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Letting the Bank Robber Fix the Bank's Books
If Congress passes the bailout it will be demonstrating an extraordinary belief in the power of redemption. In the past, I have noted the fact that Secretary Paulson's failure to recognize the housing bubble, and the economic and financial havoc that would be created by its inevitable collapse, contributed to the disaster we now face.
It turns out that Secretary Paulson played an even more direct role in bringing down our financial system. The New York Times has a superbly timed piece reporting on how a 2004 change in an SEC rule allowed Bear Stearns, Lehman, and the other major investment banks to leverage themselves to unprecedented levels. Among the highlights of the story is the fact that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was one of the main people pushing for this change in SEC rules.
It is remarkable that Congress would be willing to give Secretary Paulson such enormous power in running this bailout given his advocacy of rule changes that played such an important role in this financial disaster, and the extent to which he personally profited from these changes. This would be like giving the bank robber who cleaned out the vaults the opportunity to set the banks finances in order -- and letting him keep the loot. Let's hear it for second chances!
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Congressman Brad Sherman said that Congress was threatened with martial law if the Bail Out wasn't passed.
Martial Law would allow President Bush to do whatever he wanted with this countries treasure and any of it's people that objected. In fact, he could even postpone or cancel the election if he wanted to.
That's why there were no hearings with economists and that's why the fox is guarding the henhouse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
God Bless America
I look at this bail out money for Paulson as extortion. Wall Street banks that are "too big to fail" must be saved from the mortgages America is defaulting on.
It makes me think we will just have thousands of empty houses that have been abandoned because the investors got bailed out and have no interest in these overpriced houses in markets where the potential buyers can't realistically afford them.
How many :mistakes" does it take to make it a policy? Stiglitz said the housing bubble was "engineered."
The passive voice hides the real culprits. Did Paulson miss the bubble, or inflate it? Didn't you hear Naomi Klein the other night?
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Naomi Klein: “The problem is the Bush administration doesn’t really believe in the free market. They have invented no-risk capitalism, OK? So, they spend seven years just transferring public money into private hands. Their final act is taking private debt and transferring it into public hands.”
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Klein: ...[T]his is the classic example."
Colbert: “I remember it. I remember it. Yeah?”
Klein: “I was in New Orleans. I was working on this book at the time. The city was still underwater. Richard Baker, the Republican congressman, says, ‘We couldn’t clean out the public housing projects, but God did.’ They used a horrible disaster to push through this preexisting agenda that hey had. They don’t believe in public housing. You know what they believe in?”
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Klein: “What they believe in is getting poor people into houses they can’t afford, so that their friends can speculate on the money, and then they can bail them out."
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Reporting in the passive voice turns the economy into the weather, and villains into innocent, incompetent bystanders.
Transcript from http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/3/headlines#11
Colbert Report http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/186550/october-02-2008/naomi-klein
Well done!
It's smoke and mirrors on both sides of the argument so that we don't look at other options.
Even if they were to give ALL Americans (lets say 3 million for argument's sake) the $7 Billion that wold be $2,333 each.
Are our representatives so crooked to think we don't see the game? As if that $2,333 would be used to stimulate the economy! It would be used to pay down our current personal DEBT. That if we were to invest this money it would grow at a larger rate than the destruction of our currency?
Our TRUST is gone and we're going in the other direction: The FREE MARKET. We now see that we must produce and save and loan, and no longer consume/accept more debt. These bills do nothing to address the value of our dollar, the integrity of our currency, which is the bedrock of any proposal put forward.
You can't fix fiat debt with fiat currency being dumped into the system, any way its sliced.
We know that if we "do nothing" we will get a recession.
and the words of the prophets are written on subway walls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK2QjMydQpU
Corruptlicans = economic terrorists.
I have been using similar amounts of money to "stimulate" the Obama Biden campaign.
What have you done lately for your country?
Get rid of Paulson. Make it LAW that George Bush and his administration is NOT allowed to do another thing to the people of this country until the election. No speechs, no phony legislation, NOTHING.
And we the people don't want to buy your worthless Wall Street assets. Eat it!
Credit? Stop the market manipulations shoving us over the edge if we don't give you the money. This is a gradiose stick up. Moratorium to Banks and Federal Reserve till after the election.
We must throw Bush and company in jail. Quick, someone put a prostitute in his room and shoot a picture.
Amen...
If your company doesn't have a positive cash flow you don't have a good business plan. A capitalist system shouldn't reward losers.
Credit crunch coming? I say BS. The Chinese buy nothing on credit... cash is king. And guess who is lending us money.
This bailout is a con job on the American taxpayers.
I started taking names:
NASCAR, rum factories in PR, economic development in American Samoa and other issues brought by the Senate bill has no business whatsoever in a bailout bill. Period.
This Senate bill is a farce as well as Paulson's proposal.
No bailout is fair without full protection of the American taxpayer.
Let the brokers, market manipulators, the Phil Gramms, the con men and women of both parties pay for the mess they made. Make them sell their over priced homes, their portfolios, their firstborns, their cars and vacation homes, and then after that we might consider bailing them out.
Right on the money, I wish I could have said it that well.
Don't worry, by this afternoon it will surely all be done.
Lord Paulson, who serves at the pleasure of His Majesty King George the Lesser (and his appointed heir, King John the Elder) now makes all of the decisions and is accountable to no one and must reveal himself to no one but the King.
Uh huh, it's the fox guarding the henhouse, to be sure, but it gives both the King and the Congress what they want most: concealment. "Don't ask. Don't tell."
It does worry you when you see the Wells Fargo deal today. It's very clear Paulson left billions of tax payer dollars on the table. Knowing his recent track record, would you pick him for your broker? Well, you have no choice, Fed-Mart will make you invest your money in his deals. Again, you have no choice. Thank you again Congress. Let's turn more of our lives over to this gang of thieves. Why don't we put them in charge of education, health care, our retirement (oops already done).
We in America are witnessing the end of an economic era where governmental regulation willingly yielded to entrepreneurial innovation, financial experimentation and the unfettered quest for individual and corporate profit. Now that we are mired in this growing economic mess we can be sure that the modern Thermidorian Reaction is setting in: the financial libertine revolution is over, the popular backlash is fast coming, and I believe that many very successful financial people—on Wall Street and elsewhere—are personally and professionally in for a bumpy ride. The consequences for what has happened—and what will happen—will be harsh on those who made the mistake of skating much too fast on financial ice that turned out to be surprisingly—and devastatingly-- thin. We in America are witnessing the end of an economic era where governmental regulation willingly yielded to entrepreneurial innovation, financial experimentation and the unfettered quest for individual and corporate profit. Now that we are mired in this growing economic mess we can be sure that the modern Thermidorian Reaction is setting in: the financial libertine revolution is over, the popular backlash is fast coming, and I believe that many very successful financial people—on Wall Street and elsewhere—are personally and professionally in for a bumpy ride. The consequences for what has happened—and what will happen—will be harsh on those who made the mistake of skating much too fast on financial ice that turned out to be surprisingly—and devastatingly-- thin.
http://www.welshmktg.com/read.htm
Thanks, Dean for getting me to read the article. I might not have seen it otherwise. While the article is equivocal about whether Cox has some blame here, it does not mention that the Administration did not properly budget for the SEC. It does point out without saying so that the SEC was rendered a toothless tiger in 2004 by Paulson and the gang while the government remained asleep at the switch.
For the Right Wing Radioheads to blame the crisis on the attempts by Congress to generate rules for enabling the middle class to achieve affordable housing, well, it is just a disgusting and inappropriate use of a caterpillar eaten fig leaf when viewed against this expose you linked to.
Thanks, Dean for all you do.
Mr.Baker ,the problem as I see it, is that the public is getting fed these lies like "this problem goes back to Bill Clinton" and "Democrats have voted against tougher regulations for Freddie and Franny". People don't realize that Phil Gramm sneaked in "the Enron rule" and that the GOP has held power in the Whitehouse and Congress for the last 6 years. Where's the party of "accountability"? They are busy blaming the other guy while presiding over the biggest financial boondogle ever and now they want the public to believe that the people who didn't see this coming know the way out of this mess.
Maybe if Paris Hilton explains the whole thing some people might understand.
Paulson needs to go, but so does Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank and anyone else who has received money from the likes of Country Wide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. Repub or Dem alike!
This is more the President Bush and the Republican's fault, and if you doubt the criminal negligence of the dem party's part in this you will continue to elect those who will continue to abuse the system. DC needs flushing from the top down.
As long as the patient lives. The "cancer" continues to grow. Will only our complete and utter destruction, free us from our "cancer". Will an excorcist work?
Sarah Palin likes to talk about Joe Six Pack - how does the GOP protect or help Joe Six Pack. ...........
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/03/respecting-joe-six-pack/
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