Showing posts with label stock market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stock market. Show all posts

Monday, September 29, 2008

House Fails to Pass $700 Billion Bail-Out, and Republicans Blame... Nanci Pelosi?!

Classic. The Dow Jones drops 777 points -- a single day worst ever -- after the U. S. Congress fails to pass the $700 Billion economic bail-out package. And who gets blamed by the Republicans, despite the fact that 2/3 of their House members (and 40% of the Democrats) voted against the bill? Nanci Pelosi, Democrat and Speaker of the House. Republican leaders say that her harsh words (as in truth hurts, baby!) caused a dozen or more Republicans who were going to vote "yes" on the bill to change their minds. (If you believe that, I'll sell you Lake Michigan.)

But hey, what did Pelosi actually say? Here's a sample:

"[W]hen was the last time someone asked you for $700bn? It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration's failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system."

"Democrats believe in the free market, which can and does create jobs, wealth, and capital, but left to its own devices it has created chaos."

"Democrats insisted that legislation responding to this crisis must protect the American people and Main Street from the meltdown on Wall Street. The American people did not decide to dangerously weaken our regulatory and oversight policies. They did not make unwise and risky financial deals. They did not jeopardise the economic security of the nation. And they must not pay the cost of this emergency recovery and stabilisation bill."

"Today we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years with the failed economic leadership … We choose a different path. In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future." [from The Guardian]


There's the truth. Handle it.


[Corrected earlier incomplete number of points the market fell to the final 777 point number.]