DISQUS

Brian · 1 year ago

The Constitution of the United States of America
Bill of Rights

Amendment I: Freedom of speech, religion, press, petition and assembly.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

On this day the 19th of September in the year 2008 we hereby issue an invitation to affix your name upon the petition for a redress of grievances.

“The Use of Taxpayer Monies to Bailout Fraudulent Bankers Shall Be Prohibited”

The Citizens assembled of the Republic of the United States of America hereby declare to the Congress of the same that they shall not continue to raid the People’s Treasury to resolve the immoral and illegal practices of lenders and speculators in the Domestic and Foreign Markets. The Moral Hazard of private profits and public losses has resulted in an imbalance in the Treasury creating a deficit that threatens the foundations of this Republic. The duly elected servants of the People have betrayed the trust bestowed upon by the Founding Fathers and signatories of the Constitution of the United States of America by putting financial interests ahead of and to the detriment of the will of The People thereby forfeiting those positions of responsibility. We the signers of this petition strongly protest the fiscal malfeasance of those who have sworn to uphold the laws and protect the interests of The People and call on those individuals who will not cease the illegal raiding of the Treasury to resign forthwith. Those that stand against the tyranny of moneyed interests and with the taxpaying citizens of the Republic are hereby urged to hold fast against the immoral and shameful behavior of those seeking bailouts. We urge all that sign to copy and disseminate this petition as widely as possible throughout the Republic. Together we can restore the People’s interests.

John H · 1 year ago

Where do I sign this petition prohibiting the $700B Fed bailout?

daltonsbriefs · 1 year ago

Terrific post, I've been hoping that conservatives would start talking about the government's role in causing this crisis in the first place. The problem isn't too little regulation, but far too much.

As a home builder I watched governments at local, state and national level regulate our industry to the point of collapse. As a mortgage lender I've now watched regulations raise the cost of obtaining a home, raise the cost of overhead to all participants, and somehow reduce the market's belief in what used to be the strongest credit market in the world.

Topcat · 1 year ago

What?? How was this industry 'regulated to the point of collapse'? There are millions of foreclosures in play now for loans written to people who were in no way qualified to support. How was that a problem created by regulation?? In turn, there were millions of homes made to meet this artificial demand.

No idea how you can put this one on the government. Just another Wall Street Ponzi scheme is all.

nidhogge · 1 year ago

Because of the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates to ridiculous levels and manipulating the market and the Bush administration's encouraging of Predatory lending practices, which is EXACTLY WHAT lending to people who were in no way qualified is. If you give these banks the opportunity to lend with no risk of failure, then lend they will do. They won't be suffering, the people that will suffer are the common taxpayers.

Government intervention in the markets is what caused this mess, and you have to let the markets flush out the crap on their own and not prolong the agony with these ridiculous regulations and bailouts. We haven't ever had a true free market in this country, particularly after 1913 when the Fed was created. Our whole country would be wealthy if we had no absurd income tax or big government intervening left and right.

Topcat · 1 year ago

Another point. Why all the worry about 'the marked to market rules'? Again, Free Marketers are always on the hunt to put the blame on some regulation as the cause of a market-induced problem. Any buyer of this debt is free to disregard the regulatory rule for valuation and apply their own, so that can hardly be cause of the credit seizure. The seizure is a result of a lot of bad, bad loans being written that shouldn't have been.

And in no case was any one of those loans EVER written with a government gun to the head of the mortgage broker who booked it, or the bank that bought it, or the underwriter that securitized it, or the rating company that rated it, or the insurer who insured it. Those were ALL private market decisions made one-by-one by people that should have known better.

This forum is a case study in cognitive dissonance. As True Believers, you cannot bear to put this one on the workings of a Free Market, so you get busy trying to blame the Guv'ment for the stupid, greedy actions of Wall Street. As JK Galbraith said:

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

nidhogge · 1 year ago

Wrong.

Again, the Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates and Bush's encouraging of predatory lending practices...read this article by Eliot Spitzer:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Maybe you'll have an idea why he got busted on prostitution by the Federal Government (remember, prostitution is a state legality issue and it's not legal for the Federal Government to regulate it) after he took Bush to school here.

Downhill in So. Calif. · 1 year ago

The mortgages that should be "bailed out" lie in the hands of the citizens on Main Street, not the giants on Wall Street. The "trillion" dollars or so, should be used to assist all Americans directly, to bring their mortgage debt in line with market values. This would free up dollars on Main Street to be spent, on Main Street, and begin reinvestment where it will do the most good, at the neighborhood shops, maket, and stores. To "bail" out Wall Street leaves us citizens powerless to renegotiate with the banks and will exponentially increase the forclosure rate.

Wake up and write Congress and the President. NOW!

mickey · 1 year ago

I dont think that these people should get a bail out on a mortgage that they cant pay for as a home owner you should understand in full before you sign the loan papers. I bought my house when I was 22 yrs old and have never been late on one. My husband lost his job due to military obligations we had no income for a 1 1/2 mon. but we never missed a payment why because we bought a house we could afford. Im sorry but I dont feel sorry for these people.

txrain · 1 year ago

The new USSR:

United States Socialist Republicans

txrain · 1 year ago

Maybe Palin can get her witchdoctor evangelist to help.

chris · 1 year ago

topcat please reread the article. I think you missed the part on how Gov't regulations, such as the affordable housing mandates requiring lenders to take on risky and outright stupid loans so as to avoid the wrath of the Gov't. Why would a lending agency loan money to someone it believed wouldn't it pay back? Because it was regulated by the Gov't to do so. A free market left alone to be free will always work. When a Gov't sets regulations dictating how the market should behave for social engineering purposes the "free" market fails. There is plenty of blame to go around but the solution needs to be a drastic and sweeping reform of Gov't and what its actual responsibilities are in regards to our financial markets. This crisis will be looked upon as the "good ole days" when Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security collapse. We the people need to decide whether we want to become another failing socialist society like all of Europe or go back the the free and prosperous democratic republic we once were. There is no middle ground.

Topcat · 1 year ago

No need for a re-read, Chris. The article merely ASSERTS this as the cause of the problem, it doesn't provide factual evidence in support of that assertion. Ironically, i just got done reading one of the WSJ articles cited in one of these stories in support of the ASSERTION that this problem was caused by Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. In it, the author offers that Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac went from writing 6% of the sub-prime loans to 20% of the total sub-prime loans written in an effort to curry favor from Congress regarding their GSE status. From this, they concluded that this was the 'driving force' behind the collapse. That is a bizarre conclusion to draw. Using their own math, that means at the outset of this mania, 94% of the loans were written by regular banks, and ultimately this dropped down to a mere 80%. So from that, we're supposed to get that the minority portion of the loans booked by the FMs was the driving force of the problem?

There are mountainous journalistic accounts of how these loans were marketed, and compliance with Fair Housing regulations were NOT a major consideration for these mortgage broker houses and banks. The boiler-room mentality was rampant, and the degree of fraud and deceit on the part of lenders was appalling. The willful ignorance of the actual facts here is amazing. I know of a person who got over $2 million in loans for 10 different properties, while having (unverifiable) self-employment income of less than a $100,000/year. All of the loans were piggy-backed, with 2nd mortgages on the early properties used as the down payments on the others. NONE of the loans were done as FHA loans, so none of the lenders had a governmental gun to their head to write the loans.

You ask how it could be that lenders would be so stupid as to lend money they knew couldn't be paid back? Can't the question as easily be asked why would a borrower commit to a mortgage they had no ability to pay back? The stupidity and greed cuts both ways, but the facts are the facts.
Market manias are time-honored, and they were occuring long before there was the bogeyman of 'Government' to lay the blame on. Free Marketers hate it when the marketplace demonstrates its capacity for irrational behavior, but it is a fact of life.

Look it, to see these facts doesn't mean you have to believe socialism is the answer. If you can bring yourself to get past the dogma and rhetoric of your blind faith in the marketplace, the thing to look at are the key ingredients of market bubbles. Certain conditions have to arise for their creation, and after nearly 60 years of of seeing only minor marketplace bubbles, we've seen 3 MAJOR cycles in the last 10 years (dot.com, housing, and now oil). That is a factual reality that cannot be dismissed. If you don't want the US to 'go 'socialist', then capitalism's defenders need to think harder about the cause of these problems instead of burying their heads in the sand, and trying to put the blame somewhere other than where it lies. This should be a design question: What is it about the DESIGN of our financial marketplace that is keeping it from working.

A

nidhogge · 1 year ago

F-E-D-E-R-A-L R-E-S-E-R-V-E

There, spelled it out for you. Go research Hayek's work, in particular, the work he received a Nobel Prize for.

John Wheeler · 1 year ago

I am again writing to express my disgust with our Senate and Congress in advance for once again abdicating their constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch by legislating a blank check to the treasury department with only the slightest pretense of oversight. I am amazed that the Fed has the audacity to tell congress to pay the full future value of the notes when the banks themselves will only pay a fraction of that price. The note should only be bought as a last resort, at fire-sale prices, and should be backed by the banks assets as well as the CEO’s personal assets. This is the way it works when banks loan to small business’s and the banks should be treated accordingly. It appears Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, like Secretary Paulson has drunk the Kool-Aide and favors the interest of their Wall Street cronies over the interest of our country. The congress is responsible for America's budget and should individually deal with the bank failures, letting the worst institutions fail and only addressing the victims’ losses. The American Taxpayer should exchange adequate health care and a good education for their children so these Fat Cats can continue raping and pilfering America. Please let them drown in their greed, and get control the remaining institutions with rigid regulations to prevent recurrence. I, like many of the Electorate, am mad as hell and will not be held hostage by Bush and his band of thieves as they flush America down their toilets. In the end, the buck stops with the Congress and I, like many Americans, will watch this play out; in six weeks I will give each participant an UP or DOWN VOTE. I am respectfully asking that you represent America, and not the greedy corporate interest that many of our representatives have chosen to serve. Please do not bail out these thieves. Respectfully, an American Taxpayer.

coronada_xv · 1 year ago

Bush, et al, are trying to scare us. We must pass this quickly, they say, or disaster ensues. Why not let the billionaires buy up this bad debt, the result of Washington and Wall Street greed and deregulation. Why not use the money, instead, to shore up the FDIC or make a minuscule dent in the national debt?

Shirley Burgess · 1 year ago

Lif the mark to market regulation and lets try that avenue first before more banks go bellie up.

DOUG · 1 year ago

NEW BAIL OUT PLAN. GIVE EVERY HOME OWNER $100.000.00 TO PAY OFF SOME OF THE HOME LOAN. THIS WILL BOOST THE ECONOMY. AND COST LESS.