700 Billion Dollars, Part 2

On September 30, 2008, in Controversies, Politics, by Marci Sischo

Jim Wright of Stone Kettle Station has a fantastic post about the bail out, and the hows and whys of the Wall Street Meltdown here. It’s well worth the time to read, and it’s nice to know that in my fumbling attempts at explanation to folks yesterday, I was getting it mostly right. Go, me.

  • Those who failed to read the fine print on those interest only mortgages or utterly failed to see the implication of the conditions of the loan – or did, but thought, somehow, some way, that they would be able to refinance before the first balloon payment came due . . .
  • Those greedy, dishonest bastards in the S&L business, who not satisfied with the pile of dough they were already sitting on, found a way to turn worthless loans into the largest bait and switch scam in history.
  • Those in the rating agencies, who gave those worthless bonds AAA ratings, who allowed themselves to be deceived, who bowed to pressure from the S&L’s and from Wall Street Investment firms instead of actually doing their jobs.
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700 Billion Dollars

On September 30, 2008, in Controversies, Politics, by Marci Sischo

So, I oopsed. Yeah, that 700 billion dollar bail out that passed? It didn’t pass. I plead lack of coffee. The House told the bail-out bill to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, and the stock market took a head dive, finishing up for the day 700+ points in the hole, and when I arrived at work, it was a very quiet panic zone. No one was running around screaming or anything, but people were quiet and tense, and I don’t think I waited on one customer who didn’t make at least some mention of it. Some nervous little joke, or asking what all I’d seen on the news (because, of course, I’m running a restaurant, so all I have to do all day is stand around and watch the TVs), or tsking sadly away over the affair. I spent a lot of today smiling brightly and assuring people, “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine. They’ll figure something out.”
     I mean, ladies and gentlemen, when you’re looking to me to be your hopeful little ray of sunshine, you are deep in the shit. Seriously, y’all.
     I also spent a fair amount of time today explaining, in simple terms, how we got into this mess, and roughly what the bail out might have meant. Guys. When I have to explain the economics to you, you are also deep in the shit. I mean, I barely know what I’m talking about. I’m just bright enough on the economic front to have a rough idea of who it’s safe to parrot.
     Quite a lot of us are going to be unaffected — at least in the short term — by this event. By way of example — me: I have no stocks. Wall Street can plunge straight through to the chewy nougat center of the Earth, and I’m not going to lose a dime. I have no savings. Close all the banks you want, I won’t be getting any more broke. I do have a little debt, so if somehow during the pending economic collapse, the bank could manage to lose track of that, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings any. Of course, I might not be able to get any other loans or credit cards in the meantime, due to their not being any extra credit floating around for the likes of us, but hey, the last thing I need to be doing anyway is piling up more debt.
     So, as long as the rest of you sheep and monkeys don’t panic, IE, pull all your money out of the banks in a fizzy freak-out A La the 1930′s, and/or stop going out to eat occasionally (so I can keep my job), me, and a lot of other people, will probably be okay. As I explained to one employee, hey, we’re already dirt fucking broke. You can’t get any more dirt fucking broke.
     On the other hand, as I explained to another employee, that 700 billion dollars would have had to come from somewhere. Do you think it was going to get paid back to the government by Wall Street when they started making money again? You did? Are you dumb? Of course it isn’t. It’ll get paid back by you and me, in the form of higher taxes. Because, you know, me and you can afford to pay more taxes.
     And besides, it’s really all moot point anyway, because the Bushies did an end-run around the failed bill anyways. Yes. They did. Please don’t tell me you’re surprised. I walked in the door at work, heard the news, and said to all and sundry, “I wonder how Bush is going to swipe the money anyways? Because you know he will.” I have witnesses.

     (Photo credit: DownTownExpress.com.)

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On The Republicans

On September 29, 2008, in Controversies, Politics, by Marci Sischo

Wow. Shit week for McCain/Palin, huh? McCain suspends his campaign to go save the world from bad loans, leaving everyone else in America standing there saying — and I quote — “WTF, mate?” Seriously. I’ve been kicking this idea around in my head for days now, and I can’t figure out exactly what this was supposed to accomplish for McCain.
     Sure, in theory, McCain could have said, “Omigawd, this is so important, I have to go vote on this, I have to go debate this in the Senate! I need a week off! BRB!” But then, shouldn’t his VP pick have stepped in to manage the campaign, fill his interview slots, etc? Shouldn’t Palin have been running things while McCain was busy saving the world? It seems the logical step to me.
     Unless, of course, Palin can’t step in to do the campaigning while McCain’s busy, because, oh, I don’t know, she’s a babbling fucking idiot.
     Of course, I’ve heard that McCain was trying to delay the debates, a theory which leaves me puzzled as well. Was McCain afraid to debate Obama? I missed the first debate myself, as I was working, and the cursed customers wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to watch them at work. The bits I did catch weren’t very interesting. A couple of friends who caught the debates told me that Obama outclassed McCain, but the media is calling the debate a tie, apparently, so I guess that didn’t go off too badly.
     So, all in all, we’ve gotten a very strange week from McCain/Palin. If I were a Republican, I’d be getting pretty damn nervous about now. You’ve got a very elderly statesman running for president, who’s making some shaky calls and decisions on his campaign (so, what’ll he do in office, if this is how he [mis]manages his campaign?), and who has selected a very pretty retard as his VP, who can’t even campaign for a week by herself while McCain flies off to save the world. I mean, these people can’t keep David Letterman happy. Do we really want them fussing around with the leaders of the world? Just a thought.
     Meanwhile, the 700 billion dollar bail-out deal just got passed. I’m not sure I’m cool with this. Granted, I don’t know a damn thing about the economy. I know just enough to look at the current situation and go, “Ooooo, this ain’t good, guys. Y’all need to do something about this.” I don’t have the first idea what one might do to fix the problem. So I really don’t know if this bail-out is a good thing or a bad thing, other than the basic common sense thought that, hey, we don’t have 700 billion dollars! We spent all our money on the Iraq war, remember? How, exactly, is going a shit-ton deeper in debt supposed to fix bad loans, again? Isn’t that like robbing Peter to pay Paul? I mean, if I’m in debt and behind on my bills, and I pay them all off on a credit card to get the creditors off my back, that’s not exactly a good thing. Didn’t we just do that on a national scale? Or am I wrong, here?
     My other big gripe is that the government won’t “socialize” health care, but we will, basically, socialize the banking system. Tell me that isn’t what we just did, and make it good, because I’m not buying cheap. I read a post by someone last week that suggested we all just stop paying our medical bills until the health industry collapses and the government has to step in to bail it out, and — Bam! — socialized health care.
     And, on that note, I have to go get ready for work. Try to run up a big medical bill while I’m out, and don’t pay it. I’m part of the millions of uninsured Americans at the moment, and I could use some health care.

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