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Like there was ever a doubt – full federal bailout now proposed

by Morgan on September 19, 2008

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Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson’s speech this morning took any doubt about how far the government is going to go in this credit crisis and threw it out the window. Paulson proposed a complete bailout of the mortgage market by allowing the US government to absorb the bad mortgage debt out of the financial system. Leaving, you guessed it, you and me on the hook for all the bad loans that no one wants anymore.

We’ve been calling that for more than a year now – but who’s keeping score at this point.

Here’s a snip of Paulson’s speech on the mortgage bailout, read the whole thing if you can stomach it.

The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy. This troubled asset relief program must be properly designed and sufficiently large to have maximum impact, while including features that protect the taxpayer to the maximum extent possible. The ultimate taxpayer protection will be the stability this troubled asset relief program provides to our financial system, even as it will involve a significant investment of taxpayer dollars. I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative – a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion.

As we work with the Congress to pass this legislation over the next week, other immediate actions will provide relief.

First, to provide critical additional funding to our mortgage markets, the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will increase their purchases of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). These two enterprises must carry out their mission to support the mortgage market.

Second, to increase the availability of capital for new home loans, Treasury will expand the MBS purchase program we announced earlier this month. This will complement the capital provided by the GSEs and will help facilitate mortgage availability and affordability.

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  3. TARP, Capital Purchase Program…Making It Up As They Go Along?
  4. The Trillion Dollar Bailout
  5. Texas Blames Federal Government for Mortgage Crisis

  • wagudo
    This is typical. Screw the consumers but bailout your cronies.
    Step one: Make sure consumers can't shirk their responsibilities by making it much harder to file for bankruptcy.
    Step Two: Change rules to allow for Loan Shark interest rates:
    Step Three: Losen rules and allow for record numbers of mortgages.
    Step Four: Look away when your number crunchers are saying something is amiss because we have record numbers of mortgages and home sales although salaries are declining and consumer prices (Especially gas) are going up
    Step Five: Ignore the initial signs of collapse.
    Step Six: Tell the public it is nothing more than "Market Correction"
    Step Seven: Call in some friends when it looks like it may hit home (Treasury) and borrow some money
    Step Eight: Say Hell no when consumers ask for help to pay the mortgages that are hurting your friends' portfolios
    Step Nine: Finance some bailouts
    Step Eleven: Bailout some more friends
    Step Twelve: Bailout all of them and put the consumer on the Hook.
    Funny thing is we pay two ways. We pay to take over a loan we have to pay down?
    Make no sense but I am sure they will spin it right and most will take is as gospel.


    Step Eight
  • it's hard to object to the government's mass bailouts from a historical standpoint since similar debt-producing methods were put into action to save the U.S. from the Depression; maybe we're really socialists at heart and don't want to admit it...
  • Dewaine
    But the actions taken to "save the U.S. from the Depression" both worsened and lengthened the depression.

    "When the interest rate is artificially lowered by credit expansion [as it was during 2001-2004 and again in 2007-2008] the false impression is created that enterprises which previously had been regarded as unprofitable now become profitable. Easy money induces the entrepreneurs to embark upon businesses which they would not have undertaken at a higher interest rate. With the money borrowed from the banks they enter the market with additional demand and cause a rise in wages and in the prices of the means of production. This boom of course would have to collapse immediately in the absence of further credit expansion, because these price increases would make the new enterprises appear unprofitable again. But if the banks continue with the credit expansion this brake fails to work. The boom continues.

    But the boom cannot continue indefinitely. There are two alternatives. Either the banks continue the credit expansion without restriction and thus cause constantly mounting price increases and an ever-growing orgy of speculation, which, as in all other cases of unlimited inflation, ends in a “crack-up boom” and in a collapse of the money and credit system.[1] Or the banks stop before this point is reached, voluntarily renounce further credit expansion and thus bring about the crisis. The depression follows in both instances.

    It is obvious that a mere banking process like credit expansion cannot create more goods and wealth. What the credit expansion actually accomplishes is to introduce a source of error in the calculations of the entrepreneurs and thus causes them to misjudge business and investment projects. The entrepreneurs act as if more producers’ goods were available than are actually at hand. They plan expansion of production on a scale for which the available quantities of producers’ goods are not sufficient. These plans are bound to fail because of the deficiency in the available amount of producers’ goods. The result is that there are plants which cannot be used because the complementary facilities are lacking; there are plants which cannot be completed; there are other plants again whose products cannot be sold because consumers desire other products more urgently which cannot be produced in sufficient quantities because the necessary productive facilities are not ready. The boom is not over-investment, it is misdirected investment."

    http://mises.org/etexts/mises/interventionism/s...
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