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Friday, April 4, 2008

Holy Fiscal Responsibility, Batman! Ryun wants to give you $12,000 & to let banks fail!

After a miserable start to his Kansas Values Tour in Baldwin & Ottawa (a grand totally of six fine folk in Baldwin!), former Congressman Jim Ryun spent 20 minutes with Raubin and Megan on Topeka's WIBW AM580.

And, Lord, did he unload some things he's going to wish he hadn't said.

He obviously has taken a page of John "I don't really know much about the economy" McCain, because our "fiscal conservative" knows just what to do to fix everything: Let the souring market eat financial institutions alive!

Oh, and you know that stimulus check you're getting from the government? If you were happy with $1,200, how about ten times that?

Ryun: Let me just say this- if the amount of money coming back, lets say to the to the typical average family, if $1,200 was good, why not $12,000? You know, let's really stimulate the economy and make it go forward.

[...]

You really need to give a sense of confidence to the market and to families.
No kidding "confidence," Jim. Why don't you just buy them a new car while you're at it? How 'bout some free land and a donkey, too?

Then this exchange:
Raubin: Shouldn't the federal government have stepped away and allowed Bear Sterns to falter?

Ryun: I would have liked to see that in the sense of "let the market take it's place" you know- the back and forth which is what this county is mostly, is dependent upon and it's been the best success for this country. The market is where, the market forces are what really helping our country in terms of determining our future.
This from the self proclaimed "fiscal conservative" in the race- let's give everyone a government handout of $12,000 and then let the failure of a huge investment bank have a market-driven ripple effect all over our already devastatingly weak economy. That'll fix everything!

Ryun was quoted in the Ottawa Herald saying this:
There’s a need for more market-based solutions for economic problems, he said.

Ryun said he’s opposed to efforts by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernacke [sic] to provide federal financial packages for large mortgage financial institutions.
Really, Jim? Market-based solutions? Opposed to the efforts at the Fed to stave off financial collapse?

Fed Chairman Bernanke said this today before Congress:
He said that "the damage caused by a default by Bear Stearns could have been severe and extremely difficult to contain."

[...]

"We did what we did because we felt it was necessary to preserve the integrity and viability of the American financial system, which in turn is critical for the health of the economy," Bernanke said.
But Jim Ryun disagrees. As the economy grows weaker, and as the talk of a recession intensifies, Jim Ryun says we need to just let the market play out- just let it alone and we'll all be fine. Sure, short tern you'll all go bankrupt, lose your homes and your jobs, but, really, in the long run...

Someone page Herbert Hoover.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

is it still roughly 130,000,000 Americans who will get a stimulus check?

that's a $1.6 TRILLION stimulus package.

So much for you, Jimmy.

Anonymous said...

I think you'll find that without a full staff writing his talking points Jim will have more moments like this.

I have concerns about a government bail out of banks, or the nationalization of banks that has been talked about (like they did in Finland, Sweden and Norway).

If they really wanted the banks to fix the problem and they're talking about forcing them to this or that, I have a simple solution. Force them to rewrite the mortgages at the original rate and make the rate fixed for 30 years.

When they originally wrote the notes the people could afford the monthly payments, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten the mortgage. It was when interest rates went up on all these variable rates that people started to get into trouble (plus all the points, balloons, etc.). If the banks went back and rewrote the notes to a fixed rate that they offered at closing these people could stay in their homes and MAKE PAYMENTS. The banks would be making money instead of carrying worthless notes and going bankrupt.

Anonymous said...

he just said he wants to give us all $12,000 again on Jim Cates radio in Topeka

Anonymous said...

he also just lied about who has the most kansas donors again...there's only one record of donations, and that's the FEC.

Jim: 52 from the KS-2
Lynn: 40 from the KS-2
Nancy: 81 from KS-2

how can he say he has MORE than Nancy?

Anonymous said...

like a freakin' trillion dollar budget deficit would help the weak dollar, jim.

Anonymous said...

If they really wanted the banks to fix the problem and they're talking about forcing them to this or that, I have a simple solution. Force them to rewrite the mortgages at the original rate and make the rate fixed for 30 years.
_____________________

It is easy to blame the bank for people deciding on an adjustable rate mortage. Most of them knew exactly the risks and bet on mortage rates staying down. Well they came up snake eyes .... it is their problem not the banks.

And these individuals could have went to a mortage comapny at any time and refinanced to a fixed rate mortage.

We didn't bail everyone out after September 11th and it was a short-term slide for the economy. By bailing everyone out you create a long-term economic problem.

Anonymous said...

They couldn't go and refinance anytime, most of the foreclosures are on sub-prime mortgages. The BANKS were betting that the people couldn't make their payments once the ARM came due or interest went up. The banks wanted to repo the house and turn a nice profit at the rate housing prices were going up.

As I said before, I don't like the government giving handouts or bailing out the banks. This would cost the tax payers nothing. We would have no more government forced fire sales like Bear Sterns. It would shore up the housing market. And banks would still make gobs of money because most of these sub prime mortgages were at 8-12%.

Anonymous said...

Many of those who bought homes based on interest only mortages .... couldn't afford the homes they were buying in the first place.

Sorry to say but there were many dumb people who wanted a deal too good to be true ..... in the end it was.

It is time we stop bailing out dumb people and dumb companies.

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