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Another stimulus, this time $800B

Marty81Marty81 Registered User regular
edited November 2008 in Debate and/or Discourse
Dunno if you guys have seen this yet, but today the fed announced another stimulus/bailout of some sort to the tune of $800 billion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7748362.stm

About $200 billion will be invested in opening up consumer credit lines, and about $600 billion will be invested in buying mortgage-backed securities. I'm really not clear on any of the details here.

-Who will the primary benefactors of the $200 billion for consumer credit be? Small businesses and entrepreneurs? Home buyers? Poor people just trying to make ends meet? Middle-class people looking to finance a new car or home theater?

-We're not really just buying $600 billion in toxic mortgages, right? The article says we'd be buying mortgage-backed securities. How secure are such securities? Who are we buying them from? Why are we doing this?

I agree we need to get the economy back on track. It's stagnating right now. People who need loans can't get them, and people who have money are hoarding it instead of spending it because they're worried about job security. Is this the right way to do it?

Marty81 on
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Posts

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Still not paying my mom's mortgage, I see.

    EDIT - What if I turn in an essay? :D

    Cantido on
    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • DmanDman Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I don't know if this is the right way to do it or not, but if the government is buying these securities at their current values, which are low, then its not a big deal in my eyes.

    If you bought a house for 230k and its now worth 180k and the gov pays 180k to take the loan off someones hands because no one else will buy it that's fine, if the gov is paying 230k then it is not fine.

    It will be interesting to see how transparent these deals are and who really benefits.

    Dman on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Marty81 wrote: »
    Dunno if you guys have seen this yet, but today the fed announced another stimulus/bailout of some sort to the tune of $800 billion.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7748362.stm

    About $200 billion will be invested in opening up consumer credit lines, and about $600 billion will be invested in buying mortgage-backed securities. I'm really not clear on any of the details here.

    -Who will the primary benefactors of the $200 billion for consumer credit be? Small businesses and entrepreneurs? Home buyers? Poor people just trying to make ends meet? Middle-class people looking to finance a new car or home theater?

    -We're not really just buying $600 billion in toxic mortgages, right? The article says we'd be buying mortgage-backed securities. How secure are such securities? Who are we buying them from? Why are we doing this?

    I agree we need to get the economy back on track. It's stagnating right now. People who need loans can't get them, and people who have money are hoarding it instead of spending it because they're worried about job security. Is this the right way to do it?


    We're really just buying $600 billion in toxic mortgages.


    Mortgage-based securities work like this: Bank loans out money in mortgages. Bank uses said mortgages as collateral to borrow money from investors, which it can then lend out again.

    The thing is, when the default rate reaches a certain point, the security is essentially worthless, because the money coming in from mortgage payments doesn't amount to enough to pay back the security holders.


    Buying up bad securities is essentially the same as buying up losing bets on a roulette wheel AFTER the wheel has stopped and the ball has dropped, and is just as likely to make any money in the long run for the fed.


    Edit: It should be noted though that 600 of this 800 billion is going towards Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bad debt, which essentially the federal government was responsible for paying back anyway, so they're just covering their own losses.

    The fact that the federal government was essentially gambling with hundreds of billions of dollars is a bit of another issue.

    Jealous Deva on
  • DmanDman Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    But everyone should know that so the value of those securities should have hit pretty much rock bottom. If the Fed's buy the securities at their new rock bottom prices then they aren't really loosing out because at least some people aren't going to default their mortgages right?

    Dman on
  • EinEin CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I don't know enough about the economy to comment intelligently on this sort of thing, but I just want to say that this makes me really uneasy.

    Ein on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Dman wrote: »
    But everyone should know that so the value of those securities should have hit pretty much rock bottom. If the Fed's buy the securities at their new rock bottom prices then they aren't really loosing out because at least some people aren't going to default their mortgages right?


    If no one will buy them at the current market value, then they essentially have no market value and are worthless.

    Basically the theory is that right now, no one wants to buy mortgage backed securities, so in order to get them sold they're having to pay tons of interest, which means they're having to charge tons of interest on mortgages and only lend to guaranteed safe bets to get the whole thing to work.

    The idea is that the federal government just buys up 600 billion dollars worth of MBS, and the interest rate goes down just like if private buyers bought them.

    There's only 2 ways this works, though. Way one is if private investors suddenly decide to follow the lead of government, which makes no sense, (if all of the sudden warren buffet bought 20 billion dollars of MBS other people might think he knows something they don't and follow him, but everyone knows the government is just trying to put money in the system and doesn't expect a good return on those loans).

    The other way it works is if the government buys up those securities at bargain basement rates of return, essentially paying far above market value for them (If I give you $1000 for a security worth 1250 in principal and interest in 1 year, I'm effectively paying much less than if I give you $1000 for a security worth $1010 in principle and interest in one year).



    Edit: I should probably also point out TARP, which is essentially spending billions of dollars to buy equity shares in financial institutions at rates vastly (like 10-20x) more than those shares are worth.
    Basically like if they decided they were going to bail out GM, but rather than giving them a loan they were going to buy gm shares, but instead of buying regular shares at $2 a piece, they were going to buy "preferred" shares for $50 a piece. These "preferred" shares count exactly as much in terms of equity as normal shares (with a few benefits like getting first dibs on dividends and such), but just happen to be arbitrarily set in value at 10-20x more.


    The government lately loves giving out free money to banks, and also loves thinking up ways to do it that makes it look like they're not doing exactly that. Don't be fooled, though.

    Jealous Deva on
  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    If there are people out there who still want to argue that unregulated derivatives and all this other shit is a good idea because the free market is perfect and we need this type of "innovation" popping up everywhere, I'm going to slap a bitch. In all seriousness, what does it say about the amount of sheer idiocy involved in maintaining such a philosophical position when you're now faced with the largest socialist bailout in modern history just to fix this shit. Congratulations on your "free market", dumbass.

    PS - I love the free market. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the free market is somehow antithetical to regulations and/or institutional oversight. There wouldn't be a fucking "free market" if you didn't have basic social institutions, you fuckwads.

    Double PS - I'm talking specifically to you, Bush.

    Inquisitor77 on
  • Mithrandir86Mithrandir86 Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    If there are people out there who still want to argue that unregulated derivatives and all this other shit is a good idea because the free market is perfect and we need this type of "innovation" popping up everywhere, I'm going to slap a bitch. In all seriousness, what does it say about the amount of sheer idiocy involved in maintaining such a philosophical position when you're now faced with the largest socialist bailout in modern history just to fix this shit. Congratulations on your "free market", dumbass.

    PS - I love the free market. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the free market is somehow antithetical to regulations and/or institutional oversight. There wouldn't be a fucking "free market" if you didn't have basic social institutions, you fuckwads.

    Double PS - I'm talking specifically to you, Bush.

    Well, I think its unfair to the blame on any one person, or any one set of policies. My understanding, doing lots and lots of reading, is that this crisis is the result of a bunch of people making bad decisions, in an environment that transcends regional distinction, in a period that transcends a single administration.

    In other words, I blame Greenspan.

    But getting on topic here - the stimulus isn't exactly unexpected is it?

    To be honest, I'd be surprised if it does anything at all.

    Mithrandir86 on
  • Joe ChemoJoe Chemo Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    If there are people out there who still want to argue that unregulated derivatives and all this other shit is a good idea because the free market is perfect and we need this type of "innovation" popping up everywhere, I'm going to slap a bitch. In all seriousness, what does it say about the amount of sheer idiocy involved in maintaining such a philosophical position when you're now faced with the largest socialist bailout in modern history just to fix this shit. Congratulations on your "free market", dumbass.

    PS - I love the free market. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the free market is somehow antithetical to regulations and/or institutional oversight. There wouldn't be a fucking "free market" if you didn't have basic social institutions, you fuckwads.

    Double PS - I'm talking specifically to you, Bush.

    Lamentably, some free market people will argue that the reason the economy collapsed was TOO MUCH regulation.

    Apparently markets will always fail until we move towards an anarcho-capitalist utopia. Or something.

    Joe Chemo on
  • Mithrandir86Mithrandir86 Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Dman wrote: »
    But everyone should know that so the value of those securities should have hit pretty much rock bottom. If the Fed's buy the securities at their new rock bottom prices then they aren't really loosing out because at least some people aren't going to default their mortgages right?

    That was a the rationale behind their rating beforehand - that there were so many diversified instruments that there was no way that they could all fold.

    Mithrandir86 on
  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Dman wrote: »
    But everyone should know that so the value of those securities should have hit pretty much rock bottom. If the Fed's buy the securities at their new rock bottom prices then they aren't really loosing out because at least some people aren't going to default their mortgages right?

    That was a the rationale behind their rating beforehand - that there were so many diversified instruments that there was no way that they could all fold.


    The basic lesson here being that if you stuff a bunch of moldy oranges into a bag, they magically become good oranges because now you have a lot of them and they're all in a bag together and you're only allowed to buy a tiny slice of all the oranges at once, so who knows if you're getting a moldy slice or a good slice. Except if you buy the whole fucking bag it's still a bag of moldy fucking oranges.

    Best analogy ever? I think so.

    Inquisitor77 on
  • Mithrandir86Mithrandir86 Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Dman wrote: »
    But everyone should know that so the value of those securities should have hit pretty much rock bottom. If the Fed's buy the securities at their new rock bottom prices then they aren't really loosing out because at least some people aren't going to default their mortgages right?

    That was a the rationale behind their rating beforehand - that there were so many diversified instruments that there was no way that they could all fold.


    The basic lesson here being that if you stuff a bunch of moldy oranges into a bag, they magically become good oranges because now you have a lot of them and they're all in a bag together and you're only allowed to buy a tiny slice of all the oranges at once, so who knows if you're getting a moldy slice or a good slice. Except if you buy the whole fucking bag it's still a bag of moldy fucking oranges.

    Best analogy ever? I think so.

    Not really, since the mortgages are bunched together. You're not buying the *unit*, you're buying a share of the entire collection. It would be like blending all the oranges together, then selling scoops. Oh, and the oranges can explode and kill you.

    Mithrandir86 on
  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    We already gave Paulson $700 billion to buy the mortgage securities, he didn't use it for that, now he wants another $600 billion for the same thing?

    Yep, this will end well...

    Tomanta on
  • enc0reenc0re Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Tomanta wrote: »
    We already gave Paulson $700 billion to buy the mortgage securities, he didn't use it for that, now he wants another $600 billion for the same thing?

    Yep, this will end well...

    This $600B is coming from the Fed, not the Treasury.

    enc0re on
  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I just <3 the idea that Congress gave Paulson a blank check with $700 billion without a real plan, and when the auto folks come by and ask for a paltry $25 billion they freak out and start demanding "real plans". You think Paulson flies commercial when he needs to get somewhere?

    Inquisitor77 on
  • Joe ChemoJoe Chemo Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I just <3 the idea that Congress gave Paulson a blank check with $700 billion without a real plan, and when the auto folks come by and ask for a paltry $25 billion they freak out and start demanding "real plans". You think Paulson flies commercial when he needs to get somewhere?

    He flies on the crushed souls of defaulting homeowners.

    Joe Chemo on
  • agoajagoaj Top Tier One FearRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I just <3 the idea that Congress gave Paulson a blank check with $700 billion without a real plan, and when the auto folks come by and ask for a paltry $25 billion they freak out and start demanding "real plans". You think Paulson flies commercial when he needs to get somewhere?

    Paulson just pays people to carry him places.
    Or at least he can now.

    agoaj on
    ujav5b9gwj1s.png
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Maybe someone can explain to me why Henry Paulson is explaining what the Federal Reserve is doing.

    Is Bernanke home sick today?

    Speaker on
  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    The real question is where is the President of the United States? I know you're a lame duck and all, but seriously, you're still the President of the United States, and for the last 6 months he's been MIA.

    No, wait, I think they found him on the side of the road. It looks like he just fell off the wagon.

    Inquisitor77 on
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I just <3 the idea that Congress gave Paulson a blank check with $700 billion without a real plan, and when the auto folks come by and ask for a paltry $25 billion they freak out and start demanding "real plans". You think Paulson flies commercial when he needs to get somewhere?

    He'll be on his ass soon enough at least

    nexuscrawler on
  • PotatoNinjaPotatoNinja Fake Gamer Goat Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Dman wrote: »
    But everyone should know that so the value of those securities should have hit pretty much rock bottom. If the Fed's buy the securities at their new rock bottom prices then they aren't really loosing out because at least some people aren't going to default their mortgages right?

    That was a the rationale behind their rating beforehand - that there were so many diversified instruments that there was no way that they could all fold.


    The basic lesson here being that if you stuff a bunch of moldy oranges into a bag, they magically become good oranges because now you have a lot of them and they're all in a bag together and you're only allowed to buy a tiny slice of all the oranges at once, so who knows if you're getting a moldy slice or a good slice. Except if you buy the whole fucking bag it's still a bag of moldy fucking oranges.

    Best analogy ever? I think so.

    I recall the Beavis & Butthead episode where the two had to sell candy bars to raise funds for the school. Beavis gets a dollar, and buys a single candy bar from the Butthead. Butthead now has a dollar, which he gives to Beavis to buy a candy bar.

    40 bars later....

    It always struck me as the perfect analogy for the current financial crisis, not because of the events (which are loosely similar, at best), but because of the appropriate representations of the actors involved.

    I'm of the unfortunate mind that anything Paulson does at this point will go to shit. The man has demonstrated a consistent inability to do anything even remoltely close to intelligent, and I think we're near the point where any further stimulus is just a throwaway of money we know will be wasted by the current failure of an administration in hopes that Wall Street floats long enough for adults to come in and fix it.

    But I'm a bit cynical like that.

    Additionally, in response to another poster above, I do think a good amount of the blame should be leveled directly on Greenspan. With any luck, his legacy will be tarnished forever, but I'm not holding my breath.

    PotatoNinja on
    Two goats enter, one car leaves
  • MrMonroeMrMonroe passed out on the floor nowRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    BLARGLEFRAGLARGLEMARPH

    All this shit pisses me off so much.

    I understand that the government should run a deficit during recessions. That is perfectly reasonable.

    But what these dickfaces keep doing is borrowing money against the budgets that I'm going to have to keep paying for as a taxpayer for the next sixty years to make sure cockmongers who couldn't tell a legitimate investment from poop futures stay soluble. That is whack shit. This is money that could be spent investing.

    And then, the truly infuriating thing is that people call Obama a socialist while Bush mandates the largest socialization of private assets in the history of the United States.

    REARGHLBARGLE

    MrMonroe on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    $700B here, $800B there, who gives a shit anymore, right?

    Between this and a certain thread over in H/A today, I'm halfway down the road to becoming a damn libertarian.

    Alternately I'll spend the next decade or two figuring out every way I can milk the government for every dime possible. Because it's pretty obvious that I'm going to be spending a lot of tax money fixing the fuckups of others from here on out.

    The great part? It's not even about helping out the "poor," which is an idea I've generally been able to get behind. This isn't about feeding kids who are going hungry or getting people off the street. It's about a bunch of middle-class fuckers, most of which make more than I do, who made piss-poor decisions but did it on such a massive scale that apparently I have no choice but to chip in. Well, that and rich-as-fuck executives. This isn't Robin Hood shit, we aren't stealing from the rich to give to the poor anymore. We're stealing from the middle class to give to others in the middle class who fucked up, or to give to the upper class.

    Super.

    This is a horrible time to have enough income to pay a significant amount in taxes but not enough to be able to even buy your own home. At least not responsibly.

    mcdermott on
  • WulfWulf Disciple of Tzeentch The Void... (New Jersey)Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Its times like this that I'm glad all my money is now tied up in paying for my own house.

    Wulf on
    Everyone needs a little Chaos!
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Can I have a check for like $3 million? This is tiny numbers compared to that huge thing.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    it just baffles me that they'll piss and moan that we don't have the money for decent health care in this country but we have money for this kinda shit.

    nexuscrawler on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Jesus what kind of healthcare could we get over the next 10 years with $800,000,000,000?

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    bowen wrote: »
    Jesus what kind of healthcare could we get over the next 10 years with $800,000,000,000?

    Daily full body scans for the entire country

    nexuscrawler on
  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited November 2008
    bowen wrote: »
    Jesus what kind of healthcare could we get over the next 10 years with $800,000,000,000?

    You can't get to the hospital if all the public transporation has closed down due to an economic collapse, etc etc etc.

    Oh wait everything exists in a vacuum. Carry on.

    FyreWulff on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    FyreWulff wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Jesus what kind of healthcare could we get over the next 10 years with $800,000,000,000?

    You can't get to the hospital if all the public transporation has closed down due to an economic collapse, etc etc etc.

    Oh wait everything exists in a vacuum. Carry on.

    So what exactly is going to collapse if they don't get this $800,000,000,000.

    Small businesses now that feel left out? Horrible precedence was set, and it's continuing because everyone wants their cut of free money. Are people abandoning jobs and shutting down their business because they think they need money or free support? Funny how it seemed no one was having trouble until banks started asking for money for subprime mortgages, then all of a sudden everyone needs this money because they made horrible fucking decisions.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • MrMonroeMrMonroe passed out on the floor nowRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    The credit markets freeze, and crediting banks fail and fail until we reach equilibrium with only a very few stable banks left and much higher interest rates on loans. The recession continues because no one can borrow any money, and then we slowly climb out as the bad assets are written off the sheets as losses. Takes a few years and we should expect to see income stagnation and fairly high unemployment. I would be surprised if it went above 10%, but I don't have any mathematical models suggesting that.

    It will suck. But it will suck a lot less than paying back 800 billion fucking dollars over the course of the rest of my lifetime so we can bail out some people who made bad decisions.

    So yeah.

    Fuck 'em. (especially Detroit)

    MrMonroe on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    MrMonroe wrote: »
    It will suck. But it will suck a lot less than paying back 800 billion fucking dollars over the course of the rest of my lifetime so we can bail out some people who made bad decisions.

    Many of whom make more than I do.

    Let's not forget this.

    mcdermott on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    FyreWulff wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Jesus what kind of healthcare could we get over the next 10 years with $800,000,000,000?

    You can't get to the hospital if all the public transporation has closed down due to an economic collapse, etc etc etc.

    Oh wait everything exists in a vacuum. Carry on.



    The problem is that no one really has any clue in hell how to stop this, the people in the top are making wild guesses, being advised by the same people who got us in the situation in the first place.

    They got hundreds of billions of dollars a few months ago to stop the bleeding, but we're worse off now than we were then, and the answer is throwing more money at the problem.

    For the past 15 years people on wallstreet have essentially been committing fraud, with it becoming so common place that people didn't even realize it was fraud. Credit default swaps, mortgage based securities repackaging bad loans as good investments, all this has basically been people creating the illusion of gigantic amounts of money where only a little existed, and when that small amount that was there dries up, it has to crash. It was all a big pyramid scheme.

    No amount of money is going to make up for that. There are supposedly around 60 Trillion dollars in the credit default and derivitives markets alone. 60 Trillion. Even if only a fraction of that is bad (and indications are that it's a fairly large fraction), does anyone really think the government can afford to just step in and make it up? All the governments in the world couldn't afford that. The entire world GDP is only 65 trillion/year. In order to buy out this giant pyramid scheme, EVERY HUMAN BEING IN THE WORLD would have to work for an entire year and give their paycheck to the financial institutions.

    The US government will be bankrupt in 15 years from Social Security, Medicare, and Debt service without all this, we're suddenly now able to afford dumping billions of dollars into bad investments?

    Let them all fall. It'll suck, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money, including a lot of people who got suckered into "safe" investments like 401k plans that shouldn't have been in this kind of thing in the first place. But we're far past the point in which financial government intervention can save us. Rather than jumping on the grenade, the government is jumping on the atomic bomb.

    Jealous Deva on
  • WulfWulf Disciple of Tzeentch The Void... (New Jersey)Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    The thing that makes me the most angry is the fact that the CEO's of these companies are still getting millions of dollars a year plus bonuses and other 'perks'. I'm sure things could be turned around a lot quicker and more reliably if that wasn't having to be factored in. :/

    Wulf on
    Everyone needs a little Chaos!
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Cap the income of an individual worker for those industries that get the loans maybe? And sell nonessential, luxury equipment. This includes, but is not limited to, jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, company bling.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Mithrandir86Mithrandir86 Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    bowen wrote: »
    Cap the income of an individual worker for those industries that get the loans maybe? And sell nonessential, luxury equipment. This includes, but is not limited to, jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, company bling.

    Good idea. Not only do you know better how a company should use its finances, but you want to drive away all the talent that you possibly can. You know, the guys who at least have a semblance of an idea of whats going on.

    What, do you think these guys work for free? No, they work for the jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, not to mention the company bling.

    Mithrandir86 on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    bowen wrote: »
    Cap the income of an individual worker for those industries that get the loans maybe? And sell nonessential, luxury equipment. This includes, but is not limited to, jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, company bling.

    Good idea. Not only do you know better how a company should use its finances, but you want to drive away all the talent that you possibly can. You know, the guys who at least have a semblance of an idea of whats going on.

    What, do you think these guys work for free? No, they work for the jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, not to mention the company bling.

    You're right, I'm stupid to suggest cutting out unnecessary finances for a dying company might actually do some good. I'm sure they can find someone who'll work without it.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    But I guess these "best and brightest" just prolonged the inevitable of their company just tanking, right?

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • geckahngeckahn Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    this shit is bananas.

    geckahn on
  • Mithrandir86Mithrandir86 Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    bowen wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Cap the income of an individual worker for those industries that get the loans maybe? And sell nonessential, luxury equipment. This includes, but is not limited to, jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, company bling.

    Good idea. Not only do you know better how a company should use its finances, but you want to drive away all the talent that you possibly can. You know, the guys who at least have a semblance of an idea of whats going on.

    What, do you think these guys work for free? No, they work for the jets, pools, limos, company cars, cocaine, whores, stripper poles, 8 story "management" buildings, not to mention the company bling.

    You're right, I'm stupid to suggest cutting out unnecessary finances for a dying company might actually do some good. I'm sure they can find someone who'll work without it.

    How do you define what is "unnecessary"? Look, you're just pulling at the most obvious things. I agree that the taxpayer should not be funding "stripper poles", but that's just the most egregious example. How do you separate whats useful from waste? The distinction can be pretty fine.

    It's like trying trying to differentiate porn from art. The idea "I know it when I see it" codemns you to judge every instance by itself, rather than just say "when there are boobs."

    Mithrandir86 on
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