WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com
House vote is as follows:
| Yea | Nay | NV | |
| Democrats | 140 | 95 | |
| Republicans | 65 | 133 | 1 |
| Total | 205 | 228 | 1 |
The gavel has dropped. The Dow is down almost 600 points.
You can see the full roll call here. And an interactive version here.
CNN is streaming here
CSPAN streaming here
How will the McCain campaign spin this statement from earlier today?
"What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this"
The Obama campaign has just issued the following statement:
“This is a moment of national crisis, and today’s inaction in Congress as well as the angry and hyper-partisan statement released by the McCain campaign are exactly why the American people are disgusted with Washington. Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to join together and act in a way that prevents an economic catastrophe. Every American should be outraged that an era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and Washington has led us to this point, but now that we are here, the stability of our entire economy depends on us taking immediate action to ease this crisis,” said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
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Kevin Frenzel · 858 weeks ago
Leah 85p · 858 weeks ago
Peter Zenger 62p · 858 weeks ago
We know where to place the blame for the failure.
This resulted froma total lack of leadership from Bush/McCain in persuading their troops to support the compromise.
Tarpy · 858 weeks ago
Leah 85p · 858 weeks ago
This bailout was from the BUSH ADMINISTRATION - the republicans screwed up the economy and now they are trying to pass the buck. Time to boot all of the republicans out of office!
davidfromsd 6p · 858 weeks ago
twler · 858 weeks ago
Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago
It seems to be that if the bailout is not done, for some period of time mortgages and other loans will be hard to get. Well, if we believe in market forces, will not institutions arise to make loans to people and businesses with good credit?
I understand the concern about student loans, the probably most time critical type of loan, but most universities are sitting on giant endowments, and could probably run a loan program for their own students.
I would vote for a bill that established a government run (or responsibly run by someone else) entity that would lend money to credit worthy entities as a transition device. That would keep the taxpayers' money that is going into this more secure. Plus one that let judges reset mortgage terms so the ones that are ripoffs become normal mortgages.
If we do the bailout, greedy, idiotic companies and their employees will benefit. I prefer to see them go down in a heap. That makes it less likely that this will be repeated. I especially do not want them saved with the money I have worked hard over my lifetime to get.
The U.S. already has a huge debt. Why add $700 billion to it? At some point, people will stop lending to us and then what? A house of cards.
I just have the feeling that we are looking at a rotten apple, and we should cut out the rotten part, not try to fix it.
RustyRedneck 34p · 858 weeks ago
joe · 858 weeks ago
Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago
Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/ROLLCALL.ht...
DocJess 71p · 858 weeks ago
Assume you have a mortgage. You bought a $200,000 house, and took out a $190,000 mortgage, which you've been paying on. Unfortunately, the value of your house is now $160,000, and you still owe $180,000. (The first few years of a mortgage are virtually interest only). The bank can now call your loan, and you can either pay the $20,000 or lose your house, because your house is now undercollateralized. Likelihood is that the banks won't do that so long as your payments are current, but based on that stack of papers you signed, yes, they certainly can.
In addition, most companies do not pay payrolls out of current income, rather they pay off a credit line, which gets replaced when either people buy their products, or their clients pay THEIR bills. No credit, no payrolls.
Some cash flows are better than other, and it sucks that we are a credit economy instead of a cash economy, but this is the reality.
However you look at it, this is BAD. We can all discuss HOW we got here, or what we need to do to make sure it never happens again, but for now, this is patient critical, and hopefully Congress will fix this within the next couple of days.
Mark · 858 weeks ago
You are fundamentally misunderstanding how dire this situation. I seriously doubt that Rusty himself lived through the great depression. It may appear as a 'patriotic' thing the the US to have overcome, but it was a lot different living through than it is reading about it in a history book.
This isn't just a matter of loans being hard to find. Imagine NO companies being able to get loans. Imagine no BANKS being able to get loans. Imagine Thousands of banks worldwide having frozen all customer's bank accounts because they don't have the cash to give you your money. This isn't fear scaremongering; it is currently on the table.
You have to understand, at the moment, letting the 'market forces' fix this isn't an option. The market has lost faith in the US banking system. Banks are refusing to lend money to banks because they don't think any bank will every be able to pay them back.
Thinking of this as a 'bailout' is fundamentally flawed. It's not a gift to wallstreet. The government is going to by impaired assets at a deep discount. And they might make money on it! Perhaps $300B, perhaps $800B. I applaud the efforts of house democrats, some house republicans, and even Bush for the hard work they did on this. But they failed miserably at the public relations campaign needed to convince americans that a $700B investment is a fraction - yes, a fraction - of what could be lost if no action is taken.
Leah 85p · 858 weeks ago
tmess2 70p · 858 weeks ago
The essence of the problem now is not that any of these institutions made individual mistakes (though some probably did), it's that confidence in an entire class of assets has disappeared. Some of those assets are probably still valuable in terms of producing future income but nobody knows which is valuable and which is worthless so they are treating them all as worthless. This is a classic panic of the type that New Deal put in legislation to prevent (unfortunately legislation that has been repealed over the past 20 years). It has nothing to do with the real value of these companies just fears about the real value of these companies.
michigandem · 858 weeks ago
Tho I must say, I am surprised at the 95 democrats voted against the bill, it is obvious that the conservative free market believer will never agree to the bailout, but I didn't realize there are opposition even within the democrats. I also thought they have enough votes therefore they are bringing it to the floor, they should know how devastating it will be for the stock markets if they fail, which they did.
Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago
Is this now a normal feature of mortgages? I'm sure I would have noticed that when I got the mortgage on my first house, but that was thirty odd years ago.
I am kind of thinking a bank would prefer to have mortgage payments coming in rather than another house on their hands.
Okay, you guys have me scared enough to vote for this if I were a legislator. I especially note that the junk stuff will be bought at a discount.
tmess2 70p · 858 weeks ago
Rosanne in Tennessee · 858 weeks ago
As for their being a swing in the market, have you been living under a rock? This is nothing new.
There has been no stability for over a year...let the market correct, let the day traders drop out, and let the banks that made these risky loans fail miserably.
Of course, these banking CEOs behind the FED could always sell their OWN assets to save their businesses :) if they want to. I, personally, see no reason to save them from the consequences of risky behavior.
Rosanne in Tennessee · 858 weeks ago
Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago
Brett · 858 weeks ago
However, we need to swallow our anger and support it because you don't let your house burn down just because you disagree with the price of the water. You put your house out... then you hopefully negotiate down the cost of the water and put the arsonist in jail!
Chad_Nielson 57p · 858 weeks ago
Mark · 858 weeks ago
The majority opposes this bill because they don't understand what is at stake. Statements like 'save them from their own risky behaviour' show that you're missing the big picture. This is NOT about saving the big, rich banks. Let the market correct? Its not about the Dow - its about credit. The banks don't have enough cash to lend anymore - businesses are going to see credit lines dry up and will cease being able to pay employees salaries. Day traders have nothing to do with this; you're in left field if you think otherwise. This is no longer about banks that made bad loans. ALL banks are feeling the crunch because there is no credit.
Its actually tragic that this is happening during an election year, but that is what is stopping this fix from passing. Otherwise congress would be willing to make the right but unpopular decision. So congress 'saved' taxpayers $700 billion today, but the stockmarket lost $1 trillion. How much tomorrow?
I'm with you on Bush; the guy has been a disaster. But he's a lame duck. What the hell does he care about holding up the party line? For him, this is about the legacy he will leave. Right now, he'll only be arguably the worst president of all time. Inaction will potentially lead the US and the world into the great depression part 2. Bush knows that will rank him undeniably as the worst leader ever. Think about it: this play was down right liberal. Sound like Bush to you? This thing isn't about politics anymore, it just needs to be done.
What is needed is less political negotiating and more PR with the public. People don't understand this problem yet. Hell, economists don't understand this completely - nobody has every seen anything like this before. Nothing will pass until people are educated about what is going on and what the stakes are..