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In a stunning turn of events, the House of Representatives failed to pass the “Emergency Economic Stability Act of 2008″, also known as the Bailout Bill. This was a plan that was forged by two financial experts, the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, who spent years on Wall Street and managed one of the biggest investment banks (still in business) Goldman Sachs, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Now regardless of what anyone says, these two men run the U.S. Economy, not the President, so stop putting the blame on Bush. Additionally, Paulson put out a framework to re-build the financial markets months ago and Congress side-stepped it. So after a week of expanding a 3-page document to 109-page document with all of the features the Republicans and Democrats wanted, they failed to pass the bill. Now what did this do? It caused the Stock Market to fall in the greatest one day point drop in HISTORY!!! Now ABC News put it very clearly…the bill was for $700 Billion dollars…the total amount lost due to the market drop was between $1.1 and 1.4 TRILLION DOLLARS!!! And because Congress is on leave until Thursday (so much for 9-5 jobs or actually doing work for the people instead of this freakin’ campaigning) the markets have time to fret some more and lose more.
Now I’m ready to place some blame: New Hampshire’s two House representatives, Carol Shea-Porter of the first district and Paul Hodes of the second district, both voted against the bill. Now get this, Paul Hodes is on the Financial Services Committee whose leader Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts was one of the key sponsors and authors of the bill. This is an embarassment unto itself but the thought that they couldn’t at least resolve their concerns with another key author, NH Senator Judd Gregg, is truly amazing. Both of them should be recalled for ineptness or at least voted out in November.
Now there is discussion that says Congress was inundated with calls from Americans telling them not to vote for the bill. What Americans do not understand is just how serious this problem is. Just wait until tomorrow morning when they wake up to see the global markets falling as rapidly as the DJIA did today…Oh, it already is, the Hong Kong Hang Seng index opened down 5.5%. As David Calloway of MarketWatch puts it, “Congress calls Wall Street’s bluff ,and we all lose our shirts.”
Overall, we needs to dissolve government: Congress and the White House. We need experts not lawyers, we need real people not bureaucrats, we need them now!!!
Well, camping with two kids is not as easy as by one’s self. The air mattress Sarah and I had punctured, the nighttime temperature was about 35 degrees and then we woke up at 6am to a flock of crows sqawking about something. After breakfast, another ordeal, we found water in the tent, likely from a little girl trying to drink from a large water bottle.
So Saturday did improve. It was a cool but bright Fall day in Maine and we hit LL Bean today and grabbed lunch before having a nap in the church parking lot. After church we went back and cooked a delicious turkey chili and went to bed on a more comfortable, new mattress and sleeping bag.
Sunday started off ok, but the fire would not get started so off to shower and breakfast. Finally we ended the day in Portsmouth at the Fairy House tour — http://gallery.me.com/rolantifamily.
Today was Olivia’s 2nd birthday and she received lots of nice gifts including a doll house, a soccer ball, utensils, and a pretty dress and purse from Uncle Dennis and Auntie Beth.
So Jamie started MCAA Soccer today and scored two goals today — one for his team and one for the other team. We’re working on that.
Well after shucking, cooking and freezing a bushel of corn, cooking and freezing green beans and canning 30 quarts of tomatoes, AND making 10 quiches, we are finally relaxing by spending time with our friends the Cushna’s and then attending the Francestown Labor Day parade. This years theme is Classic Movies, can you find your favorite?
