Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Tell 'em to vote 'No' on 'the Bailout' -- and do it fast

I'm in Washington D.C., wrapping up my vacation; I stopped here to do a little business for a prolife cause I care about (look for NPLA in the links) and catch up with some friends. All the business about the markets and the astonishing Bush proposal to spend $700-plus billion on a bailout of troubled financial institutions hit while I was at the beach, and I had a lot of questions.

I still do; but what concerns me most is the idea that we're so up against it that we don't have time to ask questions about this, we should just go along like good sheep.

It's time to clean the Augean Stables in Washington D.C., and that's not what this is; this is, I think, an attempt to "manage" the problem and spray a lot of air freshener around.

If you care about this--and how in the heck can you not?--you darn well better contact your Congressman, and even more, your Senators, right away.

Why the Senate? Because it may take a filibuster, requiring 41 Senators, to slow this down enough to force the tough questions and give the people time to find out what's going on. You may recall, a few years ago, some folks were advocating wrecking the filibuster in order to get judges confirmed. I think a lot of folks are waking up to what a bad idea that was, and they should thank heaven it didn't go through.

I"m sure you'll wonder why I am against this; I don't have time to write more at this point. It may be that, with further reflection, I can see the logic of this; but I'm not seeing it right now. And, anyway, there's plenty being written about all this, you don't need me to explain it all--and I'm hardly a wiz on this stuff--I think think this is all a questionable deal, and I refuse to be stampeded.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"they should thank heaven it didn't go through."

Or maybe they should thank John McCain and a few others for not letting it go through.

hehehe

Tim Lang

Anonymous said...

This site is very informative:

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

Puff the Magic Dragon said...

Fr. Martin you been nominated for an award here!

Joe of St. Thérèse said...

My question is the end result avoidable either way?

If we do bail out the companies (and I'm against this)...it only prolongs the crash of the economy (which doesn't exist since we're operating in negative money)

If we don't bail them out, the economy is likely to crash sooner.

I feel that we must do this bailout if anything to make the economy temporarily stable to at least prepare for the crash.

I liken it to the landing gear of a plane, bailing them out we can land safely, it's still a little rough, but better than nothing, and if we don't use the gear we're in for a catastrophe

Anonymous said...

stop the bailout! please! this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "bank robbery."

gemoftheocean said...

How about sealing the borders so we don't have so many illegal aliens in Californicate who were paid off in cigarettes to vote for Fineswine and Ditzer? Root out the cancer. they don't listen on illegal immigration, they're not going to listen on this one. Some people NEED to feel pain so they "get it." And frankly, the stupid people of California need to feel pain.

Fr. Larry Gearhart said...

The urgency of the credit squeeze stems from the fact that it is beginning to affect the "commercial paper" sector of the economy. If this locks up, many companies may not be able to finance daily operations. The cost to the economy would be beyond calculation in lost jobs and canceled orders, both for consumer goods and industrial goods, as well as growth in infrastructure.

On the other side of the equation, we have the problem that this infusion of cash must come from somewhere. There is no place for it to come from except foreign investments and printing money. If I were a creditor nation that could look like a choice between pouring money down a rat hole or watching our existing investments become worthless. We could become a Zimbabwe, writ large.