David we are a nation of addicts and enablers, Our attention span is no more than 10 seconds long and thats only if we can garner some interest on the subject. The reason we have lost trust is we have voted in these people that do not deserve trust. We fall for every speech they give promising things that cant deliver.

We deserve this vote today. Because we don't believe that this crisis will actual trickle down to us. We need to learn the hard way that it can and will. This vote today has shown us many things not the least is we need new faces in DC as they are only worried about themselves. I believe that this show we saw today was pre-planned and is being used to show us the drop in the market and other financial calamities facing us so those in office can take the $700b for their wall street buddies with our blessing.

Hopefully I'm just jaded and wrong, but with all the people against this bailout and a lack of integrity in DC we need to see heads roll for this bailout so I say lets try again after the election not before. Just to much politics injected into the process to get the job done before the elections.

David, I don't think we'll be any worse off without a bail-out than we would be 6-to-12 months from now when it is discovered that the $700 Billion bail-out is only a fraction of the money it would require to keep the pyramid from collapsing (which is doomed with mathematical certainty to collapse).

Nation-wide debt is huge and it isn't only in mortgages.
Credit card debt is over $1 Trillion.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still costing tens of billions per month.
Total nation-wide debt of $53 Trillion has never been larger, both in size and as a percentage of the $13.86 Trillion GDP. And that does not even include the $12.8 Trillion borrowed and spent from Social Security, leaving it pay-as-you-go, with a 77 million baby boomer bubble approaching.

Yes, there will be pain, jobs will be lost, and money will be lost, but much of it is unavoidable, bail-out or not.

There are lots of good things Congress could still do, but none of those things are likely, because Congress wants the money.

If Congress wanted to, it could:

start enforcing existing laws.

• start putting some real crooks behind bars.


• stop illegal immigration that is costing tax-payers an estimated $70 Billion to $327 Billion in annual net losses (One-Simple-Idea.com/BorderSecurity.htm).


• stopping the rampant pork-barrel, subsidies, waste, and welfare for the wealthy.


• stop rampant usury and predetory loan practices (perhaps limits on some interest rates?).


• stopping these 10 abuses .


• fix the dishonest, usurious, inflationary, predatory monetary system (nothing more than a pyramid scheme used to extract wealth from the unwitting).


• make the tax system fair and less regressive.


• uphold the U.S. Constitution.


• pass a BALANCED BUDGET amemdnent, since 38 states (only 34 required) have submitted 136 BALANCED BUDGET/General Call for Article V Convention applications.


• stop starting wars based on false intelligence.


• not continuing the occupation of Iraq, since there are probably better ways to make the U.S. safer.


• do something to keep honest people and business running, instead of trying to bail-out banks and corporations.


• do something other than giving themselves another raise (as Congress did 9 times between 1997 and 2007).

And voters could stop repeatedly rewarding bought-and-paid-for, corrupt politicians with 85%-to-90% re-election rates.

Also, much of that $700 Billion would have been pilfered, because Congress can't be trusted.

Sure, there will be some losses, but there would be bigger losses later if the debt is allowed to erode the currency to ZERO. The U.S. Dollar has already fallen a long way in the last 5 years. The federal government is already unable to pay the $429 Billion per year in INTEREST the $9.7 Trillion National Debt.
The federal government has been borrowing and creating that $429 Billion per year out of thin air, which is why the U.S. Dollar is falling so drastically.

Remember Argentina? Destroy the curency, and everyone's money will become worthless.

Creating more debt for an out-of-control debt problem can't last forever, without crashing the U.S. Dollar.

The debt pyramid is collapsing, and that collapse can not be prevented - only delayed.

Better to deal with it now, rather than drag it out longer than necessary, and make the problem bigger later.
After all, $700 Billion is a drop in the bucket.
Millions of foreclosures are still ahead of us.

There's likely to be Millions more, even if foreclosures peaked on Aug-2008.

David wrote: d.a.n, for all your good points and data, they do not detract from the fact that it would be criminal not to try to get the economy growing again and the American workers and people hopeful of a better outcome than what they are now posed with.

Creating more money out of thin air and giving more money to greedy banks and corporations is not the solution, since we can't even pay the interest alone on the nation-wide debt now.
The interest alone on the nation-wide debt of $53 Trillion to $66 Trillion (at only 4.0% interest) is $5.82 Billion to $7.24 Billion per day!
That's $19.08 -to- $23.74 per day for every man, woman, and child (for only the interest alone).
For a household size of 2.61 persons, that's $49.80 -to- $61.96 per household per day for interest alone!
That's $1513.88 -to- $1883.58 per household per month for interest alone!
That's $17,812.00 -to- $22,615.4 per household per year for interest alone!
The point is, it is so large, it can never be paid off.
You've acknowledged before - the fact that there may exist a point-of-no-return, where the debt is finally so large, that it can never be paid off.

When the debt finally becomes too large to ever be dealt with, a melt-down is unavoidable.
The consequences of the debt-pyramid was not hard to see coming.
We've had positive inflation every consecutive year for the past 58 years.
The nation-wide debt has steadily grown from 100% to almost 500% of GDP since year 1976.

David wrote: Throwing hands in air and letting it all come down under its own debt weight is not leadership nor responsible.

The pain can be mitigated via numerous responsible reforms (see below), but those abuses are not on the radar screen.
The leadership or responsibility was needed over a decade ago.
But whose fault is that?
Too many voters seem to think they aren't culpable.

There are many things Congress could do to help (below), and could have done a long time ago, but there is NO quick fix now.
It's too late.
But Congress refuses to do the responsible things and instead, wants to continue the rampant money printing and borrowing, which grows the debt pyramid from nightmarish to hellish proportions - making things much worse later. Worse later is the issue. Putting this off any longer will only make things worse.
But, if Congress really wanted to help immediately, it could do the following now:

• (01) Fix the dishonest, usurious, inflationary, predatory monetary system (nothing more than a pyramid scheme used to extract wealth from the unwitting) now. Stop eroding the currency.


• (02) Stop these 10 abuses now.


• (03) Stop rampant usury and predetory loan practices (perhaps limits on some interest rates?) now.


• (04) Make the tax system fair and less regressive now.


• (05) Start enforcing existing laws; uphold the U.S. Constitution; stop eminent domain abuse; start putting some real crooks behind bars, now.


• (06) Stop illegal immigration that is costing tax-payers an estimated $70 Billion to $327 Billion in annual net losses, now. That's a lot of money! Stop despicably pitting American citizens and illegal aliens against each other for voters and profits.


• (07) Stop the rampant pork-barrel, subsidies, waste, and welfare for the wealthy.


• (08) Pass a BALANCED BUDGET amemdnent, since 38 states (only 34 required) have submitted 136 BALANCED BUDGET/General Call for Article V Convention applications.


• (09) Stop starting wars based on false intelligence; bring our troops back from Iraq, since there are probably better ways to make the U.S. safer. Bring our troops home.

Also, voters are culpable too.
Enough voters must finally stop repeatedly rewarding bought-and-paid-for, corrupt politicians with 85%-to-90% re-election rates.
Voters must understand that they helped cause this problem by repeatedly rewarding bad politicians with perpetual re-election.

David wrote: As a father, I will do everything in my power to insure my daughter's future is as free and prosperous as possible. There are many in our government who feel the same way about this country and her people.

Not in Congress. Very few (if any at all).
After all, for years, no one can answer the question:

• Who can name 50, 100, 200, or even 268 (half of 535) in Congress that are responsible and accountable?

For those that really care, they should seriously consider the consequences of more rampant debt, borrowing, and creating money out of thin air.

I have a son and daughter-in-law, and they now have a child on the way, and they have a huge mortgage that depends on both of their salaries.
They may both be moving in with my wife and I if they lose their jobs and their house.

David, Yes, there will be some unavoidable pain, but some pain now is better now than later, in which case it would be MUCH worse.
Americans are deceiving themselves if they think more money printing and borrowing is the solution, when that is what caused the problem to begin with.
Americans are kidding themselves if they think Congress, bankers, the Federal Reserve, and their big-money donors are going to finally become responsible and accountable too.
This bail-out lacks transparency.
Henry Paulson wanted complete control of that $700 Billion.
That's crazy, and it appears enough voters are starting to figure out that their Congress, the Treasury (Herny) Paulson and Federal Reserve (including Bernanke) are incompetent (at the very least, and probably criminal).

The real danger that all Americans should be more worried about is more rampant money-printing and borrowing that crashes the U.S. Dollar, which has already been eroded drastically, relative to all major U.S. currencies. If we crash the U.S. currency, like Argentina crashed their Peso, then the pain and misery will be MUCH worse. Only the people with non-cash assets will still have those assets. At the moment, no one is trying to unload U.S. Dollars. However, if trillions of more borrowing and new money is created out of thin air, it could erode savings, entitlements, and wages more, and possibly trigger a run on the U.S. Dollar, and then we will learn that our current pain and misery can get much worse. And when so many people have moved from stocks to cash, the result of crashing the U.S. currency would be more disastrous. Other nations will start to dump U.S. Dollars for other currencies. Strange as it sounds, we should prefer the pain and misery of limited credit now, rather than the pain and misery of crashing the U.S. Currency. Consider what that will do to our energy vulnerabilities when the U.S. Dollar is the primary currency in the oil market?

That is, we have to consider 2 priorities. Which is worse:

• (1) We take our medicine now, despite the pain, but stop growing the debt pyramid any larger?

(2) Or grow the debt pyramid larger, and crash the U.S. Dollar, destroying everyone's money?

Why is more money-printing and borrowing the wrong thing to do?
After all, who can answer this one simple question:

• Where will the money come from to merely pay the INTEREST on $53 Trillion -to- $66 Trillion of nation-wide debt , much less the money to reduce the current PRINCIPAL debt of $53 Trillion -to- $66 Trillion , when that money does not already exist? Especially when now, 80% of the U.S. population owns only 17% (or less) of all wealth, and 1% owns 40% of all wealth (up by 20% from 20% in year 1976); a wealth disparity gap that has never been worse since the Great Depression.

Though painful, people must finally be weened off of easy and irresponsible credit, which is why we are in such deep trouble today.
Like a rat in a cage with a cocaine dispenser, Americans are killing themselves with their addiction to borrowing and easy credit.
It will be very difficult to kick the habit, but Americans will have to one way or another anyway.
Easy credit is inherent in our dishonest monetary system (a classic debt-pyramid scheme), growing debt and interest ever larger - so large, not even the interest can be paid.
So growing the debt larger will simply make the problem bigger, more difficult to stop, and worse in almost every aspect.

If you loaned a friend some money and they squandered it over and over and over, and couldn't even pay the interest on the existing loans, would you make more loans to that person?
Even if you could engage in rampant counterfeiting and money borrowing, would you do so to make more loans to your friend?
How long could that last?

Here are some pluses to biting the bullet now:

• (1) Since 80% of Americans own only 16%-to-17% of all wealth in the U.S., most Americans will not experience the biggest losses.


• (2) Most losses are going to fall on those people in risky investments, and since most Americans don't have those risky investments, they won't loose as much (if any), provided the U.S. Dollar isn't crashed with more rampant money-printing and borrowing.


• (3) People who are 10 years from retirement should have been out of stocks and risky investments 6 months to 1 year ago. If not, they gambled and lost. That's too bad. They were irresponsible. Part of the problem in the U.S. is too many people trying to make money by playing with money, which is fueled by inflation - which would be increase drastically by a bail-out.


• (4) The $700 Billion bail-out would have most likely grown to 2 or 3 (or more) times larger to even put a dent in the problem, and still would not stop the inevitable melt-down, because the debt is still too large to even pay the interest on that debt.

Bottom line:

• Don't crash the U.S. Currency with more rampant borrowing, debt, and creating money out of thin air.

We've been on a suicide path with rampant borrowing, debt, and creating money out of thin air.
Staying on that suicide path will simply make things worse.
Trying to avoid any pain at all is not possible.
That's not a position merely fueled by spite or the disdain of bailing out the wealthy.
It is based on the math and principles that shouldn't suddenly be abandoned now to avoid the inevitable and painful consequences of decades of fiscal and moral bankruptcy.

If inflation causes the price of a gallon of gas to go from $4.00 per gallon to $4,000 per gallon in one month, we are all screwed.
That's what happened in Argentina.
In only a few months, the price of a newspaper inflated to the price of a villa within only a few months.

Americans have a choice.
(1) Work through this mess, and know their is unavoidable pain;
(2) Try to avoid any pain, crash the currency, and ironically, bring many times more pain and misery onto ourselves later.

But if you think a bail-out will help, you may still get it.
Congress is likely to find a way to get that $700 Billion yet.
Democrats only need to get about 13 votes.
After all, 95 (40.4%) of 235 Democrats voted against the bail-out.

Bail-out BILL H.R. 3997:
________________________________
_____YEA____NAY___NoVote
DEM: _140 _____ 95 ______ 0
REP: __65 _____133 ______ 1
________________________________
TOT: _205 _____228 ______ 1

65 (67.2%) of 198 Republicans voted against the bail-out.

Based on track-record, it's highly likely Congress will still find a way to get that $700 Billion (or more).

By the way, the DOW is up 232 today (as of 9/30/2008: 12:25 PM EST)
The NASDAQ is up 58
The S&P is up 33

That's probably because Wall Street believes a bail-out is still likely too.
However, only because Wall Street wants a bail-out doesn't mean it is a good thing for most Americans.
Remember, 80% of Americans own only 16%-to-17% of all wealth in the U.S.
Also, the U.S. Dollar is up a little, but it would not have been for long had hundreds of billions (or trillions) of new money had been created out of thin air.

I wouldn't recommend getting back in the market, and the market isn't a good barometer, but that's not as bad as I expected today.
Yes, a lot of money will be lost in 401Ks, IRAs, stocks, mutual funders, etc.
But if enough Americans want something done about it, they should look in the mirror to see the problem.
Voters can't blame it all on bad politicians when most of those voters repeatedly reward those bad politicians with perpetual re-election rates of 85%-to-90%.

Voters should demand that these 10 abuses be stopped now, which are at the root of these 17+ deteriorating economic conditions of the past 30+ years.