All these men who have been part of the problem for decades now either complain no one warned them, or the plan to fix the damn thing is horrible.
At least Newt is saying something specific with a timeline of when we’ll find out it’s as horrible as he says it is. If he ends up being right then he better run for president in 2012.
Newt Gingrich: Kill the Paulson Plan. Hard.
1) He called it a “stupid plan” that looks like it had been designed by autocrat Vladimir Putin. He also said it will be a “nightmare” to implement and full of corruption.
2) He said the Paulson Plan would be a “dead loser” on Election Day that will “break against anyone who votes for it.” It will hurt even worse with the 2010 election once Americans see what a drag it is on the economy when implemented.
There are a few more points in between (please do click through the link), but this last one is especially intriguing, and I think very, very smart. Will McCain go for it?
5) He advises McCain to play the maverick and come out against the Paulson Plan. Then it will be the Obama-Bush plan.
In the meantime, the GOP in Congress say they hate the plan, but will vote for it anyway. That’s leadership for ya!
Newt has always been one of the smartest men in America. I concur wholeheartedly.
Did you hear/see (of all people) Sen. Schumer today asking Paulson why he needed all $700gazillion right now, why couldn’t he get $150gazillion first and then congress revisit it in January when we see how it is all playing out? And Paulson just basically said “because we just do, and that’s that… no we won’t use it all right away, but we still need it all right now…”?
I think Newt’s advice is spot on, especially the energy part. We have more oil in our untapped wells than Saudi Arabia. We should be tapping that oil and natural gas. The revenues from this energy will be a huge boost to the economy, as will keeping the money spent by consumers in the US instead of sending it over seas.
It’s a disgrace that we can’t get our own oil because Democrats are blocking it. This needs to be exposed and it needs to end.
god, dems hate America so bad. As if this is not their country and they’d love to take something away from it. No wonder they are regarded as traitors by many people in the society. How sad!
I voted for Bush twice, and now deeply regret having done so, only balanced out by the fact that those who ran against him had plenty of their own faults as well. I had always maintained that in my lifetime that Jimmy Carter was the worst president, but with the depression we are now in (even if not acknowledged in official circles since it would be political suicide to do so), I now sadly have come to the conclusion that the worst president title now goes to W. I am becoming harder and harder pressed to identify much the man and his organization has done right the last 8 years. I’m sure some of this is clouded by my anger at Bush and his management team as to how they prevailed over this situation in the financial markets.
No one in government could see (or even use common sense) that the housing market could not sustain the pricing curve increases that we have seen over the past decades. No one in public circles that I could identify ever realized (or identified publicly) that the growth was not sustainable, that it is still not affordable for many young people to own property or enter the market. Sound lending principles were abandoned at the national level, and in many ways proved to be the catalyst to the bankruptcy nightmare this country now finds itself in.
There is plenty of fault to go around, and I chuckled when Paulson asked for approval first before placing responsibility for the situation. Well folks, us out here in the heartland know who was in management when the major share of this collapse went down. There was a saying from a former president who said ‘The Buck Stops Here’. Well, to my way of seeing it, the Buck stops with Bush on this one.
Not only am I voting to flush Bush and the GOP admin out, I am voting to flush out my congressman and considering the same for my senator.
The GOP is the champion of free enterprise and deregulation. This is one case where the GOP’s principles ran counter to what would prove to be good for the country. While I don’t approve of big government, big government is about what we are to get, and all under GOP administration. The ultimate in GOP hypocrisy which begs the question, why should they get my vote any more? Their leadership has essentially bankrupted the nation.
I predicted months ago in this blog that Obama would win, he would win by about 7-10 points in the popular vote, and between 300-325 electoral votes. With all the bad news lately, I am still standing by this prediction with 6 weeks before the election.
Tammy, I liked your analogy about “shooting the bad guy” – but I’d propose this for the “good guys/hostages” sake; take a portion of the proposed bailout $$$ and disperse it to the “innocents” – not the bad guys that harmed the innocents.
WK – I can honestly point to several things that I hold President Bush accountable for as well… but not everything. And not as the sole culprit of the current market and bank crisis.
Many layers and components play into this. The CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) of 1977 is a good place to start. Banks have continuously been encouraged (and rewarded) by administrations and lawmakers to make credit available to EVERYONE, most especially (over the last 15 years) those who don’t even come close to qualifying, who don’t have collateral much less those who don’t have income or means to pay back a loan.
And then there are the layers and layers of corruption, greed, and players in the financial houses playing fast and loose with money that is not theirs.
Our economic system is not broken, but the bad kids have been allowed to lock themselves inside the clock tower throwing water balloons at everyone… until they used up ALL the water, draining the aquifer dry. It’s time to storm the clocktower and take those morons to jail. It’s been time for a long time to do that, and let our economy get back to it’s fundamental strengths. But as we always learn through trial and error, it’s time for REAL protections to be put in place. Not unbridled, debilitating and convoluted restrictions and regulations, but smart and impenetrable protections.
Some senators (wonder who?) and congressmen and even the President have highlighted these looming problems over the last few years, but the problem is that they have not YELLED LOUD ENOUGH and forced the hard look that was imperative.
It is time to hold our officials responsible for not TAKING HARSH AND STERN ACTION over the last 2-3 years. It’s not that they didn’t see it, they did because they made limp hints that a crisis was looming in speeches to different organizations and to each other, but never got up off their duffs to actually work on it. I personally think there are economists in our country who could rein this in swiftly (with a due amount of pain to everyone) and their names are not Greenspan, Bernanke or Cox. I suspect they have been playing footsies with their financial friends for many years, and I say throw those bums out on their lobotomized foreheads fast and soon. Let’s get really, really, really, really, really, REALLY serious about this.
It’s time to listen to Newt. (and some of the brilliant friends I know he must have lurking around).
I also tend to agree with Ben Stein that any major bail-out needs to start from the bottom, saving homeowners on the brink of foreclosure who have truly been screwed by the bad kids. Homeowners who qualify to make good on a reasonable, honest and decent loan.
And again today I have to admit that I agree with (of all people) Sen Schumer’s opening comments about a staggered approach to the bail-out.
But you still won’t catch me voting for Barry. NO WAY, NO HOW.
Once again the READY….FIRE!…AIM principle is about to be employed. They created a huge bubble, denied the bubble was a bubble until it burst, claimed this injection of money, or that injection of money would be the fix, and the last, until the meltdown. Then, they invoke the appocalypse to get us to cede tremendous power to a single person or collection of a few. Saddam Husein has WMD! He’s ready to pass it to Al Quada! Give me lots of money and power and I will protect you from this menace!
The entire global economy is on the brink of collapse! You are about to lose everything you ever worked for, your home, your retirement, your job. Just give me a boat load of money, and let my well connected former Goldman Sachs titan have full authority on who gets it and how it is spent, and I will save you from this catastrophe! (See the lack of a meaningful difference?)
Hmm, I think not. There is a solution to this mess. The FHA is a direct govenment lender. Why not allow a person that is in default, or a mortgage holder of a non-performing loan take it to the FHA and have it re-written to a special FHA loan, with a few rules as follows:
1.) A 20-30% writedown of the principle. (It will cost the bank that much or more to forclose, fix-up, market and sell the property.)
2.) The new interest rate gets calculated against the new balance to equal the original payment under the teaser rate, plus 1/2%. (No free lunch.)
3.) The interest rate rises 1/2% per year to a cap of 6%. (Giving the homeowner time to improve his conditions and make adjustments.)
4.) No second mortgages are allowed under this loan. The homeowner would have to build up equity, and Re-fi out of this loan to be able to use his house as an ATM machine.
As a very wise man said: Fairness is the equal distribution of dis-satisfaction.
Under the above set of rules, some would still crash and burn. The lenders take a hit, the homeowner is restricted, property values would stablize, and remain flat for a while, and the taxpayer would not be guarranteeing a hopeless cause, or just handing a bunch of bankers their money back, and having a firesale on the whole mess, while throwing people out of their homes.
Daredevil, W oversaw (or should have overseen) this situation. While not his fault in and of it itself, I find him at fault for being so out of touch with anything going on in the American heartland, and not raising the questions a leader would ask of his management team. It will be a joyous day when that man leaves his office, I predict you will see many parties in Washington and elsewhere celebrating Bush’s departure.
Daredevil, I read your comments as a case of blind loyalty, no offense intended. McCain could likely harm someone and you would still vote for him. You’re not alone and at least you explain your reasons, By comparison, many in the GOP side will not vote for Obama strictly because he is black, and for that reason alone. Those are the folks I have a problem with, I dont mind principled disagreement with folks like you.