I believe that voters have certainly been turned off about the proposed bill to help restimulate the economy. I am sure that many voters have called their congressional rep and said “Do not vote for the bill.” With an election cycle coming up, the customer rules and the congressional reps want to be reelected so they voted against the bill. The consumer has not been educated correctly about this bill and most people in Congress are clueless about basic economics.
Congress tries to listen to their constituency but they haven’t been communicating why the bill needed to be passed. Instead, mainstream media has been providing the images and words; calling it a “bailout”; showing reporters down on Wall Street and the NYSE floor; and focusing on a few big banks and investment house failures. The MSM is in NYC and the images are obvious but “lazy and misleading” and have provided the backdrop for this mess.
They also use a sound bite of “Main Street vs. Wall Street.” This is so naive and so typical of folks that have never worked in real industry; run a business; made a payroll; or started a company. More people work in small businesses in the US than Fortune 1000 companies. This mess is at the door of small businesses and consumers now. IT IS NOT about Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers or the NYSE. The connective tissue between Main Street and Wall Street and banks is real time. Banks and Wall Street provide the blood flow for the heart of small businesses and consumers who work and live and borrow money every day.
Instead the imagery and words should be thus:
“Vote for the consumer credit stimulus plan.” We need to pump liquidity back into the system so that consumers and small businesses have a level playing field to compete in today’s economy. If we pump money into the system, banks can make loans again to you and your small businesses.
The imagery should be:
- Of young married adults trying to get a mortgage for their first home and being rejected;
- Of a young adult trying to buy or lease a used car and not getting the deal done;
- Of an older couple seeing their retirement plan get crushed and halting their retirement and travel plans;
- Of a small business owner having his/her receivables financing loan pulled and then having to lay off workers as they can’t make payroll;
- Of a startup company trying to lease some trucks and a warehouse so they can grow and not being approved;
- Of a family trying to get a second mortgage to pay for college for their son or daughter and the money not being made available.
We lost more than ONE TRILLION dollars or net worth yesterday. It all came out of consumers’ pockets. It made getting a loan that much harder. We lost more than the stimulus package would have cost consumers and taxpayers yesterday.
One of my favorite expressions is “Don’t write checks your mouth can’t cash.” This is a prime example.
This isn’t about banks that closed or a few CEOs on Wall Street. This bill is about you and me and small businesses and consumers. I have started a bunch of businesses that try to hire folks and add to the economy. I feel this pain too. I don’t understand how we have bungled the messaging. We need liquidity back in the system and we need a mainstream media that stops trying to communicate BIG IMPORTANT issues with the same tired sound bites and imagery. It isn’t helping – it is hurting!
Just to tie up my previous point about not scaring taxpayers into throwing away their money or there may be unexpected results:
‘In last night’s speech President Bush said “major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse and some have failed. Many banks have restricted lending. Credit markets have frozen. And families and businesses have found it harder to borrow money. We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis.” (HumanEvents.com 9/25/08)’
‘President Bush today encouraged the American people to have confidence in the economy and said the U.S. government is acting to resolve the financial crisis and stabilize the markets. “We are a prosperous nation with immense resources and a wide range of tools at our disposal … We can solve this crisis and we will,” Bush said in remarks from the White House Rose Garden’ (CNN 10/10/08)
So pretty much ignore what I said before, everything’s fine…
Who gave this guy a mic? Oh, I remember now, we did.
NO
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1845209,00.html?cnn=yes
Greedy corporations should not be rewarded. Something must be done, but help the American people – not Wall Street. If a couple of banks go bankrupt, that is their own fault for shady business practices. They are already licking their chops at all this cash we are about to throw at them. After they abuse this, we’ll have to give them more in a year or two.
too many people, both main st and wall st have been living way beyond their means for too long..everything is superinflated, and greed spurred this…we all shared in this to some extent..enough with credit and borrowing..our parents and grandparents taught us the value of saving and living very conservative..about 20 years ago or so, we all stopped listening to the message…when americans realize that an 18 year old car gets you to work the same way a new car does, and that we dont need a “great room” in our house–we need to spend great quality time in ANY room –then we will really truly begin to make a change for the better…ALL OF US…the bottom needs to fall out a little…this plan is not a guarantee to work, so lets try to do without it …or come up with better solutions that do not involve this much government intervention…. like someone else said, we may not understand everything perfectly, it is complicated, but greed and debt led us to where we are…putting more money available for more debt for borrowing is only prolonging the problem.. say NO TO DEBT…ALL DEBT….i have…im a lot happier since i did…
Ted, before we just buy into the need to put taxpayer money behind a system allowed to fail – why don’t we repeal the legislation that allowed or forced lenders to make loans to people that couldn’t pay and indict and prosecute the criminals behind this?
The government should never have to do this – unless they first screwed it up to begin with. Why weren’t all the warnings heeded in the earlier part of this decade?
The fix is not taxpayer backing of poorly managed government and institutions. Fix the problem. Taxpayer money is just a temporary band-aid.
Wait until the government “leaders” are at the same crossroads with the Social Security system – then what? Call on the taxpayers when the taxpayers are already paying … again?
We understand economics – if the taxpayer money is involved then it is a bailout – call it what you want.
Ted,
Best description of what this means to the “little guy” in all of this. I hope the debate preps for Biden and Palin read it and help them get this message out. The other “myth” that needs to be busted is the fact that corporations pay income tax… Consumers do in higher prices and employees do in lower wages…
Have you ever thought of running for office?
Well said Ted, I have been watching the news a bunch recently, and I have seen some of the messages being delivered. However I still don’t think most of the people in this country think that any politician or big business man truly cares about them. When the congress calls a recess during the middle of this (I don’t care what holiday it is, crisis is crisis, and if its not a crisis don’t call it one. If it is a crisis, then treat it like one) and CEO’s get paid millions for failing, most Americans are not going to trust them.
A little background: I’m a graduate student currently writing her thesis, trying to stay alive lifeguarding. I actually got a letter from the Crime and Punishment museum in DC today telling me that they liked my resume, but due to the current economic disaster they couldn’t afford to hire me.
Great, 6 years of higher ed, and the economy screws me out of a job. It just makes me panic a little about how I’m ever supposed to become ‘self sufficient’
Ted,
First, let me say I respect you as a businessman and what you have done for the Capitals.
That said I don’t agree with what you are saying in this post.
I am having a hard time, as I believe a lot of Americans are, right now trying to understand the logic of this “bailout” or “consumer credit stimulus plan”. Either way you slice it, it appears that it is socialization of our financial institutions. The imagery you have proposed smacks of soviet era socialism, playing on our heart strings. I am not, by nature, a callous individual. I tend to be fairly liberal and do not like to see people suffer. I do firmly believe though that we are a nation living on credit. Everything in moderation! Some amount of credit is good but not every person is able to financially afford a car, much less a home. That idea has made bad consumers of us all. Last time I checked the Constitution it does not give the government the power to take our tax dollars and buy up loans that should have never been made. Is it not time to let the market correct it’s self, instead of artificially propping it up? What president are we setting? If the market is natural (or should be) and nature tends to be cyclical then there are periods of highs and lows, the market was back up 4.5% today. We may just have to go through the darkness to see the light at the end of the tunnel and when we come through let’s hope we don’t make the same mistakes we have already made. As Plato said we may have to “dive deep into our dike” to weather this storm.
Teddy, I know, we absolutely need this bill. Wall Street and our president has made sure of that. Middle America has been deeply effected. Not just now but in the future. Our retirement funds are in jeopardy. Many have been cut in half. Call it what you want but we are being blackmailed. GREEDY main street with average incomes and no money down took mortgages of $900,000. GREEDY sales people sold them the mortgages. And then you have THE ULTIMATE GREEDY PROFESSIONAL WHO packaged & resold those “bundles of joy”. Last but not least our government let THE PROFESSION THEIVES lave-rage themselves even more causing this horror show! The professionals need to be prosecuted and put in jail! The rest need to pay up and pay back. They all knew exactly what they were doing, Main Street & Wall Street. These were people and companies without personal limits and no sense of pride. I have worked with many of them. For awhile it was the don’t ask, don’t tell policy, it is the “silent killer”. The ONLY people WHO DIDN’T GET IT WAS THE GUY who every week put 8% percent of his savings into his retirement account, 3% into his children’s college fund and paid as they went. These decent people were driving or walking around their neighborhoods looking at the big houses and big cars saying “where is all this money coming from?” As far as I am concerned they stole it. As someone who was born in the 50′s, I watched my father drive a cab till the wee hours of the morning, stacking his quarters for extras because having debt was unheard of. AND I know YOU GREW UP THE SAME EXACT WAY! Thanks for letting me vent my simplistic point of view. Bring us some good times.
LETS GO CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ted,
Maybe our economy should be based on SAVING instead of crazy spending and debt. If individuals and businesses can’t afford to buy something then maybe they shouldn’t. I hope this self-imposed “crisis” re-teaches people to build equity over long periods of time, instead of speculating to make a quick buck and make debt disappear magically through overvaluation.
Also, you are the best owner in the NHL but please don’t patronize us with this line of “you’re not rich so you don’t understand.” No Ted, we DO understand. It IS a bailout… meant to prop up overvalued properties and keep the house of cards from falling. The wisdom of the American people spoke loud and clear on Monday… we know it will be bad but we can tough it out… but some people need to learn basic lessons the hard way, it seems.
The house of cards NEEDS to crash.
NO BAILOUT, and GO CAPS!!!
I agree for the majority of Americans, we’re seeing these losses as simply coming out of our 401k, or out of some suits on tv, or our pockets didn’t have money to put into the national multi-generational pyramid scheme (see stock market) in the first place.
I agree that to voters like me – who barely squeezed over the rising credit checkpoint barrier in buying my house last month – the in-your-face issue is applying for a loan or credit in general.
I agree with you that it’s those consumers, and small businesses, and not so small businesses that live in the realm where for a moment they need a little (or a lot of) credit from time-to-time to cover a dry patch who are our chief concern.
I really can appreciate that you and the people who make the decisions and their friends, associates, acquaintances, and lobbyists all have money in there. And so it’s natural for some to think purely in terms of the health of wall street and closely related considerations.
I did the math before I saw them do it on TV. $700 Billion. I actually wrote it down and looked at it for a while, you should try it if you haven’t. I also divided it up by a median home price (I made up) of $150k. (When the news did it 3 days later I learned this number was slightly higher).
We want, we need to get this money to people who can use it, using credit ratings that we can trust only for a short while longer.
THIS is what we need a big government agency for. The CIA and FBI didn’t get a second chance, why do mortgage banks and Wall Street?
The government already has controlling stake in Fannie, Freddie, and it’s looking like Tom, Dick, and Harry too before long. How are they going to keep track of all that (pardon my French) shite anyway?! I’m waiting to see that little piece of info come up on my news wires.
Don’t trickle it down Wall Street so they can stuff money in all the cracks to make our portfolios look nice long enough for those parachutes to open.
$700 Billion is way, way too much money to throw at a quick fix. “Everybody” at least agrees we need a fix quickly. But don’t try to scare me into throwing my money away, I’ve seen too much for that in recent years. Desensitized perhaps. One can perhaps only make that work for one election, after that there may be unforeseen adverse effect.
I want to see less money and more brains. Okay, maybe the same money, hell how about more money(?) and I just see some sort of organized, sane, intelligent, coordinated effort that results in a better plan, fast?
All this bright minds and our big master plan is to drive a dump truck to the financial sector and drop a load on it? By the smell of it, somebody’s already beaten us to it.
I am not a particularly smart guy. I just say what makes sense to me, I could certainly be wrong.
p.s. Go Caps
With all due respect, where were the folks from Main Street when the debate was raging? Why didn’t they speak out? Why didn’t they say that the $700b affects us all, and not only the Big Boys? It is clear that the peception in the society was that the money is needed for the Wall Street only. Not until last night was a comprehensive review of “how it affects an ordinary consumer” given.
Shame.
Ted,
you are absolutely right. the media has focused on the bailout of multi millionaire CEOs but in reality how many of them are there? Are they ALL crooks? Mainstreet is being misinformed….mainstreet is being told capitalism is bad and anyone who makes a good living is evil…. The problem is people have not been educated about the economy – how it works and cause and effects. yes it is very complicated but as you point out the imagery our media portrays is misleading at best. Losing 1.2 Trillion in one day hurt more than an investment of 700 billion.
Maybe we need to take a very small portion of that 700 B and put it toward economic education for all – 300/400 million could educate the populace on what it all means and how to better handle your money and improve the everyday lives of mainstreet….