The taxpayer bailout will equal at least $1 trillion... a figure that this country unarguably cannot do without creating worse havoc than without it. The bailout is up to $500bn right now - it will at LEAST top $1.5 tn
Folks this is socialism to a scale that is BEYOND Hugo Chavez when he took over the oil industries.
America is no longer resembling a Representative Democracy, it is becoming a socialist state...for NO other style of Gov't would take this kind of tax dollars and bail out an ENTIRE industry, an industry that is the bigger part of our entire economy.

Argue with that.

No argument from me.

You commie bastards...

America has always talked a good game re capitalism and freedom but played a rather different one. Truly a land of contrasts, its why conservatives remain confused.

Well, i don't really see the social benefits of the feds being involved in banking. This is far worse than socialism. At least in socialism the citizen actually gets social services. You are not getting any thing back for this multi-trillion dollar 'investment' - in fact america is becoming less socially secure at the same time your government is getting involved in the private sector.

Its more like kleptocracy. It certainly does not resemble anything like socialism.

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

The irony is if the government had done nothing it would had been such a massive liquidity crisis and financial disaster that it would have provided ammunition for attacks on capitalism that would have probably taken us further down that road than a few bailouts.

FEW bailouts??? FEW???

I post these thoughts in total sincerity. Absolutely no sarcasm intended . . .

There is a huge portion of the world's population (maybe a majority) that feel that before anyone makes any profit, everyone's basic needs should be met. This means they should be housed, clothed, fed, educated, and health care provided. Until those basic needs are provided, no one deserves a dime of profit.

We in the United States are moving from a productive class of workers to a leisure class society as a whole. To live the high life we need someone else to pay for our excesses. Instead of direct pay, we have invented a neat way to defer payments. We throw it all on the "Government". Someone else funds our retirement (Soc. Sec.). Someone else pays our medical during old age (Medicare). Someone else pays for our kids schooling (the property tax system).

But the price for all this is government control. If you like government freebies, then don't complain when they take over your life.

RJ

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No argument from me.
There was a time in this country when "living within your means" meant something.
Today - people no longer consider how much something cost, only what the payment would be.
Today (well before these past couple months) - the credit system was so easy to cheat, so easy to simply walk away from your debt - that one's credit score only meant what interest you would pay - not whether the loan would get approved or not.
Bad Loans were placed into "instruments" and "investment plans" and these plans were spread across AVERAGE AMERICANS in their 401k plans...in the last 5 years 401k plans - despite HUGE market gains - have consistently performed well under the very markets they were supposed to be invested in - in effect bad loans were being financed by your 401k plan, mine and everyone on this board that has/had one.
And it only gets worse and worse and worse.

Hard to argue with. But if we didn't do anything and let these financial companies fail, then what? A possible depression?

I can't believe we are at this point. I hope we've hit bottom...


Kramer

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“We should never be more vigilant than at the moment a new dogma is being installed. … The left has been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naïvely conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism.”

TheNation, June 7, 2007

Do you see any indication that the fundamental imbalances that caused it, have changed?

The government just lent the economy some time and imho if the fundamentals don't change, we're just in for a even harder fall down to a never seen before rock bottom in the future.

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

Well we don't know do we?
I say - the markets should have been suspended for 48 hrs, and an emergency meeting with appropriate members only of all 3 branches of government to at minimum discuss options with experts...but that is not what happened. What happened was 3 people...3 PEOPLE...have thusfar given away $614 bn...is that what a representative government does?
I think not.

Okay well four. I don't like the idea of bailouts at all so I'm with you on that. But I think it was a lack of regulation that has caused this and usually regulation is regarded as socialist. So we either have regulation which is labeled as socialist, bailouts which are labeled as socialist, or giant collapses that go way beyond what we have seen because they haven't been allowed to go so far. I'm wondering what you would have thought had all four companies been left alone to fall and for it to spread like wildfire out into all other financial institutions both here and globally and eventually the greater economy further than what we have seen in our lifetimes. Or would you have rather seen more over site before which again many would call socialist. I know what you are against but I'm not sure exactly which direction we should either go in or had gone it before it lead to this. I am a capitalist and I'm all for markets being as free as possible but at some point you do need ground rules and at least admit the faults it does have in order to work with it and allow it to run smoothly rather than just sticking to pure Laissez-faire dogma without any regard for the consequences.

Most people are fine with profit - it is the corruption, greed, cronyism, nepotism and malice of it all that makes them angry.

Andrew

__________________
“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

America incorporated socialist elements into the economy to stabilize it and correct its abuses in the 1930s. America reduced those socialist elements in the 1980s. America has paid the price since then in instability and greater economic abuse and inequity (but has achieved the purpose which was to allow accumulation of larger fortunes in the hands of a few rich people).

The mortgage collapse is a consequence of that retreat, and the bailout is happening because we got used to the better economy that a mix of socialism and capitalism provided and don't want to give it up by letting the collapse play out in all its classic-panic ugliness. Which means that we are trying to eat our cake and have it, because if we really want the good outcomes we need to return to the pre-Reagan economic philosophy without compromising. If it becomes more difficult for a few rich people to accumulate mega-fortunes -- cry me a river, frankly.

In short, it is incorrect to say that we became socialist on this date. We became (partially) socialist before any of us were born, and this mess happened because we have, over the last few decades, become less so.

America has always been a socialist state for the wealthy.

America has mortgaged its soul to usary. It requires true brotherhood to win it back.
Personally, I think that's beyond most Americans. The pleasure comes from rescuing the others.