Bush seeks to assure world leaders about bailout plan

Bush is the last person who should be "assuring" any world leaders over anything.

Bush, on his way to New York, stopped in New Jersey to raise money for two Republican congressional candidates. Tickets ranged from $1,000 to $10,000 for a photo with the president.

The fact that there are idiots out there who'd pay that kind of money to get their picture taken with the worst president in anyone's lifetime ought to undermine any assurances on this fiasco.

This was not the president’s first instinct.

It's the God paradox again. Can instinct create a problem so big that instinct cannot solve it?

Barack got 8 times more money from F Mae and F Mac than mccain did. In fact, only Chris Dodd got more than Barack.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html

Clearly, they trusted Barack, not the repubs.

Its my feeling that bush would inspire a little more confidence if he'd let Barack do the talking.

Barack can fix the system. But it might take longer than two terms.

After eight years of this Bush administration, I wouldn't trust him. McCain, and his deregulation..first he's against it, now he's for it. I feel sorry for him. He's too old, and it's his last shot at President. He'll say, and do anything to get elected. That's the shame of it all. Bush ruined his chances. If bush was more for the USA, rather than himself, we wouldn't be in this situation. GWB screwed up, and he messed it up for the Republicans. NO open check; and if the public has to pay for these failures, then I want my cut.

tmv123,

I don't think Bush is in this for himself. I think he is in this for the United States. The problem is that he is in it over his head, as most of us would be.

But I agree with you about the lack of trust. He has governed not pragmatically, but ideologically. However, now that Bush is governing outside his comfort zone, I think that presents opportunities for both candidates.

Vey good point, SezWho2

Sure George, whatever.

Alinsky - "Barack can fix the system"

Ha ha ha ho ho ho hee hee hee! Your best yet! Thanks!

Oh yeah, they helped ruin their own companies, but bail them out.

Main street folks are losing their homes, but let's just help Wall Street.

Use the public's money to bail out millionaires that ruined their own businesses.

Let the public take their lumps and if they can't make it file bankruptsy.

Let's use a $1,000,000,000,000.00 and bail out greed, vile and malfinance.

Keep rich people rich.

To hell with the little guys.

Now the package is stalled because after asking for the $$$$$$$$ to bail out the rich the president wants to help Wall Street and leave Main Street behind.

So fair. < :-)

Bush is governing outside his comfort zone,

He sure is, as Arianna Huffington wrote: "In the battle over the proper role of government, the high priests of the church of the Free Market -- including Bush, Paulson, and the Masters of Wall Street -- have suffered a monumental defeat."

The problem for GWB is that his can't rally his base of support to ram through this legislation. These would be the same people who signed off, indeed actively promoted, the need for amassing executive power to fight the war on terror. Given the enemy we face, we can't wait for warrants, etc., Nor can we let them use the legal guarantees we afford defendants to destroy us.

Yet these same people, in a financial crisis, are emphasizing the need for accountable, limited, transparent government. What is the difference? In one case there's an external enemy whereas here this is something we've essentially done to ourselves through greed, gluttony, whatever. I have not found anything addressing this contradiction but if anyone else has, I'd welcome the link.

The republicans and george bush just want this passed and then we'll deal with regulation changes later. They don't want to limit pay, parachutes packages or anything. Just give Wall Street the money.

Screw Main Street. < :-)

adaydream, I understand your sentiment completelyand agree, I just hope that there are no golden parachutes when this goes down. That said, you have to look at the flip side. We are talking about averting a complete global banking meltdown. If you don't think that would lead to the ruin of most on mainstreet you aren't considering the pervasiveness of borrowing and debt the middle class has taken on to stay afloat. Beyond that if the banking system grinds to a halt there will be no money available for home loans and car loans and the cycle of de-valuation will continue until we see a reapeat of the great depression. Personally I'm scared because this is a last ditch effort and I'm not sure it will work.

Peter Schiff gave a very interesting speech to the Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Association in 2006 (I think there might be a youtube video of it). In this speech he rightly predicted that bad subprime loans would create a financial disaster.

But IIRC, at the end of his speech he indicated that he felt that the government would be forced to bail out the banks (his estimate was 1 trillion dollars, which isn't that far off). But he went on to say that he felt that this would devalue the American dollar. This would then force interest rates to climb, which would force home owner to default on their loans since a large number of them have short-term variable rate mortgages and are stretched to the limit credit-wise. This in turn would lead to real-estate markets plunging.

He was right about the sub-prime loan thing. I'm curious to see if he was right about the rest. It seems plausible to me, so its possible we haven't seen the back of this disaster yet.

i really don't understand this strategy of financial assistance to the big end of town. This is surely part of that festering trickle down economics brew principle that has failed to change the status quo.

It is the small people that ultimately supports the financial system, those small investors in their millions that buy stocks and shares. I would suspect that they are the ones who should be assisted in paying their mortgages helping to return some confidence to a system that has operated irresponsibly. Wall street is Only viable if it is supported from the bottom up.

The Government is simply awarding bad behavior in the financial system by assisting those companies that have operated well beyond their risk profile

I just heard that Robert Willunstad, the CEO of AIG, has turned down his $22 million severance package.