The AIG deal was a ~BIG~ push toward Socialism not to mention possibly the biggest push in generations.
Paulsen and Bush are pushing for more tax payer bailouts this weekend ,not to mention possibly more nationalizing of insurance and the banking industries.

???What do you think is gonna happen???

and do you worries lie more with how we fix this???

or how we let it get to this point in the first place?

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Bush is asking for a 700 "B"illion dollar bailout.

General News - Bush asks Congress for $700 billion for bailout

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Both.

While reading this article, my pocketbook started hurting. Let's face it -- in the long run, taxpayers are going to be stuck paying the bill. But what happens if nothing is done? Will it make it worse for the country? I'm not economically savvy enough to know the answer.

It really worries me how we got into this situation. It boils down to greed and denial from both the lenders and the consumers. It frustrates me that lenders made it so easy for people to borrow money. I remember way back in the 70's when my parents were buying homes, it wasn't super-easy to get a loan. Plus, if I remember rightly, people had to put 10%-20% down. There were none of these no down payment mortgages. The loan process was difficult for a good reason -- lenders didn't want to take on bad risks. It also frustrates me that consumers didn't do their homework and understand what they were getting themselves into.

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"Ala-Freakin'-Bama, Roll Tide Roll!" ~ Trace Adkins

This is a huge blow to the free market. This is going to prevent the success of smaller companies with smarter heads to come up.

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* Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it's realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.

~Ron Paul

I think at this point the bailout has to happen or else the markets will really go south. That could result in a severe recession. So they are doing what they have to do, but I'm really, really unhappy about it. They should do the minimum bailout possible to keep the economy from slipping severely.

It angers me that the roots of all this is in the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac problem, the fault of which lies, imo, largely with the Congress and Senate and HUD. In the old days banks didn't give risky loans regardless of how much the customer may have convinced themselves they could afford them. But with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae there to buy up those risky loans, banks didn't have to worry about whether the customer could repay. Once they sold it to FMFM, repayment wasn't their concern.

Where were the banking regulatory committees in Congress and Senate? Were the heads/members of those committees taking lobbying money from Fannie/Freddie, then resisting legislation to regulate them more heavily? Where's the Congressional investigation like there was for Enron?

Hmmm....I guess I don't necessarily think of the bailout as moving towards socialism. Last night I watched a bunch of the financial "talking heads" on TV and they all said we had to do that and that it had been coming for MANY years.

But I DO think we're moving towards socialism in the more traditional sense as we move towards socialized medicine, redistribution of wealth, more taxes for higher earners to fund others, etc.

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