They KNEW this was coming. They had to get their $Trillion dollars BEFORE

[burythehatchet]

the market tanked. If people had lost their wealth before the bill passed, there would have been no bill. That was the emergency. They had to take it before there was nothing left.

Shock Doctrine.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Too bad we spend all our money on a "cure"...

that won't fix squat.

You restore trust with honesty, not by windfalls for liars...

[Horse with no Name]

2. And gee

a month left until the elections. What timing!

[Occam Bandage]

3. This is the polar opposite of the Shock Doctrine.

Due to this economic shock, the nation is moving profoundly and rapidly leftwards. The government is buying up stakes in businesses left and right. They're throwing up safety nets all over the place, and they're debating doing more.

That is the exact opposite of what Naomi Klein proposed. Under her model, they'd be using this shock to push for freer markets; instead, we're seeing socialism come to the rescue.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. and privatizing the social security as well

don't forget that one

Yes is the polar opposite, but I guess it sounds sexy

I got tired of trying to 'splain what that looks like, since I actually lived it in the flesh

[Occam Bandage]

10. They've wisely given up on that during this shock.

[Papa Boule]

24. Not quite.

This is on the Yahoo finance page even now.

Fiscal crisis not a death knell for privatizing Social Security.

[Junkdrawer]

LOL. The most perverted use of the term "socialism"...ever... n/t

[burythehatchet]

8. Seems there's a distinction between socializing services Vs. socializing liabilities

:shrug:

[Occam Bandage]

9. Indeed, but a common one. Should I have said "government influence and intervention?"

The point would stand. We're moving towards regulation and not away from it; it's just a question of how much regulation we'll be adding.

[Junkdrawer]

14. Who's taking over whom?

Government taking over Business to benefit the People = Socialism

Monopolistic Business merging with Government for the benefit of a few = ??? Fascism ???

[burythehatchet]

16. King Hank has a 2-sided business card. SOT on one side and Goldman on the other.

[Occam Bandage]

17. A case could be made for either, since the only differences are either semantic

or hinge upon the vague word "benefit." I'd say that government purchasing stakes of AIG and taking over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are both solid investments that will lead to increased regulation of those particular businesses (and will pay cash dividends in the long term), lwhich I would consider benefits to the people as a whole.

You might say that it's a merger of government and business for the sake of the CEOs of those companies.

That would only be a matter of perspective; the facts are that government now has increased presence in the marketplace, and that is anathema to (and in this particular instance was generally opposed by) the free marketeers Klein described. In the Shock Doctrine, free markets are painted as short-term solutions for the people, but end up being long-term benefits for the rich. Here, the bailout is a short-term solution for the rich, but is done in an interventionist manner and accompanied by greater regulations that will push the markets towards a socialist path. That is to say, the opposite of Klein's model.

:shrug:

[Junkdrawer]

21. I think the Milton Friedman ideologues are like the NeoCon ideologues...

Both of which are Useful Idiots for the Powers-That-Be.

Free Markets? Great...until it gets in the way...

Israel and Democracy in the Middle East? Great...until it gets in the way...

[mhatrw]

29. As if this was a battle of ideologies.

This is a class war of the top 0.1% insiders vs. the rest of us.

Do you think they give a damn about ideology? They just want all our money and to keep increasing their power.

[mhatrw]

25. Let's see that regulation.

So far, have we have done is turn the keys to the Treasury over to one of the investment bankers who got us into this mess.

[girl gone mad]

23. It's fascism, really.

Of course, the Nazis called themselves socialists, too.

[fascisthunter]

32. hahahaha..... great point!

[TahitiNut]

35. Two words: "National Socialists"

:shrug:

[balantz]

13. Socialism run by the corporations that own the government.

It's different than socialism owned by us.

[fed_up_mother]

20. I respectfully disagree. The neocons attempted t bankkrupt us out of Medicare and Social Security

And forget healthcare. It will be years before we get that. Frankly, I think it was all a plan. And they grabbed as much as they could while sinking the economy.

[Occam Bandage]

22. Right. They tried to move the nation economically rightwards and failed.

Then there was a market shock. Now, during the shock, they've abandoned their plans to loosen the social safety nets, and we're talking about installing more.

A few people may have made out like bandits short term, but that isn't what the shock doctrine is about.

[mhatrw]

27. We are frogs in a pot.

And they keep turning up the heat. Usually slowly, but this time they had to crank it a few notches all at once in order to get one last huge cash grab before the changing of the guard.

Even if Obama wins, they have bankrupted the country to the point that his hands are tied.

[burythehatchet]

30. If by failure you mean the largest redistribution of wealth upward in history, then yes.

[Occam Bandage]

41. Which, again, has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

[Hannah Bell]

34. not the righties, according to the tv. they're moving further right.

mccain is betraying palin.

in times of panic, extremists of every stripe come to the fore.

the ptb tend to give their money to the right.

[mike_c]

4. take careful note of who supported the theft, and helped force it down our throats....

This is not something the republicans own alone. You can separate the good politicians from the bad ones on the strength of their bailout bill vote, IMO. The ones that do the people's work from the ones who work for corporations and the rich.

[slipslidingaway]

11. Agree n/t

[mikelgb]

12. yep, and none of them are still running for President...

[mhatrw]

28. Yes, n/t

[magellan]

40. Yes.

:cry:

[ShortnFiery]

5. All we have for potential leverage is this ELECTION, this is for all the marbles. eom

[peacetalksforall]

7. While at the spa - they raised a toast to the Democrats!

How many versions of the truth are out there?

I just don't know.

I believe this op.

Isn't the U.S. superior to the rest of the world - thieves to top them all. For how many years will they gloat?

[baby_mouse]

15. Not much longer.

No, not much longer. A few years yet, but not as many as you might think.

[smoogatz]

18. The market hasn't actually tanked yet.

Just wait. Dow 3000 by Christmas, at the rate we're going.

[NoSheep]

19. You're thinking the way I have been thinking. Anybody who trusts these pigs is an idiot

[TexasObserver]

26. the bailout bill, the lard in it, AIG, the Freddie & Fannie, the FED, the FDIC

They have already committed two trillion dollars in those matters, combined.

[ileus]

31. I moved mine to fixed funds before this crap took place...only lost 1k.

[Festivito]

33. That money is still sitting there in the Federal Reserve.

All that borrowed money sitting there out of circulation could make stock values fall.

[Hidden Stillness]

36. The Only Thing the Bush/Cheney Admin. Ever Did was Steal From Us

There was something very strange about this whole haphazard, forced, hysterical series of events the past few weeks--at the very least, it has been one of the stupidest "planned" responses to a financial crisis ever--starting with the sudden flip of Paulson from one of the most arrogant, oblivious rich pricks, who would not even answer questions at Congressional hearings except to rhapsodize about "the elegant economy," etc., to suddenly threatening that the sky would fall and the Earth crumble, if Congress did not immediately fork over almost a trillion dollars, with no stated intended use, no provisions against outrageous CEO pay, at first, and also by the way, no court could ever question or change any decision made on anything; this is how "important" the financial crisis is.

This is not "Socialism," which would be good and which would cover people as a benefit of citizenship; this is fascism, an alliance between a weakened Government and business/corporations, for the benefit and further power of corporations. This is just a bailout, paid by taxpayers, but profits going to the individual corporations, no different from the subsidy and bailout of airlines, which went only to management and not to employees who lost their jobs, after the downturn of that industry, (and while trying to starve and kill AMTRAK, which people actually do need and rely on; that would be "socialism"). It is a continuation of the Republican corporate attitude of taking all profits for the rich, connected few, and putting costs increasingly on the public/Government. The taxpayer now pays the operating expenses of business, on a scale unheard of before. They shove their debts on pensions they raided and will not honor, onto the Federal Government's Pension Guaranty Board (exact name?); they refused to pay commercial insurance claims for wind damage during Katrina/Rita, and shoved it all onto FEMA, as if it were all water damage, when it was not, so the taxpayers paid, and the corporations made huge profits. John Snow's CSX railroad corporation refused to keep up the track maintenance, then shoved the costs, after lawsuits, onto the Government.

Whole regions of Government activity have been taken over by corporations, for their profit and aggrandizement, not to serve: from the IRS now an outsourced commercial group, to the military even to interrogators, from "No Child Left Behind" run by a Bush-connected commercial group (badly; who cares?), to Medicare Plus, merely a scam to shift operations to the control and profit of commercial insurance. "Medicare" Part D paid huge "incentive" bonuses and subsidies to insurance corporations, so they would take on these patients and make profits off them (?), and to pharmaceuticals, allowing them to price-gouge elderly people horrifically, to this day. One thing after another has been nothing but a money-grab for individual corporations, just to destroy Government operations, and budgets. Whole trust-fund budgets have actually been plundered--transporation/infrastructure, and unemployment compensation, and others. This is a reminder of that bastard Reagan's well-known stated plan to destroy and kill Federal agencies, by bankrupting the whole Government.

Now this bizarre huge money grab for one separate, corrupt, largely unproductive corporate giant after another: Bear-Stearns, Goldman-Sachs, AIG, Lehman, on and on. No attention at all to the real crises that have led to this inability of millions of people to pay off their debts--stagnant wages, unemployment and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs, price-gouging and fake charges, previously illegal predatory lending, etc. The Government has adopted an attitude that ended the previous one of protecting the people from the crimes of business, to one of being "friends" with big business, and wanting to "help" it alone, as if it were the whole economy. Constant, recurring attempts to commercialize Social Security and Medicare because of the huge cash profits there, stopped ONLY becuase of the outrage and fear of the American people; it would have been done if not for the people. The Government now acts as if it doesn't really have the "right" to control the actions of business, only that it dutifully provide the money we now have no right to anymore; there are no large-scale public projects anymore.

They ripped the whole Government apart, commercialized it, made it secret and hostile to the public, stole huge funds of tax money the whole time, and now at the end make these last several huge money-grabs, before they run off--with no penalties! This obviously helps nothing, it isn't even related to anything, (as the stock, credit, investment, banking systems all crash), yet we get "panic" after "panic" from these phony assholes, demanding BAILOUT.

[tom_paine]

37. And the shocks have only begun...

[depakid]

38. The fed hasn't purchased anything- not one mortgage asset has been bought under the current plan

yet people still holler about someone stealing money.

Amazing.

[endthewar]

39. You're right, but missing the point the OP was trying to make

Essentially the OP is saying that the rescue package wouldn't have had a chance in hell of passing if they had waited until now, and that is why it was fast tracked. :hi: