Dear Philip,

“Just how insane are things getting in Congress around attempts to pass a financial bail out/giveaway to preppies who don't know how to run financial markets? Very insane.” --- Philip Dawdy

Interesting comment on your part but one in which in my opinion kind of lacks the understanding of the serious nature of standing by idly and all of which has nothing to do with sanity or preppies. Putting aside the tacking on of the parity bill is the fact there is sufficient blame to go around which will not solve this current temporary dilemma. The fact is laws existed relating to Wall Street that was simply not enforced (i.e. Naked Short Selling Scandal etc) and there was no one really watching the store. The imprudent institutional lending of money to those not credit worthy. The enticement and seduction of easily available credit and mortgages to those under normal circumstances who are not credit worthy and lastly overall greed of all parties concerned simply brought this all to a head.

Maybe by “preppies” you were referring to the financial heads of these organizations? It would be interesting if you researched the age of some of those folks. I think you’ll find many to be older and/or senior preppies.

Have you thought about the consequences of this liquidity and credit shutdown to the most credit worthy of customers if nothing will be done? How many businesses will be forced to close their doors and how many jobs will be lost and then what will be the cost to this nation?

The world is not coming to an end and to paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt, “all that we have to fear is fear itself.”

This is not to mean that these monies should be handed over indiscriminately without judicious conditions and oversight monitoring or that legal prosecution should be exempted for those found responsible for breaking the law but we must first establish calm and reasonable visions of hope that this too shall pass.

History certainly has a way of repeating itself in one form or another.

In my opinion, the country will need an infusion of these monies along with a breath of fresh air, vision and hope not from a “maverick” that I see nothing more than an elderly sidekick of those same philosophies, policies and rhetoric that has not worked and has brought the country to this current state of affairs.

Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com

I'm not in favor of parity. I'm also not in favor of the bailout. If us taxpayers are going be billed 700 billion dollars, we should get to decide how to use it. Think about it, we could give each state 100 billion dollars and have 200 billion left over - I know that's trusting corrupt state governments with a lot of money but what if it was all earmarked for things like doubling the salaries of public school teachers, healthy organic school lunches and doubling unemployment benefits or for public works funds like the depression era WPA to give jobs to the unemployed. Hell, they could even establish the long promised vocational and housing programs for those "homeless, mentally ill" that Fuller Torrey thas paranoid fantasies about, deinstitutionalized so long ago, and then there would be 200 billion left over. What to do with that? Remove the tax burden from everyone making under 20,000 a year in real income, people who generally have no deductions and are taxed at 28%, improve and create new public housing? Soteria houses in every county in the nation?

Or maybe we could just split the 700 billion equally among every us citizen, probably resulting in an economic stimulus check much larger than 600 bucks, enough to really stimulate the economy.

Nah, let's just give the money to some bs mish mash government boondoggle.

I don't think people have yet begun to realize the impact this disaster can have on their lives if something isn't done to resolve the financial crisis soon.

Today, DH's employer, a small business, learned they weren't able to get an operating loan because credit is essentially frozen. In order to keep the doors open, the entire staff will begin working a 4-day week, taking a temporary 20% pay cut, and permanently increasing their share of insurance premiums. This is going to be devastating to many of us who have been living paycheck-to-paycheck due to prevailing economic conditions.

I'm not asking for pity, but trying to point out that our situation is probably not unique. Wall Street's orgy of greed is going to impact regular people more than it will the people who caused this mess. They all walked off with multi-million dollar golden parachutes; the rest of us will suffer severe consequences, and soon, if Congress doesn't approve the bill.

I agree with one thing: I'm not happy that they chose to tack on fringe and frills to make the package more appealing to the House.

Er, typo, we could only give each state a mere 10 billion and still have 200 billion left over.

Mhf,

If congress wanted to give 700 billion to folks like you and dh, I'd be behind it. The problem is that's not what this bill does and if it goes through and doesn't work, you'll be a lot worse off than you are now. If it goes through, the strongest recommendation we've heard for it is that it might work, that it's not impossible that that it will work. I'm just saying if we're capable of raising that kind of dough there might be a better way to use it that would be more likely to help you and me and everyone but the folks directly responsible. Sorry Philip, I know this is off topic.

The one thing I never hear people talk about is the there IS no 700 billion dollars. There IS no money. They're talking about using OUR credit card to finance their bankruptcy. I'm dead set against any sort of bailout no matter how they repackage or rename it.

By the way, they sent 26 million (or was it billion?) bucks to the Big 3 in Detroit this week. That sailed right under the 700 Billion Dollar radar, attracting almost no notice. Every other car maker on earth managed to figure out which way the wind was blowing and have plenty of small inventory to sell. The US car industry NEVER figures it out. They should stew in their own juice.

But none of them will. The second 700 bill effort passed the Senate. Even if the House votes it down, the miscreants will be back, kicking our shins and whining like five-year olds until they get what they want. And they will. Let's face it, even if a number of the pols stand firm (unlikely) over time we'll become inured to the concept and the numbers. Doesn't 200 billion now sound like "a deal" compared to 700 billion? They'll get away with quite a haul.

Interesting timing, this. Just before the election. This didn't come out of nowhere.

Grrrrr...

Sorry, I don't understand what "mental health parity" means.

It would be nice if we could have co-pays for mental health visits (psychiatrists, etc)and unlimited inpatient psych wards stays (if needed or wanted)but instead we pay high prices for services that are at best less than adequate most of the time.

IF there were co-pays and parity with regard to health care for mental illness I wouldn't be bankrupt and my daughter would have the choice to be inpatient at any psych unit she wants. Instead all cash is gone for out of pocket hospital bills for a decade,psych appointments that had a per year cap, and inpatient LIFE TIME stays are GONE for my 20 year old.

Now relying on state funding and SSI, (my daughter)is somehow, in my mind, just not really the American dream that happened to my typical average family.

Some ppl don't believe in parity, I'm not sure I agree with all the aspects and details of it, but something needs to be done so we, as Americans can seek mental health care and do it with dignity.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that can make me feel less than adequate than to have a child depend on state care and county hospitals for mental health care. But it happened to me and my daughter.That's trauma. Groveling at the feet of insurance companies, attorneys for civil liberties and lack of discrimination, fighting a system that is defunct and never worked---well this just does not surprise me, as mental health patients are second class citizens in this country, and for the life of me I cannot understand WHY we tolerate it.

Look, President Bush was not going to sign the parity bill as a stand-alone. And while there were solid majorities in both houses of Congress for parity, they were not veto-proof.

According to CNN, the bill has already been signed by the President. I'm not an economist, so I have no idea if the bailout is going to work, either (though hopefully it will stop the market panic, which has already cost much more than $700 billion in wealth).

But one way or the other, we now have parity written into law, something decades in the making. And as a political tactic to get something virtuous but not likely to pass, out of something icky that needed to pass, combining parity and the bailout was brilliant.

Good point. And now I understand resistance to the line-item veto.

Larry,
Thanks. I needed that.
S.

Dear Larry,

Thanks for your thoughts. It’s nice to read someone calmly thinking through matters with some understanding.

[url=http://vnsdepression.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629]
Life certainly is not perfect but mental health parity is long, long overdue.[\url]

Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com

The lack of insurability of psych services has had a certain protective effect against over-prescribing/treatment by psych doctors.

Once everything gets billable to a third party payer, pharma doctors and their suppliers will be able to turn on the spigot of psych drugs, not unlike how an ATM/carjacker drives his victim to different bank/atms and forces him to withdraw funds at the point of a gun.

Sue, I believe this will help people who are getting talk therapy treatment, too.

Stephany,

While I my share of the tax burden isn't huge, it's an enormous chunk of the money I earn, paying it causes me and mine financial harm and it sickens me to think that most of my tax dollars go to futile dishonest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with a substantial portion going into the hands of corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats,...so to think that some how some small portion of my tax dollars might provide services to your daughter makes me feel much better. You should feel good about diverting government funds from waste and evil to your daughter though I respect your pride.

I am opposed to mental health parity because I think all sorts of people and problems are dangerously diverted to "mental health," because like Sue writes, "The lack of insurability of psych services has had a certain protective effect against over-prescribing/treatment by psych doctors."

And of course with people like Nemeroff, head of behavioral psych at Emory since 1991, editor of editor-in-chief of the national medical journal Neuropsychophamacology until 2006 when he got busted for lying, and Biderman at Harvard, and the guy at Brown, it turns out the vast majority of purported science that the biopsych folk base their drastic "treatments" on really is a sham with no basis in science, and yet theirs' is still the dominant paradigm. As long as that is the case, getting "mental health" treatment is perilous at the least. Mental health services should be completely anonymous and voluntary, humanistic therapies given the respect they are due. I suspect mental health parity won't make that more likely but will only give more power to the people who are already too monied up and wrecking so much havoc on the citizens of the US.

I would be for mental health parity if treatment paradigms really helped people get better but in so many cases they make them worse. If the standard treatment paradigm is to administer poison (sorry!) then it's kind of hard to be for it even if one believes profoundly that people with mental health issues do deserve care and support. I also am concerned that mental health parity is going to bankrupt our health care system since so many mental health treatments lead to long term physical health problems of a very serious nature. It's a difficult issue. But being dead against it is probably not the answer either. Still passing it this way just doesn't seem like it should be allowed. Crazy because I think it is going to be very expensive for businesses which might defeat the purpose a bit.