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

[cortezopossum]

I called once about the university wanting to change the function of a campus building from something that's useful for everyone to something that's questionably useful only for a handful of minorities.

I got a secretary but my guess is that she merely marked down on a tally sheet that I was 'for X / not Y'. Once people start calling in en-masse on a matter the only practical way to handle it is via tally sheet.

[kahuna_burger]

I'm pretty annoyed by these sorts of bailouts too... esp in light of them "tightening up" personal bankruptcy laws to make sure that when individuals make bad financial choices they have to pay as much as possible for their mistakes. *cranky*

I have a friend who said that "predatory lending" was aok, because it was just the match of banks that were willing to make bad choices with consumers who were. I tried to point out that historically the consumers get screwed by those choices while the banks eventually get bailed out, but he didn't believe that would really happen that way.

[gemini6ice]

I think the primary point is not to keep the private businesses afloat forever, but to keep them afloat long enough to pay off their debts so that the bankruptcy does not continue to domino effect.

These aren't hand-outs; they're loans, fwiu. These businesses will be paying the U.S. back. And, under stricter regulation (since the U.S. becomes the primary shareholder, no?), they will not continue to repeat their mistakes.

And it's not nearly as much of a waste of taxpayer money as the war in iraq, imho.

[radtea]

Actually, no. They are hand-outs, as currently proposed.

At least that's what Paul Krugman says, and I'm inclined to believe him

[gemini6ice]

What companies are you talking about, exactly? I'm talking about AIG, for one. Which is a loan.Banks like Merrill Lynch and WaMu? The government is doing no more than assisting in finding buyers

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