Great video. I see they key as the point made at 7:25 into the clip where the reserve levels of Fannie Mae were called into question. Fannie Mae’s decision to move from a mortgage packager to a mortgage package owner / investor should have subjected them to much more stringent regulation.

Franklin Raines should be indicted.

1. Insurance - the companies who climed to insure the mortgage backed securities lacked the capitalization needed to provide an effective level of insurance. The executives at the banks looked the other way and pretended that this insurance was legitimate. Otherwisw, they would have had to impar their mortgage packages over time instead of all at once. When the insurance companies went down, the banking executives all had to declare crisis simultaneously. Kind of like that scene in Casablanca where the cop says that he’s shocked to find gambling occurring here. Seems to me that Sarbanes-Oxaley requires not just reporting what you know but also reporting what your should have known. It’s time to blow the cobwebs off the Bernie Ebbers memorial handcuffs and start duck walking the bank executives out of their houses in the Hamptons. Ditto for the insurance companies, hedge funds and others who offered faux insuarance knowing they lacked the capitalization to make good on that insurance.

2. Freddie and Fannie were supposed to package risky mortgaes with less risky morgages and sell these packages in order to provide liquidity for the morgage market. Instead, they srarted buying the mortgages and holding them on their own balance sheet. This made them temporarily much more profitable and their share prices went up. But they were now in a different business that they were ever meant to be in. And it was a vastly more risky business. Meanwhile, the federal government’s implied guarantee (and it was always only implied) remained in place. The government did not share in the windfall that Freddie and Fannie’s decision to hold mortgage packages provided. Normally, a company which decides to engage in riskier business would have to pay more to its business insurer. But, the governemnt is inept, and they never charged Fannie and Freddie any more to insure this riskier business profile. In fact, in an act of incomprehensible incompetence, they never charged Fannie and Freddie anything.

Once this series of unfortunate events played out the government had to reestablish the operation of the credit market. Basically, they had to buy the bad loans back from those who held those loans. Little else would work. And Bush submitted a four page bill to do just that. Now time is the great crippler of bills. If the Republicans would have passed the bill quickly it would have been focused on restarting the credit markets. But they voted no (temporarily of course) and allowed time for the pork to be added. $25B for the auto industry, wooden arrows, etc. The real crime was letting Congress have even an hour more to add the pork.

I just can’t vote for McCain. If we have to take a loss now to put our party on the right track then that is what we have to do

‘Cuz you’re easy!

The republican party has been taken over by neo-cons…almost.

We have to win it back or give up and start another.

The Neo-Cons are using us.

Relax, I was pointing out the math error. The person was saying that everyone would get a million dollars, and that would certainly be life changing. However, $2333 would help, but it’s not going to change the average person’s life as in paying off a home or college expenses as the person indicated in the post. I even got excited and thought that was a great idea…….. until I did the math!

AMEN, AWCheney! AMEN!

I’m not one to speak badly about others, but it is you that needs a math lesson. 700 billion is
700,000,000,000 and 300 million is 300,000,000. Dividing 700 billion by 300 million does indeed equal 2333 without any extra zeros. Look up the definition and you’ll see that a billion is 1000 million. So before you start making comments about others you best check your facts, and math skills.

Also, are you aware that a portion of this money is supposed to be coming out of the Social Security Trust Fund…what there is of it? Our retirement dollars at work! I’m sorry, any way you look at this, it’s a travesty. The same people that got us into this situation will also be determining how that money gets distributed. Incompetence and greed once more rewarded. There was absolutely NOTHING sensible about this bailout. Other, more sensible plans, were offered and/or suggested but they were never considered. Let me ask you freedom…if you were in, over your head, in debt would YOU try to spend your way out of it? This has become a nation of sheep.

Seriously, is it possible that on this occasion, the economy being what it is and as complex as it is, that we, those who lack deep insight, just simply “don’t know what’s best for us”?

That’s a question, not an assertion.

Remember, Anon, this is only the “down payment”. They will be back for more (in spite of what they say). Our country has overspent. Eventually we will need continuous bailouts just to pay the interest on our bailouts.

I phone is office a number of times. Once I asked the gal what the percentage of callers wanted. She said 80% were against the bill! And this is in “liberal” Fairfax County where many people own many stocks. Still Wolf voted for this. He does not represent the people of his district.