Anybody going to watch the president’s speech tonight?
UPDATE: If you missed the speech, you can read the transcript here.
47 thoughts on “Bush-watching”
Comments are closed.
Anybody going to watch the president’s speech tonight?
UPDATE: If you missed the speech, you can read the transcript here.
Comments are closed.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Shawn’s addressed one of the major problem’s we’re facing: there is no f***ing way you’re going to find a majority out of any members of Congress of any political stripe who are going to sit down and say to people: look, folks, I’m sorry, but you overpaid.
But unless we accept the market correction and acknowledge that fact, and unless we actively help people get out of the homes they can’t afford and transition into homes that they can afford, prices won’t fall to the point where buying property will make sense again, the market won’t fully recover, and without a housing market recovery, there won’t be anyone to sell mortgages to, which means banks won’t be able to generate new business that will bring in positive revenue.
There is a lot to be tremendously concerned about here. Some short-term support will undoubtedly be necessary, but unless the plan operates in a way that addresses the underlying market fundamentals (which, despite some peoples’ opinion, are not actually sound) we may end up spending a $700B buying ourselves into socialism for the long haul by purchasing a financial system founded on a lie about housing prices.
Yep. And that’s why they are trying to put a bandaid on this problem, figuring that like Iraq, once we get in, we won’t pull out.
I think the best case scenario we can look for in this case is Congress calling the administration’s bluff. Twelve hours ago I was hopeful that this was what was going to happen, but a certain someone has decided to interject himself and the Presidential campaign into the legislative process at a time of crisis. This is profoundly dangerous, as it takes an already complicated issue in which there i not a lot of clarity and adds a political component. At a time when we need our lawmakers focused on the question, “is this in the best interests of our country?” too many of them on both sides of the aisle are going to simultaneously be asking themselves, “is this in the best interests of the Presidential candidate I’m supporting?”
We’re all in a lot of trouble.
Why start paying attention now. No one seem to worry too much with all the nice financing deals on the street, low-interst, interst-only loans that secured these notes that are the basis of all this mess. I love how no one appears to care too much when everyone’s gettin a deal and when brave people stand up like then Congressman Baker(R)did in 2000 and then 2003 about Freddie and Fannie and people like Barney Frank called him an “alarmist”. He accussed Raines of lying in his testimony before Congress, but since Raines was so in bed with Franks and Dodd as well as some Republicans in Congress providing some 4 million dollars to politicians over the course of the last decade that the media buried the story. Seems to me there were people who got this right and they were ignored. I hold not only our officials but the media for that.
Why did not Congress call hearings on these matters over the last two years. Did not the “change” election in 2006 that we all bought into promise such measures to be put in place to “check” the Bush administration. Was that not what they promised us in 2006 when they enlisted our support to give the Party control.
For two years they sat on their hands. Congress is not bailing out Wall Street, but merely covering up their own participation in this whole affair under the guise of deflecting blame away from themselves.
I am conflicted about this plan, but what I am not conflcited about is the fact that there needs to be Congressional hearings and ethics investigations regarding all these Congressman to evalaute what they knew and when they knew it as well as those officials from Fannie and Freddie.
Maybe if McCain wins in NOvember we could see such hearings if he held true to his “make them famous” approach, but should Obama win you can bet with a Congressional majority it will get buried and the press will again let the story die.
Yep. This is not going to be pretty.
J Scott – we’ll never get to the bottom of this. There are too many people – on both sides of the aisle – who have benefitted from letting this stuff go on as long as it has.
J Scott is what I would classify as “part of the problem,” or exemplary of the problem. The economy should be a central issue in the Presidential election; a lot of partisans (particularly the ones supporting the candidate who is losing on the economy, I’ve noticed) have decided that it should be the other way ’round, that the Presidential election should be a central issue in the debate over the future of our economy. To the credit of all, it seems that most sane people understand the scope of the problem enough to see that this is the wrong attitude–I just peaked at Bearing Drift and noted that Jim’s running commentary is very similar to yours, Vivian.
But the crazies are also reliable voters. Which is why I’d say there’s about a 33% chance we’re about to be skinned.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”
The American economy can crank out $200 Billion over night, so we should be asking why the Bushies are so damned desperate to get this bill crammed through BEFORE the election. Do they think Americans are stupid, or is Bush trying to sabotage the McPain ticket’s cahnces at the polls. Either way, Americans would have to be NUTS to put the Bush team (aka McCain) back in the White House for another term.
This is yet another NEOCON power grab. Remember the lies about Iraq and about the Patriot Act? Well, here we go again. Let’s not be fooled anymore by these crooks.
Table this issue until AFTER the election and we will suddenly see that it was a red herring, all along.
Now, let’s talk about what Obama’s first 100 days should include…
My suggestion is to have the political prisoners of the Bush Administration to be freed.
A little closer to home: Gateway merges with Bankshares
So sorry I missed this. I was actually at a Jim Moran townhall when this started. It was originally a forum with former Rep. Charlie Wilson (of the movie), but Moran ended up spending a lot of time on the bailout. He thinks it will be sorted tomorrow (I apparently, was the only person who wanted to boo that). $200-300 billion authorized, GAO oversight, compensation caps, etc. Have to do it by Friday, because of the religious holidays next week, and if we wait until then, too late. Too fscking bad, I say. He noted that calls were running “40 to 1 against” the bailout in his office. I hope he’s getting the message that simply slapping on a feelgood compensation measure or some help for the homeowners who threw themselves into debt they couldn’t afford isn’t enough to make it right.
Well, we had back-to-school night at my kids’ high school, so I missed the speech. Actually, I didn’t miss it a bit. Even before Bush showed his true colors (Medicare Part C, No Child Gets Ahead, and now bailouts), his voice has annoyed the hell out of me.
No real “wealth” has been lost. No houses have disappeared, no land has disappeared (except, perhaps, in Galveston). Stock-holders still own the same percentages of the companies as before.
I am in full agreement with the dogooder — let the prices fall where they may. People will face foreclosure. So what? They will be able to rent a similar house for far less.
The real reason politicians don’t want to tell people that their $350k house is worth $200k is that the politicians want the property tax revenue.
Well, MB, Moran certainly has experience with cut-rate mortgages!!
“The real reason politicians don’t want to tell people that their $350k house is worth $200k is that the politicians want the property tax revenue.”
Mouse…I rarely agree with you but I’m with you on this point!
The NY Time’s editorial on the address opens with the same reference as Ballance’s comment. It’s a great reminder of what we should be looking for in leadership at this time–you don’t have to sugar coat things or bury your head in the sand, but you don’t have to be a pessimist, either.
Which brings me to this from Mouse:
I’d agree that foreclosure != homelessness, or that it shouldn’t, and I’d say that this is an element that the government should look at generating solutions that make the process of transitioning to new housing smoother. One idea: our Federal income tax laws are biased in favor of home ownership by making mortgage payments tax-deductible; not having that deduction available anymore opens up taxpayers who are in a transitional period to what can be a significantly higher income-tax liability. I would propose instead helping taxpayers with bad mortgages get their feet back under them by exploring tax deductions for homeowners who either go through foreclosure or sell their homes at a loss without purchasing a new home within six months–perhaps making rent tax-deductible for qualified tax payers, perhaps by applying a certain percentage of the last FY’s tax payment as a deduction. We can either treat it as a complete write-off, or treat it as a rebate with the expectation that it will be paid back at a future date. My goal would be to prevent affected homeowners from hemorhaging money in non-deductible rent payments and income tax while they try and get their finances back in order.
That’s only one idea, and it may not be perfect as I’m just trying to think off the top of my head. But there ARE things we can do to help a market correction along so we can get America moving forward again, and we won’t start addressing those things until we abandon the Administration’s tunnel-vision focus on the Government buyouts of mortgage-backed securities.
Yes, dogooder, but eliminating the mortgage deduction would further reduce the price of houses, because less money would be available.
It is not readily apparent, but renters also get a deduction. The landlords get it, but if they did not, they would have to raise rents to make up the difference.
And if you look at the rental prices these days, they are way less than mortgage interest is on similar properties. (That was, of course, the real clue that we were, and still are, in a bubble — investors cannot buy a house, rent it out, and make a profit. That dries up the pool of buyers.)