Bailout Bill Fails House Vote
 

The House just rejected the bailout plan, Dow's down almost 700 points, 400 of it in the last 5 minutes.

Lovely.

Vote was 205-228 with 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voting "Nay"

The voting hasn't closed yet (2:10 EDT), so there is still a chance that it can pass if 11 representatives change from no to yes. Which is not to say that will happen, but it's still a possibility.

I'm watching on CSPAN, they closed voting 2 or 3 minutes ago and no motion to reconsider was brought.

They're voting on an amendment to the Small Business Act now.

can we maybe merge this with the "Really" thread about the financial madness?

Damn!

I'm not a real big fan of the bailout bill as it was brought to a vote, but that was an iffy decision by the House leadership. They said going in that they weren't sure if they had the votes and would need at least 100 members of the Republican caucus (which was unlikely to say the least) to pass it. It would have been better for the markets to postpone a vote and work on getting enough compromises in the bill for it to pass than it was to bring it to a vote where it was likely to fail, let the markets take that hit and then have to try to work out more compromises and bring it to a vote again anyways.

It'll be interesting indeed to see what happens next.

Good for them! I think we all want some accountability with all of this mess, and I feel like these congressmen (and possibly women)are demanding that Washington be accountable to the people by not jumping in with a huge amount of money. I wish they had postponed it or not voted at all if they didn't have the numbers to pass it through. Bye bye, DOW!

I agree... I think it sucks that the Dow went through the floor, but this isn't a new problem. Maybe it would have helped for them to start looking for solutions 9 months ago when the problem wasn't quite so severe and urgent. I don't think it's right for them to just throw money at it with no accountability whatsoever and just hope everything works out.

People, people, people...we cannot allow AIG to go under. I don't think people get how serious this is. It isn't just a matter of saying, "Sucks to be them. They shouldn't have loaned people the money to buy big houses if they couldn't afford it. Let them die!" If AIG fails, so will a number of banks and lenders that AIG insures. And then NONE of the banks will have the money to conduct their business. FDIC will have NO meaning, because there won't be enough money to cover the losses. That's YOUR money that will be GONE. One day you may go to use your debit card and find that your bank will not allow you to withdraw any funds...because whoops, it doesn't have your money anymore...it's now at another bank, covering its debts.

Not to mention that the credit market is frozen so there is no credit going out.. want to buy a house? Oh well. Want to sell a house? As if it weren't hard enough already? Sorry, your buyers can't get a loan because there is no money to loan. New car? Hope you have $24,000 in cash to pay for it because there is no money to loan.

Idiotic move by the House.

Pelosi's partisan bickering must be held accountable for when elections come around.

I'm not saying "Let AIG and everyone else fail".. what I'm saying is that this has been a long time coming. The government in general has had plenty of time to write and consider something like this so that it is done right and they aren't just throwing money at a problem with no idea of what it will specifically go to or how to make sure the investment they are making will work. Now people are all upset that the bill didn't pass b/c there are some who want to make sure it's done correctly and that it will work.

I know that it's something that will need to be done either way.. I just don't see why a lot of people are freaking out that there are other people who want to make sure it's done right and the money is used for the right things.

In my line of work, I have to deal with buyers. Let's say they got too heavy in inventory because the sales didn't come like they thought they would. So they ask us for some help in the form of money to help stimulate sales (usually in the form of markdowns). If we send them a check for markdowns, we expect certain things to happen - like we expect them to drop the retail so that people may be more interested in purchasing the item at the lower cost. If that doesn't happen and the buyer just pockets the check to his/her bottom line, the retail stays the same, they continue to sit on the inventory and the problem still exists.

How does that compare to lending money to people that can not afford to pay it back?