This makes me sick!

[mstic2000]

So the senate just passed the bailout bill. Once again the American middle class taxpayer gets stuck with the bill. This makes me sick that taxpayers are once again forced in between a rock and a hard place by Washington! I understand the possible ramifications of not doing anything about the wall street credit crisis but why do these politicians always seem to think that the American middle class taxpayer should be the ones to get screwed? Especially when the top 1% in this country control more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population! I mean all they talk about today is the 777 point drop on Monday when the market opened at -300 points and then Tuesday it gained 400 points! But they don't mention that and only dwell on the negative and use it as a scare tactic and this bill has got to be passed quickly or middle class workers will suffer? Seems to me we are going to suffer either way. Either in job loss or carrying the tax burden of $700 billion to the exact same people that got this country in this mess in the first place and it's not even a guarantee that it will do anything! We might just end up with job loss and the bailout bill! It's just sickening to me that Washington and Wall Street are this out of control and resort to scare tactics on the American taxpayers to bail them out. If you ask me this is just one more "grand" attempt at a redistribution of wealth of the upper class from the middle class, and to suck the middle class american taxpayers dry! Sorry, I just had to vent....This is a sad, sad day and congress will probably follow suit now....

[mstic2000]

Just a side note. I don't own any stocks. Most middle class americans own little if any. Maybe in 401k's. It's the corporate fat cats that are sweating bullets and want this bill passed quickly because they are the ones that stand to loose the most in the stock market. It's not middle class america!

[mysticrider]

Us Mystics think alike on this one. What you said!!!

[latexeses]

The White House sent the House a 3 page bill. By the time our House of Reps increased that to 435 pages at last check.

All of the people in power in there (who would they be?) tacked on all sorts of their pet projects.

700 billion bill to an 850 billion at last check.

Hey, but at least drug dependent leaches will get their benifits improved.

[mstic2000]

Yes, and I could take it one step further and say that it's the upper 10% of the population that owns something like 95% of the wealth in this country.....so where does that leave us middle class? It's not a pretty picture at all.....

Now they talking it could reach 1 trillion by the time it gets through the congress!

[Montreux_Blue]

Politicians are some of those upper class that control this issue, you wouldn't want to tax yourself would you? If they all took some pay cuts and got down into the middle class bracket then they wouldn't make us pay.

[ClarkGriswald]

A wise man once said, Its like a septic tank, "stuff" floats to the top..

They should allocate me some firewood thats easier to get to.

[mysticrider]

bailouot

I just left Wachovia bank after 30 years. Now they are Citigroup. I am soooo glad I took my pension as a pay out instead of leaving it in stock and put it in an IRA. The stock has gone down so much that the people I know that are still there, have lost almost all of there retirement. I was not old enough to retire so the government is still getting more than their fair share. What I want to know is what I have to do to be one of "the drug dependant leeches" with benefits. LOL Your right, they will also come out smelling like a rose.

[fredintoon]

I read a book that was set in the far East during WW2. It seems that the Japanese military occupation forces did not use the local folks as slave labor but paid them a wage. Every payday the workers would stand in line with their time cards and be paid in full for their work. The Imperial paycorps sargeant had this machine with a roll of banknote paper in it and a handle that was turned to print out the cash. Looks like Congress finally got one of those machines.

[tarzan]

You notice they didnt ask what the American people want done.And it was widely reported in the news that we didnt want it passed.Because the politicians dont want or need our opinions.They can and as has been just proved do what ever they want."They are saving us".UNBELIEVABLE!

[mstic2000]

Originally posted by ClarkGriswald
They should allocate me some firewood thats easier to get to.

Amen to that!

[TADracer]

I usually shy away from politics in a setting that I consider all the members as friends, such as this forum. But sometimes I like to practice the free speech that we are all guaranteed by the constitution (until Washington decides to change it).

Here is the way I see most of this. Older people ready to retire (thats me soon) are in more of a fix than younger people. Investing should be for the long haul unless you have balls enough to be a day trader and a gun to blow your brains out when all your tactics fail. The markets could work all this out without the help of Congress except for the fact that Congress, and especially the Senate, is the real culprit here. Congress is the governing body that has set all this up under the guise of 'acting by the will of the people'. The fact they do not listen to their constituents makes no difference to many senators and congressmen and there is the rub....for us common people.

President McCain...President Obama....who cares! President is a powerful man for sure but mostly just one guy with a bunch of advisors. Congress, and in particular the Senate are who really runs this country. Now most in congress, and particularly the Senate, want this bailout to pass so quickly for two simple reasons. 1. Over $700 BILLION in CASH that will pass along to many of their big banking friends and as we all know, if you pluck a dollar or two out of the stream of $700 BILLION in CASH that is passing by, well that adds up to alot of money that just 'falls through the cracks'. 2. And here is the big one, many of them are in this up to their necks and want this to get quiet again before the average person starts looking into their business too closely. Simple as that. Barney Franks, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and all the other hacks that are on the talk shows right now are the main players in all this because they are the ones that helped set up Fanny Mae and Freddir Mac years ago as a nice litle cash cow. They will all reap some benefits from this situation too. They just didnt think this would all backfire as big as it has. But since it has backfired so big, they are all smart enough and have the clout to guide this into a positive for themselves. That is exactly what is happening! the markets can cure all this themselves....its called Capitalism. If they made bad decisions then they should fail, just like I will fail if I make bad business decisions in my company. In the long haul the average person will make it through OK.

Obama and McCain talk about change. If you want real change then you have to change the Senate. Term limit the damn thing and make it back into the part time job that it is intended to be and get congress out of the economy and you will find that the economy will flourish. Realy as simple as that.

But I am glad to say that living in Louisiana, well known for it's crooked politics, we now have a new bang-up governor, Bobby Jindal, who is changing all that. He is really weeding out all the corruption. Got our state legislature to pass a bill stating that if you are serving on a board or committe you have to show where you generate your income so you will be transparent and there will be no impropriety......half the current board and committee members resigned. I wonder why? On top of that, both our Senators voted against the bail out last night. David Vitter (Republican) said this is too big an intrusion of the government into the private sector at the expense of the taxpayer and our little photo opp, Mary Landrieu (Democrat) said she voted agaisnt because there are no safeguards built into the bill so that this will never happen again. No safeguards.....hmmmm, I wonder why? BECAUSE BARNEY FRANK AND CHRIS DODD REWROTE THE DAMN THING!

Thank you all for reading.....end of rant.

[xschop]

I'm confused

I'm still trying to figure out why the Senators keep running their mouths about the "impending financial doom to mainstreet Americans".....We've been in a recession for years and will be in the foreseeable future for some time to come....I'm glad I always remember what my Grandpa used to tell me about the REAL depression.....I have and still live by his words, "If you don't have cash for it, you don't need it"......If we had more of Grandpa in Washington, "mainstreet" wouldn't need to be coerced into believing it needed some expedient bailout to avoid certain doom....

[psycoreefer]

I'm pissed about this as well. I made myself heard, e-mailed my reps and told them flat out. "I don't think that I as a tax payer should be responsible for bailing out people and companys that made bad financial decisions. They should be left with the consequences of those decisions just as I would\will be. If you vote yes I can promise you I will NOT vote for you at re-election time."

Simple and direct. As a working class guy I think thats about all I can do. We need a change in government but it seems I'm always stuck voting for the guy I dis-like less, never one I really feel good about.

[Jerry]

Some very interesting comments her, but guys, you are missing the point.

Americans have come to believe that cheap credit is their right. Borrow and spend, go into debt for more or less trivial items. Savings? Nope. Hard to save with prices are these days, but the average indebtness of families (and individuals) has increased dramatically over the last decade, both in real dollars and as a percentage of income.

Banks, trading institutions, insurance companies have all mirrored the same behaviour...they depend on credit to operate, since they don't keep (and are not required to, by law) cash on hand to cover what they owe. In other words, they don't save either.

The bail out legislation does not address the root cause that got us into this mess. It puts a band-aid on a stab wound. Look up the definition of a CDS, which is the bundling of mortgages and other collateral into investment packages. (An article in the current Newsweek goes into them in understandable language.)
But, at the heart, the problem is that we as Americans, our businesses, and our government, have depended to long on cheap credit to finance our lifestyle.

Just as the answer to our dependence on foreign oil is to produce more domestic energy (including alternative energy sources) and conservation, the answer to the credit problem is reduce our dependence on cheap credit. There may be ways to do this, such as pay better returns on savings accounts to encourage more savings, but the tactics can only be developed after the goal has been set.

Credit is a 2-edged sword. Availability heps individuals and the economy, but like anything else, credit can be abused. What is needed is legislation that strikes a balance between the good use of credit and the abuse of credit. I don't see it in the current bail-out legislation, which basically dumps the cost of the abuse on us, which is why I am not in favor of passing the current proposal.