Congressional Democrats began to set their own terms on Sunday for a plan to rescue the nation’s financial institutions, including greater legislative oversight of the Treasury Department, more direct assistance for homeowners and limits on the pay of top executives whose firms seek help.
The Democrats’ demands came as Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. blanketed the Sunday talk shows to promote the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout package, emphasizing that it was needed not just for Wall Street, but for all Americans. He urged Congress to move swiftly to approve a “clean” rescue plan without tacking on extra programs.
“I hate the fact that we have to do it, but it’s better than the alternative,” Mr. Paulson said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Now wait a minute. The underlying cause of the Bust of ’08 was the Boom of the 90s, when the Fed kept the prime unreasonably low, thus pumping huge amounts of cash into the economy. The cash went into the dot-com boom and then the housing boom; when they busted, we started to see real inflation as the money went into consumption.
“Recapitalization” is just a term for pumping yet more money into the economy. Have we really all forgotten that the New Deal managed to prolong a sharp recession into a decade of depression by wildly floundering around to avoid the “financial realignment” that would have been required? Is a quart of beer the best cure for a bad hangover?
“Congressional Democrats began to set their own terms on Sunday for a plan to rescue the nation’s financial institutions, including greater legislative oversight of the Treasury Department, more direct assistance for homeowners and limits on the pay of top executives whose firms seek help.”
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Democrats are complicit in the current financial mess just as are Republicans, yet this cry [above quote from news article] seems to emphasize emergency measures that will best serve the Democrat Party as opposed to serving the interests of our country.
The Democrat’s left leaning leadership seems to always emphasize what will give their party an advantage in the political struggles of Washington, DC rather than what is good for our country.
For instance,
“…including greater legislative oversight of the Treasury Department…” is part of the very long term Democrat effort for Congress to assume more and more of the ‘executive powers’ of the Presidency.
“…more direct assistance for homeowners..” is an effort to make the government the ‘sugar daddy’ of all of the potential Democrat voters who can’t qualify for home ownership on the basis of their income and may be in a low income situation because of their long-term lethargy and lack of personal accountability/responsibility. Would you lend very large amounts of money to people who are at high high risk of defaulting on their loan contracts? Both parties sat by while this occurred. Three senior federal money managers, Freddie Macv/Frannie Mae, who were running the federal para-governmental loan apparatus leading up to this crisis were very well known Democrats.
“…limits on the pay of top executives whose firms seek help.” This I agree with except for one condition. If you want top level technical leadership then you must be competitive in the salaries that you pay for that leadership. Low pay often equates to sub-standard leadership. Again referring back to Freddie Mac/Frannie Mae, one of the culpable Democrat leaders earned $90,000,000 in six years as the country drifted into this financial disaster.
Cap on salaries is ludicrous. There are better ways to set rules. Rules should have been made while the finances got more complex. what we had was people making a lot of money by taking advantage of products nobody understood.
The danger of the bailout: giving money to all those people who should have known better. Instead of being penalized, they will be rewarded.
Of course, those people who will get all this taxpayer money, will demand that their own taxes be low.
[blockquote]“…more direct assistance for homeowners..†is an effort to make the government the ‘sugar daddy’ of all of the potential Democrat voters who can’t qualify for home ownership on the basis of their income and may be in a low income situation because of their long-term lethargy and lack of personal accountability/responsibility.[/blockquote]
So, what is it when those of us who put 20% down on a house they bought under market value and financed with a 30 year fixed at 5.75% are now stuck paying for the criminal activity of CEOs who are still getting multi-million dollar BONUSES for nearly destroying, not only their individual companies, but the entire economy?
As I said on another thread, I hope we return to 70% tax brackets for the wealthy and I hope things become so regulated that a CEO has to fill out a government form in triplicate before he can use the executive washroom. The deregulation has directly lead to the enslavement of my great grandchildren to pay off the TRILLIONS of dollars of debt that these buffoons have placed on all of us. Meanwhile, Lehman’s folks get a $2.5 BILLION BONUS!!!
I was a Regan Republican. I worked hard. I invested. I saved. I voted against my personal economic interests to support the Republicans. I got taken [along with the rest of the common folk] by the biggest fraud ever pulled on the American people. And those that did it are getting bonuses. Sell the “free market” crap somewhere else. There is no “free market”. I am paying for it. My great grandchildren will be paying for it. The government is “we the people” and we are now paying through the nose for the recklessness of the elite. I hope the people wake up and the seething anger goes beyond mere recriminations. I hope we have some real social justice…like 1917.
John Wilkins,
I am agreeing to what you say. One thing I will add: Both the low-rate banking systems and the gullible organizations/persons grabbing that low rate money are at fault and BOTH should have to suffer some of the consequences.
Harvey
See [url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0#]this article[/url]. A bill was offered in 2005 to rein in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mess. It was obvious to many that the situation was spinning out of control. Democrats killed the bill. Voting against it were Sens. Obama, Clinton, and Dodd. One of three co-sponsors of the bill? Sen. McCain.