Comments on: What $700 billion could buy

By: Tashina Grau

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By: What $700 billion could buy « The Swarm

What $700 billion could buy « The Swarm — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:19:02 +0000

[...] $700 billion could buy 2009 March 16 by theswarm What $700 billion could buy « BuzzMachine: “What $700 billion could buy We’re spending $700 billion to bail out the idiots who got us [...]

By: starryann

starryann — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:49:34 +0000

Hello again, if you have not checked out C – span you really should, it is really interesting to listen in and see just how disconnected these people are. They are trying to remedy the problem after the horse has left the barn so to speak. There seems to be no common sense these days. What came out today was that basically the stock market or business interests were basically running the equivalent of a gambling operation and they lost the bet. The government is now wondering if they should not have regulated these people better, I would say that is a little late now. It was also sickening to hear how much these CEO’s got in their golden parachutes, it was more than the average person would ever see in a life time. On top of that one of them not only walked away with a parachute but is even now getting a million dollars to consult, and he was in one of the companies that got in trouble. Something very wrong there. I think one mistake everyone made including home owners was to treat home ownership like a bank account, of course encouraged by those who stood to make millions from them. Homes should be places to live and make memories. People bought into the real estate story buy a home live in it a couple of years if that and then sell it for as high as possible which made a home a business instead of a living necessity. The cost of a place to lay your head in the last few years with these types of thinking have become astronomical. Places that were not even mansions going into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Homes and mortgages should not be part of the stock markets portfolio. We need to get back to the idea that a home is shelter not big business. We have some basic needs some of which are shelter, food, clothing, and others. We should not put the necessities of living up for sale so to speak. It was clear to me from watching C -span that we need some very strict regulation of big business and banks. It in my opinion is also a bad practice that our government has of tacking a bill they can not pass any other way onto another bill that does pass. A good example is all the stuff they attached to the bail out that had nothing to do with it, like the arrows and rum. I think we need to let government know that everyone needs to change the way they do business. When they put a bill forward only that bill should be considered and by the appropriate group. What I mean by this is that a bill pertaining to agriculture should never go through the transportation department to get passed. On C-span they mentioned something about the fact that a bill on regulating business weak though it was had gone through the agriculture to get passed. Would one not think that to pass a bill regulating banking and business you would at least want it in the judicial branch. This happens more than people know, you can’t get a bill passed on it’s own so even though an agricultural bill has nothing to do with it you attach your bill to it so it will be easier to pass hopefully. This is a simplification of how things work but it would be like saying you can’t get an A in math so you take a science class so you can pass math. Bottom line you still don’t know math but you passed.

By: Andy S

Andy S — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:32:52 +0000

We could purchase 2.5 Milligrams of Antimatter…

It is the most expensive substance on Earth, at a cost of $300 Billion per Milligram!

By: starryann

starryann — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:31:10 +0000

Oh and remember they were saying that if we bailed out one group then others would want bailed out. Well now California the state is saying they may need 7 billion to bail them out and meet their budget so where does it stop now that we have opened the door. Guess.

By: starryann

starryann — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:17:39 +0000

Well folks if you have been paying attention we now have tax breaks for childrens wooden arrows, rum, keeping movies in the US, Nascar and several others thanks to the bailout bill. So are they saying we should give our children weapons and rum send them to the movies and a race in place of the american dream that no longer exists. If everyone is smart they would check out exactly which of their congressmen and senators voted for this insane bill and when it is time for re election which it soon will be for many give them a vote they deserve, a vote of no confidence and vote their butts out that’s one power we do have and believe me when it comes time, I will not be voting for those who supported this bill. We need a government enema so we can get rid of these people who are in big business pocket. If you have been following the news big guys pulled out the heavy guns and twisted arms in government to ram this home. We need to stand up and demand that government not be in a position where they are beholden to big business. We should demand that big business in no way contribute to the election coffers of our representatives in washington. I noticed on C- span they the house were talking about how it affected small business, large business and wallstreet but not the people out here who keep those businesses going by spending our money there. It seems there is a total disconnect from reality in Washington as far as a regular persons problems go. Something else the stock market actually went down and has been wildly fluctuating. They also admit we are in a deep recession and that it will get worse before it gets better. Everyone should find out who their representatives are and tell them exactly how much we need childrens arrows and rum, not to mention wall street. Petitions with millions of signatures comes to mind.

By: Mae

Mae — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:40:49 +0000

So dissapointing…irresponsible financial action and recklesness, those bank and rich people get paid billions, while hard working families and future grandchildren are going to pay for the $700 they passed.

All those taxes they are going to TAKE out of you and your children’s paycheck just to cover the greedy billion.

JACK UP PRICES again so some of you rich people can get more greedy! Banks/wealthy folks benefits from all of this, get bailed out of their OWN DEBT!!!…Shoot all we need is $95,000 to pay-off our bills, so where is our APPLICATION and BAILING us on our DEBT?

By: Mae

Mae — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:38:05 +0000

It is already very depressing how many young soldiers died in Iraq and money wasted there, yet they keep sending MORE of our soldiers, RIP bless those families who lost their loved ones.

Now this $700billion. What else is next? So sad…

By: Datdude_AG

Datdude_AG — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:53:06 +0000

What we are buying are mortgage backed securites that have been deemed at risk. This may include sub-prime and some good loans. 10% of all loans are subprime. 1.2trillion. That loss is not that great becuase if they fail, someone will buy them. Even so that would not demand a bailout.

The real reason behind the bailout is not those bad loans. It is the 62 trillon that would be paid to people that bet that this would happen. Through credit default swaps, you can profit when someone defaults on a loan. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6495.html

By: starryann

starryann — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:00:22 +0000

I think the bailout should not happen, look what happened after 9/11 when there was such a rush to fix things fast. Now they are trying to rush this big cash bailout through before anyone can get a good look at just what it is.
Everyone should check out C-Span it really opens one’s eyes to how they handle things. Last night one of the participants stated that the 7 billion was an arbitrary amount picked out of the air by paulson. Everyone should contact their representatives and let them know how the american people really feel about this. If enough people protest they will listen especially since many of them are coming up for re election. Here are some who were on C- span that you should contact to protest the bailout. Representative Balart, Mcgovern, Sessions, slaughter, hastings, jackson lee, and pelosi. can go to http://www.speaker.gov think it gives info or maybe can contact them not sure. Here is a phone number Lou Dobbs posted on his news cast and it is good you can reach them through this number (202) 224 – 3121 I also heard that the chamber of commerce was pushing for the passage of this bill. Everyone should contact their local chamber of commerce and tell them that it is not appropriate for the group to be twisting arms on capitol hill to bailout crooks who caused the problems in the first place. Apparently big business lobby is in full swing on this and putting pressure on representatives who they have an relationship with. Hearing this just makes it more apparent that we need to get some good regulations going both on business and government. Big business should not have so much power in washington that they can twist arms. I would say it is time for seperation of business and government. How can our government be for the people when they are beholden to big business, to me this seems a conflict of interest and something that needs changed. I would hope that everyone who objects to this bail out would contact washington and let them know it is not acceptable to bail out the one’s who caused the problem. Here is another interesting thought why do they not try some of the alternatives i have heard talked about first before spending billions? Could there be ulterior motives that have nothing to do with wallstreet one wonders. If one has free reign and no checks well the possibilities are unlimited, one just might disappear with a few friends who is to say what could happen given human greed. At the very least it certainly will not be used for those who really need it, the american people who are hurting in this economy. Now there is a thought bail out the public who has been hurt rather than those who caused the problem, what a novel idea and it would do some good.

By: Laisseraller

Laisseraller — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:16:19 +0000

The speed-of-light measurement was off by a factor of nearly 100.
The technology of the era was not up the task. With new technology came new calculations for the speed of light path traveled in a vacuum one meter length is 1/299 792 458 of a second.
One day a Zen master was walking in the jungle and came across a large man eating tiger charging behind him, in a split second the made the decision to run down the path to escape the man eating tiger, suddenly he was at the end of the path which was a edge of a shear drop cliff dropping a long way to jagged rocks, so below which would be a sure death. So, the Zen master was faced with being eaten by a large man eating tiger or jumping off the cliff to sure death! The Zen master looked at the edge and notice a small vine at the edge of the cliff growing over the edge, with a split second decision he decided to use the frail vine to get over the edge of the cliff. The frail vine began to give way and the Zen master was falling to sure death to the jagged rocks below, when he notice a fresh beautiful bright red strawberry growing on the cliff right in front of him, the last thought from the Zen master was this is got to be the best tasting strawberry he has ever had. The economy would be the Man-eating tiger and the frail vine is the rescue or bailout plan. The strawberry is the pork barrel attached to the rescue or bailout plan.
Local Entrepreneur is selling Caps & T-shirt with the logo “Got $700 billion?” http://www.cafepress.com/092308

By: Big Numbers, Better Context Redux « mere pixels

Big Numbers, Better Context Redux « mere pixels — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:30:06 +0000

[...] Jeff Jarvis @ Buzzmachine excerpt: We could buy 3.5 billion One Laptop Per Child machines. Want world peace and understanding? Give one to every Muslim on earth and every citizen of China (or since China can afford them, make that everyone in India or everyone in Africa and South America combined) and you’d still have more than 500 million machines left over. [...]

By: Periodismo Ciudadano

Periodismo Ciudadano — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:26:56 +0000

[...] Jarvis, se pregunta en BuzzWord ¿Qué podrían comprar 700 billones de dólares?. Citando fuentes de Sprint, Jarvis afirma que con [...]

By: JRM

JRM — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:25:08 +0000

So, wait a minute…

You would rather have wireless internet access across America, rather than saving hundreds of millions of people’s retirement money, savings, and education funds (internationally, might I add? This doesn’t affect only the United States) You seem very misinformed.

I do agree with you that the companies who got us into this mess in the first place should not be let off so easily, however, is it really their fault? Who was it in the first place that bought these houses with insanely inflated prices and then walked away from their mortgages? That’s right, ordinary people.

By: Mark Baxtrem (UK)

Mark Baxtrem (UK) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:14:10 +0000

bomber it would take 1200 missions to drop it all at maximum payload into the fiancial abyss that is wall street and frankly do just as much good as spending it buying worthless “toxic instruments”.

Bax.

By: Mark Baxtrem (UK)

Mark Baxtrem (UK) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:11:58 +0000

Does anyone realise just how huge $700 billion actually is?

If converted into dollar bills the sum would be 650,321 meters square – enough to fill wall street to a depth of 26 meters (85 feet) assuming Wall street is half a kilometre in length and 50m wide.

If you were to load the sum into a B52

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:03:46 +0000

Believe me, if Wall St cant sell this crap, we should not touch the stuff.

That bill better not pass!!!

Frank

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:20:44 +0000

Is this sucker really gonna go down if the bailout doesn’t happen?

What happened to Section 8 (the controversial all-powerful treasury secretary provision in the bill) – is it still there?

Anyone?

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:48:29 +0000

I hope nobody’s surprised by the bailout attempt. I mean the role of the State is to protect the interest of the ruling class. This protection comes from multiple branches of the State, including the law makers (Congress). This is why slavery was legalized, the forced removal of indigenous people was codified into American law, and labor restrictions have intensified against all working people. America has been built in the interest of the rich minority and on the backs of the poor and oppressed masses with the help of the State’s laws. This hasn’t changed in the past 200+ years and never will change without a change in the ruling class or the abolition of the State.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:28:16 +0000

700 billion
you know this is just for the rich. what is it 15% (i dont have the numbers) a realy fast and easy fix. that would but REAL money into the ecomy s this. theres roughly 300 mill people in the US. give them all 1 mill $. take out back taxes of coures. then take out an income tax and out in a flat 3% tax on income. across the board!!
you get rid of tax dodging everyone pays there fair share. and the irs would be done with,BUT we could have a national health care system. bailing out people that make 100k+ a year were most of the american populatiion is scraping buy with 40k doesnt make sense.
if every let say working american was given 1 mill dollars instead of the credit companies and investores. that would
#1 bail us out of debt
#2 increase cash flow into the current economy
#3 bail out even the rich of the current month – month crisis of paying bills
# 4 would spur investments in 6 months (once the confidence is back up with XMAS shoping with this 300 million)
if the small business doesnt see the short term effect then they will fail.
bailing out the large business that screwed the average home buyer and credit .
so why bail out these firms that gave credit with big balloon payments or so call GUARNTEES that an intrest rate would go up. laws were broke and they should fail.
if the dollars whould put into the public with some measure too make sure that the debits were paid with it. and THEN MAKE SURE that credit was not thrown out like free pass. then and only then can we get out of this “debresion” like state

By: Dayne Crowley

Dayne Crowley — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:55:58 +0000

and sorry, I appear to not be able to spell totaled correctly. Or around for that matter.

By: Dayne Crowley

Dayne Crowley — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:53:29 +0000

Try this on for size. The entire set of NASA projects leading from mercury to the last apollo flight made totalled areound $100 billion in 1994 dollars. the actual Apollo flights totalled around 17.5 billion. split up between the 17 apollo missions, these cost around a billion dollars a pop. figuring 1$ in 94 currency is about 5 today, im just making up numbers here, but, thats about $5 billion per mission. 700/5 = 140 rockets sent to the moon. we are not talking tax breaks here, we are talking lunar colonies. $700 billion is alot of money, and I personally would have been upset to see it go to mismanaged companies.

By: Ethan Bloch

Ethan Bloch — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:25:03 +0000

@Les Hull $1 million to every American would be $300,000,000,000,000, that’s $300 Trillion. Even if you give $1 million to every household, it’s still over $100 trillion dollars. I get what you are saying, but lets not get giddy and think this is going to cost less then $1 million per American. It’s actually less then $2500 per American.

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:17:49 +0000

Pay cutts on all government jobs from pres. down….congress. Do you know what these idiots make??? Look at the country now???
Open your eyes America!

By: Mike Bainhauer

Mike Bainhauer — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:52:40 +0000

Instead of bailing out the scumbag bankers, let’s use this money to for several other things that our country needs such as: 1) Alternative energy 2) Drilling/ Exploration 3) buy a large island and send all violent convicts there 4) create maglev trains all over the USA 5) Develop more rail to trails as well as bike lanes (the roads are far too unsafe and Americans are getting too fat–and this isn’t new technology, but using your noggin (go look at European and esp. the Germans and see how wonderful this form of transportation is) 6) Develop re-usable packaging to eliminate waste 7) Develop communities with “town centers” where people can walk to a store or children can walk to school Encourage people to grow there own food. And I almost forgot, buy another large island for the bankers, lawyer, and politicians–there all the SAME. No, better yet, put them on the same island as our violent criminals–I got my money on the criminals (100% chance of winning since they are all criminals, however, it’s just that some steal money with a pen and other’s with a gun. Just my thoughts, Mike