Alternative Solutions Diverge From Administration's Approach

[NicholeW.]

Alternative Solutions Diverge From Administration's Approach
By Anthony Faiola and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; Page A01

To hear Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Ben S. Bernanke tell it, there is only one plan to save the economy -- use $700 billion in taxpayer money to take the worst of Wall Street's assets off its books.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092303695.html

But leading economists and financial analysts argue that there are a host of alternatives that would reduce taxpayers' liabilities and perhaps more effectively address the urgent crisis in financial markets. Although these experts concede that the clock is ticking, they say other approaches have been dismissed too quickly.

While the government's plan is built around buying troubled assets, other options offer sharply different visions.

[RebeccaFog]

Too late.  Cyborg Paulson got the bailout.  I think.

[tekla]

I'm not so sure, I don't think they have everyone on board yet.  The vote might be close.

[RebeccaFog]

If anyone threatens the free ride, there will be trouble a brewin' in the capitol tonight. 


By the way, I made a picture of 2 cheney faces looking over some bodies on a civil war battlefield. One cheney says "I love the smell of corpses in the morning" and the other says "Shut the hell up, I want to eat!"

One person told me it was disgusting and another said it was disturbing, but I don't see why.

[tekla]

    The US is headed into its worst recession in 60 years. The housing market is crashing, securitzation is kaput, and the broader economy is drifting towards the reef. The banks are not going to waste their time trying to revive a moribund US market where consumers and businesses are already tapped out. No way; it's on to greener pastures. They'll move their capital wherever they think they can maximize their profits. In fact, a sizable portion of the $700 billion will likely be invested in commodities, which means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into the stratosphere. Ironically, the taxpayers' largesse will be used against them, making a bad situation even worse.

    Then again, if the bill isn't passed, no one can predict with certainty what will happen. Here's how Tim Shipman summed it up in "Bailout Failure Will Cause US Crash", in the UK Telegraph:

    "Officials close to Paulson are privately painting a far bleaker portrait of the fragility of the global economy than that advanced by President George W Bush in his televised address last week.

    One Republican said that the message from government officials is that 'the economy is dropping into the john.' He added: 'We could see falls of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow [the New York market that currently trades at around 11,000]. That could happen in just a couple of days.

    'What's being put around behind the scenes is that we're looking at 1930s stuff. We're looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe. Everybody is extraordinarily scared. It's going to be really, really nasty.'"


http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09292008.html

[RebeccaFog]

I'm not letting those people infect me with their fear. 

[NicholeW.]

The Counterpunch report is simply devastating: and not to those who said this bailout is yet another scam proposed by Paulson to rescue his own and other financial CEOs and players in the wake of the beaten nag they were riding finally dropping dead from exhaustion!!

Now, that is certainly an alternative view to the one's we've been reading and hearing from the "banking" industry.

Nichole