The banking industry lays an egg. The Bush administration (and Congress) are about to pay them our money for doing so.
So much for assuming responsibility for one’s actions.
Gee, all those “risk takers” are keeping the profits they reaped as a result of those really bad decisions they made which are now coming home to roost? You think?
The draft of the bailout via Calculated Risk has some interesting points:
(a) Authority to Purchase.–The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.
Hmmm. I wonder how many offshore banks are gonna move back into the United States.
Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.
There’s the debt. We’re talkin’ serious money. We’re gonna owe China a lot of money for a long time. I wonder what they think about their prospects for gaining fifty or so new provinces? Nah. Too many liabilities.
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Gee, that’s a lot of authority to give to one person. Far too much. No review? Of any kind? Why?
Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.
The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time
That’s serious money. That’s seven hundred billion dollars. Seven hundred billion. Dollars.
The incomparable Glenn Greenwald writes:
…What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We’ve retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded…
Emptywheel sums it up so that even a republican free market kool-aid drinker can understand it:
…But here’s all you need to know. Hank Paulson [Secretary of the Treasury] is asking for $700,000,000,000. That’s $2,333 from every man, woman, and child in the United States.
In exchange for that money, Paulson is unwilling to accept any demands to make markets more transparent, limit executive compensation, or assist homeowners fighting foreclosure. The sole purpose of that $700,000,000,000 is to bail out Wall Street and only Wall Street, but not to fix it, or our larger economy.
He is asking to be absolutely unbound by any law when he spends that money….
We’re all screwed. Well and truly screwed. I understand that bread lines are a nice place to meet a variety of people from all walks of life.
Atrios put it:
Our grandchildren and grandchildren’s grandchildren will be paying hugely high taxes to pay off the gambling debts of billionaires.
telling us we need to rise above the partisan politics and pass this. This is about “our way of life.” And he hope it works and he wants it to work but there is no guaranty. The most serious crisis the world has ever seen and not a time to be playing games.
Dodd says we have NO choice but to act.
We are going to get railroaded into this. Democrats won’t want to be accused of gumming up the works and bringing the economy down.
Our only hope is conservative Republicans who don’t believe in bailouts. Sad to say.
Krugman has a good column up analyzing this.
…is quoted at Open Left:
Go. Read the whole thing.
Then i will vote for anyone in a primary capable of spelling their own name. What good is having a Democrat in office if they’re willing to hand over all of our nation’s resources directly to the people who stand against Democratic values?
immediately think of this – but I didn’t.
Yglesias points out :
that I think needs to be discussed on progressive blogs:
Thank goodness. Make me eat crow, Barack! Make my earlier statement that you probably won’t lead in this financial crisis look like a fool’s words.
A diary at Kos outlines the steps he thinks Democrats must insist on and a video in which he lays out his objections and objectives.
the people who don’t “deserve to hold office” even cave in. Because you know they will. And I’m betting that Obama won’t tell Democrats to hold the line on this. If he did, though, that kind of guts would probably swing the election his way.