Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Fun With Charts
Since the chart is served up without the benefit of my usual artless bloviation, the numbers above the bars are percentages (as in 65% of evil, horrid Rethugs whose seats were considered relatively safe voted "no" on the bailout, while 85% whose seats were vulnerable voted the same way. 38% of Democrats whose seats were considered relatively safe voted "no" on the bailout, while 72% whose seats were vulnerable voted the same way).
I suspect what you see in it will be influenced by your political orientation. But then so many things are, these days.
Feel free to
10 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Sep 30, 03:27:00 PM:
You may want rethink how you count
Nevertheless, two thirds of the safe Republicans voted against it!
By 
Larry Sheldon, at
Tue Sep 30, 03:54:00 PM:
I need somebody to explain all the numbers here http://www.kitco.com/market/ particularly the ones along the left edge.
Very confusing. How is "Up 319.66" a bad thing?
By Georg Felis, at
Tue Sep 30, 05:29:00 PM:
Easy. Statistics is the art of confusing Facts and Numbers. And our Representatives are mostly spineless weasels (with certain exceptions). I’m deeply amazed at the ability of the Majority party, after raiding the mortgage henhouse for years, managing to pin the blame on a failed recovery bill by pointing to the Minority party. One would think they have some unknown way to change the way news is reported. Oh wait…
By Cassandra, at
Tue Sep 30, 05:29:00 PM:
You may want rethink how you count
In what sense?
By Cassandra, at
Tue Sep 30, 05:34:00 PM:
I think if you look at the previous post (Mankiw's chart on his site) the market is expected to be extremely volatile for the next few weeks.
I'm not sure what looking at any one day or two day period is going to tell you - it's likely going to swing back and forth the way it always does in response to rumors, speculation, hopes and fears.
By Cassandra, at
Tue Sep 30, 05:36:00 PM:
One would think they have some unknown way to change the way news is reported. Oh wait…
Heh... :)
By Cassandra, at
Tue Sep 30, 05:40:00 PM:
two thirds of the safe Republicans voted against it!
...and over *one* third of the safe Dems voted against it...
... and more than *two* thirds of the vulnerable Dems voted against it.
Which goes to what I noticed.
By , at
Wed Oct 01, 11:43:00 AM:
Look how much the demacreeps put their own intersts above the nations
By Cassandra, at
Wed Oct 01, 04:06:00 PM:
Well, I think you can honestly make the case that one could come down on either side of this and think you were advancing the national interest.
The interesting thing (to me) was that, with the perception that the public was overwhelmingly against the bailout, there isn't much daylight between the % of Dems in vulnerable districts (72%) voting against and the number of Republicans (85%) voting against.
Sorry, but 13% is not much of a difference.
But if they weren't too worried about re-election, there was a HUGE difference in the way they voted. 65% of Republicans voted NO (bowing to public opinion but bucking the official party line).
62% of Dems did the exact opposite, voting YES (bucking public opinion and toeing the official party line). What we don't know is whether they voted their consciences or not. Some Dems disliked the bill as much as the Republicans did, albeit often for different reasons.
By , at
Wed Oct 01, 08:19:00 PM:
I actually think it is wise for someone to vote no for a bill that is basically being forced down the throat of America by Henry Paulson. This crisis we are having right now is of his making. While there were problems in our financial markets, his crawing about the end of the world has forced all of the cards to be called immediately, instead of over time. He thought that throwing this crisis out there that he would get unfettered access to a really big number of dollars that he pulled out of his ass in order to make sure people knew he was serious that there was a crisis. Who is going to get the benifit of this bailout? Goldman Sachs for one, Just like he bailed out AIG, for what reason? Goldman Sachs would have lost $20,000,000,000 if AIG went bankrupt, and Goldman Sachs was the only company allowed to have a negotiator in the meeting that determined what to do with AIG, Paulson made over half a billion dollars while working at Goldman Sachs before becoming treasury secratary. Did Lehman brothers get the same treatment? No, they were a direct competitor to Goldman Sachs, so Paulson let them die off. What company has stakes in hundreds of billions of dollars in this toxic waste of MBS papers? You are right if you answered Goldman Sachs. Who exactly do you think will get the bulk of the bailout money, when there is upwards of $60 trillion worth of toxic papers in the market when they only have $700 billion? I am gussing Goldman Sachs first and then a few other players to follow, but Goldman Sachs first and foremost.
Are there other ways to solve this issue? Sure are. The good ones tell you that you should just let the companies too heavily invested in the toxic waste to go bankrupt, allow the companies that were responsible pick up the old comapnies at fire sales, and then inject large amounts of lended money into those responsible companies so that it has minimal effect on the over all economy.
But Paulson wants unfettered ability to buy up toxic paper at between $.40 and $.80 on the dollar for paper that is really worth today about $.10 to $.20. This is paper that has already had most of the borrowers already gone 90 days late or already in foreclosure. While this paper might make back the $.40 at most, it will never be worth $.80 because the underlying asset of the house has depreciated over 40% and will cost money to sell, and that is assuming that the house in already in resell condition, but trust me, people who buy houses they cannot afford do not usually leave the house in as good a condition or even the neighborhood as they got it.
