Bill O'Reilly defends the bailout, and blames Bush

Bill O'Reilly today launched into what sure sounded like a genuine tirade on his radio show today. It's worth checking out, whether you like O'Reilly or not. He throws a good tantrum. Best I can tell, he was making these points:

1) The bailout is necessary and you should support it.
2) It's President Bush's fault that we're in this mess. Blame Bush.
3) Don't listen to ideologues on talk radio who oppose the bailout. They're lying to you.
4) Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are idiots.

If I had to guess, I'd say O'Reilly's tirade against talk radio hosts was directed at Rush Limbaugh. (Among other things, O'Reilly said, "They're rich, these guys -- big cigars, all of that!") 

I'm not certain what Rush has been saying about the bailout. I did catch a little of his show today, and he made a convoluted argument against the bailout that went something like this: There is a chance the bailout will be wildly profitable for the federal government, and Obama can't be trusted with all that money; and you could restore market confidence faster by reducing capital gains taxes anyway.

I happen to enjoy talk radio. I think these two and a few others are very influential, but it's hard to keep up with how they're using their influence. These guys do very different shows. O'Reilly is trying to position himself as an independent arbiter of What's Best For the Folks. He's been very critical of Bush lately, and he's threatening to be tough on Sarah Palin if she won't come on his show.

Rush, on the other hand, is relentlessly, cheerfully, partisan, a Happy Warrior for the Right.

If any of you are regular listeners to talk radio shows, and have interesting bailout stories to tell (Who's for it? Who's against?), I'd be interested in hearing them in the comment section.

--Peter Viles

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Photo Credit: Westwood One

Comments

[LA-renter]

Peter,

I'm not sure why, but I listened to O'Reilly.

...don't think I learned anything, but...

now I'm thirsty for some punch... Any good place have frog legs in LA?... Are Cubans really the best --I'm not a smoker?

[1]

Bill O'Reilly is a blowhard and has about as much credibility as the NAR. I am a Republican.

[Giacomo]

I'm a conservative on most issues, but I rarely listen to O'Reilly, and haven't paid attention to Limbaugh in years.

Both these gentlemen have such out-sized EGOS, I simply can't trust their motives or their reasoning -- I always have a sense that their positions are designed to capture or maintain audience share.

Don't get me started on Jim Cramer.

[Lawrence Richardson]

I am a staunch conservative who used to enjoy O'Reilly. I have never considered him to be a particularly smart man, but up until recently he seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders. However, in the past few months the wheels have started to come off this train. He shares most of Limbaugh's beliefs at heart, but knows knows Limbaugh is considered the most influential conservative in media and no one is going to take that title from him, least of all a guy with 40 fewer IQ points like O'Reilly. This has led him to try and do this awkward straddle the middle of the road dance where he tries to pass himself off as an independant, but it is ringing really hollow. Rush and Savage have millions of listeners because they are passionate and say what they think. O'Reilly trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt all the time pleases neither side because everyone knows it is an act. Prediction #1) his new book will fail (despite his rant today--which was all about drawing attention to himself to sell his book.) Prediction #2) If he continues to sound like Air America, he will suffer the same fate they did. And at least they believed in what they were saying!

[Pat]

https://online.wamu.com/banking/offers/campaign001/
landing/customer_note

Look at that note from Alan Fishman dated 9/22/2008. He sure looks like an ass now. I wonder what his golden parachute will look like.

[Too Much Fed]

A worker bailout is necessary. A banker/wall street bailout is NOT necessary.

It is actually alan greenspan's fault along with EVERYONE AT THE FED, johnson, nixon, carter, reagan, bush 1, clinton, bush 2, and every other idiot in this country that worships debt.

Don't listen to ideologues, period. That means the left, the right, and most importantly the bankers that worship debt and the interest payments that go with it.

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are idiots. And, so are just about every other member of congress except for Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and possibly a few of the freshmen democrats.

[annoyed]

O'Rielly is a bully with no talent and no intellect.

And I'm not a liberal nor a democrat.

The only ones that seem to be against this bailout in gov. at the moment are the house Republicans. My new favorite group.

[It All Happens on the Margin]

Meanwhile...

WaMu bites the dust.

Largest Bank Failure By Far in US History.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122238415586576687.
html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_mostpop

Watch this to be a bailout catalyst...

[Nialla]

I listen to Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Miller. The rest are about volume, working out talking points for the TV show later and hearing themselves talk. Even if I agree with O'Reilly or Hannity -- which I often do, though more regularly Hannity than O'Reilly, who's basically all about O'Reilly -- I cna't take the yelling. Prager's thoughtful, considered and funny; Hewitt's incisive, inquisitive and also funny; Miller is funny (and often insightful).

[upthecreek]

see you at the gun store.

[Nancy]

Bill must have invested heavily in the stock market.

I went to protest regarding the bailout today. Most people were supportive. The few that weren't happened to drive luxury vehicles: Mercedes Benz, Audi. Coincidence? Hmmmmmmm....

[Valley Observer]

Have you seen Pearlstein's column in WaPo?

\Bailout Needs a Leap of Faith

By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, September 26, 2008; D01

You're angry. I'm angry. House Republicans are angry. We're all angry at having to put up huge amounts of cash to rescue a financial system because a lot of very rich people rolled the dice with other people's money and lost.

Now let me tell you something very simple and very important: You can try to prevent a financial meltdown or you can teach Wall Street a lesson, but you can't do both at the same time.

So which will it be?

You say you want straight talk -- no spin, no bull, no sugar-coating. Okay, here goes.

First, stop fixating on Wall Street executives -- there will be time to deal with them later. Even if you clawed back every dime they made over the past decade, it would come to several billions of dollars. That's a rounding error compared with the size of the financial problem we're facing here.

Second, we need to act quickly. The financial situation is now downright scary. Don't look at the stock market -- that's not where the problem is. The problem is in the credit markets, which are quickly freezing. I won't bore you with technical indicators like Libor and Treasury swap spreads, but if you talk to people who work these markets every day, as I have, they report that the money markets are in worse shape than they were last August, or even during the currency crises of 1998.

Banks and big corporations and even money-market funds are hoarding cash, refusing to lend it out for a day or a week or a month. Even the best companies are having trouble floating bonds at reasonable rates. And the shadow banking system -- the market in asset-backed securities that ultimately supplies the capital for most home loans, car loans, college loans -- is almost completely shut down.

People are so nervous, and there is so much distrust, that all it would take is one more hit to trigger the modern-day equivalent of a nationwide bank run. Financial institutions would fail, part of your savings would be wiped out, jobs would be lost and a lot of economic activity would grind to a halt. Such a debacle would cost us a lot more than $700 billion.

Third, the latest proposal hammered out between the Treasury and Democratic leaders won't cost anywhere near $700 billion unless we get a 1930s-like Depression, in which case we'll have much bigger problems to worry about. Depending on how the program is managed, and how things turn out with the economy and the housing market, the best guess is that the government could wind up either losing or making a couple of hundred billion dollars. The final tab is simply unknowable -- it depends on how much the government winds up paying for the securities it buys from banks and other financial institutions, and what price it resells them at after the market and the economy recover.

Fourth, this isn't primarily a bailout for Wall Street -- it's an attempt to jump-start certain credit markets that have broken to the point that nobody is buying, driving down prices to the point where they are well below any reasonable estimate of their long-term economic value.

The basic idea is to use special auctions to recreate a market for these securities with many competing sellers and one buyer (the Treasury), so that a credible "market" price can be established. If that price turns out to be below what those securities are now valued at on the banks' balance sheets, then banks will have to take the loss. If the price turns out to be higher, then banks may be able to record gains. The point isn't to bail out institutions that have made bad bets and suffered credit losses, but to provide a buyer of last resort so the market can begin pricing again.

Are there other ways to structure this market rescue? Sure. You could try to deal with the underlying problem by taking additional measures to prevent foreclosures. Or you could create a mechanism for the government to invest fresh capital in troubled banks, in exchange for stock. In fact, both approaches are possible and envisioned under the administration proposal now under discussion. But neither, by itself, is likely to quickly restore confidence in the financial system and relieve the current crisis.

My own suggestion would be to structure the rescue around a new government-owned corporation that would be capitalized, initially, with $100 billion in taxpayer funds. The company would use auctions or other mechanisms to buy the troubled securities from banks and other regulated institutions, but instead of paying for them in cash, the government would swap them for an equal number of preferred shares in the new company. (Preferred shares are something of a cross between a bond and common stock.) Those preferred shares would pay a government-guaranteed dividend and could be redeemed by the government at any time. But they could also be used by banks to augment the capital they are required to maintain by regulators.

The beauty of this arrangement is that, rather than protecting taxpayers by having the government take an ownership stake in hundreds of privately owned banks, it would be the banks that would own a stake of the government's rescue vehicle. The government would suffer the first $100 billion in losses from buying and selling the asset-backed securities, but any further losses would be borne by the other shareholders. And should the rescue effort actually wind up making a profit, then the banks would share in that as well.

I mention this idea to make a final point -- namely that it is important to give the Treasury secretary and the people he hires a good deal of flexibility in designing and experimenting with the mechanics of this rescue. The reality is that these guys will be operating in uncharted territory, making things up as they go along. That means there are no assurances that any particular approach will work and no assurances that this will be the final solution. It also means that, just as we entrust generals to fight a war, we are going to have to trust the Treasury to find a way out of this crisis.

[Anonymous]

I think Rush has the right idea. I'm sure we can solve the huge public/private debt problem with tax cuts. I'm surprised we haven't tried to solve the Iraq problem with tax cuts. We have to focus the tax cuts on the rich, though. Otherwise, it won't work.

[Laker]

I like to listen to Bill O'reiley but i think he is only correct on one point and wrong about the rest.

RIGHT
4) Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are idiots.

WRONG
1) The bailout is necessary and you should support it.
2) It's President Bush's fault that we're in this mess. Blame Bush.
3) Don't listen to ideologues on talk radio who oppose the bailout. They're lying to you.

1)The bailout is not needed. As you see, banks collapse, WAMU is the largest bank to collapse ever in the USA history...and...i don't think there will be a depression because of it.
2)Bush is not at fault. He has some part of it, but so is Clinton, the impotent and corrupt congress and all of Wall Street. Add to that the greedy and stupid people that bought into the idea that RE is the best investment and housing only goes up in price..
3) The only ones who are lying are Paulson, Bush, Barney, Dodd and their pals.

I also called today to many congress people. Both our Senator's voice mail was full and could not receive more.
It is amazing that there is a 150 to 1 ration of citizens that are against this bailout, yet congress is still talking about it.
I would understand if we were divided over this or even if it was little support. But F*** 150 to 1 against????
Say indeed two people called Sherman in favor and 300 against. I'm sure those two were RE agents praying that housing will reverse and double the price of 2006 by next year....

[Anonymous]

Good one, Larry. That must be the difference between Rush and O'Reilly...IQ points. Rush is so successful because he's a genius. He could just decide to go the easy money-making route and tell people what they want to hear: that the world is simple, that everything bad in life is the fault of the minorities... but no, he stands up for what is right. And he's the only one who knows what's right because he is smarter than we are. That's the thing about the liberal elite...they're so stupid nowadays. I'm glad we had a chance to clear all this up.

[Will E.]

It just occurred to me that I've never met a semi-intelligent person who's a fan of Reilly's.

Reilly is a fraud and his recent comments are a transparent attempt to cast himself again as a straight-shooter.

Wish he'd go away.

[LA-renter]

Valley Observer, thanks for the post... honestly.

I admit no expertise, but Pearlstein (and everybody else) has to stop the delusion that any money is coming back to the treasury...

Financial institutions are not anxious to just get rid of bad assets. They want to recover value that no longer exists, and they cannot afford to sell low.

Presumably, these bad assets could be restored by resuming the housing bubble insanity. But what would that solve?

Instead of trying to keep the dinosaurs alive, why doesn't the treasury encourage the small mammals that will replace them?

[J]

Why is a post about O'Reilly or Rush even on a Real Estate blog?

[ocvoter]

This bailout stinks!!!

If they want a bailout to pass....congress/Paulson/Bernanke need to be thoughtful and methodical.

Any bill that is being CRAMMED through congress, American people should be skeptical of.

Call Barbara Boxer at 202-224-3553 and Diane Feinstein at 202-224-3841 and tell them to wait on this (asap)

Paulson has been propping up the stocks all this year w/ false financial interventions.

I will vote accordingly on who throws the US taxpayer under the bus for Wall St. Big Business.......

Call your senators and let your voice be heard!!!

[Ralph]

It is a shame when reporters have to show their bias in their reporting. I happened to have listened to the piece from Bill O'Reilly and to me he seemed to blame NOT ONLY Bush but also Wall Street, Congress and the Institutions who were making these loans. I WANT to know where was the L A Times when the housing market and these loans were being made you weren't warning anybody about the crisis it was going to cause WHY. I knew this was coming when prices first started taking off. When people making $30 thousand to $50 thousand a year are buying $500+ houses you know it has to collapse sometime, to sustain it you always need more buyers making the same mistake buying ever higher and higher priced houses even knowing they can't afford it. Eventually you run out of people just like a ponzi scheme. Then you have a collapse. So AGAIN I ask the LA TIMES where were you when this was going on why weren't warning us about this. IF it was ONLY Bush's fault, why weren't you beating up on him for not doing anything and letting this continue. Why weren't you yelling at CONGRESS for telling lenders to make it even easier for people who couldn't afford it. You see O'Reilly was wrong their is one more culprit in this collapse, THE MEDIA, they failed the people in being the watchdogs of the politicians and corporations. They have become to biased and partisian (MSNBC) to be believed anymore. My feeling let the companies fail and let the foreclosures happen EVERYONE has to be responsible for their choices, instead of trying to blame someone else or having the taxpayers save them from their folly AGAIN.

[inaweofE]

Valley,

Pearlstein is correct.

I think part of the problem is the Administrations rep. The Preisdent that cried wolf and all.

Asking the American public to have faith in this or anything else that comes out of the whitehouse lately, is a pretty tall order.

Right Cinco?

[Jane]

Why are you pushing O'Reilly? I hadn't realized that this was a partisan blog. O'Reilly has nothing of substance to offer.

[Fourth Generation]

Hey since Bush is a lame duck the patriotic duty of every conservative is to throw him under the bus. Why that is the Republican national pastime, just look at what Ted Stevens did to his wife just yesterday. Anyway these guys like Rush, O'Reilly et al are just full of hot air and empty heads.

[Giacomo]

"This has led him to try and do this awkward straddle the middle of the road dance where he tries to pass himself off as an independant, but it is ringing really hollow."

Very well said, Lawrence. This is part of what makes me think that pursuit of Market Share is what drives O'Reilly.

What really burned me in the Obama interview: O'Reilly bargaining on behalf of an entire category of taypayers how much of an INCREASE in the top tax rate is going to be "acceptable." What arrogance.

[Giacomo]

"Valley Observer" (name changed from "adoptivefather"?):

Please learn how to post a LINK, instead of an entire article.

Try this:
http://tinyurl.com/