Wall Street May Be Bailing on the Bailout

Arrgh, PMassey, you've posted 2 dumb comments. To set you straight:

Deregulation has nothing to do with the current credit crisis.The current issues revolve around investment banks and the decline in their asset value.It has nothing to do with the deregulation of standard retail banks to allow them to compete nationwide and offer different types of banking products.This deregulation was undertaken to make American retail banks competitive with foreign retail banks.Again, one has nothing to do with the other, unless you are a benighted Democrat partisan believing what Chris Dodd and Barney Frank say.Incidentally, if blame is to be placed, those are the shoulders upon which to place it. Dodd and Frank took below market loans from Countrywide in exchange for...I don't know, could it be looking the other way on Fannie and Freddie's advocacy for and purchase of crappy mortgage loans? Let's also put some blame on the Carter administration, for pushing the Community Reinvestment Act on us in the 1970's. I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, but taxpayer subsidized money, which is what a Fannie and Freddie bought mortgage constitutes, is not, in my opinion, a civil right. If a person can't afford a house, and he or she wants one, then he or she needs to get off their butt, get a better job, save some money, and be responsible with what they earn. Good credit will follow, and a mortgage will follow that.

ExxonMobil and Halliburton make money because that's what corporations do. With respect to EM, its absolute profit is huge because the size of the company is huge. But its marginal profit rate, expressed in terms of percentage, is not so huge. Google, Microsoft, and my local pool builder make enormous profits in terms of percentage (like 20% profits), but not so much in terms of absolute dollars. Why? Because they aren't as big as EM. Apples and oranges - look at % not $ to see who's really making $. Point 2: EM takes huge risks. It is entitled to huge rewards. We should let it make all the money it can, because WE ALL WIN. Who else is going to send people and money and technology to go to every crappy place in the world to bring you the energy you need to power your computer? They get oil off the bottom of the ocean, for heaven's sake. Third point: do you have a pension? Do you own a share of a mutual fund? If so, in all likelihood, YOU OWN EXXON MOBIL. A small piece, yes, but every mutual fund in America holds a ton of EM stock. If they win, you win. Energy stocks are the only thing PAYING pension checks right now.

And if you think Obama has character, I'd like to find the rock you've been living under and crawl under myself. I could use a break from reality. Why don't you do a little reading on Obama and Tony Rezko? How did Obama get that fancy house, and the nice empty lot next door? Why did Mrs. Obama get an enormous raise once her husband got elected to the Senate? Why did her employer get a huge earmark from Obama right off the bat?

J. Coyote of UT 11:57AM September 25, 2008