the latest bailout (for the rich, the only entitled bailout group in America) exposed

Posted on September 23, 2008 by Lessig

The ever-fantastic Sunlight Foundation has a launched a Public Markup of the Financial Industry Bailout Bill. Check it out here.

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10 Responses to the latest bailout (for the rich, the only entitled bailout group in America) exposed

  1. NM says:
    September 23, 2008 at 7:03 pm

    $700 BILLIONS.
    With that much money, we could go to MARS.
    Eradicate world hunger, engineer fusion reactors, cure AIDS and what not.
    Instead, the US gov’t is going to bail out the mess created by Wall Street a*holes, who, incidentally, are comfortably living their unemployment in (one of) their yacht. Look at the bonuses Merryl Lynch, Lehman and others have doled out in the past few years.
    This is sick. This money should be confiscated. Those assets should be redistributed to the people.
    As for the sunlight fix? Well, that’s nice. Thing is, where in the media is it going to be discussed? Will News Corp.’s empire talk about it?

  2. Eddie says:
    September 23, 2008 at 7:24 pm

    Before we get all hot and bothered about the “rich” with a subtly implied suggestion that this favors only or mostly Republicans, let us not forget this VERY important fact:

    Mark to market accounting rule changes (which were subverted by some very nasty people) has played a large role in how we got to this point (microcosm of mark to market was the dot com boom / bust). So we are now seeing the “bust” size of the boom.

    Mark to market accounting represents a fundamental change to the system. This fundamental change was blessed under the watchful eyes of the Clinton / Gore administration in the second half of the 1990s.

    Notice that the Clintons and the Gores have become quite wealthy in the past 10 years (they, too, knew how to subvert the system).

  3. Steve Baba says:
    September 23, 2008 at 8:19 pm

    You do realize that although the details are fuzzy about the auction mechanism, the government is not bailing them out at 100 cents on the dollar. The proposed bailout is current market prices, such as 40 cents on the dollar.

    If everyone defaults, the securities will fall to 0 cents on the dollar, costing taxpayers $2,000 each.

    But once economic genius Obama (or McCain) becomes president, the economy will become better (most likely by regression to the mean) foreclosures/defaults will fall, and much more than 40 cents on the dollar will be recovered – Leading to profits to the taxpayer (not without risk).

    One should buy when there is blood in the street.

  4. Tom Poe says:
    September 23, 2008 at 8:47 pm

    Steve is wallowing in denial. Acting as if we’re still operating the corporate welfare model masking as capitalism. No bailout is needed, if one considers there’s a working model that can be implemented with nothing more than a proclamation (Paulson’s into the proclamation meme these days). Type in the term, social entrepreneurship into your favorite search engine to get up to speed.

    Instant reassurance of stability in the market place occurs. To see the model in action, visit the Grameen Bank site and take a tour. Yes, they’re doing just fine thank you. As for Paulson, he needs to proclaim that as of this afternoon, every business must follow the social entrepreneurship model, create a nonprofit division, and the world will be fine. No $1 trillion dollar giveaway present from Bush to cronies needed.

  5. Steve Baba says:
    September 23, 2008 at 10:57 pm

    I think you missed the MICRO ($100 to $500) in microcredit or microfinance of the Grameen bank model. Microfinance works well in getting Pakistani women sewing machines, but is not applicable to modern economies. In fact, microfinance only works because there is no modern finance system (to sell sewing machines on credit or rent sewing machines).

  6. Don Marti says:
    September 27, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    “Banks throughout the United States carried on with the business of making loans yesterday even as federal officials warned again that their industry is on the verge of collapse, suggesting that the overheated language on Capitol Hill may not reflect the reality on many Main Streets.” — Smaller Banks Thrive Out of the Fray of Crisis, Washington Post.

    Let the big failures fail. Less pain in the long run.

  7. Lelia Katherine Thomas says:
    September 29, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Isn’t it just grand? The government helped screw things up in the first place, and now they’re going to screw it all up even more in an attempt to “fix” their messes. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I’ve found none of this very surprising. The government (Republicans and Democrats), on the whole, has behaved in the ways it usually does.

  8. Floyd says:
    November 16, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    I was told by some one that the 700 billion was givin to the PEOPLE (TAX PAYERS ONLY)of the US that we would $150,000 EACH. Sounds kinda high! But if the assholes in washingtion want things to improve, don’t give the money to the assholes who created this shithole and have been enjoying the good life for years, give it to the American people. thoses people on wallstreet can SUCK MY DICK.

  9. jon says:
    December 2, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    The 700 billion bailout is equal to about $2500 per person in the US. It also results, over the course of a few years, in 10x that amount of debt per person. So, it creates 7 trillion new debt in the economy, which is equal to about 10% inflation of the money supply from this one single bailout action. So, 10% of everyones retirement has just been lost.

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