Bush's $700bn bailout plan

Because they are "special"

I dunno, the whole saga sickens me. I was reading an article in The Sunday Times about a young pair of bankers in game for about a year. They are annoyed they never got to earn their £50k bonus in Year 2 and £70k bonus in Year 3, etc. I think the article was meant to make the reader feel sorry for them???

****-off. In my game (engineering), not even the most senior guys get anywhere near that kind of money and yes some of them do 80+ hours a week.

I own one house, have one mortgage, no shares. My only investment is in my house and business. I'm ignoring much of the media frenzy on this. As long as I can keep my earning up to a decent level, I think it's worth paying 1 or 2% extra on the mortgae to see that whole house of cards tumble.

Any increase in taxes is a sickening side effect and will just make me try to avoid paying tax at any opportunity...
 
I'm sure that most people don't hold shares directly, but anyone who has a pension has a significant holding of shares, so we'll all suffer if everything goes to the dogs. Similarly, everyone is affected by high unemployment and inflation.

One thing I don't get though. The US government is going to give the banks $700bn, but in order to do this it needs to raise borrowing from $10.6tn to $11.3tn. Might be a stupid question, but if they're giving the money TO the banks, who are they borrowing it from :confused:
 
Ok - it's a fair cop!

But what was I supposed to do - George just sounded so, sort of, desperate! Anyway, I agreed not to upgrade my Nord*st speaker/interconnect cables this year and bung him a bit of extra.:MILD:

ps - Got the solicitors to insert a 'naughty boy' clause to stop him using the wedge to invade anywhere else that has lots of oil! Can't be too careful!
 
As Baldrick once said "I have a cunning plan" and I expect George W Bush also has a cunning plan for every occasion.
 
lbr said:
I'm sure that most people don't hold shares directly, but anyone who has a pension has a significant holding of shares, so we'll all suffer if everything goes to the dogs. Similarly, everyone is affected by high unemployment and inflation.

One thing I don't get though. The US government is going to give the banks $700bn, but in order to do this it needs to raise borrowing from $10.6tn to $11.3tn. Might be a stupid question, but if they're giving the money TO the banks, who are they borrowing it from :confused:
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They can raise the capital by issuing government bonds - which are bougth by a whole load of risk averse investors from pension funds, unit trusts, insurance companies, private investors etc
 
The Baldrick comment sums it up rather well. My Father USED to be a Sr. Economist (who leans right) for an institution I won't name, but he is 100% against the plan, primarily because it doesn't fix the problem, pays out bonuses to people who should be in prison, and puts too much power in the hands of few people.

It is a sickening mess that will only soak us SUCKERS here in the U.S. for many years to come.

Tax cuts? Not for the next decade.

While one understands the need to keep the economy stable, we live in a capitalist society where companies fail because of their inability to make money or wise financial decisions. Saving all of these firms is utter BS.
 
FrankDeckard said:
The Baldrick comment sums it up rather well. My Father USED to be a Sr. Economist (who leans right) for an institution I won't name, but he is 100% against the plan, primarily because it doesn't fix the problem, pays out bonuses to people who should be in prison, and puts too much power in the hands of few people.

It is a sickening mess that will only soak us SUCKERS here in the U.S. for many years to come.

Tax cuts? Not for the next decade.

While one understands the need to keep the economy stable, we live in a capitalist society where companies fail because of their inability to make money or wise financial decisions. Saving all of these firms is utter BS.
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Hear hear.
 
I agree that the bankers need to live with the consequences of their actions and take the bust with the boom....but sometimes the consequences affect the ordinary man in the street e.g. Northern Rokc here in the UK - many savers would have lost their money if it was allowed to go bust (okay there is a deposit protection scheme up to £35K)

But what amazes me is that there are regulators whose job is to ensure that banks have enough capital so that they don't collapse. There is clearly soemthing wrong in the mechanisms employed to enure capital adequacy.
 
kmac said:
....but sometimes the consequences affect the ordinary man in the street e.g. Northern Rokc here in the UK - many savers would have lost their money if it was allowed to go bust (okay there is a deposit protection scheme up to £35K)
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I certainly have no issues with trying to help the investors. My original rant was about the greedy so & so's who caused the mess in the first place and would still make money out of it, instead of being held accountable. The existing regulations clearly aren't enough.
 
I have found some of the abuse thrown Brown's way slightly OTT.

I am not saying Labour shouldn't shoulder some of the blame, but the commentators coming out of the wood-work and saying they shouldn't have been so cosy with the big banks are being slightly naive IMO. Was the government meant to actively stop them operating in the UK?

I heard one commentator having a go at Brown for opening Lehman's HQ about four years ago. I mean FFS should he have just ignored these businesses.

The controls obviously haven't worked but I can't see them ever working to be honest. There was great quote in the paper about the FSA essentially saying that who is going to win the battle when you have ....the low-paid "dumb" (i.e. FSA) chasing the high paid "clever" (i.e. bankers).
 
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regulation in definitely important, but there's a line to tread between trying to regulate out every possible risk one on side and trying to avoid a over-restrictive business environment on the other. London is one of the world's major financial centres and contributes more than its fair share to GDP.

Don't get me wrong, I'd happily give the pin-striped tossers a nefty boot in the nuts, I just think that sometimes the wider picture is more important
 
I saw Gordon Brown's interview on Andrew Marr's Sunday show.

It's probably the first time I have ever felt any empathy for the guy. He's made mistakes but I'm not sure who else I would like to see running the show at the moment.
 

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