Rejected - the house votes down bailout...

[darth los]

The thing is that the market might correct itself and then again it might not. But do we really want to wait and find out? Sometimes there just aren't any good options.

[DubiousComforts]

I find it Ironic that the house fails the bill, Wall Street drops 777 points. On tuesday, no bill, no talk about the bill, and the stock market goes up 485 points. Sounds to me like Wall Street doesn't need anything and are just ****ing with the markets in hopes of getting free money. As usual, it's a scam that the public will eventually buy into out of fear. In my area, gas has dropped to its lowest price in six months, which I predict will further plummet below $3.00/gallon as Election Day nears. You simply can't have citizens going to the polls angry because they might actually ignore the football game rhetoric and vote with their heads for a change. How can there be "financial crisis" without adversely affecting this most valuable of commodities that has had everyone bitching and moaning over the last year? This past week, I was just approved for a new credit card, transfered a balance over at 0%, switched my auto insurance saving several hundred bucks, and my few meager stock investments are doing just fine. So if the banks collapse, does that mean I won't have to pay my debt? Sounds good to me. Sans federal bailout, the financial climate for working stiffs will be no worse than it already is with the filthy, greedy rich paying themselves several hundred times what the rest of us take home. The wealthy elite have worked so hard at convincing John Q. Public that welfare to the poor amounts to "socialism" and any other dirty word that they can make stick. Demonstrate that you've actually learned something by refusing to provide a socialist bailout to your rich owners, too. And if you absolutely must put your fear somewhere, then worry about multinational giant J.P Morgan Chase who saw to it to become even larger in their swift buyout of Wamu. We don't want big government, yet we tolerate humongous multinational corporations that utilize every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place?

[Publius]

We don't want big government, yet we tolerate humongous multinational corporations that utilize every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place? I haven't heard any suggestion that tax evasion (legal or otherwise) played any role in the current crisis. If the companies involved had been paying more taxes, they would only be in worse financial shape now. The crisis was caused by irresponsible lending practices combined with new accounting rules imposed by the SEC in the past couple of years.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Pub said it, poor lending practices... which to me = bad business decisions, which tells me F U C K THEM and the BAIL OUT. If I buy the movie theater I have been after and it fails after being in business, is the government going to bail me out? NO, so they shouldn't be bailing anyone else out. Sorry, but I don't buy the financial armageddon bologna. I have already written and called my senators and congressmen and women and said you vote for it, you will never see my vote or other votes because 60+% of americans do not want the bail out. They better start listening to us since they have been elected by us and are were elected to represent us.

[DubiousComforts]

I haven't heard any suggestion that tax evasion (legal or otherwise) played any role in the current crisis. And nowhere in my post did I suggest that it did, legal or otherwise. But just try to claim with a straight face that these huge, multinational corporations calling the shots aren't employing financial magicians who make sure they pay the least amount of tax possible. Of course it's not "evasion" when you influence and help to write the tax laws. Here's an idea: get the 400 richest billionaires together and let them bailout America's "financial crisis." What's a paltry 700 billion to these guys compared to the public relations bonanza they would enjoy for decades? Bill Gates would never need spend another cent advertising Microsoft because Americans would be building altars to him in their homes.

[Publius]

And nowhere in my post did I suggest that it did, legal or otherwise. But just try to claim with a straight face that these huge, multinational corporations calling the shots aren't employing financial magicians who make sure they pay the least amount of tax possible. Of course it's not "evasion" when you influence and help to write the tax laws. You said: We don't want big government, yet we tolerate humongous multinational corporations that utilize every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place? I naturally assumed that by "this mess" you meant the big mess being discussed in this thread. So what could the pronoun "that" (in the second sentence) refer to other than "humongous multinational corporations that utilize every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of tax"? And if tolerating "humongous multinational corporations that utilize every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of tax" is "how we got into this mess," that sure seems to me like a suggestion that corporations avoiding tax obligations played a role in the current financial crisis. Sorry if I somehow misunderstood what you wrote.