Bailout..watchout!!!

[Terry Haines]

Mushroom Cloud over Wall Street

 

By Mike Whitney

 

"One bank to rule them all;

One bank to bind them..."

 

21/090/08 -- - These are dark times. While you were sleeping the cockroaches were busy about their work, rummaging through the US Constitution, and putting the finishing touches on a scheme to assert absolute power over the nation's financial markets and the country's economic future. Industry representative Henry Paulson has submitted legislation to congress that will finally end the pretense that Bush controls anything more than reading the lines from a 4' by 6' teleprompter situated just inches from his lifeless pupils. Paulson is in charge now, and the coronation is set for sometime early next week. He rose to power in a stealthily-executed Bankster's Coup in which he, and his coterie of dodgy friends, declared martial law on the US economy while elevating himself to supreme leader.

 

"All Hail Caesar!" The days of the republic are over.

 

Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:

 

"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."

 

Right; "non-reviewable" supremacy.

 

Congress, of course, is more than eager to abdicate whatever little authority they have left. They're infinitely grateful for their purely ceremonial role, the equivalent of Caligula's horse, albeit, with considerably less dignity. Has even one senator spoken out against this madness, which--according to informal internet polls--is resoundingly rejected by the voters? Does it concern the members of congress at all, that the present financial crisis was brought on by the proliferation and sale of trillions of dollars of mortgage-banked garbage which were fraudulently represented as Triple A rated bonds by the very same people who now claim to need unprecedented and dictatorial powers to fix the problem? Or are they more worried that the steady torrent of contributions which flows from Wall Street to congressional campaign coffers will be inconveniently disrupted if they fail to ratify this latest assault on democratic governance? The House of Representatives is one big steaming dungheap that should be leveled and turned into an amusement park instead of a taxpayer-funded knocking shop. What a pathetic collection of cowards and scumbags.

 

Bloomberg News: "

 

"The Bush administration sought unchecked power from Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from financial companies in what would be an unprecedented government intrusion into the markets. Through his plan, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson aims to avert a credit freeze that would bring the financial system and the world's largest economy to a standstill. The bill would prevent courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority.

 

"He's asking for a huge amount of power,'' said Nouriel Roubini an economist at New York University. ``He's saying, `Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy." (Bloomberg)

 

The banksters own this country, always have; only now they've decided to strip away the curtain and reveal the ghoulish visage of the puppet-master. It ain't pretty.

 

Paulson decided that the financial markets needed an emergency trillion dollar face-lift just weeks before his former business partners at G-Sax were dragged off to the chopping block. Was that the reason? Everyone on Wall Street knew that the bulls-eye had already been ripped from Lehman's bloody back and was about to be fastened on Goldman's. Now, it looks like they will escape their day of reckoning due to Paulson's eleventh-hour reprieve. Nice touch, eh?

 

From the proposed legislation: LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY

TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

 

"(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them."

 

 

Market Ticker's Karl Denninger summed this up best:

 

"This is the de facto nationalization of the entire banking, insurance and related financial system..That's right - every bank and other financial institution in the United States has just become a de-facto organ of the United States Government, if Hank Paulson thinks they should be, and he may order them to do virtually anything that he claims is in furtherance of this act.....The bill gives Paulson the ability to nationalize unlimited amount of private debt and force you and your children to pay for it."

 

Denninger again:

 

"The claim is that this is intended to 'promote confidence and stability' in the financial markets.

It will do no such thing. It will instead strike terror into the hearts of investors worldwide who hold any sort of paper, whether it be preferred stock, common stock or debt, in any financial entity that happens to be domiciled in the United States, never mind the potential impact on Treasury yields and the United States sovereign credit rating.

 

I predict that if this passes it will precipitate the mother and father of all financial panics." (Market Ticker)

 

 

Amen. The transformation from a free market to a centralized, Soviet-style economy run by men whose judgment and credibility is already greatly in doubt; does not auger well for the markets or the country. Anyone with a lick of sense would cash in their chips first thing Monday and look for capital's Elysium Fields overseas or as far as possible from the circus sideshow now run by G-Sax ringleader, Colonel Klink.

 

Paulson's Chicken Little routine might might have soiled a few senatorial undergarments, but let's hope the American people are made of sterner stuff and will reject this charade. The conversation should be shifted from conceding more authority to hucksters in pin-stripes to indictments for securities fraud. Even the most economically-challenged nation ought to be able to afford a few sets of leg-irons and a couple hundred jail cells. That's all it will take. That, and a couple brisk dunks on the waterboard. Glub, glub.

 

Paulson's plan to revive the banking system by buying up hundreds of billions of dollars of illiquid mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and other equally poisonous debt-instruments; ignores the fact these complex bonds have already been "marked to market" in the recent firesale by Merrill Lynch. Just weeks ago, Merrill sold $31 billion of these CDOs for roughly $.20 on the dollar and provided 75 percent of the financing, which means that the CDOs were really worth approximately $.06 on the dollar. If this is the settlement that Paulson has in mind, than the taxpayer will be well served. But this will not recapitalize the banks balance sheets or mop up the ocean of red ink which is flooding the financial system. No, Paulson intends to hand out lavish treats to his banker buddies, while interest rates soar, pension funds collapse, the housing market crashes, and the dollar does a last, looping swan-dive into a pool of molten lava. Thanks, Hank.

 

Economist and author Henry Liu summarized the current maneuvering like this: "The Fed is merely trying to inject money to keep prices not supported by fundamentals from falling. It is a prescription for hyperinflation. The only way to keep price of worthless assets high is to lower the value of money. And that appears to be the Fed unspoken strategy."

 

Indeed. The Fed and Treasury have decided to backstop the entire global financial system (foreign banks can access the Fed's facilities, too!) with paper money which is rapidly losing its value. Watch the greenback tumble tomorrow in currency trading.

 

Congress is getting steamrolled and the American people are getting snookered. Consumer confidence--already at historic lows--is headed for the wood-chipper feet-first. Something has got to give.

 

One minute everything is hunky-dory; the subprime meltdown is "contained" and "the fundamentals of our economy are strong".(Paulson) And, less than a week later, congress is forced to surrender their constitutionally-mandated right to oversee spending in order to forestall economic Armageddon. Which is it? Or is the real objective just to keep the country on an emotional teeter-totter long enough for all state-power to be subsumed by the Wall Street Politburo?

 

No one knows what will happen next. We are in uncharted waters. And no one knows what the political landscape will look like after the dust settles from this outrageous power grab. According to Paulson, things are so dire, the entire nation will be reduced to smoldering rubble and twisted iron. But can we trust him this time after his long litany of lies?

 

Isn't it about time to send the cockroaches scuttling back to their hideouts and bring in the cleaning crew to hose the whole place down? It sounds like a job for Ralph Nader, a man of vision and unshakable integrity. Give Ralph a badge and let him deploy his Raiders to Wall Street armed with bullwhips and tasers. Let them post a guard in every CEOs and CFOs office and every boardroom on the Street---and if even one decimal is accidentally moved to the right or left on the corporate ledger; clap them in leg-irons and drag them off squealing to Guantanamo. That's how you clean up Wall Street!

 

Don't let the prospect of a national crisis trick you into giving up your freedom, America. The people behind this scam are the same landsharks and flim-flam men who polluted the global marketplace with their snake oil and toxic sludge. These are the fraudsters who manufactured the crisis to begin with. This is just the latest installment of the Shock Doctrine; engineer a crisis, and then, steal whatever is left behind. Same sh**, different day. Be resolute. Don't budge. Our economic foundations may be crumbling, but or determination is not. This is our country, not Goldman Sach's. The people who destroyed America must be held to account. Their time is coming. Justice first.

[rkctdwn]

Mushroom Cloud over Wall Street

 

By Mike Whitney

 

"One bank to rule them all;

One bank to bind them..."

 

21/090/08 -- - These are dark times. While you were sleeping the cockroaches were busy about their work, rummaging through the US Constitution, and putting the finishing touches on a scheme to assert absolute power over the nation's financial markets and the country's economic future. Industry representative Henry Paulson has submitted legislation to congress that will finally end the pretense that Bush controls anything more than reading the lines from a 4' by 6' teleprompter situated just inches from his lifeless pupils. Paulson is in charge now, and the coronation is set for sometime early next week. He rose to power in a stealthily-executed Bankster's Coup in which he, and his coterie of dodgy friends, declared martial law on the US economy while elevating himself to supreme leader.

 

"All Hail Caesar!" The days of the republic are over.

 

Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:

 

"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."

 

Right; "non-reviewable" supremacy.

 

Congress, of course, is more than eager to abdicate whatever little authority they have left. They're infinitely grateful for their purely ceremonial role, the equivalent of Caligula's horse, albeit, with considerably less dignity. Has even one senator spoken out against this madness, which--according to informal internet polls--is resoundingly rejected by the voters? Does it concern the members of congress at all, that the present financial crisis was brought on by the proliferation and sale of trillions of dollars of mortgage-banked garbage which were fraudulently represented as Triple A rated bonds by the very same people who now claim to need unprecedented and dictatorial powers to fix the problem? Or are they more worried that the steady torrent of contributions which flows from Wall Street to congressional campaign coffers will be inconveniently disrupted if they fail to ratify this latest assault on democratic governance? The House of Representatives is one big steaming dungheap that should be leveled and turned into an amusement park instead of a taxpayer-funded knocking shop. What a pathetic collection of cowards and scumbags.

 

Bloomberg News: "

 

"The Bush administration sought unchecked power from Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from financial companies in what would be an unprecedented government intrusion into the markets. Through his plan, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson aims to avert a credit freeze that would bring the financial system and the world's largest economy to a standstill. The bill would prevent courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority.

 

"He's asking for a huge amount of power,'' said Nouriel Roubini an economist at New York University. ``He's saying, `Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy." (Bloomberg)

 

The banksters own this country, always have; only now they've decided to strip away the curtain and reveal the ghoulish visage of the puppet-master. It ain't pretty.

 

Paulson decided that the financial markets needed an emergency trillion dollar face-lift just weeks before his former business partners at G-Sax were dragged off to the chopping block. Was that the reason? Everyone on Wall Street knew that the bulls-eye had already been ripped from Lehman's bloody back and was about to be fastened on Goldman's. Now, it looks like they will escape their day of reckoning due to Paulson's eleventh-hour reprieve. Nice touch, eh?

 

From the proposed legislation: LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY

TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

 

"(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them."

 

 

Market Ticker's Karl Denninger summed this up best:

 

"This is the de facto nationalization of the entire banking, insurance and related financial system..That's right - every bank and other financial institution in the United States has just become a de-facto organ of the United States Government, if Hank Paulson thinks they should be, and he may order them to do virtually anything that he claims is in furtherance of this act.....The bill gives Paulson the ability to nationalize unlimited amount of private debt and force you and your children to pay for it."

 

Denninger again:

 

"The claim is that this is intended to 'promote confidence and stability' in the financial markets.

It will do no such thing. It will instead strike terror into the hearts of investors worldwide who hold any sort of paper, whether it be preferred stock, common stock or debt, in any financial entity that happens to be domiciled in the United States, never mind the potential impact on Treasury yields and the United States sovereign credit rating.

 

I predict that if this passes it will precipitate the mother and father of all financial panics." (Market Ticker)

 

 

Amen. The transformation from a free market to a centralized, Soviet-style economy run by men whose judgment and credibility is already greatly in doubt; does not auger well for the markets or the country. Anyone with a lick of sense would cash in their chips first thing Monday and look for capital's Elysium Fields overseas or as far as possible from the circus sideshow now run by G-Sax ringleader, Colonel Klink.

 

Paulson's Chicken Little routine might might have soiled a few senatorial undergarments, but let's hope the American people are made of sterner stuff and will reject this charade. The conversation should be shifted from conceding more authority to hucksters in pin-stripes to indictments for securities fraud. Even the most economically-challenged nation ought to be able to afford a few sets of leg-irons and a couple hundred jail cells. That's all it will take. That, and a couple brisk dunks on the waterboard. Glub, glub.

 

Paulson's plan to revive the banking system by buying up hundreds of billions of dollars of illiquid mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and other equally poisonous debt-instruments; ignores the fact these complex bonds have already been "marked to market" in the recent firesale by Merrill Lynch. Just weeks ago, Merrill sold $31 billion of these CDOs for roughly $.20 on the dollar and provided 75 percent of the financing, which means that the CDOs were really worth approximately $.06 on the dollar. If this is the settlement that Paulson has in mind, than the taxpayer will be well served. But this will not recapitalize the banks balance sheets or mop up the ocean of red ink which is flooding the financial system. No, Paulson intends to hand out lavish treats to his banker buddies, while interest rates soar, pension funds collapse, the housing market crashes, and the dollar does a last, looping swan-dive into a pool of molten lava. Thanks, Hank.

 

Economist and author Henry Liu summarized the current maneuvering like this: "The Fed is merely trying to inject money to keep prices not supported by fundamentals from falling. It is a prescription for hyperinflation. The only way to keep price of worthless assets high is to lower the value of money. And that appears to be the Fed unspoken strategy."

 

Indeed. The Fed and Treasury have decided to backstop the entire global financial system (foreign banks can access the Fed's facilities, too!) with paper money which is rapidly losing its value. Watch the greenback tumble tomorrow in currency trading.

 

Congress is getting steamrolled and the American people are getting snookered. Consumer confidence--already at historic lows--is headed for the wood-chipper feet-first. Something has got to give.

 

One minute everything is hunky-dory; the subprime meltdown is "contained" and "the fundamentals of our economy are strong".(Paulson) And, less than a week later, congress is forced to surrender their constitutionally-mandated right to oversee spending in order to forestall economic Armageddon. Which is it? Or is the real objective just to keep the country on an emotional teeter-totter long enough for all state-power to be subsumed by the Wall Street Politburo?

 

No one knows what will happen next. We are in uncharted waters. And no one knows what the political landscape will look like after the dust settles from this outrageous power grab. According to Paulson, things are so dire, the entire nation will be reduced to smoldering rubble and twisted iron. But can we trust him this time after his long litany of lies?

 

Isn't it about time to send the cockroaches scuttling back to their hideouts and bring in the cleaning crew to hose the whole place down? It sounds like a job for Ralph Nader, a man of vision and unshakable integrity. Give Ralph a badge and let him deploy his Raiders to Wall Street armed with bullwhips and tasers. Let them post a guard in every CEOs and CFOs office and every boardroom on the Street---and if even one decimal is accidentally moved to the right or left on the corporate ledger; clap them in leg-irons and drag them off squealing to Guantanamo. That's how you clean up Wall Street!

 

Don't let the prospect of a national crisis trick you into giving up your freedom, America. The people behind this scam are the same landsharks and flim-flam men who polluted the global marketplace with their snake oil and toxic sludge. These are the fraudsters who manufactured the crisis to begin with. This is just the latest installment of the Shock Doctrine; engineer a crisis, and then, steal whatever is left behind. Same sh**, different day. Be resolute. Don't budge. Our economic foundations may be crumbling, but or determination is not. This is our country, not Goldman Sach's. The people who destroyed America must be held to account. Their time is coming. Justice first.

wow ! is that complicated and way to deep for me and 90%of most Americans and what is most of America doing as usual, busy with the basics that gas prices are still the most eminent problem and how it affects them and their kids budget.. We should be able to trust our politicians to do their job. Yeah right for those with moment to ponder "ah those crooked politicians" "hope someone can straighten out this mess." And that's exactly what as Terry wrote landsharks and flim-flams want so they can continue on unabated! Cause all they have to do is bribe 545 in D.C. Greed seems to be globe or with the internet those of us that are curious have noticed. It's probably been like this for longer than we know????

If where to happen which I doubt throw em the greedy so and so's behind bars or something like that. I heard more and more people across the mid-west in the last couple weeks utter this. Wonder what it's going to take for an uprising of somekind, I imagine the size of the country way to big for even the internet to bring together. besides who has time RIGHT? :blink:

[Terry Haines]

..... besides who has time RIGHT?

 

...I think it's time for ALL Americans to 'pay attention' and understand the plight of the country and how it affects you and as my Mother used to say ...

 

.........MAKE TIME LAD!!!!

[rkctdwn]

..... besides who has time RIGHT?

 

...I think it's time for ALL Americans to 'pay attention' and understand the plight of the country and how it affects you and as my Mother used to say ...

 

.........MAKE TIME LAD!!!!

I hear ya and couldn't agree more, however what can I do myself except try and save myself. I knew for sure absolutely sure and had the where for all, and call in an air strike on their bloody asses. Only get close just enough to scare'em inside out!!! Actually one of the gunship chopters would be all that's needed, sure wish we could have those babies back in 68! Of course the number of low-life that actually responsible may need a whole Divisions worth. Once a trained destroyer always a destroyer!

[rac74]

"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."

 

If this doesn't send off a big F'n red flag I don't know what else does.

[rkctdwn]

"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."

 

If this doesn't send off a big F'n red flag I don't know what else does.

Listening to the Senate banking committee on the bail-out. Let's hope the Congress/Senate passes check-balances that will keep closer tabs? But all they have is this week, that's not good. what's the chances they will work until proper bill is passed?

CNBC reporting that stuff is going on behind the scenes, Ha so what else is new EH? If this is so important something Major needs to be happening, like putting the Presidential vote on hold til this is straightened out, yeah right. The hardest thing for me with fox in the hen house which is who???? The bottom line Bernanke wants to help preserve Americans retiree's savings first.YES And then the scary part what's this going to cost the taxpayers???? You can be sure the 545 politicians in Washington will not in anyway take any sort of cut to help

[rac74]

I'm not 'up' on economics but this guy Paulson is pushing real hard for Congress to right him a $700 Bn dollar check to use at his discretion with no recourse. BAD NEWS!

 

He's got ties with the Chinese as well...

[Terry Haines]

...all of this smells of a 'put up job'...I trust none of it....

[rkctdwn]

...all of this smells of a 'put up job'...I trust none of it....

what you think

 

I feel if the we expect our military to stay course until the job's done so should our elected officials until it's this is done everything from election and whatever put on hold until and no one leave Capital Hill until?????

I this to both my Senators after listing to Senator Brown on the Senate banking committee. I do think America really understands the how serious this is OR they don't want ,too EH?

It so easy to let them with the internet and email. Both Ohio's Senators have a big staffs and their own websites to contact them.

[rac74]

I did a little more reading on this, I understand the concern however I think it is unwise to just give one individual such unpresdented power like this. Whether Paulson means well or not (not sure on this because of what he is demanding), it begs the question, "What next?" I hope our congress has the common sense and foresight to see where this might lead to in the future.

 

I think I'm going to go buy that rifle I always wanted before 'they' take away that right too...

[Terry Haines]

Paulson's former firm to be among largest beneficiaries of bailout: bank

John Byrne

Published: Tuesday September 23, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

It certainly pays to be Treasury Secretary if your former firm is a brokerage house, a new study says.

 

Goldman Sachs Group -- formerly run by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Morgan Stanley, stand to be among the biggest beneficiaries of a $700 billion US bailout.

 

"Its benefits, in its current form, will be largely limited to investment banks and other banks that have aggressively written down the value of their holdings and have already recognized the attendant capital impairment," Jeffrey Rosenberg, Bank of America's head of credit strategy research, wrote in a report obtained by Bloomberg News yesterday.

 

Paulson was the head of Goldman Sach's investment banking division from 1990 to 1994. He later became chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman, and left his post to join the Bush Administration.

 

According to the study, the bailout benefits Paulson's former firm more because banks haven't had to write down as many troubled mortage assets under accounting rules. This means that participating in the program would cause them to actually lose capital, as opposed to investment banks, which stand to gain.

 

Paulson $700 billion program is designed to remove "bad assets" from the US financial markets to prevent credit for businesses from drying up, which would send the economy into a further tailspin. Many businesses rely on credit to fund their daily operations.

 

Lawmakers are debating the plan today.

 

"While Goldman and Morgan Stanley, both based in New York, were yesterday granted permission to transform themselves into bank holding companies, the companies so far have operated mostly under investment-bank accounting rules, logging almost $21 billion of asset writedowns and credit losses," Bloomberg News notes.

 

Goldman made sizable profits in 2007 from the subprime mortgage sector. It, along with Morgan Stanley, has fared better than investment houses Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, because it has held a more conservative capital base.

 

Paulson has admirers: during his Goldman tenure the firm donated 680,000 acres of land in Chile, and he has personally given away $100 million of his fortune to charitable groups.

 

According to estimates conducted by Open Secrets, Paulson is the richest cabinet member of the Bush Administration.

[Terry Haines]

[Terry Haines]

[Terry Haines]

[rac74]

Out of curiousity, what happens if we let the firms just fail to be bought up by other, more responsible firms. Let them take the financial burden and not the tax payer...I'm not too sure the government is really the best choice for running the program...Perhaps government oversight but let an independent financial institution handle it? Enlighten me...

[Terry Haines]

....I'm not too sure the government is really the best choice for running the program.

 

....well it's YOUR money...do you trust them??????

[rac74]

To be honest, no...The way other things are run in government programs/jobs, I wouldn't count on this being any different. To add, congress doesn't seem to get good info on how things work or they ignore those 'in the know' altogether. It's sad really....

[Terry Haines]

..'Faith Based Economy'....Next watch the value of the dollar tank and the Dow drop every day this week!!!

[Gar]

I haven't heard what's becoming of the real estate these banks obtain from the defaulting on loans. Surely it has value to buyers still. If it was artificially high when the lending bank paid the former seller, then tough luck stupid on that bank, but they still own the property. The winners up to now have been the property sellers. They are the ones that swindled the lending bank for more than the property was really worth, so have a go at them to re-adjust what their gain should have been. Developers are as guilty in this crime as banks that make silly deals.

I say screw the lenders that supposedly ruined themselves. That repossed real estate will now be bought at a price more in line with it's correct value, so what lender... you collected significant intrest up until now so take what you're rightfully due in that property's real worth, and stop crying it's the world's problem.

And screw the dumbies that bought more property than they could afford.

I say stop perpetuating stupidity, stop indulging corporate executive priviledge/entitlement, stop buying into the idiotic notion of "home ownership" being the end-all to personal success. It's a made-up scheme to sell real estate that lenders profit from. I was better off renting. My monthly renter's cost would be the same today as my mortgage, only difference is I have debt now. That debt lasts up to the end of my life based on the payments left, so it just boils down to a lender getting a gauranteed income without having to pony up to the up-keep on a rental property. My heirs may benefit... if they're clever enough to side-step the next big delusion (like it's good to bail out the banking/lending biz).

 

Rant off... Gar

Edited September 29, 2008 by Gar

[Speedmaster]

What's the big rush...this needs to be looked at very suspisiously.....I think the Repubs and the 94 Democrats were right in voting against it today....IMHO I think Pelosi and Reid are pushing this to help steer the election for Nobama......

[Terry Haines]

[Terry Haines]

...from around the web...

 

 

Rep. Marcy Kaptur: "The normal legislative process that should accompany a monumental proposal to bail out Wall Street has been shelved. Yes, shelved! Only a few insiders are doing the dealing. These criminals have so much power they can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest lawmaking body in this land. All the committees that should be scanning every word that is being negotiated have been benched. And that means the American people have been benched. We are constitutionally sworn to protect this country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and yes, my friends, there are enemies....The people who are pushing this bill are the very same one's who are responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then; and they are fraudulent now.We should say No to this deal".

 

 

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "The $700 bailout bill is being driven by fear not fact. This is too much money, in too short of time, going to too few people,while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't we having hearings...Why aren't we considering any other alternatives other than giving $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren't we passing new laws to stop the speculation which triggered this? Why aren't we putting up new regulatory structures to protect the investors? Why aren't we directly helping homeowners with their debt burdens? Why aren't we helping American families faced with bankruptcy? Isn't time for fundamental change to our debt-based monetary system so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks? Is this the US Congress or the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs?

 

There are parts of Paulson's Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that every US taxpayer should understand, even though the media is attempting to keep the details obscured. In sections 128 and 132; the proposed bill will suspend "mark to market" accounting. This means that the banks will no longer be required to assess the worth of their assets according to what similar assets fetched on the open market. For example, Merrill Lynch just sold $31 billion of mortgage-backed securities for $6 billion, which means that similar bonds should be similarly priced. Simple; right? The banks need to adjust the value of those assets on their balance sheet accordingly. This gives investors and depositors the ability to know whether their bank is in bad shape or not. But Paulson's bill lifts this requirement and allows the banks to assign their own arbitrary value to these assets, which is the same old Enron-style accounting bullsh**.

 

 

Blah, blah, blah. It's all legal mumbo jumbo to conceal the fact that the banks can continue to operate with insufficient capital, which is why the system is currently blowing up. It all get's down to this: The reason the system is exploding is because the various financial institutions have been allowed--via deregulation--to act as banks and create as much credit as they choose without a sufficient capital base. When one reads about massive deleveraging; this relates directly to the fact that under-capitalized businesses were operating with too much debt in relationship to their capital. That's it in a nutshell; forget about the CDOs, the MBSs, the CDS and the whole alphabet soup of derivatives garbage. They were all inserted into the system so greedy Wall Street landsharks could expand credit without supervision and balance trillions of dollars of debt on the back of a one dollar bill. This is why Paulson wants to suspend the rules which would bring credibility and trust back to the system. After all, that might impinge on Wall Street's ability to enrich itself at the public's expense.

 

 

In short, it won't work. Nor is it designed to work. The bill is just Paulson's way of carving a silver canoe for he and his brandy-drooling investor buddies so they can paddle away to some island paradise while the rest of us drown in a bottomless ocean of debt.

[Terry Haines]

..an FYI for those that do not know...these are the guys that set the lending rates..LIBOR...

 

 

Banks were in miser mode after the House's rejection of the rescue package: the key bank-to-bank lending rate, the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, soared to 4.05 percent from 3.88 percent for 3-month dollar loans, and to 6.88 percent for overnight dollar loans.

 

 

 

The definition sets out the criteria used to select individual contributor banks: the bank's reputation, its scale of activity in the London market and perceived expertise in the currency concerned, giving due consideration to credit standing.

 

The instructions to BBA LIBOR contributor banks identify that the rates contributed should be for deposits:

 

* made in London in reasonable market size;

* governed by the Laws of England and Wales

* where the parties are subject to the jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales.

 

 

...and as I have said before..the Bank of England and the City of London dictates the 'fortunes' of the USA markets!!...scared yet???

[Adam98SVT]

This video summed up the crisis fairly nicely.

 

[Terry Haines]

But those historians should not forget that roots of the failure predate the vote Monday, or even the mistakes of Wall Street. Years ago, the trust between the people and their politicians was broken. The credibility was lost. The reserve of goodwill went bankrupt. And when they needed it most, our nation's leaders found they had squandered their ability to exert influence over the people who chose them to lead.

 

 

Asked to take a leap of faith regarding a dizzyingly complex problem, a critical mass of voters refused to trust their leaders, turning down the medicine that was offered. And so the politicians who are most exposed to popular whims have run for cover. With an election on the horizon, 95 House Democrats and 133 House Republicans opposed the bill. Some portion voted no for clearly ideological reasons. But many more were simply doing what politicians do - responding to the will of the people.

 

 

"What this showed more than anything else was that not even members of Congress can ignore a switchboard system of Capitol Hill that is so totally jammed," said Peter Sepp, a conservative opponent of the bill with the National Taxpayers Alliance