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Saturday, September 27, 2008 |
ThinkProgress: "The Democratic leadership in the House 'effectively shelved' a proposed non-binding resolution that 'critics say would amount to a naval blockade of Iran because of concerns that it could provoke another war, officials on Capitol Hill said'. The Washington Times reports:
Even though the document would not be a law but a 'statement of policy' aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Democratic leadership is worried that it could be viewed by the Bush administration as a green light to use military force against Iran, officials said.
The draft 'demands that the president initiate an international effort' that would impose 'stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran'."
4:23:55 PM 
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LauraFlanders: "With the United States facing the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Paulson is looking to tax-payers to provide a massive bailout of the very financial institutions responsible for fueling the crisis in the first place. The plan appears to be a bail out of Wall Street, more YOYO (you're on your own) economics for Main Street. Socialization of debt, while maintaining privatized profit."
Guardian: "The failure of one of America's biggest retail banks undermined confidence in a fresh clutch of US household names today as investors digested the implications of the biggest collapse of a high-street bank on record."
Fact is that this crisis is not caused only by the subprime mortgages. If that were so it would be very cheap for the government to support all the home owners with financial schemes that would allow them to pay their mortgage. Fact is that the banks - and that goes for most American banks - are based on fictitious assets, are working with non-existant stocks, and are engaged in financial activities that are directly criminal or at least very detrimental to our economy.
Siphoning money from the taxpayers to the banks would be the greatest scam ever performed.
ICH: "As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers' expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted."
McClatchy: "A funny thing happened in the drafting of the largest-ever U.S. government intervention in the financial system. Lawmakers of all stripes mostly fell in line, but many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout's a dangerous rush job.
'It's more hype than real risk,' said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist and son of the late economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. 'A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that. So it's mainly relevant to the financial industry.'"
Ralph Nader: "... what's going on in Washington and Congress now is the Bush administration is trying to pull the Constitution out by its roots and demand that Congress give it a blank check, without any criteria, without any accountability, for $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.
And also, it's not clear at all why a bailout is needed. That's part of the stampede in the pack and the panic that Bush and Paulson and Bernanke are pushing Congress toward. You know, it's eerily reminiscent, when you listen to Bush yesterday, of how he stampeded the Congress and the country into the criminal war invasion of Iraq in 2003. I mean, look at all his statements: this could do this, this would do that, farms failing, small business, tada, tada. The first question we have to ask as citizens is, why is there a need for a bailout?
That's when you know the system is decayed and corrupt, that the people who brought us this disaster - Robert Rubin, with Bill Clinton pushing through the financial deregulation monster in 1999, which we opposed, which opened the gates for this kind of wild speculation and this casino capitalism, is still an adviser. He's an adviser to Barack Obama. He's an adviser to members of Congress. Henry Paulson cashed out at Goldman Sachs in 2006 a half-a-billion dollars. And now he goes to Washington to bail out his buddies."
ThinkProgress: "Rudy Giuliani 'is positioning his law firm to cash in on Wall Street's train wreck,' according to the New York Daily News. The former mayor announced yesterday that his firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, would set up a task force 'to help corporate clients get a piece of the action - or keep federal wolves from the door,' as the Daily News put it."
ThinkProgress: "Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said President Bush is 'in a panic' over the financial crisis and isn't well-equipped to deal with it. 'I don't think he understands or knows much about any of this and it shows,' O'Neill told ABC News. In his 2004 book, The Price of Loyalty, O'Neill revealed that Dick Cheney argued in a White House meeting that 'deficits don't matter'. O'Neill also said that he was disturbed that Bush was so disengaged on domestic issues."
1:24:24 PM
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© Copyright 2008.
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