Kill the bailout: What Bush should tell the nation
The wires report that President Bush will address the country at 9:01 Eastern tonight and speak about the trillion-dollar Mother of All Bailouts.
He should take a deep breath, look into the camera, and say two words:
Never mind.
Posted in: Subprime crisis
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Choices : Pursuing Holiness
- More on the ridiculous bailout. « Scatterin’ O’ the Thoughts
- $700 Billion Bailout: See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. (UPDATED) « Republican Party of Jefferson County, TN
- Michelle Malkin » Kill the bailout: Call your GOP representative; Update: the deal details trickle out; No deal tonight
- Maybe I’m being too cynical, but… : Pursuing Holiness
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Subprime crisis
Mudville Gazette
» The five-year plan
Stop The ACLU
» SEALs Charged With Assault for Arresting Top TerroristLegal Insurrection
» Is "Finish the Job" the New "Peace With Honor"?JustOneMinute
» Getting Ready For The TurkeySister Toldjah
» WaPo and NYT to Obama: We love ya, you stylish deep thinkerPundit & Pundette
» Hiding the decline: Deniers made them do itWeekly Standard
» McAuliffe, and Rudy, and Ford, Oh My!
He won’t… he’ll go with these words…
“More money.”
Bleh
How can these politicians so arrogantly and transparently ignore common sense, the will of the people and spend our tax dollars to reward criminal, negligent, and deceitful, self-serving behavior?
Oh, I forgot. That’s their job. Just disgusting.
How about:
“New tone”
It just about sums up every mistake he has made in the last 8 years.
The speech will just set up the market for a scare when Congress doesn’t comply. We’ll see you at the bill signing…
Michelle, what of the theory the govt may actually MAKE MONEY on buying up these mortgages, loans, real estate, whatever? If it averts the collapse of the financial system, why not? I along with 99.999999% of the US pop doesn’t have enough info to make a good decision. Where are the 3 guys who do?
Two more words:
Free market!
Will the address be in Spanish?
I have would have no problem letting the crack houses in my town burn to the ground.
However, if the fire was poised to spread to the homes of the innocent, then it’s probably a good idea to douse the fire.
Why are you all so confident that this fire won’t spread to your bank?
Más dinero?
LMAO
Sadly, he won’t. It will be a PR conference.
The two words he will say?
Trust us.
three words
suck it up
?
Whenever Bush goes on TV my only reaction is: “Are we to be spared nothing?” He’s like a bad TV show that never gets canceled, though I hear come January 20 the Bush show is going into reruns.
Do not get your hopes up! Bush will always disappoint. He will never be clear or intelligent or decisive. The absolute best you can hope for is: “Give me and my friends your money and trust us.” That will be as good as it will get. He’s a democrat, folks. Deal with it.
I’m having a really bad feeling that the election is now over and Obama has won by default. Seriously.
LOL
I was in New York City on 9/11/01. I remember wondering why Bush was not on TV. A real leader would have spoken to the nation in hours, not days. He spent the day Katrina hit New Orleans having birthday cake with John McCain.
Here’s our failed leader again, unable to face the country, unable to decide what to do, hiding behind his heckuvajobbers. He’s done almost nothing. No wonder his approval rating is headed for single digits.
Thanks for giving us your brand of leadership, lgm. I guess you think news anchors are great leaders. They’re always on TV.
Your Democrat Congress already beat him to it troll.
Bush in hiding doing nothing is good.
Bush in public doing something, anything, is very, very bad.
The man is not competent. In anything. He’s Carter on steroids. End of story.
I agree that I don’t have enough information to know what the result of not doing the bail-out would be. Neither does anyone else it appears…so it’s gonna happen because that’s being made out to be the “safe” route to preventing a possible complete meltdown that will affect you.
Will it work? I think we should hope that it does.
He was….
What did you expect him to do? fly down there and pick people up in air force one while the wind was still blowing?
Yet the democratic congress STILL has a lower rating…
A rogues gallery:
Take a look at some of the people who benefited from Bushs’ neglect. With friends like these Mr. Bush, I have no interest in anything you have to say.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/159439
Scary.
Yes, lgm. It’s headed for the same single digit that the democrat-controlled Congress has been at for many months now.
Corkie, I agree with you, this will spread, and it will effect everyone negatively. Even if your financial institution does not have investments in any of these big failure companies, it will certainly have investments in other companies that do have investments in AIG etc, so the effect will reach them regardless, by proxy.
What made me change my view is the recent add-ons to refinance student loans, credit card debt, car loans etc. That is not necessary, particularly student loans – there is relatively no difference in student loan risk than there was prior to all this stuff hitting the fan. The ‘bailout’ should only be to refinance high-risk mortgages that are about to go south if the rates aren’t fixed and the housing market continues to drop, and that is all, imho.
Southpaw: blaming bush for 30 years of defict spending in government and in the private sector is just plain ignorant.
Infamy Speech was delivered on December 8, 1941, by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one day after the Empire of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.
FDR waited a whole day, he wasn’t a real leader
other than win the war in iraq
the democrat congress beat him to it
Seems Bush is 100% behind this massive bailout and will pump the BS “we need to do this for the good of the nation”
I say screw him. Lets ride the storm and take our country back somehow someway, It’s going to be rough, but beats saddling our kids and grandkids with an eternal debt. “I’d rather die free then live like a dog” (Villa or Zapata said something to that effect)
We were all in New York on 9/11 lgm, go suck an egg. A$$hat.
It’s past time for a three word answer from Americans fed up with shouldering the huge excesses of our government: Boston Tea Party.
What follows if our leaders don’t really “do something” to fix the problem with government gone wild is a one word answer: Revolution.
lgm, you’re just an ignorant prick for even trying to lay this at Bush’s feet. 1) it was supposedly a free market, which would infer that he cannot influence it, and 2) if you insist a president can influence it, then at least blame the correct one – Clinton, for going against any kind of regulation of the market when he had the opportunity.
He should look at Paulsen and say “You’re Fired!”
where do you get off thinking a president, or any politician, should have anything to say about how much a CEO makes?
I keep hearing this.
You don’t have enough information? How about decades and decades of government intervention failures? How about the results of the Fannie/Freddie GSE experiment gone awry? How about the last year’s worth of wrong-headed predictions and pronouncements from the people painting apocalyptic scenarios and demanding that we now trust them that this latest intervention will be the one to end all others?
If you are a conservative grounded in reality and informed of the past year’s stimuluspalooza, you have all the information you need.
Lgm said:
“I was in New York City on 9/11/01. I remember wondering why Bush was not on TV. ”
Guess you missed this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCfdYS10_gQ&feature=related
I can understand, being in NY that day, that you may have missed it – but you’ve had 7 years to realize that your assumption was wrong.
Try googling before you accuse, troll.
it was clinton’s implementation of the community redevelopment act that got this ball rolling…give loans to unqualified people, or be accused of ‘racism’
Oh yeah, I was here on 911 too lgm – what’s your point?
Nobody should have a say in that EXCEPT if they get bailed out by the us taxpayer. Then they don’t get thier golden paracutes. If we have to clean up thier mess, they get nothing.
lgm, we are not on the same team. OUR disappointment with Bush is based on our hopes that he was going to actually be a conservative in fiscal and social matters instead of try and make friends with democrats and the press. THAT is why Bush sufferers low poll ratings from Republican voters. NOT because we think he is evil. We do not hate him, we just don’t like what he did. We believe he squandered lots of opportunities and allowed liberals to set his agenda. He could have been so much more than he was.
He should name names, place blame where its deserved, and fire those members of the executive branch that didn’t do their jobs to foresee and prevent this from happening. He should point the finger at Congress where it is deserved. To show his own guilt and responsibility he should then utter the Nixonian words “I resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”
The solution to this crisis he should leave to his successor President Cheney.
Here’s a link to an article in Forbes that proposes an alternative to the massive bailout. I’m not an expert in these matters but perhaps someone on this blog is or knows someone qualified to comment.
Forbes column
I would agree, with the caveat that we shouldn’t clean up their mess…
I am not worried about the bailout itself but about its terms. On what basis can we give Paulson everything he wants without any accountability? I mean why the terms do not allow any court action or why it doesn’t explain the theory behind how money will be used and whats the return terms and so on?
I am fine with my tax money being used if all these terms are stripped off…Its like before Iraq war – “Trust us, we know there’s WMDs and victory will be soon’…Look where we are now…and also no WMDs found.
Speaking of golden parachutes, AIG’s former CEO just refused his $22million bonus. Respect for that.
suck.
it.
up.
We may not get a choice. We need a smiley icon that is banging its head against the wall.
Jack, such common sense.
We ar close to victory and very few WMD’s were found.
I agree with this.
I hope any final law doesn’t require the government to buy these types of debts from financial institutions. They can already be sold to collections firms.
What if the gov’t makes money?
– Will we get a check in the mail?
– Maybe get our taxes lowered?
There are a lot of theories out there. I like the ones that don’t cost me at least 700 to a trillion dollars (which would also pave the way for future bailouts)
I wont trust the goverment with my wallet.
And he made a second broadcast that evening:
youTube.com
Here’s the transcript.
So he addressed the nation twice that day.
Great link. I read it and it seems reasonable. Combine that approach with investigation and punishment for the people that got us in this mess and I could support it.
And we can guess what Wright and his congregation were doing.
I was beginning to think I was the only one who remembered this. I’m seriously considering going back to being a racist, not being one is expensive.
If Obama is President it goes to the Daley political machine as payback.
If my share is $2233, I am willing to write them a check today – if I get actual ownership of something. A little piece of paper that says I own 100th of 123 Elm Street, ElkButt, NH. I can go make sure the lawn is mowed, make sure the rent comes in on time, and send a newsletter to the other 99 owners. And the government need be involved no further.
He should take a deep breath, look into the camera, and say two words:
Never mind.You’re screwed
Mostly as capitalists we want private ownership. Karl would approve of cutting the capitalists out of the equation.
My brother is laughing his butt off today. I’ve been a supporter of Bush for all these years and today I finally fell. I admit it, I’m ANGRY with him today. He has stayed the course on some issues I liked, but finally even I give up.
Illegal aliens – the moab of all bail outs – splash !
He should take a deep breath, look into the camera, and say two words:
Never mind.You’re screwed
Bend Over.
Redo:
He
shouldwill take a deep breath, look into the camera, and say two words:Never mind.You’re screwed!
No kidding.
I wonder if I can get a pony out of the deal? I always wanted a pony.
I find LGM’s comments about President Bush revealing. The liberal view of the world is they need a leader to provide them with hope and direction. That is why Bill Clinton was so popular. He was the political Maytag Repairman. Now they look to The Messiah, The One, the Merciful Barack Obama to lead them forward.
Great things are never achieved in times of crisis by the established leaders as much as they are through individual leaders stepping up. Great things are achieved when the creativity and individual initiative of free people are unleashed. That’s what’s needed here.
In WWII on Omaha Beach, when their leaders were killed or out of touch, small groups led by young corporals and sergeants and in some cases privates, took the bluffs and saved the beachhead. In the Battle of the Bulge time and again small groups intuitively went to critical spots and denied or delayed the German advance.
Waiting in awe for the Great Leader to impart their wisdom is not what has made America great. If we start, we will lose out greatness.
The classic example of this happened this summer. A city on Iowa lost 75% of its fresh water due to flooding. The media waited breathlessly to see what FEMA would do to save the day. FEMA shipped 400,000 liters of bottled water. Before the water could even arrive, the city’s fire department and the fire department of the neighboring towns came up with a way using fire hoses to cross connect between hydrants. The neighboring towns provided the city with 4 MILLION gallons of water a day. That’s the America I have confidence in; not the suits in D.C.
Well, the problem is that instead of owning a small piece of one property – you’d own a tiny piece of many properties.
This is why private companies haven’t rushed to buy these debts yet.
One of the great things about America is – We have the ability to go into business and succeed. Sometimes it doesn’t work and the bankruptcy laws were created so that failing was not the end of the world, and you could get a another chance.
If these laws apply for individuals and small business, apply them to big business as well. The court already has the authority to “undo transactions” they feel should not be allowed – Like CEO golden parachutes.
Use existing laws, recover as many assets as possible. Jail may be an proper option for some lawbreakers, who have stolen money from Americans and their retirements.
Those in favor of government bailouts have ulterior motives – Hand their names over to the FBI for investigations.
Twothree words “Fair is Fair”most libs would vote for Hitler if he had a D after his name on the ballot.
because deep down they need a savior, but having rejected the Real Messiah, they await for the imposter to raise his wounded head, so they can receive their mark of obediance…
Partisan hackery is clouding this issue. The Federal Reserve is the originator of the crisis. A private and completely unaccountable agency with the ability to print our currency and do with it as they see fit. It’s time to question the Federal Reserve, why they exist, and how the have benefited this country since 1913 (Other than devaluing the dollar 95%).
Alan Greenspan blew up the subprime bubble through staggeringly low interest rates. Setting the price of money at 1%, and flooding the mortgage industry (which also had a government backstop, inducing the industry into risky behavior) with liquidity. This (basically) free money was leveraged many times over, causing a artificial risk tolerance for banks and financial institutions. Combine this with the moral hazard that Fannie/Freddie caused in the mortgage market, allowing mortgage issuers to not care about the loans being paid back, and you have a perfect storm which has lead us here.
Now we have Ben Bernake skipping around congress, with his “expert” opinion on what needs to be done. Basically, he’s going to live up to his nickname (helicopter) and start simply printing, and dropping newly created money on the banks and brokerages, hoping he can re-inflate the bubble.
Bush should have 3 words: “End the Fed”.
sorry, the second quote should have been:
I am in SC and I am appalled by what Lindsey Graham has said about this bailout. I will vote against him next time. How can we with a straight face give these criminals in D.C. and financial centers more money to keep doing what they have already done…destroy this country. We need this system to die whatever the cost and start over. The fatcats will be whinning that they won’t be able to afford their yachts…. I am against any bailouts ..its socialism. Bush needs to grow a pair. He will go down in history as one of our worst presidents and I am a racist republican. No matter what he says tonight I cannot go for it. I want accountability in Washington and in all positions of authority, from Mayors to CEOs to Governers to Presidents. This turmoil was created by them, let them sleep in it. A good time for a tax revolt !!!
Open Wide
What WILL Bush say tonight at 9pm. I guess he’ll say “we must implement this plan now”, “or else major financial institutions will fail, and the stock market will dive, affecting 401ks”. I dunno. Won’t it be interesting to watch?
I often wondered how people got by in life. Now I understand many of them didn’t. Their lifestyle was a mirage.
Will the Judiciary branch weigh in? They may declare the bailout unconstitutional.
not a chance. they never declare anything socialist unconstitutional
Sorry thetoysurgeon, but there’s a lot of others just as guilty for this mess – probably many of them are personal friends or even family members. Irresponsible individuals had to agree to these mortgages. Individual shareholders continued to buy shares in companies with the biggest profits, despite those profits being gained through inflating this mortgage bubble even further. The corporates had to remain competitive because of the nature of shareholder behavior, which gave them little choice but to jump on the big happy mortgage and related financing bus, or die under it’s wheels. More importantly, pointing fingers won’t solve the problem.
“I resign.”
..(continued from #70) ..although I do understand your anger, and you’re fully entitled to it. Been there a few times myself in the last few days.
On September 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm, sonofdy said:
He should take a deep breath, look into the camera, and say two words:
Never mind.You’re screwedBend Over.Open WideYo, suckers.
he should take a deep breath, look into the camera, and say two words:
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
The two words that unfortunately are the most accurate words President Bush could say:
“McCain suspends campaign to work on bailout in Washington”
Breaking news on Fox. Maybe he’s going to leverage his universally acknowledged efficacy in all things Senate-related to come to some compromise, 700 billion-wise. If he comes up with something good that would upstage Obama. After all, Obama’s a Senator too, and anything McCain does, theoretically Obama could too, if he had the experience and leadership of McCain, which he doesn’t. In the Senate he’s not much more than a coatrack.
Best part of President Bush’s legacy:
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.
Worst part of President Bush’s legacy:
Support and promotion of massive Socialist government programs.
his words: “my friends..”
Ohhhh, McCain is saying the bailout should be bipartisan. So different from Obama’s recent attitude, which has been partisanship on steroids. McCain said “the legislation proposed by Paulsen doesn’t appear to be able to be passed by Congress … it’s a national crisis … should be dealt with in a bipartisan manner”.
Obama even implied this himself!
He very candidly joked about “sharpening pencils” and
“sweeping the cloak room floor”!
Anything that happens in a bipartisan manner is meant to screw the taxpayer.
Explosive video unearthed CEO of Fannie Mae telling Obama and the Democrats that they are the “Family” and the “Conscience” of Fannie Mae.
AND
Mr. No Foreign Policy Experience also isn’t to knowledgeable in that whole stock market thing
ON
http://www.NakedEmperorNews.com/
How about we let Sarah Palin lead the clean up of this mess?!
I honestly think she is the best politician for the job!
I trust Sarah! a lot more than I trust John McCain.
It would be nice if Sarah would hold a single press conference where she could take some questions. One month and zero press conferences… Come on!
What’s gonna spread?
I must be missing something – there are still those willing to lend to those for whom credit is a good risk. Did I miss the memo?
Blame Bush for this, for that, and everything that went wrong under the sun
Are you guys aware of the 17 times that he warned and asked Congress to act on regulations that could have prevented the financial meltdown caused by the consevatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? In 2006, Sen. McCain made a speech in the Senate endorsing a bill that would regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, guess who listened and did nothing – Barack O. and the rest of his Democrat cohorts.
I’ll reserve my judgement after Pres. Bush speech. My wistful thinking is that for him to promise to the American people that after the FBI’s investigation of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, that the fraud perpetrators will be prosecuted to the extent of the law and when found guilty, to be given the maximum sentence allowed by law. In addition to prison time, the perpetrator’s assets should be confiscated, sold and proceeds given back to the aggrieved institution.
You obviously missed something. I think we’ve identified your problem.
Last Thursday “those willing to lend to those for whom credit is a good risk” didn’t exist.
Why? Because “those for whom credit is a good risk” didn’t exist.
Last Thursday the money markets jammed up. Many main street banks stopped transferring capital to ANYONE regardless of credit worthiness. If the bailout discussions hadn’t started, then it’s quite possible your ATM card wouldn’t have worked today.
How good can anyone’s credit be if their bank is in the process of dissolving? Therefore, everyone is a credit risk.
Intuitively I would believe a government bail-out should be avoided. In reality though, there is no way I can be positive this isn’t needed to prevent a banking disaster that will hurt everybody far worse than anything I want to see. The problem is I have to trust that somebody does know. It would help to hear an explanation of what they fear beyond, “credit will dry up.” Obviously, to me at least, having credit harder to get than in the past would be a major improvement.
My dislike of government intervention isn’t sufficient for me to automatically believe that this particular action isn’t required at this time. I guess I am just uninformed, but, as I said, not enough information beyond a belief in my ideology.
Two words? I could live with a one word response… “No”.
My gosh, its news when a paid senator does his job.
Are you kiddin’…. my bank was just one of the logs that is stoking the fire. It was recently acquired by Wachovia.
I couldnt figure out why in the couple of years prior to the acquisition, they were pushing mortgage loans so heavily. Even time I did a financial transaction, they would ask me if I wanted a loan.
(no real proof) But as an educated guess, they probably pumped up their balance sheet so that they would look good for a buyout.
At least we know your ignorance isn’t anything new. I’m betting it goes back even further than 2001.
how about “I Pwn you”?
FlyoverMan #59: Thank you for that excellent post. America and Americans are resilient and innovative and we will survive!
I will listen to everything Bush has to say….but I better hear about criminal charges being brought, big fines being paid, resignations being accepted, Fed being closed. If not, I feel betrayed by rich, bribe taking politicians.
You know what pi$$es me off about all of this?
My wife and I will deliberate for weeks before we decide to spend less than $1000 on something we need.
These hosers want to spend $700,000,000,000.00
of our money on THREE DAYS worth of debate? With no accountability yet! For crying out loud, look at all the f’ing zeroes!
WTF?
How about “I quit.”
It really doesn’t matter what the Bush says. He’s already taken action, or attempted such. He’s sold us down the river. I am completely dejected because he has destroyed McCain’s chance of winning this election. Thanks for absolutely nada, GWB. Except for the 2900 or so days of no attacks. I do appreciate that. But on most other things, including this boondoggle for $700B, you can kiss my ass.
Sorry, but you sound like a credit risk. Your existing creditors should probably “call” their loans. Your mortgage should be due immediately.
What would you do if the full amount of your mortgage came due immediately because you lost your checking and savings account?