You obviously haven't taken economics and don't read the WSJ and instead subscribe to some completely liberal publication that spreads rumors. If you read credible and intelligent sources, you would usderstand what you said above was totally incorrect on many levels.

Lindsay, good piece

Write a thank you letter to Nancy Boyda- she voted "no" on this $700 billion pile of steaming dook known as the "rescue package". She seems to realize that this "bailout" was a quickly conceived band-aid to stall the inevitable- economic collapse.

The heads of fannie, freddie, wachovia, AIG, and every other bank that gave out more loans than they could should be investigated, charged with fraud and locked up. We should not be giving out $700 Billion to buy up bad loans from people who couldn't afford them in the first place, we shouldn't be rewarding corporate greed.

Let the markets and the banks fail. Sure, we'll probably not be able to access our investments for a while, things will be tough, but the pay-out in the long run will be much greater. The market will recover, hopefully with more sustainable and stable methods of doing business. Our business and economic systems are obviously not working- why should we prop them up with a $700 billion loan?

To everyone that has responded yet, I appreciate your response! Glad to know that there are others who care.

I'd like to clarify something. We can point fingers as much as we want at the CEOs, legislators, etc. who screwed up in the first place. But the fact is now, (and the point I am hoping to make), is if the U.S. Treasury and Federal Bank did not take action, we (yes, we--taxpayers, liberals, republicans, etc.) would be in a much worse-off situation.

Do you think Paulson, Bernanke and company wanted to make this decision? In my opinion, I think the answer is no. They had to. If they hadn't, we would more likely than not be heading into a severe depression. And you probably wouldn't be buying any more bags from Hermes, but from Kohls instead.

In response to em1, I do read the Wall Street Journal and I'd be interested to hear on what points you disagree.

sjsclag, I suppose we could do that. And I suppose we could let people go homeless, countless businesses fail, the crime rate sky rocket and lose credibility with developing countries looking to adapt capitalist -based systems.

Anyone written a letter yet?

The title of this (which I did not get to choose) should be "Write a Thank You Letter to Ben or Paul" --not the government. Case in point, if anyone wants to be upset, you should be upset about this!

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpbail055869703oct05,0,7945929.story

lindsay, my gripes were against hermeschick. I felt the post was highly un-informed and mis represented. I completely agreed with your assertations and truely thank you for your letter (and personally think that the reason the average college student doesn't care about economics is because mommy and daddy are paying for everything either way)

sjs, i have a major issue with my tax dollars being put up on the block to cover for mis-managed funds. I also agree that a free market should remain as such. that said, I have a feeling my tax dollars would have been on the block so to speak in the end anyway, because banks would have sued the Feds over the federal (specifically HUD) directives and laws that were enacted REQUIRING banks to lend to those who were disadvantaged. The law told banks to come up with "creative ways" to get "disadvantaged" members of society into houses because it was "unfair" inner city people couldn't buy houses. How do you then punish those who followed the laws and did what they were told even though it was beyond risky? Just further proof that when the feds get involved in what should be absolutely free trade it screws things up in the end.....

this is the most retarded column ever. do you realize that the total value of every mortage in default (more than 90 days behind) right now is approx 109 b.? this means if we took every troubled mortage, and PAID OFF THE ENTIRE BALANCE, not just the delinquent amount, there would still be 600 billion dollars remaining.

so when you watch cnbc, and they talk about the fed covering commercial paper, they are saying that the fed is going to bail out every cheesy retirement village that is at 10% occupancy, every cattle ranch that was purchased strictly for a tax write off, every superluxury condo that was masterplanned over a mud bog, and so on.

if you calculate in the interest that we are going to pay on this 700b, the grand total of this bill is going to be somewhere around 2 TRILLION dollars. this is going to have such an inflationary effect on the economy that the purchasing power of one dollar will be about .5 by 2012. do you understand what that means? people who are making 50k or less right now will not be able to pay their bills in four years. but you think this is a good idea.

i nominate you for the darwinian awards in economics. you have no clue.

Bernanke Testimony on Financial Markets and Government Bailout:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/23/bernanke-testimony-on-financial-markets-and-government-bailout/

I took the excerpt below from the following article. It's about William H. Gross, manager of the largest bond mutual fund in the U.S. You can find the full article at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/business/economy/25pimco.html?pagewanted=all

Managing the Bailout: He'd Do it For Nothing
by Edward Wyatt
The New York Times
September 24, 2008

"Buying a pool of subprime mortgages is not like buying part of a company, [William H. Gross] said. The Treasury would own something — the mortgages themselves, which, if it pays the right amount for those loans, could earn it a yearly return of 12 to 13 percent when they are resolved.

“All the capital gains will accrue to the Treasury,” he said. “There’s tons of equity here. It’s just that it’s very difficult for American taxpayers to understand.”

The key, of course, is price, which is where an adviser to the Treasury would come in. Mr. Gross says much of the opposition to the plan stems from a misunderstanding that the Treasury would buy troubled mortgage bonds at face value.

On the contrary, Mr. Gross said, he would advise the Treasury to pay closer to 60 or 65 cents on the dollar for the mortgage bonds.

“If the price is right, the Treasury’s going to make money,” Mr. Gross said. “They made money on Chrysler. They can make money on this,” he said, referring to the federal bailout of the carmaker in 1979 and 1980.

are you really this dense? are you not paying attention at all??? LESS THAN 20% of the bailout is actually slated to be invested in sub-prime mortages. commercial paper (short term loans between banks and businesses), which makes up the vast majority of where this bailout is headed, is NOT going to return 10-12% why? because if the bailout is paying 65 cents on every dollar, for investments which have 20 cents for every dollar in equity, there is NO WAY there could ever be a positive ROI.

why are quoting newspaper stories that are over two weeks old now? the article you cited speaks nothing of the commercail paper bailout. that is because at that time of this article, nothing was disclosed about where all of the bailout money was precisely going to be placed into the financial system. if you remember, treasury secretary paulson insisted that he alone would be given total discretionary power to disperse the money and that he would be IMMUNE FROM ANY AND ALL PROCECUTION. why? because the commercail paper that he was planning to bailout included all the banks and business ventures that acted in a criminal manner.

when the massive ills of this bailout hit our economy in 4 to 6 years, these people who organized and legislated this bailout are going to be LONG GONE, and people like yourself are going to be looking around and wondering where all the money went. start saving your pennies, because you are going to need them, and they are only going to be worth about half of what they are worth now.

i honestly think that the only reason the UDK printed your submission is because it makes the pieces of fluff that they print seem so much less insipid.

The way that buisness leaders and heads of government approach this issue and manage the bailout, I'll leave up to them.

The point I am trying to make is that some kind of action was needed vs. inaction. The specifics, as you have pointed out, seem like they change by the hour. Why don't you write Paulson a letter anyway, suggesting ways in which they could do this enormously complicated task better? I'm sure he'll hit his head with the heel of his hand and say out loud, "Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

Americans' distrust in the ability of the government to orchestrate a successful intervention, in my opinion, will only drag us further into the ground. And as American taxpayers, I agree with you, we have the responsibiity to hold our government accountable for the way in which they carry out this intervention.

I agree Lindsay, that action was necessary. But was this bailout the necessary action? I would have to agree with Todd that it was not.

The correct action would have been to repeal the HUD laws that Em mentioned like the Community Reinvestment Act and similar directives that encouraged these firms to be irresponsible in the first place. We also need to stop demonizing these firms for their irresponsible lending as if they were the only ones to blame in this situation. What about the irresponsible consumers who were taking advantage of easy loans that they should have known they couldn't afford? What about organizations like Acorn and their litigators like Barack Obama who were suing firms for not making enough risky loans? What about legislators like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank who made a ridiculous amount of money and who continued to push affirmative action in housing when the sole basis for such loans should have been whether they could pay, not whether it was fair?

I think that this bailout has been applied entirely to hastily and it's going to have long term negative effects on our economy. I think that the American people were deceived about what caused this economic crisis and what was necessary to fix it. I think that the fact that people think that Obama can handle the economy best represents this deception. The inherent hypocrisy in this whole situation is nauseating and the utter lack of understanding worries me about this country.

This economic crisis is going to be painful regardless of what the government does. It's going to suck for a lot of years. But that's no reason to make it even worse in the future.

And besides, a painful economic time could be beneficial for this country and the people like those who took advantage of the easy credit despite their inability to afford what they were buying. Our ridiculous external debt is not just a problem of irresponsible government spending but also of irresponsible personal spending. If everyone has to tighten the belt a little bit, perhaps the culture shock from this economic crisis will return our culture to one of hard work and responsibility rather than one of instant gratification and loathe for struggle.