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Some clarity and contact with reality: "The bailout was a mess" The efforts of big gumment to get people who couldn't afford a house into one that blew a hous

Some clarity and contact with reality: "The bailout was a mess" The efforts of big gumment to get people who couldn't afford a house into one that blew a housing bubble that popped and created the worst financial and economic disaster since the Great Depression "was a mess". The 'bailout', that is, the TARP program was not "a mess" at all but a grand success: (1) TARP made money. All or nearly all the money has been paid back with very high interest, about 11% per year. As far as I know, all the TARP money will be paid back without difficulty. (2) The money was nothing like a 'bailout' but just loans to tell the world that the institutions would not go bust. So, TARP stopped 'runs' on the banks. (3) TARP was not a 'bailout' but just to solve a short-term 'liquidity' problem, that is, as in 'runs' on the banks. Note: A 'liquidity' problem is when you are worth $10 million but have only $500 in cash and suddenly have a traffic ticket for $600 and have to pay up or go to jail right NOW. You have the money but just don't have it in cash right away; you can get the cash easily enough but will need some days or weeks to do so. So to solve your 'liquidity' problem, you get a loan using some of your $10 million in assets as collateral. The loan is not really at risk; you pay your $600 bill; then a few weeks later you repay your loan with interest. You are not broke. You are not begging for welfare. The loan is not a gift. The loan is not at risk. The loan is NOT a 'bailout'. (4) Secretary Paulson called the nine bank CEOs to DC, sat them on one side of a table with a form in front of them, and told them all, "You WILL sign this form before you leave here today.". They all signed. Goldman Sachs was one of the nine, didn't want or need the money, signed, took the money, but paid it back, with interest, as soon as Paulson would permit. (5) Paulson's main point was just to tell the world that those nine banks were NOT bust and, thus, to stop 'runs' on those banks. What Paulson did was fine. It was a good solution to a serious problem. The effort cost the taxpayers $0.00 and actually showed a nice little profit (11% was HIGH interest for such a loan). To have not done TARP, we might have had cascading runs on all the major financial institutions in the US and all of the industrialized world and, then, been well into a second Great Depression, WWIII, global nuclear war, etc. Yet too many people want to leap to call TARP a 'bailout'. It was no such thing. Lesson: Those sources that call TARP a 'bailout' you should realize are providing toxic sewage in place of information for a well informed citizenry. For such sources, you should put on a rubber suit, hold your nose, dump the swill, pull the chain, and call a toxic dump cleanup crew. Why do these 'news' sources scream 'bailout'? Because they want to grab you by the heart and the gut so that your eyeballs will follow for their ads and know that to grab you they should scream versions of greed, corruption, danger, scandal, etc. So, they spout glowing, fuming, bubbling, sticky, toxic nonsense. If the newsies had actually informed us, then we wouldn't have gotten into the popped housing bubble nonsense in the first place. In Iraq, we would have known that there was no good evidence that Saddam had WMDs. If we invaded Iraq anyway, then we would have dumped the Saddam regime and gotten out in three weeks instead of staying for 10 years and losing 5000 dead, 50,000 wounded, and $1.5 trillion. If we had good information on Akrapistan, then we would have been out'a there years ago. With good information, China wouldn't have wiped out much of our textile, manufacturing, and other industries and been ripping off our intellectual property. Meanwhile, back in the US, the media was telling us ALL about Brit, Paris, Lindsay, Kim, etc. BUMMER. Bad information from the newsies, such as screaming 'bailout', is the worst and most dangerous problem facing civilization at present. PG and HN don't like for me to criticize 'big media', but I do so anyway because the media nonsense is the most dangerous problem facing civilization at present. Sorry PG.

CrazyInu 15y ago
Oy, where do we start with this? So wrong.
mgkimsal 15y ago
(3) TARP was not a 'bailout' but just to solve a short-term 'liquidity' problem, that is, as in 'runs' on the banks. Note: A 'liquidity' problem is when you are worth $10 million but have only $500 in cash and suddenly have a traffic ticket for $600 and have to pay up or go to jail right NOW. You have the money but just don't have it in cash right away; you can get the cash easily enough but will need some days or weeks to do so. So to solve your 'liquidity' problem, you get a loan using some of your $10 million in assets as collateral. The loan is not really at risk; you pay your $600 bill; then a few weeks later you repay your loan with interest. You are not broke. You are not begging for welfare. The loan is not a gift. The loan is not at risk. The loan is NOT a 'bailout'. ------------------------------------------------- What would define a 'bailout' as then? Your example may be a bit extreme. If you're "worth" $10 million, but don't have $500 in liquid cash, you're stupid. You're not prepared for every day eventualities in your line of work (or just life in general). When people are unprepared for otherwise predictable things (washing machine breaks, you need an oil change, flat tire, etc) they have to suck it up and deal with it. They don't get to tie up all their money in investments and have someone loan them money for 100% foreseeable day to day life realities. "You have the money but just don't have it in cash right away; you can get the cash easily enough but will need some days or weeks to do so." I get emails from these guys in Nigeria all the time. "You are not broke. You are not begging for welfare. The loan is not a gift. The loan is not at risk. The loan is NOT a 'bailout'." Yes, you are broke. No, you're not begging for welfare. But, the loan is a gift to save you from otherwise going to jail. When normal people in their every day lives don't have a safety net/cushion/rainy-day-fund to fall back on, they're labelled irresponsible, lazy, deadbeats, or charged with "living beyond their means". But if a bank does it... WTF? It's just normal business?
- HilbertSpace 15y ago
  "What would define a 'bailout' as then?" It's to "help" someone in a "predicament". The context is that the someone is in trouble and to need the help is pejorative. But with this definition, TARP was not a 'bailout'. Help? The "help" is usually much like a gift and not likely to be paid back. The banks had to pay HIGH interest, and did. The US Treasury made out like vulture capital. In the end it was the banks, and their stockholders, who gave 'help' to the US Treasury and the US taxpayers. Need? At least Goldman Sachs didn't need the money in any sense. In most respects, the banks didn't really need the money; that's why they were able to pay back the money quickly with interest. Any need there was was due just to the liquidity issue. The main reason Paulson acted was to stop international runs on banks and, thus, save the world from something that stood to be worse than the financial collapse that caused the Great Depression. Pejorative? Whatever the banks did wrong in blowing the housing bubble, the TARP effort was short term and not really the fault of the banks but caused by the Bear Stearns and Lehman problems and, thus, the FEAR (the seed of a bank run -- remember FDR) in the world that might have led to a run. Recall also the 1987 stock market crash: Greenspan was at a big meeting, left, went to a phone, got the news, called the major NYC banks and told them "The window at the Fed is open". Greenspan was going to provide liquidity and avoid a liquidity problem that could have done serious damage. My little example on the meaning of a liquidity problem was pitched at the grade school level. You SHOULD be able to understand it. Your reactions are way, WAY off base. If you don't like the ratio of $600 and $10 million, then assume $1 million and $10 million. Or improve the example to be a college student who just inherited an office building worth $10 million but needs $600 for a DUI case. He's not broke, but he does have a liquidity problem. He can get the $600 but not in just a few minutes to get out of jail. In finance, 'liquidity' is a crucial topic; you should quit straining to misunderstand it. If you want a real example, then when my wife died, I faced $6000 in funeral expenses. I didn't have the $6000 in my checking account. But within the next month, I sold some stock, raised the $6000, and paid the bill. So I had a 'liquidity' problem. I could have borrowed money using the stock as collateral. Such a loan would not have been a 'bailout', or 'help' and nothing pejorative.

CrazyInu 15y ago

Oy, where do we start with this? So wrong.

mgkimsal 15y ago

(3) TARP was not a 'bailout' but just to solve a short-term 'liquidity' problem, that is, as in 'runs' on the banks. Note: A 'liquidity' problem is when you are worth $10 million but have only $500 in cash and suddenly have a traffic ticket for $600 and have to pay up or go to jail right NOW. You have the money but just don't have it in cash right away; you can get the cash easily enough but will need some days or weeks to do so. So to solve your 'liquidity' problem, you get a loan using some of your $10 million in assets as collateral. The loan is not really at risk; you pay your $600 bill; then a few weeks later you repay your loan with interest. You are not broke. You are not begging for welfare. The loan is not a gift. The loan is not at risk. The loan is NOT a 'bailout'. ------------------------------------------------- What would define a 'bailout' as then? Your example may be a bit extreme. If you're "worth" $10 million, but don't have $500 in liquid cash, you're stupid. You're not prepared for every day eventualities in your line of work (or just life in general). When people are unprepared for otherwise predictable things (washing machine breaks, you need an oil change, flat tire, etc) they have to suck it up and deal with it. They don't get to tie up all their money in investments and have someone loan them money for 100% foreseeable day to day life realities. "You have the money but just don't have it in cash right away; you can get the cash easily enough but will need some days or weeks to do so." I get emails from these guys in Nigeria all the time. "You are not broke. You are not begging for welfare. The loan is not a gift. The loan is not at risk. The loan is NOT a 'bailout'." Yes, you are broke. No, you're not begging for welfare. But, the loan is a gift to save you from otherwise going to jail. When normal people in their every day lives don't have a safety net/cushion/rainy-day-fund to fall back on, they're labelled irresponsible, lazy, deadbeats, or charged with "living beyond their means". But if a bank does it... WTF? It's just normal business?

HilbertSpace 15y ago
"What would define a 'bailout' as then?" It's to "help" someone in a "predicament". The context is that the someone is in trouble and to need the help is pejorative. But with this definition, TARP was not a 'bailout'. Help? The "help" is usually much like a gift and not likely to be paid back. The banks had to pay HIGH interest, and did. The US Treasury made out like vulture capital. In the end it was the banks, and their stockholders, who gave 'help' to the US Treasury and the US taxpayers. Need? At least Goldman Sachs didn't need the money in any sense. In most respects, the banks didn't really need the money; that's why they were able to pay back the money quickly with interest. Any need there was was due just to the liquidity issue. The main reason Paulson acted was to stop international runs on banks and, thus, save the world from something that stood to be worse than the financial collapse that caused the Great Depression. Pejorative? Whatever the banks did wrong in blowing the housing bubble, the TARP effort was short term and not really the fault of the banks but caused by the Bear Stearns and Lehman problems and, thus, the FEAR (the seed of a bank run -- remember FDR) in the world that might have led to a run. Recall also the 1987 stock market crash: Greenspan was at a big meeting, left, went to a phone, got the news, called the major NYC banks and told them "The window at the Fed is open". Greenspan was going to provide liquidity and avoid a liquidity problem that could have done serious damage. My little example on the meaning of a liquidity problem was pitched at the grade school level. You SHOULD be able to understand it. Your reactions are way, WAY off base. If you don't like the ratio of $600 and $10 million, then assume $1 million and $10 million. Or improve the example to be a college student who just inherited an office building worth $10 million but needs $600 for a DUI case. He's not broke, but he does have a liquidity problem. He can get the $600 but not in just a few minutes to get out of jail. In finance, 'liquidity' is a crucial topic; you should quit straining to misunderstand it. If you want a real example, then when my wife died, I faced $6000 in funeral expenses. I didn't have the $6000 in my checking account. But within the next month, I sold some stock, raised the $6000, and paid the bill. So I had a 'liquidity' problem. I could have borrowed money using the stock as collateral. Such a loan would not have been a 'bailout', or 'help' and nothing pejorative.