Eye on the Economy: 4 measures to restore order

I think it is ridiculous for the taxpayers to foot the bill for investment firms that cater to the rich. We need to help homeowners with the mortgages and protect working peoples 401K's and let the actual business and investors fen for themselves, it's all about risk. Those out of work stock broker will build there own companies and become small businesses so lets give someone else a chance , share the wealth. If America is a strong and tough nation lets weather the storm. Let throw ourselves behind the small business and grow.

Getting the trillion dollars is easy.......make the petroleum industry a government-run business and raid their coffers which are over-inflated from "raping us" at the pumps for all this time !!! Also, what is the government so concerned about (and not letting us know) by scheduling a dangerous repair of Hubble with a standby shuttle, in the light of all this money/fuel turmoil ???

The problems we are facing now started in the 1970's. We had our wake up call when we were held hostage by the oil producing countries at that time. Jimmy Carter started us on the road to renewable energy sources at that time, but it eventually got push to the side of both the Democrats and Republicans. Where would we be right now if we would have stayed the course in developing new technologies? In the 80's and 90's it was the savings and loan failures, extending credit to people who at best were a good risk of failing. Then came the sub prime loans and offering people 125% of the value of their home. Most of these people were already at their credit limits with credit cards and loans. Investors jumped on this hoping to rake in record profits in 5 years when the payments ballooned or they could take control of the property when the creditor defaulted, selling the property for a hefty profit because it would increase in value. Guess what, the creditors could not make the balloon payments and had to give up the homes and with the market being flooded with all these homes and no new buyers the values fell. In all these cases the main factor is people banking on making a ton of money in a very short time. They made a bad investment and now we the taxpayer are being asked to bail them out. I think the government has been lax in watching out for the public with some of the schemes that the investment brokers and bankers have come up with over the years, but they made their own mistakes, let them bail themselves out. They are all better off than most of us with their multi million dollar homes, servants, vacations homes, yachts, and other expensive toys, let them sell off these perks and try living like the rest of us.

I can't believe that people are buying this BS from Bush!!! The reason this country is in the turmoil it's in is because of lousy and dishonest government. But everyone who reads this already knows that the government is very secretive and dishonest...For instance how many americans know of the massive us embassy that our government is building in Iraq at a phenomanl cost??? I never see this on the news at all....Or how the government borrowed and spent most of the money saved for social security and medicaid and medicare on its secret agendas(mostly war) and literally left I O U's then said that social security will be bankrupt soon due to the increase of people retiring??? Well I can tell you one thing. Ever since I have read about wars since the biblical times I never once read about a country going to war with another country and then going to rebuild it...especially when their own countries are shutting down school programs and things that are essential for their own people. No they took the spoils and even in bibilical times killed man woman and child!! Yeah I'm referring to when the U.S had a chance to take out Binladen but didn't cause there was a few innocent civilians near by...Hey if the country was harboring a known terrorist and loved being in his company...TOO BAD. Hey it's war isn't it?? There are always going to be causualties. Well don't be so astonished when the markets fail terribly which they are! The whole country and world is going to see disaster after disaster which hasn't been seen since the beginning of time. How do I know this....just read the bible . No I'm not a fanatic just an intelligent person who has loves to read and from what I have read I know this to be true. I just hope that those who don't believe in the word of god are ready and prepared for what is to come. Things are NEVER going to get better from this day forward...Mark these words.

As the saying goes, better late than never! Such a rescue plan should have been chalked out and announced soon after the take over of FFs so that last week's (rather early this week's) Lehman episode could have been avoided. The FFs should be turned into a Federal Mortgage Corporation which in turn should first embrace all bad mortgages or in other words buy all such mortgages from the financial institutions, which should include bad mortgages of Lehman.

Though Lehman has been forced by the government to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection plan, the firm is now engaged in a revamp of its organization. And, there are hundreds of thousands of investors from around the world who have bought bonds or capital funds issued by Lehman some of which ironically were actually denied to US citizens! It will be totally unfair to ignore the plight of these investors who may include ordinary citizens such as retirees who may have placed their life savings in such funds.

So, the rescue plan should be also extended to Lehman so that once streamlined and bad mortgages are taken off its balance sheet, the company will be in a position to honour its commitments to investors from all around the world!

This is a HUGE mistake and we need to take action this weekend and STOP this INSANITY that BUSH thinks is a wonderful, unprecedented action!!!

This administration has taken America so far into the toilet, it will take two or three administrations on the straight and narrow to bail it out! Good luck with us finding a 'straight and narrow' administration!

It cracks me up to hear these speculators complain about having one of their toys, short selling, taken away from them. They just don't have enough legitimate ways to determine the true value of a stock, as though betting against a stock gives them a better idea of what it is worth than the myriad of things available to the rank-and-file investor. The really funny thing is that since they (at least temporarily) can't bet against a stock it makes no sense for them to bet it will go UP in price. These guys and gals are going to have to sit on their hands for a while... and that can't be bad for the markets.

Remember when the Department of Energy was created by Carter? It too was supposed to rescue us from another grave national emergency, namely our dependence on foreign energy. Well, sports fans, you know what the budget for this do-nothing (or at least not very successful) agency is this year? Only $24.2 billion. DOE reportedly has 16,000 federal employees and another 100,000 who are contracted. This new agency will suck vastly more money out of our collective future, with no guarantee it will work, any more than DOE has accomplished its original mission.

After 80 years of inflation, they are still at it. The standard answer is print more paper money. Uncle Sam will never stop inflation. Just add a few more trillion to it.
Good luck people, you will need it.

Nobody seems to be questioning the possibility that the reason for the sobering acquiescence by all political parties may be due to the possibility that they had become aware of market interference by hostile state controlled investment groups. In who's long term strategic interest is it that have massive funding available to cherry pick selective major US institutions once their share prices collapse ?

I am extremely concerned about this bail out. I know that we have to take action, but that does not mean we need to take foolish action. I have just read Paulson's proposal; it is nothing short of a blank check to continue the fraud that got us here in the first place.

A more prudent approach would be to establish an entity responsible to take over failing entities quickly and efficiently as they occur and to place restrictions on the transfer of poorly performing assets (so that this process does not allow for healthy companies to simply move their bad assets to failing companies).

Yes. This would require more time for this process to playout; but is far more prudent, will be less costly and will not reward those who got us here in the first place.

Please do not listen to the fear mongers who are telling us that we must swallow this poison pill now.

I just wrote Jon Kyle, the US Senator for my state and was pleased to see his website has a newletter from him that he is opposed to this idea as well!

We must speak up and stop this HUGE Mistake, before it is too late. Our Congress has a duty to listen to us, however, we must speak up so they know what we want!

Write today, don't delay, tomorrow may be too late. President Bush gave the Congress this weekend to come up with a proposal and a "blank check" to save his a## on his unprecedented and uncalled for action!

Talk about a Lame Duck!!

I'm so happy I get to keep right on working and pay for people who took out loans they new they could never repay. Osama Bin Ladin must be in a cave somewhere laughing his ass off. He wanted to destroy our economy so bad. All he needed to do was sit back and wait 7 years, America did it all on it's own!

If the democratic controlled senate and house do not force the bush administration to include aide to the home owner, they do deserve our vote for the democratic candidate for president.

It should not be tide to the bankruptcy courts , with all of the changes it gone not everybody can file bankruptcy. It needs to be am mandate not a voluntary participation by the ;lenders. They have all of the information and the ability to cure the accounts and modify them automatically in their portfolios.

a simple letter to the home owner in default or in arrears should be sufficient to address the situation.
They have already done in most cases their appraisal (BPO) and know what the values of the properties are. They know the current market rate in comparison to the rate on type loan. it is simple
lower the rate if it is higher than the current rate and adjust the payments accordingly. If they are in arrears cure the accounts add their delinquencies to the end of the loan and re-amortize either on new 30 year term or the remaining term ask the buyer in the same letter.

The letter should ask, do want to keep your house ? yes / no
Do you want to amortize the new loan on a new 30 year term ? yes / no
do you want it amortized for the remaining term ? yes / no
If you loan is an adjustable rate, do you want a 2.00 margin and no negative amortization ? Yes / no
Or do you want a fixed rate at the market rate ? yes / no

If you agree with these changes your loan will be modified y you do not give the house up in lie of foreclosure and this will be end.

If the loan is modified it will not go into foreclosure, and if the homeowner can not deal with the new loan it will go into foreclosure or short sale.

The taxpayers have no business bailing out BILLIONAIRES. None of them came to my door to share their salary with me and I will treat them in kind.

Let the F'ing chips fall where they may.

If the congress, senate and president want to bail these guys out then by all means they can dig it out of their own pockets, not mine and not yours. The time for bloody, violent revolution is here.

We've wanted a better educational system for years. We've wanted better health care for years. We've wanted our infra-structure repaired for years. We've wanted alternate energy for years. And the sticking point always is money. But when the rich CEO bankers need a parachute , billions of dollars suddenly materialise like magic. And who will pay the bill?? the lower and middle class.

Scar, your right the middle class will pay for this. Bush has no intention of having the rich now pay for what his administration created. He did not give the rich 8 years of breaks to take them away now. The Army core of engineers wanted 2 billion more to make the levees in N.O capable of dealing with a Katrina strength hurricane, they couldn't get it. Fortunately the last one weakened at the last moment. We spend a billion a day in Iraq, now we bail out investment bankers. Bush has destroyed us, and McCain helped him every step of the way.

This whole thing is beginning to sound like an X-File to me.

I seem to remember coming into 1999 with alot of work, money, and affordable energy! I also remember that since Bush took office we have gotten into a war on ( what country we are at war with is still unclear to me) terrorism, the energy costs have skyrocketed 300% and people are broke with no work. Nice 8 years. Now the bankers and the government want me to believe that by handing all the morons that got us here to begin with almost 1 trillion dollars to play with and buy up the bad debt, It will fix our situation. I am not an idiot slow sometimes but not that slow. How is giving the people that ruined our economic situation to begin with even more money supposed to help my neighbors that are losing thier homes and jobs now? What is the goal behind all this? I want to know Who benifits, Who is collecting this supposed torrent of bad debt ? Who is getting the homes to sell later for pennies on the dollar of value? How does an institution that has all that real property go broke? Who is getting the cash?

What is wrong with the people of this country?! In the first BUSH term, we were told THE TERRORISTS ARE COMING...scared everybody all to heck. Trust us we were told. Then it began...a measly few millions war turned into BILLIONS PER MONTH. It worked so well, the BUSH people did it AGAIN to get the second BUSH term. Holy moly, they licked their chops and figured they could rob the Treasury even more...and so they did...haven't you bothered to notice all the $$$BILLIONS the various government agencies can't account for...especially the Defense Department. At the same time all the RICHIE RICH were gorging themselves on all the loot they realized from their mega-tax cuts. So now, these same people are crying DON"T RAISE MY TAXES! HELP ME, I LOST MY GREEDY BETS ON THE MARKETS! HELP, HELP!...and who comes in and says trust us, you have no choice or else YOU will be destroyed ( another form of THE TERRORISTS ARE COMING.)...you guessed it...or maybe you are so dumb you haven't...it is the same people who put us in the situation we are in now!!! They are about to pull off the MOST OBSCENE ROBBERY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD! Look at their plans for Christ's sake. They are proposing to take worthless assets off the hands of the RICH by promising that the non-rich BUY them. Can you really be so stupid? Everyone of them, BUSH, PELOSI, REID, PAULSON, BERNANKE,, etc., etc., everyone of them, RICH, RICH, RICH. They are saving THEMSELVES by scaring YOU sh*tless. What the heck is wrong with you people that you don't see it? Any reasonable person KNOWS the resulting government debt will totally destroy our country because we are ALREADY broke from the IRAQ war. No other country in the world will come to our rescue when we need them...when we can't pay off our national debt. THEY are not so stupid. The crooks can't be trusted! Not a one of them has proposed putting back all the plunder that the RICH squeezed out of the naive working ordinary people who broke their backs and sweated all these years. That's right, THEY took all your money while their schemes looked good, now they want to stick YOU with all their worthless assets that no one else wants to buy and do it by having YOU..and YOUR CHILDREN...and YOUR GRANDCHILDREN cough up future earnings NOW. Every one of us should be screaming bloody murder...we all need to let anyone who dares to even think of voting this ROBBERY PLAN trough know that we WILL take revenge...in the end THEY will not survive our wrath if they dare to try and pull this off. Well, have you got any kind of spine in YOU?...or you just gonna pull your pants down, bend over, and just prey it doesn't hurt so much this time. TAKE ACTION TO STOP THIS FOR CHRIST's SAKE! This is an election year. Tell your Congress that ANYBODY who votes for this ROBBERY PLAN is finished Nov 4.

Dang it! We ALL need to get the ball rolling FAST! Spread the word everywhere that ANYONE that votes for this SAVE THE RICH bailout plan by SOAKING THE REST OF US and robbing us of our future, our kids future, our grand kids future...ANYONE WHO VOTES FOR IT IN CONGRESS gets VOTED OUT OF OFFICE Nov 4...that's it, THEY WILL BE OUT!...ANYBODY, no exceptions. YOU have a vote. YOU will never again in your lifetime have more power to use it in YOUR OWN INTEREST. Use it NOW or forever keep your mouth shut about how you are only one vote so you can't do anything about anything. Put up or shut up! Tell your Congress people that ANYBODY who votes for this ROBBERY PLAN is finished Nov 4.

Certified Public Accountant's perspective: NO BAILOUTS. (except for Mass Transportation – we need food.) Federal Bailouts are based upon the Erroneous Assumptions: (1) the negative market conditions are definitely short term, (2) will not continue in the future and (3) will be remedied in the foreseeable future. DEFINITELY NOT REALITY!! Both large and small private entities must be allowed to fail. Federal Bailouts? Not only No, but Heck No!

My problem with the whole bailout is that consumers will still have no money to keep economy moving. Credit card companies and banking firms have raised interest and fees. remember the $4.00 housekeeping charges that are now $20.00 or more for checking or 9% interest on credit cards? Reduction in rates ought to be a cornerstone in giving them this blank check. By doing so you put money back in the hands of the consumers. Do this instead of a stimulus check, so oil companies do not raise prices and gobble it up. Bad debt outside mortgages are causing consumers to fail to meet obligations. Credit cards are probably the biggest culprit with equity loans. Give consumers some extra cash and the economy will keep moving. No relief to them and inflation will create higher interest rates and consumers will still not be bale to make commitments. So if that happens..... What good is doing anything? I am all for cutting CEO comaensation packages of any CEO invoved in any failing bank, mortgage or investment company! I am also surprised by how many people are griping and saying it is Bushes failed policies that led to this. There is enough blame to go everywhere.

The individuals responsible for the Wall Street financial meltdown has flagrantly put the United States in clear and present danger. These individuals responsible should be arrested for treason. Deliberate over inflating and manipulating the market to turn a profit is fraud. They should be tried to the fullest extent of the law with incarceration in Federal Prison.

Lest not forget how Martha Steward was incarcerated for insider trading which is trivial in comparison. These individuals recklessly took down our economy and are walking away with millions in golden parachutes.

Americans wake up and demand justice. Demand these scoundrels arrested and prosecuted publicly. Strip them of their assets to pay down this debt.

Enough is enough!