Gov. Eliot Spitzer's eerie prediction on our current economic crisis, written Feb, 08!
"When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

(My take is that Lenders suckered average folks into mortgages which they could afford at first, then Lenders raised their monthly rate to an amount they could no longer afford! Because there were no Regulations or Oversight, those houses were then foreclosed on and then re-sold again to some other unsuspecting victim, until the whole deck of cards has collapsed. What is compelling, is that before the total collapse, CEO's pay themselves millions, sometimes billions as compensation pay for the said collapse!)

For instance, "In 2007, Wall Street's five biggest firms-- Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley - paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves." From ABC's Political Punch

Ezra: the vote against is a good thing. It doesn't mean that we have "a political system in paralysis." Rather, it means that we can move on to all of those Plan B's that you and other progressive writers have been talking about -- plans that comprehensively regulate the dangerously unregulated sectors, that only give bailout money to firms that need it by using executive compensation and other tests to filter out freeriders, that attack the problem of frozen credit instead of the symptom of falling share prices. A bill will eventually pass -- just not not today, and just not the crippled, overly compromised bill that no one really wanted.

"What happens then?"

The whole system collapses, the Republicans and Democrats join the Nazis and Soviets on the ashheap of history, and we can begin to build a modern country and economic system.

Thanks to all those who voted against this. All progressives and those who care about America are very, very grateful. Don't let them bulldoze into reconsidering.

U.S. = failed state.

If the Democrats have to carry all the water it needs to be THEIR BILL that passes, not Bush and Paulson's. That's the way it works in ANY political system. Nothing "unhealthy" about it- just common sense.

Do stop talking like David Broder, for chrissakes. It just makes you sound like an idiot.

"More Republicans voted to kill the bill than did Democrats"

You're falling into the false equivalency. 67% of House Republicans voted AGAINST the bill. 60% of House Democrats voted FOR the bill. One party has a bunch of grown-ups, and the other has a bunch of adolescent cranks who don't understand that running the country requires making tough decisions and not throwing a tantrum just because someone hurt your feelings.

This is fantastic news! The bailout was a sell-out...Steve LaBonne is exactly right, to hell with bi-partisanship and compromises with a financial elite...the Democrats should create a bill that they own and let the Republicans attack it for being "socialist", I can't see how that term is much to fear given the overt failure of capitalist logic and rules. They have the majority, use it.

Best,

Will

And, at the Friday debate, McCain said that his big contribution to the crisis was to work with the House Republicans.

Now he has to own this failure.

Really, this is just asinine. On what possible grounds is a vote against a terrible, pandering, possibly ineffective bill a failure of politics? Even people who think a bailout is necessary (Krugman, DeLong) believe there are better options and that the country is not going to fall apart in the next 48 hours. Comparing it to global warming is even more stupid. There is no consensus on the bailout remotely as strong as that for global warming. And in case you have forgotten, it's not "politics" but republicans that have been fucking that up as well. Jesus, you're starting to sounds like Gingrich.

At 2:47PM, the time of publishing this post, the Dow Jones was at 10,604 points, down 535 points from the previous day's close.

At 2:47PM, the time of publishing this post, the Dow Jones was at 10,604 points, down 535 points from the previous day's close.

I agree. the bailout was a bad bill put forward by Bush and Co.

I'm relieved it didn't pass. The fact it didn't pass may have saved the dems a dozen house seats in November. If dems are gonna risk their careers (again!) they better make sure it clearly helps VOTERS not the wall street elite.

To the dem leadership...TAKE A DEEP breath!

Though Ezra is right about the paralysis of our system,I think this is a good thing that the bill failed on its first go round. It will force Americans in general and GOP politicians who are currently throwing temper tantrums to sober up and realize the pain that not passing a bill will cause.

Right now there are a lot of people out there who really believe that either the "crisis" is made up, or that the pain will not affect Main Street.

A huge drop in the DOW is necessary to shut them up. Then we can do something more constructive, hopefully.

This is definitely good news but it's only really good news if the Dems come back with a bill like I describe here. Sorry to link to myself but I typed it once already.

Above all, don't panic. The GOP did the right thing for the wrong reasons. Now we have to force the Dems to do the right thing, which is to tie the crises on Wall St and Main St together and act on both at the same time. That will be a much harder sell given who they are and who owns them.

And by the way, If Obama gets elected, this is what we'll be faced with for four or eight years - get used to it - and learn to love pushing back against your team. They aren't really your team anyway.

This is spot-on, Ezra -- great post.

To the naysayers, as the commercial paper markets seize over the next couple of days, as valuations of mortgage assets continue to decline because of a lack of market participants and send more institutions into a capital-requirements tailspin because of mark-to-market requirments, and when a host of companies large and small are forced to declare BK because they can't meet payroll and basic operating expenses, then we'll be in better shape. Hooray for mindless populism! Let's take it to those Wall St fatcats!

Something's got to be done to get confidence back into the market, and the time to act is last week. No one loves this bill.

As Felix Salmon pointed out, the nay votes are a free-rider problem.

For those of you quoting Krugman, here's his analysis:

"I don’t think the Dem leadership was in a position to craft a bill that would have achieved overwhelming Democratic support, so make or break was whether enough GOPers would sign on. They didn’t....So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.
As a friend said last night, we’ve become a banana republic with nukes."

This is a dangerous moment. There was never any hope of ramming through a perfect Democratic bill. It would be nice if there had been. Now maybe we'll get something different. Hopefully better. Possibly worse. Potentially after an incredible amount of wealth has been wiped out, and a lot of pain spilled over the walls of the financial sector. Democrats didn't "win" today, and they're not likely to score a major victory tomorrow. All the economists I respect -- Krugman included -- think the country is facing a serious economic threat. Hopefully they're wrong.

I agree with several commenters that this is not necessarily a bad thing. The idea that "The opposition did not fear their party but their voters" could be instead be expressed as, politicians were in the main responding to the will of their constituents. Of course, this is not necessarily a GOOD thing either -- but Ezra's doomsday tone is misplaced, I think. Hundreds of billions of dollars, a little bit of it out of my pocket, a little bit out of Ezra's, a massive amount of money. Why not take a little more time?

And why not see if the Democrats in Congress can REALLY show leadership?

Although I also lament Congress's modern impotence, its inability to pass big legislation --- particularly in emergency situations --- I can't help but wonder if that's what the Framers intended? They didn't want major, sweeping change to come overnight, and so they built all kinds of checks and balances into our Constitution. Here, we had an arguably crucial bill up at bat, one over which even supporters were holding their noses. Perhaps down the road, today's vote will come to be an example of our constitutional system working, putting the breaks on instead of rushing ahead in a "sky is falling" manner.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about all this, but I think I was secretly hoping the bill would fail thereby giving the legislature more time to think through other options. They now have a chance to think. Let's hope they don't squander it.

p.s. Ezra, I don't think you sound like David Broder.

And why not see if the Democrats in Congress can REALLY show leadership?

Because I think we all know the answer.

The next bill will pass by being more GOP-friendly.

I would love to see a truly progressive bill put forward, BUT...we still don't have a Democratic President to sign it into law. Given that limitation, the question is can enough teeth be put into this bill that more progressives will support it without losing a corresponding number of GOP.

We are at the tail end of a sordid story of unbridled greed and deregulated markets. We progressives can win this argument, I would just rather see it made on something other than the ashes of our collective fortunes.

The Republican Party has just sent word that it is run by utter ideological fanatics, who would rather see the economy collapse than see the government get involved in it's recovery.

I hope all of the blogospheric fools on the Democratic side now finally get it, and will rally behind Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama - who all support the bailout. Those figures have actually showed political leadership and courage in standing up to the pseudo-progressive populist rabble-rousers, economically illiterate keyboard kooks and tinfoil-hat conspiracy mongers on their own side to garner Democratic support for a flawed but necessary bill.

If your member of Congress voted against the bill, call that member's office and tell her or him to vote for the bill when it is reintroduced.

And it is delusional to think that the House is going to be able to get the votes to pass a new bill packed with the entire progressive wish list. For every Democratic vote picked up, two Republican votes will be lost. This whole debate has been bogged down by crazy notions on the left that we should cram a whole New Deal II into a bailout bill designed primarily to prevent credit markets from freezing up. We have months, and a whole damn Obama administration, to enact the next progressive era. And that agenda needs to be well thought out and debated, not just scribbled into the bailout bill as a bunch of half-baked amendments.

I hope the US public draws the clear lesson from this debacle: If they want any kind of practical, activist legislation from the next Congress, they had better elect a whole boatload of Democratic senators and representatives. Otherwise they are going to get more of the same stupidity, inaction and reckless ideological fanaticism that they got today from the Republican Party.

To be fair to Ezra, I believe he's questioning whether anything can be done. I'm for the Swedish Plan or no bailout at all, and I think that the latter is now more likely than the former or any progressive bill. However, I also thought that this bill would pass.

538.com is reporting that although representatives in relatively safe seats broke more or less 50/50 for and against the bailout, representatives in swing districts voted overwhelmingly against it.

Let's hope the Democrats find some spine and fight for something worth passing.

I agree with many in this thread- opposition to the bill seems to be based on a strange notion that the leadership, after having been beaten, will somehow be able to exact more reparations from the republicans and get a "better" bill through. If anything, a defeat shows that the democratic leadership is hardly in a position to dictate terms. How, then, are they going to get this dream legislation through, when the republicans have already demonstrated that they can stop a bill much friendlier to their interests?

The second disturbing point I see is the sense of visceral glee that the bill failed, because it means no money for those good-for-nothing bankers. Yes, it is their fault, and from a pavlovian perspective, they should not be rewarded for their incompetence. There are more important factors at play here than petty vendettas and the ability to say "I told you so."

At the time of this post, the NASDAQ is down 6.7%. The Dow is steadily sliding down past -600.

THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, YOUR GOVERNMENT KEEPS INTENTIONALLY QUIET?
What Obama and McCain didn't talk about?

The 7 Billion bailout and one of its causes? www.michellemalkin.com/2008/09/24/illegal-immigration-and-the-mortgage-mess/ / www.vdare.com/sailer/080928_rove.htm

www.numbersusa.com With 880.000 patriotic Americans, fighting the illegal immigration invasion.

www.judicialwatch.org Promoting Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Government, Politics and the Law

http://www.irli.org/ America's only public interest law organization working exclusively to protect the legal rights, privileges, and property of U.S. citizens and their communities from injuries and damages caused by unlawful immigration.

www.capsweb.org Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) works to formulate and advance policies and programs designed to stabilize the population of California at a level which will preserve a good quality of life for all Californians.

www.americanpatrol.com Fighting for US sovereignty by demanding removal of illegals and the rebuilding border security mandated under the US Constitution.

www.idexer.com/ Illegal Immigration news usually censored by the Liberal National media

Angellight, like Ezra you don’t have any diversity in your reading material do you? You seem to be unaware that Congress, thanks to Democrats, required lenders to make loans to average people that couldn’t afford them. It also set Fannie and Freddie up to buy as much as they wanted which allowed the banks to sell even more. When Bush and the Republican’s tried to rein it in Democrats killed it in committee. You could make more informed decision if you had even the slightest clue of what was going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

In democrats own words. In 2004 Bush and the Republicans specifically said GSEs are to big and need more regulation. Democrats blocked them. Listen to Maxine Waters praise Frank Rains and insist the GSEs had no problems. Listen to Meeks accuse Republicans making up a crisis that doesn’t exist. Listen to how Democrats shoot down even the idea of more regulation. In their own words this video refutes every thing you liberal/progressive idiots claim. This crisis is 100% the fault of the Democrats

Nicholas Beaudrot, I assume the tantrum you refer to is Democrats blocking anything being done for 5 years correct? Democrats created this crisis by their corruption and failure to see we had a problem. Listen to what they said in 2004, why would we trust any of those idiots to fix it now?

If the facts ever get out on this your party is dead. How can you possible explain away videos of Democrats showing their complete ignorance on the economy. Only their corruption for GSE handouts is more galling.

THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.

In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions.

ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.

In February 1990, Illinois regulators held what was believed to be the first-ever state hearing to consider blocking a thrift merger for lack of compliance with CRA. The challenge was filed by ACORN, led by Talbott. Officials of Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, her target, complained that ACORN pressure was undermining its ability to meet strict financial requirements it was obligated to uphold and protested being boxed into an "affirmative-action lending policy."

She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting - for example, by overlooking bad credit histories.

"participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_dangerous_pals_131216.htm?&page=3

It's the evil Banks
It's the Greedy CEOs
It's Bush's fault
It's the Republicans

You morons got exactly what you asked for, you deserve to be on the streets with the poor and minority you screwed in your crooked politics

I take it back, Ezra, you must've known something I didn't

Gregory Meeks (he's "p***** off" by criticism of Fannie Mae and Franklin Raines),

Maxine Waters ("we do not have a crisis at Fannie Mae"),

Lacy Clay ("I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundnes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac")

and Barney Frank ("It serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as a kind of general shibboleth when it doesn't seem to be an issue").

Look, the Democrats in the House of Representatives can come up with any bill they want to, and pass it on a majority vote.

Of course, they then have to get it past the Senate, in which the Republicans will filibuster, and even if they choose not to do so, Bush will veto it.

To get some kind of measure passed required getting bipartisan support and the support of the Administration. It's fantasyland to think otherwise.

Yes, the Democrats may pick up a few votes by painting it (not incorrectly) as Govt Shutdown II. But the price paid by all of us will be horrendous.

I think we will look back at this day and see the day that the "Reagan" coalition not only broke, it shattered. Exactly who are the leaders of the Republican party right now? McCain? Boehner? Bush? There are business leaders--and I don't mean the stereotype evil Wall Street types everyone loves to hate right now -- but business execs with real companies that make real stuff that are looking at this and finding that the republican party is just not "steady" enough to represent their interests. They see Pelosi deliver 140 votes. They see the republican leadership--as you said, Ezra--looking like its about to cry. Who u gonna call?

If all of you who are trumpeting what good news the failure of this bill is could please send me gold bullion to cover your share of the fraking hole in my 401(k), I would appreciate it.

Failng that, please shut the hell up.

Buy your cases of Spam and your boxes of ammo tonight, comrades, not tomorrow and not the day after, but tonight.

Hey, Dems, if you love the Bush/Paulson scam so much, why not just pass it all by yourselves? You know the answer, yes you do.

Pelosi, please turn off the lights and turn in your keys on the way out. And get out now.

@drfranklives
Actually you're part of the problem. The belief that we could secure our retirement future by placing bets in the stock market was a stupid move if one cared at all for the safety net aspects of retirement.

Guess what, investment is a risk. You risk your retirement you deserve the benefits if it makes you rich, but you also deserve the pain if it makes you poor. Own it.

The failure of this bill was a good thing. There is no way that we should invest public dollars in the failed managerial practices of giant corporations.

Im not the only one that thinks this.. Heres a Harvard economist that practically restates one of my earlier posts on this.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html

david b: So, you're basically saying there shouldn't be a stock market. Hell, why don't we go back to the barter system? We didn't need 401(k)s when everyone died at age 50.

you don’t have any diversity in your reading material do you?

Irony abounds from the parasite, spouting the party 'blame the Those People' line from usual sources.

@drfranklives. I understand what you are saying and feel that a lot of this triumph of the people bullshit is whistling past the graveyard. This is bad. Lots of people lost lots of money today. And I can't believe the a-hole above who said you basically got what you deserve because you aren't poliically radical enough and actually invested in our capitalist economy! Eff him. Sorry, man.

The irony is that davidb probably considers himself a liberal, and would (rightly) react in horror if you said that the homeless, or people on welfare, "got what they deserved"…but a bunch of people losing their savings from conservative investments that should have been safe, no, can't have compassion for them.

Can the Democrats be sued for Malpratice? THey were made aware of the problem, givent the chance to fix it and for political and personal reasons screwed the American Exonomy and taxpayers, logic would say they be personally liable for what they did in 2004.

The whole system collapses, the Republicans and Democrats join the Nazis and Soviets on the ashheap of history, and we can begin to build a modern country and economic system.

Good luck with that. If the system didn't collapse during or after the Civil War, and if it didn't collapse during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, I'm dubious that it's going to crash and burn because of a 6%-10% foreclosure rate and the stock market dropping to early 1990s levels. One may see more regulation, but perhaps not enough to keep politicians hands out of the till. There will be higher unemployment and sagging consumer spending and a recession, but I wouldn't expect our economic system to change drastically, or for politics to become anything different than it is now--Democrats vs. Republicans, liberals vs. conservatives. Something may shake it up, but we're hardly there yet, and the passage (or lack therof) of this bill isn't going to change that.

@nate:

In 2004 Bush and the Republicans specifically said GSEs are to big and need more regulation. Democrats blocked them. Listen to Maxine Waters praise Frank Rains and insist the GSEs had no problems. Listen to Meeks accuse Republicans making up a crisis that doesn’t exist. Listen to how Democrats shoot down even the idea of more regulation. In their own words this video refutes every thing you liberal/progressive idiots claim.

Don't cloud the issue with facts and what Democrats actually did and said. This is about Republicans, who we know like money, and are evil. Republican=evil. Case closed.

This crisis is 100% the fault of the Democrats

Now, let's be fair. It's probably 80% the fault of the Democrats. There were plenty of Republicans voting for banking de-regulation and going along with Fannie Mae reforms that made it a playground for the Franklin Raines of the world. Plus, Republicans were at the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac trough as well. This is a bi-partisan scandal, with a high degree of bias towards Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, who apparently were sure the Fannie Mae was as solid as a rock (when Republicans were going: "Uh, these numbers don't look right") until the past few weeks.

But I'll be surprised if many on the Democratic side of the aisle, or in the broader ideological left, will see the affordable housing push as having a major role in this crisis, much less a singularly responsible role. Thus, I don't expect, long term, much is going to change, and as we claw our way out of this we'll be doing the exact same sorts of things again, or worse, new, different things that were part of the "solution" to the problem.

The populist outrage has been driven by libertarians who think they're immune to reversals in the economy. They'll learn they're just as vulnerable as the rest of us if an effective bailout isn't enacted -- not that their learning their lesson would be worth the cost to the rest of us.

They'll also learn that this was the best offer they'll get. A rewritten bailout bill will be tailored to concerns of the liberal Democrats who defected on this one, not the conservative Republicans. It will be a lot less palatable to free-marketeers.

"There was never any hope of ramming through a perfect Democratic bill."

Bullshit. Their leadership decided early on to not pass one without R support for political reasons. They pass bills on party line votes regularly.

Barney Frank is right if the there are R's who actually voted against the bill because of Pelosi's speech, then they need to get in a new line of work. It does, however, make one question Pelosi's judgment in working to get a compromise bill together only to then turn around and act like a prima donna. In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite of the Speaker's job.

I don't know enough about internal D politics so could someone please explain to me how that idiot got the job of Speaker? D's have a deep and talented first team to choose from.

LET IT FAIL!!!!!

Nobody wants this bill. Over 60% of America doesn't want this bill.

All you Obama supporters wanted change, you want some REAL change. LET IT FAIL!!!! Then you will get REAL change!

One more thing....

If the Dems rewrite the bill to bring the liberal defectors back on, then they can pass it without the Republicans.

Now hmmm,, I wonder why they don't just do that hmmm? Who cares about the Republican votes, the Dems do not need them. Just pass the socialist version of the bill and be done with it. Pack it full of socialist lard and pass the thing.

Then you can all go back to your districts/states and have your seats promptly taken away from you. And the next Congress will repeal the stupid bailout and write one that doesn't turn our country into Big Havanna.

The Harvard economist referenced above is a Libertarian, so he sees this as an opportunity to get rid of all that pesky governmental oversight. True, we need some different and better overseers, but let's not tout "unfettered risk and reward" as the new populist mantra.

If we are grownups about this, we will realize that this potential collapse was a collaborative effort by Democrats and Republicans, each of whom were taking care of their "special interest" groups that sent them up to Washington to look out for "Dead End Street" and "Wall Street" respectively. Main Street is not much on their minds, as it appears now. Except to use it as "cover" for their own (paid in full) positions.

As for "60% of America" not wanting this bill (or that bill, or some other bill), tell me this? What part of that 60% has any idea what this is really about and what the implications are. We send people to Washington to be or become smarter than we are about how to deal with problems and keep our leaking ship of state afloat. Then we tell the pollsters that those same people should not be free to vote for what they believe in, because we "know better". What hogwash.

In the next few days, we'd better stop the blame game, and even put the "fair" game on the side burner. Fix that later if need be. But right now, today, it would be helpful to stop the bleeding before the patient dies.

And yes, Pelosi is a disaster.

This kind of whining on a liberal blog is more than telling:

"The irony is that davidb probably considers himself a liberal, and would (rightly) react in horror if you said that the homeless, or people on welfare, "got what they deserved"…but a bunch of people losing their savings from conservative investments that should have been safe, no, can't have compassion for them."

If there is any irony, it is that people are now, with a straight face, likening investors losing money at the stock market to the poor and homeless. It's more sarcasm than irony, given that no action in favor of the real victims of the economic crisis - the one that has been going on for years already while Wall Street and the Dow posted profits - is anywhere in sight. Nobody cares about the homeless, the unemployed, those strangled by debt not due to reckless borrowing but due to sickness or unemployment. No bailout for those kind of people was even envisioned but we are supposed to show "compassion" for investors! (And face it, when you put your retirement money in the stock market, you knew what risk you took; you wanted to earn a risk premium, you have to be ready to take the risk.)

Ezra Klein has lost it today (I mean, the capacity for rational thinking). He'll get over it. In the meantime, click on Dean Baker's Beat the Press, he's the rare liberal economist who isn't sweating for Wall Street's welfare.

Nate wrote, In democrats own words. In 2004 Bush and the Republicans specifically said GSEs are to big and need more regulation. Democrats blocked them. Listen to Maxine Waters praise Frank Rains and insist the GSEs had no problems. Listen to Meeks accuse Republicans making up a crisis that doesn’t exist. Listen to how Democrats shoot down even the idea of more regulation. In their own words this video refutes every thing you liberal/progressive idiots claim. This crisis is 100% the fault of the Democrats

Fred and Fan have already been bailed out at a cost of $200 billion. It’s ancient history at this point. What’s interesting is that these “GSEs” held nearly 50% of all outstanding mortgage debt, so why is it going to cost far more than that to bail out the rest of the industry? Also, if Fan and Fred caused the crisis, then why weren't they the first to get into trouble? Your premise seems to be refuted by the answers to these questions. Without a valid premise, your conclusion appears meaningless.