“WASHINGTON – The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue for the nation’s financial system, ignoring urgent warnings from President Bush and congressional leaders of both parties that the economy could nosedive into recession without it.
Stocks plummeted on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.”
And here’s what happened in the stock market – biggest one day drop in the Dow since 9/11
With the prospect of more to come.
NOW HANK PAULSON SHOULD STEP DOWN
Comment:
Comment: (Sept. 30)
Regulation to ban short-selling or to expand home ownership have high moral reasons attached to them. But invariably, when you dig under the rhetoric, you find the economic or political self-interest pushing it: financial sectors want special protection from market forces….or banks want to sell mortgage loans.
It’s a conundrum called “Baptists and Bootleggers.”
Baptist preachers want liquor banned for moral reasons, but a ban only pushes liquor underground. Bootleggers begin to operate. The bootleggers are only too happy to support the preachers….. for altogether selfish, commercial reasons – the wider a ban on selling liquor, the less competition for them. Eventually, you end up with a monopoly. That’s why in the corporate-state we have more and more consolidation in every area – media conglomerates, publishing giants, giant agribusinesses – that have driven smaller operators out of the field. The big players are inevitably the supporters of “more regulation” and “more government” – because they know they can strengthen their hold on the marketplace even more. Confused voters blame big business (correctly) and politicians (correctly), identify the problem as the free market (wrongly), and demand more regulation (wrongly – actually, let me modify that. I am all for anti-trust and strong criminal prosecutions of financial crimes; but that’s to keep the ground-rules fair. Regulation to achieve substantive ends I think is generally counterproductive or causes unintended harm that usually outweighs the intended good).
I was happy about this but does it simply mean that the fed will pump in the billions? http://is.gd/3ii0
Here’s a story claiming the fed will “inject” $630 billion in new money: http://is.gd/3iib
How do I interpret this? Was this the plan and was the attempt at a Bill simply an attempt at congressional cover?
Agreed that perhaps Paulson should step down. His involvement on so many levels, makes this a bit too manipulated. The pressure of the government to have something happen, when this government is prone to illegalities gives one pause.
Either way the taxpayers are screwed. At least, this way, we will all be taking our hard earned lessons without the fact that we would be bailling out Wall Street. This is their bed, and they should lay in it. In due time, the government will come up to aid the taxpayer if they want to save face and hold office. But, Wall Street, their fear based manipulations, and flagrant immoral and illegal lending practices should be left to weigh their own mistakes and consequences.
The saying does go, “trust and let the market run”. Well, we did, as they refused oversight, and we should now, and let the chips fall. The taxpayer will find their ways and Wall Street can hit the pavement like everyone else.
Good luck to the Repugnicants that had this all planned out for their “rescue” attempts!
Welcome to the real world!!
“Meanwhile the Federal Reserve is orchestrating an extraordinary $US630 billion in extra liquidity into the global financial system – increasing its existing currency swaps with other central banks from $US290 billion to $US630 billion and expanding its Term Auction Facility by $US300-$US450 billion.”
Well, that’s the Fed’s regular activity – there’s no expansion of authority.
The bill wasn’t about liquidity – it was far more about giving more power to the Treasury Secretary,
Let’s see if the additional credit works.