Why Henry Paulson must be “contained”
Paulson with his ChiCom friends
Both parties in Washington are about to screw us over on an unprecedented scale. They are threatening us with fiscal apocalypse if we don’t fork over $700 billion to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and allow him to dole it out to whomever he chooses in whatever amount he chooses — without public input or recourse. They are rushing like mad to cram this Mother of All Bailouts down our throats in the next 72-96 hours. And right there in the text of the proposal is this naked power grab: “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.”
Stop.
My question for fellow conservatives: Do you trust this man?
I don’t.
Do you trust Hank Paulson’s judgment?
I don’t.
Listen to what he said about the subprime crisis in April 2007:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said…the housing market correction appears to be at or near its bottom and that troubles in the subprime mortgage market will not likely spread throughout the economy.
“We’ve clearly had a big correction in the housing market. Retail housing was growing for some time at a level that was not sustainable,” Paulson said in a speech to The Committee of 100, a business group in New York promoting better Chinese relations.
“I don’t see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained,” he added.
Listen to what he said about the subprime crisis in May 2007:
JIM LEHRER: One final question, and a third subject. How worried are you about the slump, so-called slump in the housing market in the United States right now? And what kind of damage, if any, is it doing to the economy?
HENRY PAULSON: Well, let me say this. As you’ve pointed out, we’ve had a major housing correction in the U.S. The U.S. economy had been growing at a rate that was unsustainable and, in housing, it had clearly been growing at a rate for a number of years.
That correction was inevitable; that correction has now been significant. We think it is near the bottom. It will take a while to work its way through the system. Fortunately for us, we have a very diverse, healthy economy. There are other things that are positive that are offsetting that.
…So my very strong view is that we are near the bottom and that this will be contained as — the housing will be contained, and we’re fortunate that we have a diverse, healthy economy.
Listen to what he said about the subprime crisis in August 2007 while on a trip to Beijing (more on Paulson’s ChiCom ties in a moment):
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Wednesday the repricing of credit risk was hitting financial markets, but U.S. subprime mortgage fallout remained largely contained due to the strongest global economy in decades.
Speaking to reporters in Beijing, where he ran into stiff resistance in persuading Chinese officials to let the yuan strengthen more quickly, Paulson said markets were unwinding excesses in U.S. mortgage and leveraged buyout financing.
European and Asian stocks tumbled on Wednesday following a sharp drop in U.S. shares on Tuesday, after American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. said it might have to liquidate assets, fuelling worries over problems in the subprime mortgage market spilling over into other sectors.
“The market has focused on this. There’s a wake-up call, and there’s an adjustment to this repricing of risk, but I see the underlying economy as being very healthy,” he told reporters before leaving Beijing.
Paulson added that he did not see anything that caused him to reconsider his view that the economic damage from the housing correction was “largely contained,” despite losses in a number of financial institutions and a long period for subprime issues to move through the economy.
Here’s Paulson in October 2007 assuring us that he had no interest in government bailouts while touting the economy’s health again:
Paulson: Subprime help needed – but no bailout
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is walking a fine line, pushing the need to help troubled mortgage borrowers without rewarding past risky behavior.
“I have no interest in bailing out lenders or property speculators. Still, we must recognize the very real harms to families affected by the housing downturn,” Paulson said in prepared remarks for a speech given Tuesday at Georgetown University.
…Although the speech seemed to mark a step up in activism on the part of the Treasury Department, Paulson was quick to point out the limitations of the government’s approach during the question and answer following the talk.
Referring to HopeNow, he said, “This is a 100 percent market-based solution. I believe in markets. The government is doing nothing here but facilitating people coming together.”
Paulson also downplayed the possibility that the housing crisis could plunge the nation into recession. “I’ve seen turbulence in the market a number of times and I can’t think of any situation where the backdrop of the global economy was as healthy as it is today,” he said.
And here’s Paulson in May 2008 declaring the credit crisis on the wane:
The credit crisis that has scorched international financial markets is on the wane but more shocks are ahead, U.S. Secretary Treasury Henry Paulson told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Wednesday.
‘The worst is likely to be behind us,’ Paulson told the paper, in one of the most optimistic comments by a top U.S. finance official since sub-prime mortgage losses set a domino effect in motion in mid 2007.
Paulson said it would take ’some months longer’ for the situation to stabilize and cautioned there would likely be further ‘bumps along the road’.
Yeah. A freaking $700 billion bailout bump. That’s all. Guess that little detail just slipped his mind.
On Sept. 15, Paulson was patting himself on the back for refusing to “put taxpayer money on the line” to rescue Lehman Brothers. On Sept. 16, just a day after drawing a line in the bailout sand, Paulson teamed up with the Fed’s Ben Bernanke to engineer the $85 billion federal bailout of AIG. And on Sept. 19, he was telling Americans that “hundreds of billions of dollars” — their dollars — were needed to “be big enough to make a real difference and get at the heart of the problem” and “stabilize the system.” This is on top of the estimated $200 billion in capital and credit lines committed by Paulson to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — capital that he had promised he wouldn’t be injecting into those two government-sponsored entities in August ( “We have no plans to insert money into either of those two institutions.”)
***
Now: Who is Paulson looking out for? A quick review of the Treasury Secretary’s record, political activity, and business priorities makes clear: He ain’t looking out for you.
Paulson has positioned himself as a champion of transparency. Me, too. Let’s shed some light on the man who wants total control over $700 billion of your money.
Robert Novak called attention to Paulson’s Democrat DNA last October. It’s worth reminding you of Paulson’s instincts and the liberal allies he has installed at the Treasury Department:
…[T]he former Goldman Sachs CEO does not act or sound much like a conservative Republican to the GOP remnant at the Treasury. “It’s not in Hank Paulson’s DNA,” one official told me. Is he loyal to Bush? “Hank is for Hank,” he replied.
Paulson marched to his own drummer… by naming Eric Mindich, chairman of Eton Park Capital Management, to head the Asset Managers’ Committee of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. A former Goldman Sachs colleague of Paulson’s, Mindich is a top-level Democratic fundraiser. He was in Sen. John Kerry’s inner circle for the 2004 presidential campaign and backs Sen. Barack Obama for 2008.
Republicans in the administration were amazed that the White House acquiesced in appointing a Democratic activist to lead a group “to develop best practices” for asset managers. These critics wonder why President Bush did not ask Paulson why he could not name a Republican financier for this position…[A] Treasury spokesman replied that “we were looking for somebody who is well respected in the industry” to fill what is “not really a political position.” By that measure, no Treasury job can be considered political.
That includes Bob Steel, under secretary for domestic finance…Brought to the Treasury by Paulson a year ago, Steel is a retired Goldman Sachs vice chairman who worked there with Rubin and Paulson. Federal Election Commission records show no political contributions by Steel since the 2002 cycle, when he gave exclusively to Democrats (including Sen. Charles Schumer of New York). Steel, who is Board of Trustees chairman of Duke University in Durham, N.C., contributed to the North Carolina Democratic Party and its Senate candidates, Dan Blue and Erskine Bowles.
Although Paulson was a generous Republican contributor and prodigious Bush fundraiser (over $100,000) in the 2004 cycle, his earlier political giving was more varied. He contributed to Bill Clinton in 1992, Democrat Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign, the feminist Emily’s List and Wall Street’s favorite Democrat, Chuck Schumer. Most of the Paulson family’s Democratic contributions come from the secretary’s wife, Wendy, who has supported Hillary Clinton.
All this was known to Bush in May 2006 when he tapped Paulson as a Treasury chief who would command respect on Wall Street. It should be no surprise then that he is regarded in his own administration as less a true Republican secretary than a transition to the next Democratic Treasury — a trademark of a lame-duck regime.
Paulson is also an activist eco-zealot who pushed Gore-esque, mandatory global warming reduction schemes as head of the Nature Conservancy and while at Goldman Sachs. From a 2006 WaPo profile touting Paulson’s green pedigree:
“It isn’t every day that the Sierra Club finds itself welcoming a nomination to George W. Bush’s Cabinet while ultraconservatives decry the move,” said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s executive director.
“But on issues like global warming, Hank Paulson appears to favor managing risk rather than cooking the books,” Pope said. “It is heartening that someone of Mr. Paulson’s stature in the financial world is willing to say that immediate action must be taken to combat global warming.”
Last year under Paulson’s direction, Goldman Sachs issued an eight-page position paper on environmental policy, saying it accepts a scientific consensus, led by United Nations climate experts, that global warming poses one of the greatest threats this century.
Like Bush, the Goldman Sachs statement endorsed a market for businesses to buy and sell rights to emit greenhouse gases, saying it will spur technology advances by companies “that lead to a less carbon-intensive economy.” But, it added, “Voluntary action alone cannot solve the climate change problem,” a position contrary to the Bush administration’s view.
The Nature Conservancy, under Paulson’s direction, likewise supports a mandatory approach. It supports legislation by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., to cap U.S. greenhouse gases at 2000 levels, within five years. The Senate defeated the measure last year.
Then there are Paulson’s longtime ties to the ChiComs. The Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney blew the whistle during Paulson’s confirmation hearings in 2006. Prescient as always, Gaffney foresaw the very national security and economic conflicts of interest that now cloud the Paulson bailout plan. Paulson’s China promotion and profiteering are all the more relevant given the clamoring of foreign banks for a piece of the monster bailout action — and Paulson’s confirmation yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” that foreign-based banks would not be excluded:
Under Mr. Paulson’s leadership at Goldman Sachs, the company has been instrumental to the growth of Chinese economic power and particularly to its penetration of Western capital and other markets. He has been directly involved in developing his firm’s relationships with the PRC, priding himself on having made 70 trips there since late 1991. Consider just a few of the deals Goldman has managed, underwritten or otherwise facilitated under Henry Paulson’s leadership:
In 2005, Goldman Sachs not only advised the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in its attempted takeover of Unocal. It also strove to ensure that the Chinese state-owned company’s bid prevailed after ChevronTexaco offered $17 billion in an effort to keep Unocal in U.S. hands. CNOOC was able to up the ante to $18.5 billion for the American concern, thanks to a bridge-loan Goldman Sachs arranged (along with J.P. Morgan). Fortunately, despite the assiduous efforts made by Mr. Paulson and his firm to secure Unocal for Communist China, the American people and Congress strenuously opposed the transaction, leading ultimately to its derailing.
In late January 2006, Goldman Sachs purchased a stake in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China’s biggest bank, for $2.58 billion. According to press reports, Mr. Paulson’s personal stake in this transaction was $25 million.
This is but one of many such state-owned banks the Chinese are interested in bringing to Hong Kong and other Western capital markets. As I told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last August:
These are foreign government-owned entities, not private firms. The Chinese government appears to be actively working with leading international banking houses [notably, Goldman Sachs] to shape the appearance, assets, liabilities, profit margins and public relations tactics of these state-owned enterprises.
Despite such efforts, the PRC seems simply to be dressing-up what were, until recently, insolvent banks in the hope that international capital markets will contribute to bailing them out. This process involves the off-loading of non-performing loans onto asset management companies in a fashion very reminiscent of the U.S. savings and loan crisis. Indeed, the PRC appears, in fact, to have modeled its strategy on the American experience.
No less worrisome is the fact that these banks’ assets include not only its non-performing loans, but also the loans made to various Chinese enterprises of grave concern to the United States, including elements of the PRC’s military-industrial complex; entities involved in the manufacture and perhaps the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems; human and labor rights abusers; environmental despoilers; etc.
Speaking of banks, in May 2006, Goldman Sachs helped with the underwriting of the Bank of China’s IPO, listing $9.7 billion worth of its shares on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Among other problematic activities the Bank has engaged in has been the financing over the past fifteen years of extensive infrastructure projects like dam-building for the mullahocracy in Iran.
…It seems predictable that a man with Henry Paulson’s background, track record and relationships with Communist China will play a worrisome role in U.S. government deliberations. Unless he recuses himself from involvement in the following sorts of issues, Mr. Paulson assuredly will be participating in and exercising great influence over far-reaching decisions in which he has a vested policy, if not financial, interest. These will likely include, for example:
Contending with China’s ongoing manipulation of its currency which it uses to help sustain its advantageous trade relationship with the United States;
Addressing the strategic implications of the PRC being the largest holder of U.S. debt;
Considering the need to impose economic and perhaps other sanctions on Chinese proliferators, not at the subsidiary level (as has been done to date) but against their parent companies, when some of the latter may include Mr. Paulson’s former clients;
Allowing China to purchase strategic U.S. companies and assets;
…Since Communist China’s interests and those of the United States are likely to diverge ever more sharply in the years ahead, the very least that should be required of Paulson is that he recuse himself from involvement in matters of interest to the PRC. Unfortunately, as the foregoing list suggests, since China’s interests and activities figure so prominently in the Treasury portfolio, such a recusal would reduce the job to a part-time one.
In the absence of such a recusal, however, Paulson’s China-related work at Treasury will require an extraordinary level of transparency and accountability by members of Congress, the media, and the American public. We must be assured he is working for us in this job, not for Communist China as he did so successfully in the last one.
***
On top of Paulson’s $700 billion bailout for both American and foreign-based banks, there is another stealth effort for a multilateral bank bailout championed by the Treasury Department to the tune of at least $15 billion. The proposal would transform billions of dollars worth of U.S. loans to the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank into grants. And voila! Their massive debts to American taxpayers would disappear. Sen. Tom Coburn, a fiscal conservative watchdog who is looking out for us, red-flagged the Treasury Department’s attempt to sneak the plan through last week in a letter to Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell. I’m reprinting the letter in full so you are fully aware of what Hank Paulson’s priorities are:
September 18, 2008
Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510Dear Senator McConnell,
I am requesting that I be consulted before the Senate enters into any unanimous consent agreements regarding S. 2166, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2008. I objected to the previous unanimous consent agreement, and I reserve the right to object to any future unanimous consent agreements or rule waivers regarding this bill.
I have a number of concerns with this legislation.
The Jubilee Act requires the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to “commence immediate efforts. . .to accomplish. . .cancellation by the United States of all existing debts owed to it by eligible low-income countries.”[1] This will effectively transforms at least $1.13 billion of U.S. loans to other countries into foreign aid grants that will no longer be repaid to the U.S. taxpayer.[2] In other words, S. 2166 authorizes a $1.135 billion foreign aid package.
The national debt now exceeds $9.4 trillion. That means over $30,500 in debt for each and every man, woman and child in the United States. The U.S. debt is expanding by about $1.4 billion a day, or nearly $1 million a minute. S. 2166 would significantly contribute to the already overwhelming burden of debt that Congress has created.
This violates a principle I have laid out in a letter sent at the beginning of the 110th Congress to all my Senate colleagues, to withhold my consent for unanimous passage of any bill that authorizes new spending without an equivalent reduction in existing spending authority for a lower-priority or less effective program.
S. 2166 also requires the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to “commence immediate efforts” within international financial institutions, such as the World Bank,” to ensure “that the provision of debt cancellation to eligible low-income countries is not followed by a reduction in. . .development assistance to the [low-income] countries by international financial institutions.” This section of the bill could be interpreted to support the notion that contributors to international financial institutions, such as the U.S. taxpayer, should be required to refund the international financial institutions for the entire amount of the loans forgiven. In other words, U.S. taxpayers, who have already paid their share of the forgiven multilateral loans, would be required to pay this amount a second time as a bailout for the banks.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Treasury Department, during a G8[3] summit in 2005, already made a commitment to provide a bailout to multilateral banks that participated in the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). MDRI is an initiative that gives 100 percent relief on eligible debt from three multilateral banks[4] to a group of low-income countries, most of whom never intended to repay the loans.[5]
In the outcome document from the 2005 G8 Summit, the U.S. Treasury Department and its counterparts in the other G8 countries agreed to “compensate” the multilateral banks “on a ‘dollar-for-dollar’ basis” the full amount of the debts to eligible low-income countries that will be forgiven.[6] The outcome document goes on to say that the G8 will “provide MDRI financing additional to donors’ regular support” which represents “an increase of about 25 percent over” the baseline funding level the G8 normally sends to the banks.
Regular support of the development banks comes in the form of replenishments, which are wealth transfers from G8 countries given to the banks every three years with which the banks redistribute to low-income countries. The agreement made by the G8 was to include the multilateral banks’ bailout within the regular 3-year replenishments to the banks.
The total debt relief G8 countries, including the U.S., agreed to is more than $41.3 billion over 40 years. This means $41.3 billion in mostly bad loans to low income countries have been transformed into foreign aid grants that will never be paid back. By agreeing to bail the banks out for these bad lending decisions, the G8 is passing the cost of the scheme to G8 taxpayers. The total cost will be up to $82.6 billion to cover the original loan plus the cost of the bailout.
The U.S. taxpayers’ share of this bailout is almost $7.5 billion over 40 years. Even though the U.S. Treasury was not authorized by Congress to commit to this increase in foreign aid spending, Treasury plans on making the first installments of the U.S. portion of the bailout this year without informing Congress. In its budget request to Congress in 2009, the Treasury Department does not report to Congress any information about its agreement to bail out the multilateral banks or that its request for its next 3-year replenishment to the banks includes its first installment of the bailout.
It wasn’t until I asked specifically about the bailout that the Treasury Department admitted that it has hidden the first installment of the U.S. share of the bailout in the U.S. replenishment payments for 2009. According to the Treasury Department, these bailout payments will not cost the taxpayer additional funds. It claims that by sending the normal 3-year replenishment to the banks earlier than planned, the money will gain enough interest while sitting in the multilateral banks’ accounts that will pay for the U.S. share of the bailout. What the Treasury Department fails to understand is that this interest belongs to the U.S. taxpayer, and by denying the taxpayer this interest, the cost of the bailout is indeed carried by the U.S. taxpayer.
Another disturbing element to the bailout agreement that U.S. Treasury made at the 2005 G8 summit is that the additional money the U.S. and other G8 taxpayers will be sending to the banks for the bailout will be used for “providing further resources for. . .development efforts”[7] within low-income countries whose loans were forgiven. In other words, the U.S. Treasury Department agreed to saturate the multilateral banks with even more U.S. taxpayer cash, so the banks can continue their misguided policies responsible for issuing bad loans and the subsequent bailout schemes.
Development policies that require massive transfers of wealth from developed nations to low-income nations, or socialism, have proven not only to fail at eradicating poverty but actually prolong and worsen economic conditions in many impoverished countries. I strongly believe that when we act as a government to help people, we make sure that our help first doesn’t make the problem worse, and second, really works and doesn’t just make us feel good about having tried to help.
Wealth transfers, whether it be in the form of foreign aid packages or debt relief, is based on the false premise that transfers of riches from wealthy nations to poor nations will buy economic growth in those recipient nations. There is no credible evidence that suggests this approach has ever actually produced economic growth, and sadly, there is a growing body of economic research that suggests just the opposite. [8] All evidence demonstrates that poverty decreases only with the increase in economic freedom, free trade, the protection of property rights, elimination of corruption, and predictably enforced rule of law. In other words, poverty is the result of corrupt governments and the absence of liberty—not the lack of wealth transfers.
The American people are already burdened with over $9.4 trillion of debt due to uncontrolled spending by Congress. The U.S. taxpayer is always called upon to bail out failed wealth-transfer programs, whether it is multilateral banks, government-run mortgage companies, or federal retirement plans. It is unlikely that there will be anyone willing to bail out the U.S. taxpayers once this unsustainable spending frenzy finally catches up with us. I cannot, in good conscious, contribute to this problem.
In order for me to vote “yes” on the passage of S. 2166, the bill should be improved in two key ways. First, the cost of transforming over $1 billion of U.S. bilateral loans into grants should be offset by an equivalent reduction in existing spending authority for a lower-priority or less effective program.
Second, S. 2166 should include a prohibition on providing multilateral banks bailouts from the U.S. taxpayer for current or future debt relief initiatives. If multilateral banks desire a $7 billion increase in U.S. funding, they should make a request to Congress, and Congress should conduct oversight investigations, debate whether wealth transfer programs achieve measurable results, and, if there is measurable evidence supporting it, decide whether or not to grant the increase while offsetting it from existing spending elsewhere.
Thank you for protecting my rights on this legislation.
Sincerely,
Tom A. Coburn, M.D.
U.S. Senator
***
One last item if all this wasn’t enough to stop your heart. This is Paulson on “Face the Nation” yesterday:
Mr. Paulson said he hoped that the government would recoup much of the cost of buying distressed mortgage-related assets. But he did not rule out that the initial cost of the bailout could rise beyond $700 billion, the limit set in the terse proposal sent by the Treasury to Congress on Saturday.
“That doesn’t mean we’ll go all the way there, or it doesn’t mean it will stop there and we won’t ask for more,” Mr. Paulson said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “What we need is something that is big enough to get the job done. We’ll ask for what we think is a right amount to give us plenty of flexibility.”
And now, Washington is on the verge of handing this man unchecked power to grab $700 billion-plus in taxpayer money to stabilize a market he said was “healthy” in order to fix a crisis he said had been “contained” more than a year ago?
Henry Paulson must be contained.
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So something that is unconstitutional cannot be reviewed by a Federal court? I guess, not even the Supreme Court. Well, if it is accepted, a precedent has been set, which will allow other proposals/bills to go through, regardless of legality, being “non-reviewable” by Federal court. A government running amok….with people cheering.
This man must be fired, then thrown into jail. President Bush has a habit of surrounding himself with those of poor character. I lay the ultimate responsibility on the President’s desk…all 800 billion bucks.
Yeah, cactusjoe. and, of course, the democratic congress, the one who passes bills appropiating money, is faultless.
What are you gonna do?
I don’t like his methods but someone now has to clean up Clintons/greenspans mess.
We all know, as history proves, just like 9/11 cleaning up clintons messes are very costly, at least this one hasn’t cost the most precious commodity, Human Lives
Plastik
This mess goes all the way back to FDR, with the creation of Fannie May.
Amazing, isn’t it, how so many things enacted in those days are turning out to be more harmful than helpful?
Thus America’s slide into socialist irrelevancy continues…
I found it very strange that while on the Sunday talk shows this week, he repeated over and over how much he “hated” being apart of the bailouts.
I was perplexed because most high-level government officials, even if they disagree privately, will not publicly condemn the policy.
So, it’s either that he really hates it a lot and doesn’t care if it pisses the Bush administration off, or it’s PR spin to make us feel like he’s only doing it because otherwise our economy will collapse fully.
Thoughts?
My question is this: with Enronesque accounting practices at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, why aren’t there people in jail? Remember, those accounting “irregularities” were discovered in 2002/2203…but noone went to jail.
Coburn for president!!
“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.”
Although that inclusion makes this scarily fascist, personally I think it would be utterly pointless even attempting this without such an inclusion, because we all know very well that without such wording, this act would be tied up in courts for years by special interest groups. By that time it got out of the court system (which would be never), it would either be unnecessary, or more likely the economy would have collapsed and it would be too late to act.
There does need to be oversight though, and I believe that is planned. This is not a blank check to one person to do with as they see fit, as is being inferred.
I know my view is not popular, and I detest the fact that we are paying for the greed of others, but I believe that not to act would be cutting off our nose to spite our face. AIG is just too big, and the results of their collapse too far-reaching – the economy would almost certainly collapse.
Our anger at the situation we find ourselves in and the lack of any sense of justice in this ‘bailout’ will not help the economy.
Stop the collapse first and foremost, then work on regulation to stop this happening again (and it was Clinton that denied regulation years ago that is the root of this), then start looking at CEO’s and financial entities for any illegalities, and punish them accordingly.
Personally I believe that no corporate should be allowed to become so big that their single collapse could take down the entire economy – it’s just asking for trouble. Also the days of investment banking are over – it’s just too susceptible to greed.
Those who claim “it’s our tax money”, don’t forget that all these big corporates also pay tax to the tune of billions of dollars per year, so it’s not like they don’t have a stake in this too.
Finally, laying this on Bush’s shoulders is just naive; again, it was Clinton that denied regulation years ago that started this ball rolling.
Very suspicious that all this accumulated bad debt from years of corruption, socialism is unraveling precisely 1.5 months before the general election….
I see this as a form of ‘financial amnesty’ before the ‘financial border security’ kicks in. Look for same next year on immigration.
It’s purely fascist, nyc123me.
AIG is not large enough to take down this economy either. I think the thinking is that it is the sector that is at risk.
Either way this is another power corrupted power grab. The New Deal, the Mexico bailout, the S&L bailout, any agricultural bill that we’ve passed since FDR.
We might be free to speak our minds in this country, but we aren’t free of aparently unchecked government.
Reining in Paulson will not only be impossible, we’ll have the Pelosi congress piling on more dollars of “relief” for every bailout dollar he proposes.
The Wall Street/Main Street meme is about to dominate the election.
The politics of envy and vote buying largesse will justify every argument. And it will happen because the majority of Americans think it’s fair. It’s the best way to sway us. Do it in the name of fairness and you can raid our wallets, bank accounts, paychecks, stock portfolios, retirement accounts, etc.
We suck from the voting public up to the White House. We deserve every bit of this change.
By all means let’s continue voting the incumbent parties back into power. It’s working fabulously.
Never pass a law with this phrase in it.
We’re screwed ‘08, ‘09, ‘010…
No one person that has ever walked this planet, except maybe Jesus, should be give unfettered access to and the ability to dole out that kind of funding without some form of accountability. I have already written all my representatives and told them not to pass it, but if they must to please build in some accountability to the process. This is unbelievable!
Fox. Henhouse.
This bail out is a travesty. When will it end?
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.”
They can put that in the bailout bill a thousand times if they want, but there’s no way the Supreme Court lets that stop them. That’s like one of those signs on the back of dump trucks that says “Not responsible for damage to vehicles”; it’ll have no legal standing. Do you really think the black robes are going to let some piece of legislation curtail their power to review.
When the stats are running south, cheery words from the Treasury Secretary are not to be trusted, no matter the party. It’s the job to be a cheerleader about the macro-economy. But, when he drops his pompoms and says we’re in trouble, there is more reason to pay attention.
Sorry; I pushed SUBMIT too soon:
Let’s not go back 8 to 10 (or more) years to find someone responsible. Let’s talk about the last 5-6 years of nothing being done to stop this from happening. I just feel there is way too much CYA going on and we’ll never know the reason.
George was right. We were bought and paid for a long time ago in this country by our supposed leaders. George Carlin, that was.
I think that we as taxpayers, are screwed. When are we going to see some sanity injected into the madness? The GOP is acting worse than the Dems by not taking firm action to get control of things. I do blame both parties, not just Clinton or Reid and Pelosi. Bush and team has made some efforts, but not pressed as hard as they should have. Why is this Paulson clown in charge anyway? It seems as if on some issues, Bush is as ignorant as the left makes him out to be. You would think he would have learned the down-side of appeasement toward the Dems from his father.
Yeah, Wraith, it takes a special kind of hubris to believe that you can insert language into a bill that will supercede the enumerated powers of the US Constitution.
Welcome to 21st Century US politics. If you thought President Bush was bad for this kind of thing in the name of security, just wait. If Obama is elected the same thing will happen in the name of fairness to the middle class (read “large voting bloc”). And the masses will praise his name for it.
The spoiled generation continues its
marchride on a divan chair through US history.I do not trust ANYONE, Republican OR democrat, with that much power and lack of oversight.
This stinks like lgm’s poo-butt…to high Heaven
50 Years ago The Russians were saying ‘We Will Bury You’, today the Chinese are saying ‘We Will Buy You’ and take you over without firing a shot. I just didn’t think it would be with the help of our own government.
Let me ask one question. What’s the alternative plan? There’s got to be another way, even if it means tossing some of the big corporations under the bus.
Whatever happened to Dhubai buying some of the troubled companies?
What would the result be if the Gov did nothing? I can’t believe it would have been the complete meltdown of the world economy. Maybe some companies going under, maybe some forgiveness of some debt, but complete meltdown?
Thanks Michelle for starting my week on a depressing note.
Unless our financial geniuses in washington can find away for foreign holders of U.S. debt to eat that bad paper, the only way out of this is to hyper-inflate the dollar. Cutting spending would really help but how many here think Washington has the balls to do that?
Yowza, yowza, yowza….. forget retirement, we’ll be lucky if we are’nt eating tree bark and pulling rickshaws for the Chinese this time next year.
I think this is the final nail in the coffin that both parties have been preparing for burial of the American middle class.
The American middle class has been under attack since Reagan pushed through the first amnesty laws in the 80’s, and Bush the elder, destroyed the savings and loan industry. Both parties are very much committed to merging Mexico and the United States, and they are hitting us from both sides. The democrats are preventing us from having cheap, plentiful energy, which is needed for a vibrant economy and healthy middle class. The republicans are ruining the financial system with the intent to facilitate socialist government contol (like that which already exists in Mexico).
End goal is to ruin and demoralize the American people to the point where they will accept merger with Mexico.
It doesn’t matter who wins a Presidential election. The wheels have been set in motion, and the powers that be will try to crush us, if we resist!!!
This is a sham plain and simple. You know what a few years ago My wife and I were looking to buy a house, but it was so obvious after taking the time to think about it that between the scumbag realtor and the banker he recommended, that they were trying to sell me on one of thus subprime loans. We balked when we didn’t like the terms they were offering. I was able to see through the haze so why should I pay for other peoples mistakes? I am so against these bailouts it is not funny.
I’ve got to snort every time I hear someone say Sarah Palin is unqualified for veep — just look at what this bunch of brain surgeons has done to us.
Russians in Georgia and Venezuela, Chinese products will poison you, Jihadis on the move, millions of illegals invading, oil plentiful and expensive, currency becoming worthless, climate change sold as religion, our markets have been set up to fail…
There’s something going on here but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.
On September 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 am, EonTopaz10 said:
Let’s assume it would have been the worst. A complete meltdown. Millions out of work. Breadlines & soup kitchens. Grapes of Wrath writ large.
Does that give the State the right to turn men into slaves? Slaves to the world-wide financial institutions? The “economy?”
Of course not.
I would rather be begging for bread in a church than giving 50% or more of my work week over to the State.
That is my time on this earth and it doesn’t belong to anyone else but me.
I’m writing both Senator Chambliss and Isakson, and Rep Bishop to stop this maddness. It probably won’t do any good, but I can’t sit idly by and do nothing.
I’ve never bought into world conspiracy theories. There is way to much that must come together to work. However I do see men all over the world playing on a giant game board for power. The play field may be under the guise of communism, capitalism or religion. The fact that appears to be true, is there are Godless greedy sociopaths out there working to consolidate power, using us as pawns. We do have the cure, which is to return this country to it original constitutional fundamentals.
Bush will do nothing to stop this guy.
These bums run a finacial institution into the ground with their greed and then get rescued by taxpayer money. With this “bailout” there must be more oversight. Otherwise, we are doing nothing more than creating a bigger financial bubble for the financial “whiz kids” to hide under.
Sadly, the constitution is nothing more than a museum display. It is a weaker position than even the moral argument these days.
This is our money they’re giving away, and the details are so secret they won’t even show them to us?
We should all be driving our cars to DC, mad as hell and not taking it any more.
What the heck does it take to get “we the people” on the move and in some faces?
I’ve been saying right along about this financial meltdown, that I don’t just want money spent to fix it. I want criminal investigations on why it happened and prosecutions of people who’ve done wrong.
At the very least there’s been severe misfeasance going on, on the part of Secretary Paulson as well as some of the Wall Street people. Don’t give him power. Give him a long prison term. Then we’ll talk.
Now would be a nice time for Democrats and Republicans to come together and add language into this bill that will protect the taxpayer and not give unfettered control of these funds to a person or a department.
I’m wondering if Bush looked straight into Paulson’s eyes and got a sense of his soul. Must be people whose last names starts with a “P”.
As the gods prepare to destroy the Bush Administration, they are driving it mad. And this is madness, make no mistake about it. Bush has gone bye-bye and Paulson certainly sounds like a “life-long Republican,” which we have come to know as code for evil.
If the conservative base stopped amnesty, they can certainly stop this thing (there seems no word vile enough to describe it). They must. Heck, we’ve even got Newt Gingrich on board.
Sheep
Great, Honest Writing Michelle!
This is why I can no longer vote for EITHER Jersey. Neither is out for us any longer. Chuck Baldwin is THE ONLY candidate who will follow the;
Constitution
The Rule of Law
He is for:
Secure Borders
The English language
American Culture
U.S. Sovereignty
Tell me, where does McCain stand on the above????
He is AWOL.
CORRUPT BASTARDS
Why don’t banks go back, refinance mortgages to make them more affordable and stop all the foreclosures. That would be a very good place to start. Yes, it punishes all of us who have been sensible to begin with, but so what. Maybe then the government wouldn’t be on the brink of bankruptcy.
I can’t believe the timing of this thing. Republicans/Conservatives beware! This looks like a demoncrat ploy to sweep the election.
What most people can’t see is that EVERYBODY has had a hand in ruining this country. Not just George W Bush.
Great post. Wallace also skewered Paulsom yesterday with his own words on Fox News Sunday.
The Dems have been screaming about faulty intelligence leading to the Iraq war. This has much the same emergency psychology smell to it.
So the Great Depression, which we recovered from once and I have no doubt we could do it again.
A bit off topic… but speaking of bail outs.
Hey brother, can you spare me a dime? This is literally true regarding Barack Obama’s real brother, George in Kenya, found living in a 6′ by 10′ hut on a dollar or so a month. He needs a bail out.
tossing some cold water on this blame game:
Some of you sound as if you are living in a 9/10 world.
my hayseed post 9/11 point:
inCountry enemy or out still an enemy.
If you have delayed for whatever reason taking the time to protect yourself and Family NOW is the time to do so.
get offline and do so.
The U.S. buys 25% of China’s exports. China holds 1.5 trillion of our debt. China can either absorb our loss or lose us as a market. Understanding Chinese mindset of playing for the long gain, I assume they would look at the latter.
China aint the enemy
If this passes, they will have to rasie taxes. Period. I don’t care who wins in november.
son that is not accurate.
LOWER SPENDING IS AN OPTION and it is what McCain and Palin will DO
In the 1930’s the voters still had some backbone. What in the world makes you think today’s voters wouldn’t turn to vastly more socialism than they were screaming for in the 1930’s??
This isn’t even a close call. We MUST stop the downward spiral.
HOWEVER, this Plan makes me nauseous. I can’t imagine there isn’t some simpler way to fix the problem. Maybe just adjust FASB 157, or whatever, so the mark to market rules don’t operate in such a draconian fashion during a meltdown.
We are talking 700 BILLION dollars. Not counting existing spending deficts. To make that up you would have to cut out vast amounts of spending. Given who is likely to control congress, the chances of that are slim to none. Barring a nuclear strike on washington DC, this will pass. McCain aplin will have to rasie taxes based on this 700 BILLION alone. I am not buying that either party can avoid it.
aplin? my god it must be monday.
I like your thinking, and I like your name.
Demand ideological purity from all public servants. They should not be allowed to touch a Democrat without washing their hands. If Paulson believes in global warming, he cannot possibly understand the economy.
You’re assuming that’s ’spent’ money. There’s always a chance those who are saying we’ll actually make money on the deal are correct.
son,
hmm you are not grasping the situation at all.
Wages never quite keep up with inflation. They always lag. The dollar is so devalued as a result of this bailout that double digit inflation is just around the corner. The number of foreclosures will skyrocket when that happens. Kiss your retirement goodbye. Kiss your lifestyle goodbye.
Barry Ritholtz has an excellent take on this, written this AM:
“Fixing Housing & Finance: 30/20/10 Proposal“
And who is to blame? WE ARE. Every person with an arm. Every president who saw this coming and did nothing, every congressperson who didn’t see past the next election. Its the democrats AND the republicans fault. WE as americans caused this problem, and we as americans are about to try to borrow our way out of it. So when LGM says its the GOP’s fault he will be right, as will we when we say its the democrats fault. I am angry that this country refuses to work to pay its debts and spends all its time trying to blame someone, anyone else but themselves for thier own damn mistakes.
You think like a Democrat.
I don’t see how you think a democratic congress is going to reduce spending by even one cent.
I don’t mean to sound mean, but the first thing I thought of when I heard “Chuck Baldwin” is: not another Baldwin brother! There is no way I voting for any relative of Alec. Seriously, I’ve never heard of this guy, which is fine, but neither has anyone else in the country, which is not fine. His own mother probably doesn’t remember him. So as we depart fantasy island, Chuck Baldwin, no doubt fine fellow that he is, is no more likely to be elected president than I am.
son,
.
are you okay? go for a walk turn off your cable teevee. Life is very simple
prepare for the worst and rejoice if it does not happen…. it aint any more complicated than that
Errah, if there is 30k of debt for every man woman and child how are the 10% of us who actually pay all the tax able to shoulder this burden? I’d like to know how many people actually pay tax and then let us know the actual cost per taxpaying citizen. errah. This is to much to bear. My kids have no hope for a future given these odds.
bansharia:
I think we should all be angry at the blatant corruption and shear incompitence in washington DC.
son,
to be clear I have every expectation that dems will play politics those who created this mess are in charge of fixing and media giving them a pass.
cmon frank and dodd and greenie? lawdy its comical. Clinton will hit the shows this week and pretend his hands are clean yadda yadda.
What did you think a post 9/11 America meant? WE ARE AT WAR and YES we have enemies within……
Are we doing this for the safety of the taxpayers, or the safety of the accounts of the Congressional leaders?
Pelosi, Kerry May Share Investor Pain as AIG Stakes Evaporate
Methinks I smell a serious conflict of interest, which I would never expect after they drained the Congressional Cesspool…
son,
if you think this is bad
anger is a fine proper emotion and rather handy as long as it is not a distraction
well much worse coming it is what it is.
crash,
snicker snort look at the $ lost from LEH. The Goreacle lost all his carbon credit scam $ and kerry and pelosi etc etc etc. I find it all an affirmation.
bansharia: Oh I know. Not looking forward to it.
son,
I am a bitter gun owner Bible clinger, this too shall pass and in my best BD voice “it is going to be a bumpy ride ”
lololo. When someone is prepared they do not panic….
All my stocks went to “safe” areas 6 months ago. I have backups if my job goes south. I even have food stored.
I am not panicing, I am pissed!!
son,
you and Cindy McCain! lolo ^10
look I for one havent been very pleased with what some have tried to turn America into we are damn close to tea party time, bring it on. Must confess I was actualy for the elder drug plan as felt it was so insane it would get us back to the future we should have vs the commielibass future some desire.
and NO I aint a ron paulian
On September 22nd, 2008 at 9:17 am, lgm said:
WOW! Ladies and gentlemen, did you see that?! He not only jumped the shark once, but three continuous times – and all in the same post! Thing is, does anyone know what he’s saying?
FM, you are giving ‘Bastards’ a bad name by equating them to those souless turds!
Trav,
snicker
I sold my stocks 2 years ago. I told my stock manager that I saw a flaw in his method of buying and selling stocks and he was pissed. He would buy a stock and then when it dropped 50 percent, buy twice as much, then when it dropped another 50 percent buy twice as much. I then researched my 33 stocks and found 4 of these “black holes”, that when a whole market went down, would eat my entire portfolio. I used the funds to pay off my mortgage instead. Thank goodness.
I know little about the economy, but as a mathematician I know a little about chaos theory. We have an economy that has allowed these type of death spirals (or black holes). We have medicare, we have medicade, we have social security, we have the FDIC, we have guarenteed mortgage loans, we have public schools. One could go on and on. We have let politicans have access to our accounts and they have created these black holes violating the public trust. Now we have Barney Frank, saying that since the rich caused these problems, they should be paying all the taxes.
We are bancrupt.
There is a reason George Washington was dead set against political parties. They are conspiracies. For whatever reason we have allowed these conspiracies to become legal. Eventually they we disappear when our military takes over. It may come sooner than I thought.
Mister P,
seems to me one doesnt rely on others to provide us an income there4 we dont rely on others to handle what we earn.
PR ( personal responsibility )is a lifestyle to Americans.
PR ( public relations ) is an ad campaign to dems and who obamabi hires aka axlerodent
We’ve corrupted lgm
Help me I’m starting to agree with him.
He’s pissed off like we are.
To risk $700 billion of 305 million people’s money (that’s every man, woman, and child, not the number of taxpayers), that’s nearly $2300 a head. If you narrow it down to the 132 million that filed a tax return, it’s over $5300 each. That’s a lot of our money to be messing with.
I keep seeing the phrase ‘jump the shark’, what does it mean?
Would it be easier to just use the money that they are going to give the banks, and pay off all the homes that are in trouble? It’s only about 10 to 15% and the people would get to stay in their homes. This is about the people right?
While we are afraid of the Democratic Boogie Man, the Republicans are Bancrupting this nation. A pox on both their houses.
Jump the shark is a colloquialism used by TV critics and fans to denote that point in a TV show or movie series’ history where the plot veers off into ridiculous story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations, undergoing too many changes to retain the original appeal of the series. Shows that have “jumped the shark” are typically deemed to have passed their peak as after this point critical fans can point to a noticeable decline in the show’s overall quality.
Can anybody tell me what “collapse of our economy” really means? We keep hearing about this big scary bogeyman..but what does it really mean?
I think this government has “jumped the shark”
swmbo: Man you must be young. It refers to the tv shows happy days when they had fonzie jump over a shark on water skis to try to boost ratings. It didn’t work.
Devaluation of the currency to the point borrowing becomes difficult, resulting in fewer jobs.
Since when do we allow any politician (that what Hanks is) unchecked power. That is unconstitutional.
Add Obama as POTUS and we are doomed. We can’t tax our way out of this. We have to cut waste and grow out of this problem. We must cut stupid eco regs and slash underperforming govt entities.
If not full blown socialism is right around the corner.
Is anyone else listening to Glenn Beck right now and his description of the credit mark drying up last Wednesday? He’s gone to the side that says we need the bailout, although he doesn’t like it. Interesting stuff…
Oh, and I hope everyone enjoyed their “stimulus” checks.
When the cow stops giving enough milk to feed the family, you water it down and hope your kids don’t notice.
Think this should be made public. Chicago is more dangerous than all of Iraq. Meanwhile next baleout: Schools and state pension plans. Teachers in Illinois do not pay social security. Instead they put the funds into a state pension plan, 44 bilion in debt and counting.
No sonofdy, I’m not young. Turned 60 recently. That show must have been on while Mr SWMBO and I were living out of the states on Uncle Sam land. LOL, but now I understand the phrase. Thanks to all explainers.