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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / No Deal

No Deal

by Tim F|  September 21, 20088:10 am| 40 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, General Stupidity, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.

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Seconding Thers, every reader of this blog needs to wake up Monday and phone their Congressman and Senator about the frankly silly bailout proposal. We need serious solutions to an existential crisis, and the Bush administration offers up clown shoes. No to giving one appointed cabinet officer practically the entire federal budget without any chance of oversight. No to punishing ordinary people with punitive loans and taxes that will amount to over $5,000 for every taxpaying American* while bad actors in Wall Street get rewarded beyond their wildest fantasies. This proposal must be scrapped, and anybody who still serves finance lobbyists needs to sit down in shame, and then we can talk about what to do. Be polite but firm.

Franky, I would expect the conservative bench to get more worked up about his than I am. Naive as it must make me look, it will shock me to see the right wing of America choose this and their disgraced president over what used to be core principles of conservatism.

(*) Assuming ~130 million individual taxpayers.

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Reader Interactions

40Comments

  1. 1.

    milo

    September 21, 2008 at 8:16 am

    This legislation must incorporate taxes to pay for it. Force Bush to sign the largest tax increase in history. He deserves it.

  2. 2.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    September 21, 2008 at 8:18 am

    Yep. Me too. Thers has the right idea.

    In John’s previous thread someone linked to Robert Reich’s blog. Here’s the money quote:

    But there’s no reason taxpayers need to be involved in this.

    Whether you call it a reorganization under bankruptcy or just a hellova fire sale, the process should resemble chapter 11 under bankruptcy. Any big financial institution that wants to clear its books can opt in. But the price for opting in is this: Investors in these institutions lose the value of their equity. Executives lose the value of their options, and their pay (and the pay of their directors) is sharply limited. All the money from the fire sale goes to making creditors as whole as possible.

    Win.

  3. 3.

    Brian J

    September 21, 2008 at 8:21 am

    Meanwhile, John Fund from The WSJ is on Fox this morning saying that there have been many instances of voter fraud by the group ACORN. Really, Mr. Fund? It’s that widespread?

  4. 4.

    SGEW

    September 21, 2008 at 8:24 am

    Franky, I would expect to see even more outrage the conservative bench.

    But there is outrage on the conservative bench. Unfortunately, the bench is mostly empty (with Mssrs. Sullivan, Buchannan, and Larison sitting on it, eyeing each other warily), while those sitting on the “whack-job NRO” bench throw empty beer bottles at them.

  5. 5.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    September 21, 2008 at 8:32 am

    Meanwhile, John Fund from The WSJ is on Fox this morning saying that there have been many instances of voter fraud by the group ACORN. Really, Mr. Fund? It’s that widespread?

    What’s the title of the segment? In Search of the Lost Voting Fraud Story? Jesus! Let’s get on to something much more important like Charlie Rangel paying 10K in back taxes! BTW did anyone check the counter tops of these naughty monkeys over at 4chan yet? Financial crisis? What Financial Crisis?

    I do feel comforted knowing that former POW John McCain wants our healthcare system opened up to the competitive forces that made our banking system … HUH?

    Well I’m off the prepare my winter vegetable garden so we don’t starve to death out here at the Undisclosed Location in New England.

  6. 6.

    John S.

    September 21, 2008 at 8:35 am

    Pay no heed to John Fund. If he saw him on Bill Maher 2 weeks ago you would have seen the same cynical, hyper-partisan douchebag.

    The man is a smug prick that will tell you it’s raining WHILE pissing on your leg. With a smile. He’s the perfect metaphor for Wall Street.

  7. 7.

    demkat620

    September 21, 2008 at 8:35 am

    During Bush’s privatization push, I felt he was determine to give the treasury to Wall Street to play with.

    That’s what this bailout does. To quoth the PUMAs, Just say No Deal!

  8. 8.

    liberal

    September 21, 2008 at 8:36 am

    Problem is that major Dems—Dodd, Schumer, even Frank—are also in the pockets of the FIRE sector.

    This is one that we’re going to have a hard time winning. Though the fact that someone as firmly in the Establishment as the Washington Post’s Sebastian Mallaby is raising objections is reason for hope.

  9. 9.

    jprice vincenz

    September 21, 2008 at 8:40 am

    I just sent this to my one half-decent senator, my one totally useless senator, and the shitheel representative (who sucks up to the biblethumpers):

    As a registered voter, I would like to express my utter disgust with the idea of the bailout by Secretary Paulson and Bush. For years, Republicans have touted the “ownership society” and the benefits of free markets. Well let the markets decide the fate of these poorly run companies (Lehman, WaMu, BOA, AIG, etc…) and let the CEOs take their medicine. Don’t bail them out unless you are prepared to bail out my bad investments!

  10. 10.

    El Cid

    September 21, 2008 at 8:49 am

    HAND OVER THE $700 BILLION IN UNMARKED BILLS, AMERICA, AND NOBODY BETTER FOLLOW ME, OR THE ECONOMY GETS IT!!!

  11. 11.

    Scott H

    September 21, 2008 at 8:50 am

    Find your Representative and Senators and make that call.

    Henry needs to haul his butt in front of the cameras and sell his plan to the country. Or try. Transparency needs to start now.

  12. 12.

    Slide

    September 21, 2008 at 8:54 am

    HAND OVER THE $700 BILLION IN UNMARKED BILLS, AMERICA, AND NOBODY BETTER FOLLOW ME, OR THE ECONOMY GETS IT

    perfect encapsulation

  13. 13.

    Slide

    September 21, 2008 at 9:00 am

    Too late John. The Dems will fold like they always do. The GOP will evoke the economic version of the Mushroom Cloud and they will manage to ju jitzu out of responsibility for the mess and lay it at the feet of the Dems if the Dems don’t pass whatever is put in front of them…. Just like the war resolution for Iraq… just like the Patriot Bill…. just like wiretapping…. torture…. there is no opposition party currently in Washington. Lets stop even thinking that there is.

  14. 14.

    Tena

    September 21, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Here’s a thought – let’s pressure Congress to resurrect the Glass Steagall Act of 1933. If the Repugs and the Clintonites hadn’t gutted it, we wouldn’t be here.

  15. 15.

    StonyPillow

    September 21, 2008 at 9:08 am

    The Trillion Dollar Trashout of the Masters of the Universe.

  16. 16.

    Dennis - SGMM

    September 21, 2008 at 9:21 am

    Remember how Republicans used to love to quote the late S.I. Hayakawa?

    “If a man is drowning 50 feet from shore, a Democrat would throw him a 100-foot rope and look around for other good deeds to perform; a Republican would throw him a 25-foot rope and ask him to swim the other 25 feet because it is good for his character”.

    The Republicans are now providing a yacht to that drowning man.

    The bailout requires nothing in repayment or mitigation from those being bailed out. No equity stake for the taxpayer, no increased transparency, no salary cuts for CEO’s, no stock transaction fees, no capital gains tax increase, nothing. In return we get a bunch of crap of indeterminate value that will be bought for too much and sold for too little – no matter who is in charge.

    My personal suggestion? Any institution that gets a bailout will have to rigidly adhere to the government’s own General Schedule Payscale (Top pay is $124,010 per annum this year.) until the bailout money all comes back to the Treasury. That will give them a nice incentive to buy back the assets at a fair price. It will be good for their character.

  17. 17.

    cleek

    September 21, 2008 at 9:36 am

    every reader of this blog needs to wake up Monday and phone their Congressman and Senator about the frankly silly bailout proposal.

    won’t matter. this is an EMERGENCY!!!(!!!), and that means congresspeople will vote quickly on a bill they haven’t read and wouldn’t understand anyway.

    but after it passes we’ll find out there are a lot of cute little earmarky and pet-projecty things in there. maybe a legalization of torture!

  18. 18.

    Montysano

    September 21, 2008 at 9:57 am

    My personal suggestion? Any institution that gets a bailout will have to rigidly adhere to the government’s own General Schedule Payscale (Top pay is $124,010 per annum this year.) until the bailout money all comes back to the Treasury. That will give them a nice incentive to buy back the assets at a fair price. It will be good for their character.

    FAIL. Barney Frank made a similar suggestion and Don Vito Paulson nixed it. We The People will make good on the golden parachutes.

  19. 19.

    Rick Taylor

    September 21, 2008 at 10:20 am

    What about the right wing blog community? Where are they? What is conservative in any definition about allowing an individual unfettered power to dole out 700 billion dollars how ever he pleases without oversight? They’ve been pretty good at getting the administration to listen, can’t they work up some righteous anger over this? Surely it’s at least as shocking as a little boy getting health insurance from the government.

  20. 20.

    jcricket

    September 21, 2008 at 10:22 am

    The man is a smug prick that will tell you it’s raining WHILE pissing on your leg. With a smile. He’s the perfect metaphor for Wall Street.

    Yep – the guy who calls Gore, Kerry and Obama “extreme liberals” and claims that’s why Democrats are losing is a concern-trolling right-wing douchebag extraordinare!

    John McCain keeps saying “Country First”, but that’s a fucking lie, judging by his actions. There is nothing that Republicans (see Palin, McCain and Fund as perfect examples) won’t twist/lie about so that it puts their parties current actions in a positive light – that’s PARTY FIRST.

    When reality contradicts what you claim, and you try to suppress the information and smear/fire your opponents, you are putting party first. That’s what Republicans in an accelerating fashion over the last 10-15 years.

    This is why, as dumb as many Americans are, I have hope for the Democrats. The Republican party has hitched their ride to the idea they can re-shape reality, and keep it from proving them wrong, time and again. Not gonna work so well.

    Opposition to gay marriage is not increasing. Iraq war is not going well. Healthcare will not improve with anything they’re proposing. And so on.

    Reality will catch up to them, it just takes a lot longer than most of us want.

  21. 21.

    Fulcanelli

    September 21, 2008 at 10:35 am

    In a perfect world, Congress would draft legislation revoking the Bush tax cuts on the wealtiest citizens and be on every news outlet in the known world screaming about it to help stem this tsunami of red ink to start with, seeing how the wealthiest are the people who benefitted the most from this financial chicanery. The tax cuts never worked as intended, creating jobs like all that trickle down propaganda promised anyway. We’re all drowning in that “rising tide” that’s supposed to lift all of our boats.

    And spare me the distracting bullshit about how all us ‘little guys’ with our 401Ks, pensions and meager investments made money too, when what little money we may have made is chewed up with rising prices on health insurance, food, gas and everything else, or is about to be added to our future tax burdens on the other end, thank you very much…

    Obama would turn this into a spiked club to beat “Flip-Flop” McCain like a baby seal during the upcoming debates.

    This would to be front and fucking center no matter what version of this obscene bailout is enacted, and rammed into one of George Bush’s orifices at every opportunity, knowing he’d veto it, thus assuring the virtual extinction of the Rebublican party and their failed ideology in the minds of all but the Wall Street shylocks and dead-ender wingnuts awash in kool-ade, who are just incapable of understanding what’s is really going on.

    But alas, it’s not a perfect world…

    But history teaches us that there will be no revolution unless something red flows, and maybe it’s better that it’s just red ink, because judging by what I’m seeing and hearing from working people in my world on the ground and on the web, next time…

    There will be blood. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of our elected representatives helping the wealthy drink my fucking milkshake.

  22. 22.

    Rick Taylor

    September 21, 2008 at 10:36 am

    Franky, I would expect the conservative bench to get more worked up about his than I am. Naive as it must make me look, it will shock me to see the right wing of America choose this and their disgraced president over what used to be core principles of conservatism.

    Whoops, I’m lazy this morning; you already made that point. I’m not surprised at all, which is a measure of how cynical I’ve become. What we need to do is get Michael Moore or Kennedy to speak out in favor of the bailout; that would be the only way to wake them up.

    Another aspect of this; we’re going to have a new, very possibly democratic president soon, along with a democratic congress. Presumably they’re going to inherit the power if this passes. Do conservatives really want that? Maybe we should have chosen Hillary Clinton as our nominee; would conservatives still sit idly by knowing she might possibly be the one who appoints the next treasurer to oversee this slush fund?

  23. 23.

    jcricket

    September 21, 2008 at 10:39 am

    Surely it’s at least as shocking as a little boy gay, terrorist/La Raza sympathizing midget dressed up as a kid getting health insurance hand outs and an unfair advantage over us rich white folks who got here totally of our own accord from the government.

    Fixed to how they see it.

  24. 24.

    jcricket

    September 21, 2008 at 10:47 am

    What we need to do is get Michael Moore or Kennedy to speak out in favor of the bailout; that would be the only way to wake them up.

    Heh, I like this. Let’s have Moore, Streisand, Kennedy and Kucinich hold a “pro bailout” rally for the current plan and opposing any additional bailout for individuals.

    Suddenly Fox News will be agitating for a new bill :-)

  25. 25.

    ThymeZone

    September 21, 2008 at 11:02 am

    I can’t assert that the bailout is the wrong move, nor can anyone else here, because we don’t know if it is or not.

    We’re in uncharted waters at the present time. And clearly, the government is in a state of panic.

    My impression is that the insiders believe that their house of cards will fall unless the bailout goes forward.

    The real question here is, which is worse? The bailout as proposed, or a prolonged “debate” (which will not be a debate, but a series of information manipulations) accompanied by public misunderstanding and inappropriate reaction, and worst of all .. pundit blatherings, in which the pundits are elevated to the position of priests and witch doctors?

    Calling for some kind of calm, rational process in the complete absence of any model or paradigm or structure for such a process, seems to me to be utopian wishful thinking at its worst.

    I have a gut feeling that writing this big check may be the least painful way forward here. And I think that Mssrs. Paulsen and Bernanke, bless their pointy fucking little heads, know this.

  26. 26.

    searp

    September 21, 2008 at 11:02 am

    My delegation (VA) is split, so I adopted the “sweet reason approach”:

    I believe any Federal subsidy to the financial services industry requires substantial oversight.

    I think it is a terrible idea to give the Secretary of the Treasury discretionary authority over $700 billion. If this happens,
    Congress and the White House will have slighted their responsibility to the public to make and execute policy, and will have irresponsibly concentrated power in the hands of an unelected official.

    I expect the sensible Virginia delegation to be firmly in favor of oversight and transparency in the disposition of taxpayer monies.

  27. 27.

    ThymeZone

    September 21, 2008 at 11:04 am

    Oh, and what Fulcanelli said about the tax cuts. Give the robber barons their rescue, but take away their tax cuts. That is not only fair, it’s fiscally responsible.

  28. 28.

    gbear

    September 21, 2008 at 11:21 am

    Well here’s the letter that I just emailed to Amy Klobuchar and (barf) Norm Coleman:

    I am writing to urge you to demand congressional oversight into how the bailout of Wall Street Investment firms will be managed. It is insane to allow one non-elected man and one agency to be in control of $700,000,000,000.00 of taxpayers’ money.

    My main concern about how this will proceed was summed up by this line in the New York Times this morning:

    “… what are the long-term costs of the government’s stepping in to restore order after so many wealthy financiers became so much wealthier through what now seem like reckless bets on housing — bets now covered with public dollars?”

    This bailout MUST focus on keeping people in their homes and minimizing job loss, and must NOT be used to bail out the financiers who got rich by gaming the system and putting homeowners and taxpayers at risk.

    Please do not make the mistake of destroying the last shreds of hope that we as Americans do not live in a society where government’s primary function is to protect the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful have now conclusively proven that they cannot and should not have our trust.

    A bit of hyperventilating here, a dash of America there. I always feel like I should end my letters with ‘and get off my lawn!’. Short on specifics but hopefully my message is conveyed.

  29. 29.

    Mithras

    September 21, 2008 at 11:26 am

    Just saying “no deal” is not an adequate response. This isn’t social security (where we said “no deal” and it worked) or Iraq (where we said “no deal” and it failed, to the nation’s cost). This is a situation where we have to say “here’s the deal”, because without an alternative plan, the legitimate, very real fear of a catastrophic financial collapse will cause Bush’s plan to go through. Unlike Iraq, we have the time and power to enact a progressive plan.

    There are a lot of very smart people in the blogosphere who are qualified to come up with a proposal (*looking at DeLong and Krugman*). They need to help us all come up with a set of principles, at least, to fight for in a financial system reform bill so we can call our representatives up first thing tomorrow morning and say, “No deal to the blank check Bush plan. Here’s the deal.”

  30. 30.

    Frank Wilhoit

    September 21, 2008 at 11:27 am

    I have called my Senator and Representative and made the following points to their answering machines:

    1) The forthcoming legislation must not be rubberstamped.

    2) The Executive Branch is not asking the Legislative Branch for money. They are asking for unaccountability. We’ve been down that road before.

    3) They are coming to Congress hat in hand; Congress can impose on them whatever terms it wishes. They hold no cards. They are all bluff.

  31. 31.

    ThymeZone

    September 21, 2008 at 11:30 am

    This bailout MUST focus on keeping people in their homes and minimizing job loss,

    It’s nice of you to supply with them with the talking points they need to fuck you over. While they piss on your leg, they can tell you that it’s raining and that they are focussed on keeping people in their homes and minimizing job loss.

    If you had only thrown in “Drill here, drill now!” it would have been just about perfect.

  32. 32.

    D. Mason

    September 21, 2008 at 11:39 am

    Presumably they’re going to inherit the power if this passes

    HAHA thats so cute! You think there will be something left for the next President to inherit.

  33. 33.

    Tax Analyst

    September 21, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    But there’s no reason taxpayers need to be involved in this.

    Whether you call it a reorganization under bankruptcy or just a hellova fire sale, the process should resemble chapter 11 under bankruptcy. Any big financial institution that wants to clear its books can opt in. But the price for opting in is this: Investors in these institutions lose the value of their equity. Executives lose the value of their options, and their pay (and the pay of their directors) is sharply limited. All the money from the fire sale goes to making creditors as whole as possible

    Yes.

  34. 34.

    J. Michael Neal

    September 21, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Well here’s the letter that I just emailed to Amy Klobuchar and (barf) Norm Coleman:

    Here’s the letter I sent to Amy Klobuchar, Norm Coleman, my Islamofascist Congressman, the editors of the Pioneer Press, and the edtiors of the Star-Tribune:

    Today, the text of a bill to buy mortgage assets that the administration proposed by the administration was released. While I think that we will need to institute some sort of program of this nature, the bill that has been published is terrible. It hands too much power to the Executive Branch, and provides too little oversight. It doesn’t spell out any method for valuing the assets that the Treasury would buy.

    Worse, it doesn’t provide for any new regulation for the financial industry to prevent something like this from happening again. While the idea of a new Resolution Trust Corporation is worthwhile, it must come tied to means to keep us from facing another collapse of the banking system.

    It is also wrong for to bail out the financial companies, but not individuals. Doing so is toxic to democracy. This bill needs to include additional measures to help out the citizens that have been hurt by the mortgage crisis, as well as the corporations. I am deeply skeptical of proposals for foreclosure moratoria, or martgage restructurings. In most instances, they wouldn’t prevent foreclosure, but only delay it. we need measures that help people after they have been foreclosed upon: rent subsidies and assistance finding new homes, extended unemployment insurance, and relief from the risk of disappearing health insurance.

    A brief list of things that should be a part of this bill before passage are:

    1) A method for valuation of assets that the Treasury must follow. A reverse Dutch auction, as has been rumored, runs the risk of the Treasury paying too much.
    2) The government should explicitly have the right to force any company that sells assets to the program to cancel its dividends. If the public is putting up money to bail them out, shareholders should not profit.
    3) Restrictions on the amount of compensation that employees of bailed out companies can receive. This includes not only CEOs, but also people on the trading desks. The entire system of bonuses needs to be reviewed to prevent people from being rewarded for taking on excessive risk.
    4) There need to be restrictions placed on the amount of leverage that financial institutions can take on. If they are eligible for this program, they must accept regulation. This includes investment banks.
    5) Congress also needs to instruct the Justice and Treasury Departments to actively prosecute existing laws that were broken over the last few years. This includes a serious investigation as to materially misleading statements made by officers of corporations that indicated optimism about corporate health that the officers knew to be false.

    No bailout should be passed that does not include these things. Saying that they will be passed later is not sufficient.

  35. 35.

    jcricket

    September 21, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Oh, and what Fulcanelli said about the tax cuts. Give the robber barons their rescue, but take away their tax cuts. That is not only fair, it’s fiscally responsible.

    This seems like a no brainer, but since tax cuts are a religion to the entire Republican party, and every time we raise taxes (according to them) we immediately have a massive recession (please ignore the Clinton years, won’t you), I can see them “filibustering” (figuratively and literally) along with much teeth gnashing and wailing.

    Believe me, TZ, I’m all for it. At the very least take away the corporate and personal income tax breaks of the fuckers who we’re now bailing out. Throw in a repeal of the bankruptcy act while we’re at it to.

    Both would be “trivial” to implement, and probably achieve much of the intent of what everyone wants. Not so much on the oversight and regulation side, but at least fiscally.

  36. 36.

    jcricket

    September 21, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    Congress can impose on them whatever terms it wishes. They hold no cards. They are all bluff.

    I don’t get how the Democrats don’t see this?

    I know why Republicans fall victim to this line of reasoning – they’re looking for a way not to impose regulations, raise taxes, or otherwise do anything they know will fix things but will make them flip-flop on their “core values”. So give them an out – “dire warnings if you try this” – and they seize on it.

    But if you’re on the other side of the aisle, you have to understand that you should use this as your opportunity not to load up on your wishlist of better regulation, progressive taxation, etc. but to get a couple key things in and not acquiesce (finally) to every industry demand.

    Sort of like Seattle letting the Sonics move to OKC (eventually). I miss the team (former season ticket holder), but let OKC drown in the taxpayer subsidized NBA for the next 10-15 years. Nothing bad, overall, will happen to Seattle for letting an NBA team walk away instead of paying a $300m giveaway to keep them here.

  37. 37.

    ThymeZone

    September 21, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    Congress can impose on them whatever terms it wishes.

    True, but they need to be terms that have an objective bias toward real remediation that cannot be distorted later.

    This is where Dems can take leadership positions … if they have the cajones, and if they can do it without setting up a distraction noise machine before the election.

  38. 38.

    jcricket

    September 21, 2008 at 5:44 pm

    This is where Dems can take leadership positions … if they have the cajones, and if they can do it without setting up a distraction noise machine before the election.

    Wanna place any bets on whether Dems

    A) Have cajones
    B) Are capable of achieving something so straightforward?

    Democrats resemble the sterotypes my Jewish friends use about ourselves: Two Jews, Three Opinions.

  39. 39.

    Texas Dem

    September 21, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    To quote professor Krugman:

    “As I read what’s happening now, John McCain is denouncing the Paulson plan, while Barack Obama — out of a sense of responsibility for the financial system — is only offering cautious criticism.”

    “The Obama people — and the Congressional Democrats — do know that the Republicans will run a populist campaign against them on the basis that they voted for a horrible big-government program, don’t they?”

  40. 40.

    Michael G

    September 21, 2008 at 9:05 pm

    Oh I’m sure Instapundit and his incredible PorkBusters will be all over this.

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