Now that I am a share holder of AIG, can I go to the board meetings?

Am I going to get any dividends if they do make any profits in the future?

There is ABSOLUTELY no pretense of objectivity on this show – case in point was when the host asked John Taylor whether John McCain was responsible for deregulation and then, in a bad attempt to appear objective, asked Summers if BOTH Democrats and Republicans were responsible. There was no grilling on Mr. Summers like there was of Mr. Taylor.

There wasn’t a single difficult or informed question posed to the Obama supporter, Mr. Summers. Not a single one. I mean c’mon: “what do you think about 12% or 30% hedge fund returns?” What a lame, irrelevant question to a person who is allegedly there to answer questions about Obama’s economic plan.

The only redeeming aspect of the show was that it displayed Mr. Summers’s legendary and career-ending arrogance and nasty disposition when questioning Mr. Taylor.

I’ll keep listening to the show, but also diligently shredding (unopened) all of the WBUR fundraising letters I receive and avoiding Liberty Mutual Insurance. The host reminds me of my colleague who is usually ill informed and makes you feel uneasy by asking long multiple threaded questions which are an attempt to cover up the lack of knowledge or preparation.

Regards,
Jim Mangiaracina

I think it’s an open question how much of this is due to people getting into debt just trying to pay basic survival bills – vs- people stretching unrealistically. I’m sure there are some people who go into debt to pay medical bills but I suspect that’s the minority. I’ll bet most people you see in the shopping malls and at car dealerships are paying with borrowed money.

I have no sympathy for those who have lost a home though speculation, but for those for whom their home is their only residence and they just got in over their heads in an ARM, then we need to help them out

I’ve been a homeowner for 23 years, 3 houses, and maybe 8 mortgages, counting refinances. Every time I’ve looked at ARMs I’ve rejected them as too risky, too unpredictable, too open-ended. Fixed rate mortgages are the only rational choice unless you are a gambler. So, frankly, I don’t have much sympathy for anyone who takes out an ARM.

Talk today about the Bailouts of All Bailouts eased market fears and generated a giant rally on the Street, but how realistic is it?

A better idea would be for the Fed and Treasury to organize a giant workout of Wall Street — essentially, a reorganization under bankruptcy, for whatever firms wanted to join in. Equity would be eliminated, along with most preferred stock, creditors would be paid off to the extent possible. And then the participants would start over with clean balance sheets that reflected new, agreed-upon rules for full disclosure, along with minimum capitalization. Everyone would know where they stood. Bad debts would be eliminated. Taxpayers wouldn’t get left holding the bag. And there would be no “moral hazard” incentive for future financial wizards to take giant risks with other taxpayers’ money.

Apologizes to Robert Reich.

I have no sympathy for those who have lost a home though speculation, but for those for whom their home is their only residence and they just got in over their heads in an ARM, then we need to help them out, plus put in place sensible regulation so that this does not happen again. I favor Obama’s economic policy is that I think he understands that to truly improve the economy, we need to improve the lot of the average American family though lower taxes, better jobs and a better education. Instead of an economy based on consumer debt, we could have an economy based to a greater extent on earnings.

That would have been irresponsible and the economic damage to huge numbers of innocent people and companies would have been extreme.

The fact is that AIG will be sold off but doing it this way will allow that process to be orderly to minimize the amount of collateral damage.

All these right-wingers who moralize about why we shouldn’t be bailing out companies and thus creating moral hazards seem to forget that it’s not just the CEO’s and fat cats who get hurt when these companies fail; it’s the entire economy that’s damaged when these big companies collapse.

I mentioned a simple example yesterday – Evergreen Solar is a small solar cell maker in Marlboro Massachusetts. They’re currently expanding their factory and hiring workers. Lehman Brothers was the lead underwriter for some of their convertible notes and when Lehman disintegrated Evergreen suddenly found that 40 million dollars of their net worth went with it because they had done a stock loan to Lehman as part of the underwrite.

These big securities firms are vital to the funtioning of the economy and letting the crash because they did something bad is cutting off our nose to spite our face.

I have more views on various things then I’m going to list but the 2 foremost topics in my mind are the bail out of AIG and the general economy.

The federal bail out of AIG wether not not a neccessary evil was wrong. We simply cannot ignore the fact that this is a free enterprise country and by removing the possibility of failure the government has given AIG is not only a show of interference in a free enterprize society but a show of favoritism towards those with the most money to be blunt.

I agree with the fact that the government had to take action but I see them bailing AIG out as not only irresponsible but lazy. AIG should have been required to sell off to smaller companies to galvenize a self recovery or to completely fold.

please forgive spelling errors and typos I’ve not much time to write in

I’ve always preferred a flat tax with no deductions for anything, and a high exclusion to protect low-income people. An exclusion means that don’t pay any tax on the first $X, then you pay a flat tax on everything above $X+1.

So say the exclusion was $50K and the rate was 40%. If you make $49K you pay nothing. If you make $60K you pay $4K (=6.7% rate); if you make $100K you pay $20K (=20% rate); if you make $250K you pay $80K (=32%); if you make a $million you pay $399.99K (=40%). So this gives you progressive graduation without the complexity and “bracket creep” introduced by brackets. The actual numbers of course would depend on your revenue goals.

John Taylor completely distorts the impact of Obama’s tax policy.
Enough is Enough.

You can’t run a good government without revenue.

When will people realize this. Of course there has to be a balance, 70 to 90% tax rates are out of control.

This is key. To figure out what seriously confiscatory means instead of just taking the premise that taxes are bad as given. There is a lot that people need to rethink in the Republican economic orthodoxy. They did have their chance to demonstrate the success of their ideology. I don’t think McCain should be getting another try at this. Too costly.

I don’t think even they believe it, but it sells, which is why they keep pushing it. Nobody likes taxes so if you align yourself against something no one likes, it works, politically.

No one can deny that the Republicans are GENIUSES at this stuff. They have systematically cut federal department budgets and replaced career managers with political hacks. The result is high profile failures such as FEMA, and the holes in the FDA’s safety net allowing numerous cases of food poisoning, etc. So no one thinks the government can do anything right, so they’re loathe to give them money. It’s brilliant.

So if I have a hot idea that will make me $5 million does the GOP seriously think that I won’t bother doing it because I’ll only get to keep $3.05 million (39% tax bracket) instead of $3.35 million (33% tax bracket)?

I’ll grant you that seriously confiscatory tax rates like the UK had in the 60’s (70-90%) probably do reduce prosperity because they drive highly productive people to leave. Many of their best businessmen and engineers left for the US, Canada, and Australia then.

I completely agree that the dems are speaking a universal heathcare language because of their corporate masters, its also what people want to hear.

And, “why not credit them?” why not? its a good question. To what extent are we all living in denial?

Whether a Dot com crash or a meltdown of real estate and banking markets, something’s not right in our system. These things have happened under the watch of both parties.

Suppose our next cycle of prosperity is found in energy markets with money going toward viable solutions. What will we do to encourage that growth? Will we prevent the next wave of prosperity by over-regulating or will we let it ride too long again by under regulating? These are tough issues to solve and Mr. Taylor was making some valid points that I would have liked to have heard more of.

Mr. Summers and the Clinton administration take far too much credit for the economic stability of the 90’s without claiming any responsibility for the economic instability that occured well before Clinton cleaned out the Resolute desk.

When Mr. Summers points the finger of blame he should look down at his own hand and count how many fingers are pointing back in his direction.