http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-bailout30-2008sep30,0,682810.story?track=rss
House rejects Wall Street bailout plan
Comments ... #
Excellent!
Perhaps there is hope for our Constitution and America after all.
PS: love the sign! LOL!
posted by SillyWabbit on Sep 29, 2008 at 03:38:24 pm #
love the sign as well...
as hideous as the prospect of approving the legislation was, not passing it will prove even worse. i'd like to know the total cash value of a 700 point drop in the stock market and a sum total of the drop from all the markets. i'll bet before it is all over the total market loss will be over $700 billion. those losses are your and mine - 401(k)s, mutual funds, individual stocks.
posted by enjoyeverysandwich on Sep 29, 2008 at 03:49:11 pm #
I'm keeping calm. I don't plan on cashing out my 401k, etc for a few decades...
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2FlNmI0YjhmMmEyMjNkZGU2ZTBkNjhhYjQ2NGE0MDU=
Subject: Pelosi comments [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
Rich – I’m afraid Rep. Frank has a point on this one. Some feelings on the GOP side were hurt, so they voted against the economic well-being of the country?
Sincerely,
A very concerned GOP staffer.
09/29 03:42 PM
I checked out my rollover IRA today. I've lost over $5,000 since last year. That might not sound like much to some of you, but that's almost 25% of my bottom line.
I got so freaked, I sold off my amcap b funds.
Anyway, the relief I feel over Congress not passing it is that it would have meant the end of our capitalist society and the beginning of an even worse monster - A "State Controlled" way of life even worse than what it's become already. The government needs to bring home our soldiers and save some money and our citizens need to learn how to stop living so damned selfishly and Hedonistically. It's killing us.
posted by SillyWabbit on Sep 29, 2008 at 04:00:33 pm #
I thought I heard that the big $300 refund plan was going to jumpstart the economy.
Is this really going to bring about some positive change or more of the same?
We're down about $15 grand in 401-K and 403-B retirment funds since the peak last October (about 25 percent also). I too try not to get freaked, but that IS a substantial sum for middle class folks like us, and it took us a long time to save that much. I am staying put in my investments, though: if the economy completely tanks, and entire portfolios get zapped, that probably will coincide with a catastrophic devaluation of the dollar, meaning the $45-$50K we could liquidate from our retirement nest egg would be useful for little more than tinder for the fire we light to heat our house in the chilly Northwest Ohio winters.
Besides, by that point we'd be eating tree bark and fighting each other for the last remaining dead squirrel carcasses, so what good would a stack of currency be?
:-}
A few other thoughts:
1. Some folks have worried that the bailout plan would be a form of socialism, but at least the socialists and communists demanded control of the businesses they nationalized. The doomed bailout plan only gave the government status as a preferred creditor, with no percentage of stock in the corporations receiving the handouts (AIG excluded).
2. This is an issue that brings together free market devotees and social progressives, albeit for different reasons. It has been many years since the American masses seemingly spoke with a united voice in rejecting the bailout plan foisted on us by our DC "betters," and there is some hope to be derived from that for the future of American democracy.
3. Agreed with SillyWabbit that this is an opportunity for credit-addicted Americans to change their habits. More thoughts on my financial advice to the downwardly mobile can be found at this link, but in short: start tightening your belts. Now.
4. Re: Pelosi and her "toxic speech": I think the renegade House GOP factions siezed upon these ill-considered comments by Pelosi to justify their actions. They had serious reservations prior to the speech, and this was a way a few dozen anti-bailout Republicans could justify their change in voting. Even if Pelosi stayed quiet, they likely would have found another reason to buck the Party leadership.
5. The sign above is indeed hilarious - the only laugh I have enjoyed today, unfortunately.posted by historymike on Sep 29, 2008 at 06:41:56 pm #
This is the problem with centralized "investing"... it's secondary market stuff. P/E ratios have been way too high for quite some time. Tax laws floated that for a while. Wait til they expire. Crash.
Negative equity is the order of the day.
From wiki:
The greater fool theory (sometimes the bigger fool theory, also called survivor investing) is the belief held by one who makes a questionable investment, with the assumption that they will be able to sell it later to "a bigger fool"; in other words, buying something not because you believe that it is worth the price, but rather because you believe that you will be able to sell it to some one else for an even better price.1
It might be on some occasions a valid method of making money in the stock market – however, the market participants eventually realize that the price level is too outrageous (too high or too low) and the speculative bubble pops. The bigger fool theory relies on market optimism concerning a particular stock, an industry, or the market as a whole.
The opposite of the bigger fool theory is value investing, which tries to discount market psychology. Value investors such as Warren Buffett believe that it is corporate profits which are the normal returns from stock investments, and any higher return is only possible due to the bigger fool theory.
I figure the rejection of the bailout plan was a way for congress to save face in an election year.
They'll probably make a cosmetic change or two and pass it in a few days.
This is great news. I didn't think Congress would vote this down. I'm glad they did, lets let the market take care of itself, it will if we let it. I think this has little to do with the average homeowner and more to do with the speculators and condo get rich quick dorks down South who will lose their ass. Then the banks that lent their buddies the cash. The average homeowner may run into trouble if he loses his job, but if he can get some type of work to hold him over for a few months or a year and then renegoatiate his mortage with the bank, he might just make it through this.
I'm rather conservative and Bush really pissed me off on this one. What's funny is Nancy Pelosi saying that the Dems did their part but the GOP didn't come through. I'm surprised that any member of the GOP voted for this damn bailout anyway. I'll bet half of the bastards didn't even read the bill, just listened to what the others around them were saying. On paper I've lost maybe $12,000 so far, but I'm not asking for a bailout.posted by AmericanPie on Sep 29, 2008 at 10:55:59 pm #
I hope that it doesn't get as bad as my father's time. His father worked for Standard Oil in Titusville, PA making the hardware (he had been a smithy) that kept the oil rigs going. He got a pretty good wage ($150 a month then), and put quite a bit of it in the bank. When the bank failed his money "disappeared". The farm was foreclosed upon and he ended up moving from one daughter's place to another (there were 10). My father was one of four sons. His first "paying" job was working on the "Jamestown" highway when Franklin Roosevelt was governor of New York state. He got the job when his brother-in-law was hired, and my father took his place in exchange for room and board from the brother-in-law. My dad was 16. My father said that when a man would stop to make a cigarette he would be fired on the spot ("welfare" wasn't always easy). Since my dad didn't smoke he could do the work without the temptation.
posted by oldsendbrdy on Sep 29, 2008 at 11:27:38 pm #
copy/paste
posted by toledolen on Sep 29, 2008 at 03:20:58 pm #