Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics How will the financial crisis develop?

In my humble and perhaps somewhat uninformed opinion here is what will happen if the bailout fails completely.
Those who have built their entire lives on credit will be in for serious trouble because life as they know it will end.

The family down the street with the brand new homes and cars or SUV's and the house full of the latest furniture, all bought with no money down, with Mom and Pop keeping up with the Joneses by blowing up the plastic; they're going to be in a lot of trouble.

If Mom or Pop work at a job where business as usual involves a bridge loan twice a month to meet payroll which gets paid back on a ninety day net term, then their job is in trouble.

But the news media has been repeatedly blasting the airwaves all day with Wall Street execs claiming "this isn't Wall Street, it's MAIN STREET!"

Well, I hate to be the first to inform them, but outside of the folks I just described above, Main Street has been strapped for a very long time, and most people don't dare blow up the plastic or if they already DID, they DO NOT HAVE ANY credit anymore, and they're just getting by.
For them, life is not going to change very much. They didn't have credit before and this means they won't have it for the foreseeable future.

But if they've been getting by....guess what? They'll continue to get by.
That's me and Karen by the way...aside from our fixed rate mortgage on the house, we don't use credit because we have very little of it. We have two well used cars and a house full of "vintage" furniture which is either hand-me-down or purchased at thrift shops and yard sales, and you know what? It's pretty good looking stuff, and there isn't a stick of particle board anywhere either.
It is ALL real wood cause it is all fairly OLD.

We do not owe anyone a dime. Our stuff ain't the latest and greatest but it's paid for.
Our kids will be going to community colleges, not Harvard, Yale or even Texas A&M.
But Brianne is taking Chinese in high school. They're the next superpower, and she wants to have built in extra value along with whatever job skills she learns.
We didn't much in the way of credit before and guess what? We still won't have much in the way of credit.

The high roller lifestyle is now going to subjected to a thinning of the herd as all the thirty thousand dollar a year millionaires get culled and tossed by the wayside. From this point on, if the bailout does not pass, when you see a high roller, you know that they have a lot of CASH to back up their lifestyle.

But for the most part we're going to see a paradigm shift and the beginning of a new practicality. Things we have not seen for at least two decades are going to reappear. Things like SHOE REPAIR SHOPS, small factories where appliances get refurbished, as the Western world once again starts to see value in keeping things working instead of funding the disposable lifestyle.
Rap is going to change to Blues as the brothers start to remember the value of the classics instead of over extended credit card payments on trendy bling bling.

Our parents got through The Great Depression and they ended up being known as "The Greatest Generation" simply because they learned to stick with what counts and they learned to stick together as functional villages and towns instead of insulated cell phone users zipping by in their impersonal wheeled transport capsules.

The new mantra will be "Economize, Localize, Produce" and the slogan will be "Adapt or Die", and I believe that Americans will learn to adapt, slowly at first,
then more quickly as they realize that the world has not come to an end.

The bankers will be jumping out the window, we will see 1929 Redux.
The American people have spoken, and if we want the message to stick we have to contact our elected officials and promise a swift and public hanging for anyone who tries to revive the bailout of the fat cats.
It is time that the fat cats learned some humility in New York.
But if there is anyone to point the finger at, it's the ones on Wall Street who had the hubris to think that they were the "Masters of the Universe".

I'm not saying everything will go smoothly....a lot of us are in for a shock and a reeducation...case in point:
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke uttered the seven filthiest words I have ever heard on television the other day in front of Congress and the American people and almost nobody even blinked.

He said, "credit is the lifeblood of our economy".

After hearing him spew this ghastly gob of BS I waited to hear the howls of censure and wondered if there were riots breaking out on the Capitol steps.
There was nothing of the kind, because most Americans have never learned or forgotten this one simple fact.

WEALTH not CREDIT, is the lifeblood of ALL economies, and the only way that CREDIT can create wealth is if you happen to be one of the creditors.

CREDIT IS SLAVERY.

The media has also gone to great lengths to paint the Republicans as the villains for not passing this bill, but they overlook the fact that there were plenty of
DEMOCRATS who also refused to vote for this turkey. The rest of the Democrats should probably listen and learn, because the American people are being given a rare chance to unhook themselves from the Mother of All Hamster Wheels by being denied credit across the board.
The day we learn to live WITHOUT credit is the day we learn to earn back our own personal economic freedom.

Thanks for listening, we love all of you and we hope that everyone gets through this
unscathed. We will come out of it banged and bruised but stronger and wiser in the end.
Keep your powder dry.

Good job.
I think the bailout will go through, but it won't do much to change the kind of picture that you paint C.S.
Yeah... they still don't get it. They live in a different world.

Here's what may be underlying the vote, that so many folks don't seem to understand. The quote comes from a maplight.org letter sent out to members. (good site for insight into the greed side of politics.)

Good rant, Jeff. Many thanks for opening your heart and letting the ichor spew forth.

Well then, by your logic, SLAVERY is the lifeblood of our economy.

I must say, I am inclined to agree. And, I might add, has it not always been thus?

StereoMan hopes you're right about that. My shop runnneth empty at the moment.

Averages can be deceiving, itstarted. Your source reports that of the 205 Rep's who voted for the Bill, the average donation from banking businesses was $231,877. However only 65 of the Rep's who voted for the bill were given that much or more, while obviously 140 who voted yes fell below that average amount.

The mean amount contributed to those voting "yes" was $103,000. The mean amount contributed to those voting "no" was $102,000.

Reps. Kucinich and Paul both voted against it.

How didja get that calculation in 3 minutes?

Good point...

Paul $ Kucinich .. looking better every day.

-DUDE!
Wouldn't you love to be able to have a ton of refurbbed Yamaha Natural Sound receivers right about now?

Not necessarily. You have lived a debt free life but how long can you last without a job?

Lower spending means less demand for products and services which means less production by companies (big and small) which means layoffs, which means that even people with no debt could lose their jobs which means that nobody, ABSOLUTELY nobody benefits from a credit crunch (well except those that root for the collapse of society - you know who you are).

For now the economic problems have been felt only in USA and the dollar has suffered since the FED kept interest rates low to stimulate the economy which weakens the dollar. The slowdown has slowly spread to Europe in the past few months and you have seen the dollar gains some strength. As you have witnessed today, the global market is directly correlated to the US market.

If there is no bailout plan I believe we'll see 15-20% unemployment in 2009 in parts of the country.

A lot of business, big and small, fund their payrolls through credit lines... if credit is tight, look for struggling business to close their doors fast.

I mentioned that early on in my post.

No you didn't. I re-read your post and you make it seem that only those that have lived beyond their means will suffer... what I'm saying is that everyone will suffer, including those that have lived modestly.

And BTW, Bernake is correct. Credit has been the lifeline of our economy for quite some time. Why? Because a lot of the assets companies hold are not liquid thus cannot be used to pay for payrolls, raw materials, operating costs etc.

Can you imagine having WEALTH to create 100 cars, you make them, then you have to fire your workers until some if not all of those cars are sold so you have cash to buy raw materials and pay the workers to build more. Whereas, if you use your assets as backing for a loan, you can maintain production while you sell those cars.

I do agree with you that Wall Street has gone crazy since 1999 and the deregulation of a lot of the financial world. Rules have to be implemented to reduce the chance of another collapse. Our government has failed up because they did not take the necessary precautions of limiting the growth during good economic times in order to cushion the fall in the bad economic times.

The bigger the bubble, the bigger the burst... and the real estate bubble was huge.