The economic ignorance of many DUers is astounding.

[Odin2005]

Crazy conspiracy theories invoking "disaster capitalism". BS libertarian anti-Fed conspiracy theories. Thinking that letting Wall Street fail won't effect Main Street. AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!! DU is going INSANE! :banghead:

[salvorhardin]

1. I think most posters are just incredibly angry and looking for somebody to blame.

And like Chip Berlet says, conspiracy theories are a narrative form of scapegoating. No, that doesn't excuse the (often times willful) ignorance, but it's common for conspiracy theories to flourish at times like these. It is interesting though that conspiracy theories seem to play to the left as well as they do to the right.

[PVnRT]

2. Isn't it though?

I especially like the people who think that because we rode through a depression before, we can handle it again. Because nothing really that bad happened, right?

[realisticphish]

3. pshaw

people just waited in lines, they took a few black and white photos, and that was it!

[realisticphish]

4. hey, those rich people deserve to lose all their money

because...they're rich. And apparently being rich means you raped and murdered a bunch of poor people, and pooled their money.

Not that many rich people don't piss me off, but i don't get the class warfare shit

[Heddi]

9. That's the thing---what is rich?

I know, I know, it depends on where you live blah blah blah...

However, by my standards, my husband and I are "rich". We make around $135-$150k a year, we have no debt, we have no kids, etc.

According to many people on this board, I should be hung from the rafters with my uterus stuffed down my throat for not being, you know, happily making $8,000 a year and LOVING IT.

But see, I wasn't handed anything other than a federal school loan that I'm still paying for.

My mother never made more than $10,000 a year when I was growing up. She's barely making that now, as a matter of fact. We were below the poverty level---trailer with holes in the floor, car that always broke down, in debt to a bazillion corner-store loan companies. Never had cable or telephone or shit like that.

Barely graduated high school and then I went on to make $4.25 an hour. When I was in my early 20's (I'm 32 now), I got a better job, one in Sales, and then I was at least making $12 an hour or something. THAT WAS BIG MONEY (still is in my book). I remember the year hubby and I got married, 2001, our combined income was $32,000

When I was 25 I moved from SC to Seattle. Increase in cost of living but increase in pay as well. Worked in sales still, about $30k a year each. That's nice.

Then I decided that sales wasn't everything and quit my job and went to nursing school. Actually, took a year and a half of pre-req's just to put me in the running for the 2 year program (that had a waitlist out the ass). Found a school that accepted me and became an RN in 2006. Hubby followed (he was a graphic artist before) and he just graduated in March 2008.

Because we're nurses, we get paid a higher salary than many people who graduate with a 2 year degree. But every penny of my salary is earned. It's earned through the schooling I put myself through, the sacrifices that were made so that I could go to school (and later so that my husband could go to school as well).

I've got $30k in savings. My car is paid off. Yeah, I rent, but that's just because we move to a different place every few years. I just started doing agency nursing (travel nursing) which means I get about $50 an hour. This time next year, hubby will be, too.

But I'm rich, and I deserve to suffer. I should starve, even though aside from federal student loans, I've never had a loan in my life. I should live in the street because my car's value is greater than $2,000. My family should starve because I get paid more than a burger flipper.

The hatred not just of the 'rich', but of the 'anyone who makes more than me' crowd is astounding.

[realisticphish]

11. that's just it

I don't like the dichotomy that seems to be produced, by both political parties, really. You're either a down to earth working man, or you're a trillionaire elitist. I'm certainly not rich, but I would like to make at least 50k someday, which seems likely considering my masters degree. And I don't think that wanting more money makes someone a horrible person. I would like to be able to afford extravagant luxuries like comprehensive car insurance, or any health insurance at all.

[salvorhardin]

15. Exactly. It's a case of misplaced priorities.

The goal shouldn't be to tear everybody down to the same level of impoverishment but rather to raise everyone to a respectable level of enrichment. Yet, allowing the current system to implode is only going to accomplish the former. And while the bailout, in whatever form gets passed, is certainly not going to bring about the latter, it will, perhaps, stave off total collapse.

[Pale Blue Dot]

5. Warren Buffett Reveals Bailout's Dirty Little Secret

Bernanke and Paulson want to pay a phantom "hold-to-maturity" price that is above the prices at which the banks are currently valuing their trash assets. The logic is that the banks' carrying value is somehow artificially depressed by a lack of liquidity. (This logic is weak: If anything, the banks are trying to conceal how badly off they are by overstating the value of the assets).

Warren Buffett, meanwhile, thinks the appropriate price would be the "market value," which he believes is below the price at which the banks are currently carrying their trash:

they do right, I think they'll make a lot of money.... They shouldn't buy these debt instruments at what the institutions paid. They shouldn't buy them at what they're carrying, what the carrying value is, necessarily. They should buy them at the kind of prices that are available in the market. People who are buying these instruments in the market are expecting to make 15 to 20 percent on those instruments. If the government makes anything over its cost of borrowing, this deal will come out with a profit. And I would bet it will come out with a profit, actually...

You can be pretty fanciful in marking positions in Wall Street, particularly when things aren't trading. The one thing you want to make sure, when the Treasury is buying things, is the marks they have don't make any difference. Like I said, it wouldn't be a bad idea, if you're buying ten billion of a security and you're the Treasury, to have them sell five-hundred million, or something like that into the market, so you find out what the real market price is and then buy the other 9-1/2 billion at that price. I really think, I really think the Treasury will make -- I think they'll pay back the 700 billion and make a considerable amount of money, if they approach it in that manner.

Read that again. Warren Buffett is not talking about paying any theoretical "hold-to-maturity" price. He's not even talking about the "don't-give-your-shareholders-all-the-bad-news-yet" carrying price (the "fanciful" ones he describes above). He's talking about the market price. And, unlike Bernanke, he's not suggesting that market price is somehow artificially depressed by a lack of liquidity. On the contrary, he's saying the market price is the market price because that's the price intelligent investors need to pay to offset their risk. The goverment should not pay one cent more than the market price.

http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/9/warren-buffett-reveals-bailout-s-dirty-little-secret

The bailout as it stands now is an incredibly bad deal. It is a short-term fix that will not help us avoid a depression, it will just delay it and make it worse.

If you're going to continue to post in this forum, as if any good skeptic would "obviously" support this bailout plan, then I'm going to continue to call you out on it.

[realisticphish]

6. on the other hand

the op wasn't saying that this particular bail out will rain down candy and moonbeams. Just that a bail out plan is not the obvious result of some vast conspiracy. I, for one, don't think that letting most of the financial institutions in the united states fail is a good thing. I'm no economist, but that seems like a tremendously bad idea

[Pale Blue Dot]

7. I'll admit that I'm very angry and frustrated.

I, and others like me, warned people months and even years ago that this was going to happen. My prediction was based on evidence, while the arguments that I was wrong boiled down to "this is America, that won't ever happen" or "You must want the economy to fail." Now I'm seeing many of the same people who called me "Chicken Little" suddenly posting that this bailout must happen now or the economy will collapse. Where the fuck were these people a year and a half ago when we could have done something about it?

Of course there are a lot of kooky conspiracy theories about this collapse. This is because we don't have any transparency in the process. For the record, I've read The Shock Doctrine (I wonder if the OP has), and while parts of it are conjecture, it is a sound piece of journalism that relies on evidence and history to make its case, not baseless conspiracy theories.

I invite you to visit the Stock Market Watch thread on weekdays in LBN. A lot of useful articles from mainstream economists and reputable news sources are posted there. It is quite an education. While I am also not an economist, my reading and critical thinking skills lead me months ago to the conclusion that this was going to happen.

While the OP has the right to object to baseless conspiracy theories (like the theories about the Fed and the gold standard), I suspect that that is not his entire motive. I suspect that he is trying to make anyone who disagrees with the bailout look like a kook. I can assure you that that is not the case. In fact, over 150 professional economists oppose this bailout (http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.retirement/2008-09/msg03734.html).

The bailout is a bad idea. The economy is more than likely going to collapse no matter what we do. The bailout will simply make that collapse worse.

[realisticphish]

8. i listen to NPR Marketplace every morning

(i don't know why, it's fucking depressing), and i think it's clear that there are worse times ahead. That being said, argument from authority isn't a real stance either. Not that everything else isn't so, but the 150 economists don't really mean jack. There are conservative economists, just are there are conservative anythings.

Plus, I've ALSO come to the conclusion that predicting the stock market is a fool's errand. It relies too much on people being rational operators, which they are not even CLOSE to being. To me, the key is: jobs. I think America has been sitting on a house of cards consisting of service and info tech jobs. It's just not stable, and we're seeing that now. I have a college degree, and make 7.50 an hour, and not for lack of job hunting, either. Jobs are vanishing, especially in the midwest, and regardless of the health of investment banks, if people can't spend, a service and consumer economy is fucked

[TZ]

10. Thats up for debate between economists apparantly

Some think the bailout is necessary some think its a bad idea..Bascially from what I can gather--no one REALLY knows if this is going to work, but many think doing nothing is worse yet...
But you can't deny Finfann..that this problem has exposed the ugly bigotry towards "rich people". I've read many posts about how a depression is "deserved", or that class warfare is A-Okay....The nastiness as Heddi said is nauseating. And I think thats the primary reason many DU'ers don't want the bailout..because they want the "fat cats" to suffer..thinking that somehow that it won't increase the suffering of others and that the "rich" couldn't possibly be worth having compassion for!
Republicans think poor people are lazy and stupid..this is the left version of class bigotry and its want makes me exceedingly angry.
My grandfather had very strong memories of the depression..some of which he shared with me before he died in 1988...Anyone-ANYONE who says we should HAVE a depression is a sick, twisted fuck in my book.

[Odin2005]

13. That's exactly what I ment.

I'm no fan of this particular bail-out plan, but SOMETHING is needed to save the banking system. If I was in charge I would temporarily nationalize these distressed companies, purge the boardrooms and management of the Old-Boys Club and recapitalize them.

[2Design]

14. FinnFan - go for it - you usually know how to find the facts to back up your opinion n/t

[LeftishBrit]

12. I have lots of doubts about the bailout, unless it is accompanied by much tougher regulation..

and less opportunity for the already-rich to make huge bonuses. Though I do think some form of intervention is absolutely essential - but I would prefer that it included nationalization of failing banks, as to some extent it has in Britain, and didn't include golden parachutes for people who helped to cause the mess. (ETA: I just heard that there has been a deal in Congress, but not the details, so I hope it will be more reasonable than the original plan.)

Though I don't share the conspiracy theories, I find them a bit more understandable and excusable here than with regard to such things as 9-11.

What does bother me is the 'bring it on! let the economy collapse! we can survive another depression!' attitude. Some of this, to be fair, may be a response to what is perceived as wolf-crying by the Bush government and the bankers. But some of it really does come across as 'let's punish the baddies, and the deserving will survive!' Almost like 'bring on Armageddon and the deserving will be raptured!' The idea seems to be that those who are used to living frugally will survive a Depression, while the 'pampered billionaires' will lack the survival skills. But nothing could be more wrong. The 'pampered billionaires' will generally have the resources, even after taking some losses, to survive quite well. The already-poor or almost-poor are the ones most likely to fall over the edge, and lose any safety net that they may have. And so are any who are not physically able to deal with truly tough times: the chronically ill, the disabled, the elderly, the very young. I think what really upsets me is that the attitude, when examined, is really REMARKABLY close to the attitude of Thatcher-type (and presumably Hoover-type) right-wingers: a 'shock to the system' with resulting cuts is good for the economy; will encourage greater discipline; the prudent and frugal will deservedly survive; those who cannot cope must be extravagant immoral types who deserve their fate.

And yes, I'd be affected too. This isn't just a matter of the American economy but the world economy.

[Orrex]

17. Haven't you heard? Too much regulation is what caused this disaster in the first place!

That's what I've been hearing, anyway.

Almost like 'bring on Armageddon and the deserving will be raptured!'

Kill them all; Adam Smith will recognize his own. :rofl:

[Orrex]

16. Tell me about it!

I've been using that "can you give me two tens for a five?" gambit for months, and no one's caught on.

[Silent3]

18. For some it's not so much ignorance as nihilistic petulant anger.

They don't care about what's best for the economy or for the average citizen, no matter what version of a bail-out plan is being discussed. They want the rich bastards to SUFFER! And they don't care how much suffering of innocent bystanders it takes, so long as the "fat cats" don't escape the suffering. I've seen a few posters say things like, "Burn it down! Burn it all down!"

One guy was talking about how he'd been out of work through five years and survived it, so I guess his "reasoning", to the extent there was any, came out to something like since everyone can "survive" such hardships (his personal anecdotal survival being sufficient evidence that anyone can do it, apparently) it's not "so bad" that everyone suffers like he has, so long as the bad guys get what's comin' to 'em, and we can "start over" again, supposedly fresh.

Of course, anyone using brains instead of hormones knows that major economic collapse does literally kill people. Crime goes up. Medical treatment availability and quality decreases. Actual starvation is possible if the collapse is bad enough, especially given how dependent we are on a very complex agricultural and food industry that can't be replaced overnight by backyard farming. People would die as a result of a major economic collapse, and those who live will have, on average, reduced health and life expectancy, with the very young and the very old suffering the most.

[PVnRT]

19. Very well put

Unfortunately, schadenfreude is running far too strong.

[TZ]

20. exactly

In one of the "fuck em all" threads I posted a sarcastic reply about hooray for poverty, suicide, hunger and disease..which is what is going to happen.

[LeftishBrit]

21. That's pretty much it, I think

At the extreme, some come across almost as what might be called 'economic suicide bombers': 'I'm prepared to die, and to bring down innocents in the process, if that's what it takes to destroy the enemy!'

I can understand the frustration, but their ideas are still pretty scary.

[Odin2005]

32. The Boomers are having a moralistic hissy fit and the Gen-Xers are having a...

nihilistic "fuck everything" temper tantrum? that's the vibe I'm getting. It seems like people don't want a solution, they want a scapegoat.

[TZ]

22. WTF moment of the day.

Somebody said that if the bailout fails they will probably lose their job..and someone responded to that by saying "it may be a tragedy if your jobs disappear. Or it may be a good thing".
:wtf:

[realisticphish]

23. i recall

a conversation about renewable energy. Someone suggested that it would be great to introduce dirt cheap cars that never needed any gasoline. I said yeah, it'd be nice, but think of all the people in the oil industry, auto industry, and related industries who pretty much immediately lose their jobs. And the person said, well, the earth would be cleaner, etc, and they should be willing to "take on for the team." I replied that they should tell that to the now jobless workers, without a means to feed their families, to their faces. Never heard back

[Anarcho-Socialist]

24. unfortunately...

...many DUers are susceptible to old school palaeocon nuttiness of the Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan variety.

There is a presumption that because palaeoconservatism opposes neoconservatism, palaeoconservatism must have some sort of nobility in it, when in fact palaeoconservatism is a deeply insidious world view in its own right.

It's a laugh to see some DUers support goldbugism, when such a policy unnecessarily prolonged the Great Depression in the United States. Goldbugism reduces liquidity and investment in the economy at a time when the economy needs an increase in overall demand, available consumer capital, and available public capital.

[razors edge]

25. Damded "conspiracy theorists"'

Obviously this whole mess is the result of a single capitalist with a few neurons firing out of cinch. Nothing to see here, move along.

Putting Wall Streets interests before those of the American people could place you in a rather large group of people who conspire to prop up this house of cards.

But I'm sure you all reached your conclusions on the best form of action to take individually, without any real consultation from each other. No news paper propaganda etc.

Don't hate us because we were right. It is never pretty to see someones desperation showing, especially when they were warned.

[TZ]

26. I don't hate people because they are "right"

I hate people because they are HAPPY that people are gonna suffer..because you know they work on Wall Street or they have stocks or 401K so they must all BE EVIL EVIL EVIL!
I only am prejudiced agaisnt bigots and there are PLENTY on DU..
BTW, not wanting my dad to be in the poorhouse because his pension is Wall Street linked..is that putting the "best interests of Wall Street" before the "people".
The people who are wishing us into a depression (and I have no idea if you are one) are sick twisted fucks!

[razors edge]

31. I'm not wishing for a depression at all.

I just don't see any way to avoid it. There is nothing happy about people getting screwed over, unless you are the one doing the screwing, of which I am not a member of the screwing class.

Those who believed in a solid dollar didn't cause this. Those who thought the game was rigged against the masses didn't cause this. The left leaning Libertarians who said this was coming didn't cause this. Those who proudly put us all down as tin foilers did. (not all of you, but some)

So go on blaming the messengers, I'm sure the people behind all this will applaud your efforts at blaming anyone but those responsible. Thats the way it always works now isn't it?

The rich have left and taken the ball, they did so long ago. We have no choices in any of this anymore, maybe we never did.

Fix up that spare bedroom for dad, I'll be doing the same for my mom.

[PVnRT]

27. Hey, look, another ass to iggy!

[LeftishBrit]

28. It's the *right-wing* nature of some of the posts that truly upsets me

It's bad enough when people assume only or mainly the rich bankers will suffer, and it won't spread to everyone else, but that could be excused on the grounds of naivety and passion.

However, when I see posts saying that the Depression produced the 'Greatest Generation'; that people should be tough enough to survive hard times and that hard times will make people stronger; that 'tough love' will force people to live within their means; that failing businesses deserve to go under - it makes me literally weep. It was my devastation over the harsh, 'tough love', 'let the weakest go to the wall' attituds of the Thatcherites that turned me into an active left-winger. To see such attitudes expressed on a progressive board - that just breaks my heart. It shouldn't, but it does.

[TZ]

29. Its a form of social darwinism if you ask me- or even "karmic retribution"

As in as long as the evil doer get hurt, I don't care about anyone else.


And its quite aggravating. If I see one more "let it burn" type thread I'm gonna barf..

[PVnRT]

30. I'm starting to wonder why to give a shit anymore

If this is what this side has become...fuck it.

[Odin2005]

33. Ugh, now posters are claiming there is no credit crisis.

It's all a conspiracy to blackmail congress into giving Wall Street what they want, supposedly.

:wtf:

[PVnRT]

34. Just start using ignore

I've been using it liberally for a day and a half. My DU experience has gotten much better without the Armchair Revolutionaries and their constant stream of trolling, flames and other nonsense.