Skip to main content

Postscript to the bailout madness

As we noted in an update to yesterday's post, the US House rejected a Treasury-sponsored $700 billion bailout bill that would have would have given Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson "broad authority" to purchase mortgage-backed junk paper from financial companies.

Part of the reason the bill failed in the House was the overwhelming response from Americans incensed at the proposed deal. Voters flooded their congressmen with mail, faxes, and phone calls, with many voicing their strong disapproval of the proposed bailout.

As a result, the tide surprisingly turned against congressional planners and unelected officials who had pushed for the bailout, some of whom shamelessly paraded the plan as a "rescue of Main Street", when in fact it is anything but that, especially when one examines the longer-term costs of such a rescue.

Unfortunately, the bailout proposal will not die so easily. The stock market is enjoying a rebound today, as news of a hoped-for salvaging of the bank bailout/"rescue plan" emerges.

That's why I'd like to point out Mish's recent posts, "Courageous Vote in the House", and, "The Bailout Failed. What's Next?", in which he urges readers to continue voicing their disapproval for any related bailout package.

If you are so inclined, please take a look at the information Mish has provided for contacting your elected officials about these soon to be voted on bailout measures. You can also pass this information along very easily to your friends and contacts in the media. The choice is yours!

Related posts and articles:

1. "Jim Rogers says let banks fail, clean out system" - Bloomberg.

2. "Stocks tumble, bonds rally on bailouts" - Finance Trends Matter.

3. "Comments on the bailout bill" - Finance Trends Matter.

4. "The Bailout Reader" - Mises.org.

Popular posts from this blog

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety .  My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes .    Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes     2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4.

Slate profiles Victor Niederhoffer

Slate's recent profile of writer/speculator, Vic Niederhoffer has been getting some attention from traders and finance types in recent days. I thought we'd take a look at it here too, to offer up some possible educational value from Vic's experiences with trading and loss. Here's an excerpt from Slate's profile of Victor Niederhoffer : " I've enjoyed getting your e-mails. It sounds like you've thought a lot about being wrong. Well, the reason you contacted me, to call a spade a spade, is that I'm sort of infamous for having made a big, notorious, terrible error not once but twice in my market career. Let's talk about those errors. The first was your investment in the Thai baht, which pretty much wiped you out when the Thai stock market crashed in 1997. I made so many errors there it's pathetic. I made one of my favorite errors: "The mouse with one hole is quickly cornered." That is key. There are certain decisions you make in li

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean