also? fuck the taxpayer meme whiners
By shag carpet bomb • Sep 30th, 2008 • Category: Dismal Science, Economics, Iraq warMany are concerned with the fiscal implications of this bill, so let me turn to that question. Despite the common use of language,
the capital cost of this bill does not involve “taxpayer dollars.”
It authorizes a financial transaction, exchanging good debt (U.S. Treasury bills and bonds) for bad debt (the “troubled assets”). Many of those troubled assets will continue to earn income for some time, perhaps a long time. The U.S. Treasury commits itself to paying the interest on the debts it issues. The net fiscal cost — which is also the net fiscal stimulus — of this bill is the difference between those two revenue streams. Given the very low rate of interest presently prevailing on Treasury bills, this is likely to be somewhere between $20 billion per year and zero from the beginning, even if the Treasury were to issue all $700 billion in new debt at once. It is a mistake, in short, to count the capital cost as a “cost to the taxpayer.” This is not the war in Iraq.
Let me repeat:
the capital cost of this bill does not involve “taxpayer dollars.”
stupid shit fucks who can’t actually be bothered to read. lazy fuck yahoos leading the charge in congress. assholes.
More http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_much_will_it_cost_and_will_it_come_soon_enough
From an article entitled How Much Will It Cost and Will It Come Soon Enough?
Could the current bailout bill have been better? Yes. But there are still a few fixes Congress should consider.
By James K. Galbraith | September 29, 2008 | web only
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Hmmmm….verrrry interesting factoid, Ms. Shag.
Still doesn’t justify this giveaway one bit, since even if most of the money changing hands won’t be “taxpayer money” per se, there is no accountability regarding how this transfer will go into reforming the “bad assets”….and no guarantee that those bad assets won’t be ultimately be thrown onto the backs of the government…which would then make it “taxpayer money” indeed.
Not to mention the fact that this “bailout” for Wall Street won’t do a damn thing for average working people who will have to bear more of the burden of higher mortages or outright forclosures.
Personally, I’d prefer to nationalize the bad banks, renegotiate some serious debt relief if not outright debt anmesty, reinstate Glass-Steagall, repeal all the regressive “reforms” of the Reagan/Clinton/Bush era (including those blasted top-heavy tax cuts) and make some serious social investment in real people for a change.
Oh…and ending Total War and smashing the Pentagon budget wouldn’t hurt much, either.
Anthony
Right. They’re not taking $800bn right out of the treasury never to be returned. They’re only permanently pissing away some percentage of theese billions to cover the bad debt. (If these assets were actually going to make money, Wall Street would keep them… right? That being the whole point of the bailout?) To whatever level the Treasury (and let’s face it Wall Street) considers necessary, as yet to be determined.
Oh, and they’re ceding significant fiscal discretionary power from Congress. And the next President, whoever that’ll be.
Oh, and they’re doing nothing to help the people (disproportionately working class, desproportionately black) screwed over by the mortgage speculators–which also indicates that the plan to make these assets “better” will be to wring these folks even further. No easing of bankruptcy restrictions, natch.
Oh, they’re doing nothing to re-regulate, and tied with the friendly terms of this deal, there’s no guarantee that this won’t be a problem yet again.
Taxpayer-funded bailout: Seems perfectly accurate to me.
greg — yeah. i’m just bitching about the way people toss that around because, unlike you, they do not know what they are talking about!
as for who they aren’t helping, no kidding. but i would never have expected them to in the first place, let alone re-regulate. someone said when this fiasco hit the news that he was afraid that the dems wouldn’t fight it and roll over. but that implied that he thought that, otherwise, if they had their druthers, they’d fight it. ha ha ha ha ha.
as a friend sad in response to the fear the dems would cave:
Anthony — just called me jaded, but rots a ruck on nationalizing the banks! i doubt you’re like some of these folks, but man, the lefties are so convinced that what comes out of crises is radical change, they’re convinced that we should use the occassion to force one big crisis so the whole house of cards will fall and socialism will be good news we’ll be spreading.
*rolls eyes*
i think it’s really funny b/c the reason i think a lot of them hope for this is that they believe they can get socialism — not mere democratic socialism — without having to work at it. lazy asses.