Pelosi: It's not a bailout, it's a buy-in

Your Congress and your president (I don't want 'em, you can have 'em) have again agreed on a $700-billion bailout, and this time they say they really mean it. Headlines and links first, and then as always I'd like to hear your thoughts.

The Los Angeles Times: "Congressional and administration officials unveiled their $700-billion rescue plan for Wall Street today, setting up the largest government intervention in the economy since the Great Depression."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, evidently with a straight face: "This is not about a bailout of Wall Street. It's a buy-in so we can turn our economy around" and protect the assets of ordinary Americans. Well, now I feel so much better about it. I'm buying in! I'm getting a piece of financial products that are so worthless that there's no market for them.

The New York Times: "Congress braced for a difficult vote on a $700 billion rescue of the financial markets after a weekend of tense negotiations produced a plan that Congressional leaders began selling to lawmakers on Sunday as significantly strengthened by new taxpayer safeguards.

"The 106-page bill, intended to ease a growing credit crisis, came after a frenzied week of political twists and turns and still faced some resistance from lawmakers on both the left and right who portrayed it as a dangerous rush to economic judgment.

Bold Bipartisan Leadership for Change department: The New York Times reports, "The two presidential candidates ... both gave guarded endorsements of the bailout plan Sunday."

-- Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments?

Photo Credit: A.P.

Comments

[mbob]

"...The government -- taxpayers, essentially -- would then hold those assets until they can be sold off in a more normal market once the economy and housing market recover.

A key point: The $700 billion would come from selling debt to the public, raising the total federal debt, which is approaching $10 trillion now.

But it's not direct government spending, which shows up as part of the U.S. budget. If the mortgage debt loses value over time, however, the U.S. would have to record those losses as spending.

That could increase the budget deficit, which eventually must be offset by higher taxes or lower spending."

The Wall Street Journal 9/28/07

But not a steady or rising standard of living.

Get ready for some truly wretched times.

[dc]

A buy in, is it Nancy? Will try buying in to this. Since Republicans and Democrats in Congress can't watch out for the country, don't be surprised when the country doesn't take care of you. There is not a snowball chance in hell that I will vote for an incumbent during the next congressional elections. I am sick and tired of the whole crowd. And I'll start with the incumbent that I voted for last election. I just don't care. They all need to go.

[eternal summer]

"protection for the taxpayer"

this form of "protection" is no different than a mafioso-style shake down.

[jb]

This is equivalent to playing the lottery - you might win, but it is so unlikely that it has been coined "stupidity tax". I say out with Feistein, out with Boxer, out with Dodd (and I am a democrat).

The exec pay caps are a joke - these mf'ers (all management, the whole financial industry) should not earn a dime until they payoff this mess. The rage is relentless - we will not stop until these crooks are gone.

[Don]

I was glad to hear that the salaries of Wall Street CEO's are being capped. But what is the cap? Instead of getting a $51,000,000 salary are they now going to get only $3,000,000 for their mismanagement? I feel better already.

[DJB]

Let me get this straight: the federal government should borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to buy debt that is so worthless it kills every company it touches . . . because if we don't, there won't be any credit.

I can't decide if the federal government's spending patterns more closely resemble those of a crackhead or a 12-year-old.

Greenpeace has a good plan to get our economy going: spend some money to create jobs converting our country to clean, renewable energy like solar and wind power (NOT nuclear, coal, oil, and ethanol).

Sure beats the armed robbery of taxpayers we're seeing in Congress today.

[IndependentForObama]

Paulson has lost about $300 Million in personal wealth because of the crisis and all of his friends are loosing huge sums of money, and so the rich finally wake up. People saw this coming two years ago, there are smoking guns everywhere. As long as the home owner was getting skewered nobody did anything, but once the rich got in trouble than we moved. McCain called the average homeowner a speculator and said the economy was sound when confronted with this. Obama has been asking for a moratorium on foreclosures for two years, which would have averted this whole mess. The only thing I believe from McCain anymore is that he does not understand economics.

[CM]

Why not give every man, woman and child $2500 and tell them that they have to invest it in a 5 year CD or money market. Let the banks compete for my piece of the pie and let me decide who I want to rescue.

[JimS]

OVERSIGHT MY ...!

This is straight from the Bill…

23 (b) MEMBERSHIP.—The Financial Stability Over
sight Board shall be comprised of—
(1) the Chairman of the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System;
(2) the Secretary;
(3) the Director of the Federal Home Finance
Agency;
(4) the Chairman of the Securities Exchange
Commission; and
(5) the Secretary of Housing and Urban Devel
opment.
(c) CHAIRPERSON.—The chairperson of the Financial
Stability Oversight Board shall be elected by the members
of the Board from among the members other than the Sec
retary.

SO THE SAME JACKASSES ASKING FOR MONEY GET TO BE THERE OWN WATCHDOGS!!! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

Very slick there, Nancy.

Reminds me of Victor Corleone's 'offer he can't resist.' OK, I will buy...

I guess that's one way of looking at the world. So, the voters are not asking congressmen and women to get out of Congress, but to walk into unemployement.

I am curious, but it is OK to write to your senators and representative asking for their resignations? Dear madam...

[normanpheeny]

Great, we are "buying in" crap (edit as you wish Peter) assets that no one in the whole world wants. Not US, not China, not Japan, not the EU, no one. If it's such a great deal, as some have said, why is everyone treating these assets like the plague.

Peter, please do an entry on Obama and his ties to ACORN, including the problems with ACORN. I love Obama entries, it really stirs up the pot here in the comments section.

[alrighty then]

we get it Peter. You are obsessed with the "bailout"

[paula hurdle]

Get rid of all the incumbents that vote for this fleecing of the taxpayer. I think Congress must be in on this screwing of the average man. Let's screw them first, out of office the whole bunch.

[Nialla]

Way to go, do-nothing Pelosi/Reid Congress. You finally did something -- and it's a whopper. And you want us to give the presidency to your "leader" (whose big reply to the crisis was, "Call me if you need me." And you never called. Bush did, and then your "leader" deigned to show up. The good people of Illinois are certainly getting their money's worth). Seems like you didn't need him. You could rip off the nation all by yourselves. I bet you're licking your chops, thinking about all that your "leader" will let you get away with if he moves into the White House.

[Sing Expat]

Pelosi has sold out to the administration long ago. They either bought her off or have pictures of her having sex with farm animals. She has rolled over on every major issue we seen: Iraq, torture, kidnapping, Rove, Libby, Cheney, and now the Bail Out.

If Pelosi thinks this is such a great and necessary thing which will make money for America, then lets link both Congressional salary and retirement funds to this plan. Furthermore, let's limit all post-Congressional salary in a way that is related to the plan. For example, if a Congressman leaves office and works for a financial lobbyist, limit his salary to the median US household income until such time as this bail out shows a postiive return.

These scumbags are spending our money, trampling our rights, and grinning about it. This is just another in a long series of terrible lies and injustices perpetrated by our leaders. The Republican commit, the Democrats acquiesce.

Time for a revolution, folks.

Vote every single one of these bastards out of office.

When that is done, we can start criminal proceedings, waterboarding and eventually executions.

[PNW Trojan]

Pelosi got the "15 minutes of fame" (more like INFAMY) PR job, but NO POWER; Frank and Dodd got Wall Street MONEY AND POWER - who do you THINK needs to be voted out of Office? So much for the West Coast 'Sisterhood' - rolled over quicker then Spitzer's girl.

[Maggie Knowles]

aaaaaahhhrrrrrrrggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[David O'Shea]

Well- my congressman will be gone after November- Dana Robrecher, because if he votes for this, or evern if he allows it to pass without his vote- he's gone. What I haven't seen is every Congressman in American singing from the roof tops that this thing is going down to defeat. And short of that- its going to pass. So, I am done with them all- and I too am going to start with my own Congressman, and then start donating to every challenger I can aford to support. It is time to kick them ALL out.

[sailor7x]

Because of a lack of foresight by the lazy stupid citizens of America the U.S. is economic decline. The global financial system the U.S. designed had anticipated that American banks and financial firms would be the world's financial lifeguards; now those institutions are like exhausted swimmers a stroke or two away from drowning. Keep watching TV and listening to AM Talk radio. Keep voting for one of the two major parties.

[Maggie Knowles]

"Now let us examine Obama's economic agenda, and how he intends to deal with this fiancial crisis. As we have seen, Obama is committed to stopping predatory lending. Through his community organization work in Chicago, Obama saw the benefis to the neighborhood and to the nation of homeownership. Community organizations were instrumental in providing counseling to new homeowners in poor neighborhoods so that they would understand the commitment they were undertaking, and understand the math behind a typical residential mortgage. Unfortunately, due to a lack regulation, an entire industry of predatory lenders grew up. They were not interested in seeing homeownership increase in our nation. There were only interested in maximizing their profits, regardless of how unscrupulous their practies. They would lie to homeowners to get them to sign mortgage notes, they would fraudulently change income data on applications to get bank approval, and they would hide exorbitant fees and high rates of interest in the details of the mortgage contracts with no explanation to the homeowner. Typically, they didn't care if there was a foreclosure or not. They had either aready sold the loan upstream to another investor and pocketed their fees, or used phony default provisions to grab homes that were worth far more than their loan balances away from their owners."
~~~~~~~~~~Obamanomics - How bottom-up economic prosperity will replace trickle-down economics by John R. Talbott, bottom of page 79.

[LCSusan]

Hey folks, remember, we're all in this together. I'm sure we should all be expecting invites to NP's next soiree shortly.

http://strictlyanecdotal.com/2008/09/27/
all-week-long-the-president-assorted-members-of-congress-
all-the-commentors.aspx

[M.A.R.]

So our government puts this bailout on the backs of every man, woman, and child for whom they cannot devise a workable national health care plan. People dying from lack of health care but look at what segment gets consideration from the Bush Administration and Congress. Disgusting -- absolute, epic DISGUST. Reelect no incumbent. Support a third political party.

[zefram]

not to be a partywrecker for all the ppl here, but this bill is probably the best thing to do...."the lesser evil"...they could give everyone $2500 but most probably ppl are gonna save it up instead of putting it back into wall street, and since wall street is just too important for this economy, they big firms that are actually ESSENTIAL to running the economy is gonna find it harder to get capital and cause the economy to go down further....sure everyone's $2500 richer, but for how long?

and FYI, the CEO cap is apparently around 400,000, not like 3,000,000

[cbk16]

Thanks to Barney Frank that pushed everyone to own a home, and those crazy sub-prime loans. Pretty great trick for the liberal Democrat since the Republicans get blamed for his idea.

[Todd in WeHo]

I'm happy to announce my candidacy for the U.S. Senate. My qualifications? I pay my bills on time, I balance my checkbook each month, and I live within my means. I challenge any incumbent to match this.