Everything does not always benefit the "fat cats" Comrade Cramer! This is all BS! Not all of us gambled away our careers. Why should we bail out those who did? Because of fear of what may happen in the future? The only thing the future promises with certainty is death. The rest is speculation! Isn't that what got us in this mess?

Thanks for your opinion Jim, but enough already. Thought for sure you weren't just another Kool-Aid drinking talking head but I guess I was wrong. You should have paid attention in Economics class and you would have realized the economy's not the problem, the people in charge of it are. AIG, FannieMae and Freddiemac shouldn't have been bailed out either. Did you say "everyone who has ever saved a dime and worked hard and invested in a home or a stock, this is an unimaginable disaster"???? What's unimaginable, that people saved and lost on an investment? That's what an investment is!! You make money and you lose money, it's a gamble...if people wanted safety they should have invested in Treasury's or some safe Muni's. No, everyone needs or wants huge returns on their investment, but according to you there should be no RISK of loss. Great work if you can get it. I haven't lost a penny, no one in my family has lost anything nor have my friends. Money will be tight, but maybe that's the way it should have been all along anyway. As far as the bailout goes, most businesses take 75 days at least to put together their year end financials. The Treasury department needed 24 hours last week to come up with the relief package that's needed. Where did that figure come from? Finally, the market decline was only about 7% of the total value, not even close to the 20-22% decline on Black Monday a few years ago. I'm 44 and this would be the third major bailout since I graduated college. This should be a once in a lifetime thing. Not 3 times in 20 years.

I haven't watched so many of the "smartest guys in the room" panic as I did last night on the news programs. Suzy Orman too.

Let them and Suzy belly up to the bar and put up their money to bail out the system they created.

Idealism is fine when one has a vision for whatever discipline they engage in. But when reality sets in, a different set of rules kick in. Lessons of hard knocks tells us that home loans may be the culprit behind the economic melt-down, but the reality is that Congress is over-correcting a problem with the bail-out. Henry Paulson's professional background is that of an investment banker that Congress rightly did not go for his plan hook, line and sinker. The rejection yesterday gives Congress pause to let cooler heads prevail. I also believe we need to accept military and agricultural expenditures as fixed costs for a strong nation and cheap food at the supermarkets. We will also see 100's of bank mergers in the months and a few short years ahead which exactly happened to Japan. Today, they are buying up our banks manifesting their remarkable recovery we once thought was hopeless.

Dont forget to mention Mortgage rates as the cause of the problem and the reasons banks give to keep them as high as they are. Besides stocks are up today a recession is not here yet what is all the panic about giving these fat cats more when we may not need to.

LOL Unbelievable....
Are you calling people who opposes the give away a communist?

What the House has shown is that not everyone desires to be a lemming...either towards or away from the cliff.

Some sort of governmental assistance will be provided unless the Paulsonites start treating this like the ERA supporters did with that needed Amendment["not one punctuation mark can be changed"] which killed that.

The questions are how that assistance will be provided, to what degree, and to what segments of the economy. You say
"This package was about stopping home price depreciation before it hit 40%, 50%, 60%. It was about the private sector being able to buy failed banks, not the public sector, which is what will now have to happen. " No, there is no realistic chance ofthe home depreciation being of 40%, let alone 60% of any assets not bubble-borne. And this package was really about letting some major banks and large investment venues not only stop-loss but profit by buying up at a firesale others' assets at the public's expense. Consolidation will occur, but at a higher level of risk for them. And maybe they will think better of it, as too much consolidation is in no-one's, repeat, is in no-one's best interest.

I think Frank is right. I also am thrilled to know that the Congress is not completely deaf. The majority of the members of the House actually voted the way their constituents wanted. Democracy still lives, and that's a victory regardless of the stock prices, and have you noticed the market has started to rally?

This defeat will benefit everybody including fat cats, cause of low inflation, and lower prices for everything you need on the daily basis. If you care of course.

.... Our whole economy for years has been based on credit and that was fine with the banks as long as there were assets to be had in foreclosures. But with the declining value of homes due to the fraudulent lending practices (Increased demand for homes and increased the prices of homes), the banks were caught in their own trap that they had set. My real estate value has decreased greatly in the last two years. The banks want the govt to buy the banks mortgages at a price greater than what they are worth. Great, while the govt is at it, they can buy my real estate at an increased value. I am not asking for that, and the prospects that the banks will be bailed out of their bad decisions makes me sick. Bailing out the banks will not even fix the problem of tight credit or of the economy which is the larger problem, it will just pad the financial position of the people that caused this problem. You'll never see 700 billion disappear faster and wonder where it went, but we will all know where it went. It will not help this problem, but only make it worse. Bring on the pain, because after the pain, we will truly be on a real road to recovery! Have an open hearing! Mandate a panel of experts(Economists) to discuss this problem on TV so we can make an informed decision as to what is best, not backroom decisions made in darkness.

Let's see. I have a business where I can borrow billions of dollars from the Fed at 2-3%, I can pay savings account and money market customers about .5% to 3% on their investments (representing additional funds I have available to be used for lending) and then I can flip those funds into mortgages at anywhere from 5-9% and credit cards at rates of, let's say 8-22% on average. In case we can't make a living doing that, we can try to enroll 60% of the people that have accounts with us sign up for direct deposit (in return for free checking accounts,of course - see we're not all bad!). Then know we can cut the number of humans available to assist with actual banking transactions to a minimum, so that rather than spending their entire lunch hour on Friday on line at our branches, they will pay us $3.00 to get their grubby little hands on THEIR OWN MONEY. Nope see it will never work, after the "INDEPENDENT" Compensation Board that we choose, votes us $100 million in salary and stock based compensation, this Company will never make it. But don't worry... Jim Cramer, a man people trust and respect will tell everyone that, if you don't listen to that great economic whiz George W. Bush (didn't he head a failed S&L during the 80's that got bailed out by his father's administration) and bail us out, that yes indeed,the world as they know it, will come to an end.
One of two things happened here. Either the great economic minds of Wall Street saw this coming and kept things quiet until they could divest as much as possible themselves, or they aren't as smart as they would lead you to believe they are. I vote for the former. Either way there is a lot of egg on a lot of faces. The only way to save face is to spin this into the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.
Finally regarding the 40-60% depreciation of American's houses. I didn't hear anyone complaining when the prices doubled in my neighborhood from 2004 to 2007. I guess it's just the people who got caught holding the "hot potato" when the bell went off. It's called buying high and selling low. Happens all of the time in the stock market, except investors there are stuck with the losses because they spent their money. With housing, people seem to believe because it's the bank's money (OPM) that they don't have to accept the loss, but instead can walk away from the bad investment. There should be stronger enforcement by the government to force them to stay and pay or get out at a loss. But that will never happen becasue if the prices come down low enough, I don't know maybe young people, people who have low credit scores and god forbid, minorities might be able to afford to live in these houses. There goes the neighborhood.

I agree will all the commentators except for Cramer himself on this blog. I have a substantial 401k that I won't be tapping in to for 7 years. I would rather see the market take a hit now and buy low over the next several years than to see another bailout debacle

Who wrote the song: "Its the end of the world as I know it"???

You might be interested in Newt Gingrich's article on Forbes.com on suspending market-to-market rules. Makes a lot of sense to me!

People - don't you know that the policies passed in the 90's (Clinton's time in office) are what are affecting us now. The effect of the Bush policies won't hit until the next president is in office. Historically, there has always been this sort of time delay. What i find amazing is that the very people who passed the laws or rule changes that helped cause this mess are now bold enough to blame the current president. Shame on you Dodd, Rangle, Schumer, Pelosi, Reid, & Frank. Bush wasn't in office or the congress when these laws were passed

I cannot beleive the stupidity of Cramer. I cannot beleive he thinks we should protect the banks. The congress already gave them a christmas present during the Bush Administration with the New bankruptcy law. Stocks are selling at price to earnings levels that does not compensate anyone for the risk. The market should be allowed to seek its own level without interference. As far as saving the fat cats. Let them eat spam. They have already raped and pillaged to excess. no bail out.

Why don't we start the bailout by getting back the millions of dollars in golden parachutes over the last several years and reducing the 700 billion by at least that amount. I not sure we need the bailout, but, I am sure that if the country decides to go that way we shoud at least go back and retreive the millions and millions of dollars that were basically dishonestly taken by the executive staff of those failing companies.

Hey Cramer-
What happened to rates dropping to 4.5%---the massive drop that you said would happen if Fannie & Freddie were taken over? I have saved two articles from you-one back in the fall of last year, and one a few months ago indicating that would be the saviour of housing. Despite fed rate cuts, injection of billions of liquidity into banking, and these respective bailouts "main street" has not seen a drop in rates. In fact, in July--when housing hit worst price drop--rates were at highest level of the year. Why?-Fat cats speculating on oil. Americans need a clear, detailed picture of how this will help things--not just how it will avert disaster. Given the burden Americans are being asked to take on with a $700 billion dollar stabilization plan, don't you think we deserve that?

OK, people: What does all this tell us? It tells us that if we, as the constituents and the governed act, as we have these past weeks, our representatives will listen, and those who don't we remember on election day. I am heartened that some in Congress remembered that they "serve by the consent of the governed"--us--and that if we remain silent, we tacitly give them free rein. But if we speak, and loudly, they will and must hear us or be voted out of office.
This measure has bolstered confidence of the people and so you see confidence in the marketplace coming back.
I, for one, will never be silent again on things the government wants to do, and yes, President Bush appears to have lost his mind in recent weeks, or Paulson has found some way to control it.
Did you hear about the Wall Street article that allowed the CEO of Goldman-Sachs to sit in on the Fed meeting considering bailing out AIG?--Paulson's former turf? And that Goldman-Sachs had a $20 billion exposure in that? Can you spell "conflict of interest"? Paulson should be fired, and I think that many things will be better, even for you, Mr. Cramer. Check it out.

Error: I did not mean to imply that the Wall Street article was responsible for allowing the CEO of Goldman-Sachs to sit in on the Fed meeting. Paulson did that.