asia, it’s a hard situation. I’m not tring to change your mind or anything but it’s not a black-and-white issue. I run a business working with large, reputable and solvent organizations. Calls to our clients these past couple of weeks to see if there were concerns about what was happening on Wall Street and in the markets. In particular, we have a couple of invoices pending.
Almost universally, they were very concerned. These aren’t casual parties, day traders watching Bloomberg, they’re senior management, accounting and systems people at large organizations trying to operate going-concerns with thousands of employees and work to do. They rely on bank credit and sophisticated cash management practices to operate.
If the crisis had been allowed to spiral out of control, and it still might, the impact on the general economy would have been much greater, possibly catastrophic, in terms of businesses being unable to meet obligations and possibly failing, jobs being lost, supply chains and transportation networks being disrupted, etc, etc.
I’m not supporting “No Banker Left Behind”. I feel incredibly conflicted and am morally disgusted with the bailout. Just saying it’s not an easy issue, and hard to paint in partisan terms — Dems did this, Reps did that, etc. These are not ordinary times.
If it matters, I’m absolutely for Bailout version 2.0 over version 1.0, the “European Version”. US Govt should receive equity in troubled banks with the opportunity to liquidate holdings once the markets regain footing. This is slightly less disgusting than relieving banks of bad loans. Both solutions are pretty much awful though.
