There was no "credit crisis." The economy was not going to collapse. The bailout was a ripoff.

[nichomachus]

This is probably why the banks are using the money for bonuses, corporate jets, and football parties.

Credit crisis? What credit crisis?

Key members of Congress were stunned to hear Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson say on Sept. 18 in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill that the country was “days away” from a complete financial meltdown—one that could lead to Depression-like runs on banks, widespread violence and ultimately even to a possible declaration of martial law.

It was a vision of Armageddon, but, of course, 10 days later, the House rejected a Wall Street bailout package sent over by Paulson, only to pass one in a more limited form—the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act—a week later that gave Paulson less power and only half the money he wanted.

Meanwhile, the financial system did not collapse and while a few banks were failing, there were no runs on them, and martial law wasn’t invoked.

One reason things didn’t fall apart when Congress didn’t immediately act as Paulson and Bernanke demanded, may be that there wasn’t any danger of a meltdown in the first place. So say three senior economists working at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who in October examined the Fed’s own data, and concluded in an article titled Facts and Myths About the Financial Crisis of 2008 that the claims that interbank lending and commercial lending had seized up were simply not true. “Bank lending to consumers and to non-financial companies had not ceased, and banks were lending to each other at record levels,” says V.V. Charri, an economist at the Minneapolis Fed.

“Maybe Bernanke and Paulson had information that they were not making public, but the available data simply did not support what they were saying.” Charri and his colleagues and co-authors Lawrence Christiano and Patrick Kehoe agree that with companies like Lehman Brothers, AIG and Citigroup foundering because of toxic debt instruments, there was a sense of a financial crisis brewing, but they say it wasn’t a credit freeze.

“This was a lot like the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003,” says Charri. “You had people in government saying: `We’re smart guys, trust us.’ But they were either wrong or they were lying.”

Adds Kehoe: “Normally, when you’re going to spend a lot of money, you present the data and the economic theory to support it, yet here’s the biggest non-military government intervention in history since the Great Depression, and there was no evidence presented to support it, and no detailed economic argument made about what market failures this $700 billion was going to fix.”

[4 t 4]

1. I put my money on lying

just where is happy Hank after he got the 700 billion dollars

[ColbertWatcher]

4. The lying was the last year when we were in a recession. My vote is for theft.

Because that's what corporate "leaders" are good at!

[terisan]

10. Hank is at the International Monetary Fund with his fellow Harvard grad Ben Bernanke.

[sohndrsmith]

19. Hank really scared me for some reason. Maybe it was his extreme

nervousness, the water drinking, sweating, stuttering (during one announcement) - screamed to me he was doing something really, really scary or risky or unethical or... I don't know. He really gave me the creeps because he looked like a person who was either not straightforward or being forced to do/say things that he knew were not cool.

Just my impression. But it was unsettling...

(Note: no derisive meant to those who suffer from stuttering issues, either - I mention it only because it was so marked during one occasion and really seemed to signal an inordinate amount of anxiety over something he wasn't describing publicly, so it bothered me).

[terisan]

28. I am glad you mentioned that. I think there is a big story here. I know that people working in

some Wall Street firms (honest mid-level people) had been told long before that things were going to get very bad.

Wall Street knew a crisis was coming and I think Paulson and Bush and maybe some Dems for their own reasons decided upon the date to pull the BIG Scare--they wanted the money for something and wanted it before the election and had no intention of using it for its stated purpose.

George W. Bush is an incredible con man and much smarter than people think.

PS I did not think your post was at all insensitive to people with disabilities-those usually jump out at me because of family and places I've worked. I did not see Paulson so I appreciate your insight.

[killbotfactory]

2. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice...

Oh who am I kidding, we have no power to stop them.

[terisan]

3. Totally Believable. The ultimate election year October Surprise !

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Yep. I said from the beginning a bailout was a waste.

And I also said that if a bailout happens, the money won't go to helping the companies, but will go to bonuses, higher CEO pay, and other idiocy.

Every now and again an economy (and individual business) needs to readjust, much like the slippage and bucking at the knucklers of rail cars as a train starts up.

I truly believe that the banking industry would have self-corrected by itself. With a fair amount of bloodletting, sure, but when something is over bloated and running inefficiently, some blood has to be let.

Instead, the government cut the wrists of the American taxpayers so that an already blood-filled vampiric banking industry could suckle some more.

I don't blame just the corporate criminals, though - I think the politicians acted very much out of their economic ignorance AND in an attempt to cover their asses, knowing full well that Americans - who are insanely economically illiterate, even more so than scientifically or mathematically illiterate - would be pressuring the politicians to "do something".

[bertman]

43. Excellent analogy except your last sentence is flat wrong. The American people

overwhelmingly said NO to the bailout. But, of course, their "betters" knew how close we were to disaster so they caved to the Deserter-in-Chief--once again.

[elleng]

6. The address is not valid.

.

[nichomachus]

9. It's working for me

[dalaigh lllama]

59. It's not working for me, either.

Would you mind linking it again? I want to send it to someone who opined the same thing to me yesterday.

Thanks.

[SmileyRose]

7. Oh, there is DEFINITELY a credit crisis.

Small businesses all over the country are being cut off without any notice. Our B2B contacts all over the country, big and small expect to be able to use short term credit one day and then suddenly find out it's not there.

It ain't pretty.



edit - typo

[rucky]

17. we can vouch for this.

it's hell.

[TexasObserver]

47. It's not a credit crisis. It's the result of an economy in decline.

You are doing what many do - call it a credit crisis when lenders stop lending money to businesses that cannot be expected to repay their debt in a timely fashion.

When buyers cannot qualifiy for loans because their incomes are not sufficient, it's not a credit crisis. It's lenders refusing to fund borrowers who are living on loans instead of income.

Small businesses and many others are being cut off because there are so many people and businesses who have tried to stave off a bad decline in business by borrowing more money. Marginal operations always go under during times of decline. Businesses that only thrive in a good economy always go under when a business decline arrives.

People who can repay loans do not have a problem getting loans, which means there isn't a credit crisis.

[SmileyRose]

66. You are mistaken.

I know every detail of the financials of our business and as the one who grants credit to our business partners pretty well know the financials of theirs. These are people who have run highly profitable businesses and have no trouble adjusting their business model to remain competitive in a downturn. We are talking individuals who have been in business for decades and have seen most everything. None of those I am discussing are marginal operations. These are sound businesses with longstanding top rated credit.

American Express is shooting itself in the foot regarding businesses, the major banks are as bad. Most everyone has been able to find alternate sources of credit. When this is all over and AMX and the major banks start courting our business again, the small business community will not forget.

[Winterblues]

8. Obama must not be near as smart as people here think because he fell for it

Lock, Stock, and barrel....Without such strong support from Obama I doubt it would have passed at all. Now three months later and no indication of anything possitive because of it... I truly wonder what Obama was thinking at the time...Maybe it was just a way to rachet up the fear factor like the Bush* Cabal excelled at so well, to get more money out of the US Treasury.. :shrug: I hope this is not the case.

[terisan]

11. What Obama got out of it was the Presidency. nt

[readmoreoften]

30. No. He's not a normal politician. He's a superhero post-partisan man of the people who's never wrong

His intentions are always sterling. He's a media darling. And I'm still waiting for my pony dammit.

[NNN0LHI]

61. Those are the same talking points the Rethugs were using before the election

Odd.

Don

[SlowDownFast]

65. Not just any pony.

A Unicorn that poops Skittles.

[Autumn]

15. I think it would have

passed whether Obama supported it or not. It was a Republican giveaway, these politician don't seem to live in the real world.

[girl gone mad]

31. Obama is a great politician,

and an expert on matters related to the constitution, but in economics his skill-set falls short and unfortunately, he has chosen a cadre of advisers who were long ago captured by banking and corporate elites.

[JackRiddler]

40. What did he fall for?

Did he throw $700 billion of his own money down a hole?

Did he lose the election?

What did he "fall" for?

[theoldman]

12. The reason the bailout has not worked as intended is because

the bailout was not needed. It was just a political way to get a Republican elected for president. The same applies to the stimulus package. It will only work where needed, such as creating jobs for the unemployed. Most of the stimulus money will be wasted for political reasons on both sides.

[terisan]

18. No Republican could get elected after Bush started screaming: Financial Crisis!!!

and the Democratic leadership certainly got the Democrats aboard the crisis train and then took credit for it.

Well, Romney might have had a chance but McCain had even stated that the economy was not his strong suite. (He was not polular with a lot of Congress because he promised to end the pork barrel legislation.

Where do you think the first half of the 700 billion went-overseas?

[malaise]

13. I don't know about the rest of DUers but when I saw

Bush along with Poppy,Cheney and Paulsen I did wonder if this wasn't one massive scam for political reasons just before the election. Paulsen was too happy after he won. That made me tres nervous.

[terisan]

20. They didn't pull it off alone. This was a Bipartisan Con--the Democratic congress was

complicit---never asked questions and never demanded accountablility.

.......and they are not talking about prosecutions.

[bvar22]

27. !!!

NOW we have Your Children’s Money too !!!
And there is not a fucking thing you can do about it!
Now THIS is “Post-Partisanship” !
Better get used to it!!
Hahahahahahahahaha!

[terisan]

29. OMG!!!!!!! That is hideous!!!!!!!! nt

[Two Americas]

54. I like this shot

[SlowDownFast]

68. Bingo.

As much as DUr's are terrified of the prospect of Democratic congresscritter collusion/enabling, EVERY single congresscritter - Dem or Repug - who voted for The Bailouts or supported them is GUILTY.

Obama included. Even if his intentions were good, there is now little he can do. It's all mathematical. Say goodbye to all or most of taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, beneficial or not. THERE IS NO MORE MONEY. PERIOD. IT'S ALL GONE.

This whole thing is an ORGANIZED looting of our Treasury and our future. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION - the majority of Americans were AGAINST The Bailouts!

We are now DEBT SLAVES, whether we like it or not, and corporate and gov't Pigmen have successfully ruined the economy and the country in order to loot it.

Anyone who believes anything else is day-dreaming of Unicorns that shit Skittles.

[bvar22]

75. !

Agreed.
We decided that we are NOT going to pay!

WE QUIT!

[KakistocracyHater]

80. yes & it's happening in Europe too

look outside the U.S., they are handing over billions of pounds & euros & all to the same effect here:nothing, nada...

[ejpoeta]

14. It sure feels like it was a class a ripoff. we were bamboozled!

Imagine what we could have done with that money!! It's like we were robbed and now have to take out another loan to start over again. but the robbers are sitting in fancy offices getting a good laugh at our expense. it makes me sick.

[xiamiam]

32. most here were not bamboozled...nt

[Art_from_Ark]

50. I remember one poster who proclaimed "THANK GOD IT PASSED!"

and he was joined by the usual gang of back-slapping idiots telling the rest of us how we were fools for doubting the wisdom and sincerity of the bailout's backers. :puke:

[Marie26]

73. Bank of America got $183 billion

That's all you really need to know - it was a scam from the masters of scams.

[burythehatchet]

16. I had a slightly different take

I saw it as the ransom money for releasing the office of the president.

[glitch]

24. Me too. The biggest protection racket scam ever achieved.

Anybody expect the racketeers to be satisfied with what they've taken so far and move on?

[Cronopio]

21. It's a credit embargo. Banks ran up a massive debt, now no one else gets paid until they do.

“This was a lot like the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003,”

I'm glad to see someone else pointing this out. Paulson and Bernanke *waited* until the situation was at imminent crisis level and used that fact to get people to "just respond" rather than think the problem through.

No one called them on being asleep at the switch. Not enough time for that.

It's Mafioso tactics on an unprecedented scale. It worked (and works) for the oil companies, now banks are going to play the game.

[Hannah Bell]

52. more like: they get paid, nobody else does.

[Cronopio]

55. Given their track record, you're probably right. nt

[Hannah Bell]

56. i just heard from a businessperson i know that he & his partners had

to put up about $50K of their personal money to restock their dealership - they usually do it with short-term loans, they couldn't get the same deal this time. they have excellent credit & a long-standing business.

so it seems someone's not lending. at least, not in the us, to small business.

but they're doing something with the bailout money, it's not sitting in safe deposit boxes.

[Cronopio]

79. I really don't doubt that.

Considering that the banks have spent the last five years giving credit to anyone with a pulse ...

Considering that they internally refer to people like me who have always paid credit cards in full and on time as "deadbeats" ...

Considering that they're now they're denying credit to established business and individuals with top-notch payment histories ...

I think it's time to openly call the credit industry what it really is: the usury industry. Even worse, they turn on and off the credit spigots to make average Americans addicted junkies to their product. Just like the tobacco industry and just like the oil industry. It's intentional and it's a science.

This is what capitalist corporate culture has become - vampire pushers. Because doing honest business with your customers doesn't pay off well enough anymore.

:mad:

[Hannah Bell]

84. What's interesting to me is he had no trouble with business credit until

well *after* the bank bailout.

I agree with you on the vampirism. The whole economy's like that.

[kentuck]

63. "credit embargo'?

I think that is closer to the truth than a credit freeze.

[SlowDownFast]

70. Exactly. SHOCK DOCTRINE.

Complete with behind-closed-doors threats to congress of "Martial Law".

Worked perfectly.

[Control-Z]

22. Could have been the chimps last

ditch effort at a crisis big enough to impose martial law. I thought about the possibility at the time.

[unblock]

23. again with this idiotic drivel?

my job involves trying to get money for companies. i assure you, there was a serious credit crisis and it has been very serious since about august 2007.

what happened "all of a sudden" was that washington awoke to some of the very real an imminent impact of the troubles that had been brewing, and obvious to those of us in the industry, for some time.

the ingredients of disaster were plain as day. it's only when particular institutions began to suffer the inevitable consequences that the powers that be woke up.

that made it LOOK like it came out of nowhere, but i assure you, that was only because it was been ignored for quite some time.

[nichomachus]

Hmm let's see

three economists for the Federal Reserve -- some anonymous poster on DU who makes unsubstantiated claims about his expertise -- who to believe -- who to believe? Sometimes, it's so hard to decide.

[unblock]

34. hey, i'll admit you've got no reason to buy my credentials, but THREE ECONOMISTS?

give me a break. economists at the federal reserve wouldn't see it unless they were looking at the right statistics, and not every economist at the federal reserve would even know which statistic to look at, let alone recognize what's going on from it.

what's actually happening in the business world and the economy is first obvious to the participants and only later, sometimes much later, to those culling economic statistics.


they claim no credit crisis because lending was continuing, but failed to recognize that the credit that was available was only to a more limited set of companies. overall lending didn't decline quickly and drastically at first, but the universal of acceptable borrowers did. this is an easy thing to see if you work in the industry, but very difficult to recognize from broad statistics.

[HamdenRice]

81. Well said. I also note these were 3 economists from Minneapolis Fed. NY Fed said there was

There definitely was a credit crisis. The fact that the money market funds "broke the buck" should make it obvious to anyone who understands the commercial paper market. There was lots of first hand reporting about the near absolute freeze up of certain key credit markets.

The logic of the OP is strange. Three economists from the Minneapolis Fed branch say there was no crisis. But many Fed economists in NY and DC say there was, including the chairman of the Fed who happens to be an economist.

Yet we're supposed to take these Minneapolis economists has the last word and absolute truth.

Go figure.

[Celebration]

26. Yup~

The credit crisis was not made up. It was just completely mismanaged.

[martymar64]

83. To be more accurate, it was a crisis deliberately manufactured by the banks

Never underestimate the power or desire of the Mr Potters of this world to screw us every possible way they can.

Send the bastards off to the guillotine. Seriously.

[stillcool]

37. At the time of the bailout..

there were several posters who were kind enough to provide some information to the financial industry challenged like myself. I appreciated it so much then, but even more now. It's great that these CEO's have been exposed, but I'd like to know the rest of the story. Like has the money done what it was intended to do? Has the credit crunch been eased? Where is that story?

[unblock]

44. the answer's complicated because money's gone to several places.

but the short answer is that it's merely propped up banks who already lent too much (and too unwisely).

banks are always "leveraged" in the sense that for every 1 dollar of hard assets (like deposits), they have some multiple of that in loans. what's the proper ratio? well, 1 to 1 is way too conservative. you'd likely never go out of business from bad debts, but you'd likely never make enough money to STAY in business. investment banks got as high as 36 to 1 not too long ago, and that was obviously too much. there's a sense that 12 to 1 is more reasonable, maybe that's where the banks will end up.

well, when the government gives cash to a bank that's leveraged at 36 to 1, the ratio goes down to, say, 28 to 1. that's an improvement, but the bank is still overleveraged and will still avoid making new loans until old ones pay off and the leverage ratio works its way all the way down to 12 to 1.

so basically, doing nothing would mean banks would take years before they would resume lending; giving MASSIVE cash to banks would lead to lending immediately; doing what they're doing now (giving a lot but not enough cash) will lead banks to resume lending sooner than otherwise, but not immediately.

in short, all they've done is brought the day when banks resume lending closer. that day is still not today. maybe it's one year away instead of two or three.

[damntexdem]

25. There was a "credit crisis." The economy was going to collapse. The bailout WAS a ripoff.

The problem: it was in the hands of the Bushistas.

[TexasObserver]

48. There was no credit crisis. It was fabricated.

The Fed and the FDIC under Bush contrived the crisis by refusing to infuse through normal liquidity actions funds to facilitate credit. It was a scam to get the TARP fund approved, which was then used to help selected big banks gain capital for patching their own problems, in a failed attempt to hold off the inevitable economic decline long enough for Bush to hobble out of office. It didn't work.

[Mojorabbit]

77. I read an article here

last week about how England was having a mass run on banks electronically when the emergency was going on. I do think there was a problem. How bad it was I don't know.

[HamdenRice]

82. Very well put. But trying to get some people to hold 3 somewhat incosistent ideas ...

in their heads at the same time is not easy. I would also add that as incompetently was it was carried out, the bailout partly worked.

[lib2DaBone]

33. You're Correct..no one wants to hear it...bu we could have stopped the $700 Billion Giveaway

.. I put in my 2 cents... I was flamed here on DU and told to STFU....

Nevermind... it no longer matters... Long Gone...

[sendero]

42. From what I understand...

.. the calls and letters (to Congress) were massively, massively against the bailout, they did it anyway. Congress, Reps and Dems, are bought and paid for by Wall Street and they don't give two shits what the people think.

Unless Obama grows a much larger pair, and I don't expect it to happen, the banks are going to keep getting theirs even though they should just be allowed to fail, like any good capitalist will tell ya.

[Hannah Bell]

53. The dems could have stopped it if they'd backed up their constituents,

but they told them to shut up & sit down instead.

Plenty of folks called & emailed against it - shut down their system.

didn't matter, the fix was in.

& the same hacks are still running the show.

[AntiFascist]

35. Wouldn't it be fairly easy for the banks to cut Bernanke and Paulson in on "the deal"...

just saying.

[Runcible Spoon]

36. THANK GOD IT PASSED!!!! !!!!!!!1111 11111111111 1!!!!!!!!!!!

I think it's completely obvious the bailout was a scam; doesn't mean we should ignore the serious systematic problems in the crumbling economy.

[depakid]

38. Yep- I'm sure that the people of Iceland and the UK all agree

It was a scam designed solely to defraud Americans.

[JackRiddler]

39. Not quite: There was and is an insolvency crisis...

It's not over and the big banks will go bankrupt, predictably and deservedly. Because of derivatives and counterfeit derivatives they gambled their way into obligations they cannot possibly meet.

The exposure of the Ponzi system caused a credit crunch, and will again. Collapse and nationalization are inevitable.

As a false response, the USG allowed the Treasury to be privatized as a plunder fund for the perpetrators of the frauds central to the crisis. The Federal Reserve opened up the cash spigots for trillions more in giveaways, all of it with laughable conditions and limits that are pure dressing.

This allows the banksters to convert some of the fictional values they wrote in derivatives into real cash, which they can try to spirit away and, more importantly: use to pay themselves more bonuses.

The bonuses are total peanuts compared to the total amounts of capital involved, but of course that's of no concern to these people. Consider that the poacher kills a magnificent giant elephant just for a pair of lousy tusks. How many people do you know who really wouldn't care if they burned nations, if this made them half a billion bucks? (Probably not many, but there are enough of them to fill all of the main positions at the big banks and the Federal Reserve and the US Goldman Sachs Department, erm, I mean Treasury.)

The crisis is by no means a fake. It's been in the making for decades. That it would end in an insolvency of the entire financial sector was very obvious in the final stage, that of the 2002-2008 "housing" bubble.

But the response by Paulson-Bernanke-Bush-Obama-McCain-Pelosi was a fake.

And it continues. No US government has challenged the banks since FDR. Obama's not going to do it, either, except maybe after the crash is complete. Let's just hope the Republicans do not successfully (and falsely) manage to portray themselves as the populist anti-banker party, because this will allow them to come back in 2010.

[leftstreet]

49. Will it be nationalization, or just one or two Wally Banks?

If the Predator Class is planning to buy up the smaller, dying ones with more 'bailout' funds?

:shrug:

I fear your prediction, too.

If...Republicans do not successfully (and falsely) manage to portray themselves as the populist anti-banker party

[JerseygirlCT]

41. Wow. That's something to think about

No doubt a lot of the pain has been based on emotion and fear. And it has cascaded, of course.

And why in the world shouldn't we believe that the guys who faked a necessity for war would have done that with the financial system, too?

But I wonder, to what end? What did they hope to gain from that? Did they hope that the country would turn to McCain in such a situation? Did they expect some financial quid pro quo from the banks likely to come out on top of merger-opolis?

I don't know...

[dpbrown]

45. Bingo!

Another final looting of the Treasury so there's no money for the Democratic agenda.

The Republicans win again.

What a bunch of worthless fucks.

[Kablooie]

46. SURPRISE! -- (well not really. Kind of expected it.)

[Hannah Bell]

51. I heard the comparison: "Like when Russia's industry was handed out to the oligarchs" after the fall

of the ussr.

hey, what if the whole cold war was just a show? onto the next play, take down the sets, it's globo-corporo world this go-round.

[eilen]

57. that is not funny

My grandfather lived in the DDR. When Germany was reunified his money became almost worthless. He could trade it in for Marks but the exchange rate was very poor.

[Karenina]

76. Please explain your apparent sense of offense.

Have you never heard of Frank Zappa? He made a wonderful quip about the back of the theater. Surely one of the kids here can conjure it up right quick.

[eilen]

78. If this is all just a play act...

and our money (value of our retirement, etc.) is lost for no real reason. It is not a laughing matter. I am not offended.

[Marie26]

74. That's a great comparison

I think Naomi Klein went into this - after the fall, Russia began massive privatization of almost every aspect of gov. And almost all of the wealth of the country, all the money & resources, went into the hands of a connected few. It's really not that different from taking $700 billion dollars of public funds & "privatizing" it directly to the financial oligarchy.

[notesdev]

58. And until we say "STOP!"

they will keep going back to the trough for more.

Enough! Too much already has been wasted saving those who deserve to fail.

[NNN0LHI]

60. If it got the Rethugs out of power it was worth every damn penny of it

Because they would have just gave it all away to their wealthy buddies with more tax cuts and other gimmicks if they were still running things.

Don

[kentuck]

62. There was a banking crisis...

With WaMu, AIG, CitiGroup, Lehman Bros, Merrill Lynch, and a few others. However, the biggest part of that crisis was resolved in the first couple of weeks. After that, it was mostly a scam, in my opinion. And the scam is continuing today. Anytime the government is handing out billions of dollars with no questions asked, you will have "needy" banks lining up to take our money. I tend to believe most of the story above.

[Kolesar]

67. NY Times columnist Paul Krugman thought the TARP bailout was necessary

And he was advocating for it in his columns.

[kentuck]

71. It was necessary for the banks mentioned above...

But we have seen no evidence of other banks in similar dire straits, since the initial bailout. If it was so dire, would there not have been more CitiGroups and Washington Mutuals?? Where are they?

[earth mom]

64. Many of us here were saying it was all a scam from day one.

* & Cheney's MIHOP/LIHOP part 2. :grr:

[Gregorian]

69. And Saddam is only minutes away from a mushroom cloud. WMD's.

And aluminum tubes. And anthrax.

So what do we do now? It's your money. And we appear to have almost no representation in Washington. I've noticed that Nancy Pelosi has a face that appears to be unchanging. I think she's actually a wax figure.

I do not give up. I'm not like the republicans who think government is bad. It IS bad, but we have our opportunity to create something great. But man, it sure has been rough.

Unless something brilliant happens, I am betting on a second round of bailouts. And then deflation by massive printing of money. And then huge inflation. But I know nothing. And this is the internet. Haha. Damnit!

[Marie26]

72. The "fear" button is all they know

It's just like the Iraq War. And it always works, seemingly.