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October 1, 2008
Quote of the day
Well, you say, “I don’t own any stocks - let those greedy monsters on Wall Street suffer.” You may not own any stocks, but your pension fund owned some Lehman Brothers commercial paper and your regional bank held subprime mortgage bonds, which is why you were able refinance your house two years ago. And your local airport was insured by A.I.G., and your local municipality sold municipal bonds on Wall Street to finance your stree t’s new sewer system, and your local car company depended on the credit markets to finance your auto loan - and now that the credit market has dried up, Wachovia bank went bust and your neighbor lost her secretarial job there.
We’re all connected. As others have pointed out, you can’t save Main Street and punish Wall Street anymore than you can be in a rowboat with someone you hate and think that the leak in the bottom of the boat at his end is not going to sink you, too. The world really is flat. We’re all connected. “Decoupling” is pure fantasy.
Thomas L. Friedman OP-ED Columnist NYTimes
Comments
moreteasir...generally the two of us usually exchange unpleasantries whenever we post. This was a good thing to post becasue so many people don't realize the consequences. It was a good OP-ED that said it all!!!
It became obvious when all of the calls to congressional offices swung from 90% against the bailout a week ago to practically the same ratio screaming at them as to what they did to the markets and pass this bill vs.those still opposed.
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at October 1, 2008 2:38 PM
Daveinbedstuy,...as soon as I read it I thought the same thing. The reason folks are so against the bailout is because they have no idea how the current state of things affect them.....since it hasn't directly had an impact on their existence (as of yet). It's the same fight global warming folks have/had.
You should have been on the floor when the vote was defeated....the handhelds went berserk....
...and never mind our ins and outs...I'm sure we'll have more. At the end of the day, we're neighbors and love Brooklyn. You can't be that bad!
Posted by: moreteasir at October 1, 2008 3:00 PM
I work on Wall Street (actually on a trading floor as well), I understand how intertwined the entire economy is, and I don't support the bailout because I don't think it will work. Period. People can have differences of opinion on the solution to a problem. It's a shame most Americans seem incapable of critical thought or of forming nuanced opinions, and have become entirely reliant on CNBC/CNN pundits to tell them what's *good* or *bad* for themselves and others.
Would you have trusted the financial wizzes at Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, WAMU, Wachovia, and Bear Stearns a year ago if they were all telling you the same thing? Obviously they all thought they knew what they were doing too (and agreed with each other more or less), but they were all wrong. It is entirely possible for Bernanke/Paulson/Bush administration to be just as wrong and do even more damage to the economy. There are plenty of economists who think the bailout is a phenomenally bad idea, they just don't get as much coverage on CNBC.
Posted by: setancre at October 1, 2008 4:08 PM
It's impossible for any of us to know how good or bad such a bill really is. These are thousands or at least hundreds of pages long and some parts are probably so vague. Of course we are all connected; however, when someone with a modest 401K or pension reads that a CEO gets mucho millions after his company goes down the shitter and the shareholders have worthless stock, we all wonder who is going to get fat over this. Is there language that they should be the last in line to get the money and not first?
Posted by: Iknow at October 2, 2008 9:21 AM
Yeah, kind of reminds me of the discussions on Brownstoner about how sub-prime loans were not going to affect their neighborhoods because there weren't sub-prime borrowers in their hoods, only Crown Heights and Bed Sty.
Posted by: donatella at October 4, 2008 11:16 PM
"your local car company depended on the credit markets to finance your auto loan - and now that the credit market has dried up", so here is the big prob.
http://www.TalkingCarLoans.com/
Posted by: talkloan at January 23, 2009 5:55 AM
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