Maybe I’ve been in DC too long and am just too close to the politics. Or I just spend way too much time watching CNBC.
But, I will admit I was very surprised when I heard that various Rep’s said their constituents were overwhelmingly against today’s package being passed. (Of course, this was after the Republican’s came out and said, “Pelosi hurt our feelings so we changed our votes. Oh, the maturity!) But somehow, the S&P 500 dropping 8.78% in a day is OK?
Has it been reported everywhere else in the country as just a mechanism to protect “The Rich” on “Wall Street”? Cause the current credit and banking liquidity issues that the country is facing really do extend beyond the hedge fund managers and bankers on Wall Street. Regular non-Wall-Streeters who *haven’t* bought a house they can’t afford, or a car they can’t afford and have saved and invested are having their portfolios hammered.
I really do wonder how this is all being reported outside the DC area, and in non-business-focused news programs.
ETA: After it was all said and done, I went to see how my rep voted. Both my current rep and the one from my last district, both Republicans, voted for it.
September 30th, 2008 - 12:20 am
I don’t watch standard news sources, but have been listening to economists of various backgrounds on NPR’s Planet Money and they are less about it being only for the rich and Wall Street and more about there being other solutions that should be tried first, or even better ways to solve it with ‘bailout’ money, plus the thing economists *always* say about free market systems- that dealio that they are self-correcting and you have to keep your hands off them. They also have mentioned that if something isn’t done that lines of credit could get harder to come by or freeze up for a short period of time and that it’s more of socialist economics to not give CEOs enormous severance packages…oh, I mean, allow the companies to decide themselves what to do about that- but seriously, the CEO runs the frakking company- they are giving themselves that money- *MY* money! Anyway- check out this if you haven’t yet: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/ and there’s podcasts like daily on iTunes.
September 30th, 2008 - 2:26 am
Thank you!
I really have wondered how it is all being reported elsewhere - and you well know that news coverage here isn’t quite what it is elsewhere.
(And yes, I’d LOVE to curb some of those CEO packages. Yes, it’s a fucked up hard job to say the least, but to get big bucks for fucking it up… Well, the rest of us would get fired.)
September 30th, 2008 - 8:28 pm
No problem! Yeah, DC is a terrible place to get news from- lol! I think it was there that I stopped watching the news altogether. Time just had an article about how it is/will effect ‘Main Street’ rather than just Wall Street. Pretty much it sounded like less credit cards, higher loans on cars and houses (though not too muchn higher yet), no loans to risky people…all that sounds like a good idea to me. We all need to get away from a credit society for a while and I wonder if this won’t be the thing to do it. Maybe we will all start worrying less about having a new car if the rates are a bit higher and we don’t really need it. Maybe we will think twice about buying expensive name brand clothes we don’t really need. Less expensive trips put on the credit card, less toys and other crap we don’t need. I’ve already started moving this way- not using credit cards and just working to pay off the debt I have. This is just pushing me to be even more careful with my money, which is doing me some good. I’m eating out less, making more meals at home including making lunches instead of buying tv dinners (way cheaper).
I’m also going to start taking out $200 cash each week for gas, groceries, etc and only spending that. Not using the debit card for things makes it a lot easier to keep in mind how much I’m spending. I’m way stingier with my money when I see that there’s only $40 left to get me through the week on Tuesday. I really do wish gas prices would come down up here though. I have to fork out $70 of my $200 every week for gas and that’s making the $200 have to stretch a lot further.
Anywho, it does suck for smart people like you who invested their money in the stock market. I’m pretty glad that I only have $4K or so in it, but then again, the NPR economist guys said that unless you had your stock in those specific companies that are going down, or if you were planning on retiring soon and cashing out, the market will rebound, we’ll get out of this recession and you’ll still have your investment. One of the guys even said that he never bothers to look at his portfolio in times like these, because the market freaks out too much in the short term, people then freak out, but then things steady back out and all the worry was for nought in the long term. Anyway, don’t worry too much. If you have a house and a car and enough for groceries, you’ll be fine and things will work out in the long run.