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There are 14 comments on Bailing Out

  1. My knowledge on how the free market system ultimately works is limited, but I truly have to wonder if interjecting the tax payer’s money into the system will work and will help us land softly into a mild recession.

    There are two points on that I wish to make:

    1. What if injecting the tax payer’s money doesn’t encourage banks to loosen their pockets, so to speak, and start lending amongst themselves, to companies, and to individuals again? We saw a similar behavior when folks received their $600 back from Uncle Sam. Some did spend the money and other folks just paid their bills or stashed the money in the bank.

    2. We’re already seeing signs that the banks are trying to self-correct, with larger, more stable banks snapping up other banks who weren’t able to handle the risks. A competitor goes out of business, you snap up their remaining business. (Although we as consumers may feel the painful pinch in the future when there are three major U.S. banks and we no longer get that free WaMu type checking account ;) ).

  2. I strongly disagree with the bail out of wall street. I would rather have my home devalued and my 403b depleted than to reward greed and irresponsibility. Bad behavior has consequences. It is time that “Wall Street” and the proponents of the free market/antireglatory polices take the heat for the mess that they have made.

    Why not divide the $700 billion up among all US citizens over 18. The people can bail themselves out. Pay off their homes, create small businesses, sent their kids to college, etc. Why does wall street get the welfare and the tax payers have to pay for it? It should be the other way around!

  3. Our people, and our representatives think the financial system rescue plan is about protecting financial institutions from failure resulting from bad judgement about mortgage backed securities.

    It is actually about protecting the worldwide supply of money and credit from collapse. This collapse would follow “deleveraging” resulting from the vanishing value of highly leveraged collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps (CDS).

    These have become, under the market fundamentalist mandated financial deregulation regime, the source and underpinning of the money supply. If they collapse the money supply will collapse along with them. The money supply will then have to be re-created by central banks and governments. Doing that will require addressing enormously difficult political and distributional issues.

    The stock market is just a form of entertainment. A better indicator of economic conditions is the bonds market and the rates on commercial papers. If the cost of borrowing remains high for main street, 4th quarter earnings will be stagnant at best.

  4. It is disheartening to hear “experts” and “analysts” repeat the same speech. “If these institutions are not bailed out,” they say, “there will be large scale economic recession.” However, I only rarely (Prof. Gilchrist not included) hear these pundits speak of the disastrous effects of allowing these institutions to be “bailed out”. Is no one aware of the massive deflation our currency will experience as a result of this bailout? If you do not allow a bail out, many institutions and people will suffer consequences, but if you DO allow the bailout we will all suffer. Continuously pumping money into the system only exacerbates these problems, and taking money from your left pocket and putting it into your right pocket doesn’t make you any richer. There needs to be economic reform, because this poor American system is based on DEBT, and it will continue to experience the same problems over and over again until the system is reformed. Stop looking for ways to allow an individual to use more credit to buy more “stuff” he/she doesn’t need. Teach people to live within their means. This exponential consumerism can only lead to one thing, destruction. I’m sad that a professor at my college can be so blind and misleading, but it is no surprise considering his relations with men like Bernanke. I hope that other professors at BU will help students to wake up and realize the true problems of this economy and allow the words of Gilchrist to bounce on deaf ears.

  5. Is it possible if we re-allocated a small fraction of the federal funds that go toward finacial regulation on educating the public that we may have been able to avoid some of the fallout?

    Imagine there was an ad campaign aired during the superbowl that threw out some of the facts about the no docs and the huge comissions the brokers get for selling them. Add some facts like how much it costs to own a home on top of the mortgage payment, how much kids cost, new cars, etc. If prompted, is it possible some of the people who got in a money crunch and lost their home would have thought twice before signing?

    The media does a wonderful job telling you to ‘ask your doctor about this’ and ‘ don’t get caught driving last year’s car’. Based on their success I think it is possible to advertise knowledge and facts that will help citizens make rational financial decisions.

  6. As someone at ground zero for this mess, I think it’s important to emphasize a few things:

    1. What’s proposed is not a “bail out” of financial institutions. In most cases, stockholders have been wiped out and along with them the CEOs (most of their compensation, by the way, is typically in restricted stock, which falls to zero beforehand). That’s also true for many employees, as restricted stock that cannot be sold is a common form of compensation.

    2. It’s important to emphasize that companies are actually owed by their investors and not the CEO. The real losers are pension plans and savings plans that hold shares in these firms. Yes, whenever a WaMu goes bankrupt, investments by a pension or savings plan in the company become worthless.

    3. The securities causing the problem are actually mortages that many people took out on speculation, or knew full well that they didn’t have the means to support. We bear responsibility for living beyond our means. The greed didn’t originate with the corporate CEOs. Of course, there were also shady purveyors of these mortgages and they deserve to be prosecuted (fraud has always been illegal). Nonetheless, each one of those mortgages has a willing signature on it. These securities are of questionable value because no one knows the value of the underlying home. Housing prices are down nearly 16% nationally and over 30% in some areas. The government plan essentially purchases these securities, and indirectly allows the government to stabilize the housing market. You can think of the rescue plan as a housing bail out.

    4. When private capital is no longer forthcoming, we must rely on public capital for economic stability. The lessons learned from financial panics around the world and throughout history suggest that the societal costs associated with a collapsing economy far outweigh the potential costs to taxpayers of stability programs. Free markets can and do fail — especially when there is uncertaintly and a wide bid-ask spread in asset prices, as we have here.

    5. I spent 4 years as a BU undergrad, 3 years getting a PhD and 30 years on Wall Street. I am now at the end of my working career and it’s a shame to see my entire life’s savings hanging on the outcome of an argument based on ideology and not an understanding of the underlying economics.

  7. I would like to hear Prof. Gilchrist’s comments on the systematic destruction of the Glass-Steagall by Citicorp and JP Morgan’s lobbyists. For anyone interested, PBS has a summary from "Frontline." It appears that the source of our present financial woes began as our government supported the removal of the protections provided by Glass-Steagall. The blood evidence is everywhere, from the Fed, to the government, and all to support the financial sector’s greed.
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  8. A well-regulated market is a market with good information. Since good information is a public good, government intervention is neccessary. Yes, free market works well when things are going well, but economists and market participants alike tend to forget that human nature never really changes. I am a big supporter of innvoation, but that should come with responsibility. I will support a strong regulatory framework that will sacrifice some market efficiency which will likely to achieve stability over the long term

    You don’t need PHDs in econoimcs or finance to know that human nature will always come back to hunt you.. When smart people screws up, everybody else have to suffer!!! Poor minimum wage workers who can’t afford medical care, well at least in Massachusetts, they get subsidized health care.

  9. I really think that the best plan for now is to have the bail out plan. I am no expert in economics, but I have been following the market and it seems like the financial sector has never ending troubles since bear stearns and lehman. It’s true that it’s too good to be true for the financial executives to just get fed by the government’s bail out money, when they are the ones who are responsible for whatever happens to their companies. But, if the government were not to intervene, what could happen in the future? I mean will the companies be able to survive? And how about consumers who are dependent on these companies? Maybe the government and the companies should have some kind of an exchange deal.. maybe they already have and if yes that’s great and just go with the bail out plan! It’s not as simple as it sounds I know. 700 billion dollars is a freakishly huge amount of money to be given out just like that, not knowing will these financial companies be able use this “opportunity” well. How about those mid-sized financial firms? I think the government should help them more, not the large, supposedly well-experienced companies.

  10. Just because an economic model predicts something will work doesn’t mean its the only course of action. The role of government and how it affects the rights of people has to be considered, and in my opinion, is the reason why this plan is bad for our country. Whether a recession lasts for a few months or a decade, potentially avoiding/or lessening it doesn’t outweigh the major consequences this plan would have for the future of representative government in this country.

  11. The bailout should buy only first, variable-rate mortgages (no derivatives) at prices based on the initial interest rate frozen for the life of the mortgage. These are the sources of nearly all of the problem.

    The derivatives were essentially worthless at conception and are held primarily by big investors (like sovereign wealth funds) that can take the hit by selling off a yacht or two.

    The corporate criminals were betting the derivative ponies with their investors money and deserve no charity. Especially since they skimmed billions in corporate assets that belonged to their investors and may well have kept their institutions afloat.

    The corporate veil should be pierced by the courts and all those years of obscene unearned non-performance bonuses should be confiscated to mitigate the taxpayers losses. It is the only action that may restore some confidence on main street, especially in light of the miserable non-performance of the Congress and Executive Branch to date.

    The 800 page bill confirms all the worst impressions of the incompetence and moral weakness of our elected officials, many of whom probably don’t even know or understand much of the legislation they voted for.

  12. So here we are, four months later, and we have another rescue plan of sorts, except this one is being called a stimulus plan. Regardless of the name difference, it’s the same thing…the economy is in danger of imploding, so the government is going to spend insane amounts of money to save us all.

    I’m not economist, but one thing I do know is that nothing ever goes up in a straight line, businesses and economies all have periods where they take one step back for every two steps forward. What really alarms me is that government and Americans refuse to acknowledge recession as a natural and healthy part of the economic cycle. So what we have is a continual series of government interventions which are putting off the inevitable and probably making it worse.

    Is the housing crash someone’s fault? No, because there’s nothing wrong with it. Housing got to a level where it was not affordable without taking out an irresponsible loan. Housing should, therefore, go down. And if America became so economically dependent on buying and trading toxic paper, maybe it’s a good thing that a recession forces us to actually make useful things for a living instead of shuffling around paper no one understands.
    —–
    Emma K.
    Portland personal injury lawyer

  13. I would like to hear Prof. Gilchrist’s comments on the systematic destruction of the Glass-Steagall by Citicorp and JP Morgan’s lobbyists. For anyone interested, PBS has a summary from "Frontline." It appears that the source of our present financial woes began as our government supported the removal of the protections provided by Glass-Steagall. 

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