David Corn

It would seem that all who have the most to gain in financial and political power are demanding swift and unfettered bailout.

Those who have the most RISK are urging thoughtful caution, evaluation and tight oversight...

Hmmm...imagine that...

-T

DC,

Right on the money! (Sorry I had to)

Thanks!

50 Trillion n losses for the American People and now that there is only 3 months left they accelerate the looting.

My message to the Senate:

"My business is down, I've gone bankrupt, I'm losing my house of 17 years and this proposal adds $30000 to my share of the debt, allows Wall Street Bankers to keep their personal wealth and bonuses and then purchase my mortgage from the government next year for pennies on the dollar. NO. That's not fair. Our nation is not under attack, it's just being looted and this is more of the same. ENOUGH"

Hajji

Benefit v Risk - Great Point!

Bail me out. I would love to try and spend $1B

Bet I could create a lot of jobs.

The only kind of "change" you'll get from McCain is short changed!

(from the Ed Schultz radio show)

Obama Ad: McCain A "Prescription For Disaster"

Barack Obama is out with a new ad Monday morning, eviscerating John McCain for an article he recently wrote calling for the health care industry to have as much regulatory freedom as its banking counterpart.

"We've seen what Bush-McCain policies have done to our economy," goes the script. "Now John McCain wants to do the same to our health care. McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation... Said he'd reduce oversight of the health insurance industry too... Just 'as we have done over the last decade in banking'...Increasing costs and threatening coverage. A prescription for disaster."

http://tinyurl.com/3q9mmv

(with the video)

Young voters are taking this election seriously

http://tinyurl.com/3e5svx

I hope the younger folks show up and vote. It really is more their future that is being sold down the road.

Bush Urges Quick Passage of Bailout Package

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092200186.html?hpid=topnews

_________________________________

President Bush this morning warned lawmakers against trying to make too many changes to the proposed financial bailout legislation, saying the plan needs to be passed quickly and relatively intact to stem damage to global financial markets.

Weekend negotiations "made good headway" in crafting a bill to bolster a system weighed down by problem home mortgages, Bush said. But with proposals circulating to include provisions for homeowners in the bill or to use it to limit executive compensation, Bush cautioned that too many added provisions could impede approval of critically needed legislation.

"Obviously, there will be differences over some details, and we will have to work through them," Bush said, but "the whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to our capital markets, businesses, our housing sector, and retirement accounts.

"Failure to act would have broad consequences far beyond Wall Street. It would threaten small business owners and homeowners on Main Street."
_______________________

What utter HORSE SHIT!

What did our fathers teach us to do when the used car salesman down the street sez "You gotta act fast, 'coz I got a few people coming this afternoon..."

You tell 'em to go ahead and sell the SHITHEAP to somebody else!

We'll take all the time we wish to look this crap over, thank you very much Mr.Paulson, Mr.Bush... Should you find another buyer in the meantime, by all means sell! We'll understand!

-T

As a frugile American I don't want to buy bad debt, I don't even want to buy good debt. . .

"Article" ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWX6d7r-bpk

BARACK: I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.

ANNCR: We’ve seen what Bush-McCain policies have done to our economy.

Now John McCain wants to do the same to our health care.

McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation...

Said he’d reduce oversight of the health insurance industry too...

Just "as we have done over the last decade in banking"...

John McCain. A risk we just can’t afford to take.

So... THIS is what "Arbusto" does when he doesn't have "Bandar Bush", the BinLaden family or Daddy's CIA blackmail list to dig him out of yet ANOTHER grave he's dug for himself and his cronies? Now the grave is big enough for ALL of us?

Heckuvajob!

This IS the "October Surprise". Yes, I know it is still September.

They (BushCo) are making a last grab for themselves and their friends before they leave in January.

They don't care what happens after that.

I think former Secretary Reich's list is perfect! He should be Secretary of Treasury.

China is holding us hostage:

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2813630/China-threatens-%27nuclear-option%27-of-dollar-sales.html

Now this is really scary...

Section 8 of Bailout Deal:

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.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Dems better stand up to them on this. You hear me Obama? I really like you but you can't allow this! If McCain really was for reform, he wouldn't agree to it either. Come on McCain, now's your chance to prove it!

The sub-prime mortgage crisis that has not only come so close to utterly destroying the markets, but has ruined the value of many people's homes and left millions with mortgages they can't pay, was also the outcome of the deregulation created by these men. The very predictable outcome. When taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident.

This is enemy action. This is a bullet deliberately fired into the economy by men willing to exercise their ideology regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Men who have every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the public picks up the tab. John McCain may not have had his finger directly on the trigger, but he was there. He assisted. These were his personal friends and philosophical comrades. He may not be the high priest, but he has been a loyal acolyte in the cult of deregulation.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/21/9322/74248/245/602838

Sen. Bernie Sanders, Robert Scheer and Dean Baker on the Proposed $700 Billion Bailout of Wall Street, the Largest Government Bailout of Private Industry in US History - On Democracy Now!

DEAN BAKER: And let me just make one point that everyone should be very, very clear on. This was not an accident, in the sense that this is like a hurricane. This was a totally predictable event. So when President Bush or Henry Paulson say, you know, we have to come to the rescue, it is because of their incompetence, because people who understood the economy—and putting myself among those, but there are others—we were warning about this a long, long time ago. This was a totally predictable event that brought us here.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Dean Baker, in terms of the—what it would cover, even the White House apparently keeps changing it. By late Saturday night, they were talking also about the possibility of bailing out foreign banks that had invested in instruments in the United States, as well as moving beyond just securities backed by home mortgage loans, but also to other types of debt, as well.

DEAN BAKER: Absolutely, and this speaks to the nature of the bailout. The bailout should not be fun, if it’s constructed right. The way this should be constructed is, if you’re on the edge of bankruptcy, you come to the Treasury, and you get the money. But guess what? You’re selling your company, and you also have serious limits on CEO pay. You know, you only get $2 million a year; how’s that? Or maybe less. You know, some people have proposed less than that. But the bailout has to be punitive, if it’s serious. It shouldn’t be a field day. We shouldn’t have people lining up to get in. That’s telling us that this is not a serious bailout. So the idea that the administration is proposing is that the people who were engaged in incredibly reckless behavior, who made out like bandits, getting tens of millions of dollars in salary and compensation over the last few years are now going to get this $700 billion blank check from the American taxpayer. It’s just unbelievable.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/22/sen_bernie_sanders_robert_scheer_and

Again, with the "this is no accident". They let this happen to cripple the government. Isn't that the plan?

Now I know why I'm still in my house. Wachovia was waiting for this to happen and holding back so they could call up "Hank" and trade "Trash for Cash".

Watch for the release date of the new Disney blockbuster "Pirates of the Gulf Stream".

I'll say it again, Bush has looted our economy for 50 Trillion dollars.

Wasn't it Bush that misquoted the cliche,

"Fool Me Once, shame on You...
"Fool Me Twice... You Can't Fool Me Twice"

Now Bush, Paulson, Bernake, Wall Street and McCain are trying to pull the same hasty, bad legislative maneuvers that got us into Iraq, left us over $10 Trillion in debt, wanted to privatize Social Security, and passed the dubiously named Patriot Act.

Give me a break. Not this time. No Way, No How, No Bailout!

These guys have 4 months left and they aren't going to give up until they've robbed every last nickel and left with a legal force field around them to protect them.

If they keep pushing, it's going to be time for a bowtie party!

And by the way, you need to watch the end run they are playing around state insurance regulations too. And some of the Dem's are helping. Watch out for HR 5840.

See some comments on the Nation at:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/362697/capitalizing_on_crisis_insurance_profiteers_demand_deregulation

One other little comment and I'll go:

Let's all remember who is over the barrel here. It's not the public, it's not the treasury, it's Wall Street. If Goldman Sachs ex, Hank Paulson wants to give them the store, resist it. Paulson's trying to make us think we're over the barrel. Since the people control Congress and Congress has the purse strings, the people control the purse strings.

By the end of the week, they will be begging to take whatever deal Congress is willing to do. Let's not let them treat the public like we're the beggars here. All their attempts to raid the treasury need to come with ropes and chains, not strings. They are begging. Let's treat them the same as they would treat us if we came begging.

You want government money, put up your collateral. All of it. Hands up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUJ_Qn0AHTU

Hunter,

I agree 100%. Bailouts of any kind are wrong and should never be done. The government should never have bailed out Chrysler and look now what this practice has wrought. Sure things could get ugly in the short term but we bounce back and always have. We have enough serious issues like funding medicare and social security to worry about without spending more taxpayer dollars to prop up shotty enterprises.
If they are failing, let them fail on their own or turn things around on their own. Government needs to stick to their own business which they are not even capable of doing very weil.

Steve Schmidt Whines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HabIoeqzL40

Bailout. We don't need no f***in Bailout.

We need Le Guillotine!

Off with their heads! Off with their F***in Heads!

McCain says CEOs shouldn't earn more than the highest paid government official. Except for Rick Davis and Carli Fiorini and except for the $700,000 tax cut he would have these guys get as part of his economic plan.

Off with their heads! Off with their F***in Heads!

If you sent them all home hatless with no need for an umbrella there are still 200,000 qualified MBAs to replace them who can do a much better job.

Hank Paulson is Hank Headroom...ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.....is Max Head...ugh..ughh...room, is Hank Headroom.

If that's who he is, don't give him the checkbook. As the Secretary of the Treasury he has steered us beyond a recession to a meltdown. He needs to go down with the ship, not captain a trillion dollar lifeboat.

Oh yea, Pat Robertson, it was the liberals holding a gun to the banks to give them deadbeat loans, like they even had a clue what Wall Street was going to do. For sub-prime loans to be the problem they would have to have been 25% of the mix and 1 out of 5 would be in default. I don't know about you, but I went to the bank with a suicide bomb strapped to my blind dog and their decision was based on that threat, not the 30% equity in my home and my above average credit score, or the fact that I had made every payment on time for 16 years on my home. And now they sit back drooling in anticipation for Hank Headroom to buy my mortgage.

At which point the deadbeat liberals, like myself, need to point out that the whole mortgage scam was a creation of the FED and we are not leaving our homesteads.

Off with their heads! Off with their F***in Heads!

Ty,

The problem is that the threat being issued is that the whole financial system will melt down if nothing is done: Credit will completely seize up; more and more banks will go under; money markets won't be able to meet their redemptions; there will be a run on the banks; and the FDIC is almost at the end of their funds. A lot of people won't be able to get at their savings.

There are a lot of other repercussions that would likely cost a lot of people their jobs (not just in the financial world), and no one knows how long it would take to dig out. They're talking about a depression, not a recession. the last one took o ver ten years and a whold war to get past.

So, in principal, I agree that bailouts are bad. But in the face of what could be utter devastation, it's hard to keep to principal.

My view is that Congress cannot take the bait and do this thing instantly. They cannot give the Treasury Secretary a blank check for either money or power. Just imagine, if McCain is elected, and they give the Treasury Secretary the powers, without any review, that Paulson is asking for, and Phil Gramm is next. Talk about being up shit creek.

Congress should make sure Wall Street knows they are working on it and will come to a resolution. But the terms should be in the people's favor, not the investment bankers. The excessive risk needs to be coupled with an opportunity for excessive rewards; golden parachutes eliminated; and institutions of all the regulation and oversight needed to prevent this from happening again. Maybe even reinstate Glass-Stegall. But they should take their time, because, assuming they are going to rescue the markets, taking time will only strengthen the peoples bargaining position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQJ9Xp0xxU&feature=related

Hunter,

You hit the nail on the head with "strengthening the peoples bargaining position." We have the power of the vote and the sooner we threaten those buffoons in DC with acting in the people's interest instead of their own and their big dollar donors, we all would be better off.

And one final note, why is the government not bailing out people whose vehicles that are being repo'd? I mean, how can you take somebodys car from them?

There is no difference wirh home ownership. You do not buy a home you cannot afford. You rent until you earn enough to buy a house. Repoing a home will not make the owner homeless, they will just go back to doing what they were doing before.

The government bailout of AIG insurance is the most idiotic thing I have ever seen. Bush is wrong when he said the consequences would have been greater if the government had not bailed them out. The policyholders would have moved on to other carriers which would have increased their book of business thus equalizing the results. Owners of business etc that AIG had invested in would look for investment dollars elsewhere. Why stick them with a failed entity?If I had AIG insurance, I would be shopping quickly for other insurance/financing now that the government has their trusty hand on the problem. .

Hunter Gatherer - if we're so screwed we have to rely on the wholesome wisdom of congress to get us out of this and act in the Peoples' Interest than we are screwed indeed.

The guys that got rid of Glass-Steagal are the ones cheering on the bailout.

"H.R. 5840 would effectively allow the Department of the Treasury to gut state regulation of some of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in the country in order to assure that the U.S. complies with international agreements regarding insurance policy. "

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/362697/capitalizing_on_crisis_insurance_profiteers_demand_deregulation

They aren't looking to fix regulations, they are still trying to get rid of regulations.

I asked a girl in Detroit in 1969 why her family had so many TVs. 'If we hadn't looted them, someone else would have, and the insurance was going to pay out even if no one had them". (referring to the 1967 Detroit Riots)

If we do nothing they get our savings.

If we do this they get our savings and our grandchildrens savings.

If they loot in New Orleans we should shoot them. If they can't pay their mortgage after we've changed the terms and taken their job and devalued their entire lives, they are deadbeats.

But if they rescue the planet from economic meltdown they are our heroes. Bullshit!

Congress should take their time, and bring out Le Guillotine!

And if the FDIC is nearly out of money, where is the big $T coming from?

9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11

911, 911, 911, 911, 911, 911, 911, 911

You decide. Emergency or more Looting?

The Emergency is this: if they get this one, it's all over for every working person in America, period, exclamation mark.

we have ""the power of the vote""!?
ya right.
recall the fla. supreme court in '00.
recall the ohio action in '04.
phony conservative republicans and their self-serving policies will "win" every time.
but the polls will show that the "race" is neck -n- neck throughout.
can't steal it if it is obvious, right? right.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Obama 312 McCain 226

http://electoral-vote.com/

Obama 282 McCain 236 Ties 20

On 9/23/04

Kerry 255 Bush 273

Arianna Huffington:

The Bailout Plan: Welcome to Economic Shock and AweOver the past 30 years, Americans have been bombarded with sermons evangelizing for the free market religion of the Right. In the course of selling us on buying, the market-worshippers tried to convince us that all concerns about the most vulnerable members of society could be left up to the soulless, self-correcting calculus of supply and demand. Government involvement was an anachronism, regulatory oversight an impediment. The last few weeks have demolished that notion. In the battle over the proper role of government, the high priests of the church of the Free Market -- including Bush, Paulson, and the Masters of Wall Street -- have suffered a monumental defeat. So why are we allowing them to dictate the terms of their surrender?

You are asking for rationality in a time of panic. Those who are most fearful are the ones whose fortunes are at risk and they will buy whatever legislation needed to keep their wealth no matter how much it pains the bottom 90%. Still you said what needed to said. Lets see if anyone has the will to do what needs to be done.

You know we have to change the “frame” - the “bail out” is not giving a blank check to Paulson it is giving a blank check to Bunnypants.

Who is stooopid enough to think THAT is a good idea?

Joe Biden - the gift that keeps on giving !!!

"'No, the federal government should not bailout AIG. And I think that in that situation," Obama said, "I think Joe should have waited as well."

"But it's the kind of thing that drives people crazy about politics," Lauer said. "It sounds like you were trying to score some political points against John McCain using his words, when your own running mate had used very similar words."

Then there's this -

"No coal plants here in America," he said. "Build them, if they're going to build them, over there (China). Make them clean."

"We’re not supporting clean coal," he said of himself and Obama. They do, on paper, support clean coal."

And -

"The Delaware Senator took issue with an attack ad from his own side in an interview with CBS, telling Katie Couric that the Obama hit on McCain’s ignorance of computers and technology was “terrible.”

The ad paints McCain as out of touch — and, subtly, all but calls him ancient — but doesn’t mention that one reason McCain doesn’t use computers much is that his injuries from Vietnam prevent him from doing so.

Asked whether he’s disappointed with the tone of the campaign, including the ad that Couric characterized as “making fun of John mcCain’s inability to use a computer,” Biden said “I thought that was terrible by the way."

If it's judgement Obama is running on, how's his judgement in selection of a VP? PRICELESS.