President George Bush attempted to get approval from Congress to purchase over $700 Billion in bad mortgages in an effort to fix the failing economy. The purchase would allow the government to own the bad debt for two years. The Democrats including Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, want the bailout plan to be used to help severely strapped home-owners stay in their homes and to limit the compensation paid to corporate executives.The Bush proposal will give largely sweeping powers to the government to dispense gigantic sums of taxpayer dollars, which would be secretly concealed from court scrutiny AND without oversight (a major reason how the mortgage crisis began in the first place). The proposal would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the bailout. What's even more interesting is the proposal does not require the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets. So essentially, the institutions would be bailed out and the government (taxpayers) could receive nothing in return. What a deal!
An elusive question is how can the government endorse such a plan without considering how pensions and homeowners would be saved. Only the JEDI readers would have the correct questions for this delimena. Let's hear from you.
Chicago Jedi '08
The solution is simple.....since we (taxpayers) are now in the mortgage business ...we should offer the following plan: A fixed rate 3% mortgage to all owner occupied homeowners for a thirty year term and offered for the next 3 years. 3-30-36. The impact is obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe crazy thing about all of this is someone actually could've made the decision to bail out AIG giant for $20 billion just a week before our efficient government bailed them out for a whopping $80 billion. Now is it just me or if that was Joe Citizen who made that decision they would either be in jail or out of a job or BOTH. BUT, the geniuses who signed off on this ridiculous plan are not only still employed but have profited from it.
ReplyDeleteThis administration AND McCAIN are a joke. Anyone who votes for those two assholes need to be shot.
Janis Reese
North Shore (Chicago)
Thank you for giving me a forum to shout about Bush's most recent band-aid solution! Not only is this a horrible solution, the idiots in Washington D.C. don't even know how they want to administer it. Initially, it was thought to be a solution for the mortgage problems, but now they are trying to expand it to other credit instruments (cars, credit cards and what not),and while i don't disagree that these areas need help as well, I don't think we as a people (the consumers and tax payers, depending on what day you ask) are in a position to fit the bill for the big corporations being greedy and finally paying for that greed. I think the way they are going with this we are in for another bailout in the near future and we the tax payers will pay for it. In closing, a number of people who made healthy financial decisions during a good economy are paying for a number of people who decided to live over their means. We are also paying for big corporations who tried to take advantage of these people and failed!
ReplyDeleteFrank -NIU
hi. i hate to trouble everyone again with my soapbox trifles, and i try not to assume that everyone can or even wants to hear what i have to say. but i have to vent. please forgive my folly and audacity. but there are some things i can't figure out. maybe someone, ANY ONE can help me: i've heard this theory about how giving big businesses and rich people tax breaks and "incentives" helps the economy. there is this mythological "trickle down" theory that seems to have republicans buying into this ever since i can remember. here are the logical and historical arguments why that does not work: 1) these same big businesses/rich people supported sending OUR jobs and their companies overseas WHILE RECEIVING these so called incentives. what exactly was the incentive designed to do? ohhhh thats right, it was to help the economy. duh. i must be stupid! 2) i don't buy this whinning from big corps and republicans talking about, "well, if the U.S. government was more friendly and we could afford to compete we wouldn't have to send business overseas". i have a itty bitty problem with that arguement. THESE ARE THE SAME COMPANIES WHO SPEND HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS ON CEO AND EXECUTIVE BONUSES EVERY YEAR. there is NO ONE on this planet who NEEDS a salary of 1 million dollars a year. many many executives make WELL over that. if people learn to live modest lives, AS THE BIBLE PROMOTES, companies would have very few issues with finances. Don't get me wrong. i am not into bashing the rich. my business will make me rich one day, but i don't plan to line my pockets with a seven figure income along with other executives of the company, then have the audacity to lay people off or trade the jobs of hard-working american mothers and fathers for foreign laborers who are not and probably never will be committed to this country. i call that anti-american, unpatriotic, greedy, and immoral. i'm sure GOD agrees. 3) our current economic crisis happened when this republican theory was at its zenith. feed the rich more and what happens? well, the outcome is obvious. THEY ASPIRE TO GET RICHER!!!! thats what they do! many of these people were born into wealth. they don't take special government courses to teach them to identify with the middle class or the poor. they see us as a means to get richer. this is a fact. this is the way they think. i don't mind that. some people are born investors or entreprenuers. but some people are born to work a 9 to 5 or nobody would ever stay on a job and the economy fails. god bless those people. the working man and woman are the key the any nation's wealth, and they SHOULD be treated as the MOST valuable resource we will ever have. many of you may remember in the bible, the old testament had rules for working animals...yes ANIMALS. one rule was let him eat all he wanted of whatever it was he helped to till and plant. if i used an ox to till my ground and plant corn, that ox could eat all the corn he wanted as he tilled. you figure it out. 4) ponder this side bar in light of the middle-class and poor. modern day believers of the bible always equate the sin of sodom and ghomorra to be homosexuality. thats NOT the the whole truth. that was one of the things they did, but that was NOT the reason GOD destroyed them. Ezekial 16-48-52 says:Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
ReplyDeletethe reason they ended up so immoral was because of their GREED. you don't have to believe me. search the scriptures. even when GOD judged israel for sinning against him it was ALWAYS attached to their greed of material things leading them into immorality. this is what greed does, it destroys people's character and the fiber of good nations. i don't know if everyone realizes it, but america is on the brink of financial destruction. financial failure precedes all other types of failure.
we must attack greed first. everything else will fall into place with minimal effort.
and by the way, GOD is not a democrate or republican.
kevin
You know what? I recently did some digging and I found out there is a huge price on the total amount needed to purchase all of the bad mortgages out there in mortgage land. Would you like to read what that number is? It's $100 Billion dollars. Yes, I said $100 Billion. So my question is, if the total number to buy all of the so-called bad mortgages is only $100 Billion why in the hell are we paying $700 Billion? This is the type of stuff that makes people NOT TRUST GOVERNMENT! They are all a bunch of f-ing crooks. But, the minute we ordinary joes commit some fraud or white collar crime to make our ends meet, we go directly to jail and do NOT collect our $200.
ReplyDeleteThe word is out already that before the ink was dry on the bailout package, AIG was spending a half a million bucks on spa treatments for its employees. This is such a crap of shit! BUSH, McCain and all the rest of those assholes are driving this country into the ground and then have the nerve to blame it on Black and Hispanic homebuyers. I think they should go to jail just like John Q would.
I'm out!
Dr. Howard Hendricks used to tell his Seminary students that when he listened
ReplyDeleteto most preachers preach, he wanted to interrupt them and say, 'You know, I
don't think you really believe what you are preaching.' He said when
they assured him they did believe it, he would then keep on goading them until
finally they cried out with great passion, 'Yes I do! I REALLY do believe
this with all my heart!!!'
Hendricks says then he would sit back down and say, 'Great. NOW tell us
about it!'
Dr. Hendricks makes a great point. Sometimes we come across as not fully
believing what we proclaim. Sometimes we don't 'practice what we
preach' as my grandmother used to say.
We say that we speak for a God Who is over all and knows all and is in all, yet
we frequently don't behave as if we are Children of the King. We say that
our Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills, yet somehow His church has
trouble coming up with operating expenses.
The world has been hearing some really depressing economic news this past week,
and we've bought into it. This past week I've heard a lot of church
folks talk about how the crisis on Wall Street is affecting the way people are
tithing and consequently the way churches are allocating funds. I've heard
several conversations where people are scared that their ministry would fall
victim to the hard times we appear to be heading toward.
Something doesn't add up here, folks.
I have a question for you: Has the current economic situation changed God? Is
He less able than He was a few weeks ago? No! In fact, God knew this was
coming. The drop in the Dow Jones average didn't catch God off guard. And I
am certain there is no in Heaven, and that God will continue to provide for us
to do what He guides us to undertake!
If we really believe what we have been preaching all this time, this is not a
time for the church to fold under the economic realities of the day! If God is
our Source - and He is - and if God is leading us to do something, then we need
to know that He will provide for it.
We need to practice what we preach!
God Bless,
Angela
Just remember Jesus is the Lord!!! Psalm 150:6