Can the market alone fix the economy?

[Vanadium 50]

Actually, I was certain that the rates would rise. The ARM had a "teaser rate" that would increase in two years. By a combination of paying more than the minimum and refinancing when appropriate, I paid for my house in 9 years.

An ARM is a financial tool, like any other. It can be used or misused.

 

[OmCheeto]

I was able to buy my first home through a variable rate mortgage.

So did I. I don't understand the problem with them. Though I later switched to a fixed rate, and then again to a lower interest fixed rate. It may have been that my house was a fixer upper and I knew that I could double the value in less than 6 months. Though the county did this for tax purposes for me before I even moved in. Dirty rotten scoundrels...

But that doesn't fix the economy, or prevent us from buggering it again.

My original ARM started at 9%, and had a 14% cap.
So even if it had maxed out in the first year, I'd still have easily made the payments.
People should be cautioned against an ARM with an interest cap which would exceed their ability to pay.
My payments have always been around 20% of my net income.

Is/was there an industry standard for lending on a home?

 

[mgb_phys]

Is/was there an industry standard for lending on a home?

It used to be 3.5x main income or 2x joint income with a 10% deposit

 

[WhoWee]

So did I. I don't understand the problem with them. Though I later switched to a fixed rate, and then again to a lower interest fixed rate. It may have been that my house was a fixer upper and I knew that I could double the value in less than 6 months. Though the county did this for tax purposes for me before I even moved in. Dirty rotten scoundrels...

But that doesn't fix the economy, or prevent us from buggering it again.

My original ARM started at 9%, and had a 14% cap.
So even if it had maxed out in the first year, I'd still have easily made the payments.
People should be cautioned against an ARM with an interest cap which would exceed their ability to pay.
My payments have always been around 20% of my net income.

Is/was there an industry standard for lending on a home?

This explains the consumer side of the equation.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/arms/arms_english.htm#arm

There are some built in risks if rates rise.

The other side of the equation is the way the loans are bundled and sold/re-sold. Your example of an initial rate of 9% with a cap of 14% = 5% margin.

this is a good read

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7413

this is an excerpt:

"That was in 2005. The most Sub-prime mortgages written with Adjustable Rate Mortgage contracts were written between 2005-2006, the last and most furious phase of the US bubble. Now a whole new wave of mortgage defaults is about to explode onto the scene beginning January 2008. Between December 2007 and July 1, 2008 more than $690 Billion in mortgages will face an interest rate jump according to the contract terms of the ARMs written two years before. That means market interest rates for those mortgages will explode monthly payments just as recession drives incomes down. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners will be forced to do the last resort of any homeowner: stop monthly mortgage payments.

Here is where the Ohio court decision guarantees that the next phase of the US mortgage crisis will assume Tsunami dimension. If the Ohio Deutsche Bank precedent holds in the appeal to the Supreme Court, millions of homes will be in default but the banks prevented from seizing them as collateral assets to resell. Robert Shiller of Yale, the controversial and often correct author of the book, Irrational Exuberance, predicting the 2001-2 Dot.com stock crash, estimates US housing prices could fall as much as 50% in some areas given how home prices have diverged relative to rents.

The $690 billion worth of “interest only” ARMs due for interest rate hike between now and July 2008 are by and large not Sub-prime but a little higher quality, but only just. There are a total of $1.4 trillion in “interest only” ARMs according to the US research firm, First American Loan Performance. A recent study calculates that, as these ARMs face staggering higher interest costs in the next 9 months, more than $325 billion of the loans will default leaving 1 million property owners in technical mortgage default. But if banks are unable to reclaim the homes as assets to offset the non-performing mortgages, the US banking system and a chunk of the global banking system faces a financial gridlock that will make events to date truly “peanuts” by comparison. We will discuss the global geo-political implications of this in our next report, The Financial Tsunami: Part 2. "

 

[Vanadium 50]

Is/was there an industry standard for lending on a home?

No more than 28% of gross income for housing expenses, and no more than 36% of gross income for all debt + housing expenses. Usually a 10% minimum down payment is required, although for some programs (e.g. FHA) it can be lower.

With a 5.4% 30-year fixed mortgage and no more than 8% in other debt, that works out to 4.3x annual income.

 

[OmCheeto]

No more than 28% of gross income for housing expenses, and no more than 36% of gross income for all debt + housing expenses. Usually a 10% minimum down payment is required, although for some programs (e.g. FHA) it can be lower.

With a 5.4% 30-year fixed mortgage and no more than 8% in other debt, that works out to 4.3x annual income.

Odd. By that standard I could have purchased a house for $60,000.
My house cost $22,600, and they would not let me have the loan unless I put 20% down.
Which I did. (Who could pass on a house for the price of a new car?)
So I ended up with an $18,000 mortgage on a $15,000 a year income.

hmmm...

Maybe they need to include food and toilet paper costs into future equations when dealing with sub-primers.

 

[Vanadium 50]

During the worst of the bubble, the 36% number was relaxed. I've heard numbers like 55%.

After all, since the price of the underlying asset will increase without bound, what's the risk?

The people who seem to be in real trouble aren't the first time homeowners. They are the people who cashed out the equity in their homes and then spent it.

 

[OmCheeto]

During the worst of the bubble, the 36% number was relaxed. I've heard numbers like 55%.

After all, since the price of the underlying asset will increase without bound, what's the risk?

The people who seem to be in real trouble aren't the first time homeowners. They are the people who cashed out the equity in their homes and then spent it.

Um. You're talking about me...
My current principal is now $43,000.
Though I can afford to pay $400-$500/month on the principal now.
I realized 2 years ago that I only had 10 years until retirement.
I decided I should have the house paid off by then.

I just http://www.building-cost.net/CornersType.asp" on what my house would cost to build today.
$34,000 if I build one myself, and $78,000 to have someone else build it.
Based just on the house and the 78k value, I'd say I've not been too foolish.
But based on my property tax statement, I wouldn't max out unless I borrowed another $110,000!

last years RMV = $140,000
this years RMV = $154,000

... Bwah hahahahaha!

Although... I should pay off my high interest rate credit card, and I do need about $8000 for home energy independence improvements and automotive R&D funding.

hmmm... $60000 over 8 years at 5.75% yields $900/month(with taxes)

That's $200 a month less than I'm paying now for the house and card.

Is anyone lending money nowadays?

 

[Astronuc]

I was sitting next to a guy from Goldman Sachs on a flight last night, and he was reading Michael Lewis's Panic. I mentioned that it would be great that institutions like GS would put together an Entrepreneurship Fund so that they could finance startups, rather than wait around for prodding by the government. He said he expects GS and others to do that pretty soon - within the next year.

I also think it would be worthwhile for technology companies to encourage new innovative ideas, and if it's not in the business plan or it's not a core technology, then spin it off as a new company.

Right now small startups must find an incubator somewhere. This morning, I heard about a small business incubator in Youngstown, PA, which focuses on companies doing B2B software.

 

[WhoWee]

I was sitting next to a guy from Goldman Sachs on a flight last night, and he was reading Michael Lewis's Panic. I mentioned that it would be great that institutions like GS would put together an Entrepreneurship Fund so that they could finance startups, rather than wait around for prodding by the government. He said he expects GS and others to do that pretty soon - within the next year.

I also think it would be worthwhile for technology companies to encourage new innovative ideas, and if it's not in the business plan or it's not a core technology, then spin it off as a new company.

Right now small startups must find an incubator somewhere. This morning, I heard about a small business incubator in Youngstown, PA, which focuses on companies doing B2B software.

Actually it's in Youngstown, OH. The number one success story (so far) is Turning Technologies

http://www.turningtechnologies.com/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Just a reminder: The first airing begins in 15 minutes. It should be available online after that.

For those struggling to make sense of the economic crisis, help is on the way. Inside the Meltdown is producer Michael Kirk's gripping account of how the country ended up in the worst financial crisis since 1929. The program airs Tuesday night on PBS and will be watchable online after that. This preview excerpt tracks the crisis back upstream to a key source -- the government's failure to heed early warnings on the housing bubble, and the havoc that ensued as a result.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/story/2009/02/banking-at-the-brink.html

 

[ThomasT]

Just a reminder: The first airing begins in 15 minutes. It should be available online after that.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/story/2009/02/banking-at-the-brink.html

I just finished watching this program, and I must say that I still don't understand the situation.

Is it that all of these financial institlutions have been and are so heavily leveraged that they have been and are writing checks that can only be covered if some other institution writes them a check that can only be covered if some other institution writes them a check ... and so on? So, is the whole thing based on promises that ultimately, if the collective 'bluff' is called, can't be kept?

So, even if there was, eg., a certain 'toxicity' wrt the packaging and speculation on large bundles of mortgages, the whole financial world or 'investment economy' is a sort of house of cards anyway?

Is the beginning of the non-confidence domino effect traced back to a million or so mortgage defaults? This doesn't seem to account for enough cash to have affected the investment economy, and as a result the real economy, as greatly as it has. What I mean is, was Lehman Bros., AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. cash flow affected that greatly just because of the mortgage stuff?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I just finished watching this program, and I must say that I still don't understand the situation.

Is it that all of these financial institlutions have been and are so heavily leveraged that they have been and are writing checks that can only be covered if some other institution writes them a check that can only be covered if some other institution writes them a check ... and so on? So, is the whole thing based on promises that ultimately, if the collective 'bluff' is called, can't be kept?

So, even if there was, eg., a certain 'toxicity' wrt the packaging and speculation on large bundles of mortgages, the whole financial world or 'investment economy' is a sort of house of cards anyway?

Is the beginning of the non-confidence domino effect traced back to a million or so mortgage defaults? This doesn't seem to account for enough cash to have affected the investment economy, and as a result the real economy, as greatly as it has. What I mean is, was Lehman Bros., AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. cash flow affected that greatly just because of the mortgage stuff?

My take is that slowly everyone began to realize the depth of the problem with not only toxic assets, but also the credit default swaps - that some or much of the investment sector was insolvent. At that point it became a confidence domino effect. So it wasn't that confidence evaporated for no reason; people realized that some unknown number of companies were garbage and there was no way to be sure who was solvent and who wasn't. At that point the credit markets froze.

Note that these companies were not only liable for their own toxic assets, but with the credit default swaps they were liable for the toxic assets that they had inadvertently insured. And from what I gather, this liability even extended generally to the stock market.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Here we go. There is a timeline and some analysis along with the one-hour video.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/

 

[mgb_phys]

I also think it would be worthwhile for technology companies to encourage new innovative ideas, and if it's not in the business plan or it's not a core technology, then spin it off as a new company.

I worked for a company that did that - unfortunately what happened was more like:

Spin off startup company with $X of funding, and attract partners with $Y funding.
Then nickel and dime your $X back from the company with staff transfer fees, rents for incubator space, technology license fees, etc until you have got back the $X and most of the $Y. Then let the company fold.

Apparently the investment of the $X gets a whole bunch of tax breaks for investment, and all the money coming back looks like income to Wall St. Plus you get to basically rob the $Y as a bonus.

 

[turbo]

Just a reminder: The first airing begins in 15 minutes. It should be available online after that.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/story/2009/02/banking-at-the-brink.html

Thanks for the heads-up Ivan. I'll have to watch it on-line. We're in the heat of the high-school basketball tournaments, and in Maine, that preempts all other PBS programming, including the News Hour. Hoops is king here.

 

[Astronuc]

Perhaps the government can start collecting from tax evaders.

UBS to pay $780M, open secret Swiss bank records
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_bi_ge/ubs_secrets

WASHINGTON – Banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $780 million and turn over once-secret Swiss banking records to settle allegations it conspired to defraud the U.S. government of taxes owed by big clients.

As part of the deal struck in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., UBS has made the unprecedented step of agreeing to immediately turn over to the U.S. government account information for U.S. customers of the bank's cross-border business.

In doing so, federal authorities have struck a big crack in Switzerland's vaunted bank secrecy laws.

UBS will pay $780 million in fines, penalties, interest and restitution for conspiring to create sham accounts to hide the assets of U.S. clients from the U.S. government.

"We accept full responsibility for these improper activities," Peter Kurer, chairman of Swiss-based UBS AG, said in a statement. He added that the bank was determined to abide by the terms of the deal with U.S. criminal and securities officials.

. . . .

Going after banks in the Carribean and Atlantic should be on the agenda.

General Electric CEO declines bonus for 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_bi_ge/general_electric_executive_compensation

WASHINGTON – General Electric Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt declined a 2008 bonus and millions of dollars in performance awards, saying Wednesday that the company's falling profits and plummeting share price prompted him to forgo the payments.

The Fairfield, Conn.-based conglomerate, which makes everything from locomotives to household appliances, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Immelt will not receive his $11.7 million long-term performance award. Immelt received no bonus and his base salary of $3.3 million was flat with his 2007 paycheck. In 2007, GE paid Immelt a $5.8 million bonus.

The pay decisions, which the board made at Immelt's request, come after painful year for GE as the economy sank into a deeper recession and the financial crisis intensified. Earnings dropped 22 percent, company profit targets were missed, a restructuring of the GE's lending unit began, and shares lost more than half their value.

"Earnings came in well below where we expected. The broad equity markets, and GE's stock price, declined significantly in 2008. In these circumstances, I recommended to GE's board of directors that I not receive a bonus for 2008," Immelt said in a statement.

And the company continues to face challenges. Many investors believe GE will be forced to cut its dividend, now forecast at $1.24 per share for the year, if it can't generate enough cash flow to maintain the quarterly payouts. GE has said it will pay half the dividend but will evaluate whether to pay the remainder.

And the company risks losing its critical "AAA" credit rating this year because of GE Capital's woes. Ratings agencies Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's are both reviewing their top ratings for GE this year. GE's stock, down another 33 percent so far in 2009, is trading at levels not seen since the mid-1990s.

. . . .

Kudos to Immelt, despite the difficulty. GE is a pretty good buy now, even if they cut the divident in half.

 

[mgb_phys]

Going after banks in the Carribean and Atlantic should be on the agenda.

More difficult since they have nothing to gain by helping the US.
UBS (like the similair case with Lloyds) want to operate on Wall St and so have to do what the Fed asks to a certain extent.
They have a lot less influence over a Caribbean offshore bank, the most they could do is threaten to arrest any employees that fly via the US - as they have done with off shore gambling.

 

[mheslep]

I was disappointed that Frontline did not interview Bethany McLean for Meltdown. She's written the most comprehensive and readable prose yet on the background.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/fannie-and-freddie200902

 

[OmCheeto]

Another step in fixing the economy is to return confidence in the system.

Investors in Madoff's scheme may be required to return profits, since those profits weren't really profits. They were someone else's money.

Enter the newest word I've learned today: clawback

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/02/21/madoff_creditors_get_first_report/"
By Beth Healy
Globe Staff / February 21, 2009

Indeed, customer claim forms will, in part, be the road map by which the trustee pieces together who may have received money that should be taken back, or subject to a so-called clawback. Investors who have taken out significant funds from their Madoff accounts over the years may have to return some of it.

And of course, you know what's are telling people just to be quiet and maybe no one will notice the piles of cash in their closets:

Some lawyers are counseling investors against submitting claims. Boston lawyer Pete Michaels said, "If you put in $300,000 and you've taken out $500,000, then you've got nothing to gain by filling out a SIPC form."

Oh shoot... I see it made word of the week last year. I'm always behind.

http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/word_of_the_week/page/2/"

Clawback: Previously given monies or benefits that are taken back because of specially arising circumstances. Also: a retraction of stock prices or of the market in general.

"Claw back" (the verb form) with this financial definition first appeared in print around 1953, and has been used chiefly in Great Britain and Commonwealth countries. ("Clawback" had an earlier meaning of "sycophant" or "flatterer.") It was picked up by investment bankers and venture capitalists in North America but was rarely used in general parlance until the recent global economic crisis. It's now seen with some frequency in reference to the retraction of large management bonuses. The violence of the image suggests that the effort will be a bloody one.

Insert cute metaphorical analogy here: _______________________

 

[Astronuc]

Something to look forward to.

When Consumers Cut Back: A Lesson From Japan
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/worldbusiness/22japan.html

TOKYO — As recession-wary Americans adapt to a new frugality, Japan offers a peek at how thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect.

The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy.

Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry, a popular way to save on utility bills. Sales of whiskey, the favorite drink among moneyed Tokyoites in the booming ’80s, have fallen to a fifth of their peak. And the nation is losing interest in cars; sales have fallen by half since 1990.

The Takigasaki family in the Tokyo suburb of Nakano goes further to save a yen or two. Although the family has a comfortable nest egg, Hiroko Takigasaki carefully rations her vegetables. When she goes through too many in a given week, she reverts to her cost-saving standby: cabbage stew.

“You can make almost anything with some cabbage, and perhaps some potato,” says Mrs. Takigasaki, 49, who works part time at a home for people with disabilities.

Her husband has a well-paying job with the electronics giant Fujitsu, but “I don’t know when the ax will drop,” she says. “Really, we need to save much, much more.”

Japan eventually pulled itself out of the Lost Decade of the 1990s, thanks in part to a boom in exports to the United States and China. But even as the economy expanded, shell-shocked consumers refused to spend. Between 2001 and 2007, per-capita consumer spending rose only 0.2 percent.

Now, as exports dry up amid a worldwide collapse in demand, Japan’s economy is in free-fall because it cannot rely on domestic consumption to pick up the slack.

In the last three months of 2008, Japan’s economy shrank at an annualized rate of 12.7 percent, the sharpest decline since the oil shocks of the 1970s.

. . . .

I read somewhere that average Americans (i.e. the middle class), particularly the current generations should adjust to a lower standard of living than the baby boomer generation. I'll have to find that commentary.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Today on This Week, there was a rather interesting exchange between Paul Krugman, and George Will. Will was pointing to the fact that many nations are now borrowing. The interest has to be paid on that debt and there is only so much money to go around. Krugman responded by saying that there is a tremendous amount of capital floating around but no one trusts the markets or banks. So in effect the bailout, the stimulus package, and the housing relief bill are just another conduit to recycle that capital through credit.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6932460

So it almost seems that the investors are forcing the hand - they are willing to extend credit publically but not privately.

 

[Astronuc]

More on the 'clawback' -

After Huge Losses, a Move to Reclaim Executives’ Pay
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/22pay.html

SHOULD executives get to keep lavish pay packages when the profits that generated their compensation go up in smoke?

As the financial crisis deepens, what might have been a philosophical question is now the topic of the day. With losses mounting at the nation’s largest financial institutions, years of earnings have been erased, investors have lost billions, thousands of employees have been let go, and taxpayers have been tapped to rescue the financial system. But executives who helped set the problems in motion, or ignored them as they mounted, are still doing fine. Humbled, perhaps, but well paid for their anguish.

Executives at seven major financial institutions that have collapsed, were sold at distressed prices or are in deep to the taxpayer received $464 million in performance pay since 2005, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times. Almost half of that consisted of cash compensation.

Yet these firms have reported losses of $107 billion since 2007, a result of their own missteps and the ensuing economic downturn. And $740 billion in stock market value has been lost since these companies’ shares peaked in 2007, just before the housing bubble burst.

Against that landscape, a growing chorus is demanding that executive compensation snared shortly before problems emerged be given back.

“There is a line that separates fair compensation from stealing from shareholders,” said Frederick E. Rowe, a money manager in Dallas and a founder of Investors for Director Accountability, a nonprofit group. “When managements ignore that line or can’t see it, then hell, yes, they should be required to give the money back.”

Corporate boards that awarded lush executive pay packages almost always justified them by saying they encouraged superior performance and were directly tied to benchmarks like profitability.

But now, with a public backlash against excessive pay and taxpayer lifelines extended to crippled companies, the idea of recouping compensation, known as “clawback,” is gaining traction.

Currently there is no legal mechanism for forcing the regurgitation of past pay, so such efforts would need to be bolstered by new legislation. Clawbacks also promise to be a hot-button issue at shareholder meetings in coming months.

. . . .

Superior performance in 2008? 2007? 2006? . . . . ? ? ? or fudged books.

It would appear that the recent prosperity is illusory. I believe the outstanding debt in the world currently exceeds the capital or cumulative wealth at the moment. It may not be obvious, but that seems to be the case.

 

[WhoWee]

...and yet no strings were attached before TARP1...too big to fail, no time to think...haste makes waste

Will what should have been internal company matters between shareholders, boards and executives now going to become indictable...slippery slope.

Maybe we should keep Gitmo for all of the executives that wasted bailout funds...and a few Congresspersons responsible for "oversight".

 

[edward]

I stumbled on to a program on CNBC last week titled House Of Cards.

Alan Greenspan admitted that he could not understand the math involved in the CDO's. Even worse he couldn't find a mathematician or economist who did. It seems like that should have been a big red flag.

 

[WhoWee]

I read (back in Sept/Oct) that our Tres Sec and Fed Chair were being tutored by a variety of Hedge Fund managers regarding derivatives trading from Spring until Fall of 2008...because (the market is unregulated and) they didn't understand the instruments/trading concepts/valuation/rules of engagement, etc.

 

[OmCheeto]

There was a thread started by a seemingly naive person a few months ago regarding a [ctrl][alt][del] solution to the world economic crisis.

Does anyone else remember it?

It seemed quite silly at the time.

But now it's starting to seem like a prescient question.

 

[mheslep]

More on the 'clawback' -

After Huge Losses, a Move to Reclaim Executives’ Pay
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/22pay.html

Superior performance in 2008? 2007? 2006? . . . . ? ? ? or fudged books.

It would appear that the recent prosperity is illusory. I believe the outstanding debt in the world currently exceeds the capital or cumulative wealth at the moment. It may not be obvious, but that seems to be the case.

Regards the pay cap on institutions directly in receipt of TARP money: I had originally not had much objection to that plan, but now more details have come out. Of the 11-12 big US bank CEOs that attended the mandatory meeting called by Paulson and Bernanke late last year, some of them apparently protested loudly saying they did not want the money, and were forced to take it anyway. That being the case the govt has no business instructing them on salaries.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Poll: Politicians trusted more than business leaders on economy

30 percent express confidence Wall Street will make right decisions to end recession
75 percent say President Obama will make the right moves regarding recession
Obama has more Republicans trusting him than Wall Street has
Majority opposes providing rest of bailout money to banks

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/23/poll.economy/

 

[z0rn dawg]

Guess how many congressmen (or women) have a degree in economics.

Spoiler

ZERO!

If they are supposed to be fixing things and they don't have a full understanding of what is going on, how can they fix it? Obviously there are more factors, but I found it interesting.

As for fixing the economy...I like the 'New New Deal' idea. Maybe get out of war to raise some Consumer Confidence a bit.

 

[WhoWee]

Guess how many congressmen (or women) have a degree in economics.

Spoiler

ZERO!

If they are supposed to be fixing things and they don't have a full understanding of what is going on, how can they fix it? Obviously there are more factors, but I found it interesting.

As for fixing the economy...I like the 'New New Deal' idea. Maybe get out of war to raise some Consumer Confidence a bit.

Is not being trained to understand economics why nobody read the Stimulus Plan Spending Bill before they voted?

Here's the big story of the day for a lot of people

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/23/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm

...look out 5,000 ->>>here we come!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You don't suppose that they consult with economists?

 

[WhoWee]

You don't suppose that they consult with economists?

Consult with them about what...they didn't read the Bill.

 

[mheslep]

Another polling technique, DJIA, tracking since Jan 20.
Significant dates:
Feb 10, Geithner speech before Congress
Feb 18, Mortgage plan released.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

why nobody read the Stimulus Plan Spending Bill before they voted?

Where does it say that?