Frank: I Would Not Have Imputed Such Pettiness to the GOP

The republicans knew Pelosi had called them out. A hit dog will holler. They should have been clammering to get this bill passed since this is their doing why we are in this situation

I see your true colors…

Shining through could be a serenade to the Republican Party today. What a party. After the bail out bill fail to pass, they parade out in front of the cameras and proceeded to complain like cry babies, wah wah Pelosi made me do it. What wimps. I mean they knew they did not want to vote for the bill but at the same time you know you should have voted for the bail out and they used the house speaker as their scapegoat. After all we would not be in this situation if they were not so busy deregulating everything and letting their buddies do whatever they wanted under the sun.

They also used the tax payer as a scapegoat and as I said before, they should have been thinking about that when they were so busy deregulating. So when those tax payers who started calling these republican law makers they should have been told if we do not vote for this bill you may not get paid because this is tied to your company being able to meet payroll and they also should have apologized to those tax payers for deregulating wall street and getting us in this situation in the first place. But one thing is for sure if they do not pass this legislation because they are trying to avoid socialism they will head smack into it. Because when jobs are lost because credit is not available there will be unemployment insurance to pay and any other types of social insurances available for a long time.

This is a very bad situation. People do not understand anything concerning this other than it is a bail out for the banks. I am no economic genius either and live on “Main Street” but I know enough that this is no ordinary situation that we are going through. And this is what ‘Main Street” does not understand: the underlying fundamental of the economy is credit. Everything is run on credit even your payroll check. And the credit market is frozen because of companies’ inability to sell their debt/account receivables in the credit market as bonds.

The reason they cannot sell their debt is because consumers, with their meager incomes, are unable to pay their installments so companies cannot pay their investors who purchase the bonds which the money that they pay for the bonds is used by the companies to lend some more, issue paychecks, etc, etc. which keeps the economy churning. Since the consumer is finding it a little difficult to pay their debts to the institutions, bank A does not know what Bank B has on his books that is recoverable. That being the case they will not lend to each other which something they do to keep their daily reserves up to par and make sure they have enough on hand to lend out. So the purpose of the bail out was to buy the non recoverable assets to give the banks a refresh and help stimulate the wheels of credit.

My argument is if Republicans had practice a little more prudence in their years of being the majority party in Washington we would not be going through this now. And they want nothing more to make it look like the Democrats are responsible. But they allowed no oversight and allowed this problem to fester. To think this is going to be taxed on the consumer and their meager income. This is like paying your bills and at the same time paying a tax to keep that company in business or double payment. I am not supporting this bill either but I frankly do not believe there is anything else that can be done.

But here is the trouble, once congress does take that big gulp and pass this bill Secretary Paulson is going to have to go out there and earn that 700 billion from investors say like China, Saudi Arabia, countries that will purchase the debt. And right now we are in a vulnerable state. And as I have mentioned if I am a foreign investor I am not going to invest in your country if your people cannot make their payments because if they can’t pay I know I am not going to get paid. And another thing to think about, we do not have the best track record internationally which may not be as much of a problem depending on what it is worth to those would be investors and their interests. But this all comes back to how you deal with others if you created friends or if you created enemies internationally which is why you choose diplomacy first.


The longer congress via the Republicans put this vote off increases the “what will happen in the meantime” anxiety because the longer they hold off a geopolitical event could take place or a business may not be able to make payroll precipitating a premature layoff. And an added comment I am watching Republicans today doing what they do best and I would not be surprised to see a shift by corporations from Republicans to Democrats. Republicans have truly thrown their corporate buddies under the bus with this grand stand.

A Gift to the Democrats

The drama that is going on in Washington via the Republican Party…..priceless. From the beginning when the Wall Street crisis first began to unfold back in August 2007, I knew it was the consumer who needed the injection via wages because they represent 2/3rd of the economy so it makes sense to keep that part of the economy humming without a hitch. And I would rather have wage inflation problems any day than to devalue the currency, especially the US dollar, by printing money to help the banks. At that time when this crisis started rearing up the banks should have been made to accept the monthly payments they were receiving from the majority of folks that made their payments and use that money to fix what they broke and if that money didn’t cover it bite the dust.

That being said, this could not have happened at a better time for the Democratic Party. I know you are saying that we should not be pointing fingers but I am pointing because it needs to be pointed out that we once again have a major crisis which has it roots tied to the Republicans when they had the majority in the senate and the house, enabling a Republican president in the White House and his business buddies. They deregulated and killed oversight which allowed the fellows on Wall Street to do what they did and now we are here in the present moment on the brink. And do you all remember how the Republicans ruled on the side of credit card issuers to increase your monthly credit card payments? Personally, I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back seeing that wages are pathetic.



So here we are with Republican grand standing at its best, what I call the last stand of the Republican Party. Here we have the Republican Party, the champion of the tax payer, riding to the rescue. “We aren’t passing anything that is going to cost the tax payer”. Ah hush up and go eat your wheaties. What a farce. Now they want to talk about the tax payers but they should have had the taxpayers in mind when they were so busy deregulating everything. Well guess what? The Republicans are going to have to pass this because without this legislation, lenders will not have funds to lend to businesses for payroll and businesses will not function and jobs would be lost, so good luck to the deregulators with the tax payer line.

Talking about backing yourself in a corner. And what makes it so bad is most tax payers really don't understand if the Paulsen Plan does not pass there will be nothing to tax because if this does not pass there will be no payroll.. This is how Republicans use people's lack of knowledge to pass their agendas that don’t benefit tax payers. But this time I smell backfire big time. And when it is all said and done the Republicans will end up eating crow because they put themselves on the hook for the tax payer and cannot deliver.

And guess what? This is a win win for the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party says well we are not going to vote or pass this legislation unless the Republicans come on board, they come off benefiting from the fact they did not pass legislation that would cost the tax payer. And you have to wonder what will the relationship be between Republicans and their business constituents after this grand stand posturing because as you know with Republicans it is the business interest before the tax payer (hint: tax cuts). The benefit of this Republican grand stand could mean businesses start moving to do more Democratic Party funding perhaps but we hope if that happens Democrats can avoid the temptations that have snared our Republican fellows if there is such a shift.

As I stated at the beginning of this it is the consumer that should have been helped first. Now we the consumer will have to help with a bail out of the economy on already stressed wages. Not to mention these very businesses undercut the economy by sending jobs overseas and now we have to help them.