hahahaaha you're fucked now, capitalists

[metasynthie]

Oh wait, that includes all of us that live here in Global Capitalism too. Shit!!

This is some crazy times. The more fiscally conservative "no wall street socialism" wing of the Republicans and the more radical "how dare you give more money to rich bankers" wing of the Democrats have stymied this bailout at least temporarily. They're voting on it

Comments

[tagonist]

Huh. I actually find that usually I agree with Kucinich more than I do here. What it sounds like here is the stuff you scream at your comatose, brain-injured, junkie friend since grade school who finally OD'd. You were such a good poet! You should have learned when Bob died! I told you to start carrying Narcan and stay away from the black tar guy! He's right- we shouldn't have built a debt-based economy. We should have health care coverage like every other industrial democracy in the world. We should have been worrying about this stuff back when throwing CEOs in jail would have made a difference. But cutting dividends is about as useful now as throwing Dan Mudd off a cliff, and only half as satisfying. There really isn't any way to rewind the clock and build a not-shitty America, and the bailout, hell, I don't think it matters too much (though I've been writing about a few advantages.)

Mostly, I think its like this. Right now, if I had only the contents of, say, my Chicago apartment a la 1997 (y'know, mattress, books, kitchenware, jack shit else cause I wasn't very good with money) and a few thousand bucks of credit card debt, I'd be in trouble, compared to someone who was debt free. Right now I do owe almost a grand on credit cards, but the stuff that money went to (hand carpentry tools, an electric fence charger, bins of seed, a portable stove) is worth a hell of a lot more to me than the difference in credit. The bailout is taking poor-Anne-who-spent-money-going-clubbing and putting her further in debt to pay the rent. Kucinich is saying we should have spent the money on tools all along. I'm not sure the option is really there any more.

Best,
A

[metasynthie]

Yeah, that's a very similar train of thought to what I had when I (too briefly) noted "but obviously, it's not real helpful to say 'good job, this is totally fucked, don't throw more money down that hole.'" Kucinich is more pissed off than constructive or offering helpful strategy that does more than say "Aughgh I toold you so!" I can't really blame him. At the same time it seems from reading aroudn that there are a lot of bailout alternatives (and maybe ones that make more sense than dividend garnishing, I dunno, not so good on analyzing and critiquing economic plans) floating around that don't involve saving a lot of investment banks from bankruptcy. It's just obvious why that's the option being pursued: politics <3 investment banks.

[kat_chan]

Remember, Kucinich was the man who, as Mayor of Cleveland, refused to sell off the city-owned electric utility to make payments on the city's debt and caused the city to go into default. Sure, Cleveland Public Power is now a model for city-owned utilities, but the defaulted bonds just about killed Cleveland Trust (which struggled along for about 10 to 12 years afterwards before being bought by Society Bank, now known as KeyBank). Many people in Cleveland were bitter that he let the city go into default at the time. He was (unsuccessfully) recalled, even. But it was a very brave thing that he did.

As for the bailout, it's not ideal, but something has to be done. The bill that failed probably wasn't the best way to get it done, and thanks to the GOP, when the Dems come back with a bill that can pass, they can tell Bush to suck it up, because it was his friends that killed the bill he wanted. I'm not sure there's anything that will satisfy the public, but the public needs to understand that banks cannot be allowed to just fail. We did that once, and it didn't turn out very well. If investment banks start to fail, the people and governments heavily invested in them will be calling in the good debt that they have, and that's not something that our government wants to be facing. That's why our government loves the investment banks. We never should have squandered the surplus...

[metasynthie]

Most of the holders of the mortgage-backed securities that would be bought in this bailout are hedge funds and most of the securities are derivatives, also known as "imaginary bullshit financial products." If propping up hedge funds and people invested in the hedge funds is equivalent to actually propping up our economy, then the economy is totally dead sooner or later. Fortunately there are a lot of people saying that wall street derivatives & hedges do not equal the main part of the economy -- I don't really know how to evaluate those claims and I agree something should be done. I don't knowwwww maybe buying up people's mortgages and actually regulating? It seems absurdly obvious from some points of view. Either that, or nationalize these goddamn banks. I have no problem with that, but then I'm a crazy socialist.