HARDtoTOP

If Clinton would have had the bawls to take Osama as an extradition when he was offered to us, we never would have had much of an issue with Afghanistan.

Legal Bill

Gee, I guess mine don't count.

Legal Bill

Well if you are all ears, the President should be all solutions! What ever happend to "smart people for the win?" I guess they are not so smart after all.

If they can't fix the problem should they really be spending on something else? That my friend is insane. If you have a house with a crumbling foundation that will be hard and costly to fix, do you install a new kitchen because it is easy to do? I can't believe I have to point out the obvious here.

As to a solution:

Some of the paper is a liability. I already told you what I would do with the betting slips above. Cancel the bets and return the premiums. At the very least you can adjust the liability down on the basis that it is more than would be returned in bankruptcy.

Some paper has no market value, but performs. Let's change the accounting rules for that category and then no one has to dump them. The banks can hold them and take the long term pay off.

Some of the paper is in default. Create a resonable value based on the percent of likely recovery and then transfer it to the bad bank. You can even have a provision that says any return above the agreed amount will be divided between the financial institution and the government after accounting for costs and interest. In that way, the institution may still be able to carry an amount for future returns after the discounted sale. Resolution Trust actually made a small profit after buying all the Savings and Loans junk and working it out.

Work with those borowers in default. The mortgage rescue plan is part of the solution, but it comes without any plan to see the process through to the bad paper. And those who are too far out of shape need to be carefully scheduled for forclosure. Take what you can from them as a form of rent and then forclose in an orderly, scheduled fashion so we do not have a huge glut of forclosed homes on the market.

It is hard work and complicated and it may be expensive, but it will give confidence to the market. "The smart people" you told us to vote for should be able to do it.

Geithner is now doing so called "stress tests" of the financial institutions. I think this is just a delay tactic to buy time to come up with a real plan. They already know how bad most of these banks are. But once he finishes these "stress tests" he better have a plan to do something about it.

The trouble is, Obama already mortgaged us into the next two genrations to pass his social restructuring bill. That is your new kitchen. Enjoy it while the house slides into the ditch. Where will the money come from to fix the foundation?

paivag

Well said Bill. I owe you a cold one next time I am up that way.

The money will be coming from the hard working folks here. Wait till it affects the social peeps sucking on the teets.

Lainey

Note previous reply to zippy/Dave, Bill. You got an honorable mention!

Legal Bill

Here is the first sign that he may actually get it:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10137

I'm not sure it will work, but at leat it is a plan!!! Let's see the details that Geithner says will be rolled out in the next two weeks.

SHUG

I enjoyed the SNL skit they did on his plan better.

Legal Bill

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/16/news/compa...sion=2009031708

So if Bush and Paulson were dumb because they gave money to wall street with no strings attached, how come the "smart president" and his faithful sidekick "treasury boy" did exactly the same thing?

Seems like the smartest president eva isn't smart enough to learn from the very same Bush mistakes Obama himself critcized dozens of times.

As a service to the site, I'll respond now the the ususal comments I get from the left:


"He's better than Bush" Nope. Looks the same to me.

"Give him time." Nope. He was the biggest critic about giving $ to wall street with no strings attached. He knew, and did it anyway.

"At least he's doing something now." Nope. Any action he takes now will be a disruptive, costly side show. He should have done it right the first time.

"I still like him anyway." Then just admit many of Bush's moves were not so bad after all. You just didn't like him.

"What else could Obama have done?" Told AIG before he gave them any more money to renegotiate the contracts with the executives, as a bankrupt AIG will pay them nothing.

Bass

i've grown tired of this section

Lainey

What, don't enjoy the anymore?

Remember the rule of what not to discuss at dinner, politics, sex and religion.....