Who won?

[softball]

??????

[Hell Puppy]

??????

The Libertarians.

[RawAlex]

Comedians, late night talk show hosts, and anyone who makes a living making fun of politicians.

But hey, McCain is already running "McCain wins debate" ads, so you know that has to be true.

[Greg B]

Nobody won. All they achieved was letting us all know how much they don't know.

[TheEnforcer]

Obama won. On the ecomnomic part Obama was definitely ahead and when it went to foreign policy Obama held his own even if McCain had a slight advantage in that part. But foreign policy is an area where McCain is supposed to REALLY outshine obama and he didn't. That helps Obama MUCH more than it does McCain.

[Dravyk]

Bill Maher said it right last night. This is socialism for capitalists. This is saying, you screwed everyone in America out of money. For that crime, here's $700 billion more of our money to play with. We know you're going to handle it as well as you did with the previous money.

He also said it is Socialism with the worse part of it, and none of the benefits. No making sure every citizen has a house, has medical care, has an education. But making sure the bankers are bailed out. Pretty much it's the death of capitalism.

Ever notice? A small business owner (like most of us here) takes risks and if you fail you fail. If you're however AT&T or United Airlines or General Motors or a stock brokerage, if you fail, you get a golden parachute at the expense of the citizenry, who have no say in how their money is spent. Lovely system.

[Greg B]

Bill Maher said it right last night. This is socialism for capitalists. This is saying, you screwed everyone in America out of money. For that crime, here's $700 billion more of our money to play with. We know you're going to handle it as well as you did with the previous money.

He also said it is Socialism with the worse part of it, and none of the benefits. No making sure every citizen has a house, has medical care, has an education. But making sure the bankers are bailed out. Pretty much it's the death of capitalism.

Ever notice? A small business owner (like most of us here) takes risks and if you fail you fail. If you're however AT&T or United Airlines or General Motors or a stock brokerage, if you fail, you get a golden parachute at the expense of the citizenry, who have no say in how their money is spent. Lovely system.

Yep sounds familiar like back in Germany when the Nazis came to power. This time Bin Laden wins again by having his cronies bankrupt the country.

[EmporerEJ]

We won...we always win.

[RawAlex]

Dravyk, the alternative is what? Endless bank failures, a failure of the real estate market, the closing of companies who are unable to get financing, and so on? Yup, it sucks that the greedy banks and investment robber barons will get off (at least in the short term) without true pain, but the only ones who would feel any pain regardless is the public at large. The barons already have their millions tucked away in gold bars, so it isn't going to hurt them. If anything, without a bailout they could end up being even richer relative to americans.

The good news? If the bailout works, the american government could end up holding a trillion dollars worth of loans for a bargain basement price, and when it comes time to sell them they might actually break even. ;)

[Dravyk]

Dravyk, the alternative is what? Yeah, I know. It's all so insane is all.

[miz_wright]

Dravyk, the alternative is what? Endless bank failures, a failure of the real estate market, the closing of companies who are unable to get financing, and so on?

Well, since theoretically the Fed is only supposed to set monetary policy, and theoretically we live in a free market economy: this is beyond the mandate of the governement, theoretically.

Frankly, as much as everyone is concerned with homeowners and individual investors, it occurs to me that if home buyers had declined to take part in risky mortgages and not chased unsustainable returns, much of this wouldn't be of concern.

I mean, Christ on toast: one of the first things I learned in my high school economics class was that with the potential of high rewards comes significant risk - and that seems to have been a lesson forgotten by most in the race to margin CMOs and credit swaps and oil futures.