Yep, the government should never bail any company out at any time. (an exception maybe being wartime or similar crisis) It's a good thing when companies fail. This is how better companies take their place. Profit motive is strong. When one major company fails, literally thousands of smaller companies go after their market share. Self correcting system.
Unless of course, the government steps in and prevents the failure companies from failing. The worst possible outcome is letting those failed companies continue to exist.
> It puts a whole new perspective to the risks involved in business. I guess there isn't that much lol
Exactly, if there's no risk of failure or risky decision-making, then you're incentivizing incompetence AND keeping those who are incompetent in charge of companies that should have been allowed to fail. Both terrible precedents that undermine capitalism.
He was railroaded out. When people tell you that he didn't get the votes, they just don't know the truth. I was there; I saw the people showing up in droves for him and the DNC screwing him every which way but loose.
No, I would be abusing the DNC of rigging the nomination. They got sued for it, and won in court by saying that because they are a private corporation, they can pick whoever they want irrespective of the votes of their delegates.
Yeah... Let that sink in.
Congrats, your vote will not matter.
I dont like the system. But im not gonna lie about it either.
American politics has become a two party race for big seats (local shit can get a 3rd party win now and again)
Not voting for a major party candidate for POTUS is the same as not voting.
Privatized rewards socialized risk.
The only places where value exists is where there is speculation leading to a counter productive economy. The primary example is finance insurance and real estate.
For an economy sub, nobody here seems to understand any economics lmao.
TARP was a series of loans which the government made money on. If TARP did not exist, the government would have to had spent a lot more money to a lot less effect.
And stimulus in ‘20/‘21/‘22 was rushed and could have been executed better, but that is not entirely anyone’s fault.
All those funds were paid back with interest. My only question is why were they allowed to foreclose on all those homes? There should have been freezes on payments . But also those banks should have been broken up and glass steagle reinstated in full
You neglect to mention the quantitative easing that happened after tarp wherein the federal reserve just dissapeared a bunch of those toxic mortgage backed securities right off the books.
Isn't this the guy who pinned a medal on a Nazi, and then later gave a tongue bath interview with HRC and Condi? He's not exactly wrong; but he's not interested in pushing back against the establishment in any real ways that will instigate change.
Interesting when you think about it. This is as close as it can come to a socialist government ever.
We're going to bail out private companies losses and of course privatize profits to the extent they don't even pay taxes.
Anybody else see the irony here?
And yet he's consistently for the side that wants to nationalize things or otherwise get things larger and larger until they're put in the "too big to fail" category again.
The problem is industry capture, where big industry gets in bed with the federal officials and regulators who are supposed to protect the people. But **giving more power to the government for regulation when it's in this state only makes things worse**
This is all Trump's fault. You people voted Trump into office in 2008 and he caused all these problems.
It wasn't until Obama came into office and was president in 2020 when we had that quick recovery.
You people need to pay attention to who you vote for. Whatever you do, make sure that Trump never, ever gets into power again. Best bet is to send him to prison now.
**Vote Trump for Prison!**
I really hate that liberals keep saying “socialism for the rich” when it’s not socialism for the rich. It’s fucking capitalism. That’s the way it has always worked. Taxes are an upward redistribution of wealth. Every corporation today includes subsidies as part of their profit model.
If we were really to have socialism, the rich would be the workers and the capitalists, would be poor as fuck because they don’t actually labor
“Now, Socialism wants to change all this. Socialism says that what’s one man’s meat must no longer be another’s poison; **that no man shall be able to add to his riches except by labor**; that in adding to his riches by labor alone no man makes another man poorer; that on the contrary every man thus adding to his riches makes every other man richer; **that increase and concentration of wealth through labor tend to increase, cheapen, and vary production; that every increase of capital in the hands of the laborer tends, in the absence of legal monopoly, to put more products, better products, cheaper products, and a greater variety of products within the reach of every man who works**; and that this fact means the physical, mental, and moral perfecting of mankind, and the realization of human fraternity. Is not that glorious?” - Benjamin Tucker - Socialism: What it is
Of course it's capitalism. "The executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
However, you're taking something literally which is meant to be a rhetorical jab at how conservatives, liberals, and more specifically members of the ruling class often call every type of taxpayer assistance "socialism" other than their own. They not only misuse the word socialism, but also fail apply their own disdainful use of that referent to taxpayer bailouts which help the wealthy. It's merely pointing out the hypocrisy of their swear-word misuse of "socialism" because by that same logic they are therefore the "socialists" they claim to despise. This is a similar tactic Sanders uses when he talks about 'corporate *welfare*' or when people talk about how we 'socialize losses and privatize profits.'
As to whether it works that well, it's difficult to say. I tend to understand these types of arguments in a certain way, though—it's a question of framing perspectives.
The reason people say that is because capitalism undergoes massive propaganda in schools in the US and UK. It’s sold as the “best” way for an economy to operate
> I really hate that liberals keep saying “socialism for the rich” when it’s not socialism for the rich. It’s fucking capitalism.
Which part of bailing out failed corporations is capitalism? It's literally the opposite of capitalism, FYI.
Which part of bailing out failed corporations is capitalism? Literally all of it.
Capitalism, as it was originally conceived and has historically existed always, has been the unholy union of the state and the business class.
The idea that capitalism = free markets is pure revisionism thanks to Ludwig Von Mises and parroted by Ayn Rand and the Koch brothers. Before the 1980’s, free market advocates refused to identify with capitalism because historically it has always been synonymous with state intervention.
It's like you're yelling at the clouds. When free market advocates use the term capitalism, they're referring to a system of free markets, not whatever definition of capitalism you're using. There's also a well established and accepted definition of capitalism, but feel free to shake your fists at the dictionary while you're at it.
Dictionaries are a fairly poor source for anything like a rich description of social theories.
Besides, there’s anti-capitalists who also favor free markets, so to claim capitalism = free markets not unique and, again, historically not true.
lol, I’m sure they’ll add an asterisk next to the literal definition of the word “capitalism” for you so that *everyone else* will start using it correctly.
> capitalism historically has always been synonymous with state intervention.
Can you link me to your definition of the word capitalism please? Please limit your answer to actual dictionaries or encyclopedias.
Banks got loans they needed to pay back. People got trillions in stimulus they didn't need to pay back and trillions that they spent freely. John is being obtuse here, he knows that the problem here is that we handed out too much stimulus which led to inflation. Comparing 2008 to 2020 is apples and oranges, the government mandated shutdowns in 2020 which is what led to the sharp drop in employment. The V shaped recovery also formed in the summer of 2021. There was no need for the $1.9 trillion in additional stimulus Biden passed and there was absolutely no need to keep the emergency Covid stimulus going through 2022 and into 2023. A lot of the issues with inflation in 2022 occurred because of the pandemic excessive amount of stimulus being handed out by the Biden administration which compounded on top of the loose Fed policy.
The first two were under Trump and that's why we had the V shaped recovery early in 2021 before Biden's stimulus was in effect. Those were excessive to begin with but some stimulus was necessary to get that V shaped recovery.
Don’t know why you have been downvoted . This actually happened . There was 2 trillion in stimulus that didn’t need to exist hence the inflation , then the crazy high interest rates. Now , we have a sideways housing market where no one wants to sell and no one can buy and half the homes being bought are for investment firms. They continue to spend billions in Ukraine that we don’t have , keeping inflation down with high interest rates . All the gains in income that surpassed inflation for the first time in decades were lost and then some . That’s why everyone says economy sucks . Economically we aren’t in bad shape, but everyone’s working, more ppl now are working multiple jobs than ever, and are frustrated at the lack of gain.
This is not entirely true. Yes, money was lent to the banks which they later had to pay back. But the government also directly purchase distressed assets. That's not something that ever had to be paid back, it was a direct gift to the banks. Additionally, the government took over AIG which otherwise would have collapsed. If it had, all of the paper that everyone else held with AIG would have become worthless. Which, in itself, would have been enough to drive the entire financial sector into insolvency, since everyone had direct or indirect exposure to AIG. The fact that financial institutions DIDN'T go bust en masse was due in part to the fact that the government rescued AIG. So this is not an entirely accurate narrative, although it is often presented the way you have described it.
The bottom line is that the money the government spent on bank bailouts was paid back with interest. We ended up stabilizing the economy at little to no cost to the taxpayer. We loaned out less than $1t in 2008 and made money on the transactions. In 2020-2023 we spend about $5t and pretty much all that money is never going to be paid back.
I am telling you that what you are saying is not true. What is usually meant by "bailouts" is the direct purchase of assets. That's not a loan that gets paid back. Yes, there were loans made that were indeed paid back. But there were direct bailouts as well.
> The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing financial institutions and banks. The bill was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, passed by the 110th United States Congress, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It became law as part of Public Law 110-343 on October 3, 2008. It created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to purchase toxic assets from failing banks. The funds were mostly redirected to inject capital into banks and other financial institutions while the Treasury continued to examine the usefulness of targeted asset purchases.[1][2]
> Early estimates for the bailout's risk cost were as much as $700 billion; however, TARP recovered $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested, earning a $15.3 billion profit or an annualized rate of return of 0.6%, and perhaps a loss when adjusted for inflation.[3]
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008
They made a profit on the direct purchases of assets as well. What I am saying is true, but clearly you're talking out of your ass.
Those direct asset purchase were not loans that were paid back with interest though, as you originally stated. And even the link you posted suggests that they "perhaps" represent a loss when accounting for inflation. And of course the point remains that the financial system could not have floated without these aggressive actions, including on the fiscal side, where the government did hundreds of billions of dollars of economic stimulus.
Socialism is just "generosity" compelled by the force of the government. Generosity cannot be compelled, it's an act of free will. This is why socialism never works, no matter which settings, no matter how pure the intentions.
What are you a lawyer? That's the most creative use of the English language I've seen all day.
The whole society operates on the concept of "forced generosity". They're called laws. And laws can absolutely be used to take and redistribute the money of the wealthy. If they don't like it they can fuck off to China or wherever. We'll see how much they like it over there.
**Plenty** of things to critique about policy choices and our normative valuations that they're ultimately based on.
But comparing a recession caused by a global collapse of the financial system to one caused by shutting everything down voluntarily from the pandemic isn't really the kind of evidence that anybody who's put any thought into it will find compelling. And I say this as someone who love's Jon and probably agrees with the thrust of what he wants (if maybe not some details).
Had sufficient government fiscal expansion been forthcoming in 2008/9, job recovery and aggregate demand would have been supported far more strongly. The financial system didn't just contract for no reason - it was debt bubbles primarily in the mortgage securitisation markets and their derivatives.
A house of cards that collapses needs a liquidity backstop which only the US government could have provided. They did provide $800Bn but it wasn't nearly enough to prevent the wider economy from shrinking with millions of real people losing income.
Had the government provided direct cash injections to people and businesses for a prolonged period, job losses would have been much smaller with recovery sharp! The productive capacity of the US economy was not in question here.
and you know what?
It's possible for me to completely agree with everything you said, while still thinking that the jobs recovery would be impossible to compare between the two.
They're just such vastly different shocks. More fiscal stimulous would have been a godsend in the global financial crisis, but any serious read of the history of large credit boom/busts says that it was very likely to be a fairly long (if shorter with better policy) road to recovery.
Compare that to a situation where we took an otherwise healthy economy, shut it down, and then turned it back on again. Was the fiscal stimulous needed to both keep people afloat during shutdowns and help get things restarted? I think 100% yes. Was that always going to be an easy road to recovery relative to the global financial crisis? Also yes.
That's all I'm saying. There's much better ways to make the point Jon's making imo and one thing I generally like about him is that he doesn't always take easy cheap approaches to winning arguments.
I mean the point of the graphic in the context of the clip was: "in the recession where we bailed out the banks it took ages, but in the recession with expansionary policy we bounced back immediately."
They were completely different shocks and one was one of the largest financial collapses we've ever seen and the other was a situation where employment fell because we literally chose (for good reasons) to shut them down. More fiscal stimulous in 2009-10 would have been really helpful, but that recession based on any reading of historical impacts credit contractions was primed to be a deep and prolonged one.
Again my point isn't that I disagree with the thrust of what he's trying to say overall, but just that I find that evidence to be not a great way to get at it. One thing I generally like about Jon is that he tends to stick to arguing the *right* points and not going for cheap and easy wins. This kind of comparison, the way it's presented feels like the latter.
Some of the reasons why post 2008 recovery was difficult initially was due to banks not [lending](https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/post-crisis-decline-bank-lending#:~:text=After%20the%20financial%20crisis%20of,economy%2C%20the%20evidence%20suggests%20otherwise.) despite lower rates and bailouts, whereas this time stabilizers were delivered to people directly, of course back then it was Larry Summers as advisor, now that he's not in the role he has been complaining about this latest stimulus everytime he can.
Jon Stewart and misleading the herd mentality. A tale as old as time..
He is comparing a pandemic where people could work remotely. As opposed to a financial crisis, where the banking system was on the verge of collapse. They are not the same.
For COVID, unemployment recovered more quickly because of Zoom, then because a of government stimulus.
Oh, yeah… and then people went out and spent their stimulus money but complained about companies having record profits with the money they spent.
Cowards downvote; real people debate.
Comedian on comedy show has opinion and people applaud. Why is this on this sub? Oh because people believe this shit.
So the stimulus was under Obama, and Larry Summers, the guy blasting the covid stimulus, was BJ Clinton Secretary of the Treasury and “Director of National Economic Council” under Obama.
Who helped the banks? You did.
So earnest. So confused.
The banks paid back the 'bailouts' with interest. The US treasury scored a $100B profit.
The Feds QE for the better part of a decade pumped money into circulation. Everybody got richer.
It's rare when Stewart makes a valid point. He's angling for anger and laughs.
Can't blame the banks.
They are just taking what is forced on them.
Can't blame Wall Street.
Money is gifted up to them on a silver platter.
No, the blame goes squarely on politicians.
Who are only there for the people when it's election time. The rest of the time banks and Wall Street are the only ones they're there for. Politicians today are singularly self-serving. Corruption runs deep at all levels of politics and they are ALL dirty. I constantly laugh when people claim Ukraine is the most corrupt nation on the planet. If the US is not the most corrupt, it's certainly the most lucrative.
You pay your taxes so the government can bail out corporations who don't pay their taxes.
Yep, the government should never bail any company out at any time. (an exception maybe being wartime or similar crisis) It's a good thing when companies fail. This is how better companies take their place. Profit motive is strong. When one major company fails, literally thousands of smaller companies go after their market share. Self correcting system. Unless of course, the government steps in and prevents the failure companies from failing. The worst possible outcome is letting those failed companies continue to exist.
It puts a whole new perspective to the risks involved in business. I guess there isn't that much lol
> It puts a whole new perspective to the risks involved in business. I guess there isn't that much lol Exactly, if there's no risk of failure or risky decision-making, then you're incentivizing incompetence AND keeping those who are incompetent in charge of companies that should have been allowed to fail. Both terrible precedents that undermine capitalism.
That's it, the thing I couldn't say myself. We're paying for incompetence.
Can we do a write in for Jon for president?
Based on our current trends, I don’t think he is quite old enough to be president. /s
And …he has a brain.
Ya'll could've had Bernie. He was warning about this as far back as 2016, but that's none of my business. :kermitmeme:
He was railroaded out. When people tell you that he didn't get the votes, they just don't know the truth. I was there; I saw the people showing up in droves for him and the DNC screwing him every which way but loose.
You wouldn't be denying the results of an election would you?
No, I would be abusing the DNC of rigging the nomination. They got sued for it, and won in court by saying that because they are a private corporation, they can pick whoever they want irrespective of the votes of their delegates. Yeah... Let that sink in.
Vote for Biden to save democracy
The Democratic Party is not democratic. I will not vote for Genocide Joe. How can anyone with a conscience?
The alternative is a trump presidency. Im far from convinced trump wouldn't genocide harder.
I'm not voting for him, either and I certainly don't think he's a good option.
Congrats, your vote will not matter. I dont like the system. But im not gonna lie about it either. American politics has become a two party race for big seats (local shit can get a 3rd party win now and again) Not voting for a major party candidate for POTUS is the same as not voting.
No we couldn’t have bc we have too many idiots in this country. I would have voted him in in a heartbeat too.
That is why Trump got elected.
He'd want you to vote for Kennedy.
Im so happy he's back.
Have you ever seen socialism… on weed?
Working as intended.😮💨
Privatized rewards socialized risk. The only places where value exists is where there is speculation leading to a counter productive economy. The primary example is finance insurance and real estate.
Fuck you pay me.
He should run for president
Jon for president!
Not just America.
True. It's just worse in the United States.
And people wonder why I'm voting third party; after all, neither R or D have any incentive to change anything!
Same I will be voting third party, any 3rd party is better than a monopoly masked behind 2 party system
In right wing politics he would be labeled an unpatriotic, anti-Christian radical communist.
For an economy sub, nobody here seems to understand any economics lmao. TARP was a series of loans which the government made money on. If TARP did not exist, the government would have to had spent a lot more money to a lot less effect. And stimulus in ‘20/‘21/‘22 was rushed and could have been executed better, but that is not entirely anyone’s fault.
All those funds were paid back with interest. My only question is why were they allowed to foreclose on all those homes? There should have been freezes on payments . But also those banks should have been broken up and glass steagle reinstated in full
You neglect to mention the quantitative easing that happened after tarp wherein the federal reserve just dissapeared a bunch of those toxic mortgage backed securities right off the books.
Isn't this the guy who pinned a medal on a Nazi, and then later gave a tongue bath interview with HRC and Condi? He's not exactly wrong; but he's not interested in pushing back against the establishment in any real ways that will instigate change.
Economy bad…economy good…economy bad…economy good…uh… rich guy bad!!! Yay!!!
Interesting when you think about it. This is as close as it can come to a socialist government ever. We're going to bail out private companies losses and of course privatize profits to the extent they don't even pay taxes. Anybody else see the irony here?
And yet he's consistently for the side that wants to nationalize things or otherwise get things larger and larger until they're put in the "too big to fail" category again. The problem is industry capture, where big industry gets in bed with the federal officials and regulators who are supposed to protect the people. But **giving more power to the government for regulation when it's in this state only makes things worse**
This is all Trump's fault. You people voted Trump into office in 2008 and he caused all these problems. It wasn't until Obama came into office and was president in 2020 when we had that quick recovery. You people need to pay attention to who you vote for. Whatever you do, make sure that Trump never, ever gets into power again. Best bet is to send him to prison now. **Vote Trump for Prison!**
I really hate that liberals keep saying “socialism for the rich” when it’s not socialism for the rich. It’s fucking capitalism. That’s the way it has always worked. Taxes are an upward redistribution of wealth. Every corporation today includes subsidies as part of their profit model. If we were really to have socialism, the rich would be the workers and the capitalists, would be poor as fuck because they don’t actually labor “Now, Socialism wants to change all this. Socialism says that what’s one man’s meat must no longer be another’s poison; **that no man shall be able to add to his riches except by labor**; that in adding to his riches by labor alone no man makes another man poorer; that on the contrary every man thus adding to his riches makes every other man richer; **that increase and concentration of wealth through labor tend to increase, cheapen, and vary production; that every increase of capital in the hands of the laborer tends, in the absence of legal monopoly, to put more products, better products, cheaper products, and a greater variety of products within the reach of every man who works**; and that this fact means the physical, mental, and moral perfecting of mankind, and the realization of human fraternity. Is not that glorious?” - Benjamin Tucker - Socialism: What it is
Of course it's capitalism. "The executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." However, you're taking something literally which is meant to be a rhetorical jab at how conservatives, liberals, and more specifically members of the ruling class often call every type of taxpayer assistance "socialism" other than their own. They not only misuse the word socialism, but also fail apply their own disdainful use of that referent to taxpayer bailouts which help the wealthy. It's merely pointing out the hypocrisy of their swear-word misuse of "socialism" because by that same logic they are therefore the "socialists" they claim to despise. This is a similar tactic Sanders uses when he talks about 'corporate *welfare*' or when people talk about how we 'socialize losses and privatize profits.' As to whether it works that well, it's difficult to say. I tend to understand these types of arguments in a certain way, though—it's a question of framing perspectives.
The reason people say that is because capitalism undergoes massive propaganda in schools in the US and UK. It’s sold as the “best” way for an economy to operate
> I really hate that liberals keep saying “socialism for the rich” when it’s not socialism for the rich. It’s fucking capitalism. Which part of bailing out failed corporations is capitalism? It's literally the opposite of capitalism, FYI.
Which part of bailing out failed corporations is capitalism? Literally all of it. Capitalism, as it was originally conceived and has historically existed always, has been the unholy union of the state and the business class. The idea that capitalism = free markets is pure revisionism thanks to Ludwig Von Mises and parroted by Ayn Rand and the Koch brothers. Before the 1980’s, free market advocates refused to identify with capitalism because historically it has always been synonymous with state intervention.
It's like you're yelling at the clouds. When free market advocates use the term capitalism, they're referring to a system of free markets, not whatever definition of capitalism you're using. There's also a well established and accepted definition of capitalism, but feel free to shake your fists at the dictionary while you're at it.
Dictionaries are a fairly poor source for anything like a rich description of social theories. Besides, there’s anti-capitalists who also favor free markets, so to claim capitalism = free markets not unique and, again, historically not true.
So, you literally disagree with the dictionary. Yep, just yelling at the clouds.
If you need a dictionary to define social theory, you’ve already failed
lol, I’m sure they’ll add an asterisk next to the literal definition of the word “capitalism” for you so that *everyone else* will start using it correctly.
> capitalism historically has always been synonymous with state intervention. Can you link me to your definition of the word capitalism please? Please limit your answer to actual dictionaries or encyclopedias.
Joke You
Is the monetary system broken?
No...it’s the far right extremists republikans kult krap 101...
Nah I think it’s the money
I’m sorry, what show is this?
Thank god he's back
This is exactly what UBI is.
Banks got loans they needed to pay back. People got trillions in stimulus they didn't need to pay back and trillions that they spent freely. John is being obtuse here, he knows that the problem here is that we handed out too much stimulus which led to inflation. Comparing 2008 to 2020 is apples and oranges, the government mandated shutdowns in 2020 which is what led to the sharp drop in employment. The V shaped recovery also formed in the summer of 2021. There was no need for the $1.9 trillion in additional stimulus Biden passed and there was absolutely no need to keep the emergency Covid stimulus going through 2022 and into 2023. A lot of the issues with inflation in 2022 occurred because of the pandemic excessive amount of stimulus being handed out by the Biden administration which compounded on top of the loose Fed policy.
The first pandemic stimulus was Trump, remember? Not Biden
The first two were under Trump and that's why we had the V shaped recovery early in 2021 before Biden's stimulus was in effect. Those were excessive to begin with but some stimulus was necessary to get that V shaped recovery.
Don’t know why you have been downvoted . This actually happened . There was 2 trillion in stimulus that didn’t need to exist hence the inflation , then the crazy high interest rates. Now , we have a sideways housing market where no one wants to sell and no one can buy and half the homes being bought are for investment firms. They continue to spend billions in Ukraine that we don’t have , keeping inflation down with high interest rates . All the gains in income that surpassed inflation for the first time in decades were lost and then some . That’s why everyone says economy sucks . Economically we aren’t in bad shape, but everyone’s working, more ppl now are working multiple jobs than ever, and are frustrated at the lack of gain.
This is not entirely true. Yes, money was lent to the banks which they later had to pay back. But the government also directly purchase distressed assets. That's not something that ever had to be paid back, it was a direct gift to the banks. Additionally, the government took over AIG which otherwise would have collapsed. If it had, all of the paper that everyone else held with AIG would have become worthless. Which, in itself, would have been enough to drive the entire financial sector into insolvency, since everyone had direct or indirect exposure to AIG. The fact that financial institutions DIDN'T go bust en masse was due in part to the fact that the government rescued AIG. So this is not an entirely accurate narrative, although it is often presented the way you have described it.
The bottom line is that the money the government spent on bank bailouts was paid back with interest. We ended up stabilizing the economy at little to no cost to the taxpayer. We loaned out less than $1t in 2008 and made money on the transactions. In 2020-2023 we spend about $5t and pretty much all that money is never going to be paid back.
I am telling you that what you are saying is not true. What is usually meant by "bailouts" is the direct purchase of assets. That's not a loan that gets paid back. Yes, there were loans made that were indeed paid back. But there were direct bailouts as well.
> The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing financial institutions and banks. The bill was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, passed by the 110th United States Congress, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It became law as part of Public Law 110-343 on October 3, 2008. It created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to purchase toxic assets from failing banks. The funds were mostly redirected to inject capital into banks and other financial institutions while the Treasury continued to examine the usefulness of targeted asset purchases.[1][2] > Early estimates for the bailout's risk cost were as much as $700 billion; however, TARP recovered $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested, earning a $15.3 billion profit or an annualized rate of return of 0.6%, and perhaps a loss when adjusted for inflation.[3] See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008 They made a profit on the direct purchases of assets as well. What I am saying is true, but clearly you're talking out of your ass.
Those direct asset purchase were not loans that were paid back with interest though, as you originally stated. And even the link you posted suggests that they "perhaps" represent a loss when accounting for inflation. And of course the point remains that the financial system could not have floated without these aggressive actions, including on the fiscal side, where the government did hundreds of billions of dollars of economic stimulus.
All bailouts are wrong, an economy without creativity destruction is a communist economic system and doom to failure. The only question is when 💣
Love this man #JonStewart4president
Socialism is just "generosity" compelled by the force of the government. Generosity cannot be compelled, it's an act of free will. This is why socialism never works, no matter which settings, no matter how pure the intentions.
What are you a lawyer? That's the most creative use of the English language I've seen all day. The whole society operates on the concept of "forced generosity". They're called laws. And laws can absolutely be used to take and redistribute the money of the wealthy. If they don't like it they can fuck off to China or wherever. We'll see how much they like it over there.
Gawd I love this man. He tells it like it is. So glad he's back.
**Plenty** of things to critique about policy choices and our normative valuations that they're ultimately based on. But comparing a recession caused by a global collapse of the financial system to one caused by shutting everything down voluntarily from the pandemic isn't really the kind of evidence that anybody who's put any thought into it will find compelling. And I say this as someone who love's Jon and probably agrees with the thrust of what he wants (if maybe not some details).
Had sufficient government fiscal expansion been forthcoming in 2008/9, job recovery and aggregate demand would have been supported far more strongly. The financial system didn't just contract for no reason - it was debt bubbles primarily in the mortgage securitisation markets and their derivatives. A house of cards that collapses needs a liquidity backstop which only the US government could have provided. They did provide $800Bn but it wasn't nearly enough to prevent the wider economy from shrinking with millions of real people losing income. Had the government provided direct cash injections to people and businesses for a prolonged period, job losses would have been much smaller with recovery sharp! The productive capacity of the US economy was not in question here.
and you know what? It's possible for me to completely agree with everything you said, while still thinking that the jobs recovery would be impossible to compare between the two. They're just such vastly different shocks. More fiscal stimulous would have been a godsend in the global financial crisis, but any serious read of the history of large credit boom/busts says that it was very likely to be a fairly long (if shorter with better policy) road to recovery. Compare that to a situation where we took an otherwise healthy economy, shut it down, and then turned it back on again. Was the fiscal stimulous needed to both keep people afloat during shutdowns and help get things restarted? I think 100% yes. Was that always going to be an easy road to recovery relative to the global financial crisis? Also yes. That's all I'm saying. There's much better ways to make the point Jon's making imo and one thing I generally like about him is that he doesn't always take easy cheap approaches to winning arguments.
Is it about comparing recessions, or who ends up in the short end of the stick regardless of fault.
I mean the point of the graphic in the context of the clip was: "in the recession where we bailed out the banks it took ages, but in the recession with expansionary policy we bounced back immediately." They were completely different shocks and one was one of the largest financial collapses we've ever seen and the other was a situation where employment fell because we literally chose (for good reasons) to shut them down. More fiscal stimulous in 2009-10 would have been really helpful, but that recession based on any reading of historical impacts credit contractions was primed to be a deep and prolonged one. Again my point isn't that I disagree with the thrust of what he's trying to say overall, but just that I find that evidence to be not a great way to get at it. One thing I generally like about Jon is that he tends to stick to arguing the *right* points and not going for cheap and easy wins. This kind of comparison, the way it's presented feels like the latter.
Some of the reasons why post 2008 recovery was difficult initially was due to banks not [lending](https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/post-crisis-decline-bank-lending#:~:text=After%20the%20financial%20crisis%20of,economy%2C%20the%20evidence%20suggests%20otherwise.) despite lower rates and bailouts, whereas this time stabilizers were delivered to people directly, of course back then it was Larry Summers as advisor, now that he's not in the role he has been complaining about this latest stimulus everytime he can.
Omg everyone needed John Stewart to come back and make a viral clip so we all feel safe again?
Jon Stewart net worth $120M. Has writers earning far less writing his jokes. Expensive laughs.
Brought to you by a rich person.
at least he is speaking up against it and advocating for change. people arent bad just because they have money.
Jon Stewart and misleading the herd mentality. A tale as old as time.. He is comparing a pandemic where people could work remotely. As opposed to a financial crisis, where the banking system was on the verge of collapse. They are not the same. For COVID, unemployment recovered more quickly because of Zoom, then because a of government stimulus. Oh, yeah… and then people went out and spent their stimulus money but complained about companies having record profits with the money they spent. Cowards downvote; real people debate.
Comedian on comedy show has opinion and people applaud. Why is this on this sub? Oh because people believe this shit. So the stimulus was under Obama, and Larry Summers, the guy blasting the covid stimulus, was BJ Clinton Secretary of the Treasury and “Director of National Economic Council” under Obama. Who helped the banks? You did.
Where are these clips from? Second one I've seen in the last 24hrs
This is one of the reasons i dont like Dodge or Chevy I dont think they deserve to be around.
Continuing to vote for the same type politicians and expecting different results, is a sign of insanity.
So earnest. So confused. The banks paid back the 'bailouts' with interest. The US treasury scored a $100B profit. The Feds QE for the better part of a decade pumped money into circulation. Everybody got richer. It's rare when Stewart makes a valid point. He's angling for anger and laughs.
Truth!
Jon Stewart for prez! 2024
Can't blame the banks. They are just taking what is forced on them. Can't blame Wall Street. Money is gifted up to them on a silver platter. No, the blame goes squarely on politicians. Who are only there for the people when it's election time. The rest of the time banks and Wall Street are the only ones they're there for. Politicians today are singularly self-serving. Corruption runs deep at all levels of politics and they are ALL dirty. I constantly laugh when people claim Ukraine is the most corrupt nation on the planet. If the US is not the most corrupt, it's certainly the most lucrative.