OT: Emergency Buy Out

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2008-09-28 at 22:21 -0700, Kurt Granroth wrote:
> I don't typically participate in OT sessions that are *this* OT... but
> here goes:
> 
> On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> > If Congress elects to provide no aid other than to federally
> > insured/underwritings and you accept the premise that without providing
> > more capital to the market place and businesses continue laying off
> > people, investment portfolios continue to devalue...
> >
> > are you willing to accept a recession, possibly a deep recession or even
> > a wide scale depression so that taxpayers do not 'bail out' private
> > interests?
> >
> > I think that is a very key question and merely tossing blame doesn't get
> > anywhere near the answer...at some point, you have to stand up and be
> > counted.
> 
> I agree that that is a very key question.  In fact, there are two key
> questions:
> 1. "[do] you accept the premise that without providing more capital to
> the market place and businesses continue laying off people, investment
> portfolios continue to devalue...[?]"
> 2. "Are you willing to accept...a depression?"
> 
> It's that first question that I have the most problem with.  Will this
> bailout really help prevent any of that or could it actually make things
> WORSE?
> 
> I consider myself relatively well-read with reasonable logical
> abilities.  I also have a better-than-most grasp of basic economics.
> Alas, this is well past anything resembling "basic economics".  The
> issues surrounding this bailout are complex enough that not even the
> most respected experts in the field can agree on exactly what this will
> do or won't do.
> 
> In cases like this, I tend to favor the opinions of people I have
> trusted in the past.  Ron Paul, for as much as I disagree with him on so
> many fundamental issues, is almost *prophetic* when it comes to issues
> like this.  I've read things he wrote and transcripts of speeches he
> gave YEARS that sounded like he could be describing exact details of
> what is happening now.  His case against the bailout is pretty compelling.
> 
> I've long admired the Motely Fool crew for their reasoned analysis on
> the business market.  Now, it appears that they are almost universally
> against this bailout as they perceive it to be a massive disaster in the
> making.
> 
> Over and over, the people that I have trusted in the past and have grown
> to trust recently all say the same thing: Not only will this bailout
> likely not help, but it could very well (almost surely will, according
> to some) make things worse!
> 
> In light of that, I cannot accept your initial premise.  Therefore, I
> *am* willing to "risk" not acting in that fashion, knowing that if I
> (and all the people I've trusted) are wrong, that the result could be
> horrendous.
> 
> One last thing: The one aspect of this that seems pretty clear to even
> me is that the bailout will almost surely negatively impact "normal"
> people in a very short order.  That's because pumping so much made up
> money into the economy can only make our already weak dollar plummet
> even more.  Us "normal" people are already noticing the skyrocketing
> cost of everyday items as a result of the weak dollar.  If it gets even
> weaker (as it surely will), then we can only expect things to get much
> much worse.
----
thanks for the well reasoned reply - I share your pessimism but not
necessarily your point of view. Of course experts do not agree.

I think you have broken my question down in a way that differed from my
intentions but I do see your point that the economy is essentially
broken and it may not be materially affected by any 'bailout' or more
specifically the 'bailout' itself might just further deteriorate the
economy.

It seems to me to be far more important to concentrate on the
determining the best possible course of action at this point. In the
end, it appears that what you are saying is that the best course of
action is to let things play out...even if it means the economic
collapse of our current system, probably because that is probably the
only way it could ever get fixed. I do wonder though, if the people in
this country will be any better off if we were to emerge from a
significant collapse of the economy.

Certainly the weakness of the US dollar is caused by the fact that they
simply continually print money without ever balancing the books but over
the past 30 years, that has been the standard MO of Republican
presidencies. Perhaps it was just the luck of the draw but the people in
this country prospered under Clinton and we made significant inroads
towards paying down the national debt during his presidency.

Clearly the arabs and the Chinese have been buying our debts because
they need our markets and they have subsidized an incredibly costly
venture into Iraq which will be left for future generations to pay.

Craig