I belive someone should tell the republicans that this is not the time to use your party doctrine as a voting tool. To stick to your philosphical guns now is a recipe for deep animosity later on.

The part of me that watches my retirement nest-egg shrink in value wants the bailout to succeed.

The part that cares about long-term progress for America wants it to fail. The Wall Street Ponzi scheme needs to be smashed, and its perpetrators brought to justice. Unfortunately there are lots of Democrats who have been enablers and beneficiaries. I'm proud of Peter Defazio and Earl Blumenauer for standing up against the leadership on this issue.

For the record this bill was defeated with bipartisan support, 94 Dems joining 130 Repubs, including our own Rep DeFazio.

Maybe now they will take their time and craft a less hurried, more intelligent bill that doesn't socialize business losses.

Hey, purity ideologues, you must be so happy to have joined forces with the right wing in bringing down the country. The Dow is down 700 plus and there is a panic underway. Good job! Warren Buffet was right: CNN and CNNMoney.com staff September 28, 2008: 11:40 AM ET

New York) -- Legendary investor Warren Buffett warned Congressional leaders Saturday night of "the biggest financial meltdown in American history" if they did not act to secure the financial system.

Is this the time to invest a bunch of money in the market (since it's at a low point)? Or is this the time to keep pulling money out (since it's going to keep plunging)?

The answer depends on your needs. If you are still in for the long-term, buy. I put a big chunk of cash back in today when it dropped. When it has another big drop, I will buy some more.

If you want to make money in the market, the rules are simple: Buy LOW sell HIGH. It seems simple, but you would be shocked at how many people do exactly the opposite.

Jack Roberts:

As I listened to this on C-SPAN, my first thought was whether this would cost Republican votes that were unhappy about this bill in the first place.

*** And apparently some Republicans got their pout on and voted no.

*** Will someone please find some grown-ups to act, as John McCain is fond of saying, "Country First".

Sheesh.

Randy2

Merkley and fellow anti-bailout Dems should be prosecuted for their recklessness. Merkley shows that he is nothing more than a craven politicaster.

@ Jack Roberts

Let me get this straight. The Republican House members feelings were hurt do they voted against the best interests of the country. Barney Frank promises he will go and talk nice to at least 12 of those who were willing to vote for it, so they will feel better and change their vote in favor of the Bank Rescue bill. House Republicans.. the Dow is down almost 800 pts, but the important thing is their feelings were hurt. These macho Republicans... they are so manly.

@ Paul-"You know who suffers in recessions. Poor folks, the ones we're supposed to be helping."

Well stated, Paul. There is popular delusion in the progressive blogosphere that the financial and credit markets are removed from our lives. We are going to suffer and the farther down we are in income status, the more we are going to suffer. When credit is frozen, when financial markets lose all their value, the economy of everyday is destroyed. Think on that "progressive" friends! We seem to have lost the cultural memory of the Great Depression. Well I have sat at my grandparents and parents feet and saw the suffering in their stories and on their faces. There is some pretty cavalier thinking here, a lot of whistling past our own graveyard.

@ Jack Roberts

More on the Republican blame game from Ben Smith of Politico: "McCain blames Obama, not House GOP, for House vote... It's going to be a hard case to make though. About two-thirds of House Democrats supported the bill. About two thirds of House Republicans -- whom McCain had explicitly returned to Washington to work -- voted against it. And isn't it about time to retire that "phoned it in" line?"

Note to Nancy Pelosi: if you need to woo the oposition to pass 'crisis' legislation, don't go to the floor right before the vote and give a speech railing against the opposition pretending the crisis is all there fault.

Oh....and try getting your own party strongly on board first.

I belive someone should tell the republicans that this is not the time to use your party doctrine as a voting tool.

These weren't republicans. They were Republicans. Big difference.

Fair or not, Republicans have a convenient scapegoat for the defeat of this measure in Nancy Pelosi.

Jack: You're making a jackass of yourself trying to come up with pro-Republican spins to defend the indefensible. Check this link and scroll down to Update III. In case you think I'm saying that because I'm a Democrat you couldn't be more wrong. I've spent a lot of time hammering the Dems on this site over the last few weeks. I have no more use for the Democratic party than the Republican and I have no more use for Nancy Pelosi than I do John Boner.

This bill should have been shot down and its proponents run out of Washington. It was a ramrod job from the start with senate and house hearings getting input only from its proponents who wanted another blank check like the one Congress gave Bush to go to war while using similar tactics. The committee leaders are all on the banking industry payrolls.

I'm no economist, but when 400 economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, opposed this bill that's more than good enough for me. I don't have time to provide you with links, but if you want the education you need, Google for "Joseph Stiglitz" and "William Greider" for what they have to say on this attempted ripoff.

Don't negotiate with terrorists.

If you negotiate with terrorists they might let you go this time, but they'll just ramp up the hostage-taking ever after.

Kudos to the House. Let them kill Wall Street. If not, they'll be back for everything else.

Jeff Merkley came out against the rescue of our financial system. In terms of prosecution, who knows? Bank robbery?

Jack Roberts sez: "You need to understand that the House Republicans are largely free market populists; they aren't Wall Street Republicans."

"Free market populist"? I think this probably means something like "Don't bother me with things like minimum wage, organizing rights for unions, and environmental protections, but do come bail me out when the house I built in a flood zone gets trashed...AGAIN."

Peter Bray? Whazzup, man? Back from another guided tour of Potemkin villages in Tibet?

I am neither a politician nor an economist, but from what I can see the wheels are coming off the US banking system and nobody on Wall Street or Capitol Hill seems to care. I hope to retire in 10 or 15 years and like tens of millions of people I am relying on my rapidly disappearing 401k plan to fund my retirement. Politicians, Wall Street bankers and voters all need to grow a pair and do what is necessary to fix this mess now. Quit bitching about who, what, where and when and DO SOMETHING INTELLIGENT!!!!

Thank God my wife is a PERS Tier I participant or we would really be up the creek, but I have to wonder how badly the Oregon taxpayers are willing to be screwed in order to prop up public pensions in the face of Wall Street panic and collapse. Paying a guaranteed 8% return in the face of massive market losses probably can't go on forever.

NPR's "Talk of the Nation" devoted hour one to the bailout failure, and hour two to churches involved in political advocacy (mostly, of course, on the Republican side).

Made me think...

Let's just tax church property to pay for a bailout! I think it's what god would want.

When the stock market goes down another 2-3 thousand points, and the credit system is even more frozen than it is, so that the remaining banks and financial institutions stop lending to each other, and businesses no longer can get the line of credit they need to function, none of this argumentation will really matter. Because we will be screwed, all of us. And that is where we're headed as the far right and left wing massage themselves with their delightful and righteous ideology.

A few thoughts:

The government should not allow short term stock market fluctuations to be used as extortion. The government should choose policy with the long-term health of the economy in mind, along with other important societal values.

We do not know what may have occurred before Pelosi's floor speech. She may have already known that the Republicans leadership would not come up with the negotiated 100 votes in favor, so she took the opportunity to scold the GOP. Perhaps her speech was to communicate this to Democratic members, freeing them from the necessity of coming up with the 117 votes to uphold the Dems' side of the bargain.

Though this plan is far better than Paulson's original, it is still a giveaway to the folks with he most responsibility for creating the mess. Though the House Republican ideas to eliminate capital gains tax and deregulate even farther must be opposed by Democrats, a better plan can be constructed. Perhaps negotiations will go forward between the Senate and the House Dems, who can supply all the votes needed there if the plan suits them.

Democrats and Republicans are to blame for this lack of consensus.

Nancy Pelosi put on an exemplary showing of weak leadership. When you have 95 in your own party voting against it, you are not a respectable, admirable leader.

Republicans are to blame for their economic philosophy which propagated deregulation for so long that the provision in the Glass Steagall Act barring investment banks from buying stake in retail banks was gutted in 1999.

This gutting under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 allowed an investment bank like Washington Mutual to buy ownership in local, retail banks that handed out all these bad loans to individuals who couldn't pay it back.

These local, retail banks defaulting and going belly up in turn caused the investment bank to hold bad debt which caused runs on these banks as investors pulled their money out as fast as they could.

Both sides are to blame. The Democrats for not having the balls and influence in their own party to hold their own members to line and the Republicans for their failed, irrelevant economic philosophy.

This blame game needs to stop now!! There is a crisis that needs to be dealt with before it sinks the Nation. Please note that is NATION not Wall Street. Like it or not this Nation depends on the availability of credit to function, without available credit our Nation will stop functioning.

At any given time there is roughly a 3-5 day supply of food in most Metropolitan areas. Normally that is not a problem as there is also an existing system that replaces food sold from the shelf with fresh stock so smoothly that the public does not realize how small the in store inventory is. But that system runs on credit. Take away that credit and the existing system stops working and the food stops moving. While it is possible to convert the system to run on cash, I do not believe that can accomplished before the shelves go bare and the food riots start. Yes, this is an extremely pessimistic prediction and is somewhat unlikely, BUT it is possible.

So lets, deal with the crisis now and assign the blame later during the investigation of why which should be the next step, AFTER the credit system is patched up.

YoungOregonMoonbat wrote:

Democrats and Republicans are to blame for this lack of consensus.

Since almost everyone in the House is either Democrat or Republican, this does not add much to the discussion. The Paulson plan, even as ammended, is a gift to the rich and a reward to poorly run business. The House Republicans, genuine moonbats, support even less regulation of the market and further give aways to the wealthy in the form of elimination of the capital gains tax. No one with any sense who cares about the American people could reach consensus with the wrong-headed minority caucus.

It seems as if the OR Dem delegation has just send a giant "FU" to those of us with 401k plans or investment accounts. I would be happy to participate in a socialist economy where we each give according to our ability and we each receive according to our needs, but so far I don't see that happening. Until that utopia is reached, I would like to see every politician make intelligent choices that are not based upon party politics. Crashing the capitalist marketplace may be a worthy and intelligent goal for Oregon Dems, but I would like a little advance notice, please!

If business cannot provide credit enough to keep the economy moving, government should. I know where we can find $700 billion to get started.

Good for Defazio and company. What we were being offered was the chance to bail out the loan sharks to save the casino. And putting the Mafia in charge of the whole thing.

Eric Janszen authored a piece titled The next bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow's big crash in February 2008's Harper's, which claims that a burst bubble tends to deflate until realistic valuation is reached. Janszen estimates real estate will deflate for another six years, and that the FIRE economy will require $12 trillion to reach stability.

Let's see, the REPUBLICAN President comes to the Democratically dominated House to ask for a bail out of REPUBLICAN crafted mess (I know BC signed a piece of it) and you "Democrats at fault" folk think the Democrats should have eaten the discredit alone? Pelosi/Hoyer delivered their half of the Party, the REPUBLICANS did not. THEIR mess, THEIR President and it is the Democrats job to bandaide it with an upopular action all alone? Boehner promised 50% and did not deliver and that is Pelosi's fault?

Fine, screw it, write a Democratic Bill and dare BushCo to veto it, it won't be what he wants or the Repubs want, so make them eat it. Simply seize them, all the plutocrats lose, if you're gonna do socialism - do it. Then coyote can howl, until then, shut it puppy.

Po, Po Flack Roberts, somebody said something mean about his Republicans on the House floor - well, she could have said the absolute truth about them and that would've been mean. Right Flack, Bill Clinton signed that piece of crap (since you think Hillary is so great) but it was written and passed by your beloved Republicans or would you have that inconvenient fact ignored with your Flackery? You get funnier and sadder with the passage of mere days as you keep bringing silliness to a pretty informed site - try RedState, they're ignorant tools.

Posted by: Fair and Balanced | Sep 29, 2008 12:12:09 PM

The part that cares about long-term progress for America wants it to fail. The Wall Street Ponzi scheme needs to be smashed, and its perpetrators brought to justice.

I agree.

and also: Posted by: artsasinic | Sep 29, 2008 3:28:10 PM

Good for Defazio and company. What we were being offered was the chance to bail out the loan sharks to save the casino. And putting the Mafia in charge of the whole thing.

I also agree.

To whoever asked (Kari?) about if this is a good time to buy stocks, somebody else answered: Buy low, sell high.

Buy tomorrow and Wednesday, sell on Thursday when the House votes on something better.

But only if you are a trader with the nerves of a trader.

Otherwise, don't kid yourself.

You will ending up selling at the bottom (following the herd) and buying back in after the run up (again following the herd).

Or otherwise, do a Buffet and buy and hold. Rarely, if ever, does he sell.

ALERT: sickeningly personal.

Single mother here, raising a magical young man. Just enough intelligence to experience continuously entertaining existential angst.

Negligible retirement or assets, striving to correct that so I do not hang like a massive obelisk round the neck of my child and his family. After all, I'm not gonna be a peaceable old lady. Or healthy, my guess.

Wall Street and assorted minions seem jealously bent upon asserting certain aspects of "nasty, brutish and short" as being the life for me.

Either I'm feeling intensely stifled rage, or this is what it means to be sickened with helplessness. I won't tell you what happened to my piffling few dollars TODAY.

Jesus.

There important reasons why this bailout bill failed and should have.

There was a conspiracy between Paulson, Bernanke, Cox and the Senate and the House, Democratic and Republican committee members, to sell the store to Paulson and Co. Not surprising when you observe how much the many members of these committees (and Obama and McCain) received in legal bribes for their campaigns from the banking industries.

Check the data on House and Senate committees at the Center for Responsive Politics web site.

I listened to the House debate and heard at least two supporters of the bill concede it wasn't the best bill possible. If we are talking about 700 billion dollars then let's get this bill in much better shape than this con job Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, their committees and other bandits offered. Wall Street and the economy are in a mess, but there is no reason why Congress can't take another couple of weeks to get such a monumental bill right - except more people will have a chance to become better informed and less likely to go along with getting screwed.

Posted by: John Calhoun | Sep 29, 2008 4:26:25 PM

As one of the few on this site who is near retirement, I resent those who blow off the markets. I have no pension so my future income is based upon the ability to earn a return on my 401k and personal investments. This is also the story for most of the non-government workers in retirement.

John, sorry you took it in the shorts today. You can just work an extra few years to make up for the losses you took today.

Maybe you should have gotten a job like Torrid Joe, aka citizen Mark Bunster, who got paid all day long today, and was also busy updating his blog and commenting here, there and everywhere while getting his government pay. His boss doesn't seem to mind him doing that, since Bojack tattled on him a while ago, to no effect.

Most of the folks here are also state workers with PERS (you remember, the retirement plan that goes up if the stock market goes up, and if the market goes down 8% today and 25% this year, their PERS will 'only' go up the guaranteed 8% gain the negotiated through their unions. They have no sympathy for saps like you who pay taxes; they prefer to benefit from other people's taxes.

How do I know most people who comment here are state workers?
Two reasons: 1) many have self identified as such, and 2) the volume of comments drops off completely after 5pm, when government workers hear that whistle blow, clock out and stop their internet activity.

So John, no sympathy for you!

What should we be looking for to fix this mess?

1. Pelosi said the message is "the party is over for Wall Street," but the failed bill didn't really do that. How about imposing some strict limits on:
2. how large any financial firm can get
3. how much they can pay their execs
4. how much incentive they can add to the pay
5. how long they have to hang on to any stock options before they can sell (I suggest 10 years!)

6. how they can raise capital (leverage)

7. Go after the schemers who made off with billions in salary and bonuses through their pyramids. Exact prison terms and restitution if they committed criminal acts, and if they didn't just tax the hell out of them -- yes, after the fact; sorry.

8. Place a moratorium on all mortgage foreclosures, then develop some criteria to determine whether the borrower was really speculating or just following the lender's rules in buying an owner-occupied home. Then let the speculators be damned.

9. Take over any failing institutions and structure them so they can be split up into medium-size businesses that would compete with each other on the basis of service, not behemoths that can act like monopolies.

There's a program for you.

Sal

To answer you question on why more don't act like Peter? Peter can act like this because he doesn't have an opponent for reelection. I am sorry, if Mayor Leiken would have decided to run against him this election his diatribe would most likely had been different.

Ponder this, if you are one of those who wants to "stick it to Wall St."

From ABC economic consultant today: "I don't care if you're a big corporation, a small business, an individual trying to send your kid to college, or buy a car or buy a house, it is virtually impossible to get a loan in this country.

Larry, something tells me that you don't know much about public employees and their retirement plans. Let me tell you about federal employees. The old system that amounted to a pension plan--retirement income as a specified fraction of one's salary at retirement--was abolished during the Reagan Administration, although people who were covered under it are "grandfathered" in. Federal employees hired after 1986 pay into Social Security like everyone else, and have the option to contribute to the Federal Employee Retirement System, which amounts to a 401(k) plan, with Uncle Sam matching in small part. There are NO guaranteed returns under FERS.

Larry, something tells me that you don't know much about public employees and their retirement plans. Let me tell you about federal employees. The old system that amounted to a pension plan--retirement income as a specified fraction of one's salary at retirement--was abolished during the Reagan Administration, although people who were covered under it are "grandfathered" in. Federal employees hired after 1986 pay into Social Security like everyone else, and have the option to contribute to the Federal Employee Retirement System, which amounts to a 401(k) plan, with Uncle Sam matching in small part. There are NO guaranteed returns under FERS.

On the business of credit, I hear from college instructors that students depending on loans are in a bad way because of the credit crunch. It ain't just Wall Street.

Oh LARRY, one more thing, the Oregon PERS no longer has that guaranteed return stipulation. This went away in the reforms that were passed early in Kulongoski's first term.

On the other hand, your rampant speculation about these matters, and your raging resentment based on vapor, seem fully intact.

Larry writes: "Most of the folks here are also state workers with PERS"

joel dan retorts: "There are NO guaranteed returns under FERS."

PERS and FERS... hmmm, the "P" key on my keyboard is pretty far from the "F" key. No typo there!

Confused, joel dan?

PERS is state, FERS is federal.

Still confused?

Ask your boss. He/she is very familiar explaining basic government things to his/her low level government employees.

Ponder this, if you are one of those who wants to "stick it to Wall St."

From ABC economic consultant today: "I don't care if you're a big corporation, a small business, an individual trying to send your kid to college, or buy a car or buy a house, it is virtually impossible to get a loan in this country.

That may be applicable today, but if the Congress can get a temporary injection of integrity and come up with an honest plan - admittedly that will be a formidable challenge - then ten days or two weeks from now the country will be in better shape under such a plan than it would have been if today's scam had gone through.

One of the biggest problems is that too many people are too easily scared. In 2002 it was mushroom clouds if we didn't get Saddam Hussein's (non-existent) WMDs. In 2003 Congress was stampeded into voting for the Patriot Act even if they never read it and had little idea what was in it. Now we are heading into another Great Depression. We do have one justification for depression. Observing this nation of sheep. (Sorry, Chris, but I still believe this analogy fits.)

Larry, I described two things:

FERS: Federal employee retirement system. As I explained, it's like Social Security (which you have) plus an optional 401(k), which I'll bet you also have.

PERS: Oregon public employee retirement system. Since the Kulongoski-sponsored reforms passed in his first term, there are NO guaranteed returns.

But go ahead, don't let facts get in the way of your resentment about the nonexistent cushy deals that public employees get.

Larry, I described two things:

FERS: Federal employee retirement system. As I explained, it's like Social Security (which you have) plus an optional 401(k), which I'll bet you also have.

PERS: Oregon public employee retirement system. Since the Kulongoski-sponsored reforms passed in his first term, there are NO guaranteed returns.

But go ahead, don't let facts get in the way of your resentment about the nonexistent cushy deals that public employees get.

I LOVE IT!!! I can count on DeFazio to vote correctly at least 66% of the time (how I wish he was currently running against Gordo), but I'm pleasantly surprised that Wu & Blumenauer didn't tow the line. Ultimately it was Republican congressman who flipped the bird to W, Pelosi & the Barney Franks of the world, but they couldn't have pulled it off without some bipartisan support. Hooley & Walden remain on my enemies list.

Brian: blame Hooley for her vote for the repeal of Glass-Steagall or the anti-consumer bankruptcy bill of 2004 but not this one. Without a final election vote to face, we can now trust that Rep. Hooley was voting her conscience and not trying to squeak thru once more in her swing district. Maybe she was trying to make up now for the aforementioned past sins, or others such as her reversal of opinion on the Estate Tax a couple of years ago.

The fallout from today's vote might be felt for years (not weeks or months) to come. As Barnhart said: shame on DeFazio, who should know better. Shame too on Blumenauer, who is smart enough to know better and is really misrepresenting his constituents in Portland, Oregon's financial/banking center. And shame on Wu, but who probably didn't know better and is clueless as ever.

Yes, DeFazio has some good ideas. Nothing precludes a Democratically-controlled DC (come Jan. 2009) from instituting the "transfer tax" or increasing the oversight (but after today, query what that means???) from Congress etc. The original proposal from Paulson was a joke but this compromise should have been an appropriate stop-gap measure until the lame ducks had quacked out of town for good.

Instead, we are in for a roller coaster ride that will make us old-timers remember Jantzen Beach. The only silver lining will be Obama's landslide win come November, but this is now a terribly poisoned chalice and the Dems who have just added more cyanide to the mix ought to be full of remorse by week's end.

It would be interesting to see how Defazio and Blumenauer would have voted if it were $700 billion for global warming mitigation, union jobs (light rail), and public housing.

Nothing precludes a Democratically-controlled DC (come Jan. 2009) from instituting the "transfer tax" or increasing the oversight...

Except campaign donations to appropriate committee members from the finance, insurance and real estate corporations. In the 2008 election cycle they gave the House Financial Services Committee (Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), Chairman; Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala), Ranking Republican) $12,803.208. These corporations gave the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee (Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D), Chairman; Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala), Ranking Member $26,729,637. That is almost 40 million to Congress, a sum that is more than adequate to buy a nice bi-partisan care package for Wall Street - and a team of skilled wordsmiths to concoct a plausible lie for the American people.

Rich R - where is your friend putting his investment bucks right now, and how?

How conflicted you good liberals must feel! You're in bed with GWB, entangled in a massive, writhing orgy of political hedonism, and ohhhhh how good it feels! But you know how embarrassed (and violated) you'll feel in the morning, which is why you're trying so hard to justify your coziness with W before the endorphins fade. Enjoy it while it lasts! When it's over you'll be wondering, "What is that bad taste in my mouth and who put it there?"

Jack Roberts, I voted for Gerald Ford and John B. Anderson for president precisely because they cared about issues and problem solving, not blame game.

Of all the times that Republicans basically called every Democrat the focus of evil in the modern world while Republicans were infallible, it is juvenile for them to say some of them changed their votes because of a speech by the Speaker.

Heard EJ Dionne speak tonite and he said that comparing what happened recently to Herbert Hoover was an insult to Hoover because he was more of an activist than the Bush folks until very recently. I know there were Democrats who voted for various kinds of deregulation, but Peter DeFazio wasn't one of them. So I have no problem with him voting his conscience--wasn't he the one who said the premise was wrong, there should have been a vote on the original Paulson plan, and then after it went down they could have written a better plan?

Time to get away from the name calling. No one was ever allowed to be offended by the remarks of Speaker Gingrich or question Speaker Hastert's comments of being the Speaker of the majority of the majority, but Speaker Pelosi has no right to freedom of speech because some Republicans might have their feelings hurt?

I recall a story that prior to the S & L problems some small town S & L owners had come to DC to ask for some common sense regulations to protect their operations and been told "We're the Reagan Administration, we don't do regulation." That turned out real well, didn't it---how much did the S & L bailout cost?

If there hadn't been derivatives, stated mortgages (where income didn't have to be proved) and other fancy financial dealings which George Bailey of Its a Wonderful Life fame wouldn't have understood, we wouldn't be in such a mess.

Did that statement insult the tender feelings of Republican politicians?

Let's get back to common sense, folks!

Looks like the morons have come out to play on this thread. My only comment is a factual one. PERS Tier I folks - like my beautiful wife who was on the OHSU faculty for many years before she went into private business - are guaranteed 8% annual returns on their accounts (except for last year's legal costs which reduced the return to something like 7.89%). My earlier post was intended to suggest that Oregon taxpayers may not be able to stomach the difference between 30% losses in the stock market and the 8% guaranteed returns to Tier I folks. Maybe most of the Tier I folks have already retired so this is not a big deal. The contrast between Tier I and my private 401k is amazing, as I am being slaughtered by the market whereas my wife keeps on getting her 8%. I was hoping for some help today from my Dem representatives, but no luck. God Bless the Oregon taxpayer!

There's a good argument for the Democrats to now turn this affair into good, progressive policy making. Read here.

There's a good argument for the Democrats to now turn this affair into good, progressive policy making. Read here.

Unfortunately, much as I respect the American Prospect darrelplant's post of Sep 30, 2008 12:00:47 AM (above) seems more based on reality than wishful thinking.

At some point this country will need to face the severity of our economic problems. This is not just another low spot in the business cycle. The Keynesian approach to infinite growth has hit the wall. We went from the burst hi-tech bubble directly into the real estate bubble, an unprecedented event. Fossil fuel use, which correlates very closely with the total economic growth in the past two centuries, cannot grow much more because of constraints on supply. And even if the supply were available, using it would hasten the climate crisis.

Globalism has led to 6+ billion people who expect to live the unsustainable lifestyle of Americans. That only makes the unsustainability more acute.

The party is just about over.

paul g.,

Breath, meditate, take your meds, whatever; but chill out.

I don't see the bill itself as the problem so much as managing the cash outlay. Given all the liquidity that has already been pumped into the economy, Congress was going to do the right thing by releasing just the first $250B. Spending that money wisely (say, actually buying up distressed mortgages instead of deadbeat securities) could well prove to provide enough short-term relief such that (a) home foreclosures can be abated and (b) lenders feel less threatened by new credit committments.

Don't get me wrong: this was not a great bill. But it was better than the other gimmick-laden proposals it was competing against. Of course, it didn't help that (a) Pelosi had no idea how to lead this effort in the House, (b) House members up for re-election didn't have the confidence to speak about the plan in basic terms which their constituents would understand, and (c) there was all this stupid talk about how the bill would usher in the age of socialism.

Excuse me if this has been stated before, but here's my question: Why can't we see the actual language in the legislation, posted on the CSPAN website? Otherwise we are buying a "pig in a poke"!

We should demand that this be posted everytime it's changed. There is no open process here at all and we are left to turst the two parties...and as a good Democrat, I'm not going to allow my party the benefit of the doubt...

If these legislators are claiming to be "taking care of all Americans," let's have the transparency to make believers out of us!

I don't think Pelosi is stupid. I think her speech was political - giving dems cover in order to give a boost to the dems in the election. She probably knew the votes were not there - from either party and so she would take a political advantage out of it. Short term thinking.

Why can't we see the actual language in the legislation, posted on the CSPAN website? Otherwise we are buying a "pig in a poke"!

If any new legislation is created in the same way the bailout bill was concocted - that is, in closed session with Wall Streeters and politicians on their payroll - you don't need to read the bill to conclude it is a safe bet it is at least a pig in a poke - more likely, a rattlesnake in a sack.

inbf wrote:

Short term thinking.

I believe the opposite is true. Short term thinking would be that such a floor speech would give House Republicans an excuse for not producing the votes they promised. Long term thinking is that those Republicans might not be around in January.

Tom, given the fact that the speaker could not get dems like DeFazio on board with a bill I think she knew it was a bad bill and would not pass. Instead of working towards a bill that could pass she just makes inflammatory grandstanding accusations. You think that is smart? Since when did the dem party behave just like the repubs? Win at all costs. It was not constructive, helped no one. This kind of politics is not healthy. Its all about the blame game, but actually both parties are looking pretty much the same these days!

inbf,

You need to follow the chronology, at least that which was made public. Congressional leaders and Paulson negotiated a bill. House Rs promised to supply 100 votes for that bill. They could not deliver, but at that point, the vote was set. Pelosi already had a deal with her caucus to supply the majority of votes as long as the Rs delivered their votes.

She could have begged, prayed, or done a striptease at that point without affecting the outcome. She decided to come out of the ruins with as much political capital as she could.

I am no Pelosi fan, but she did nothing to fault, beyond agreeing to the quasi-Paulson plan in the first place.

No, she did not work to get dems on board with the bill. It was a bad bill, and she allowed 94 or 95 dems to take political cover and vote no. (can't access the congressional website yet to check all the votes). It was a sham all the time. Many of those dems owed her and if she wanted the bill it would have happened, unless you think she is completely incompetent (which I don't). IF she had wanted this bill passed she would have handled the entire process much differently. It was just political cover and games. With our $. How are the two parties different?

Look, call me naive. But I actually believe those Repubs being interviewed. Listen to the fatigue and weight in their voices. Not much pretense there to my ear. It just was not, ultimately, something folks could sign their names to. And they had the guts to stop the train despite all protestations to disaster on the part of Paulson and company. No matter what is done me and mine will suffer; some, much or really a lot. I am convinced Pelosi had nothing to do with that outcome. Possibly some folks are starting to realize that this shit sticks to your name, folks. So do what you really want on you later.

inbf,

The deal was what the deal was. Pelosi had the votes she promised. Boenher did not. That is how the parties were different.

We both agree, along with most Americans, that it was a bad bill.

I just received this from Dennis Kucinich:

Yesterday marked a day that will go down in history, when Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike took on full responsibility to protect the interests of taxpaying Americans, and defeated the deceptive bail out bill, defying the dictates of the Administration, the House Majority Leadership, the House Minority Leadership and the special interests on Wall Street.

PS: Watch the 47 minute 'Money as Debt' animated documentary in http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279. This is a useful, though by no means definitive, introduction to the topic of debt and the monetary system. Let me know what you think.

(can't access the congressional website yet to check all the votes).

This was the vote even though the title seems irrelevant.

... and just for one more moment I am positively grief-stricken that this is not our candidate for President or at least Vice Presidence: Dennis K.

We both agree, along with most Americans, that it was a bad bill. What about the golden boy?

RENO, Nev. -- In a sweeping speech in battleground state Nevada, Obama made a direct appeal to the American people and to members of Congress to support the $700 billion rescue plan that failed to pass in the House of Representatives yesterday.

We both agree, along with most Americans, that it was a bad bill. What about the golden boy? (Obama)

He has been bought just like the rest of them

Go to the Center for Responsive Politics web site and check for Obama, McCain, Dodd, Shelby, Frank, Bachus, Pelosi and Boehner to see how much Wall Street gave to them and find out why they were so willing to sign Hank Paulson's blank check.

Then contrast their donations with Dennis Kucinich's.

This is not the only issue on whch I disagree with Obama. I have not been able to find any on which I agree with McCain, however.

Bill Clinton has some good points in the latest edition of Business Week on the liquidity bill. Hillary has also weighed in with strong support passing a bill to provide liquidity support into the markets.

On the other hand, I was a little shocked to see how stupid both Defazio and Blumenauer sounded in the statements I read today. Those guys are either morons or else someone did a hatchet job on the interview. DeFazio was making some stupid comparison to the Iraq war and Blumenauer made some silly comment about rich people with four houses getting a bailout but poor people won't. Those two guys evidently didn't even understand what they were voting on. Or maybe they found a stash of mushrooms that Earl had been saving for a special occasion and they were both high during the interview.