Just sent emails to Kerry, Kennedy, and Capuano

[prog]

I urge my fellow Americans to join with me on this action. You can find your state's senators here and find your district's representative here.

I dashed this off myself in a minute. You can copy it if you'd like, but I encourage you to come up with your own words, too.

Dear $TITLE $LASTNAME

Comments

If it's at market price they can sell it in the market

[radtea]

If purchasing bad debt at market price would be adequate to salvage these incompetently managed companies then there would be no need for a bailout because the companies could sell their debt in the market at the market price. That's not an assumption, it's a tautology!

There is a price at which this toxic paper will circulate, and that's the market price. It's just way below what the incompetents need to survive.

So either the bailout plan is a needless waste of taxpayer money, buying debt that could be sold in the market at exactly the same price without putting the taxpayer on the hook for anything, or it will involve buying debt with taxpayer's money at inflated prices.

If the former, then obviously no bailout is needed and spending public rather than private dollars is unconsionable.

If the latter, then the taxpayer is paying incompetents a premium for the assurance that those self-same incompetents will prosper to screw up another day. As a free bonus they also get a huge power-grab by the Secretary of the Treasury, who wants the power to command without judicial oversight.