Marketplace

Wow - after paging (starting to) through ~500 pages and reading a few of these garbage legalese pages, I hope our Representatives vote this down.

I am an Oregonian and I don’t think Rep. Defazio gets the severity of the problem and is voting like he doesn’t. Today IBM had to release statements about their creditworthiness…IBM! They are about as far away from the source of the mortgage crisis as you can get but their ability to access the credit markets is being effected. If “main street” companies who employee “main street” voters are not able to access the credit markets and fund their operations in a proper fashion then Rep. Defazio and all the others can explain their voting record to their unemployed “main street” constituents. The average American doesn’t understand the crux of the issue, They don’t understand credit spreads, TED spreads, LIBOR, Credit Default Swaps and how they all effect the workings of the global economy. They only hear about million dollar severance packages and overly tanned investment bankers making millions. We are a sound byte nation and I don’t think most people get it. Rep. Defazio is supposed to understand it for them and act accordingly so that the employers of his voters can keep their businesses going.

When IBM, GE, Verizon, Caterpillar, Dupont and many other companies have to used their lines of credit because the commercial paper and credit markets are frozen then Rep. Defazio, and by extension his voters, has a problem.

Kai,

I’m surprised no one has picked up on the fact that Congress is calling this rescue program “TARP” (Troubled Assets Relief Program) — like, after the financial hurricane has blown away your roof, what sort of emergency federal aid are you likely to expect?