The Original Bill

[seanorange]

Linked from Planet MoneyThe legislation is pretty concise, but involves a HUGE, unprecedented transfer of power to the Treasury Secretary. His actions are then "non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency", only reporting to Congress twice a year

Comments

[aremisasling]

There's at least one difference here. In an odd twist of fate, more opposition is coming from the republican side than the democratic side, or at least that was the case for a while. I guess the small government wing of the republican party finally woke up and said, in effect, wtf is this crap?

This bailout, at its root, is perhaps not too far off the mark from the painful but necessary measures we need to take. No solution we come up with will be pretty. But granting sweeping, unregulated, unbalanced power to any governmental agency is not on the agenda for anyone right now. Just when I thought Bush couldn't sink his approval rating any lower, he's managed to do just that. McCain opposed it outright, though I'm not sure where he sits on a compromise. He doesn't appear to have any kind of alternative in the offing. Obama thinks, like the rest of the left, that it needs regulation, oversight, and some form of compensation to the taxpayers out of whatever we manage to salvage from the bad debts.

Meep

[seanorange]

The good from the Republican side: they don't want the taxpayers to share an undue burden to bail out Wall Street. One guy even said something like "none of my constituents are calling and asking me to help their broker". There's rumors of an alternative plan where the Treasury insures these companies instead of taking the over the debt directly. Those companies would then make payments to the Treasury. Of course, if you offer insurance, you have to be able to pay up at some point, so maybe their plan is only delaying the inevitable. At least they're trying alternatives.

The bad: they -- and the administration, and Paulson -- are completely opposed to the year-old Democratic proposal to rewrite the bankruptcy law to allow judges to renegotiate the terms of the mortgage. This is the most important thing we can to do help the average consumer. We HAVE to get rid of these predatory Adjustable Rate Mortgages. They are designed by their very nature to expect a certain percentage to fail, bleed that consumer dry, and make up for

[aremisasling]

I totally agree on that point. We need to be able to have court-ordered renegotiation of the terms. I had at one point heard that such a plan was in the works as part of the compromise. I'm not sure if it'll amount to anything or if I'm jsut imagining it, but here's hoping

[seanorange]

I've never understood why "tax and spend" is a slur. Isn't spending what you're supposed to do with taxes?

It's not that the mortgages don't have value, it's those complicated mortgage security bundles that have an unknown value. Some of them are good and some of them aren't. The reason there's uncertainty is that they were all fraudulently marked as AAA super-safe investments, when they'd been lowering and lowering and lowering the standards but kept using the same computer models for their actual AAA loans. So the result is that they don't know which of those mortgages in the bundle were actually good investments because in many cases they don't know who owns them any more

[aremisasling]

Sounds like a plan I could support. But then the current fed chairman used to be one of those chuckleheads and is still friends with most of them so how will that work?

Meep

[seanorange]

Hullo conflict of interest! Which Congress voted him in? (Is the Treasury Secretary even approved by Congress?) They knew about Paulson's ties to Goldman-Sachs, but it apparently didn't seem to bother them. Now it's coming around to bite them in the ass.

So when I hear that they want to bring the bill to Paulson for approval, what they're really saying is, "does this meet the approval of the guys you're trying to help out? Are they going to donate to my campaign next year?"

~Sean

[aremisasling]

So.... They're taking a bill inspired by Paulson... which would give Paulson almost unchecked power over perhaps the largest sum of money ever distributed in a government program... a sum of money destined for the pockets of his best friends and former colleagues... And they're asking for his approval?

Hey Adolf, is it alright if we give you Poland? Oh, only if you get the Sudetenland? Sounds good adolf. Talk to ya later.

The wolves aren't watching the henhouse, they're distributing the chickens amongst their friends with full approval from the farmer.

Meep