- meaningless limits on executive pay
- divisions of the $700 billion that can (and almost certainly will) be ignored by the administration
- oversight provisions that have no enforcement powers
- raising the FDIC insurance limit to $250,000
- adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax
- calling the plan a "Rescue" instead of a "Bailout"
CJR's Ryan Chittum grabs a nice collection of articles that detail the current mess and why the 700 billion dollar buyout is just a bad idea.
The Financial Time's Martin Wolf is critical of Congress for not passing the bailout, but he suggests a plan B that sounds better than plan A:
What now? The first effort must be to find a plan that Congress can pass. It is quite possible to find one that protects the taxpayers’ interest better, by insisting on full reimbursement, after assisted companies return to health. Buying preference shares, as Warren Buffett did in Goldman Sachs, would be a good way to do this.-and Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil just wails on the Paulson plan:
Instead of asking Congress to let Treasury recapitalize needy banks, he proposed buying some of their troubled assets at above-market prices. This would have let other banks create phony capital by writing up the values of similar assets on their own balance sheets, using Treasury's prices as their guide.
In short, Paulson's plan was one part robbery (with the banks doing the robbing) and one part accounting sleight of hand. No wonder House members rejected it.
If Paulson or congressional leaders devise a Plan B, they should look to the example of Fortis, Belgium's biggest financial-services company. This week, the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg invested 11.2 billion euros ($16.3 billion) in Fortis. In exchange, they got ownership of almost half its banking business.It's looking like the fix is in. The Senate will pass this mess, and then House members will get leaned on until they fold. It's the same old crap - There's this plan or nothing! You must support the plan!
Except they don't. Somehow the House Dems never seem to remember that.
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Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday to You!
Put lipstick on a pig!
Happy Birthday to you!
(so the cadence is a little off. I find it amusing.)
Oh, I think you could work the cadence.
put LIP stick on A piiiiiiiiig
*grin*
Thanks. Here's my birthday conundrum:
I've been given some birthday cash and I'm agonizing between two items.
1) an iPod touch
Pros:
-is cool
-wireless internet
-I've wanted one for a long time
Cons:
-Does not make coffee
-Already have an iPod
-Easy to drop, break or lose
OR
2) a Moccamaster coffee maker
Pros:
-Makes good coffee
-Built like a tank
-I've wanted one for a long time
Cons:
-No internet
-Currently backordered until doomsday
-Hard to carry around
What would you do?
Choice three. Invest that money and in perhaps 70-80 years you can buy both.
Assuming this banana republic doesn't become the home of $1,000,000,000 give 3 or take no zeros, loaves of bread.
Note that Krugman points out that Iceland just did an equivalent 850,000,000,000 bail-out(dollars per citizen).
"Notice, by the way, that it was an equity injection rather than a purchase of bad debt; I approve."
No awesome CDO's/CDS's for those crafty Icelanders.
PS. I really vote coffee maker. We'll be up next weekend.
Either is likely to cause 'crack-like' behavior.
You're also going to need that killer grinder to complete the set.
One last thing. A bad plan is still very likely better than no plan. I defy anyone to point to the last piece of really good legislation. This is pretty bad sausage/soylent, but the body needs some meat to survive. Good legislation will likely not pass, just like a more serious recession.
Giving credit to the Republicans who voted against is about equivalent to giving them credit for not passing a tax increase. They are just following their ideology, not making a tough decision based on facts.
Really done now.
See, that's the part that makes me scream.
Granted, it wasn't so long ago I was crossing my fingers that this plan would do the trick - but the more I look at this, the less I'm convinced it's the right move.
The fact that something is better than nothing is the administration's only selling point - and it's a pretty bad one.
Sure, something IS better - but does it have to be THIS something?
Coffeemaker! Coffeemaker!
I love me my iPod and would drool over a Touch, but I think that I can make do with my Shuffle just fine. Plus, I think I'm going to have to invest in a phone that does internety things at some point, so duplicating that is probably not needed.
And considering how much coffee you make ... it's an investment. (I thought you might like to hear that last part after "investing" in that kitchen.)
You go to action with the congress you have, not the congress you wish for, or would like to have.
Let me tell you a little story of a bill called FISA, a poor crappy bill that barely kept the constitution alive.(arguable)
Please sing this to the Beverly Hillbillies theme song.
The parallels with FISA are...well too infuriating to go into.
Same damn Congress - same damn result.
Is it because the lobbist are in so deep that we can't make all these predatory profit practices illegal? Or is this more of a comentary on the US mentality for instant gratification and short term planning?
I keep feeling like Uncle Sam merely puts his fingers in the holes of the dam.
Note that ThisAmLife will be doing another installment this weekend of how we got "f&*%ed" over by the finance/insurance industries.
OZ, this is New Orleans and overtopping/undercutting levees. You are correct that the Gov is trying to use fingers, at least they are trying fat fingers.
Also seems kind of like trying to effect a repair on a leak by using a solid gold strainer.
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