| I'm no economist, but I know a stinking deal when I see one. And from all I hear about the latest bailout of Wall Street, this is a deal that is stinking to the high heavens.
I understand that the confidence in the market right now is shaken and stirred. But if the plan, as Krugman asserts in the 2nd link above is about restoring investors' confidence in the market, wouldn't investors be more confident if we put in some new restored the regulatory framework that kept the banks and titans on Wall Street honest prior to recent deregulation craze that was ushered in by "Saint Ronnie"; in addition to buying off the bad debt?
According to the Paper of Wall Street, lobbyists are already telling the Republican Party to just give them the money:
House Republican staffers met with roughly 15 lobbyists Friday afternoon, whose message to lawmakers was clear: Don't load the legislation up with provisions not directly related to the crisis, or regulatory measures the industry has long opposed.
"We're opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, whose members include the nation's largest banks, securities firms and insurers.
A deal killer for the group: a proposal that would grant bankruptcy judges new powers to lower the principal, interest rate or both on a mortgage as part of a bankruptcy proceeding.
So the banks, securities firms and insurers want the taxpayers to take on all the risk of the bad debt AND give them hundreds of billions of dollars, while getting NOTHING in return?
As my mama was fond of saying when I tried to sweet-talk her outta some extra cash as a teenager, "I wasn't born yesterday ... what's the money really for?"
I think Oyster may have nailed it with by highlighting the buried lede in a Politico post:
"The solution being proposed by the Bush administration is the most expensive bailout in the nation's history, sharply curtailing the ability of the next president to push for tax cuts or new spending." |
