is a "minor perpetrators" ? Both Democrat and Republicans in the congress are the MAJOR players in what happened and what is happening !

[Guest]

There are no "minor" players in this debacle. The Democratic congressional leadership screamed for this bank bailout and the Republican Treasury Secretary and financial advisor herd fueld the fires. THEY ALL have unclean hands, and they are equally dirty.

I've seen a lot of con games in my life, and most of them have the "mark" having to act quickly, or else they will miss out on the bargain, or there will be catastrophic results. This has all the trappings of a con game where there are just more zeroes at the end of the number on the check.

I posted the above regarding the auto industry bailout, and made similar comments when the financial bailout was going down. WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN that lame-duck sessions are the stages for the greatest rip-offs?

NOW the auto industry is getting $15Billion, but we are supposed to feel good because the number is smaller than the original amount, and there will be a "car czar." What utter BS! ! !

P.T. Barnum was RIGHT!