September 23, 2008
No Blank Check for Wall Street (Bill Press)
Once again, Congress is being forced to walk the plank. George Bush is demanding a blank check. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is demanding a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. And, they say, Democrats in Congress must deliver both by Friday, Sept. 26 — or else.
Baloney! Democrats should respond by simply saying: No, no, no! They gave Bush a blank check after Sept. 11, 2001, in the Patriot Act. They gave him another blank check for the war in Iraq. They should not betray American taxpayers by giving him another one now, for Wall Street.
Democrats should tell the president and Paulson: No Blank Check and no Bailout. Period. We will not even consider voting for it unless … unless there’s some real relief included for working Americans and unless there are some tough new rules and regulations for Wall Street.
For starters:
* No CEO of any company we taxpayers bail out should be able to make more than the president of the United States.
* No golden parachutes should be allowed for executives of Lehman Brothers, Freddie, Fannie, Merrill Lynch, AIG or other failed financial institutions.
* Homeowners about to lose their homes should get their mortgages bought down to a level they can afford.
* There should be tough new limits on how much interest banks can charge on credit cards.
* And a percentage of bailout funds should go directly to states and cities to trigger new construction projects and new jobs.
And that’s just for starters.
Bailouts are bad public policy. But if Congress is going to bail out anybody, they should bail out all Americans — and not just the crooks on Wall Street.
Visit Mr. Press's website at billpressshow.com.
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This bailout is phase II of central economic planning. And it will fail to and they will back for more.
Comment by Robert Rosencrans — September 23, 2008 @ 10:16 am
I agree with the first two points, the rest are just standard Democratic tactics whereby they want to "tax" the bailout for their own pork accounts in the hope that will help them with the reelection.
Comment by Igor R. — September 23, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
Food for thought about the bailout proposals in the two articles:
Wall Street’s special offer – but you must act now!
AmericanChronicle.com
September 23, 2008
http://americanchronicle.com/articles/75216
Let's bail out the greedy, the crooks, the suckers
AmericanChronicle.com
September 22, 2008
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/75078
Comment by Steve Hammons — September 23, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
The Financial Bailout and its Implications
Enough has been said already about greed, big salary and bonus payouts to senior executives of banks. The situation is where it is - precarious and needs to be addressed urgently. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been running around for the last couple of weeks trying to avoid a 1929/30 style financial meltdown and all credit to him for his deft handling of the situation so far.
The current proposal before the Congress is to approve an emergency fund of $800 billion (with no apparent upper limit) to be managed by Treasury Department to buy toxic mortgages and exotic paper from banks for cash in order to provide liquidity to financial institutions. Despite the loud protests of Congress, almost everyone knows that this bill will pass and funds will be made available.
Congress may wish to place an upper limit, so this does not become an open ended commitment. Paulson himself suggested in the weekend talk show interviews that amount needed could exceed $1 trillion. This is almost equal to the amount spent on Iraq war to date. So wither plans of ending the war to save money to spend on social programs.
The Congress should also consider putting a mechanism in place that any bank benefiting from this fund will agree to freeze the salaries and bonuses of top 5% executives until such time as the treasury holds their toxic paper. Once the paper is sold, the restriction is lifted. Also, Congress should consider setting up a three member committee of reputable citizens with financial experience who will approve any bonus payments to top 5% executives of banks and financial institutions benefiting from this fund. This may seem draconian, but it is important to give a sense to tax payers that bankers will not start paying themselves huge bonuses until such time as their money is tied up in toxic assets.
The wider implications of the bailout are much greater. The national debt already ballooning out of control will exceed $11 trillion. No one knows how this will ever be paid down or how many decades it will take to bring it down to the level it was eight years ago. Treasury will probably end up printing more money and that could cause serious inflation, erosion in value of dollar and a possible shift from Dollar to Euro as the world currency. High inflation will result in high wage demands by unions, resulting in even greater inflation, mortgage foreclosures and credit card debt defaults.
I hope Paulson and Bernanke are considering all those eventualities and are ready to tackle what is to follow.
Comment by Ajaz — September 23, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
You are correct Bill. No blank check for this administration. After screwing us over on the so-called 'patriot act' which takes away most of our remaining liberties; the illegal and immoral Iraq war, and now this–a blank check; I smell a rat; this is the last hurrah for the republicans and their friends. NO WAY, NO HOW NO BLANK CHECK.
Comment by Joyce — September 23, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
For once you made a bit of sense. Bailouts are bad policy and your first two bullet points are spot on. My bet is Obama will support the bailout.
Comment by JOE — September 23, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
Paulson and Bernanke's bailout plan to rescue banks with bad mortgage assets owned on their books at high market projected values, but now not making money, is faulty for several reasons.
First, in Mr. Paulson/Bernanke's plan the value of these "bad assets" of mortgages etc. must be purchased by the FED at the high price, and to be sold at full maturity or near to or over the high price. These are inflated real estate assets with fees etc. built in,now devalued with market trends, otherwise the banks would have already sold them. There is NO market for them except a fire sale market that has alot of cash. Nobody knows the real value of these bad assets. 700 billion to 1 trillion? And just possibly, these bad bank assets got many rich CEO's their bonuses when they were good assets in the last several years.
It's a nice way of saying, just go 700 billion into debt because the market may NOT turn around or MAYBE it might in 50 years, but we're going to take a chance to try and save the banks. It is no deal for America, and it's no deal for big banks who want taxpayer bailout. Give the banks loans at federal interest rates, offering 30 cents on the dollar and see if they'll take it first ONLY if they sell the bad assets at 50 cents on the dollar and make some profit for the American taxpayer.
Secondly, the Mr. Paulson/Bernanke plan is to be in charge of this, only them, why?
Mr. Bush may not have read the fine print of the bailout which would have FDR rolling over and pounding his fists if he were alive today. Americans have always done okay in the free marketplace and we'll do it again without this bailout of fear. It's no deal for Americans.
Comment by ginnyH. — September 23, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
This isn't a Wall Street Bailout. This is a government bailout of government. The mortgage mess is the end game of central economic planning, and the bailout is just another example of it. It will fail in the sense that it will cost more then expected, and it will not save the economy. The next administration will be back for more, claiming this administration's plan was faulty.
Comment by Robert Rosencrans — September 24, 2008 @ 7:37 am
Call Congress–1.800.828.0498 at least once Daily– make sure you cover Pelosi and Reid and clinton—they are the ones that buckle…
Remember 1933 US Hoover bailout that failed and Japans bailout that failed in 1998…
Read the SHOCK DOCTRINE by Klein.
This lame duck Pres and his appointed Tres Sec are using scare tactics topull and early Oct surprise for McSame…
Comment by Docb — September 24, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
We have sent e-mail and called Nancy Pelosi's Office to ask her not to bailout Wall Street. However, She only listens to those who live in San Francisco.
Comment by Charle Neumann — September 25, 2008 @ 8:28 pm