[RubberMallet]

i'm with you realist this is really hilarious...some of the quotes regarding losing their jobs is just amazing...

what are they saying?

"We're all worried about losing our jobs," Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican, declared in an impassioned speech in support of the bill before the vote. "Most of us say, 'I want this thing to pass, but I want you to vote for it — not me.' "
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26884523/

[Rocketfan]

I like this guys take on things...


Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Congress has balked at the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Under this plan, the Treasury would have bought the "troubled assets" of financial institutions in an attempt to avoid economic meltdown.

This bailout was a terrible idea. Here's why.

The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.

Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.

This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.

Once housing prices declined and economic conditions worsened, defaults and delinquencies soared, leaving the industry holding large amounts of severely depreciated mortgage assets.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/ ... pstoryview

[Hold My Own]

Is anyone else shocked that it only sold for 2 Billion dollars?

[Realist]

Yes, the brand name alone is probably worth half of that, though I'm not sure if it was included in the deal. It was highway robbery regardless though.

[4everfsu]

Yes, I thought I read the bank was worth 100 billion.

[Hold My Own]

4,400 locations....I wonder out of all of them how many Wach actually owns compared to lease