Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

First, it took only two people to re-write my thoughts, ie. Joanna and Daniel. You guys do shed lots of light. Really. For me anyway.

So after much turmoil, I am re-thinking and re-hashing things here. I do realize that it will affect the much smaller mom-and-pop size small businesses, just as much as the larger corporations. I still couldn’t care less about the effect on the stock market though. But since we all have become such a global economy, I can only cave in and say this… “pump up the volume”. Not the music, but the volume of money into the economy.

But I still say that many of the things have to change, as many of the economists have said so themselves. First, purely investment banks like Goldman Sachs need to live up to higher standards. Second, if you are bailed out with the government money, we own you. Not so literally but in the sense that these companies will have to shape up and eventually pay it back.

While I still wanna agree with Ron Paul, I say we do so at different levels…. that the government pump in the money to those banks that make daily operations happen, so that small businesses could pay their employees, and so on. But in the end, I just want a financial revolution. I am sick and tired of pumping hot air into commodities when they don’t have that much value to begin with! Especially with crude oil prices! Fix that. Cap it. Whatever it takes to stabilize that.

While Daniel made good point with large bonuses to attract great management, it should come at some kind of conditions. Like if you let your company fail, you don’t deserve any [bonuses]. Am I bit naive about that? Yeah, you betcha. But that’s how the rest 90+% of us w/o some kind of financial degrees think. WaMu ex-CEO should really return that $18 million that he earned in 3 weeks ’cause he didn’t do jack.

In short, there better be a restructuring and monitoring within the financial companies. And lots of it. It was only a few years ago that Enron created a different type of disaster. If this happens again next time, I say return to the bartering system and to heck with it all.

EDIT: Joanna pointed me to a NY Times article that explains better the implications of the severity of the financial situation and why the bailout is needed (as much as we hate the idea).

Well, when you thought that things couldn’t possibly get worse, it did!

Last week, things got so bad for WaMu that government interjected and took things over… and then was sold to Morgan Chase!  Yikes.  And today, we learn that same fate was applied to another bank that I had thought was doing so well, Wachovia!  They got sold to Citi Bank.  Still, WaMu’s CEO, only after 3 weeks of working, got away with $18 million in payout!  What the fudge?!

Not only that, we are bailing out three of our largest auto makers with $25 billion loan.  Most (rich) people still want the government to bail out the troubled financial corps (for me, corpse) with $700 billion!  What are you freakin’ insane?!

Sure not bailing them out will hurt.  But things will have to get worse before they get better!  This was all brought to us by our own stupid greed.  We have to face the facts.  If the government is the parent, and the financial corps are the kids, it’s time to stop bailing them out.  Let them learn.  Otherwise, things will never improve in the long run.

With Fannie Mae and Freddie doing so badly that the government stepped in to bail them out, and now with the $85 billion bailout loan to AIG and so many others, I am honestly just ticked. Off. All this means is that we, as tax payers, will have to pay for the troubled economy.

How did we get to this state? Greedy investors and companies. That’s the American way and dream, right?! And if people want less and less interjections and such from the government, what the heck are we doing allowing the government to take its claws deeper into the businesses?!

So what if Fannie Mae and Freddie’s going down will cause a turmoil?! Things will HAVE to get worse before they get better! It’s like a teenager that spent too much of his/her money and you practice the “tough love” portion to help the teen learn the valuable lesson. Yet if Bush administration wants to bail the entire economy out, no one will really learn anything.

I for one am sick and freaking tired of using my own money to help others. Let me be clear. I am sick and tired of helping other rich people from losing their money! I would rather want the money to go to help insure the poor families and such. Does this make me a Democrat?! Then so be it! But I still don’t like a lot of Democratic perspective on things, let alone the fact that I don’t like nor do I endorse Senator Obama (and don’t you DARE to accuse me of racism ’cause I’m not).

I just wanna end it with this saying that I didn’t think I’d use myself… “Bah, humbug!”