Rescue Plan

Nancy

Well-Known Member
I'm furious that this bill didn't pass until they changed the name and added $149 billion more in the way of tax breaks for such nonsense as race car builders and rum producers. I emailed my representative on Monday urging her to back this bill and received a response telling me why it was bad for "main street." I responded that I was part of main street and I think I understood the ramifications of not passing this bill far better than those we elected to look out for our interests and as far as I was concerned they were more worried about their own political careers than what was best for their constituents.

So now that it's passing I suppose she can take credit for finally getting a bill that serves "main street." I say they just wasted another $149 billion of our money.

Nancy
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I walked a letter into my Congressman's office. I sent the e-mail too, but I feel that something in hand gets more attention.

The thing that I dislike about this the most is that there is no provision that we are repaid. If they need the money, ok. I can swallow my pride, hold my nose, and agree to it. But to have no provision for repayment, only a line that it will

"direct the president to propose a bill requiring the financial industry to reimburse taxpayers for any net losses from the program after five years."

All he has to do is ask sometime in the next five years. He doesn't have to make it happen.

Nobody gave me money for stuff I needed until I agreed to pay it back. This is preposterous! I am so angry over the lack of repayment that I am not even sleeping nights.

Why are we not saying that they can only have the money if they agree to pay it back first? Are they saying that these institutions are never going to recover? Then what good does it do to give them money? Are they suggesting that they will recover? Then why not make them agree to pay the money back before they take it. If they don't like the deal, they can shop around for a better one that meets their terms.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Witz I agree with you. I am hoping that we just don't know enough about the package yet and there is a repayment plan. I did hear just now someone (I won't say who) say it will be paid back.

I am trying to be an optimist here. We have a chance to make things better. Hopefully we will gather the best economic minds in the country to help figure this out.

Nancy
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
I'm on the fence about this plan. I'm sure, as with everything in our Gov, someone is going to benefit hugely, while others are going to suffer. I know that something was needed quickly and this was the best way to plug the gaping hole in the sinking ship. I'm sure we are going to find out in a year or two some more of the ugliness about this bill.

****

On another note.....I realize we had a very healthy discussion regarding this over the past week. It was a thread that I kept a close eye on, because this is the type of thread that could easily go down hill and become a very inflammatory post. Let's all keep in mind that we are all of different political backgrounds and this place is supposed to be a place of support. Please refrain from making this into a political thread. I will be monitoring this thread closely and if there is a problem, I will lock it.
 

muttmeister

Well-Known Member
Well, I know they needed to pass SOMETHING and they needed to pass it FAST but, like a lot of things they do, it became mired in politics (you know: from the Greek "poly" meaning "many" and "ticks" meaning "blood sucking parasites"). Supposedly they had to add all of those pork barrel amendments to get some of the congress people to vote for it but as far as I am concerned that is just another way to ***** (can't think of a word to replace the one I'd like to use which would be censored) the general public. I haven't read ALL of the provisions (it went from a short piece of legislation to over 500 pages) and I doubt if many of them have either. They (meaning ALL of them, not just one party or one faction) certainly have a way of taking a simple idea and turning it into a never ending saga.
 

amazeofgrace

A maze of Grace - that about sums it up
it really should be interesting to see the long term affects and also to see how often it's used as a scapegoat for future problems
 

Marcie Mac

Just Plain Ole Tired
Honestly, I don't think its going to do squat. Ca. just asked for a 7 billion loan yesterday for operating expenses. AIG has gone thru 61 billion of their 80 billion handout in what, two weeks?? (thats not to mention that THEY will get a cut of this 700 billion handout as well) I think they should be banned from using the word billion in print and actually use a number with all of its zero's.. Its all Monolopy Money..

All I know is I am in a dead panic - and my anxiety level is over the moon. Am seriously thinking of taking my 401 K money out, taking the hit on taxes and penalities, and stuffing it under my mattress. I don't have that long to retirement age and I am going to get an absolute ulcer looking at my old age money just evaporating..

Marcie
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
I agree with everyone's sentiments.

Marcie, Suze Orman whom I have come to respect a great deal has told everyone not to panic and take their money out and put it in a matress, but to transfer it into an FDIC insured account. Many mutual funds are FDIC insured, call your broker if you have any doubts about your investments. I know I was panicking also since my husband has always been self employed and we have no retirement fund other than what we have saved ourselves. And of course it's all in Wachovia, but I have been told that the banking side of Wachovia is seperate from the investment side and the investment side is sound???? Do I believe that, I don't know.

I am trying not to panic. We did all the things Suze said to do this past year. We paid down all our credit cards, we carry no balances, we are in a fixed rate mortgage and only have five more years to go, we have not made any large purchases this year and don't intend to, and we are making sure all our funds are FDIC insured.

I agree that no one is happy about this rescue bill and it can't possibly do all the things we want it to, but something did need to pass and quickly. It's a darn shame it ever came to this and I would love to see all those predatory lenders who convinced people to get into risky loans and investments end up in jail and bankrupt themselves.

Nancy
 

Marcie Mac

Just Plain Ole Tired
Unfortunately Nancy, my money is tied up in the company 401 K, and none of it is safe and I can't move it anywhere unless I take the 20% tax, 10% penalty hit. I have a year and a half before I can get to it and not be hit with the penalty.

I have dumped every available dime I had in my 401 K and have no other savings or investments :( So I can't move it anywhere cept between the 20 fund accounts they have - but one of them is a Federated Money Market,so I will slowly be moving it over to there.

But will check out Suze's website to see if there is any info I can gleen - thanks for reminding me of her..

Marcie
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Marcie...hopefully things will turn around shortly. Things have a way of looking really bleak but then popping back around. Dont completely freak out. Worse comes to worse...I have 8 acres...lol.
 

klmno

Active Member
No kidding! But my son, two dogs, and I won't take up too much room- we won't own anything bigger than the car pretty soon! As a matter of fact, I don't actually own anything bigger than one car right now.
 

Stella Johnson

Active Member
I especially loved the 6 mother in law they gave to makers of "Children's Wooden Arrows". Now that is really going to get the economy going. I was disgusted when I saw what they had done.
I normally vote one way each time but this time around I'm voting against anyone who is currently in office.. Dem or Rep.

Suz Orman gave great advice. I'm glad Nancy brought it up. you have to also remember that since stocks are so low, the money you contribute to your 401k is actually buying even more stock so when the economy corrects itself you may even end up better off than if this hadn't happened.

Steph
 

nvts

Active Member
I'm kind of taking a back seat approach on this. I'm having a hard time wrapping myself around it simply by realizing that no matter how I feel about it, there's NOTHING I can do to change it.

The politicians do what they do no matter what my position is, how I speak out, or what actions I take. The only weapon that I have is to try and vote out any useless incumbants that are sitting pretty.

One step that they need to take is to make all of these politicians who have been on the campaign trail and not doing their jobs pay back their salaries. Next, there needs to be some serious investigations done on why this was allowed to happen. After that, they need to force these companies to stop loading the Board of Directors with the same 50 people, stop allowing them to vote on their own salaries, and take responsibility for the actions they take.

I know. Do any of you watch "House"? Let's let HIM clean up the mess!

I think the most important thing to do is to stay calm. When the market crashed those oh so many years ago, it was partially due to the fact that everyone panicked. I think we're all going to have to "ride the wave" for a couple of years and wait for it to level out. Hmmmmm, maybe all of these clowns were difficult child's when they were kids!;)

Beth
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I truely hope that the 'bailout' goes the way it's supposed to and starts things moving again. I'm only surprised that all these 'experts' didn't see it coming! But no matter how that part of it goes, some things should never go back to the way they were! That's how we got in to this mess in the first place! Maybe I see this differently because I'm older and have been through a lot, and maybe it's different for me because I've never had much to lose and still don't. But how is being forced to live within your means a 'crisis'?

Many of the younger ones have never known anything else, but seem to have such an inflated sense of entitlement. They feel that they are entitled to have all those things right now that their parents worked all their lives to be able to afford. It wasn't always this way. What's wrong with renting an apartment and living frugally until you can save up enough money for a down payment on your first house? And when you do buy that first house, what's wrong with a small 'starter' home that you can afford until you are able to move up to something better? It's scary to see so many people in their early 20's living in McMansions with shaky mortgages and everything they have bought on credit! Our local paper today had a story about people dealing with the financial 'crisis' ... a 25 year old single woman who had bought a 'high end' condo and ate out seven days a week. Now she's in financial trouble, can't sell the condo, had to scale back on her shopping habit, had to cancel her cable TV and internet, rent out the condo, move in with a relative ... and horror of horrors ... she actually has to cook for herself and eat at home now! Poor thing! She sees this as a 'crisis' but she obviously took on way more than she could handle and got in over her head - and she obviously could not afford to live in a 'high end' condo, spend all her time shopping, and eating out every day! That's not a 'crisis' - that's plain old fashioned stupidity!

And the inflated real estate prices just had to come back down to earth someday! People seemed to think there would be no end to it! Does anyone else watch those "Flip That House" shows? In areas where the prices are so high, you'd see them pay $500,000 for what looked like a tumbled-down rat-infested three-room crack house in a nasty neighborhood. They fix it up and sell it for $750,000!! Who could afford that? And if that's what three-quarters of a million dollars buys you, what would a decent house in a nice safe neighborhood cost? A lot of people are going to get caught up in the middle and I feel very sorry for them, but it had to stop some day!
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Donna,

I've noticed the same thing here. I've been watching young people buy these big houses for a while now and wondering how they could afford them. I have to admit I was a little jealous that it seemed like they could afford such nice houses when we couldn't afford to buy a house for many years after we were married and then it was a very small modest home. Now I know how they did it.

I think part of the problem is that many our young people haven't had to struggle, they haven't seen their parents struggle, at least not in the way we saw our parents struggle. Many of them have grown up thinking they were entitled to buying a house and shouldn't have to work years to save up enough.

I feel sorry for them now. My parents taught me not to buy anything I couldn't pay cash for, and when it came time to buy a house they insisted we have 20% down and took out a convention mortgage.

And yes I know several people who began flipping houses and made a lot of money on it, even though they didn't know a thing about remodeling. They bought the house and paid other people to fix it up, cheaply, and then sold it for a killing. That helped add to the problem too. Along with people like my nephew who sat home and day traded and bragged about all th emoney he was making.

Nancy
 
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donna723

Well-Known Member
Nancy, I agree with you. I was raised the same way. My parents both lived through the Depression and were always very 'thrifty' to say the least! They never owned their own home until my older brother was in high school and I was a young teenager. And then it was a small no-frills house, and several years later they built a larger house, but still not a 'luxury' home.

Some people have truely been hit hard by this through no fault of their own, and I feel very sorry for them. I have an old high school friend who has lived in California for many years because her husbands job was there. They are not wealthy people but paid a fortune for their house because that's what houses cost there. They had most of their savings in 401Ks. Now they're retiring this year. She had worked for a bank for years and when the bank she worked for was taken over by another one, she lost her whole pension ... just like that! They had planned to use the equity in their house to relocate and buy another one when they retired, but now they can't sell it for even what they owe on it. Her son will buy their house for what they owe and keep up the payments. They found a nice brick home on an acre of land in a rural area here in Tennessee, that cost about a fourth of what the same house would have cost them in California, but they had to take on another mortgage which they hadn't planned to do. They will be a 45-minute drive from where I live. The younger ones have all the time in the world to recover from this, but it's the older ones like my friend who will really have a lot of adjustments to make. They worked so hard and saved all these years and now their retirement will be nothing like what they had envisioned.
 
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