Thoughts on U.S. Bailouts

[Jeremy]

Wow, this may open up a huge can of worms. It will make for a good discussion though. Personally I think all these bailouts are bullshit. I remember selling $400K houses to people back in the day that had a combined income of $70K. These people bought houses on 3-1 arms at ridiculously low interest rates. No shit Wells Fargo & Citigroup, it was going to be an issue in a few years when their house payments doubled! The banks should have realized that they were setting themselves up to be fuct in a few years.

But now, we are bailing out the dumb ass banks that made these loans. And because of this every big industry is lining up for the free handout. You have every financial institution, auto makers, and I'm sure airlines will follow trying to take advantage of the situation.

It's a joke really, I would love to make terrible decisions, fail in business, and then fly in my private jet to Washington to ask for billions in free money to get me out of the mess. Let's not forget too that the U.S. is trillions in debt, so it is just funny money anyways.

Ok, rant over, discuss your thoughts.

[pokerprop]

I might have said it a bit more harshly with some more extremist undertones mixed it, but my thoughts are pretty much the same as yours.

I'm not sure the right words to say I predicted this about a year ago, of course it was not my predictions but I believed based on others predictions that it will happen and strongly preached it would. Its funny friends who come to me now talking about how bad things are getting, and I refer back to a year ago when I sat down personally with my closest friends to drill into there heads as much as possible the reasons why thought times likely are ahead and why there was a need to work urgently to better their financial positions now because the windows of opportunity will be shrinking. The other day I was talking to a friend who was like man I wish I listened to you last year then asks me, now what? I told him well last year was better than today but today is better than next year. I spent a while helping him formulate a business plan, a couple weeks have passed since. I am getting the feeling next year we'll have the same conversation we did this year and its sad.

Related to all the bailouts. This money does not exist. My advice to anyone not already financially secure, its time to work as hard as possible to get there as soon as possible. To those who are financially secure the opportunities for true financial freedom will always be there but the number of opportunities will shrink.. Its as good as I think it will be anytime in the next 5-10 years to work urgently on bettering your financial situation.

On a poker affiliate related note: Does anyone feel MGR is becoming a better option with the massive inflation we'll soon experience. Times are tough right now but there will be short term stimulus plans and especially with change of presidents, that I feel the player values on a dollar basis will eventually become significantly higher, though the actual value when related to purchasing power "price" will actually actually decline. Much more so for CPA affiliates, and still but less for MGR. Perhaps this is offset by the risk of mergers - but I think we've seen many of the big ones already and am leaning that the MGR value is still higher even when accounting for the associated risk.

[PokerNations]

Government/politicians and big business lie in bed together, of course there'll be all this ridiculous back-scratching.

Then again, you can look at an organization like the WPT which has been mismanaged for years and I believe they've bled $55 million in investor money over the past two years.

Obviously I agree that it doesn't make sense to throw money at people who've shown such incompetence, it's quite disgusting really.

[Skinski]

What gets me is that the Gov comes up with the money for bailouts, when they should have been used it towards infrastructure . Damn bridges collapsing around us, schools falling apart, and roads in dire need of repair. It sure would have created some jobs and put money back into the economy.

[wjb316]

There's a problem inherent in our government that makes it hard to get any long term solutions. Our elected leaders hold short term positions so they are reluctant to put into place any plan that has long term value but hurts in the short term.

[LadyHoldem]

It's sick. Firstly, nature dictates that the strong survive. That may sound cold hearted or whatever. But face it, if these big guys can't be in business, there are ppl out there that can.

Secondly, my mom still has to pay on her Citibank card, that's bs. If they got a bunch of cash because ppl can't make their payments, then my mom should just send Citi a note saying. 'Hey guys, don't you love this bail out. Me too! and right before Christmas! Please credit my account from that payment.'

It seems to be the beginning of a new era, Welfare for Big Business.

[wjb316]

Yea this philosophy is going to break us so much harder than letting the strong survive. I don't think it's cold hearted at all, though. It makes a stronger, lasting economy that can benefit millions more people.

We are trying to stop a wildfire by throwing all our drinking water at it.

[Spry]

when more and more people wake up to the realization that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation and not a federal institution, and that they loan every single dollar to the US government, at interest. They profit from every single dollar they print and loan to the US govt. The more money they loan the more interest they create the more in-debt we become.

It's all a huge f'ing ponzi scheme and will collapse leaving your paper worthless. Hyperinflation FTL.

From a 1993 interview with Friedrich Kessler (law professor at Harvard and Univ of California Berkely and experienced the Weimar Republic hyperinflation:

"It was horrible. Horrible! Like lightning it struck. No one was prepared. You cannot imagine the rapidity with which the whole thing happened. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty. You could buy nothing with your paper money."

[Spry]

oh, agreed totally that the bailouts are BS. Creative destruction FTW.

Believe me, if the US automakers or home loan corporations fail... someone will open up to replace them if the market demands it... and they will do it BETTER (in theory) than the previous company.

[Stocks]

If these bailouts were really because of the bad housing mortgages the States could have bought 1,000,000 of these houses average price $250,000with so called bad mortgages from the banks and just gave them to the people and all that would have only cost 250 billion. So bump that up to 750 billion and thats 3 million homes or a trillion and that 4 million homes.

If they did that people would of been able to stay in they're house's they would own they're houses so they would not be paying anything on them and could spend money elsewhere. This would also have kept the prices of everyone elses houses higher because the market would'nt be flooded with cheap forclosed houses. And the banks would no longer have this so called bad debt and they would be able to lend money.

And all that would have only cost a trillion dollars.