How's That Bailout Working So Far?

We are being played for fools.

The financial industry is getting billions of dollars, for what? So that they can fire people, that’s what. I thought the idea of the bailout was to help save people’s jobs.

From Bank of America to cut up to 35,000 jobs:

Bank of America Corp said on Thursday it plans to eliminate 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over three years after it completes its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co).

The cuts could affect about 11 percent of the combined companies' roughly 308,000-person workforce. Bank of America employs about 247,000 people and Merrill about 61,000.

I wonder what will happen if the government bails out the auto industry.

Bailout Blues

George W. Bush and Henry Paulson and Congress don’t seem like the U.S. Cavalry to me.

From Stock crunch deepens by Aaron Smith:

Stocks were in for a bruising Monday after a deepening financial crisis in Europe heightened worries about a global economic slowdown.

The S&P, Dow and Nasdaq futures - trading that gives an indication of how stocks may move in the early going - were sharply lower about one hour before the open. That followed a broad sell-off around the world on Monday.

Japan's Nikkei index plunged 4.3% to close at a four-year low. European indexes - the Britain's FTSE 100, Germany's Xetra DAX 100 and France's CAC 40 - were down about 5% as investors looked beyond the bailout, focusing instead on Europe's growing crisis.

"It's this fear factor ... continuing to grow," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for Avalon Partners. "It's becoming like a cancer which is spreading all over the place."

From U.S. bank failures almost certain to increase in next year:

Here's a safe bet for uncertain times: A lot of banks won't survive the next year of upheaval despite the U.S. government's $700 billion rescue plan to restore order to the financial industry.

The biggest questions are how many will perish and how they will be put out of their misery, whether it's outright closures by regulators scrambling to preserve the dwindling deposit insurance fund or in fire sales made under government pressure.

Congress does what Bush and Paulson want, and things get worse. You guys are doing a heck of a job. Perhaps McCain needs to cancel his campaign, not just postpone it.

Blind Faith

This doesn’t sound good. Here’s what blind faith in capitalism will get you.

From Regulators seize troubled IndyMac by Catherine Clifford and Chris Isidore with Roddy Boyd:

In what could turn out to be the most expensive bank failure ever, troubled mortgage lender IndyMac Bank was taken over by federal regulators on Friday.

The operations of the Pasadena, Calif.-based bank - once one of the nation's largest home lenders - were shut down at 3 p.m. by the Office of Thrift Supervision and transferred to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

According to the FDIC, 10,000 IndyMac customers could lose as much as $500 million in uninsured deposits. The agency says the failure will cost the Deposit Insurance Fund between $4 billion and $8 billion, based on preliminary estimates.

From the same article, here’s what blind faith in government will get you.

Even efforts to prop up the bank hurt it. Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote a series of letters to regulators in Washington and California asking them to take steps to prevent the bank's "likely collapse." In response, about $100 million in customer deposits has been withdrawn from the bank, according to one of its filings.

Don’t get me started on what blind faith in religion will get you. That could overtax the whole intertube system. One thing it does get you is people like Bill Donohue trying to get other people fired.

Blind Faith was once a pretty good rock band, and that’s the only positive thing I’m going to say about it.