Brian Conley, Video Journalist
Hey there, you've found Brian Conley's tumblog. I'm an inveterate traveler, independent video journalist, producer, and filmmaker. Oh, and I run http://aliveinbaghdad.org
Is this complicated?
I think we could also do a better job of explaining that it’s not $700 billion just being given away. We may make money on he deal. Or, at the very least, the financial industry can be made to reinburse the taxpayers via legislation that “recoups from the financial industry an amount equal to the shortfall in order to ensure that the Troubled Asset Relief Program does not add to the deficit or national debt.”
It is not perfect, but the amount of demagoguery against the plan is not justified given the alternative, in my opinion.
Quite right.
You’re right, there does need to be a better explanation of what exactly Wall Street needs. But I’ve got another good idea, Wall Street and the Fed should show a little gratitude for the money. All I’ve heard so far are veiled threats at our way of life if we don’t comply with what they want.
Instead they should be thanking all of us tax payers who pay on time, and all of us who aren’t pulling their money out of the banks. Remember what your mother said, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Look, the question is, how do we hold the bastards responsible. This whole mortgage thing reminds me of a lending scam that was prevalent in the depressed neighborhoods of Cocoa FL where my mother owned a daycare center. Basically car dealerships would lease to own at exorbitant rates to locals. These predatory loans eventually screwed the receiver, at which point the lender repossesses the car. Rinse, repeat.
Unfortunately its not so easy to repossess a house and flip it to another buyer, especially after you’ve already made predatory mortgage agreements with all the other potential buyers. Further, the analogy fits in that the same groups of people were targeted, those with low-incomes, low financial know-how, and with no other options.
I guarantee you, if the federal government perp-walked a few of the worst offenders out or, ideally, all of them, people would be happier to support the “bail-out.”
People need to go to jail over this. Predatory lending started this, and it should be illegal. Send people to jail and send the latest version of the bill back to the House.
On the cynical end, I’m not sure that poor latinos, african-americans, and whites are particularly valued constituencies in Washington, and I recognize the “send the fuckers to jail” scenario isn’t likely to get traction.
