breaking news: House defeats $700B financial markets bailout

[shel]

Date: 9/29/2008 5:35:50 PM
Author: strmrdr

Date: 9/29/2008 5:28:50 PM

Author: shel

Date: 9/29/2008 3:33:59 PM


Author: purrfectpear


I moved out of all my stock positions in February. Nothing to be scared of. As for banking, I don''t keep more than $100K in any one place.

Just be sure to get back INTO stocks when you think prices have reached a (relative) nadir.

Why so short sellers can run it back down again to steal money?

Frankly I think anyone who pulled out or hasn''t been in the market would be better staying out.

Wall Street can go trade with their own money instead of main streets for a change.

Get back into stocks so you can profit from the inevitable upswing. Unless something catastrophic happens to the entire Earth, markets WILL recover. When they do, you don''t want your money just sitting in the bank.

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 9/29/2008 9:56:25 PM
Author: VegasAngel

strmrdr/Karl ot: Do you watch Glenn Beck?

I don''t get cnn I just have low end cable(7 channels) and don''t own a tv, I just use my computer as a tv a few hours a week.

 

[VegasAngel]

Oh, I see.

 

[Lill_The_Thrill]

Date: 9/29/2008 6:08:23 PM
Author: strmrdr

Date: 9/29/2008 5:44:42 PM
Author: Allisonfaye

You can try to believe that Main Street isn''t affected or involved with WS but it just isn''t true. That''s just not going to happen.

We are only involved if we let our money be out in it.
The problem with this mess is that banking got to mixed up with the street rather than staying separate.
Frankly the dollar bombing is much more painful for me personally right now than anything the stock market does.
Long term the same is true for everyone.

My dad and I just had a conversation about this 30 min ago, and that''s EXACTLY what he said.

 

[Allisonfaye]

Without a Bailout Plan, What Will the Cost Be?
By JUSTIN FOX
Tue Sep 30, 1:15 AM ET

By voting down the proposed $700 billion financial bailout package - and causing a spectacular stock market rout - a majority of members in the House of Representatives made a clear statement that they didn''t want to put taxpayers on the hook for the failures of financial institutions.

But there''s a catch: taxpayers are already on the hook for the failures of financial institutions, and it''s possible that the bill will actually be larger without bailout legislation than with it. That''s because the regulators who mind the financial industry - the Federal Reserve, Treasury and FDIC - will keep doing what they''ve been doing: stepping in to prevent the chaotic failure of banks and other large financial institutions. This means continuing to put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at risk, but in a way that adheres to no clear plan of action and doesn''t require members of Congress to explicitly approve their actions.

On Monday afternoon, Wall Street basically stopped trading to watch TV - mainly CNBC - to see how the House of Representatives would vote on the $700 billion bailout package. When it first started looking like the bill would fail, the Dow plummeted 389 points, or 3.6%, in just seven minutes. If it had continued at that pace for much longer, this would have been perhaps the most harrowing day in stock market history. It didn''t, but things were still really, really bad. The Dow ended the day down 778 points, or 7%, and the S&P 500 - a better measure of the overall market - was down 107 points, or 8.8%, its worst performance since the 1987 market crash. And markets for bonds and short-term loans were, for the most part, nonexistent.

So what happens now? On Capitol Hill, House leaders said they''ll try again soon. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson practically begged for a revised deal in his brief appearance after the market carnage. "Our tool kit is substantial but insufficient," he said. The market''s traumatized reaction today may change some minds and some votes.

In asking Congress 11 days ago for the authority to spend up to $700 billion to buy troubled assets, Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke were hoping to share some of the responsibility and the blame - and get the freedom to boost companies that weren''t already on the brink of failure. Instead, they''re back to being crisis managers for the moment - and maybe for the duration of the crisis.

That''s not all bad, especially now that most of the endangered financial institutions are commercial banks. The Federal Government has clearly defined that authorities take them over, merge them out of existence or shut them down - whereas it had to make things up as it went along with investment banks Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and insurer AIG. That''s why the demise of giant banks Washington Mutual and Wachovia, arranged over the past week by the FDIC, occurred in a far more orderly fashion than the non-bank meltdowns.

But orderly isn''t the same as cheap. To get Citigroup to absorb Wachovia, the FDIC agreed to share the risk on a $312 billion portfolio of loans (Citi has to eat the first $42 billion in potential losses; anything above that hits the FDIC fund).

Also, the fact that every big FDIC deal so far in this crisis has been different - IndyMac was allowed to fail, with only insured deposits safe; WaMu was seized, but all depositors were protected; and Wachovia was sold in a deal that protected both depositors and owners of the company''s bonds but left shareholders with very little - has left investors guessing about the fate of the rest of the banking world. Hardest hit in today''s market sell-off were regional banks like Sovereign Bancorp and National City, perhaps because they seem too small to get special FDIC treatment.

Federal authorities are going to keep doing whatever they can to keep the financial system from collapsing. Taxpayers will bear the risks and the costs of that, whether Congress votes to put them there or not. And it''s possible - although nobody can know for sure - that this ad hoc approach will end up costing more than an up-front $700 billion bailout.

 

[Steel]

 

[Clairitek]

This may be a totally dumb question but does anyone else think it might be a good idea to get some of their liquid cash into a 12-month CD with a guaranteed ROI? Though it is a very small ROI, its something and its better than the 3% I''m getting with ING Direct right now. FYI, the 12-month CD would yield 4.25%.

 

[movie zombie]

there is going to be a price to be paid for letting the street and investment groups operate without regulation and only their own voluntary self regulatory system in place. our government is to blame for giving them everything they wanted re lack of oversight. however, they are now asking for more of the same. if a price has to be paid, pay it now. why saddle our great grandchildren with more debt. there needs to be limitation on CEO and other salaries, a return to regulation and separation of industries, an end to offshore banking of corporate funds [or they should ask the bahamas for a bailout instead of the US taxpayer], and more. paulson was CEO of Goldman and the power he''s asking for is more power than anyone person should have and further more he''s part of the reason we''re in this mess. why would anyone trust him to handle taxpayer $ [loaned to us from china and ours to pay off over generations] without oversight? his loyalty is to his industry, not to us.

instead of trying to continue our way of life and live beyond our means to the benefit of wall street, it is time to let the chips fall where they may and return to some sane financial system. corporate welfare mascarading as free market enterprise has just got to stop.

we and this country cannot continue to march to the same old drummer when this is where the drummer has lead us. this bailout will end up like the funding for the so-called iraq wall: $ disappearing unaccounted for, and a constant by whatever administration is in office coming to the congress every 3 months asking for more $.

movie zombie

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Date: 9/30/2008 12:18:15 PM
Author: movie zombie
there is going to be a price to be paid for letting the street and investment groups operate without regulation and only their own voluntary self regulatory system in place.

Yes, we''d get the benefits of a free market without over-regulation.

Regulation got us into this mess, not capitalism. I read this article yesterday, which I think sums up the best solution.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html

Setting a socialist precedent with a bailout would be the worst possible solution--let''s fix over-regulatoin with more regulation! Brilliant! Just who I want setting future housing prices: the government.

 

[elle_chris]

NewEnglandLady- My husband pretty much said the same thing as the article is saying. He also agrees with less regulation. As of yesterday, we lost a ton but we''re not pulling out.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Date: 9/30/2008 3:10:18 PM
Author: elle_chris
NewEnglandLady- My husband pretty much said the same thing as the article is saying. He also agrees with less regulation. As of yesterday, we lost a ton but we''re not pulling out.

Yeah, we lost a ton as well and did pull out, but just to re-strategize. We''re slowly buying back in today, but the trading is so thin today it''s a challenge. So yes, the market did impact us and we took a pretty big financial hit, but it was OUR risk to take.