I’d vote for anybody that would offer to banish, upon pain of death, 535 congress critters.

Several times since 1991 I have, in letters to the editor and elsewhere, asked voters to join me in voting those who have brought this disaster upon us out of office. In each subsequent election they have been returned to office; we are now reaping what we have sown. The full force of these ill-conceived policies instituted by Democrats in the Carter and Clinton Administrations and tolerated by Republicans when they controlled both houses of the Congress, have now devastated financial institutions world wide. While this was going on these same politicians have received millions in campaign contributions from those institutions which they failed to properly regulate.

This morning I awoke to the headline “Congress Mulls Major 401K Changes.” I would suggest that if you are fortunate enough to have anything left in your 401K that you hide it immediately because they are coming after it.

Have you had enough?

I wonder what it is now?

Too bad the polling software is using unsigned integers or we might even see a negative rating. In fact, if we should see a sudden, unexplainable jump in the rating, that would be a good sign of numerical rollover. ;=)

I don’t think the final bill needed sweeteners to pass. I believe those first round no votes were principled, they felt they were bamboozled into voting for something they didn’t understand and had no time to ponder. After Dow’s 700 points drop, sensing that the bill in whatever forms would pass, the piranhas moved in to make a killing. The piranhas were mostly from the Senate who hid behind the House votes.
The Porkbusters should zero in which districts profited and if those were districts whose representatives changed their votes.

The bill passed, Dow dropped 500 pts, 800 pts, 500 pts….

I know someone whose home was foreclosed. He is a day-trader and gambler. Shall we call him a risk-taker? If he lost money gambling, would he be bailed out?

The more pertinent question is, if things had gone differently, and this person had made a tidy profit from flipping, would he share that profit with all of us? To the extent that it would be capital gains, yes, but that isn’t as big a percentage as the typical loss that a bank (or homeowner) is going to see on a foreclosure.

Arguably, this is the price that we pay for the huge windfalls that the Federal and local governments received all through the middle of the decade. The governments went on a bender, and we get stuck with the hangover.

I’m beyond disgusted.

I. Want. Them. Gone.

And forget about waiting for elections to roll around. Dogs only learn not to crap on the rug if you take the rolled-up newspaper to them right after they do it. It’s time for a nationwide recall of everyone who voted for this travesty, no matter what letter is after the name.

Bailing out Fannie and Freddie will bailout two of its main backers: China and Russia. They have hundreds of billions to lose if those organizations evaporated. Delinquent mortgages are the scam to get people to tax the system so the taxpayer ends up paying out to keep it going.

No one has put forward removing Fannie, Freddie and AIG from bailouts and forcing them to operate in the shark-filled waters of commercial finance without shark repellant. They are fat, dumb, happy and have the exact, same legislation backing them today as they had before the bailout. Congress isn’t interested in ‘fixing the problem’ but in saving their hides and ensuring that outsiders get their investments covered. The American taxpayer then ends up paying for someone else’s ill decisions and ill made investments. China and Russia should have executed due oversight so as not to invest in such institutions in the first place. Loan officers and those seeking such loans should have stuck to regular and accountable practices.

None of them did so.

That was encouraged by Congress with backing from Freddie and Fannie lobbyists.

This is not a bailout.

It is a shakedown.

The first of many.