Let me see if I got this right. John McCain supposedly suspended his campaign so he could make sure that the House Republicans bought into a bailout deal, but they've now gone and voted against it and the whole thing failed.

Great job, John.

I am glad it is failing, I have been calling my senators and congressman all week pushing against it.

This plan is a fig leaf on Paulson's plan, nothing but a power and money grab. What we need is a better bailout, ala http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/9/two-better-bailouts

Force banks to write down assets and have the government take equity stakes via preferred stock. This is the way Buffett invested in Goldman (he was comfortable with the carrying value of its assets). It's the way the Sweden did it. It's also the way any responsible private market investor would invest.

The Republicans were trying to hang this on the Dem's--hoping to revive the old "irresponsible spending" trope.

for once, thank god for house republicans screwing the dems enough to open their eyes to them screwing us. so glad this bs didn't pass.

This is going to be a disaster, not because the bailout plan was so great, but because the Dems and Reps are now going to go to their respective corners, come up with wildly different plans, and nothing will get done.

These people will not cease to play politics, even in the face of a potential emergency.

As BAD would note: nagging questions/always remain/why did this happen/and who is to blame?

Well, we all know the answer here - President George W. Bush has lead us into the worst economic nightmare ever. This baby will dwarf the good ol'Great Depression! -Kevo

Whew! Bush _finally_ gets his *ss handed to him, no longer capable of covering his inner circle. Can you say WMD? Though you could.

We probably won't know exactly what happened till later, but by my count 60% of democrats voted yes and 67% of republicans voted no. If Pelosi had Boehner telling her that he had enough GOP members to pass this thing, then didn't deliver, then the GOP is going to be the sole owner of the biggest financial meltdown since the Depression. Nice going fellas.

This is going to be a disaster, not because the bailout plan was so great, but because the Dems and Reps are now going to go to their respective corners, come up with wildly different plans, and nothing will get done.

These people will not cease to play politics, even in the face of a potential emergency.

Posted by: Taritac on September 29, 2008 at 2:21 PM

Wrong, that's the best thing that could happen. Now bring on all those "disastrous consequences", including dogs and cats living together that now all but certain to happen to due to rejection of this "bailout".

These people will not cease to play politics, even in the face of a potential emergency.

A "potential" emergency?

Let these banks fail. Wipe the toxic debt off the books the old fashioned way.

Fuck those rich fuckers. Not one thin dime!

Actually, I do think a bailout is coming, sadly.

I would assume the belief is that now that Republicans have seen what their votes did to the pocketbooks of the rich people bankrolling their campaigns, they'll very quickly change their mind.

Not all that out of the questions, methinks.

Roll call available?

...the GOP is going to be the sole owner of the biggest financial meltdown since the Depression. Nice going fellas. -pinson

They already own it. Nothing they do now changes that. They're just confused about how to blame it on the Democrats.

So the rampant cronyism and bleeding dry of our Treasury and Marketplace that has been hallmark of American conservativism does not get the temporary cover of a bailout? (They've looted everything that exists, and now want a promissory note on future taxes?)

Looks like Bush and his conservative ilk's chickens are coming home to roost. Too bad for him he couldn't get out of Dodge before his house of cards collapsed.

Monkey, I'd feel the same way you did if the problem would affect only the rich fuckers. The only true aspect of the "trickle down theory" is that shit rolls downhill.

Wealthcare is on life support.

Even with a revote, the fact that the nays won the first round will be what folks remember.

Fine. Taking revenge on all those f***ing wall street people - by crushing the whole economy. The rich will probably loose some of their fortune, but hardly all of it.

The poor will have to pay the tougher bills.

Worth it?

A lethal brew of freemarketeers and some who don't want to bankroll Wall Street's irresponsibility.

It's a tough gulp but some kind of bill is in order. The problem may be that today's vote is the closest the two sides get. Any further amendment is likely to lose votes on one side or the other.

If you are younger than 40, do the dance of joy.

With this bailout drowned, the DOW down about a third, your entire career just got a boost by putting the major restructuring behind you and moving on to productive exports. Your economy will be secure for your generation.

If you are over 45, than all your government guarantees did exactly what theory predicted, forced a sudden restructuring rather than a smooth one.

Peter Welch sent out a very clear-headed statement about why he voted against. I agreed with every word of it. My question is: Where the ##$%^Y&& is the House Democrats' alternative plan???

There you go Hilzoy and friends: a true measure of how dependable the Republicans are. But next time Lucy won't pull the football away...

Not Really

94 Democrats against the bill. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM.

The blame for the crisis and the failed bill is on the Democrats.

Apparently it was Republican defections that killed the bill. So, reliably, the trolls come out and blame the Dems for the bill failing. (If it had passed, the trolls would be blaming the Dems for approving a giveaway to Wall Street.)

George W. Bush, Meet Herbert Hoover. They two of you will be spending a great deal of time in the history books together. And trolls? Screw you all.

Here is the roll call

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

Fuck those rich fuckers. Not one thin dime! Actually, I do think a bailout is coming, sadly.
Posted by: Monkey

Monkey, Paul Krugman, one of the most vociferous critics of the Bush administration over the last year, could never be mistaken for someone carry water for the "rich fuckers." He thinks it's the best that can be done. What we are likely to get is something worse not better. The Rethugs don't give a shit because they are still trying to help the corporate interests that they think of as their primary constituency.

If Congressional Democrats had ANY guts, they would grab this opportunity to force a unipartisan bill down Bush's throat. Big ol' surtax on incomes >$1M. Relief/restructure for people who can't make their mortgage. Any company-level relief accompanied by imposition of strict rules of operation, including curtailed executive compensation.

Instead of cowering before this giant economic reckoning, Democrats should own the solution, make it work, and push the GOP into insignificance.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM.

This bill is extremely unpopular, because it is a BAD BILL. It doesn't even come close to doing the right thing.

The mistake is not voting against it, but not having something else to offer that is sure to work.

And that "sure to work" part is the sticking point. We are rolling the dice here, and the Democrats are unwilling to do it alone. That is the problem.

94 Democrats against the bill. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM.

Nothing is wrong with them. That's 94 Democrats who decided not to let the Republicans make them own a Republican failure.

Can't say I agree with anyone who is upset over this outcome, given that the Republicans behaved as expected and tried to offload responsibility for their failure onto the other party. I'm not in favor of any bailout bill passing with support of only the Democrats, or even mostly Democrats. If that means the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, so be it. At least then, the blame will devolve upon those to whom it belongs.

"Wealthcare", that's pretty funny! Me? I don't know WTF to think. It sure smacks like one last looting for BushCo. though.. Fucking crooks, the lot of them.

scott_m

Senate Repubs would filibuster any Dem only bill to death

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

scott_m is right. let's get something for our money, make it noticably heavier on foreclosures, transfer regulatory authority towards congress and away from the administration. let it pass with next to no republicans. dare bush not to sign it. oh, and make it a smaller number.

Monkey, I'd feel the same way you did if the problem would affect only the rich fuckers. The only true aspect of the "trickle down theory" is that shit rolls downhill.

Exactly. Do people not get that this will have a cascading effect? Do you think this isn't going to affect your life in a big way, Monkey?

The bill sucks, the situation sucks, but educate yourself about what it really means before you go arguing for "fucking the rich fuckers." We get fucked too here, quite a bit harder than they do.

If you are younger than 40, do the dance of joy.

With this bailout drowned, the DOW down about a third, your entire career just got a boost by putting the major restructuring behind you and moving on to productive exports. Your economy will be secure for your generation.

I'm 43, and already reckon my recently laid off wife and I will be working a lot longer than my Dad did, even though we both have advanced degrees and thick resumes.

I have never bought the idea that the liquidity crisis or frozen credit crisis or whatever the financial geniuses tell us is a crisis is as bad as they say. However, I'm prepared to acknowledge that if there is no credit to be had for most borrowers, then I am screwed if I need to sell my Brooklyn home to move to a less expensive city. At least in the short term. Unless I sell to Europeans or Irish, which is a tactic that many home sellers here are turning to. They've got the cash.

Anyhoo, the bill was definitely a fig leaf as written. We can be thankful the GOP house members (and 95 Dems) stopped it, but I am damned glad that their silly provisions weren't offered as a substitute "plan." Those jerks actually wanted to reduce regulation -- one component was to return to "mark to model" vs. "mark to market." Isn't the inability to accurately quantify risk the major drive for this mess in the first place? Can I use my own fucking model to value my personal assets when I go shopping for a loan?

GOP pundits preach about "personal accountability," but somehow compartmentalize "the system" as being immune from consequences. As if the system isn't composed of people. You can't expect consumer accountability when there is no corporate accountability. It simply isn't sustainable. You can't advocate personal discipline on one side and eschew market discipline on the other.

Maybe we ALL need to take a cleansing bath now and adjust our consumption habits before the correction gets any more painful.

Perhaps this is the financial equivalent of a wildfire burning out the underbrush.

If it's the whole forest burning down ,then perhaps an international summit needs to be convened to address it. These affects aren't confined to the US.

The Republican opposition is no surprise at all. It's the usual game of Lucy, Linus and the football being played on the hapless Dems...

As usual, the Republican administration created this crisis, aided by the full support of the Republican Congress, and the Dems are expected to clean up the mess and bail the country out...

This will then allow the Republicans to play the "populist play". They can go back to their constituents and claim the Dems support Wall Street and the banks, while they (the Repubs) stand up for the little guy.

And the pathetic Dems fall for it AGAIN AND AGAIN...GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!

I think the country can survive 40 days without a bailout much easier than it can survive a bailout infused with the GOP's cynical, Party-first election year politics.

We'll get a good bill in November.

The blame for the crisis and the failed bill is on the Democrats.

Apparently it was Republican defections that killed the bill. So, reliably, the trolls come out and blame the Dems for the bill failing. (If it had passed, the trolls would be blaming the Dems for approving a giveaway to Wall Street.)

George W. Bush, Meet Herbert Hoover. They two of you will be spending a great deal of time in the history books together. And trolls? Screw you all.

Posted by: jimBOB on September 29, 2008 at 2:39 PM |

Sorry jimBOB, but this vote exposes Nancy Pelosi to be the worst Speaker in history. The House runs on straight majority control. The Dems are the majority party. If Nancy can't get her majority to vote for a bill that she brings to the floor, that represents a failure of her leadership plain and simple. Any attempt to blame Republicans for the failure of this thing to pass by the Dems and the Media should be met with howls of laughter.

This is perhaps the best day for the GOP since the 2006 blowout.

PS I meant Lucy and Charlie Brown, not Linus...

Never a bad time for fingerpointing, eh?

And then we get a quote about Clinton and Fannie Mae. Sorry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were never in the sub-prime loan market. It is the failure of the securitized sub-prime loans that are causing the credit meltdown. Try again.

This bill would not work and deserved to die. Congress was so eager to avoid doing their job that they clung to this POS like a lifesaver and negotiated some (toothless) window dressing for it in hopes they could hide the fact they were selling out. Perhaps now they will get down to business of actually devising a solution that is both fair and WILL WORK. Roubini and other economists not indentured to Wall Street have offered good ideas what that might look like. Let the negotiations begin.

Since we don't have a President capable of leading, Congress will have to fill the vacuum.

PS I meant Lucy and Charlie Brown, not Linus...

Killing the rich fuckers was not inculded in the bailout package. If it was, it may have had more popular support.

Any attempt to blame Republicans for the failure of this thing to pass by the Dems and the Media should be met with howls of laughter.

This is perhaps the best day for the GOP since the 2006 blowout.

Posted by: Chicounsel

You aren't very bright, are you?

SJRSM,

Nice, classism, racism, and a complete misunderstanding of what really led to this crisis. Clinton and Bush were right to encourage people to buy homes. It's the American dream. They were both wrong because they let greedy bastards engage in shady credit default swaps.

The problem isn't bad loans and people defaulting on them, though that certainly isn't a good thing. The problem is the sickening act of insatiable Wall Street piranhas taking insurance on those loan packages and betting against Americans.

That's who all of these banks owe money. The speculators who guessed, rightfully so, that Bush would destroy the economy and lose all of our jobs which would create a collapsing housing market.

And that's why they can eat a steaming pile before they get one dime from me. They bet on the failure of Bush's economy and against the hard working American's most affected by it. I'll be damned if I could ever support such a traitorous notion.

I guess if you bought Bush's little speech the other night and had no idea about how the economy works, though, that it's easier for you to blame Clinton, Raine, minorities, and poor people. To do otherwise might require engaging a brain cell or two, and certainly no one expect you to have to do that.

All regurgitation, all the time with you hacks.

Credit default swaps caused this.

SJRSM - the program was only a pilot in 1999, with it not fullying coming on line until 2001. Why make a decision not to refer to the entire article, and only choose the ones that put this debacle at the feet of a former president.

In 2001, it was Bush who needed to provide the oversight and enforcement mechinism in the gov't sponsored FM and FM. Not only was such mechinisms not afforded, Mr. Bush in his infinite unwisdom gave billions away to the top 2%, and now through its mismanagement, we are now offering what is in essence welfare to CEOs and other "business" leaders who couldn't help their own greed! -Kevo

IT PAYS TO CALL!!! (700billion this time "A penny saved is a penny earned" ---Poor Richard's Almanac

We need a bill that funds itself. Here's how:
1. Raise capital gains rates to income tax rates. In fact, just consider capital gains income.
2. Create a new top income tax bracket above 500k and tax it at 50%.
3. Tax inheritance at 60%, with a $1M exemption.

Make all of the above permanent until the debt incurred by the bailout is paid down. After all, whose wealth are we preserving? I mean, we're saving rich people's bacon, right? Let them pay for it.

NOBODY WINS on this deal, WE just saved ourselves BORROWING 700billion dollars that's all. Look out the window, the WHOLE world ecconomy is slowing down, its a freight train and yer volkswagon ain't gonna stop it.

People who are too stupid to live within their means buying mortgages from people who are too greedy not to take advantage of those who are too stupid. -SJRSM

Increasing mortgage defaults alone was not enough to cause this crisis. And before you lay blame on ignorance, perhaps you should looks at the unemployment numbers and the declining average income. That had as much to do with people not being able to make mortgage payments as anything.

Of course, the government never bothered to bail out those people who lost their jobs and couldn't make a mortgage payment.

It's far more complex than you make it seem, and you seem a bit to anxious to lay it at the feet of the ignorant while touting your own ability to pay your mortgage. I guess it's a good thing you didn't lose your job or have a medical emergency you couldn't afford.

Ignoring credit debt swaps and blaming the poor won't change reality. The reason we're bailing out the banks is so they can pay off the insurance policies taken against mortgages. Bankers gave out bad loans on purpose all the while betting that they'd fail. Now that they have failed, the want to reap the rewards. I say we let them reap what they've sown. That isn't what Clinton wanted when he pushed for more people to live the American dream.

Laying the blame at his feet and regurgitating 'Oh it's the ignorant people who can't pay their mortgages,' is weak, and to use your own blather, "BS."

one picture...
http://mobiusinformer.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/jump.jpg
three words...

Here's a question for all of you financial types:

Why should we continue to allow these "weird" instruments that amount to no more than legalized gambling on a financial abstraction?

Why shouldn't "Wall Street" be limited to issuing and trading shares on corporations where the "gamble" is on which companies have superior products/service or superior operations or superior market potential? That stuff is all REAL.

But these investment products that are several times removed from the actual exchange of money for a valued consumer service seem to be the root of the problem. If you can invent a way to make money betting on other people making or losing money, then it becomes the next hottest thing for the Masters of the Universe to make obscene profit from -- meanwhile the underlying fundamentals of production, consumption and financial soundness of most businesses has not changed.

How is sustained economic "growth" possible if it is not tied to either production or consumption.

To us non-geniuses, it all looks like bullshit.

I can understand reducing costs of operations or increasing the market appeal of a product or service. That's what I do for a living. I cannot understand Hedge Funds or Credit Default Swaps or Selling Short or Futures or any of those other weird animals out there.

Are we in a situation where a very small minority of people are actually influencing this market in meaningful way, while the rest of us sit by with no real influence on how our various stock market invested funds are managed?

Why isn't there a revolt against all of this.

Or is this the beginning of the revolt?