Building A Better Bailout
Okay, so now what?
As opposed as I am to the idea of handing over our taxpayer money to bail out the criminal irresponsibility of corporate robber barons, the reality is that this thing is going to happen. We’re at least another generation away from a large-scale economic and social shift away from credit as the lifeblood of our culture, where people’s whole way of life is predicated on spending money they haven’t earned. As long as banks are gunshy about approving loans, consumer spending will stay weak, which powers far too much of our economy to simply let slide.
So we need to inject liquidity into the system while at the same time preventing another “domino effect,” where everyone flips out because one bank or investment house falls. That means bringing a new plan to the table, one that really protects investors and homeowners while guaranteeing that the money is spent much more wisely, with many more conditions attached.
Simply put, we need to build a better bailout. After the jump I’ll have a bunch of links detailing what our potential options are, as well as several plans advanced that could restart our failing financial system long enough to steer us out of the maelstrom.WARNING: This is link-intensive and very detailed, so if you want a simplistic solution that blames one side and makes your side look like the good guy, go watch your favorite cable news channel. Otherwise, keep reading.
Hunter at Dkos and Steve Benen have each posted a series of options that describe the conventional wisdom surrounding the bailout, which boil down to trying to re-pass the Paulson plan with minor tweaks to get more Dems on board in order to offset the GOP defections. I see that as a non-starter, given that the bailout opponents are now viewed as heroes by many voters and they have all the incentive in the world to keep opposing it. Plus, the Dow Jones is up 400 (as of this writing), so the sky didn’t fall and the world didn’t end. That means there’s more leverage to introduce either a new plan or massive adjustments to the existing plan.
Robert Kuttner at the American Prospect offers a four-point plan that more smartly equalizes the risk in nationalizing the assets:
- An RFC-style agency to have the government take over or take major equity positions in failing banks.
- Direct refinancing of threatened mortgages, on the model of Roosevelt’s Home Owners Loan Corporation.
- Extension of FDIC guarantees — and standards — to other financial institutions, with government takeover if they fail.
- A small transfer tax on financial trades to pay for a lot of the cost of recapitalizing Wall Street.
Another key element of any new legislation–one which has been soundly rejected by Congress thanks to the financial industry–is restructuring bankruptcy law to allow people to keep their homes while undergoing Chapter 13 proceedings. Keeping people in their homes will enable them to work with their lenders to renegotiate loans and get current on payments. The current foreclosure crisis hurts everyone, not just the debtor and the lender. Neighborhoods full of foreclosed homes drive down property values, which makes them harder to sell, which in turn can put people underwater if they can’t keep up with payments.
(As a note, I support the idea of working off excess overbuilding and inventory in the housing market in order to normalize prices, but that’ll still happen even if the foreclosure protections are in place. There are simply too many houses and unit on the markets to sustain prices at their current level.)
The next question is how to administer the money and when to give it out. $700 billion on top of the guarantees we’ve already made equates over $1 trillion in capital that is locked off solely to pay down debt, without any way to control it and utterly dependent on Hank Paulson’s largesse. Nonsense. This has to be done in stages, with stronger oversight and monitoring at each level. Ian Welsh at Firedoglake has posted an 11-point plan that addresses the issue of staged capital disbursement and how to use it:
1) Buy up mortgages at a discount and give people new fixed rate mortgages.
The government shares in further house appreciation (only fair since it
bailed the homeowner out). This stabilizes mortgage prices and helps
people and banks both. It is essentially identical to what FDR did with
the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), and we know how to do it.
Initial price tag? Probably around 20 billion.
2) Use the FDIC (the folks who take over failed
banks) to take over failed mutual and money market funds, make sure the
investors get as much money back as possible, liquidate the funds in an
orderly fashion (or keep them operating if necessary) and if they are
kept alive, kick the people who screwed them up to the curb and change
how they do business.
3) Declare a national emergency, with judicial
review (unlike Paulson’s seizure of ultimate power) and use the
authority to review all purchases of banks, to institute oil rationing
if necessary (or simpler procedures like “every street now has a 55
mile an hour speed limit, if it is normally higher). Also allows
release of oil from the reserve, if necessary.
4) Expand the safety net such as food stamps,
employment insurance, welfare and so on. We know this is going to get
worse no matter what we do, so why aren’t we taking care of ordinary
people?
Why, indeed? This leads me to the next point–the Paulson plan was a failure because it would have choked off access to much-needed capital for infrastructure investment that would have guaranteed better economic returns, for less money, all to save Wall Street. James K. Galbraith (son of John Kenneth Galbraith and a formidable economist in his own right) argued that what we really need is smarter spending on forward-thinking initiatives:
Reenact Richard Nixon’s
great idea: federal revenue sharing. States and localities should get
the funds to plug their revenue gaps and maintain real public spending,
per capita, for the next three to five years. Also, enact the National
Infrastructure Bank, making bond revenue available in a revolving fund
for capital improvements. There is work to do. There are people to do
it. Bring them together. What could be easier or more sensible?…Some will ask if we can afford it. To see the answer, don’t look at
budget projections. Just look at interest rates. Last week, in the
panic, the federal government could fund itself, short term, for free.
It could have raised money for 30 years and paid less than 4 percent.
That’s far less than it cost back in 2000.
The great revelation of Paulson’s attempted coup was that it puts the lie to the idea that many of the progressive ideas we’ve been fighting for are too expensive to fund. If Congress could pull over a trillion dollars out of its ass to give to Paulson simply to save his buddies, there is no–NO–excuse not to fund national health care, energy independence, broadband investment, etc. And many institutions have been coming up with plans that can provide huge returns on investment for much less in the way of upfront cost.
Here’s Change To Win’s plan (available online and as a PDF download):
1. Relief for Struggling Homeowners
Economists including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson agree the housing market
will stabilize only when we end the cycle of widespread foreclosures
driving down home prices and the value of mortgage-related securities.
To end the cycle of foreclosures at no cost to taxpayers, bankruptcy
courts should be given the authority to renegotiate the terms of bad
mortgages so people can remain in their homes.
Estimated cost: $0
2. Quality Affordable Healthcare for All
With 47 million uninsured Americans and steadily
rising health costs squeezing middle class pocketbooks, it is past time
for Congress to enact a plan to provide quality, affordable healthcare
for all Americans. Enacting a national healthcare plan that covers
everyone and reduces health costs will make America’s economy more
competitive and save taxpayer money – as much as $120 billion according
to some estimates.
A comprehensive health plan would enable all
Americans, including the self-employed and small businesses, to buy
affordable coverage that is similar to the plan available to Members of
Congress or to the plan you have now. The plan should include
comprehensive benefits, affordable premiums and out of pocket costs,
guaranteed eligibility, portability and choice, measures to reduce
costs, coverage for all children, and subsidies for individual and
families based on a sliding scale, who do not qualify for Medicaid or
SCHIP, but still need assistance.
Estimated cost: $130 billion over 2 years
3. Retirement Security
Astoundingly, nowhere in the debate over the
financial crisis has there been any consideration of the crisis’
effect, let alone the effect that the Administration’s proposed $700
billion bailout solution to that crisis, will have on workers’
pensions. In 2006, Congress passed the Pension Protection Act – that
has already further burdened workers’ pension plans. Indeed, recent
events aside, the market decline of the last year has already pushed
hundreds of them to the precipice. The failure and weakening of major
financial institutions in the last weeks and months has the potential
to destroy the foundation of many pension funds since it is those very
institutions that are at the center of the management of workers
pension funds.
First, it is imperative that Congress extend the
amortization periods for multi-employer pension funds and temporarily
suspend enforcement of the Pension Protection Act. In addition, to
address the long-term effects of the current crisis on workers’
retirement security and to avert another national crisis, Congress must
establish a pension task force and must include a pension expert who
will represent the interests of average working Americans on the
Oversight Board established by any bailout legislation. Finally,
Congress must provide pension opportunities for those “orphan” retirees
whose employers were driven out of business on account of deregulation
in their industry or by misguided economic policies
Estimated cost: Negligible
4. Energy Independence and Green Job Creation
We should act now to achieve energy independence
and build a clean energy economy that creates new jobs. We should
invest in the next generation of biofuels, fuel infrastructure, and
hybrid vehicles, promote development of commercial scale renewable
energy, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. We
should also invest in America’s manufacturing workforce and
manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills
and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies
that will be in high demand throughout the world. These investments are
estimated to create 5 million green jobs.
Estimated cost: $20 billion over 2 years
5. Investment in American Infrastructure
Investing in America by rebuilding our crumbling
infrastructure will stimulate the economy, create jobs, and keep
America competitive. The American Society of Civil Engineers said that
an investment of $1.6 trillion by 2010 is needed just to repair our
existing infrastructure.
We should create a national infrastructure bank to
finance transportation projects, as well as direct infrastructure aid
to states. According to some estimates, these projects would create up
to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately
$35 billion per year in new economic activity.
Estimated cost: $22 billion over 2 years
6. A Fair Tax System That Rewards Work
It has been a generation since Congress adopted
comprehensive reform of our tax code, a system that today
overwhelmingly favors big corporations and wealthy individuals over
hard working families.
Tax reforms should include tax cuts for middle
class Americans to stimulate the economy, a permanent repeal of the
Alternative Minimum Tax, a refundable child tax credit, an increase in
the standard deduction, and an enhanced earned income tax credit. Tax
reform should include enacting a new financial transactions tax and
closing the loophole enjoyed by billionaire buyout CEOs that allows
them to pay less than half the income tax rate of middle class workers
making $50,000 a year. A reform package should also close the loopholes
that cost taxpayers billions of dollars in revenue, such as offshore
deferrals and a loophole that allows private equity partnerships to
avoid paying corporate entity tax.
Estimated cost: $80 billion
7. An Economy That Works for Everyone
Following the longest period of wage stagnation in
American history, we are in an era of historic income inequality.
Between 1980 and 2004 CEO pay went up 700% — but American workers’
wages saw little change.
By enacting The Employee Free Choice Act at no cost
to taxpayers, government has the opportunity to set a framework for the
private sector to ensure we have an economy that works for everyone—not
just those at the top. American workers should have the chance to
freely choose whether to join together in a union at their workplace so
they gain a voice on the job, wages that support a family, and better
benefits.
Estimated cost: $0
8. Affordable Education
Congress should invest in America’s future and
economic competitiveness by creating a $100 billion education trust
fund. Research shows investments in early childhood education are
proven to improve educational performance and provide returns in the
form of higher wages and a more skilled workforce that outperform the
stock market and increase the GDP. We should also make higher education
more affordable by enacting a new tax credit that will ensure the first
$4,000 of college education is free for most students.
Estimated cost: $100 billion over 2 years
The cost of enacting not one, but all of these
priorities, is estimated at approximately $350 billion over two years,
half the amount being proposed to bail out Wall Street banks over the
same time period. With bold leadership and decisive action on the
priorities that matter to the vast majority of American families, we
can fix the growing financial crisis and revive the American economy.
Change to Win’s plan is supported and echoed by Andy Stern, head of SEIU, and you can find other plans out there, such as the House Progressive Caucus’ own reform plan (available in two parts as a viewable image). There is hardly a lack for smart, principled, innovative legislation that can jumpstart our country’s ailing heart without foreclosing our future–but you won’t hear any of this from the corporate media, so addled are they by the idea that only the free market can work, and only when it’s backstopped with billions of taxpayer dollars.
So the ideas are there. We need the will. That means it’s incumbent on you, dear reader, to familiarize yourself with these plans (or others you may prefer), and call your Congressman to demand they build a better bailout. Spread the word. Tell your families and friends not to succumb to the gospel of fear the Bush regime is trying to get you to buy into.
We can do better than the options we have been given, but it will take concerted, hard, and serious effort from all of us to make it so. Are you part of the problem–or part of the solution?
September 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Thank you. There isn’t nearly enough rational, logical thinking going on.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
If its in the best interest of the bank to redo the loan parameters, and its in the best interest of the mortgage holder to redo the loan parameters….why arent they doing this independantly of government intervention?
September 30th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Kima,
Thanks. We need to keep it cool and not let fear dictate our reasoning. You’re a level-headed sort, so I count on you to make sure our less stable friends stay calm.
Tim,
I honestly don’t know. Maybe because they feel like they won’t take a loss on the rejiggered loan unless they’re guaranteed more money in the form of a taxpayer backstop? It’s a mystery to me as well. You’d think they’d act in their own enlightened self-interest.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
At the risk of sounding terribly naive… What is wrong with failure? Personally, I am inclined to think that any government program should be a parachute, not a baloon.
You cannot sustain growth forever, and at its core our entire financial system is predicated on artificial, abstract, and ultimately fragile illusions. Value is determined by perception, not reality. We don’t want a crash that completely crushes everyone, but maybe we’ve been riding the gravy train for a little too long and its time to step back and take a cold hard look at ourselves.
As a nation we are deeply divided in what we want. On one hand we talk about glabalization and free market democracy, and on the other hand we talk about energy independence… Well we can’t have it both ways. Either we want an integrated global economy or we don’t. I am fine with “don’t” by the way.
I will readily admit I do not have a lot of high-end finance knowledge, but from the news media and NPR I can glean that the real problem here is as much that we played the shell game for so long that even the Wall St. Huckster’s lost track of which shell the marble in under. And no one has the balls to lift the shells to find it, because no one wants to be the one left holding the bag. This fear and uncertainty is what is toppling companies. They are fine till everyone decides they aren’t, and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy by removing all assets, etc.
I think we need to resign ourselves that a lot of this imaginary wealth is gone. Poof. No more. And the sooner we admit that, and the markets tank with a big cry, the sooner we can start picking up the pieces.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
As to the question of why they just don’t “fix” the mortgages on the back end, it is because the mortgages are just the tip of the iceberg. Again, back to my shell game analogy, these are not mortgages, they are “Mortgage backed securities” in which literal shit tons of mortgages are sliced up into thousands of pieces and sent around. The problem is that even the retarded geniuses who came up with these “exotic securities” can’t figure out what is what and which ones have any value anymore, so everyone is caught like deer in the headlights not knowing what they have.
According to NPR, less than 3% of US Mortgages are in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure. While that is a historically high number, but given the “sky is falling” shit that has been happening you (or at least I) would expect that number to be far higher if that is really the root cause of this problem. I mean, seriously, how fucked up IS our financial system if a 3% default rate on Mortgages sends the entire thing into nuclear meltdown? It is not because we are really in some kind of real crisis, this is an artificially induced crisis by these Gordon Gecko wannabes leveraging themselves 30 to 1 in the pursuit of these ridiculous “profits” leaving themselves vulnerable to the slightest (inevitable) bump in the road.
I don’t want a bailout that in any way, shape, or form preserves the status quo. We have now seen the Wizard behind the curtain, and he is nowhere as smart as he wants us to think he is.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
While Change To Win’s plan sounds lovely and progressive, it is mostly not germane to the current crisis of credit and trust. I agree on all of its proposals, now is not the time to deal with peripheral issues.
I’ve posted before that I disagreed with “homeowner assistance” for people in foreclosure, under the notion that people should not be bailed out of their bad decisions. But given the alternative being considered, where a bailout really does go to help a bunch of rich people, homeowner assistance is by far the less odious of two alternatives.
Ideally the government could pick and choose among the toxic garbage and winnow out individual mortgages that it can then work with the homeowner to restructure. Realistically this is probably impossible in many cases given how often these mortgages have been sliced, diced, separated out into many mortgage backed securities by tranches, and sold to the four corners of the planet. The whole point of this crisis is that nobody knows what these securities are worth, or who’s holding garbage and in what amount.
The bankruptcy court provision is the next best thing and I definitely support it. That judge won’t care who holds the debt, he’ll simply make whoever is accepting payment on the mortgage swallow the change and let the holder deal with the problems. This isn’t without problems though–somewhere, someone is going to take an unanticipated loss on those mortgages (equal to the lowering of the principal), which will take an additional toll in money and trust in the marketplace.
All that still doesn’t get at the immediate crisis, which is the complete clogging of the economy’s circulatory system (credit). The problem at the end of the day is simple: institutions no longer trust each other for lending money, and therefore lending stops or takes place at outrageous short term interest rates. The bailout proposes (but doesn’t guarantee) that trust be restored by removing the garbage from institutions’ balance sheets. In so doing, of course, you get credit moving again but you also reward corporations and shareholders who should be punished for their bad judgment.
A good proposal I’ve seen floating around is that the government lend these institutions all the money they need to improve their balance sheets and restore trust….money the can repay later or pay with stock to taxpayers–but make the institutions keep the toxic waste and have them suffer the long term consequences for having them. The money infusion might unclog the system without bailing out the responsible parties.
Will it work? Who knows….but then nobody is sure the current plan will work either.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Nick,
You make a lot of good points, all of which I’ll try to address in turn.
I agree with you in principle–our entire modern financial system has been perverted into a massive Ponzi scheme where the people at the top get richer as those underneath them pay in more and more. We have been brainwashed by decades of Chicago-school economics that taught the free market was the perfect, Platonic ideal, and that you were obligated as an American to consume conspicuously as a demonstration of success. When you combine a culture that lionizes selfishness and greed with economic instruments that enable passive wealth generation and offer preferential treatment to unearned income over wages, it’s no wonder this is all so twisted.
But as I said above, too many people have bought into the myth of the “ownership society” for us to let it fail just now. Too many Americans have dutifully invested their savings in 401Ks and other retirement plans to allow another Enron-style meltdown. We’ll need another few decades to rebuild the pension and defined-benefit system to be a viable alternative.
I also completely agree with you about the false nature of the crisis. This was just an attempt to use the Shock Doctrine to gin up panic and squeeze more billions out of the taxpayer as a going-away present to the same criminals who caused this mess. But again, too many people buy into the myth, and thus it becomes real. That’s manifested in the real consequence of the credit market being tight, which harms consumers’ ability to spend. And forget saving–I expect the Fed to cut interest rates yet again in the wake of this “emergency,” thus further punishing people with criminally low yields on their savings and money market accounts.
The bailout in its original form was a crime of massive proportions. We have the ability to build something better, and a short window of time in which to make our case before panic overtakes the populace.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Joe,
You actually hit on one reason why Wall Street was so desperate to pass the original plan–they wanted the gov’t to assume liability for ALL the holdings, bad debt included. That happened in the Wachovia/Citigroup buyout as well–the FDIC insured the customer deposits *and the debt,* while Citigroup assumed the value of the assets. So we cover Wachovia’s toxic mistakes while Citigroup reaps what little profit there is. Nice work if you can get it.
I’m not wild about homeowner assistance either, because a lot of people who knew what they were doing when they went speculating and flipping will get away with it. But a lot of innocent folks will be helped too. The scale of the bailout means we can suck up helping a few low-rent speculators if it means preventing the masters of the game from making out like bandits.
There are going to be losses no matter what we do, and we can do better than just minimizing the damage. We can invest some of this capital that keeps appearing out of thin air into real infrastructure development. If we’re going to have a weak dollar, we might as well make the most of it.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Nick,
Another point I forgot to make in my previous missive–the more banks that fail, the more they will be snapped up by the three remaining giants–Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup. The banking industry is one of the most anticompetitive and collusive sectors in existence, and it’ll only get worse when all that’s left is the Big Three.
We need to infuse capital into the sector if only to strengthen banks that aren’t exposed to the subprime risk, like credit unions and community banks.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:05 am
I believe that the banks will just push as much debt onto the taxpayers and then either dissolve the company or merge it so that the new company, which will then have no “history” of being helped by the bailout can go out all reloaded and stocked upto make profit and not have to repay any funds or debt relief.
How about REPEALING the FEDERAL RESERVE ACT
Like Andrew Jackson did, we too can KILL THE BANKS.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936
unfortunately, we seem to always have coporations to deal with, so how about a Corporate REPORT CARD. Percentage of shareholders American, Amount of U.S. corporate income Taxes paid as a percent of Revenue, plus other indicators to let us know what kind of corporate citizen, and possble a financial worthiness metric in there also, so we know if we wish to invest or keep buying product from a company that might not be around tomorrow.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:14 am
Martin,
“Local banks and credit unions strong”
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/sep/28/local-banks-credit-unions-strong/
October 1st, 2008 at 7:11 am
The bill I would like to see.
1) Re-regulate (bring back FDR’s regulation) and oversight.
2) Create a $70 Billion liquidity fund for business loans for businesses that are 3 years old or older that have yearly gross sales revenues of $250,000 to $5,000,000 where they can borrow up to $50K at prime.
3) Invest an immediate $70 Billion into green startups (any new company that wants to enter green technology)
4) start a WPA for $5 billion a month
5) Invest $70 Billion into a national healthcare system that allows anyone without insurance to join Medicare
6) Put in a RTC and do the S&L thing for any banks that fail
7) Increase depositor insurance to $250K to reduce runs at the bank.
For a price tag of 30% of what is being asked I would start to cover the costs and expenses of the middle class. I would start to support the BASE of the pyramid. I would create employment for those that want to work by having a WPA rebuild our infrastructure. I would directly face the cause of most of the BKs and foreclosures (healthcare, as Moore points out) by creating a health care safety net to cover those that need it. I would invest in small business so they can survive the downturn. And of course re-regulate the unregulated so they can’t create this mess again while providing a way to catch those that do fail and protect depositors.
Will the markets take a hit? Yes. But by stablizing the base rather than a $750 billion dollar giveaway to the crooks that created the mess, in the long term we will solve the problem, not cover up the symptom.
And for the record, Krugman actually prefers this form of bailout over a capital giveaway.
So let’s stop crying like chickens with our head cut off about WMDs in the economy and let the gamblers take their lumps for playing fast and lose in a wild west without rules and oversight, correct the problems that allowed that and protect the people at the bottom.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
As I just pointed out over at C&L:
The “better bailout” is HOLC, supported by Nouriel Roubini, among other luminaries. As an Op-Ed in WaPo points out today, rather than starting from the top down, and buying toxic derivatives that literally nobody knows how to value from bankers, it makes a lot more sense to start from the bottom up, with relief on mortgages. Not only does that help the homeowners, it also helps the banks, since that cleans up their balance sheets.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I would support ANY bailout if it included stripping Bush and Cheney of their government pensions. Knowing that no more of my tax dollars are going to go to these criminals would be worth a trillion.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:01 am
[...] | 2tor, Inc. Five Reasons Why the $700 Billion Banking Bailout Will Translate into $250 .. Building A Better Bailout » Boztopia.com DO NOT REWARD THE PIRATES: The Financial Crisis of September 2008 : Goals .. The Many Failings of [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
currency trading course…
Right now, we work primarily with investment properties (in Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami) in Florida for now, but will be branching out to all sorts of real estate, in all sorts of areas….
October 6th, 2008 at 5:20 am
einsurance…
Now, Will kind of made some of my points for me but if you need down and dirty facts, I could find them for you but then, I get the idea that you wouldn’ t believe it anyway, so really nothing I say, will make a difference. If you really to believe e…
October 6th, 2008 at 8:14 am
forex…
…
October 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am
http://www.4xdemo.com...
A lot of money is being spent to ensure that Tenerife maintains it’ s position as a top holiday destination and a wise investment, maybe this is the year that you will finally make the big move….
October 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
foreign currency training…
Be the first to receive information on our: Latest hand-…
October 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Automatic Forex Trading Software…
Long time readers will know I’ ve been holding cash in a 10- 25% range for pretty much the entire life of the fund. In Marketocracy. com I don’ t get that cash swept into a money market and hence for nearly 13 months have been earning 0% on that mo…
October 7th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
[...] outlines some of the doomsday scenarios here. But there are also tremendous opportunities for real progressive change and building new infrastructure. It all comes down to the choice we make for our world and the will [...]
November 15th, 2009 at 3:50 am
I usually don’t post in Blogs but your blog forced me to, amazing work.. beautiful …
November 30th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
It seems like business is still getting hit hard. Is anybody seeing an upswing in their respective niches? Health reform seems like a mess. I generate long term care insurance leads and annuity leads for the insurance industry, but volume has been terrible in the last two months. I am afraid the worst is yet to come, but maybe it is just my attitude.