RSS Feed MenuThis plan may be a necessary evil for a number of reasons. Leave aside the reservations a private investor doing business with Washington might have after observing the spectacle of the past few days. The plan finally addresses directly the central impediment to recovery, namely, the inability of the banks to reduce their leverage — and hence their functional insolvency — other than through severe credit constriction or a disruptive bankruptcy. But let’s take a step back and marvel at just how broken the banks had become. The government has to offer concessionary financing terms via the FDIC that exceed any margin loan ever available in the private sector even during times of credit mania. (Among other things, these loans will probably violate NASD margin rules). And that’s after all the other bailouts–the cheap financing of the capital injections, the counterparty protections afforded by the Bear and AIG bailouts, the coercion of Bank of America to close the Merrill transaction to avoid further panic, the special backstops created for Citi and B of A and AIG securities, the guarantee of bank-issued wholesale paper, and so on.
So if this plan is necessary, why might you call it evil (as opposed to the first fundamental good step taken)? After all, by putting up matching equity isn’t the taxpayer going to get the same opportunity to gain as the private sector? Aren’t we limiting taxpayer exposure by “leveraging” the TARP funds already allocated? Isn’t the auction mechanism a little closer to a market construct? Yes. But the sad thing is the government has to give subsidized financing on a scale never before imagined and funnel half the profits to a small selection of private players in order to bail out those who obviously did create the credit mania in the first place.
Bulldoglover100 // Mar 24, 2009 at 7:27 am
And even sadder? Obama has been in office only 50 days so the blame cannot be laid at his feet….yet so many in our party want to do just that…and if allowed to do so? We will be doomed to repete the mistakes that got us here in the first place under our own watch……Evil? Only in the sense that no one appears ready to take responsibility for creating an enviroment that allowed such abuse. Republicans & Democrats alike.
barker13 // Mar 24, 2009 at 11:49 am
Yep… figured THAT post would be removed within minutes. (*SNORT*) BILL
midcon // Mar 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Well barker13 was right, his post was removed. That is very troubling. New Majority, the following is directly from your comment policy.” While we do not censor comments based on political or ideological point of view, comments that are abusive, engage in personal attacks, contain racist, sexist, homophobic or other slurs, express hatred, are off-topic, use excessive foul language, or include any other type of ad hominem attacks (including comments that celebrate the death or illness of any person, public figure or otherwise) will be subject to removal. “Based on my reading of barker13s post, it does not meet the your stated policy of the type of post that would be censored, unless you categorize it as off topic.You need to assess how you are applying this policy. Even my post which is wholly about his post can be construed to be off topic. In fact many posts in many of the threads here are actually off topic and they were not deleted.I am here because there does not seem to be anyplace else for me as a moderate conservative, independent, Republican wanna be. Let’s be careful at what we exclude.
MSheridan // Mar 24, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I didn’t see the post removed below, but as long as this thread is already somewhat side-tracked, I’ll mention I was disconcerted to see one of my own comments removed a few weeks back that seemed unobjectionable and completely on-topic to me. Another commenter had requested someone provide concrete evidence a certain talk-radio personality, the subject of the thread in question, had in fact ever espoused racist beliefs or made racist comments. I noticed no one had responded (at least no one whose post had survived…) and quite respectfully provided some direct quotes–as I recall, I only provided quotes for which I’d also been able to provide sources as well. My post (but not the other) was removed within the day, leaving anyone who later encountered the thread with the false impression that no one had been willing to back up or substantiate their grounds for having such a belief. I think the moderation policy as quoted below is fine as written and as this current post of mine IS in fact off-topic, I’ll be perfectly unconcerned if it is removed–I’d just would like whoever is moderating this forum to consider that it’s probably impossible to create a new and stronger political philosophy/movement if you don’t allow ideas to be honed against the whetstone of opposition.